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Chapter Text

KNIGHTS OF THE NIGHTINGALE

Now let us sport us while we may;

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour,

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength, and all

Our sweetness, up into one ball:

And tear our pleasures with rough strife,

Thorough the iron grates of life.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

- Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress

PROLOGUE

They were seven against three.

It was always the same in his remembrances. You could explore the past in whatever way you wanted, but you could not unwalk roads you had already walked, could never choose paths that you had never taken. Every breath, every footfall, every burst of flower blossom and drift of falling sand was the same. Everything always started the same, ended the same, and went the same way.

Yet though things always were the same, they sometimes seemed different. Sometimes the crannogmen felt a chill in the air despite the Dornish sun, and sometimes he felt that time was running slow, or fast, or not at all. And sometimes, once in a hundred times, or mayhaps more, if you listened just right and dreamed it hard enough, there was a song.

The three waited before the round stone tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. The crannogmen had not forgotten any of them: Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, with his fabled greatsword Dawn slung agcross his back. Ser Oswell Whent, sharpening his blade on a whetstone, inscrutinable eyes peering out beneath the wings of the black bet on his white helm. And between them, Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.

The words were the same as they always had been. Lord Eddard Stark stepped forwards, with one hand on the greatsword Ice in his scabbard. As the crannogmen stood watching, he could help but feel the sense of heavy resignation again. Seven against three. Now I am the only one that remains.

“I looked for you on the Trident,” Eddard said to them.

“We were not there,” Ser Gerold answered.

“Woe to the Usurper if we had been,” said Ser Oswell.

“When King’s Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were.”

“Far away,” Ser Gerold said, “or Aerys would yet sit the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in seven hells.”

“I came down on Storm’s End to lift the siege,” Eddard told them, “and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them.”

“Our knees do not bend easily,” said Ser Arthur Dayne.

“Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him.”

“Ser Willem is a good man and true,” said Ser Oswell.

“But not of the Kingsguard,” Ser Gerold pointed out. “The Kingsguard does not flee.”

“Then or now,” said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.

“We swore a vow,” explained old Ser Gerold.

The Northmen moved in closer, all ghosts. Five of them were doomed to fall before the hour was up. Their swords came screaming out. Ice reigned among them now, a brand of proud blue steel. They were seven against three.

“And now it begins,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.

“No,” Eddard said with sadness in his voice. “Now it ends.” And they came together.

The crannogman knew each and every beat now, parry for parry. He knew when each man fell, and he felt the pain and the loss as he always did. Such was his curse; such was the pain of never letting go. Because if he did, the Tower of Joy would be forgotten, and then they were all doomed.

After, Ned went ahead up the steps, to where the faint screams of “Eddard!” were chanted through the stones. Howland let him go alone, lingering to say a brief prayer for the dead. The prayer was not enough, but for now, they could not afford honour. That would come later, when they broguht the tower down and gave the eight fallen men their burials under the stars and moonlight of Dorne, as the wind laughed and sang cruelly through the gaps in the stones.

At the top of the steps, he found Eddard Stark leaning over his sister’s body. The bloody sheets were flecked with rose petals, swimming in blood. In the corner of the room, a Dornish wetnurse stood away from the Northmen, some brave defiance in her eyes. Ned turned, and when he did, the bundle was in his arms. “Promise me, she said.”

“A day,” said the wetnurse, making them both look up. “The boy and your sister have been here for a day, not more. She was holding on for you. But she could not hold on any longer. I am sorry.”

Ned only gave her a sombre, dark look, so it fell to Howland to ascertain the girl’s name – Wylla – and what she was doing here. “They brought me in to help deliver the babe. And to give him milk. She fed him from his own breast, but he will need milk now.”

“Does he have a name?” Howland asked. It only dawned on him then who the babe’s father might have been. Rhaegar wanted a Visenya for his Aegon and Rhaenys… perhaps it was best that the babe was a boy after all, considering how Aegon and little Rhaenys fared.

“Not yet,” said Wylla. “All I know is she didn’t want to give him a name like his. Not a dragon’s name.”

“Aye,” Ned said at last, looking down at the boy in his arms. “A Northern name. A Stark name.” There was a long, helpless pause. “Jon. For Jon Arryn. I… I thought about Brandon, but…”

“Sometime later, mayhaps,” said Howland. “Brandon may suit for one of the children you have with Lady Catelyn.”

How right I was.

