A/N: If you are enjoying this story, please leave a review! Thank you!
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Year 300 AC
White Harbor, The North
Arya sat hunched at a corner table of the common room in the Merman's Rest, her fingers wrapped around a cup of sour ale she had not touched. The face she wore was plain and forgettable. Dull brown eyes, freckles scattered across a nose too wide for beauty, mousy hair pulled back beneath a threadbare hood. The clothes were Braavosi woolens, nondescript and travel-worn. No one looked at her twice.
Her pack rested against her leg beneath the table. She could feel Needle's weight through the canvas, the familiar shape of the hilt wrapped in old leather. The Sealord's men had delivered it to her lodgings that morning, along with the rest of her belongings from the House of Black and White. A servant had simply waited by the ship during her departure, handed her the bundle, and left without a word.
How did he retrieve these? The thought circled in her mind like a crow over carrion. A show of power over Braavos, or did the Faceless Men let me go?
The Kindly Man's face surfaced in her memory, his gentle smile that never reached his eyes. She had walked away from an assignment. Abandoned the gift she was meant to give. Revealed herself to the Sealord. Any of those things alone should have earned her death.
And if they let me go, what do they want in return?
The question had no answer. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. The Faceless Men did not explain themselves to failed acolytes.
Arya took a shallow breath, forcing her shoulders to relax. Around her, the inn hummed with conversation. Merchants arguing over prices. Sailors swapping lies about storms and foreign ports. A serving girl laughing too loud at some dock worker's jest. The sounds washed over her, familiar and strange all at once. Westerosi voices, northern burrs mixed with few southern drawls, the occasional Vale accent clipped and proper.
She was home. Or close enough to call it that.
For the first time in years, she was free. But she was also utterly alone.
No Kindly Man to guide her steps. No waif to test her lies. No mission but the one she chose for herself.
The weight of it settled in her chest, heavy as a stone.
Arya's eyes drifted to the window. Snow fell in lazy spirals, dusting the cobblestones outside. Just a light snowfall now, but she knew what it meant. Winter had come in truth. The roads north would be treacherous. The Kingsroad north of White Harbor was already impassable in places, or so the dock workers claimed.
I could leave tonight. The thought came unbidden, sharp and urgent. Walk out that door, find the road, and go.
But she would freeze before she reached Cerwyn. Foolish to think otherwise. The girl who had been Arya Stark knew the North, knew its winters. Even with Needle at her side, even with all the Faceless Men's training, she would not survive alone on foot in the deep snows.
A girl is no one. No one can become anyone. But even no one needs a horse and food.
Her options were few. She could approach House Manderly directly, reveal herself, and beg passage north. Too dangerous. Lord Manderly might be loyal to the Starks, but his household would be full of eyes and ears. Word would spread. Questions would be asked. She was not ready for that.
Better to blend with a merchant caravan heading north. Time to find ships heading to Winterfell.
Arya's fingers drummed against the table, a nervous habit she caught and stilled. Patience. She had learned patience in Braavos and she could wait a few more days.
The door to the inn opened, letting in a gust of cold air and two men stamping snow from their boots. Arya's gaze flicked to them, cataloging details without thinking. Training did that. Made you see everything, weigh everything, even when you did not mean to.
The first man was broad and thick, wrapped in heavy furs that marked him as northern. His face was jovial, red-cheeked from the cold, and his laugh boomed across the room as he clapped the second man on the shoulder. Rings glinted on his fingers, too many for a simple tradesman. Wealthy, then. A merchant, perhaps, or a minor lord playing at being common.
The second man was lean and nervous, his cloak cut in the southern style. Vale, Arya guessed from the way he held himself, stiff and cautious. His eyes darted to the corners of the room, to the door, to the stairs. A man used to watching his back.
They took a table near hers, close enough that she could hear their voices if she focused. Arya shifted slightly in her seat, angling her body toward them without seeming to. The rest of the inn's noise faded, became a dull hum in the background. Another trick the Faceless Men had taught her. How to listen. How to hear the words beneath the words.
