Arya: Appearances & Meaningful Mentions

3 AGOT Catelyn I: “Arya is already in love (with her wolf pup)” 24

6 AGOT Jon I: Jon notes

Arya was paired with plump Tommen, whose white blond hair was longer than hers. 50

His sisters Arya and Sansa would marry the heirs of other great houses and go south as mistress of castles of their own.

7 AGOT Catelyn II

"And it is past time that Arya learned the ways of a southron court. In a few years she will be of an age to marry too."

8 AGOT Arya I: Her sister is the perfect lady but Arya is hopeless. She runs away in shame, hoping to see her brother, Robb, beat the crowned prince her sister gets to marry. Jon comforts her, excluded too, but she's still in trouble for having run away.

9 AGOT Bran II: Arya named her direwolf "after some old witch queen in the songs"

11 AGOT Jon II: Jon says goodbye to Arya and gives her Needle. 96-98

16 AGOT Sansa I: When Sansa and Joffrey encounter Arya practicing swordplay with sticks and Joffrey turns bully, Nymeria bites Joffrey to disarm him. 140-143, 149-152

The only thing that scared her about today was Arya. Arya had a way of ruining everything. You never knew what she would do. 140

She found Arya on the banks of the Trident, trying to hold Nyneria still while she brushed dried mud from her fur. COMPLETE QUOTE 140-143

Beyond a clearing overlooking the river, they came upon a boy and girl playing at knighhts. Their swords were wooden sticks, broom handles from the look of them, and they were rushing across the grass, swinging at each other lustily. COMPLETE QUOTE

149-152

17 AGOT Eddard III: Arya is brought before the king for judgment and the queen calls for Lady's pelt as a trophy. Lord Stark kills Lady, himself, to deny the queen her trophy. But the Hound has ridden down Mycah, his body cut nearly in two 151-157

18 AGOT Bran III

he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart.

20 AGOT Jon III

And Arya … he missed her even more than Robb, skinny little thing that she was, all scraped knees and tangled hair and torn clothes, so fierce and willful. Arya never seemed to fit, no more than he had … yet she could always make Jon smile. He would give anything to be with her now, to muss up her hair once more and watch her make a face, to hear her finish a sentence with him.

21 AGOT Eddard IV

See that my daughters find their bedchambers, and tell Jory to keep them there. Arya is not to go exploring,

The last fortnight of their journey had been a misery. Sansa blamed Arya and told her that it should have been Nymeria who died. And Arya was lost after she heard what had happened to her butcher's boy. Sansa cried herself to sleep, Arya brooded silently all day long, and Eddard Stark dreamed of a frozen hell reserved for the Starks of Winterfell.

23 AGOT Arya II: When her father finds Needle, Arya is sure he'll take her sword. Instead, he tells her they've come to a dangerous place and explains their house words: winter is coming. The next day, she is called to dancing lessons, but finds her father has employed a Braavosi sword master to teach her, in secret.

26 AGOT Eddard V

On the way back to his chambers, he came upon his daughter Arya on the winding steps of the Tower of the Hand, windmilling her arms as she struggled to balance on one leg. The rough stone had scuffed her bare feet. Ned stopped and looked at her. "Arya, what are you doing?"

"Syrio says a water dancer can stand on one toe for hours." Her hands flailed at the air to steady herself.

Ned had to smile. "Which toe?" he teased.

"Any toe," Arya said, exasperated with the question. She hopped from her right leg to her left, swaying dangerously before she regained her balance.

"Must you do your standing here?" he asked. "It's a long hard fall down these steps."

"Not for a long time, sweet one," he told her. "He needs to win his strength back."

Arya bit her lip. "What will Bran do when he's of age?"

Ned knelt beside her. "He has years to find that answer, Arya. For now, it is enough to know that he will live." The night the bird had come from Winterfell, Eddard Stark had taken the girls to the castle godswood, an acre of elm and alder and black cottonwood overlooking the river. The heart tree there was a great oak, its ancient limbs overgrown with smokeberry vines; they knelt before it to offer their thanksgiving, as if it had been a weirwood. Sansa drifted to sleep as the moon rose, Arya several hours later, curling up in the grass under Ned's cloak. All through the dark hours he kept his vigil alone. When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon's breath surrounded the girls where they lay. "I dreamed of Bran," Sansa had whispered to him. "I saw him smiling."

"He was going to be a knight," Arya was saying now. "A knight of the Kingsguard. Can

he still be a knight?"

"No," Ned said. He saw no use in lying to her. "Yet someday he may be the lord of a great holdfast and sit on the king's council. He might raise castles like Brandon the Builder, or sail a ship across the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother's Faith and become the High Septon." But he will never run beside his wolf again, he thought with a sadness too deep for words, or lie with a woman, or hold his own son in his arms.

Arya cocked her head to one side. "Can I be a king's councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?"

"You," Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, "will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon."

