"Then there's New Ghis, Qarth, Volantis… the Elephant Isle of the Jade Sea as well. They are all major forces within the Alliance.
We cannot let any of them slip through our fingers. Seven heavens above, how many kings are we talking about now?" Old Aemon said excitedly.
Dany asked with a puzzled expression, "You didn't seem to care about this before."
"Ah, back then you weren't even married, and I was already old. How long could I live? How could I think about your descendants? Now Simba is right behind the pyramid. In a few years he'll be old enough to marry and have children. Of course I need to plan for his future."
"Simba looks big, but he is only four years old!" Dany said, her expression strange.
"In Westeros, nobles marrying at twelve or thirteen is very common."
Dany pointed to the empty purple-black surface of the magic mirror and said, "Simba's children are still a long way off. Aegon is the one who is actually about to become a father."
"What?" Old Aemon lifted his gaze from the map and looked up in surprise. "Sansa is pregnant? Whose child is it?"
Whose child?
That was indeed the question!
"Aegon believes it is his. I don't think Sansa would…" Dany's expression tightened with uncertainty. "Littlefinger is dead. If it isn't true love, she doesn't need to bear a dead man's child."
"I still have some doubts," Aemon said with a frown.
After the series of outrageous scandals caused by queens Cersei and Margaery, the reputation of queens had fallen close to bankruptcy. The people of the Seven Kingdoms could not help attaching labels like "killed her husband," "took a lover," and "raising a bastard" to any woman sitting on the throne.
"Ah… in these recent years, Westeros has lost all sense of decency and virtue. In the past, who would ever question whether a prince was not the king's own son?" the old man sighed and shook his head.
Dany said with a playful smile, "Aegon swore he would never let the mother of his child lose her home. He intends to march north to Winterfell and kill Roose Bolton.
No one knows whose child it really is, but one thing is certain now: Sansa has Aegon firmly in her grasp."
"Forget it. Let them make their mess. Perhaps Westeros truly is not a suitable home for the Targaryens," Old Aemon said wistfully.
After taking Nuying City, which signified the complete destruction of the Alliance's Eastern Army, Dany remained in Meereen. She spent her days quietly cultivating magic and martial skill while waiting for the final war. She no longer wandered the grasslands.
But although she stayed in the Great Pyramid of Meereen, the horselords on the plains never ceased their activities.
The Dothraki did not require additional military rations. The grazing plains provided enough for basic survival. However, when two hundred thousand screamers gathered in one place, even mud would eventually be scraped clean.
Thus they remained scattered, organized into khalasars of ten thousand.
The twenty large khalasars were further divided into three army groups. The first group, about forty thousand strong, remained in the Lhazar river basin. They relocated the native inhabitants of Nuying City and built "City of the Khaleesi," a refuge against the Long Night.
The second group, eighty thousand strong, spread out like a net toward Meereen. They would take part in the final cleanup after the Battle of Meereen.
The third group also consisted of eighty thousand screamers. They abandoned warfare altogether, guiding their respective khalasars into full-time herding. They expanded their livestock, storing beef, mutton, cheese, hides, and other supplies for the coming Long Night.
Their grazing grounds were not limited to the Dothraki Sea. The eight ten-thousand-strong khalasars represented eight different groups. The Dothraki Sea, the forests of Qohor, and the Rhoyne basin all served as their pastures.
Of course, they might not even reach the Rhoyne before the Long Night descended, forcing them to retreat again.
Dany did not expect the horselords to store enough food to survive the entire Long Night. She only hoped their livestock would ease the food pressure on Slaver's Bay.
Slaver's Bay was not short on grain, but Dany did not know how long this Long Night would last.
Three to five years would be manageable. Eight to ten years could still be endured. But if it truly lasted a generation—fifteen years, even twenty…
On this day, Dany was meditating under a persimmon tree. She had entered the state of the Song of Wind, slowly but effectively perfecting her meditation technique.
Suddenly she opened her eyes, rose with a puzzled expression, and looked toward the northwest. She murmured, "This feeling… Brynden has completely vanished? He became part of the 'Greenseer Legacy Will.'"
She noticed Foggy hovering in midair, holding a small water flask and vibrating her dragonfly wings rapidly while staring toward Westeros. Dany asked curiously, "Foggy, what do you sense?"
"Something is wrong… very wrong…" The little fairy's expression was dazed as she muttered softly.
"What is wrong?"
"The succession failed. The new generation…" Foggy started to speak, but suddenly fell silent. Her confusion deepened. She poked her chin with a tiny finger and said, bewildered, "What was I saying? What succession?"
The succession failed?
Dany's face changed.
Foggy had lost memories of her past life, but she retained the acute perception of the Children of the Forest. Because she had become more elemental in nature, that sensitivity had only grown stronger. Her words were not baseless.
"Troublesome! A'fu has lost eighty percent of her memory. She can no longer assume an elemental form, and…"
Dany entered her mindscape and questioned the senile A'fu, "Do you sense anything unusual in the Greenseer succession?"
"Greenseer? Who is that?" A'fu replied blankly.
Dany ended the mental connection expressionlessly, then picked up A'fu and burned her into yet another soul-shattering mess.
Yes, she burned A'fu every day. Perhaps in another half-month she would reduce her to a blank slate, ready to reincarnate.
Westeros. Beyond the Wall. The land of eternal winter. Sanctuary of the ancient races.
The roots of a weirwood hung down densely like pale serpent tails from a cave ceiling, forming a natural curtain before a narrow stone chamber.
