The Weirwood Queen

by theredwolf17

Lady is buried beneath a weirwood tree, and Sansa prays to the old gods for Lady to stay with her. The gods hear her prayer, in a manner of speaking. Everything changes. Crossposting from Ao3.

176. Arya XXIX

Mid April- Mid May, 306 AC

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As dusk fell, the wind rose.

Arya tucked the loose end of her scarf inside the hood of her cloak. The wind was as cruel and sharp as shattering glass, and the gusts were always worst atop the battlements. Dozens of silk banners flapped and snapped over the gatehouse, a defiant blaze of color against the dark clouds. There was cloth of every hue and shade, richly dyed and blazoned with the sigils of the lords and knights who defended Winterfell.

The eagle of House Mallister was the first to take flight. Arya raised her Myrish far-eye as the wind viciously ripped the banner from its pole. Water dancers were supposed to see what others missed; she mustn't neglect her practice. Arya found the banner swiftly, ignoring Nymeria's butting against her. She tracked the wisp of purple through the air, watching it twist and turn over Winterfell before finally landing in a snow drift by the Great Keep.

Arya lowered the far-eye with a shiver, burying her other hand in the she-wolf's fur. She'd climbed to the battlements nearly every day for the past month. Arya couldn't help herself, no more than she could help picking at a scab. Stepping up to a crenel was easy enough, so why did she always hesitate before doing what she'd come here to do?

Her heart fluttering with mounting dread, Arya raised the far-eye.

Down below a knight crossed the drawbridge, his horse carefully picking its way through the piles of filthy slush. The same grey-brown slush marked the well trafficked streets of the Wintertown. Snow choked the side streets and alleys; icicles lined the roofs like endless rows of teeth. More icicles dangled from the rough-hewn longhalls which stood outside the walls of the Wintertown, thin tendrils of smoke rising from their chimneys.

But those were nothing compared to the clouds of smoke rising from the countless fires of the camp beyond the Wintertown. With the far-eye's help, Arya examined the ants who stood around the fires. She saw black brothers and northmen and men of the south, grizzled old greybeards and gallant young knights, bakers and smiths, laundresses and camp followers. She even spied a troupe of mummers, shaking furiously in the cold as they walked from the covered wayns where they slept to the longhall where they performed.

Arya wondered when each of them had begun to regret coming north.

Fear cuts deeper than swords, or so Syrio Forel had taught her. The cold cut deeper still. A sword wound could be stitched; there was no stitching up frostbite. Once the skin turned corpse-pale, there was naught that could be done. Next would come the bloody red blisters, then the black rot which ate away the flesh. Cutting away the afflicted flesh was the only way to keep the rot from spreading. Delay too long and the price was death, as even the youngest northern children knew.

But knowing and seeing were not the same.

And she'd seen too much. Noses missing their tips. Ears reduced to scarred stumps. Cheeks and chins bandaged to hide where lumps of flesh had been cut away. Fingers and toes shortened or removed entirely, the former plain as day, the latter only revealed by the tell-tale limp.

Those who worked or stood guard outside suffered the worst, no matter how well they bundled up or how often they took refuge beside a smoking brazier. But woodsmoke wasn't the only smell upon the air. It didn't take a water dancer to notice the scent of fear.

The siege of Winterfell had begun early in third moon. When Arya learned that Maester Luwin's ravens were dead and that Olyvar's dragon wouldn't wake, she'd expected that a vast host of wights would arrive by nightfall. Instead the wights had arrived piecemeal, coming from every direction. By night they trudged implacably through the knee-deep snow; by day they were statues with awful ice-blue eyes that burned like stars, standing vaguely arrayed just outside the range of the camp's catapults.

The catapults ought to have been easy to assemble. All their parts were kept together, stored beneath a makeshift roof to keep them clear of snow and ice. An obvious, prudent measure, and one which worked perfectly. Or rather, it did until the brutally windy night which collapsed the roof.

Between the fallen timbers and heaps of heavy snow, it took half a day and dozens of men to clear the debris. That done, they worked to identify which parts were still usable for catapults. The effort of such hard toil in the bitter cold claimed several lives, and there was almost a riot when each man rose as a wight. But the work continued nonetheless, for the chance to destroy any dormant wights would end at dusk when they were able to move once more.

Arya stared at an ice-encrusted catapult through her far-eye, a lump in her throat. It had been a fruitless effort, in the end. The first volley of rocks crushed a few wights; the second crushed none. The men's cries of dismay could be heard from Winterfell as the wights suddenly broke from their stupor, retreating out of range before resuming their motionless vigil. Some men wept; others raged; all cursed the black clouds which smothered the sun. They weren't even able to take the catapults apart. By morning they were frozen solid beneath a thick coat of ice, a constant reminder of their failure.

That night the wights made a clumsy attack on the camp. The next day Robb sent out groups of northmen on skith to slay what wights they could. The wights moved to defend themselves, but the northmen had the advantage. Whilst the dead men plodded in the knee-deep snow, the northmen darted here and there on their skith, running circles around the dead men as they set them afire or hacked them to pieces.

A petty victory, and short-lived. Every night more dead men had come, thousands of them, forming an unbroken line that encircled Winterfell and the camp.

Biting her lip hard, Arya finally trained her far-eye on the enemy.

Dead men, they called them, but the first wight Arya spied was a woman. A wildling, judging by the style of the furs frozen stiff about her heavy limbs. Her eyes burned blue above a nose and cheeks turned black with rot, stark against the deathly pallor of her skin. Heedless of his ancient foe, a grizzled northman in a black surcoat stood beside her. At some point he must have walked through a thicket of brambles; the thorns almost hid the white sunburst blazoned across his chest.

Nymeria whined as Arya looked away, her stomach roiling. It roiled harder when her gaze landed on a merchant boy. He looked to be nine or ten, but it was hard to tell. An axe blow had cleaved his head right down the middle. The two halves leaned away from each other, the great rent of bone and brains separating the pair of horribly blue eyes. Arya tasted bile in her throat as she stared, wondering at the fell sorcery which could force such a pitiful creature onwards.

And there were so, so many of them. She'd counted fifteen haphazard ranks, but the wights were countless. Distant and terrible, Robb's voice echoed in her head. A hundred thousand strong at least, and gods know how many more will come.

Arya prayed no more dead men came. Bad enough that there were mountain clansmen scattered amongst them, but of late they'd been joined by northmen from further south. The Greatjon stoutly declared that the wights in Umber flame-red and grey must be deserters, cravens who'd abandoned the King in the North's host during the retreat from Castle Black.

"My Hoarfrost would never let Last Hearth be overrun," he'd said, thumping his chest with a ham-sized fist. Yet Arya couldn't help but notice the crow's feet at his eyes, the flecks of grey in his dark hair. That night she'd dreamt of her visit to Last Hearth, of riding with Mya and sparring with Dacey and chatting happily with Jeyne and Alys at dinner. Then frost began to grow upon the timbers of the great hall. Laughter ceased, fires went out, the color drained from the world, and Hoarfrost stepped up to take her for a dance, his black hands as cold as the ice in his eyes.

Arya lowered the far-eye, unable to look any longer. Had Last Hearth fallen? Please, let the Greatjon be right, she begged the old gods yet again. Please, let him be right and not Alys.

For while the Greatjon refused to believe that Last Hearth could fall, Alys Karstark had no such hope for Karhold. Arya fervently prayed that she was wrong. Alys had bade farewell to her father Lord Rickard and her brothers Harrion and Torrhen went they rode south to war, leaving her only her brother Eddard for company. Almost two years had passed before Harrion returned bearing their father's and their brother's bones.

When Jon pleaded for northmen to help defend Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, both Lord Harrion and Eddard had answered the call and survived the fighting. Only one had survived the journey back to Karhold. When Eddard complained of a stitch in his side, Lord Harrion thought it no more than some lingering injury. They were only a few scant leagues from home when Eddard fell from his horse, stricken down by a burst belly which killed him within a sennight.

A nudge from Nymeria brought Arya back to the present. The she-wolf had a keen nose. She knew who was coming long before Rickon emerged from the door to the gatehouse steps. Shaggydog followed at his heels, a massive, furry black shadow. Arya bit her lip as her baby brother came to stand beside her, the air growing faintly warmer as he approached.

Though a scarf hid most of Rickon's face, it didn't hide his scowl. "Why are you always up here?"

"Why are you here when you're supposed to be studying sums and poetry?" Arya replied, peevish.

Rickon shrugged, his breath steaming in the cold. "Maester Luwin got called away. Pate took over the lesson, but he kept getting distracted by something outside the window. So I left."

"Robb won't be happy," Arya warned.

"If he even notices," Rickon said bitterly.

Arya winced. Between commanding his host and dealing with his bannermen, Robb was occupied nearly every second of every hour. There were dark circles under his eyes more oft than not; her brother's face hadn't been so lean since he returned from warring in the south. Even his visits to see little Jeyne had dwindled. Robb only visited the nursery for a few minutes twice a day, once upon waking and once before retiring to bed. That was all the time and attention which his beloved daughter could command; his siblings commanded little and less.

Rickon ought to see more of Robb than anyone else. When Arya left for the south, Rickon had taken her place as their brother's cupbearer. That ended when Robb departed for the Wall a few moons later, leaving Rickon behind as the Stark in Winterfell and taking another boy up the kingsroad.

Robb's new cupbearer was a boy of thirteen named Halleck Crowl. When the King in the North's envoys returned from Skagos with a cargo of precious dragonglass, Halleck had come with them. His father, the Lord of Deepdown, had sent him in hopes that he might find some place at court.

Rickon's place, Arya thought resentfully. Halleck should've been dismissed when the host returned to Winterfell. Instead, for whatever reason, Robb had kept the Skagg rather than return what rightfully belonged to Rickon.

So instead of waiting on their brother, Rickon was here with her. At some point he'd wandered toward the crenel, Shaggydog at his side. Both boy and direwolf stood and stared, gazing out at the camp and the line of foes beyond.

"The war for the dawn," Rickon huffed, unimpressed. "Fighting monsters should be glorious, not boring. Robb might as well be fighting the battle of Sweetroot again."

Arya blinked, perplexed. "What?"

"Don't you see it?" Rickon asked in a tone that suggested she was stupid. "The Others command like Lord Tywin did, sitting on their arse in the back with the reserve. Only instead of knights and men-at-arms they send wights to go and fight for them. They're not risking their pretty faces coming in range of dragonglass arrows or spears."

"I guess," Arya admitted. "But at Sweetroot if you cut your foe's head off he'd stop attacking you, not keep going until you'd hacked the corpse to bits."

And Robb didn't have to worry about his men's slain corpses rising against him, she thought grimly. Thank the gods that thus far only those who perished outside the walls of Winterfell and the Wintertown returned as wights. Arya flexed her hands inside her gloves, remembering the pain of being pecked by an angry three-eyed crow. Some part of Brandon the Builder's protection must still linger, though whether it would last...

"It's still boring," Rickon complained. "We're battling ancient demons and walking corpses! It should be like Old Nan's tales about the Long Night, exciting and thrilling and- and—" he gestured, frustrated. "Not like this."

Arya's mouth was as dry and parched as the air. Unable to speak, she stared at the sky. There was no moon. There never was. Dark clouds stretched away as far as the eye could see, just as they had since the solstice. It was wrong, wrong and wretched.

The sky ought to change as often as a lady changed her gown. There should be days with cloudless blue horizons and nights with endless stars; there should be days where clouds concealed and revealed the golden sun and nights where clouds glowed silver with moonlight; there should be light drizzles and pouring rain, hard sleet and soft snow.

Instead there was naught but the relentless gloom. Days came and went without sunrise or sunset. At dawn the sky slowly shifted from black to grey; at dusk it shifted from grey to black. Minutes and hours and days blurred together, monotonous and bleak and so deep she could drown—

Ser Perwyn's voice broke in. "You'd best not be late to dinner, princess." He eyed Rickon slightly nervously, his gaze flitting to Shaggydog. "Nor you, my prince."

When her sworn sword offered his arm, Arya ignored it. She didn't need Ser Perwyn's help to descend the steps from the battlements. Though always dutiful, her favorite of her sworn swords had become excessively vigilant of late.

Upon reaching the base of the steps, Arya glanced over the other guards who awaited her. Truth be told, all of them had acted strangely since the siege began. Ser Joseth Woolfield spent every free hour in the practice yard. Ondrew had ceased gambling and given all his winnings to one of the almshouses in Wintertown; Porther visited Wintertown as often as he could and returned reeking of ale and musk.

