One of the major benefits of landing this far north was the lack of direct sunlight. Unfortunately for me, sunlight was one of the few vampire weaknesses all fanfictions got right. The kiss of the sun against unprotected skin was enough to make a vampire combust outright if they suffered the full brunt on their unarmored body.
However, I was Vlad Tepes Dracula, and no sunlight was enough to kill me... At least that's what I hoped. Dracula had few memories of walking under the sun that I was aware of, and I had not had the opportunity to test just how resistant I was to the sun.
I stretched out my hand as the Nightmare, the night creatures' version of a horse, carried me forward. The twisted beast stood at over six feet tall, with bulging muscles and a maw that was filled with fangs. It snorted as it pushed through the snow, its red eyes scanning left and right for the slightest hint of a threat so it could sink those pearl-white fangs into.
My hand remained outstretched in search of the sun, yet whatever light that managed to slip through the ever present clouds didn't let out enough UV rays to do anything to my pale skin. I pulled my hand back and focused on the trip.
Ahead of me rode Isaac and one of his night creatures, some sort of owl-man hybrid. It had taken Isaac and his night creatures a few months to track down the particular cave I asked about, which, considering the number of caves present south of the Frostfangs as well as my vague descriptions of the internal structure of the cave, I was surprised it didn't take them longer. At least until I considered the night creatures' inability to get tired, and all of a sudden, it made more sense to me.
My memories about the cave were vague, but I remembered enough to know that Brynden Rivers should be deep in one, somewhere in the Haunted Forest, protected by wards strong enough to protect him from the White Walkers. Alongside a cadre of Children of the Forest who, if I was being very honest, I wasn't very worried about.
Still, whatever wards had been placed around the cave didn't seem to cause much of a problem for the owl-man night creature, as it had managed to step a foot in before a literal murder of crows attacked it. It took all the night creature had to turn tail and run away. A tactical retreat, according to Isaac. I smiled internally.
My Nightmare continued to trek, its well-muscled limbs tirelessly moving through the snow and sending us ahead, then I finally noticed it. Pulling on the reins to stop was instinctive, considering I'd never ridden a horse before other than that one time at the beach. Luckily for me, the Nightmare must have been very familiar with Dracula because it came to a halt immediately with a neigh and a snort, loud enough to draw Isaac's attention.
"What is wrong, Master Dracula?"
I turned my head and looked at the perch of a scanty tree where a black crow stared back at me with eyes that were just the slightest bit too intelligent.
"What is wrong, Master Dracula?" the all-too-attentive black bird parroted with a curious tilt of its head.
I hummed in response as Isaac's dagger slipped out of his sleeve a second later, while his night creature rose higher into the sky. The Nightmares, as if they could sense the tension in the air, began to paw at the ground aggressively while letting out snorts of air.
"Bloodraven?" I questioned, even though I knew I was correct. I could sense it. Human magic. It was what alerted me to Brynden's presence. However wargs transferred their minds into animals left enough of a trace for someone as magically adept as Dracula to pick it up, even if I found it hard to tell what exactly my senses were highlighting. I knew enough to guess right.
"Go back," the crow... well, crowed. "Go back," it repeated with a puff of its chest and the flaring of its wings. I raised an eyebrow in curiosity. If this was supposed to scare me into turning back, then Bloodraven was more stupid than I thought. I immediately ignored the bird and urged the horse forward.
"Come on, Isaac, we're going onward."
Isaac nodded in agreement, then gave a low whistle, and a few seconds later, the owl-man night creature hurled down from the clouds toward the bird, catching it in its talons faster than the bird could realize, and with just enough time for Bloodraven to slip out of the bird's skin, judging by the brief flare of the arcane I sensed before the night creature's talons closed around the bird, killing it in a contained explosion of force that sent feathers and thin blood-stained bones flying.
We rode on as I considered the implications of the past few seconds. Bloodraven was aware of me. I was not exactly surprised by that. As a figure who dealt in prophecies by predicting the future, manipulating the present, and studying the past, I fully expected him to be aware of me in some capacity.
Still, I was curious to find him trying to stop me from coming to him. Just how much did he understand about what my presence meant? What had he seen in those green dreams of his?
