Hey guys! Really sorry for the spelling and grammar mistakes in the previous chapter. Needless to say, I fixed them already. XD Thanks for reading. Three chapters left after this.


'Tonight is the era of the shattered Moon…'

Songs of the Faceless, last leaf


It has been a fortnight since the war against Valyria.

The Lorathi wordlessly observed them all in a sea of white, as they heeded orders and prepared the arms they would take in the castles along the Wall that were still un-garrisoned. Slung about their shoulders were giant bows and arrows with obsidian heads made from Valyrian dragonglass, daggers, spears, and other weapons; and on their hipbelts were scabbards containing castle-forged swords, for the thousand Valyrian steel swords from the capital had not arrived yet. Waiting might prove to be utterly useless now, though a silver lining of hope was there still. Through ravens they have learned of the fate of the Crownlands' heart—that the mad queen had allowed it to be swallowed by wildfire starting from Guildhall of the Alchemists at the center. It is but unknown if the Targaryens have survived the almost unfathomable explosion, and it was even rumored that none of the forces on both sides, not even dragons, were able to escape from that green hell.

An even worse humor is that of the Lannister queen transfiguring herself into a fiery demon in the midst of those flames, with barbed tails that coiled and snapped like sharp whips, dark horns thrusting from her head, and wings that spanned the red keep from end to end. The men have laughed about it over their last tankards of mead the previous night—humor, though forced, had become a necessity these days past or they would all go more mad than mad, what with the Night slowly crawling to its own horrendous summit.

Of course, the men knew the truth. Even with ten thousand barrels of wildfire, no real hell could ever be created south of the Wall—the Faith of the Seven is naught but farcicality riddled with theological nonsense. Even Valyria's string of volcanoes would pale in comparison with the netherworld that is beyond the ice fortress. The boastful claim amongst the men the previous night was this—if you haven't seen the cold gods, then you haven't seen death.

And if you haven't seen death, you haven't lived.

Hell is empty, Jaqen thought as he beheld the staunch faces of those men, chilling, harsh winds lashing out on their faces. He recalled the horror of what awaits them beyond the Wall. All the demons are here in the North.

Around forty brothers and fifty more from the lords' armies have fled south. There would be none to behead deserters and escaped cravens since the capital has fallen and so did the rule. There was also absolutely no time to run after those who have abandoned their sworn duties—let the boys leave and let them piss their pants while they're at it, the lords have said, and let the men stay here where the true war is.

Other men were dying by the hundreds because of unrelenting cold that cripples the bones, especially those mercenaries whose lives were spent foremost at the south.

One by one, those stationed at the stretch of castles left for their posts. Plans have changed.

The Wall whose rune had defended the realms for eight thousand years will not anymore act as those realms' last rampart. Every last man would stand and defend the Wall instead. Bran Stark had made it clear, there is within it, a stone beast that must be conquered in a realm existing and parallel to the one they are all in; for if it was not defeated, then it would remain part of the fortress—a looming catastrophe and an existing threat, and the war against the cold ones will never, ever end.

If on the other hand, the Wall does fall, then they must all face Winter's beast and try their very damned best not to die.

To defeat the enemy, one must face the enemy; not hide from it from behind the strongholds, not conceal it. Those centuries of camouflaging one ice dragon within the Wall's very quintessence, those centuries of pretending it never existed apart from what were spoken about in the lores of the elder ones, well, those centuries are over.

Jaqen saw Arya giving each of the spearwives their own obsidian implements, charging Val with the rest of the other weapons. "We'll have our swords once Aegon returns from the south," Arya had told the wildling princess. "Keep with you your spears in a while, and make sure they have obsidian heads on both ends. The poles must be strong but lightweight enough for throwing. We would use the ones with ashwood shafts."

"Arya," Jaqen called her, then tugged gently at her arm. "Can I speak with you for a second?"

She looked at Jaqen's hand that was wrapped around her arm rather possessively, smiled. "Can it wait?"

The Lorathi turned to Val, and with a meaningful gaze pleaded for a moment alone with his woman. The spearwife got the hint. "It seems like it cannot wait, Arya," and her smile was with a hint of tease. "You know where to find me." She sauntered off, ten to fifteen spears in tow and four other wildlings with her.

He led her towards the Silent Tower at Castle Black's far end.

Jaqen needed Arya—needed her like a husband would need a wife in seconds when love is most evasive and loss appears in the most tangible of forms, needed her like a child would need a mother during his innocent hours, like a believer would need a god in times when he could not tell heaven and hell apart. Yes, the need is gorging his heart in incessant levels that he would find himself breathless and dying in the midst of each night, whispering her name over and over as if he had lost her already.

The tower's interior was dark, yet their wanting eyes could trace each other's silhouettes from the torchlights inside Shieldhall, casting soft beams on them both. Jaqen lifted Arya so she could sit on the old table of sentinel, then pulled a chair close to her and settled on it, wrapping his arms around Arya's waist and resting his head in between her bosoms.

Why is it, the Lorathi thought, that everything seems darker when the light goes out, than when it had not shone in the first place?

Would I hurt this much had I not pursued Arya, or decided to meet her again?

"How do you want me, Jaqen?" Arya whispered her query with a silken voice, tempting, frolicking with sensitive, amorous turfs. Her fingers brushed through the Lorathi's hair, then traced infinity patterns along the skin of his nape. "You're in between my legs. Does a man want his girl to unlace her breeches so he can lick her?"

Jaqen lifted his face from her chest and chuckled softly. "You're flirting at a time like this?"

"We flirt with death every second," Arya replied, her thumb now caressing his lower lip. "Why the hell could we not flirt with each other before we die?"

The Lorathi's jaw hardened. "No one will die, Arya. Especially, not you."

She laughed. "If you say so." She kissed his temple, his lips. "Are you not going to take me tonight, Jaqen?"

"Arya," the Lorathi's tone was admonishing. "I came in here to talk."

"About how much you want to be inside your lovely girl right now?"

He chuckled again, then pulled her down so she could straddle on his lap. "No."

"I did realize," Arya whispered on, her lips gently caressing Jaqen's. "We have not tried it with my little arse."

"Shush," the Lorathi said, then kissed her deeply, as if wanting to own even just a speck of her soul so he could carry on being dauntless for her sake, so he could drown the pain threatening to consume him whole. "I love you, Arya…" he whispered.

"Talk to me, Jaqen."

He gently broke away but kept on planting light kisses at the side of her mouth. "I know I can never persuade to back away from this and ride instead to Winterfell where you could be safe—"

"You're right."

"A man is not finished, lovely girl," he smiled, then bit her chin. "But he can ask from you a small favor, can he not? Be very mindful. I need not remind you what an outpour of chaos the next battle is going to be, and I want you to not trust anyone—not Aegon, or Jon, or…me."

Arya stiffened. "What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

She scoffed, shook her head with incredulity. "No one will take out a sword and thrust it into my bare breast, Jaqen. People are a lot superstitious when the Moon is full. I heard one of the spearwives naming tonight the Night of the Shattered Moon. You worry too much."

"The wolf goddess of winter dies her seasonal death on a blanket of white, yes, I've heard the Frostfang-dwellers speaking of it, too," Jaqen said. "Most people allowed their disbelief about the Long Night and the gods to overpower their belief about all other things, and so far, it had not done them any good—it only led them to inaction. Men tend to fall for anything when they do not believe in at least something, Arya."

"Yes, like Haresh Esdraelon dismissing the Elder Mage's ruse on the Warrior of Light?" Arya teased. "Well, if you would recall, you were crown-to-sole madder about me than I was about you, and that remains true up to this day, Lorathi. But worry not," she kissed his nose. "I promise to practice care, but I would never turn my back on this battle."

"I understand," Jaqen murmured, and the edges of his voice were with unbearable agony. Yet, he kept his tone light for this was all he could do to not encumber her any longer. "Some wolves are not meant to be caged. Their fur is just too argent, their howls…too wild. Naughty feet—you just cannot tell them to sit and stay."

Arya giggled. "Wolves are not dogs, Jaqen."

Jaqen grinned. "I know, my sweet pup."

She threw her head back and laughed more loudly, and her teeth and eyes were glistening with genuine mirth.

Jaqen just smiled and gazed at her, locked her face away in his most profound memories lest they dissipate as the hours pass and leave him with nothing but his own aching self, and he relished her sounds of blithe, the feel of her skin against his skin, her body pressed against his own, this precise blink of eternity which they both shared. He lived with her in that mere iota of infinite time, holding her more closely and kissing her cheek and pretending even for a mere while that they were just two people in love and nothing else, caught in a moment suspended.

Dear gods, Arya Stark, the Lorathi exhaled. Why do I love you this damned much?

It's not fair…

And when the laughter had died down, she kissed him again and spoke with their lips still touching. "One long night may cloak the realms, the stars may hide and the sun may wane, frozen waters may thaw and dragons may drown, but I will always be yours."

The Lorathi smiled.

"The oceans may claim the terrains," he murmured. "Blight may swallow whatever grows, the gods may vanish and all men may die, but we will always be each other's."

They stayed in the murky Silent Tower for the gods know how long, wrapped in each other's embrace and warmth.


Now, coldness had truly gathered—such that the only sound was naught more but that of Winter's tongue, and the only things that the sight can catch were the very faint outline of shadows.

Ice crawled in the waters of the Gorge in the west and the Shivering Sea in the east, and the darkness had once more caused the Rhoyne of Essos to dwindle then disappear, its silver waters now frozen as far south as Selhoru, and perchance the Crab King and the Old Man of the River had been transfigured to solid ice beneath the river as well.

Those who used to claim that they loved the silent hours of the night would swallow back their own folly.