Arya screwed up her face. "No," she said, "that's Sansa." She folded up her right leg and resumed her balancing. Ned sighed and left her there. Inside his chambers, he stripped off his sweat-stained silks and sluiced cold water over his head from the basin beside the bed. Alyn entered as he was drying his face. "My lord," he said, "Lord Baelish is without and begs audience."

31 AGOT Eddard VII

Jory brought Arya down to join them, and Sansa spoke to her sister pleasantly. "The tournament was magnificent," she sighed. "You should have come. How was your dancing?"

"I'm sore all over," Arya reported happily, proudly displaying a huge purple bruise on her leg.

"You must be a terrible dancer," Sansa said doubtfully.

Later, while Sansa was off listening to a troupe of singers perform the complex round of interwoven ballads called the "Dance of the Dragons," Ned inspected the bruise himself. "I hope Forel is not being too hard on you," he said.

Arya stood on one leg. She was getting much better at that of late. "Syrio says that every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes you better."

Ned frowned. The man Syrio Forel had come with an excellent reputation, and his flamboyant Braavosi style was well suited to Arya's slender blade, yet still … a few days ago, she had been wandering around with a swatch of black silk tied over her eyes. Syrio was teaching her to see with her ears and her nose and her skin, she told him. Before that, he had her doing spins and back flips. "Arya, are you certain you want to persist in this?"

She nodded. "Tomorrow we're going to catch cats."

"Cats." Ned sighed. "Perhaps it was a mistake to hire this Braavosi. If you like, I will ask Jory to take over your lessons. Or I might have a quiet word with Ser Barristan. He was the finest sword in the Seven Kingdoms in his youth."

"I don't want them," Arya said. "I want Syrio."

Ned ran his fingers through his hair. Any decent master-at-arms could give Arya the rudiments of slash-and-parry without this nonsense of blindfolds, cartwheels, and hopping about on one leg, but he knew his youngest daughter well enough to know there was no arguing with that stubborn jut of jaw. "As you wish," he said. Surely she would grow tired of this soon. "Try to be careful."

33 AGOT Arya III: Chasing cats, Arya winds up in the dungeon. Arya overhears Varys and Illyrio. She tells Father but he thinks she overheard mummers.

40 AGOT Eddard X

"My daughters?"

"They have been with you every day, my lord. Sansa prays quietly, but Arya …" He hesitated. "She has not said a word since they brought you back. She is a fierce little thing, my lord. I have never seen such anger in a girl."

"Whatever happens," Ned said, "I want my daughters kept safe. I fear this is only the beginning."

42 AGOT Jon V

"He's hopeless with a sword. My sister Arya could tear him apart, and she's not yet ten. If Ser Alliser makes him fight, it's only a matter of time before he's hurt or killed."

45 AGOT Sansa III

"I saw your sister this afternoon," Jeyne blurted out, as if she'd been reading Sansa's thoughts. "She was walking through the stables on her hands. Why would she do a thing like that?"

"I'm sure I don't know why Arya does anything." Sansa hated stables, smelly places full of manure and flies. Even when she went riding, she liked the boy to saddle the horse and bring it to her in the yard.

The kitchen yielded no lemon cakes, but they did find half of a cold strawberry pie, and that was almost as good. They ate it on the tower steps, giggling and gossiping and sharing secrets, and Sansa went to bed that night feeling almost as wicked as Arya.

The blood orange scene:

The Tower of the Hand seemed so empty after they left that Sansa was even pleased to see Arya when she went down to break her fast. "Where is everyone?" her sister wanted to know as she ripped the skin from a blood orange. "Did Father send them to hunt down Jaime Lannister?"

Sansa sighed. "They rode with Lord Beric, to behead Ser Gregor Clegane." She turned to Septa Mordane, who was eating porridge with a wooden spoon. "Septa, will Lord Beric spike Ser Gregor's head on his own gate or bring it back here for the king?" She and Jeyne Poole had been arguing over that last night.

The septa was horror-struck. "A lady does not discuss such things over her porridge. Where are your courtesies, Sansa? I swear, of late you've been near as bad as your sister."

"What did Gregor do?" Arya asked.

"He burned down a holdfast and murdered a lot of people, women and children too."

Arya screwed up her face in a scowl. "Jaime Lannister murdered Jory and Heward and Wyl, and the Hound murdered Mycah. Somebody should have beheaded them."

"It's not the same," Sansa said. "The Hound is Joffrey's sworn shield. Your butcher's boy attacked the prince."

"Liar," Arya said. Her hand clenched the blood orange so hard that red juice oozed between her fingers.

"Go ahead, call me all the names you want," Sansa said airily. "You won't dare when I'm married to Joffrey. You'll have to bow to me and call me Your Grace." She shrieked as Arya flung the orange across the table. It caught her in the middle of the forehead with a wet squish and plopped down into her lap.

"You have juice on your face, Your Grace," Arya said.

