"The Wolf, the Stag and the Snake" book 1

Chapter 20

Hi, again!

I'm working at speed light this period and I hope you are liking the story so far.

Please, let me know what you think of my story or the characters, it nice to recive reviews and they really help to make me work on this story.

I want to thank you like always for keep reading it, thank you so much!

I do not own anything but my OC's, everythin else belongs to George R. R. Martin, that I love and respect so much, but who, I would like, would finish Winds Of Winter soon.

CASSANDRA

"Come on, Cassie wake up" Cassie let out a growl before hiding her head under the fur cover of her bed. She hadn't slept much those days. After what had happened with Jon she suffered of lack of sleep. The memory of Aesteria had never once left her mind in all those years but she had been able to push it aside, to keep going otherwise she would have gone mad. But telling Jon had been exhausting for her nerves. Cassie didn't like it, she didn't like to talk about her one bit. It was a memory of hers, something she had to live with, no one else's. Not that anyone had cared. No one cared.

"Cassie" Rose's gentle voice reached throught the covers "We let you sleep, but we can't be late. Not today" the princess groaned again.

That day would be endless. That day, lady Eloyse would announce officially the girls who had enough capacity to control their powers and for that they were ready to take off their gloves and become a Keeper of Light. It was all very poetic but what they were actually doing that day was totally different. To be a Keeper they didn't need a ceremony, they were born like that; that day the girls were about to be marked to let all the world know what they really were.

After the Conquest, the Targaryens came to know about people like Cassie and decided to send them to the Wall and to mark them with a tattoo on the hand to make possible to everyone to distinguish keepers from people. At the very beginning the girls were marked not so long after their births, with centuries the order decided to make it like a rite of passage, an initiation to a new life; a life of control.

Cassie remembered when she got hers; she was so proud of herself. She felt like she had become an adult. When she had shawn it to her mother, she looked at it with a little smirk, but not a proud one, almost mocking and her words still echoed in Cassie's mind "Now everyone can see what you are" at that moment Cassie didn't understand but it didn't took too long for her to notice how people on the road looked at her when they spotted her hand.

"You haven't even eat" Rose reproved her while they were walking down the stairs of Castle Black that lead to the main field.

"I'm not hungry" Cassie answered passing an hand through her long black hair.

Rose gently stopped Cassie by her forearm "Are you still angry at Jon for what happened?" she asked carefully.

"I've never been angry at him for that" Cassie muttered "Or you" she had been cold with Rose, but not because she was angry. Cassie understood that Rose was the one who told Jon about Aesteria and she didn't want to see the look of pity on her friend's face, or Jon's.

Rose's lips curved in a small smile, a sympathy one. Cassie looked away and kept walking down.

The yard was crowded with people. The keepers were aligned by age and the novices were at the opposite side from them. Cassie looked at the girls who were about to get marked, they didn't wear their black rags anymore, they had their own vest; Hidy was jumping in joy unable to stay still, Freema was beside her smiling shyly and Neho, a girl of sixteen who had subjugated a man of the Watch when she was ten, had finally menaged to control her powers.