Dacey could hear Lyanna's bowstring singing somewhere deeper in the grove. Thistle's low voice answered now and then, patient as rain. Howland had gone off with the elder singers at first light. That left Dacey alone with a day and nothing clear to hit.
She tried sharpening her mace-head with a river stone. The edge took well enough. It did not quiet the restlessness. Since coming to the Isle, Lyanna had begun to move like water down a hill. She did not need a wall at her shoulder every breath. That should have felt like victory. Yet it felt like standing outside a door with no orders and too much time to think.
She rinsed the grit from her hands at the pool and splashed her face. The water was cold and clean. She bent to drink again and heard leaves stir behind her.
"You are untethered today," Maple said.
Dacey did not jump. Maple could step out of a trunk as easy as from a curtain. The girl was small, all wiry limbs and red leaves for hair. Her eyes were bright. Her voice had a faraway music in it even when she spoke common.
"Lyanna is with Thistle," Dacey said. "Howland is off learning names for all the ways moss can grow. I do better when there is something to guard."
"Then come do work." Maple tilted her head toward a narrow path. "Work ties you to the earth."
Dacey set the mace across her back and followed. The path twisted between roots that rose and fell like frozen waves. Faces watched from the trunks. None looked the same. Some were calm. Some scowled like old maesters. Dacey touched one in passing and felt the grain under her palm, dry and warm.
They reached a small clearing where a dozen heavy stones lay half sunk in dirt. Maple stood with her hands on her hips.
"We will build a hearth ring," she said. "Lift the big one first."
Dacey grunted. "Do you mean to find out if I am a giant."
Maple's smile was quick. "Only to remind your bones what they already know."
Dacey crouched beside the biggest stone and tested the holds. She set her feet, drew her breath deep, and pulled. The rock rose slow and steady to her chest. The weight settled into her arms and back like a thing that had been waiting to come home. She stepped and set it on the flattest of the others.
"Again," Maple said.
She moved the other stones in turn. The work took time. Sweat threaded down Dacey's back. Her palms burned, yet Maple did not help. She only watched, offering the occasional instruction.
When they finished, Maple brought water in a bark cup. Dacey drank and poured the rest over her hair. The cold stitched lines across her scalp.
"You carry more than muscle," Maple said after she drank. "Your mother told you a story when you were small."
Dacey looked at the trees rather than at Maple. "She did."
"She dreamed in another skin," Maple said, voice softening. "She wore fur and heavy paws and went to the den of a great mate. When she woke in her own bed, the dream had left something living behind. Men would not take that story, so she made it a fireside truth for you and kept it in the family."
Dacey's throat went tight. "She told it when the door was barred," she said. "She said she went to bed a woman and woke with a life inside her. She said it with no shame. I did not know what to make of it."
"You are stronger than the tall man you will meet one day," Maple said. "The one who fights because it is the only language he learned. You will not need to be cruel to beat him. You will only need to remember what you are."
Dacey thought of men who made a trade of breaking other men. She thought of the South, where contests were sport and cruelty had banners. She did not wish for such a fight. But a part of her did not flinch from it either. If it came, she would not run.
She sat on the rim of the fire pit and rubbed her forearms. "Sometimes I am not sure I am a person," she said, and the admission felt raw. "When I am angry, I cannot sit. I must move or I will split open."
Maple sat beside her and leaned shoulder to shoulder. The pressure was light. "You are a person. You are also more. Men draw a line and say, we are here, beasts are there. The singers never drew that line. We call a body what it is and let the bones tell their own names. You can be Dacey and be bear and be woman and be sworn. None needs to cancel the others."
"What's next." Her voice had steadied again.
"We listen," Maple said. "And we show you how to listen deeper."
She led Dacey into a narrow run where roots curled like sleeping serpents. Halfway down, the ground dipped and filled with soft loam. Maple nodded to the earth.
"Lie down," she said. "Put your ear to the dirt. Hands flat. Close your eyes. Tell me what you hear."
Dacey lay on the damp soil and closed her eyes. At first she heard only her own pulse. Then, slowly, the ground gave up other sounds. A burrower moving under roots. A beetle ticking at bark. The faint wash of water at the island's edge. Beneath it all a steady hum that felt more like a breath than a sound.
