𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 102: 𝕱𝖊𝖆𝖗 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝕴𝖈𝖊
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[Sunset Sea]
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A ship cut steadily through the gentle waves of the Sunset Sea, something the ironborn usually attributed to the protection of the Drowned God, though the man captaining that vessel was hardly the sort to thank any god for anything.
Euron Greyjoy stood at the prow with one hand resting against the railing, feeling the constant sway of the hull while his crew moved silently across the deck, not because they were particularly disciplined, but because they could not speak.
Euron Greyjoy captained a ship he himself had named Silence, and to make sure the name truly suited it, he had taken the trouble of cutting out the tongues of every single man who sailed with him.
Many would consider it unnecessary cruelty, and they would probably be right, but Euron had understood long ago the value of fear.
Even during his travels and the time he spent plundering ruins and temples, stories about one man had reached practically every port in the known world.
The Impaler.
Euron felt admiration and resentment toward Vlad in equal measure. He envied the way the man had managed to turn his name into something that inspired fear even across entire continents, and more than once he reproached himself for not having thought of something similar first.
If he had begun impaling his victims from the start, perhaps it would now be his name spreading across the known world.
He had considered imitating him more than once, but doing so would have been little more than paying tribute to another man, something Euron would never accept.
So he chose to create his own signature.
To silence both his enemies and his men.
To make fear and rumors inseparable from his name, though he knew perfectly well that would not be enough on its own.
He needed to conquer, raid, rule, and win battles, because fear without power behind it eventually faded away, and that was why, alongside the confidence inspired by a certain book he had found while looting a temple of red priests, he was sailing back toward the Iron Islands.
He imagined the black towers rising above the sea, the captains gathered listening to him, and the cities that would burn beneath his attacks. He would show them all the true price of iron, and once they saw it, they would never wish to follow another man again.
And it seemed luck still favored him.
The sea was calm, the islands were still a couple of days away, and there were no strange signs in the sky or the currents, something that drew a faint smile from him, though that satisfaction failed to completely hide the slight trembling beginning to show in his hands.
The effect was fading.
He inhaled deeply and felt the strength that had coursed through his body during the last few hours slowly beginning to disappear, leaving behind exhaustion and irritation.
It was not the first time it had happened, nor would it be the last.
And he did not need to test it to know the euphoria would not return on its own, not without repeating the process, not without descending once more into the hold.
There, several red priests remained chained and kept in a trance through drugs and rituals, motionless, breathing unevenly with their eyes open yet completely empty.
Euron avoided taking too much from them, not out of scruples, but because the result never truly justified the cost.
Each session granted him only a few hours of monstrous strength, faster reflexes, and a sense of invincibility that vanished as quickly as it arrived, forcing him to ration carefully the little he had managed to achieve.
He had also learned the hard way that he needed a certain kind of individual for the ritual to work and that he could only drain them a few times before they died, something problematic when he spent entire weeks sailing far from any shore.
The book promised far more.
Euron still remembered the endless nights spent trying to decipher symbols and incomplete texts while frustration grew each time the results remained so limited.
From the stories of Valyria, he knew truly great effects required absurd quantities of sacrifices, hundreds of lives consumed in a single ritual, and he also knew that not even he could begin something like that yet.
Not because he lacked the will, but because slaughtering that many people so quickly would cause the entire world to turn against him before he had even consolidated the power he intended to claim.
That was why he needed to become something greater than the king of the Seastone Chair.
And Euron Greyjoy intended to rise higher than anyone of his bloodline ever had.
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[Beyond the Wall]
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Jon watched Anna hopping through the snow while laughing and rolling across the ground like a little girl, and the scene might even have looked adorable if not for the fact that she was covered in blood from head to toe.
To understand how they had reached that point, one only had to go back a few days.
Jon had ventured beyond the Wall accompanied by eight men of the Night's Watch and Edward's group with the intention of dealing with the mutineers at Craster's Keep.
Edward had joined them as a gesture of good faith, but also to ensure the expedition moved quickly.
For nearly a week they traveled together through snow and frozen forests, enough time for Jon to realize something about them did not quite fit, because none of them ever seemed to tire, they did not sleep, and they never sweated.
It was Ygritte who finally gave shape to that unease.
She and Tormund were among the wildlings captured to negotiate with Mance Rayder, and when Jon managed to speak with her alone, he discovered that even Ygritte seemed more concerned about Edward and his people than about the Watch itself.
