A Feast for Dragons

to
mud. Tendrils of mist hung in the air like ghostly ribbons.
Why did I
come here? These are not my gods. This is not my place
. The heart tree
stood before him, a pale giant with a carved face and leaves like bloody hands.
    A thin film of ice covered the surface of the pool beneath
the weirwood. Theon sank to his knees beside it. “Please,” he murmured through
his broken teeth, “I never meant …” The words caught in his throat. “Save
me,” he finally managed. “Give me …”
What? Strength? Courage?
Mercy?
Snow fell around him, pale and silent, keeping its own counsel.
The only sound was a faint soft sobbing.
Jeyne
, he thought.
It
is her, sobbing in her bridal bed. Who else could it be?
Gods do not
weep.
Or do they?
    The sound was too painful to endure. Theon grabbed hold of a
branch and pulled himself back to his feet, knocked the snow off his legs, and
limped back toward the lights.
There are ghosts in Winterfell
,
he thought,
and I am one of them
.
    More snowmen had risen in the yard by the time Theon Greyjoy
made his way back. To command the snowy sentinels on the walls, the squires had
erected a dozen snowy lords. One was plainly meant to be Lord Manderly; it was
the fattest snowman that Theon had ever seen. The one-armed lord could only be
Harwood Stout, the snow lady Barbrey Dustin. And the one closest to the door
with the beard made of icicles had to be old Whoresbane Umber.
    Inside, the cooks were ladling out beef-and-barley stew,
thick with carrots and onions, served in trenchers hollowed from loaves of
yesterday’s bread. Scraps were thrown onto the floor to be gobbled up by
Ramsay’s girls and the other dogs.
    The girls were glad to see him. They knew him by his smell.
Red Jeyne loped over to lick at his hand, and Helicent slipped under the table
and curled up by his feet, gnawing at a bone. They were good dogs. It was easy
to forget that every one was named for a girl that Ramsay had hunted and
killed.
    Weary as he was, Theon had appetite enough to eat a little
stew, washed down with ale. By then the hall had grown raucous. Two of Roose
Bolton’s scouts had come straggling back through the Hunter’s Gate to report
that Lord Stannis’s advance had slowed to a crawl. His knights rode destriers,
and the big warhorses were foundering in the snow. The small, sure-footed
garrons of the hill clans were faring better, the scouts said, but the clansmen
dared not press too far ahead or the whole host would come apart. Lord Ramsay
commanded Abel to give them a marching song in honor of Stannis trudging
through the snows, so the bard took up his lute again, whilst one of his
washerwomen coaxed a sword from Sour Alyn and mimed Stannis slashing at the
snowflakes.
    Theon was staring down into the last dregs of his third
tankard when Lady Barbrey Dustin swept into the hall and sent two of her sworn
swords to bring him to her. When he stood below the dais, she looked him up and
down, and sniffed. “Those are the same clothes you wore for the wedding.”
    “Yes, my lady. They are the clothes I was given.” That was
one of the lessons he had learned at the Dreadfort: to take what he was given
and never ask for more.
    Lady Dustin wore black, as ever, though her sleeves were
lined with vair. Her gown had a high stiff collar that framed her face. “You
know this castle.”
    “Once.”
    “Somewhere beneath us are the crypts where the old Stark
kings sit in darkness. My men have not been able to find the way down into
them. They have been through all the undercrofts and cellars, even the
dungeons, but …”
    “The crypts cannot be accessed from the dungeons, my lady.”
    “Can you show me the way down?”
    “There’s nothing down there but—”
    “—dead Starks? Aye. And all my favorite Starks are dead, as
it happens. Do you know the way or not?”
    “I do.” He did not like the crypts, had never liked the
crypts, but he was no stranger to them.
    “Show me. Serjeant, fetch a lantern.”
    “My lady will want a warm cloak,” cautioned Theon. “We will
need to go outside.”
    The snow was coming down heavier than ever when they left
the hall, with Lady Dustin wrapped in sable. Huddled in their hooded cloaks,
the guards outside were almost indistinguishable from the snowmen. Only their
breath fogging the air gave proof that they still lived. Fires burned along the
battlements, a vain attempt to drive the gloom away. Their small party found
themselves slogging through a smooth, unbroken