[THIRD PERSON POV]
After a heavy meal shared with Prince Aemon and Prince Baelon, the two royal princes were formally summoned by the king and queen.
Aelor, meanwhile, had finally been given some free time by Princess Rhaena.
She seemed satisfied with how Aelor had handled his recent punishment.
As a result, she had begun to loosen her restrictions, especially the annoying rule that armed guards must follow him everywhere, even within the safety of their own territory.
Today, she had allowed him to move about the castle grounds without them.
The guards would not return until dusk.
He immediately used the free time to visit Ancalagon.
Through their bond, Aelor could feel that his growing dragon had begun to miss his presence.
When Aelor found her, Ancalagon pressed her snout against Aelor’s chest, and Aelor scratched beneath the dragon’s jaw until a low rumble of contentment came through the bond.
Aelor also meant to use this quiet time alone to consolidate the gifts the Green Men had given him, specifically the ones other than the white greatsword.
The morning after his secret visit to the Isle of Faces, Aelor had discovered that the ancient language the Green Men had blessed him with was special.
It was the same language the greenseers of old had used to channel their magic.
That same morning, he had felt the very earth calling to him, as if the ground itself was asking to be shaped and raised by his will.
However, the men of his mother had guarded him constantly over the following days, and he had never been able to safely try out what he had found.
But now, alone with Ancalagon, Aelor was determined to try.
He left the training yard with Ancalagon padding at his heels and walked into the Godswood of Harrenhal, toward the clearing where the great Heart Tree stood.
The Godswood was the one place in the castle where the old magic pressed closest, and few people ever wandered so deep into it.
When he arrived in front of the pale Heart Tree, he could feel the carved eyes of the weirwood staring at him.
Ancalagon curled up at the edge of the clearing and watched him closely.
Aelor walked forward and sat among the thick, exposed roots of the ancient tree, resting his back against the weeping face carved into the white trunk.
He closed his eyes and slowly felt his body connecting with the roots.
They began to shift around him, gently moving to wrap his small body in a warm embrace.
When the pale roots had entirely wrapped him, his sight suddenly shifted.
His vision went from the darkness behind his closed eyelids to bursting wide open.
He gasped as he found himself staring out over the waters of the Gods Eye.
He was still within the lands of Harrenhal, but strangely, the great stone castle was nowhere on the horizon.
He looked around and saw that the land remained untouched by any human architecture.
It was wild, thick with green plants and roaming animals.
He also noticed that he had no body here.
He drifted just above the ground, weightless, a pair of eyes and nothing more.
[AELOR’S POV]
“Right here, at the very center of the realm. Right here we will build the greatest castle this miserable realm has ever seen. This fortress will be the heart of the realm, a permanent seat of power that no army will ever lay siege to, no matter how many men they throw at our walls,” the tall figure leading the crowd announced proudly.
He wore heavy plate armor and had a massive sword sheathed on his left side.
“The black stone we raise here will be my monument. It will make sure the whole world remembers my name. It will be my legacy. No one will ever forget the King of the Isles and the Rivers, who built the greatest castle in existence, a fortress greater than the frozen halls that Bran the Builder raised at Winterfell,” the armored figure added.
The tired people beside him grew more and more excited, swept up in his grand, megalomaniacal vision.
Men and women were already unloading carts and driving stakes into the mud to mark where the walls would stand.
The ambition in his voice was undeniable, and I could see why they had followed him here.
As I silently watched the scene unfold, I realized who the imposing figure was.
It was Harren Hoare, better known across the realm as Harren the Black.
He was the most infamous king in the history of Westeros and one of the great tragic symbols of how brutal Aegon’s Conquest had been.
‘I wonder if he really was as bad as the history books say,’ I thought to myself.
As though someone higher up had heard my question, King Harren suddenly turned and entered a large, lavish pavilion.
I floated forward toward the entrance flap.
When I phased inside, I saw numerous captured women huddled together.
