Learning how to swing a sword, Part 1
Jon
"You move slow," the child said in her strangely singsong voice. "Too slow."
You are too fast, Jon almost replied, but it was taking all of his concentration just to follow her movements. The child of the forest, Acorn, moved so fluidly that Jon could scarcely believe she was a creature of flesh and blood. Her footwork was beyond perfect; she didn't simply move with an elite swordswoman's grace, she flowed around him like the wind itself. She was on another level entirely.
It was his third day in the heart of the caverns. In Jon's hand, Dark Sister slashed outwards, cutting low and then high with wicked speed, yet Acorn flowed between his slashes with inhuman ease. Jon stepped in and forward, following her path with a backslash, but she simply slid away from his blade as if she had seen it coming all along.
I can't catch her. Dark Sister was easily the finest blade that Jon had ever held - an almost weirdly long and thin sword, as light and fluid in the hand as Arya's Needle, but somehow stronger than it had any right to be. A normal blade so thin and light should have shattered at the first impact of a badly angled block - but Jon doubted he could have broken Dark Sister even if he'd tried his best with a warhammer. But it's not helping me against this child of the forest.
Dark Sister, the greenseer had said the blade's name was. Jon knew the name. He remembered his histories. Dark Sister. A blade that had shaped Westeros. The blade of Visenya Targaryen herself, the sister-wife and right hand of Aegon the Conqueror. From her it had passed to Maegor the Cruel, then Daemon Targaryen, and from him to Aemon Targaryen, the Dragonknight himself. No sword save for Blackfyre itself had done more to build the Seven Kingdoms.
For days, Jon had been left wondering on how the greenseer could have such a weapon. He had asked, once, but the greenseer had only chuckled softly, before returning to his dreaming.
The blade was all Valyrian steel, swirling grey and black metal, with fine red folds all through the metal, and a leather-wrapped grip that seemed strangely unadorned despite the sword's grace. It was an ancient, formidable blade, with an edge sharper and more bloodthirsty than any he'd known - something about the sword sang for blood.
Despite his sword though, Jon was still horribly outmatched.
At first, he thought the child of the forest had been jesting when she had offered him a duel. As it happened, Acorn was easily the best fighter Jon had ever seen.
She might be over a thousand years old, Jon thought, panting for breath as he slashed downwards in a long arc. Acorn might have more battle experience than every man in the Night's Watch combined.
The children of the forest were short, scrawny and skinny, long of limb with a strangely deerlike aspect to their features, but they were most certainly not weak. They moved with a cat-like grace that no human could match, and their reflexes easily put Jon's to shame. Acorn's natural speed, combined with a flawless style and talent, meant that Jon was not even remotely able to catch her. It might have been less frustrating to duel with the wind.
Jon had no doubt he could have easily beaten her in an arm wrestle. Still, he knew as well that Acorn could have sliced open his guts just as easily if she had really tried.
The child of the forest wielded a long spear instead of a sword. A weirwood spear tipped with an obsidian blade. It was a brittle weapon, but sharp enough to cleave through any armor. Right now, Acorn was barely using it as she dodged around Jon's sword. When she did attack, she used the butt of her spear, and her jabs would always hit despite his defense.
They might be no bigger than children, but they're still predators, he thought, struggling for breath as he tried to keep up. He eyed Acorn's grip on her spear, and was suddenly reminded that the children of the forest had claws instead of proper fingers.
"Keep legs apart, shoulders down," said Acorn. "Focus on your roots. Your trunk still too weak. You topple too easily if you try stand up straight."
Jon grimaced, parsing her words. She wasn't as skilled in the Common as Leaf had been. Sweat was pouring down his brow. Keep your center low, he told himself, facing off against her. His left leg was better than it had been, but still sore and limp. He was going to have trouble riding a horse, let alone fighting. He still needed a walking stick even to move on his own, sometimes. And he could feel from the throbbing in his leg that he would need that stick again, soon.
Jon slashed down, but he overreached himself. She slid around his cut so easily she could have had her eyes closed. Almost chidingly, the blunt end of Acorn's spear tapped against his thigh. "You slow as giant, but with none of strength."
Jon gasped before lowering his weapon. He felt exhausted. The last time anybody had beaten him so soundly in a duel, he had been seven. "Enough. I yield."
"Yield?" Acorn quirked her head, as if examining him from a better angle - but she still lowered her spear, after a moment. "We practice fighting, you shouldn't practice yielding. Yield against the cold and the cold will take you. Nature doesn't fight until yield, King Snow."
King Snow, Jon noted. All of the children of the forest called him that. Jon still hadn't figured out why.
Jon sighed, trying to catch his breath. "Where did you learn to fight like that?"
"We call it the wood dance. Once, we use it to hunt, then we forced to fight, to war. I practiced my dance fighting men centuries ago, but it still was never enough."
"I can't imagine anybody could have beaten you in a battle."
"They couldn't." Despite her delicate features, Acorn's eyes were hard. "But they killed brother when he slept. They couldn't kill me, so they poisoned ground against us instead. They couldn't fight us, so they burned our forests. They killed babes, my children, and then killed fighters before they ever had a chance to fight. You men don't fight fair; you lack the giant's strength, but you could always make up for it with cunning and viciousness."
Jon blinked. "Um… I see." There was a moment of silence. Jon felt the need to say something. "I am sorry for your loss."
"Don't be," Acorn said simply. "That song is over. I dance the wood dance now in tribute to cycles long past, as I will be soon."
She turned and walked away without another word. Jon blinked. They were queer creatures, the children of the forest. They hadn't treated Jon with anything other than kindness, but there was a strange sadness to everything they did.
Whenever he tried talking to them, it was never long before the conversation turned to them talking everything they had lost - it was like their very state of being was to live in melancholy. Men wouldn't be sad, not like this, Jon thought to himself, men would be angry. Men would hate and take up arms, swear vengeance and someday rebuild, while the children only mourned. The children sang for their losses, while men would fight and kill for them.
Then again, Jon mused sadly, perhaps that's the reason the First Men won Westeros.
Jon took a deep breath, limping as he returned to the throne room. The greenseer was in one of his sleeps, as still as the dead.
Jon waited for a time by the roots, listening to the greenseer's quiet breathing, inspecting the ripples in Dark Sister's Valyrian steel - like tiny red waves of a black sea, frozen in motion - rather than something forged by a blacksmith's labors of folding steel. How could such a weapon have been created?
"You return," the greenseer muttered, his eye slowly opening fifteen or so minutes later. "How goes your practice?"
"Sorely. The children are strong fighters," Jon said with a quiet grimace.
"No," the greenseer said sadly. "The children of the forest were never fighters. There were some that were forced to fight, some that even became consumed by the fighting, but in their hearts the children were never meant to wield a weapon."
Jon's eyes narrowed. He paused, holding out his blade. "Dark Sister," he asked again. "Where did you get this sword?"
"I had a life before I came here, once," the greenseer smiled softly, his voice a dry rasp. "Dark Sister was entrusted to me long ago."
Jon hesitated, recalling his history lessons, the lessons that lay behind them. "Dark Sister is an ancestral sword of House Targaryen. The same one that Queen Visenya wielded. One of the three great blades of Aegon's Conquest."
"Aye," The gaunt corpse of a man gave Jon slight a nod, and his voice was quiet. "Dark Sister has a long history, and her tale did not begin with the Conqueror or his wives. That blade was passed down in House Targaryen even before they left Valyria of old, and Visenya was just one of her many inheritors. She has long been a bloodthirsty blade, and truthfully, I have neglected her for far too long."
