A Dance with Dragons ÔÇö Jon I

The new Lord Commander divides spoils and grudges with King Stannis; Melisandre offers Jon her fires and a warning ÔÇö daggers in the dark.

The chapter retold

Jon Snow, a few weeks into his lord commandership, is dividing the practical wreckage of two armies ÔÇö Mance RayderÔÇÖs defeated wildlings and Stannis BaratheonÔÇÖs stalled invasion ÔÇö while trying not to let either king notice how thin the WatchÔÇÖs resources really are. Stannis wants soldiers and grain and JonÔÇÖs blessing for a northern campaign; Jon needs the Wall held and the free folk fed, and neither need has much patience for the otherÔÇÖs war. Melisandre, drawn to him in a way she canÔÇÖt quite explain even to herself, offers her fires and her counsel, and gets an answer that is respectful, wary, and entirely unconvinced ÔÇö until she tells him she has seen daggers in the dark, meant for him.

ItÔÇÖs a chapter about the impossible math of command: Jon inherited a Watch too poor to be neutral and a war he cannot afford to lose, wedged between a king who might win and a dead army that certainly will. MelisandreÔÇÖs warning lands and does not land ÔÇö Jon has enemies enough among his own brothers already, men who never forgave him the wildlings, without needing a red priestessÔÇÖs visions to tell him so ÔÇö but the line is dropped early and precisely, the kind of warning a book likes to let a reader forget until it matters unbearably.

This movement: The Lost Lords

• Tyrion drinks his way across the narrow sea in a wine cask, bound for a queen with dragons ÔÇö 'wherever whores go' ringing in his ears.
• Jon Snow rules the Wall: he sends Mance's son away in secret, gives Slynt one last order, and takes his head personally.
• Dany rules Meereen in a tokar while the Sons of the Harpy paint the bricks red by night.
• Bran travels north beyond the Wall with cold hands guiding ÔÇö toward a cave, a weirwood throne, and a thousand eyes.