A Feast for Dragons

dripping blood. I heard the man was all burned up inside, but that
might just have been some tale.”
    “A true tale.” Moqorro turned the hellhorn, examining the
queer letters that crawled across a second of the golden bands. “Here it says,
‘No
mortal man shall sound me and live
.’ ”
    Bitterly Victarion brooded on the treachery of brothers.
Euron’s
gifts are always poisoned
. “The Crow’s Eye swore this horn would bind
dragons to my will. But how will that serve me if the price is death?”
    “Your brother did not sound the horn himself. Nor must you.”
Moqorro pointed to the band of steel. “Here.
‘Blood for fire, fire for
blood.’
Who blows the hellhorn matters not. The dragons will come to
the horn’s master. You must
claim
the horn. With blood.”

----

    THE UGLY LITTLE GIRL
    Eleven servants of the Many-Faced God gathered that night
beneath the temple, more than she had ever seen together at one time. Only the lordling
and the fat fellow arrived by the front door; the rest came by secret ways,
through tunnels and hidden passages. They wore their robes of black and white,
but as they took their seats each man pulled his cowl down to show the face he
had chosen to wear that day. Their tall chairs were carved of ebony and
weirwood, like the doors of the temple above. The ebon chairs had weirwood
faces on their backs, the weirwood chairs faces of carved ebony.
    One of the other acolytes stood across the room with a flagon
of dark red wine. She had the water. Whenever one of the servants wished to
drink, he would raise his eyes or crook a finger, and one or both of them would
come and fill his cup. But mostly they stood, waiting on looks that never came.
I am carved of stone
, she reminded herself.
I am a
statue, like the Sealords that stand along the Canal of the Heroes
.
The water was heavy, but her arms were strong.
    The priests used the language of Braavos, though once for
several minutes three spoke heatedly in High Valyrian. The girl understood the
words, mostly, but they spoke in soft voices, and she could not always hear. “I
know this man,” she did hear a priest with the face of a plague victim say. “I
know this man,” the fat fellow echoed, as she was pouring for him. But the
handsome man said, “I will give this man the gift, I know him not.” Later the
squinter said the same thing, of someone else.
    After three hours of wine and words, the priests took their
leave … all but the kindly man, the waif, and the one whose face bore
the marks of plague. His cheeks were covered with weeping sores, and his hair
had fallen out. Blood dripped from one nostril and crusted at the corners of
both eyes. “Our brother would have words with you, child,” the kindly man told
her. “Sit, if you wish.” She seated herself in a weirwood chair with a face of
ebony. Bloody sores held no terror for her. She had been too long in the House
of Black and White to be afraid of a false face.
    “Who are you?” plague face asked when they were alone.
    “No one.”
    “Not so. You are Arya of House Stark, who bites her lip and
cannot tell a lie.”
    “I was. I’m not now.”
    “Why are you here, liar?”
    “To serve. To learn. To change my face.”
    “First change your heart. The gift of the Many-Faced God is
not a child’s plaything. You would kill for your own purposes, for your own
pleasures. Do you deny it?”
    She bit her lip. “I—”
    He slapped her.
    The blow left her cheek stinging, but she knew that she had
earned it. “Thank you.” Enough slaps, and she might stop chewing on her lip.
Arya
did that, not the night wolf. “I do deny it.”
    “You lie. I can see the truth in your eyes. You have the
eyes of a wolf and a taste for blood.”
    Ser Gregor
, she could not help but think.
Dunsen,
Raff the Sweetling. Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei
. If she spoke,
she would need to lie, and he would know. She kept silent.
    “You were a cat, they tell me. Prowling through the alleys
smelling of fish, selling cockles and mussels for coin. A small life, well
suited for a small creature such as you. Ask, and it can be restored to you.
Push your barrow, cry your cockles, be content. Your heart is too soft to be
one of us.”
    He means to send me away
. “I have no heart.
I only have a hole. I’ve killed lots of people. I could kill you if I wanted.”
    “Would that taste sweet to you?”
    She did not know the right answer. “Maybe.”
    “Then you do not belong here. Death holds no