Chapter 71 — The Real World
In the gloom of an underground cellar, a man and a woman stood in the corner, whispering as they watched a man tied to a wooden post, unconscious. Under the dim glow of an oil lamp, their shadows stretched and twisted along the walls.
"You must torture him—break him completely. Let him die full of hatred, so he becomes a vengeful spirit. The more resentment he carries, the stronger it will be."
"Then recite the incantation. Once you do, the wraith will kill anyone you choose—peasant or noble, it doesn't matter. Of course, you'll need a lock of hair or a personal item from the target."
"There's just one crucial detail…"
Listening calmly to her lover's emotionless explanation, the woman gazed at the unconscious gentleman with her emerald eyes and said uneasily, "Will we… suffer retribution for this?"
"Retribution? You mean from the Church?" The man laughed softly when she nodded.
"Trust me, my dear—the Church is not as powerful as you imagine. They're tied down by the colonies and the Old World. They can't control everything anymore."
"And once our plan is complete… even the Church won't matter."
---
The dream faded as morning light grew stronger, dissolving into haze.
Sensation returned slowly—the faint scent of lilies by the bedside, the soft velvet quilt on his body, the lingering smell of burnt wood from the hearth. Fatigue retreated, chased away by awareness.
Charles opened his eyes.
Above him, the ceiling was painted with murals of gods, steeped in medieval style.
"Those two again…"
He stared upward for a long while, recalling the dream from the night before, unease settling into his heart.
"I keep dreaming about them. That can't be a coincidence. What's really going on?"
If anything were wrong, the Eye of True Sight should have warned him.
"So… is it really just coincidence?"
Then why had the spell been so clear in the dream?
Still distracted, Charles rose, dressed, washed, and stood by the window of the Hand's Tower, gazing out over the Red Keep—his thoughts still tangled in the fragments of that dream.
Lately, he dreamed of that man and woman constantly: talking, walking, being intimate—scenes of a life that seemed so real.
At first, Charles assumed it was nothing more than hormones playing tricks on him. But repetition changed suspicion into certainty.
"Something is happening. Something I don't know."
He turned toward the mirror, studying his reflection.
The ordinary dreams were one thing—but last night, he had seen a necromantic spell.
Not a vague fantasy—every sigil, every step, every requirement was etched clearly in his memory.
If that were a coincidence, then he'd have to believe he'd somehow invented a real spell in his sleep.
"Shame it's too cruel to test…"
Thinking of the spell called the Curse of the Resentful Wraith, he felt a flicker of regret—then forced the thought aside.
For now, the dream had no answer.
He began tidying the room, clearing away the mess from last night.
No—nothing wild had happened.
The "mess" came from several old men and one young man, deep in long discussion and debate.
And at the center of it all was Marwyn.
This archmaester from the Citadel had been born to a poor family in Oldtown, but fortune favored him. As a child, he was chosen by a maester to serve as an acolyte, granting him a chance to climb the social ladder.
That alone wasn't the point.
What mattered was this—
Marwyn was deeply versed in magic.
He claimed to have traveled the world: from Westeros to Essos, from distant Sothoryos to lands even farther beyond the maps of known civilization.
Blood magic, divination, curses… in the shadowed lands across the sea, countless supernatural forces were said to still flourish.
After the mysterious destruction of the Valyrian Freehold, its ruins lay shrouded in poisonous mists. In the far north, legends spoke of ice dragons whose wings blotted out the sky. There was also the distant Golden Empire in the east, and the city known as Qarth, where strange warlocks and beings who seemed effectively immortal were said to reside…
Listening to these tales, Charles felt as if his eyes had truly been opened. He had once believed magic was all but extinct in this world—only to discover that it had merely gone underground.
"Still," Archmaester Marwyn said, shaking his head, "in Westeros, traces of magic vanished long ago. For you to wield such power again… it's nothing short of a miracle."
Marwyn was puzzled, but Charles had no intention of explaining.
Over time, Charles had already formed his own theory. Magic in this land wasn't gone—just thinner, quieter, and harder to reach.
But then again, could a man pulling a cart ever compete with a diesel engine?
Charles, able to cast spells through pure spiritual force, was that engine.
A crude analogy came to mind: local mages were like laborers drenched in sweat, straining to pull wagons in the old world—while Charles cruised past on a motorized tricycle.
Technique and efficiency were on entirely different levels.
"But… is magic making a comeback?"
Thinking back on what he had heard the night before, another thought struck him.
Grand Maester Pycelle's words echoed in his head:
"Age catches up to you… I'm not well lately, so I intend to retire home. Archmaester Marwyn arrived at just the right time to take over my duties in King's Landing."
Then came Qyburn's quiet, mocking whisper:
"That old sheep doesn't look sick at all. I even saw him visiting a brothel not long ago."
Charles had ignored it at the time, but now…
"Was he running from the war? Or from something else?"
It felt like a footnote in history—so Charles didn't dwell on it. He returned to his training.
He had nearly mastered every spell in his notebook, and the magic he'd seen in his dreams last night was so brutal that even a dark wizard like him found it unsettling, let alone tempting to practice.
That didn't mean he was idle.
The grimoire he'd bought with dragon-crystal still awaited him.
But the staff…
"I really can't make sense of that thing."
As he practiced the fire-warding sigils, his mind kept wandering back to the strange staff he'd taken from the tomb near the Dragonpit.
No matter how he examined it, its "abilities" refused to reveal themselves.
Only one thing remained constant—whenever he held it, he heard voices.
Men and women, the young and the old.
And not just from King's Landing.
Oldtown, Dorne, the Vale—even the North. Through the Faith of the Seven, the staff seemed to be connected to all of Westeros.
Yet all it granted him were prayers.
No power. No favor.
Only whispers.
Secrets murmured in confession were briefly amusing—but exhausting in excess.
"So… it really is a holy artifact? A conduit of faith and light that now rests in the hands of a black wizard?"
"How absurd… that something like this would choose me."
Yet, thinking about his spectral mask and the strange coincidences surrounding him, perhaps it wasn't entirely unreasonable.
Still, the questions wouldn't go away.
The invisible pull that had led him to the old priest.
The divine voice at the Dragonpit.
The forced confession from the mob.
The seven-pointed star burned into his palm.
The eerie reaction when he tested a necromantic spell…
None of it made sense.
He searched through every church record in the Red Keep—and found nothing.
"No history? Or the history was erased? Or it exists… and I simply haven't found it yet?"
As his thoughts churned, a sudden, deafening blast of horns rose from beyond the castle walls.
The sound was loud—hurried.
Charles rushed to the window.
From the Hand's Tower, he saw it.
On the distant horizon, a thin black line.
Then two.
Then a sea of darkness.
As the shapes drew closer, details emerged.
It was an army.
Renly Baratheon's army.