4.Echoes of Hunger

258 AC, The Red Keep

The Young Princess 

There had been no chance to speak with her grandfather, to gauge his reaction and try to confide in him. While Aegon the Unlikely was a busy king, he wasn’t too hard to meet.

But Rhaella couldn’t meet him, no matter how much she wished to, despite being a princess of the blood and his only granddaughter.

The chambers of the Maidenvault were flush with velvet tapering and gilded furniture, an empty luxury meant to entertain Baelor’s sisters for a decade. A gilded prison in all but name, and now Rhaella’s cage. Even the ‘comfort’ here was something only the Blessed could do. Seven-pointed stars were painted on the doors, carved on the archways, pillars, and walls, and inscribed on chairs and tables with deep care. Even her bedding was embroidered with stars the colour of the rainbow…

“Recite the womanly virtues again, princess,” Septa Melona spoke, brows furrowed. 

Her stern, wrinkled face was like a dark cloud looming over Rhaella, ready to explode at the first sign of weakness.

“Patience, loyalty, mercy, silence, obedience, prudence, and piousness,” the princess recited slowly, looking at the Septa like she was a lackwit.

“And why,” Melona’s scowl deepened, “would you place piousness in the last place?”

Rhaella almost choked with frustration but kept her hands clasped in her lap and her face unmoving.

“Because you never told me to order them in importance, Septa Melona,” she said, smiling sweetly instead. It probably came out as a grimace.

“Don’t play coy with me, princess.” Septa Melona’s face somehow grew even frostier. “I watched you grow since you were a little thing, and you can’t hide your clever thoughts from me. Your parents and His Grace Aegon want to set you straight again and to avoid a repeat of that… heathen accident at Harrenhal. Recite the Seven-Pointed Star for me again—Book of the Stranger, chapter seventeen, verse twenty-three.”

“In death, all sins of the pious will be forgiven, but in life, all crimes must be punished…” Rhaella continued, monotonously reciting the contents of the Seven-Pointed Star until her throat grew dry and her lips chapped over. 

The more she recited, the more disgusted she felt with the Faith of the Seven and the Septa before her. They wanted to break her spirit by using the threat of the gods, but Rhaella knew better. She had seen the tragic, pitiful end that awaited her on the path of being a pious queen and an obedient wife to her brother and wanted nothing to do with it.

Rhaella knew all too well what they were doing. ‘A quiet retreat from secular life to cleanse her mind,’ her mother had called it. In truth, it was plain punishment for that mishap at Harrenhal. Word of the accident had been suppressed, but Lord Whent had been alienated after half of his godswood had been dug out by royal decree. Perhaps he had already been alienated when the king crashed his daughter’s wedding uninvited, but that was a far lesser issue than the trouble Rhaella had caused.

More than three months had passed since then, and each day, she would spend four hours with Septa Melona, praying for salvation and revising her study of the Seven-Pointed Star. Then, a short luncheon, an hour of silent reflection, and an afternoon spent on embroidery and stitches or study of history with the old Grand Maester. Then, evening came, and after dinner, Rhaella would only be allowed back to bed directly. Even her food was plain if plentiful. 

There were no strolls in the godswood, no walks in the city squares, and not even visits to the Great Sept of Baelor—her daily prayers were arranged in the Red Keep’s royal sept under heavy guard. It was a life of confinement in the Red Keep, where Rhaella was kept out of sight. Even observing the court sessions was out of reach for the princess. Septa Melona was her warden, her jailor, and tormentor, never leaving her side—and even sleeping with her in the Maidenvault. Ser Gerold Hightower was her direct gaoler, always watching and ever quiet.

Never before had Rhaella suffered such treatment. She had flowered here, waking up to sheets and garments stained crimson. As terrible as it felt, it was a victory. In another life, it would have seen her wedded to Aerys quickly.

“I don’t know what devil came to possess you, child.” The septa sighed once Rhaella had recited her passage to the end. “You are such a sweet princess, the pride of the Red Keep, always obedient, always mindful of your duty, and now, you’ve gone astray and need to return to the flock…”

“Should I recite another passage, Septa?”

Melona’s dark eyes gazed at Rhaella, seeking and failing to find something. “Proceed. Book of the Warrior, chapter two, verse five.”

Her throat had long gone dry, and her lips were cracked, but the princess paid the discomfort no heed. “The Warrior favours not the vain, and the Stranger walks beside the proud…”

It was a gruelling and mind-numbing gauntlet, meant to douse her defiance, and it felt like a noose around her throat. They meant to break her spirit and shatter her pride. Little did they know her spirit had been long broken, and her pride was shattered a thousand times over, and that was why she refused to falter. 

The House of the Dragon wanted the next queen to be mindful of her duty; the Iron Throne could afford no further scandals that would shake its already weakened position. A part of the reason was the impertinence of demanding to postpone her own wedding. The postponement was granted, but a good princess did not haggle or beg her parents and grandparents.  

But Rhaella was stubborn. The young princess knew she was at fault here; if she had avoided the godswood in Harrenhal, none of this would have happened. But now that she knew what awaited her, she was reluctant. She was reluctant to bow her head, even if obediently admitting fault would lessen the punishment. It would soften the restrictions placed on her, like a reward, a treat given to an obedient dog. But Rhaella Targaryen was a princess of the blood, not a dog to be trained.

