An excerpt from George RR Martin's Game of Thrones prequel Fire and Blood has turned up on the author's website. While that's fairly interesting in itself, the real intrigue is in what the little breadcrumbs the passage drops could mean for the finale of the TV show next year.

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The extract follows Alysanne Targaryen, the wife (and, er, sister) of fourth Targaryen king Jaehaerys I, on her first trip up north. Alysanne takes it upon herself to organise a "women's court" which is apparently "a thing hitherto unheard of in the North", so if Alysanne managed to set any kind of precedent then we might finally get a big chat between the powerful women of Westeros should Daenerys swoop into the Stark family homestead at any point.

There's a little hint that it might take the White Walkers a few episodes to reach Winterfell when the series returns too. When Alysanne heads to the Night's Watch for a quick hello, it's noted that the "distance was not negligible, even flying".

The land beyond the Wall itself is obviously pretty rotten, but a section in the excerpt adds some more mythos to it.

Alysanne writes to her husband/brother that she tried to fly over the Wall three times but: "every time she veered back south again and refused to go. Never before has she refused to take me where I wished to go. I laughed about it when I came down again, so the black brothers would not realise anything was amiss, but it troubled me then and it troubles me still." Creepy.

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