Chapter 146 – The Authority of a Kingdom
Sunlight had blazed across the kneeling masses in the square only moments ago.
Now, as Charles Cranston lowered his hand from his forehead, the brilliant scene dissolved into the cold, austere confines of his bedroom in the King's Tower at Castle Black.
He rose from the edge of the bed without hesitation and immediately looked down at the scepter resting in his arms.
Inside the crystal head of the staff, a faint phantom image of a stag-antlered crown flickered at the center of the seven-pointed divine sigil.
The prompt from the Eye of Reality had already informed him of this unexpected gain.
He had gone south intending little more than a dramatic display.
Instead, he had gained a new ability.
Charles narrowed his eyes at the scepter.
"What other secrets are you hiding?"
His Eye of Reality could reveal broad functions, but it could not dissect every hidden mechanism within the artifact. That limitation irked him.
Still, speculation would get him nowhere.
He sat cross-legged on the bed, staring unblinkingly into the crystal, focusing on the crown's faint silhouette, attempting to activate it through sheer will.
Half a day passed.
His eyes grew sore.
Nothing happened.
"…Do I need to be in soul-projection mode?"
Since he had nothing pressing to attend to, he lay back down and closed his eyes, allowing his mind to empty.
After countless repetitions, he no longer required full sleep to separate spirit from body. A quieting of thought, locating a subtle "blank point" in consciousness—then a single inward push—
He sat up again.
Except this time, it was his spirit that rose.
A soft golden radiance suffused the room.
Charles glanced back at his physical body lying motionless on the bed and smiled faintly.
As always, the scepter manifested in his spectral hand.
It had no regard for physical distance or matter. It simply appeared with him.
As if this state—this luminous, half-divine form—was the one it truly belonged to.
He examined the crystal once more.
The phantom crown gleamed more distinctly now.
This time, when he focused on it, he felt something.
Not heat. Not light.
Authority.
A subtle, invisible thread extended outward—vast, intangible, but real.
Charles stilled.
That thread stretched southward.
Toward King's Landing.
Toward Stannis Baratheon.
The instant he acknowledged it, the thread responded.
Information flooded back—not images, but impressions.
Recognition.
Legitimacy.
Sanction.
It was not control.
He could not command Stannis like a puppet.
But he could feel something akin to… jurisdiction.
As if the moment he had spoken those words—
"Stannis Baratheon is the only rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms"—
A portion of the concept of "kingship" had anchored itself to him.
Not the throne.
Not the man.
The authority itself.
Charles' expression shifted.
"This isn't about Stannis…"
"It's about the crown."
The Seven-Pointed Star, the divine proclamation, the scepter, the ritual of coronation—together they had formed a symbolic nexus.
Faith.
Kingship.
Legitimacy.
And at the center of that convergence—
Him.
The phantom crown within the crystal pulsed once.
A realization struck him.
If recognition could be granted…
It could be withdrawn.
Not by force of arms.
Not by assassination.
But by declaration.
His lips curved faintly.
"So that's why you reacted like that."
The scepter trembled lightly in his grasp, as if in agreement.
He extended his awareness further along the thread.
The farther he reached, the fainter it became—but it did not break.
Across Westeros, wherever believers of the Seven lived, he could sense a vast, diffused network.
Not direct thoughts.
Not prayers in detail.
But alignment.
Faith created resonance.
And resonance created power.
"This is national authority."
Not divine omnipotence.
Not absolute rule.
But something subtler—and perhaps more dangerous.
The authority to define legitimacy.
A king crowned without divine acknowledgment would now stand on weaker ground.
A king stripped of acknowledgment—
Would stand on none at all.
Charles slowly exhaled.
"So this is what you gained, Stannis."
"And what I gained."
He withdrew his awareness, allowing the golden light around him to dim.
Moments later, his spirit settled back into his body.
He opened his eyes.
The room felt smaller than before.
The scepter lay quiet in his hand, but the faint crown still shimmered within the crystal.
Charles sat in silence for a long time.
He had not intended to interfere so deeply in the politics of Westeros.
Yet with a single sentence, he had reshaped the balance of power across an entire continent.
And now—
He possessed the lever that could tilt it again.
A slow smile spread across his face.
"So this is what it means…"
"To hold a kingdom in your hand."
Charles lifted the scepter upright before him, eyes fixed on the golden crown suspended within the crystal.
Gradually, he felt himself rising.
Not metaphorically—rising.
A strange sensation of weightlessness bloomed beneath his feet. The bedroom around him blurred, dissolved, then sharpened again into something entirely different.
Moments later, the dim gray chamber of his soul-projection state vanished.
In its place stretched a vast expanse of pale, drifting clouds.