As much as she loathed it, the method worked. The dull days blurred together, and her resolve was breaking down little by little. Her mind would drift while reciting, wandering like driftwood at sea. Every day her resolve dwindled, and the thought of just… returning to her obedient ways grew less repulsive. But each night, she dreamed of a woman screaming. A queen shrieking in pain. It reminded her what was at stake. 

“It’s time for luncheon,” the septa said once Rhaella finished the whole passage. “We will reconvene in an hour for the prayer.”

Ser Gerold Hightower escorted her back to the dining room, where a plain table with boiled eggs, chicken soup, and bread already waited for her. This was yet another form of penance for Rhaella—each meal was plain and unadorned, and none of the food was spiced beyond a tiny bit of salt.

Alyssa already waited for her, her face gloomy as she sat on one of the two free chairs.

Even though the Terrick maiden had volunteered to become her personal handmaid, she had not expected such an austere life when accompanying a princess. But there was no escape from the Maidenvault. When Ser Gerold withdrew for meals and sleep, Ser Tom Costayne would take his place at night and stand vigil as her gaoler. Rhaella found it ironic that here, in the Maidenvault, she received more protection from the white cloaks than ever before.

For good or bad, she did not even have a moment of privacy to dress as a servant or a smallfolk and attempt to escape as Daena the Defiant had done. Only Alyssa and the old septa were allowed in her quarters, and the princess had scarcely seen any servants. 

Rhaella stirred the soup with her spoon and sighed. Her belly grumbled, demanding food, but she couldn’t muster any appetite. 

‘This is it,’ the princess decided. 

Today, she would not eat. She would not drink the cup of milk either. Rhaella merely took the bread and a few chunks of meat and stood by the window. Steeling herself, she threw them out. Before they even fell, a murder of ravens descended, cawing up a storm as they attacked the food with fervour.

Rhaella grew hungrier, but she managed to resist the dinner too, once again throwing food to the ravens. 

The next day, she felt a tad weaker, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle, even though the pangs of hunger grew more frequent.

“You should eat, princess,” Alyssa said on the third day at lunch, her voice filled with concern. “You’re growing thinner.”

“I am fasting as penance,” Rhaella murmured, offering her handmaid a brittle smile. 

It was a poor excuse, but not one anyone could object to, not after they had cast her aside into the Maidenvault as punishment, trying to ‘cleanse’ her mind through prayer and quiet contemplation.

The food was cast through the window to feed the ravens outside again. Today, the flock had grown, the ravens clustered over the royal sept’s roof, dying it black. 

That day, she felt dizzy, and her mind struggled to focus. She was punished for failing to recite passages properly. 

Rhaella sneered inwardly. The hunger had lessened, but now she felt too weak to go to the window, as every exertion felt like a struggle. She only left bits of bread on the stone windowsill, and a large raven landed, pecking at them eagerly. Reluctantly, she drained the cup of milk at noon and another with watered-down ale in the evening. The dizziness receded. 

The fourth day, she stared at the soup and bread on the table with a dull face. Even though she knew the fare was bland and unspiced, her mouth watered. Surely a bite wouldn’t hurt. It took all of her strength to look away. Gods, she feared that the sight of food would break her resolve. She felt weaker today. The septa had scolded her for being scatter-minded. Today, she managed to resist drinking again. 

‘I will break before I bend in this,’ Rhaella spitefully thought. ‘Let’s see if you dare to kill your daughter.’

Her pious mother had never visited her since she was exiled to the Maidenvault. Neither her father nor her grandfather. They were all hypocrites. Her grandmother had come on the second day, advising her to keep her head low for a few moons, just enough so that the court could forget Harrenhal’s scandal.

‘The world isn’t fair,’ Rhaella reflected again.

But this was nothing compared to what awaited her in the future. If her fate remained unchanged, a time when she was locked up in Maegor’s Holdfast and used as a broodmare would be Rhaella’s life. She would not even be allowed alone with her children. She did not want such a life. She would not falter here.

On the fifth day, she felt so weak that she barely climbed out of bed. Her mind felt foggy, and her limbs refused to listen.

Rhaella stumbled out of her quarters after Alyssa helped her dress, and the world spun before pain jolted her head. The pain quickly gave way to numbness. Someone was yelling “Princess!” in the distance, but the world grew dark and distant. 

She woke up surprisingly clear-headed. The world around her looked blurry, as if she were peering through a curtain of running water.

This was not the Maidenvault, but a cage made of gold and marble on a desolate hill. The stars above looked pale, giving her an eerie feeling that made all her hair stand on end. To the east, she saw a great black dragon snarl, and Rhaella stepped back. Yet her back struck the gilded bars—there was no escape for her. 

“Let me out!” she cried, but her voice only echoed endlessly. Let me out… Let me out… let me out…

Rhaella started coughing then. Smoke carried from somewhere near, but she couldn’t see what was burning. 

Soon, the smoke cleared, and she reeled. 