Inside the chamber, a towering man over two meters tall held a small girl in his arms as though clutching a child. The two were pressed tightly together, breathing heavily, overcome by desire, their clothing scattered.
"Ah, Bran, be gentle!"
"Hodor!" Hodor thrust even harder, growing more vigorous.
"What are you doing?" Leaf pushed aside the curtain of roots and stumbled into the cave, shouting angrily at the two tangled figures.
"Ah!" Meera's face turned scarlet. She buried her head in the man's chest and murmured, muffled, "Leaf… why, why are you here?"
"Hodor." The big man wanted to move but couldn't. Still holding Meera, his back turned toward the little forest spirit, he called out impatiently, "Hodor… go away!"
"Beast!" Leaf's cat-like eyes were burning with raging fire.
Meera's face went pale. She stammered, "Didn't you already know? You even agreed."
"I agreed to let Bran use Hodor's body to make up for the regret between you two, since fate kept you apart.
But Bran is not just Bran. He is also the Three-Eyed Raven of this generation.
Yet he rejected the Greenseer's Seal because of his personal desires!" Leaf shouted.
Hodor ignored her. He moved gently. Meera moaned softly and asked, "What? What are you saying?"
Leaf ran over, clenched her small fists, and began pounding on Hodor's big white butt, shouting, "Lord Brynden has completely vanished. Bran should have merged with the Greenseer's Seal immediately and become the next Three-Eyed Raven, but he didn't."
After being hit a few times, Hodor finally lost interest and allowed the marshland girl to slip out of his arms.
The thin, short, flat-chested girl picked up her clothes to cover herself and asked, "Why do you say that? Isn't Bran already the Three-Eyed Raven?"
Leaf glared at the gourd-like object dangling beneath Hodor and snapped, "If he were the Three-Eyed Raven, he wouldn't be fooling around with you here."
"Why?"
Hodor lowered his head and looked at Meera with deep affection. "A Three-Eyed Raven has no personal emotions, like the most selfless deity. But I don't want to leave you, and I don't want to let go of the love I have for you."
"Bran, Bran, my prince."
Meera, moved, embraced his arm and softly called his name.
"Bran, you truly are still a child who understands nothing. I should never have listened to the Dragon Queen. I should never have encouraged you to use Hodor's body to fulfill your final wish."
Leaf's golden cat eyes filled with tears, and she began to cry sadly.
"I was once a child, but after spending hundreds or even thousands of years within the tree roots, I am older than you and even more mature than Daenerys. I know exactly what I need."
Hodor's once innocent and bewildered brown eyes had become wise and weathered.
Leaf shook her head and sighed sorrowfully. "You don't understand. The Greenseer's Seal contains an overwhelming will that mortals can barely control. Lord Brynden took a very long time to merge with it perfectly.
If you had inherited the seal at the moment he fully merged with its will, you would have been able to bond with it instantly with the help of Brynden's final thoughts.
But you deceived Lord Brynden, and you have disappointed everyone.
The longer the Greenseer's Seal remains without a host, the harder it will be for you to merge with it perfectly in the future. And the Long Night is coming. Can you face Jojen, who sacrificed himself for you?"
"Jojen…" Meera's thin, rosy cheeks suddenly turned white.
Hodor's eyes reddened as his reason was gradually replaced by emotion. He roared at Leaf, "The ones who don't understand are you!
Brynden was over seventy when he became the Three-Eyed Raven. He had loved, accomplished great deeds, and lived nearly an entire legendary life.
Most greenseers throughout history were like that. They all had lives that truly belonged to them. They lived!
And me?
I broke my legs at seven years old and began passively accepting this damned fate.
I came beyond the Wall to obtain power to change my destiny. And what happened?
I am like a fawn trapped in a swamp. The more I struggle, the deeper I sink."
As he spoke, large teardrops fell from Hodor's wide brown eyes. He choked out, "From the moment I was seven, a normal person's life was already over.
After four years of torment, I finally encountered a warm ray of light in that bleak journey, only to be told I must kill it immediately. I'm not willing!
Among all greenseers, I am the youngest. My life hasn't even started. I've never truly lived.
I won't forget my responsibilities, but I must live once—truly live."
"Bran…" Meera's green eyes were full of pity and concern.
"If he doesn't merge with that… seal right now, does that mean he's not the Three-Eyed Raven?" she asked.
"No, he is."
"In that case, why argue? Isn't everything fine as it is now?" Meera asked, puzzled.
"Without the Greenseer's Seal, his power is only equivalent to that of the very first Three-Eyed Raven."
"What difference does that make?"
Leaf glanced at Hodor's determined expression and said helplessly, "There is a limit to human power. If one greenseer's vision can oversee a single forest, then two greenseers combined can oversee two forests. Three greenseers can oversee three forests.
If countless greenseers' powers are combined, they can oversee countless forests, which means the entire land.
This is why in Westeros, Lord Brynden was omniscient and omnipotent, like a god.
Now, as the Three-Eyed Raven of this generation, Bran has lost that omniscience. The things he can perceive are limited to the range of his personal power."
With the Greenseer's Seal, Brynden could receive and process every event happening across Westeros.
Bran is human. A human's "vision" is limited, and his brain cannot withstand infinite streams of information.
If he wishes to know something, he must physically enter the roots of a tree at that location to read the tree's memories.
"Bran, is that true?" Meera asked worriedly.
Hodor gently patted her head and smiled. "I still have my flock. Thousands of ravens are my eyes."
(End of chapter)
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