Arya

She was loath to open her eyes. I'd rather be a wolf, she thought, and besides, Gendry is at the forge most every waking moment. No wolf-dreams came though, and soon Arya felt too restless to just lie in bed. How many times had she dreamed of coming home? Yet here I am, and everything is nothing is as it was. It would be different if Winterfell was the place I remembered. She'd supposed the castle wouldn't loom so large as in her memory, but if anything the countless people and the contributions of the crannogmen made Winterfell something even greater. Will Jon recognize it? Will he recognize Bran, a crippled child when last Jon saw him? A chill made Arya pull the fur blanket around herself. I remember Sansa crying on the steps of Baelor's sept. That was the last Arya had seen of her until the godswood. And in the meantime I learned how to read faces. Yet, there had been nothing to read. Sansa had been moved by Arya's reappearance, of course, and Mother…but there had been as much mask as face in her elder sister's countenance, even if Sansa herself didn't seem to know it. Arya heard the rumors, of course, the mutterings coming from the men who'd once served the Boltons. Whispers of wolf-shadows, spending more time beneath the ground than above… Nobody would have brought it up in front of Arya Stark, of course, but she heard too the tale of how Sansa bid an Other not throw his life away. I should talk to the Children of the Forest, she thought, I'll hear naught but truth from them. If they deem it wise to share it, that is. Ruefully she slid out of bed, yelping when her bare feet found cold stone floor instead of her slippers. Were I still a child, I could go about wrapped in this blanket and no one would look at me twice, she thought. Now I'm a bloody princess, I have to do things ladylike. She dressed, trying not to shiver or let her teeth chatter. Last came the thick coat, and one look in the mirror told her she was ready to make an impression. A cold one, she thought, with my teeth clacking like tiles on a board. She pulled the blanket from the bed, donning it anew. Bugger ladylike. Besides, Gendry says he likes my ears. I'll not lose them to frostbite on account of dress. In the corridor she found she needn't have worried, as the Starks' chambers were kept well clear of any crowds. And without guards, Arya observed. She shivered again. From King's Landing to Braavos the homes of the highborn, the wealthy and the powerful had been teeming with men both well-paid and well-armed. Yet in Winterfell the only thing protecting the Starks is cold. At least, as far as I can see.

She was still mulling over that when she reached the entrance to the crypts. Here, at least, a half-dozen of the house guard stood at attention, keeping the archway clear of interlopers. Though, from the ten feet of space the crowd gave the crypts, Arya surmised it was not so difficult a task. More than one person averted their eyes rather than look right at it, harmless old stone arch that it was. The guards themselves had a hard, dispassionate look Arya recognized, the kind the Iron Bank's representatives oft looked for in "retainers" when they had to go somewhere at the behest of the bank's keyholders. As subtle as a sign reading 'keep out, stay out, mind your business.' They made no move to stand aside when Arya drew nearer, though she didn't fault them. I look like a great round furball, she reasoned. Small chance they'll much stand in awe of me. Only when Nymeria loped out form the godswood did they waver, briskly getting out of the way without a word. They're subject to their own code, she thought. They see only what they're meant to and keep out of goings-on that are beyond them. Again she was reminded of the hired swords of the Iron Bank. Something more than bones sits in wait down here, Arya thought. To her surprise she found the crypts proper full of light, the old tombs scorched by flame. The cave-in that Father expressly forbade them to disturb had been cleared entirely, the stairs leading to an unseen lower level flat and clean. Fondly she gave Nymeria a scratch behind the ears, needing no wolf eyes to be able to see given the light that seemed to come from nowhere. The fine stone statues she was familiar with were no more than reliefs down here, the grand stone tombs just dugouts in the walls. Nymeria began to growl, Arya's breath hitching when the sound of approaching feet met her ears. She kept close to her wolf as someone stepped stiffly out of an off-tunnel, eyes wide and staring, arrow nocked. That the woman was dead was beyond question- Arya had seen enough of death to know it anywhere, yet the corpses she was used to seeing did not walk around or follow one with their gaze. The eyes are wrong though, she realized. The Others' chattel have their masters' eyes. Suddenly Nymeria's head snapped away from the dead archer, golden eyes going wide at what lay in yet another tunnel, this one unlit. The shape that emerged was poorly defined, ever shifting, yet Arya saw the wolf all the same. At once the archer backed into her tunnel, standing down at the behest of some order given outside of Arya's senses. Nymeria's nose twitched in the direction of the shadow, her unease mixing with uncertainty. Nymeria needed not move aside as it came forward, the larger once-wolf passing through her without a second thought. I know you, Arya thought- or was the thought Nymeria's? They had been two, going south. Two, and then I threw Joffrey's sword in the river. Remembering Lion's Tooth reminded Arya of another sword, one that lay in her trunk beside a doll Father had once given Sansa. Lady- if Lady it was- merely vanished into the opposite wall, leaving Arya and Nymeria alone but for the vigilant corpse. Is that Sansa as she truly is, with the veil set aside? As unknowable and inviolate as the darkness that lingers at the edge of every light?

