The cave narrowed before opening again. This time there was no chamber, no smell of moss or the stale stench of the previous tunnels. There was an abyss. I couldn't see the bottom. The torch I held over the edge lit a few meters of rock before the darkness swallowed everything.
On the other side, about ten meters away, the cave continued, and between the two sides there was a natural stone bridge, narrow as two shoulders, no railing, nothing but the rock that time had decided to leave there. The only thing that came from below was the sound of water running somewhere the light couldn't reach.
Kevin looked at the bridge. Looked at the abyss. Looked at me.
"Great bridge. Very safe. Clearly built by someone who cared deeply about the survival of their visitors."
Leaf was already on the other side before I had seen her cross. Where the cave widened again, roots covered everything. Thick as trunks, interlaced with a density that seemed intentional, as though they had grown that way over centuries in service of a single purpose. They descended from the ceiling, rose from the floor, curved and folded back on themselves forming something that could only be called a throne for lack of a better word.
And on the throne sat he. A man. Or what was left of a man.
Old in a way that went beyond age, the skin so thin it looked like wet paper stretched over bone. Long white hair blended with the roots around his head in a way that made it difficult to say where one ended and the other began. The roots were not merely around him. They were inside him. They entered through his arms, his torso, his shoulders, growing through the flesh as though flesh were just another kind of earth.
His clothes were little more than rags, remnants of a dark cloak, faded and torn, hardened by time, parts taken by mold, others held fast by white roots as though they had been absorbed along with the body. In some places they still covered the skin; in others, only strips hung between wood and flesh. It was no longer possible to tell where the clothing ended and the tree began.
The face was a map of time. The skin ashen, marked by wrinkles that had carved through almost every expression. A red stain ran from his cheek down to his neck, looking like blood dripping depending on the angle, or to someone who knew what to look for, the silhouette of a raven. One of his eyes was no longer there. In its place was an old scar, deep, cutting diagonally from the brow to the cheekbone, as though a blade had passed there with intent and time had done the rest. The other, red and piercing, pulsed with a consciousness that needed no movement to make itself felt.
He sat with his hands open on his knees, the long fingers motionless, and there was no way to know if he was alive until his chest moved in a breath so slow it seemed like a test of patience.
Sigurd stopped at my side, his voice low. "That's what we're looking for."
"It is." I took another step toward the throne, my eyes on the red eye that followed me without the head moving.
Kevin was at my side now, the usual ironic tone gone from somewhere. "Is he trapped in that? In the roots?"
"Looks like it," I answered with a nod.
"How long?" Kevin asked, looking the man up and down.
"I don't know."
Kevin stared at the roots growing through the man's arms for a moment. "That's disturbing on several different levels."
Perseu was already examining the roots around him with that quiet attention he reserved for things that deeply unsettled him. Astrid had stopped at the edge of the chamber, shield on her arm, her eyes sweeping every corner before settling on the trapped man. Sigurd stood still, the axe resting on his shoulder, his gaze fixed directly on the red eye without wavering.
I moved closer until I was three steps from the throne. The heat of the torches reached here, but it couldn't warm the air around the roots.
"You called me," I said.
The red eye blinked once, slowly, like someone waking from a very long dream. When he spoke, the voice came out hoarse and torn, as though speaking from inside a tunnel of stone and resin. Slow, with the weight of something that had forgotten what it means to be in a hurry.
"I have long awaited you, Arthur Snow."
"Nice that you know my name." I crossed my arms, keeping the tone light. "But isn't it a lack of manners not to introduce yourself as well? Old man."
The corner of a mouth moved, with the weariness of someone who had waited too long for everything and learned to find humor in it.
"I had many names when I was still quick." The closed eyes remained so, but something in the brow around the red eye moved, like a memory passing beneath the skin. "The name my mother gave me was Brynden. After that I was called many things. Bastard. Bloodraven." He paused at the last name, the red eye settling on my face with more attention. "Hand of the King. The Accursed." Another pause. "Lord Commander."
By that point I already knew who the old man encrusted in the roots was.
"Some of the Free Folk call me the Three-Eyed Crow." The red eye didn't blink. "Leaf and her sisters call me the last greenseer." One of the roots near his shoulder moved slightly, like something breathing alongside him. "I remember there was a song about me. I was always pragmatic, never gave importance to such things. I thought it vanity." A long pause. "Today I see the utility of them." The red eye settled directly on mine. "How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have?"
"A thousand eyes, and one," I answered.