A blade that dated back to before Aegon the Conqueror. How did he ever get such a thing? "Are you a Targaryen?" Jon demanded.
There was the faintest wisp of a smile. "No. I was never a Targaryen."
"Then who were you?"
"I wore many names when I still walked among men, but name my mother gave me was Brynden," the greenseer said in a quiet voice. "But that name is dead now. I gave up the name when I swore my vows."
Vows. Jon had suspected from first glance that this greenseer might have once had ties to the Night's Watch, judging from his faded black clothing, the title by which the children referred to him, certain mannerisms in his speech. There were so many things that Jon wanted to ask, but he had to focus on the most important question of all. Brynden, he thought, struggling to remember Maester Luwin's lessons. There was something nagging at him in the back of his mind. "You were a sworn brother?"
"Once."
Realization clicked. "Bloodraven," Jon said, breathlessly. Brynden Rivers. Bastard son of Aegon the Unworthy. Former Hand of the King. A former Lord Commander. One of the Targaryen's Great Bastards. "…You're Bloodraven."
"Once," the greenseer's voice was soft.
Jon's head spun with the implications, staring at the greenseer grown into a throne of weirwood roots. "Then you must be over a hundred years old. You were Lord Commander." The blood-red eye just looked at him impassively. Bloodraven was the bastard son of Aegon the Fourth, he recalled. A legitimized bastard. Jon averted his gaze, staring down at Dark Sister. So many questions spun through Jon's head, but there was one above all others that demanded answer. "Why did you give this sword to me?"
"Because I hope you can use it." The voice was so quiet Jon had to strain to listen. "I swore to return it to my family when my watch was ended, but now, my watch will never end," his tone returned to his usual rasp, quiet but audible enough. "Enough questions for now. We have much to do, and too little time for it."
"The ice dragon," Jon said.
"The Frostfangs are wracked by storms," the greenseer nodded faintly. Jon didn't know how Bloodraven knew, but he didn't doubt the greenseer's words. "As soon as they clear you will have to move out, and quickly. You have hm, a week or two here, at most, and much to learn in that time."
Jon shook his head. "I can barely walk, I'm not strong enough…"
"This place will heal you quickly. The children sing their songs well."
"And when I find the dragon?" Jon demanded. "It's a dragon. How am I ever supposed to control it?"
"In centuries past, the Valyrians used their magics of blood and fire to bind dragons to their will. Those arts have been lost, but perhaps they can be relearnt." There was a pause. "I know little of the ancient Valyrian sorceries, but I can teach what I do know. I must teach you how to open your third eye, Jon."
"…You want me to warg with the dragon?"
"Yes. That is one word for it."
Warging, the free folk had called it. Tormund had placed the title on him, but Jon had never been comfortable with it. Because he couldn't understand it - certainly not at the time. He had known that he could dream through Ghost's eyes, and he knew that sometimes it felt like he and Ghost were bonded in a way he couldn't explain.
But now, the three-eyed crow could explain it to him. He called it skinchanging, the third eye - the power to wear the bodies of other creatures, to see through their eyes, to live their lives. It was a strange, almost forgotten power - a backcountry rumor in the north, an old legend, a power that even maester Luwin hadn't believed to exist anymore.
Jon had… suspected, for a long time, that he might be one - but he had resisted it, hesitant to fully accept what it meant. Sorcery. Actual magic. The practitioners of such dark arts had always been hated and reviled all across Westeros. To be a bastard and an oathbreaker on top of that? For that is what they will all say. If I live to return south…
For all those reasons and more, Jon was hesitant to accept this power. But he knew he had no choice.
He took a deep breath. He tried to tell himself otherwise, but truly, there was no choice at all. Whatever methods the Valyrian Freehold had once used to bind dragons, those methods were long gone. The dragon had to be saved, and there was no one but him to do it.
Whatever it takes, Jon thought. He thought of his family, his brothers, his sisters, his friends. His sworn brothers, the men he fought with. Ygritte. Tormund. Even Mance. For the living.
"How do I learn?" Jon asked, his voice low.
"Close your eyes," the greenseer said softly. "Breathe deep… take in the scent of the roots. Listen to the river… listen to the wind, the trees. It is less a matter of learning, and more a matter of feeling…"
The three-eyed crow was a patient teacher. He spent hours sitting over Jon, slowly instructing him how to focus. "Your wolf," the three-eyed crow instructed. "Think of your wolf. Focus on him. Find that connection, the one you know is there. The distance is meaningless, focus…"
Jon spent all day sitting cross-legged before the greenseer, trying to reach out, to stretch his consciousness beyond himself. The greenseer called it a form of meditation. Apparently the power in this place, the heart of all the caves - so thick with the weirwood's roots - made skinchanging easier, but it still took hours of concentration for Jon to find…
Jon had to search within himself to connect with Ghost. He had to find the edge of all that he was, and reach beyond. It was like trying to grasp smoke. Skinchanging was the power to form connections to other bodies outside of your own, the greenseer had explained. He struggled to find the edge of his own awareness, that place where he could cross over, slip from his own body into another. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime of concentration, something shifted.
At first, Jon thought he was simply falling asleep. His mind felt heavy, drowsy, like he was drifting into darkness, feeling himself fall… and he felt himself step over a sort of invisible barrier, or threshold.
And then, suddenly, he was not Jon Snow at all.
He was Ghost. He could feel the cold beneath his paws, the wind rustling through his fur. He could smell the fresh snow on the ground, the faint scent of prey lingering in the distance. Everything was sharper, clearer, more alive. The world pulsed with vivid sensations as Ghost sniffed through the cold. Elk. Close. Ghost started salivating.
The feeling was overwhelming - the sounds and smells of a direwolf's world were so much more vivid than his own, so much more potent. He felt it all overpowering his human mind. The wolf dreams had never been so vivid - it was like he was in control of Ghost's body.
No, it was more like direwolf and man were sharing the same body, side by side. His mind blurred, overwhelmed by the sharp scents and feelings of a wolf. Ghost was aware of him, and welcomed his presence. The direwolf was happy, to be joined by his brother on the hunt—
If it hadn't been for the greenseer next to him, pulling Jon out and returning him to his body, then Jon might have lost himself to Ghost's hunting, might have forgotten himself in his second skin.
Jon gasped, falling back into his own skin with a sharp breath. The transition was jarring. And then he was back in the cave, the cavern's air somehow colder and more claustrophobic than it had been before.
A child of the forest brought him fresh goat's milk and pale fish and onions baked in butter - as if the child had known to be ready, here and now, to help Jon.
"Careful," the greenseer instructed, as Jon murmured his thanks to the child of the forest and began to eat. "It is a dangerous power, even when moving into a comfortable skin. Go too deep, too long, and you may never return."
Jon nodded. His mind was still swirling with the strange, exhilarating sensation of being inside Ghost. "Then how can I use it?"
"With practice, and with time. Connections deepen over time, and are formed more easily as you hone your will. Rest and eat, Jon. Grow. Practice. You have much and more to learn, and far too little time."
There's nothing else for it, Jon thought later, as he tried to sleep. He's right. I have to learn how to be a skinchanger.
He had to use whatever time he had in this place to learn all he could. The three-eyed crow said that normally it would take years to learn the skills Jon needed. He had weeks. Still…
To think I would ever learn magic, even a little of it.
