Chapter 5
The heat inside the Greene house was different from the heat outside. Outside, it was a dry, direct fire; inside, it was a stagnant humidity that smelled of iron, rancid sweat, and the chemical fear emanating from Rick Grimes.
Rick stood in a corner of the room, hands stained with his son's blood, watching Herschel with an intensity that seemed to push the old man to work faster. Herschel, for his part, moved with a clumsiness that betrayed his lack of practice with humans. His hands, accustomed to the thick hides of cattle, trembled as he held the surgical forceps. The light from the oil lamps cast long, flickering shadows on the walls, making the scene look like a painting from a much darker age.
"It's not coming out… the bullet has fragmented," Herschel whispered, sweat beads rolling off his forehead and falling near Carl's open wound. "I can't… I can't see properly."
Rick took a step forward, his jaw so tight that the muscles in his neck stood out like taut cords.
"Do something, Herschel. For the love of God, do something," his voice was a broken whisper—the sound of a man watching his last hope bleed out onto a white sheet.
I approached the bed. My presence in the room was like a physical weight displacing the oxygen. Maggie, who was helping clean the blood, instinctively moved away as I passed. She didn't look me in the eye; no one in this house did if they could avoid it.
I placed my hand on Herschel's shoulder. The old man tensed but didn't pull away.
"Step aside, Herschel," I said with gelid calm. "Your pulse is a greater threat than that lead right now."
"He's my son!" Rick intervened, blocking my path. "You… what you did before… what was that? How did you stop the bleeding?"
I looked at him steadily. Rick Grimes was a man who needed rules, laws, and rational explanations to keep from falling apart. His sheriff's uniform, though dirty and torn, was his mental armor. I was about to strip it from him.
"What I did was keep him here, Rick. If you want him to keep breathing, let me work."
I didn't wait for his permission. I placed my right hand on Carl's abdomen, just above Herschel's incision. I closed my eyes and activated my Majesty, but this time I focused it inward, toward the boy's molecular structure. Through my Vision, Carl's body ceased to be flesh and bone and became a map of energy currents and breaking points. I could see the lead fragments embedded in his tissues like black spots in a sea of red light.
I concentrated my will. A golden pulse, dense and warm, erupted from my palm. Rick stifled a cry, and Herschel backed away until he hit the wall, crossing himself with a trembling hand. The light didn't illuminate the room; it seemed to leak through Carl's skin, making his veins glow with a pale gold.
I used my energy to push the bullet fragments toward the surface. It was a delicate process—micro-surgery of pure will. I felt Carl's body stabilize, his heart finding a rhythmic beat under my command. One by one, the shards of metal were expelled from the flesh, dropping into the metal tray with a clink that shattered the deathly silence of the room.
I withdrew my hand. The light faded, leaving Carl with a much healthier color and a deep, steady breath. The wound was still there, but it was no longer lethal. It had ceased to be a death sentence and become a simple process of recovery.
I turned to Herschel.
"Close the wound now. There is no more lead inside."
The old man nodded mechanically, moving like an automaton. Rick, however, wasn't looking at his son. He was looking at me. There was a terror in his eyes that had nothing to do with the walking dead outside. It was the terror of a man who has just discovered that the universe is much larger and more frightening than his Bible or his police manuals had taught him.
I left the room to let Herschel finish his work. I needed air, even if the Georgia air was a mass of stifling vapor. In the hallway, I ran into Beth. She was leaning against the wall, waiting for me.
"Sophia is sleeping," she said. Her voice was quiet, but there was a new devotion in her gaze—a flame I had ignited myself. "Will the boy be alright?"
"He will live," I replied. "But his father is going to need more than medicine to survive this night."
I went downstairs and out onto the porch. Shane Walsh was there, sitting on the steps, cleaning his shotgun with unnecessary aggressiveness. Torgad was standing a few meters away, arms crossed, watching him as a predator watches prey that doesn't yet know it's in the net.
"How's the kid?" Shane asked without looking up.
"He would live longer if his father didn't have such noisy friends," Torgad replied in his rough but direct English.
Shane clenched his jaw and stood up, facing Torgad. Shane was a man of action, an alpha who felt his territory being invaded by something he couldn't intimidate.
"Listen to me, you giant piece of shit. I don't know where you people came from, but Rick and I are the law here. If you think you can—"
Torgad didn't back down. He leaned forward, letting his shadow completely cover Shane.
"The law you knew died when the dead started eating the living, noisy man," Torgad said. "There is only one law here: the law of the Sanctuary. And you are not a part of it."
Shane was about to say something else—likely something stupid that would have cost him a few ribs—when the house door opened. Rick stepped out onto the porch. He was pale, his shirt still stained with blood, but his eyes were fixed on me.
"Shane, leave it," Rick said. His voice was flat, devoid of its usual strength.
Shane looked at Rick, then at Torgad, and finally spat on the ground before stalking off toward the fence where my men were still working.
