"How can the branches and roots of a tree ever be separated?" Dany asked, puzzled.
"What's wrong with that?" Brynden repeated his earlier gesture of flicking his head and lowering it again, giving Dany a brief, strange look.
"In reality, can a tree survive if its trunk and roots are separated?" Dany pressed.
"Do you think a true god is the same as an ordinary tree? The Mother's branches bathe in sunlight, breathe in the sweet air, and listen to the joyful songs of the wind. Yet her roots are buried deep in the coldest, darkest depths of the earth, cloaked in shadow, drawing strength from it, thriving in it. The Mother's roots sing the song of darkness."
"Ah!" Dany gasped in sudden realization. "I see! That explains it. The Gate God has two songs!"
No wonder the White Walkers and the Greenseers share nearly the same foundation in their meditations—because they truly stem from the same source.
No wonder the Greenseers' relationship with the White Walkers and the Cold God is so ambiguous—they have always been tangled together, inseparable.
No wonder Melisandre claimed from the beginning that the Greenseers were servants of the ancient alien gods. She wasn't entirely wrong.
And no wonder, in the teachings of the Lord of Light, R'hllor and the Cold God are eternal enemies.
Aren't light and darkness eternally opposed?
"Sigh, to think that a god as serene and desireless as the Gate God could form two songs, while R'hllor, who leaps about causing chaos and death for himself and others, can't even hold onto his own Song of Fire. The gap between gods is truly immense!" Dany said with a strange expression.
"Why do you think the Mother is without desire?" Brynden flicked his head again, his red eyes flashing with a strange light.
Dany finally lost her patience and interrupted, "What are you trying to show off for? In just a few sentences, you've tossed your hair several times like some vain peacock. We're communicating spiritually. I've allowed you into my mind—you don't need to use your eyes to see."
Brynden's movement froze midair. His pale face flushed crimson with embarrassment, as if he had been caught doing something shameful.
After a while, he touched the red birthmark on his right cheek and said wistfully, "I never noticed that habit of mine until you pointed it out. Before the first Blackfire Rebellion, back when I could still see from my left eye, I never did that. My long hair covered the right side of my face and eye, and I grew used to looking at the world with my left."
Dany's expression shifted as she asked, "Because of a woman—Serenei of Lys? Did she think the birthmark on your face was ugly?"
As the saying goes, a woman dresses for the one she loves.
If a man cares deeply about his looks, it's almost always because of a woman—assuming he loves women.
"Uh, you—" Brynden's face turned even redder. He gave Dany a surprised look and muttered, "You're really sharp."
In truth, Serenei of Lys had once touched his cheek while holding his hand, jokingly saying, "That blood raven on your face looks so fierce and ugly."
She hadn't meant it seriously—lovers often tease one another that way.
But Brynden was a sensitive soul. He remembered those words for the rest of his life, and ever since, he tried his best to keep the red raven birthmark hidden from her sight.
When he lost his left eye, however, he could no longer avoid it.
To clearly see the face of the woman he loved, he had to reveal his right eye—and doing so would inevitably expose the mark on his right cheek.
So he developed a habit: whenever he sensed a change in someone's tone during conversation, he would flick his hair aside to reveal his right eye, study their expression, then lower his head again so that his hair covered his face.
This habit, formed over decades, was something even Brynden himself hadn't realized until today.
Others must have noticed long ago, but who would dare comment on it?
This was the Bloodraven—the one with "a thousand and one eyes."
The sorcerer Bloodraven. The kinslayer Bloodraven. The man who once cast a white terror across the Seven Kingdoms.
An existence "whose name must not be spoken."
Except, of course, for the audacious Dragon Queen—she was the only one bold enough to mock his "vain" habit to his face.
"So, why didn't Serenei of Lys marry you?"
And there it was—the Dragon Queen fearlessly stabbed straight into the Duke's heart.
"Why do you ask that?" Brynden frowned.
"I'm just interested in family history," Dany said solemnly.
Brynden was executed by Dany's great-grandfather at fifty-eight, already an old man by then. Serenei of Lys was about the same age.
By that time, even the most flighty woman should have settled down with someone she could tolerate.
Yet neither of them ever married, and everyone in the Seven Kingdoms knew that Brynden had proposed to Serenei more than once.
That was… unusual.
Then again, perhaps it was simply a matter of bloodline.
Targaryen men are mad, and Targaryen women are wild—every one of them peculiar in their own way.
Among the Seven Kingdoms and the royal domain, eight great families in all, none produced as many scandalous lovers as the Targaryens. The Martells of Dorne ranked second, and the Ironborn of the Isles third.
The Starks, with their blood of the running wolf, had a few princesses who once ran away with wild men. Yet they were passionate, not wanton—faithful to the end, and the most well-bred among the noble houses.
Good breeding, after all, is not measured by how many lovers one has had in life, but by how many one juggles at the same time.
Take, for instance, Rhaenys—the first noblewoman to popularize the keeping of pretty boy lovers. Even though she had a conquering husband, she still maintained a string of paramours.
Or Serenei of Lys, the lover of Brynden Rivers.
And Brynden Rivers—what a remarkable man he was.
Yet his girlfriend still kept seeing him while maintaining several other lovers at the same time.
It was said that even "Cold Iron" Eigar Rivers had an affair with Ciri.
"I don't want to talk about that," Brynden said coldly, glancing at Dany with emotionless eyes. "If you're not interested in the Cold God, then let's discuss Jon Snow."
"Fine, go on. How did the Gate God become the Cold God?" Dany shrugged with a bright smile.
