CARPE NOCTEM, jon snow

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀twenty nine

twenty-nine. qhorin halfhand

loc. skirling pass, beyond the wall. 299AC

⠀⠀⠀THERE WAS BLOOD on her hands, Carsen registered dimly.

⠀⠀⠀Once again. Sometimes she felt it never really left—it stayed shining on her palms, garish against the grey snow, invisible to her eyes which were so clouded with death and rot and grief that perhaps she now couldn't tell them from life. Her hands trembled as she wiped them for the dozenth time on the black of her Night's Watch furs, but it had dried now, cracking over the porcelain of her skin like a rot intent of corrupting her. My skin is not porcelain anymore, Carsen thought absently. And you cannot corrupt what is already corrupted.

⠀⠀⠀"Are you alright?"

⠀⠀⠀Jon's voice sounded as if he were speaking through a long tunnel. It felt as though Carsen's head were full of copper, so heavy it was, so crowded and dense. She looked at him, opened her mouth to speak—and tears sprung to her eyes, and her lips trembled as she pressed them together and shook her head jerkily.

⠀⠀⠀Jon pulled her close; for a brief moment, his face changed, and Roahn's eyes peered out from tumbling dark curls, and Carsen began to sob.

⠀⠀⠀"I'm sorry," Jon whispered. "I'm sorry we—I'm sorry we had to do it."

⠀⠀⠀"I never wanted to do it again," she mumbled, and her head was so clouded she didn't realise what she had said until it had slipped past shaking lips, and Jon was stilling beside her as her words seeped beneath his skin. Carsen found herself waiting for him to shove her away, to call her a monster, but the blows didn't come.

⠀⠀⠀Reaching up, she scrubbed the tears from her cheeks. The tracks burned cold in the frigid air as she began to walk again.

⠀⠀⠀It had happened too quickly for Carsen to register, at first.

⠀⠀⠀One second they were walking, and the next, Qhorin Halfhand had struck out; elbowing the wildling holding him in the face and taking his sword. The next thing anyone knew, he had lunged forward, knocking wildlings aside and making huge, wild swings with the shimmering blade at Jon.

⠀⠀⠀Instinctively, Carsen leapt backward, out of harm's way, but Jon stumbled the other way. The blow across Jon's face came sharp and hard, and he crumpled into the snow. "Stop!" he had yelled, and his breath had ghosted in the air, pale and thin and gone in an instant.

⠀⠀⠀"Why?" bellowed the Halfhand. "So you can give Mance Rayder an invitation to Castle Black?"

⠀⠀⠀"Let 'em fight!" roared the Lord of Bones, and Carsen swiped up a blade and tossed it to Jon. He scrabbled for the algid hilt, partially lost in the snow, and staggered to his feet, wielding the blade, and Qhorin charged.

⠀⠀⠀They fought, and with every sharp clang of swords that rang in the frigid air, Carsen felt more and more like screaming. All she could see was Qhorin's blade lodging itself in Jon's stomach, his blood on the snow, turning it red as wine might turn crushed ice.

⠀⠀⠀She could stand it no longer; she whirled round, facing Ygritte, and said, "Let me go."

⠀⠀⠀It was instantaneous; the rope around her wrists was sliced, and the redhead was pressing a sword into Carsen's hands. The steel still felt unfamiliar between her fingers.

⠀⠀⠀When she turned back round, they were still fighting, but the Halfhand was obviously gaining the upper hand. Jon met the vicious swing at his neck with a counter-lunge that sent a jarring shiver up an arm, and for several moments, they were locked in grapple, muscles quivering rigidly like elastic stretched to the point of snapping.

⠀⠀⠀Qhorin's back was to her as she raced forward and, as the pair shifted and she glimpsed Jon's face, glimpsed the fear in his silver eyes, sparkling like rain.

Her sword buried itself in the small of the Halfhand's back.

The man stopped, swayed, wailing like a kicked dog; his legs gave out from under him, and as Carsen yanked her sword from his back, a spurt of blood came up, settling hot and thick and poisonous on her hands, and Jon took the momentary pause to shove his sword through the Halfhand's stomach with such force that it drove straight through the other side, dripping with gore.

⠀⠀⠀Jon caught his falling body, and for the briefest second, Carsen saw pain flashing in his eyes. The old ranger curled up, skin mottled beneath haggard hair. "We are the watchers on the Wall," he wheezed through thin, dry lips.

⠀⠀⠀And then he fell, and Carsen's blade was covered in blood. She dropped it, her breath trembling in her throat and she stumbled away, feeling revulsion rear in her like a snake as she looked at the pink snow surrounding the body she had helped put there.

⠀⠀⠀"You can tell Mance," she heard Ygritte saw hollowly behind her. "Them's the crows that killed Qhorin 'Alfhand."

⠀⠀⠀"Oi. Carsen Sage. Are you in there?"

⠀⠀⠀A knuckle rapped against Carsen's forehead, and she felt herself jarred back to the present. Ygritte walked next to her, those green eyes trained intently on her face. For once, Carsen could find no trace of anything untoward in those endless pits of moss.

⠀⠀⠀"What d'you want?" Carsen mumbled.

⠀⠀⠀"Over 'ere. I wanna show ya something."

⠀⠀⠀Carsen glanced suspiciously at the redhead, but her thin face looked sincere. She followed her toward the edge of the great mountain they walked on. It was dark as night and crusted with snow, and was so high Carsen felt at one with the grey clouds drifting overhead. But it was the view far, far below that stole the breath from her lungs.

⠀⠀⠀A huge clearing of frost-crowded grass, and packed with wildlings. Tents and fires writhing crowds of pale hides and furs. Black heads and blond heads and brown heads and scarce few redheads.

⠀⠀⠀"Come along, she-crow," Ygritte said demurely. "Time to meet the King Beyond the Wall."

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