Rickon's guards were much the same. Osha went nowhere without her dragonglass dagger, as if the Others might burst in at any moment. Will Wull was always tossing a heavy stone ball between his hands; Shadd was always nibbling at some scrap saved from the last meal.

Shadd wasn't the only one who sniffed loudly when the scent of bread and meat came wafting through the frigid air. Arya's belly rumbled, eager for the meal. The knights and men-at-arms who crowded the inner yard were just as eager. They only briefly parted to make way for the Starks before they resumed jostling and pushing toward the doors of Winterfell's Great Hall.

Not all of them would be allowed to enter the warm hall. Though a little time yet remained before supper, the Great Hall was already three quarters full. Benches and trestle tables were crammed together to fit as many men as possible, narrowing the center aisle which led to the dais. There was barely enough room for two men to walk abreast, let alone two direwolves the size of horses. Men leaned forward as Nymeria and Shaggydog strode down the aisle, careful to avoid brushing against the direwolves' bulk.

There were no other direwolves in the hall. Ghost and Grey Wind were out in the camp, one watching over the black brothers and the other watching over the northern host. Summer was in the camp too, watching over stupid Theon. Not that Summer was like to be here anyway. Bran never came down to supper.

Sansa was absent tonight too. When Arya left her sister earlier in the afternoon she'd been huddled in bed with a nasty headache and no appetite. Poor Sansa. Her moonblood had returned less than eight weeks after giving birth, much to her dismay.

Maester Perceval, on the other hand, had been delighted. He'd happily declared it a blessing from the Mother, a sign that Her Grace was as fertile as she was fair. Idiot. The maester ought to have noticed that headaches put Sansa in a foul temper. She'd nearly bitten his head off before banishing him from her chamber.

The dais was the warmest part of the hall by fair. Arya left her own usual seat for Alys Karstark, instead taking the empty chair beside Olyvar. King Aegon, rather. Her goodbrother always had his kingliness on in public. The only hint of Olyvar was how he scratched Holdfast's floppy ears as the hound sat under the table.

Wylla, meanwhile, was scratching Shaggydog's shoulder. The direwolf stood at the other end of the table, between Wylla's seat and that of her betrothed. Shaggydog's black fur made Wylla's freshly dyed braid stand out even more than it did already. Bored of her usual green or teal, Wylla had somehow contrived to get ahold of a dye that turned her hair an eye-smarting shade of bright, violent pink. Rickon seemed unsure what to make of it, though he was quickly distracted by Margaery asking about his day.

Robb sat in the high seat with Margaery at his left hand. Jon Snow sat at his right, bareheaded and garbed in faded black velvet. The lord commander made a shabby contrast to the finely dressed kings on either side of him. Grey direwolves raced across Robb's pure white velvet surcoat; orange phoenixes soared and scarlet dragons roared upon Aegon's quartered surcoat of sapphire and ebony velvet. Iron longswords gleamed in her brother's circlet of hammered bronze; fiery rubies blazed in her goodbrother's circlet of smoky Valyrian steel.

Arya wasn't sure whose notion it had been for the two kings and the lord commander to regularly sup together in the Great Hall. Olyvar's, most likely. Odd, that. Her goodbrother was too stupid to realize that Robb was more man than mythical hero until both Jon and Arya told him so. Yet of the three commanders Olyvar was the least solitary, the most diligent about the importance of diplomacy. Then again, Jon cared nothing for who ruled the Seven Kingdoms. A show of unity served his purposes too, just as it served Robb's desire to keep his army in good spirits.

Her own spirits lifted as the meal began. Soon after the start of the siege, Robb had considered putting his household on the same rations as his soldiers. In the field, a commander who shared his men's hardships inspired the deepest of loyalty. Olyvar, however, had strongly disagreed. Soldiers might understand and appreciate such a gesture, but what of everyone else? Gossip was a fearful thing, especially in times of crisis. Seeing the royal families subsist upon plain fare might inspire loyalty. Or it might inspire rumors that the food was running out, rumors that would surely cause a panic.

In the end Jon had brokered a compromise. The royal households would continue to dine as they were accustomed to, but upon smaller portions of fewer dishes. Further, some small dainty or choice dish would be served to those who sat below the salt before they went back out into the bitter cold.

Tonight the first dish Sweetrobin set before her was crabmeat poached in butter. The crabs came all the way from the Whispering Sound, sent by Lady Philippa Costayne and delivered by her brother Ser Garmund. Nor was that the only gift brought to Winterfell by the group of knights from the Reach who arrived less than a fortnight before the siege.

Ser Bertram Beesbury and his daughter Florence had sent the best mead which the Honeyholt could boast, the same mead with which Owen Costayne filled King Aegon's cup whilst staring wistfully at the crabs. Leyla Fossoway had sent dried apples and a barrel of superb cider by way of her cousin Ser Tanton; Perriane Peake had sent peaches in honey, sacks of dried pears, and bags of nuts by way of her exasperated son Ser Barquen.

The most interesting gift had been the smallest. Old Ser Willam Wythers had brought Jon a pair of gloves from his great-niece Maris, black silk lined with grey squirrel fur. When Jon tried to put them on he found another gift tucked inside, a black wool kerchief embroidered with a black silk crow and a white silk wolf. Pinned to the kerchief was a tiny note written in even tinier letters. Jon had reluctantly showed it to Arya a few days later at dinner, hoping that she could decipher the ornate script.

As it turned out, she could. Mostly. "As you have defended us, so may the gods defend you," Arya read. "I can't make out the signature, there's a water mark on it." Teardrops, in truth. But if Jon hadn't noticed, she saw no need to tell him. "I'm not sure... Alyce, perhaps?" She tilted her head. "Ceryse?"

"Selyse." Jon looked stricken. "I... she shouldn't have." He glanced at the kerchief in his hand. With a guilty blush, he crumpled it in his fist. "I... I'd best be rid of it."

"You'll do no such thing," Alys Karstark said indignantly. "Do you know how many hours it must've taken to stitch that? Hours that might've been spent doing something else?"

That had been shortly before Alys gave birth. Unwilling to argue with a heavily pregnant woman, Jon had hesitated. Meanwhile Arya shifted uneasily in her seat, trying not to think about the carved wooden statue of a direwolf shoved deep in one of her chests.

"It's not a marriage proposal, stupid," Arya blurted into the awkward silence. "It's not breaking your vows to let someone show they appreciate you."

"Well said," Cley Cerwyn agreed, covering a wheezing cough.

As if prompted by her thoughts, Cley coughed again as Arya spread butter on bread fresh from the ovens. She chewed it slowly, frowning. Arya couldn't recall the last time a meal passed without Cley coughing at least a few times. His maester had been concerned enough to insist that "young Lord Cley" take a draught to balance his humors before visiting the birthing room to see Alys and their babe. In honor of both Cley's grandsire and his king, the small, sickly boy was dubbed Robard.

"He's drinking a little more milk now," Alys was telling King Aegon, who'd asked after the babe's health. "Though Maester Rhodry mislikes how little he cries."

"He'll be crying soon enough," Margaery said, offering Alys a reassuring smile. "In the meantime, would you like to have his portrait drawn?"

Arya snorted. Margaery certainly didn't waste time. Just this afternoon she'd finally run out of ladies-in-waiting to draw; Arya'd overheard her telling Robb at the start of supper. With Merry Crane's portrait finished, Margaery needed a new subject whose portrait could fill some of the many hours spent cooped up indoors. Boredom wasn't queenly, but Arya would eat her boot if Margaery wasn't bored out of her mind. Truth be told she'd swear Margaery was delighted when Daryn Hornwood and Cley Cerwyn quarreled so fiercely that the queen was forced to intercede before it came to blows.

The arrival of flaky pies stuffed with carrots, parsnips, onions, and chunks of tender beef distracted Arya for some time. When she turned her attention back to the conversation she quickly regretted it. Much as she loved her niece and nephew, it was exasperating to hear them talked of so often. She finished her pie to the sound of Robb proudly informing everyone that little Jeyne had a fourth tooth coming in, her crawling was improving, and she had mastered the words ma-ma and da-da.

All Aegon had to boast of was Gawaen's rapt interest in peekaboo.

"We played for at least a quarter hour and Gawaen still hadn't tired of it," Olyvar said fondly.

"A quarter hour?" Robb asked, one eyebrow raised.

Aegon frowned, acknowledging the silent rebuke. "It shan't become a habit." He paused, thoughtful.

"Of course, a man requires some brief respite from his burdens." Aegon glanced to the side, catching Jon's eye. "Staring at maps and drawing up plans and riding hither and yon is all very well, but it wears a man down to the bone."

Arya bit her lip, nursing a faint inkling of what was coming next.

"That reminds me," Jon said casually. "I meant to seek both your counsel about something."

"Oh?" Robb asked.

Jon idly prodded at his food. "I'm concerned about one of my best captains. From dusk to dawn he leads a squad in the camp's defense; from dawn to past midday he confers with other officers and sees to the needs of his men. A few scant hours of sleep, and then he's back to work."

Robb took a sip of mead. "Why should that cause concern?"

"This captain is well respected and beloved, too beloved to lose." Jon shook his head. "His men suspect nothing amiss, but I cannot help but mark the heavy toll this war has taken on his strength and spirits. Should the captain fall..."

"Captains fall every day," Aegon sighed. "Besides, the captain may be hardier than you think. Why risk removing a capable man when it may prove unnecessary? No, best to wait and see. Should he falter, then you may remove him."

"I disagree," Robb said sharply. "A captain faltering at the wrong moment may turn the tide of battle. You must act, and act decisively. Tell the captain of your concerns, command him to take better care of himself, and be done with it."

The sheer gall nearly made Arya choke on her mead. How many times had she said much the same? How many times had Robb ignored her?

Her brother must've felt her scowl. Robb met her furious gaze, then glanced at Jon and Aegon. Their faces were expressionless. Robb narrowed his eyes, ominously silent.

"I take your meaning," Robb said at last. "Come," he said to Jon, "we will be wanted in the camp ere long." Both Robb and Jon stood, one with a look of grim resolve and the other with a look of quiet satisfaction.

Aegon's face was unreadable as he rose to his feet. "I shall come too." He paused, beckoning at his pair of squires. "Robin, you're dismissed for the night. Owen, run along and see how my lady wife fares, fetch Bert, then meet us in the stables."

Owen hastened to obey, but Robin stayed put. When the kings and lord commander were gone, he slumped into the empty seat beside Arya. "He never lets me go," her cousin said, blinking back tears.

Because you'd be as useful as a snow knight in summer, Arya thought. Battle was no place for a lad who'd only begun learning to ride and fight within the past year. Besides, staying up all night was hard enough for grown men, let alone a fragile boy of thirteen.

"Come, there's no need for that," Margaery soothed from down the table. "King Aegon never takes Monterys Velaryon either, does he?" Robin nodded, sniffling. Margaery smiled. "There, don't you see? His Grace cannot risk losing the Lord of the Eyrie or the Lord of Driftmark."

"Bert is a lord too," Rickon said unhelpfully.

Robin sniffled louder as Margaery glared at Rickon. He squirmed, his fondness for his goodsister warring with his dislike of his cousin. Wylla idly scratched Shaggydog's torn ear, clearly uninterested in getting involved.

"Lord Brax has two younger brothers," Margaery said once she'd gathered her thoughts. "Not like our Sweetrobin. Why, you're not even betrothed yet."

Now it was Arya's turn to squirm. Robb hadn't mentioned a betrothal for some time, but his thoughts on the matter were plain. Respect for the vows of a sworn sword might stay Robb's hand, but not his disappointment. Guilt churned in her belly as Myranda Royce came and fetched Robin, her easy japes making him give a halfhearted smile.

Arya couldn't smile. Not with the question currently lodged in her throat. Keen to avoid being overheard, she moved to sit by Margaery. No one seemed to notice or care, yet it felt as though the entire hall was staring at her as she struggled to get the words out.

"Marry you off?" Margaery's brow creased. "Robb hasn't said anything of late. But you know my lord husband keeps much to himself." She paused for a moment, contemplative. "He did mention Helman Tallhart hinting that his nephew Beren was amiable and near your age."

Beren Tallhart? Arya wrinkled her nose. "What else did he say?"

"Little." Margaery gave an elegant shrug. "He muttered something about clouds and cages and went back to his solar."

That night Arya crept into bed thinking of clouds and cages and battles raging in the dark. She woke at the hour of the owl, roused by a sudden scream. Nymeria shifted at the foot of the bed, her ears pricked up. Long though she listened, there were no more screams, and Arya fell back into a fitful sleep.

