As Lady Shella Whent cried out in horror, Roman stared at the empty space before him.
Where the shadowy figure had just been writhing, there was nothing left but a heavy iron rod embedded deep into the stone wall. The ghost itself had vanished without a trace, yet a dense, swirling black mist now saturated the corridor.
The dark fog clung particularly thick around Roman's body.
Hearing Lady Shella's scream, Old Jessy and a handful of castle guards rushed onto the scene, drawing their steel swords instantly. They stopped dead in their tracks, staring warily at Roman.
Finding the winged boy standing amidst an unnatural, shifting dark fog, the guards' immediate reaction was that the curse of Harrenhal had finally possessed him.
However, the terrified servant Roman had saved immediately scrambled to his feet to intervene.
"Do not attack! It wasn't Roman! A demonic shadow tried to kill me, and Roman saved my life!"
Roman was still reeling from the violent influx of memories flooding his mind and could not form the words to explain himself.
Seeing the guards' hesitation, the servant dropped to his knees and pointed frantically toward the ceiling.
"I swear by the Father, the Mother, and the rest of the Seven! If I have uttered a single lie, may the gods strike me down where I stand!"
It was a grave and binding oath. Hearing the absolute conviction in the servant's voice, Lady Shella immediately took control of the chaos.
"What are you waiting for?" she snapped at the guards. "Take Roman to the maester's chambers at once! We will discuss the details later!"
Old Jessy sheathed his sword and ordered his men to carefully support Roman away from the scene. Meanwhile, Lady Shella ordered the surviving servant to remain behind.
"Are you absolutely certain your eyes did not deceive you?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly.
Lady Shella had lived in isolation for far too long. She spent her days wandering the family crypts, speaking to the stone effigies of her deceased husband and sons. Behind her back, Lady Catelyn Stark had once pityingly described her as an old woman who talked to ghosts.
Deep down, a desperate part of her actually hoped the servant was telling the truth.
"It is the absolute truth, My Lady! I saw the shadow lunge for my throat. If Roman had not thrown that iron bar, I would be standing before the Stranger right now!"
Hearing the confirmation, Lady Shella felt a pang of sympathy for Roman's current condition, but a spark of wild anticipation ignited in her chest.
If the ghosts of the past truly walk these halls... could Walter and my boys return to me?
"My Lady?" the servant asked nervously, noticing the manic, shifting look in Lady Shella's eyes.
She quickly masked her emotions, waving her hand dismissively. After organizing double patrols for the remainder of the night, she quietly retreated to her private chambers.
Unsurprisingly, no one in the inhabited towers slept a wink that night. The guards and servants huddled together, terrified that another phantom might drift through their walls.
Fortunately, it seemed Roman had destroyed the only spirit roaming the corridors that evening.
Up in the rookery, Maester Tom carefully examined the unconscious Roman but could find no physical injuries. Utterly baffled by the lingering black mist that had surrounded the boy, the maester eventually left to report to Lady Shella.
Inside the Lady's chambers, a single candle burned low, casting long, flickering shadows across the room.
Despite the late hour and the deep exhaustion weighing on her bones, Lady Shella's aged face betrayed a feverish excitement. She had refused to sleep until the maester arrived.
"Maester Tom, how fares the boy?"
Tom shook his head in frustration. "Physically, he is perfectly unharmed. But that unnatural black fog... My Lady, I fear the legends are true. The ghosts of Harrenhal are real."
The maester's expression was grim. If the ancient curse was a tangible reality, it meant they were living atop a massive hive of vengeful spirits.
Lady Shella leaned forward, her voice dropping to a hopeful whisper. "Maester, if spirits truly linger in this world, is there a way we might use them to commune with my family?"
"I strongly advise you to abandon that thought at once!" Maester Tom rebuked sharply.
"My Lady, the dead and the dark arts are inextricably linked. Need I remind you how House Lothston met its doom?"
The harsh reminder hit Lady Shella like a bucket of icy water. The manic hope in her eyes slowly dissolved into a chilling sobriety.
Lady Danelle Lothston had been a notorious and mad ruler of Harrenhal in the past. She delved deeply into black magic, allegedly hosting cannibalistic feasts and bathing in the blood of the innocent.
