A Dance With Dragons

Lady Catelyn would have rejoiced to hear those words, he knew. That did not make them easier to say. His fingers closed around the parchment. Would that they could crush Ramsay Bolton’s throat as easily.
    Clydas cleared his throat. “Will there be an answer?”
    Jon shook his head and walked away.
    By nightfall the bruises that Rattleshirt had given him had turned purple. “They’ll go yellow before they fade away,” he told Mormont’s raven. “I’ll look as sallow as the Lord of Bones.”
    “ Bones, ” the bird agreed. “ Bones, bones. ”
    He could hear the faint murmur of voices coming from outside, although the sound was too weak to make out words. They sound a thousand leagues away. It was Lady Melisandre and her followers at their nightfire. Every night at dusk the red woman led her followers in their twilight prayer, asking her red god to see them through the dark. For the night is dark and full of terrors. With Stannis and most of the queen’s men gone, her flock was much diminished; half a hundred of the free folk up from Mole’s Town, the handful of guards the king had left her, perhaps a dozen black brothers who had taken her red god for their own.
    Jon felt as stiff as a man of sixty years. Dark dreams, he thought, and guilt. His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard’s heart. He’d had Mikken make a sword for Arya once, a bravo’s blade, made small to fit her hand. Needle. He wondered if she still had it. Stick them with the pointy end, he’d told her, but if she tried to stick the Bastard, it could mean her life.
    “ Snow, ” muttered Lord Mormont’s raven. “ Snow, snow. ”
    Suddenly he could not suffer it a moment longer.
    He found Ghost outside his door, gnawing on the bone of an ox to get at the marrow. “When did you get back?” The direwolf got to his feet, abandoning the bone to come padding after Jon.
    Mully and Kegs stood inside the doors, leaning on their spears. “A cruel cold out there, m’lord,” warned Mully through his tangled orange beard. “Will you be out long?”
    “No. I just need a breath of air.” Jon stepped out into the night. The sky was full of stars, and the wind was gusting along the Wall. Even the moon looked cold; there were goosebumps all across its face. Then the first gust caught him, slicing through his layers of wool and leather to set his teeth to chattering. He stalked across the yard, into the teeth of that wind. His cloak flapped loudly from his shoulders. Ghost came after. Where am I going? What am I doing? Castle Black was still and silent, its halls and towers dark. My seat, Jon Snow reflected. My hall, my home, my command. A ruin.
    In the shadow of the Wall, the direwolf brushed up against his fingers. For half a heartbeat the night came alive with a thousand smells, and Jon Snow heard the crackle of the crust breaking on a patch of old snow. Someone was behind him, he realized suddenly. Someone who smelled warm as a summer day.
    When he turned he saw Ygritte.
    She stood beneath the scorched stones of the Lord Commander’s Tower, cloaked in darkness and in memory. The light of the moon was in her hair, her red hair kissed by fire. When he saw that, Jon’s heart leapt into his mouth. “Ygritte,” he said.
    “Lord Snow.” The voice was Melisandre’s.
    Surprise made him recoil from her. “Lady Melisandre.” He took a step backwards. “I mistook you for someone else.” At night all robes are grey. Yet suddenly hers were red. He did not understand how he could have taken her for Ygritte. She was taller, thinner, older, though the moonlight washed years from her face. Mist rose from her nostrils, and from pale hands naked to the night. “You will freeze your fingers off,” Jon warned.
    “If that is the will of R’hllor. Night’s powers cannot touch one whose heart is bathed in god’s holy fire.”
    “You heart does not concern me. Just your hands.”
    “The heart is all that matters. Do not despair, Lord Snow. Despair is a weapon of the enemy, whose name may not be spoken. Your sister is not lost to you.”
    “I have no sister.” The words were knives. What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister?
    Melisandre seemed amused. “What is her name, this little