The next morning Arya found a rust-colored patch of snow beneath the maester's tower. She stared at it with queer fascination, unable to look away. Her eyes marked the imprint of a body in the snow; her nose marked the coppery tang of blood upon the air.

They buried Pate in the lichyard just before noon. Maester Luwin swayed dizzily, looking as if he might faint. Two of his assistants helped hold the maester up; the rest bore witness, silent and stricken.

Arya bore witness too. At least one Stark ought to be there, and she was the only one willing and able to come. Robb hadn't yet returned from the camp, Sansa didn't know Pate, and Bran never left his rooms. Rickon had refused to come, too overwhelmed by fury and grief.

There were plenty of fresh graves in the lichyard. Theodan the baker, taken by some wasting illness. Nage the groom, taken by a splinter that festered. Wyl the falconer, taken by winter fever; Gilliane the serving girl, taken by a falling icicle larger than she was.

Nightfall found Arya on the battlements, clutching her far-eye so tightly she feared denting the bronze. Wights didn't carry torches, but the defender's torches gave enough light to glimpse the contours of the battle. No longer did the wights attack at random. Their masters had given them purpose, moving their thralls like puppets on strings. Dead men massed first here, then there, probing for a weak point in the camp's palisade. Once Arya glimpsed Robb riding toward one of the camp's timber watchtowers, Grey Wind loping by his side and the Stark banner streaming before him.

Time passed strangely, the days and nights bleeding together in a dull grey blur. Sansa quit her bed, as beautiful and warm and queenly as ever as she returned to keeping her husband's court. That was a task that only she could do, a role that had been her destiny since birth.

Not like Arya. What was the point of being her sister's sworn sword? Sansa had four Kingsguard and more than a dozen household knights, all brave and battle-tested. Arya was untested, unaccomplished, and unnecessary.

Yet it still hurt that Sansa didn't notice the increasing number of hours which Arya spent away from her side. There were no firm reproaches to argue with, no soft hints meant to make her feel hot with guilt. Arya was free to roam and wander as she pleased, and that freedom somehow chafed worse than any leash.

Nymeria shared her restless misery. She stuck to Arya like an enormous burr as she traipsed all over Winterfell in search of she knew not what. As Arya watched cooks chop vegetables and stir pots, the she-wolf sat quietly on her haunches, only moving when Gage banished them with a bun and a bone. As Arya and Rickon listened to Old Nan's tales, the she-wolf lay at the storyteller's feet, dozing as the her voice rose and fell, her cloudy eyes staring at nothing.

As Arya visited the mews so Patrek Mallister could show off his favorite merlin, the she-wolf paced with disappointment outside, her tongue lolling from her mouth. It was a good thing that Patrek couldn't hear Nymeria's thoughts as he stroked the bird's feathers and lamented the deep snow which prevented hawking. The she-wolf also stayed outside when Arya visited the forge, keeping Ser Perwyn company as Arya watched Master Theowyle and his apprentices work steel. They were honing swords, the steel blades shining as their edges grew sharper and sharper.

A pang sharper still struck Arya when she made the mistake of glancing at the lone empty workbench. Suddenly her eyes burned, though the smoke hadn't bothered her before. Arya stomped out of the forge without saying farewell, one hand rubbing savagely at her eyes.

"Is something the matter, princess?" Ser Perwyn asked. Behind him Byam and Harwood traded worried glances.

"Nothing," Arya snapped. "Come on, I want to go to the stables." It was just the smoke, that was all. Seeing her horses would lift her mood.

Though Arya and her companions were used to the stinging cold, the grooms who labored over the watering troughs were not. They shivered violently as they worked, trying to break the thick layer of ice which kept the horses from drinking. Arya felt a stab of pity, so sharp that she halted in her tracks. She bent, fiddling with her boot.

An excuse to linger, nothing more. Her boots were well made, the sturdy grey leather lined with fur. A gift from Jeyne Poole, just as the gloves she wore under her fur mittens were a gift from Meri. The maid had stitched Needle onto the back of each glove, in honor of her sixteenth name day.

That was more than a year ago, Arya abruptly realized. It was weeks since her seventeenth name day had come and gone. She'd spent her name day wondering if she would have another, if she would ever see Jeyne or Meri or Gendry or Uncle Brynden again.

The grooms cheered tiredly as the ice gave way. Arya barely noticed, distracted by the lump in her throat and the ache in her chest.

Lost in thought, she forgot to dodge when she passed Plumblossom's stall. He only just missed, his teeth clacking on air. Arya swore and Nymeria snarled, hungry to teach the gelding a lesson.

Alas, both Nymeria and Plumblossom knew full well that the threat was empty. The horse was Alys Karstark's favorite. Arya couldn't let the she-wolf sink her teeth into him, even if the bad-tempered gelding was the worst of horses.

Her own mounts, on the other hand, were the very best. Arya's spirits lifted as she tended to Cloudmane and Bullock. Ser Perwyn and her men-at-arms watched from a distance as she took first one then the other out to the paddock to stretch their legs. She'd circled the paddock several times on Bullock when they were joined by Mya Stone. She went afoot, leading her old mule Whitey.

Arya bit her lip. She ought to go over to Mya. She was one of Arya's ladies, the only one, really. Jeyne and Meri and Lady Smallwood were far away in the south, and Dacey Mormont didn't count. She was more of a sworn sword than a lady, though she was at ease in either hauberk or gown.

Mya, though... with her husband Ser Mychel serving as one of Robb's personal guards, Margaery should have claimed her as one of her ladies. Why hadn't she? Mya's bastardy couldn't be the issue; King Aegon had legitimized her. Perhaps it was because Mya favored riding leathers over gowns, or because she favored breeding mules over doing needlework or reading poetry.

Or perhaps it was her temper.

"Princess." Mya's voice was flat, emotionless. A scarf covered her lips; a tumble of short black hair hid her eyes, concealing their expression as Arya reluctantly returned her greeting.

For a while the paddock was silent save for the tread of hooves. Arya should speak, she knew, but the words wouldn't come. There was nothing good to say about the weather, and she didn't dare ask after Mya's health.

She hadn't meant to learn the secret which Mya had confided to Myranda Royce. It wasn't her fault that Nymeria had been within earshot, nonplussed by the sound of quiet sobbing. Another two-legger pup on the way was dull news, and nothing Arya said could convince the she-wolf otherwise. Pups were inevitable; two-leggers had to breed just like any other animal.

That gave Arya an idea. "How's the new foal?"

"Well enough." Mya spent more time in the stables than anywhere else. It had been her notion to try crossing shaggy northern donkeys with the sturdy garrons of the mountain clans. The eldest of their offspring were nearly two years old; the youngest had been born a fortnight past.

"The dam won't let it near her," Mya said suddenly.

Arya screwed up her face, a faint memory prodding at her. "Joseth says that happens, sometimes."

"Aye." Mya scuffed at the ground with her boot. "No one knows why. Just that it's most oft when it's the mare's first foal." Her voice went soft, almost lost beneath the wind. "Near a year of carrying the foal in her belly, and she kicked it away rather than have it nurse."

This was a conversation Arya wanted no part of. As the bells tolled the hour, she seized on the first excuse that came to mind. Mya couldn't take offense if Arya had to hasten away because she was late for a visit with Bran.

Unfortunately, Arya was so eager to be gone that she'd forgotten to keep her voice down. "I didn't know you meant to see Prince Bran today," Ser Perwyn said as she returned Bullock to his stall. "Will Queen Sansa be joining us?"

"No." Sansa was too busy; Arya couldn't recall when they'd last visited Bran together. She supposed Sansa must be visiting him whilst Arya was otherwise occupied, not that her sister spoke of it.

By sheer happenstance they met Cley and Alys near the bottom of the northwest tower. Little though she wanted company, Arya was glad to see them. They'd meant to return to Castle Cerwyn back in first moon; even with the snow, it was only a few day's ride. It was Lady Edythe who had persuaded them to stay, convinced that her son was too ill and her gooddaughter too pregnant to travel safely.

Though a month had passed since she gave birth, Alys still walked slowly and deliberately. "King Robb suggested that the queen draw some of his bannermen," she told Arya as they began to climb the steps, Ser Perwyn and Nymeria and the men-at-arms following behind. "My lord husband has the honor of going first."

Cley ran a hand through his hair, his cheeks flushed. "A gesture of boyhood friendship, that's all." He coughed. "What about you, princess? Off to guard the queen?"

Arya gave a curt shrug. "No, to visit Bran."

"May I join you?" Alys asked.

Why? Arya thought. "If you like," she said grudgingly.

"He must be lonely staying in his chambers all day." Alys hesitated. "I'm surprised King Robb doesn't make him come down to dinner."

A memory flashed before her. Arya almost felt Needle in her hand and heard the ringing of steel as she sparred with a redheaded knight whose legs were as quick and strong as her own. Then the vision was gone, dissolved by smoke that stung at her eyes.

"Bran hates having to be carried."

Her brother's muscular arms easily propelled his rolling chair around his rooms, but they were powerless to take him up or down the tower's many steps. That journey could only be made in the arms of Hodor. The huge stableboy carried Bran the same way a husband might carry his bride to their chamber. Bran blushed like a bride too, but with humiliation, not joy. Arya didn't think he'd leave his chambers at all if he didn't have to visit the godswood.

Arya shivered. Bran went to the godswood to sit beneath the heart tree and Sansa went there to slip into her wolfskin, but Arya didn't go there at all. Somehow the awful view from the battlements was easier to bear than the sight of the weirwood. Its leafless white branches looked like bones, as dead and desolate as hope.

Hopeless did not begin to describe the tense mood in Bran's chambers. Samwell Tarly sat by the window, his garb black, his round face white as the moon. One hand rested at his mouth, the other leafing through the pages of a dusty tome. His nails were bitten down to the quick; Nymeria could smell the blood. At present Samwell was gnawing at a thumbnail, oblivious to the arrival of visitors.

Bran, however, was not. After all, her brother was the one who'd told the guard to let them enter, though he'd sounded displeased. Bran rolled his chair across the room to greet them, the thick muscles in his arms standing out as his hands gripped the wheels.

"What do you want?" he asked, annoyed.

"To meet with a gallant prince," Alys said scornfully. "Have you seen one about?"

Then Alys realized how badly she'd forgotten herself. Her scowl melted away, replaced by a blush. Bran was blushing too, his cheeks as red as the pimples scattered amongst the peach fuzz on his jaw. But his blush was one of anger, not embarrassment. With ice in his eyes he opened his mouth to speak—

"How's Summer?" Arya blurted.

Bran turned to face her, his brow furrowed. "With Theon," he said curtly. "Keeping him from being stabbed every time he insists on breaking up a quarrel. Which is happening more and more frequently."

"Everyone does seem short-tempered of late." Alys dipped a little curtsy. "Myself included, I fear. My apologies, my prince."

There was a long silence as Alys waited for Bran to give her pardon. The fire burning in the hearth crackled softly, the coals glowing red. Arya could've sworn there was something like regret flickering in Bran's eyes, but it disappeared beneath a veil of cool indifference.

"You deserved it anyway," Arya muttered.

Bran's manners tended to veer between scrupulously polite and exceptionally rude. Since the three-eyed crow's scolding, it was more often the latter. She'd neither forgiven nor forgotten how gracelessly Bran had refused her offer to bring Craster's women to speak with him. The gods knew they needed every scrap of knowledge that might help them prepare for the mid-year solstice, no matter where the knowledge came from.

At least he'd summoned Samwell. "I don't think the passage is in this book," the steward mumbled, trying to find a place to set it aside. Every table in the room was covered with books and scrolls from the library at Castle Black. Whether they contained anything useful, though...

"What are you trying to find?"

Samwell startled so badly that he nearly dropped the book. "Princess Arya. My lady." He bowed his head twice, once at Arya and once at Alys. "I, uhm. Prince Bran wanted, uhm."

"He was looking for a book I wanted," Bran said impatiently. "An account of the last time the Starks and the Night's Watch and the wildlings fought the Others together, more than a thousand years ago."

"It was written by Benjen the Bitter," Samwell explained. "Or by one of his scribes, maybe. Centuries ago a black brother named Mervyn the Mottled found the scroll crumbling to pieces in Castle Black's library. He made a copy, at least of the parts that were still legible. I know I had it in here somewhere..."

"Why don't we all look?" Alys suggested.

Bran crossed his arms. "I don't read northron runes."

"Neither do I," said Alys, "but surely the black brother could tell us what the book looks like, or draw the runes which we're looking for."