Thick snow fell from the heavens and blanketed the terrains of what was left of the Free Cities. Southwards, the wroth of the string of volcanoes in Valyria had calmed because of the outpouring of ice flakes, filling the mouth and the raging liquid of fire, until it churned no more. It was another Doom, yet this time the Doom was neither from the seven hells or from the mouth of R'hllor—the volcanoes' vomit will not anymore rise as it was vanquished by Winter's breath. From burn to chill, Valyria was reduced to ruins beneath the ice, its sussurating currents gone, its wrecked stones that had once soaked up sorcery like blood were frozen by the cold.

Far East, the once slavers' empire of New Ghis, Astapor, and Yunkai had begun tearing down their structures and monuments of Old Harpy for they now saw the symbol as nothing more than a plague, and they cursed it just as they cursed those dragons, but beneath the hard façades of the defeated masters was inexplicable horror at the Winter they were witnessing.

Why the fear? But of course, it never snows in the Slaver's Bay.

Further east is Asshai-by-the-Shadow, sprawling leagues across the Shadowlands. Its waters that usually glistened black at noonday and glimmered green at night had suddenly turned silver; curious—the now argent color of the waters should at least provide the city some form of luminescence, yet Dark Asshai had succumbed to its darkest that very night.

Only a million ululations signaled the malevolence that was about to emerge from Stygai.

The realms will be called down…things will be born, will die.

The realms will be sundered by the god's fists,

For the god's fists that were once chained

Are fists that are now free.

Furthest east at the Empire of Yi Ti, the current god-emperor to a thousand princes had his eyes directed towards the Five Forts, that fortress which had stood and defended them from demons of the night for thousands of years. Within the walls of his city of Yin that had seen more glorious days, he held the scrolls on the Bloodstone Emperor, whose rule spawned the first night of all nights. And he vowed to return, the scrolls have said, and those scrolls the emperor held with trembling hands, after fourscore centuries—when the night of the shattered moon falls upon the realms, when the star bleeds once more.

All these, while an army of the dead regathers in the very Heart of Winter.

Snow continued to descend like ghosts of fallen leaves across the lands south of the Neck. The days that were blithesome and golden and crisp had indeed faded—not a thing grew in the fertile terrains of the Reach, much less in the fancy hothouses of the capital. As is the case in the North, the Night never goes away now, but this Night carried no sequin-like stars against its large blanket of darkness. The wind was bitter and vile, too harsh with its icy particles, whipping and howling like one rough ode to death.

"How many more swords?" was Aegon's question to Tobho Mott. The Qohorik smith was summoned to the red keep's armory to straighten out the steel taken straight from the king's throne, and reforge these through dragonfire. "We need the swords to hold an edge, ripples on the fuller, larger crossguards for more balanced wielding."

"These are more than a thousand, your grace," the Qohorik replied. "Throw in my apprentices and those five more surviving weaponsmiths and you'd still be looking at ten to fifteen days—"

"We don't have that much time," Daenerys cut in. "As it is, we are already delayed and we cannot emphasize how very desperate the situation in the North is."

Aegon was pensive, his eyes fixated on those swords that were still twisted and deformed. His mind was all over—the armies of the houses they had managed to rally on their side were no doubt past the Neck now. They have to move faster. "Spell-forged, aren't they?" he asked, thumb on his lower lip as he pondered. "Do tell, my friend, if we throw in a thousand men with you—one for each sword, how long would it take us to fix all of these?"

Tobho Mott chuckled nervously. "You've said it, your grace. Valyrian steel is spell-forged. The magic involved in making it from naught and reforging it from a parent source was lost many centuries ago. Mere soldiers, no matter how gifted they are in battle, cannot just do this thing."

"You cannot presume to teach them? You have your scrolls, your integrants and implements. We have dragonfire."

"Your grace," the smith replied, his face a reflection of ambiguous pleading. "We Qohorik…well, we keep the secrets of forging Valyrian steel within the circle. Bad for business, you see, if we let everyone in on the techniques then we might as well retire from the craft altogether."

"Makes sense," Aegon the Sixth nodded. "Makes sense. However, do you think the business would still matter if the Dead came marching south and feeding on living bodies and corpses alike? The great war has come upon us, good friend; more than anything else, it should be necessity that must compel us."

"Why…of course," Tobho Mott exhaled in resignation. "If your grace could have his thousand men gathered in one of the large halls here in the keep, I think they could all be taught how to forge their own weapons."

"Yes," Daenerys said. "If the men must fight, then they must indeed start by shaping their swords. How many days are we looking at?"

"About two to three," Tobho Mott answered.

Aegon the Sixth smiled, patted him on the back. "Most excellent. And I have someone who could help you with the task."

"Who, your grace?"

The king merely followed Arya Stark's instructions. There's this knight in the hill close to High Heart, she had told him before they all parted ways. Summon him and his comrades. Be careful, they are loyal to no banner.

Locating them was an easy task for Laswell Peake, persuading them to ride for King's Landing was the hard part.

If not for the priest, Aegon thought.

A lad of blue eyes and thick, black hair entered the smithy, and with him were the members of the brotherhood.

"Gendry?" Tobho Mott stood, his mouth agape.

"Indeed, it is I," Gendry smiled, then roamed his gaze around the smithy. "Full house, lord smith. Seems like you need some hands."

"He sure does," Thoros of Myr emerged into view. "And I might have some fire tricks that could hasten up the work."


Bran?

It was Meera callling to him softly.

Bran…

Be resilient enough to deal with the rune.

Countless days have passed. He was still tightly gripping the roots of the Weirwood, seeking and begging for passage so he may cross the realms and return to that time referenced by the lores of the Long Night. He could sense nothing but the thick, rich, and twisted veins of the large roots running downwards from the cave ceilings to the deep earth.

I was a ghoul in the face of the coming night, Bran spoke to the old gods that reside in the heart tree. I must walk along the old paths—such is my journey. I must run leagues across centuries.

Let me in…

Let me in...

Let me in.

Bran felt winter's night blossoming around them, penetrating the cave with coruscating power, flinging Meera and Ser Jorah from the center of towards the hard walls of dirt. "Lord Bran!" Jorah exclaimed, scrambling to his feet and throwing himself into the translucent sphere of rune that had suddenly formed around the boy. He couldn't go through, even as he unsheathed his Valyrian and attempted in all futility to wreck it with his hammering.

"Leave him!" Meera said. "He has to go!"

"Go where?!" Ser Jorah probed.

"Eight thousand years back."

Bran felt sorcery clawing into his flesh, the icy cold around his bones, sending jolts upon jolts of agony up his limbs and through his marrows. His mouth fell open to release his sounds of anguish, but none came out—as if the movement of the waves of his screams were suspended in time with him. His silent scream rose higher as that unthinkable torment reached his brain, discoloring his entire world with blood and darkness and a haze of souls and faces. It was one horrendous assault, with sorcery invading every fragment of his being.

Let me in…

Let me in.

And the thick roots of the Weirwood slithered across his body, coiling around his neck and arms and legs, breaking through even the smallest pores of his skin, penetrating the depths of his flesh and the bones and marrows underneath it. A tangle of thinner roots slowly split his skull open and settled there, allowing his reminscences, his eruditions to be amassed within the heart tree's undying trove.

He lifted his eyes and saw clear all places and periods—ancient buried cities with walls folded, sagged crowns and toppled towers, great structures split in dusts of white marble, those who have transcended death and those who chose the peace found in it, the ruthlessness of the hearts of winter and darkness.

Farther, farther he went; and instead of his age regressing he found himself gaining tens of years as he flew to the past. He traversed the innumerable fleeting pathways that led to thresholds of time, and felt chaos and order touching on all the realms, wounding and healing the fibers of these worlds. And each realm possessed a certain scent, a certain pattern even, such that one realm is entirely different from those others that were identical with it. Yes, the realms had their own laws but he had opened them through his mind and through the roots of the Weirwood that span both time and space.

All of a sudden, nothingness enclosed him—twisting and fraught with malevolence, with only a thin lining of hope. His eyes were closed and he felt his body kneeling against a cold, hard surface. He slowly ran the tips of his fingers on the ground and felt only ice that burns like fire.

When he opened his eyes, he beheld winter's wasteland, a barren terrain of white where the Wall should be standing. It was empty, save for the harsh snow and wind whipping his face, blurring his visions with their ragged veils of malice. Hurry and begone! One cold voice seemed to say, yet Bran had asked himself in the midst of the confusion—whereto and to what purpose?

"Bran the Builder," a tiny voice named him. "You made it."

He turned around to the source of the voice. It was Leaf, and with her were a hundred more Children of the Forest.

"This is all your fault," Bran said in anguish. "Had you not spawned those creatures of ice—"

"We were used only by the god of winter," Leaf replied. "We all were. Your lot began butchering our kin and cutting down all of our Weirwood, and we had to defend ourselves. But a pact was reached, and now men and children must fight for the same side, or all realms will die. You must help us, Bran the Builder."

Bran collapsed on both knees and covered his face with his hands. "It's a cumbersome task, and I might…die. The ones I love might die. Dear gods…"

"The oak is the acorn and the acorn is the oak, Bran the Builder. All men must die, though if you do, you will not die alone."

He lifted his face and gazed at the child's slit-like eyes. He clenched his teeth. "I will not build the Wall this time around."

The child smiled. "No, you will not. You will not bury any enchanted beast beneath it, either. The Wall was there to protect your realms against the Others whom you have in the past driven away in the permanent ices. If we all do it the way it should have been done, then the Wall won't be necessary anymore."

Bran nodded his understanding. "I know, I must kill that dragon."

"Yes," the child replied. "And kill all the Others."


They have finally reached the Nightfort with a thousand men. There was no time to waste, and so the soldiers were deployed to the Wall's summit and some on the Weirwood pass inside the scullery. "There is a tunnel west of the forge, connected to all the secret vaults and other crannies," one of the brothers had offered. "We might need men in there as well."

"Go and take two hundred with you. Examine any openings, breaches along the tunnel's walls that might be infiltrated by the enemies. Then, send a man up to tell us about the conditions," Lady Brienne ordered.