On the fourth day, after Jon woke, the greenseer taught him how to focus himself - a chant that he could repeat to keep himself grounded. Jon could repeat the names of his brothers and sisters, even the vows of the Night's Watch, to keep himself focused. It was more about a state of mind than the words themselves. A focusing of will.
Go too deep into the mind of another and you may lose yourself, the three-eyed crow had warned, but Jon had to press on anyways. He had to learn how to abandon most sense of… himself, and then learn to reach out beyond.
"Ghost is your familiar. You are bonded. Your wolf will accept you, and you will accept him. That helps greatly," the greenseer said. "With other creatures, it will not be so easy."
"You mean… possessing them?" Jon asked. Possessing a dragon.
"You can dominate another skin. if you choose. If you are strong enough, you can forcefully bend another body to your will," he replied. "But that is a crude and dangerous power. The best partnerships are forged when the two minds can come to terms, to share a body." His voice became hard. "Not every creature will accept a partner willingly. If you cannot share, you will need to overpower with brute will."
…I really don't like the idea of trying to fight a dragon in a battle of wills, Jon thought with a gulp.
The next day, Jon awoke to the greenseer's new lesson. He was to warg into a raven.
It was a raven that was well-used to taking passengers and been warged into many times - like a well-worn shoe, the three-eyed crow had even said. Still, it had been one of the hardest things that Jon ever had to do. After Jon failed once, then twice, the greenseer spoke, shifting on his throne of roots to look down at Jon.
"This is no wild bird," the greenseer tutted, "This raven has been ridden countless times - one of my oldest and most reliable. The children oft use this one to communicate in the caverns."
Jon eyed the raven. It eyed him back with beady black eyes, head tilted.
"…But this will be harder," the greenseer warned. "Not every mind is as welcoming as your wolf's. Try again."
The bird's mind was totally different from a direwolf's. A wolf was focused and intense, a predator with a mind not so dissimilar from a man's. The raven's mind felt fluttery and fleeting. It felt like prey. Even when Jon finally managed to feel its presence, he still couldn't entirely slip into its body. It was like trying to balance on a coin, or squeeze his entire body into a hand glove. He could only maintain the connection for seconds before being pushed out.
"I don't understand," Jon gasped, as he pulled himself out from the bird's skin. It quorked, tilting its head, eyeing Jon with its beady black eyes - and then it fluttered away into the higher dark, clearly losing patience with him. "Why is this so hard?"
"You lack the flexibility that comes with practice, perhaps," the greenseer murmured, sounding disappointed. "Your will remains mostly unformed. Even a warg child, as the free folk or the children reckon these things, could have easily shared in that bird's skin."
"Then why is it so much easier to warg with my wolf?"
"Resonance cuts both ways," the greenseer explained, in his dry voice. "Your dreams have long shaped your direwolf's will, and so it goes in the other direction as well, from wolf to man. At this point, the two of you are almost opposite sides of the same coin; you have been linked for years, and direwolves possess a certain power of their own. A wisp of natural magic runs in their blood. It is a part of why they are such rare, such highly sought-after creatures." The greenseer took a quiet breath, and sighed.
"The difficulties of training in the ways of skinchanging are… conceptual, as much as they are a thing of vigor and practice. Certain personalities are more capable than others of finding concordance with a type of animal, and the same can be said for individuals. It may well be that you will struggle with ravens and other prey animals; I have seen such difficulties before, but rarely so strongly. But as you train your will, this difficulty too shall pass. It could be that I am wrong," he said, though he sounded doubtful.
Jon stared, trying to make sense of those words. The root threading through the greenseer's dead eye snaked in and out a little. The greenseer looked down the direction of the tunnel where the bored bird had flown off to, and sighed softly. "Hm. Perhaps a different bird, then. Again."
Jon tried again, with a different bird the greenseer brought over from the higher caverns - but it was like trying to pick up a tiny stone with hands that were too large, with fingers too clumsy by far. This bird's mind too was jittery, small, foreign, nothing like Ghost's. The attempt left Jon disoriented and frustrated, and complaining.
"Your will is unformed," the greenseer insisted, watching him closely. "You lack flexibility. But this too will come with practice. Again."
Finally, after what felt like hours of struggle, Jon made something in the way of progress. But this was an uncomfortable shift, nothing like Ghost's skin.
The raven's senses were… weirdly different. Through the raven's eyes, the caverns looked strange, bathed in a glow of sharp edges and sharper colors, and a weird sensitivity to rapid movements. The bird's field of vision was far, far larger than a man's or a wolf's, and yet also capable of focusing to an immensely greater degree. He could count the individual roots on an expanse of wall hundreds of feet distant: the bird's eyes could focus on and notice the finest details of things his own eyes wouldn't have even noticed existed. But Jon felt whoozy, for lack of a better way to describe it; out of sync, struggling to process the countless impressions of his senses. He was dimly aware of how the bird was stumbling drunkenly, as if it had lost its own sense of balance on its feet.
"What you will eventually come to know is that sight is the weakest form of touch, and knowledge is the least kind of knowing," the greenseer said dryly, almost amusedly, watching his efforts. "To truly walk in another being's skin, you must acclimatize yourself to everything about the manner in which they walk through the world. It can be a… disorienting process."
Jon tried to fly, but only ended up flapping awkwardly. His first flight ended in a crash into the wall. The raven was unhurt and flew back to his arm.
"I don't know how the children use these birds to relay messages," Jon muttered. "A raven makes for a strange skin."
The greenseer chuckled softly. "They have decades, centuries to practice, that is all. Their own senses are closest to a deer's - or perhaps a hare's, from what they tell me. It is not so bad for them."
"There are wargs among them?" Jon asked, startled.
"They're all natural wargs, Jon," the greenseer snorted softly. "How do you think they relay messages? Do you think they write letters?" Jon hesitated, and the greenseer chuckled. "No, they certainly do not. Magic comes naturally to the children of the forest, and by their reckoning, skinchanging is a petty magic indeed."
"But… I've seen so few animals." Sure, the caves had goats, ravens, chickens and so on - but those were clearly chattel, portage, food. Not bonded partners.
The greenseer sighed, a dry, wheezy rasp. "Unfortunately, these remaining children have largely abandoned skinchanging, except for the briefest, most fleeting of times."
Like when using ravens to communicate, Jon supposed. "Why?
Bloodraven's pale red eye fixed on him. "By and large, the singers tend to far outlive their second skins, so they choose not to take partners at all, to spare themselves of grief," the greenseer said sadly. "They live for centuries. Think of what that means, how a life such as that would be led. Any animal companion they might take can live but a fraction of that time. It is no easy thing to outlive a bonded creature by generations. They choose not to take partners to spare themselves the grief of loss. They have already known far too much of it."
Jon considered that. "I see."
"Or, looking at it another way," the greenseer mused, "perhaps you might say that few beasts remain in the modern age who are worthy of being taken by the children - beasts that can also live for centuries."
Jon's curiosity must have been evident, because the greenseer smiled softly. "The preferred companions of the children of the forest are gone from these lands, largely hunted to the last by men. The glacier lions of the Frostfangs are slain. What few griffins remain have fled to cold lands far beyond the reach of man, and the great eagles have entirely left Westeros. The mammoths have been reduced to only a few thousands, carefully tended to by the remaining giant clans - who are themselves reduced to only a shadow of what they were. Only a few of the unicorns remain, and none on these shores. The great elks are almost extinct, as are the great beavers. The cavern sloths have been forced so deep they have lost their eyes, and will never emerge to the surface again. As for direwolves, their numbers are also faded, and in any case, they've never cared much for the children of the forest. There was a time when even greater beasts existed, once."