The hill was swarming with serpents, each brighter and more venomous than the last. The ground looked alive as snakeskin twisted and churned with each passing moment. Many started biting each other, intertwined and fiercely wrangling. When she blinked, some snakes turned into little drakelings, beasts the size of horses but far more dangerous. They roared and snarled, spewing fire at everyone and everything. 

Rhaella wanted to sink into the gilded bars, but couldn’t. She tried to pry them apart, but her limbs were too thin, too weak. Yet her heart calmed when she saw none of the snakes dared to enter her gilded cage, and that the dragons were content to snap at each other. 

‘Do you wish to escape?’ asked a young, charming voice. ‘Do you yearn for freedom?’ 

She knew that voice—she had heard it when she dreamt of that frozen drake in the snowy clearing.

“I do,” Rhaella said desperately. She was sick of being imprisoned.

‘And what are you willing to do in return?’

Price? What price could there be on her life?

“Whatever it takes,” Rhaella said darkly.

‘Good!’ the voice cheered. ‘The cost of freedom is never light. I will teach you how to fly.’

“Fly?” she echoed, confused. “I want to be free, to control my destiny, not fly.”

‘It is the soaring birds in the sky that are free of earthly constraints, Princess Rhaella,’ the voice explained patiently. ‘And this is merely the first step. To have freedom, you need the power to protect it against all who wish to wrench it away from you. Your mind is already open, all you need to do is take the step and soar.’

Everything grew deathly quiet. The hissing of snakes disappeared, and her cage was now atop a high cliff, the door swinging open to the chasm below.

Rhaella felt queasy just by looking down—it had to be at least a mile high. A fall would see her turn into mulch, she knew. 

While this was a dream, dreams could harm and kill—she still remembered the ice from earlier. 

‘Who are you?’ she demanded. 

Silence was her answer, a quiet that slowly grew heavy and maddening. 

Then, the princess remembered her future and her present. Both were terrible. She recalled the wrinkled face of the septa as she forced her to recite again and again. She remembered how her own kin had decided to force her into a cage.

Rhaella had never felt so stifled; her frustration threatened to overflow.

She gritted her teeth and leapt into the chasm.

She was flying. The Red Keep looked small from above, almost insignificant. The great expanse of verdant green stretched beyond the river, magnificent and grand, and to the north, the endless fields of golden wheat covered the land. Below her, King’s Landing looked like a lifeless leech, grey and joyless, sucking on the mouth of the Blackwater Rush. 

Swooping down, she dove to the Red Keep. A storm of cawing ravens followed in her wake.

She saw her brother, then, a furious Aerys Targaryen storming into the Maidenvault. Rhaella flapped her black wings and followed behind him.

Septa Melona tried to halt him on the staircase.

“Prince Aerys, this is not appropriate—”

“Shut it, old crone,” Aerys spat, shoving the septa out of the way. “You dare torment my sister, and now you want to block my path?!”

Melona shrieked as she crashed into the wall and fell down the stairs. The prince paled like a ghost as the septa tumbled down with an ominous crack. 

He rushed down, eyes wide, but Melona was unmoving, and crimson seeped from her grey hair, soaking the marble floor with blood.

Ser Alyn Thorne, Aerys’ assigned kingsguard, looked no less pale as he gazed at the fallen septa.

Rhaella tried to fly away, but darkness took her again. 

She woke up to the sound of angry voices quarrelling. 

“He killed a septa, mother!” That sounded like her mother’s voice. Shaera Targaryen.

“He can’t be punished,” Jaehaerys rasped. Her sickly sire. “You know we can’t afford another scandal after what Rhaella pulled. If word spreads that a future king killed a septa, even the High Septon might turn away from us…”

Rhaella scarcely saw or heard much of her father. Whenever he was not fighting some ailment, he was busy with the realm’s affairs.

“Not killed,” said another voice, wearier than the rest. The king’s voice. His next words were laden with pain but edged with royal authority. “For good or ill, there are no witnesses besides Ser Alyn, who will keep quiet. For the rest of the city, Septa Melona had grown old and feeble and slipped down the stairs in a mishap.”

It was a command, not a request. 

Her grandmother scoffed. “I should never have agreed to let Rhaella be treated like this.” Her words were glacial. “Look how thin and pale she has grown. This is unacceptable!”

“They said she chose to fast herself, Betha,” Aegon Targaryen murmured, tone softening. “The child wanted to repent for her own wrongdoings.”

“Of course they’ll claim so.” She let out a short, scathing laugh. “You didn’t even let anyone visit. She might as well be forced into this by this vicious septa. Good riddance, I say. If she had survived, I would have seen her hang like a common brigand or gut her open like a fish to hang her entrails on a heart tree—”

“Mother, you can’t speak like that of a woman of the cloth—”

“I can and I will,” Betha Blackwood bit back, steel in her voice. “So what if my granddaughter decides to follow the old gods? They are the gods of my ancestors, the gods of the First Men who are still worshipped to this day. No matter how Andal many knights and lords proclaim themselves to be, the same blood runs in their veins!”