The northern merchant called for ale, his voice carrying easily. The serving girl hurried over, all smiles and curtsies. Arya watched the way the man's hand lingered on the girl's wrist, the way his grin widened when she blushed. A man who liked his comforts.
The Vale merchant said nothing, just nodded when the girl asked if he wanted the same. His fingers tapped against the table, restless.
When the ale arrived, the northern man drank deep and sighed with satisfaction. "Seven hells, that's good. Nothing like a proper northern brew after a week on the road."
The Vale merchant took a cautious sip, grimaced, and set his cup down. "I'll take your word for it."
"Suit yourself." The northern man leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking beneath his weight. "So, what brings you to White Harbor? Trade?"
"What else?" The Vale merchant's voice was low, guarded. "Though the gods know it's harder every year."
"Aye, war's bad for business. Always is."
The Vale merchant leaned in, his voice dropping to a hush. "So it's true? The North bent the knee to a Targaryen? Again?"
Arya's breath caught. Her fingers tightened around her cup.
The northern merchant laughed, loud and untroubled, sloshing his ale. "Aye, but this one's different. King Aemon's no foreign dragon. He's Stark blood too. Lord Eddard Stark's nephew, raised in Winterfell."
Nephew. The word struck her like a fist. Jon. They were talking about Jon.
"Stark and Targaryen?" The Vale merchant's confusion was plain. "How's that possible?"
"Prince Rhaegar and Lady Lyanna, they say. Married in secret before the rebellion. Makes the boy trueborn, if you believe it."
It should have felt like a lie. It should have been impossible. But she remembered the way Father had looked at Jon sometimes, sad and distant, like he was seeing someone else.
Because Jon was not his shame. Jon was his sister's son. My cousin… No! No, he is still my brother!
"The Vale's sworn to him too," the northern merchant continued, his voice easy and conversational. "Lady Sansa brought the Knights of the Vale north. Even Lord Rickon Stark was found but Lord Brandon Stark has yet to be… found. It seems all of us are in this together now."
Arya's vision blurred for a moment. She blinked hard, forcing the tears back. Sansa and Rickon were alive. They were home. But Bran… Bran is gone.
The thought came cold and final, like a blade sliding between her ribs. She pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth, bit down on the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper. Her hands curled into fists beneath the table, nails digging crescents into her palms.
Don't. Don't cry. Not here. Not now.
But the ache spread anyway, a hollow, gnawing thing that started in her chest and crawled up her throat. She could hear his voice, bright and curious, asking her to play.
And now he was dead, like Father, Mother and Robb.
Her vision blurred. She blinked hard, once, twice, forcing the wetness back. The common room swam into focus again as she discreetly surveyed her surroundings. No one was looking at her. No one saw.
Good.
The Vale merchant leaned in closer, his voice dropping even lower. "And the other thing? The rumors?"
The inn went quiet. Not all at once, but in a ripple that spread from table to table. Conversations died mid-sentence. The serving girl stopped pouring. The innkeeper's hand froze on a cup. Every eye in the room turned toward the two merchants.
The northern merchant seemed to feel it. He straightened in his chair, nodded slowly, and when he spoke again, his voice was loud enough for the whole room to hear.
"My cousin's a knight in Lord Manderly's service. Specifically Lord Wylis Manderly. He saw it with his own eyes." He paused, letting the silence stretch. "Indeed, King Aemon Targaryen can transform into a dragon. Black as obsidian, eyes like burning coals, so large that some say he is Balerion the Black Dread reborn."
Gasps and muttered prayers erupted from the common room. It's true. Jon is a dragon.
"What has this world come to?" The Vale merchant's voice was faint, shaken. "What are the Seven doing?"
"Cersei burned the Great Sept with wildfire," the northern merchant said, his tone gone hard. "The Seven are dead in South as much as it is in the North. Here, the old gods rule. And they sent us a dragon."
Cersei.
Arya's hand tightened around her cup. Her knuckles went white. She felt the clay crack beneath her fingers, heard the faint sound of it splitting.
"Trade's been hell since the crownlands restricted merchant licenses," the Vale merchant was saying, his voice a distant buzz in Arya's ears. "Profits are down near four parts in ten."
