Okay, I try to update once a week, but I had some trouble with this one.

It's long though! There's tons of action, and it can be read as a stand-alone story. If you're not into that kind of thing or don't want to read it because it is not a Sandor or Sansa chapter, go ahead and skip it. This is my take on Arya's Assassin Training.

CHAPTER 6

ARYA

After Arya left the Hound to die by the Trident, she took a ship from Saltpans east to Braavos, where she found the school for assassins run by the Faceless Men. In the same fashion as that of warrior monks, the school was located in a temple and its disciples were bound as much to their studies as to the service of their God. In this case the temple was the House of Black and White and their God was He of Many Faces.

He was Death, Arya knew. All people bowed to Him at the end of their lives no matter which or even if they worshiped God. Arya did not find it strange that He had a religion, temples, and a guild dedicated to serving Him. She herself had been praying to Him for years before she went to sleep: Ser Gregor, Ser Illyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei.

Still, when she found the temple, she was not sure such a secretive group would accept her. But Jaqen's coin had been her ticket into the school and she got off easy on the regular entrance examination. Best of all Jaqen was there. "A man grew tired of war," he told Arya when she asked what he was doing at the temple, "and wished to return to the last place he called home." Once a week he sent her and the other students on errands that tested their cunning and ability. Arya knew these were really trials to gauge their potential as assassins. They had a contortionist from Yi Ti who taught them flexibility, agility, and ease of movement. It progressed naturally to different types of fighting. Arya was the best in her class at weapons. Her teacher, a dark haired Lyseni sellsword, was not so surprised when she learned that Syrio Forel was her first dancing master. Then there was the Kindly Man, who taught them religion and doled out domestic tasks. Arya quickly settled into the routine of studying, cleaning, and worship that was temple life. It was almost like having a family again.

That was three years ago. Before Arya could graduate to the senior level of her schooling, she would have to pass a test. And this time, she would get no special treatment.

"Not all of you will make it," Jaqen warned them, "and some of you may die." He took them to a temple in the desert. It had the same black and white emblem on the door as the temple in Braavos; a half black, half white circle. It was a single story tall and sand dunes on all sides threatened to engulf it. This doesn't look like a temple, Arya thought, it looks like a tomb.

The students huddled past the twin cobra statues guarding the entrance. Dim and orange, light and sand fell to the stone floor from square holes in the ceiling. There were three doors besides the one they came in on, one for each wall of the building. Jaqen read to them from the stone tablet in the center of the floor, but after that he was silent.

"Three doors, there are,
One South, One West,
It's up to you to choose the best.

One East, and then
The North makes four,
But we can't choose that anymore.

And when two friends
Have solved this test
Follow them; count by their success.

So choose in time,
Don't ask, which door?
Choose North and also one before."

A riddle, Arya knew, but she did not know the answer. The students stood in silence, each of them mulling it over.

"'Don't ask . . . choose North?'" one of her classmates shrugged. "I'll just go out the front then."

It's not a choice, Arya thought, but she held her tongue. To her surprise, it wasn't even locked. He pushed it open and she and the other students just had time to hear him say, "But this isn't—" before it slammed shut behind him.

After that the silence was heavy, the room dark and uncomfortable. Arya ignored it and tried to focus on the words on the plaque in front of her. North makes four. Choose in time, don't ask which door.

"The one before north is east, am I right?" a dark-skinned Summer Islander asked Jaqen with her hands on her hips. Jaqen remained impassive. "You have to tell them if I'm right; it says so in the riddle."

Arya thought it obvious the girl was wrong; the riddle stated plainly that the door didn't matter. But what did? Jaqen said nothing. They heard a guttural scream before the eastern door closed behind her.

Now some of the students were fidgeting, plainly frightened. Arya bit her lip and ignored them, trying to concentrate. Choose North . . . which is four . . . choose fourth and also one before!

"I want to go next!" she stood right up next to Jaqen. He nodded. Arya scrambled away from her classmates. The next one to go, by logic or chance, would be safe. But how many after that would figure it out?