The very ground she stood on seemed as much thought as earth, it was not her fault she all but jumped out of her own skin when a voice issued up from the stairs still further down. A pair of golden eyes peeked over the tops of the steps, regarding her curiously. Their owner was short of stature and slight of build, smaller even than Arya when she got closer. A Child of the Forest, Arya knew. She'd spent her time in the House of Black and White learning about men's faces, though, and could not so much as tell if the one before her was male or female. Certainly it doesn't seem annoyed.

"You are the other." it said. Female, Arya guessed. "The other female from the wolf litter." That made her shiver all over again. It had to be coincidence, but it unnerved her all the same. "I'm Arya Stark of Winterfell." she replied, leaving out the bit about being a princess. I doubt she'll much be impressed by such. "I am called Root in the Common Tongue. Sometimes I walk with your sister, seeing but unseen. Those preeminent among my race…exasperate her." Arya was startled.

"Why?"

"They belong to the past, as a tree belongs to its roots. Yet if a tree is to grow, it must leave the earth behind and stretch skyward, its branches fanning out." I ought not have bothered asking.

"I hear there are no more bones down here, that all were burned. I would have liked to…mourn my father in person, after a fashion."

"In person?" Root asked. "Bones are no more alive than stone or ice, Arya Stark. If you wish to speak to your father, stand before a heart tree."

"Well and good, but I would sooner speak to him, rather than just tell a face carved in bark all I would tell him." Root gave a sad smile.

"Come with me, then, wolfling, and see for yourself. The trees hear much, even diminished, but now they are awake and able to speak back." Root turned and descended, leaving Arya teetering after her until she tossed off the furs. It's plenty warm down here anyway, she thought, wondering if that had something to do with Winterfell's hot springs. There were no crypts ahead, but a vast sunless grotto ringed in what might have once been small cairns. A second godswood stood in the grotto, at least as big as the one above. The sight took Arya's breath away, while Nymeria trotted off to sniff at the trees. Is this why the first Starks built the beginnings of Winterfell? To keep this place untouched? Somewhat hesitantly she approached the trees, the sound of water lapping against earth coming from somewhere in the distance. Here all the while, with no one the wiser for centuries. Longer. "It has taken some time to wake the trees, with some little waking left to do, but this place is nearly as it was when last men walked beneath its boughs." Arya spotted the small dark shapes of other Children flitting between the trunks, keeping mostly out of sight. "I suppose the men themselves are much changed." Arya replied. Root smiled. "Not those as come down here. Indeed, the crannogmen are almost as they were in the beginning."

"Some, maybe. The buggy ones for a certainty, but here and there you spot someone who hasn't got the crannog-look." She turned to one of the weirwoods. "You said the trees could hear."

"I said the trees can hear. Time did not deafen them. Put your hand to one and see." Arya pulled off a glove and did as she was bid, her palm filling the left corner of the face's mouth while her finger nudged under one of its eyes. Nothing happened. Then she gave the tree the barest nudge, less a push than when she tried to calm Nymeria during one of her sleeping fits. Something raced out from the tree, locked her jaw and squeezed her eyes shut.

"It's not too late," she heard, a deep voice echoing off stones and statues that were not there. "I have a son, you have a daughter. We'll join our houses." Arya tore her hand away, tripped over a root and fell on her behind. I know that voice, she thought, trying to keep from tearing up. It was not Robert Baratheon standing in the grotto with her though, but Root and Root alone.

It took Arya a good moment to stop her shakes, another to get to her feet.

"You see? They hear. They live."

"Yes." Arya finally gasped out, the words of a dead king still ringing in her ears. After everything, it came to pass. Or will, should Gendry and I live to wed. Cersei and her brood are gone, House Lannister is broken, and Gendry stands as Lord of Storm's End due to marry Lyanna Stark's niece. Somewhere, King Robert is laughing himself breathless, red in the face. Nymeria had returned by then, anxiously rubbing at Arya's side with her huge head. I have to tell Gendry. He told me there was more to it than chance.

"There must be others." Root said, though Arya only half-heard. "Other grottoes, hidden away from the eyes of men with fire in their hands and steel in their hearts."

"In the North? Maybe, the wolfswood is massive and the mountains own their clansmen, not the other way 'round."

"Below where the hammer fell as well. I never set foot below the Wall of men, but even hidden away with the other Singers born this infant century I know some little about the Seven Kingdoms, as they are called. The castle above us has a sibling somewhere in the vast south."

"Storm's End!" Arya said excitedly, making Nymeria's hackles rise.

"Raised over decades and centuries, as this one was. Before the coming of the gods of glass and wax, as your sister describes them. Perhaps if The Ones That Walk With Winter are defeated, the lost grottoes can be found and woken. As Winterfell has one beneath it, this Storm's End may in turn." Arya's mirth faltered.

"There are no crypts beneath the castle. A place for the dead of House Baratheon, sure, but nothing like this." Root's own glow flickered.