Some were clearly underage, barely older than I was now.
Fear was carved into every one of their faces.
‘Yep, he is exactly as terrible as the history books say,’ I thought grimly.
I realized that every woman huddled there was meant to be one of Harren’s salt wives, even the young girls.
The realization filled me with a deep, sickening disgust for the history of this place.
Somewhere beneath the disgust, my essence of the healer stirred, as if even the power inside me recoiled from what had been done on this ground.
Not wanting to linger, especially as I saw the vile King Harren begin to unbuckle his armor, I floated straight out of the tent.
I refused to stay and witness what was about to happen, least of all to children.
‘I always thought salt wives were supposed to be grown women taken in raids.
So what are the young girls in there supposed to be?
‘
‘I do not even know if that is worse or just par for the course for the ironborn,’ I added to my lingering thoughts.
I clearly remembered what I had read on the ASOIAF wiki about the brutal Ironborn tradition of taking a salt wife.
‘How can I leave this vision and go back?
Then someone appeared right in front of me.
It was Haestryr.
“It seems you have learned to connect your mind to the weirwood roots all by yourself, Life Giver,” Haestryr said.
He greeted me once again with deep reverence.
“Yes, but I have no idea how to get back to the present. I did this by accident while I was meditating,” I explained.
I tried not to look back at the tent, as both of us could now hear the muffled cries and screams echoing from behind the fabric.
“Such is the dark nature of humanity. Cruelty and depravity are as much a part of human nature as the capacity for kindness and love. It is a duality tied to the mortal soul,” Haestryr said calmly, noticing my uneasy glances toward the tent.
We began walking slowly away from the camp, heading toward the ancient Heart Tree.
“Yeah, I know. I do not have any real qualms about killing my enemies when the time comes, but I foolishly hoped that children would at least be spared such cruelty. I guess that is just wishful thinking in a world like this. By the way, this is probably a dumb question, but how did you know where I went while I was moving through the roots of time?” I asked curiously.
“It is quite simple, Life Giver. You have little experience with the weirwood net, so you unconsciously left behind bright magical crumbs marking where your mind had traveled. Once you grow more experienced at holding this connection, you will learn to detect those traces in others and to prevent your own,” Haestryr answered patiently.
“Why did it show me Harren, though? Of all the things this tree has seen, why him?” I asked.
“The weirwood remembers everything that has happened in its shadow, and it has stood on this ground far longer than any castle. When you sank into the roots, your mind drifted to the memory nearest the surface. That memory happens to be the day this castle was begun,” Haestryr replied.
“Please, teach me how to go back to my own body,” I requested.
Haestryr then began to instruct me on the mental process.
It was simply a matter of relaxing my consciousness and letting go of the connection I had accidentally built with the roots.
When I did exactly as he instructed, I found myself gasping for air back in the present.
My body still sat where I had left it, though the roots had loosened their hold, and a worried Ancalagon lay pressed against my side.
“Thank you, Haestryr,” I said toward a massive wild elk watching me quietly from the tree line.
I knew for a fact that the beast was one of the many animals bonded to Haestryr.
The elk dipped its antlered head as if it had understood my words, then ran off, disappearing into the darker parts of the forest.
I stood and brushed the dirt and bark from my clothes.
The sun had barely moved across the sky, and no one had come looking for me.
Whatever time meant inside the weirwood net, it had not passed here the way it passed out there.
Ancalagon nudged my hand with her snout, and together we started back toward the castle.
After what I had seen, I decided to have a serious talk with my mother tonight about the name of our growing city and our castle.
I refused to let the memory of a monster like Harren the Black be honored any longer.
I could not help feeling disgusted that our beautiful home was still called Harrenhal and Harrentown.
Perhaps I could suggest renaming the castle after the greatest castles I knew from my past life.
We could name it the Immortal Bastion, or perhaps Minas Tirith, or even just call it Summerhall early.
But it would certainly not be called Harrenhal anymore.