Dr. Perestan consoled the Commander again. "Actually, my lord, you don't need to worry about the lack of maesters. With the Dragon Queen's temper, she would never let the Citadel off that easily.
Within half a year, a large number of archmaesters and maesters will surely be exiled to the Wall. If you're interested, you could even build a small branch of the Citadel in Castle Black. I'll be the overseer, hahaha."
By the end, the red-nosed old doctor was laughing proudly.
Jon stared at him with a strange look, his lips moving slightly, but in the end, he said nothing.
"Then continue sending pleas to the lords," he said with a complicated tone. "Tell them the Long Night is coming and that they must come to the Wall as soon as possible.
We need knights. There are too many hired wildlings—we need honorable and capable knights to manage them."
The old doctor shook his head and cursed, "The nobles have no honor. All they care about is the fifty gold dragons. They say, if the Wall pays up now—fifty gold dragons for each man of the Night's Watch—then however many you need, that's how many they'll send.
Damn them. They're treating the honorable Night's Watch like slavers. If it were truly a slave trade, even the strongest slave warrior wouldn't be worth fifty silver stags."
"The fifty gold dragons are a reward from the Dragon Queen to the brothers of the Watch after surviving the Long Night. The nobles have no right to claim it," Jon said with a frown.
The old man spread his hands and said helplessly, "That's what I told them too—and they cursed me, said I was a fake Perestan.
Speaking of which, I must say something in defense of the Citadel. We maesters who broke guest rights—we were terrible.
But still, no matter what, the integrity of maesters is far higher than that of the nobility.
The rot of the maesters now is entirely due to the decay of the Seven Kingdoms' nobles. They're ten times worse than us and have dragged our standards down with them."
Jon shot the red-nosed doctor a sharp look. "Once Sam takes the wight for a stroll in the South, those lords will change their minds. I hope the Citadel is as you say—still holding a higher standard than the knights."
Leaving the rookery, Jon found Melisandre again in the courtyard.
It was as if she had known he would come—she was already waiting there.
Jon slowed slightly, then strode over without hesitation and asked, "Can you make sure the wight loses its ability to raise the dead—without melting it?"
"Maybe," the Red Woman replied.
"Maybe?" Jon clearly wasn't satisfied with that answer.
"I've never encountered a wight before. The little one is still under study, and now you want to send it away," she said, a trace of blame in her tone.
"Double insurance. If you can't seal away the greater wight's necromantic powers, Sam will have to kill it, and then present the lesser wight to the Citadel and the nobles.
The small one doesn't use magic, it's far less shocking than the greater one, so it's just a backup plan," Jon explained.
"I'll place a seal on them both and give Samwell a ruby. If the seal fails and the wight regains its magic on the way, the ruby will flash red as a warning," Melisandre said.
"Good." Jon let out a breath of relief and turned to head back to the command tower.
Melisandre took a few quick steps to catch up and linked her arm with his. Before he could pull away, she said, "Jon, as a novice Shadowbinder, don't reject my friendship."
Even through wool and leather, Jon could feel the startling heat of her soft body.
She lifted his rough hand and pressed it against her chest. "Mmm, can you feel it? The boundless magic surging within me?"
Jon's hand trembled.
"My body is made entirely of flame and shadow. Long ago, I stopped needing food, water, or air. One day, when I complete the task R'hllor has given me, I shall ascend to His realm. Do you understand what that means?"
"The kings of the past, the children yet unborn—wherever I desire to speak, I shall speak; wherever I wish to wander through time and seasons, I shall go. This is the realm I dwell in, Jon—do you understand?"
The Red Woman breathed softly into his ear. "I am the god of Shadowbinders!"
Jon pressed his lips together and said flatly, "I'm not a Shadowbinder. I specialize in the fire magic Her Majesty Daenerys taught me."
"That's unfortunate. She didn't inherit the full teachings of the High Magi either. Let me guide you in mastering the secrets of the sacred flame," Melisandre said with a light laugh.
"I'm not interested in sacred flames. As a man of the Night's Watch, their secrets are useless to me," Jon replied.
"Ha, how could it be useless?" Melisandre chuckled again. "The sacred flame reveals truth. Through it, you can see through stone and earth, and pierce the darkest secrets within men's souls.
Jon, I saw you in the sacred flame—you cannot escape it."
"I'm right here on the Wall. I'm not running. Whatever comes, I won't fear it. You can't scare me," Jon said, withdrawing his right hand and freeing himself from her arm.
Melisandre laughed. "Lord Snow, you seem awfully nervous."
Jon didn't want to admit it and changed the subject. "Why did you come to the Wall? Why travel from Asshai all the way here—what for?"
The Red Woman raised her head, the jewel at her throat glimmering red, and she chanted softly, "Long ago, I dreamed of the Wall. I understand it far better than any of you Night's Watch brothers.
Beneath it lies mighty magic, forged of ancient knowledge and wisdom—it is the gateway of the world.
What happens here will affect the entire world. It will decide the path of the next age.
The Wall is where you are meant to be, where the Dragon Queen is meant to be, and where I am meant to be."
"I don't understand what you're talking about."
Jon didn't bother to respond further. He turned and strode toward the top of the tower.