"Then it may lie elsewhere."

"You'll never know unless you look, but we have to win here first." And I've spent enough time mucking about in the dark. "Speaking of Storm's End, I have a bull whose tail needs pulling." She left Root to ponder than while she ascended, racing Nymeria up the steps of the crypt. No shadow-wolf pursued them, Arya's heart lighter with each step higher out of the darkness. Glass and wax, she thought, and infinitely less likely to scare the wits out of someone. She snatched her fur blanket on the way up, thankful and more for it when she found herself at the entrance to the crypts, a few inches of fresh-fallen snow waiting for her. Wonderful. At least it will be warm at the forge. Thoughts of Gendry hammering on hot steel, bizarrely, had trouble keeping her attention. Something nagged at her, Arya's head on a swivel to check if perhaps someone was following her. Men, dog and horse alike looked chilled to the bone and thoroughly miserable, and nobody's eyes stayed long on her. The more she saw nothing, the more she was certain there was something to see. There. Her eyes found an inn, behind which stood a small roofed stable where the patrons' horses could stand out of the snow. While two of the horses sported blankets and rarely raised their heads, a huge black courser peered out from beneath the roof at those passing by. Stranger, Arya knew at once. He looks untroubled by the cold. "Go to the forges. I'll meet you there." Arya told Nymeria, the wolf bounding off at once. Arya weaved through the crowd, Stranger's eyes following her as she got closer. I'm taller than when we last met, she reasoned, and yet he still seems huge. Something about the horse, his size or coloring or temper or all three, just caused him to loom out from the rest of the world. Or maybe it's just because he's black and all the world's gone white.

Stranger gave no sign that he recognized her, though Arya knew he was too smart to have forgotten her.

"How did you get here? Is the Hound here with you?" At the mention of his master, Stranger snorted.

"Away from there, girl, he's like to take your hand off!" an angry voice rasped from the tavern's threshold, a long shadow descending on her. Arya turned to behold the Hound, who froze in his tracks. At once Arya could tell the black hate that once coursed through him and pushed him on had gone. His face was twisted as ever, he was missing an ear, but the half of him that remained unmarked was void of wroth. I wonder if he can tell the same about me, she thought, before any thought other could rear its head. "What are you doing standing out there? You're like to catch your death and piss on all the storm lords' plans besides." he said.

"What are you doing standing in there? Last I saw you, Brienne of Tarth bit your ear off and punched you off a mountain." And you were choking on the hate coursing out of you with your lifesblood.

"Eh. The way I hear it, I got for free what Jaime Lannister would have given all his family's gold for." Arya couldn't help but snort aloud, soon laughing as she had when the two of them had stood before the Bloody Gate. She followed him inside, listening to tales about septons, the remnants of the Brotherhood and finally the Wall.

"You saw it come down?" she asked.

"Anyone who stopped to look got buried in a blizzard or crushed in an avalanche. Had it been an ordinary horse under me, I'd have bought it, too."

"An ordinary horse?"

"Instead of Stranger, girl."

"I know you mean Stranger, but not what you mean about 'ordinary'. Stranger's fast, but he's not faster than the wind."

"Tell him that." The Hound replied, grinning his frightful grin. "Might make mention of the cold as well, see what he cares." He sipped some ale, letting Arya fume.

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"How did he get you away?"

"Fucked if I know. Fucked if I care. It's none of my business, anyhow." Arya gaped at him.

"I hear the Dothraki are riders without equal. If you're so gods-may-care when they turn up, one of them will steal him from you."

"They're welcome to try. Then the dragon queen's horde will be short at least one fool." Arya knew a lost cause when she saw one, so instead she told the Hound about Braavos and the journey home.

"I lost my Needle," she told him, "and when it went into that hearth in Harrenhal, so did my list. I suppose you heard by now that Ilyn Payne killed the Mountain, for proper this time."

"Some southron might have mentioned it in my hearing. Well, knights kill monsters and all that horseshit. To Ilyn Payne, the chatty bastard." He raised his cup and drained it. "Seems to me you lost half your list when King's Landing fell to the dragon queen."

"I had no list then to lose. All I wanted, all I want, is to see this new war end. My last war, then it's Gendry and Storm's End for the rest of my days."

The Hound peered at her, the burned half of his face twisting in what might have been a squint.

"Lots of people lose their swords." he said finally, shrugging. "Better that than losing yourself to your sword." He looked into his mug. "This northern ale of yours is bloody strong. How's a man to enjoy being drunk if he goes from sober to floored in only a cup or two?" Abruptly she got up.

"Don't leave." she told him, going to her bedchamber. Arya opened two trunks before she found the one she was looking for, pulling the sword the Kingslayer had entrusted to her out from a bundle of rags. Widow's Wail was as spotless as ever, though the gaudiness of the golden lion hilt and its glittering ruby eyes was not the sort of thing a real fighter appreciated. Before she returned to the tavern, she stopped at the forges. It was like walking into a dragon's mouth, the heat enough to make her head swim. Arya heard the steady ringing of a dozen hammers pounding on steel, heading for the clearest loudest ring. "You told it true that day," she said to Gendry's back. "When you put hammer to steel, it sings." He turned, the beads of sweat on his arms glittering like gems in the wall of a mine shaft.