Jon couldn't even imagine; the greenseer had already mentioned beasts aplenty he had never heard of before, or had thought existed only in legends. But his interest perked at the last. "Even greater ones? What happened to them?"
"They went extinct even before the Long Night. Or the last of them, during it," the greenseer said softly. "Of the ones the children bonded, such as the great turtles, the moon owls and storm rocs and so on, none remain today. It was a time of calamity for more than men alone. And in its aftermath, the children found themselves alone."
Jon sighed, for the first time considering it from the children's perspective. First, they had lost Westeros to the First Men. And then the wilderness of Westeros - even in the lands Beyond the Wall - had slowly faded, lost to the march of time and men. Their entire way of life is being crushed by men, millennia by millennia, and the men don't even realize it. "A sad tale."
The greenseer nodded gravely. "The old world is dying, Jon Snow. But some of it still lingers, in the creatures that remain, in the memories of the land, and in you. You must learn what you can, with the time you have left to you."
Later in the day, after Jon had enough of meditating and warging into birds - he eventually got the hang of it, even a little of how to speak through them, but it was never a comfortable experience - Acorn returned and beat him soundly, beat him embarrassingly and thoroughly for several hours until Jon collapsed into sleep, exhausted and aching, and above all, frustrated.
On the sixth day, the greenseer tried to teach him to warg into the weirwoods. For this, Jon had to focus harder than ever before - the greenseer hadn't been certain if it was even a risk worth taking, until Jon insisted. Apparently it was the best way to ascertain his potential, at least according to the ancient practices of this art.
Bloodraven's own tree was unsuitable for this, the greenseer had claimed, so instead Jon found soon himself in a lower cavern, contemplating the tangled roots of one tree in particular.
The tree might have once held another child of the forest, enthroned like Bloodraven in a nest of weirwood roots. But if so, this one was unreckonably further into the process than the living greenseer - the weirwood had not only devoured this singer in particular, but most of his weirwood throne, to the point that little remained but a carved face in the bark, a remnant of the greenseer that had once been.
The three-eyed crow lectured as Jon considered the weirwood, through one of his ravens. The greenseer's voice through the crow was odd, but calm, dispassionate. Almost a background chant, murmured words that helped Jon concentrate in the cavern's echoing silence, as droplets of water fell softly, from many teeth of stone.
Bone to bark, mind to wood and soul to what lies beyond. That is why men began carving faces into their heart trees. And some of the trees never had their faces carved at all.
"It is the way of greenseers to eventually become one with the weirwoods, and in so doing, become an undying warden of the earth," the crow tutted. "Flesh turns to weirwood, and weirwood turns to man," the strange voice was soft. "Blood turns to sap, and sap turns to blood. Bone to bark, mind and wood and soul to what lies beyond. To… land spirit, or Old God, perhaps. And when that process is completed after centuries, all that remains to an untrained eye is something of the face of the greenseer that once was. That is why men began carving faces into their heart trees - in veneration of those few trees whose faces were never carved at all. Those are the only true heart trees - the trees in whom a living heart still beats, as one with the earth."
Jon sat cross-legged at the base the weirwood's roots - and as the greenseer had said, there was something different about this tree in particular - different beyond just its appearance. Even with the most casual of touches, he could feel it.
Even though so many millennia had passed, even though so little remained of the greenseer in question, just a lingering will that endured in the roots… Jon could feel something.
The three-eyed crow had explained it as best he could, though much of the nuance was lost on him. A lingering will of gentleness, kindness. "…and for those reasons, I believe this is the best tree you can use to commune with what remains of our legacy - roots spread across the earth, filled with the will of countless greenseers of old. Focus, commune with the tree's lingering heart. His name was Braided Stream, once, at least in our tongue. When you make progress, if you do, tell me through a bird. I have other matters to attend to."
The greenseer ordered him away then, guiding him down to this place with a few ravens that lingered nearby.
And now, Jon was left alone, to consider the weirwood, the ancient face turned to bark and wood.
He could feel… something beneath these roots. A slow pulse of life, somewhere beneath and behind the surface of weirwood.
The tree had a face - not a man's. A child of the forest's, but old, old, with a skeletal face that reminded him of a raisin, too-large eyes, prominent ears like a bat's, and a kind smile. The greenseer's words echoed softly in his mind. A lingering will of gentleness. Braided Stream. He can protect you, if you can take the first of your own steps into the roots.
Hours passed, and Jon tried to commune with whatever presence remained within the weirwood. He sat before the ancient, gnarled roots with legs crossed, his breath steady as the world around him seemed to slow. The face carved into the ancient bark watched him, though its eyes were vacant, hollowed, and weathered by the endless march of time, even in the depths of this protected place.
The whispers of the cavern's wind were faint now, just a soft echo in the far distance, as droplets of water quietly fell around him from the higher, stony ceiling. All that was left in the quietude of the cavern was the tree, its ancient face, and the distant presence of an ancient greenseer, a greenseer who had once been a child of the forest.
Jon closed his eyes, trying to focus, to reach out and connect with the will that lingered in the roots, just as the three-eyed crow had instructed. But it felt distant, like trying to grasp smoke. Every time he thought he was getting closer, the sensation slipped away and left him with nothing but frustration and the ache of failure. His breathing grew heavier as the hours dragged on, the weirwood's silent, skeletal face watching him patiently.
At this point, warging into Ghost came as naturally as breathing, like holding a sword that had been made specifically for his hand. The ravens had been harder, small, fluttery, too-small existences that misliked carrying Jon's will, if he could even fit it into them - prey animals whose small minds would only reluctantly carry his own.
But this… this was different. The tree's presence was elusive, like the last whisper of a person who had long since passed. Jon could feel it, just beneath the surface - an ancient will, gentle and protective, but so old it barely clung to existence.
"Braided Stream," Jon whispered, trying to center himself. "Show me. Please."
That provoked… something. A few of the roots twisting around Jon shifted slightly, like the coils of some ancient serpent writhing slightly in its sleep, almost disturbing Jon from his meditations as he continued to sit cross-legged with his palms pressed against the rough, white bark.
But nothing more happened. Even after hours, nothing happened.
Eventually, one of the greenseer's ravens perched nearby tilted its head.
"How goes it?" the raven quorked. Even using a borrowed tongue, the greenseer's voice sounded disappointed. "Your progress is… slow."
Jon opened his eyes, shifting his head slightly. "You said this used to be another greenseer?"
"Yes," the raven said, in a higher, harsher voice than the greenseer's own, almost a caw. "His name has been lost over time, even to himself. I had to find it by other means. But as you can surely feel, something of Braided Stream's will remains."
"Aye," Jon murmured. "I can feel him."
Bloodraven's raven quorked softly. "You can't approach this like you did the ravens, where you sought to control, overpower. You need to ask, give greeting, and even then, there are many dangers in walking the weirwood's roots, particularly for the unpracticed, and especially for those who lack a true greenseer's power. For one such as you, this is the gentlest cradle I can give."
Jon had to parse the words carefully. The raven's voice was harsher than a man's - coherent, yes, but, far more terrible, but giving an impression of ire and umbrage that Jon didn't believe the greenseer truly felt.
"…Are you sure this is worth the risk?"
