A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Bran II
Old Nan's tales walk beside them now: the party shelters in a lake tower while Bran practices slipping his skin, and Jojen's dreams grow darker.
The chapter retold
Sheltering from the road at a half-drowned lake tower, Bran Stark's party trades travel for a night of old stories ÔÇö the kind Old Nan used to tell at Winterfell, now walking beside them in truth rather than legend, since a dead thing chased them across the Wall's own ranging not so long ago. Bran practices slipping into Summer's skin with growing confidence, less afraid each time of not finding his way back, which is precisely the wrong lesson to be growing comfortable with. Jojen Reed's green dreams, meanwhile, are darkening ÔÇö visions less like warnings now than certainties, and certainties that frighten even a boy who has never been wrong about one yet.
The tower is a pause, not a rest: it lets Martin fold in worldbuilding ÔÇö the Children of the Forest, the old magic under the North ÔÇö while quietly raising the stakes of Bran's own arc. Jojen's dread is never explained outright, only shown on his face, and the chapter trusts the reader to feel the same unease the Reeds do about where this journey is actually taking them.
This movement: The Bear, the Wall, the Bath
- In Harrenhal's bathhouse Jaime tells Brienne the truth of the Mad King and faints in her arms; later he turns back for her and jumps into a bear pit.
- Jon climbs the Wall with the free folk and breaks from them at Queenscrown, arrows in his leg.
- Dany takes Yunkai by night; the Second Sons change sides for a captain named Daario.
- Sam kills his second impossible thing rumor-wise; the Watch's remnants choose a fat man's courage at Craster's.