It was a spacious room, with elegant windows and real glass. There were three lavish couches, upholstered with varying colors of fur and leather, ranging from the tanned flesh of caribou to what the steward Claudir claimed was tundra yeti. Arya’s nose always turned up at the thought of harvesting furs. Her distaste was not, however, shared by her two companions. On the middle couch, they lounged on feather pillows and shared laughsDerst’s witty snickers and Bars’s rumblesover something or other. Too nervous to join them, Arya lingered near the cold fireplace, running her fingers along the stems and petals of the flowers Greyt’s servants had collected for display. Winter lilies and frost roses stood in bright array among emerald stems and leaves, curled into bunches along a golden banister. The flowers might have been picked that morning; they were so soft and vibrant. The ones that gave the trick away, however, were the stunning fire-dragonssnapdragons so red the people of the north claimed they were slain dragons reborn.
