Chapter 7 — The Spell That Didn't Belong
[You attempt to use Bone Resurrection on a prisoner's corpse. The spell fails.]
The familiar line flickered before Charles's eyes — silent, matter-of-fact, like the world itself was shrugging at his confusion.
"What the hell…" he muttered, frowning at the lifeless body sprawled on the cell floor. "It looked like it worked. Why didn't it?"
And more importantly — why had this reaction been different from the first skeleton he'd summoned?
Before he could think it through, a calm voice came from behind him.
"Your last chant," Ned said from the doorway, "why was it different from the first one?"
Charles turned, startled. He hadn't realized the older man had managed to move. Earlier, he'd used a few broken ribs from his first skeleton to splint Ned's leg — crude, but enough for the crippled noble to hobble slowly, grimacing from the pain.
"The first part was in my world's common tongue," Charles said absently, still staring at the corpse. "The second part — the one that changed — that's the real incantation."
"Common tongue? And then the spell language?" Ned frowned. "Don't wizards usually just use one?"
Charles let out a small, humorless laugh. "I'm not that good. I still need to… translate."
Then he froze mid-sentence as realization dawned.
In his world, the "common tongue" — Dorinic, as it was called there — was nothing special. Everyone spoke it. There was no mystical power in the words themselves.
Only when he shifted it into that strange whispering form — the guttural, ghostly version that bent meaning and sound — did it become magic.
So maybe the language wasn't the real focus of the spell. Maybe it was the act of conversion.
That raised another question.
If his old world's language was just one of many, why should magic here — in this world — recognize it at all? Surely the locals didn't use Dorinic when they cast their spells.
Then… what if he tried using their language instead?
What if magic, like people, simply had trouble adapting to a foreign land — a kind of linguistic "culture shock"?
Worth a try.
Charles straightened, inhaled, and lifted the pendant once more. "Alright," he muttered, "let's see if you understand this."
He began chanting again, this time forcing the unfamiliar Westerosi syllables past his lips. The words felt heavy, clumsy, alien — and the first few attempts fell flat.
[Spell failed.]
[Spell failed.]
[Spell failed.]
Ned watched, curious and wary, as Charles stubbornly pressed on. His accent grew clearer with every repetition. Then — suddenly — the words twisted, shifted, and melted into that same uncanny resonance as before. The chamber itself seemed to hush in response.
Whispers — not his, not human — slithered through the air.
The corpse jerked once. Then again.
A faint, wet squelch echoed as something under its skin began to move.
The flesh rippled as though a swarm of worms writhed beneath it. Then, with a sickening crack, the body's chest swelled, ruptured, and split open.
From within, a figure dragged itself free — white bones slick with dark blood, sinew still clinging to its ribs.
The stench hit them like a wave — copper, rot, and smoke.
Charles stepped back, covering his mouth, though his expression stayed sharp with fascination. "It worked," he murmured.
Ned, on the other hand, turned pale. His stomach twisted violently at the sight. The wet sounds of tearing flesh and cracking bone filled the room, and bile rose in his throat.
He had seen men die in battle. He had seen executioners work their trade.
But this — this thing clawing its way out of a man's own corpse — was something else entirely.
The newly born skeleton stood, dripping and trembling, before its master. Its empty sockets glowed faintly, awaiting command.
Charles wiped the sweat from his forehead and let out a shaky laugh.
"So… I was right," he whispered. "Magic really does get homesick."
Ned hadn't eaten properly in days — and it was probably a mercy.
If there had been anything left in his stomach, he would've emptied it by now.
Even so, the once-dignified lord looked utterly broken. He leaned against the damp stone wall, jaw clenched tight, eyes wide with disbelief and disgust.
"Your… your black magic…" he muttered hoarsely.
"I think it's disgusting too," Charles replied flatly, wiping a bit of blood off his sleeve. "But I don't see any other options."
His mind wasn't on the noble's horror. It was on the question that had been gnawing at him ever since his failed summoning attempt.
Why had the first corpse responded so easily to his incantation — yet this one hadn't?
Both rituals had drawn that same strange, gray force. The only difference was what happened after that energy entered the body.
"Could it be because of the corpse itself?" he wondered aloud.
He didn't have time to dwell on it. The dungeon was no place for magical theory.
