A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Arya II
Blindfolded and singing, the brotherhood leads Arya through the riverlands; Harwin ÔÇö her father's man ÔÇö tells her of the lightning lord who will not stay dead.
The chapter retold
Blindfolded and half-sung through the riverlands by her captors, Arya Stark is led deeper into the Brotherhood Without Banners' hidden world than she expected to be allowed. Among the outlaws she recognizes, unexpectedly, a familiar face under new loyalties: Harwin, son of the Winterfell houndsman Hullen, sworn once to her father and now riding with men who answer to no crown at all. He tells her, as they ride, of Beric Dondarrion ÔÇö the lightning lord, killed more than once in the war and, if the stories can be trusted, unwilling to stay that way.
The revelation that her father's men survive scattered through the war zone gives Arya something she has not had since Winterfell burned in memory: a thread back to a world with rules in it, however outlaw those rules have become. The mention of Beric's resurrections is dropped almost casually here, a rumor among many, but it is the first note of a motif ÔÇö death refusing to be final for the right kind of stubbornness ÔÇö that the book will return to with much higher stakes.
This movement: Dracarys
- In Astapor Dany trades Drogon for the Unsullied ÔÇö then speaks Valyrian, and the whip changes hands: Dracarys.
- Jaime loses his sword hand to Vargo Hoat's Brave Companions and learns what he is without it.
- Arya falls in with the Brotherhood Without Banners and watches a dead man rise from his seventh death.
- Tywin re-arranges the realm at his table: Tyrion to Sansa, Cersei to Willas ÔÇö the children object; the Hand doesn't care.