It was running down her nose and stinging her eyes. Sansa wiped it away with a napkin. When she saw what the fruit in her lap had done to her beautiful ivory silk dress, she shrieked again. "You're horrible," she screamed at her sister. "They should have killed you instead of Lady!"

Enough, Sansa." Lord Eddard's voice was sharp with impatience.

Arya raised her eyes. "I'm sorry, Father. I was wrong and I beg my sweet sister's forgiveness."

Sansa was so startled that for a moment she was speechless. Finally she found her voice. "What about my dress?"

"Maybe … I could wash it," Arya said doubtfully.

"Washing won't do any good," Sansa said. "Not if you scrubbed all day and all night. The silk is ruined."

"Then I'll … make you a new one," Arya said.

Sansa threw back her head in disdain. "You? You couldn't sew a dress fit to clean the pigsties."

Ned figures it out:

Father's mouth twitched strangely. "Sansa, I'm not sending you away for fighting, though the gods know I'm sick of you two squabbling. I want you back in Winterfell for your own safety. Three of my men were cut down like dogs not a league from where we sit, and what does Robert do? He goes hunting."

Arya was chewing at her lip in that disgusting way she had. "Can we take Syrio back with us?"

"Who cares about your stupid dancing master?" Sansa flared. "Father, I only just now remembered, I can't go away, I'm to marry Prince Joffrey." She tried to smile bravely for him. "I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian. I want to be his queen and have his babies."

He is!" Sansa insisted. "I don't want someone brave and gentle, I want him. We'll be ever so happy, just like in the songs, you'll see. I'll give him a son with golden hair, and one day he'll be the king of all the realm, the greatest king that ever was, as brave as the wolf and as proud as the lion."

Arya made a face. "Not if Joffrey's his father," she said. "He's a liar and a craven and anyhow he's a stag, not a lion."

Sansa felt tears in her eyes. "He is not! He's not the least bit like that old drunken king," she screamed at her sister, forgetting herself in her grief.

"Stop that weeping, child," Septa Mordane said sternly. "I am certain your lord father knows what is best for you."

"It won't be so bad, Sansa," Arya said. "We're going to sail on a galley. It will be an adventure, and then we'll be with Bran and Robb again, and Old Nan and Hodor and the rest." She touched her on the arm.

"Hodor!" Sansa yelled. "You ought to marry Hodor, you're just like him, stupid and hairy and ugly!" She wrenched away from her sister's hand, stormed into her bedchamber, and barred the door behind her.

50 AGOT Eddard XIV

The morning was overcast and grim. Ned broke his fast with his daughters and Septa Mordane. Sansa, still disconsolate, stared sullenly at her food and refused to eat, but Arya wolfed down everything that was set in front of her. "Syrio says we have time for one last lesson before we take ship this evening," she said. "Can I, Father? All my things are packed."

"A short lesson, and make certain you leave yourself time to bathe and change. I want you ready to leave by midday, is that understood?"

"By midday," Arya said.

51 AGOT Arya IV: When Meryn Trant and five red cloaks come for Arya at her dancing lessons Syrio Forell gives his life to buy her time to escape. Luck reunites her with Needle, but Arya has to kill a stable boy. Retracing her path through the dungeon, Arya escapes the Red Keep.

52 AGOT Sansa IV

She was the good girl, the obedient girl, but she had felt as wicked as Arya that morning, sneaking away from Septa Mordane, defying her lord father.

53 AGOT Jon VII

"My lord, what of my sisters? Arya and Sansa, they were with my father, do you know—"

54 AGOT Bran VI: In a long list of preposterous rumors:

Arya and Sansa had been murdered by the Hound.

Robb angers that Sansa'a letter makes no mention of Arya.

"And she says nothing of Arya, nothing, not so much as a word. Damn her! What's wrong with the girl?"

56 AGOT Catelyn VIII: Robb points out to Catelyn that Sansa's letter does not mention Arya.

58 AGOT Sansa V

And at the end, near last, came the names Sansa had been dreading. Lady Catelyn Stark. Robb Stark. Brandon Stark, Rickon Stark, Arya Stark. Sansa stifled a gasp. Arya. They wanted Arya to present herself and swear an oath … it must mean her sister had fled on the galley, she must be safe at Winterfell by now …

60 AGOT Catelyn IX: Walder Frey's demands include Arya's engagement to Elmar. Robb notes Arya will dislike that.

66 AGOT Arya V: After barely surviving life as an orphan in fleabottom, Arya witnesses Ned's beheading and is taken by Yoren who cuts her hair and calls her “boy.”

A Clash of Kings

75 ACOK 2 Arya I: Yoren smuggles Arya out of King's Landing with the men for the Night's Watch. On the road, she's bullied by Hot Pie at Lommy's urging, but gets in trouble with Yoren when she defends herself too forcefully.

79 ACOK 6 Arya II: Travelers warn Yoren he's walking into a war zone. Goldcloaks come with a warrant for Gendry. The men for the Watch combine their strength to defend one of their own.

