A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)

by George R.R. Martin

a wine as sour as his mood.

“Go away,” Theon told him. “I have had enough of your counsel.” “And life? Have you had enough of that, my lord prince?”

“Savages believe all manner of foolish things.”

His helm and gorget were wrought in the shape of a man’s face and shoulders, skinless and bloody, mouth open in a silent howl of anguish.

Aura

Pay him his pound of flesh and deal with him later.

“Ramsay.” There was a smile on his plump lips, but none in those pale pale eyes. “Snow, my wife called me before she ate her fingers, but I say Bolton.”

Eeeee

The maester discarded the bandages, still crusty with potion.

“It would have been wiser to leave the mask in place until the flesh had knit,

Sometimes a man forgets how pretty a fire can be.”

Qhorin insisted that the rangers mix some of the garron’s blood with their oats, to give them strength.

Tell him that the trees have eyes again.”

Even dreams cannot live up here,

I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.”

The rider’s helm was made from the broken skull of a giant,

“I see no lord. Only a dog dressed in chickenbones, who rattles when he rides.”

I’ll carve your teeth to cast me runes, and eat me oaten porridge from your skull.”

“They warned me bastard blood was craven,”

“The black crow is a tricksy bird. I trust him not.”

Then a string of red tears appeared across the big man’s throat, bright as a ruby necklace,

He closed his third eye and opened the other two, the old two, the blind two.

He had never feared the crypts; they were part of his home and who he was, and he had always known that one day he would lie here too.

“So much death will bring other wolves besides Summer and Shaggydog, and not all on four feet.”

“Hush now, child, I’m much older than you. I can … die as I please.”

So long as those remained, Winterfell remained. It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I’m not dead either.