Had House Lothston not succumbed to madness and ruin, Harrenhal would never have passed into the hands of House Whent in the first place.
Sensing he had curbed her dangerous line of thought, Maester Tom suggested sending a raven to the Citadel. He wanted to request an archmaester who specialized in the higher mysteries, believing the scholars of magic would be immensely interested in Roman's ability to physically destroy a spirit.
Having lost her maester's support for her desperate plan, the adrenaline faded, leaving Lady Shella feeling incredibly old and tired. She dismissed Tom to get some rest.
Across the castle, Roman was enduring a nightmare of his own.
By shattering the shadow, he had directly absorbed the memories of an ironborn captain who had served under Harren the Black during the fortress's brutal construction.
Trapped within the captain's lingering consciousness, Roman was forced to witness the true, horrific cost of Harrenhal.
He saw thousands of enslaved laborers whipped to death in the quarries. He watched ancient, sacred weirwood trees chopped down to fuel the massive forges. Worst of all, he heard the wailing of infants as they were slaughtered, their blood drained and mixed into the mortar to bind the cursed stone.
This rampant, systemic atrocity was the true anchor of Harrenhal's legendary curse.
The nightmare finally ended when the sky turned red, and Aegon the Conqueror descended upon the black towers.
Roman was violently jolted awake right as Balerion the Black Dread unleashed a torrential wave of dragonfire directly into his face.
Gasping for air, Roman sat up in bed and realized the morning sun was already high in the sky.
His tunic was completely soaked in cold sweat. He dragged himself out of bed, changed into dry clothes, and headed straight for Lady Shella's solar.
Along the way, every servant and guard he passed bowed their heads in profound respect. Anyone capable of shattering the cursed ghosts of Harrenhal was worthy of both immense gratitude and deep, instinctual fear.
When Roman arrived, Lady Shella was already waiting for him at her desk.
"How are you feeling this morning, child?"
"A bit shaken, My Lady, but I am unharmed. Thank you for your concern."
Lady Shella nodded slowly before asking the question burning in her mind. "When you struck the shadow... did you experience anything unnatural?"
Knowing he would need Lady Shella's full backing to survive in Westeros, Roman held nothing back. He detailed the horrific, blood-soaked memories of the ironborn captain and the agonizing vision of Balerion's flames.
A long, heavy silence stretched across the room when he finished.
Then, a faint glimmer of desperate longing returned to the old woman's eyes.
"My child, Maester Tom has confirmed that the spirits of the past are real, and you are the first living man known to have destroyed one."
"From this day forward, I want you stationed outside my door as my personal night watch. Will you accept this duty?"
Looking into the grieving mother's eyes, Roman found it impossible to refuse.
However, a selfish thought immediately crossed his mind. Lady Shella was the sole legal ruler of Harrenhal, and she had no living heirs. If she died, the crown would simply hand the castle—and Roman's sanctuary—over to a stranger like Petyr Baelish.
"It would be my honor, My Lady. I swear to protect your life with my own!"
As the heroic vow left his lips, a pang of guilt twisted in Roman's gut. His first instinct had been to protect his own political sanctuary, not the kind woman who had saved his life.
Lady Shella, however, harbored her own secret motives.
She had endured crushing loneliness ever since Robert's Rebellion. She secretly hoped that by keeping the ghost-slayer close, she might eventually find a way to summon the fractured souls of her deceased husband and children.
With their own hidden agendas quietly aligned, the two prepared for the coming nights.
Maester Tom's grand plans, however, met a humiliating end.
When his raven reached Oldtown, the archmaesters of the Citadel—staunch skeptics of magic—openly mocked his report. They accused him of going mad from the fumes of Harrenhal and fabricating ghost stories to gain academic fame.
"Tom, we know serving in that cursed ruin is unpleasant," a returning raven read. "But do not insult our intelligence with nursery tales. Ghosts? A boy who breathes black mist? Have you taken to drinking milk of the poppy?"
Infuriated by the mockery of his peers, Tom sought out Roman, begging the boy to provide physical proof so he could rub it in the archmaesters' smug faces.
But Roman had no time to entertain the angry maester.
During his latest night patrol, his draconic eyes had spotted a massive, terrifyingly powerful spirit lurking in the deeper ruins.