80 ACOK 7 Jon I: Jon struggles to imagine Aemon younger than Arya.

81 ACOK 8 Catelyn I: Robb explains to Catelyn that he won't free Jaime, even for Arya and Sansa.

"If your crown is the price we must pay to have Arya and Sansa returned safe, we should pay it willingly.”

83 ACOK 10 Arya III: Yoren's party runs out of food in the warzone and it gets scary. They rescue a toddler from a burned village. When she goes to make water in the woods, Arya comes face to face with wolves. She tells Yoren she's afraid and he tells her he should have left King's Landing by ship and that, in thirty years of taking this road, he's never seen it like this.

88 ACOK 15 Arya IV: Arya warns they shouldn't stay in the holdfast by the Godseye, since all the locals have fled. But Yoren says they'll be safe because the Night's Watch takes no part in the wars of the realm. But Amory Lorch burns the holdfast and Arya saves the three from the wagon.

91 ACOK 18 Tyrion IV: The crown has men searching for Arya.

92 ACOK 19 Sansa II

She tried not to think of them too often, yet sometimes the memories came unbidden, and then it was hard to hold back the tears. Once in a while, Sansa even missed her sister. By now Arya was safe back in Winterfell, dancing and sewing, playing with Bran and baby Rickon, even riding through the winter town if she liked.

Sansa found herself thinking of Lady again. She could smell out falsehood, she could, but she was dead, Father had killed her, on account of Arya.

93 ACOK 20 Arya V

Arya thinks she can sneak food from the village. But it turns out to be a military outpost and Arya's party is captured by the Mountain's men.

95 ACOK 22 Bran III: Bran remembers that, at the feast for King Robert, “Arya made faces across the table when no one was looking”

97 ACOK 24 Jon III: When Jon wakes to the beauty of frost in the forest, he thinks “Arya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all.”

100 ACOK 27 Arya VI: Interrogations by the God's Eye break Arya's lip and cripple her spirit. Arya starts her list. The villagers seized from the surrounds are marched to Harrenhal to work as servants. They are slaves.

104 ACOK 31 Arya VII: Jaqen H'ghar gives Arya three deaths to name. She wonders if she ought to kill them herself, being a Stark. Her list, which helped keep her calm on the road to Harrenhal, is now a kill list.

105 ACOK 32 Catelyn III

How they loved to promise heads, these men who would be king. "Your brother promised me the same. But if truth be told, I would sooner have my daughters back, and leave justice to the gods. Cersei still holds my Sansa, and of Arya there has been no word since the day of Robert's death."

107 ACOK 34 Catelyn IV: Catelyn sees Arya's face, among others, in the drawing of the Warrior.

112 ACOK 39 Arya VIII: Tywin marches from Harrenhal. Arya realizes too late she should have given Tywin's name to Jaqen H'ghar.

119 ACOK 46 Catelyn VI: Cleos tells Catelyn Tyrion swore he'd trade Arya and Sansa for Jaime. He did not see Arya with his own eyes, but Catelyn imagines she might still be there.

Arya was the only one to show much of Ned in her features.

Arya had always been harder to tame. Perhaps Cersei was reluctant to parade her in open court for fear of what she might say or do. They might have her locked safely out of sight. Or they might have killed her. Catelyn shoved the thought away

121 ACOK 48 Arya IX: Arya means to give Harrenhal to the north with her Weasle Soup, but the northern captives were planted to take it. Jaqen gives Arya an iron coin to find him again, since she can't go with him. He shows that he can change his face. Arya is promoted to Bolton's cupbearer.

125 ACOK 52 Jon VI: Ygritte reminds Jon of Arya

Something about her made him think of Arya, though they looked nothing at all alike.

She looked plump as she crouched there, but most of that was layers of fur and wool and leather. Underneath all that she could be as skinny as Arya.

129 ACOK 56 Catelyn VII

"And Arya, well . . . Ned's visitors would oft mistake her for a stableboy if they rode into the yard unannounced. Arya was a trial, it must be said. Half a boy and half a wolf pup. Forbid her anything and it became her heart's desire. She had Ned's long face, and brown hair that always looked as though a bird had been nesting in it. I despaired of ever making a lady of her. She collected scabs as other girls collect dolls, and would say anything that came into her head. I think she must be dead too." When she said that, it felt as though a giant hand were squeezing her chest.

131 ACOK 58 Sansa V: Sansa prays for Arya as she prays for all her family.

138 ACOK 65 Arya X: News of Winterfell's fall and Bran and Rickon's deaths reaches Harrenhal. Arya despairs. When Roose Bolton says he'll not take her with when he goes north, Arya asks Harrenhal's heart tree for guidance. She determines she must escape to Robb at Riverrun or be Nan forever. Convincing Gendry and Hot Pie to come with her, Arya kills a guard and escapes Harrenhal.

