Catelyn Stark did not feel the fish that nibbled at the soft flesh of her fingers, nor the way the current rolled her over the jagged stones of the riverbed like a piece of waterlogged timber. She was a hollow thing, a vessel emptied of prayer and pride, filled only with the Green Fork.
Then came the teeth.
They were not the small, inquisitive nips of the trout. These were massive, crushing jaws that clamped onto her arm, just above the elbow. The force of it jarred her bones, but there was no scream. Her throat was a jagged red grin that let the river in and out. She felt herself being dragged. The water resisted, clinging to her hair and her sodden woolens, but the beast was stronger.
Mud replaced the water. It was thick, foul-smelling stuff that slicked her skin as she was hauled up the bank. The air hit her then—bitter, sharp, and smelling of wet pine.
The beast let go. Catelyn lay in the rushes, a pale, bloated heap. Her skin was the color of curdled cream, mapped with the blue-black bruises of the rocks. Her hair was a tangled mat of river-weed and dried blood. Above her, a great grey shape loomed against the twilight. A wolf. It was larger than any hound, its fur matted with burrs, its eyes two embers of golden fire. It sniffed at her face, its breath hot and smelling of raw meat, then threw back its head and let out a long, low howl that seemed to shake the very stars.
The wolf turned and vanished into the treeline, a ghost of the woods.
Catelyn did not move. She waited for the darkness to take her back. But the world would not have her. Instead, there were voices. Boots crunching on the frost-hardened earth.
"Look there. By the reeds."
"Another one. The river is vomiting them up by the dozen today."
The men were shadows, flickering with the light of a single torch. One of them rolled her onto her back with the toe of his boot. Catelyn's head flopped to the side. The gash in her neck opened like a second mouth, dark and dry.
"Gods preserve us," a man whispered. He wore a yellowed sheepskin cloak and carried a bow. "This was a highborn lady. Look at the lace on those sleeves. Or what's left of it."
"Highborn or low, she's meat for the crows now, Lem," a second voice said. This one was deeper, weary to the marrow. "Leave her. We have others to find."
"Wait," a third voice interrupted. It was a voice that sounded like the scraping of a sword on a whetstone. "I know this face."
A man stepped into the torchlight. He was a ruin. Half his hair was gone, and his skull was caved in on one side. One eye was a sightless white orb, and a dark ring of bruised skin circled his throat like a permanent noose. Lord Beric Dondarrion looked down at the corpse of Catelyn Stark, and for a moment, the flickering fire in his hand seemed to dim.
"The wife of Eddard Stark," Beric murmured.
"She's been dead three days, my lord," a red-bearded man said, his voice thick with a Priest's accent. Thoros of Myr knelt in the mud, his red robes stained black by the river. "Look at the skin. The bloating. The Seven have her now. Let her rest."
"The Seven did not find us in the caves, Thoros," Beric said. He knelt beside her, his movements stiff and agonizing. "The Red God is not finished with the North."
"No, Beric. Don't. You've given too much of yourself already. Look at you. You're a ghost in a man's skin. If you do this..."
"Then I will be a ghost who has done his duty."
Beric Dondarrion did not look away. He leaned over the body. Catelyn's eyes were open, filmed over with the grey milk of death, staring at a sky she could no longer see. Beric pressed his lips to hers.
The world went white.
It wasn't a spark; it was a conflagration. Catelyn felt it first in her chest—a sudden, violent kick of a heart that had forgotten how to beat. It hurt. It hurt more than the bolts, more than the knife at her throat. It was the feeling of a thousand needles being driven into her nerves at once.
Fire flooded her lungs. She tried to cough, but the air hissed out of the hole in her neck. She felt the skin of her throat trying to knit, the raw edges of the wound burning as if cauterized by a hot iron. Her fingers twitched, digging into the mud.
She opened her eyes.
The grey film was gone, replaced by a searing, bloodshot clarity. She saw the stars, sharp as diamonds. She saw the charred face of Beric Dondarrion as he slumped sideways, his life force drained away like wine from a cracked flagon. He hit the mud without a sound, his eyes finally closing on a world that had killed him six times over.
