Scores of men in black lay motionless in the snow. Blood steamed in the cold.
Even when Bran woke, the image had not left his eyes. The fever had meant Meera was at his bedside day and night. When he saw her concerned face, he felt at once a spoilt kid, yet at the same time wanting to be pampered, for his guilts to be hugged away.
“What happened?” she asked his ashen face, hoping the rumors were not true.
He struggled for words to escape him. “Yes, there was a battle,” the pale lips finally moved. “The army of the dead. The true enemy. The Night’s Watch. Samwell Tarly…” Bran’s speech was quick and bordering on gabble, but Meera caught enough words to understand what had happened.
Since the day a villager from Mole’s Town had sought asylum, Winterfell was abound with rumors. Some claimed the wall of ice had fallen. Others, that Jon Snow was slain and people awaited his resurrection. The fear that White Walkers would descend upon them was such, that Lyanna had ordered curfews and strict patrolling from the four-thousand soldiers in the castle. No one had known what to believe.
“Speak clearly, Bran.” He did not know if Meera’s voice was urgent or pleading. “How many are alive? Where is the Night King? Has Jon… fallen?”
Bran recounted what he could. He kept the details as brief as he could, for he kept slipping into skins as he spoke. Twice, he was at Winterfell, talking to Meera, while being in the Riverlands. I could have stopped it, he kept telling himself, but I was too craven. I ignored my destiny, wanting to get a glimpse of my lost sister.
Bran heard Meera’s voice quiver. “You could have stopped it?” she said, and Brandon Stark realized he had said aloud what he thought was secure in his mind.
“I had a… premonition,” he said shakily, confronting his guilt. “If I had taken aid of the weirwood, then maybe I could have saved some…” his voice drifted away, as Meera Reed’s face became uncharacteristically harsher.
At first, she had turned to leave, but Meera then seemed to decide otherwise. “I said nothing,” she told him, “when Hodor and Summer died for us, nor when you sowed the seeds of poison in the Mad King’s mind. Now you are healthy and whole, or as healthy and whole as a cripple can be, under a roof where maesters feed you milk of the poppy if you scar your shin. You cannot rule – hells – you cannot even fucking stand, but you have everything you need to save the realm.” Her eyes glistened angrily, two dirty chips of ice. “Why won’t you?”
Meera’s words had, for once, kept Bran solidly in the now. He tried to justify himself, but couldn’t find his tongue. “I…”
“Jojen knew,” she said. “The Three-Eyed Raven had told us, do you remember? He knew what would happen, from the moment he left, and he came with us anyway. He sacrificed himself for… for what?” She looked at him, trying to hide the disgust in her eyes. “Maybe he should have had the power,” she said, before she left him.
The boy had wanted a hug, or vague validations for not touching the weirwood tree, but instead was given another reminder of the uncompromising stance of duty, and its consequences when ignored.
*
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