"The trick will be easier to do when you can tell the fire how hot to heat the metal."

"What?" Arya asked, before another man stepped into view, pox-scarred features illuminated by the forge.

"Hello, princess!" Lord Rolland Caron said, bowing. "Apologies, I thought I could make my liegelord's work lighter if I helped."

"Though, I'm not sure hilts and handles for black glass blades are the best use of our time." Gendry said.

"What do you mean?" Arya asked, intrigued despite her irritation at Gendry's long hours spent at the anvil.

"What have you got there?" Gendry asked in turn, spotting the hilt poking out from over her shoulder. "I thought you were done with swords?"

"It isn't mine. It's half of Ice, my father's sword. Lord Tywin had Ice melted down and reforged, half ended up with Brienne of Tarth. The other half…" Arya drew the sword herself, showing it to him.

"This is Tobho Mott's mark. My old master." Gendry said, prodding where blade met hilt. "All those golden lions ruin it, though."

"It was made for Joffrey. Why Tywin wanted Valyrian steel wrapped in arsefool gold and rubies, who knows."

"No one ever accused a Lannister of being humble." Gendry agreed, giving it a prod. "I could get those off, I think. It's naught to do with the blade, so there'll be no magic needed…" his voice trailed off as Rolland Caron prodded the sword in turn.

"Valyrian steel?"

"The same. Good for fighting Others, or at least breaking arms and armor wrought from razor ice." Arya told him.

"Hmm." Gendry picked up a piece of green dragonglass from the nearest crate of the stuff, Arya spotting bags, chests, and even loose piles here and there. "So is dragonglass." he said, sounding only half-there.

"So it is, but it's useless against the dead. No better than normal glass, all it does is shatter when it meets dead men's bones. We learned that at White Harbor."

"Hmm." Gendry said again, turning the green glass over in his callused fingers. "It's funny, isn't it? They can part steel like butter, but a bit of smoky glass and suddenly things change. This is from Dragonstone, isn't it?" Arya and Rolland looked at each other.

"How do you know?" Arya asked.

"I spent some time in the cells beneath the castle, where the ground was hot. At its base, in the places the dragonlords had not yet made their own, sharp clusters that glittered like gems poked through- or so that King Stannis said." His voice was colorless. Better that than incandescent, I suppose. "Bugger the dragonlords and bugger Stannis. Neither are here now, it's just us and all this bloody glass." Rolland laughed aloud while Arya heard nothing less than the voice that had spoken in the crypts less twenty years of wine, feasting and whoring.

"Your master didn't happen to tell you how to work Valyrian steel, did he?" Rolland asked.

"No. Even if he did, what good is that? I can't make two swords four, or so on. Else you expect the lot of us to face the Others wielding Valyrian steel sewing needles." He fell into his brooding bull sulk. Then his black brow hopped into his mop of black hair. "What about making our own, though? We have dragonglass to spare, steel to spare…surely it must have something to do with blurring the line between them. Strong like steel, light like dragonglass…and proof against the weapons of the Others."

"When properly wielded, maybe. Give a groom Widow's Wail and put him up against an Other, though, he's not going to last." Arya opined. "This castle is replete with some of Westeros' most formidable fighters. If only we could find the means by which to arm them, I think we'll find out diligence well worth the ingenuity." Gendry stared at her. So did Lord Rolland. "If we figure out a way to make Valyrian steel or something like it, we'll be better able to fight the Others." she said.

"Oh, alright. I was getting a little nervous there. Thought maybe you'd simply lost the thread." Gendry said, face flushed as he pulled a pitted dagger out of a hide on a tanning rack. The glass in his hand flickered eerily, sending green shadows dancing around the walls of the forge.

"I'll let you get back to it, then. Don't do anything too stupid." Arya told Gendry. He took her hand and kissed it in reply.

"What's stupider than marrying a princess she-wolf?"

"I don't know, but if there's such a thing, you'd be the one to do it."

Her heart was still aflutter when she left the forge. The winds bit and gnawed but despite the cold flurries Arya felt no chill. The Baratheons of old were stags of silk, no more. Gendry is a bull, and one wrought of the same steel he works. She found the Hound where she'd left him, looking surly even for one of famously short temper.

"Been at the forge, have you? Making a new sword?" he japed, smirking at her knowingly.

"Might have stopped over there. It's hardly any business of yours. I wanted to get the lions struck off, but they're working on more important things just now." She laid Widow's Wail on the table, still in its scabbard. "It was Joffrey's." Arya explained as the Hound pulled it free.

"I expect he named it something proper stupid, knowing him."

"You're not wrong." Arya didn't tell him what Joffrey had named it, though, nor did he ask. Joffrey's dead, and so is his stupid name for half of Ice.