"You will," Melisandre murmured softly behind him, watching his back.
Beyond the Haunted Forest, across the icy plain dotted with sparse ironwood, in the far northern land of eternal winter, there stood a tall hill.
At its summit grew a great grove of weirwood trees, their leaves like red hands.
Some were as thick as a man's embrace, others as thin as fingers, some the width of a bowl's mouth—countless white trunks crowded together, like a graveyard of gods.
At the Foot of the Hill
It was a world of its own—The underground world belonging to the Children of the Forest.
Guided by Sam, Bran left the Wall, riding on the back of Coldhands' massive elk. They traveled dozens, sometimes hundreds of miles a day, heading north for nearly a month.
The sun rose and fell as they crossed mountains, rivers, and forests, until at last they reached the base of a hill that resembled the tomb of the Old Gods.
Countless wights surrounded the hill, like an army of a million soldiers laying siege to a city.
When Bran first arrived, the wights were buried under snow—he hadn't even realized how long they had been there.
Coldhands had spoken the truth. The cave was protected by magic; the wights couldn't enter, and neither could Coldhands himself.
Only the living, whose bodies still carried warmth, could pass through.
Bran saw many of the squirrel people and felt, for a moment, as if he had stepped into one of Old Nan's stories.
The Children of the Forest looked like children themselves—ten-year-old children, with large, clear eyes of all different colors, narrow like a cat's. They wore cloaks woven from leaves, and their skin, like that of a doe, was speckled with spots.
"So many squirrel people! Dozens, maybe hundreds," Bran exclaimed.
"Many? No. These are all that remain of our kind," replied one of them, her voice as clear as a young girl's but filled with sorrow.
"They look like children," Meera Reed remarked.
"The First Men called us children, and the giants called us squirrels. But we are neither squirrels nor children. In our tongue, the name 'Children of the Forest' means 'Those Who Sing the Song of the Earth.' Long before your Old Tongue was born, we had been singing in our own language for millions of years," said the Singer.
"But you speak the Common Tongue," Meera said.
"For him," the Singer replied, pointing at Bran. "If I spoke our language, he would not understand."
"I was born in the age of the dragons," she continued. "I walked the lands of men for two hundred years, observing, listening, and learning. I can even speak Valyrian!
I met the Greenseer King. I witnessed the Dance of the Dragons and the fall of the last of the great wyrms.
I had intended to keep wandering, but my legs grew weary, and the world of men drained my spirit. So I turned back and came home."
Her tone was weathered, and her gaze deep and distant.
"Gods, two hundred years!?" Meera and Bran gasped together.
The Singer smiled. "Perhaps, two hundred years from now, I'll tell your tale to the next traveler—the story of Bran, and the Dragon Queen."
"Who is the Dragon Queen?" Bran asked in confusion.
"When you become the Three-Eyed Raven, you will see for yourself. Her story is etched on the leaves, buried beneath the roots, and will remain there forever," the Singer sighed.
"Do you have a name?" Bran asked.
"Nibudong_," she said, her mouth forming a strange sound.
"In our language, it's just a single symbol," she added.
"What about in the Common Tongue?" Bran asked.
"It would be very long—thousands of characters. You may call me 'Leaf,'" the Singer replied.
With a torch in hand, Leaf led the way. They crossed thick, snake-like roots of weirwood trees, passed several underground rivers, and walked across a narrow bridge that spanned a deep gorge.
At last, Bran, Hodor, and the Reed siblings followed Leaf into a cavern filled with tangled weirwood roots.
At the center of the cave, a throne of twisted weirwood roots stood—upon it sat a skeletal king.
His body was frail, his black robes tattered and decaying. Tree roots coiled around and through his body like wooden serpents. One root threaded through his trousers, piercing his withered thigh and emerging from his shoulder.
Faint, dark red leaves grew from his skull, and his forehead was overrun by clusters of gray mushrooms.
A small patch of skin remained stretched across his face, tight and pale like white leather. Even that skin was splitting, with brown and yellow bone jutting out from beneath.
He had one eye, red like a pool of blood. The other socket was empty, a slender white root creeping down his cheek and burrowing into his neck.
He was a man grown into a weirwood.
"The Three-Eyed Raven?" Bran asked uncertainly.
"Yes—the Three-Eyed Raven. Brynden Rivers. Lord Bloodraven. Former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. All of them are me."
A glimmer of life sparked in the red eye of the corpse. "Bran, you've finally come. I have watched you for a long time. With a thousand and one eyes, I witnessed your birth, your first steps, your first word, your first dream. I saw you fall from the tower with my own eyes."
Bran looked down at his legs, and asked with hope in his voice, "My legs were broken. Can you heal them?"
Brynden replied, "I cannot."
Tears welled up in Bran's eyes as he sobbed. "But you came to me again and again in my dreams, asking me to find you. I came all this way—just to have my legs healed."
"Be strong, child. You are not here to be healed. You are here to take my place—to become the next Three-Eyed Raven," said Brynden.
"Take your place?"
Bran looked at Brynden's body, grown into the roots, with mushrooms sprouting from his skull. The nine-year-old boy shrank back, crying even harder.
(End of Chapter)
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