It had taken days for Long Barrow to stop feeling like a cage. The old castle groaned at night, ice cracking like bones beneath the wind. The Wall loomed above it all, pale and endless, a thing she still did not love but now guarded. One night she climbed the steps to the top, where one of the black brothers stood watch, alone with eyes fixed north.

She stopped close, boots crunching on frost, shoulder nearly brushing his. Though she didn't care what a kneeler might think. The wind carried the smell of snow and old ice. Nella lifted a gloved hand and pointed north-west, toward the jagged dark line of the Frostfangs.

“Far that way, crow” she said, voice calm and plain, “is where I was born. That used to be my home.”