Catelyn tried to sit up. Her muscles were stiff, the rigor still clinging to her joints. Every movement was a labor of grinding bone. She felt the weight of her own body—the heavy, cold dampness of her skin, the ache of the water in her ears.
"She lives," Lem Lemoncloak whispered, backing away, his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. "By the Smith's hammer... she lives."
Thoros of Myr did not look triumphant. He looked horrified. He crawled toward Beric, checking for a pulse that would never return. "He is gone," the priest said, his voice breaking. "He gave her the flame. All of it."
Catelyn didn't care about the dead man. She didn't care about the priest. She rolled onto her stomach, her breath coming in ragged, wet rasps through the slit in her windpipe. She saw something in the mud, inches from her face.
It was a shield. It had been washed up with the debris of the massacre, its wood splintered, its paint peeling. On its face was the heraldry of House Frey—two blue towers on a silver field.
A sound started in her chest. It wasn't a sob. It wasn't a laugh. It was a dry, rattling hiss that vibrated through the raw meat of her throat.
She reached out. Her fingernails were jagged and broken, the quicks bleeding a thin, watery ichor. She pressed her hand against the silver field of the shield and dragged her fingers downward. The wood groaned. She clawed at the towers, the blue paint flaking away under her frantic, clumsy assault. She didn't stop until the image was a ruin of splinters and grey mud.
She remembered the music. She remembered the smell of the Smalljon's blood as it sprayed across the table. She remembered the face of the man who had held the knife to her throat.
Jinglebell. No, the fool was dead. It was the others. The old man on the throne. The son with the axe.
She tried to speak his name. Walder. The word came out as a spray of red mist from her neck. She clutched at her throat, her fingers finding the puckered, angry scar. It felt like a rope of hot lead. She realized then that she would never speak again. The Mother had taken her voice, and in its place, the Stranger had given her a hunger.
It wasn't a hunger for bread or wine. It was a cold, hollow ache that started in her belly and spread to her limbs. It was the hunger of the river.
She looked at her hands. They were white as bone, the skin translucent and fragile as parchment. One of her rings was gone, lost to the Green Fork. The other—the simple gold band of her marriage—was dull and caked with silt. She pulled it off and dropped it into the mud. Catelyn Stark had died in the Twins. This thing, this creature of salt and fire, had no husband. It had no lord.
"My lady?" Thoros asked softly. He stood over her, his red cloak fluttering in the wind. "Can you hear me? Do you know where you are?"
She turned her head. The movement sent a fresh spike of agony through her spine. She looked at the priest, then at the men standing behind him. They were ragged, desperate things. Men who had lost their homes, their kings, and their gods.
She reached out and grabbed the front of Thoros's robes. Her grip was like iron, the strength of the dead. She pulled him down until his face was inches from hers. She couldn't speak, so she showed him. She pointed toward the North, where the sky was still tinged with the orange glow of the burning camps.
Then she pointed to her throat.
"Vengeance," Lem Lemoncloak said, his voice low and dangerous. "She wants the Freys."
Catelyn let go of the priest. She stood up, her legs shaking, her sodden dress clinging to her like a shroud. She walked toward the riverbank, her boots sinking into the muck. She didn't look back at the body of Beric Dondarrion. She didn't look at the stars.
She reached into the rushes and pulled out a discarded cloak. It was grey, the color of a winter storm. She threw it over her shoulders, pulling the hood low to hide the ruin of her face. The fabric was rough and smelled of woodsmoke, but it hid the white glimmer of her skin.
She began to walk. Every step was a battle against the cold that still lived in her marrow. She felt the water squelch in her boots, the wind biting at the open wound in her neck. She didn't feel the pain as a person feels it; she felt it as a reminder. A tally.
A Frey for her son.
A Frey for her father.
A Frey for every drop of blood that had turned the Green Fork red.
The Brotherhood followed her. They moved like shadows through the trees, a pack of wolves led by a corpse. Behind them, the river continued its indifferent flow, carrying the rest of the North's pride down to the sea, but Catelyn Stark was finished with the water. She was fire now. And fire does not rest until everything is ash.