The castle had not stopped bleeding.
By dawn, Harrenhal's stones glistened wet with dew and blood alike. The fires had burned out, leaving only the stench of death and river silt in the air.
Althea stood upon the battlements, her cloak torn, her hands still trembling from what she had unleashed.
Below, the waters of the Trident were red as wine.
Nelly approached silently. "They've begun burning the bodies."
Althea didn't turn. "Burning will not cleanse this. Blood that runs through a curse always returns."
"You saved us."
"I doomed us," Althea said softly.
The Voice Beneath
That night, she dreamed again.
The weirwood roots coiled around her ankles, pulling her downward through soil and bone, into a black river where the drowned dead whispered her name.
"You wear a stolen crown."
"You awaken what slumbered when the first kings drowned."
"Blood answers blood, daughter of the Mockingbird."
In the darkness, she saw him the Black Stag not as a man, but as a shadow moving through flame. His crown was made of antlers and fire, his voice a rasp of thunder.
"You took what was mine," he said. "You drew blood from my river. You will give it back."
Althea woke gasping, her sheets soaked through with red water that smelled of the Trident.
The whisper came again "Below."
The Return of Peter Baelish
By morning, Peter had returned alive, unbent, smiling as though nothing had burned.
He approached the solar with a half-bow. "Your enemies are in disarray. The Black Stag's army is broken. Harrenhal stands."
Althea's eyes narrowed. "You speak as though you didn't betray me."
"I didn't betray you," Petyr said calmly. "I tested you. You passed. The lords whisper of your power some call you the Lady of Shadows now."
"That name will kill me," she hissed.
"It will crown you," he replied.
For a moment, their gazes met two minds too similar, both serpents pretending to be human.
Then Althea said quietly, "Tell me what you know of the Black Stag."
Peter's smile faltered. "He was supposed to be dead."
"He's not." She leaned forward. "He's older than death."
Secrets Beneath Harrenhal
With Peter and Nelly, Althea descended once more into the tunnels beneath Harrenhal the same where the mirror spell had shown her the cursed lords of Riverrun.
But this time, the walls bled.
Runes glowed faintly red. The air pulsed with energy that felt alive.
Nelly's torch sputtered. "This place feels wrong."
"It's not the place," Althea murmured. "It's waking."
At the chamber's center, the stone bowl had refilled itself not with water, but with black ichor.
She stared into it, and this time saw not a reflection but a memory.
The First Men kneeling before a weirwood, pledging blood to the river spirits in exchange for dominion. A stag-headed god rising from the current, crowned with bone.
And then a woman's voice, one she recognized as her own, saying
"Seal him beneath the river. Let no crown rise again."
The vision snapped. Althea staggered back, horrified.
Peter's eyes gleamed. "So you've done this before."
"No," she whispered. "I've remembered it."
The Mark of the Crown
That night, as she washed her hands, Althea saw something new faint marks along her wrists, shaped like intertwined antlers.
Nelly saw them too. "It's spreading."
"It's binding," Althea corrected. "The curse of the crown. Whoever claims it is marked by the river's will."
"Then stop," Nelly said desperately. "Let it go before it consumes you."
Althea looked out the window, where smoke still curled over the river. "If I let go, it consumes everyone else."
Her reflection in the glass smiled faintly again, not matching her face.
The Black Stag's Envoy
Three nights later, an envoy arrived at Harrenhal dressed in torn banners and carrying the sigil of the stag.
The guards brought him in half-dead from the road.
Althea questioned him personally. "Who sent you?"
The man coughed, spitting blood. "He wears your shadow, my lady. The Black Stag reborn. He claims you are his queen."
Peter's expression sharpened. "He wants alliance."
Althea's jaw clenched. "He wants blood."
The envoy laughed, hollow and strange. "You already gave it to him. Every drop that fell into the Trident fed his heart. Every death you caused woke him a little more."
His voice deepened no longer human.
"He rises with the river. You cannot drown what you have made eternal."
And then the envoy's eyes turned white, his veins black before he collapsed, lifeless.
The water leaking from his mouth smelled of the Trident.
The Council of Shadows
That night, Althea convened her secret council.
Nelly, Peter, a few surviving lords, and Maester Corbyn sat around the map of the Riverlands.
"The Black Stag's army isn't retreating," Corbyn said grimly. "They're waiting. Like they know something we don't."
"They know the river will fight for them," Petyr said. "And the river always wins."
"Unless it's turned," Althea murmured.
Peter raised an eyebrow. "You mean to command it?"
"I already have," she said. "I just need to learn how to survive it."
The room fell silent.
Nelly whispered, "And if you can't?"
"Then the Old Gods will have a queen again," Althea said, "and Westeros will have a nightmare."
The Confrontation at the Godswood
That night, she returned alone to the godswood where the weirwood tree bled dark and slow.
The air shimmered. The Black Stag appeared before her not flesh, not spirit, but shadow woven from moonlight and memory.
"You were mine once," he said.
"I was no one's," she replied.
"You sealed me in blood."
"And I'll seal you again."
The antlers glowed crimson. The shadow took shape her mirror image, crowned and smiling.
"You cannot kill what you were born from."
The figure stepped closer. "You're not fighting me, Althea. You're remembering yourself."
Althea's hands trembled she could feel her pulse syncing with the river's current.
And then, for just a moment, she saw the truth.
The Black Stag was not her enemy. It was her shadow the part of her power that she sealed away when she defied fate.
And it wanted her back.
The Final Vision
The shadow reached for her and she felt her mark flare, burning gold and crimson.
"Crown or curse," the Black Stag whispered. "You cannot have both."
"I'll have neither," she said.
The weirwood screamed as the roots split the earth, swallowing the shadow whole but not before a voice echoed through her skull
"When the river freezes, you will remember me again."
The ground sealed. The silence returned.
But in the reflection of the tree's sap, her eyes were no longer brown. They burned red like the river beneath.