Below lay open land.
Mist curled through the air. Birds sliced across the sky, their wings stirring gentle currents. Unlike his usual spirit form—where everything appeared muted and colorless—this time the world possessed full, living color.
It was as if he were seeing through ordinary mortal eyes.
Charles lingered in the high sky, astonished. The experience of hovering in open air tempted him to simply drift—but he had business to attend to.
He looked down.
A ruined city stood below.
Fertile plains surrounded it. To the east, a dark coastline traced the edge of Blackwater Bay. Several tall hills rose from within the city's sprawl. At the far end, atop a high ridge, a red-blackened castle loomed over everything.
King's Landing.
He could not mistake it.
The very city he had left not long ago.
Focusing his sight, he saw roads crisscrossing the charred districts. Most buildings were blackened skeletons, but some newly repaired structures stood out in pale contrast. Tiny black dots moved along the streets—people. At the city's heart, more clustered in a great square, slowly dispersing outward.
The crowd gathered for Stannis's coronation.
Charles felt a surge of awe.
"So this 'Authority of the Realm' allows me to traverse a human kingdom at will?"
He examined himself.
He had no body—yet he retained human shape. He was like a mass of invisible air suspended over the capital.
With a mere shift of thought, he descended.
In a blink, the clouds gave way to stone.
He hovered above a wide square paved with white stone blocks, scorched in places by wildfire. Old men, children, women, soldiers, Sons of the Warrior, gray-robed sparrows—faces streamed past as he flowed through them like a current of wind.
"A cool breeze," someone murmured as he passed.
Charles ignored the remark, intoxicated by discovery.
He darted along the ground, then rose above the crowd. He slipped beneath the earth, then shot back into the sky. He crossed King's Landing, skimmed Blackwater Bay, brushed Dragonstone—
Distance meant nothing.
Wherever his sight could reach, he could appear.
"Even without anything else… this is a divine-tier ability."
After experimenting for some time, he could not suppress his admiration.
Yet the power had limits.
He could only move freely within certain regions.
Why?
He considered it briefly and understood.
Because those were the lands Stannis actually controlled.
Or more precisely—the lands under his sovereign authority.
Stannis Baratheon might bear the title "King of the Seven Kingdoms," but in truth his direct control was pitiful.
Dragonstone was a barren rock.
The North had broken with him because of Charles.
The Riverlands leaned toward the North through marriage alliances.
The Crownlands obeyed him in name but not in spirit.
Renly held the Reach and the Stormlands.
The Westerlands, the Vale, and the Iron Islands remained under their own great houses, refusing to recognize the bald king's claim.
So even crowned by divine proclamation, Stannis's true dominion was small.
Charles had once regarded this with indifference—even faint amusement.
Now, however, his perspective shifted.
"If this authority is tied to the territory he governs… should I help him consolidate it?"
The thought surprised even himself.
With a mental flicker, he blinked from the sky into the heart of the Red Keep.
Several flashes later, he stood inside the throne room.
Stannis Baratheon sat alone upon the Iron Throne—the jagged black seat forged from melted swords. One hand propped his chin. His expression was stern, unreadable.
Charles's arrival caused no reaction.
That was expected.
What was not expected was the prompt that appeared before him:
[Authority Anchor Detected — Eligible for Sovereign Override]
Override?
His gaze shifted to the pure gold stag-antler crown resting upon Stannis's head.
"How do I override it?"
The instant the thought formed, the crown emitted a subtle pull.
Like a vortex of gravity, it drew at Charles's intangible form.
After a brief hesitation, he surrendered to it and let himself be pulled in.
—
On the Iron Throne, Stannis ground his teeth.
Though the divine apparition had ultimately elevated his coronation to unprecedented glory, the High Sparrow's public challenge still burned in his mind.
He was a man of order.
He despised disorder.
"You may wield influence here," he muttered internally, "but you will answer for that insult."
Then—
"What the hell?"
The thought surfaced in his mind without warning.
Stannis frowned.
"What… hell?"
He had never used such language.
"Have I been affected by the coronation?"
"Holy sh—"
The unfamiliar expletive cut through his thoughts.
He froze.
The phrase meant nothing to him. It was alien. Foreign. Not of Westeros.
"Why am I thinking like this?"
Cold dread crept into his chest.
"Did Cranston curse me?"
His heart lurched.
He stood abruptly from the Iron Throne, nearly stumbling as he descended the steps.
"Your Grace?" a guard asked in alarm.
"Fetch Maester Pylos. Immediately," Stannis ordered through clenched teeth.
"Your Grace—"
"I said now!"
He strode from the hall, pulse racing.
Unaware that within the golden crown upon his head—
Another consciousness had just arrived.