Rhaella cracked her eyes open and blinked. She was in her quarters in the Maidenvault, and her gilded cell was… crowded. All of her family was here, but they seemed to be too lost in their own world to notice she had awoken. Even now, they were too absorbed in their argument to spare her a glance. Even Duncan and Jenny were here, but their faces were dripping with guilt. Were they still unhappy about the bounty on the dwarf woman? Did they blame Rhaella for it?

“Her soul would go to hell if she follows the Old Gods,” Shaera said, voice firm. Her mother was ever pious, as if still seeking repentance for that one time she had defied her parents. “A queen cannot be seen worshipping these barbaric ways, mother.”

“For over two decades, I met no such problem, daughter mine,” was the cold reply. Each next word was overflowing with fury. “You try to teach the child of duty, but you escaped your own engagement. You speak of obedience and queenly virtues, yet you rarely listen to us. You claim to be pious, yet you’ve lain with your own brother, and even that was done poorly! A decade has passed, your childbearing years are coming to an end, but I have yet to see a third—”

“Betha,” there was a hint of warning in Aegon’s voice. “That’s enough. The House of the Dragon must stay united now more than ever.”

The queen swallowed her words with a stiff nod.

“Then… why banish sister here?” Aerys asked shakily. “I took a look at what they cook here. Even dogs won’t eat this, let alone my sister. Are you trying to starve Rhaella to death?!”

A part of her was glad. Someone still cared for her in this family besides her grandmother. ‘Oh brother, if only you could stay like this forever.’

“I—” Rhaella’s voice came out hoarse and breathless, and everyone looked at her. “I-I must fast to repent for my sins.”

“Look at what you’ve done!” Betha despaired, glaring at her daughter. If looks could kill, Shaera Targaryen would perish on the spot. Then, she turned to Rhaella, her aged face filled with kindness. “There’s no need for this, dear.”

Shaera, shame-faced, grabbed a bowl of something from the nearby stand and sat by Rhaella’s bed. 

“Let me help you eat, Rhae,” her mother whispered, her voice laden with guilt. “This is a light broth with a pinch of garlic and rosemary. It will be easy on your belly.”

A spoon approached Rhaella’s mouth, but she made no motion to open it, despite the feeling of hunger and weakness and opted to stare blankly at the ceiling. Princess Shaera Targaryen was never a loving mother, always busying herself with her embroidery, courtly gossip, prayer, or other matters that were not her children. Ever since Rhaella could remember, her mother looked at her and her brother with… uncertainty, as if she did not know what to do. As if she were not certain how to be a mother.

“Please, eat a little,” she asked, voice soft as her purple eyes shimmered. 

Rhaella’s heart was cold, though. 

“You should eat, sister.”

“Don’t be stubborn.”

Rhaella turned her face away from the spoon. “I don’t want to stay in the Maidenvault anymore.”

“Then you won’t,” the king agreed, voice heavy. “You’ll return to your quarters in Maegor’s Holdfast. Now eat. You’ve grown too thin, Rhaella.”

“I don’t want to see a septa ever again,” she pressed, turning her head back to study their reactions. 

Her mother jerked away as if burned, dropping the spoon on the floor with a clatter. She looked half-guilty, half-angered, then. ‘Good,’ Rhaella thought vengefully. ‘Let’s see if you love your prayers more than your daughter.’

Her father looked disappointed, and the king sighed, rubbing his brow. 

“What sort of devil has taken root in your mind, child?” Aegon asked at last. “You can’t just abandon the Seven.”

A devil? They thought a devil had possessed her?

Rhaella wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or to cry. But she was too tired to do either. The silence grew heavier by the heartbeat, and for some reason, her family grew more uncomfortable as they watched her. 

“You won’t believe me,” she rasped gloomily, closing her eyes. 

“Try us,” Betha’s voice echoed.

“I dreamt of a great fire in Summerhal.” Rhaella looked at her hands. Indeed, they had grown too thin, and she could see the bones of her wrist poking out. “Many of us died when grandfather tried to hatch dragon eggs…”

“Impossible,” Aegon denied quickly—too quickly, but it seemed only Rhaella and her grandmother noticed. 

“Perhaps her dreams are… special,” Duncan finally spoke. “There have always been Targaryens who’ve had dreams of things to come since long before the Conquest.”

“I’ve dreamt of dragons and hatching them all too often,” the king said evenly. “I wished for one as a child, a dragon that could let me soar through the skies. I still wish for one today. Does it mean that they would hatch?”

“But my dream was too vivid,” Rhaella murmured. “How else would I know you plan to hatch dragon eggs with wildfire in Summerhal?”

The next reply took all the wind out of her sails.

“While I plan to make another attempt, I’ve yet to decide on the location, Rhaella.” Aegon ran a shaky hand through his silvery mane. “When you grow older, you’ll find out that dreams rarely come true, and when they do, we oft come to regret it.”

Rhaella felt too tired to respond. They thought her a child. A foolish, stubborn child. But she was a child. She was a princess of two and ten, a scared little girl who had taken a peek into the future and still felt terror at what she had seen.

What would she explain now?

They wouldn’t take a word she said seriously. 

“I… I saw Blackfyre gather together with corsairs, sellswords, and merchants to form a great host,” she said desperately. “He means to claim the Disputed Lands and then turn his gaze on the Iron Throne.”

