[ For all that her father's sigil is a mockingbird, Alayne knows very little of birds (and she wonders if that is a failing on her part). So she takes what the stranger says as read, that it is only the black ravens — so much like crows — that bully supposed poets. ]

We are born into lots in life, [ she says, carefully, making her words seem uncertain even though Alayne knows them to be true. A lady, a bastard, a king — each title was a station and each station was a cage. ] The Citadel crows are meant to fly at the coming of winter and not before.

Terrible, perhaps, but also true. Though— just because something is terrible does not mean it cannot cease being so.