"Arya!" One of the boys called out her name. It was Gogo, a Dothraki who had found his way to Braavos after a war with a rival khalasar left him orphaned. Arya liked him; his strong physique reminded her of Gendry, and his appetite of Hot Pie. "Which door are you going through?"

She mused for a second over giving up the answer to the riddle. Knowing what order it was solved in was a big help; the hint was even written in the riddle. But once you knew the answer, deception was part of the test. Once too many of them solved it too late, the game would turn to fighting. Gogo was good at fighting, but she didn't think that he was very smart. So she settled for a hint.

"Whichever one I want," she said, and went through one of them.

It was dark at first. Her eyes took a moment to adjust and make out the passage in front of her. She kept one hand against the stone walls and grabbed the first low burning torch she came across. She could hear the squeaks of rodents or bats and something else—metal sliding against stone, a sound like someone polishing a sword.

Arya gripped Needle in her left hand, the torch in her right. The path she followed intercepted another, and she had to decide if she would follow along the stone walls or go straight across. In the meantime, the sound of whetted metal grew louder.

She looked down and saw a rope running taut along the floor. It was attached to a metal blade set in grooves along the wall at the perfect height to cut her legs off at the calf, and it ran quick enough to do the task cleanly. Arya leapt over it easily to continue on the straight path—and smacked into a pane of glass blocking her way.

"Ow!" The glass must have been thick because it didn't break when she ran into it, just wobbled a bit. She rubbed her nose and almost tripped over the low-running rope at her feet. She bounced on her heels and hurried backwards to get out of the passage before the next blade passed by—and smacked into another pane of glass.

"OW!" She slapped her hands against the glass in disbelief. When did this get here! Her forehead burned where she'd hit it, but a feeling of urgency replaced the pain. She had to move. She was trapped in this corridor with swift-running slicers headed her way.

Arya threw the torch and it bounced off the blade heading towards her. With her other hand she cut a wide arc and severed the rope at her feet.

She expected the blade to stop, but instead it shot away from her at an alarming speed. She didn't hear it collide with anything and something, maybe instinct, made her throw herself into the air in a backwards leap. She landed and leapt again, light on her feet as a bird taking flight, and tried to throw her arms and legs out to catch the wall.

She leapt over two blades, which lost their momentum and clattered at the end of the passage. A third she hadn't known about sailed under her while her nails dug into cracks in the stone. Her feet slid against the wall to hold her up, rather like a good imitation of a cat scrambling down too steep of a tree. She'd made it past them. She hopped down to retrieve Needle, and followed the way the blades had come.

There was a set of stairs here with a hole cut into them at the top for the pulley system that had dragged the blades along the floor. The stairs wound down into darkness. At the bottom was a thick stone door. Without knob or hinges Arya first took it for a solid wall, but her hands traced designs over its surface that she couldn't see, and she found two grooves that could serve as handholds near the bottom.

Arya forced it upwards with all her strength. When the door was halfway up she rolled beneath it and pulled her foot through just before it fell back into place. It landed with an eerie clack that made her certain there was no going back.

This room was surprisingly well lit for being so far down. Orange light filtered through square skylights in each of the corners. Beneath each one was a mound of sand as tall as Arya. In the center of the room was a free-standing oval mirror. Arya walked up to it. Inside was the reflection of a girl, but it wasn't her. The girl in the mirror had no face.

Arya studied her for a minute, confused and a little bit disgusted. She peered behind the mirror, and the girl followed her movements exactly. She had Arya's clothes and Arya's body, but something was wrong with her besides the fact that she was missing a face. Arya looked at the girl in the mirror and spoke.

"You're not real."

The thing in the mirror had no mouth, and didn't answer. Experimentally, Arya struck out with Needle, jabbing it into the mirror—and felt a prick when the mirrored sword came out and poked her in the side.

Quick as a snake, Arya darted away. The thing in the mirror didn't. It stepped sideways and out of her vision. Arya craned her neck to see where it disappeared to, but it wasn't there. She felt a swish of air and brought her thin sword up just in time to feel it impact with another. She danced away, keeping her back to the wall for protection, and her eyes darted around the room for some sign of her opponent.

