Snow had already begun to fall over Winterfell.
Tiny grains of snow struck Jon's face, as though the North were reminding him in its own way that the long winter ahead would spare no one.
Over where Viserys and the others were, the clearing beside the river fell silent for a long time after Lorne finished speaking. Wind skimmed across the water, making the fire flicker. A few sparks swirled upward, then quickly vanished into the air.
Viserys did not speak right away. He merely turned his face slightly, looking at the two snow hares lying motionless beside the fire. The flames lit only half his face, leaving the other half in shadow and making it impossible to tell what he was thinking.
The Ramsay whom Lorne had mentioned seeing in the forest was the very same Ramsay who had retreated to the Dreadfort to recover after Val wounded him with an arrow.
That defeat had not killed him, but it had cost him dearly, leaving a fire smoldering in his chest and a hostility toward anyone else who possessed extraordinary abilities.
That fire burned ever hotter within him, breeding an inexplicable hatred for anyone whose supernatural abilities put them beyond his control.
After he returned to the Dreadfort, he had nowhere to vent that anger, so it fell upon the women he had captured before. His methods of torture grew even crueler, and he used other people's lives and deaths to fill the hollow left by his own frustration and displeasure.
Viserys's fingers remained at Daenerys's waist. There was not a trace of impatience in his eyes, nor, of course, any pity-only a cold indifference to the lives and deaths of others.
The anger on Daenerys's face had yet to fade completely, but a hint of hesitation had entered