BRAN — Chapter 14

As dusk falls beyond the Wall, Bran, Meera, Jojen, Hodor, Summer, and Coldhands approach a cave entrance beneath ice-laden trees. The raven’s alarm and Coldhands’s warnings build dread; the cave is warded, but the climb is steep and Jojen is frail. With night near, Hodor begins the ascent carrying Bran while Meera struggles after with Jojen.

Wights erupt from the snow, dragging Hodor down and swarming the group. Summer saves Bran from a dead man in black, revealing fallen brothers of the Watch among the attackers. Bran, in desperation, wargs Hodor, seizes his longsword, and decapitates a wight, then helps Meera haul Jojen uphill as flaming figures appear—someone has set the wights ablaze.

Ravens pour from the cave, and a small, wild girl with a torch darts among the dead, using fire to drive them back. Bran is buried by a fall of snow and later awakens inside the cave, warmed by a fire. The torchbearer is revealed as a child of the forest, who speaks with an ancient, musical voice and confirms the wards bar the dead. She declares Coldhands cannot enter and implies he died long ago.

The child leads them through twisting tunnels tangled with massive weirwood roots and lined with bones and skulls—giants, men, beasts, and children—deeper into an underground cavern crossed by a roaring black river. There, torchlight reveals a withered pale lord rooted into a living weirwood throne, red leaf-spray crowning his skull.

Bran addresses him as the three-eyed crow. The greenseer, once a man of black garb and blood, says he has watched Bran all his life through “a thousand eyes and one.” When Bran begs to be made whole, the greenseer refuses—he cannot mend Bran’s legs—but promises a different destiny: Bran will never walk again, but he will fly.