"You're right about these lions, they're uglier than I am. A sword shouldn't fucking sparkle, it's not a septon's crown."

"Nothing gets between a Lannister and his pride, Gendry said."

"Except maybe some blue bitch. We saw a sword just like this one, once."

"I remember." Arya said. "That was then, this is now. You're the only person I can think to give this to. Gendry's better with a hammer and Jon's got Longclaw."

"The princess hasn't thought to give it to some knight?"

"Bugger knights. I don't care if the next Sword of the Morning is out there somewhere, I know in your hands it will be put well to use." There was a faint look of distaste on his ruined face as he took the scabbard in his offhand, no doubt as eager to see the lions gone as Arya was. That will have to wait, though, she thought.

"Have you been to see your sister?" The Hound's question pushed the Lannister gold from her mind.

"Of course I have." she replied, startled.

"With everyone around, I'll wager. Not the two of you alone, though." Arya felt her face flush.

"So what? What's it to you?"

"Still the little pisser who tried to stab a man in armor with a fucking filleting knife you called a sword. Go and see for yourself, wolf princess. I'll be too busy looking for a mallet and chisel to much tell you stories." Arya knew he would tell her no more, so she left in a huff. I heard Sansa tell Mother about all the rest, didn't I? she thought. Acting like I've not got the wits the gods give a goat. He's as unbearable as the bloody septa.

Her family's tower was cold just like the rest of the castle, but as soon as Arya was past the threshold the cold became a tingle that left her feeling nearly weightless. Warily she went upstairs, wishing she'd at least thought to pack a snowball before ascending. Voices could be heard from Sansa's chamber, low reverent mumbling that might have been Tyrion Lannister and the more measured, steady tones of Sansa herself.

"-don't know what else might happen, even if you mean well, who knows what might become of it, Sansa."

"You don't seem any the worse for wear."

"I don't bloody matter. What if it's the King in the North who catches the next grievous wound? Or Her Grace?" When there was no forthcoming response from Sansa, Arya knocked on her door. She heard Tyrion mutter a curse before there was a sudden thump, as if he'd hid beneath something. When Sansa opened her door she looked as she had in the godswood, almost eerily beautiful. White goes well with red, as anyone who's seen a weirwood knows.

"It does you no good to be cooped up away from everyone. Tonight you'll come down for dinner and show the rest of Winterfell you haven't vanished down a grumkin hole."

"I told her much the same, my princess, but she's as much Stark as you and unfortunately, stubbornness runs in your family." A voice from under the bed said, evidently aware its attempt at stealth had woefully failed.

"Come out of there." Arya snapped. Resignedly Tyrion Lannister emerged, looking rather less grotesque than when Arya had seen him last.

"If only I knew I'd find my nose at Winterfell, I might never have bothered with Essos." he said lamely. She turned to Sansa.

"Did you fix him?"

"How should I know? The wounds he carried were bleeding him dry, I wanted only to close them."

"And close them you did. Pardon me, princesses, but my head is swimming and I'm seeing stars. I think I'll go have a lie-down before dinner so as not to drown in my soup." He teetered off, hand to the wall to keep his feet.

"Sansa, he's right. You need to meet the southern lords, learn their names, show them a friendly face." Arya said, faltering at the look on Sansa's face. Once, it was her telling me this very thing. How did we come to this? A voice that sounded a bit like Jon's answered her. The gods gave you Gendry. She got Joffrey, Littlefinger and Ramsay Snow, that's how. Small wonder she drifts further afield by the day. "Running from the world won't make you feel any better, Sansa." Arya said, trying to keep from tearing up. "I ran all the way to Braavos for all the good it did me." Sansa took Arya's hand in her own.

"You ran from, Arya." Then she smiled, the shy fluttery maidenly smile that Sansa the girl was wont to give. How I hated it then. Now, though, Arya was flushed with relief at the sight of it. "As for me, I'm running toward, and my days of caring who sees are done, that's all."

Arya was so saddened that for a moment she forgot what else Jaime Lannister had given her the day they took the Red Keep. She left without a word, returning with the doll Father had commissioned for Sansa once upon a time. Her beautifully impassive face wavered at the sight of it. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd forgotten it entirely.

"I don't think Father would have wanted you to wall yourself in ice, Sansa. Walls have had their time." Sansa gently sat the doll on her bed.

"Have you met Val yet?" she asked, after a moment.

"Who's Val?"

"Come with me and see, Arya." Sansa led her back down to the tower's base, knocked on a door a dozen spearwives were buzzing around. Despite their bows, blades and eponymous spears, they made no move to bar Sansa's way. In fact, on sight of Arya more than a bit of muttering broke out. The Old Tongue, Arya thought irritably. Finally one of them switched to the Common Tongue, a woman wearing a weirwood mask.

