Tristan raised his other hand and pressed it into the white bark of the tree. "Come on," he whispered, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. He did this every single day with Shield, why couldn't he do it now. With Shield, it was as easy as pulling on a cloak. But the weirwood resisted him like an iron gate.

"It's not an enemy to be overcome," Cregan said from the side. "This tree has seen civilisations, kingdoms and empires rise and fall. Peoples we couldn't fathom have become no more than the memory of ash in this tree's lifetime. You can't force your way in. You have to find another way."

"What other way?" Tristan asked, stepping away from the tree and looking at Cregan. The wizened elder sat not far away, his white staff across his lap. "I've tried everything."

"If you had tried everything, then you would have seen," Cregan said, closing his eyes. "Keep trying. We're all waiting for you."

Tristan glanced behind him at the gathered order of Green Men. They sat on the rain-sodden grass in a semi-circle stretching back towards the edge of the grove. The elders sat at the front, judging with their eyes, while the children were at the back. They'd already lost interest he could tell. The only two who were not with them were Cregan, who sat as his spiritual guide, and Malissa, who stood on the other side, holding a bowl of paste. She had resolutely refused to let it drop, but he could see the strain in her arms. Shield was at her side, paws folded in front of him, looking on like an obedient dog. Okay, he tried to fight the frustration building in him, that wouldn't help.

They'd come because Cregan had declared it time he enter the tree, do what he came here to do. They wouldn't leave until he had done so. Come on Tristan, come on. You can find a way. He knelt before the tree and pushing his hands back against the bark. Nothing. His fingers curled into a fist.

"Calm down," he whispered to himself, "just calm down." But his anger just bottled up in his chest with nowhere to go. He had to calm down, this wasn't helping. He sat down on the grass and folded his hands in his lap. The anger and frustration shook against its cage, desperate to be released. He closed his eyes and reached out for Shield.

Shield protected him from his own rage. Ever since the day he'd saved the wolf cubs, he'd come to realise that Shield was his safety. They shared much, but when Tristan entered Shield he left his anger behind. Anger was a veil, worn over the truth, by leaving it behind, he could find clarity of purpose.

He got up and padded around the tree, staring at it. It pulled at him, drawing him in. Even in the day, he saw the door of darkness, bracketed by pure white twists of the trunk. He'd thought that was where he had to place his hands when he tried to enter the tree, but nothing had happened there. Circling the tree, he came face to face with the weirwood. The carved eyes like pools of blood, staring out past him, not seeing the wolf right before them. He sniffed. Power. He smelled the power. He could almost taste it, it was right there, right in front of him. But why couldn't he reach it? Shield pulled at him, urging him to the side. So Tristan went with him, his mind carried around to stare back at the blackness in the back of the tree, the blackness that only Shield could see.

Wait. Was that it? Shield wanted to go, more than that, he tried to take Tristan with him, he could feel it. Shield may have surrendered control to him, but he could feel the wolf's thoughts, and the urging, the pull that Tristan felt, Shield felt it too. Why. He turned his head to stare at Cregan, but the old man still sat, eyes closed.

Well, nothing else had worked so far. Go Shield, he thought, take me in. Shield slunk up to the blackness, an urgent pull guiding his body. Tristan felt like he should pull back, but this time, he let Shield take him onwards. He trusted Shield with his mind.

They stood before the blackness, his muzzle inches away from it. He took a look behind him, his body sat there, safe. He turned back to the tree. Go, he thought. Shield raised his paws and pressed them against the blackness.

Birds rivers bridges sky sea sand blood bone and steel. The images came, one after the other, so fast he could barely register. His eyes burned at the constant switch from ice to fire, from light to dark.

He woke with a scream. It had been too much, the images had forced him back out all the way through Shield and into his own body. He rubbed furiously at his eyes, trying to rub away the residual light. Blinking back his vision, he looked around. Some of the order to the back were looking at him, concerned, but none of the elders, they looked on impassively, unsurprised. Cregan hadn't even opened his eyes. Malissa was the only one to react, she smiled softly and barely nodded. He took several breaths to steady himself and settled back into his seated rest. Shield stared at him, poised, ready. He closed his eyes and returned to Shield's mind.