The crannogman could feel the tower starting to shake around him. The fields of red grass outside were turning to dust and ash. The world was starting to break. “What did she say?” he heard himself say, in the past.

“Promise me,” said Ned, “she said, promise me, Ned. She said that Robert must never know. That I must keep the boy safe. The vow will trouble me, and Catelyn, I have no doubt of that…”

“What will you do?”

Ned’s face was impassive. “Be troubled,” he said, “and keep my vows.”

And then he was back in the forest, staring at the snow. He steadied himself on a branch, stood up, and with dreams of Dornish sunlight still stinging at his eyes, Howland Reed set off through towards the woods.

Back to the castle. Yes. Howland was certain there was something waiting for him there, though he could not say why. He followed the winding path through the trees, taking right turns and left turns beyond counting, a careful sequence which only he could remember. He climbed a rock ladder, passed through a tunnel of grasping vines, and soaked his boots to the ankles as he waded through a low, chilly river.

Then Greywater Watch surfaced through the gloom, a cluster of ramshackle wooden towers on the edge of the tepid lake, strange and twisted. Howland crossed the rope bridge that bound the floating island to the wooded mainland – the ropes could be cast off at any point, to let Greywater Watch float with the currents – and passed through the doors.

The Reeds kept no true garrison of guards as the other Northern houses did. Here, if a man protected his home, his home would protect him. The crannogmen protected themselves from the enemy with pitchforks and blowdarts and long-bows, but did so in a solitary fashion. They came together when they had to, but for the most part, they lived their lives separately from one another, much as they as a people preferred to live separately from the world. The Lords of Greywater Watch were not iron-fisted rulers. They were leaders whenever one might be needed. They were brothers to their people, not masters.

It was warm inside the castle. The walls were veined with dark moss and capillaried in vines. The entranceway opened out into Greywater’s main hall. Pale light blossomed from the candles on the table.

One figure stood waiting: his wife, Jyana. “Howland,” she said with a twinge of disapproval. “I was about to send a man out to find you.”

“I sensed I might be needed back here.”

“Indeed.” She frowned. “There is a visitor for you.”

“Here?” The lord of Greywater Watch did not get visitors.

“Aye. Here.” She frowned some more. “Isn’t that why you came back here?”

“I sensed that I was needed.” Howland allowed himself a small smile. “I never claimed to know why.”

“So be it. And who are these visitors of mine?”

“Old friends.” He knew from his wife’s tone that she did not entirely mean it. “I took them to your solar.” They shared another smile. Howland Reed had no solar. Only this floor, and one hall. As they emerged into the candlelit room, he saw the figures sitting by his hearth. One a woman, the other a young man. Both of them were unsettlingly familiar.

“Lord Howland.” The woman rose at his approach. The candles dimmed around her, and the shadows moved their fingers away from her face. So here we are, thought Howland heavily. Ghosts of a time long past, reunited at the end of the world. The crannogman, and the lady from Starfall.

“Lady Dayne,” Howland said. She was not unblemished by the years, but time had treated her much more kindly than it had him. Her shoulders did not stoop, her limbs were not crooked, her hair was raven-dark without even a suggestion of grey. She was no old widow, but that was not to say that the years had not touched her in their own way. No longer was she the carefree companion of Princess Elia and Ned and Brandon. No longer were they knights of summer.

“Lord Howland.” She gestured to the young man by her side. “May I present my nephew, Edric, the Lord of Starfall.”

Howland returned the boy’s nod. “I am pleased to meet you, Lord Edric.”

“And you, my lord.” The boy had a slight fearfulness in his eyes. Most likely he had been raised on tales of bog devils. Many of the Northern lords thought Howland Reed ate frogs for every meal, that he was half a frog himself. They were wrong, but Howland saw no need to correct them. A reputation could be a good thing. Roose Bolton had the right of that, he thought, quite sadly. And he was right to see that Robb’s campaign was doomed from the off. That I would fail Ned’s son, as I failed Ned.

The thought came to him suddenly. “You’re named for Eddard Stark, aren’t you?” he said to Lord Dayne.

The boy nodded. “I was, my lord.”

“An odd choice, if you don’t mind me saying. Considering…”

“We don’t hold grudges,” said Lady Ashara. “We of House Dayne know where the real war lies. Though we must apologise for the time we took in getting here.”