As Samwell bustled off to find ink and parchment, Arya regarded Bran thoughtfully. Her brother didn't read northron runes, no more than she did. And yet... come to think of it, she'd only seen Samwell handle the books and scrolls, no matter what script they were written in. No, the black brother read aloud and Bran listened, his eyes focused and intent.

Arya's suspicions grew as the four of them sorted through the piles of books. The tomes were nigh identical in their bindings of brown or faded black leather, the titles on their covers the only way to tell them apart. If they even had one. Some of the titles had been written on strips of parchment glued to the cover; others had been written directly on the leather. If the title had faded or worn away over the centuries, the only way to identify the book was to open it and read the title page. Or perhaps more than the title page, if the book seemed interesting.

The black brother was the most easily distracted. Samwell was engrossed by seemingly every book and kept pausing for long minutes before remembering what he ought to be doing. Alys and Arya did little better. Alys briefly leafed through each book, commenting on those which seemed especially dull or exciting or which had drawings on the fore-edge in colored ink. As for Arya, she lost more than a quarter hour absorbed by an account written by a Night's Watch recruiter who'd journeyed from Eastwatch to Pyke and back again, stopping at every port in between.

Bran was the only one whose sole object was the task at hand. Her brother went through as many books as the rest of them combined. Small wonder. Bran picked up each book, looked at the title and naught else, then put it back down with a thump that sent up puffs of dust and made him sneeze. It was almost like he resented the books, and Arya felt a twinge of pity as her suspicion turned to certainty.

More than an hour later, Arya had had enough. Nymeria was bored of laying by the window to keep out of the way, Arya was sick of being covered in dust, and they were seemingly no closer to finding Benjen the Bitter's bedamned book. "Couldn't we just go ask the wildlings?" she asked, exasperated.

Bran sneezed, then shook his head. "Why bother?"

Arya blinked at him, taken aback by the brusque dismissal. The wildlings entrusted their history to skálds rather than to ink and parchment; Bran knew that as well as she did. Surely asking Toregg to find all the skálds amongst the wildlings would be far easier than trying to find one fragile book amongst hundreds.

But when Arya said so, Bran scoffed. "What, and trust a wildling's words over those of a Stark?"

"The wildlings have fought the Others more than the Starks have."

Samwell fell silent, astonished by his own audacity. The black brother clung to his book like a drowning sailor to a spar, his eyes wide with fright. Bran turned, his face darkening with anger as he paused to find his tongue.

Alys found hers first. "'Tis true," she said slowly, frowning. "The hostages rarely speak of it, but..." she gave a helpless shrug. "Wildling or not, 'tis terrible to lose all your kith and kin. To know that their restless corpses haunt the night, their spirits fled and their hearts frozen, so merciless that they'd slay those whom they once loved."

Bran shifted uneasily, touching a hand to his chest. Was that pity in his eyes? Arya wasn't sure, for in an instant it was gone. But the moment was swiftly forgotten, shoved aside by an unspeakable thought.

"The wights..." Arya swallowed, her skin prickling with dread. "They're just empty husks, aren't they? Like puppets, or dolls, or cyvasse pieces. They can't- they don't- their souls are gone." Her eyes met Bran's and held them fast. "Aren't they?"

Her brother made no reply. Instead, Bran turned his eyes upon the stack of books at his elbow. He picked one up, squinting at the faded title. He ignored Nymeria's soft growl, just as he ignored Alys and Samwell's stares of dawning horror.

Arya refused to be ignored. She snatched the book out of Bran's hands and shoved it at the black brother, then dropped to her knees in front of the rolling chair. Let Bran try ignoring her when she was at his feet, her hands gripping his, her gaze piercing him like a blade.

"Aren't they?" she demanded.

Finally, Bran looked down at her. "No."

Arya felt light-headed. Her head swam dizzily; blood pounded in her ears. As if from a distance she heard the high whine of a frightened direwolf and the low moan of a terrified man.

"What?" That couldn't be Alys; Alys would never sound so scared.

"At the moment of death, the spirit departs its flesh." Bran's tone was calm, cool, dispassionate, as if he were a maester instructing a child in sums. "The Others hinder that. Their spells catch the spirit upon the threshold between life and death, and bind it there with frozen chains. The Others take command of the corpse with the spirit yet within, unable to flee, unable to act, unable to do anything but watch."

When had Nymeria crossed the room to lie beside her? It didn't matter. Arya clung to the she-wolf, burying her face in her thick grey fur. She was shaking, why was she shaking?

"I... I beg your pardon, my prince." Alys's voice was shaking too. "I've imposed upon you for too long; I must see to my child."

Alys didn't wait for Bran to give her leave. Her skirts rustled as she made for the door, shutting it behind her with a dull thud. Samwell was weeping shamelessly, but Arya refused to do the same. When a wracking sob tried to claw its way out of her throat, she choked it back. Nonetheless, Arya couldn't seem to stop shaking. Her body wouldn't obey her; she trembled like a leaf in a winter storm. At last she resorted to slipping her skin, taking refuge in Nymeria's massive, reassuring bulk until her own body stilled enough that she could quit the room.

When it was time for her usual visit to the battlements, it took all of Arya's strength to pretend that nothing was amiss. You are a Stark, Jon's voice echoed. Your subjects can sense your fear when you're fool enough to show it.

Much as the reproach had stung, Jon was right. Nothing could've compelled Arya to go save for the fear that a sudden change in her habits might cause alarm. And so she climbed the battlements, looked through her far-eye, and went down to dinner with her mouth full of blood which Arya forced herself to swallow. Better that than risk someone seeing her spit it out, though she almost retched at the harsh tang of copper.

Biting the inside of her cheek had been the only way to keep from screaming. How could she not, knowing what she now knew? Young or old, man or woman, Arya couldn't look at a wight without wondering about the helpless spirit caged within.

Did some spirits look away, making themselves deaf and blind to the world without? Did some rage and fight against their chains? Did some weep as their dead bodies slaughtered the living, as they condemned them to the same ghastly fate? Or had suffering such endless torture driven all the spirits mad?

That night Arya's dreams were dark. She dreamt of six crystal spires looming over a six-sided fortress beneath a starless sky; she dreamt of slaying her mother who wasn't her mother; she dreamt of an Other thrusting its blade through her heart. Arya dreamt of her sister and brothers and friends coming to her rescue too late, of her grey eyes turning cold and blue as ice, of her hand drawing Needle without her leave, and then she dreamt of naught but blood.

Sheer defiance drove Arya to the training yard the next morning. The memory of Needle dripping red with heartsblood was a nightmare, nothing more. Not like the memories of Jon teasing her before telling her its name, of Father testing the point with his thumb, of Mother smiling sadly as Arya showed her the water dance. The Others couldn't take Needle from her, she wouldn't let them.

Elia Uller certainly couldn't take it from her. Though always better with lance or spear, since word came of the attack on her father Elia's skill at swordplay was erratic at best. Today it was downright pitiful, likely because Arya had insisted on sparring outside. Usually they sparred in the Great Hall, but she was in no mood to be reminded of sparring with Syrio Forel in the Small Hall of the Red Keep. No, she'd rather endure Elia's complaining. Dacey Mormont said Elia complained even more when not in Arya's or her kingly cousin's presence.

After another loss, Elia excused herself and trudged off toward the women's bathhouse. Thanks to Winterfell's hot springs, one could have a steaming bath at any hour or the day or night. It was a wonder that Elia hadn't turned into a raisin yet; she bathed every day for an hour or more. Arya supposed that was one way to calm one's nerves whilst being besieged by monsters out of legend.

Everyone dealt with the strain differently, Arya had noticed. As Ser Rodrik Cassel drilled Rickon and his friends in footwork, he cast frequent glances at his wife Lady Donella and his daughter Beth. They sat watching from a bench, just as they had ever since the siege began. One would never guess that Donella Hornwood was Beth's stepmother, not with how close they sat, how fervently they refused to let each other (or Ser Rodrik) out of their sight. Arya supposed Daryn Hornwood was lucky to be staying in the camp with the host, else his mother might've tucked him beneath her wing like a broody hen.

Rickon had a similar method of dealing with his emotions. When not dogging Arya's heels, he was either visiting the wildling children with Osha, sparring with gawky Ben Blackwood and stocky Rodrik Ryswell, or off trying to pester Sansa or Robb. His attempts met with little success, though they still fared better than his rare attempts to pester Bran.

A loud yelp drew Arya's attention to the other side of the training yard. Hugor Hasty lay facedown in the slush and mud, groaning miserably. Monterys Velaryon and Yoren Yronwood moved to help him up, but a bark from Ser Loras Tyrell halted them in their tracks.

"Hugor must get himself up," Ser Loras said haughtily. "Do you think he'll have someone to coddle him on the battlefield?"

Ser Loras yearned for the glory of battle, Arya knew. Unfortunately for him, King Aegon thought it best to keep his few Kingsguard alive and whole. And unfortunately for King Aegon's pages and squires, Ser Loras had decided to deal with his disappointment by training them within an inch of their lives.

Arya watched the squires and pages as they practiced. Sweetrobin was slowly improving, if only out of sheer self-preservation. And perhaps due to envy of shy Yoren Yronwood's natural talent. He bullied the poor boy more mercilessly than ever outside the training yard, but never dared when they had swords to hand. Rickon thought Yoren should thrash their cousin anyway, and said so yet again when he came over to Arya after finishing his lesson.

"Sweetrobin is an orphan, and sickly," she reminded him, contemplating a drink of water.

"So what? We're orphans too," Rickon grumbled. "Robin being an orphan doesn't excuse him being an ass." At least, she thought he was calling Robin an ass. Arya didn't know enough of the Old Tongue to understand most of the string of insults which began when Rickon switched from common.

Arya didn't wait for him to finish. She was thirsty, and she meant to reach the water before it was swarmed by exhausted boys. A quick drink, and then she stepped away, letting Ser Loras go next. His brown curls fell away from his face as he drank, revealing odd oval bruises on the side of his throat. Arya was considering what they might be when Ser Daemon Sand stomped into the training yard, a muddy-faced Hugor Hasty trailing behind him.

"Who taught you the meaning of coddling?" Ser Daemon demanded, his sky-blue eyes flashing. "Were they an utter fool, or were you not listening at the time?"

Ser Loras drew himself up. "My master-at-arms," he retorted. "Would you argue with his results?"

Having no interest in witnessing yet another of the knights' arguments, Arya prepared to beat a quick retreat. Then she hesitated, transfixed by another oval bruise, this one peeking out of the fur collar of Ser Daemon's surcoat. She'd seen a bruise like that before, but where? Arya screwed up her face as she searched her memory. Hadn't she once seen such bruises on Sansa and Olyvar? Yes, she had, she remembered because that morning was the first time after Gawaen was born that Nymeria had smelled—

With a noise of disgust, Arya spun on her heel. What neck bruises had to do with mating she didn't know, and she was more than happy to keep it that way. Her cheeks still felt hot when she reached Sansa's solar, having stalked there without thinking.

When Sansa muttered that Arya stank of sweat, she stalked off again, her cheeks even hotter. She didn't smell that bad. Sansa was just being fussy for no reason. Truth be told, she was fussy about everything of late.

Oh, Sansa hid her fussiness beneath queenly smiles and soft words, but Arya wasn't fooled. Her sister wanted her own way, and she always had it. When their queen got the notion of making favors for the lords and knights of King Aegon's host, her ladies were obliged to follow. The few dainties the queen ordered from the kitchens were always her favorites, never those of her ladies, even though Sansa barely nibbled at them. When Sansa wanted music they had music; when she wanted quiet they had quiet.

Infuriating as it was, Arya would take fussing over weeping. When the siege began, she'd feared Sansa would lose herself again, like she had after fleeing King's Landing and after Prince Trystane and Myrcella's deaths. But no, Sansa was as poised as ever, aside from occasionally snapping at Buttons in the privacy of her bedchamber when she grew vexed by his constant mewls for attention. You'd think the Others were a thousand leagues away from how utterly she ignored them.

Arya couldn't— Arya wouldn't— do the same.

Climbing the battlements at dusk was craven, craven and cowardly. Better to make the climb after dinner, after nightfall. That was when the fighting began in earnest; that was when she must bear witness.

Nights blurred together. There was no rest for the pitiful dead, the poor thralls bent beneath the Others' sorcerous yoke. Wights slew the living and were butchered in turn, hacked to pieces until their bodies fell still and their eyes turned dark.