The wrinkled face opened a slight smile. The first complete expression I had seen on him. "Now that we have been introduced." Brynden tilted his head slightly, the roots creaking with the movement. "I believe you want an explanation for why I brought you here."
I nodded.
The red eye blinked once, slowly. "When I was still Lord Commander and was exploring north of the Wall, I was attacked by a White Walker. One of Leaf's sisters saved me with dragonglass, and they brought me to this cave." His chest rose in a breath that sounded like wind through hollow wood. "The weirwood extended my life. In exchange, it took my body. I spent the last hundred years observing the threads of time. Past and future braided together. The line I saw was clear, Arthur Snow. And it ended in darkness."
I stayed silent, holding his gaze.
"The Long Night."
"I saw the snow swallow the world. I saw the fires of men go out, one by one." His eye dropped to the blade of Truth, then returned to my face. "The fate was set. The board was arranged for our defeat. But then, the tapestry tore."
"Me."
"You." The word came out ragged. "My greensight reaches kings and beggars, wolves and dragons. But where you walk, I find only mist. You do not belong to the original song. And something outside the song is the only thing that can alter its ending."
The chamber fell into absolute silence. The sound of the underground water seemed louder now.
"And you don't know whether that alteration will save us or bury us for good," Perseu said, his voice low, translating what all of us had just understood.
"I do not." The red eye stayed still. "As much as I cannot see you directly, I can see the wake you leave. Like stones thrown into a calm lake. The ripples reach me. I know that one of yours, touched by the blood of the ancient Kings of the Crannogs, is to you today what I was to my brother Daeron."
"Eldric," I said, confirming without revealing much. "If you called me here to be the variable that saves the living, I need answers then. What do you know?"
The ashen face seemed to grow heavier. "The knowledge you seek about Valyria is not in Westeros. Aenar Targaryen brought ancient scrolls before the Doom, but Baelor I looked at power he did not understand and saw heresy."
*Crack*. A root twisted on the floor.
"The Blessed King burned the books, Arthur. That door is closed."
'My hope that the Targaryens had something in the vaults of the Red Keep went up in smoke,' I thought, tightening my jaw.
"Then where do I look?" I took a step forward, impatient. "If time is running out, give me a direction."
The red eye seemed to penetrate beyond my face. "The vault you found beneath Winterfell was only the beginning. You must understand why only Stark blood can command the North, why there must always be a Stark in Winterfell and why the North remembers," said Brynden. He breathed deeply again and continued. "Search in the oldest crypts. Where the hot spring is born and the ground around it does not warm. Where the steam rises and the earth remains frozen. Where the stone weeps without crack, thick tears that do not dry."
Kevin furrowed his brow, shaking his head slightly. "Secret tombs and riddles from a tree-man. Wonderful," he murmured.
"And what of my mother?" I cut in, keeping the old man's focus on me.
"To understand your song of fire you will have to go to where her blood has deep roots. Cross the Narrow Sea. Go to Essos." His chest rose in a visible effort. The voice was losing volume, exhaustion taking hold of the decrepit body. "Search for the erased name, the heirs of the lightbringer."
"The White Walkers..." Brynden whispered, the paper eyelid trembling. "They are not corpses marching across the earth. They are death itself. The Cold. Where they step, they erase the memory of the world. Prepare the North. The storm... is already here."
I tightened my jaw, holding the red gaze without wavering. "I have seen what they do. I will take the necessary measures."
Brynden nodded slowly, a movement that seemed to cost the remainder of the energy he had. "Leaf."
The creature detached from the stone wall where she had been leaning, her large golden eyes reflecting the torchlight. She made no sound as she walked to the edge of the natural bridge.
"The board has changed." Brynden's voice fell to a drawn-out whisper. "Leaf and her sisters who still walk this world will be at your disposal. Whatever you need to prepare... they will do their best to help. The Children of the Forest will fight alongside the living once more."
Leaf stepped forward, her bare feet making no sound on the cold rock. "As our ancestors forged the Pact ten thousand years ago on the Isle of Faces," the childlike voice sounded ancient, echoing through the dark tunnel.
The dark around the chamber began to move. Small silhouettes detached from the deep shadows and slid along the thick trunks hanging from the ceiling.
"Where the Order of the Green Men was formed to protect the heart trees and witness the peace between our people and the First Men..." Leaf continued, her large golden eyes fixed on mine.
More than a dozen of them emerged from cracks and adjacent tunnels. They were like her, small, their skin mottled like tree bark and dried autumn leaves. They advanced until they surrounded us, closing the circle around us.
