Breakfast at Last Hearth was the kind that warms from the inside with the seriousness of people who know the cold outside is not optional.
We sat at the table with the Umbers, Greatjon at the head with that presence that made the chairs around him seem smaller, Mors Umber to the left with a stone silence that contrasted with his brother, Hother Umber to the right, more talkative than the other two but not by much. Smalljon appeared with the energy of a three-year-old who hadn't yet learned that the world has schedules, was placed on his mother's lap, and stared at Sigurd with wide eyes for a considerable length of time.
Sigurd looked back with that serious expression.
Smalljon didn't look away.
Sigurd raised an eyebrow.
Smalljon pointed at the axe on Sigurd's hip.
"Mine," he said.
Sigurd looked at the boy for a second. Then let out a laugh that made Smalljon's mother jump.
The farewell was warm, the way the Umbers did everything, with enough force to leave a mark. Greatjon gripped my forearm with that hand that seemed made of stone.
"Come back whenever you like, son of Stark. Last Hearth always has room for an honorary Umber." He looked at the group. "And the rest of you too."
Mors nodded once, which for Mors was the equivalent of a speech.
Hother wished me a good journey with the right words and the tone that said the words were true.
Smalljon's mother thanked us, which wasn't necessary but was genuine.
Smalljon waved his small hand from his mother's lap.
We mounted and rode north.
One week on horseback.
Two groups of wildlings along the way, both small, both resolved before the situation became complicated. The group was faster now, more fluid, that adjustment that happens when people who trained together begin to fight together in earnest. Movements fitted before they were asked for.
Kevin was in good form with reduced bad humor, which was the ideal state of Kevin.
"Have you ever thought," he said one late afternoon, as we rode across open ground with the wind coming from the north, "that there are people in this world who wake up in the morning and the most serious problem of the day is whether it's going to rain on the harvest?"
"I would prefer that," said Perseu.
"No you wouldn't," said Kevin.
Perseu went quiet for a second. "No I wouldn't," he agreed.
We saw the Wall before we reached it.
It was impossible not to see. Appearing on the horizon wasn't the right phrase. It grew. It kept getting larger as we approached, that whitish line that first looked like low cloud, then rock, then ice, and then suddenly it was there, solid and impossible, six hundred, seven hundred feet of ancient ice rising straight from the ground as though the world itself had decided to build a barrier between the North and whatever lay beyond.
We stopped our horses by instinct.
We looked for a moment.
Pale grey where the light didn't reach, crystalline blue where the sun touched the surface. The top wasn't visible from here, it climbed until it merged with the afternoon sky. Three hundred miles from east to west, and where we stood it ran from horizon to horizon as though the world simply ended there.
"My ancestor built this," I said, more to myself than to anyone.
"Brandon the Builder," said Perseu, in a low voice.
"That explains," said Sigurd, "why you're tall."
"It doesn't work that way."
"It should."
Kevin stared upward for a few more seconds with the expression of someone doing a difficult calculation.
"You know what this thing reminds me of?" he said.
"No," I said.
"The first time I looked up at Sigurd. Same feeling. Inexplicable discomfort and the urge to look the other way."
Sigurd turned slowly in the saddle and looked at Kevin with that calm expression.
"Go on," said Kevin, without looking away. "I'm waiting."
"I'm not going to waste the energy," said Sigurd. "I might need it up there."
We rode toward the gate.
Castle Black sat against the base of the Wall with that absence of pretension that matched everything I knew about the Night's Watch. It was not a castle in the common sense of the word. No walls to the south, east, or west. Just stone towers and wooden barracks grouped on the ground with the Wall serving as the northern wall. Two thirds of the complex in some state of disrepair, stone darkened by time and snow.
The gate of Castle Black was an opening at the base of the Wall, the tunnel that cut through those feet of ancient ice from south to north. At the southern entrance there was an oak door as thick as a man is wide, reinforced with iron bars. Three heavy portcullises with chains and locks inside, murder holes in the tunnel ceiling for anyone who tried to force their way through. It was not elegant. It was functional in the way only things built to survive need to be.
"Who goes there?" The voice came from above, from some guardpost that was difficult to see clearly.
"Arthur Snow," I said. "Son of Rickard Stark."
Silence for a few seconds.
Then the sound of bars being removed, chains coming loose. The oak door swung outward with the weight of something built not to move easily.
A man in the black cloak of the Watch stood at the entrance looking at the group with the expression of someone who had spent enough time at a border post to be impressed by nothing, but was getting close to it.
"Never seen so many recruits come of their own free will," he said.
"I'm sorry to inform you," I said, "but we are not recruits. May I speak with Lord Commander Qorgyle?"
The man looked at me for a second. Then nodded. "Wait here. I'll inform the Lord Commander."
He went back through the gate toward the towers.
The training yard lay to the south of the towers, open ground of packed earth with wooden stakes scattered across it. We waited.
Sigurd lasted less than two minutes standing still.
He walked over to the group of Watch men observing our arrival with that mix of caution and curiosity, picked the largest one, and pointed at him and then at himself with a gesture that needed no translation in any language.
The Watch man looked at his companions. Then at Sigurd. Then accepted.
The fight began.
On the other side, some Watch men had noticed Astrid with the kind of attention that Astrid noticed and ignored with the efficiency of someone who had done it more times than she could count. She didn't look back. She kept her arms crossed and her eyes moving across the perimeter.