The northern merchant snorted. "Count yourself lucky it's only coin. Be grateful you're not ash."
Queen Cersei. Still on the throne. Still breathing. While Father died. While Robb died. While Mother—
The rage came like wildfire, hot and red and blinding. The inn's noise faded to nothing. The merchants, the sailors, the serving girl, all of it vanished. All she could see was Cersei's face, smiling, golden and beautiful and cruel, watching while Father is executed.
Arya forced herself to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Slow. Controlled. A girl is no one. A girl is calm.
She thought of Winterfell. Sansa and Rickon were there. Jon was a dragon king with an army at his back. They were together. They were safe.
I could go north. I could be Arya Stark again. I could have a home.
The thought was sweet, achingly sweet. She could see it in her mind. Walking through Winterfell's gates. Sansa running to meet her. Rickon's wild grin. Jon's quiet smile. She could be a Stark again. She could belong.
But another voice whispered in her mind. Can you truly go home while one of the architects of your family's ruin still lives? Can you look them in the eye, knowing Cersei Lannister still breathes?
Cersei Lannister sat on the Iron Throne, untouched, unpunished.
The snow fell outside, soft and silent as Arya stood. The motion was so sudden that the northern merchant glanced at her, then away, uninterested. She was no one to him. Just another traveler in a crowded inn.
She dropped a copper on the table and turned toward the door.
Winterfell can wait. Not yet. Not while Cersei's name still topped my list.
Arya stepped out into the snow-filled street of White Harbor. The cold bit at her cheeks, stung her eyes. She pulled her hood up, her hand never leaving the pack at her side. Needle was there, waiting.
She would go south. To King's Landing. To the Red Keep. To the woman who had destroyed her family.
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Beyond the Wall
The stone sat between them like a judgment.
Bran's mind felt scraped hollow, wrung out like wet cloth after hours of watching through the weirwood's eyes. He'd seen too much of the past and the present, each vision had pulled at him, demanding attention, demanding action, when all he could do was watch.
The stone was small. Ordinary. Grey granite, no bigger than his fist, smoothed by some ancient river. It sat on the cave floor before him, mocking his exhaustion with its simple existence.
"Again," the Bloodraven said.
Bran wanted to refuse. His head throbbed. The roots that grew through his legs ached where they met flesh, a constant reminder of the price he paid for sight. But he met the old greenseer's gaze—that single red eye burning in the darkness—and nodded.
"The Wall was not built with hands." Bloodraven's voice carried the weight of centuries, each word deliberate. "It was built with will and life given freely."
Bran closed his eyes, reaching for that place inside himself where the green dreams lived. The stone's presence pressed against his awareness, solid and unyielding. He pushed at it with his mind, the way he'd learned to push into crows and wolves and even Hodor when necessity demanded.
Nothing.
The stone remained stone, indifferent to his efforts.
"Feel the earth beneath it," Bloodraven instructed. "The memory of what it was before fell down the mountain in the river. The song it sang when the world was young."
A cool hand touched Bran's brow. Leaf had approached without sound, her dappled skin seeming to glow faintly in the moss-light. Her voice came like wind through autumn leaves, not quite words but something older.
The song began.
It had no melody Bran could name, no rhythm he could follow. Yet he felt it in his bones, in the roots that bound him to this place. Leaf's voice wove with Bloodraven's deeper tones, and Bran found himself joining without conscious thought. The sound that emerged from his throat was his own and not his own, carrying harmonics that made the cave walls hum.
The stone shifted.
Bran's awareness expanded, pressing against the granite's surface. He felt its weight, its density, the countless years compressed into that small form. Deeper still, he touched the memory of mountain, of pressure and heat and the slow crawl of ages. The stone remembered being part of something greater. It wanted to return.
Join, Bran thought, willing it with everything he had. Remember what you were. Remember wholeness.
His temples throbbed as the strain hit him. Blood trickled from his nose, copper-warm on his lips.
But the stone moved.
A hairline crack appeared where it touched its neighbor. The fissure spread, branching like lightning frozen in rock. Then, with a groan that seemed to come from the earth itself, the two stones fused. The crack sealed, leaving only a faint scar where separate had become one.