“Better late than not at all. But I must ask, why did you come here? The bulk of the Northern force is with the Manderlys, in White Harbor—”

“—where we have sent what few forces we could spare,” Ashara said. “But as you know, Lord Reed, we have… particular matters to discuss. I would sooner do it away from prying eyes and walls with ears. This may be the only place in the Seven Kingdoms free from the Spider, or from Daenerys’s spies.”

“The Tower?”

“The Tower,” Ashara confirmed.

Of course it was. Howland glanced towards Lord Edric. “How much does he know…?”

“I think all of Westeros will know soon enough. If everything goes according to plan. As for Daenerys…”

“I contemplated following her, and trying to convince her. But I think she is a lost cause, for now. Last we heard, she has returned to Dragonstone with her two remaining dragons and the ashes of her armies. The Tyrells and the Martells are penned up in Highgarden. Lord Willas and Princess Arianne might be captives of the queen. Or they might not be.” She shrugged. “The southerners will be of no help to us.” She paused, and wet her lips. “There was Ser Barristan Selmy. I had hoped he would come with us. But he chose to die with honour rather than live without it.”

As I have, thought Howland.

“He was an honourable fool.” Lady Ashara sighed. “But his star will shine brightly in death, I think.”

“But not as brightly as it might have shined in life.” It was Jyana who spoke, from the shadows; Howland thought she had gone away. “But that chance is gone. We must turn our attention to what remains.”

Howland nodded. “I have not heard from the Wall in months. Not from Winterfell in weeks. Jyana possesses some greensight, but the clouds are so thick that she cannot see through it.”

Jyana nodded. “Whoever leads this ironborn invasion, be it Euron Greyjoy or some other, they are consorting with powers far beyond their control or understanding. And even further beyond ours.”

“What about the Stark boy?” asked Ashara. “Brandon, that is. I have heard he has the sight—”

“The boy is the most powerful of all the greenseers, or has the potential to be that. But even he cannot speak with us during this. It is like being in the midst of a dark ocean, and you have no energy to do anything but tread water. We have expended nearly all our efforts trying to stop the dark getting in. We may have to surrender Greywater Watch to the enemy soon, and retreat to Moat Cailin and White Harbor.” He saw the worry on the younger Dayne’s face. “Have no fear, my lord. It has been done before; we just rarely speak of it. As you may have seen, Greywater Watch does not have the defenses to resist a vast invasion.”

Ashara nodded. “Well, we will not object to that. I imagine you have the right of it.” She fell silent stared at him for a moment with those dark purple eyes – eyes that had made Starks swoon and fall in love at first sight. “The Tower, then. And the boy.”

“Not now,” Jyana said, firmly. “You have had a long journey. You should rest first. We should all rest.”

Howland nodded. “My wife has the right of it. Be welcome under my roof, and accept my hospitality as guests. But I beg you, take some rest now. Winter is coming, and sleep may not come so easily as we look ahead…”

Lady Ashara did not resist. She allowed Jyana to lead her off to her duty. Edric followed the women out.

A few minutes later, Jyana returned to where Howland sat in his chair beside the newly rekindled fire. Nightfall was fast approaching; the first and brightest stars specked the faraway horizon.

“Howland.” His wife took her seat. “I am worried.”

“About what?”

“That you are not fully considering what you plan to do. If you go through with this… if the boy agrees, and does as you intend him to, it will be war. She will claim the throne, and if it goes wrong… even if it goes right, and she comes north, these lands will burn.”

“I know this—”

“More than that,” she pressed on. “This will be a war you have started. Thousands will die, burned to ash. Thousands more will lose fathers, brothers, sons and daughters… Even if she comes for the Others, she will come for us, too. She will come for the lord of Greywater Watch, who was the first to speak out against her.”

“If my death is needed to stop the Others, then so be it.”

“Daenerys is the Mad King’s daughter. You know what she did on the Blackwater. It will not just be you she comes for. It will be our people, and our…” She swallowed. “Meera, too.”

“Meera is safe in Winterfell.”

Jyana frowned at him. “You don’t believe that.”

She was right. He didn’t. Meera should have come home by now. They knew that Jojen was lost; they had known that he was journeying north to his death. “I will not see you again, Father,” the boy had said that day, as they stood together away from Meera and Jyana. The snowflakes tangled in his hair, white and grey wisps among the brown, the ashes and dust of Greywater Watch attaching themselves to him one last time. His little old man, with the tortoise-wise eyes, with his strange stubborn streak of bravery. “It is alright, though,” he said. “I know where I am going.”