"Go back," two crows echoed ahead, their voices carrying through the strange forest I found myself in. Despite its name, the Haunted Forest was a very normal-looking forest on the outside. It had various kinds of trees, trees that I didn't even have much knowledge about. Most of them didn't match up to the herbology that Dracula was familiar with.
So far, we had navigated the forest smoothly while making sure to avoid the Free Folk's villages and dwellings scattered across our path. The journey that should have lasted over two weeks had been accomplished in a little over four days, thanks to the Nightmares.
However, the new patch of forest we had stumbled into seemed to be the only part that lived up to its title. During our ride, the sun had been out, albeit covered by the heavy gray clouds that stopped most of it from slipping past.
However, the deeper we rode, the darker the forest became.
It wasn't just the thickness of the canopy or the heavy, low-hanging clouds blotting out the sun. No, this darkness felt deeper. Hungrier. It clung to the branches like rot and bled into the snow in patches, turning white to gray and gray to black. The air was still. Still in the way a room gets just before someone screams.
We were being watched. Not just by birds or beasts anymore, but by something more ancient. More aware. The Haunted Forest had stopped being a metaphor and had become something else entirely. Something quite literal.
The temperature dropped with every step forward. I didn't feel cold, not truly. Not in this body. But the air held a sharpness now that clung to exposed skin like broken glass. My Nightmare snorted again, slower this time. More cautious. Its predatory instincts were flaring up.
Good. Let them flare.
I had not crossed half the forest just to turn back now. Bloodraven's warnings were noted and promptly dismissed.
"Go back," the crows had said. Twice. With meaning. But I was Vlad Dracula fucking Tepes. I had heard worse last words.
Isaac's mount drew level with mine as we crossed beneath a gnarled arch of dead pine trees, their limbs twisted into shapes that looked too deliberate to be natural. Bones hung from them. Small ones. Bird, maybe. Child, possibly. I didn't care to look too close.
"You feel it, don't you?" I asked Isaac without looking at him.
"Yes, my lord," he said. "The forest... It's watching us."
"Good," I muttered. "Your senses have not dulled yet."
The path continued, and the trees multiplied, half-dead white trees, absolutely covered and clustered with crows that stared back at our procession of three with wide, unblinking black eyes, while repeating the words over and over, "Go back."
Yet despite the haunting image the whole scene was giving off, there was nothing but interest in my eyes as I stared at the hundreds of corvid birds that watched us while repeating the same words like a mantra. Still, that was all they did. There was no attack, so I didn't bother with them. Instead, I allowed myself to think.
I knew Bloodraven was powerful, at least he had to be. After the Others, or White Walkers, he had to be the strongest thing on this side of the Wall. Still, in the magic-starved world, a feat such as this should have been difficult, unless... Unless he was getting help.
The path finally began to narrow as the forest thinned, then vanished entirely. There was no trail anymore, just open snow, trees, and an overwhelming sense of trespass. Even the Nightmares were slower now. No longer charging forward, but stepping carefully, like cats through a house that wasn't theirs.
Ahead, the trees thickened again, and then parted.
We found the cave.
It didn't look like much. A shallow mouth in a hill, half-covered in snow and vine. But even from this distance, I could feel the magic bleeding off it. It felt Ancient, layered, and coiled into itself like a hibernating serpent. I could not tell if it was hostile yet, but I knew whatever wards that gave it its power were at least alert to my presence.
Isaac raised a hand, halting his creature. His owl-man landed beside us, feathers twitching, eyes unblinking. He looked ready for a fight. Isaac glanced back at the murder of crows counting in the hundreds behind us, perched on the trees we had passed, and staring back at us with those black eyes of theirs.
There was tension in the air, palpable enough that I'm certain I could have cut it with a knife if I was of a mind to. Instead, I found that whatever tension filled the air didn't seem to have any effect on me.
So I dismounted casually, boots crunching into the snow. My Nightmare shifted its weight behind me, low growls rumbling in its throat. I stepped forward slowly, cape shifting softly in response to the wind as my eyes locked on the cave's mouth. I waited for a second, then ten, then twenty. Vampires were immortal, but that immortality did not necessarily translate into patience.
