Date/Time: Vaes Meereen — Days Following Chapter 54 / Winterfell — Two Weeks Later
Angelus — First Person
Six hours in. Quill cramping. Desk buried.
The Kulve Taroth hatchling slept on a pile of discarded first-drafts in her basket, and the parchment had spread across every flat surface in the study — an archipelago of creature entries growing faster than I could organize them.
I finished the Griffin entry, set it aside, and pulled the next sheet.
Hydra. Giant four-headed serpent. No limbs, one tail. Favors swamp and forest habitats. Regenerative — severed heads grow back unless the wound is cauterized with fire. Swallow attack is the primary kill method — will attempt to consume targets whole. However, swallowed victims who survive the initial bite can attack from the inside, and allies can pry open the jaws to extract them if they're fast enough. Fire is the critical counter. Burn the neck stumps or you're fighting the same head twice.
The quill scratched across parchment, ink flowing fast.
Saurian. Amphibious bipedal lizard. Inhabits swamps, rivers, caves, and coastal waters. Communicates through guttural vocalizations — they coordinate, which makes them more dangerous than they look. Wield weapons, primarily spears. Critical weakness: the tail. Sever it and they lose balance, coordination, and most of their combat effectiveness. Variants include Asps — venomous, favor caves — Magma Scales in volcanic regions, and Serpents that channel lightning through their scales.
Beholder. Hovering spherical creature with one massive central eye, a mouth full of fangs, and multiple tentacle stalks ending in smaller eyes. Each stalk-eye casts a different magical effect. The central eye projects a petrification ray — purple beam, direct line of sight, turns living tissue to stone on contact. Avoid the gaze. Destroy the stalks first to reduce its magical output, then close distance and hit the central eye.
Dullahan. Headless armored knight wreathed in spectral blue flame, carrying its own severed head as a weapon. Nocturnal — can only be encountered at night. Extremely dangerous in melee combat. The head is the weak point, but it's also the part that bites.
Will 'O Wisps — nocturnal spirits that lure travelers with floating lights. Phantoms — spectral undead, melee-focused, phase through solid matter. Specters — stronger phantom variants. Phantasms — electric ghosts that discharge lightning on contact. All nocturnal. All vulnerable to holy and fire magic.
Undead — standard reanimated corpses. Stout Undead — bloated variants that swell and detonate when exposed to fire. Skeletons. Skeleton Lords — armored skeleton warriors wielding greatswords and greatshields. Wights — powerful undead mages commanding all elemental magics, staff-wielding, capable of summoning other undead. Liches — the apex undead spellcaster. Treat with extreme caution.
Goblins. Small, numerous, individually weak but dangerous in groups. Hobgoblins — larger, armored variants. Choppers — forest-dwelling goblins adapted for woodland ambush. Knackers — long-weapon specialists adept at high-ground raids and elevated terrain.
Minotaur. Bull-headed humanoid, larger than Witcher Chorts and Fiends. Wields a massive axe and favors charging attacks. The charge is the most dangerous part — the impact can demolish stone walls. Sidestep, don't block. Gore variants exist with enhanced aggression and bone armor plating.
Hellhounds. Fire-breathing canine pack hunters. Ogres — black-furred ape-like creatures, roughly minotaur-sized. Inhabit caves, mines, and forests. Strong and surprisingly fast. Peculiar behavioral vulnerability: ogres are drawn to women and will abandon combat objectives to attempt kidnapping female targets. This fixation can be exploited tactically — use female-presenting fighters as bait to create openings. Grim Ogres are the enhanced variant.
Gorgon. Snake-haired humanoid. Petrification gaze, similar to the Beholder but less powerful. Medusa — the apex variant, larger, faster, deadlier petrification. Sphinx — female, intelligent, prefers riddles to combat, but will fight viciously if challenged or if the answer is wrong. Do not engage Sphinxes unless you're certain of your wit.
Harpies. Winged humanoid predators. Venin Harpies — lightning-type variant. Gore Harpies — enhanced aggression. Succubus — the most dangerous harpy type. Pale skin, dark coloring, iridescent feather-plumage across their bodies and wing-arms. Lure targets through mesmerism and pheromone manipulation before striking.
Leapworms. Small, worm-like parasites. Individually trivial. In swarms, they'll drain the stamina out of an armored Dragonborn in minutes. Don't ignore them.