Five hundred traversed the steps carved on ice and headed to the battlements' peak.

She turned a wary eye toward the red priestess that rode with them to the fort. The priestess was calmly pacing across the castle's outer courtyard, whispering unintelligible phrases that sounded High Valyrian. The woman directed her gaze towards a specific part of the Wall, that part where the sentinels lie in their barrows of ice.

Brienne sensed the perturbation building up on the red woman.

"That's her?" Brienne asked Tormund. "The one who summoned the Lord Stark back?"

Tormund just shrugged. "Saw it with my own two eyes. She claims it's the work of the lord of light. Can't say I disagree. That damned tragedy at Hardhome convinced me how huge this bloody war is."

They occupied themselves with the arms for a few good minutes.

"Know any fancy stories about this one?" Tormund asked the woman as he sorted out spears of single and double obsidian heads. "Them crows say castle's haunted, that true?"

"Haunted ruin, dreary place," Brienne replied, her face expressionless. She hoisted a collection of arrows and placed them on separate quivers. "Ghosts might have found their dwelling in this very fort. This place is twice as old as Castle Black." She gestured towards the gigantic horn with Valyrian glyphs. "That plaything of yours?"

Tormund let out a hearty chuckle as he studied the relic. "A toy it most certainly isn't. 'Tis a fabled horn you see, they say it can wake dragons out of stone, subdue them to the will of the master that blows the pipe."

"The Lord Stark ordered you to bring it here," Brienne said with narrowed eyes. "Why?"

Tormund shrugged. "Beats me. But he did say that we must wait for the young Lord Rickon. Boy knows what to do." The Mead-king clucked his tongue. "Ah, I envy them wargs, and pity them at the same damned time."

"I heard that you saw the Night King and the Others at Hardhome," Pod queried with a rather interested tone. "Heard you fought them. Is it hard…defeating a White Walker in combat?"

Tormund's face had suddenly grown severe. "The harder thing is overcoming your fear of them. They're all bloody scary all right—ice demons that die only through dragonglass. They have weapons I haven't seen or known for the life of me, and they're not bad in combat. No, forget the shit I just said. They're damned good in combat and it's almost as if..." the Mead-king paused, then shook his head. "Ah, nevermind."

Brienne stiffened a little, then shifted her full focus on Tormund. "Almost as if what?"

He stared at the woman's face, measuring the truthfulness of his own words, for he tends to assume most of the time. I felt it, he thought. What these cold ones are capable of. "Almost as if they can read you—what your next move is going to be, how you'll react."

Brienne felt herself shiver at the telling. She had seen Stannis Baratheon's shadow murdering Renly, and knew that a demon from the land of shadows and ashes was behind it, but there seemed to be something more sinister to these creatures than anything metaphysical she had ever encountered.

"Lady Brienne!" one man called out to her asudden. "My lady!"

She turned to the one rushing towards her. "What?"

"The tunnel leading to the other side is open, my lady. The men surveyed what's out there—a large portion by the east seemed to have caved in, large slabs of ice have collapsed, and…there's movement."

Brienne gathered some spears in haste. "Others?"

The soldier shook his head. "Winged serpent within the Wall, my lady. And…"

"Speak!" Tormund bellowed.

"It's trying to get out."

All of a sudden, a massive explosion resounded from the tunnel west of the forge, originating from the Wall's other side.


Jon paused with his occupations and turned to Tyrion and Ser Davos.

"Did you hear that?" he asked, narrowing his eyes as if to evaluate the source of the ear-splitting sound. "It seems to be coming west from here."

"It could wake even the dead," Ser Davos replied, then turned to one of the commanders. "Send twenty men of yours—have them ride quickly to Deep Lake, Queensgate, Nightfort and see how the rest are faring in there."

"It's not like any kind of explosion I've encountered," Tyrion offered. "Doesn't sound like our wildfire, or flaming barrels, I think you'll agree with me, Ser Davos. It doesn't sound like fire at all."

Jon darted his fullest attention to the Imp. "What do you mean?"

"To be honest, Jon Stark, I don't know what to make of it," Tyrion answered. "But there is a certain urgency to the sound. The Nightfort is leagues away from here, and those two on horseback might not make it in time to report the situation there. You know nature to have a very dismal aspect."

Another thundering sound, this time a thousand decibels more uproarious than the previous one. A sharp feeling rushed through Jon's veins, seemingly freezing his blood—the feel of a chilly and neverending night, colder and older than the dead stars swallowed by one infernal god.

"That's here!" the lad exclaimed, quickly collecting weapons laden on the table. "I cannot be mistaken. We'll deploy the men to the battlements and the gates now."

Ser Davos raised a forefinger to advise. "There's a blast of storm at the moment, Lord Stark. Men couldn't see a thing from the summit and winds are strongest—they could topple a whole set of barrels and our lighter trebuchets."

"No other choice, Ser Davos," Tyrion said, sheathing his steel and hoisting a crossbow along with some obsidian quarrels. "We need to be in those battlements and by the gates. These enemies are as dark and impenetrable as night. The only way to defeat them is to attack and fall like thunderbolt."

"We are not risking our men unless we can be assured about the source of those explosions!" Ser Davos raved.

"I'm afraid Lord Tyrion is right, Ser Davos," Jon said. "The point of battle is risking it and winning afterwards. Hardly any time to listen to conjectures much less carry out the plans that come with these, forgive me."

They all stormed out of the armory and were met by Iron Emmet rushing frantically towards them. "Icicles. Gigantic ones, Lord Stark!" he exclaimed. "Can't see anything from above, don't know if those cold ones are nigh or—"

Boom!

Emmet's speech was interrupted by a massive flail of ice colliding against the Wall, and it was the size of Castle Black's great keep. The flail's spikes had pierced through the structure's other side, sending three of the castle's mightiest towers collapsing on men and horses. Another blast sent colossal boulders collapsing from the Wall's summits and sides, and with these came hundreds of men falling seven hundred feet below and others being thrown backwards due to the attack's almost unthinkable impact.

Huge slabs of ice came raining down on the fallen and falling men, and even with their shields raised and the castle's garrisons that could provide them temporary cover, they knew that it wouldn't be long before the ice structure caves in on all of them.

Still, another explosion was heard on the east side where Oakenshield was; and though it was a hundred leagues away, the upheaval, those sounds of desperation and utter fright from the free folks and their spearwives rang clearly in Jon's ears like screams of slaughter than cannot be hushed.

They're weakening the castles one by one, Jon thought as he crawled for cover under the tower of the guards that so far has not collapsed yet. The attack began at Westwatch-by-the-bridge. It's running east now.

"Jon!" came Arya's screams in the midst of the pandemonium. "Jon!"

"Right here!" he called back, then rolled over to the side to avoid a large ingot that had fallen from the tower. The heavy iron fell with a deafening crash. Jon surveyed the environs and realized that the heavy attacks have ceased for now—moving in his projections, towards Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. All over him were riots from those still breathing against the silence of those dead, scarlet-stained snow, broken blades and shields, helmed heads and mangled limbs underneath a heap of ice and debris. Jon staggered, his eyes burning with both woe and madness, his heart being gorged by rage he never knew he was even capable of feeling.

With utter wrath, he screamed upon laying eyes on Val.

She was beneath the brickwall of Hardin's Tower that had collapsed, the blood on her skull and face bathing the snow profusely. He rushed to her, lifted the debris off of her almost breathless frame. "Val!" he cradled her head in his arms, patted her cheeks to rouse her. "Val, Val…please, oh no…" He hoisted her and rushed to the Shieldhall that was then only partly wrecked.

The winds continued howling fiercely, wiping away the senses in that most desolate time of whiteouts and fatal blurs, numbing, leaving everything in shades of black and white.

"Sam!" Jon called when he had reached the hall. The maester was there, rushing towards him with a sack of healing implements. "Val first, the others afterwards. Please…do every damned thing that you can."

"Leave her to me, Jon," Sam said. "Go out there or we'll all die."

He nodded, planted a quick kiss on Val's pale lips, then stormed out of the hall.

"Lord Stark!" came another call, and this time it was from Leathers. His face and hands were bleeding, out of his own injuries or those of others he had tended to, Jon could not tell. "It's a massive charge. We all must go to the other side, the structure will fall upon us if we don't."

"Where's Jaqen?" he shook his head in order to overcome disorientation slowly consuming him. He surveyed once more the entire vicinity for any signs of the Lorathi. "Jaqen!" he bellowed and ran to him and Arya, who were then salvaging weapons which were not destroyed yet. "It's a full assault on our defenses! Those damned demons plan to kill us all by blasting the whole Wall and burying us under it!"

"Then, we cannot remain here," Jaqen calmly concluded. "We'll have to engage. Cavalry rush, frontal assault. Let's finish this once and for all. We cannot allow them to cross the Wall's borders even after the structure falls, gods forbid, or it'll be over for us."

"You'll transfer our forces on the other side of the Wall now?" Arya asked. "We don't have the proper weapons yet, Jaqen. We have to practice a bit of patience and wait for Aegon the Sixth! We have to tend to our wounded and dead, regather the remaining men. That," Arya pointed towards the ice fortress. "That is the only thing separating us from the lot of them and this is their plan—rattle us all about this Wall's possible collapse so they could get us to engage."

"I say we swarm them," Aegeus cut in as he approached the three with Sabine, Tyrion, and Ser Davos. All of them appeared to have sustained injuries of some kind. "We cannot hide behind this fortress and wait for it to fall. Dispersed mass, simultaneity, then convergence at the center. Three phalanxes, a warg per phalanx to counteract. But Arya's right too, we cannot swarm them effectively if we don't have those Valyrian swords."

"And it would take us time to organize our forces, Lord Stark," Davos said. "We need to keep the Others at bay to regather the men and form the phalanxes."