“That’s quite specific for a dream,” Aegon said. “While what you said is true, you could have overheard someone speaking about it.”

“But I remained imprisoned here,” Rhaella wheezed. “Grandfather, I’ve seen it. Chasing dragons will be your end.”

“Perhaps,” was the tired reply. “But you’re young still, little Rhae. I know of dragon dreams all too well—they are murkier than a swamp, and impossible to understand until they come true. The House of the Dragon needs that strength now more than ever. I need dragons to rein in the realm and the highlords, and to strengthen the Iron Throne. All my foes will melt away when faced with dragonfire.”

It was useless, trying to speak reason. A young princess was merely a child who did not understand.

But Rhaella did understand—she understood they would not listen to her no matter what she said. The more she spoke of the future, the more she would think it was a nightmare, a child’s whimsical thoughts and dreams, or even a demonic possession.

Sighing, she just closed her eyes and turned away to face the wall, unwilling to look at her kin. Gods, she felt weak, all too weak and tired to struggle like this further.

“What do you think you’re doing, Rhae?” Her mother’s voice was filled with anger. “Turning your back—”

“Enough,” Betha snapped. “All of you leave. Leave me to speak with my granddaughter alone. Don’t you see you’re all upsetting her further—she still hasn’t eaten.”

“Betha.” The king’s voice softened. “I shall leave this to you. Come now, let us leave them to rest.”

She heard the footsteps slowly dwindle in the distance and halt once the door was closed.

A weight settled on her bed.

“Come now, turn to me, child,” Betha murmured. “Tell me what ails you so.”

“I’m scared, grandmother,” Rhaella sniffed, turning to face the queen. Her dark eyes were soft, kind, and full of compassion. “I’m scared that everything will go wrong.”

“So am I, dear. So am I. But the road forward must still be walked.” Betha reached out a hand, stroking Rhaella’s hair. It calmed the young princess more than words ever could. “Tell grandmother what you want to eat, Rhae. I will get it to you.”

“I want peach and blueberry tarts,” Rhaella croaked out. “Of the crusty ones Tommer makes best.”

“Alas, child. Tommer died of a burst belly two days earlier. I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for Androw’s blueberry cakes.”

Rhaella’s blood froze. Tommer was a young man in his thirties, a chef her grandfather had personally selected to be the next royal confectioner. 

She remembered Tommer, seeing him at her wedding. She remembered seeing him alive at Aerys’s coronation, and even remembered his pastries when little Viserys had been born.

Were her visions wrong… or had everything changed?

???

The Betrayed Lord Commander

“Everyone will betray you—”

“I am the sword in the darkness,” Jon chanted loudly. “I am the watcher on the wall, I am the fire that burns against the cold.”

The voice retreated, as if irritated. The darkness around him dwindled. 

It always did when Jon recited his vows. And the vows… they gave him strength. They let him keep his sanity; they helped him remember. Or perhaps he had already grown mad. 

Time had long blurred as he walked and walked. His feet… never sank into the snow, no matter how much weight he shifted onto his leg. It was not natural. He never slipped, no matter how swiftly he walked, either. His ability to sense things in the snow without looking had him disoriented for days. 

Jon’s heart sank at first, but there was nothing he could do but accept it. Perhaps it was a boon from the gods—it helped him walk through the cold, pale desert faster.

The silence hung heavy in the air, occasionally broken by a vicious white gale, howling through the frost and sending ribbons of snow in every direction. From time to time, he would murmur to himself, talk his mind out loud so that he could hear something other than the wind. But even that grew tiring. Jon longed to hear a voice that wasn’t his own… or in his head.

Letting out a long, tired sigh, he took a chunk of the raw ice spider meat and bit into it. Greenish-blue ichor dribbled down his lips, spilling over his chin, but Jon didn’t care. It was chewy and tasted like chicken, filling his belly well enough. More than well, even. After eating a handful, he felt full of strength for days.

Spider meat was the only food he could find in the great snowy fields where nothing lived. Only the great snow spiders dwelt there, hiding in caves or buried deep beneath the snow, feeding only on the crystal-like stumps that could be mistaken for ice. In the tales, the Others always came with their terrible spiders, and now that Jon had slain the former, it felt right to eat the latter. 

Even if the cold did not harm him, it failed to sustain him. It was easy to find these slumbering spiders when he could sense everything in the nearby snow. 

As he wandered through the plains, Jon’s mind drifted. Had he killed all the Cold Ones? Shouldn’t they have been all awake, stalking the haunted forest for wildlings?

At first, Jon had been wary. Without Longclaw, he felt naked and weak. The dagger on his belt would be a poor weapon against any White Shadow. But no cold-eyed fiends descended on him as he roamed the great ice plains, and his vigilance slowly lessened.

Jon dragged his weary body on and on until he could see the sun. At first, it was short. Pale light filtered from the southeast, and it was gone within the hour. But the next time, it stood in the sky for longer still. Or perhaps it was because he had ventured further south. Somehow, he could tell the directions. Or, well, he could tell where north was, no matter how bland and uniform the great snowy plains looked. All Jon saw in every direction was just an endless expanse of white and pale blue. 

