ARYA

"We have to go home," Meera said apologetically.

"What?" Arya couldn't understand.

"We came here to pledge our fealty to King Robb," Jojen explained, "but the war is won, and we must return to Greywater Watch before winter truly sets in."

"But why do you have to go back to Greywater Watch?" Arya asked, "why can't you stay here as Robb's wards? You'd learn so much more here than at Greywater Watch, swordfighting, horse-riding, books—"

"Crannogmen have no use for such things," Jojen said. "If we learned your ways they would only make us less suited to life at the Neck."

"Well, who says you have to live as crannogmen at the Neck?" Arya asked. "You could stay at Winterfell as our wards and enter Robb's service."

Much to Arya's dismay Jojen shook his head. "I am heir to Greywater Watch. I must keep the ways of my people if I am to become the next lord of Greywater Watch."

"Then why can't Meera stay here?"

"I belong with my own people, and with Jojen and my lord father," Meera said. "I can only serve his grace your brother as a crannogwoman, at the Neck. I would have no place here."

Arya felt stricken. Everyone else she had liked at Winterfell—Great-Uncle Brynden, Brienne, Ser Rodrik, even Prince Martyn—had left with Robb and probably would not return for a long time. And now Jojen and Meera were leaving too. That left her with no one to play with except poor crippled Bran and Rickon the baby. And she had liked talking to both Jojen and Meera. She could trust them, tell them what was on her mind, and they often had good advice, especially Jojen. She loved her brother Bran, but he was too young to be much use as a confidante. He could not help her with anything.

Ser Rodrik was with Robb, so Arya could not train with him. She spent much of her time practicing the water-dancing exercises Syrio had taught her such as catching cats and standing on one foot at the top of the stairs for as long as she could. She was getting better, but she could never master water-dancing without a proper water-dancer to finish her training with. Arya hoped to someday go to Braavos to study and become the greatest water-dancer of all time. Braavos was said to be a fascinating place, a city of canals full of strange religions and exotic wonders from all over the world. But Arya had no gold or silver to pay for a passage to Braavos, much less to live there on her own.

Arya had never been particularly studious before, but now she had devoted herself to learning High Valyrian with Maester Luwin. Valyrian was said to be the language of magic and of many rare books and scrolls of arcane knowledge. Arya wondered if the Valyrians had been wargs, but nothing she read mentioned that. Most of the lore of Valyria was lost, though, in the Doom. Maybe the Valyrians were wargs, and that's how they controlled their dragons. Arya wondered if she or Bran would be able to skinchange into a dragon, and then remembered that dragons were extinct. There are still some dragon eggs, though, Maester Luwin said so. But no one knew how to hatch the eggs, though many had tried, including the Targaryens. Maybe one day I'll hatch a dragon egg, and ride a dragon into battle.

Elmar was gone for now, but unless he died at the Wall he would come back eventually with Robb and she would have to marry him. She thought for a moment whether she should pray in the godswood for him to die there so that she wouldn't have to marry him. No, she decided; the last time she had prayed for people to die all of King's Landing had perished, some half a million souls. And if for whatever reason Elmar did die Arya would just have to marry one of his brothers.

Her goodsister Roslin was carrying Robb's child. Everyone was praying for the babe to be a boy so that Robb would have an heir. Arya knew that in Dorne titles passed to the eldest child regardless of sex; indeed, the current heir to Sunspear was a woman, Princess Arianne, because although she had two brothers she was the eldest. The Valyrians of old had practiced the same custom, if Arya remembered correctly, which is why King Viserys I had wanted his daughter Princess Rhaenyra to succeed him on the Iron Throne. The civil war between Rhaenyra and her younger half-brother Aegon, known as the Dance of the Dragons, had almost killed off all of House Targaryen and all of their dragons as well. If the Valyrians and the Rhoynar allowed women to inherit equally, why didn't the First Men and the Andals?

In the end both Aegon II and Rhaenyra were dead and Rhaenyra's son Aegon III ended up on the Iron Throne. The Targaryen dynasty had never fully recovered; they survived less than two centuries longer. If Rhaenyra and Aegon hadn't fought each other, would the Targaryens still be on the Iron Throne? Would there still be dragons? Perhaps; or maybe the Targaryens and their dragons would have been destroyed some other way. The recent War of the Four Kings had destroyed the Iron Throne altogether. But the Starks have lasted for 8,000 years. Clearly wolves were tougher than dragons or lions or stags or anyone else. If the first Stark, Brandon the Builder, could defeat the Others, then Jon and Robb can defeat them as well. She was still angry at Robb for betrothing her to Elmar, but she still prayed for him to come home safely, as she knew that if he died the whole Kingdom of the North and the Trident would be in trouble. And she prayed that Jon would come visit Winterfell as soon as the Others were defeated. She missed him so much.