Over and over and over, on and on and on. The number of headless corpses grew, as did the terror they inspired. The lopped off limbs were worse. Dead legs hopped about absurdly, tripping the unwary. Some were quickly yanked to their feet by their fellows; the rest found themselves at the mercy of dead arms whose black hands thrashed and grasped in search of throats.

Such horrors failed to daunt the kings and the lord commander. Through the far-eye they seemed like heroes out of song. The stalwart Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, a shadow in black trailed by a white wolf. The valiant King in the North, straight-backed and stern. The gallant King of the South, his hair like steel and silver, his raiment gleaming sapphire and ebony.

But Arya supped with them upon the dais. She saw how Jon's queer good humor waxed, how Robb's appetite waned, how more and more Aegon's face became the murderous mask which concealed Olyvar's unease. She saw how their shoulders tensed when they rose from their chairs, bound for the camp to give heart to their men as each night's battle began.

All three remained with their men until after midnight. At two bells past midnight Aegon was the first to sleep; at eight bells he was the first to rise. As he awoke, Jon went to sleep, followed three hours later by Robb, who slept last and rose last. Or so Arya gathered from hearsay. She couldn't bear to stay on the battlements past midnight, not that Ser Perwyn would've let her.

Ser Perwyn turned pale as milk when she told him there were wights staggering into the wolfswood. To what end Arya wasn't sure, though it boded ill. Her stomach plunged when she caught sight of the wights days later, returning with thick tree trunks in their swollen black hands.

The camp's palisade had several gates; the wights assailed them all by turns. Boom, boom, boom, the battering rams thundered. Ser Perwyn flinched with every boom, his eyes looking everywhere and anywhere but at the battle. Flames blazed orange and yellow wherever the defenders dared risk the use of fire. Now and then came some poor soul's last bloodcurdling shriek. Wights might burn more easily, but fire consumed the living just as gladly as it consumed as the dead. Breaches were made and closed back up with rocks; rocks were moved aside by wights and put back or replaced by men.

"Why don't they assail all the gates at once?" Arya made the mistake of asking one night at supper.

"Because," Robb said heavily, "the Others must have their sport."

"Sport?" She didn't understand.

"Toying with us," Jon supplied. He shrugged, disconcertingly cheerful. "Like cats with a mouse."

Arya didn't like that, not one bit. But it was all she could think of the next time she was in the nursery. As Sansa nursed, Buttons stalked through the rushes. His ginger tail flicked back and forth; his body hunched, ready to pounce—

Wahhhhhhh!

All at once the cat yowled with fright, leapt straight up, then bolted under the sideboard. With a muttered oath, Arya clapped her hands over her ears. Sansa was trying to put the babe back to her swollen breast, but Gawaen refused to settle. He screamed and screamed, his face red, his eyes screwed up tight.

Usually, Arya enjoyed Gawaen well enough. It was amusing to watch him roll over, to play peekaboo with him, to reply to his babbling. Solid foods were slowly being added to his diet, prompting a wide assortment of faces ranging from puckers of outraged disgust to gaping grins of wide-eyed delight.

But of late, Gawaen was always crying or screaming. Both the midwife and the maesters named teething as the culprit. Arya could glimpse the teeth as the babe screamed, two specks of white erupting from his pink gums. When Sansa handed the babe to Gilly, he screamed even louder.

"He wants his mother," Gilly sighed.

"Or his father," Sansa muttered. She tucked her breast inside her gown, then took Gawaen back, still screaming. She barely seemed to notice when Arya asked her leave to go; she had to ask thrice before Sansa gave an irritable nod. Of course; why bother with a sister when one had a baby?

So when Ser Perwyn asked if she meant to visit the other nursery today, Arya said no without hesitating. Seeing Wynafryd and playing with her children Wyman and Bethany was well and good, but she was in no mood to see Alys with her tiny son.

Where Gawaen cried far too much, Robard cried far too little. His grandmother Lady Edythe had found the best nursemaid that could be had, and the maester visited the babe every day, and yet the one time Arya held him, Alys had warned her not to become too attached. Not that Alys took her own advice. She'd dearly wanted her babe, and it showed.

But no amount of love could save a babe from dying.

The raven from Riverrun had been one of the last to arrive before the siege. Well used to receiving letters bearing Uncle Edmure's seal, Robb had read Roslin's letter first before giving it to her brother. Arya knew something was wrong from the hollow look on Robb's face, from how he beckoned Ser Perwyn away from prying eyes.

Hoster Tully had been both her cousin and Perwyn's nephew. She'd met Hoster, played with him, seen how hearty he was compared to the wan baby in Roslin's arms. Yet it was Hoster that the measles had struck down, just a few days after his fifth name day. Perwyn's namesake, only two, was the one who survived, though he was like to be scarred and lose sight in one eye.

Ser Perwyn wept so hard for Roslin that Arya had to dismiss him for a few days. Not that she was happy about it. She missed his beleaguered sighs, his fond smiles. Dacey Mormont had known her mother too, and Ser Joseth Woolfield was a decent sparring partner, but neither they nor her other sworn swords were Perwyn.

It was a relief when Ser Perwyn returned to his duty, even if he kept constantly talking about his children. Wyman, barely three, was a terror. He refused to let the nursemaid help him dress, refused to eat anything besides hand pies, and refused to play with his sister if there were any older children about to play with instead. Bethany was too young for even simple games. She was one and a half, able to walk but not to run.

That night as she watched the battering rams crash against the gates of the palisade, Arya wondered if Bethany would ever run. The gates couldn't be repaired forever. If they fell before the mid-year solstice...

But what could Arya do? She was useless, powerless. Shoring up the gates was for carpenters and soldiers, not girls of seventeen. Sticking the pointy end in a wight would do less than nothing; Needle was made for slaying the living, not the dead. She was cut adrift, lost in a sea of foreboding, with neither stars to steer by nor a port to call her own.

Nor was Arya the only one. She heard much and more on her ceaseless wanderings, little of it good. She heard of the fights between men-at-arms desperate to sup in the Great Hall, of the baker who lost a hand for stealing bread beyond what was his due, of the apprentice who slew his master rather than go back out into the cold.

What she saw was often worse. Arya would never forget the look of terror upon Beth Cassel's face when Theon entered the Great Hall, nor the way she clutched her throat, struggling to breathe through hysterical tears. Ser Rodrik was running toward Theon with steel in hand when Summer came between them, holding off the old master-at-arms as Theon fled the hall.

The next time Arya wandered by the training yard, Ser Rodrik wasn't there. Ser Patrek Mallister stood in his place, calling out moves for both Rickon and Rodrik Ryswell as they sparred at half-speed. Arya scowled at that, just as she scowled at Ser Mord Sunderland as he sparred with his brothers Steffon and Ser Godric of the Kingsguard. She hoped they thrashed him; it'd serve him right for getting Shyra with child. Ser Patrek Mallister tumbled serving girls now and then when he was merry with drink, but he'd never gotten any of them pregnant.

Osha said Shyra was satisfied with the coin Mord had given her for the babe, but Arya didn't care. Shyra might be a serving girl, but she deserved better than the man her twin sister Bandy had found to marry her. Ronnel was a carpenter, freshly widowed by a bout of grippe that had taken his wife and two of their four young children. He had thinning hair and a lazy eye, and he was positively ancient, almost thirty where Shyra was just past twenty.

But Arya had more pressing concerns than whether Mord got humbled, concerns that took her to the broken tower. Ser Perwyn stood guard just inside the door, unwilling to come any closer. Thank the gods he was too loyal to tell Robb. Though Perwyn rightly pitied Craster's wives and daughters, he strongly disapproved of his princess sharing the company of sullied women.

Well, that was his problem, not Arya's. It wasn't like he had any better idea of how to figure out what Gilly was up to. Sansa didn't care about her maid slipping into the broken tower when she had an hour free, but it filled Arya with growing disquiet. And then there was what Jon had said at dinner last night, about how slow Craster's women were in delivering the cloaks they owed as tribute to the Night's Watch.

"Dolorous Edd passed on Dorsten's excuses," Jon had said, "but I've half a mind to see for myself what they're up to, if I can find the time."

He might not have the time, but Arya did. She might as well look into it. There was more afoot than a girl visiting her kin, she'd stake her life on that.

Thus far, Arya had no evidence of anything amiss. All was the same as on her prior visits. The young girls spun, the women wove, and the old women cut and stitched the cloth into cloaks. The only mystery was why Dolorous Edd had yet to claim any of them.

Arya considered asking, but it struck her as a bad idea. Craster's women were already wary of her feigned interest in wildling cloth-making, and Nymeria frightened the three youngest girls so much that Arya reluctantly made the direwolf stay outside.

Yet she couldn't help but wonder if the triplets' fear was genuine. Though only nine, they'd been even younger when they endured the long journey from beyond the Wall. And it seemed suspiciously convenient that the loss of Nymeria's keen ears meant that Arya couldn't make out a word of the women's whispering. Nor did it help that they only spoke the Common Tongue with Gilly. Elsewise they spoke the Old Tongue, no doubt aware that Arya knew only the simplest of words.

It didn't take long for Arya to tire of lingering in one place. Circling the room over and over again was tedious, as was pausing in one spot to overhear innocuous nothings. Nymeria was restless too, and growing increasingly agitated by their separation. Resigned to having wasted her time yet again, Arya strode to the door. Ser Perwyn went out first, and the door was closing behind her when she caught Dorsten's voice, low and bitter.

"Sometimes I wish my sons were dead."

But they are dead, Arya thought, bewildered. Gilly said so. She'd said that Craster sacrificed all his sons to the Others and that he made all his wives and daughters watch. How he sacrificed them had gone unspoken, and Arya had seen no need to ask after the manner of their babies' deaths. Why should Dorsten wish her sons dead when she'd seen them slain before her eyes? Unless...

Every hair on the back of Arya's neck stood up. Gooseprickles crawled up her arms; her belly clenched tight. Concerned by her girl's distress, Nymeria butted against her shoulder.

"What's wrong?" Ser Perwyn asked.

"Nothing," Arya lied. "I just changed my mind about going to the glass gardens."

Instead, she went to see Bran. As Arya shared what she'd overheard, her brother listened with an expression of vague disinterest. Nor did his expression change when she shared the terrible conclusion she'd reached.

"Tell me I'm wrong," Arya pleaded.

"You're wrong," Bran said. "Now will you go away?"

Arya glared at him, unamused. "Tell me the truth," she insisted.

Bran rolled his eyes. "Fine. No, the babes aren't dead. Happy?"

"No!" Arya cried. "How long have you known?" she demanded. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Does it matter?" Bran shrugged. "I saw no need. Craster's sons are but a small fraction of the Others' number. And they're weaker than the true Others. They can't speak mind to mind, nor raise the dead as wights."

Arya frowned. "How do the Others raise wights, anyway? Is it like skinchanging?"

"Skinchanging?" Bran furrowed his brow, lost in thought.

Impatient, Arya asked her next question. "Is there a way to tell Craster's sons from the true Others?"

Bran hesitated. "Yes," he said at last. There was some strange sadness in his eyes. "The Others are immortal, ageless. Craster's sons age like ordinary men. The eldest would be in their forties now, and the youngest..."

His voice trailed off, and then Bran would say no more. Not that he needed to. Arya could guess, and the thought chilled her to the bone.

After that, even wandering Winterfell couldn't drive Arya's nightmares away. Not in her own skin, and not in Nymeria's. The direwolf was as trapped as she was. There was no racing through the wolfswood when it might be haunted by the dead and their masters.

Alys was the one who presented a solution. Though Arya had considered asking leave to visit the Wintertown in her merchant's daughter disguise, she'd cast the notion aside. Robb would never allow it, and she didn't have the heart to sneak out against his wishes, not when he always looked so exhausted. When she said as much to Alys, her response was a frown of confusion.

"Why would you ask Robb? His Grace can take issue with your behavior all he likes, but Queen Sansa has the final say over her own household."

To miss something so obvious was mortifying beyond words. Arya asked Sansa's leave that same day and received it. Her sister's only condition was that she take Ser Perwyn and several men-at-arms with her. That was no surprise. What was surprising was Sansa's utter lack of protest. But Arya should have seen it coming. Every hour not spent in the nursery was spent with her ladies; she didn't need her sister around.

Elia Uller didn't want to share her company either. She bluntly refused to go for an outing in the cold, a rejection that was both painful and predictable. Mya Stone was occupied with her mule Whitey, whose health was failing; Dacey Mormont was occupied with taking her morningstar to the smithy. Or so she claimed. Arya knew better. Ser Patrek Mallister was like to be free during the appointed time for her visit to Wintertown. The two of them had started swiving again; there was no fooling Nymeria's nose.

