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wordbreaker · 3 months

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Where Crows Rise, Prologue ✷ GOT

PAIRING: Jaime Lannister / F!OC

SUMMARY: Winter is coming but Astrisse has never feared the dark. Above Death, We Fly said House Grimm when it was still standing. As the last member of the forgotten Great House of Kings and Queens of the First Men, Astrisse aims for something greater than the Iron Throne. Revenge. One does not break the line of Grimm so easily⏤for old crows never forgive and never forget. Dragon's fire is where Crows died. The Game of Thrones is where Crows will rise.

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Astrisse had been walking through the deep, biting winter for two months now. Walking and never looking back, for turning back meant Death. Such was the harsh law of the North.

Winter was merciless. It nibbled at your body and mind, leaving only despair and the desire to die. The white landscapes taunted her and her deeply human weaknesses. There was nothing more vicious than Winter. No blade nor gallows here, just the terrible sensation of freezing to death until, finally, an inferno burnt inside you, like a merciful act of the Gods before Death took you.

Astrisse did not want to die. Not until she had honoured her pact. Not even the great Winter could stop her burning thirst for revenge.

This desire, no, this need, made her forget the cold and her torments. The pain and fatigue were just mirages that the New Gods were placing in her path to confuse her. She would resist them like a Grimm: with dignity and strength.

Above Death, We Fly.

Sometimes, when the cold became too strong and crept under the fur of the wolf she had killed three weeks earlier, she would pray to the Old Gods and her ancestors, those born out of the chaos of winter and the bitterness of snow.

Astrisse descended from the branch of the Black Crows: The Grimms of Gods Eye, guardians of the Isle of Faces and Kings of the First Men⏤a long way from the branch of the White Crows, who had ascended to this destructive North and tamed it.

When the Gods failed to answer her, she had a word for those ancestors she had never known, but whose memory accompanied her on her journey. Her prayers also went unanswered, but they warmed her heart when all seemed lost. They gave her the strength to keep walking and keep fighting.

The cold was one thing, the Wildlings' attacks, another. Their repeated onslaughts had been wearing down her joints, which were already riddled with frost, and dulling the blade of her sword to no purpose.

The blood she wanted to spill was not theirs.

Her footsteps crunched in the snow. Astrisse could no longer feel her toes. In the distance, the black, prickly silhouette of a forest took shape and stained the expanse of ice. At last.

For a few seconds, the woman hesitated to light a fire. A few branches of wood, amidst the water skins and a few scraps of dried meat, still lay at the bottom of her leather bag. But she resisted the temptation. Too dangerous. The smoke would alert the souls that the bright orange and red would finish attracting.

She could count on her frozen fingers the number of times flames had danced in the freezing cold and rekindled her flesh. The nights were the worst. Without a crackling fire, the gloomy silence, the freezing cold, and the complete darkness turned it into a moment of psychological torture. Who knew what lurked in the night, waiting for the right moment to strike?

A rustle echoed in the white immensity. Astrisse immediately grabbed her bow. She drew an arrow from her quiver and nocked it. Without a sound, she moved forward and listened carefully. The crunch of her footsteps. The howling of the wind. The irregular crumbling of loose stones. Nothing unusual.

Astrisse thought she'd imagined it⏤madness had been lurking around her as of late⏤but it happened again. A rustle. Like the sound of cloth. No. It couldn't have been her imagination. She squinted. More than turning her mad, the cold was blinding her. The snow blurred the landscape and darkened it, leaving only a thick grey blanket. You couldn't see more than a mile away.

Probably a wolf, Astrisse thought. A vain attempt to reassure herself. The North was populated by kingly animals. No humans to hunt or tame them. They were as ferocious as when the Old Gods placed them on earth, at its very beginning. She gripped her arrow a little tighter between her index and middle finger. She was not afraid to kill a wolf, not when she was wearing the skin of one on her back.

That damned rustle again. Closer, this time.

Astrisse turned round abruptly.

Through the thick snowstorm, two blue eyes glinted. Two piercing yet motionless beads, only a few metres away. There was no silhouette or shadow to give her any clue as to the identity of this thing. Just this pair of disturbing, penetrating eyes.

Astrisse was certain of one thing as a series of shivers ran down her spine.

This was no animal.

“Who goes there?” she shouted.

The wind seemed to howl a little louder and muffled Astrisse's words in its gusts.

