A Clash of Kings ÔÇö Bran III

Jojen tells Bran his green dream: the sea is coming over Winterfell's walls, and the drowned men in it have names Bran refuses to hear.

The chapter retold

Jojen tells Bran his green dream plainly, without softening it: the sea is coming over WinterfellÔÇÖs walls, and the drowned men in the water have names Bran doesnÔÇÖt want to hear. Bran, still learning to trust the strange Reed siblings, resists the vision the way anyone would resist a prophecy of their own homeÔÇÖs ruin ÔÇö disbelief as a kind of self-protection.

The scene is the bookÔÇÖs clearest advance warning of the ironborn invasion still several chapters off, delivered with the maddening, oblique precision greendreams always carry in this story ÔÇö true, specific, and useless for actually preventing whatÔÇÖs coming. JojenÔÇÖs gift becomes, from here forward, the readerÔÇÖs early-warning system for Winterfell even as it remains almost entirely opaque to the boy itÔÇÖs meant to protect.

This movement: Kings in Every Corner

• Stannis besieges Storm's End; the brothers parley with a peach between them and part as dead men.
• Catelyn watches a shadow with Stannis's face open Renly's throat inside his own pavilion.
• Tyrion trades princess Myrcella's hand to Dorne and ships Cersei's spies to the black cells.
• At Winterfell, Bran dreams with wolf's teeth; the Reeds of Greywater come to teach him what it means.