Tyrion cleared his throat. "Dragons, from Westwatch to Eastwatch. Build a wall of fire to hold the wights. That would buy us enough time to organize the men and the arms."

Jaqen nodded, impressed.

"Brilliant, Tyrion," Jon said, suddenly gaining clarity over the blur. "Jaqen will take east, I'll take west. Arya?"

"I'll call Sansa and Rickon, for the…phalanxes," she replied, to which Jon nodded. "I'll have them ride to Nightfort."

"Sabine will stay with the Maester Samwell," Aegeus interjected.

"What?!" the woman exclaimed. "I have to be out there! I did not come all the way here to—"

The Handsome Man pulled her, silenced her with one long, deep kiss. "Our wounded men need you," he whispered when he released her, but his words were resolute. "You will obey me and stay here, no protestations."

She threw him a vicious glare before walking off.

Even with the hell all over, Jaqen was amused. "She'll kill you when you return, brother. Do prepare yourself."

Aegeus smiled, but his eyes were languishing, cheerless. "If we don't die out there, perhaps…"

"First rule in any battle," Jon cut in, his eyes on the Handsome Man. He gave him a reassuring pat on the back. "Stay alive."


The shierak qiya had finally revealed itself in the night sky—a portent victory for some, an omen for others.

"Ready, Jon?" Jaqen asked as they both settled on the back of their own dragons. He did the trappings as was the usual, checked on the chains, the dragon's girth, iron collars. The Lorathi knew that Heraxos had been weakened by the recent war waged against Valyria—traces of burnt scales and flesh were still there, slight fracture on the wingbones, heavy lacerations, swelling. And in every exhale, the dragon breathes chilly vapor instead of warmth. "Hold on, good friend," he assured the firebeast. "This too shall pass. Stay with me."

"You can never be ready with these things, Jaqen," Jon said after securing himself. "You never actually prepare; you merely…fly out there and do what you have to, damn the aftermath."

"Most true," the Lorathi answered.

They both took off—one towards the east and the other, to the west.

Beyond the Wall was a mad swirl of silverstorm, and there was no way for the two dragonriders to know the direction, for all spaces were engulfed by a haze of harsh winds and hard crystals flying in mad whorls. Solid snow, and they could even hear the scream of winter itself and the white flakes whirling around them in an angry vortex, stealing away their sight, erasing all panoramas and courses. Even with their armored bodies, they felt as if those crystals were colliding against their unguarded skins, their projectile-like movement battering the two men, pelting against their frozen cheeks. Snow clung to their crowns and lashes, and their throats ached because of thirst and the cold.

"Drakarys!" came Jaqen's command. From the firebeast's mouth came out tempered flames, sweeping away parts of the snowstorm for a while, allowing him to gain sight of his environs.

A massive, writhing cyclone of snow was advancing towards them, prepared to swallow whatever came in its way like midnight's flash. "Fly west, Heraxos!" Jaqen ordered, then maneuvered the beast to evade the mighty tempest, but the winds caught the dragon's tail and was pulling it inside that murderous whirlwind. Jaqen felt his dragon struggling to flap its wings in order not to be swallowed by the storm. "Escape! West—fly west!" the Lorathi bellowed out his commands. The eddy had turned to a swirling mass, threatening to suck them in its force-filled center.

The dragon let out a pained screech as it carried on threshing and flailing its wings in a desperate attempt to escape; while the Lorathi kept on shouting out orders that were slowly becoming futile, what with their already perilous position. "Resist the winds, dragon!"

At the corner of Jaqen's eyes, he caught sight of the legion of wights and cold ones they were all to face that night. How many were they? Ten thousand? Ten times more than this? His blood froze and his teeth began to chatter because of chill and alarm, yet this is neither the time for counts and trepidation. He focused his attention to one White Walker that seemed to have both of its arms outstretched, and even in that distance, Jaqen knew what he was beholding.

It's controlling the tempest—holding sway over the winds.

The Lorathi hastily grabbed a spear with an obsidian head, and with a quick and precise aim, threw it straight to that one Other. It pierced through the cold monster's heart, causing it to shatter into fine fragments.

The tempest died with the cold one, and finally, Heraxos was able to free itself from the whirl, soaring straight to Westwatch-by-the-Bridge. All of a sudden, a blood-chilling shriek caused that myriad of wights to rush to what remained of the Wall, howling and tearing and flinging themselves onto each other to gain ahead. Upon their mouths were blood and flesh from human and animal preys that may have fought back in vain.

Most of those wights were already decaying, their putrid smell clinging to the Lorathi's nose though they were far from him, and the cruel winds had done nothing to numb the olfactories or bury the stench within the snow's particles.

And they dashed faster than the Lorathi could blink. He surveyed the Wall and saw the men rushing outside of the castles' gates and converging at the center to form tight ranks, with some soldiers from the battlements climbing down through ladders of woven hemp or through the chains of the giant scythes clanking against solid ice. "Fly low!" He ordered the dragon while evading the arrows and spears flung at him by those Undead. Upon reaching lower ground, Jaqen pulled the rope securing a barrel of oil, then allowed the liquid to spill on the ground as he carried on flying west. The beast disgorged a sea of flames onto the shed oil, creating a massive, blazing wall along the expanse—and the wall of fire was a good two hundred feet high, temporary holding back those wights while the phalanxes were being formed.

Those moving corpses too impatient and witless attempted to cross that wall of fire, and were instantly turned to ash and cinders, tainting the snow's immaculate ground of pearls.

Jaqen flew back to where the troops were being assembled and met Jon there, leaping off of Rhaegal's back. "A whole stretch?" the Lorathi asked as he dismounted.

"Yes, built the wall though, to keep them all at bay for a time," Jon replied. "We'll take the flanks, Jaqen."

"Form the first, twenty-five men deep!" Aegeus ordered, and the men rushed to carry out the commands, lining up with their shields and spears. "Archers, remain at the battlements! Don't you dare rain down friendly fire on us or I'll chop every one of your damned heads and sew them about different shoulders!"

"Trebuchets at the rear!" Tyrion said as he walked across the line of gathered men. "Have those barrels of oil and torches at the ready; swordsmen on horses at the flanks, make sure your castle-forged swords are afire once those corpses draw near!" He rushed towards Sansa who was then preparing her mount to head towards the castle at Nightfort, Rickon with her. He pulled her hand and forced her to face him. "Sansa," he muttered, then looked at her with imploring eyes. "Sansa, you don't have to do this. Some of our ladies and those spearwives in delicate positions all chose to stay in the Shieldhall. They offered their aid in tending to the wounded."

"Tyrion, but I must do this with all of you," Sansa responded with a determined tone. "We need every last man and woman in this war, and I've sat behind the table with my knittings for far too long. Arya needs me now—she needs wargs. I do not have a clear idea regarding how to harness this gift of mine, but I want to find out. The time to do that is now. I do not desire to put all of Bran's efforts to waste either—he has toiled so hard, given so much." She leaned over and gave him a soft kiss on the temple. "Be careful. See you at the end of this." She mounted the horse and waited for Rickon to embark behind her.

The boy walked over to Tyrion, his face suddenly a mirror of grief above the fortitude. "Tell Jon, please…we won't be long."

"Of course," the Imp replied. He watched Rickon saddle up and ride to the west with Sansa, her direwolf, and some five hundred men.

There was hardly any time to agonize over fate chasing them all to either survival or demise, for already, Tyrion heard Ser Davos barking out urgent orders to the men. "Stay half a league away from the Wall! Hasten up, men. The flames are waning!"

True enough, the wall of fire in the distance was faltering, succumbing to the cruelest kisses of cold winds and the persistent hisses of those cold gods that sounded like a series of chants against foes. The blaze subsided, withered away.

Finally, the last flickers of it died.

When the smoke from dragonfire dissipated, the foes showed themselves in all their malevolent glory.

"Dear gods…" Ser Davos whispered as he saw the throng of demons mere leagues away from their ranks, snarling and scraping their hands and feet across the icy ground. "What are these creatures?" From their mouths poured out bale-fire red blood from their recent kills, and they seethed while they choked on the innards of both beasts and mortals they have fed on, transforming the taintless ground into a grease of gore. Their movements were grotesque, too…too affrighting—with their bones snapping and splitting and breaking out of their flesh, yet they kept on marching and crawling towards the ranks in painstaking slowness, as if to taunt them.

On either flank of that army of the dead were plagues of hellhounds, wight bears, wild horses, wolves.

And behind them, more daunting than the reanimated corpses themselves were the cold gods—a whole legion in themselves, hovering along doom-laden space like an elite battalion of triarii. With them were swords and poleaxes, maces and flails spawned by ice, unparalleled rune and possibly, immortality.

It was the most inexorable nightmare for any living soul.

Jon and Arya rode to the front to prepare the men for battle.

"Brothers!" Jon began. "In the eyes of every man I see the same fear that had almost crippled me at Hardhome. Nay, I will not tell any of you not to fear." He directed his mount across the ranks, so all the others may hear him. "In fact, I will tell all of you this—do fear! Fear for your lives in order for you to fight, fear for everyone that you hold dear in this realm so you may have the guts to face what is out there. My father told me one thing—that the only time when we can be brave is when we are afraid." He turned his gaze to Arya, and the latter nodded for him to proceed. "I do not see kneelers and wildlings, sigils of various hues and symbols. I see men and women willing to fight to the death in order to leave this realm better than when they walked on its earth—just that, all differences are downright effaced in my sight. Do this not for the songs that the bards would write about when you're gone, do this for the sake of duty, of family, of love. If we must be free men, then we must fight, and fight well!"

Roars of acknowledgment and support resounded from the ranks. The men and women raised their spears, tapped their swords against the shields. The clank and clatter of weapons echoed from the Gorges to the Shivering Sea, and perchance, the battlecry was heard to as far as the Summer Isles that was ravaged too by winter. Trepidation and uncertainty was replaced by unparalleled dauntlessness, a renewed dedication, as they all vowed to see and hear the promise of spring.