Astrid raised her shield a fraction, her posture rigid and ready. The leather of Sigurd's glove creaked as he adjusted the weight of the axe. I raised my left hand, a short signal with my fingers so no one drew weapons. Perseu remained silent, only turning his face slowly to count the pairs of feline eyes glowing in the half-light of the torches.
"...we will forge a new one today," Leaf completed, undisturbed by the sudden tension of my group. "The last greenseer told us you can help us with our problems."
I faced the wheel of ancient creatures around us. Kevin rolled his neck, measuring the living wall of Children of the Forest before letting out a heavy sound through his nose.
"Of course. Because leading humanity against the ice apocalypse left your schedule too empty."
I didn't respond to the joke. My mind was already working at another speed. "What problems?" I asked, direct.
Leaf lowered her eyes to her own hands. The long fingers, the skin marked by dark patches. When she spoke again, the voice was no longer that of a negotiator. It was that of someone who had been tired for a very long time.
"We used too much magic. The Hammer of the Waters, in the war against men, that exhausted us." The golden eyes shone. "Magic demands exchange. We did not pay at the time. Nature collected afterward."
"Collected what?"
"The ability to make new Children." The pause was long. "Not one of us has been born in many years. We are the last. When we die, it ends."
The silence that followed was different from the others. Behind me, no one moved. Not even Kevin. I looked at the children around us. At the golden eyes watching me. At the joined hands, forming a circle that was not one of threat, but of despair.
"And you think I can bring that back?"
Leaf raised her face. Her eyes found mine and did not blink. "You are already doing it. You did it when you breathed air for the first time."
I crossed my arms, not fully understanding what she meant.
"Come, place your hands on these roots," said Brynden, pointing to the white roots that covered him.
The others and I walked toward him and extended our hands, and the moment we touched, all of our eyes turned white, and that sensation of leaving one's own body appeared again.
The cave floor vanished.
Suddenly, I was standing on a hill. The sky was dark, without stars. Around me, thirty weirwood stumps formed a circle. Thirty melancholy faces carved into pale wood. Dry. Dead for centuries.
And then they began to bleed.
The red sap ran from the empty eye sockets, descended along the cracked bark and soaked the ground. First one. Then another. Then all at once. The blood of the trees ran in silence, and the earth darkened around the roots.
The vision changed.
I was in a sacred grove, somewhere in the North, and a weirwood that should not have been there was sprouting from the frozen ground. It grew too fast. The branches extended like fingers that had waited too long to stretch.
Another vision. Weirwoods the Andals had burned, stumps that had rotted, forgotten roots... all had small shoots.
In various castles that had previously held a weirwood in their godswood, strange things began to appear. A small sapling began to sprout from the soil, where thousands of years ago, before the Andals burned and cut them down, their red leaves and white wood had stood.
Septons and the most radical faithful demanded the destruction of these trees, but their demands fell on deaf ears.
Houses in the south that still held weirwoods in their godswoods noticed something in the air but could not say what it was.
The vision faded. The cave returned.
Sigurd, at my side, had his hand on the axe without realizing it. "What... what was that?"
Leaf moved at the edge of the torchlight, her golden eyes gleaming in the dimness. "Your birth, Arthur Snow." She took a step forward, her thin voice echoing among the roots and stones. "The trees felt it before anyone. The sap ran differently. The roots trembled as though remembering something ancient. Something that had happened before your names existed." She raised one of her small hands and rested it on the white trunk of the nearby weirwood. The bark seemed to pulse under her fingers. "The Old Gods were sleeping. Your birth woke them."
Perseu furrowed his brow. "Woke them?"
"The moment you arrived," Leaf said, her feline eyes fixed on me. "The world shuddered. The ice groaned. The earth cried out. And the gods... opened their eyes." She tilted her head, the corners of her mouth rising in a gesture that was not quite a smile. "You are blessed, Arthur Snow. Your birth is a portent."
"Portent of what?" I asked, my voice drier than I intended.
"Chaos."
Perseu stepped forward, arms crossed. "Chaos? That doesn't sound like a good portent."
Leaf laughed. The sound was thin, ancient, like dry leaves dragging in the wind. "Foolish man." The thin voice echoed among the roots and stones. "Chaos is not good or bad. It is simply what comes when the world is in stasis." She moved a step forward, her large golden eyes fixed on Perseu, then on me. "You men call it a portent as though it were the gods' choice to punish or bless. It is not like that."
The face carved in the tree seemed to look directly at me now. "Chaos is the moment between what was and what will be. It is when old things break because they can no longer sustain the weight of time." A pause. The distant sound of ravens echoed through the cave. "Sometimes this brings death. Other times... birth."
