The cave stank of old earth, wet stone, and rot. A faint trickle echoed somewhere deeper, too far to matter. Roots curled like veins across every rock surface, each of them pulsing with sap the color of blood. Brynden Rivers sat still at the center of it all.
He didn't blink. He didn't breathe. He barely remembered how to do either, not that he needed to. The throne of weirwood he sat on had grown around his body a long time ago, serving the tri-function of connecting him to the gestalt of minds that formed the old gods, as well as serving as a life support and a cage.
It had pierced skin, settled into meat, and wrapped itself around his spine. He could still feel the wet wood pressing against the bone of his back. Most days, he didn't notice anymore. There was just a dull, constant feeling, soothing in its familiarity.
His body was... long gone.
His flesh had long since withered, his sword-arm atrophied to a pale, crooked limb. One eye was gone, plucked out in youth, and the other... the other saw too much. Brynden Rivers had once been a man. A sorcerer, a knight, a kinslayer. Now he was a root in the tree, a ghost in the world. And something new had entered it.
His remaining eye blinked open.
The winds had shifted. It was not the icy breath of the Others that stirred the weirwoods this time, nor the clumsy pyres of R'hllor's priests with their flickering fire-truths half a world away. This was... foreign. Twisted. And old.
The green veins of Westeros pulsed with unease. Leaves rustled on weirwoods all the way from Skagos to the Whispering Wood. The Children were the second to feel it, those that still lurked in the cave complex he called home. A scream was immediately let loose, one that tore free from a familiar voice, Leaf. His heart ached as he heard the gurgling as another child immediately vomited sap.
Nothing was free of the unnaturalness. Even the trees shuddered.
Brynden halted his wool gathering and released his mind, an act that allowed him to slip deep into the current of the world, down into the roots, and through the face of the tree. His unshackled mind spread wide until it found a tree just close enough, and there it was.
It was close, not in the Land of Always Winter, but nestled halfway into the Frostfangs, less like a natural protrusion and more like something that had been fused unnaturally. The space around the structure was wrong, and he felt it as a pressure behind his eye. It was a towering edifice of stone and iron and blood that had not existed yesterday; now it sat like a tumor beneath the stars.
It was a familiar structure, yet one that had no business this far into the North. A castle, yet not one of First Men, Andals, or Rhoynar make. The closest resemblance he could find was of Valyrian architecture, yet even for ancient Valyria, the structure felt… more. Alive to his magical senses in the same way Harrenhal felt, a castle steeped deep in blood and magic.
He stared at its gates: obsidian and gold, forged by no blacksmith of Westeros. Its spires shot upward like jagged fangs. Its bridges defied wind. It was an architectural marvel, and perhaps if he had been looking at it with mundane physical eyes, that would be all. But he stared at the castle with more than eyes and heard with more than ears. He connected to it through the old gods of air, earth, and trees, and that connection allowed him to hear the screaming from men and things that were once men.
He retreated back to his mortal shell.
"This... is not of the song," he rasped aloud, his voice like stone grinding against itself. "Not of fire, nor of ice. A third thing."
A raven perched on his shoulder, then another on his twisted knee. Dozens gathered, cawing.
"Should I stop it? Can I stop it?" Brynden asked. Not to them. To the connection he maintained to all the trees.
The weirwoods did not answer. Instead, the roots that snaked around his form pulsed again, not in the dulled pain he had grown familiar with over the long years, but with curiosity. Even the old gods were interested in this new thing.
The weirwood's veins opened to him once more, and he slipped sideways into another vision. Not forward, not back. Just… to the side. He allowed a tentative connection to the castle, an act that would have let him see its future, past, and present if it were of this world. But it wasn't, and the only reason Brynden risked it at all was because he had the metaphorical weight of the old gods behind him.
Immediately, he connected to the castle, and he saw something. A man within. No- not a man. A thing in the shape of one. Tall. Cloaked. A mind like a forge: cold, orderly, and cruel. It walked halls that bent reality. It fought and battled with the ferocity of a monster. Yet its eyes... mourned. Paradoxically, it read and studied, taught others, and learned further itself. A creature of growth. A monster of stagnation.
Brynden had watched thousands of kings rise and rot. He had seen Baelor the Blessed whip himself bloody for love of holiness, seen Maegor the Cruel crack the skulls of children. But this one was different.
The man before him was a paradox. A king of monsters. A man among monsters. A loving father, a cruel lord. A struggling scribe, a blood-hungry madman. His last image was of the man in a coffin— when suddenly, he was repelled with so much force it felt like the snap of a rubber band as his soul was punted away by wards activating. Only the metaphysical weight of the old gods stopped his mind from dispersing. Instead, the trees groaned, lakes shriveled up, and landslides occurred.
Brynden fought against the dispersion. The more the old gods bore the brunt of his transgression, the more the world suffered for it, so he roughly forced his soul back into his old, dying body. When he opened his eye again, tears of sap had dried on his cheeks.
The cave had grown colder.
"Bran must come," he said aloud.
The wind did not answer. The old gods stayed silent. The roots that served as both his life support and his prison remained still. But the ravens did not.