Slime. Gelatinous ambush predators. Sludge — living magma variants. Ooze — oily slimes that drain stamina on contact. All are weak to opposing elements — fire for slimes, ice for sludge, physical weapons for ooze.
Rattlers. Four-legged ambush predators disguised as boulders. The terrain is not always terrain. Tap suspicious rocks.
Garm. Massive, heavily muscled canine monsters. Wargs — smaller relatives with reddish-brown fur, hunt in packs.
Golems. Artificial constructs created by sorcerers, made of clay and stone. Conventional weapons bounce off them. The only weaknesses are the glowing magical discs embedded in their joint articulation points and a disc serving as an eye. Destroy enough discs and the golem freezes like a statue, allowing the remaining discs to be targeted. Work fast — they restart.
I paused and flexed my writing hand. The hatchling chirped in her sleep, golden claws kneading the discarded pages.
Drake. Medium-sized dragon, winged, fire-breathing. Considered a Lesser Dragon in their ecosystem of origin. Intelligent enough to speak their own draconic language. Can cast fire, ice, and thunder magic through their own innate system. Critical behavioral note: Drakes can mentally dominate Pawns — and in this fused world's ambient magical environment, that domination ability may extend to other beings. When a Drake sustains enough damage, its chest splits open and exposes a glowing heart for a brief window. Striking the heart during this window inflicts catastrophic damage. The heart re-seals and the Drake resumes fighting.
Dragon — Grigori. The apex creature. Massive — larger than anything else in the DD2 ecosystem. Red-scaled, winged, fire-breathing. Highly intelligent, capable of speech in the common tongues, wielder of powerful magic. In the original world, the Grigori served as the test administered by the Seneschal — the entity that maintained the Cycle. In this fused world, the Cycle has been stripped away. But the Grigori itself may still exist somewhere, as a creature rather than an instrument.
I set down the quill and stared at that last entry.
If a Grigori exists in this world, it's one of the few things that could give me a real fight in dragon form.
A knock at the study door.
"It's open. Ward's cracked."
Yennefer entered, the ward parting around her Pact bond signature. Her violet eyes swept the desk, took in the parchment sprawl, and one eyebrow climbed.
"You've been productive."
"Forty-three creature entries and counting."
"Forty-three." She circled the desk, trailing her fingers along the parchment edges. "From memory."
"Perks of being ancient."
Yennefer reached my chair, turned, and sat down in my lap. Legs crossed at the knee, her back against my chest, one arm draped across my shoulder.
"You said to come talk to you about the magic system," she said. "I'm here."
My arms came around her waist. The chest-rumble started — low, warm, the vibration passing into her body through the contact. She leaned into it.
"Alright, Raven. What are you thinking?"
"DnD Divination and Conjuration as primary schools. Arcane Eye, Scrying, See Invisibility are reflex at this point. Conjuration gives me summoning, which complements my shadow phasing. And I want Evocation for offensive output."
"Three DnD schools is aggressive."
"I'm an aggressive caster." She turned her head enough to meet my eyes from inches away. "And before you start — my Chaos magic framework interfaces with multiple traditions simultaneously. The Lodge engineered it that way. Channel conflicts don't apply to me the way they'd apply to Triss."
"And TES?"
"Alteration and Conjuration. Ironflesh, Dragonhide, physical augmentation stacking with my defensive arrays. TES Conjuration for bound weapons and summoning — reinforcements from nothing."
"That's five schools across two systems, Raven." I traced a claw along her collarbone, slow and idle. "On anyone else, I'd say no before they finished the sentence."
"I'm not anyone else." She shifted in my lap, settling deeper against me. "And you already know I can handle it. The Chaos framework was built for this — the Lodge spent decades engineering a system that treats other magical traditions as modular inputs. I'm not stacking incompatible disciplines. I'm plugging them into an architecture that was designed to hold five at once."
"You're very confident about that."
"Confident enough to sit in the lap of a dragon and argue for it." Her fingers traced the edge of my horn, the touch casual and possessive. "If the system destabilizes, I'll know before anyone else does. I'll cut the weakest school and consolidate. You won't have to intervene."
I held her gaze. Violet sparks in her eyes, the bond humming between us, her heartbeat steady against my chest. Yennefer didn't bluff — she calculated, and her calculations were almost always right.
"All five. Approved."
She leaned in, her lips brushing my jaw. "Now — I've been thinking about magic for an hour. I'd like to stop thinking about magic."