Rick approached me. He walked to the edge of the porch and looked out at the golden fields that were beginning to darken. The silence between us stretched on, broken only by the sound of my savages' pickaxes hitting the earth in the distance.
"What you did up there…" Rick began, without looking at me. "That wasn't medicine. It wasn't luck. I've seen a lot of people die in my line of work, Valthor. I've seen gunshot wounds up close. What you did… it shouldn't be possible."
"The world you knew was full of things you thought were impossible, Rick. You just had the luxury of ignoring them."
Rick turned to me, a desperate urgency on his face.
"What are you? Are you some kind of government experiment? Is that why the dead rose? Is this part of the same thing?"
I walked to the railing and rested my hands on the warm wood. I knew Rick needed a truth, but not the truth he expected. He wanted a technical explanation, a conspiracy—something he could file away in his sheriff's mind.
"I am not an experiment, Rick. And I have nothing to do with the corpses trying to devour you."
"Then how do you do it? How did you know my name? How did you know about Sophia?" Rick took a step toward me, invading my personal space. "Give me an explanation. One that makes sense."
I looked him in the eye. At that moment, I decided that gelid honesty would be my most effective tool of domination. If I wanted his loyalty, I had to first destroy his old vision of the world.
"You seek an explanation that fits your world, Rick. But that world ended the day the first dead man stood back up. The problem is you're still trying to measure reality with a ruler that no longer exists."
I paused, letting my words sink in.
"I come from a place very far away, Rick. A place where winter lasts years and where magic isn't a nursery tale, but a force that decides who lives and who dies. I am not of this world. I am not of this earth."
Rick stood frozen. His first reaction was a nervous laugh, a spasm of incredulity.
"Are you telling me… that you're an alien? A visitor from space?"
"Do not be a fool," I replied, and my voice dropped an octave, becoming heavy. "I do not come from the stars. I come from a different plane of existence. My home was a world of steel, ice, and dragons. A world I left behind to find something greater."
Rick took a step back, shaking his head. His mind was actively fighting the information.
"That's… that's crazy. You're insane. You're leading a group of fanatics and you think—"
"Look at me, Rick."
It wasn't a shout, but the authority in my voice made Rick stop dead. I concentrated a fraction of my energy into my eyes, letting the golden glow of my Majesty leak through my pupils. It wasn't a subtle shimmer; it was a flare of absolute power that seemed to illuminate the porch for a heartbeat.
Rick covered his eyes, falling to his knees. For a moment, he didn't see Herschel's porch. He saw the Frostfangs. He saw the perpetual snow, felt the cold that cuts through bone, and saw the shadow of something immense flying over a desolate land. It was a one-second vision—a direct download from my memory to his consciousness.
When he pulled his hand away from his eyes, Rick was shaking. He was sweating despite the fact that, for a moment, he had felt the cold of the North.
"I do not ask you to understand it, Rick," I said, returning to my calm tone. "I only ask that you accept reality. I have brought my people to this world seeking a new beginning. I have claimed this farm because it is necessary for our survival. And I have saved your son because his life is a bargaining chip that secures your loyalty."
Rick looked at me from the ground, his face distraught. The man who had arrived shouting as a sheriff looking for help now looked like a shipwrecked sailor lost on a strange coast.
"What do you want from us?" Rick asked, his voice cracking.
"The same thing I want from the Greenes. Loyalty. Work. Order. This world is no longer yours, Rick. But under my command, your people can have something no one else on this planet has: real security. Not just wooden walls, but protection that goes beyond what your bullets can offer."
I leaned toward him, whispering so only he could hear.
"Tomorrow, the rest of your group will arrive. Daryl, Carol… they will come seeking refuge. And you are going to be the one to tell them the rules have changed. You are going to be the one to explain to them that this farm already has an owner."
Rick lowered his head, defeated by a logic he couldn't fight and a power he couldn't ignore.
"Shane won't accept it," Rick whispered. "He's not like me. He'll fight."
"Shane is a problem I will solve in due time," I replied, standing up. "Now go to your son. Enjoy the miracle I have granted you, for in my world, miracles are never free."
Valthor's POV (Internal Monologue)
I watched Rick enter the house, shoulders slumped. The seed was planted. It wasn't just that he believed me; it was that he no longer had another choice. He had seen a fragment of my original world, and that had fractured his psyche in a way no horde of walkers ever could.
My Domain was vibrating with strength. By revealing a part of my origin to Rick, the anchoring had strengthened. It was as if the earth itself were beginning to accept that I am not a visitor, but a conqueror of realities.
I could feel Jarl in the woods, watching the road. And beyond, the horde of the dead continued its slow advance toward us. Otis's shot had been the dinner bell. In a few hours, the dead would reach the fences. It would be the moment to prove to Rick, to Shane, and to their entire group that their "thunder tubes" are toys compared to the will of a Sovereign of the North.
I needed to begin preparing Beth and Maggie for what was coming. They would be my links to the living of this world. And Shane… Shane would be the example. A man who thinks himself king in a kingdom of ashes needs to be humbled so that others understand where true power