A Storm of Swords — Arya VII
Arya runs from the brotherhood into worse: the Hound takes her for his prize, to sell to her mother at the Twins — 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 — an escape on her own terms — 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 — out of outlaw captivity and into the hands of a man whose reputation she has feared since King's Landing — 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.