They could do this, Shield felt it, so did he. He returned to the tree and pressed Shield's head against it.

The images returned, flashing past him, fast too fast. They pressed on him, constricting his chest, forcing him down, like they were trying to drown him. He had to find something, anything. Closing his eyes, he reached out and grasped a small emerald of light.

Suddenly the rest of the images fell away and the emerald expanded to engulf him.

He was flying. Black wings beat against the air as he soared over a canopy of dark green leaves and twisted bark. He had to get back to his nest. Tristan separated his mind from the bird's, letting it carry him, not imposing, merely joining it. What was this wood? It wasn't the Wolfswood, but it was dark, powerful, old. He could smell it, taste it. This little bird's ancestors had nested here since before the coming of man.

A sudden sound made the bird settle on a branch, in the shadow of the trunk of the old elm tree. Voices, voices from below.

"Orders of the prince, get them across to the bay, now."

"Yes captain," another said.

"Is there anything coming from the capital?"

"No, captain. And the nearby villages are happy to keep their silence as long as we pay for what we take."

"Good, keep it that way, and get going."

Tristan urged the bird to take just a few steps forward and peer down. Soldiers. Archers with heavy bows on their backs and small blades at their waists. In their dark cloaks, they were hard to make out, but for the broaches that held their cloaks up. One of them had forgotten to dirty it, so Tristan could make out the glinting silver at the man's shoulder. Where was this? Was it near Robb?

He felt a shriek inside his mind, the bird wanted him gone. I'm sorry, he thought and pulled away, back into the sea of thoughts and lights.

Robb, he thought, I have to find Robb. So he grasped for another light. He went through several of them. The first time he found himself hiding in some reeds. He was in the body of a snake, looking out over low sandy dunes and into a crystal blue ocean where a city of ships were carving a path through the water. He stared out of a weirwood tree in the bitter cold snow of the north, the far north, where a man and woman were getting married to the cheers of their friends. Soaring above, swimming below and skulking within, Tristan saw the world pass by in a hundred paintings, vibrant and true, bloody and ruinous. For every great snow-capped peak he saw the dirt and decay of pestilence, for every wedding a funeral, for every life, a corpse.

When he entered into a carrion crow, he found himself flying through air filled with smoke and blood, following the scent of meat. What happened, where was he? He held onto the bird as it pulled him, drawn by hunger towards the smell.

"At last," a voice said from both within his head and without. Tristan made the crow turn its head and saw another of its kind flying alongside him.

Was that… Cregan?

"Of course it's me," Cregan's voice said. "I've been waiting for you."

What for? Tristan thought. Wait, was that how he did this?

"It is," Cregan said. "We both enter through the same source, and so we can talk, come, follow." Cregan's bird sped ahead and Tristan beat his wings faster to follow him. They moved north, following a snaking road from above.

A village burned. Corpses were piled in the fields, burning in great bonfires as the thatched roofs cracked and smoked. Where was this? He had to see. He seized control of the crow's body. He felt the bird cry out in protest, in hunger, as he pulled it higher into the sky. Once he'd risen above the smoke he looked around. Cregan's bird kept level with him as they rose and Tristan cast his eyes about. The village wasn't alone. More burned all around them, stretching east, west and south. More carrion birds, not worn by skinchangers were sweeping down to feast on the cooking flesh. He saw farmsteads aflame, septs torn down, small cabins broken and ruined. What had happened here? An army had passed, but whose?

He flexed his wings and searched, flying out to the north, where the fires seemed to burn the hottest. "Good. Go." He flew, his wings tiring. No stopping, he had to find out. Where was this, who had done it?

There, a tail of dust. He turned for it, racing through the air, the wind whipping around him.

A column marched up the road in rough formation, brutish men under tattered banners. Knights, freemen, sellswords and warriors garbed in all manner from cold steel to warn leather. Who were they? He couldn't see the banners clearly, not at this speed, but when he tried to slow down, the bird screached in his head that he was going to fall, so he sped back up.

Then he saw. He didn't need the banners. The column was led by a giant of a man riding a giant warhorse with a giant sword at his waist. Only one man could be that big. The Mountain. Lord Tywin's mad dog. But where was this? Where had the Lannisters sent their beast?

