A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

all
his
sons.”
    â€œRyman is old too,” said Little Walder. “Past forty, I bet. And he has a bad
belly. Do you think he’ll be lord?”
    â€œ
I’ll
be lord. I don’t care if he is.”
    Maester Luwin cut in sharply. “You ought to be ashamed of

such talk, my lords. Where is your grief? Your uncle is dead.”
    â€œYes,” said Little Walder. “We’re very sad.”
    They weren’t, though. Bran got a sick feeling in his belly.
They like the
taste of this dish better than I do.
He asked Maester Luwin to be
excused.
    â€œVery well.” The maester rang for help. Hodor must have been busy in the
stables. It was Osha who came. She was stronger than Alebelly, though, and had
no trouble lifting Bran in her arms and carrying him down the steps.
    â€œOsha,” Bran asked as they crossed the yard. “Do you know the way north? To
the Wall and . . . and even past?”
    â€œThe way’s easy. Look for the Ice Dragon, and chase the blue star in the
rider’s eye.” She backed through a door and started up the winding
steps.
    â€œAnd there are still giants there, and . . . the
rest . . . the Others, and the children of the forest
too?”
    â€œThe giants I’ve seen, the children I’ve heard tell of, and the white
walkers . . . why do you want to know?”
    â€œDid you ever see a three-eyed crow?”
    â€œNo.” She laughed. “And I can’t say I’d want to.” Osha kicked open the door
to his bedchamber and set him in his window seat, where he could watch the yard
below.
    It seemed only a few heartbeats after she took her leave that the door opened
again, and Jojen Reed entered unbidden, with his sister Meera behind him. “You
heard about the bird?” Bran asked. The other boy nodded. “It wasn’t a supper
like you said.

It was a letter from Robb, and we didn’t eat it,
but—”
    â€œThe green dreams take strange shapes sometimes,” Jojen admitted. “The truth
of them is not always easy to understand.”
    â€œTell me the bad thing you dreamed,” Bran said. “The bad thing that is
coming to Winterfell.”
    â€œDoes my lord prince believe me now? Will he trust my words, no matter how
queer they sound in his ears?”
    Bran nodded.
    â€œIt is the sea that comes.”
    â€œThe
sea?
”
    â€œI dreamed that the sea was lapping all around Winterfell. I saw black waves
crashing against the gates and towers, and then the salt water came flowing
over the walls and filled the castle. Drowned men were floating in the yard.
When I first dreamed the dream, back at Greywater, I didn’t know their faces,
but now I do. That Alebelly is one, the guard who called our names at the
feast. Your septon’s another. Your smith as well.”
    â€œMikken?” Bran was as confused as he was dismayed. “But the sea is hundreds
and hundreds of leagues away, and Winterfell’s walls are so high the water
couldn’t get in even if it did come.”
    â€œIn the dark of night the salt sea will flow over these walls,” said Jojen.
“I saw the dead, bloated and drowned.”
    â€œWe have to tell them,” Bran said. “Alebelly and Mikken, and Septon Chayle.
Tell them not to drown.”
    â€œIt will not save them,” replied the boy in green.
    Meera came to the window seat and put a hand on his

shoulder. “They will not believe, Bran. No more than you did.”
    Jojen sat on Bran’s bed. “Tell me what
you
dream.”
    He was scared, even then, but he had sworn to trust them, and a Stark of
Winterfell keeps his sworn word. “There’s different kinds,” he said slowly.
“There’s the wolf dreams, those aren’t so bad as the others. I run and hunt
and kill squirrels. And there’s dreams where the crow comes and tells me to
fly. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. That frightens
me. But the worst dreams are when I fall.” He looked down into the yard,
feeling miserable. “I never used to fall before. When I climbed. I went
everyplace, up on the roofs and along the walls, I used to feed the crows in
the Burned Tower. Mother was afraid that I would fall but I knew I never would.
Only I did, and now when I sleep I fall all the time.”
    Meera gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Is that