Flies swarmed in a cloud, drawn to the stink of Nyssa's wound, and no matter how she swatted at them, they returned. She wondered if Beak had sent them to plague her for not burning his body. As the old man had guessed, they came within sight of Barrowtown two days after they abandoned him to rot. The town rested at the base of a large hill.

"They call it the Great Barrow," said Cara. Briar clung to her back. She had grown dangerously thin during their journey, despite that Nyssa and Cara gave most of their meager rations to the child. "It's a holy place," Cara went on. "The Children of the Forest used to worship here."

Nyssa scowled at her mention of the Children, reminded of her dream, but they were in the South now, a land where prophecy held no power. She watched the Great Barrow loom larger as they approached the town.

"What is your business in Barrowtown?" demanded one of the guards at the gate.

"We come for the market," said Durst, gesturing to his three captives. The guard gestured for the gate to be raised and they passed with no further questions. Nyssa ducked her head as they rode through the muddy streets, lined on either side by wooden structures. Women called down to their men-folk from windows of two story houses the likes of which Nyssa had never seen. Cart wheels clattered over cobblestone while ragged children ran on bare feet. Beak had been right. The place was loud, smelly, and crowded. She saw people emptying their chamber pots into the street and was splattered more than once.

The slavers stopped outside of an inn. "Keep an eye out," said Durst, leaving the captives with the youngest of the slavers. His name was Alroy and he was barely more than a boy, stroking his sparse chin stubble. He was not as cruel as Durst and the other. He never struck them and even offered Briar some of his own food. More than once, Nyssa had wondered how he'd fallen in with such a brutish gang.

Nyssa seized her opportunity alone with the boy. She sidled close to him. "Water," she said, "for the girl? Please?"

Alroy glanced at the child for a moment before passing his skein to Cara. "You are too kind," said Nyssa.

"I'm not supposed to talk to you," said Alroy. "You'll try talking me into letting you go."

"You're too smart for that," said Nyssa. She stepped closer to him so that she could almost count the freckles speckling his brow. His hair was red, like Iona's, and the sight panged her, but she set the pain aside.

"Didn't think your kind spoke the Common Tongue," said Alroy.

"Some of us do," said Nyssa. "Us who live near the Wall."

"Are you one 'o them spearwives?"

"No," said Nyssa.

"Oh," said Alroy, disappointed. There was not time to speak further as when Durst returned the boy quickly skittered away from her. They were led to the stables, where Durst ordered the boy to lock them inside of an empty pen, as if they were animals, which she supposed they were to these men.

"We'll put 'em on the block tomorrow," said Durst. He looked directly at Nyssa. "Don't go thinking of busting out. Someone'll be at the door all night."

Once the slavers had gone, Cara and Briar settled down into the hay, softer than anything they'd had to sleep on for days. "Come," said Cara, patting the spot beside her. Nyssa shook her head. She did not intend to sleep this night. If the slavers meant to put them on the block tomorrow, she would have to find an escape, or else be sold as a slave. As she paced the stall, she slipped her father's knife out from under her furs. Alroy had not seen her take it from Durst's saddle bags as they waited. Counting the notches in the hilt, she felt almost whole again.

The horses brayed. Nyssa listened for the changing of the guard. She knew the slavers' rotation. As the youngest, Alroy would take watch through the long hours of night. Finally she heard the boy come to relieve Durst. The time had come. She reached over the low wall of their pen and gave the horse next door a hard slap on the rump. The beast whinnied, soon rousing the others, making enough noise to cover the sound of the walrus-bone hilt of her knife striking against the shackles around her ankles. She'd studied the weak points in the iron and knew just where to hit.

"What are you doing?" whispered Cara just as the chain broke. She scurried over to them, ready to free them as well, but Cara stopped her, realizing her intentions."We'll never make it out of town."

"We will," said Nyssa. "We can slip through the gate in the morning. No one will notice us in the crowd."

"If you're caught-"

"I'll be killed," said Nyssa, shrugging. "But I'll be free either way." She did not think she would be caught. Escaping now was her only chance. There was no knowing who she would be sold to come morning. Perhaps to some lord, who would imprison her behind stone walls. She couldn't take that chance. Iona was waiting for her and she'd been gone too long already.

"It's easy to speak of freedom when you have no one else," said Cara, stroking her sleeping daughter's hair. "At least as slaves we'll have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies."

"Please, you must come with me," said Nyssa, but Cara shook her head. She pulled her daughter closer. Nyssa did not have the time to convince her. "Go," said Cara, "The gods be with you."