Leaf's eyes shone slightly, her feline-looking eyes beginning to unsettle me. She did not blink. "This is your song and your destiny, child. You are blood. You are fire. You are ice. And you are death." She raised a hand, her long fingers pointing at me. "Your birth drew the Gods from their sleep. The trees woke. Weirwoods that had been destroyed by the First Men and by the fanatics of the False Gods were reborn." Her voice fell, grew heavier. "But make no mistake, child. Chaos is not only rebirth and restoration. It is death and destruction as well."
The silence returned. The water ran below. The torches crackled.
Kevin cleared his throat. "Right. So... he's a kind of walking catastrophe. But with potential for good things. Is that it?"
Leaf did not answer. She only continued looking at me.
I stood still for a moment, processing. Then I breathed in deeply. "All right." I turned to Leaf. "Chaos or not, I was already in the middle of this before I walked into this cave. I'm not going to pull back now."
"I won't promise something I don't know if I can deliver. And I won't accept an agreement without knowing what it requires of me."
Leaf tilted her head. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything." I took a step forward. "What was spent. What needs to be paid. How. And what happens to me if I fail."
She was silent for a moment. The other children glanced at one another. The cold wind that came from inside the cave made the torches dance. I finished closing the gap, returning her gaze.
"You fight my war now with everything you have. I save your future afterward."
The chamber sank into the sound of distant water. The small creatures glanced at each other in the half-light of the torches, the air heavy with hesitation. Leaf's childlike expression changed. The corners of her mouth rose by millimeters in what almost resembled respect.
"The First Men also liked to dictate the terms of stone and iron," the ancient voice murmured. "We accept your terms, Arthur Snow."
The children around us joined hands. The movement was perfectly synchronized, almost fluid, closing the circle completely.
She pulled an obsidian dagger from the folds of her clothes of leaves and moss. Without hesitation, she drew the chipped black edge of the stone across her own palm. The blood that welled from the cut was not human red: it ran dark, almost black, thick and gleaming like the sap that weeps from the carved faces of the weirwoods. She extended her wounded hand in my direction. Four fingers dirty with earth and magic, waiting.
I pulled my dagger from its sheath. The rippled Valyrian steel reflected the uneven fire of the torches for a moment before I drew the edge across the palm of my left hand. I closed my fist. The cut burned and the warm blood ran quickly along the side of my hand. I stepped forward and gripped Leaf's hand. The grip was firm. The human blood mixed with the ancient sap, making our palms slick, but neither of us loosened our fingers.
She raised her face to mine. The large feline eyes shone in the dimness. When she spoke in the Old Tongue, the childlike voice carried the echo of forgotten ages.
"We, the Singers of the Earth, will walk alongside men once more." Leaf's voice rang firm against the stone walls. "We will give our wisdom, yield our groves and spill our blood against the Cold that advances. We will protect yours and fight your war."
I held her golden gaze, shaping the hard words of the ancient language in my throat. "And I," I tightened our fingers further, feeling the blood run to our wrists, "promise that your kind will not find its end under my watch. What lives in the forest will not be extinguished. I will bring your future back. The Singers of the Earth will walk together with the First Men again."
As I finished, the Children of the Forest in the circle began to sing. The voices rose and fell together, a sound that did not belong to human throats. It mimicked the wind whipping through dry branches, the noise of stones at the bottom of a river and the sharp crack of ice splitting in the dead of night. The entire cave seemed to vibrate with the sound.
*Crack*
From the ceiling, from the fissures in the rocks and from the base of Brynden's throne, white roots began to creep. They slid like blind serpents across the floor, ignoring Sigurd and Kevin's boots. They climbed my legs, crossed my body and descended along my arm. They climbed Leaf the same way. When the pale tips reached the center, they coiled violently over our joined hands. The living wood gripped our fingers and wrists, tearing its own bark to absorb the mixed blood and sap, braiding itself into a thick knot that sealed our grip in a rigid cocoon. The pressure of the roots nearly broke bone.
The chant around us rose in pitch. The magic in the air thickened, pressing down on shoulders and lungs. Leaf did not look away. Neither did I. We spoke together, our voices perfectly aligned, cutting through the ancient melody.
"Thus we swear by earth and water."
The roots pulsed against my skin, as though they had a heart of their own.
"We swear by bronze and iron."
The vivid red and the thick black seeped into the white wood, staining the knot around our hands.
"We swear by ice and fire."