"Three kits to the north, near the ferns," she said. "They stop and start."
"Fox," Maple answered, pleased. "Good ear. But listen not for others, but for the part in you that reaches back."
Dacey breathed until her shoulders unknotted. Heat rose from chest to throat and settled there. No teeth. No claws. Just space. It felt as if her ribs had made room for something she had carried all her life without naming. It filled her with incredible strength. Yet the feeling also reminded her of her own otherness. She opened her eyes and sat up.
"What good is it, if not a trick for a fair?" she said. She wanted Maple to push back. She wanted to hear herself say it and not flinch.
"It keeps you from cracking when the world leans," Maple said. "It lets you hold warmth and pass it along. It lets you brace a door when men think a narrow body means narrow strength. Use it with the sense you already have."
Dacey huffed. "That I can do."
Dacey practiced for the rest of the morning. Maple gave each drill a name that matched the work. Root. River. Hibernation. Rouse. Dacey moved with weights across the knot of raised roots, low and balanced, eyes forward. She learned to let a strike roll along her forearm instead of taking it full on. She hurled a small boulder up at the sky. She caught it without looking. The strength did not feel borrowed anymore. It felt like hers.
They sat to eat later in the day. Maple offered berries and a strip of smoked fish. Dacey tore the fish and handed half back.
Dacey let her training settle. "Lyanna does not need me like she did," Dacey said. "Not every hour. Not in every room."
She thought of Lyanna's hands, narrow and quick, closing over hers after a spar. She thought of the way Lyanna listened with her whole self. She thought of Lyanna's laugh when she failed at something and went to try again. The pinch in Dacey's chest returned. She understood a little more of it now. It was not only duty. It was not only admiration. It was a deep want to help that light shine.
"Lyanna is the only one who sees me whole," Dacey said. "She never treats me like a tool. When we practice, she hits hard because she believes I can take it. With other lords, I am Maege's daughter, or a jest. With her, I am Dacey."
Maple smiled. "Then your path is not lost because Lyanna grows sharp. It means you will walk beside her instead of before her. Bears do not shelter their cubs forever. They teach them to find roots and fish. Then cubs depart to make their own way."
Dacey's throat tightened. She had not cried since she was very small. She did not now. She breathed past the ache and stood.
"Need changes its clothes," Maple said. "It does not vanish. Your She-Wolf will still require hands. Some days to catch. Some days to steady. Some days to clap when no one else dares. You will know which, if you keep your eyes honest."
Dacey said nothing for a time. Then, she swallowed. "She is the one I… care for."
"Then your work is simple," Maple said. "Stand where she can find you."
Maple touched Dacey's sternum with two fingers. "Dacey Bearblood," she said, and the name felt less like a title and more like a truth finally spoken in the open. "You should put a vow under a root. Not to the isle. To yourself."
"To what end."
"So you do not go hollow when no one is looking."
Footsteps rustled in the brush. Howland came through a stand of saplings, a lizard peeking from his hair as if it owned the spot. He nodded to them both.
"I've been sent to retrieve you, Dacey," he said. "Thistle says Lyanna is done for the day with archery. She needs her sparring partner."
On the way back she passed Winter dozing near Grandmother's trunk. Lyanna sat a little further on with an unstrung bow across her knees.
Dacey continued past her to Grandmother's nearest root. She went to one knee and laid her palm on the bark. It was warm.
She did not make a speech. She spoke plain.
"I am Dacey Mormont," she said. "I keep my word. I will stand where Lyanna can find me. I will be the first body between her and what means to break her. When she does not need a shield, I will be a witness. When she needs a smile at her back, I will have it ready. This is not a duty. It is a choice I make with my whole self. I will keep it until I cannot stand."
She stayed for a breath longer, letting the vow settle. Then she rose and returned to Lyanna's side.
Lyanna leaned her head briefly against Dacey's shoulder. "Thank you," she said, quiet enough that only Dacey could hear. "For this. For before. For after."
Dacey did not answer with words. She turned her hand and laced their fingers for a moment, strong and sure, and then let go. The purpose that had gone missing in the morning had found its place again. It was a path. And she knew how to walk it.