"You look like Jon Snow." The words were simple, the voice rough and unlettered, yet Arya was startled by them all the same. I look like Jon, she thought. Always, it had been Father people compared her to. I looked like Father and Jon was only a bastard and so didn't count, not even when he looked more like Father than any of the rest of us. But Lord Eddard Stark was years gone, and many of those who might remember him as well. Instead of Lord Stark, the King in the North. But where did the North end? Without the Wall, who was to say where Jon's writ ended? Save the Others, Arya thought, and the Land of Always Winter. The room itself was warm, a well-fed fire in the hearth, yet much of it seemed untouched despite it obviously being laid out for the use of someone important. A very small child toddled into view from the bedroom further on, a few tufts of blonde hair framing the Stark face shrunk to fit a babe. Her eyes went wide at the sight of Arya and Sansa, her lip quivering even as Arya struggled to look away from the child's grey gaze. Stark eyes, she knew at once. Our eyes. The very pretty woman who followed her out of the bedroom could only have been her mother, though her face was rounder, softer, her eyes clear sky blue.

"This is Val, Arya." Sansa said, while Val picked her daughter up.

"Say 'hello', Dal." the woman crooned to her babe. The little girl put her face in her mother's shoulder. When she looked at Arya, Val's breath hitched. "Hells, but you look like him."

"So I've heard."

"And you've a wolf of your own as well, aye?"

"Her name's Nymeria. I…" She was supposed to wait for me at the forges. Seeing Gendry had put the direwolf from her mind completely. "She's around here somewhere."

"You be sure to mind her or she'll bound off just like Ghost." Val said, shushing her daughter's murmuring.

"Ghost isn't here?" Arya asked, frowning at Sansa.

"He left before Jon did and hasn't been seen since. I'm sure he's fine-"

"With Others and cold giants and who knows what else out there?"

"If he were killed, Jon would know. Ghost will return in his own time, he's no more a puppy on a leash than Summer or Nymeria." Or Lady, Arya added, wondering if she were in the room with them at that very moment. Or Shaggydog, she added further, ready to rend asunder anything he can get between his teeth.

Nymeria's absence weighed on her until she couldn't pretend all was well any longer. I doubt I would have fooled Sansa anyway. The House of Black and White had taught her how to lie, but only well enough to fool ordinary people. And that isn't Sansa anymore. When she reached for Nymeria, Arya found her pacing along Winterfell's northeastern ramparts. What in seven hells are you doing there? The direwolf was antsy, nervous, as if she could sense a terrible storm raging somewhere outside the great earthen rings. Even through Nymeria, even with the grotto beneath the castle blunting his influence besides, Arya could feel Rickon's insensate fury. Or was that Shaggydog's? It seemed to her they were one spirit in two skins, one soul in two bodies. Though the sound was dimmed by countless miles, Nymeria could hear her wild brother howling. Dead, my foot, Arya thought flatly. We'll have a real job setting him to rights. Part of Nymeria missed her brother desperately, wanted to run as a pack made whole, but more of her was afraid of the beast Shaggydog had become. With reason, Arya thought. There's running down Bloody Mummers and scattered Frey bands and then there's tearing through a band of Skagosi hunters as if they're sheep. With some trepidation, Arya bid Sansa and Val goodnight and went to her room, reaching through Nymeria this time. Immediately she wished she hadn't, glimpses of Shaggydog's rampages through the ranks of the dead making her tremble. That's not you, girl, Arya thought soothingly. Not me, either. That's not us. Shaggydog must have heard in his near-mindless way, knocking a fleeing lanky monster on its face in his frenzy to escape Arya's attempts to calm his sister. That the wounds his teeth made began to close as soon as they were opened mattered nothing. The cold flesh wriggling in his mouth was not proofed against the Other, ripping heads from shoulders and limbs from sockets with sheer abandon- and the wounds the Other made did not close, the cold flesh that squished between his teeth and gushed beneath his claws did not grow back. Even better, there were more brothers, more sisters with every wood they crashed through, over every berm they crested. Swaths of dead, tribes of hungry ones, lone giants, all fell or fled before the iron fist of countless gnashing teeth. Even the enemies awing could not attack without fear, for every time they came with breath of freezing needles, walls of bronze fire burst from nowhere to punish them soundly. More than once a cold body plummeted from the sky, anything unlucky enough to survive the impact soon beset by the Pack. Faster. The voice was Jon's, it made Arya's heart hammer, but it was not her to whom he called, nor did she get a glimpse of him though there were men among their number. Many of them were as wild as the wolves they ran with, but toward the rear a few who weren't moon-mad trailed the Pack closely. Faster, faster. Their pace was breakneck, the Pack ravenous and growing with every mile, but the imperative did not subside. To the north, lightning flashed, a tree tall enough to catch the clouds in its bare white branches. The ground trembled, quivered, the tremors growing worse by the minute. A race, Arya realized, one Jon hopes desperately to win.

She was out of bed and on her feet before she knew it, though her door opened before she could put hand to handle. Sansa stood in the threshold, hair a wild hip-length tangle, blue eyes wide and face flushed. Well, there's some color at least, a small part of Arya thought.