Mostly, Jon was wondering if this wasn't a waste of his time.
The greenseer's raven cawed. "You were the one who insisted that you have a chance to try. I have reservations - this is an old art, practiced by almost none who live today. There are reasons for that." The raven cawed again, but more gently. "That said, it is true that walking through the trees will be a better tutor than anything my words can provide, and there is no safer environment to try. There is no better, faster way to shape your will, and grow as a warg than by walking through the trees."
"What use is it to warg into the weirwoods, if I'm not a greenseer?" Jon had to ask, curious if this might ever actually be useful outside of training. "They can't move, they can't fight. They're… trees."
The raven clicked its tongue, in something almost akin to a tut. Was the greenseer amused? "True, you are no greenseer - if you had such potential in the third eye, the signs would be unmistakable. But there are many uses for this skill besides. In ancient days, when the sight was more common, not only greenseers, but even stronger wargs - the warg kings of old and the like - could see, even speak across vast distances, across the lands, to friend and foe alike through the weirwoods. Wherever the roots lay buried, men could reach beyond themselves. That is why the First Men were so thorough about burning the south's weirwood groves when they first came to these lands."
Jon's mind caught up with the implications. A way for me to still reach out to the greenseer, even after leaving this place. Those words could mean nothing else. A way to see across the land. Real sorcery.
"That sounds… amazingly useful," Jon admitted. Then he paused, hesitating, before voicing a question that had been on his mind. "But if such a great power is within the reach of even wargs, then what can greenseers do with the trees?"
"…Everything else." The raven tilted its head and quorked. Multiple times, in a sort of harsh staccato. Is he… laughing? "If wargs can touch the land, then greenseers can become the land itself. We can see. Past and present, present and future, and all that lies in between with the eyes of gods. "The raven cawed harshly. "…Though even gods are not infallible. Now, it is time."
Jon sighed. "I'm ready."
"Now, you must let go of your sight," the greenseer instructed through his raven - harshly, the bird couldn't carry his voice so well. "You must let go of hearing, taste, touch, all your senses. Keep only your mind, and the awareness of how to return."
Jon closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, trying to focus. As he had come to learn across the hours, if warging into Ghost was familiar, instinctive, if warging into ravens was uncomfortable and awkward, then this... this was different. Vaster. Without end. As if the weirwood's very being stretched beyond anything he could grasp. Roots running deep under the earth, across the land.
"You must not try to establish control," the greenseer warned. "You must feel that hidden stream, the tides of memory. Swim with the currents, but with intention. Control your path. Release your mind, your body, but not utterly. The weirwoods hold an old power, the memories of countless living creatures. You can compare it to a sea of memory, perhaps, but if greenseers are the whales who can plumb that sea's depths, then you are only a man, paddling at the shallows where you must remain - and even then, you must swim with all the power and will you have in you. You must not lose yourself to the tides. Fortunately, you will have help. This tree in particular will guide you, if you trust in it."
Jon placed both of his palms against the weirwood, and centered himself as best he could. It was almost the opposite of trying to warg with the ravens - rather than entering something too small, now he was entering something vastly larger - rather than controlling his will, cradling it around something tiny, he had to bring all of it to bear just to hold on. It was exhausting. It was terrifying.
"If you fly too high without an anchor to bind you, you will burn," the raven warned harshly. "If you fall too low, you will be crushed. You paddle at the surface an ocean that only greenseers can delve into the depths of, and you lack the wings to truly fly. No matter where you go or what you see, always be aware of your body. You must lose much of your sense of self to warg at all, but you must not lose all of it. Remain aware of the contradiction, walk the narrow thread of balance, and never, ever stray from the light."
Jon finally began to feel… something beneath the weirwood - a long, slow, deep pulse, almost like a heartbeat. A flowing sensation, like water, like air, running down into the earth's depths. He concentrated on that steady rhythm, and as the world faded around him, he let himself sink into it.
For a moment, there was peace. The world around him faded to almost nothing, and he felt as though he were floating in the void, timeless, weightless. For a moment, he sensed the remnant will of the ancient greenseer bound within this tree in particular. Smiling softly. Guiding him, protecting him.
Then, the visions came.
At first, they were fleeting, fragmented. Shadows of things he couldn't understand - flashes of faces, ancient battles, and places he didn't recognize. But slowly, the images sharpened, became more focused. Jon felt himself being pulled through the weirwood's vast network of roots, its tendrils spreading out across the lands beyond the Wall, connecting to places far and wide.
First, he saw the weirwoods directly above this cavern - a thick, ancient grove of hundreds, cradled in a deep vale of the hills of the northern haunted forest. Jon noted the look of it, for memory.
Then the vision… shifted eastwards, if he understood the direction right.
He saw flashes of faces - long dead, twisted in agony or ecstasy, in death and glory. Battles fought centuries ago, swords clashing, bodies falling, blood splattering the snow. A wandering wood's witch trekking along a frozen shore, as she made her way to a port of bone, built by hairy men, by whale hunters from across the sea. A pair of giants, straining as they carried a sleigh through the snows, a sleigh bearing an immense, runed horn being led by a man in black. A people with green eyes, led by a king wearing a lion's pelt and a crown of fangs, leaving the mountains as the last of the lions they'd held precious died.
'You're too deep, Jon,' the greenseer's voice warned.
The visions pained him. It was like he was suffocating beneath the pressure. They were - too much - too thick, too darkened with the memory of countless lives and deaths, like a deep tide of souls. I shouldn't be here. Jon tried to flee to the shallows of memory, and struggled for a time before he became aware of a gentle force cradling him, guiding him to safety, to where the roots were gentlest and the flowing storm reduced to something calmer, something he could wade in. Wade in, and see.
Then the flashes of memory stopped, and the darkness and the pressure abated. Jon saw the world in something closer to the present.
He saw a strange stronghold of men, a landscape of barrow-dens buried beneath the hills by the banks of a wide, muddy river, their earthen mounds dotted with dozens of weirwoods. Part of the network of the children's tunnels, perhaps, but commandeered by men and turned into a settlement both below and aboveground. The land here felt thick with memories, and Jon could almost feel the bones of the free folk who had been buried beneath this land, for millennia beyond time. What was this place?
I'm in the weirwood, Jon realized, as a spearwife, fairer than most he'd seen, with long braided black hair, two spears and tightly-knit brown furs knelt in the snows before him, beneath his outstretched limbs of pale bark and red leaves.
She was kneeling before one of the heart trees, praying to the Old Gods. A common sight in the far north.
"…Can you hear me?" Jon asked, experimentally, though he had no mouth with which to speak.
The spearwife's eyes opened, and they were a vivid green. She stood with one of her spears resting casually in her hand, her eyes looking around the area. "Huh," she muttered. "What was… must be hearing things."
Before Jon could try again, the vision shifted, pulling him elsewhere. The pressure returned, deeper and darker.
The flashes of vision were stronger this time - these were the depths the greenseer had told him to avoid. He saw what could have only been a dragon, massive and red and terrible, roaring smoke and cinders, its red form blackened like charcoal, smoking as it preyed on walrus and seal beyond count, and preyed just as ravenously on the men who hunted it across the northern sea. It fed until it vomited, but it never stopped eating, never stopped raging. He saw a wildling king, leading an army beside his twin brother, with a crown of gold and a steel sword descend into the tunnels, never to return—
The vision grew darker, more violent, more suffocating. Jon groaned, aware of the distant racing of his heart as he struggled to hold on.