“Who are you? State your name!”

She squinted a little more, trying to make out something other than its eyes, but she could not. There was no way for her to know whether it was a Wildling or someone else. The strange figure did not answer her, but the eyes seemed to get bigger, and that sordid rustle resounded again.

Astrisse almost dropped her bow when the snowstorm moved aside and let it through.

Impossible.

Her hand trembled around the notch of her arrow, a lifeline at this instant, perhaps her only chance to escape.

So, the old tales her nurse had told her were true. The Dead could walk.

She gulped.

In front of her was not a man but a corpse walking towards her. His rags revealed rotten, perforated flesh, pierced by bones burnished by time and dirt. A rusty sword swung with each of his irregular steps.

Astrisse fired her first arrow but the Other kept moving, unperturbed. His blue eyes had not let go of her for a single second. Her arrow was not even an afterthought. It meant nothing to him; this being made more of air than flesh. Because he was, or rather he had been.

She had not been afraid when the wolf had appeared in the middle of the night three weeks earlier. She had not been afraid when Wildlings had attacked her by surprise and left her bleeding. She had not been afraid when she had heard strange whispers on the coldest nights.

For the first time in a long time, a gust of fear chilled her veins and wet her trousers. The North had taken her strength and health. It was now taking her courage.

Astrisse fired a second arrow, which passed between two exposed ribs and strayed into the ice behind the creature. With trembling hands, she hooked her bow behind her back and drew Heartseeker, the sword of Wyllam III Grimm, the last King of the First Men who had resisted Aegon the Conqueror and paid the price with his blood.

Her ancestor.

Would she suffer the same fate as him? Fire had been his doom. Would hers be Ice?

With only fear and adrenalin in her brain, she attacked.

Before her, the blue eyes came to life with the surge of pure rage that seized the skeleton. It let out an inhuman scream, somewhere between a shrill cry and a hiss.

The sound of Death.

It was tolling the bells. Her time had come.

The sheer strength of his blow had Astrisse taking several steps back when she parried it. The ice made the ground unstable and slippery. For a brief moment, she wondered whether Heartseeker would resist. Was Valyrian steel⏤perhaps the most precious metal in all of Westeros⏤a mere blade of iron in the face of Death?

Her years of combat training, with her mother and her teachers, seemed to vanish under her own eyes. No reflexes, no tactics, just her survival instinct to guide and defend her.

She didn't stand a chance.

Above Death, We Fly, a voice whispered to her.

Astrisse raised Heartseeker and brought it down hard on the Other's shoulder. It split the air and the putrid remains of flesh. His arm fell to the ground, but in the next second it was twisting and reaching for her ankles.

At first, she tried to crush the moving limb, but its fingers snaked to avoid her heavy sole and came dangerously close to her heel. She kicked it. The arm disappeared further into the snow, but Astrisse knew it would be back, however worrying that thought might be.

Fatigue made her movements heavy and slow. Astrisse could feel it as well as see it⏤her blows weren't grazing him and were losing their offensive quality. Death, on the other hand, was not weakening. It delivered emotionless blow after emotionless blow, the only witness to the soul that had once resided in this body being those two big blue eyes, too bright to be the work of the Gods.

A guttural howl from deep inside her chest hit and scrapped Astrisse's throat. A stabbing pain burned her flesh and blood. The Other had thrust his sword into her shoulder. She felt the blood trickle down and weave through her collarbone, colonising her flesh and clothes.

Astrisse mustered her last bit of strength to bring the sword down on what was left of his pelvis. As she raised her blade, the Other suddenly stopped. By reflex, she imitated him. Calm returned and all the pain in her limbs hit her at full force. She hissed.

But then, Astrisse heard them. Screams. Further away. The Dead turned towards the noise, once again trapped in his mortuary slowness.

Astrisse seized her only chance and ran. Running and never looking back. To look back was to die. And Astrisse wasn't finished with life yet.

Dying would have to wait.

It was difficult to say how long she ran. The snowy, white landscape transformed into trees, sometimes bare, sometimes covered in leaves⏤oscillating between life and death, Winter and Spring. Breathing meant agony. Every step made her suffer and triggered an immense pain in her chest⏤like a fire you could not put out. Forgetting the pain and running. Always running. Never looking back.

Astrisse soon stopped running when she was certain that the Other had not followed her. She welcomed the silence of the forest as an old friend. No rustling, no mournful cry, no blue eyes.