"They're not coming by sea at all." Sansa said, breathing hard, though not half so hard as Arya. "Over the Umber lands and the Lonely Hills, trying to catch the Others by surprise by taking the land route."

"Why would Jon do that?" Arya asked, panting with the effort it took to keep up with her elder sister.

"Maybe he thought the seas were being watched. Maybe he thought the Others would never expect a run across their flank. Or there were just too many Skagosi for a long voyage."

"But the dead-"

"-are nothing to dragonfire. Nymeria saw them sure as Lady did, which means you saw them as well as I-" A sudden clap of thunder to the north drowned the rest of Sansa's words. "Bran has roused Lord Howland by now. The whole castle will have heard that, at least we don't have to tell the whole of Winterfell the Others are making another push."

"So far as I've seen, the Others don't bother to support the dead with lightning and thunder. This is something else, Sansa." Something worse, though she was afraid to say the words. A moment later the tremors started, the stones of Winterfell trembling and trickles of dust falling from the ceiling.

"Go to the grotto. You'll be safer there and better able to help Nymeria besides- and the Others won't be able to interfere with your warg-bond."

"They can do that?" Arya asked, feeling ill.

"So far, it's proven smarter to assume the Others can do something than can't. And Howling Wind's not been able to work mischief with me in the grotto, so you should be safe."

"What about you? Whatever's going on out there won't care that you're taller, or prettier-" Somewhere in the godswood, the dragon roared and Arya jumped. Well, she thought shakily, the old gods took everything else for their own, why not dragons too? The grotto, it turned out, was full of Children of the Forest with their hands on the trunks of the trees or else talking to each other, the sounds of branches snapping the only bit of True Tongue she heard. Winterfell's helpless or noncombatants were kept out of the way in the off-tunnels and the big chambers the Children had already dug, the occasional tremor piling dirt on an unfortunate here and there. Arya squeezed into one of the smaller chambers, sidled past a sister of some storm lord, then sat and reached for Nymeria.

Topside the weather had grown steadily worse, with the wind gusting strong enough to send anything from crates to barrels sliding across the street. The snow was coming down harder as well and faster besides, looking sure to become a blizzard sooner rather than later. All the stories of the Others speak of cold, she thought, not storms, not these fearsome winds. Nymeria's ears perked up at a new sound, faint but constant in the growing cacophony. The voices were a thunder all their own, sounding from the trackless wolfswood. They don't care if we hear them, Arya thought, her stomach knotting back in the chamber. They are done with waiting. Yet, there was nothing approaching from the northeast, no pack of hundreds bounding down the banks of the White Knife. They're not trying to intercept Jon, Arya realized. They want to win the day before it dawns. Above the treetops of the wolfswood, Nymeria watched a tempest of swirling ice, mist, fog and snow roil into view. They must have taken the time to bury all the North with it. The trees again began to shake, snap, topple by the dozen as mammoth after mammoth shuffled out of their boughs. The cold giants had come to play and play to win, it seemed, with a half-dozen of the beasts lumbering about like living buildings. The nearest of them sent over one of its cold volleys. A thirty-foot section of the outer ring simply blew apart, the cold giants cheering over the noise of the storm. Another projectile flew and one of Winterfell's towers snapped like a twig, collapsing into the ramparts beside it. More lightning, more thunder, this time from directly above. Breathing had become difficult, even for Nymeria.

"WODYN," the giants called, voices stronger than the storm when sounded in unison. "WODYN, WODYN!" Another giant stepped out of the cover of the trees, bald but bearded to his feet. He wore no furs unlike the others, clad only in a clout around his waist. Even from far off, Arya could see he had eyes for nothing but the tempest coiling above Winterfell. He raised the staff in his hand and started in the Old Tongue himself, the storm growing worse by the word. Unlike his fellows, the storm-speaker had no trouble being heard over the storm, nonplussed even as the winds soon had his beard whipping to the side. At first Arya thought it was just an echo, then she realized he was loud enough to be heard both by Nymeria atop the ramparts of Winterfell as well as by Arya herself in the tunnels below. More giants joined the old storm-speaker, voices hale and hearty as they joined their voices to his. Their words were too quick to hear and besides, the ramparts were soon fit only to be flung from. As Nymeria left her feet to land on a tent against the wall below, the storm-speaker's voice reached a crescendo.

"HIMINFIODR, BRJOT MUR PRAH!"A bolt of lightning arced down from the tempest, sawing through stone as well as steel while bodies flew every which way. Due north it danced, knocking down towers of mortared stone as if they were made of paper until the way was clear, the dead pooling through the breaches like blood through linen.

"EGIR VERGIR!" boomed the storm-speaker, trees and boulders alike splitting at the sound.

"EGIR VERGRIR!" the other giants bellowed in answer. Then they raised their weapons and charged, cold brutes clinging to their heels and still more dead surging out of the trees after them.