“But you do not know why,” said Howland.

“I do. The Song Must Be Sung. Those are our words.”

But they are just words, child. Words are wind. “You do not. And that is a terrible unfairness. If I could go in your place, Jojen…”

“But that is not the way things are fated to be.” Howland still wondered: when Jojen spoke those words, was he afraid? On the face of things, he seemed proud of his destiny, but he must have been afraid of dying. They all were. Even Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had been afraid.

The rest of the day passed in a murky confusion of stars and time. Jyana went away, at some point, but he stayed alone at his table, thinking. The dreams did not come to him, not here. Greywater Watch was built with spells and runes, same as the Wall and Winterfell, to stop the darkness getting in, but they also stopped the green from getting out. Though it might not seem like it from the outside, and though nature had overcome the surrounding lands, Greywater Watch was firmly in the realms of men.

The Reeds had first come here long ago, when the world was still young. Reed, Stark, Flint: those were the names of simple men, who were untroubled by the complicated lies and politics of the south. And the First Men came north, and the Children of the Forest brought the hammer of the waters down upon the Neck, in their attempt to break the world in two. But the Children had failed then as now, and were forced out of their lands, into the distant north, where the Others walked. While the First Men continued north to ensure the totality of their conquest, the Reeds had stayed, as a rearguard against the Children who still populated the newly swamped land. And so all the enemy had been destroyed. Or nearly all of them. What the Starks didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. And what the Starks did not know, they rarely cared about.

Moonrise brought the Daynes back to his table. Jyana found one of the few bottles of good wine they had. “Where did you get this?” asked Edric, politely. “Forgive me, but it must be difficult to bring in supplies to a place such as this.”

“There are those who are willing to bring trade up the Blue Fork from Fairmarket and Seagard, and up the Green by way of the Twins, now that the Freys are dead and gone,” Howland answered. “But yes, it has been difficult.”

“Then I thank you especially for your hospitality.” The Dayne boy offered a smile. “I… I have never tried crocodile steak before.”

“Nor should you have. It is a little tough, even I think that. Fear not. Once we get to White Harbor, you’ll find that Lord Manderly is no stranger to southern fare. I have it on good authority that his feasts are excellent.”

“And far more lively than the feasts in the south, I do not doubt,” said Lady Ashara. “I still remember your table from the tourney of Harrenhal. In the twenty years since, I have never experienced such hospitality.”

So: the conversation had turned to Harrenhal already. Howland drew a breath. “Yes. And we will probably never experience hospitality like it again.” He did not want to talk about the tourney. But Ashara Dayne had come a thousand miles to do just that, and he dare not refuse her.

But he would talk on his terms.

Howland set down his knife. “Forgive me, Lady Dayne. I know you must be very eager to discuss the events of Harrenhal. But I fear I can shed no light on the subject that has not already been offered to you.”

“True. I have talked to Oberyn Martell, to Jon Connington, to Barristan Selmy – all dead now – and Edric has interrogated Jaime Lannister. But in twenty years I have never spoken to anyone who was at that table.” For half a second, her violet eyes flashed with cold anger. “Or are you going to tell me that you don’t remember, my lord?”

“Of course I remember. That doesn’t mean I want to. But I will never forget it. Ned, Brandon and Benjen in their southern garb for once, and me in one of Ned’s doublets from when he was a squire. More finery than any of us were used to. And then there was Lyanna. Clad in… it was silver and blue. Silver like the clouds gathering to the north, and blue like the midnight sea. The lace and the trim wove together, like waves, capped with pale white foam. But the sea could not contain her, because she was more than that. A storm in a cauldron, alive. When you looked close, you could see that there were veins of red running through the silk. Red for Rhaegar, mayhaps. But I saw it as the sap that runs down the heart tree’s grim face whenever it laughs. And how the trees were laughing that night.

“And then there was Rhaegar. The thing is, I don’t remember Rhaegar, or how he looked.”

“He was in black,” said Ashara, absently. “He was always in black.”

“Yes, I think you’re right. But even so, that wasn’t what mattered with Rhaegar. What I remember is the music. The song he played… it was so much like the tourney, I suppose. A song of patience and heroic martyrdom unsung, of tilting furniture, emblazoned shields… but that was only the surface. Bases and tinsel trappings, nothing more. Beneath the still waters of that paradise, artifice and intrigue, miles of it, like the part of the iceberg that lurks beneath the water. Seven hells and seven heavens fought within that man, and within the people in that hall. Lannisters, Baratheons, Starks, Arryns, Tullys, and Rhaegar Targaryen in the midst of it all. He was always where the occasional bubbles were, spitting venom to the surface. One spark in that hall, one tiny flame, would have set it all off.”