There was none. Her opponent was invisible. But there was sand on the floor. Arya hoped it could help her, and backed onto a mound of sand. Sure enough she watched as footprints from no one made their mark. As soon as she gauged the distance to be close enough she thrust out wildly. She could hardly believe it when her ears rang with the sound of steel swords clashing. The phantom danced away, Arya felt the parry and brought her sword up to meet her opponent's cuts with nothing but intuition to guide her.

I can't fight like this! I can't even see! Arya's heart beat loudly in her chest. Fear cuts deeper than swords, she reminded herself, but fear was invisible and swords weren't. And what about phantom swords; how deep did those cut?

As if in answer, her shoulder exploded with pain as a blade cut into it. Arya rolled away and felt the thin sword rip out of her. She checked the mirror just in time to see her back to it, her arms raised in a triumphant overhead swing—but she was facing the mirror, so it couldn't be her back.

Arya dodged. She chewed her lip nervously, trying to think of something to do. The sand and the mirror had only helped so much. Calm as still water. She had to get a hold of herself; she couldn't fight like this. She tried to remember everything that Syrio had taught her, all the while sticking Needle out like an ant uses its feelers.

She remembered that he used to make her practice blindfolded. It wouldn't matter if she was blindfolded now, Arya mused. She couldn't see her opponent. But closing her eyes seemed borderline suicidal.

The man who fears losing has already lost. Syrio had taught her that, too. Putting her faith in herself and her training, Arya closed her eyes.

For a second everything was as dark as she expected it to be—and then, like an afterimage, the room formed around her. The colors seemed inverted. The sand was purple, and the light streaming down from the skylights was blue. Arya saw silver spots where her blood hit the floor, and there, outside of the mirror, was the faceless girl.

Something was different about her. She wasn't wearing Arya's clothes and was instead colored in shifting hues. In the center of her forehead was a bright red hole. It was like a gross, unformed eye. Arya raised her sword, and the phantom did, too.

Then she came at Arya. There was no hesitation. They threw their swords together and launched attack after counterattack. Arya met the demon blow for blow. It came after her again after each attack, not waiting a second, and Arya had to dodge and block and parry just to keep the phantom at bay. The thing was ruthless, fierce, and persistent-and Arya could tell that this was how she fought when she was at her best, giving it everything like she had nothing to lose.

She would just have to be better than her best. Arya moved the fight off the sand, where the traction made it hard for her to move her feet. The phantom landed where she had been in a jump attack and slashed out in a wide swipe, but Arya danced away. The thing didn't hesitate, and neither would she. Fighting defensively was not her way. The next time the phantom slashed at her, Arya knocked the tip of the sword away and launched her own attack. She spun Needle around and around, all the while risking cuts to her hand or face if her opponent could break out of their melee. But she kept the demon's sword locked with her own closed the distance between them.

They were close enough to kick each other when the phantom's sword escaped from Needle's charge. Instead of the swords sharpening each other there was the sound of one whipping through the air as the phantom sliced across where Arya's face had been. But Arya was ready for it. It was just the thing she would have done. She knelt, and thrust the point of her sword up and into the demon's forehead.

Arya screamed. There was a searing pain in her third eye. Her eyes—the gray ones—flew open and the sandy brown and yellow room tilted around her. She collapsed on the floor and Needle clattered away from her. Before she even caught her breath she grasped for the sword.

Once she had it in her hand again she realized that the horrible pain in her forehead was nothing more than a dull ache, or the memory of a dull ache, really. Arya crouched panting on her hands and knees. She felt nothing except tired from battle, and the little wound in her shoulder, though it was still bleeding, was not as bad as she had first thought. She looked in the mirror and saw only her own plastered forehead and panting horseface gaping back at her.

She pushed herself to her feet. There was a door opposite the one she came in on, looking invitingly easy to push open. She went through it and found herself standing in the first room of the temple. The light was fading; outside, the sun had almost set. Her back was to the door she first went through when she solved the riddle.

Jaqen H'ghar was waiting for her there. "Well done," he said, and gave her a smile.