"This is the last Battle for the dawn, people," Jaqen said, mounting on his firebeast once more.

Arya echoed his declaration, followed by the ranks. "Battle for the dawn!"

Jon climbed up Rhaegal's spine and did his strappings. "So," he turned to the Lorathi. "When exactly do we rush?"

"We wait for the signals from Tyrion," Jaqen answered. "Some plans he's trying to work out—he says it could cut a good quarter of the enemy's forces."

"Good," Jon exhaled. "Very good."

Those hisses, those spine-chilling sounds reverberating from the frozen lips of the Others sent shivers on every man that hearken these; and it was as if the horrendous tales from the quills of maesters and the mouths of the elder ones had come to life that spite-filled night.

From a distance, Arya saw one White Walker glissade towards the front. It stooped on one knee, then settled a forefinger on the frozen ground. The finger dug deeper in the snow, and a faint glimmer showed on where the Other had touched it.

All of a sudden, a crack appeared on that very ground of ice, crawling, slithering…that crack branching out to form other rifts…snaking towards where the forces were situated.

It stopped upon reaching the ones at the front of the phalanxes.

In a flash, what seemed to be a harmless fissure had opened up into a large crevice asudden, swallowing two hundred men to three hundred before sealing itself tightly.

"Gods!" an outcry erupted among the men at what they had witnessed, with some breaking away from the phalanxes and the others either screaming or pleading for counterattacks. In panic, a good fifty to sixty archers from the battlements released flaming arrows despite the absence of any direct order, prompting the wights to rush straight towards the regiments. Aegeus and Ser Davos rode across the troops to maintain the shield walls.

"Calm!" Tyrion shouted his mount at the front. "Men, attach the cloth to the loads! Hit the weights!"

At Tyrion's commands, the men at rear the hastily tied one gigantic cloth around circular stone loads of ten to fifteen trebuchets. Upon securing the knots, the counterweights were rammed down, sending stone loads flying towards the approaching wights, and these loads carried Tyrion's gigantic cloth that was earlier, soaked in wildfire.

The boulders fell upon the wights, crushing the skulls and bones of some, while the cloth attached to those boulders covered almost an eighth of a league of moving corpses, trapping them beneath it and impeding their advances. The chaotic movements underneath the cloth was visible even from a distance.

"Nock, draw, loose!" came Leathers' orders at the battlements.

The archers released flaming arrows in rapid simultaneity, and these arrows landed straight on the wildfire-soaked cloth, setting the entirety of it ablaze faster than the wildling chieftain could utter another order. More flammable cloths, more flaming arrows found their way from the Wall's base and battlements towards the wights, and in various trajectories too, and those corpses burned in the same way that souls-turned-demons burned at the hells of Stygai. The sight—a Doom in itself.

A good number of Undead was turned to fine embers in that first counterattack, yet it was as if the forces did not charge at all, for the numbers have increased by two or three and it was true—what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger.

And those corpses advanced towards the forces with unfathomable speed, racing and leaping and whisking.

Tyrion rode across the regiments of men, and with his sword he tapped each spear and weapon as preparation for full assault. "Light your weapons! We'll engage!"

"That's our signal," Arya told Jon and Jaqen who were at the flanks. She removed Dark Sister from her scabbard and raised it. "They will target the dragons, of course—practice extreme care, you two. We need those dragons if ever the Wall falls."

"Be battle-calm, Arya," Jaqen said, but his eyes were fixated on those approaching wights. "Today, we fight. Tomorrow, we live."

Arya smiled at the last of Jaqen's words. "Be safe, Jaqen."

"And you."

The battle horn was finally sounded. She kicked her mount's girth to lead the phalanx straight to battle. The horse galloped onto the axis of war.

Forces advanced to meet those Undead at the center of the killing ground, with their shields and lit swords on both hands. It was as if the fury of the gods was unleashed as they all collided in the center, immortalizing the horrendous carnage of that night of all nights—living against the dead, breathing beasts against breathless ones, fire against ice—and they slashed and severed, pounded and pummeled, carved and cleaved, until the sound of men's screams and wights' shrieks filled the leagues of the permanent ices.

It was a windstorm of flames and snow in the midst of clashes and clangs of steel, with the seething, basalt-black lair of the gods above as the great beholders.

Two dragons flew on either flank of the soldiery and carried on spewing flames on the scattered wights. The traces of dragonfire etched on the cold stones as the dragons evaded the weapon throws, yet inevitably catching some on their wings and underbellies. Rhaegal staggered in flight as a large harpoon pierced through its wings. It fell with a resounding thud on the myriad of Undead, sweeping them back with its colossal body that carved out a tunnel against the frozen earth.

"Jon!" Arya screamed in the midst of a duel with another. She hacked the head of two and severed the limbs of three more, then hissed as she felt the impact of a pointed lance puncturing the flesh of her arm. She caught the stench of the wight's breath—foul and sickening, and howled when she felt the lance being twisted, ripping and sawing through her leather armor, her skin and sinews.

Nymeria leaped onto the attacking wight promptly and tore it to shreds starting from the head. A group of corpses closed in around the direwolf and began piercing its flesh with their spears.

"Nymeria!"

Ghost lunged on those corpses gathered around Nymeria, severing their heads from their bodies through its wolf-teeth, tossing them afar, forcing them away. It howled a long howl, then ripped the remaining corpses to shreds, that flames were suddenly rendered unnecessary.

More wights rushed towards them.

Arya deftly unsheathed a dagger with her free hand and hurled it towards those wights. The blade bounced from one corpse to another, severing their heads at Arya's control. She caught a torch tossed by a comrade and set those foes afire.

Nymeria and Ghost leaped off from the blaze and carried on ripping and tearing.

Arya pulled out the lance from her arm and turned to the source of the saving torch. "Sabine!" she exclaimed. "I owe you one!"

"Duck!" the woman screamed, then threw a poisoned dagger towards a corpse on Arya's rear. It landed on the corpse's head, melting the flesh. "You can drown with me over ten flagons of Arbor gold after this!"

Despite the chaos, Arya directed her attention to Jon on the far side. She exhaled her relief as she saw Heraxos tugging at Rhaegal's neck chain, urging it to fly once more. The jade green responded, flailed it wings and dispensed a whirlwind of flames onto the surrounding wights, before soaring the skies again with the gold one.

She was taken back to battle as she heard Sabine's swords colliding against iron and wood, and saw that she was ensphered by five to six wights. Arya quickly pulled her horse's reins and forced the beast to attack. The wights dispersed a little before charging once more, but Arya was quick to heave a canister of flammable oil on them, and kicking them towards a soldier wielding a lit sword. Upon contact with the steel, the wights were aflame and in cinders.

"Arya watch out!" Sabine cried. Arya felt her horse jolting violently and sensed the impact of a spear point snap against the beast's flank. Weight pulled her down and she found herself being thrown from the horse's back. Her head collided against the frozen ground, and she found herself losing sight of everything.

Curses and screams…metal against metal…the feet of friends and foes digging into the snow…the whooshing of spears being thrown overhead and the flight of dragons pervaded her hearing senses, her brain…

The scenes dashed in her failing sight in a fog, and all she saw was endless frost and inferno, wights feasting on the carcasses of men, living bodies transformed into moving corpses, endless death…

It has been eight thousand years—and so when the dead all woke up, they all woke up. And now, the army of wights overpowered their forces. To survive after all this is as impossible as the dawn ever showing its face on the realms.

A sea of monsters surrounded her as she lay weakened by the assaults. Blood gushed from her. Three, four leaped onto her, scratching and clawing at her face, and ember red poured out from her neck and cheeks. She screamed in pain, writhed underneath the corpses attempting to take hold of her life. She choked as one wight strangled her with its iron chains while the others looked for flesh to devour underneath her leather pauldrons and vambraces. And their shrieks were bloodcurling, so were their faces, and their putrid, cold breaths lashed out at her cheeks as she felt life slowly ebbing away…

Think…think…

A layering of warg's rune…

The bond between dragon and wolf.

She felt her inner power surge all over her like brisk wind, coming from Jaqen's dragon mark on her arm. Around her was a sudden penumbra of protective magic encapsulating her frame; causing the surrounding wights to be annihilated at the the force of her warging and the mark. Their dead bodies could not host within them the warg's enchantment and so they succumbed to its strength, their fragments drifting off into the icy winds.

She leaped up and charged once more to the center of battle, screaming in wrath, slashing, her power coursing through her every movement in the form of a visible glow of silver phantom-flame, obliterating all that crossed her way. She stood at the center and channeled all her forces to strengthen her own rune. That chrysalis blaze was both fire and ice, and the wights were drawn to it like moths would be to flames, and so they rushed towards her, bursting upon first contact with Arya's rune, until all around her were obliteration and final deaths.

The dragons carried on setting the wights ablaze, those who were still dashing towards the curious glow they had just discovered emanating from one woman, while the soldiers wielded their lit swords and hurled blazing torches on a myriad still left. On and on it went until there was naught more left in the battlefield but a mere trace of those Undead—all of them had faced utter destruction, their nefarious borrowed lives once and forever claimed.

Arya collapsed on the ground and felt blood trickling from every part of her body, turning to ash as it landed on the ground. Her protective rune had waned. Scattered cheers erupted from the men, and she felt herself being lifted to stand. Arya looked up to see whose hand she held. "Jaqen…" came her whisper, yet the Lorathi merely shushed her. She threw herself in his arms.

"Even the dead ones obey your call," Jaqen shook his head in complete astoundment. He pulled her in a tighter embrace. "I mean…are you well, Arya? You must return to Shieldhall now—"

The carrion-black sky darkened even more, as wayward winds drew wintry breaths across the scene with a sound like an angry hiss, shivering even the frozen grasses. Overhead, stygian clouds covered the stars and the moon, and half a league away from the forces, an entire gamut of argentite light exploded from the winter-spawned bodies of those throngs of Others. They languidly approached what remained of the forces, their miens and forms as taintless as the clean-washed heaven and earth, and they would disappear like thin wisps of smoke, then appear once more, this time scaling a good league closer to them.

