GOT: The Great — Chapter 292 - Bran Stark, the Green Seer

They hadn't seen each other in over three years. For a long stretch of that time, each had assumed the others were already dead.

There was so much to say. Yet no one brought up the bitterness they'd each swallowed during those years apart. They spoke only of the happy days, the family all together under one roof, before Robert Baratheon ever came to Winterfell.

Even Jon Snow and Catelyn Tully were talking. Every so often, one of them even laughed.

"That time King Robert came," Rickon said, "you stole three lemon cakes from the kitchen. Ate them all. Didn't leave a single one for me."

He was staring at Sansa, brow furrowed, the same brow as Eddard Stark's, exactly.

"Two," Sansa said.

"Three. I saw you."

"What you saw was two. Bran ate the third one."

"I didn't," Bran said.

"You did. You smeared cream on your sleeve. Maester Luwin wiped it off for you later."

Bran tilted his head and thought about it. "I forgot."

Catelyn reached out slowly and plucked a pine needle from Rickon's collar. It turned once between her fingers, then dropped to the floor.

"Your father drank too much that night," she said. "He had a drinking contest with Robert and fell asleep halfway through. Robert declared himself the winner. The next day, Eddard said — you didn't win, I was just resting."

Rickon looked up at her. "And then?"

"Then Robert said, let's go again. Eddard fell asleep again."

A few quiet laughs went around the room.

Sansa leaned back in her chair, hands resting on her stomach. "It's been so long since House Stark has been this complete."

Bran was half-reclined in his wheelchair. "Arya is still missing. Didn't she go to King's Landing with you? Where did she go."

Drogo glanced over at him. The tone was perfectly flat, same as always, but something about it didn't sit right.

What was the greenseer up to? Didn't he know everything? He should have known exactly where Arya was.

Yet those last words sounded like he genuinely didn't know. And not as an act. Someone who held that many secrets couldn't fake that kind of blankness.

"Arya is alive," Sansa said. "She's in Braavos. The House of Black and White."

"How do you know? Did she send you a raven?"

"Drogo told me." Sansa looked over at him. "Was it a prophecy from the Great Stallion, or did you see a vision in the Lord of Light's flames?"

Drogo tossed the question back. "The greenseer knows all of this. Ask him."

Bran turned his head toward Drogo.

"My power is bound closely to the weirwood trees. I need to form a mental link with them, and I see the past and present through the eyes carved into their trunks."

"The weirwoods in the south have been cut down on a massive scale. What happens there, I know very little of."

"The reason I can see the past is that the weirwoods have stood for thousands of years and witnessed countless moments of history. Wherever there are no weirwoods, there is a blind spot in the greenseer's vision."

It sounded airtight. That was exactly how Martin had designed the greenseer's abilities.

But Drogo remembered something.

In King's Landing. In front of the Great Sept of Baelor. On the day Eddard Stark was beheaded, Littlefinger had held Eddard at knifepoint inside the Throne Room.

There were no weirwood trees in the Throne Room.

Yet at some point, Bran had repeated the exact words Littlefinger had spoken to Eddard Stark: Lord Stark, I did warn you not to trust me.

How had he seen that? If the greenseer's power truly depended entirely on the weirwoods, then what Bran had witnessed inside the Throne Room at King's Landing made no sense.

Drogo stood and rolled his shoulders.

Was this some scheme of the greenseer's to lull him into complacency? Or had the show simply blown past the lore for the sake of moving the plot along, letting Littlefinger's crimes get exposed and dealt with fast, while quietly ignoring every established limit of the greenseer's power?

He couldn't work it out.

"You all take your time catching up. I'll go check on dinner."

He pushed the door open and stepped out.

The corridor outside the main hall was bone-cold.

A draft swept through the ruins from a breach in the north wall and stripped away every trace of warmth the hearth fire had put into his face.

He walked a few paces and stopped at a gap in the wall, looking out at the courtyard. White Harbor soldiers were putting up a temporary stable in the snow below.

Then he heard footsteps.

"Drogo Khal."

He turned. Daario Naharis stood at the corridor's bend, his purple beard braided into 3 plaits with gold thread tied at the ends, wearing a deep-blue wool coat with snowflakes caught on the shoulders.

When he bowed, one hand pressed to his chest. The back of that hand bore a fresh scar, newly scabbed, edges still tinged faint red.

"I've completed the task you gave me," he said.

Drogo looked at him and felt a flicker of genuine surprise.

"Right, uh, you — I'll settle the balance with you as soon as I can."

Daario bowed his thanks.

"What are your plans after this?"

"Plans?" Daario tilted his head. "I've earned enough. I want to go back to Tyrosh. Find a house with a view of the sea, drink a little every day, enjoy some women."

He paused. "Though the Second Sons were slaughtered by you, so I can't exactly go back there."

Drogo made a low sound. "You should be thanking me. I was going to kill the entire company that day. Sending you north to bring back Rickon Stark was giving you a way out."

Daario bowed again. This time he bent a little deeper.

"Did you run into a sellsword named Bronn?" Drogo asked. "I sent him north to assist you."

Daario straightened.

"I did. But, " he spread his hands, "he got on a ship at Eastwatch with a dwarf and sailed for King's Landing. He switched sides. Said Lady Stoneheart hadn't paid him his fee."

Drogo's jaw tightened. I paid him. Damn it.

"When did that dwarf head back?"

"About half a month ago."

"So you were traveling with Lady Stoneheart and the Brotherhood Without Banners?"

"Yes." Daario nodded. "Though the Brotherhood stayed at the Wall. Said they were going to fight the Others."

"And you — do you believe there are Others out there?"

"After seeing Lady Stoneheart, I'd believe in vampires, never mind Others." Daario paused. "After you flew away, a dense mass of corpses came crawling up the Wall. I saw it with my own eyes."

"They can't get past the Wall. There's magic in it, the dead can't cross." Drogo's tone left no room for argument.

"But they did reach the battlements. We had a hell of a time fighting them back." Daario said. "Wights can't cross, sure, but what about the Night King? Maybe he can."

Drogo turned that over and found it plausible.

Aegon Targaryen had once dreamed of ice and fire. He had called it the Song of Ice and Fire.

Now that I'm no longer riding north to deliver a dragon to the Night King, he'll have to find another way to break through the Wall.

No dragon, there were other options. The dead didn't need to breathe, but the living were prone to stupidity.

The magic in the Wall could stop wights. Whether it could stop other things was another question entirely. No one could say for certain.

➤ Next: Littlefinger's Heartbreak