A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Arya VII
Arya runs from the brotherhood into worse: the Hound takes her for his prize, to sell to her mother at the Twins ÔÇö the last unbroken thread of her family.
The chapter retold
Arya Stark finally attempts what the Brotherhood Without Banners' slow, diverted road never let her have ÔÇö an escape on her own terms ÔÇö and runs directly into someone worse. Sandor Clegane, the Hound, catches her fleeing and takes her for his own purpose: not cruelty exactly, but a transaction, intending to sell her to her mother at the Twins for a ransom he judges will be considerably larger than whatever the Brotherhood was going to collect.
It is a bitter trade for Arya ÔÇö out of outlaw captivity and into the hands of a man whose reputation she has feared since King's Landing ÔÇö but also, unmistakably, the last unbroken thread connecting her to the family she has spent two books trying to reach. The Hound's plan puts them both, unknowingly, on a collision course with the very worst night the war has left in store for the Starks.
This movement: The Red Wedding
- Edmure weds Roslin Frey under the Twins' roof; the bread and salt are eaten; the music is wrong.
- Crossbows from the gallery, tent canvas cut over the feast outside, Grey Wind penned and shot.
- Robb dies with Roose Bolton's steel in his heart: "Jaime Lannister sends his regards."
- Catelyn opens her own face with her nails, and a Frey opens her throat. The North dies at a wedding.