He turned to the newly raised skeleton — the one that had clawed its way from the fresh corpse — and gave a sharp order.
"Follow me."
The skeleton stood still. Silent. Its eye sockets glimmered faintly, then dimmed, the eerie green light fading almost completely.
Charles frowned. "I said, follow me."
Nothing. Not a twitch. The thing only stared at him blankly, head turning slightly as if trying to understand the command but failing to grasp its meaning.
"…Is it stupid?" he muttered.
He tried again — and again — but the undead soldier remained as mindless as a broken puppet.
Finally, Charles looked over his shoulder at the other skeleton — the first one he had summoned, the one missing a few ribs.
That one tilted its skull slightly, its jawbone clacking as if in mockery, or laughter.
"Yeah, laugh it up," Charles muttered.
The difference was obvious now:
The first skeleton was aware — eerily so, almost human in the way it reacted.
The second? Nothing more than a shell.
Why the disparity?
Charles replayed everything he knew about the spell — the fragments of knowledge he'd inherited from the body's former owner. Then, buried deep within the fog of half-merged memories, a single truth surfaced.
Only corpses that had been dead less than a day could retain their spirit spark after resurrection.
After one day, that spark weakened — and after a week, the body became completely inert. Beyond saving.
It wasn't something written in a grimoire — it was something told to the spell's former owner by someone else. Someone important, though Charles couldn't remember who. The memory was fractured, incomplete.
Still, the logic fit.
He sighed and turned to Ned. "We'll need a new subject. This one's useless."
"A new target?" Ned grimaced. "Perhaps… we could find another way."
He tried to sound calm, but his voice trembled. His eyes flicked involuntarily toward the blood-soaked floor — at the pile of mangled flesh that had once been a man.
"To desecrate the dead like this…" he whispered. "Not even the Drowned God would bless such blasphemy."
Charles looked him straight in the eye. "Do you have a better idea?"
Ned had no answer.
Charles's tone wasn't angry — just coldly practical. Still, the question stung.
Even he found the process revolting. Watching a man's own body torn open, organs and bile soaking the stone, bones crawling out from within — it was enough to make his skin crawl.
But what choice did he have?
They were trapped. Outnumbered. Hunted.
Morality didn't break locks or slay guards.
Ned said nothing. His face tightened, his silence heavy with shame and pride.
Charles shrugged. "Thought so." He turned toward the stairs. "There are four more bodies below. Fresh enough, maybe."
He started down the steps. Behind him, Skeleton One lingered, eyeing the new, inert undead. Then, with an almost human impatience, it reached out, snapped off a few of the weaker skeleton's ribs, and fitted them neatly into its own missing slots before following its master down the stairs.
Ned watched them go — the boy and his bone servant disappearing into the shadows below. His heart was a storm of contradictions.
Part of him knew this darkness was necessary. Without it, they would never escape.
But another part — the one raised on honor, faith, and the old gods — recoiled in revulsion.
He could still hear the young man's words echoing in his head:
"Do you have any better ideas?"
Not sharp, not cruel — but mercilessly true.
It reminded him of her voice — the queen who had twisted mercy into a weapon, who had smiled as she said,
"In the game of thrones, you win or you die. There's no middle ground."
He had once dismissed that as cynicism — arrogance born of corruption.
But now, standing here, watching a boy raise the dead just to survive, Ned felt the weight of those words crush what was left of his certainty.
He'd believed in honor.
He'd believed in integrity.
And where had that gotten him?
His loyal men slaughtered.
His allies turned traitor.
His daughters held hostage as bargaining chips.
His wife and sons, scattered in the frozen North — their fates uncertain.
"I've always said I serve honor," he whispered to himself. "But maybe all I've really served… is my own stubborn pride."
For the first time in years, Lord Eddard 'Ned' Stark — once the very image of restraint and conviction — felt completely adrift.
And as he stood in that damp, haunted corridor, struggling between belief and survival, a sound cut through his thoughts —
A shout from below.
Charles's voice.
"What—?" Ned's head snapped up, eyes wide.
Something had happened.
He took a step forward — too fast — and his bad leg gave out beneath him. Pain shot up his thigh, nearly sending him sprawling to the floor.
Still, he forced himself upright, heart pounding, and stared down into the dark stairwell.
"What's going on down there?!"