“Yes,” said Ashara. “And he did.”

“Aerys—”

She shook her head. “The spark was not Aerys, or Robert Baratheon. The spark was Brandon Stark.”

The table had darkened to just the two of them. Jyana and Edric were there in the sidelines, listening intensely, but they did not matter now.

“That night,” Howland said, “they say you—”

“A truth for a truth, my lord.”

“What do you want to know?”

“You know my price.”

The Tower. Seven against three. So be it.

“I was with Brandon that night,” she said simply, “and I lost the child. That is all there was to it.”

Howland did not think she was telling the truth, not entirely. Ashara had lost the child, but he was not sure that it was entirely accidental. The bastard child of a Stark and a Dayne would have posed all manner of problems for its mother. Perhaps it was better not to ask.

“And now your part of the bargain, Lord Reed. Wylla told me some of it, but not all.”

“If you have to question it, then you already know. But… I swore you a vow. Aye, as I made a vow to Ned that I would never tell any soul living. He took promises seriously, Ashara, and even for you he would have made no exception. If you doubt that, remember how long he kept it from Lady Catelyn. But the time for secrets is over, as you said.

“We were seven against three,” he told her. “The seven: Ned, myself, Ethan Glover, William Dustin, Martyn Cassel, Theon Wull, and Mark Ryswell. The three were Ser Gerold Hightower, Ser Oswell Whent, and your brother, Ser Arthur. All good men.

“We rode hard from Storm’s End when we received the news that Lyanna was there. How Ned learned it I will never know, though I doubt it came of his own initiative. The south is full of men who know things that are no business of theirs. Anyhow, there we were, at the Tower, in the baking red sunlight. And they spoke…” Now it begins. No, now it ends. “…but words came to naught. And so—”

“Was… was Arthur…?” Lady Ashara swallowed. “When he spoke, how did he speak?”

Howland closed his eyes, but he did not have to. The faces and the memories haunted him every night. “He was reluctant, I think. Whent was ever enigmatic, but I believe he had resigned himself to death then, and Hightower… I sense that Ser Gerold truly believed in what he was doing, even if only out of some misplaced sense of love and duty for his prince. As for your brother… well, if any of the three had their doubts, it was him. But brotherhood is a curious thing. He might not have died to keep Lyanna imprisoned in that tower, or even to ensure that Rhaegar’s will was kept, but he would have died for his brothers, and for his honour, even if it was not what he wanted.

“So,” he went on. “We fought. Hightower was the first to die. Maybe it was some attempt at a valiant charge, or to secure some glory in his prince’s eyes. He killed Mark Ryswell, but after that, he was slower than even he had been expecting. Ned and William Dustin surrounded him and made a swift end. Then it was Whent and your brother against the six of us who remained.

“Ser Oswell and Ser Arthur… when they fought, it was as though the Age of Heroes had come again. I will admit that your brother held back somewhat in that first part – if he had not, we would all have died then and there. But as it was, Ser Oswell slew Ethan Glover and Theo Wull. Then he turned into me, and we fought, and Ser Oswell knocked me to the ground with a slash across the breastbone, and I fell into the dirt. When I looked up again, though, he was dead, impaled on William Dustin’s sword.

“And then there were three: William Dustin, Martyn Cassel and Ned, all against Ser Arthur. I was lying there in the mud, and they must have thought I was dead. I never saw much of it, only heard their swords, and Dawn… it does not cut, so much as it hums through the air, and dances, and sings. William and Martyn fell down like flowers with their stems cut, felled so fast that I did not even see any blood.

“By then I was staggering back to my feet, but neither Ned nor Ser Arthur paid me any attention. Ice and Dawn… they did not strike one another so much as they danced, and the blows came so fast and precise that for a moment, it seemed as they were not using swords at all. Your brother was the greatest fighter I have ever seen, Lady Ashara. Maybe the greatest fighter the Seven Kingdoms ever saw. It seemed to me like hours then, but I know now that it was only moments before he had Ned on the back foot, and bleeding from a dozen wounds.