He rose again, scanning the ground, looking for a town, a castle, anything that might tell him where they were? He flew on, further north. Cold dread filled him. North, they were going north, that must mean.

"Over there." Tristan craned his head around to see Cregan's bird and followed it's gaze. A great blue shield of water came into view, and beyond it, looming like a great shadow, the burned and melted husk of a legendary fortress. Harrenhal. The Mountain was reaching for the Riverlands. And Robb…

Robb wasn't here to stop him.

Robb! Where was Robb?

"You know how to find him," Cregan told him.

How?

You know who is at his side. The brother of your most faithful protector. Cregan let the sentence stand, his bird crying out. I return now. Come back when you've seen what you need to see.

Cregan?

The bird that Cregan had tied himself to suddenly caught itself mid-flight, shrieked, and turned back south.

My most faithful protector? Shield? He knew what he was looking for.

He released the bird and fell back into the sea of shimmering crystal light. He reached out, sifting through them until he found the one he was looking for.

Grey Wind opposed his entry, his mind fierce, strong and guarded.

Peace, Grey Wind, he tried to soothe the beast. Perhaps it recognised him, for he seemed to let Tristan in just a little. He could tell this one wouldn't be like the others. He knew what Tristan was at once, he knew what was happening, for it had happened before. Please, Grey Wind, show me, I need to see him.

Grey Wind got to his feet and padded through the camp. It was filled with soldiers, celebrating, cheering a victory? It must have been, of course, it was Robb.

Robb was at the centre of his camp, surrounded by lords and loyal swords. He saw Daryn and Cley waiting alongside Robb's personal guard. Robb was leaning over a table. He glanced down at Tristan and smiled. "Feeling better are you?" Robb asked.

How did he- Robb reached down and scratched Grey Wind's chin before turning back to the table. Of course, not me, Tristan thought. "We'll draw a line in the map here," he pointed at the table, probably at a map, though Grey Wind couldn't see it. "But I can't yield our conquests so easily, not even to Stannis Baratheon. Send the supplies north to stock our castles in the Riverlands, but we must be ready to fight if Stannis is going to try and push us out of the Reach, Ser Brynden, keep the scouts ready."

He doesn't know, and I can't tell him. Tristan cursed to himself and Grey Wind snarled. Sorry. Robb was tied up here, in the Reach.

As Robb continued his council, Tristan looked around. So many lords, knights and sworn protectors. Grey Wind. Is Robb safe? Grey Wind's mind pulsed. He was. He didn't need Tristan at his side. Protect him, Tristan said, knowing that Grey Wind would do so.

He pulled himself out of Grey Wind, out of the weirwood, out of Shield and into his own body. He blinked and opened his eyes.

Cregan was standing over him, looking down expectantly. "Did you find it?"

Tristan struggled to his feet, his body tired. "Careful," Cregan said, holding him steady, "wearing so many skins is tiring, don't exert yourself."

"I… I found it," Tristan whispered. "I know now."

Cregan held him at arms length, staring at him with piercing eyes. "What do you know?"

"I was wrong. I directed all my anger towards hurting those who might hurt my family. But they don't need it. They never needed it. They are some of the most powerful people in Westeros, they have loyal soldiers and protectors. Others need my help. Robb can protect himself, they can't." He reached out and stroked the fur of Shield. "I've been a sword too long. My anger was a blade to set against those who insulted me. It should be a shield against those who hurt others. That's why my father was disappointed, that's why Robb sent me here, that's what I failed to see."

Cregan smiled. "Then your time here has accomplished something," he said, turning to the watching Green Men. "Tonight, we feast and celebrate!" He declared to the cheers and applause of the semi circle of watchers. He held out his hands, clutching his weirwood staff. "But first, we mark you, Tristan of House Stark. Take a knee before the gods."

Having been inside, he now felt it's power, it's age as the face stared at him. Tristan knelt, Shield standing proudly at his side. Malissa stepped up to him, and touched a brush into the bowl of paste. She raised the brush and daubed Tristan with the marks of the old gods.