The song died.
Bran slumped forward, catching himself on trembling arms. His head spun. The cave tilted around him, and he tasted bile.
"Each block of ice remembers the greenseer who sang it into place." Bloodraven's voice came thin, strained. "The Wall is seven hundred feet of memory and sacrifice. Of songs sung until the singers had nothing left to give."
Bran stared at the fused stones, his mind reeling. Seven hundred feet. How many greenseers had it taken? How many lives spent, note by note, to raise that frozen barrier?
How many songs does it take to save the world?
"Rest," Leaf murmured, her small hand finding his shoulder. "You did well, Brandon Stark. But the work is not yet done."
Bran nodded, too exhausted for words. He let himself sink back against the roots, feeling them shift to cradle him. The cave's perpetual chill seeped through his clothes, but he barely noticed. Everything ached. Even his thoughts felt bruised.
Then he felt it.
A twitch. In his left foot. The big toe, specifically.
Bran's eyes snapped open. He stared down at his legs, wrapped in furs and useless for so long he'd almost forgotten they existed below the waist. The sensation came again—a phantom command answered, a muscle that shouldn't work responding to his will.
No. Impossible.
He hadn't felt anything below his waist since Jaime Lannister pushed him from that tower. Since his spine had shattered against frozen ground.
But there it was again. A twitch.
Bran's gaze found Bloodraven's face. The old greenseer watched him with that terrible knowing eye, and something in his expression made Bran's breath catch. Not surprise. Not even satisfaction. Just a sad, patient understanding.
Bloodraven nodded once, slow and deliberate.
"The paste," Bran whispered. His throat felt thick. "The weirwood paste you've been feeding me. It tastes..." He trailed off, remembering the bitter flavor, the way it clung to his tongue like guilt. "Like blood."
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant drip of water and Leaf's soft breathing.
"Jojen Reed saw his own end." Bloodraven's voice carried no emotion, just fact delivered with the weight of stone. "The green dreams showed him he would not leave this cave. He chose to make his death meaningful."
The words hit Bran like a fist to the gut. He looked to the cave's entrance, where he could just make out Meera's silhouette. She sat with her back to them, frog spear across her knees, staring into darkness. She hadn't moved. Hadn't made a sound.
But her stillness was the stillness of carved wood, rigid and unnatural.
"His life force was given to the paste." Bloodraven continued, each word deliberate. "It mingles with the sap, slowly knitting your spine. You will walk again, Bran. But you must learn as a babe learns. The will is in the mind, not the muscle."
Bran's hands clenched into fists. Quiet, serious Jojen with his moss-green eyes and his certainty about the future. The boy who'd traveled all this way to help him, who'd faced down wights and worse, who'd known from the beginning that he wouldn't see home again.
He knew. He always knew.
"Did he suffer?" Meera's voice cut through the cave like a spear. She hadn't turned, but Bran heard the tremor in it, the careful control that held back something vast and terrible.
Bloodraven's gaze softened—the first true emotion Bran had seen in those ancient features. "He dreamed of it. For a Reed, to greet one's fate is the only peace. He chose his ending."
Meera's shoulders shook once, violently, then went still. She did not turn. Did not speak again. Just sat there, a statue carved from grief.
Bran felt tears tracking down his cheeks. Not for himself, though the knowledge sat heavy in his chest. For Jojen. For Meera. For the terrible arithmetic of survival that demanded some lives be spent so others could continue.
I'm healing because Jojen's dead. My spine knits itself together with his sacrifice.
The debt of it crushed him. He looked down at his useless legs, felt that phantom twitch again, and wanted to scream. Wanted to refuse it. Wanted to tell Bloodraven to take it back, to undo whatever dark magic had been worked, to let Jojen live even if it meant Bran would never walk again.
But Jojen had chosen. Had walked into his own death with eyes open, had given himself freely to the paste and the sap and the ancient song. Refusing that gift would make his sacrifice meaningless.
I have to walk. I have to make it worth it.
The thought settled over Bran like armor, cold and necessary. He wiped his face with the back of his hand.