When she described how they had been captured, she spoke of a strength and abilities that did not seem human, and Jon did not need to hear much more to connect it with the Impaler.
Even he had heard the stories.
The feeling of unease only worsened when they finally caught sight of Craster's Keep. The first thing they heard were the girls' screams, cries, sobs, and muffled whimpers that carried even from a distance.
Jon felt a stab of anger and immediately began thinking about how to get the women out alive, but Edward simply observed the keep for a few seconds before calmly ordering the perimeter secured.
Jon was about to protest, though the look he received made it clear that was not a suggestion.
He watched Brask slowly unwrap his Valyrian steel halberd, Aelia draw her rapier, and Anna continue smiling with that childish excitement Jon was already beginning to find disturbing, as though all of this were nothing more than a game.
Edward then gave the order to enter and bring out the girls.
He remained outside beside Jon and the men of the Watch while the others crossed through the keep's gate.
The screams began almost immediately.
One stood out above the rest, a high-pitched shriek that sounded like an animal being gutted alive, followed by screams, curses, and heavy impacts against wood.
Finally, the door burst open.
Brask and Vayrek emerged carrying several of Craster's women, unconscious, though still alive.
The sounds inside the keep continued, and Jon tried to imagine how he could possibly face something like that just before a body smashed through one of the wooden walls as if struck by a battering ram.
Half the man's face was gone, and flesh hung in shredded strips as though some wild beast had torn it away with its teeth.
—Those were men of the Watch —Jon said while looking at Edward with obvious disapproval.
Edward barely turned his head toward him.
—And what would their fate have been, Jon Snow? —he asked flatly—After you had hypothetically subdued them.
—The leaders would have died —Jon answered without looking away—Executed as the law demands, and the others would have been allowed to surrender.
Edward remained silent for several seconds before looking directly at him.
—Do you disapprove of our actions? —he asked, his tone somewhere between incredulous and amused.
—Even if they all deserved to die —Jon replied sharply—they were still the Watch's responsibility. You had no right.
Edward looked back toward the keep.
—Tell me something, Jon Snow —he said after a few moments—If one of the girls inside had been your sister, would you truly have allowed those men to surrender?
Jon did not answer.
—Or better yet, the redheaded wildling girl we brought back as a prisoner —Edward continued with a faint edge of irritation.
Jon clenched his jaw at that.
He did not know what bothered him more, that they had discovered the truth about Ygritte or that part of him perfectly understood the fury with which those monsters were tearing the mutineers apart inside the hut.
But even so, he still felt revulsion, because this did not look like an execution. It looked like a slaughter.
In the end he merely let out a sigh while the screams inside the keep gradually faded one by one.
Edward then approached the girls, who were beginning to awaken in terror at the sight of armed men surrounding them, and spoke calmly to them, explaining enough to soothe them or at least stop their panic.
Anna emerged from the keep's doors drenched in blood from head to toe, happily skipping while waving a torch against the straw roofs. When she finished, she gave a few delighted little claps before stepping aside to watch the keep slowly burn.
Shortly afterward, Brask and Vayrek departed alongside several men of the Watch, escorting the women southward. The blackened keep was left behind while the rest of the group remained silent among the trees.
Aelia ventured into the snow soon after, following tracks and examining footprints around the forest, though she eventually returned, slowly shaking her head.
There were no signs, neither recent nor old, nothing suggesting that the boy Vlad expected to find had ever passed through that place.
Then they resumed their march north.
Jon offered to accompany them, claiming that the Watch should be present at any meeting with Mance Rayder, though much of his attention remained fixed on Ygritte, who walked several paces behind the group in an obviously foul mood.
That night they lit a small fire, and Jon, Ygritte, and the other prisoners ate seated near the flames while Edward and his people remained apart among the trees, completely indifferent to the cold.
That was when Jon found himself watching Anna again.
She was still covered in blood, her dress stiff with dried filth, and even so the small woman continued playing in the snow like a child, tossing it into the air, laughing to herself, and skipping around the camp.
At one point she knelt beside a mound of snow and began licking the dried blood from one of her arms before standing up again and continuing to play as though nothing had happened.
Edward watched her in silence.
Aelia slowly approached until she stopped beside him.
—Vlad won't accept her. You know that, right? —she said bluntly— She's a ripper.
Edward did not look away.
—I know —he answered simply— It was a mistake.
Aelia let out a sigh before sitting down on a nearby rock.
