When she climbed all the way up to the highest branch, Arya could see chimneys poking¹ through the trees. Thatched roofs clustered along the shore of the lake and the small stream that emptied into it, and a wooden pier² jutted³ out into the water beside a low long building with a slate⁴ roof.  She skinnied farther out, until the branch began to sag⁵ under her weight. No boats were tied to the pier, but she could see thin tendrils of smoke rising from some of the chimneys, and part of a wagon⁶ jutting⁷ out behind a stable.  Someone’s there. Arya chewed her lip. All the other places they’d come upon had been empty and desolate⁸. Farms, villages, castles, septs, barns, it made no matter. if it could burn, the Lannisters had burned it; if it could die, they’d killed it. They had even set the woods ablaze⁹ where they could, though the leaves were still green and wet from recent rains, and the fires had not spread. “They would have burned the lake if they could have,” Gendry had said, and Arya knew he was right. on the night of their escape, the flames of the burning town had shimmered¹⁰ so brightly on the water that it had seemed that the lake was afire.  When they finally summoned the nerve to steal back into the ruins the next night, nothing remained but blackened stones, the hollow shells of houses, and corpses¹¹. In some places wisps of pale smoke still rose from the ashes. Hot Pie had pleaded with them not to go back, and Lommy called them fools and swore that Ser Amory would catch them and kill them too, but Lorch and his men had long gone by the time they reached the holdfast. They found the gates broken down, the walls partly

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