A Storm of Swords

147 ASOS 4 Arya I: When she realizes she's endangered her friends, Arya feels guilty. They would still be safe at Harrenhal if not for her. She has to protect them. Arya unwittingly wargs Nymeria to kill the Bloody Mummers who have been tracking them.

157 ASOS 14 Arya II: Foraging in an abandoned garden, Arya's pack is discovered by Tom, Lem and Anguy. After luring them to the Inn of the Kneeling Man on the promise of a meal, Tom gives Arya paper for their horses. She declines, but it wasn't an offer. When Harwin is among the riders who arrive, Arya runs to him. Harwin tells the brotherhood Arya is the Hand's daughter.

159 ASOS 16 Jon II: A second mention that Ygritte reminds Jon of Arya

She reminded him a little of his sister Arya, though Arya was younger and probably skinnier. It was hard to tell how plump or thin Ygritte might be, with all the furs and skins she wore.

160 ASOS 17 Sansa II

little Lady Bulwer reminded her of Arya, though not so fierce.

Sansa had once dreamt of having a sister like Margaery; beautiful and gentle, with all the world's graces at her command. Arya had been entirely unsatisfactory as sisters went. How can I let my sister marry Joffrey? she thought, and suddenly her eyes were full of tears. "Margaery, please," she said, "you mustn't." It was hard to get the words out. "You mustn't marry him. He's not like he seems, he's not. He'll hurt you."

In Sansa's dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya.

161 ASOS 18 Arya III: The story of the Mummer's Ford. When she realizes the kingsmen aren't taking her to Riverrun, Arya makes a run for it. Harwin brings her back and Arya wishes she had stayed Squab instead of revealing her identity. Harwin was already Dondarrion's man, and no longer Robb's.

166 ASOS 23 Arya IV: After visiting the Lady of the Leaves in a hidden treetop village, the kingsmen take Arya to Sallydance, High Heart, and Acorn Hall. Lady Smallwood has seen Lord Beric Dondarrion recently when Thoros brought her sheep. Arya ruins a pretty acorn dress wrestling with Gendry.

170 ASOS 27 Jon III: Ygritte reminds Jon of Arya a third time.

"If you kill a man, and never mean t', he's just as dead," Ygritte said stubbornly. Jon had never met anyone so stubborn, except maybe for his little sister Arya. Is she still my sister? he wondered. Was she ever? He had never truly been a Stark, only Lord Eddard's motherless bastard, with no more place at Winterfell than Theon Greyjoy.

173 ASOS 30 Arya V: At Stoney Sept, Arya gives drinks of water to the men in the crow cages and Anguy puts arrows through their heads. At The Peach, she's made to bathe again and dressed up in frilly girl's clothes. Gendry tells a stinky man she's his sister and gets angry when she asks him why. The Mad Huntsman returns with a captive they call “Lannister.”

178 ASOS 35 Arya VI: Inside the Hollow Hill, the Mad Huntsman's captive is revealed to be the Hound. He's accused of the Mountain's crimes, but asks if they take him for his brother. Arya accuses him of killing Mycah and Lord Beric Dondarrion sentences the Hound to trial by combat. The Hound kills Dondarrion, but Thoros bring him back to life.

179 ASOS 36 Catelyn IV

"Battles," muttered Robb as he led her out beneath the trees. "I have won every battle, yet somehow I'm losing the war." He looked up, as if the answer might be written on the sky. "The ironmen hold Winterfell, and Moat Cailin too. Father's dead, and Bran and Rickon, maybe Arya. And now your father too."

181 ASOS 38 Jaime V: Opening if the Jeyne Poole arc, which relates more closely to Theon's and Jon's stories than to Arya's

"How does Lord Walder relish dining on trout in place of wolf?" he asked.

"Oh, trout makes for a tasty supper." Bolton lifted a pale finger toward his cupbearer. "Though my poor Elmar is bereft. He was to wed Arya Stark, but my good father of Frey had no choice but to break the betrothal when King Robb betrayed him."

"Is there word of Arya Stark?" Brienne leaned forward. "Lady Catelyn had feared that . . . is the girl still alive?"

"Oh, yes," said the Lord of the Dreadfort.

"You have certain knowledge of that, my lord?"

Roose Bolton shrugged. "Arya Stark was lost for a time, it was true, but now she has been found. I mean to see her returned safely to the north."

"Her and her sister both," said Brienne. "Tyrion Lannister has promised us both girls for his brother."

183 ASOS 40 Arya VII: The Brotherhood ambush the Bloody Mummers at a septry and burn it down. They hang the captured brigands, giving them trials first. Gendry asks to join the Brotherhood and is knighted.

187 ASOS 44 Arya VIII: When The Ghost at High Heart tells Lord Beric at seek Lady Catelyn at the Twins instead of at Riverrun, it changes their plans. But Arya has had enough. Calling them liars, she runs away to cry by herself. The Hound takes Arya to ransom her, since the Brotherhood took his gold.

