"Are we there yet?"
Bran Stark asked, his voice tinged with weariness.
Ever since leaving the Wall, he had lost count of how many times he had asked the same question.
Each time, the answer had been unsatisfactory.
"Almost," Jojen Reed replied. "I promise, the Three-Eyed Raven is just ahead."
You've promised that countless times, Bran thought bitterly.
He sat huddled in the wicker basket strapped to Hodor's back, swaying with each step. The snow was relentless, clinging to his hair until it froze into icy tangles, while small icicles hung from his temples.
The howling northern wind carried the occasional caw of ravens flying overhead. Beyond that, the world was a lifeless expanse of white.
"We must be deep into the Lands of Always Winter by now," Bran said.
"Yes," Jojen confirmed.
"Will we encounter the White Walkers?"
Jojen hesitated before nodding. "It's possible."
Bran fell silent, unsurprised by the answer.
In the farthest reaches of the North, the days grew ever shorter, and the nights ever darker. The cold bit deeper with every step.
The group's lips had turned a frosty blue, their cheeks flushed a painful purple from the chill.
"Hodor, stop!" Bran suddenly shouted. "Something feels wrong."
The direwolf Summer was also on edge, pawing anxiously at the snow-covered ground.
Jojen froze in place, while Meera gasped and pointed.
"Look! There's someone beneath us!"
Before Bran could process Meera's cry, Hodor tripped and fell hard to the ground, sending Bran tumbling from the basket. The impact left him dizzy, blood filling his mouth.
He saw a blackened hand emerge from the snow, followed by a figure—half-human, half-monster—clawing its way free.
"Wights!"
More of the undead burst from the snow, at least a dozen in total. Their emergence sent a mist of snow swirling into the air.
Some wore tattered black cloaks; others were almost naked, their frostbitten flesh a ghastly black and purple.
"Run!"
Hodor clutched Bran to his chest and tried to flee, but a wight grabbed hold of his leg, dragging him down.
Summer leapt into the fray, her sharp teeth tearing into the wight's throat, ripping half of it away in one vicious motion.
Freed from the wight's grasp, Hodor staggered to his feet and lumbered awkwardly away, with Jojen and Meera clearing a path ahead. But the snow around them was crawling with more of the undead.
"Break through!"
The Reed siblings fought valiantly with their spears, but the wights pressed ever closer.
"Fire!" Bran shouted in sudden relief.
One of the wights burst into flames, consumed by a sudden inferno. A small figure darted between the undead with incredible speed, her torch igniting them one by one.
The girl's movements were so swift she seemed a blur, a streak of fire weaving through the snow.
Within moments, the wights surrounding them were all ablaze, the flames granting them a final rest as they crumbled into ash.
"Thank you for saving us!" Bran called to the girl, struck by how much she reminded him of his sister Arya.
"Fire consumed them. Hungry fire," the girl replied. Her voice was not that of a child but high-pitched, melodic, and laced with an ancient sorrow.
Bran squinted, trying to see her more clearly.
She appeared to be a young girl, dressed in a cloak of woven leaves. Her large, luminous eyes glinted like a cat's, unnervingly long and narrow.
A human wouldn't have eyes like that.
Her hair was a tangled mess, adorned with grapevines, twigs, and wilted flowers.
"Who are you?" Meera asked.
"She's one of the Children of the Forest," Bran answered, trembling with excitement.
Here, before him, was one of the legendary beings from Old Nan's stories.
"The First Men call us the Children," said the girl. "The giants call us 'squirrel people,' because we are small, quick, and love the forests. But we are not squirrels, nor are we children. Our name in the Old Tongue means 'those who sing the song of the earth.' And I am over two hundred years old."
"Two hundred?" Meera's eyes widened in astonishment.
"Yes." The Child smiled. "Compared to me, you humans are the children. Come, he is waiting for you."
"The Three-Eyed Raven?"
"The Greenseer," the Child corrected, then turned and began walking.
The group hurried to follow her.
They trudged through the snow for over an hour, eventually reaching a narrow, winding cave.
The Child led the way with her torch, the rustling of her leaf-cloak filling the air.
The tunnel twisted and turned, soon disorienting Bran entirely.
"We're descending," Meera whispered.
"There might be a weirwood grove above us," Bran noted, pointing at the thick, knotted roots overhead.
"Caw! Caw!" Several ravens perched among the roots, their beady black eyes studying the visitors.
After what felt like hours, the sound of running water echoed ahead. They reached an underground river.
"We're here," the Child announced.
"Here?" Bran hesitated. "The Three-Eyed Raven…"
Before he could finish, the Child raised her torch high. Its light flickered, casting shifting shadows that filled the cave with a crimson glow.
But as the light faded, everything turned to black and white.
Bran gasped.
Before him stood a pale-skinned man, his emaciated limbs entangled in the roots of a weirwood tree, cradled as if by a mother holding her child.
The man's skeletal body was so gaunt that Bran mistook him for a corpse.
"Are you the Three-Eyed Raven?" Bran asked cautiously, noting the man had only one eye, not three.
The single eye glowed blood-red, while from the empty socket of the other, a slender white root snaked down his face and burrowed into his neck.
"The raven?" The man's voice was dry, as though unused for centuries. "Once, perhaps. I have lived many lives, Bran Stark. Now, this is all that remains of me. I've long wanted to find you, but alas, I cannot move…"
"I'm crippled too," Bran replied sympathetically. "I came here because you said, in my dreams, that you could heal my legs…"
"I never said that."
Bran's heart sank with anger and disappointment.
"But," the Three-Eyed Raven continued, "though you may never walk again, you will learn to fly."
"How?" Bran asked, hope reigniting in his chest.
"In dreams, through the greensight."
The Child stepped forward, holding a bowl filled with a viscous, pungent white liquid streaked with red.
"You must drink this."
"What is it?" Bran asked, staring at the bowl warily.
"Weirwood paste."
The sight of it made Bran's stomach churn, but he had come too far to give up now. He forced himself to take a sip.
The first taste was awful, nearly making him gag. But the second went down easier, and by the third, the paste had a strange sweetness. Soon, he had devoured it all.
"Close your eyes," the Three-Eyed Raven instructed. "Enter the roots of the weirwood as you enter Summer's mind. Let it guide you into the earth."
Bran obeyed, shutting his eyes as his consciousness slipped from his body.
Suddenly, he could see the dark cave, the rushing river below, the countless wights shambling across the land, and the storm swirling over Blackwater Bay.
He saw the blood-red ritual circle, the one-eyed man within it, and the white dragon standing on the cliff above.
"What do you see?" the Three-Eyed Raven's voice echoed faintly.
"Caesar," Bran replied, instantly recognizing the man astride the dragon.
They had met once before, from a great distance.
"And what else?"
"A kraken," Bran said. "A burning kraken."
(End of Chapter)