Fear flooded Arya's heart once more. The pawns have been used up, she thought. Now, the kings and the queens will play.

The soldiers gripped tightly their weapons made of obsidian as they moved once more to their phalanxes, and Arya could smell the fright threatening to consume each one. Jon directed his gaze towards the skies, and his eyes widened as he realized what was about to fall from above. "Shields up!" he bellowed. "Take cover! Hailstones!"

Even before any soul could react, massive boulders of ice began raining down on the men—landing straight on the heads of some, mangling fallen bodies, until the ground turned slick with blood, bones, and brains. Keening and cauterwaling, sounds of panic filled that death stage as the men struggled to form a tight shield of walls. The hailstones were the size of a full-grown, and so it breached through the soldiers' formation and killed more; and those cravens who retreated back to the assumed safety of the Wall were all smashed and buried underneath the boulders.

Those heavy stones kept on falling, carving out craters upon craters on the ground, murdering, then digging deep barrows for the dying and the already dead ones.

It all registered like a blur to Arya's senses, but she knew that men were perishing around her. When she looked up, she only saw scales of gold and realized asudden that she was under the wings of Jaqen's firebeast, and that Jaqen's arms were still wrapped tightly around her, his lips against her ears. I'm here…he whispered. I'm here, Arya… The dragon screeched in pain, lurched, and Arya shut her eyes tight and forced the thoughts away—how long can their dragons and men last in battle? How many had already died? How are Jon, Sansa, Bran, and Rickon faring in gods-know-where?

Would we ever survive this?

Finally, the hailstorm ceased.

Arya rushed from underneath Heraxos's wings and saw the aftermath.

A graveyard, Arya thought grimly. Garish scarlet over frosted white, armless hands still gripping swords of broken hilts, sheens of silver tainted by gore, helmed heads drawn back in throe, lifeless eyes fixed skywards, as if cursing the god of winter a second before death claimed them. Torn sigils and shredded armors glistened in the ice fields.

She gritted her teeth in rage.

They've wiped out half of the forces.

Her heart faltered as a flurry of motion went past them. Invisible cloaks of darkness exploded all around them and with these, a snapping of massive ice chains latched onto giant claws. Those claws flew past the forces and clamped themselves onto the Wall, the sheer impact sending men collapsing hundreds of feet down. Ice cannonballs zoomed and slammed onto the fortress in rapid succession, blasting the entire structure.

That sound akin to seven shrieks of hell resounded near west. It was the sound of a horn Arya had last heard in Valyria—the one that can bend dragons to its will.

The Dragonbinder, Arya thought. The one carried to Nightfort.

"Jaqen!" Arya screamed. "It's Joramun!"

"Move!" Jaqen ordered the men. "As far away from the Wall as possible!"

The regiments started dashing towards the approaching Others—there was simply no other way to go.

From the cracks appeared colossal geysers of ice. A deadly rainfall of behemothic pillars from the fortress followed.

Then, an explosion unlike any.

The Wall that has for eight thousand years defended the realms had fallen.


Rickon fell on the ground, his lungs burning after blowing the horn with all his might. His hands closed in around his own neck, choking at the effect of the horn's rune. The shudders ceased after a few seconds, his breathing had gone shallow.

Nigh, the sound of the massive structure that had crumbled to pieces heightened their fear.

Boulders of ice rained down on the castle's roofs, caving these in. Screams of dying men resounded in the whole fort.

"Rickon…" Sansa threw herself on the boy's body, stroked his cheek gently as she watched the direwolf Ethuil succumb to a state of trance. The wolf ceased howling and collapsed on the ground beside the boy, convulsing. "You're stronger than this, Rickon. Come out and then come back."

Brienne rushed back to them after barking out orders and assembling the men. She hastily knelt at the boy's side and checked for his pulse. "It's weakening," she said, then shook her head. "I hope he makes it."

"Skinchanging is one nasty business," Tormund remarked, then spat to rid himself of anxiety. He tightened his grip on the spear's pole. "I saw Orell live through his eagle's life, never got out of there. That woman Varamyr tried skinchanging into expelled him out of her wits, he didn't have any choice thereon but to live inside his wolf. I say damn this," the wildling cursed, then motioned his head towards Rickon. "He's just a boy."

"The young Lord Rickon knows what he's doing," the red priestess interjected, her gaze fixed on the boy's blue lips. "He's acting according to the Lord Bran's plots—"

"According to another boy's plot!" Tormund bellowed, then turned to Sansa. "No one's asking these nurslings to fight, this is our battle! The lot of you Stark kneelers are running some ugly schemes here—these could get us all killed!"

Brienne stood and faced Tormund levelly. "Your outburst is not helping at all, Mead-king. And in case you have not noticed it yet, the Wall has fallen and it's only a matter of time before all of us actually get killed."

He ignored Brienne's remarks and fixed his attention on Sansa. "Why let your baby brother do it?" he asked. "You're willing to just watch them all make the sacrifices and not utter a damned thing about it?"

Sansa shot Tormund a vicious yet pained glare. "I'm not that strong of a warg. Otherwise, Bran would not have risked Rickon and would have asked me to do it instead," the lady admitted. She knelt down beside Rickon and stroked the boy's hair. "I do not wish to destroy the persons I value the most just to gain the goodwill of the gods, nor do I wish to see them destroying themselves." She shot another anguished glance at Tormund. "You have four sons and a daughter. Tell me, if they wish to do whatever it takes—fight to the death to spare the bloody realms and your lot of non-kneelers, in the name of all that is good would you be able to say no?"

Tormund opened his mouth to answer, but there was naught fitting to say so he kept it shut.

Sansa smiled bitterly. "Didn't think so."

The Mead-king shook his head as he beheld the boy's face. "But they're mere babes…" he whispered.

"Mere babes, yes," Sansa nodded forlornly. "Those spearwives who lost their children at Hardhome certainly know how I must be feeling right now."

Despite the din all over—both of men and falling fortresses—Rickon Stark remained dead to the world.

"It's safe to get out," Brienne remarked, and her affrighted eyes were on the fallen structure. "To the battlements at the base, now Mead-king! Or the Others would cross our borders!" the lady knight dashed outside, followed by the wildling and the red priestess.

One dreadful screech planted them all on the spot.

Another realm may have opened itself before the eyes of those present that night, and the fissures that connected that realm with the one they're in now was almost immaterial, yet very real. Darkness seemed to have fallen to a more profound form, bursting forth and obscuring everything in sight, before waning and dying out completely.

After eons of imprisonment, after the life it lived as one thrall beneath Bran the Builder's enslaving magic, it had awakened fully to lay waste just as it should have done when Night first gathered.

It seemed to have come from the updraughts of the Wall, some other dimension even the Men of the Night's Watch never knew existed. Its serpentine body previously curled up in a tight coil was now stretched to its fullest length, spanning the expanse of the Nightfort up to the Sable Hall. Its glittering blue eyes were fixed on heavens' vault, and its wings had that thundering refrain of relentless power.

That dragon was living, breathing ice at its most horrendous form.

Another screech and the earth exploded in various places in that arena, revealing warrens of ice that were not there before; and it was as if there were land mines of magic buried underneath the soil for thousands of years triggered by that beast's cry.

The ice dragon splayed its wings and sent hazes of water and frost flying all over. Its long, oddly-segmented tail jutted out, whipping and sweeping away regiments of men gathered in tight phalanxes. Its body's translucence allowed the rays of moonlight to scatter all over its body, casting upon it variegated hues working like illusions in the consciousness of those who were witnessing.

Then, it rose above the fallen Wall, as the winds of winter swept its wings. Thick wisps of cold smoke soared through the currents of the night air like lost ghouls. It flew in a mighty helix, then circled the stratos once, before directing its gaze onto the fire dragons that far west.

The ice dragon took a sharp dive and tunneled through the frozen ground, disappearing like mist. Then, it emerged instantaneously from the earth in the midst of those men battling against the Others, swallowing whole regiments, flogging forces of men away through its herculean tail, disgorging cold wind and transforming men to solid ice. The White Walkers finished those men off by shattering their frozen bodies through their spears and swords.

And it was bigger than Valyria's imperial firebeasts, stronger, more impossible to conquer.

It carried on ravaging the myriad of mortals still left after the hailstorm, ripping and killing and glaciating them all to the bones. Two dragons took flight and attacked that winter's beast, spewing orbs of flame on its face and body. It screeched in wrath and scourged one dragon with its ice-spiked tail, while the other, it caught through its fanged mouth and slammed onto the ground with unforgiving strength.

Sansa saw the ice dragon from a distance and all the seemingly futile attempts the forces were doing in order to subdue it.

She shut her eyes and willed herself to do what Arya believed Sansa could do. Let me in, she whispered. Don't let it close without letting me in.

Sansa collapsed on her knees.

Fatal cold embraced her entire form; and she screamed as icicles pierced through her flesh, as her breath turned to frost at her very sight. All over her were a thousand gibbering wraiths, burying her in her own barrow of ice. A horde of Others tugged at her hair and limbs, clawed at her face, fed on her flesh with their teeth of chill.

All of a sudden, the ice dragon ceased its attacks and remained suspended in space. Its raging blue eyes had appeared calm and passive, its ferocity was replaced with painful lassitude. Sansa had willed it to stop.

And through the eyes of that dragon, Sansa saw the permanent ices and what lies beyond it—the goddess that births Winter, the greatest foe they are yet to face.