189 ASOS 46 Catelyn V: Catelyn objects to Robb's naming Jon his heir, claiming Arya should come before Jon. Robb says he thinks Arya is dead.

". . . and dead. No one has seen or heard of Arya since they cut Father's head off. Why do you lie to yourself? Arya's gone, the same as Bran and Rickon, and they'll kill Sansa too once the dwarf gets a child from her. Jon is the only brother that remains to me. Should I die without issue, I want him to succeed me as King in the North. I had hoped you would support my choice."

191 ASOS 48 Arya IX: The Hound takes Arya to the ferry at Harroway Town. The river is so flooded they lose a man crossing. Though the Hound has promised gold to cross, saying “knight's honor” he gives the paper the Brotherhood gave him when they took his gold and says it's supposedly good for nine thousand dragons. Arya learns the Hound is taking her to her family at the Twins.

194 ASOS 51 Arya X: The Hound and Arya arrive outside the Twins, Arya wants to reveal herself to the first likely nothmen, but fears Bolton. The Hound is disguised as a pig farmer and he's cut Arya's hair to pass her off as his son. He drops off the pig's feet and aims toward the castle.

196 ASOS 53 Arya XI: When Arya sees the drawbridge opening, she tastes success, but the Hound tells her to get down. He explains it's a massacre and she'll be killed if she goes into the castle, but Arya darts away. The Hound rides Arya down like he did Mycah and hit her in the head with his axe.

195 ASOS Catelyn VII: Catelyn thinks of Arya among her children before her throat is cut.

197 ASOS 54 Tyrion VI

"The price was cheap by any measure. The crown shall grant Riverrun to Ser Emmon Frey once the Blackfish yields. Lancel and Daven must marry Frey girls, Joy is to wed one of Lord Walder's natural sons when she's old enough, and Roose Bolton becomes Warden of the North and takes home Arya Stark."

"Arya Stark?" Tyrion cocked his head. "And Bolton? I might have known Frey would not have the stomach to act alone. But Arya . . . Varys and Ser Jacelyn searched for her for more than half a year. Arya Stark is surely dead."

"So was Renly, until the Blackwater."

209 ASOS 66 Arya XII: Traveling with the Hound, Arya wants to go back to the Twins to save her mother. In a wolf dream, Arya drags her mother's corpse to shore. Arya tells the Hound she knows her mother is dead. Then she feels like no one.

216 ASOS 73 Jaime IX: Jaime speaks to Jeyne Poole, who is about to leave King's Landing to return north with Steelshanks, to Bolton.

218 ASOS 75 Arya XIII: The Hound goes into an inn for wine, but three Mountain's Men are there. Arya recognizes Polliver and the Tickler. It comes to blows and, though they win the Hound is injured. He asks Arya for the gift of mercy, but she denies him. In Saltpans, Arya boards a ship to Braavos, using her iron coin as fare.

220 ASOS 77 Jon XI: Jon thinks of Arya as among those in line before him with claims to Winterfell.

Winterfell would go to Robb and then his sons, or to Bran or Rickon should Robb die childless. And after them came Sansa and Arya. Even to dream otherwise seemed disloyal, as if he were betraying them in his heart, wishing for their deaths.

224 ASOS 81 Sansa VII

For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya. But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie.

She had last seen snow the day she'd left Winterfell. That was a lighter fall than this, she remembered. Robb had melting flakes in his hair when he hugged me, and the snowball Arya tried to make kept coming apart in her hands. It hurt to remember how happy she had been that morning.

She remembered a summer's snow in Winterfell when Arya and Bran had ambushed her as she emerged from the keep one morning. They'd each had a dozen snowballs to hand, and she'd had none. Bran had been perched on the roof of the covered bridge, out of reach, but Sansa had chased Arya through the stables and around the kitchen until both of them were breathless. She might even have caught her, but she'd slipped on some ice. Her sister came back to see if she was hurt. When she said she wasn't, Arya hit her in the face with another snowball, but Sansa grabbed her leg and pulled her down and was rubbing snow in her hair when Jory came along and pulled them apart, laughing.

A Feast for Crows

232 AFFC 7 Arya I: Arya arrives at the House of Black and White and must convince a kindly man to let her join the order.

235 AFFC 10 Brienne II

(Catelyn) had spoken of Arya too, her younger daughter, but Arya was lost, most likely dead by now.

248 AFFC 23 Arya II: A poor liar and novice at the House of Black and White, a girl is clearly Arya of House Stark. She sheds her belongings, as required, but Arya hides Needle instead of throwing her sword away.

252 AFFC 27 Samwell III: As Aemon shivers, dying in Braavos, Sam waits for Dareon to return with food and firewood. Instead, news of dragons comes with rescue by Xhondo. 548-551

“He is not a lord,” a child's voice put in. “He's in the Night's Watch, stupid. From Westeros.” A girl edged into the light, pushing a barrow full of seaweed; a scruffy skinny creature in big boots, with ragged unwashed hair. “There's another one down at the Happy

Port, singing songs to the Sailor's Wife,” she informed the two bravos. To Sam she said, “If they ask who is the most beautiful woman in the world, say the Nightingale or else they'll challenge you. Do you want to buy some clams? I sold all my oysters.”