Truth be told, Arya expected Alys to refuse her too. Robard's health was no better. Though nursemaids kept watch over him during the night, during the day Lady Edythe, Cley, and Alys took turns watching over the babe. But as it was Alys who'd given her the idea, it would be rude not to invite her.

To her astonishment, Alys accepted. "I should like to come." She worried at the hem of her sleeve, oddly pensive. "Constantly staring at Robard improves neither his health nor mine own."

And so when Arya quietly slipped into the Wintertown, Alys and their escort were her only company. As they entered the market square, Arya could feel her direwolf's ire at being left behind. Nymeria had not taken kindly to being told to stay in the training yard with Shaggydog and his boy.

But it had to be done. A horse-sized direwolf was impossible to ignore; if she brought Nymeria she might as well dress in fine raiment and bring a herald to cry her coming. That was what Queen Margaery did when she made her weekly visit to the Wintertown. Giving alms seemed to please her as much as it did the smallfolk. Rather than give up her visits when she had grown too pregnant to safely ride on horseback, Margaery had resorted to using an elegant litter. After childbirth she'd kept using it, though only until the maester finally pronounced her healed enough to ride.

Unlike Margaery, Arya and her companions only rode as far as the market square. There was a stable that stood behind the merchants' wooden stalls, and it was there they left their horses and one of the men-at-arms. Even without bardings their horses were so fine as to draw unwanted attention, and one could see more afoot than ahorse anyway.

Still, Arya felt uncomfortably conspicuous as she meandered around the market square. The smallfolk hurried about their business, keen to spend as little time as possible in the cold. Those who stood awaiting their turn at the busiest stalls huddled together for warmth, their breath steaming in white clouds.

After making a purchase at as many stalls as she dared, Arya left the market square behind. She quickly wished she'd had the foresight to bring her pattens with her, or to buy a cheap pair like Alys had at one of the stalls. Wintertown's streets might be lined with rows of neat houses, but the streets themselves were an utter mess. Mud sucked at her boots as Arya followed the well-worn path down the center of the street, doing her best to avoid the piles of slush and the patches of ice.

Thankfully, the Red Cup was a short walk. Apart from its size and painted sign, the tavern was much like the houses around it, built of logs and undressed stone to keep the cold at bay. Even so, patrons clustered around the fire which blazed in the common room's hearth. Was that why the common room's benches were less full than Arya recalled? Or was it the day, or the hour, or something else?

When one of the serving boys burst into a fit of coughing, Arya feared she had her answer. Winter fever was aptly named, and there were many other sicknesses which assailed those already weakened by months of eating lean meals and enduring the bitter cold. As she took a seat by Alys on the benches, Arya wondered which had taken the greatest toll.

Though the portions at the Red Cup were scant, the gossip was plentiful. Arya watched as she listened, observing the smallfolk carefully. Some were loose and loud with drink; some were stiff and numb with fear; some were nervous and jumpy as rabbits. She marked the eyes bruised by lack of sleep, the ears and fingers shortened by frostbite.

The watchman who stood by the fire was especially unlucky. He had half his fingers, a tipless nose, stubby ears, and eyes that were as white and big as eggs. As the watchman spoke, Arya listened with growing unease. Supposedly the lichyard near a certain alley was haunted by ghosts. The watchman claimed to see them as he stood watch, floating hither and yon like wisps of smoke. He described each ghost with lavish, unsettling detail, prompting a chorus of gasps and groans and vows to never use that alley again.

"Mebbe that's why the alderman went mad," said a cook.

From how eagerly the cook launched into his own story, Arya thought that unlikely. Not to mention that the alderman the cook served lived on the opposite side of the Wintertown. Unfortunately, the rest of the cook's tale had the ring of truth. How the alderman had begun to mutter to himself, how he gnawed his nails to the quick, how he frightened his supper guests by speaking of doom and defeat and the ending of the realms of men.

Her eavesdropping at the White Ball was no less depressing. It didn't help that one of the streets on the way was closed off due to grippe, forcing them to double back and go around. Nor did it help that the White Ball's innkeeper tended to stint on firewood, though the smallfolk's shivering slowly lessened the longer Arya was there.

Where the Red Cup's crop of gossip was upsetting, the gossip at the White Ball was infuriating. Soon after they arrived, an argument broke out. A cordwainer's apprentice had scrimped and saved for months to afford to have his fortune told. Now, he sought advice as to which fortune-teller was the most worthy.

No one could agree who the apprentice should favor with his custom, but both Arya and Alys agreed there were far too many fortune-tellers about. They'd seen some of their signs, swaying in the wind. A cloud marked those who claimed to read fortunes in the skies; a rune marked those who tossed magic rune stones; a red teardrop marked the rare few who would prick you with a weirwood needle and taste your blood.

"You'd be better off gettin' a charm from Jorah One-Tooth," a skinny weaver insisted, pounding a fist on the table. "What's better, knowin' the future or knowin' them cold bastards can't touch you?"

"A charm?" Arya asked, curious.

"Aye," said the weaver. "Ye can get a necklace w' a dragonglass charm for the Others, or a bag w' wee bits o' magicked coal to ward off the wights." He thumped his chest. "I've got both. If wights are risin' in the camp, who knows when they'll rise here?"

"Jorah One-Tooth is a fraud," the innkeeper scoffed. "Nay, if ye want charms, go t' Old Sara. She's been the best woods witch in ten leagues of here since I were a boy. Her moon tea never failed any o' the girls I bedded, nor my wife neither when she decided six babes were more than enough."

"Draughts are better than charms," a wheelwright insisted. "Now, you go t' Donnel Longwind, and he'll—"

"He'll do nought," the innkeeper interrupted. "Didn't ye hear? He was flogged near t' death a fortnight past."

The wheelwright startled. "What? Why?"

"Some poor woman gave him all the coin she had for a draught to save her child," the innkeeper sighed. "When the child died, the woman went weepin' and wailin' t' ask for her money back. Donnel Longwind laughed at her and called her a fool, so she went and stirred up a mob. They seized him and took him t' the law, and the aldermen had a trial. Turned out the poor woman weren't the only one cheated by Donnel Longwind. He was sentenced t' a lash for every man or woman he cheated, two lashes if the victim were a cripple or a widow."

"Such is the king's justice," a blacksmith said, nodding approval. "Though I'd not have complained if Donnel swung like Medrick Quicksnow."

The cordwainer's apprentice seemed puzzled. "Who?"

"Your master never lets you out o' the house, do he?" The wheelwright shook his head. "Medrick Quicksnow were hanged for murder nigh on a month ago. I went t' the trial meself, else my wife would've given me no peace. It's not every day ye see a man on trial for murder w' only the dead man's dog t' accuse him."

It seemed that the dead man and his dog had been well known for their mutual devotion. One day, the man's neighbors were startled to see the spotted bitch without her master. The dog went to the neighbors, whining and running back and forth until they followed. She led them to a snow drift where her master lay dead, his wrists slit.

That the dog's master had killed himself seemed obvious. Suicides were all too common of late. Merchants whose businesses were failing; churls whose homes had been damaged beyond their ability to repair; peasants who found themselves destitute and saw only one way to avoid the long torture of starvation. And then there were those who killed themselves in despair. Despair of the loss of beloved kith or kin, despair of the countless enemies who came every night, despair of ever seeing the sun's return or the winter's end.

But when the previously gentle dog suddenly attacked a man without provocation, the neighbors began to doubt. When, weeks later, the dog attacked the same man upon encountering him by chance, their doubts turned to certainty. The neighbors reported their suspicions to their alderman, and the accused was seized. There they came to an impasse, for the dog couldn't speak of what she knew, and Medrick Quicksnow denied his guilt.

The aldermen's solution was to leave judgement to the gods. Trial by combat, man against dog. For weapons the spotted bitch had her teeth, and the accused was given a stick.

"I thought he'd win, truth be told," the wheelwright said. "That spotted bitch had to weigh less than two stones, and Medrick were tall and strong. Then they set her loose. You'd think she were one o' the Starks' direwolves the way she savaged him. Weren't five minutes before Medrick were screamin' his head off confessin' his guilt and beggin' t' be saved from the spotted bitch. The dog were taken by one o' the dead man's neighbors, and Medrick were taken to the gallows."

Arya supposed that was almost a happy ending. But there were no happy endings to be had at the Smoking Log.

To linger in a tavern, one had to eat or drink. Arya soon regretted her full stomach as her belly curdled, churning harder with every new horror.

Children losing their entire families to sickness. Old men and new cripples being turned away from the almshouses for lack of room. Women dying in childbed because their midwives refused to come after dusk, too scared of the icy streets and the pitch-black skies and the clamor of nightly battle.

Ser Perwyn turned white as milk at that. Alys did the same as a gravedigger told of a poor woman who'd perished outside an almshouse. She'd been found on its doorstep at dawn, her stiff body curled up tight around a bundle of thin blankets. When the gravedigger came to take her, he'd discovered a babe inside the blankets, still suckling at his mother's breast. Whether the babe still lived the gravedigger couldn't say, only that he'd given him to the almshouse.

Worst of all was hearing of people turning against each other. More and more, folk were quick to anger and slow to forgive. Harsh words turned to hard blows; hard blows turned to maiming and murder. Quarrels arose between native Wintertowners and refugees; between refugees from one village and those from another; between wildlings and both refugees and Wintertowners who agreed on little save for their mutual suspicion of the wildlings at best and loathing at worst.

Some said the wildlings were cursed. Why would the Others come south, if not to chase their rightful prey? Some said the old gods were angry. Why would they allow the Wall to crack, if not to punish men for their sins?

"There can't be no darker omen than a weirwood w'out leaves," a butcher rumbled. "There's only way t' appease the old gods, and that's for King Robb t' water the heart tree w' blood."

"Whose blood?" Alys said sharply, looking up from the table. "Yours?"

The butcher opened his mouth to make a furious retort, then froze. For a moment he stared at Alys, marking her fine woolen garb and that of Arya beside her. Then his eyes flicked to their escorts. Ser Perwyn gave the butcher a bland, unimpressed look, his hand idly resting on his swordbelt.

"Nay, mistress," the butcher said at last. "It's wildling blood the old gods want, you mark my words."

Outraged, Arya sprang to her feet. "They've had plenty of wildling blood already. Or are you too stupid to notice all those wights besieging us?"

The butcher reddened. "Now see here—"

"Leave it, Barthogan," snapped Sherrit the innkeeper.

"No," Barthogan returned, indignant. "I'll not be insulted by some merchant's dau—"

Sherrit seized him by the ear and whispered something. Barthogan recoiled, his face ashen. When he fled the common room without another word, Arya knew what the innkeeper must have said. She could feel the eyes upon her, hear the murmurs and mutters.

The next she knew, Arya was at the door. Unfortunately, Alys wasn't. Oh, why did she have to use the privy now? Arya was itching with impatience to be gone, and the longer she waited the more likely someone might approach—

And then Sherrit was coming toward her. "'Twas good t' see ye back in the Wintertown, princess," the innkeeper said, low under his breath.

"How did everyone know me without fancy clothes?" Arya muttered, annoyed. "I've not come down here without them for what, a sixmonth? And I've never come without Nymeria."

Sherrit tilted his head, befuddled. "Princess, them that knew Lord Eddard's face don't need silks or a direwolf to know yours."

The innkeeper's voice still echoed in Arya's head that night as she stood atop the battlements. Much as she missed her father, as Arya looked through the far-eye she was desperately grateful that he wasn't here. Her father didn't need to see the wight who circled the perimeter of the camp's palisade, mounted on a rotting horse whose black coat matched his rider's ragged furs. It was hard enough for Arya, and her memories of her uncle were few and faint. No, she was glad Lord Eddard would never see the wight who was once his brother Benjen.

Arya shuddered. The wight was Uncle Benjen, somewhere deep down. Fear cut deeper than swords, but she couldn't help being afraid when she looked at the wights. Thousands of wretched spirits, tens of thousands, all condemned to waking death...

Looking at the Others was easier. Fury simmered in her veins whenever they showed themselves. They were gloating, she knew. They reveled in taunting the besieged. Some nights they kept just out of arrow range, laughing in their horrible cold voices. Other nights they "accidentally" wandered within arrow range, drawing arrows which they nimbly dodged or sent astray with a gust of wind.

The Others stopped doing that after Theon managed to get three of them in one night. He must've found some pattern in how they moved, for though his arrows seemed poorly aimed, they somehow found their target nonetheless.