"Was that in the appointment?"
"It's in the contract."
"We don't have a contract."
"We have a Pact bond. Close enough."
Two amber-gold eyes watched us from the basket. The Kulve Taroth hatchling — awake, sitting upright, head tilted, staring at us with unblinking curiosity.
I raised one hand and cast a layered ward — visual and auditory — that settled over us like a privacy curtain.
The hatchling's head jerked as we vanished. She chirped — offended, metallic, where did you go — and puffed her tiny chest.
Yennefer laughed against my neck. "She's pouting."
"She'll get over it."
The increasingly annoyed chirping lasted several minutes before the hatchling tired herself out and fell back asleep.
We took our time.
By next morning, copies of the DD2 Bestiary were printing in the Lyceum's press and shipping to every garrison across all five cities. I organized the overdue Council session for that afternoon.
The chamber smelled of warm stone and brazier smoke when the full roster assembled. Daenerys took her seat at my right, Drogo beside her. The table filled — Jhogo, Jorah, Zyrenna crackling faintly, Lysara with her bladestaff propped against her chair, Triss and Yennefer on opposite sides (they always sat on opposite sides), Ciri and Arya near the end with Frost curled at Arya's feet. Kinvara and Melisandre along the wall. Artoria and Barristan flanking the door. Daario and Elira arriving last, Elira's hat at its usual angle.
Geralt's projection shimmered from Winterfell, Veyla visible behind him.
"Magic assignments," I said. "TES has been live for over a week. I want formal declarations."
Artoria went first. She stood at the door, Excalibur at her hip, her posture straight enough to use as a level. "TES Restoration, complementing my DnD Abjuration. With your approval."
"Granted. Barristan — same direction?"
He inclined his head beside her. "The same. If Lady Artoria and I train in parallel, we can build shared defensive doctrines for the Drakengard."
"Then do it together. Pair the curriculum and bring me the outline within the week."
Triss sat straight in her chair. Her green-gold eyes still held the ghost of an argument she'd lost at the original announcement, but her voice was steady. "DnD fire school. Bladestaff integration. No TES crossover." A beat. Then, quieter: "You were right. Adding Destruction would compromise what I've built."
"For what it's worth — your build is the strongest single-school system in the Wyrmborne."
The tension in her shoulders eased a fraction.
Daenerys spoke aloud and through the bond simultaneously: "TES Destruction, fire sub-school. The synergy with my breath weapon and heat element is natural."
Through the bond, I sent warmth and confirmation. She caught it and settled back in her chair.
"I focus on the Shout," Drogo said. "Fus first. Magic systems are for people who can't hit hard enough without them."
Ciri snorted from the far end of the table. Drogo's red eyes found her without turning his head.
"You disagree?" he asked.
"I'd disagree if you weren't strong enough to bench-press a house. But since you are, it's a valid strategy."
"It is not strategy. It is fact."
The rest of the declarations came in clusters. Jhogo chose TES Illusion — a natural fit for intelligence work. Zyrenna picked TES Destruction's lightning sub-school, which surprised no one since her element was already frying Jorah's arm hair from two seats away. Lysara stayed with DnD Evocation, acid focus, already integrated into her Bladestaff doctrine.
Kinvara and Melisandre both chose TES Restoration. "Joint protocols," Kinvara said. "Our fire-faith healing translates directly, and we can train together."
Daario leaned back and spread his hands. "TES Destruction. Fire. I like things that burn."
Elira tipped her hat. "TES Illusion. A pirate who can make you see ships that aren't there is a pirate who never loses a boarding action."
"Or a tavern bet," Daario added.
"Those too."
Thoros raised his cup. "TES Restoration. The Lord of Light heals. Seems fitting."
Bronn crossed his arms. "I'm not a mage. Never have been, don't plan to start. Give me a sharp sword and a clear sightline."
Arya: "DnD Illusion, primary. Signs secondary. Frost handles the ice."
The Lunagaron raised her head at her name and chirped — a sound like cracking ice.
Ciri: "DnD Conjuration. Misty Step and Elder Blood are already merged. I want summoning next."
Geralt's projection flickered. "No change. Signs are sufficient."
Tyrion's voice came through a separate Link from his quarters. "I can't learn magic — Dwarven heritage, divine gift, take your pick. But I'm reading three languages, I'm physically stronger than I've been in my life, and I've got the ear of a dragon who controls five cities. I'll find my own way to be dangerous."