Rickon awoke with a gasp. He had left his body to enter Ethuil's when he was mere seconds from death, just as he did in reverse with Shaggydog. Through his warg's subconscious that was once and always linked with Bran, he told Sansa what must be done with that winter's beast. Hold sway over it, Bran had allowed the message to penetrate Ethuil whose essence was linked with Sansa. For as long as the battle lasts, be in the dragon till you defeat it from there and till I defeat it from here.

Leave it before it dies.

Or you'll die with it.

Rickon saw his sister standing firmly with her full focus on the killing ground, and she was not quite herself. Her irises were gone.

She had warged into the ice beast, and since her warging is raw, it was at its strongest and at its most vulnerable at the same time. However, the boy knew that she cannot remain within the beast that long. Seeing that the beast's movements were suspended, the forces will waste no time attacking it in its immobilized state and annihilating it. If she fails to leave the dragon in time, it's either she truly dies with it, or she continues to live through it.

The boy directed his gaze towards the fray. "Most of the men had been killed already," he whispered woefully to himself, then rushed towards the arena to catch a quick glimpse of Jon, Jaqen and Arya, Tyrion. Hot tears streamed across his cheeks. "Where are they? Even the firebeasts are nowhere nigh…"

The Others carried on with their assaults even with the ice beast temporarily incapacitated, using their weapons and rune to subdue the mortals. The snow was now bloodsoaked, the battleground a mere remembrance of what had been there, as the last of their men struggled to fight those cold gods with the strength they still have left. Everything appeared to have slowed in Rickon's very sight, everything was a blur, even the clangor of swords is slowly dying.

He witnessed the Others flinging themselves onto the ranks of soldiery, unleashing magic in unthinkable levels. Enormous slabs of ice were sheared from the frozen ground. A rage of flame and a trail of cold smoke swirled violently all over the field of ice, transforming the environs into a cauldron of death.

Tears kept on falling from the boy's eyes. The men are dead.

We lost.

Yet through it all sounded the steady thunder of two dragons' onslaught.

The boy raised his gaze to the heavens and saw one midnight, one ivory, two silverheads atop these. Those dragons zoomed to the center of hell and from their wings fell glistening blades of distinctive patterns, reminiscent of the flowing waters of Rhoyne in Old Nan's tales, their edges and fullers chatoyant against the full, silver moon.

Valyrian swords.

In the center of devastation, the Stark boy laughed delightedly and broke into a run, imitated what the rest of the men did—he raised both hands to the skies and attempted to get ahold of one from that storm of swords. "Aegon!" the boy shouted as he dashed past boulders and corpses, running after the ivory one soaring across. "Aegon! Over here!"

Aegon the Sixth maneuvered Viserion to a full turn and rushed towards Rickon Stark. He tossed the boy a hand-and-an-eighth sword of red and black ripples. It was a Oathkeeper's twin—Widow's Wail, before a part of Eddard's very sword. "Here you go, warrior," Aegon said with a grin. "Carry that sword and fight like a Stark should."

Rickon nodded and grinned back. Two battlehorns that were sounded on the forts made him look back to where the Wall used to stand. A cavalry of forty thousand were now lined up on the base. The soldiery had sigils of blue celeste and falcon volant, a trout embowed against azure and gules, a dragon thrice-headed.

The Valemen and Riverlanders, with House Targaryen's armies. With these were the rest of the Golden Company, now led by Daario. Sunspears and roses…Dorne and the Reach.

Something else caught the boy's attention. Sable-hued sigil with the full form of a sea monster at the center, something all too familiar with the young lord. Kraken, he thought. Ironborns have declared for Jon. Those who marched did not defect to Theon Greyjoy out of fear of his dragonriding allies, but out of their loyalty to the Iron Islands. Their ore reserves were claimed by winter and their bays, frozen.

The superstitious lot have demanded for a reckoning.

Ironborns will not be Ironborns without their ships and the sea. The drowned god may have called them to this war, and they are seeing for the first time that the threat has been real all along.

"Men! Charge!" came Blackfish Tully's command. The cavalry rushed to the scene, carrying their Valyrian steel and weapons of obsidian.

Aegon the Sixth scooped up Rickon from the ground and rode straight to war.


Bran stood in the middle of that snowstorm with eyes shut, awaiting that one enemy he had bound through his magic.

It's awake, the once Stark king thought as he saw flashes of events in that other realm—the present one, as men who believe in the arrow of time would call it. The battle of the gods has begun. Yes, he saw them all through his third sight, and knew how very near and how very far the dawn is. The heroes that command whole armies, wield swords, and ride dragons are masons that cut and carve the stones of history in the night, and write the stars with their battered and bloodied hands. Choices. Those choices would uncloak the reason of fate's own shaping.

When the Wall fell in the realm of the present, Bran heard a resounding echo of the collapse from afar—between the Bleeding Sea and the Mountains of the Morn. Chained is this god and chained he is no more…hissed the winds from the Grey Waste, causing the Moon to meander away from the dark and gibbous heavens.

In his third sight he saw the inevitable rising, and with it came all forms of malevolence, as the once blind and deaf and silent was awakened once more. In the haze, he caught sight of the chained god once crippled, ascending from depths Bran didn't even know existed, and the god lumbered into sight from a formless slobber to a mighty immensity that defies human understanding. The city of night had transformed itself into a heinous city of madness.

There was simply no language for that evil that had come back to life.

Bran shuddered. It has begun.

The Five Forts of Essos had fallen too, and east will meet west.

Winter shook Bran violently, but he persuaded himself how close it was to succumbing to the coming sun. Nissa Nissa, Bran whispered that name and willed his voice to cross the realms to reach the one person meant to receive it. Surrender to death in the hands of the Warrior when the Warrior too, is bid by death.

The Bloodstone has been freed.

He was caught in the doldrums of Night as the winds howled all over him. Bran Stark gripped the hilt of his sword tightly—it was Bran the Builder's sword coated with Death of Dragons—and in his empty eyes he saw the withering of his own soul as a child, and he wept. The source of his horror lay in the unveiling of what would become of the Warrior and the Nissa after the cleansing of that sea of slaughter.

He suddenly caught a rising current of chilly air, blowing right in front of his face. Bran slowly opened his eyes.

There it is in all its horrifying magnificence, the cold dragon he had once conquered and chained, prepared to obliterate him in the face of all realms.

The beast roared, revealing its colossal fangs of ice. Bran moved to raise his sword and struck the dragon's face with all the strength he could muster. It shrieked in fury as the sword carved out grotesque patterns on its face of frost, then it pounced on him through its strong claws, sending his sword flying towards the its tail. The beast disgorged a blast of icy winds from its orifices, and it bombarded him with attacks in quick successions. Bran leaped, then slid from the dragon's underbelly towards its tail to retrieve his sword.

He turned to have a quick look of the aftermath of the attacks. That cold breath transformed the Children and the already frozen evergreens into crystal ice, and the slightest contact with wind shattered them to smithereens. Bran assessed himself, cursed when he realized that his left hand was now partly ice-bound.

And the ice was slowly crawling upwards. In a matter of minutes, his entire body will be nothing but solid, hollow ice.

It roared once more, then with its spiked tail bludgeoned the frozen ground in an attempt to bury Bran beneath it. Bran jumped and caught one of the spikes, then coiled his legs around the beast's tail. It thrashed against his hold, flailed its tail in all directions as it soared with immeasurable speed in the skies. Bran felt his pores bleed and his flesh burn as the winds lashed out on his entire body, benumbing him and urging him to surrender, but he held on to the dragon steadfastly despite one hand gripping tightly his sword and the other already incapacitated. Obsidian daggers and arrows from the Children targeted the dragon, with some landing on its wings and torso, yet the beast carried on flying in rapid whorls as if nothing could truly quell it.

With one strong whip of its tail, the ice dragon sent Bran falling a thousand feet towards the ground.

Everything vanished, everything was forgotten. Bran coughed and choked as merciless air punched him from every direction. The power of Winter that engulfed him in that fall was immense, far beyond anything he thought he could anticipate. He cried out in pain, spinning in his descent.

Time is the string, the warg is the puppeteer.

Bran took a gamble.

He shut his eyes and once more willed time to slow. Time does not really pass, it continues. And with enough power, it can be understood; it can be bent and expanded.

He felt himself falling still, yet space seemed to aid him in his fall. He held the grip of his sword more tightly, and all over him he could sense the rapid chaos in the midst of his own calm. Two hundred feet from the ground…a hundred…Bran saw the names and the faces of all that had mattered to him and matter still, the wheel of weaves and the patterns of age…the shadows lengthening at twilight and the shadows waning at morn's light…

Twenty feet…ten…

He felt his back hitting solid ground, yet he felt no pain.

Bran rose in haste and observed his environs. The dragon was still mid-air, movements curtailed by the dilation; the Children's obsidian daggers and lanceheads moved in thorough slowness. He surveyed himself, and found out that half of his body had already been consumed by ice.

Any second now, his trick with time would come to an inevitable end.

Bran recalled the Weirwood—the center of his control. He knelt and touched the frozen ground, prayed to the old gods that the warmth left in him could seep through the cold and reach the roots of the heart trees buried deep within. I am dead in all other realms but this, Bran thought. I have offered everything that I am to the Weirwood tree beyond the Wall.

Whispers in the tongue of the old gods pervaded the walls of his mind. He let out a deep sigh and smiled softly. There was the wisdom of the great ones colliding with the wisdom of men.

Yes, it has to be done—only death may pay for life. And the time is now.

From the Weirwood he conjured up an illusion where the parallel realms could meet.

Army of the dead…army of the living…

Others and mortals…

Wargs…

Dragons that breathe ice and fire…

Warriors…

Nissa Nissa.

When he opened his eyes, the illusion had become real.

Now, he was in the midst of the second Battle for the Dawn, and he was witnessing everything through his third sight—wind snapping at tattered flags and sigils, ten thousand hands and feet in battle, falcons and bears, lions and hawks, griffins, suns, stags, stallions, dragons and direwolves in a duel of ice against fire.