This strange, almost supernatural colour, like the embodiment of ice, glinted in her mind and paralysed her thoughts. It colonised her being and her memories, making her forget everything she had experienced so far, leaving only that horrifying look. If Astrisse had died today, her last memory would not have been of her mother, but of those two blue eyes.

The thought terrified her.

Astrisse struggled to banish the memory of those blizzard-sculpted eyes and found refuge in the bloody eyes of the heart-tree she stumbled upon.

She breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of those red tears. Hers flowed silently down her cheeks, transparent but coloured by a strange mixture of fear and joy. All around her, branches covered in red leaves seemed to embrace her. The Ancient Gods had placed these weirwood trees there to protect her.

Astrisse fell to her knees in front of the wooden carved face and did what anyone who had cheated Death would do.

She prayed.

Astrisse murmured her prayer to the nameless Gods of the wood and stood there in silence. All nature around her awoke. The Gods were answering her. In the rustle of the leaves, the crunch of the snow and the whisper of the wind, they conveyed their message of hope and resilience.

Winter was just one of many trials, a rite of passage to her final destination. To give up now was to fail. The Grimms did not fail. She was living proof of that.

A noise disturbed the comforting calmness of the forest. Astrisse stood up. Her knees, seized by the cold, creaked. She grabbed Heartseeker's hilt, her gaze fixed on the confused mass of trees and its darkness, searching for the source of the sound.

Nothing. Just this rustling, but the wind was now breathless. The leaves above her had stopped moving. Her heartbeat quickened. Her hands trembled. Death had found her. No doubt about it. It had come to claim its due.

Déjà vu. Running. Leaving the trees and the Gods behind. Running. The trees seemed to have multiplied. Their sheer number and resemblance almost stunned her.

But then her eyes met the boundary between green and white, between forest and ice and snow, and that long white path to a gigantic wall carved out of the frost⏤a terrestrial iceberg.

This was no ordinary wall. It was the Wall, built millennia ago, when the Grimm were still the most powerful House in all of Westeros. This dam of ice looked down on the whole world. It was ineffable. It had existed for dozens of generations. Its existence could no longer be explained. One just had to accept it.

From down below, she could almost imagine the men of the Night's Watch on duty. Perhaps they could see her. Her nanny had told her many stories about these men, about what they fought and held outside Westeros. At the time, lulled by the naivety of childhood, she had not believed these tales.

The wound on her shoulder would be a reminder, a lesson for the future⏤Truth always lies in stories.

A black spot in the middle of the Wall caught her attention. The gate. Closed. She looked behind her. The forest had gone back to sleep; still and silent, it sent a shiver down her spine.

The North had nothing more to offer her. Her time beyond the Wall would come to an end on this day. She now had to cross it and join the cities and monarchies that all those impostors had built. She had to get back to the land of her ancestors. She had to get back to Gods Eye.

Astrisse said a silent prayer to the Old Gods and raised her head to the sky⏤so white and thick that not a cloud deigned to intrude. She closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, and let her body feel.

Above Death, We Fly.

#jaime lannister x reader #jaime lannister fanfic #jaime lannister x oc #game of thrones fanfic #game of thrones #got fanfiction #got imagine #got #asoiaf fanfic #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #jaime lannister #jaime x reader #jaime x oc #got series

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supervengerslock · 11 months

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The Great War- Chapter 1

Robb Stark x Baratheon!OFC, Jon Snow x Handmaid!OFC

Summary: The royal party goes to Winterfell to arrange a marriage between the princess and the future Warden of the North.

Meag sat by her favorite tree, book in hand, as she and her handmaid, Bev, watched the King’s guard train on the grounds of the Red Keep. Her brother, Joffrey, was with them, though he could barely hold a sword to save his life. The King’s guard didn’t dare spar with the prince, for fear of invoking his wrath.

“I know that look,” Bev says, leaning against the tree. “You’re thinking too hard.”

“Do you ever just want to escape these grounds, even for just a day? I’ve barely been out of the Red Keep all my life, Bev.”

Joffrey starts towards the keep and sends a glare towards his sister’s maid, who he hated with a fiery passion. He stops a few feet from his sister.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m to wed Lady Sansa Stark. Sister, you’ll be lucky if you wed Loras Tyrell. Except, I don’t think you’re his type.” He laughs at his own joke.

