Daeron Targaryen POV
Daeron and his party rode ahead of their forces as they reached Castle Darry—or what remained of it. The settlement around the keep had not been spared either. Burned wooden homes lay in heaps of ash, and broken people wandered the ruins. A woman knelt in the mud, weeping over two charred bodies. Their features were too twisted to tell man or woman, yet she clutched them as if her own blood. How she could tell was as baffling to Daeron as it was sorrowful.
Only Daeron and his chosen companions pressed onward toward the smoldering keep. His army, by his command, was stationed outside, for soon they would march toward Harrenhal.
Daeron's jaw tightened as he passed more grief-stricken faces. Some cried so loudly their wails would haunt his dreams. Others spat curses at the Lannisters, damning them and their men to the Seven Hells. A few broken men stared at him with a fire of desperate hope—that Daeron would take them into his host, that he would grant them a chance to avenge their dead. Daeron only shook his head and spurred his horse forward with a sharp kick, galloping toward the castle gates.
What greeted him was ruin. Blackened stone, walls half-collapsed, and towers gutted by flame. Castle Darry would need more gold to raise again than the house could muster in decades, had they still lived. Within the gateyard stood a man with a broad frame, brown hair, and pale blue eyes. He gazed longingly at the keep and the half-burned banner of Darry still fluttering above—a cruel mockery, if Daeron had to guess.
Dismounting, Daeron strode forward. The man stirred at the sound of boots on stone, blinking as though shaken from some grim reverie. His eyes flicked past Daeron to those who followed, recognition dawning in his face. A moment later, he fell to his knees.
"Your Grace," he said hoarsely.
Daeron inclined his head, bidding him rise. Whether he was the rumored bastard Darry, the only one with Darry blood left, or merely a loyal man of House Darry, his grief was real enough.
"What is your name?" Daeron asked in a firm tone.
"I am Willem Rivers, a distant cousin to Lord Raymun Darry. It was my mother who named me, Your Grace." His voice lacked the polish of highborn speech, yet it carried no drunken slur of the common folk either. Perhaps his mother had not been some tavern wench.
Daeron's gaze hardened. "I am sorry for what they did to Castle Darry. But know this—Lannister will pay, for this cruelty and for all the others they've sown across the realm."
Willem said nothing, but the flame in his eyes spoke louder than words. Daeron could almost smell the anger burning off him, anger mixed with doubt.
"Why were you not at the Crossroads Inn, Willem?" Daeron pressed. "I had thought you would come to petition me—to claim the Darry name and the lordship of your house."
"I…" Willem's voice wavered, then steadied. "I thought when Your Grace would pass from here, I would march with you after we retook Castle Darry. A few men who remained loyal to House Darry and me were ready to take the Keep from those damned Lannister's men. But we chose to wait for you. Somehow, the men inside learned of your arrival at the Inn. Fear of you and your army, and in their spite, they burned the castle and Plowman's Village with it. We struck at them as they fled—cut down near all of them—but the fire spread too fast. We could not save the walls. We could not save the village."
His words fell heavy in the ruined yard, ash and smoke still clinging to the air.
Beyond the Wall, ??? POV
The land beyond the Wall lay buried beneath a silence as deep as death. Snow fell not in flakes but in sheets, a white curtain that blurred the sky and swallowed the horizon whole. Pines groaned beneath the weight of ice, their branches bent low as if bowing to winter's cruel dominion. Each breath turned to frost before it left the mouth, and the air itself seemed thinner, harsher, touched with a cold that gnawed at the marrow.
Here, where even the wolves had fled, figures moved across the endless white—men and women draped in furs from head to toe. Among them lumbered giants, their mammoths plowing slow paths through the snowdrifts, great tusks rimed in ice.
Val rode near the vanguard, her white-blonde hair bound tight beneath a hood of wolfskin. Her eyes, pale as a winter sky, scanned the wastes behind them with unease. She felt it—the way the cold had sharpened these last moons, the way the nights stretched longer and heavier, as if time itself bent beneath the weight of some ancient will. This chill was not merely winter's work. It was the touch of the Others, whose strength swelled with every passing day, and Val felt it deep in her bones.
