CARPE NOCTEM, jon snow

forty

chapter forty. mutiny at craster's keep

loc. castle black, the wall. 300AC

CARSEN SAT AGAINST the bolted door, nursing her healing calf wound and a bitterness in her belly.

She could hear the low hum of voices drifting out from the thick wood, but for the life of her couldn't make out anything save for a few distinct murmurs. They sounded like bumblebees, buzzing together in mindless procession. The sour-faced boy in black slouched beside the doors acting as a guard looked half-asleep and bored out of his thick skull—but he carried a blackwood staff, and the door was heavy. She knew if she trued to open it, he'd wake, and she'd find herself with a bruised wrist, so she sat in frosty silence, angered at the exclusion.

          She hadn't been allowed anywhere near any formal gatherings for a fortnight now. She couldn't honestly say she was surprised, but she didn't have to like it. Even as Carsen, her mute opinions held a little weight. Now they held none at all, like she was a baby bird squawking indignantly from outside the window. It frustrated her to no end, but what could be done? She couldn't very well leave. Now that she knew they had found her, she was much safer inside Castle Black than outside, and besides—besides, there was too much here to leave behind.

          A crow fluttering out of the west window caught her eye, a slim mass of sleek blackness and twitching wings, dark against the pale sky. She watched as it barrelled into the invisible glass pane of the window, leapt backward in alarm, and took off out of her sight.

          The door to her left open so suddenly it sent a shock flashing up Carsen's spine, and she jumped to her feet as Alliser Thorne came striding out, looking angrier than usual.

          "Eavesdropping is it now, Sargen? Going to run off and tell your wildling friends all the comings and goings?" he spat. His ridicule was so cold Carsen felt herself recoil involuntarily. "You'd best be on your way." He spun around so his black cloak licked the frozen air in a cold parody of a pirouette and stormed down the corridor. Carsen swallowed, easing the shock in her stomach with an irritation of how much his rebuke had stung her.

          The waning door was opened again, and this time it was Jon who strode out. He too, looked angry and tired, bones weighed down with exhaustion and eyes clouded with a sort of slumbering fury, and he didn't see Carsen dithering as he began to charge down the corridor.

          "Jon!" Carsen jogged to catch up, snagging a hand on his arm. "Are you alright?"

          Jon turned to look at her, but even as she watched, the frustration melted off his face like hot wax slipping down the side of a candle, leaving her with only a troubled boy with a war raging inside his head. Carsen knew this feeling, of tearing yourself apart, and took his hand in hers. She said nothing as he dithered, swallowed, licked his lips.