She, too, felt that she had been stifling Arya too much, though Arya had never paid much heed to her discipline in the first place.
If she kept trying to rein her in, the sisters might end up resenting each other. Better to turn a blind eye and let her run wild through the Red Keep with that red-haired free woman.
At least her little sister could enjoy a few more carefree days. After all, it had been a long time since she had seen her sister smile outside Viserys's company.
Ygritte was always telling Arya strange tales of the lands beyond the Wall: direwolves taller than horses, ghosts that emerged from the burial mounds of the First Men to guide travelers.
There were enormous mammoths and the giants of legend, too. They were gathering outside the Wall even now, and some had already moved south to live in the Night's Watch's Gift. These stories made adventure-loving Arya's eyes shine, and she grew ever more eager to stick close to Ygritte and run wild with her.
Just yesterday, Arya had shaken Ygritte's arm and demanded to know whether giants really had fists bigger than a horse's head. Ygritte had smiled as she bit into her still-warm honey bread and licked the icing from her fingers.
She said that if Arya dared to come with her, she could see it all for herself at the Wall. Arya immediately straightened up, patted her flat little chest, and declared that she had nothing to fear. One day, they would slip out of the Red Keep and head north together to see direwolves and giants alike.
But no sooner had she said this than she heard Sansa and Jeyne's footsteps at the end of the corridor. The two exchanged a glance, then stifled their