'Careful…' the greenseer warned. 'Get out of the depths, quickly.'
…He saw no less than fifty children of the forest… ? No, he was a child of the forest, one out of three score or more, riding a fox beside the other great foxes and giant hares of this… warband? Jon - NO, Lahaiwima'kianor'ehlunanari'fenaha rode at the head of her vengeance singer's warband as she and the rest of her hunters of the kinbound oath hunted a murderer, a giant, a single giant that fled across the hills of a sandy red desert as she and her vengeance singers threw one obsidian-tipped spear after another. Lahaiwima'kianor'ehlunanari'fenaha felt her lips split apart into a savage grin as the roots of a weirwood rose to entrap the harried beast, the quarry not just of not her kinbound vengeance singers, but the greenseer whose daughter this giant had eaten. Her hot anger and hate for this giant rose up in her gut, her desire of blood taken for blood shed, a determination to slay this giant and water the weirwood with its heart's blood, and then—
"Kelah'shuran'taa," she screamed, knowing that soon, the song of vengeance would end. "Thrah'gunar ka'hira'ik nohr'vahl Sih'kael'shari! Kelah'te thrah'gunar, Kelah, KELAH— !"
In a way that didn't feel far off from swimming sideways against a current, Jon jerked himself from the tide of memories - he tore himself away from her perspective, and then he was only the weirwood again. He could feel his body again now, somewhere far away, desperately panting for breath. The pressure had abated.
What was that? That… was that their True Tongue? Is that why they call themselves singers?
It was all coming too fast - images, voices, lives that were not his. Jon tried to focus, to slow the rush, but the memories were overwhelming. They weren't just visions - that child of the forest - she was real, they were real, a river of raw emotions that threatened to swallow him whole. This was the power of the weirwoods? His heart was still pounding.
'Good…' the greenseer approved, but warningly. 'Don't lose yourself. Again.'
Jon let himself be pulled beneath the land again, but he stuck to a shallow path - this path felt old, well-trodden, almost safe. And then he found himself in a place he immediately recognized.
He was at… no, in, the weirwood tree near the Wall, the same tree where he had knelt and sworn his vows to the Night's Watch.
Jon could sense now that this was no true heart tree - it lacked that warm presence, that slow internal pulse that came from a weirwood that had grown together with a greenseer of old. But still, Jon could sense through the weirwood. The wind howled through his many limbs, and despite himself, he wondered. He felt the memory of his own past decisions pressing down on him. Why had the trees brought him to this place, where he had first sworn his oaths?
Nothing happened. The weirwood grove near the Wall remained silent. The vision eventually moved on, as Jon felt himself gently pulled back into the roots. Going north and east, into the forest's hills.
He saw a circle of wildlings he recognized, meeting beneath a heart tree. He even recognized a few of them. Harma Dogshead, Val, her sister Dalla, Sigorn, son of Styr, and half a dozen other lesser chieftains, as hundreds of free folk milled about in the distance. What was this? Somewhere in the forest? Survivor's from Mance's host? What were they talking about? Jon tried to listen, but before he could focus, he lost his grip on control and was pulled back into the roots.
Damnit. Jon cursed and felt himself be pulled eastwards, on this tide of memory. Visions came hard and fast - it was like he had only moments of stability in the trees, moments to experience a muted version of the world, without touch or smell or feel. Only sight and hearing, and even then those senses were strange, distant.
Everything in Jon's vision spiraled. A kaleidoscope of images, locations and people flew past him - all too quickly to find any sort of comprehension, sickeningly fast. How can greenseers control this power? Jon felt like he was riding some wild, unbroken stallion, hanging on for dear life.
The swirling colors and cloudy phantoms started to focus in front of his eyes.
Now Jon found himself at the center of clan of giants, their towering forms huddled in a valley surrounded by snow-covered hills. A single particularly gnarled weirwood - Jon's perspective - stood at the heart of their camp, growing from atop an ancient, massive barrow, almost a small hill, its red leaves stark against the white landscape.
Jon stared outwards, fascinated. There was little pressure here, and a particular clarity: this was likely the present. And if so, it was a fascinating present. He saw cave giants, hill giants, plains giants. Hundreds and more. He had never seen so many. The giants were clearly refugees, the survivors of many clans, who had all moved here with purpose. Why?
"Can you hear me?" Jon asked again, trying harder, more loudly.
One of the giants jerked. This one was blonder than the others, fringed with grey. It stood taller than most, sitting closer to the tree than the rest - but just as thick and shaggy as all the others, like a winter yak roughly carved in shape of a man. It stood, glanced around the clearing warily, before sitting back before the heart tree.
The giant's voice, low and guttural, rumbled. "Go'rak tuh nok?" the giant muttered. Its beady black eyes narrowed on the tree - it was like staring at the giant face to face, getting a very close look at its thick brow and bearded, inhumanly craggy features furrowed in confusion.
That's the Old Tongue, Jon realized. The giant's hand reached out, brushing the thick roots of the weirwood atop a barrow, as if searching for an answer from the earth itself. "Har'ron yul takk?" the giant murmured, its gaze shifting between the trees and the ancient face in the bark from which Jon stared. The giant's voice dropped to a wary whisper, "Druun har… ?" Its fingers dug into the dirt, gripping the roots firmly. Its expression grew darker, more ferocious as the other giants drew closer. "Noh, mak'loh malvern sygerrik… ?"
"Can you really can hear me?" Jon asked, saying it as loud as he could - though he had no understanding of how he could speak at all. "Can you hear me?"
The giant instantly stiffened. Its eyes widened.
Then it shouted, and other giants nearby roused and started gibbering and wailing in confusion. The giant's grip tightened on the weirwood. Its broad toes pressed deep into the earth, gripping the bark and roots all at once as he strained to understand. "Dre'mar noh gar'ak drev norak," it whispered hoarsely, brow creasing further, "Dre'mar?" Its voice seemed to waver between awe and doubt, eyes fixed on Jon - no, he realized - at the face carved in the weirwood, as though it might come to life and answer its gibberish questions.
Jon didn't even know what to say.
"Mak'loh draak dre'mar!" the giant growled, frustrated. Its voice echoed through the clearing, rising, overpowering the confused uproar of the other giants around him, but Jon said nothing. Only the leaves shifted in the soft breeze, giving no answer.
Finally, the giant leaned close to the weirwood, pressing his forehead against the rough bark, and whispered, "Har'gon dre'marak… ? Brokar nag dor gronnach rok? Dre'mar? Dre'mar?"
The onlooking giants waited, spellbound. Their leader's question hung heavy in the air, waiting for a response only a man who knew their tongue might give.
"I…" Jon didn't know what to say. He was completely, absolutely lost. The Old Tongue was completely beyond him.
Then he felt the greenseer's will pour through the tree, utterly eclipsing his own, like a river, no, an ocean of power compared to the trickle that was himself.
"Dre'mar!"The greenseer's voice thundered through the weirwood. The giants all jerked back as if they had been all struck an actual thunderclap, reeling in their hundreds. "Dre'mar og daracar. Daracar!"
The giants started shouting, falling to their knees, weeping. Why? What did the greenseer just…
Bloodraven's voice cut through the Jon's confusion sharply, commanding. 'Withdraw, Jon. This is enough. I did not anticipate they might hear you.'
Jon felt the current pulling him beneath the roots again. He had to leave. He already felt sickened by this experience. He resisted only for long enough to mark this place into his memory. Was this a giant's barrow shrine? Like the wildling's stories?