Kevin also noticed that they noticed.
"Interesting," he murmured, in a tone that promised it would become a comment at some point.
"No," said Astrid, without turning.
Kevin closed his mouth.
A few minutes later Lord Commander Qorgyle appeared from the tower with the black cloak on his shoulders and that posture of someone who had commanded enough men to not need to walk quickly to seem important.
"What can I do for the son of Rickard Stark?" he asked, his eyes assessing me with the professional speed of someone who had spent years measuring threats.
"Lord Commander," I said. "I want your permission for me and my friends to cross the Wall."
"Denied."
No pause. No hesitation.
"May I ask why?"
"I'm not sending my men beyond the Wall just to satisfy your curiosity."
"At what point did I ask you to send men with me?" I said. "My friends and I are more than sufficient."
Qorgyle looked at me with that specific expression of someone about to say something they consider obvious.
"You don't know what you're talking about, boy. What does a child raised in a castle think he knows about north of the Wall? I won't hold myself responsible for your deaths."
I went quiet for a second.
"Lord Commander," I said, with the tone that blood and years build without asking permission. "I may not have the name. But I have the blood. The blood of the Kings of Winter runs in my veins. The Starks have been Lord Commanders of the Night's Watch since its founding. My ancestor built this Wall." A pause. "I am not asking this out of curiosity. I have my own reasons for going beyond, and the Warden of the North himself, Rickard Stark, my father, has authorized it."
I took the letter from my coat and handed it over.
Qorgyle opened it, read it, folded it back without showing any reaction on his face.
"And as compensation for the trouble," I continued, "my father will send food, weapons, armor, and gold for you."
The Lord Commander looked at me for a long moment.
Then he looked at the group. At Sigurd still on the training ground, who had knocked the Watch man down and was being challenged by two more. At Belzakar and Morghaz with their spears, at Perseu with his hand relaxed but close to his sword, at Astrid ignoring the stares with that coldness, at Kevin with the bow hanging on his shoulder.
He folded the letter and put it away.
"The gate opens at dawn."
"Thank you, Lord Commander." A pause. "I sent a raven from Last Hearth to my father. I believe the goods will arrive within a few days. Including a good quantity of Frostspirit and Icefyre."
Qorgyle went still for a second.
Then he smiled. The kind that didn't appear often on a face accustomed to giving orders in the cold.
"You should go beyond the Wall more often." A short, dry laugh, with no trace of the earlier harshness. "Ha."
He looked at me with a different expression than the one he had worn throughout the conversation.
"Arthur, may I call you that?" Without waiting for an answer. "The Wall's hospitality is yours. We have no luxury, so I apologize in advance. Rooms will be prepared for you to spend the night." He glanced briefly at Astrid and back to me. "I ask that you look after the girl. The men here haven't seen a woman, especially a beautiful one, in a long time." A pause. "And if you need to send any ravens or anything of that sort, the maester's tower is at your disposal. Ask for Maester Aemon."
He extended bread and salt to each of us.
"Thank you, Lord Commander." I accepted. "And I apologize for the way I spoke to you earlier."
"Forget it, boy." The smile returned, easier this time. "I like direct people." He turned to go back to the tower. "Well, I have things to see to. Enjoy Castle Black, Arthur."
I nodded.
Sigurd and the others ate the bread and salt and went back to the training yard. This time it wasn't just Sigurd challenging, everyone was on the ground, and the Watch men who had been watching were drawn in one by one, some by choice, others by that silent pressure the group exerted without needing to speak.
I went toward the Wall.
Up close it was different from far away. From far away it was magnitude. Up close it was detail, each layer of ice with that murky transparency of ancient things, each irregularity on the surface marking centuries of accumulated cold. I placed my hand on the wall.
The cold went through my palm immediately.
I closed my eyes.
And felt.
It was different from anything I had touched before. The magic of the Children of the Forest was there, embedded in the ice like roots in stone, ancient and dense, the kind that was not made to be moved, only to last. The runes of the First Men carved in whole blocks, invisible from the outside but present in the interior of the ice like stitches in fabric. The blood sacrifices that had fed it when it was built, the energy they left behind, still echoing in the ice after eight thousand years.
I tried to send a little of my own magic inside.
The Wall trembled.
Faint. Almost imperceptible. But it trembled.
My vision left me.
What came in its place was difficult to describe as a vision. It was direct understanding, the kind that doesn't pass through the eyes but arrives already formed. I saw the structure of the seal as the Children of the Forest had built it, layer upon layer of magic intertwined with ancient blood and ice and runes. And I saw the crack.
It was not large. It was small, the kind that takes centuries to appear and that someone who didn't know what they were looking for would never find. But it was there. And through it something was leaking, not the cold of the North, a different kind of cold, the cold that doesn't come from weather but from something deeper, something on the other side taking advantage of the opening.
The seal was corrupting.
I let go.
My eyes came back. The yard. The cold. The grey stone of Castle Black around me.
I ran the back of my hand across my nose. Blood.
I stood still for a moment, letting my head settle.
Then I heard the raven.
I followed the sound and found it on top of a wooden post about ten meters away, motionless as something that had chosen exactly where to be. Black as any raven.
Except for the eyes.
Three.
I stood looking at the raven.
The raven stood looking at me.