The sky was a gloom of cloud, the woods dead and frozen. Roots grabbed at Theon's feet as he ran, and bare branches lashed his face, leaving thin stripes of blood across his cheeks. He crashed through, heedless, breathless, icicles flying to pieces before him. "Mercy," he sobbed. From behind came a shuddering howl that curdled his blood. When he glanced back over his shoulder, he saw a great wolf the size of a horse, with the head of Stewie Griffin. Blood dripped from his mouth, black as pitch, burning holes in the snow where it fell. Every stride brought the wolf closer. Theon tried to run faster, but his legs would not obey. The trees all had faces, and they were laughing at him, laughing, and the howl came again. He could smell the hot breath of the beast behind him, a stink of brimstone and corruption. "You're dead, dead, I saw you killed," he tried to shout. "I saw your head dipped in tar!"
"That was a football, not my head, remember?" said the Stewie-wolf. "Now you shall pay the penalty for your crimes against me. Victory is mine!"
Just as the wolf was about to pounce on him, Theon woke up. It had just been a dream. Wex Pyke and Dagmar Cleftjaw were standing by his bed. "What?" Theon cried. "What do you want? Why are you in my bedchamber? Why?"
"Your sister has come to Winterfell," said Dagmar. "You asked to be informed at once if she arrived."
"Past time," Theon muttered, pushing his fingers through his hair. He glanced outside the window, where the first vague light of dawn was just brushing the towers of Winterfell. "Where is she?"
"Loren took her and her men to the great hall to break their fast. Will you see her now?"
"Yes." Theon pushed off his blankets. The fire had burned down to embers.
He got dressed and went downstairs. He found his sister in the high seat, ripping a capon apart with her fingers. The hall rang with the voices of her men, sharing stories with Theon's own as they drank together. The four guys who'd been shrunk were standing on the tabletop. No one knew how to grow them back to their proper size.
But there were no more than fifty men at the table, most of them his. "Where are the rest?" he demanded.
"This is the whole o' the company," said Dagmar.
"The whole- how many men did she bring?"
"Twenty, by my count."
Theon strode to where his sister was sprawled. "Hello, Yara."
"I'm Asha. Yara's at Moat Cailin."
Theon was perplexed. "I thought I only had one sister. Asha in the books, Yara in the TV series."
"Apparently this author decided to make us two separate characters. Yara took Moat Cailin and I took Deepwood Motte." Asha changed the subject. "I saw the head above your gate. That crippled baby must have given you quite a fight."
Theon flushed. "I treated Stewie generously. He brought his fate on himself by trying to run. He and his friends even shrunk four of my men somehow. But I caught him, and I mounted his head on the wall as punishment."
"Yes, you were very brave," she commented sarcastically.
His patience was at an end. "How do you expect me to hold Winterfell if you only bring me twenty men?"
"Ten," Asha corrected. "The others return with me."
Theon was furious. "I only had twenty or thirty guys to begin with, and four of them are the size of ants now!"
"You wouldn't want your own sweet sister to brave the dangers of the wood without an escort, would you?" She uncoiled from the great stone seat and rose to her feet. "Come, let us go somewhere we can speak more privily."
They went back up to what had once been Peter Griffin's bedroom to continue their argument undisturbed. "Winterfell is the heart of the land, but how am I to hold it without a garrison?" Theon complained.
"You might have thought of that before you took it. Oh, it was cleverly done, I'll grant you. If only you'd had the good sense to raze the castle and carry the little princeling back to Pyke as a hostage, you might have won the war in a stroke."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? To see my prize reduced to ruins and ashes."
"Your prize will be the doom of you. The symbol of our house is a kraken. Krakens rise from the sea, Theon, or did you forget that during your years among the wolves? Our strength is in our longships. That's why I seized Deepwood."
"Bugger Deepwood," said Theon. "It's a wooden piss pot on a hill."
"My wooden piss pot sits close enough to the sea for supplies and fresh men to reach me whenever they are needful. But Winterfell is hundreds of leagues inland, ringed by woods, hills, and hostile holdfasts and castles. And every man in a thousand leagues is your enemy now, make no mistake. You made certain of that when you mounted that head on your gatehouse." Asha shook her head. "How could you be such a bloody fool?"
"He defied me!" he shouted in her face. "And it was blood for blood besides. The Griffins killed our brothers Rodrik and Maron. Now I've finally laid their ghosts to rest."
Asha gave him a half smile. "Oh, did you bring the ghosts with you from Pyke? And here I thought they haunted only Father. You are blood of my blood, Theon, whatever else you may be. For the sake of the mother who bore us both, return to Deepwood Motte with me. Put Winterfell to the torch and fall back while you still can."
"No," said Theon. "I took this castle and I mean to hold it."
His sister looked at him a long time. "Then hold it you shall," she said, "for the rest of your life." Her tone conveyed that she thought the rest of his life wouldn't be very long.
