Page 17 (2/2)

Bran was falling faster than ever The grey ed toward the earth below "What are you doing toyou how to fly

"I can’t fly!"

You’re flying tight now

"I’ins with a fall, the crow said Look down

"I’m afraid"

LOOK DOWN!

Bran looked down, and felt his insides turn to water The ground was rushing up at him now The whole world was spread out below hireen He could see everything so clearly that for a ot to be afraid He could see the whole realm, and everyone in it

He saw Winterfell as the eagles see it, the tall towers looking squat and stubby from above, the castle walls just lines in the dirt He saw Maester Luwin on his balcony, studying the sky through a polished bronze tube and frowning as he made notes in a book He saw his brother Robb, taller and stronger than he re swordplay in the yard with real steel in his hand He saw Hodor, the si an anvil to Mikken’s forge, hefting it onto his shoulder as easily as another odswood, the great white ood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes froly

He looked east, and saw a galley racing across the waters of the Bite He saw hisat a bloodstained knife on a table in front of her, as the rowers pulled at their oars and Ser Rodrik leaned across a rail, shaking and heaving A stor lashed by lightning, but somehow they could not see it

He looked south, and saw the great blue-green rush of the Trident He saw his father pleading with the king, his face etched with grief He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart There were shadows all around them One shadoas dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound Another was arolden and beautiful Over theiant in armorinside but darkness and thick black blood

He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the JadeSea, to Asshai by the Shadohere dragons stirred beneath the sunrise

Finally he looked north He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks

Now you know, the crohispered as it sat on his shoulder Now you knohy you , falling, falling

Because winter is co

Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge Bran looked down There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him They flew up at him like spears He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points He was desperately afraid

"Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?" he heard his own voice saying, small and far away

And his father’s voice replied to him "That is the only tied Choose Fly or die

Death reached for hi

Bran spread his ars unseen drank the wind and filled and pulled him upward The terrible needles of ice receded below him The sky opened up above Bran soared It was better than clirew s!" he cried out in delight

I’ve noticed, said the three-eyed crow It took to the air, flapping its wings in his face, slowing hiainst his cheeks Its beak stabbed at hi pain in the middle of his forehead, between his eyes

"What are you doing?" he shrieked

The crow opened its beak and cawed at hirey mists shuddered and swirled around him and ripped away like a veil, and he saw that the croas really a wo black hair, and he knew her from somewhere, from Winterfell, yes, that was it, he remembered her now, and then he realized that he was in Winterfell, in a bed high in some chilly tower room, and the black-haired woman dropped a basin of water to shatter on the floor and ran down the steps, shouting, "He’s awake, he’s awake, he’s awake"

Bran touched his forehead, between his eyes The place where the crow had pecked hi there, no blood, no wound He felt weak and dizzy He tried to get out of bed, but nothing happened

And then there was htly on his legs He felt nothing A pair of yellow eyes looked into his own, shining like the sun The as open and it was cold in the room, but the warmth that came off the wolf enfolded him like a hot bath His pup, Bran realizedor was it? He was so big now He reached out to pet hi like a leaf

When his brother Robb burst into the room, breathless fro Bran’s face Bran looked up calmly "His name is Summer," he said