Arya begrudgingly allowed that it was an impressive feat. Usually when she caught sight of Summer and Theon, Theon wasn't doing anything. Unless one counted wandering around and stopping to talk to every black brother that looked frightened enough to make an easy target. To Arya's satisfaction, Theon's bullying appeared to miscarry every time. If anything his intended victims seemed stronger after they'd sent him on his way.

As Arya couldn't shout at Theon to keep her fear at bay, she distracted herself trying to watch the Others. It was an exercise which required immense concentration and long practice. With the moon covered by clouds and the torches and watchfires far from where they stood, there was little light by which to see the Others. Only their eyes, which blazed ice-blue with inhuman brightness, and their armor, which glowed silver-white like the snow upon which they stood.

Once Arya learnt to see them clearly, she began learning to tell them apart. Bran said they shared one mind, but they weren't identical, even if they all had the same nasty smile as the Kingslayer. And perhaps one in twenty were spearwives, much to Arya's surprise. She supposed terror made it hard to notice or care what was under that shimmering armor, especially when one was fleeing for one's life.

By the middle of fifth moon, Arya had taken to giving rude nicknames to the Others she saw most often. Shorty was the spearwife whose hair was cut short about her ears. Smirky was the one who always wore an obnoxious smile. Stompy was the big one who walked with the heaviest (though still unnaturally light) tread. Jeyne's nicknames would've been wittier, Arya thought with a pang. But Jeyne Poole wasn't here.

She was trying to choose a nickname for an Other who was gaunter than the rest when she saw the first ice spiders emerge from the wolfswood. In an instant the Myrish far-eye was tucked in her pocket; another instant and Arya was striding away, Nymeria, Ser Perwyn, and two men-at-arms following closely at her heels.

Arya was so focused on trying not to show her panic that she went straight past the door to the gatehouse steps and kept on walking. If not for that, she never would've seen the group of black-cloaked wights approaching the south gate, an even larger group of wights trailing behind.

Arya halted and drew her far-eye, her heart in her throat. What was going on? The wights who encircled that side of Winterfell never came within range. They kept a constant, terrifying watch, leaving attacking the camp to the countless other wights. What were these black cloaks doing, why were they—

Suddenly, Arya realized something. The black cloaks' eyes don't glow.

The next half hour was a blur of giving orders, having them questioned, and then giving them again with Nymeria's snarling support. It took another half hour for Robb and Jon to arrive, out of breath and out of temper. Ser Mychel Redfort and several men-at-arms in Stark livery trailed behind the king, just as several black brothers trailed the lord commander.

"You're lucky Aegon hadn't gone to bed yet," Robb told her, his voice ominously low. "And that Patrek Mallister is a capable battle commander as well as one of the best men in my honor guard. Now what is so urgent that you demanded our presence without telling the messenger why? And why are we outside an empty firewood shed?"

"When they came in the south gate, this was the closest place that I could put them," Arya replied, shrugging.

"After who came in?" Jon asked.

In answer, Arya led them inside.

Arya couldn't say how she expected Robb and Jon to respond to the sight of a mountain clansman and two score sworn brothers of the Night's Watch. She certainly didn't expect Jon to burst out laughing. His laughter abruptly ceased when their leader stepped forward, his pale green eyes cool. For a moment he and Jon met each other's gaze, both of them silent and solemn.

Someone had to break the growing tension. It might as well be her. "Robb," she said, "this is Blane, First Ranger of the Shadow Tower."

Robb hesitated for less than an instant, then inclined his head, his crown gleaming. "Men of the Night's Watch are always welcome beneath my roof. Beds shall be found for you, and you shall have meat and mead. Whilst those comforts are made ready, you can tell how you came to escape the fall of the Shadow Tower."

To Arya's satisfaction, the thought of sending her away never occurred to anyone. She listened raptly as Blane told of their long journey. His men chimed in now and then, though not often. They were more concerned with accepting cups of hot (albeit watery) cider, rubbing at their feet, and inspecting the wooden skith which had brought them hence.

The first mention of the Shadow Tower's commander, Wallace Massey, drew a chorus of quiet hisses and jeers that made Jon flinch. Blane ignored them. He spoke only briefly of their last battle at the Wall, of how they had been overwhelmed and scattered by a brutal assault.

When the night's carnage was over, nearly a thousand survivors had managed to regroup at Westwatch-by-the-Bridge. Some seven hundred were men of the Vale, three hundred were black brothers, and a hundred were men from the northern mountain clans who had been separated from their kin during the battle. Though Blane avoided flattering himself, it was plain to see that he was the one who had led the retreat. And there was no missing the looks his men exchanged when Blane spoke of the sledges and skith and rations which had been sent to Westwatch as a precaution should the Shadow Tower fall.

"Massey never mentioned anything about that in his reports," Jon said mildly.

"No," Blane replied, just as mildly. "He wouldn't have."

At Westwatch, the survivors had divided themselves into groups of twenty to forty. Enough men to defend themselves from attack but not so many as to risk immediately starving or becoming a burden on any village they encountered. Each group had a man or two from the mountain clans, those willing to serve as guides for those less familiar with the North.

The rest of the mountain clansmen chose to go home to their mountains. As for the valemen, they agreed to sweep down the eastern side of the mountains to warn as many folk as they could. The black brothers had swept down the western coast, doing their best to lure and kill as many wights as they could.

"It were awful seein' them come up out of the water," one of the men said, shuddering. "Thank the seven the wights seemed stupider by the sea."

Jon frowned, looking thoughtful. "The Others would avoid the sea," he muttered, almost to himself. "They hate it, just as the sea hates them."

"Would that our moat was filled with enough sea water to drown them all," Robb said dryly.

The further south the black brothers had gone, the fewer wights they had seen. Knowing that they must make the rations on their sledges last, they had fed themselves by fishing and by trading with fishing villages. Arya could almost hear the gulls, taste the salt spray and hear the sails flapping freely in the wind.

Making their way from the coast to Winterfell had been the hardest part of their journey. Not because of wights or Others, but because of the snow and the ice and the long distance traveled while short of food.

"It couldn't be helped, not when we were avoiding the roads," Blane shrugged. "The North is immense. Even those blue-eyed bastards and their dead men can't be everywhere at once."

As they drew closer to Winterfell, they began to encounter more dead men. One of them had been a messenger. All wights were stiff and clumsy, but this one was made even clumsier by the skith strapped to his feet, at least until the black brothers had put an end to its grotesque shuffling.

"And we found this on him," Blane said, drawing forth an oilskin pouch.

Robb took it, frowning. As her brother opened the pouch, Arya moved closer, eager for a better look. The pouch contained naught but a letter. Its seal was painfully familiar, stamped in flame-red wax.

An age seemed to pass as Arya waited for the black brothers to be dismissed to their beds. When they were gone, Robb finally broke the seal, cracking the Umber giant to pieces. Arya knew Lady Marna's handwriting right away, though she'd never seen it so messy. There were marks in the parchment where her quill had stabbed through, and blots of ink that looked like tear-stains.

Distracted by reading the letter, Robb didn't notice that Arya was reading it too. She steadfastly ignored Jon's look of mingled amusement and disapproval. Let him be amused. He wouldn't be once he read the letter.

Harrion Karstark was dead. Last Hearth had already been besieged for months when more wights appeared, wights dressed in Karstark white and black and led by Lord Harrion himself. Lady Marna had been devastated and enraged to see her goodson thus. She had also known that was precisely what the Others intended. What better way to kindly inform them that Karhold had fallen?

The next several words had been written in northron. Arya tried to read them, a task made difficult by the line which had been drawn through their middle, crossing them out. Most of the words were indecipherable, but she was fairly certain she recognized an exceptionally foul northron oath.

The rest of the letter was in common. Lady Marna wrote that Last Hearth was still holding out against the dead. However, she had bitter news, news which she begged the King in the North to break to her lord husband.

During the first shock of Harrion's appearance, wights had broken through one of Last Hearth's gates. Being near at hand, Hoarfrost Umber had rushed to defend the gate, bellowing for his men to seal the breach behind him. In the confusion they had obeyed, never pausing to wonder how Hoarfrost meant to get back inside. Only when the breach was sealed did they realize their error. By then, it was too late.

Whatever Hoarfrost had intended, whatever he had thought, his mother would never know. All Lady Marna knew was that her son had charged through the wights like a bull moose, getting as far as he could from the timber walls, hacking and slashing and shouting for his men to throw their last jars of flaming pitch and pray to the gods that their aim was true. Weeping, his men had obeyed.

Thus perished Hoarfrost Umber.

To her confusion, Arya found herself blinking back tears. For poor Alys, she told herself, and for the Greatjon. She didn't know which of them she pitied more. The Greatjon had now lost two of his three sons, and Alys the last of her brothers.

Thank the gods that Harrion had sent his wife Fern Umber and their young daughter south to safety in White Harbor. Fern was carrying their second child; she ought to have given birth shortly after the siege of Winterfell began. Arya hoped the child gave her comfort. She couldn't imagine the pain of losing a husband and a brother so close together, even a brother like Hoarfrost.

Arya bit her lip. She'd hated the idea of marrying him, hated how awkward she felt whenever he tried to make conversation, hated the way he scoffed at her water dancing, hated how he'd tried to take Needle from her. Yet Hoarfrost had still been a person, a man much like any other. He'd mourned the loss of his big brother Smalljon. He'd loved apple tarts and mead but avoided drinking overmuch because he didn't like the feeling of being drunk. He'd once confided that his happiest memory was sitting quietly by the fire, his mother on one side teaching his sisters to embroider, his father on the other teaching Hoarfrost and his brothers to whittle.

Suddenly, there was a warm hand on her shoulder. "We must return to battle," Robb said softly. Behind him Jon was reading the letter, his face screwed up with concentration. "Are you well, little sister?"

Arya didn't know what to say. After a moment Robb sighed, then put an arm around her and kissed her brow. "Go sleep in the nursery. I'll see you there as soon as the fighting's done."

To the nursery she went, but she didn't sleep. Whilst Ser Perwyn and the men-at-arms stood guard outside and Nymeria curled up beside Jeyne's cradle, Arya paced back-and-forth, her thoughts in utter disarray. She tried to lie down on the couch, she did, but somehow she always found herself pacing again.

When Robb finally arrived, the first thing he did was cross the room to open the windows. Cold morning air seeped into the room, fresh and bracing. Jeyne stirred in the wet nurse's lap, blinking dark blue eyes. When she saw her father coming, she lifted her chubby arms.

"Da-da!"

Robb picked his daughter up, favoring her with a weary smile. Jeyne returned it with a grin that showed all four of her teeth, her tufts of brown hair stirring in the breeze. Despite the chill, Jeyne happily leaned into her father's hold, making no protest as he took her to the windows.

"Margaery was rather apprehensive about this," Robb confided. "At first she thought I was japing when I told her that Father did it with all of us."

Had he? As Robb hummed a song of summer and Jeyne babbled, Arya tried to remember. She thought she vaguely recalled Father holding Rickon by the window, laughing quietly when Arya and Bran jumped on Mother, who was still abed. Then her mind wandered to other memories, wistful shadows that faded no matter how hard she clung to them.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed when Robb spoke. "You've been quiet for a good while," her brother observed. "Did you sleep at all?"

"No." Arya scuffed her boot on the floor. "I don't... I don't know how I feel."

"About Hoarfrost's death?"

"About anything!" she blurted.

Despite her best efforts, Arya couldn't hold back her tears. And as the tears spilled out, words came spilling out too. Her anger and her sorrow, her doubts and her fears. How unnecessary and unwanted she felt, how uncertain of her future.

"If I even have one," she sniffled, burying one hand in Nymeria's fur.

Then somehow she was blathering about her nightmares. The ones where she was naught but a useless sworn sword, forever trapped in her sister's shadow. The ones where she was naught but a cheerless wife, forever trapped in her husband's keep. The ones where she was naught but a helpless spirit, forever trapped in her own corpse.

Robb listened without a word. When Jeyne began to fuss and root against his chest he silently gave her back to the wet nurse, who then left the nursery. Probably to take the babe to Margaery. At some point thereafter, her brother must've come to stand beside her. Arya didn't notice until her tears and words ran dry, when she realized Robb's arm was the only thing keeping her from crumpling to the floor.

"I do not know what the future holds," Robb said at last. "But I know you, little sister. I know that you shall always love the sword, and I know that you shall never be happy being only a sword."

He hesitated, then sighed. "Just as I know that you shall never be happy being only a wife, no matter the husband or his seat."