Many days had passed since she left the stone castle of the Starks after speaking with King Crow. Though she had told him she was venturing past the Wall to find the scattered Free Folk, the truth was harsher—she was searching for any word of her sister, Dalla, who had been left behind when Val followed Mance in the great attack, what the Southrons now called the Battle beneath the Wall. So far, no word or trace of her and many who were left behind. Val knew the chances of her sister and Freefolk, who were with her, surviving were slim, but still she clung to hope. She would try again, after leaving these people at the Milkwater near the Fist of the First Men. From there, they could make their own way south, and Val would give it one last try before she herself made her way to the South. A sound broke her out of her musing, and she turned toward the direction from which it came.
Sometimes the wind carried sounds too strange to be trees groaning or ice cracking. Thin whispers, brittle as glass splintering beneath the snow. Children of the tribes huddled close to their mothers, and even the warriors kept their hands near their axes. The giants rumbled uneasily, their mammoths trumpeting at shadows no eye could see.
Far to the south, the Wall loomed faintly, a pale shimmer through storm and distance, yet enough to quicken their steps.
"How far? How far do we have to walk? Are we close?" one of the women from the tribes asked, her voice trembling against the wind.
"Aye, we're close. A week, maybe two, and we'll reach the Fist of the First Men," Val replied. Her words drew groans, but also a burst of haste, men and women forcing weary legs to move faster. They spoke little otherwise—speech cost strength, and strength was needed for walking. And they could not afford too many halts, not with the white bastards on their trail.
They had been attacked more than once, but thanks to the weapons King Crow had given her—dragonglass, he called it—they had driven the wights back with only a handful of losses. Perhaps it was only because they had yet to meet the leaders of the dead, the pale demons Tormund had named. Val prayed they would not. She had no intention of dying here before mankind had its chance to end the white fuckers for good. She would fight in that war where they would end these fuckers, in that war, Val would meet her end with no regret.
Another bitter wind swept through them, rattling teeth with violent chattering. Just a little longer, she told herself. Just a little longer, and they would reach the Fist. From there, Craster's Keep, and then the Wall itself. Beyond it, the South, the Wall between them, and this cold, these people would be safe. Mance was right, the Wall will be their shield against the Others.
If Mance was to be believed, it was King Crow's forebear who built the Wall, and any fool could see it was magic laid in stone and ice. That same magic now stirred again in the Stark bloodline, it seemed, for Val herself had seen Jon Snow rise from his own funeral pyre, and others swore they saw him step from flames unburned. Perhaps the Old Gods had not abandoned mankind after all. But Val would have been happier if their blessing lay upon more than one man. The Southrons, from all she had heard, bled and died in their petty wars. She would not trust the fate of the world to a single crow, even one touched by gods.
Another gust clawed at her, making her teeth clack as she muttered a curse at her sister. If only Dalla had taken Mance's offer, had become his wife and Queen-beyond-the-Wall, she might have been safe now, watched over by midwives. And curse Mance too—for not pressing harder, as men of the tribes sometimes did, and for dragging Val with him to battle while leaving her sister behind.
Her thoughts broke as a deeper chill ran through her, one not born of the wind. Val stiffened, her hand closing around the dragonglass knife with its bone hilt. She did not need to speak. The people around her felt it too, weapons flashing into their hands as eyes scanned the storm for the glow of unnatural blue.
"There." The deep voice of the Hollow-born chieftain cut through the gale. Val turned with the others. Six cold lights glimmered in the mist, then more—far more. Dozens of blue eyes, advancing, silent, unblinking.
Warriors shifted quickly, spears leveled to form a wall, while women and children were pulled tight into the center, ringed by axes and shields. Mammoths stamped and rumbled, their breath steaming like smoke from furnaces.
The chieftain's voice came again, grim and steady. "We'll hold them as long as we can. You, woman with the pale hair—lead the rest to safety. I entrust my tribe to you. Now go!"
Val's jaw clenched as the eyes multiplied, the shapes in the storm swelling to fifty or more. She understood then why he gave the order. She gritted her teeth, turned, and barked for the others to move—fast.
Forgive me! I got lost on the road of life.