There was a strange sense of… freedom here. No family to fret over, no enemy to prepare for, no allies or subordinates to be kept in line. When Jon felt tired, he would lie down in the snow and sleep like a newborn babe. Sometimes, he would just rest on a rock jutting out of the snow and gaze at the starry sky. When he felt filthy, he would wash his body and garments with snow and rest.

But as free as he felt, Jon grew restless. He had to return to the Night’s Watch—he had nowhere else to go. Had Stannis won?

What of Winterfell? What of his sisters?

Thoughts hardened, Jon pushed himself more and more. 

The further south he went, the longer the days turned, and the warmer the air grew.

Soon, lichen, moss, ice grass, and shrubbery poked out of the ice and snow. On the fourth day since the first shrubbery, he saw an ice fox chasing a snowy hare in the distance. They weren’t as tasty as the ice spiders.

On the seventh day, he first heard a small spring and then saw it, twisting amidst a snowy valley—the song of flowing water was… foreign after the countless days of silence and howling of the wind. It felt like a lifetime had passed since he had heard it. Perhaps it had… one where his sworn brothers had yet to betray him. 

The next day, he started seeing lakes. The third lake was as big as Long Lake, and not fully frozen, so Jon shrugged off his garments and dipped into the water. The pleasantly cool water made him feel alive, and his blood sang as he submerged into the water. There were some pale grey fish there, curiously hovering over him wherever he swam. They were the most delicious thing he had eaten. 

Further south, the shrubs were growing in size. By nightfall, Jon spotted a tree, and two snowy owls hooted at him from the branches. 

On the ninth day, he entered an increasingly thickening woodland. 

This had to be the far end of the haunted forest. 

Then, he sensed something moving through the snow. It was not a hare or a fox, but something bigger.

‘Kill them before they kill you!’

Jon’s face twisted. He paid the seductive whisper no heed and swiftly slid behind a great rock, his boots silent across the snow. His feet never sank; the snow beneath his boots felt as solid as a rock, never making a sound. He felt them, somehow, the three presences shining like a beacon in the snow. Three wildlings came from between the trees, looking around warily. 

“We need to catch some fish,” the burliest one croaked. “I heard the crows sent a small band along the coast again.”

“They won’t venture so deep, Harl,” an older wildling with greying hair said. “Even the Nightrunners don’t venture so deep north. Some say cold, dead things dwell across the great ice plain.”

“Pah,” the third one with a crooked face spat. “Been to the great ice lake, and the scariest I’ve seen is snow deer and hairy ox. They were neither dead nor cold.”

Jon, however, stood stunned. The Nightrunners had long since been scattered after Battle beneath the Wall, and every single wildling either knew of the Others or was already dead. Yet here were those three, so deep in the Far North, and they thought the Cold Shadows a mere myth.

This… didn’t make sense.

No, even the foxes and the snow hares should have been dead, risen by the Others. He had not seen even a single wight, be it beast or man—even the ice spiders had been alive, if in deep slumber.

This was wrong. The whole world felt wrong, from the snow to the beasts, to the wildlings, like a twisted reflection of Jon’s memory. Or perhaps… it was right. It should have been like this.

Jon scratched his head.

‘All that you know will fade.’

“Shut up,” he bit back despite himself. If whatever was whispering in his head wanted to seduce him, a voice was far from enough. 

‘They are coming for you.’

Before Jon could exclaim, he sensed that the wildlings had all halted and were looking to the rock he was hiding behind. 

“Who’s there?” one called out warily.

Jon gripped the two tied-up spider legs he had been using as a spear, but remained silent. 

“We heard you,” the second wildling said, voice fiercer and closer. “Come out!”

Sighing, Jon stood up and left the cover of the rock.

“Fuck, it’s a frost fiend!” the youngest shrieked and turned away to flee.

“Come back, Rann, you fool—it’s a crow.” 

Rann did not even slow down, still running with all his strength until he disappeared between the trees.

“I mean you no harm,” Jon said, stabbing his makeshift spear into the snow and showing his open hands.

“Boy, you sound like a kneeler crow,” the older wildling gruffed—Harl. “You look like one, if snow-kissed too.”

“The snow-kissed are cursed,” the younger one said, nodding as he pointed at Jon with his bronze-tipped spear. “And crows are twice as cursed. Look! His eyes are red. It ain’t normal.”

“I say we kill him,” Harl murmured, nocking an arrow on his bow. “The crows killed me son last year. This one is probably a scout. If we let ‘im go, he’ll tattle his crow friends on us.”   

“I only wish to speak,” Jon said, voice on edge as his hand palmed his makeshift spear again, and his eyes set on the nocked arrow. “Not to fight. It doesn’t have to come to this.”

“And I’m tired o’ talkin’. The only good crow is a dead crow.”

Some things never changed. 

The twang of the bowstring heralded the end of negotiations. The arrow streaked at him, then, and Jon barely managed to jerk out of the way. 

The younger wildling let out a guttural roar and charged like a wild boar, trying to impale Jon on his spear. Jon hurled his spider-spear, skewering the fool through the chest before he could reach him.