His eyes flew overhead and he saw Daenerys and Aegon soaring side by side atop their firebeasts of ivory and midnight, ensphering the ice dragon's serpentine form in spirals of flight, dispensing flames onto the beast's body in relentless speed. Flying west was Jaqen, leading that ice dragon away from its myriad of Others in a high-speed chase, away from the soldiery, in order to tackle it in a head-on duel in an open killing ground. He could sense Sansa within the dragon's subconscious, invading it still, controlling it, but failing to keep it within the shackles of her mind.

Arya and Rickon were in the battlefield, with Jon on Rhaegal, and Bran could hear the clangor of Valyrian steel against those weapons of ice, the death of the living and the cold ones, the gushing and spritzing of blood and the shattering of winter-spawned bodies.

That illusion would serve as a confusing apparition—the ice dragon would sense that it has to deal with a throng of enemies, and it would thus act for the sake of survival. Yet it served a purpose for Bran, as well. He realized for the first time, when he had stepped once more into the Weirwood cave and traversed the path of the realms, that he was not, was never alone in this battle.

More than all these, however, what must happen must come into fruition.

Sword forged in fire and blood.

He willed himself not to weep as he shut his eyes and spoke to Jaqen.

The Walls have fallen.

The spheres of space, the air detonated as the realms of the now and the past collided completely.


The Walls have fallen.

Jaqen felt a sudden jolt from within upon receiving Bran's message.

The faces were burnt to the last scintilla, their traces have flown straight to the Shadowlands. Winter's spouse was unchained and must be hosted, as the Lorathi's thousand-year-old bargain with the Great Other would so dictate, or else the god's soul would find a more malevolent persona to merge itself with and the Nights won't ever end. In the perfect order of the universe, what must happen must happen—yes, this is the way; Valar morghulis, Valar dohaeris.

He had lived and died, foraged the realms, seen all, felt all, tasted all. He had loved and learned and lost, and no matter what the seen and unseen realms had become since he had accepted the fate of the Fallen Warrior of Light, Jaqen was more than ever, calm and prepared, and if only he could fall on his knees and spread both arms to show the gods his overwhelming conviction, then he would.

Give me strength, Arya, Jaqen spoke to his beloved. Jorrāelagon, be with me in this surrender. Teach me that I am at my most powerful when I no longer need to be…the measure of this cessation is the greatest I will ever face.

Never forget my name.

Keep me with you. Always.

Jaqen zoomed past the Wall's ruins and evaded the blasts of ice the cold dragon was disgorging. He surveyed the expanse in haste and drafted a plan to weaken the impossible foe, assessed how he could use the chase to his advantage. The forces were still engaged in a most diabolic battle against those throng of Others, and even with men from the south, Winter's rune was still a formidable enemy.

A quick decision.

Jaqen maneuvered his dragon to a full turn and headed for the Others, leading the ice beast towards the myriad. Even with the din of flight he could hear Aegon and Daenerys screaming their protests in all vehemence behind him—the move was too perilous that it would kill even the dead. Still, he went on; and willed himself never to stop until he hears the hush of the gods.

In his peripherals, he saw Arya—the warmth to his winter, his lifeblood, udrāzmalon, whose memories and love would forever keep him immortal. He saw her lips open but heard naught, yet he knew the words and these words formed a single plea that he could never, ever satisfy.

He closed his eyes for a second. Forgive me, Arya Stark.

"Fly low, good friend," Jaqen told Heraxos, then pulled the Valyrian chains strapped on the dragon with great force so it would hasten up its flight. The firebeast took a quick dive, plunging onto those Others of infinite count, dispensing a whole inferno and drowning them in a merciless sea of flames.

The ice dragon plummeted towards the frozen ground, still chasing the firebeast. It tunneled through the earth, burying thousands of White Walkers beneath the dredge its immense body had carved out, obliterating its fellow ice-spawned ones.

The forces of Ice and Fire cancelled each other out, meshed, then exploded as in an apocalyptic flare-up, sweeping over Jaqen with fierce, chilling yet conflagrant winds. He breathed in the heavy, sulphurous air, and sensed his dragon's erratic flight—its wings were torn from the foreclaws to the tip, and buried all over its scaled torso were what may be a thousand ice spears, with one puncturing its eye. It howled a painful screech before landing hard on the gelid earth, its body digging its own death pit.

The plunge threw Jaqen off his firebeast's back, his body bouncing on the wintry grounds. His flesh split as it scraped through the rough surfaces, and the chill burned his face and arms. His armor parts were now askew in different directions, punching holes right through his chest and guts. He screamed as a strong whirlwind of power battered him, coiling around him and seemingly crushing his bones and skull, ramming him with indescribable force. The torture was too much…ten thousand times more harrowing than his blood-brothers' treacherous acts against him in the days of Valyria, and he wished for all things to cease and vanish right before his very eyes.

He landed right beside Heraxos's face—severely damaged, its scales of gold now all black and scarlet.

It's hard to live, but it's harder to die.

He turned his face to the right and with a trembling hand, reached out to touch his dying firebeast. "H-Heraxos…" he whispered, choking at the words and spewing out blood liberally. "You…did great."

The beast let out one long exhale, before succumbing to the realm where dead dragons make their lair, where dying and being reborn intersect only in the wildest of dreams.

Jaqen shut his eyes to let the tears out, and felt thick blood flow from his cheeks instead. He struggled against the agonizing throe of holding on to dire life and heard Arya Stark's lovely, lovely voice calling out to him. She was nigh, and she had come to save him though he did not wish to be saved—he cannot forever escape from fated death.

His bleeding eyes locked on the Others' empty, deadly gazes. Through his already bleary sight he saw four to five of them, hovering on top of him with their loathly miens, and their hisses bore down upon him with the sharpness of serpents' fangs.

Arya...

Death would never end our story, jorrāelagon.

It would merely…change it.

He felt that frozen sword piercing through his heart in painstaking slowness, and he shuddered at the fatal coldness it brought upon his entirety. No! he screamed, don't take everything away! as he felt Winter sapping out the warmth of his love and the life within his memories of his beloved, stealing all that he had locked deep in his person and will, eroding his spirit, weathering his soul.

He eased into the twilight, and whispered to his dying self that this is sleep only—an endless one, yes—yet serene sleep, nonetheless.

Jaqen H'ghar drew one sharp breath as his fragile human heart took a beat for the last time, and he fell into that abyss where even the darkest deepens into its own midnight.

Sorcery swirled around him, blending his armor with his Valyrian sword and chains, with his imperial dragon—drawing everything to a form he now ascended towards. He disappeared right in the eyes of those who were at the heart of war, but even in death he knew how eloquent yet nefarious his transfiguration is. Skin and flesh and bones changed in shape and swelled up in size.

Power filled his being.


His entirety was now a distorted mass of burnt faces of the dead, and the lips of those dead were open as if screaming for impossible liberty. These faces will never make it to the avenue of souls, for they were consumed fully by the chained one—the thirsting hour must end for an awakening to commence.

Seething worms crawled all over him in mindless migration, falling away and getting scorched at his very feet, bursting when they hit the earth. He had smeared himself with the blood of those he had killed thousands of years past, and he would smear himself with a whole generation's blood once more, for the gods have stolen much from him.

It was an eon-long thralldom, and so his limbs throbbed with dull aches as if stabbed by rusty daggers, his bones creaking at first. The effort of emancipating himself from those imprisoning chains of the gods had weakened him for a time, but even weakness must end.

He was more than prepared to claw his way out from the Heart of Darkness, and he knew that the mouth of the pit opened out into new realms. Perchance, those devouts in his Church of Starry Wisdom awaited him outside his barrow, those who sought his release for generations had interpreted correctly the presages of the stars and the shattered Moon. And now here he is, after fourscore centuries—unchained, and nothing can stop him now.

So shall it be freed—that trembling rage of antiquity.

Pilgrims, come to me and you will know the power in great evil.

The Bloodstone emperor spread his arms wide and unleashed his own necrous sorcery, his arms shedding old skin like ash. He felt the cavern of darkness crack all around him, he heard the sundering of the rocky crags, the snapping of immense boulders. Finally, light came through and he saw it after eight thousand years; horizons and vistas blurred as a whirlwind of dust and magic surged upwards and curtained the entire sky. A god's warhammer flew from the abyss to his open hand. He gripped tightly its shaft.

Kill…kill…

Yet, deep within his own skin was the selfhood of one whose mortal body hosted his soul.

Bloodstone against Bloodstone—one is vile, the other is virtue; one is greed, the other is sacrifice; one is impure, the other is untainted.

The blameless will become the blamed, the sinless will become sin.

His heart glowed. He looked down at his chest and saw glittering bloodstone at the center of it—the stone of sacrifice.

Who is he?

Had his beloved, the Great Other betrayed him? Why is there a seed of personhood inside him, threatening to destroy him from within, undoing the clasps and grasps of evil around his heart?

And…

Who is she—his Nissa Nissa?

Why does it seem as if…he had loved her so with all that he was and is and will be, though in a prior life he was most sure that he belonged only to the death god whose lair is in the Heart of Winter?

The Bloodstone emperor crossed the summit of Stygai and stopped when the entire city of Night came into view.

Jaqen…

He hastily turned his attention northeast. There is a voice calling out to him past the Grey Waste leading to the Land of Always Winter, where east meets west.

Jaqen…

"I am not he…" he whispered to himself. Then, he laughed harshly. Wailing souls flew in all directions upon hearing his demonic burst of mirth. His black, parched lips screamed out his words succeeding. "I am Bloodstone!"

Jaqen…

He started walking towards the source of that voice—and he was so helplessly drawn to it. It was wooing and loving, very much a woman's yet very much a goddess', appealing to his sentiments and affections, awakening the heroic heart he never even knew he possessed.

"I am Bloodstone."

Jaqen.

He kept on walking.