The gathering of giants disappeared.
'What did you tell them?' Jon asked.
'Later. Come back, Jon. Now.'
But he couldn't. The visions were coming now, faster, darker, more chaotic than ever. Jon tried to swim against the current again, tried to return to his body.
Something had, suddenly, gone wrong.
He felt cold creeping in, no, not cold, the cold. Ice crawling up his spine. He felt himself begin to lose control. The currents were too strong— !
He saw himself standing before the Wall, but it was not the Wall he knew. It was shattered, broken, breached. A graveyard of bones and black banners, great rents torn into the earth. An uncountable sea of wights poured through, wights beyond counting. Wights covering the land, from one horizon to the next. An unending ocean of walking death, marching south.
What is this? This can't - this hasn't ever happened.
'Jon. Return to your body.'
Jon tried to return. He reached for his senses, for the connection, for the anchor that was his body…
Something was wrong.
He couldn't return. The visions were coming too fast now, pulling him deeper. He felt himself be pulled across the land, pulled unwillingly, pulled far across the land, and then he was standing in a vast expanse of ice, alone, lost, and the cold was killing him. The wind screamed, the ice cracked, and the darkness closed in, the sensation of his mind flowing ever outwards, like roots stretching through the ground forever…
This time, however, this weirwood was alone. It had no forest, no surroundings at all but cold sky and snow.
Something was wrong. How had he come this far north, so quickly?
This was only the briefest of stopping points. A single, wind-bitten, scraggly weirwood high in the mountains, so high that this tree knew only goats and shadowcats for company. Jon lost his grip before he could even find it.
The tides swallowed him.
He was pulled farther north, screaming, into lands even the free folk feared to tread. Over the Frostfangs, into the frozen wastes and far beyond into the Lands of Always Winter. And then… he kept getting pulled. Further than he would have ever imagined. So far north into the wastes that they began to change - a new mountain range appeared, beyond the frozen wastes, one he had never seen or heard of before. And as it came into view, Jon saw it was vastly greater than the Frostfangs themselves, and strange winged shapes, like flying lions with a hawk's wings flew among the peaks… until that too disappeared behind.
And then he was pulled higher, higher, over moonlit glaciers beyond counting, the ice rivers of the earth lit by the heaven's auroral rivers pouring over the night sky…
Into the heart of winter at what must have been the roof of the world.
'JON— !'
The cold deepened to something inhuman. This vision came to him with an eerie clarity, unlike anything he'd seen before.
Before him lay a vast, impossible expanse, stretching out in every direction, glowing under the light of a pale, eternal moon.
It was a paradisical forest - if it could even be called that - but one wrought not of bark and leaf, not of wood or sap, but of living, enchanted ice. What was this? What was he seeing?
Here, glaciers had somehow been reshaped into facsimiles of towering trunks, each standing crystalline and luminous. Trunks of petrified frost stretching to distant, impossible heights of ice. Trunks with branches, leaves. They were… trees. Impossible trees.
Is this real? The strange branches of a even stranger forest swayed gently, rustling in a breeze Jon couldn't feel. This is a forest. A forest of living ice. It can't be.
And yet the strange forest continued to shimmer in the moonlight, with leaves like delicate shards of frozen water shining in the sky. No, this isn't even possible.
But it wasn't just the trees. The ground too was covered in strange grass like tiny blades of ice, except that they too flowed with the wind. There were flowers as well, pale blue flowers of ice, their translucent petals glittering like captured starlight.
And then he saw things even stranger. Creatures of ice. Animals Jon had never imagined, all made entirely of living ice. Great stags with antlers like shimmering glass, prowling wolves whose fur crackled and hissed, and birds with wings that glittered like shards of diamond. They moved through the frozen forest like ghosts, with forms translucent and ethereal.
Jon's eyes widened as he took it all in. It was a place so profoundly fantastical it was impossible. A land wrought of such cold beauty that it took his breath away.
The forest stretched out across the land, and through the weirwood, he could sense something of the enormity of it. Whatever this place was, it was like a great domain, a kingdom unto its own. A vast, moonlit nation of ice, not just untouched but untouchable by the warmth of the sun.
The animals of ice grabbed his attention above all else. He watched as a serpent made of ice slithered through the snow, its body shimmering as it wove between ferns like crystal. An entire brood of ice spiders moved in and out of a cavern, scuttling limbs moving easily through grass that flowed in the wind like crystalline water. Above him, enormous… he didn't even know what they were, they were like bats, with wings like sheets of the thinnest ice, like a pond's surface on a cold spring morning. Whatever they were, they soared through the sky with translucent bodies, with impossible life.
Wherever this place was, it was beyond the farthest edges of any map Jon had ever seen of the Lands of Always Winter. Far beyond any map ever made of those lands.
What is this place? How could such a place exist?
This - this was magic, all of it. Real magic, right out of the oldest stories. A place where magic flowed as freely as water in a river. A place where every leaf, every creature, every inch of the ground was imbued with the power of the cold. What was this place? Was this the home of the white walkers? And was that a city, beyond the trees? He could see carved spires of ice, towering towards the sky.
He knew, instantly, deep down, down to the pit of his soul that this place was not meant for him, not meant for any living man. And yet, he couldn't help but find it fascinating. This eerie beauty, the strange peace that seemed to pervade everything. What did it all mean? And how is a weirwood here, beyond even the Lands of Always Winter? Who planted it? When?
But there was something more beneath it all. Something darker. The cold grew sharper, biting at his skin even in the vision.
He could sense danger.
Something was watching him.
'Jon. I'm sending help. Find your body. Retreat now.'
He could feel the cold seeping in, and then he saw something moving in the distance, almost blending against the snow, white on white. Something gliding over the snow, almost ethereal, pale and graceful. He saw a… figure, shimmering and luminous, gliding through the forest. A person, or something that wore the shape of one.
He peered more closely, fascinated. It was a… woman. A woman, pale and cold, wearing robes of… Jon couldn't imagine it as anything but liquid gemstone, white diamond spun into fibers that flowed like silk. Her long white hair flowed behind her like a long banner of white, like liquid snow turned to threads of diamond.
…And then she stopped walking, and despite the distance of hundreds, thousands of feet…
The pale woman turned. Her gaze locked onto his.
She was watching him. Watching him with glowing blue eyes, as pale and beautiful as distant stars. Heedless of distance, ignoring all. Like she was suddenly standing right in front of him, close enough to touch. Close enough to…
He had seen eyes like this before, staring into his soul. When he had died on the glacier, and woken the dragon.
…She's a white walker, Jon realized, from somewhere beneath the sudden flood of horror.
Panic surged in his chest. A white walker, but different from any he had ever seen or heard of; a white walker that was - terribly, frighteningly beautiful - somehow able to see him, was somehow prepared for him.
She was wrought into the same living ice as all else in this place, Jon slowly realized. Like art or imagination rather than something real. She wore a… not a crown. A circlet of ice. And finally, he noticed she was holding a… a candle? A candle of the palest blue ice, like the white walker's swords, but this one burned, burned with a cold fire.
The cold deepened with every step she took, and he could feel her focus entirely on him.
His vision cracked. The visions began to spiral out of control. The quiet whispers he had always heard through the weirwood began to twist, their whispers becoming screams. The serene garden of ice became a nightmare. And the white walker reached out her hand, beckoning.
The greenseer's voice boomed in his mind like thunder. 'Pull back, Jon! Now!'