Legna, coiled behind Yennefer's chair, said nothing. His amber eyes swept the room once, found nothing worth commenting on, and closed.
"Assignments locked. Training resources allocated by the Lyceum within the week."
The Crimson Citadel's lower training hall was reinforced stone, warded against accidental damage, and currently missing a wall.
The previous wall had been there yesterday. Drogo's morning session had removed it.
"Again," I said.
Drogo planted his feet on the cracked stone floor. The remains of four training dummies littered the space behind him — one shattered, two splintered, one embedded in the ceiling. He drew breath from the diaphragm and let the pressure build behind his ribs.
"Fus!"
The air rippled. A fresh dummy rocked backward, staggering without toppling.
"Thirty percent. You're forcing it through your throat. The power comes from the same place as your breath weapon — behind the sternum. Let the word form there."
His jaw tightened. Red eyes burning. He inhaled again — deeper this time, pulling from the chest cavity instead of the lungs.
"FUS!"
The dummy launched off its base, hit the far wall, and shattered into fragments that peppered the stone like shrapnel.
"Fifty percent. Month from now, you'll have full power." I looked at the ceiling-embedded dummy. "And calibration. Right now you've got one setting."
"The one setting works."
"On dummies. Against a real opponent, you need to choose between push and shatter. Imagine you're breaking up a bar fight — you don't want to kill everyone in the room, just the ones causing problems."
Drogo considered this. "I have never broken up a bar fight. I have started bar fights."
"Well, learn the distinction before I give you the second word."
He grunted. His tail lashed the ground once — frustration and acknowledgment, the Drogo version of "fine."
Kael's conversion took three hours in the pool. When he emerged, the change was dramatic — fair skin replaced by scales of deep blue-black, veined with white-gold that pulsed with holy radiance. Wind currents shimmered along his arms and shoulders. His eyes had shifted to a luminous gold, and when he raised his hands and reached, a lance of concentrated light materialized in his grip — six feet of radiant holy energy, blazing white-gold and humming with wind.
He stared at it. His hands shook.
Then his fingers tightened and he spun the construct in a clean arc that left afterimages hanging in the air.
"Yeah," I said. "That'll do."
The Wyrm-Forged armor took me a day at the Dragon-Forge — dark ornate plates layered over flowing black fabric, gold-crimson energy threading through the seams and joints like veins of light. A cape of dark material hung from the pauldrons, and chain links connected the chest piece to the gauntlets, rattling faintly when he moved. The helm had swept-back crests that channeled wind across the profile. The spear was the centerpiece — nine feet of Wyrm-Forged metal with an elaborate dragon-fang blade at the head and a circular ring-guard behind it that glowed with concentrated holy energy, the golden light pulsing in time with his heartbeat. A second shorter lance hung at his back, connected by chain to the primary, both weapons designed to channel his beam constructs through the Wyrm-Forged metal and amplify them.
Kael held the finished weapon. His new golden eyes reflected the light from the blade.
"It's heavier than I expected," he said.
"The weight's in the balance, not the mass. You'll feel the difference when you throw it — it'll track where you point it, not where gravity wants it."
He tested the grip. Adjusted his stance. Thrust once — and a cone of wind bloomed from the spearhead, scattering tool racks across the forge.
"Sorry."
"Don't apologize. That's exactly what it's supposed to do."
Vyrra came to find me three days after she returned to her squad.
She arrived at the Crimson Citadel as the sun was dropping behind the harbor, dressed in a sleeveless wrap that accommodated her spike growth and left her black-and-orange arms and shoulders bare. Her wings were folded tight against her back. She stopped three paces from me and her jaw worked once before she spoke.
"You said to come find you when I was ready," she said.
"I did." I stood from my desk and offered my arm. "Walk with me?"
We took the long route through the city. The evening air was warm and carried salt from the harbor, and the streets of Vaes Meereen were alive with Wyrmborne going about their lives — Dragonborn merchants calling prices in Wyrmtongue, Draconian children chasing each other through the market stalls, the distant clang of hammers from the Dragon-Forge district.
Vyrra walked beside me and her tail found my waist within the first thirty seconds. She didn't seem to notice she'd done it.
"Tell me about before," I said. "Before the conversion."