Harl, swearing loudly, was already nocking another arrow, and Jon was lunging at the man with his dagger in hand. 

The wildling already lifted his bow, but Jon was upon him, grabbing the tip of the arrow before it was loosened. He kicked Harl in the knee, and the savage snarled in pain as he tumbled onto the snow. Jon’s dagger plunged into his throat. It plunged again and again, even though the man had gone limp. 

Then, he let the dead wildling roll into the snow, his torn neck smoking in the cold as blood spilt down.

Jon stared at the two corpses and felt nothing. Not even disgust, fear, or anger, merely indifference, as if he had stepped on two ants. Had his emotions been numbed in the great snowy plain? 

‘These were no warriors,’ Jon realised. Both wildlings were thinner than he was, and he could count the ribs underneath their furs. They were barely passable as hunters and wouldn’t make it as raiders to climb the Wall, let alone steal anything from the Gift. But perhaps that was why they were here, in the far reaches of the haunted forest, where conditions were harsh but foes were few.

He picked up the bow, tugged at the string, and let out a long sigh. It was a plain recurve bow of poor make. Even the arrow tips were merely sharpened wood heated over fire, and the fletchings were shoddy snowshrike feathers and uneven—no wonder they had been so easy to dodge. The two had no food beyond a small pouch of dried roots he did not recognise, and their furs and leather garments were barely more than rags. The only thing of value here was the spear with the leaf-shaped bronze tip. Even the spear was not something those two could have made—it looked like a Thenn-made, most probably traded or stolen from some corpse. 

Was Jon near the Valley of Thenn?

Regret welled up in his chest, but it was not for killing them. Not entirely—he should have left one alive to question. The appearance of these wildlings raised far more questions than it answered.

Still, Jon had not forgotten the third wildling that had fled. What if he brought more foes? One or two ragged ‘huntsmen’ were easy to deal with, but a handful or a dozen would easily kill Jon.

‘They are coming for you,’ the seductive voice whispered dutifully. 

“I am the sword in the darkness,” Jon muttered under his nose. “I will wear no crowns, and win no glory.”

Without dallying, he took the bronze-tipped spear and two flint stones for fire and slid through the snow like a phantom. They wouldn’t catch him, if anything. As long as he was in the snow, he would sense them coming. As long as he was in the snow, he was faster than any man could be.

It didn’t matter. All of his questions would be answered when he reached the Wall. 

Jon redoubled his efforts as he ventured into the Haunted Forest. At least he could still tell the directions, and that knowledge alone kept him grounded. The whispers had grown rarer the deeper he went into the forest, as if the trees themselves could halt them. But as they grew rarer, something new tickled at the edge of his mind. It was a prickle at the back of his neck, as if someone was watching him. Yet no matter how Jon spread his senses, he found nobody in the snow.

In the following two days, he passed a great nameless river and wheeled around two hunting parties that looked like Nightrunners. 

They spoke a broken dialect of the Old Tongue that he couldn’t understand, but their sheer numbers surprised him. He stalked one group through the snow, following back to one of their villages at night, and saw something that should never have been. There were too many Nightrunners, Jon realised, easily hundreds of them in this motley settlement alone.

Far more than he had seen in Mance’s army before Stannis had crushed them. Had he been sleeping in the ice for years for the wildlings to recover in such great numbers? Not even one of them looked scared or desperate like the faces in the wildling camp back then.

Sighing, Jon turned south and continued trudging through the trees. 

On the third night, Jon caught a fox and was roasting it over a small fire in a secluded pine barren. It was a tough, bland dinner, but it was better than going on an empty belly. As he was tearing into the meat, he sensed someone approaching. The pace was slow, unhurried, and a few minutes passed until he heard boots crunching through the snow.

“You don’t belong here,” the newcomer said with an old, raspy voice that sounded like the man had not talked for years.

Jon squinted at the cloaked man, but sensed no malice or wariness in him, merely curiosity. The worn cloak was dark grey, like something that had been black once.

Was this a ranger of the Night’s Watch? No, even rangers kept dyeing their cloaks black again or were granted new ones. This was a deserter or a wildling who had plundered the cloak from a corpse. 

“Greetings to you, too,” Jon snarked back, reaching for his spear. “If you’re looking for a fight, I will grant you one.”

“My time for battle has long since passed, Jon Snow,” the man murmured. He was slightly hunched over, but his shoulders were broad. An old man?

“Then, why are you here?” 

“To see if your mind is still your own,” came the cool reply. “If your wits have not been scrambled.”

Jon only grew more vigilant. The old man should not have known his name. His body tensed, ready to leap from the stone and lunge at the intruder at the first sign of danger.

“I know not what you speak of,” Jon said flatly. “Why would my wits be scrambled?”

“An odd thing to claim for a man chanting his Night’s Watch vows with a crazed look when walking through the snow alone,” came the amused reply. “But you didn’t even walk. You slid through the snow like a spectre, not leaving any footprints. Just like a Cold Shadow.” 

Jon’s blood chilled. How come he was observed without sensing it?

“Show your face, and state your purpose,” he demanded coldly, pointing the spear at the cloaked figure.

