The Eyrie lay utterly silent.
The nobles of the Vale had already dispersed, busy carrying out Lynn's orders.
Only Lynn and the ten black-robed White Walkers, shadowlike in their presence, remained in the Moon Door Gardens.
Winter's enormous body lay sprawled over the garden's ruins.
His three heads rested on his forepaws, as though he were dozing.
But his occasionally flaring nostrils and the low rumble deep in his throats made it clear that he could become an avatar of destruction at any moment.
Lynn walked to the edge of the castle and looked down over the roiling sea of clouds.
Conquering the Vale had gone far more smoothly than he had imagined.
Intimidation through force, coupled with winning over hearts and minds.
With both approaches working together, it had taken almost no effort.
Now, the entire North and the Vale formed one contiguous territory.
His power was more secure than ever.
Yet just as he was considering his next move and how to deal with that madwoman Lysa, something happened.
An overwhelmingly intense sensation of being watched struck him from behind without warning!
Lynn slowly turned, his gaze flashing as he scanned the space behind him.
There was no one there.
Only the ten black-robed White Walkers stood silently in the shadows, as though they had become one with the darkness.
No!
Lynn's gaze finally settled on the tower's battlements.
There, at some point, a raven had perched.
A raven unlike any other.
It was considerably larger than an ordinary raven, its feathers ink-black without a trace of any other color.
Strangest of all, it had three eyes.
Besides the two normal eyes on either side, a third, blood-red eye grew in the center of its forehead.
That eye had no pupil, only a mass of chaotic crimson, like