The wind howled like a hungry wolf around the jagged peaks bordering the Vale of Arryn. Melisandre and Davos Seaworth huddled in the back of a shallow cave, the entrance partially shielded by a cluster of frost-covered boulders. It offered little warmth, but it hid them from the biting wind and the desolate, grey sky. Their horses stood miserably nearby, flanks shivering despite their thick winter coats.
Davos gnawed on a piece of tough, dried meat, the silence between them heavy and cold as the stone walls. He watched the Red Priestess as she knelt before a small fire she'd coaxed from damp twigs and flint. She wasn't warming her hands or seeking comfort. Her gaze was fixed intently on the meager flames, her eyes reflecting the flickering orange light, seeming to hold embers of their own.
"More visions?" Davos asked gruffly, unable to keep the skepticism from his voice. "Or just trying to remember what warmth feels like?"
Melisandre didn't look up. "The Lord of Light speaks in whispers and shadows, Onion Knight. One must listen patiently. The flames hold answers, reflections of what is, what might be."
She leaned closer, her ruby pendant pulsing faintly against her chest. The small fire crackled, casting dancing shadows that writhed like living things on the cave walls. Her lips moved silently, ancient words in a language Davos didn't understand. The air in the cave seemed to grow colder, the flames paradoxically burning brighter, more intensely focused.
Davos watched, uneasy. He saw only fire, felt only the gnawing cold and the weight of their defeat. But she saw something else. Her breath hitched, her eyes widened slightly.
"What is it?" he pressed.
"Ice," she whispered, her voice distant. "Spreading... like a stain across a map... covering the lands of men." The flames flickered, shifted. "A great tree... white bark, red leaves... weeping tears of ice." Another shift. "A tower... broken... falling into shadow..."
Fragmented images, unsettling but meaningless to him. "Prophecies," Davos muttered bitterly. "Stannis saw victory in your flames. Look where it got him. Look where it got all of us."
Melisandre finally turned her gaze to him, her eyes ancient and filled with a certainty that chilled him more than the wind outside. "The Lord's paths are not always clear to mortal eyes. Sacrifices were made. Some were necessary. Some... were mistakes born of flawed interpretations. Mine, perhaps." A flicker of something - doubt? Regret? - crossed her face before vanishing. "But the war is not over. The Great Other has won a battle, a terrible battle, but the Long Night can still be fought. R'hllor has shown me we have a part to play."
"What part?" Davos demanded, standing up, unable to sit still any longer. "Skulking in caves while the world freezes? While Jon and the others... while they stand like statues, their souls stolen? What use are we?"
"We are alive," Melisandre said simply. "And we carry knowledge. You carry loyalty, a stubborn refusal to yield, that the Lord finds useful. And I... I carry the fire that seeks the dawn."
***
Far to the north, Moat Cailin stood defiant against the grey sky. Three towers of black basalt, ancient and formidable, guarded the causeway through the swamps of the Neck. For thousands of years, it had been the unbreakable gateway to the North, weathering storms, wars, and sieges. Its garrison, though depleted by the war against the living, stood ready, arrows nocked, spears braced, watching the southern horizon for the inevitable march of the dead.
They never saw it coming.
It wasn't an army that arrived, not at first. It was the cold. A sudden, unnatural drop in temperature that made breath freeze instantly, that coated bowstrings and spearheads in a layer of brittle ice. Then came the silence, rolling up from the south like a fog bank, swallowing the croaking of frogs in the marsh, the sigh of wind through the reeds.
Men on the battlements looked at each other, confused, uneasy. A horn sounded a warning, its note strangely muffled, dying quickly in the heavy air.
Then the wave hit. Invisible, silent, relentless. It washed over the Children's Tower, the Gatehouse Tower, the Drunkard's Tower. It flowed through the arrow slits, under the portcullis, across the muddy courtyard.
The guards froze. One moment, a man was shouting a command, his face taut with fear; the next, he stood motionless, his mouth open, his eyes glazing over with the tell-tale blue frost. Archers remained with bows half-drawn, swordsmen with blades raised. The commander, peering through a slit in the Gatehouse Tower, became a statue of vigilance, forever gazing south at the enemy he never truly saw.
Within minutes, Moat Cailin, the ancient bastion that had defied Targaryen dragons and Andal kings, had fallen. No blood was spilled, no stone was broken. The Night King's power simply washed over it, adding its garrison to his silent, growing host. The gateway to the North was open, its defenders now part of the tide sweeping towards the heartland of Westeros.
***
In the cave, the flames before Melisandre leaped suddenly, coalescing into a clearer image. Davos leaned forward involuntarily, peering into the heart of the fire.
He saw it too, for a fleeting second. A lone wolf, grey fur dusted with snow, standing beneath the skeletal branch of a massive white tree. The branch above the wolf was broken, jagged. The wolf threw back its head and let out a silent howl, a picture of utter desolation.
"The Wolf," Melisandre breathed, her eyes wide with dawning understanding. "The Weirwood... broken... but still standing. North. We must go north."
"North?" Davos echoed, incredulous. "We just fled south! North is where *he* is! Where his army marches! It's suicide!"
"It is where the sign points," Melisandre insisted, her gaze locked on the dying embers, the image fading but burned into her mind. "The last Stark... the boy... Bran. He is connected to the Weirwood. The vision... it leads to him. Or what's left of him. He holds the key, Ser Davos. The knowledge the Night King sought, the knowledge he stole... perhaps not all of it is lost. We must find him."
She rose, extinguishing the small flame with a pinch of dirt, plunging the cave into near darkness, leaving only the faint grey light from the entrance. North. Back towards the heart of the ice, chasing a vision in the flames, seeking a broken boy beneath a broken tree.