"Bran... must... come," they echoed in the silence.
And come he would. But now, perhaps, not soon enough, Brynden Rivers thought as the children of the forest quickly came to him for answers. Answers he was not certain he had to give.
xx
Mantarys was a corpse.
A city walking long after death, carried forward by habit, superstition, and filth. The dragonlords who once ruled from its towers were long gone, devoured in fire centuries ago, but the stink of them still lingered in the stone. Their slaves had stayed. Their beasts had bred. Their blood, twisted by generations of corruption and smoke, still crept through the alleys in the shape of coughing children and silent, yellow-eyed men.
Melisandre stood at the edge of the square, robed in her red silks, with her arms lifted toward the sky. Her voice carried, clear even above the hiss of ashfall.
"Our Lord is the Light in the darkness! He is the fire that consumes all lies! All things not born in flame will fall before Him! Come, you of the downtrodden, the helpless, the weak, the sick. The fire preserves us, the fire cleanses! The fire saves!"
She did not shout. She never needed to. Her voice was meant to be heard. It wound through the bones of every broken man in earshot. Some dropped to their knees. Others wept. A few stared with empty eyes, too far gone to understand. That was fine by her. The red priests were always in need of all-too-willing sacrifices. A broken mind was easy to put on such a path.
The sky above her was pale and dirty. There was the beginning of a storm far off to the west, but it had no strength. The ash was light today, which was a good sign that the Lord of Light was with her. More would listen when they could breathe.
She opened her mouth to speak again— and stopped.
The heat changed, but it was not a physical thing. Instead, it was something subliminal, something underneath it all. A sudden pulse. Her senses interpreted it like a furnace door opening too wide. But it was not fire that came out. Simply something that mimicked it with false life.
Fire— but false and frozen, like a mirror held up to flame that didn't cast warmth or light, just a hunger. She staggered to the side at the sensation, only managing to hold herself up thanks to a well-placed pillar.
One of her acolytes rushed to her side immediately, confusion written across his features. "Lady Melisandre—?"
She ignored him. Instead, she turned her face to the east. No... north. Far. Beyond the rivers. Beyond the wastes. Beyond the Shivering Sea. Her fingers curled tightly around her ruby. The gem pulsed. Once. Twice. Then it flickered.
That had never happened before.
Fear filled her as she stepped down from the broken step of the old temple ruin, her sandals crunching black glass underfoot. Her body still moved, but her mind had already left. She cast her eyes upward.
And she saw it, not through flame nor through glass. There was no theatrics. No ritual. No calling. No pleading for R'hllor's blessing of sight. The vision came with the subtlety of a brick through a glass window. Her eyes rolled up into her head as her body turned stiff.
She watched as red lightning struck, and a castle that did not belong to this world tore its way into it like a blade into soft meat. It buried itself into snow and stone, its silhouette unnatural against the clouds. A shape that kissed the very sky as its towers pierced even higher than the clouds. Its base bled into the land like rot through a wound as it buried itself into a mountain.
Her heart beat as she tried to peer deep into the castle, but she felt the sensation of rebuttal. The structure was barred to everyone, and not even her Lord of Light was brave enough to force his way through. Even if he could, she had the sense the consequences would be too great. Still, her lord was not without his means, and through the vision, she watched a man walk past a window.
That's what made her freeze.
There was no flame in him. None. And yet… he lived. Truly lived, and not like the cold ones, who were twisted and bound to the Great Other. Her breath left her in a single word.
"Falsefire."
The ruby around her throat throbbed again, panicked now. The light inside it twisted, rippling like oil on a dark sea. As she was ejected out of the vision, she tightened her hold on the pillar lest she fall.
She knew what this meant.
Something had entered the world without fire, without birth, without sacrifice. A creature in an edifice that defied the promise of R'hllor. Heresy made manifest. Her acolytes gathered near her now, surrounding her hunched-over figure from passing observers. One tried to speak. Another held out a flask of water.
She did not see them.
Instead, her mind went back to the image of the man she had seen through the glass of the castle. Broad. Tall. Pale. Silent.
His gaze had scanned the land as if it were all within his reach. Cold eyes. Purposeful in demeanor. Not cruel. Not gentle. Just inevitable. She could feel power wrapped around him like a shroud. Not gifted like hers, or borrowed like the shadowbinders of Asshai.
It was simply power. Unshaped. Unchecked. His power.
"What is this, my lord?" she whispered to herself, her questioning words the greatest of heresy. Yet she could not stop them from spilling out, not at the appearance of something outside the great wall she had built her life around.
She had thought herself chosen. Believed herself led. She had seen dragons return. Seen kings rise. The Others stir in the north. Azor Ahai returned with his sword of fire. All things fitting into a pattern. A prophecy. A truth shaped in the fire of her Lord.
But this? This wasn't part of any prophecy. This was something outside the story entirely. However, despite the heavy shock, she didn't fall to her knees. She was stronger than that. But her hand went to her stomach.
The ruby flared bright for a final time, a last transmission, then dimmed again.