"I was a slave in Yunkai." She said it flat, the way people talk about things they've processed. "Fighter. They liked putting me against bigger opponents because I was tall for a woman and the crowd enjoyed watching me lose. I stopped losing after the third month. They stopped enjoying that, so they sold me to a mining operation. The Wyrmborne hit the mines six weeks later. I was one of the first conversions."
"And the conversion gave you no element."
"No element, no breath weapon, no nothing." Her claws flexed at her side. "I came out of the pool and they tested me — fire, ice, lightning, shadow, acid, everything. I registered zero across the board. The conversion specialist looked at me like she'd broken something and didn't know how to fix it."
"What did you do?"
"I hit the training yard. Every morning, every evening. If I couldn't breathe fire, I'd hit hard enough to make fire irrelevant." Her tail tightened around my waist — unconscious, pulling closer. "People stopped talking about the missing element after I started winning every sparring match in the garrison."
"And now?"
She looked down at her free hand — black scales, orange patches, claws that could score Wyrm-Forged metal. The spikes along her forearm caught the lamplight, pale tips gleaming. "Now I don't even miss it. The template is... it's me. More me than the gray scales ever were." She opened and closed her fist. "When the spikes grow, I can feel them learning. Each fight deposits information into the structure — what hurt, what didn't, where the impact came from. The next growth cycle adjusts. I'm literally getting harder to kill every day."
We stopped at the harbor overlook. Below, Korvyn's fleet rocked gently at anchor, and the last light painted the water in shades of copper and gold.
"I need to ask you something," Vyrra said. "And I need you to answer honestly."
"Go ahead."
"The pull. The Nergigante pull toward you — is that real? Or is it just the template reacting to your power?"
I turned to face her. She met my gaze — and beneath the black scales and the spikes and the wings, her red eyes held a question she couldn't bring herself to put into words without my answer first.
"Both," I said. "The template draws you toward apex power. That's biological. But the admiration you had before the template? The respect you built watching me from a distance? That was yours. The Nergigante amplified what was already there — it didn't create it."
Her breathing changed. Faster. Her tail pulled me closer and her hands came up to grip the front of my armor.
"I've admired you since my conversion," she said. "Since the first time you stood in front of the Wyrmborne and spoke. Every time I watched you, I thought — that's what strength is supposed to look like."
I tilted her face toward mine.
"Then this is real," I said. "And so is what comes next."
The Pact bond formed when I kissed her. Clean, strong, immediate — snapping into place between us like two magnets finding each other after years of being held apart. Through the new connection, I felt Vyrra's love hit me like a physical force — fierce and uncomplicated, burning hot, layered with the Nergigante pull that settled into a deep possessive contentment the moment the bond locked in.
She didn't let go of my armor for a long time.
After the bond formed, Vyrra became physically inseparable from me in every shared space. Her hands found my arm, my waist, my tail whenever we were in the same room. She pressed her face against my neck when we sat together and made a sound between a purr and a growl — the pull satisfied, unwilling to release.
I returned every touch. Every anchor.
Two weeks after the Wyrmtongue announcement, the ravens came from Winterfell.
Robb was marching on the Dreadfort.
The Northern coalition had assembled — Manderlys, Mormonts, Glovers, Umbers, Karstarks who'd chosen loyalty over ambition. I honored the alliance. Drakengard elite, Battlemage Corps specialists, and a supply train of Wyrm-Forged weapons deployed through the Arcane Gate to Winterfell. Robb's war, Robb's enemy, Robb's North — but the Wyrmborne would stand in the line.
Arya went with them. Frost padded beside her — the Lunagaron had grown to Arya's hip now, cobalt-blue scales crackling with frost, amber-gold eyes sharp and hunting. They moved together in a way the Battlemage instructors had started calling "combat telepathy" — Arya's blade finding gaps that Frost's ice sealed, Frost's lunges driving targets into Arya's striking range.
I went through the Arcane Gate last.
Winterfell's courtyard was colder than my last visit — winter tightening its grip, breath clouding, the stones slick with frost. Soldiers drilled in the yards. Horses stamped and snorted as farriers worked the shoes. Supply wagons jammed the paths between the armory and the gates, and the whole castle hummed with the vibration of ten thousand people preparing for war.
Robb met me at the gate. Grey Wind pressed against his leg, and the crown of the North sat heavy on his brow. His blue eyes were steady.
"Thank you," he said. "I didn't expect you in person."