“I have no coin,” Sam said.

“He has no coin,” mocked the fair-haired bravo. His dark=haired friend grinned and said something in Braavosi. “My friend Terro is chilly. Be our good fat friend and give him your cloak.”

“Don't do that either,” said the barrow girl, “or else they'll ask for your boots next, and before long you'll be naked.”

“Little cats who howl too loud get drowned in the canals,” warned the fair-haired bravo. “Not if they have claws.” And suddenly there was a knife in the girl's left hand, a blade as skinny as she was. The one called Terro said something to his fair-haired friend and the two of them moved off, chuckling at one another.

“ Thank you,” Sam told the girl when they were gone.

Her knife vanished. “If you wear a sword at night it means you can be challenged. Did you want to fight them?”

“No.” It came out in a squeak that made Sam wince. COMPLETE QUOTE 548-551

257 AFFC 32 Brienne VI: The Elder Brother on the Quiet Isle tells Brienne Arya is the one who was the Hound's hostage, not Sansa.

"Your Dornishman did not lie," the Elder Brother began, "but I fear you did not understand him. You are chasing the wrong wolf, my lady. Eddard Stark had two daughters. It was the other one that Sandor Clegane made off with, the younger one."

"Arya Stark?" Brienne stared open-mouthed, astonished. "You know this? Lady Sansa's sister is alive?"

"Then," said the Elder Brother. "Now . . . I do not know. She may have been amongst the children slain at Saltpans."

260 AFFC 35 Cat of the Canals: Though surveying the Ragman's Harbor disguised as an oyster seller, Arya breaks her cover to kill Night's Watch deserter Dareon, as a Stark. She tells the kindly old man as one of her three observations and wakes up blind.

263 AFFC 38 Brienne VII: Brienne wonders if Willow could be Arya.

Brienne wondered whether Willow might be more than she appeared. The girl was too young and too plain to be Sansa Stark, but she was of the right age to be the younger sister, and even Lady Catelyn had said that Arya lacked her sister's beauty. Brown hair, brown eyes, skinny . . . could it be? Arya Stark's hair was brown, she recalled, but Brienne was not sure of the color of her eyes. Brown and brown, was that it? Could it be that she did not die at Saltpans after all?

A Dance With Dragons

Jeyne arc 284 ADWD 13 Reek I: Ramsay asks Theon if he remembers Arya.

Reek, I have glad tidings for you. I am to be wed. My lord father is bringing me a Stark girl. Lord Eddard's daughter, Arya. You remember little Arya, don't you?"

Arya Underfoot, he almost said. Arya Horseface. Robb's younger sister, brown-haired, long-faced, skinny as a stick, always dirty. Sansa was the pretty one. He remembered a time when he had thought that Lord Eddard Stark might marry him to Sansa and claim him for a son, but that had only been a child's fancy. Arya, though … "I remember her. Arya."

285 ADWD 14 Bran II: The children of the forest remind Bran of Arya.

A cloud of ravens was pouring from the cave, and he saw a little girl with a torch in hand, darting this way and that. For a moment Bran thought it was his sister Arya … madly, for he knew his little sister was a thousand leagues away, or dead. And yet there she was, whirling, a scrawny thing, ragged, wild, her hair atangle.

Jeyne arc 292 ADWD 21 Reek II: Theon recognizes Jeyne Poole.

That is not Lord Eddard's daughter.

Arya had her father's eyes, the grey eyes of the Starks. A girl her age might let her hair grow long, add inches to her height, see her chest fill out, but she could not change the color of her eyes. That's Sansa's little friend, the steward's girl. Jeyne, that was her name. Jeyne Poole.

293 ADWD 22 Jon V: A girl who reminds Jon of Arya would join the Night's Watch for food.

“And yes, I will take your women too. I have no need of blushing maidens looking to be protected, but I will take as many spearwives as will come."

"And girls?" a girl asked. She looked as young as Arya had, the last time Jon had seen her.

"Sixteen and older."

Alys arc 300 ADWD 29 Jon VI: Jon receives Ramsay's wedding invitation

"He's to marry Arya Stark. My little sister." Jon could almost see her in that moment, long-faced and gawky, all knobby knees and sharp elbows, with her dirty face and tangled hair. They would wash the one and comb the other, he did not doubt, but he could not imagine Arya in a wedding gown, nor Ramsay Bolton's bed. No matter how afraid she is, she will not show it. If he tries to lay a hand on her, she'll fight him.

Jon felt as stiff as a man of sixty years. Dark dreams, he thought, and guilt. His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart. He'd had Mikken make a sword for Arya once, a bravo's blade, made small to fit her hand. Needle. He wondered if she still had it. Stick them with the pointy end, he'd told her, but if she tried to stick the Bastard, it could mean her life.