"Thank you," he whispered to the darkness, to Jojen's ghost, to whatever remained of his friend in the paste that had restored sensation to his toes. "I won't waste it. I promise."
A howl split the air.
"Summer!" Meera's voice cut through the howl, sharp and urgent.
The sound came from the cave mouth, high and sharp. Bran had heard his direwolf howl before—in play, in hunt, in warning. But this was different. This was pure alarm, the sound of a wolf who'd scented death approaching.
Bran's head snapped toward the entrance. Through the tangle of roots, he could see Summer's silhouette, hackles raised, teeth bared at something beyond the cave.
"They've found us." Bloodraven's voice held no surprise, only grim acceptance. "The song we sang. It was a beacon, burning bright enough for the Night King to see."
The temperature dropped. Bran felt it in his bones, in the roots that connected him to the earth. The ancient wards woven into the cave's entrance began to shudder, their power fraying like old rope under too much weight.
"How long?" Bran asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Minutes." Bloodraven's withered hands gripped the arms of his throne. "Maybe less."
Leaf moved to the cave entrance, her golden eyes wide. She peered into the darkness beyond, then turned back, her voice urgent. "They mass beyond the wards. Hundreds. Perhaps thousands."
"The wights are just fodder." Bloodraven's gaze fixed on Bran. "The Night King himself has come. He knows what you are. What you could become. He means to end you before you learn to fly."
Bran's heart hammered against his ribs. "We have to run," Bran said, though even as he spoke he knew the futility. Where could they go? How far could Hodor carry him before the dead caught them?
"No." Bloodraven's voice cut through his panic. "There is another way. A last gift I can give."
The old greenseer's expression shifted, becoming something Bran had never seen before. Not resignation. Not even sadness. Just a terrible, final clarity.
"I will pour everything I am into the weirwood network. My memories. My sight. My very soul." Bloodraven's three-fingered hand touched the heart tree that grew through his throne. "The attack will not be physical. It will be an assault of memory."
Bran's mind raced, trying to understand. "What—"
"The wights are empty vessels. I will force them to remember their last moments as living men. The fear. The pain. The cold. It will confuse them, slow them." Bloodraven's eye gleamed. "But the White Walkers... they are beings of pure magic and ice. I will flood them with the humanity they've lost. Every sensation they've forgotten—warmth, love, grief, taste, touch. All at once. It will blind them. For hours, perhaps. Long enough for you to escape."
"No." The word tore from Bran's throat. "You can't. We need you. I need you."
"You need to survive." Bloodraven's voice was gentle. "And I have been dying for fifty years. This is simply choosing when and how."
Leaf stepped forward, her voice trembling. "Brynden, no. The Children cannot lose you."
"You lost Brynden Rivers the day he passed the Wall, little leaf." The old greenseer's smile was sad. "Let me be useful one last time."
He turned his gaze to Bran, and in that look was pride, sorrow, hope, and a terrible finality.
"You are ready. You are the winged wolf. You must fly now."
"I can't—"
"You can." Bloodraven's voice hardened. "You must. The realm needs you, Brandon Stark. Your brother needs you. The living need you." He paused. "And Jojen Reed did not die so you could waste his gift cowering in this cave."
Bran flinched, but he couldn't deny their truth.
Meera appeared at his side, her face a mask carved from stone. "What can I do?"
Bloodraven's expression softened as he looked at her. "Get him to the shore. Keep him alive." his gaze returned to Bran, "You know what to do. It's the only way you can survive."
Another howl from Summer, closer now. The direwolf backed into the cave, still facing the entrance, every line of his body screaming warning.
"There's no time." Bloodraven placed his withered hand on the heart tree's trunk, where the carved face wept perpetual red tears. "Go. All of you. Now."
"Hodor." Meera's voice cracked like a whip. "Hodor, pick up Bran!"
The gentle giant appeared from the shadows, his eyes wide with fear but his body already moving. He scooped Bran from the roots with surprising gentleness, cradling him like a child. Bran felt the familiar security of those massive arms, but it was tainted now by the knowledge of what was coming.
"Wait," Bran said, reaching back toward Bloodraven. "Please. There has to be another way."