"I know who you are," I called out and was greeted with silence, so I continued. "I have come here simply to seek audience as well as information." Because, despite my interest in whatever magic Bloodraven possessed, it was not the only reason I was here. Bloodraven would be my final answer to what exactly I was facing. Who exactly were my enemies? White Walkers or the Others.
I waited and watched the mouth of the cave, and still there were no words, but slowly I heard movements. The sound of feet so light they might as well be birds scrambling against the roots and leaves that littered the entrance of the cave.
After a few more seconds, the footsteps revealed their owner, and it was a small child. At least, if one squinted hard enough, and watched from a mile away, they could mistake the creature for one.
She was small, yes. Barely reaching my waist. But she moved with the surety of something older, far older. Her limbs were slender, and her face sharp. Her eyes, golden and too large for her face, glowed faintly like lanterns in the dusk as she watched me. Vines and leaves wove through her wild hair, and her clothing looked to be a mix of bark, moss, and strange forest silk. Her only resemblance to the title of Child of the Forest was her childlike stature.
But she was undeniably one. A Child of the Forest. One of the last.
She stopped just shy of the cave's edge. The wards around it shimmered faintly now that I was closer, like heat haze in the snow, and I could feel the strength of them pulse, reacting to my presence.
"You may approach," the creature said, voice soft and clear like wind chimes in a storm. "If you are able."
I raised a brow. A test, then: I stepped forward.
Immediately, the air thickened. The snow beneath my feet hissed as magic rippled outward from the cave's threshold. It pushed at me like a wall - no, like a tide. A storm front pressing against my body, testing me, tasting me. I felt the wards crawl along my skin, like ghostly fingers trying to peel something from my bones. My boots ground into the snow. One more step, then two.
The pressure increased.
I could push through, I was certain. The power coiling inside me could meet the wards and force them aside. They weren't made to repel things like me, not Vampires. They had been spun to keep out White Walkers, Others, Wights... mortals, perhaps. Not Dimensional Hopping monsters.
I was just about to break through when the Child screamed.
"Begone, outsider! Begone, kin of the cold ones!"
I stopped immediately. Not from fear, she posed no threat to me, but from the clarity of her voice. Not panic. Not confusion. Certainty.
Kin of the cold ones?
I didn't even have time to ask before I heard it. The crunch of snow. The sound of hooves.
From the thicket we'd just escaped emerged a beast of an elk, taller than any I had ever seen, its fur dark and matted with snow, breath steaming in the frozen air. Astride it sat a man dressed in the black cloak of the Night's Watch. His armor beneath it was worn, and his cloak ragged and frostbitten.
His skin was pale, dead pale, yet his eyes were pits of blackness much like the crows. His face was partially hidden behind a hood, but even beneath the hood, I recognized him, at least I had a good idea of who it was.
Coldhands.
His gloved hand drew the string of a longbow back. An arrow was already knocked, its tip aimed squarely at my chest. He didn't say a word.
"Hello there," I said coolly. "Benjen Stark."
I could see what could pass for surprise in those eyes as the bowstring thrummed and the hand's grip slackened and the arrow was loosed.
I moved.
The world slowed, just slightly, not enough for full speed, but enough to act. My arm rose, fingers curling midair. I caught the arrow mid-flight, inches from my face. I squeezed it tight, and it cracked in my palm, the head shattering against the force of my grip.
I released my fingers and watched the dragonglass fall from my hands in broken pieces while I observed the injury it had made on my palm. I had moved to catch the haft but had been too fast and caught the arrowhead instead. This was what I got for trying to move consciously instead of relying on Dracula's instincts.
Still, the thin cuts closed fairly quickly without even letting out a drop of blood, but the fact that it hurt at all, as well as the wards halting me, said a lot.
Isaac shouted something as a howl was loosed from somewhere in the woods. A howl that was followed by another, then another, and another. A full pack of wolves. Direwolves, most likely. Bloodraven was prepared. Isaac's night creature shrieked and spread its wings wide, while the Nightmare reared.
But I didn't pay attention to them. Instead, my red eyes found the pitch-black of Coldhands.
"You've made a mistake," I said flatly. "A very foolish one." My words were not directed at Coldhands himself but at the figure that pulled the strings.
Coldhands knocked another arrow and drew it taut in a second, and behind me, the crows began to scream.
So much for trying dialogue first.