Cruel places breed cruel peoples. – Maester Luwin.
First the slender Spear Tower, a hundred-and-a-half feet tall and crowned with a spear of gilded steel that added another thirty feet to its height; then the mighty Tower of the Sun, with its dome of gold and leaded glass; last the dun-colored Sandship, looking like some monstrous dromond that had washed ashore and turned to stone.
I want her, he realized. I want Winterfell, yes, but I want her as well, child or woman or whatever she is. I want to comfort her. I want to hear her laugh. I want her to come to me willingly, to bring me her joys and her sorrows and her lust. His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. Yes, and I want to be tall as Jaime and as strong as Ser Gregor the Mountain too, for all the bloody good it does.
You are wrong. I have dreamed of your Wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges of the world.” Melisandre gazed up at it, her breath a warm moist cloud in the air. “This is my place as it is yours, and soon enough you may have grave need of me. Do not refuse my friendship, Jon. I have seen you in the storm, hard-pressed, with enemies on every side. You have so many enemies. Shall I tell you their names?
Prince Doran had closed the draperies of his litter as soon as the Spear Tower came in sight, yet still the small folk shouted out to him as the litter passed. The Sand Snakes have stirred them to a boil, the captain thought uneasily.
Should you reach your queen, give her a message from the slaves of Old Volantis.” She touched the faded scar upon her wrinkled cheek, where her tears had been cut away. “Tell her we are waiting. Tell her to come soon.
My mother taught me long ago that only madmen fight wars they cannot win.
The hotel bar was quiet and dark, with the kind of mood that promotes good talk and serious drinking.
One war ends, another begins.
And Ser Lyn Corbray?” The candlelight was dancing in his eyes. “Ser Lyn will remain my implacable enemy. He will speak of me with scorn and loathing to every man he meets, and lend his sword to every secret plot to bring me down.” That was when her suspicion turned to certainty. “And how shall you reward him for this service?” Littlefinger laughed aloud.
The evening’s rain had woken a hundred sleeping smells and made them ripe and strong again.
This was not chivalrously done,” said Brienne when they were close enough to see it clearly. “No true knight would condone such wanton butchery.
No, thought the dwarf, he plays the game of thrones, and you and Griff and Duck are only pieces, to be moved where he will and sacrificed at need, just as he sacrificed Viserys.
That’s what they always ended up saying: “But I’m just sad.” Feeling sad means having too much time on your hands, usually. Really. I’m not a licensed therapist but usually it means too much time.
The world the Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less for dragons.
It is simpler for her, Catelyn thought with a pang of envy. She was like a man in that. For men the answer was always the same, and never farther away than the nearest sword. For a woman, a mother, the way was stonier and harder to know.
The skin was warm, blue veins branching like rivers beneath his pale translucent skin. Outside the greater rivers flowed, the Red Fork and the Tumblestone, and they would flow forever, but not so the rivers in her father’s hand. Too soon that current would grow still.
That was his mistake, the false humility of youth that is itself a sort of pride.
Sweetness cloys. Tart fruit and tart women give life its savor.
She narrowed her eyes. “What is our heart’s desire?” “Vengeance.” His voice was soft, as if he were afraid that someone might be listening.