Chapter 1: Trialby Fire

Before the icy winds could steal the warmth from his body, they began to talk.

"Can't risk it, milord," one said gruffly.

"Burn 'im," called another.

"It seems we must," pronounced the new Lord Commander, Alisser Thorne.

They built the pyre and Olly watched. The cold steel of the knife still burning into his palm. Revenge was supposed to be sweet, but bile burned the back of his throat. Treacherous lines were blurred that night. But his words were still true: Winter is coming. The dead were marching towards them and Castle Black was better off without Jon Snow. It would have to be.

As they lay the young man on the pyre-in the same spot where Mance Rayder had been both burned and shot-all talking on the wall or North of it stopped. The Crows of Castle Black sat perched, watching sparks turn to flaming embers, filling the courtyard with smoke, and finally building to a steady all-consuming flame. They were compelled to see the bastard burn.

It takes a long time for a body to return to ashes, the smell of burning flesh and hair choking down the voyeurs' throats-usually. But this fire smelled mostly of oak and birch, and only a little acrid-like the smell of clothes drying too near to a camp fire. The banality of the scent was inappropriate and unsettling to the few Crows who mourned the loss of their Lord Commander.

And as the fire died down, a shape seemed to form from the shadows. From the very center of the charred remains of the pyre crawled a naked man with black hair and pale flesh. On shaking legs, he slowly stood in view of all at Castle Black. Only pink angry scars remained of the attempted execution by a jury of his peers. The sound of silence was broken by the cry of a wolf-a dire wolf.

**Please let me know what you think!