Get out of there, girl, Arya thought, trying to force through Nymeria's dizziness. Get away from them. Every so often another projectile would reduce a building, bulwark or wall to rubble, knocking Nymeria silly all over again. All told, she didn't get a hundred feet before the first of the giants forced through the last of the rings, plowing through crannogmen even as they feathered him with dragonglass-tipped arrows. Sickening wet sounds and the smell of blood filled the air as he kept at them with fist and foot and maul, his fellows quick to join him. In short order the open field between the inner ring and Winterfell's curtain wall proper ran slick and red, the giants pushing forward inexorably even as spears were thrust and arrows loosed. Only when their mauls and axes bit into the stones of the curtain wall did a discordant note sound in the storm-song, followed swiftly by a rising sea of golden fire. Nymeria blinked the stars out of her eyes, pulled her lolling tongue back past her teeth, and beheld the white dragon perched on a still-standing section of the wall, screaming at the giants. Though the giants and their ilk were stiffer made than the dead men burning all around them, more than one massive hand clapped to its owner's eyes, roaring in surprise at the second sun that had dawned before them. Wherever the giants had come from, it had neither light nor heat and soon even they could not stand before the dragon's wroth. Blinded and burned, those who could still stand turned away at last, fleeing into the freezing wind where the dragon could not pursue. He tried, of course, but as soon as he was awing the gusts buffeted him and sent him head over tail into another mob of dead. The distraction gave the giants a precious few moments, enough to get clear of the golden flames and flee back out into the open. The white dragon's roars were joined by a sound that made Nymeria's heart skip a beat. So numerous was the Pack that the Call they sounded was enough to hamper the giants' storm-song, the roar that came in answer stilling the swirling tempest above, if only for the moment. With hundreds of yards still to go to reach safety the giants halted, turning to face Pack as it surged closer. One among the giants thumped his chest, screaming defiance even as a fresh burn ate away the skin of his face, his beard reduced to a few limp strands knotted around a single skull. The wild fervor cooled into numbness as the green dragon fell upon him and his fellows, bronze finishing much of what gold had begun. Those outside the footprint of the dragon's breath had still the Pack to contend with, only a precious few reaching the bulwark of the snows. Surveying the carnage, burns still bubbling up and down his body, the giant let out an agonized scream, fists held aloft even as the swirling snows swallowed him.

The brutes who lagged behind needed some little sorting out, though it was still death if a maul or spear met the flesh of a brother or sister. Even so, they were beyond hopelessly outnumbered and soon the Pack was running through the same breach the giants' lightning bolt had opened, creeping men working to shore up the damage as best they could once they were past. Arya kept Nymeria on her feet until she reached the bedchamber, collapsing into sleep while Arya returned to the chamber. More than half the torches people had been wielding had gone out, and much of the Childrens' light beside. Then someone was muttering in her ear in a tongue she didn't know, easing her into a sitting position. Arya blinked the person into view, seeing that she was one of the horselords' wise women. They're supposed to be old, though, Arya thought bizarrely. This one hasn't yet seen thirty. Slowly she stood, the woman's deft arm all that kept her from going right back down again. Feebly she felt the back of her head to see if she'd hit it, but there was no blood. Small mercies, she thought, walking shakily out of the chamber while the rest of the people wondered if it was all over. She found the outside world an utter devastation, rubble lying everywhere and bodies besides. Though, unlike at White Harbor, there were already people picking up after the attack. Corpses were piled and burned straightaway, rubble cleared and what could still be of use was put where it was needed. A number of new faces had come to Winterfell, many of them instantly recognizable as Skagosi. Among them Arya spotted a shaman with a dead eye, contentedly scratching some breed of lion behind the ears. When he noticed her, he gave her a knowing wink. What could only be unicorns were present as well, sniffing inquisitively after any grasses and weeds they could pull up from between the stones of the street. The green dragon began to circle overhead, lower each time. Though Arya had braced herself for it, she still let out a gasp at the sight of Shaggydog. The still-twitching arm of one of the brutes hung from his teeth, stilling only when a wolf on two legs tore it away, jaws locking around it and crunching clear through bone. Before her eyes the man-wolf melted away, a manling of Robb's coloring and build standing in its place. Rickon's breathing did not sound injured, or even much hurried. The cold doesn't seem to bother him, Arya thought as she stepped toward her brother, pulling off a dead wildling's fur to slap 'round his shoulders.

"Rickon." she said, his blue Tully eyes flickering. He knows his name. "Where's Jon?" 'Jon' he knew as well, turning to look at the green dragon as it touched down. Almost as soon as the man on his back slid off, the woman seated behind him now firmly in his arms, the dragon was off again. Arya could do no more than stare as the man came over while the woman was swamped by hollering horselords. Jon's face was flushed, he looked exhausted and he was covered in dirt and grime, yet he seemed none the worse for wear. Arya could not still her heart enough to think of anything to say, her mind could not rest on one thought for more than half a moment. "The King in the North," she finally got out, giving a trembling curtsy. "The King in the North," someone repeated, and someone else, and on, until Arya's words were echoing all around her, yet for all the voices none rose above a reverent whisper.