A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

who’s won and I’ll tell you what
it means.
Khaleesi,
the Seven Kingdoms are not going to fall into
your hands like so many ripe peaches. You will need a fleet, gold, armies,
alliances—”
    â€œAll this I know.” She took his hands in hers and looked up into his dark
suspicious eyes.
Sometimes he thinks of me as a child he must protect, and
sometimes as a woman he would like to bed, but does he ever truly see me as his
queen?
“I am not the frightened girl you met in Pentos. I have counted
only fifteen name days, true . . . but I am as old as the
crones in the
dosh khaleen
and as young as my dragons, Jorah. I have
borne a child, burned a
khal,
and crossed the red waste and the
Dothraki sea. Mine is the blood of the dragon.”
    â€œAs was your brother’s,” he said stubbornly.
    â€œI am not Viserys.”
    â€œNo,” he admitted. “There is more of Rhaegar in you, I think, but even
Rhaegar could be slain. Robert proved that on the Trident, with no more than a
warhammer. Even dragons can die.”
    â€œDragons die.” She stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on an unshaven
cheek. “But so do dragonslayers.”

BRAN
    M eera moved in a wary circle, her net dangling loose in her left hand,
the slender three-pronged frog spear poised in her right. Summer followed her
with his golden eyes, turning, his tail held stiff and tall. Watching,
watching . . .
    â€œYai!” the girl shouted, the spear darting out. The wolf slid to the left and
leapt before she could draw back the spear. Meera cast her net, the tangles
unfolding in the air before her. Summer’s leap carried him into it. He dragged
it with him as he slammed into her chest and knocked her over backward. Her
spear went spinning away. The damp grass cushioned her fall but the breath went
out of her in an “Oof.” The wolf crouched atop her.
    Bran hooted. “You lose.”
    â€œShe wins,” her brother Jojen said. “Summer’s snared.”
    He was right, Bran saw. Thrashing and growling at the net, trying to rip free,
Summer was only ensnaring himself worse. Nor could he bite through. “Let him
out.”
    Laughing, the Reed girl threw her arms around the tangled wolf and rolled them
both. Summer gave a piteous whine, his legs kicking against the cords that
bound them. Meera knelt, undid a twist, pulled at a corner, tugged deftly here
and there, and suddenly the direwolf was bounding free.
    â€œSummer, to me.” Bran spread his arms. “Watch,” he said,

an instant before the wolf bowled into him. He clung with all his strength as
the wolf dragged him bumping through the grass. They wrestled and rolled and
clung to each other, one snarling and yapping, the other laughing. In the end
it was Bran sprawled on top, the mud-spattered direwolf under him. “Good
wolf,” he panted. Summer licked him across the ear.
    Meera shook her head. “Does he never grow angry?”
    â€œNot with me.” Bran grabbed the wolf by his ears and Summer snapped at him
fiercely, but it was all in play. “Sometimes he tears my garb but he’s never
drawn blood.”
    â€œ
Your
blood, you mean. If he’d gotten past my
net . . .”
    â€œHe wouldn’t hurt you. He knows I like you.” All of the other lords and
knights had departed within a day or two of the harvest feast, but the Reeds
had stayed to become Bran’s constant companions. Jojen was so solemn that Old
Nan called him “little grandfather,” but Meera reminded Bran of his sister
Arya. She wasn’t scared to get dirty, and she could run and fight and throw as
good as a boy. She was older than Arya, though; almost sixteen, a woman grown.
They were both older than Bran, even though his ninth name day had finally come
and gone, but they never treated him like a child.
    â€œI wish you were our wards instead of the Walders.” He began to struggle
toward the nearest tree. His dragging and wriggling was unseemly to watch, but
when Meera moved to lift him he said, “No, don’t help me.” He rolled clumsily
and pushed and squirmed backward, using the strength of his arms, until he was

sitting with his back to the trunk of a tall ash. “See, I told you.” Summer
lay down with his head in Bran’s lap. “I never knew anyone who fought with a
net before,” he told Meera while he