"I'm not fighting your war for you. But I've got people at Winterfell I want to check on, and I wanted to see this coalition up close." I looked past him at the assembling army — Northern banners mixing with Wyrmborne standards, Drakengard armor gleaming alongside boiled leather and Northern steel. "You've built something here, Robb."
"We built it together." He glanced toward the castle. "Mother will be pleased you came."
"Robb —"
"Sansa already has opinions about it. She's been keeping a list."
"A list?"
"She's efficient." The corner of his mouth pulled. "I stopped asking questions after the third page."
I left him to his army and walked through Winterfell's gates.
The great hall. Fire burning in the massive hearth, throwing amber light across the stone walls. Catelyn stood by the fire, one hand on the mantle, watching the flames. Sansa sat at the table with a map spread before her, auburn hair caught in torchlight. Geralt leaned against the wall near the window, arms crossed, golden eyes tracking me the moment I stepped through the door. Veyla was perched on the windowsill, her tail hanging over the edge, her acid-yellow eyes bright.
Catelyn turned when my footsteps hit the stone. The firelight caught her face — the strong jaw, the Tully blue eyes, the auburn hair — and my chest-rumble shifted into a warmer register before I could stop it.
"Lady Stark."
She turned from the hearth. The firelight caught the auburn in her hair and the Tully blue of her eyes, and my chest-rumble shifted register before I could catch it.
"Angelus." She inclined her head — formal, composed, the Lady of Winterfell receiving a foreign dignitary. Then something softened behind the composure. "You came. I wasn't sure you would, with everything happening in Essos."
"I said I'd stay in touch. And I've got Wyrmborne troops deploying through your courtyard, so it seemed like a good time to follow through." I crossed to her, close enough for the heat radiating from my scales to reach her through the cold air. "Also, I owe you a date. Figured I'd get the war out of the way first, then take you somewhere warm where ravens aren't screaming overhead every five minutes."
Catelyn's lips parted. The flush started at her cheekbones and spread — she didn't fight it this time. "You brought an army to my castle and your second sentence is about taking me on a date."
"Third sentence, technically. I led with the strategic justification."
"That makes it worse, not better."
"Does it?" I tilted my head. "Because you're smiling, Lady Stark."
She was. Small, reluctant, the kind she'd been wearing more often since my last visit. Her hand came up to touch her cheek — the same cheek I'd kissed in the courtyard weeks ago — and then dropped when she realized what she was doing.
"The war first," she said. Steady again. Almost. "We can discuss... other arrangements after my son comes home."
"I can work with that."
Sansa's voice carried from the table, dry as Northern winter. "If you two are finished, Geralt and I have training updates that don't involve flirting."
Sansa straightened. "I can hold a partial shift for eleven minutes. Full shift still needs work, but the partial is controlled — I can choose which parts transform and which don't. Hearing, reflexes, and claws without the full body change."
"Eleven minutes is strong." I looked at Geralt. "Real assessment."
"Faster than me at the same stage. Her control over the partial shift is better than mine was at three months." He uncrossed his arms. "The wall relocation was the last uncontrolled incident."
Veyla's tail flicked from the windowsill. "She also shredded a training dummy during a controlled shift last week. Under four seconds."
"The dummy was in my way," Sansa said.
"Running theme with the women in this family."
Catelyn's lips curved.
The war horns sounded from outside — deep, resonant, the sound rolling across Winterfell's stone walls and bouncing off the mountains beyond. Robb's army was forming up, the Northern coalition moving into march order. Through the window, I could see the Wyrmborne detachment falling into position on the right flank — Drakengard precision that made the Northern soldiers stop and stare.
Arya and Frost were visible at the vanguard, the Lunagaron's frost-breath sending plumes of ice crystals into the cold air.
I stood at the great hall's window. Catelyn came to stand beside me, close enough that her shoulder pressed against my arm. Through the glass, Robb mounted his horse, Grey Wind at his side, and the army stretched out behind him in a column that filled the road north.
"Bring him back," Catelyn said softly.
"Your son knows what he's doing."
"I know." Her hand found mine. Squeezed. "Bring him back anyway."
I squeezed back. "I will."
HOOOOOO!
The war horns sounded again. The gates opened. The army marched, boots crunching on frozen ground, and Robb Stark rode north toward the Dreadfort with winter at his back and the fire of two empires behind him.
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End of Chapter Fifty-Five