While the long wait continues for Winds of Winter, the next book in George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire series that sparked the popular Game of Thrones television show, the author is giving fans a little taste of hope with a newly released excerpt from the novel!
The sampler focuses in on the Sands and Martells, some of whom have met their fates on the show but remain alive and well in the books.
“You want to know what the Sand Snakes, Prince Doran, Areo Hotah, Ellaria Sand, Darkstar, and the rest will be up to in WINDS OF WINTER? Quite a lot, actually,” Martin said in his blog post revealed the new excerpt.
However, Martin also made sure to note that this release does not mean that he’s done writing the book and a release date is on the horizon.” And no,” he said, “just to spike any bullshit rumors, changing the sample chapter does NOT mean I am done. See the icon up above? Monkey is still on my back… but he’s growing, he is, and one day…”
Get a taste of Winds of Winter below!
The passageway Arianne had chosen for herself turned steep and wet within a hundred feet. The footing grew uncertain. Once she slipped, and had to catch herself to keep from sliding. More than once she considered turning back, but she could see Ser Daemon’s torch ahead and hear him calling for Elia, so she pressed on. And all at once she found herself in another cavern, five times as big as the last one, surrounded by a forest of stone columns. Daemon Sand moved to her side and raised his torch. “Look how the stone’s been shaped,” he said. “Those columns, and the wall there. See them?”
“Faces,” said Arianne. So many sad eyes, staring.
“This place belonged to the children of the forest.”
“A thousand years ago.” Arianne turned her head. “Listen. Is that Joss?”
It was. The other searchers had found Elia, as she and Daemon learned after they made their way back up the slippery slope to the last hall. Their passageway led down to a still black pool, where they discovered the girl up to her waist in water, catching blind white fish with her bare hands, her torch burning red and smoky in the sand where she had planted it.
“You could have died,” Arianne told her, when she’d heard the tale. She grabbed Elia by the arm and shook her. “If that torch had gone out you would have been alone in the dark, as good as blind. What did you think that you were doing?”
“I caught two fish,” said Elia Sand.
“You could have died,” said Arianne again. Her words echoed off the cavern walls. “…died… died … died…”