“Be quiet, Joffrey. You’re interrupting my reading.” She looks back down at her book and he grows angry.

“You can’t talk to your future king like that!”

“And you shouldn’t talk to your elder sister in such a way,” she retorts. “It’s not very regal, brother.”

He stomps off in a huff and Meag sets down her book.

“Say the word, my lady, and I’ll make sure that cunt doesn’t treat you in such a way again.”

“You’d risk treason for me, Bev? He’s to be your king.”

“I’m not loyal to the crown, especially not that fucking prince. I’m loyal to you, my lady.”

Meag smiled at that and the two of them sat by the tree for a moment of peace and quiet. This, however, was short-lived because Meag’s uncle, Jaime, walked up to them.

“Hello, my dearest niece,” he says, bowing in greeting.

“Uncle, it’s good to see you,” Meag replies. “By the looks of it, it seems these guards aren’t learning anything at all, and neither is my brother, it would seem.”

“Yes, I saw him stalking back into the palace,” Jaime says. “I was sent by your father to fetch you. He wants to see you in his study immediately.”

Meag rolls her eyes and stands, the grass staining the bottom of her skirt. She passes her book to Bev and follows Jaime into the Red Keep. He doesn’t say a thing as they walk along, which surprises her, as her uncle is usually very chatty. They finally reach her father’s study and she turns to Jaime, who gives her a solemn look before nodding to her to go in.

Meag knocks on the door before entering the study, where her father was pouring a cup of wine and his hand, Jon Arryn, stood to the side with a kind smile. She nods to Lord Arryn before taking the open seat across from her father.

He sets his cup down before eyeing the grass stains all over her dress.

“Have you been rolling in the yard again?” he asks with a chuckle.

“Just reading in the grass, father.”

“You’ve always got your head in the clouds. Seven Hells! You’re a Baratheon, and my daughter. My firstborn.”

“Mother would go berserk if I was fighting with the boys, father. Besides, southern ladies do not fight. They frolic and sew and run their households.”

“Have you ever seen your mother sew?” her father asks. He laughs again before taking another sip of his wine.

“Your grace, I believe there are certain matters we need to discuss,” Lord Arryn says.

“Of course, of course,” Her father replies. “Lord Arryn and I have discussed it, and we think it’s about time you be wed.”

“Wed? To whom?”

“We’ve gotten quite a few offers from all the great houses,” Jon Arryn says. “But your father has rejected most of them.”

“My friend Ned Stark, you remember him, right?”

Lord Stark had only visited King’s Landing a handful of times, and never with his family, except possibly his wife, Lady Catelyn. He was very stoic, though gentle and kind. Her father and Lord Arryn always talked fondly of him.

“Yes, father.”

“His eldest boy, Robb, is to be the Warden of the North and Lord of Winterfell. He’ll make a fine husband for her, won’t he, Jon?”

“Absolutely. With Ned as a father, the boy must be very honorable indeed.”

“When will this wedding occur?” Meag asks.

“We’re going to visit Winterfell in a few weeks to talk about the details with Ned and Cat.”

“Does mother know?”

“She does. She’s not too happy about it, but she understands.”

Despite what her father said, her mother did not understand.

Meag stood by her mother’s side, her hand maid stood a few steps behind the family. Tommen and Myrcella stood close to their elder sister, the young prince holding onto her arm shyly as they approached the Starks.

“Your grace.”

“Ned,” Robert replies with a chuckle. “You got fat.” They both laugh and Meag’s gaze wanders to the two girls. The elder sister looked excited to be there. She wore a pale blue dress and had her red hair done up in braids. The youngest seemed uncomfortable in her gray dress. She couldn’t be more than ten and one. Their brother, Robb Stark, walked up and tousled his youngest sister’s hair playfully. He had a stocky build, his brown hair fell in little wisps that met his ears. His eyes were the same piercing blue as his sister’s, as they both favorited the Tully side of their family. Arya, however, seemed to favor her father. The other boy joined them. His long hair was dark and curly. He was shorter than Robb and Lord Eddard, and he had a sword on his hip. He resembled Lord Eddard more than Robb did. He must be Jon Snow, the bastard.

Meag had nothing against bastards. Seven hells, her father had at least four bastards for every legitimate child he had.

Two little brown haired boys stood close to Jon Snow. They were the youngest Stark children, Brandon and Rickon.

Meag’s father reaches over and puts an arm around her, bringing her closer.

