Chapter 147 – A Letter for Aid
They rode beneath the looming shadow of the Wall, hooves crunching over snow-packed earth.
Light flakes drifted down from the gray sky, settling in their hair like shattered white petals.
Around them, northern soldiers sat rigid in their saddles, scanning the wilderness with wary eyes. Hands had already drifted—almost unconsciously—to sword hilts and spear shafts.
Ever since the wildlings had been allowed south of the Wall, rumor had done its work. In the telling of frightened men, the lands beyond had become a frozen hellscape where white walkers lurked behind every drift, waiting to strike.
Now that they were riding into it themselves, unease was inevitable.
By contrast, the black-clad men of the Night's Watch appeared calmer. They feared the Others as much as anyone—but beneath the Wall's vast shadow, they still felt a measure of grim, stubborn reassurance.
Charles rode near the center of the column.
As the group advanced slowly across the white expanse, raised voices drifted faintly through the wind.
"I'm not a turncloak. I've never stood with the wildlings."
The voice was low and hoarse, heavy with frustration and something close to hurt.
A sharper female voice immediately cut in.
"Turncloak? A free folk does as she pleases!" the woman snapped, then added furiously, "You know nothing, Jon Snow!"
"…Here we go again," someone muttered nearby.
Charles turned his head.
Arya Stark rode alongside on a small brown mare, bundled up so tightly in furs she looked like a stuffed dumpling perched in the saddle.
Since arriving at the Wall, the girl had rarely stayed still. She trained with new recruits one day, climbed the Wall's heights to peer north the next. If there was trouble, she found it—or it found her.
When Charles announced he would ride beyond the Wall to seek out the heart tree, Arya had insisted on joining the expedition without hesitation.
And apparently, with their parents far away, her two brothers stationed at the Wall had little authority over her.
Charles had not wanted to bring her.
He had even tried to refuse—dryly, sarcastically.
It had not worked.
The young lady of Winterfell possessed a stubbornness as solid as castle stone. She bore his mockery with unnerving composure—quite unlike any well-mannered noble girl.
Of course, that thick skin only applied to those she trusted.
Had a stranger mocked her, the hot-tempered wolf pup would likely have exploded on the spot.
Up ahead, the argument between Jon Snow and the wildling woman—Ygritte—continued to simmer in the icy air as snow fell softly around them.
As they rode, Arya had originally been circling around her bastard brother, weaving her pony back and forth near him.
But after getting caught in the crossfire of someone else's romantic dispute, she hadn't lasted long before being shooed away.
She ended up beside Charles instead.
"What are they even arguing about?" she muttered, baffled.
Ever since discovering that her bastard brother had some kind of entanglement with a wildling woman, the question had been gnawing at her.
Arya was clever—no one denied that.
But she was still too young to truly understand.
"Who knows," Charles replied absently, clearly uninterested.
His thoughts were still lingering on what had happened yesterday.
When he crowned Stannis, he had not been particularly enthusiastic about it. In fact, when the scepter burned through the colorful energy he had painstakingly accumulated—turning it all into a spectacular burst of "fireworks"—he had even felt a flicker of regret over going there just to show off.
But once the reward became clear, that faint regret vanished without a trace.
The "flight" experience aside, the mere fact that he could influence a king's thoughts was more than enough to satisfy him.
And it led him to certain speculations.
Could the fall of House Targaryen have had something to do with this?
Subtle manipulation of a monarch's mind…
The ability had seemed surprising at first glance.
But the more he considered it, the more it felt inevitable.
The scepter excelled at swaying hearts. Why wouldn't it possess such a skill?
And it clearly followed its own peculiar "rules." Sometimes, even Charles couldn't fully control it.
Take the ability to broadcast a voice into the minds of all believers—he had no idea how that worked.
At least here in Castle Black, the aftermath of that alone had caused utter chaos.
While he was lost in thought, the arguing voices behind him gradually subsided.
A moment later, Jon Snow rode up, looking thoroughly miserable. There was even a red handprint faintly visible on his cheek.
He muttered an apology to Charles, glanced awkwardly at Arya, and then fell silent, riding alongside them.
Jon and a few other members of the Night's Watch had joined the expedition as guides. After all, Charles's personal guards had no idea where to find a heart tree beyond the Wall.
As for why the wildling woman had tagged along too—
Charles had no clue.
Did she simply argue her way into following them?
Shaking off the thought, he looked up at the sky.
Snow still drifted down in lazy spirals, but it was undeniably daytime. The Others only emerged at night.
He wasn't worried about walking into a trap.
---
They continued forward.
Gradually, sparse vegetation began to break up the endless white plain. Before long, they reached the woodland where a wildling tribe had once camped.
"Near the Wall, this is the only place with a weirwood," Jon explained, having regained his composure.
"This white forest has been spreading outward for years. Back when we had enough men, we'd cut it back regularly. But lately… the Watch is short-handed."
"Afraid the wildlings would use it as cover?" Charles asked.
"Exactly. They used to…"
Their conversation faded as they pushed through snow-laden undergrowth.
Soon, the pale, twisted trunks came into view.
The weirwood stood stark against the snow.
Its bark was bone-white. Seasons meant little north of the Wall; it bore no leaves. The trunk was thick but low and crooked, its branches bent and partially buried in drifts, streaks of gray cutting through the white landscape.
As they drew near, Charles dismounted and walked toward it.
He had come because he sensed a shift in his enemies. He wanted answers about the so-called ancient other god—and no one was better positioned to know than the Three-Eyed Raven.
He wasn't certain he could actually contact him.
In fact, under normal circumstances, he doubted it. The Three-Eyed Raven wouldn't simply linger here waiting to chat.
But if there was something he wished to convey—
Then this nearest heart tree would surely be watched.
"Should I begin praying, my lord?" Jon asked, stepping closer.
Most Starks worshipped the Old Gods—and the Old Gods seemed unusually fond of them. Jon's role here was not just as a guide, but as someone who might help call out to those ancient powers.
"Not yet," Charles replied.
As he stepped before the weirwood, a notification from the True Sight made his expression change.
Under the puzzled gazes of the others, he crouched down.
He removed his black moleskin glove and pressed his bare hand against the deeply carved face in the trunk.
The cold hit instantly.
It wasn't ordinary cold—it felt as though something else lay embedded within it. Even with Charles's altered constitution, a shiver ran through him.
Then—
Everything shifted.
The dense woodland vanished in an instant, replaced by a towering hill.
His perspective was high above the ground. Black ravens wheeled around him in the sky. Below, the hill stood isolated, surrounded by a vast white wilderness buried under heavy snow.
Halfway up the slope, a narrow crevice—barely noticeable—cut into the mountainside.
Yet Charles felt it immediately.
A silent summons.
His gaze fixed on it without effort.
Then he looked outward.
From all directions, beneath the snow-choked sky, grotesque wights trudged steadily toward the hill. Among them, figures like icy-blue knights gleamed like cold stars scattered across a field of corpses.
White Walkers.
The vision dissolved.
The snowy forest returned.
Charles withdrew his hand and studied the ancient face carved into the trunk, frowning.
He hadn't expected much from this visit.
And yet the answer had come with startling simplicity.
The Three-Eyed Raven was clearly in no position to explain anything. At some point, he had left behind what amounted to a silent plea for help.
Explaining the truth to Charles was now the least of his concerns.
"So… without the wildlings in the way, the Others have decided to deal with the Three-Eyed Raven directly?"
Charles murmured as he rose to his feet.
He wasn't entirely sure what that implied.
But he remembered something the Three-Eyed Raven had once said:
"Most of my power is spent suppressing the other god."