"There isn't." The old greenseer's smile was the saddest thing Bran had ever seen. "Fly, Brandon Stark. Fly far and fly true. The world needs its winged wolf."
Bloodraven began to sing.
The sound started deep in his chest, resonating through the cave like the tolling of a great bell. But it didn't stay contained. As he sang, Bran felt the song spread—through the roots beneath his feet, through the stone walls, through the very earth itself.
And beyond.
His greensight, still partially open, showed him the impossible scope of it. Every weirwood in Westeros began to sing. From the Wall to Dorne, from the Sunset Sea to the Narrow Sea, the heart trees took up Bloodraven's song. Their leaves rustled in perfect harmony, their carved faces wept in unison, and the sound of it—gods, the sound of it was like the world itself crying out.
The cave shook. Dust rained from the ceiling. The roots around Bloodraven's throne began to wither, turning grey and brittle. The carved face on the heart tree wept red sap in a torrent, blood-tears that ran like a river down the pale bark.
"GO!" Leaf's voice cut through the song. She grabbed Bran's arm, her golden eyes pleading. "Brandon, please. We must leave now!"
Meera had already moved, her frog spear in hand, leading Hodor toward a section of the cave wall that Bran had never noticed before. The roots there were parting, revealing a narrow tunnel barely wide enough for Hodor's bulk.
Bran looked back one last time.
Bloodraven sat enthroned in dying roots, his body slumping as the song pulled everything from him. His skin had gone translucent, bones visible beneath like shadows under ice. But his eye found Bran's across the distance.
The old greenseer smiled.
Then his eye went dark.
The body that had been Brynden Rivers, Bloodraven, the last greenseer, slumped forward. The roots released him, and he tumbled from his throne to lie among the withered remnants of what had sustained him for half a century.
He did not breathe again.
"No!" Bran's cry echoed off stone, but Meera was already pulling Hodor into the tunnel. "We can't leave him!"
"He's already gone." Leaf's voice was thick with tears, but her hand was firm on Bran's shoulder. "Honor his sacrifice. Live."
The tunnel swallowed them. Darkness pressed close, broken only by the faint glow of moss that clung to the walls. Hodor's breathing came hard and fast, panicked, but he kept moving. Meera led them forward, her spear scraping against stone.
Behind them, Bran felt it through the greensight that still clung to him like cobwebs as Bloodraven's song reaching its crescendo. The psychic shockwave that followed made him cry out, made Hodor stumble, made even Leaf gasp.
He saw it. Saw every wight for leagues around clutch their skulls, their decayed hands scrabbling at empty sockets as memories not their own flooded through them. Saw them stumble and fall, confused by the phantom sensation of warmth, of breath, of beating hearts they no longer possessed.
And he saw the White Walkers.
Four of them, standing at the edge of the cave's wards. Their armor caught the moonlight and shattered it into prismatic shards. Their faces, beautiful and terrible, twisted in something that might have been pain. They staggered as if struck, their blue-star eyes flickering, dimming, overwhelmed by the avalanche of sensation Bloodraven had unleashed upon them.
Humanity. That's what the old greenseer had given them. A lifetime of human experience compressed into a single, crushing moment. Love and loss, joy and grief, the taste of wine and the warmth of fire and the sound of laughter—everything they'd given up when they'd become what they were, returned to them all at once.
It would not kill them. But it would blind them long enough for them to escape.
The tunnel opened suddenly into the Haunted Forest. Bran gasped at the cold, at the shock of open air after the cave's stifling closeness. Snow fell in lazy spirals, covering the ground in fresh white. The blizzard that had been raging for days had ceased, leaving an eerie stillness.
Hodor set Bran down gently, the giant's face wet with tears. "Hodor," he whispered, the word a prayer or a curse.
Meera emerged behind them, followed by Leaf and the few scores of other Children—all that remained of their kind in this part of the world. Summer padded out last, his grey fur dusted with snow, his yellow eyes scanning the treeline.
"Which way?" Meera asked, her voice steady despite the tears tracking down her cheeks.
Bran reached out with his greensight, searching. The forest was full of wights, hundreds of them standing motionless as statues.