Melisandre tells Jon:

I have seen your sister in my fires, fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you. A girl in grey on a dying horse, I have seen it plain as day. It has not happened yet, but it will."

Jeyne & Alys arcs 303 ADWD 32 Melisandre I: Meisandre has a plan to save Arya for Jon

"You have not asked about your sister," Melisandre said, as they climbed the spiral steps of the King's Tower.

"I told you. I have no sister. We put aside our kin when we say our words. I cannot help Arya, much as I—"

"You cannot help her, but he can."

Snow wrenched his arm away. "I think not. You do not know this creature. Rattleshirt could wash his hands a hundred times a day and he'd still have blood beneath his nails. He'd be more like to rape and murder Arya than to save her. No. If this was what you have seen in your fires, my lady, you must have ashes in your eyes. If he tries to leave Castle Black without my leave, I'll take his head off myself."

306 ADWD 35 Bran III: Bran sees Lyanna spar with Benjen

The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn't be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him.

307 ADWD 36 Jon VII: Jon prays for Arya and worries about the rescue.

But what if Arya was not there to be saved? What if Lady Melisandre's flames had told it true? Could his sister truly have escaped such captors? How would she do that? Arya was always quick and clever, but in the end she's just a little girl, and Roose Bolton is not the sort who would be careless with a prize of such great worth.

Jeyne arc 309 ADWD 38 The Prince of Winterfell

"I will be a good wife to him, and t-true. I … I will please him and give him sons. I will be a better wife than the real Arya could have been, he'll see."

Talk like that will get you killed, or worse. That lesson he had learned as Reek. "You are the real Arya, my lady. Arya of House Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter, heir to Winterfell." Her name, she had to know her name. "Arya Underfoot. Your sister used to call you Arya Horseface."

"It was me made up that name. Her face was long and horsey. Mine isn't. I was pretty." Tears spilled from her eyes at last. "I was never beautiful like Sansa, but they all said I was pretty. Does Lord Ramsay think I am pretty?"

Alys arc 316 ADWD 45 Jon IX: Alys Karstark reminds Jon of Arya, who he's been worrying about.

He wanted to believe it would be Arya. He wanted to see her face again, to smile at her and muss her hair, to tell her she was safe. She won't be safe, though. Winterfell is burned and broken and there are no more safe places.

She looked enough like Arya to give him pause, but only for a moment. A tall, skinny, coltish girl, all legs and elbows, her brown hair was woven in a thick braid and bound about with strips of leather. She had a long face, a pointy chin, small ears.

But she was too old, far too old. This girl is almost of an age with me. "Has she eaten?" Jon asked Mully.

No," said Clydas, "but I have served one."

She does look a bit like Arya, Jon thought. Starved and skinny, but her hair's the same color, and her eyes. "I am told you have been asking after me. I am—"

"—Jon Snow." The girl tossed her braid back. "My house and yours are bound in blood and honor. Hear me, kinsman. My uncle Cregan is hard upon my trail. You must not let him take me back to Karhold."

"Why not the king? Karhold declared for Stannis."

"My uncle declared for Stannis, in hopes it might provoke the Lannisters to take poor Harry's head. Should my brother die, Karhold should pass to me, but my uncles want my birthright for their own. Once Cregan gets a child by me they won't need me anymore. He's buried two wives already." She rubbed away a tear angrily, the way Arya might have done it. "Will you help me?"

317 ADWD 46 The Blind Girl: Arya is sent begging on the Isle of Gods in a new persona as Blind Beth. Feeling herself to be the Night Wolf, Arya wargs a cat in order to see. The next morning, she wakes to find her sight restored.

Jeyne arc 325 ADWD 54 Jon XI

Jon walked to the edge of the Wall and gazed down upon the killing ground where Mance Rayder's host had died. He wondered where Mance was now. Did he ever find you, little sister? Or were you just a ploy he used so I would set him free?

It had been so long since he had last seen Arya. What would she look like now? Would he even know her? Arya Underfoot. Her face was always dirty. Would she still have that little sword he'd had Mikken forge for her? Stick them with the pointy end, he'd told her. Wisdom for her wedding night if half of what he heard of Ramsay Snow was true. Bring her home, Mance. I saved your son from Melisandre, and now I am about to save four thousand of your free folk. You owe me this one little girl.

Outside the old Flint Barracks, he came across a dozen men pelting one another with snow. Playing, Jon thought in astonishment, grown men playing like children, throwing snowballs the way Bran and Arya once did, and Robb and me before them.

336 ADWD 65 The Ugly Little Girl: Arya is shown the hall of faces, wears her first face, gives the gift and is promoted to acolyte.

Jeyne & Alys arc 341 ADWD 70 Jon XIII: His belief Ramsay has Arya is basic to Jon's decision to ride for Winterfell

He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird's nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back …

"I think we had best change the plan," Jon Snow said.