The fever had not passed, but Bran was tired of his sweaty bed. At his request, Maester Wolkan designed him a rolling chair and Meera took him to the godswood. The change in scenery was helping his sickness. Life was still here, the lake now frozen, but the weirwood tree looked as massive and imposing as ever, its branches disappearing into whiteness.
“Leave me be,” Bran told Meera, when he heard her chattering teeth. “I’m sure you have other things to do.”
Bran’s eyes stared deep into the weeping tree. The eyes were staring back at him. When Bran was a child, he worshipped the trees as gods, but the Three-Eyed Raven told him it was what remained of the children of the forest, who once spied through trees. The thought of an imprisoned soul fascinated Bran as much as terrified him. I would weep too, if my soul was trapped in a tree, he thought, before he remembered. Warging into ravens and Hodor used to have its moments of fun, but one day, he was expected to do the same. He was cursed as heavily as he was blessed.
The soothing shelter of the tree soon put Bran to sleep. He dreamed he was bounding across the woods, leaving white paws in the snow. His mouth was bloody with recent prey. The pack smelled more, and they snuck to their quarry, him leading it. As the scent came closer, he found it to be familiar. His appetite dwindled the more he recognized it, the closer he came. It is my master.
Bran awoke to shouts.
When his eyes opened, he saw Meera Reed and Maester Wolkan, along with few loyal men of Winterfell. They were all looking at his feet, and if not that, tugging at it. His legs were dead as dust and Bran felt nothing, but when his eyes went there, he saw the lone creeper of the weirwood twirled tightly around his toes.
The people tried to untangle the creeper from the foot. Bran was in panic. The tree wants me, but I do not.
Eventually, Bran suggested they draw a sword and sever the creeper from its stem. They all turned to Maester Wolkan for advice, who, with no sense of knowledge, told them to go ahead. When the sword fell and the branches left him, to his horror, Bran realized that the fever had worsened.
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