A Storm of Swords — Catelyn II
Robb returns from the west healed of an arrow and wed to Jeyne Westerling — a bandaged heart that has cost him the Freys and perhaps the war.
The chapter retold
Robb Stark comes back to Riverrun from his western campaign healed of the arrow wound that nearly ended him, and married — not to a Frey girl as the treaty at the Twins required, but to Jeyne Westerling, whose family's political weight is a fraction of what the alliance he broke was worth. Catelyn watches her son explain himself with the particular helplessness of a mother who understands exactly why he did it — honor, a debt of the heart incurred while wounded and grateful — and exactly how expensive that kind of honor is about to become.
The marriage is presented almost tenderly, a young king finally allowed a moment of human weakness after two books of flawless generalship, which is precisely what makes it devastating: every alliance Robb's war depends on was built on the promise this marriage now voids. Catelyn does the arithmetic in real time even as she embraces her healed son — the Freys are owed a bride they will not get, and Walder Frey does not forgive a debt for love's sake.
This movement: Dracarys
- In Astapor Dany trades Drogon for the Unsullied — 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 — the children object; the Hand doesn't care.