Jon desperately fought to pull himself back, but the cold was everywhere, seeping into his bones, his mind unraveling under the weight of the visions. Despite the distance, the white walker's icy breath seemed to press against his neck, her pale face inches from his own, the sharp cold of her presence suffocating him. He had never felt more afraid. His heartbeat was roaring in his ears.
The greenseer's voice kept urging him to withdraw, but the whispers became screams, it was as if the vision filled first with faces, then the faces twisted into grotesque masks of skin and bone, and Jon felt himself being swallowed by the dark and the cold. He fought to pull back, his breath ragged, until…
Her pale lips moved. She was beginning to to say something—
Suddenly, a sharp pain jolted through his body. He gasped, eyes snapping open, and found himself back in the cave, the heart tree looming above him. It was twisting as if in pain, roots writhing like white snakes, its carved face open in a silent scream.
The world snapped back into focus around him.
His breath was ragged. He retched, struggling to hold back his own vomit.
He failed at that, had to clench it behind his teeth until he could force it all back down. When he succeeded he saw he was back in the caverns - his heart was racing, his clothes were drenched in sweat, and his body shivered violently despite the cavern's warmth.
The cold lingered, a deep, bone-chilling cold that he still felt, left him trembling. How?
Then he noticed the child of the forest standing by him, looking at him concernedly. The child had pulled his hand from the weirwood's bark. It had done - something.
"…Thank you," Jon gasped. Then he groaned, collapsing over himself. His meditation stance was long forgotten. "What was that? Who - who was that?"
This child of the forest - who looked so like a dark-skinned boy, with a mole's snout rather than a nose - couldn't speak the common. He shrugged and walked off.
Jon sat slumped against the roots. His hands were still trembling. His heart was still racing. Despite the warmth of the caverns, something of the cold of that last vision clung to him. His body was shivering.
The figure of that white walker woman was practically branded into his mind. He was certain, absolutely certain that she had truly seen him. But how is that even possible?
"Too far," one of the greenseer's crows cawed, as it fluttered down by him. "You caught a glimpse of something far, Jon. Too far, by far."
"What does that even mean?" Jon demanded, groaning as he sat back up.
That raven didn't answer. It only fluttered off, shakily, wobbling like it couldn't fly properly. Jon shouted off after it, but there was no response. Only silence and echoes answered him.
Another raven fluttered down by him. It screamed like any other crow, then, after… clearing its throat? spoke almost normally.
"That bird was at its limits. What you saw was one of the true white walkers, rather than the outriders who harry these forests. Return to my tree. You are done with skinchanging for today."
A few minutes later, Jon collapsed by the three-eyed crow's weirwood throne. When he finally found his voice, Jon was almost afraid to break the quietude. "Who… who was she?"
The greenseer opened his pale red eye. His expression was unreadable, and for a long moment, he didn't answer. A heavy silence lingered in the cavern. And just when Jon feared that perhaps the greenseer didn't intend to answer at all, the greenseer's voice came, soft, but grave and tired - as if the ancient lord in black was recalling a distant, bitter memory.
"What you saw, Jon Snow, was no ordinary white walker. You saw a being far above the wights and white walkers you've seen in the forest, faced on the mountains. Yet a being of a similar nature. Among them, she is… royalty, of a sort."
Jon blinked, trying to make sense of the greenseer's words. "Royalty? Truly?"
"Yes," the greenseer murmured. "In the realm of the Others, there is a hierarchy, just as there is in the world of men. The ones you have fought before, the creatures of ice and death that hound the mountains and the forests, they are but foot soldiers. The equivalent of a lowborn vanguard, insignificant in whatever they have that passes for a society. Wraiths of the frost, immaterial creatures of the Great Dark, elementals incarnated in mortal flesh and bound to serve. But what you saw, Jon… she is something far older, far more powerful. A white walker born - a thing of cold like the other white walkers, yes, but cold unalloyed. A being that has never known mortality. You saw a princess of ice."
The words sent a shiver through Jon, despite the cave's warmth. "A princess?"
The greenseer nodded slowly, his gaze distant. "Perhaps there are better words, but not in the Common. The children's tongue is more suited for such things - it has a higher focus on the fundamental forces, and the ties that bind them." The greenseer sighed, shaking his head slightly.
Jon could only stare. What was the greenseer talking about? He wanted to understand, but there was so much he didn't know. He didn't even understand all of the words and terms the greenseer was using.
"Unfortunately, we lack the years necessary to teach you of the True Tongue," the greenseer murmured, nodding his head faintly. "What I can tell you, for a certainty, is that they have a king, and their king learned from men. They are… the legacy of a great mistake made in the time of the cold spring, that came after the Long Night. Creatures birthed by the mistake of a truly, truly foolish man. The heralds of the greater will that guides the forces of cold. She is a descendant of a betrayer of humanity. You could call her one of the Great Other's handmaidens, perhaps."
"Royal white walkers?" Jon muttered, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. The creatures he had fought were foot soldiers? They weren't just monsters? They had a society? A culture? "What does that mean… ?"
"I do not know," the greenseer cut in, harshly. "What I can tell you is that she is kin to their king, as close to him as blood can be in their kind. As far above the white walkers you've fought as the highest of lords is above a peasant. The cold that animates them… it belongs to the royal white walkers by birthright."
The Great Other? Jon swallowed hard, the chill of the grove settling deeper into his bones. He had rarely felt more lost. "She… she looked at me. She saw me. She knew I was coming."
The greenseer's eyes flickered. A shadow of concern passed through his pale gaze. "Yes. Their kind has a magic of their own, one not entirely dissimilar from that of the weirwoods - though they twist it for their own purposes. Death, rather than life. They can see fate, to a degree. She would have sensed your presence the moment you entered the weirwood's sight, perhaps even predicted and manipulated your egress. But to what purpose, I do not know."
Jon's mind raced, replaying the moment that white walker had locked eyes with him. There had been nothing human in that gaze - only a distant curiosity, a cold will, power beyond anything he could understand.
"Can they find me through the weirwoods?" Jon's voice turned low.
The greenseer shook his head. "Not through the weirwoods themselves. They can manipulate and subvert life, but never truly control it. And yet their kind is powerful by their very nature: they can naturally sense when all but the most discreet of eyes are upon them. Scrying is a potent tool, but it has many weaknesses. If sorcery is a sword without a hilt, then scrying is one of the most double-edged sorceries of all. Remember that."
Jon slowly nodded, though in truth, he had rarely felt more lost at sea.
In any case," the ancient lord sighed. "The nature of your enemy should be made apparent now, Jon. You must tread carefully. Never look so far again. Not until you have grown into your powers in full…" he breathed a soft sigh. "And if you ever do, even then, it would be a risk beyond all others. A royal white walker is a foe for gods and greenseers, not for men."
Jon's stomach twisted. The idea that such a creature - something far more dangerous than the white walkers he'd fought - was now aware of him… filled him with dread. A princess of ice. A creature high in an order, a hierarchy that he barely understood, where even the white walker's lowest foot soldiers were worth ten thousand mortal men.
And at the peak of that hierarchy was a king.
How could the last hero have possibly defeated these creatures?
When Jon staggered back to his sleeping mat, he felt brittle, weak, as he might have been if he had been forced to do battle for an entire day. The experience with the trees had exhausted him, well and true and utterly. He had no more energy to give, for anything.
He slept the entire night and well into the day after, and when he slept, he dreamt of dragons.