“I knew I had to do something. It was him or Lyanna, you understand.” He took care not to look away from Ashara’s eyes. “So I took my dagger, and I stabbed him in the back of the neck, above his gorget. He fell to one knee. And Ned took Dawn and—”

“—made an end of it.”

“Yes. It was a craven’s move, but—”

“I understand.” She didn’t, he knew, but so be it.

“Ned was sore wounded then, and he should have taken a few moments to rest, but Lyanna was screaming up in her tower. And so he climbed those steps like a man possessed, and it was left to me to say prayers over the dead. When I reached the top of the tower, Lyanna was dying in his arms. She was lying in her bed of blood, surrounded by blue winter roses – the same that had made up the crown Rhaegar gave her at Harrenhal. Death was in that room, and descending fast. They called that place the Tower of Joy, but there was no joy there. Only blood.”

“And Jon Snow,” said Edric Dayne. “Blood and snow.”

“Yes,” he replied, “it was Jon Snow. She begged Ned… she made him promise. Promise me, Ned, she said.” Those words had scarred him for years. “Promise me, Ned. She made him promise to claim the boy as his own, and never tell Robert Baratheon of his heritage – or Jon himself, I think. If he knew that Ned was harbouring Rhaegar’s son… then that would be an end to peace. Tywin Lannister would have sided with Robert and Hoster Tully with Ned, and Jon Arryn would be caught between the two, unable to do anything, and the realm would have torn itself to pieces.”

“Small mercies,” said Ashara. “Lyanna’s death, I mean. I bore the girl no ill will, but if she had returned to King’s Landing alive, that would have been an end to everything. Both to peace and to… whatever Rhaegar was trying to build.”

“A saviour,” said Jyana. She had been very quiet, so when her voice came in, it was a knife. “He was trying to find our saviour. Our saviour. Not the false Aegon in the south. But the true one in the North. Rhaegar wanted a Visenya for his Aegon and Rhaenys. We have Jon Snow.”

“I must go north,” said Ashara. “I must go to Lord Snow, at Castle Black. Lord Reed, would it be possible for you to take care of Edric while I—”

She would have said more, but then Jyana stood up abruptly, nearly knocking over the table. Her voice was a whisper, but still loud. “Someone approaches the castle.”

“Foe or friend?”

Jyana considered for a moment. “Friend. Nay, more than that. I think…” Her voice dropped even further. “Meera…”

Meera. The prince that was promised and all of Rhaegar’s prophecies were forgotten. Howland stood up, and, a little dazed, made his way towards the entrance of the castle. And there, sure enough, he made out a few dozen figures, armed with torches. Meera led the way, stumbling beneath her heavy pack, nearly lost in all her furs. And behind her… Howland was dizzied by the light, but he thought he saw the giant Hodor, and there was someone pulling a sled, and could that even be Jon Snow? Had he come all the way south with them?

When he saw Jojen among them, he realised none of it was real. It was Meera, all right, but these people around her were no friends of hers, not Northmen. Instead he spied fish scales on their breastplates, axes and cudgels instead of spears, and their cloaks had krakens on them, not wolves. But Meera was here, and she was falling into his arms, and it was all right. He tousled her hair, rested her against him. She was taller than him, but she was shuddering, saying, “Oh, Father, oh, Father,” over and over, and he had to support her.

At last they moved apart. Meera moved to embrace her mother, then made to introduce her companions. “Father, these are… well, Greyjoy soldiers. I met them in the forest. And this is their leader—”

A young woman clad all in leathers stepped forward. She had scars on both cheeks, and her eyes had seen things they should not have seen. “Lord Reed,” she said stiffly. “My name is Asha Greyjoy. I am the queen of the Iron Isles. Or I would be, if my uncle Euron had not usurped me.”

Howland nodded. But his eyes and ears were for his daughter. “Meera. Are you… are you alright?”

“I am,” she said, and swallowed deeply. “But… but…”

He’s not here.

“Meera,” said Howland. “What happened?”

“He stayed,” she said, and then tears were coming out, tears of exhaustion and elation and pure, unstoppable sadness, like he had never seen. “I told him to go, but he wouldn’t listen. He stayed. He stayed.”

Howland felt his stomach clench. Oh, Ned. I am so sorry. “What happened?” he asked, already knowing. “Meera, what happened? We have had no news from Winterfell in weeks—”

“Winterfell,” she said, repeating the word in a daze. “Winterfell. Winter fell.”