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February 1 - February 24, 2020
Magister of the Free City of Pentos.”
Even in the streets, it’s too damn hot for wool or fur, so they go around in these short gowns, silk if they have the silver and cotton if not, but it’s all the same when they start sweating and the cloth sticks to their skin, they might as well be naked.”
The first Lords of Winterfell had been men hard as the land they ruled. In the centuries before the Dragonlords came over the sea, they had sworn allegiance to no man, styling themselves the Kings in the North.
feared
“That is because you do not sleep with a Lannister.”
The wind swirled around him as he stood facing the dark, naked and empty-handed.
“Lysa says Jon Arryn was murdered.”
and they had spent that year apart,
Lady Ashara Dayne,
Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.
“Oh, yes,” Tyrion admitted. “I hope the boy does wake. I would be most interested to hear what he might have to say.”
mounted
“You speak the Common Tongue,” Dany said in wonder. “No,” he said again.
“No,” she echoed back at him.
“Daenerys Targaryen has wed some Dothraki horselord. What of it? Shall we send her a wedding gift?”
“This child will soon enough spread her legs and start breeding more dragonspawn to plague me.”
“You weren’t s’posed to be here,” he repeated stupidly.
He grabbed the little man under the arms, hoisted him up in the air, and spun him around in a circle.
“I ought to snap this toy across my knee here and now, and put an end to this nonsense.”
“Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”
Try not to stab your sister, whatever the provocation.”
“I am your dancing master.”
“And if he tries to cheat me, he will learn to his sorrow what it means to wake the dragon,” Viserys had vowed, laying a hand on his borrowed sword.
“Not a queen,” said Dany. “A khaleesi.” She wheeled her horse about and galloped down the ridge alone.
She began to find pleasure even in her nights, and if she still cried out when Drogo took her, it was not always in pain.
“Truth now. Would you want to see Viserys sit on a throne?”
All that was left of her own blood was Hodor,
polished smooth by countless bottoms;
Ned looked at the man evenly, saying nothing, waiting. He had found over the years that silence sometimes yielded more than questions. And so it was this time.
You know what stops me? The thought of Joffrey on the throne, with Cersei standing behind him whispering in his ear.
For a moment, Eddard Stark wanted nothing so much as to return to Winterfell, to the clean simplicity of the north, where the enemies were winter and the wildlings beyond the Wall.
I begged Lord Arryn to use a taster, in this very room I begged him, but he would not hear of it.
They might spare Catelyn herself; she was still young enough to bear sons.
Marillion grew visibly pale. Tyrion trotted up beside him. “Craven,” he said, “rhymes nicely with raven.”
The other councillors were all doing their best to pretend that they were somewhere else. No doubt they were wiser than he was.
It is a terrible thing we contemplate, a vile thing.
“On Braavos there is a society called the Faceless Men,” Grand Maester Pycelle offered.
“You fly,” Mord had promised him, when he’d shoved him into the cell. “Twenty day, thirty, fifty maybe. Then you fly.”
“Some whorehouse? Damn your eyes, Robert, I went there to have a look at your daughter! Her mother has named her Barra. She looks like that first girl you fathered, when we were boys together in the Vale.” He watched the queen as he spoke; her face was a mask, still and pale, betraying nothing.
The king glanced at Cersei. “This is no fit subject for the queen’s ears.”
“Wear it in silence, or I’ll honor you again,”
The shy girl she had known at Riverrun had grown into a woman who was by turns proud, fearful, cruel, dreamy, reckless, timid, stubborn, vain, and, above all, inconstant.
“Your brother?” Ned said. “Or your lover?” “Both.” She did not flinch from the truth. “Since we were children together. And why not? The Targaryens wed brother to sister for three hundred years, to keep the bloodlines pure. And Jaime and I are more than brother and sister. We are one person in two bodies. We shared a womb together. He came into this world holding my foot, our old maester said. When he is in me, I feel … whole.” The ghost of a smile flitted over her lips.
Her hand touched his face, his hair. “If friends can turn to enemies, enemies can become friends. Your wife is a thousand leagues away, and my brother has fled. Be kind to me, Ned. I swear to you, you shall never regret it.”
“I promise.” Promise me, Ned, Lyanna’s voice echoed.
“Your price.” Ned’s voice was ice. “Lord Baelish, what you suggest is treason.” “Only if we lose.”
Syrio caught the thrust in the helmet and shattered the man’s kneecap with his stick.
She was going home. Everything would be better once she was home again, safe behind Winterfell’s grey granite walls.
We’re to marry when we’re older.”
That night, Sansa dreamt of Joffrey on the throne, with herself seated beside him in a gown of woven gold. She had a crown on her head, and everyone she had ever known came before her, to bend the knee and say their courtesies.