Startled, Arya looked up. Robb's face was calm, but his eyes shone with unshed tears. "I just want you to be safe and happy," he murmured, his voice thick. "My crown and my people come before all else, even those I love, but if you have need of me you need only say the word."

The words came unbidden. "And what of Rickon?" Arya asked. "He needs you too."

Robb flinched. "Does he? I shouldn't think so. He hated being cupbearer after you left, he—"

"Rickon was only nine, of course he hated it," Arya interrupted. "Robb, he barely remembers our parents. I know it can't be easy to play both father and brother, and I know you have a thousand other things to do, but he needs you."

Before Robb could reply, a yawn escaped him. He stifled it, then gave a weary shake of his head. "I shall think on it," he conceded. Robb looked bleakly at the door. "In the meantime, I must inform the Greatjon and Lady Alys of their losses."

"I can tell Alys," Arya volunteered, ignoring a pang of discomfort.

Her brother's surprise and relief were almost palpable. Nothing else could've made Arya resist the urge to take the offer back. Thinking of Robb got her to Alys' chambers, and kept her going when a maid told her that m'lady had gone to the glass gardens.

Though her body was exhausted from being up all night, Arya's mind was oddly clear as she stepped out into the cold, delaying her talk with Alys by taking the longest route possible. She wasn't useless, she'd just been acting like it. True, the burden she'd lifted from Robb's shoulders was a small one, but it was something. And she'd spoken for Rickon, who was too stubborn to speak for himself.

What else might she do?

There were less than two moons until the mid-year solstice. If they were to be Arya's last days, she'd better make them count. What was the point of having the eyes of a water dancer if she didn't act on what she saw?

I could teach Mya to be a lady, Arya thought as she passed the stables, Nymeria by her side. Surely they could find one or two ladylike activities that Mya could tolerate or even enjoy. Mayhaps Patrek Mallister would be willing to help introduce her to hawking; Margaery loved hawking.

Passing by the broken tower spurred her next idea. Thus far she'd told Jon nothing of her attempt at finding answers as to why Craster's women were remiss in paying their tribute. Arya hadn't known what to say, and as such had said nothing. Now, though, she reconsidered. Little though Arya liked the mystery of whatever Gilly and her kin were up to, Gilly had served Sansa faithfully for years. Whatever the maid was planning, some instinct told her that there was no treachery afoot. And it wasn't like offering Gilly her protection would be difficult. Gilly didn't even need to know. All Arya had to do was tell Jon that she'd personally confirmed Dorsten's excuses, whatever they were. Jon would believe her, and he'd leave the women be.

And I ought to leave the battlements be, Arya realized. Hadn't Alys said that staring at her babe did naught to help either of them? Other than espying Blane and his men by chance, staring at the enemy night after night had done nothing to help defeat them, nor to make herself feel better. No, Alys had the right of it.

Thinking of babes prompted another thought, one that made Arya glance at the bleary-eyed Ser Perwyn with guilt and shame and then immediately send one of her men-at-arms to fetch Dacey Mormont. No wonder he often suggested that she go from one nursery to another. How else could Ser Perwyn see anything of his children if he was always trailing after Arya? He was her favorite sworn sword; she ought to be considerate of his needs, not utterly ignore them. Arya had been selfish, she knew that now. But she didn't want to keep being selfish, as much as it would hurt to see less of Ser Perwyn.

It also hurt to see Alys when she reached the glass gardens. She sat on a bench beside her goodmother, chatting amiably. With a sense of mounting dread, Arya took a seat on her other side. Before Arya said a word, Alys already knew something was amiss. Her face turned white; her hands trembled as she reached out, one hand taking Arya's and the other taking Lady Edythe's.

As Arya relayed the contents of Lady Marna's letter, Alys sat still as stone. Her only show of emotion was her grip. It grew tighter and more painful as Arya spoke. By the end she felt as though her bones might crack from the pressure. Then, suddenly, the pressure was gone, as was Alys.

"Some prefer to grieve alone," Lady Edythe sighed as they watched Alys disappear out of sight. Rather than chase after her gooddaughter, she'd stayed put. Now her attention fell upon Arya, whom she looked over with a gimlet eye.

"I seem to recall that you were wearing that tunic yesterday, princess." Lady Edythe frowned. "Judging by that and way you're drooping, I suspect that you ought to be finding your bed."

"As soon as Dacey comes to take Ser Perwyn's place." Arya yawned, suddenly drowsy. "I said she'd find me here; she should arrive at any moment."

Arya couldn't say how long they lingered in the glass gardens, but it was far longer than it ought to be before Dacey appeared. Any thought of complaint vanished after one look at Dacey's face. Her eyes were swollen, her cheeks red, her expression like one who had gazed upon her own grave.

Both Arya and Lady Edythe rose to their feet, but was Lady Edythe who asked the question, her voice trembling.

Whoever died, please don't let it be Robard, Arya begged the old gods as Dacey wet her lips so that she might reply. Nor his father, please. Alys has suffered enough.

It wasn't either of them. Arya would've never guessed who it was. Truth be told, the shock almost made it worse.

King Robb and Lord Snow had been gone from battle for perhaps an hour when a fight broke out. Why, no one was sure. It had begun with a northern captain and a black brother serjeant brawling, then started to spread as nearby northmen and black brothers rushed to the aid of their own. A man had gone running for King Aegon, but he was elsewhere, unable to intervene in time.

Meanwhile, Theon Greyjoy had gone for the serjeant and Ser Patrek Mallister had gone for the captain. Theon had seized hold of the serjeant and hauled him away, leaving Ser Patrek to try and calm the captain, now raving and brandishing an axe.

The next thing anyone knew, the axe was buried in Ser Patrek's face.

"We were the only members of the king's honor guard to survive the Red Wedding," Dacey said, her voice hollow. "He... he was my friend."

Arya wanted to cry, but her tears were spent. Barely aware of what she was doing, she sent Dacey away. The glass gardens suddenly seemed stifling, the air thick with warmth and damp and the scent of growing things. She'd sent a man-at-arms to fetch Ser Joseth Woolfield, but Arya couldn't await him here.

Nor could she get rid of Lady Edythe. When Arya went outside, she followed. Nymeria was pleased to see them. She leapt up from the snowbank she'd been lying in, snow going everywhere as she shook out her fur. The glass gardens were much too warm for the direwolf's liking. She was glad her girl had seen sense and come back to her.

Arya couldn't wander off; Ser Joseth ought to be here soon. Still, standing outside the glass gardens scratching Nymeria's ears was better than sitting inside without her. As for Lady Edythe, she was quiet company. Arya wondered if she knew about Hoarfrost yet. Though born an Umber, she knew the Greatjon's uncles far better than she knew the Greatjon's children. Save Cornel, whom she'd grown fond of whilst she was staying at court.

Robb must've broken the news to the Greatjon by now. Did that mean Arya ought to break the news to Lady Edythe? She certainly didn't want to. All Arya wanted was her bed and a long, dreamless sleep. And perhaps something to eat. She'd forgotten to break her fast, and her stomach wasn't happy about it.

Arya was reluctantly contemplating what to say to Lady Edythe when Nymeria turned towards the godswood, her nose sniffing at the air. Whilst her girl was in the glass gardens, the she-wolf had occasionally caught the scent of ale and salt. Now the scents were growing stronger. Beneath them was another smell, faint and faded, that of a familiar two-legger.

Nymeria didn't know what to make of that, but Arya did. Panic renewed her strength as she sprinted toward the godswood. She prayed she was wrong, but if she wasn't...

She wasn't.

Greatjon Umber had staggered inside the godswood and no further. He sat atop a snowdrift beside the entrance, his bulk leaning against the godswood's wall. Up close, there was far more white in the Greatjon's black beard than she recalled. His black eyes were shut, his cheeks red with drink and weeping.

Arya kicked him. "Get up!" she shouted. Helpful as ever, Nymeria closed her jaws about one of his immense arms, yanking as hard as she dared. However long the Greatjon had been here, it was too long. Arya's presence would help warm him, but if they couldn't get him inside...

"Stop shoutin', little princess," the Greatjon rumbled. His deep voice was queerly soft, his eyes still shut. "Call off the wolf and let me sleep."

"Get—"

"JON UMBER!"

Arya nearly jumped out of her skin. In her haste, she'd forgotten about Lady Edythe. She'd also forgotten about Lady Edythe's impressive lungs, and how shrill her voice could get on the rare occasion that she was out of temper.

"DO YOU MEAN TO CATCH YOUR DEATH?" Lady Edythe screeched, right into the Greatjon's face. "GET UP, THIS INSTANT."

Nymeria put her ears back, letting go of the Greatjon's arm so she could give a warning growl to the two-legger making that awful noise. Stop that, Arya told her. Go get Ser Joseth, quick! Happy to flee and spare her ears, Nymeria sped off like an arrow from a bow.

Lady Edythe, meanwhile, looked like she'd happily set archers on her kinsman. "GET UP!"

"No," the Greatjon sniffled. It ought to be funny seeing him put hands the size of hams over his ears, shrinking away from a woman half his size. But it wasn't, not with the despair on his face and in his voice. "Leave me, I'm going to see my sons again."

Lady Edythe stared at him for a moment, stunned. Then—

"AND WHAT ABOUT MARNA?" she shouted as she grabbed the Greatjon by the ear. "WHAT ABOUT CORNEL AND RIME? AND THINK OF FERN! WOULD YOU HAVE HER LOSE A HUSBAND, A BROTHER, AND A FATHER?"

"They'll be dead soon too," the Greatjon said. "If they're not already." Tears dripped down his nose. "Our doom has come, can't you leave me be?"

Lady Edythe would not leave the Greatjon be. She was still shouting herself hoarse when Nymeria returned, Ser Joseth and a pair of men-at-arms in hot pursuit.

"Get him up," Arya ordered, gesturing for Lady Edythe to get out of the way. Instead, she seized hold of one of the Greatjon's hands. It took her and all three men to haul the Greatjon to his feet, still protesting, his eyes fluttering open then shut. Arya strode up to him as close as she dared without risking him falling on her.

"Now you listen to me," Arya snapped. "If our doom has come, so be it, but we'll meet it on our feet and fighting." Forgetting herself, she moved closer, her finger stabbing at his chest. "Do you know what we say to the god of death?"

The Greatjon blinked down at her, confused.

Arya stabbed her finger at him twice, once for each word. "Not. Today. Not today." She couldn't bear it, Robb couldn't bear it, their folk couldn't bear it. "I forbid you to die," Arya snarled. "And if you do, I'll haunt you through hell, see if I don't."

The Greatjon's laugh was bleak. "Aye, you would. Our fierce little princess, not afraid of anything."

I am, Arya thought wearily as they led the Greatjon out of the godswood. She glanced over her shoulder, looking at the heart tree and its leafless white branches. But I'm done with letting that stop me.

---

Can't wait to see what y'all think in the comments!

Phew, the holiday season was busy. We saw family, dealt with some house issues, worked on wedding planning (so much wedding planning, jesus), got whumped with a snowstorm that was fun to see but not so fun to shovel, and then MORE wedding planning and being busy at work and a run of intermittent headaches While I'm bummed that my pace has slowed so much, I'd rather take my time and nail the ending than prioritize speed over quality.

Many thanks to Erzherzog and SioKerrigan for their advice on military/logistical issues.

I'm excited to (belatedly) share that The Weirwood Queen won Best War and Action Centric Fic in 2024 and placed 2nd for Best Expanded Lore and Worldbuilding in 2024 on r/TheCitadel. Over at r/AsoiafFanfiction, Chapter 166: Cersei II placed 3rd for Best Chapter. Thanks so much to everyone who voted!

Up Next

Chapter 177: Sansa IV

Chapter 178: Bran IV

End of Arc 2: The War for the Dawn

Arc 3: [Redacted]

Chapter 179: [Redacted] V

Chapter 180: [Redacted] V

Notes

1) Busy and tired or not, I can't resist my research rabbit holes. Did you know that medieval books were shelved with the spines tucked in and the fore-edge visible?

2) I'd like to shout out this tumblr post that helped clarify my thoughts about wights in ASOIAF.

3) For anyone who's curious, here's my sources on teething, on , and on why three year olds can be difficult.

4) Many thanks to Azarias, who made me aware of Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year. It served as an absolutely invaluable resource for coming up with what Arya sees and hears in the Wintertown.

5) The faithful dog who identifies his master's killer was based on the apocryphal story of The Dog of Montarges.

6) I didn't realize that "What do we say to the god of death? Not today." was a piece of show only dialogue. Color me impressed, because that fucking slaps.