content: 
  === Braavos ===
  Arriving in Braavos, Arya Stark finds her way to the House of Black and White, a temple associated with the assassins known as the Faceless Men. As a novice there, Arya is taught to abandon her identity and pose as an anonymous girl called "Cat of the Canals", but her true identity asserts itself in the form of wolf dreams.
  Jon Snow has ordered Night's Watch steward Samwell Tarly to sail to the Citadel in Oldtown, to research the hostile creatures known as the Others and become a maester. Sam is accompanied by the aging Maester Aemon, the wildling girl Gilly, Gilly's newborn baby, and Dareon, another Night's Watch member. After the voyage is underway, Sam realizes that the child is actually the son of the wildling leader Mance Rayder, swapped with Gilly's son for his protection. Aemon becomes sick and the party waits in Braavos for his health to improve. After learning that Daenerys Targaryen possesses dragons, Aemon concludes that she is destined to fulfill a prophecy. Shortly after the party leaves Braavos (without Dareon), Aemon dies at the age of 102.
  Arya chances to meet Dareon and executes him as a deserter from the Night's Watch. The Faceless Men punish her for this unauthorized killing by feeding her a potion that causes blindness.
  At the end of the novel, Samwell arrives at the Citadel to begin his training. He meets the archmaester Marwyn, who tells him the maesters are plotting against magic, and leaves to find Daenerys. Samwell also encounters a fellow apprentice who introduces himself as Pate, connecting the prologue to the narrative.