THE NORTH BEYOND | JON SNOW

CHAPTER SIX.

I was closer to the Wall than I had thought, a cruel reminder of the freedom I could have had. The Wall was bigger than I could have ever imagined and the top seemed to sit beside the clouds. I shouldn't have stopped, I would have been climbing by now, no more worries of Craster or Walkers or Mance and his bloody army.

Blood had dried to my face and ice coated my furs, I was to be taken to Mance, no-one cared what condition. My lip was swollen, my cheek bruised and bloody and my rib cage burnt with the effort of breathing. Those were the wounds that hadn't already become numb from the cold, they had taken some of my furs and each gust of wind rattled my bones. In the night, my teeth chattered and my legs shook involuntarily when I wasn't rocking myself to keep myself from freezing. Those were the days I thought I'd die. Maybe I'd sleep never to awake again, or a Walker would come and slaughter us all in the dead of night. The first nights I could of swore I heard the howling of my wolves, that they were coming to help me. I soon realised they weren't, that I was so desperate for rescue that my own mind had begun to play games with me, to give me hope.

I didn't know how many days we walked before I fell, my vision blackened and all I felt was ice against my cheek. The next time I woke, I had my furs back on and there was a small fire burning, casting a small yet somehow enveloping orange glow to my face. I blinked my eyes and saw Ygritte crouching above the fire, stomping it out. I didn't know what to think, seeing my friend from what seems like another life in front of me.

"You look bad," she noted, turning away from the burnt wood and the smell of smoke. Still the same Red I knew, and I tried to smile, it must have looked crazy though, one side of my mouth twitching up.

I tried to swallow before speaking but my throat ached too much. She bought a flask to my mouth and urged me to drink. Water had never tasted sweeter and I ended up finishing the flask and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

I looked around, the ones who captured me were sleeping, for a moment I considered escaping but my chest started throbbing at that precise moment and I dismissed the thought quickly.

I grabbed her hand and looked at her, "I didn't kill her, Red, she was like a mother to me. The only mother I've ever known." I decided to say what she'd probably been wondering about. Neither of us were known for our small-talk.

She glanced around at he sleeping figures and then back at me. "Say I did believe you then, why'd you run? Why were you even out with her?"

I didn't know whether to tell her, but the words flowed out of my mouth before I could stop them. "She was pregnant, Red, she wanted to tell me first. It weren't me who stabbed her in the stomach. Why would I?"

I saw the shock on her face when I said that she was pregnant but she quickly composed herself, the blow to the stomach made sense now.

"You know what will happen if you say that? They'll say that you stabbed her because you didn't want her to have a baby of her own, that you didn't think it would kill her." She shakes her head, "that when you saw she was dying you tried to save her and when you couldn't, you blamed it on the only things that couldn't be bought to justice."

"That's wrong, Red, and you know it. Where would I get that dagger from?"

"I don't know," she says exasperated, throwing her hands up, "they'll say you stole it, or-or that you found it somewhere." She grabbed my shoulders and looked me dead in the eye. "They don't care about you being guilty, all they'll see is that you came to Mance, covered in her blood with the dagger in your hands."

"I used that dagger to cut off the Walkers hand." I whispered.

"So why wasn't there a hand when we found her, eh?"

I slumped back down and drove the heel of my hand into my forehead. "I don't know..." I said defeatedly, "someone must have moved it or took it..." My arguments were becoming more and more weak.

I don't blame her, I wouldn't have believed myself either. "You have to help me get out of here, help me get over the Wall. I can't die for something I didn't do."

"If you go now, you'll collapse a league away and I won't be able to stop them from killing you." Her face was uncertain, she didn't know what to do.

"I can't die for this," I pleaded with her again but her eyes were certain now, she wouldn't act.

"You have no choice, get some sleep, you'll be tied up again in the morning."

I sighed, I couldn't sleep right now. I had to think about some way to escape before we reached Mance's camp. I coughed and wrapped my arms around myself, looking out into the darkness of the night. Again, I thought I heard the faint sounds of my wolves howling a distance away but I shook my head and lied down in the snow. Ygritte was right, I would be killed, no matter what way I looked at it. I should have stayed at Craster's Keep, I was so anxious to get to the Wall that I forgot how many risks I was taking by leaving.

Sometimes I think back to that night. The bare trees swaying with the force of the wind, the light of the full moon casting a sinister shadow everywhere. Sometimes I wonder how I didn't see it, the way all noise stopped, how the temperature dropped and the ice crackled in my ears.

And her, Dalla, Mance's wife, her arms touching her flat stomach, her wide smile. Then I see her spluttering and choking, her blood gushing between my hands and I shake my head of the image and attempt to go to sleep.