But on a distant ridge, Bran saw him.
The Night King.
He stood alone, his hands pressed to his head, his body bent as if under great weight. Even from this distance, Bran could feel the creature's rage, his confusion, his pain. The assault of memory had struck him hardest of all, and he reeled from it.
"East," Bran said, pointing. "Away from him. We head for the Shivering Seas."
She nodded, not questioning. She never questioned anymore. Just accepted and moved, the way she'd done since they'd left Winterfell's ruins all those months ago.
Hodor lifted Bran again, and they began to run.
The forest blurred past. Bran clung to Hodor's neck, feeling every jarring step, every stumble. The Children moved like shadows, their small forms darting between trees with inhuman grace. Summer ranged ahead, his nose to the ground, leading them through the maze of frozen trunks.
They ran past wights that stood like grave markers, their blue eyes dim and confused. Past Others that knelt in the snow, their beautiful faces twisted in anguish. The song had bought them time, but Bran knew it wouldn't last. Already he could feel the effect fading, the memories losing their grip.
Hours, Bloodraven said. But how many hours?
The trees thinned. The ground sloped downward. And then, through the falling snow, Bran saw it.
The shores stretched before them, its dark waters churning beneath a grey sky. Ice floes drifted like white islands, and the wind off the water cut through his furs like knives.
"Now what?" Meera panted, scanning the empty shore. "There's no boat. No shelter. Nothing."
Bran looked up at the faces surrounding him. Meera, her green eyes red from crying but her jaw set with determination. Hodor, terrified but steady, his massive hands gentle where they held Bran. Leaf and her kin, ancient and dying, having given up their cave and their guardian for his sake. Summer, his direwolf, his brother, pacing the shoreline with hackles raised.
They had all sacrificed for him. All given up something so he could be here, now, facing an impossible task.
The winged wolf, Bloodraven had called him. You must fly.
But he couldn't fly. Not yet. Not without Jon's fire to balance his ice, not without the realm united against the darkness. All he could do was survive. Survive and learn and grow strong enough to face what was coming.
"We need to build a boat," Bran said. His voice came out quiet but firm, surprising him with its certainty.
Meera stared at him. "A boat? Bran, we have no tools and the dead could be on us in—"
"We do not need tools, we need a song."
Meera's mouth opened, then closed. Her fingers tightened on her frog spear until the knuckles went white. Then she nodded her head.
I can do this. I have to do this.
He looked at the driftwood scattered along the shore, at the dead trees the sea had deposited. At the materials for salvation, if only he could sing them into shape.
"Leaf," he said, turning to the Child of the Forest. "Will you help me?"
Her golden eyes widened, then she smiled—the first true smile he'd seen since entering the cave. "Always, Brandon Stark. Always."
She raised one small hand, and the other children emerged from where they'd been keeping watch. Fifty, perhaps sixty of them, ancient creatures with cat's eyes and dappled skin, each one carrying the weight of centuries. They formed a circle around the driftwood, their voices rising in a language older than the First Men.
Bran closed his eyes and reached for the song. It came easier now, the green singing through his blood like sap through a weirwood's veins. He felt the wood beneath his awareness as salt-worn planks and twisted branches, each piece holding the memory of what it had been. Oak and ash and pine, drowned and broken but not forgotten.
The children's voices wove through his, harmonizing, amplifying. Their song pulled at the wood, coaxing it to remember. To join. To become.
The driftwood shuddered. Pieces rolled toward each other across the frozen shore, drawn by something deeper than wind or tide. Bran sang of wholeness, of purpose, of the need that drove them. The children sang of the deep forest, of roots that bound the earth together, of branches that reached toward sky.
The wood began to knit.
Planks aligned themselves. Branches curved into ribs. The song swelled, fifty voices and one, until Bran couldn't tell where his magic ended and theirs began.
The boat took shape beneath their joined will, large enough to carry them all. Bran felt each joint seal, each seam close, the wood remembering what it meant to be whole.
Then the world tilted.
The last thing he heard was Meera shouting his name. The last thing he felt was the song slipping from his grasp, the magic draining from him like water through cupped hands.
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