The Ghosts of Castles Lost

I. Harrenhal

Peace is slowly creeping back into the realm.

Men have seen enough of war. The world has seen enough of death. The kingdom is scorched and ravaged and razed, but the roads are safer than they've been in years. People pass each other, strangers where once they were neighbors. They are not afraid, they have seen enough of battle to be scared, but are unwilling to look into the faces of those whom they have crossed swords. Brothers were killed. Sisters were raped. And all sides are still both bitter and ashamed.

She finds no need to bind her breasts any longer, though she still keeps her hair sheered short. Out of habit, perhaps, or convenience. Or to remind her of who she is now and what she hasn't been for a long time.

She has lived a hundred lives and died just the same. She has worn a hundred faces and been given a hundred different names. Arry, Weasel, Nan, no one. She answers to Arya if someone calls, but she knows she hasn't been Arya for lifetimes.

She isn't sure who she is anymore.

She has left pieces of her behind wherever she went - to realms so far south that she had to hide her skin from the sun and sand so it would not burn away. To the free lands where women bared their breasts and men dyed their hair the color of rubies and sapphires. She has learned the language of those who veiled their faces, fought with those who adorned their braids with bells, laid with those who marked their flesh with every full moon. She has been to the House of Black and White to live with the men who served the Many-Faced God. She has seen the Dragon Queen.

She longs to go back north, to recover a part of her that she vaguely remembers, and when she makes up her mind to go, she is already half of the way there. She ladens a stolen mount with what she needs, which isn't much. Food she will get along the way. And shelter. She remembers a place from so long ago.

The halls are empty, cavernous, a place built for giants and she, but a ghost. The floors are ash and dirt. The walls, rags and dust. Tapestries fray and peel from the stone, banners with illegible sigils and faded colors. The castle is but ruin and decay - a shame for such a grand place.

Arya recalls Old Nan's stories. She remembers that the foundation is strong with the bodies of men. She remembers that the towers were built with blood, mixed in the mortar and laid between each and every brick. She remembers that the walls were raised with fear the way the walls of Winterfells were raised with magic.

And neither fear nor magic had been strong enough to keep either castle from falling.

But Harrenhal was still alive. Arya could hear creeping amongst the rotting stone. Cats and mice and birds, but men as well. They inhabit the halls for a night or two while on their way to here or there, rejecting the haunting tales of Harren the Black and his sons - of his hubris and the horrors of the ruinous place. The appeal of the monstrous keep is too great for bypassers. Great enough to forget a curse. Great enough to forget a ghost.

But Arya remembers a time when all it took for men to fall was her will and the sound of her whisper.

Next: II. The Vale