“This here is my pride and joy, Ned. My eldest.”

“Princess.” Lord Stark bows his head and Meag nods in greeting.

“Lord Stark. My father always speaks so highly of you.”

“And those are my others,” the king says, gesturing towards Joffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella. “My heir, Joffrey, my daughter Myrcella, and my youngest, Tommen. Now, introduce me to your brood, Ned.”

The red headed girl stood closest to her father and grabbed his arm.

“This is my oldest daughter, Sansa. Next to her is my oldest,Robb. Then there’s Arya, Bran and Rickon.”

The king stared down at the little brown haired girl for a second. It wasn’t long, but it was enough for Meag to notice. She turned and locked eyes with her mother, who clenched her fist in frustration.

“Yes, well come on, we best get to the crypt to pay our respects,” the king says, releasing Meag and walking away with Ned. The Stark and Baratheon children all looked at each other for a moment before Cersei headed inside with her guards, Myrcella, and Tommen.

Joffrey walked across to Sansa with a smirk on his face. The eldest Stark brothers sent twin glares in his direction as he began to gloat to Sansa.

Surprisingly enough, Joffrey offers his arm to Sansa and she takes it hesitantly as they walk off towards the godswood.

“My lady.”

Meag practically jumped back three feet when she realized Bev had materialized next to her.

“Bev, you startled me!”

“We should probably get you ready for the feast, my lady.”

“Oh, yes.” Meag turns back to the young wolves who were still standing there.

“I’ll see you at the feast, Robb. It was lovely to meet you.”

“Bev, must we attend the feast?” Meag asks.

“The Stark heir seems quite taken with you,” Bev says with a smirk.

“Robb? What do you mean?”

“Did you not see the way he looked at you when you two were introduced?”

“I don’t know a thing about him, Bev. I don’t want to be married off like some broodmare. I want to explore the world!”

Bev’s lip curls into a cheshire grin. “My lady, get your cloak and meet me at the training grounds. We are going out.”

“Going where, Bev?”

“To see the world!”

When Meag walked up to the training grounds, what she didn’t expect to see was her handmaid standing with a horse from the stables.

The horse she’d chosen was Saffron, the horse her father had given her for her fourteenth name day. Saffron had a reddish brown coat and mane. She was saddled and ready to leave the castle. Bev was feeding her a carrot as Meag walked up.

“My lady. I couldn’t take more than one horse without it seeming suspicious. I will walk, you should ride.”

“Nonsense, we can both fit on the saddle,” the princess replies. Meag took her friend’s hand as she mounted the horse, Bev following suit.

Bev sat in front, handling the reins. Saffron took off and Meag held onto her friend.

“Where are we going, Bev?”

“For a ride outside of Winterfell, my lady! Hang on!”

Robb stood on the edge of the crowd as everyone danced and ate. This feast was to commemorate his father taking the position as hand of the king, and his and Sansa’s engagements. Sansa was dancing with the weasley little prince and Arya was talking Ser Barristen’s ear off about the knights of old. Jon was outside with the direwolves talking to Lord Tyrion. Theon walked up to him.

“Shouldn’t you be off winning the heart of the fair princess?” Theon asks teasingly.

Robb sends him a glare. “She seems like a nice lass, but I don’t want to get married to someone I don’t know, Theon.”

“You’re the heir to Winterfell and the future Warden of the North,” Theon reminds him. “You really didn’t expect to be married off by your parents?”

“I just thought I might have more of a choice in who my bride might be. I don’t want a ditzy little princess as my lady of Winterfell.”

Theon shrugs. “Talk to her,” he suggests. “You might find you like her.”

Robb chuckles. “Who are you and what have you done with my perverse best friend?”

“And if she still doesn’t like you,” Theon says cheekily, putting an arm around his friend casually, “Maybe you could send her my way.”

Robb shoved his arm off. “Too far, Theon.” He stalks off out of the great hall in frustration, walking right past Jon and Lord Tyrion, the former shouting after him. Grey Wind was on his heels as he started towards the gods wood, where he might have a moment alone to think.

Just as he reached the weirwood tree, he heard voices further into the wood. Grey Wind’s ears perked up and Robb looked down at the wolf.

“What’s wrong?”

The direwolf runs into the woods and Robb curses under his breath before following Grey Wind into the forest.

