Tormenta de espadas / A Storm of Swords

The day is grey and bitter cold when a horn blast shudders through the haunted forest, a single long note for returning brothers of the Night's Watch. But then comes a second, for wildlings. And then a third, a sound not heard in eight thousand years. The brothers on the Fist of the First Men look at each other with eyes wide with terror. Three blasts. Three means Others. The dead are coming, walking in the snow with eyes of ice, and a conspiracy of deserters turns to dust as the true enemy descends in a storm of slaughter, leaving only a few ragged survivors to flee south through the blizzard, a tide of walking corpses at their heels.

South of the Wall, the War of the Five Kings grinds on. Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, is freed from his cell in Riverrun by a grieving Catelyn Stark, who trades her most valuable captive for the hope of seeing her daughters again. Chained and shorn, he is entrusted to a hulking, homely warrior woman, Brienne of Tarth, for the long journey to King's Landing. But Catelyn's brother Edmure, enraged by her treason, sends men to hunt them down. In the west, her son Robb, the King in the North, wins victory after victory against the Lannisters, storming castles and smashing armies. But in the aftermath of one assault, nursing an arrow wound, he is comforted by the gentle daughter of a minor lord, and in a moment of passion, he takes her maidenhood. Honor compels him to wed Jeyne Westerling, a choice that shatters his alliance with the powerful and prickly House Frey, whose daughter he was sworn to marry.

The riverlands are a wasteland of burned villages and broken men. Fleeing the horrors of Harrenhal, Arya Stark falls in with the Brotherhood Without Banners, a band of outlaws who have pledged their swords to the smallfolk and the memory of the dead King Robert. Led by the enigmatic Lord Beric Dondarrion, a man who cannot be killed, and the red priest Thoros of Myr, they roam the woods like ghosts, dispensing a rough and fiery justice. Here Arya finds a flicker of fellowship, but it is torn away when she is captured by Sandor Clegane, the Hound, who sees in her a prize to be ransomed. So begins another journey, a hateful trek through mud and blood with the dog who killed her friend, his only aim the gold he can get for her.

In King's Landing, Tyrion Lannister's reward for saving the city is a scar that ruins his face and the loss of all his power. His father, Lord Tywin, has come to rule as Hand, and his sister Cersei whispers poison in their father's ear. Stripped of his authority and friends, Tyrion is forced into a political marriage with Sansa Stark, his nephew's discarded bride. Sansa, lost in a fog of grief and fear, finds a brief glimmer of hope when the Tyrells arrive. The beautiful Margaery is to be Joffrey's new queen, and her clever, sharp-tongued grandmother, the Queen of Thorns, plots to spirit Sansa away to Highgarden to wed her crippled grandson. But the city is a nest of spies, and Lord Tywin moves to counter them, arranging a different match for his new prize.

Across the narrow sea, Daenerys Targaryen's dragons grow, but her khalasar starves. She turns her ships toward Slaver's Bay, and in the ancient city of Astapor, she makes a cruel bargain. For the price of her largest dragon, she buys an army of peerless slave soldiers, the Unsullied. But when the bargain is struck, she gives a command. “A dragon is no slave,” she tells the masters, just before she orders her dragons to burn them and her new army to sack the city. She marches on the yellow city of Yunkai next, buying the loyalty of one sellsword company and terrifying another. When the slaves of Yunkai hear her promise of freedom, they rise up and throw open the gates, hailing her not as a conqueror, but as “Mhysa” - Mother.

Beyond the Wall, Jon Snow rides with the wildlings, torn between his vows to the Night's Watch and his love for the spearwife Ygritte. He learns their ways and their songs, and in a hidden grotto, he forgets his oath in the warmth of her arms. To prove his loyalty, Mance Rayder sends him with a band of raiders to scale the Wall and attack Castle Black from the south. But when they demand he kill an innocent man, Jon turns on them. He escapes in the chaos, an arrow in his leg, and reaches Castle Black just in time to lead its meager garrison - a handful of old men, green boys, and cripples - in a desperate defense against the wildling assault. He holds the Wall, but in the battle, he sees Ygritte die, an arrow in her breast. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispers, and her breath is gone.

The drums thunder at the Twins, where Edmure Tully is to wed Roslin Frey. It is a wedding meant to heal the breach between the two houses, a feast of forgiveness. But as the bride and groom are carried off to their bedding, the musicians in the gallery put down their pipes and fiddles and take up crossbows. The doors are barred, and the slaughter begins. Robb Stark is slain, his direwolf's head sewn onto his shoulders in a final, grisly mockery. Catelyn, watching her son die, goes mad with grief and cuts a fool's throat before the steel finds her own. The Red Wedding sends a wave of blood and horror across the Seven Kingdoms, and the war is won.

But kings continue to fall. At the lavish feast celebrating his own wedding to Margaery Tyrell, King Joffrey claws at his throat and dies, his face black with poison. In the chaos, Sansa Stark is spirited away by the master of coin, Petyr Baelish, who reveals that he and the Queen of Thorns orchestrated the king's death. Cersei, mad with rage, accuses her brother Tyrion of the murder. Jaime Lannister returns to the capital a changed man, maimed and humbled, only to find his son dead, his brother condemned, and his sister spiraling into paranoia. He has lost his sword hand, but finds a sliver of honor when he gives his new Valyrian steel blade to Brienne and sends her to find and protect the last Stark girl.

Tyrion's trial is a mockery of justice. Shae, the whore he loved, testifies against him with a string of damning lies. Hopeless, Tyrion demands a trial by combat. The fiery Prince Oberyn of Dorne, seeking his own vengeance, champions the dwarf against the monstrous Ser Gregor Clegane. But the Red Viper's thirst for a confession proves his undoing, and he dies screaming under the Mountain's mailed fist. Condemned, Tyrion is freed from his cell by Jaime, who confesses a devastating secret about Tyrion's first wife. In the depths of the Red Keep, Tyrion finds his father on the privy and kills him with a crossbow bolt. As the bells of the city begin to toll, he is smuggled aboard a ship, a kinslayer and a kingslayer bound for parts unknown. And in the north, the brothers of the Night's Watch, facing an enemy of ice and darkness, choose a new Lord Commander to lead them through the long night to come: the bastard boy, Jon Snow.