—I understand, she reminds you of your sister —she said sympathetically— But come on, Vlad talked to us about this, you're projecting. You want to protect her because you couldn't protect Bella.
Edward let out a short, dry laugh as he lowered his gaze toward the snow.
—I never protected my sister —he murmured with a grimace— She was always the one protecting me.
Then he began talking about Bella.
Edward and his sister had been born in Westeros, the children of merchants who spent much of their lives traveling between ports and coastal cities.
One day the ship they were traveling on wrecked off the coast of Volantis, and the two of them ended up washed ashore without family, without money, and completely alone.
They survived however they could, stealing when necessary, fighting for food, and sleeping wherever they found space, and Bella was always the one leading the way. She was the one who fought off other boys when they tried to take what little they had, the one who hit back, the one who made sure Edward stayed alive even when they could barely remain standing themselves.
As the years passed, they grew older and stopped going unnoticed.
Slave traders eventually caught them along with other street children and locked them in cages while deciding what to do with them.
When they took Bella out, Edward knew perfectly well what was about to happen, though all he could do was slam against the bars and scream while they dragged her away.
Bella pretended to be terrified and waited for the right moment, staying still until the man trying to rape her lowered his guard enough for her to bite off his ear, snatch the knife from his belt, and begin stabbing him over and over until he stopped moving.
But the noise alerted the others.
The other slavers rushed toward her when they saw the blood, and Bella, cornered and without any escape, turned her head toward Edward one last time before plunging the knife into her own throat while she was still smiling.
Edward recounted all of it without taking his eyes off the fire.
—That's how she always was —he said after a few seconds— Bella did whatever she wanted, even when everything was going to hell.
Silence settled around the camp once more while Anna continued playing in the snow several yards away.
—I don't know why I see Bella in her —Edward added after a while— They don't even look alike, but when I found her among those slavers… after what they did to her…
He fell silent for a few seconds while watching Anna.
—I know I'll have to kill her myself —he finally said— And accept Vlad's punishment when the time comes.
Aelia let out a weary sigh.
—Let's hope he's in a good mood that day —she said without conviction.
Edward did not answer. Both of them knew perfectly well that Vlad would not kill him over this, but they also knew the punishment would be brutal.
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First of all, thank you once again for being here and reading the story this week. I truly appreciate it a lot.
Today's chapter has a lot to do with everything happening beyond the Wall and with the future meeting where wights will be shown as proof in order to unite the houses of Westeros against the Long Night. But more than anything, I wanted to start giving more visibility to the White Walkers' storyline, their nature, and some of the changes I've made compared to canon.
I also wanted to use this chapter to explore Edward's personality a bit more, along with the rest of Vlad's progeny, so they don't feel like secondary characters who are simply there in the background.
By the way, I wanted to mention something interesting. Almost a year ago I made a poll, and my original idea for the Night King was to make him something similar to a magical artificial intelligence, almost like Ultron, created by the Children of the Forest to end the war against humanity.
Over time, though, I ended up changing that idea quite a lot. The current plot I have planned is more classical in some aspects, although honestly I wouldn't call it cliché. At least personally, I've never seen anything too similar in a Game of Thrones fanfic, and trust me, I've read an absurd amount of them.
I also saw a comment recently mentioning the old theory that the Long Night was somehow connected to the curse of kinslaying. Obviously, the idea that the Long Night exists because of Targaryen family drama is ridiculous, but strangely enough, it gave me a really interesting idea. So I'm planning to incorporate that concept into the story in a much more coherent and deeply symbolic way.
Even so, I still plan to keep developing and expanding that entire part of the story slowly as things progress.
The good news is that I already have a pretty clear ending planned for all of this. And honestly, I think it's a really good one. So no, the story is not going to be abandoned, I'm not getting tired of writing it, and I'm definitely not going to pull some random deus ex machina out of nowhere just to finish it quickly. I already have most of the important structure organized; now it's simply a matter of continuing to write until we get there.
On another note, things with my job have become pretty complicated, and right now I'm having legal issues with the company. Obviously I'm going to report them, and I'm already looking into lawyers, unions, and everything necessary, but honestly I'm not sure if I'll be able to publish normally next week because of how much time all of this is probably going to consume.
Thankfully, I'm not in a bad financial situation or anything like that. I'll just have to tighten my belt a little for a while.
So yeah, I'm not going to promise anything for next week. If there's no chapter, it'll simply be because I've been extremely busy.
It's always a pleasure seeing you all here again, guys, and I hope you enjoy the chapter.