He did not spare another glance for Bran's body, now stiff in death, its soul long gone.
After the Old God had seized the body, Lo Quen did not need to think to know Bran's fate.
He had most likely already been reduced to weirwood seed paste, used by the Old God to prolong his wretched existence.
Lo Quen left behind a gentle veil of starlight, which lingered around Bran, laying his body to rest within the weirwood itself.
Then, guided by what he had extracted from the Old God's memories, he stepped forward.
Space twisted around him. In an instant, he was gone from the damp, shadowed hiding hollow and appeared in another location deep within the Mossovy Forest, one far older and far more concealed.
The air here was thick with primal magic. A weirwood stood like a silent guardian, its carved face twisted in sorrow and grief.
Its roots coiled deep into the earth, and where they rose and knotted together, they formed a natural hollow, half-hidden beneath moss and tangled roots.
Inside the hollow lay a slender girl, resting quietly on the ground as if asleep.
She had a distinctive long face. It was Arya Stark, whom Lo Quen had seen before.
He stepped closer, crouched down, and gently took Arya's slightly cold hand.
A thread of pure, gentle magic flowed from him into her body, spreading through her limbs and veins, dispersing the force that had bound her consciousness.
"Mmm…"
Arya let out a faint murmur. Her long lashes fluttered, and her eyes slowly opened.
Those gray-brown eyes were filled with confusion and haze.
When her focus sharpened and she recognized the figure before her, her pupils shrank, and she blurted out in shock,
"I… how are you here?"
She tried to sit up instinctively, but dizziness washed over her after lying still for so long.
Lo Quen steadied her, a trace of helpless amusement on his face.
"That's what I should be asking you, Lady Stark. How did you end up alone, asleep in the depths of this cursed forest?"
Arya rubbed her temples, which still throbbed faintly, as her memories slowly returned.
"I followed Lady Melisandre to the eastern continent," she said. "She said there were prophecies in Asshai about the final battle of ice and fire. But she just kept waiting there and never acted. I… I couldn't wait anymore. I wanted to find Jon. I wanted to know what was really happening beyond the North."
"So I went north on my own. I crossed the Grey Waste and came to this legendary Mossovy Forest."
Her expression turned troubled.
"I didn't find Jon, but… I found Bran. He was hiding here in the forest. But… he was strange. The way he looked at me felt unfamiliar, cold. He told me to leave immediately, said this wasn't a place I should be."
"I refused. I kept following him. I wanted to understand what was wrong with him… and then…"
She frowned, struggling to recall.
"Then I remember smelling a strange floral scent. My head started spinning, and after that, I don't remember anything."
Lo Quen listened in silence. He already knew all of this from the Old God's memories.
That Bran had been the Old God himself. After stealing Bran's body, he had remained in the Mossovy Forest, maintaining his hidden refuge.
Arya's pursuit had clearly alerted him and made him uneasy, so he had used some hallucinogenic plant native to the forest to put her to sleep.
Sleep?
Lo Quen smiled faintly.
The Old God had not killed Arya, most likely because he intended to use her First Men bloodline to cultivate this place into a nursery, a steady source of suitable vessels.
He looked at the girl who had narrowly escaped death, his gaze tinged with something complicated.
"Let's go, Arya."
Lo Quen offered no further explanation. He simply reached out, intending to help her up.
"No!"
Arya slapped his hand away, her gray-brown eyes blazing with determination.
"I can't leave. Jon and Bran, I have to find them. They're my brothers. A Stark doesn't just disappear without answers!"
Seeing the stubborn resolve on her face, Lo Quen sighed inwardly.
The truth was cruel, but hiding it would be even crueler.
He let the trace of a smile fade, met Arya's gaze, and said calmly,
"Arya, face reality. Jon and Bran… they're already dead."
The color drained from Arya's face in an instant.
Her eyes widened, her lips trembling. She seemed ready to argue, to scream, but no sound came out.
Lo Quen did not pause. He told her how, after the final battle of the world of ice and fire, Jon and Ygritte had been twisted by the influence of the Black Stone, transformed into inhuman twins, and how he had been forced to destroy them.
He told her how Bran's body had been taken over by that ancient, malevolent Old God, turned into nothing more than a vessel.
And he told her that just moments ago, he had completely erased that Old God from existence.
The cold truth shattered every remaining illusion.
Arya listened in a daze, her body beginning to tremble uncontrollably.
She remembered Jon's resolute back as he left, remembered Bran's pale, fragile face after his fall, and that gentle smile he still wore…
They had been the most important people in her life, the ones who carried her through countless cold nights.
But now…
Gone?
Jon had become a monster…
Bran had been taken over by a creature that had lived for ten thousand years…
"No… you're lying… you have to be lying!"
Arya shook her head violently, tears pouring down her face like broken beads.
She collapsed to the ground, burying her face in her hands. Suppressed sobs spilled through her fingers, echoing through the silent, ancient weirwood hollow, heavy with despair and helplessness.
Lo Quen did not try to comfort her. He simply stood nearby, letting her pour out her grief.
He knew she had endured too much and lost too much. These tears were something she had to shed.
After a long time, Arya's crying gradually faded into quiet sobs, her shoulders still trembling.
Only then did Lo Quen step forward and gently rest his hand on her head.
His palm was warm, carrying a steady, reassuring strength.
"Arya, crying won't bring the dead back. But the living still have to move forward. Your sister Sansa is still waiting for you. She needs you."
Arya lifted her head and looked at Lo Quen through tear-filled eyes.
She thought of Winterfell. She thought of her sister, Sansa.
Yes. She still had her sister. She still had a home.
Revenge no longer meant anything.
The root of all this tragedy, those ancient and evil beings, had already been dealt with, one by one, by the man standing before her.
And she, Arya Stark, perhaps needed to return to where she belonged.
She wiped the tears from her face. Her eyes were still red, but a faint light had returned to them, the unyielding resilience of wolf's blood.
She glanced at Lo Quen, then at the sorrow-carved weirwood outside the hollow, and finally nodded slowly.
"Let's go."
Her voice was steady.
Lo Quen gave a slight nod as starlight enveloped them both.
In the next instant, their figures vanished from the tree hollow deep within the Mossovy Forest, leaving only the ancient weirwood behind, standing in silence as it continued to witness everything that passed across this land.