Nyssa kissed the woman's brow. "And you," she said. She left them without a backwards glance, afraid she might change her mind and stay with them. Leaving them did not feel right, but to return to her sister, she must go.

Quiet as a shadow, she climbed over the stable wall. Alroy was pacing just outside. She crouched behind a bale of hay, watching him, waiting for the perfect moment. When his back was turned, she leapt, knocking him hard at the base of his skull with the hilt of her blade. The boy slumped to the dirt. She stood over his unconscious form, her knife at his throat, but she could not kill him. He was just a boy and he had showed kindness. There was still hope for him, so she left him where he lay.

No one noticed a lone woman leaving through the eastern gate among the dozens of farmers coming into the town to sell their goods. By the time the sun was high in the sky, Nyssa could barely see the Great Barrow. She hoped Durst would not waste his time in trying to find her, but she ran all the same, until her leg gave out. Sprawled on her back in the scrubby grass, laughter bubbled up in her chest, spilling into the air. She was free again.

Her laughter died as it dawned on her how far she still had to go. It had taken nearly two weeks for the slavers to bring them to Barrowtown. The journey home would be even longer as she had no boat to take her over sea. She would have to climb the Wall, a task she did not look forward to, but with her sister's face clearer than ever in her mind's eye, Nyssa stood and began walking.

A rabbit sniffed at the ground just a foot away from where Nyssa crouched in the bushes. She was about to make her move when the rabbit caught her scent and bounded away. She made a desperate lunge, but the small creature was too fast, and she was rewarded with nothing more than a mouthful of dirt. Aside from the crows that constantly circled her, she hadn't come across much to eat in the four days since escaping Barrowtown. All she'd had to eat were withered and sour berries and a dead pigeon which she'd wrestled from the mouth of a crow. Her stomach ached constantly, as did the rest of her. The days were cold and the nights even worse. She slept while the sun was up and walked at night to keep warm so as to not freeze to death in her sleep.

The stars guided her North, towards home, and she wondered if Gosta had taken Iona to find Mance Rayder. She wondered if they assumed her to be dead or if they were still waiting for her. As she walked, she felt Beak's spirit alongside her. His ghostly company was better than nothing, certainly better than the crows. Follow me, he seemed to say, I'll lead you home.

After awhile, the sky still pink with dawnlight, Nyssa spied another town on the horizon, this one much smaller than where the slavers had taken them. Her hunger outweighed her caution. No walls surrounded the town, so it was easy to enter unnoticed. She drew her sleeves over her hands to hide the iron shackles around her wrists. A dirt road ran between thatched houses and she followed it towards the sound of voices, to the market square at the center of the town. Her eyes went past the people to a nearby cart piled high with vegetables. A tall and bearded man stood at the front of it, holding up a tomato, and shouting his prices at any passerby.

Nyssa kept at his back, creeping towards the cart. Her hands were clumsy from the cold, so she snatched whatever she could reach, two carrots and a shrunken potato. Her mouth watered as she shoved her catch into her pockets and turned to flee.

"Stop, thief!" cried the bearded farmer. His big hands snatched at her cloak and the potato rolled out between his boots. "Think you can steal from me, eh?" he said, drawing attention to them. Nyssa spotted two soldiers, their swords drawn, approaching from across the square. She tore free of the farmer's grip and made a run for it.

"STOP HER!" shouted the farmer. "THIEF! THIEF!"

Nyssa had almost made it out of the square when someone caught her by the arm. She heard the snap of bones and felt her wrist break as her captor twisted her arm behind her back. Soon, her hands were bound, two soldiers on either side of her, but she kicked and screamed, refusing to go quietly. Not again, she thought.

"Put her out," one of the men grunted. Nyssa snapped at their hands with her teeth to no avail. She hardly felt the blow to her head, already tender from all the ones that had come before. The last she saw was Beak's ghost, laughing among the wide-eyed townspeople.

The ice was blinding. White mist swirled about her knees so that Nyssa couldn't see her feet in the snow, but she did see the Child.

"Am I dead this time?" said Nyssa. A sweet smell wafted over her from the flowers entwined in the Child's hair.

"Not yet," they said.

"Then where am I?"

"Winterfell, home of the Fallen Child."

Nyssa knew not who the Fallen Child was, but she did know Winterfell, home of the Starks, the wardens of what these Southerners considered to be the North.

"You must tell the Starks that the boy is in grave danger. They will not keep you alive otherwise."

"What sort of danger?" said Nyssa. Even as she spoke, the Child faded, leaving her with more questions and no answers. The wolf howled, closer than ever, and she could not run. Try as she might, the gods refused to let her go.