A Clash of Kings ÔÇö Arya III

North along the gods eye the column crawls through a riverlands already burning; Arya keeps Needle close and her true name closer.

The chapter retold

AryaÔÇÖs column keeps north along the Gods Eye through a riverlands already burning ÔÇö Lannister foraging parties and worse have turned the countryside into a landscape of ash and abandoned farms, and the war Arya has been fleeing since KingÔÇÖs Landing turns out to have outrun her. She keeps Needle close, the one thing from home she refuses to let go of, and keeps her true name closer still, a secret now worth her life twice over.

The chapter is texture and dread rather than event ÔÇö the slow accumulation of burned villages and frightened refugees that makes the abstract war concrete for a child watching it from a wagon. AryaÔÇÖs competence is growing in small, unglamorous ways: she notices things, she stays quiet, she has stopped expecting anyone to save her. It is the last stretch of relative safety before YorenÔÇÖs column meets something considerably worse than gold cloaks.

This movement: Wolves and Krakens

• Theon comes home to Pyke and finds his father plotting war on the North ÔÇö and his sister Asha commanding the ships he wanted.
• Renly weds Margaery Tyrell and parades a hundred thousand swords through the Reach at tourney pace.
• Dany leads her khalasar out of the red waste to the gates of Qarth, three dragons her only argument.
• Yoren's column is broken at a lakeside holdfast; Arya frees Jaqen H'ghar from a burning barn.