"The Mother God was not without desire. On the contrary, Her wish was far too great, beyond the comprehension of ordinary people."
"What wish?" Dany asked curiously.
"To save the world."
"Uh… that's indeed a bit hard to understand. The ones who want to destroy the world are the White Walkers, and they were created by the Cold God. So what was His relationship with the Mother God? Still, He did sacrifice Himself to forge the miraculous Wall.
Playing both savior and destroyer—was He schizophrenic or something?" Dany muttered, her lips twitching.
Brynden replied, "The one who destroys the world is neither the Cold God nor the Mother God. Our world was already in decline—
—from a high-energy cosmic state to a low-energy one. The Long Night was merely the surface symptom of this cosmic disaster."
"This theory sounds…" Dany frowned. It seemed like the Old Man of the River had said something similar before.
"I possess the memories of countless generations of greenseers. I know how powerful they once were. They split the Arm of Dorne, creating today's open Narrow Sea; they unleashed great floods that drowned continents, cutting the land in half; vast forests turned into swamps, isolating the North from the southern continents."
Brynden sighed. "In theory, with each generation, greenseers should become more powerful than their ancestors. But no matter what I do, I cannot stir the tides of magic. I cannot wield that kind of forbidden power."
"How did the Gate God plan to save the world?" Dany asked.
Brynden said, "The Other God came from the void beyond the world. He told the Dark Mother that the end of the world's fall would be the same as His realm of nothingness—cold, lifeless, and dark.
Since that was inevitable, He proposed to take advantage of the weakening of the world's laws during the cosmic downgrade to remake the world, to establish new laws and chart a new course for its future.
In other words, destroy the creatures of sunlight and create a new world—cold, dark, and frozen.
As you can imagine, the Long Night would become the new world's normal state, and the White Walkers would be its dominant beings.
The Dark Mother, who drew strength from cold and shadow, agreed with the Other God's vision and chose to merge with Him. Thus, the ancient god of the void became one of the Old Gods—the Cold God."
"The Cold God must be insane. The White Walkers can't even reproduce, and they're all controlled by the White Walker King. This 'new humanity,' like the new world itself, is frozen and lifeless—how could that be anything but extinction?" Dany said, her lips twitching again.
"Who told you the White Walkers can't reproduce? Haven't you heard the story of the Night King?"
"The Night King was just a normal man of the Night's Watch who married a White Walker woman. No one knows if they had children.
Even if the northern legends are true and White Walkers can have half-human, half-walker offspring with humans, they still need humans for that process. White Walkers are parasites of humanity—how could they possibly create a world on their own?" Dany argued.
Brynden replied, "Ten thousand years ago, a greenseer used the knowledge of the Other God to transform himself into an independent, self-willed White Walker.
Now, you study White Walker meditation, inventing new forms of it to deceive the Faceless Men. Ten thousand years from now, meditation could evolve again, become perfect—and the White Walkers could indeed become the new humanity. Why not?"
"In that case, why are you still resisting? Go ahead and embrace your new world," Dany said.
"I am a creature of sunlight! Just like during the First Long Night, when the greenseers of the Children of the Forest foresaw their race's extinction, they refused to fade away. They created the White Walkers in an attempt to rewrite destiny and destroy the true heirs of the coming age—humans.
I, too, do not wish to see warm-blooded life replaced by the icy dead.
The Wind Mother, born from the breath of air and sunlight, also longs to see the world thrive—to see endless summer.
The Dark Mother and the Wind Mother took different paths, but their purpose was the same—to save the world.
The Wind Mother held on to hope, believing that one day a savior would be born to stop the world's descent. But the Dark Mother believed that as the world continued to fall, the champions of each age would only grow weaker, and if even the true gods could not halt it, what hope could any savior possibly have?"
Dany frowned. "You schemed against me before—do you really think Azor Ahai reborn can stop the world's fall? Even I wouldn't dare dream of that. Never mind the Prince That Was Promised, even if R'hllor Himself descended, it wouldn't matter."
In Dany's mind, there was a simple equation: Dragon Queen > Sheep Egg > R'hllor > Azor Ahai > Jon Snow—each one weaker than the last.
Even standing at the top of the "food chain," she had no idea how to stop the world's decline. So what could Jon possibly do?
Everyone knew Jon Snow knew nothing.
"If the world's fall is like a great fall from a building, then we've probably already dropped from the tenth floor to the seventh. We can still hold out for another five or six ages.
But the Long Night is close. If we fail, winter will be eternal and the sun will vanish forever.
That means we face two enemies: the world's collapse itself, and the Cold God's transformation of the world into eternal night.
The Prince That Was Promised has little chance of halting the world's fall, but according to destiny, he will at least end the Third Long Night.
Unfortunately, you were meant to be the most crucial part of that destiny—but you stepped outside of it. Now the future is chaos, and no one can see what lies ahead," Brynden said helplessly.
"Heh. Like you said, the Children of the Forest couldn't accept extinction in the new age and created the White Walkers to defy fate.
And you, a warm-blooded creature, refuse to be replaced by them and struggle against destiny.
You all fight to escape the strings of fate, yet you expect me to follow your so-called destiny obediently—the one you made up yourselves. Isn't that ridiculous?" Dany sneered.
"You win," Brynden said. "You've changed fate. As the Three-Eyed Raven, I feel despair and anger—but as Brynden Rivers, I'm proud of you."
Then he frowned again. "My time is running short. Let's get to the main topic."
(End of Chapter)
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