When the direwolf finally stopped, they were in a clearing, and before them stood the princess, her hand maid, and horse. The princess was frolicking in the snow while the handmaid fed a carrot to the horse.

Robb looked down at Grey Wind, who was sniffing the air. The wolf started slowly towards the princess.

“Grey Wind!” Robb rushed through the trees after his wolf, which had walked up to the princess. She stopped and looked down at the direwolf before kneeling down to pet him. Grey Wind sat at her feet as she scratched behind his ears and Robb breathed a sigh of relief.

“You’re not scared of him?” he asks, stopping in front of her and Grey Wind.

“I love animals,” Meag replies. “They’re much better than most humans. Besides, he’s just a pup.”

“We found a litter of them a few days ago in the woods,” he says. “The mother had been killed by a stag. Father let us take the pups to the castle.”

“Your father seems like a great man,” Meag says. “Your family all seem very kind. That brings me much comfort.”

“Why aren’t you at the feast?” Robb asks. “Your parents sent the Hound to look for you.”

“I hate such gatherings,” Meag answers. “I am not the perfect princess my mother wishes I would be. I would rather spend all day in the library or the gardens than learning how to sew or dance or any of the more ladylike professions.”

“We have a massive library here,” Robb replies. “So many stories that you could get lost among the shelves.”

“I wanted to be a maester when I was younger, to study at the citadel,” Meag says. “But of course all maesters are men, and my mother wouldn’t let me study the art of the sciences.”

“I can ask Maester Luwin to teach you,” Robb suggests. “I’m sure he would love to have an enthusiastic student.”

“Oh thank you, Robb, truly.”

Meag held onto Robb’s arm as they took a walk through the grounds of Winterfell, Meag’s handmaid trailing them a few feet behind. Meag leans close to her betrothed’s ear.

“Your half-brother can’t seem to take his eyes off my handmaid.”

Robb turns to look at Jon, who was staring at the brunette. She stared right back at him, muttering something. Meag turns to her friend.

“He seems quite taken with you.”

“Don’t waste your time,” Robb chimes in. “He leaves tomorrow for the Watch.”

“That’s a pity,” Meag replies. “They could have been a fine match.”

Bev approached Jon Snow while his back was turned and he was slicing at the practice dummy with his sword.

“I think you got him,” she says. He turns and smiled sheepishly at her.

“You’re the princess’s maid.”

“I prefer friend. But yes.”

“Aye. How are you liking Winterfell, friend of the princess?” he asks, sheathing his sword again in its scabbard.

“The chill is refreshing, if I’m being honest. It is fucking hot down south.”

He chuckles. “Does your princess know you talk like that?”

“You should hear that mouth of hers,” Bev says, shaking her head. “She doesn’t show it, but when she’s angry, you should see it.”

“And you’re the more outspoken one, I take it?” They both laugh, and then, an awkward silence settles over them. Bev clears her throat.

“I’m a bastard too, you know. My mother was a kitchen maid, and she said my father was a knight in the Red Keep. I never knew him. A sickness took her last year, so I never got to find out who he was.”

“I never knew my mother either,” Jon replies. “Father promised he’d tell me about her when he comes back to visit. All I know is that she died giving birth to me.”

“We’re two of a kind, aren’t we, Jon Snow?”

“Achem.” Jon looks up behind her head, his eyes widening in surprise. Bev turns to face the knight that had approached. It was Ser Clegane, the Hound.

“Run along to your princess, little girl.” Bev nods, hurrying to find Meag and Robb, not catching the glare that the knight sends Jon Snow.

“And this is the old tower,” Robb says, gesturing to his left. “It’s run down, so we don’t use it anymore.”

“It appears your brother does,” Meag says with a chuckle, pointing towards Bran, who was climbing the tower.

“Bran!” Robb tells up to his brother. “Didn’t mother tell you not to climb?”

“I’m fine!” the boy calls back. “Go show the princess the library!”

“Oh, the library!” Meag exclaims.

“Then, let’s go, shall we?” Robb offers his arm to the princess, and just as they turn away from the tower, they hear a scream, and then a thud. Robb is the first to act.

“Bran!” he runs to his brother, who had just hit the ground hard. The princess starts towards them, until Bev rushes over.

“My lady! What happened?”

“Lord Brandon fell from the tower,” Meag says hurriedly. She looks up at the tower, and she can just make out a figure in the window, facing inside the tower. She swore it looked just like her uncle…

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