The crowd began to murmur. Melisandre turned her back to them and began to walk, her acolytes surrounding and questioning her like an honor guard. But she continued to ignore them all, her mind lost in thought.
First, she would go north. Only then would she understand.
x
The tower stank of burning oils, old paper, and a touch of blood.
Most Archmaesters avoided the highest chamber of the Ravenry, the oldest building in the Citadel. It wasn't officially restricted. Just... forgotten. Forgotten like dangerous things often are. The door warped in the frame. The stairs groaned. The air was thick and still. Marwyn lived here alone. Among bones, books, and other things the Citadel pretended didn't exist.
A dim oil lamp flickered near the base of the high hearth, casting dancing shadows across the soot-black walls. Bottles clinked softly as he moved past them. Dried tongues of basilisk and wyvern tail. Jars with floating eyes. A bowl that never held the same reflection twice. Marwyn was the only person brave or mad enough to live here, which was why the sight of the suddenly lit candle froze him.
No sound. No wind. Just flame, green, alive, and wrong.
Marwyn stood over it with a half-filled goblet of black wine in one hand and a dagger used for bloodletting in the other. He hadn't moved for nearly a minute. The fire above the glass twisted like it had a spine, dancing against physics, casting shadows that didn't match the room.
Then Marwyn grinned, wide and broad in its honesty.
"Well now," he muttered.
The wine sloshed as he stepped closer, boots creaking against warped stone. He set the dagger down next to a preserved heart in a jar and leaned in until the heat from the candle kissed his beard.
It didn't burn. It was warm, yes, but not in a way fire should be. The heat was conceptual. Something he understood as heat, but which did not behave like it.
It wasn't reacting to oxygen. It was reacting to his presence, or perhaps the presence of something else.
"Two hundred years dead," he said aloud, circling it like a hunter around a wounded beast. "No one had been able to light one. Not during the Dance. Not since the Doom itself."
He reached out with a heavy, weathered finger and touched the surface of the candle.
Pain lanced through him, sharp and quick, but he didn't flinch. The glass was cold. Too cold. Like the very depths of the sea. Cold, dark and uncaring.
Then it spoke to him, not with words but with images.
A castle.
Similar to Valyrian make to the layman's eyes, but the architecture was all wrong. Not Rhoynar. Not Asshai. He'd seen the ruins of Old Ghis, read the cracked glyphs of Leng, and stood beneath the twisted bones of Yeen.
This... was different. Other.
A fortress that stood like a black wound in the world. Its towers reached past sense. A black stain on the otherwise white snowfield of the far north. Not even the falling snow seemed to rest on it; instead, it slipped down the structure like oil on water.
Marwyn saw a figure atop one of the spires. He stood tall and still. He wore no crown but had the demeanor of a ruler anyway. A man, shaped like one, dressed like one, and draped in silence and something far heavier than death. Red eyes turned to look back at him, and Marwyn leaned in, eyes wide.
"Who are you?" But he didn't say it with fear. He said it with awe.
The figure blinked—brimstone-red eyes—while his hands gently tugged at his goatee as he looked back at Marwyn with regal features. The figure opened his mouth, and Marwyn was greeted with fangs. Yet before the figure could speak, the vision broke like glass.
Alongside it, the glass candle shattered.
Yet despite the destruction of such a precious and rare magical instrument, Marwyn laughed. A loud, full-bellied sound that startled the mice in the walls and sent the birds flying in fright.
He had spent decades poring over heretical texts. Had walked Sothoryos alone. Had stolen secrets from Carcosa and returned sicker, but smarter. The other maesters mocked him. Called him the Mage in ridicule. Said he chased shadows.
But this wasn't a shadow. This was real. They said magic was dead, and while his exploration had proved there was some truth in those words, for magic truly had been diminished, the figure he had seen made it all too clear: something had changed.
He turned to his worktable. Cleared it with one sweep of his arm. Scrolls fell. Bones scattered. Wax cracked. He knew where he was going; a simple glimpse had been enough. He was one of the few maesters brave enough to have traveled that far north, and he never forgot the sight of that towering mountain range.
He pulled open a thick, ironbound chest and began laying out his tools: obsidian blades, preserved leech sacs, red crystal dust, maps of the Lands of Always Winter marked with notations in three tongues. He sharpened a quill. He dipped it in blood. He began writing.
"The world has changed. The fire burns again, but it is not ours. I must go north."
He rolled the parchment. Sealed it with wax. There was no name attached to it, no address. Anyone who found it would do whatever they wanted with it.
Marwyn turned back to the shattered remains of the candle and bared his teeth. He had received an invitation, or at least that was how he interpreted what he saw. "Wait for me."
Then he turned back to the open chest and he began packing. Not quickly. Not like a man running from something. But like a man running toward something that most people would piss themselves thinking about.
He packed with preparation. He would need protection. Wards. Steel. Dragonglass, if he could steal it from the vaults. And guidance, perhaps he could recruit a member of the Night Watch or brave the Cold north on his own once more. Whatever option he picked, he would need to hurry. The thing in the castle waited for him.