The Night's King, Brandon, had likewise been transformed from a highly intelligent human, and his army of White Walkers was also a kind of dangerous ice spirit.
The situation in Westeros was about to descend into utter chaos. Humanity barely held the Kingsroad, Winterfell, White Harbor, and the Wall, but elsewhere, vast swathes of the wight horde already stretched on and on.
The Riverlands, the Twins.
For anyone traveling from the North to the West Riverlands, the Twins was the only crossing for hundreds of miles along the Green Fork, situated directly on the main road from Winterfell to Riverrun.
The Twins had repaired the scars left by the previous war and remained impassable.
House Frey had been declared stripped of its lands for the vile crime of treason, yet the Twins stood as resolute as ever.
Both identical castles had towering walls, deep moats, and heavy, iron-bound oak gates.
A stone arch bridge connected the castles, wide enough for two four-wheeled carriages to pass abreast, and guarded by a tower at its center called the River Guard Tower.
Soldiers watched the movements in the distance through murder holes and arrow slits. The eternal night had recently reached the northern Riverlands as well, and that oppressive, gloomy weather made it hard to breathe.
"Have you heard? The king and the army have repelled several attacks by the wight horde at the Wall in the North."
"But the sea has frozen over. I'm afraid it won't be long before the wight horde turns this way too."
"They say wights have limitless strength and blue eyes, and they specifically eat children."
"Have faith in King Gendry. The king has magic dragons too." News spread extremely quickly in the south as well-news of the eternal night and the war.
Banners of every