The intruder lowered his hood, revealing an old, wrinkled face. But the skin was as pale as milk, hair long and white, and one eye socket was empty, while from the other peered a crimson eye. The right side of his face held a wine-stain birthmark that looked like a raven if Jon squinted. There was only one albino known with such peculiar traits, and he was so infamous that even Jon knew him.

And he had memorised each bastard of renown in the last two hundred years, and the bastard in front of him was second only to Daemon Blackfyre.  

“Impossible.” Jon’s voice shook, but his hands only gripped the spear tighter. “Brynden Rivers went missing nearly fifty years ago. He should be long-dead.”

Brynden Rivers merely smiled. “It’s been merely six years since I abandoned my post, and I have been preparing to take up a new mantle until fate itself shifted four moons ago.” 

“Changed, changed,” voices cawed from above in a sinister symphony. 

Jon frowned as he looked up and saw a thousand beady eyes staring back at him. All the surrounding branches were filled with ravens, and he had not even noticed them fly in.  

“Gods stirred from their slumber,” Brynden Rivers continued, voice wheezing. “Ghosts began to remember their true lives, greenseers that barely clung to a sense of self found their strength again, and fiends that should have never belonged to this world turned their gaze. A few even snuck in. But you, Jon Snow, are the most dangerous of them all, for you should not have been here at all.”

“And why should I trust anything you say?” the bastard asked, voice dangerously low. “For all I know, you can be a vision, another nightmare in my sleep.”

“I can teach you how to master your mind, boy,” Bloodraven said. “I can teach you how to silence those pesky voices that haunt you, to tap into all the skills you have been denying. I can dispel all of your doubts. The deeper you went in the haunted forest, the more confusion grew, and your disbelief deepened.”

Jon opened his mouth to tell him to shove it. But then, he remembered. His own brothers had betrayed him. The wildlings were too numerous and all with unknown faces, as if they had never heard of the Others.

And this Brynden Rivers… he didn’t look like a corpse. His eye was red, not blue. As pale as he was, his chest rose and fell, and he breathed like a human would. In fact, he looked no older than seventy. He looked more vigorous than any greybeard had the right to be.

And if he had disappeared merely six years ago, wouldn’t this be… the twilight years of the Unlikely’s rule?

“Fine,” Jon said instead, shifting his weight. “But first, how can you prove who you are? Brynden Rivers should wield Dark Sister, yet I see no sword on you, let alone Valyrian steel.”

Brynden merely took a wrap from his ragged cloak and tossed it before the crackling fire.

Jon hesitantly sliced the string with his dagger and unfolded it, revealing a slender blade with a ruby pommel and a sheath of polished weirwood. The hilt was as described in Thurgood’s inventory, but there were many such ceremonial swords meant to copy the real thing.

Tugging it free, smoky ripples glittered under the ruddy campfire. He peeled off his glove and ran his finger through the edge, drawing blood at the slightest touch. Jon knew this sharpness was unachievable for even castle-forged steel, no matter how many hours you toil over a whetstone. This could only be Valyrian steel. 

“Are you pleased now, bastard?” Brynden drawled, a crooked smile playing on his lips. 

“Yes,” Jon said, nodding. “You seem to indeed be Brynden Rivers. Or perhaps I’ve gone mad long ago, and you’re just a dream. Perhaps I’m dead after I bled out in the snow in Castle Black, and now I am seeing the dead.”

“This is real, boy,” the old man said, voice turning stern. “It’s far too real for my taste. Alas, I’ve grown too old.”

Jon let out a low, bitter chuckle. “Let’s say this is real. Then why would you come here, offering to teach me, then? We’re not even connected.”

“Oh, I came here to take a measure of you, bastard,” the oath-breaking Lord Commander chortled. “I thought of teaching you after I saw you in person. You remind me of myself, you see.”

Jon narrowed his eyes, searching for a sign of deception. He found… nothing. Yet he couldn’t dispel the feeling that Bloodraven was hiding something, and he knew too much. Jon felt naked under that lone red eye, as if it could peer into his soul, seeing through his deepest, darkest secrets.

“Teach me,” he said at last, feeling far calmer with Dark Sister in his hands. “But I’ll gut you if you try something funny, bastard.” 

It wasn’t like he had anything left to lose. Yet things were not so simple. He kept Dark Sister, strapping the sword to his belt—Bloodraven saw, and merely snorted with disdain. But Jon didn’t trust Brynden Rivers at all, yet he had too many questions to turn the man away.

“It seems I’ll have to start with a lesson in history,” Brynden said, clicking his tongue as he stepped to the fire. He shamelessly helped himself to a roasted fox leg, as if he had been the one to kill the fox. “My wretched father saw fit to legitimise every one of his bastards with his dying breath. It was supposed to make me trueborn, even though I still bear the name Rivers.”

Author’s Endnote: Whew, that’s out of the way. Things are going to turn murkier. Bloodraven has yet to enter ‘weirwood mode’, and I would say this is the end of his ‘internship’. Keep in mind that his first known project after becoming the Three-eyed crow is Euron Greyjoy, who is either a toddler or has not even been born just yet.