Go back and see?
Jon's mind had become a complete muddle.
What did that mean?
Lynn's words sounded like a riddle.
He understood every word, but put together, they were beyond his comprehension.
He looked at Ned, hoping the man he had always regarded as his father could give him an explanation.
But the shock on Ned Stark's face was no less than his own.
He had lived half his life, endured war, and witnessed the fall of a dynasty. He had thought his resolve as strong as steel.
Yet today, in this little study, he had first torn open the secret he had guarded for twenty years, then heard a proposal that bordered on a divine revelation.
Go back and see?
See Lyanna?
The thought was a blaze of wild fire, instantly igniting the wasteland in his heart that had long since turned to ash.
He wanted to.
He dreamed of nothing else!
For twenty years, Lyanna's face had appeared only in his dreams.
That pale, bloodstained face, still as radiant as a winter rose.
And her final plea: "Promise me, Ned..."
Those words had become the shackles of his life.
"What... what do you mean?"
Ned looked at Lynn, and for the first time, something close to pleading appeared in his gray eyes.
"Exactly what I said."
Lynn tossed the fruit pit into the fireplace and brushed off his hands.
"I can let you... see what happened in the past with your own eyes."
"Greensight."
He uttered an ancient term.
Samwell Tarly drew a sharp breath.
He loved reading more than anything and knew better than anyone what that word meant.
It was a gift unique to the Children of the Forest, a mysterious magic that allowed them to glimpse the past and future through the eyes of