A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3)

by George R.R. Martin

don’t look as much like Cersei this way. She’ll hate that.

I wish the Hound were here.

“Though once I had eaten at his board I was protected by guest right. The laws of hospitality are as old as the First Men, and sacred as a heart tree.” He gestured at the board between them, the broken bread and chicken bones. “Here you are the guest, and safe from harm at my hands … this night,

Sansa wondered what Megga would think about kissing the Hound, as she had. He’d come to her the night of the battle stinking of wine and blood. He kissed me and threatened to kill me, and made me sing him a song.

“Are you certain you never heard this tale before, Bran?” asked Jojen. “Your lord father never told it to you?”

R + L = J?

The last was in the king’s hand. This one he studied a moment as it writhed between his fingers. “The usurper,” he said at last. “Robb Stark.” And he threw it on the flames.

Jaime, he thought, my name is Jaime.

“Could you bring back a man without a head?” Arya asked. “Just the once, not six times. Could you?”

“Her name’s Brienne.”

“You want her? Go get her.” So he did.

“Ser Jaime?” Even in soiled pink satin and torn lace, Brienne looked more like a man in a gown than a proper woman. “I am grateful, but … you were well away. Why come back?” A dozen quips came to mind, each crueler than the one before, but Jaime only shrugged. “I dreamed of you,” he said.

“Grey Wind. What is it? Grey Wind, with me.” But the direwolf only bared his teeth. He does not like this place, Catelyn thought.

Now we should be safe, she thought.

No one sang the words, but Catelyn knew “The Rains of Castamere” when she heard it.

A man in dark armor and a pale pink cloak spotted with blood stepped up to Robb. “Jaime Lannister sends his regards.” He thrust his longsword through her son’s heart, and twisted.

Slow red worms crawled along her arms and under her clothes. It tickles. That made her laugh until she screamed. “Mad,” someone said, “she’s lost her wits,” and someone else said, “Make an end,” and a hand grabbed her scalp just as she’d done with Jinglebell, and she thought, No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair. Then the steel was at her throat, and its bite was red and cold.

Satin, they called him, even in the wool and mail and boiled leather of the Night’s Watch; the name he’d gotten in the brothel where he’d been born and raised. He was pretty as a girl with his dark eyes, soft skin, and raven’s ringlets.

and gave the boy with the pretty face a hard shake.

He may be pretty, but he’s quick.

In a better world, you might have been mine, not Eddard Stark’s. My loyal loving daughter …