Arya thought that she might commiserate with Sansa about their unwanted betrothals. Sansa had hardly said anything to Arya since she returned to Winterfell, but at least they weren't fighting all the time like they used to. Maybe it's because she knows now that I was right about Joffrey. Arya told herself that she wouldn't remind Sansa that she, Arya, had seen through Joffrey right from the beginning. She knows anyway, and pointing it out to her will just make her feel bad and get angry at me. Arya used to love provoking her prissy sister, but Sansa had already suffered so much, and always looked so unhappy, that Arya actually decided that she should at least try to be kind to her. Maybe they could cheer each other up.

She knocked on the door of Sansa's bedchamber. Sansa spent much of her time in her bedchamber alone, avoiding everyone. "What do you want?" came her voice from inside, sullen and rude. The old Sansa had prided herself on her excellent manners, but now she didn't bother with even the most basic courtesies. Now I'm the courteous one. Arya had taken it upon herself to improve her own courtesies since Robb and Mother had returned to Winterfell, as it made them more likely to let her have what she wanted.

"May I come in?" Arya asked in her politest voice, remembering to say "may" instead of "can."

"If you must."

Arya entered her sister's bedchamber and saw Sansa on her bed reading a book. Now that she shunned the company of others Sansa's only leisure activities were reading and needlework. At least I have sword-training to keep me busy. She puzzled on how to begin, and then said in a cheerful voice, "I'd rather marry Willem than Elmar."

Sansa sat up and glared at her. Perhaps I shouldn't have said that. "You'd prefer to marry a Lannister?"

"Yes, actually, if he were Willem or Martyn. Not all Lannisters are bad. Willem and Martyn are certainly much better than Elmar."

"What do you mean, 'not all Lannisters are bad?' Can you name a single good Lannister? Joffrey was a Lannister on both sides, and he was a monster. A monster who was good at pretending to be good. What makes you think Willem is any different?"

I never thought Joffrey was good, Arya thought to herself. But she knew that if she said that out loud Sansa would only get angry at her. "Tommen and Myrcella weren't bad," she said, "and they were Joffrey's brother and sister. So what makes you think Joffrey's cousin must be just like him?"

"What do you know?" Sansa said angrily.

Arya decided to come to the point, even if her sister didn't want to hear it. "I hated Joffrey from the moment I laid eyes on him, and his mother, too. I don't think either Willem or Martyn are like them."

Sansa just looked angrier. "Back to your original question, I would prefer to be betrothed to that Frey boy rather than to a Lannister. When you marry him you can stay at Winterfell and cut his cock off if he tries to bed you and Robb will probably let you get away with it because he doesn't like Elmar either. Whereas when I marry I must go live at Casterly Rock, a lion's den of Lannisters, and I'll have to bed Willem and bear more Lannisters."

"Why couldn't you cut Willem's cock off if he tries to bed you against your will?"

"Willem's the crown prince of the Rock, stupid, not the twenty-second son of one of Robb's bannermen who lives hundreds of leagues from Winterfell. If I cut off his cock, he'll cut off my head."

Arya decided at that point that trying to talk to her sister about their betrothals was only making Sansa angry at her, and it certainly wasn't making Arya feel any better. "I still think Willem is better than Elmar," she said, than exited Sansa's bedchamber. So much for sisterhood.

Arya was also spending much of her free time practicing the skinchanging that Jojen had taught her. For now she stuck to dogs, as those were the safest animals for a skinchanger, and Arya, after all, was still just a beginner. Being a dog was not as good as being a direwolf; but how thrilling it was to have a dog's senses of smell and hearing! Arya was learning to distinguish both men and beasts by their scents, and to hear sounds that humans could not. She still dreamt that she was Nymeria sometimes. She was trying to control Nymeria's mind, but a direwolf is far more difficult to master than a dog. Arya wondered if she and Nymeria would ever be reunited. If they weren't, how long would Nymeria be able to live in the wild? Arya wasn't sure how long direwolves usually lived, but dogs' lives were much shorter than men's, and wolves in the wild probably had even shorter lives than dogs. When Nymeria died, would Arya experience it in her dreams? If she did, would she die as her direwolf had, or lose her mind? Those were terrifying thoughts. All the more reason to master skinchanging into dogs as soon as possible.

If Arya and Nymeria were never reunited, would the gods grant Arya another direwolf? Would they grant Sansa one? The day her brothers had found the direwolves with Father she remembered someone saying that direwolves had been extinct south of the Wall for 200 years. But if there had been one direwolf and her pups south of the Wall, couldn't there be more? Direwolves were said to be deadly to men, but Arya was a Stark, a warg. Perhaps the gods will see fit to grant me another direwolf pup some day. They might even give Sansa one, too. Arya decided that she would pray in the godswood every day for a new direwolf, and because she was feeling generous, and because she knew that Sansa needed a friend, she prayed that Sansa would get one as well.