Chapter 1: The Bargain
The first thing he lost was the pain. Then the sound of the sirens. Then the cold.
After that, there was only the dark.
It wasn't a scary dark. It was just… empty. A void so complete it felt like being suspended in nothing. He had no body, or at least, he couldn't feel one. He had no voice to scream with, no eyes to close. He just was. A single point of awareness floating in an endless, silent sea.
He tried to measure time, but there was nothing to measure it with. No heartbeat. No rising sun. He counted memories, at first. The smell of his mother's cooking. The first time he read A Game of Thrones, the worn paperback feeling like a treasure in his hands. The Red Wedding—his shock, his grief for characters who felt like friends. He re-read the entire series a dozen times, then moved on to Fire & Blood, then A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. He'd waited years for The Winds of Winter, arguing theories on forums until dawn.
He'd been thirty, a superfan, and then a truck had made sure he'd never have to wait for the book again.
Now, in this endless dark, the memories began to fray at the edges. They felt less like his life and more like a story he'd once been told. The void was patient. It was happy to just let him drift, to let the silence eat away at everything he was. He felt himself beginning to dissolve, to spread out into the nothing.
And then, there was light.
Not a harsh, blinding light, but a soft, silver glow. It coalesced in front of him, shaping itself into a figure. It was tall, and its form seemed to shift, one moment appearing as a gaunt man in grey robes, the next as a beautiful, androgynous being with eyes that held the cold, distant light of stars.
"Hello," the figure said, its voice a quiet hum that vibrated through the very fabric of the void. "I apologize for the wait. It has been a very busy millennium."
The man, if he could still be called that, tried to speak. A sound like a dry gasp escaped him.
"Ah, of course," the being said. "Let me help with that."
A feeling washed over him. It was like being poured back into a mold. He had a shape again, a sense of self. He looked down and saw he was translucent, a faint ghost of his former self.
"Where…?" he started, his voice rasping.
"You are in the space between," the being said. "The antechamber. I am what you might call Death. Though I prefer 'the Accountant,' myself. Too many souls, not enough time."
The man stared. Death. He'd imagined many things, but not this… casual cosmic bureaucracy.
"I was a fan," the man blurted out, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. "Of George R.R. Martin. You feature prominently in his work. As a character. Well, multiple characters. It's complicated."
A flicker of what might have been amusement crossed the being's face. "Yes, a rather dramatic interpretation. The faceless men are flattering, in their own way. But I am not a god of many faces. I am simply the door."
The man felt a strange sense of calm. "So, is this it? Do I go through?"
"You have a choice," Death said, gesturing with a long, pale hand. Behind it, another light appeared, this one a warm, golden glow. "You can pass through that door. What lies beyond is… pleasant. Peaceful. A good rest."
"And the other choice?"
Death smiled, and it was a genuine, almost warm expression. "The other choice is a bit more irregular. A bit of a… project."
The golden light faded, and in its place, a shimmering image formed. It was a world, a familiar continent shaped like a sprawling, backwards L. Westeros. But as he watched, the image shimmered again, and things began to change. Strange, loping creatures with swords for arms stalked the forests of the North. Winged, leathery beasts swooped over the plains of the Reach. On the map of Essos, new cities appeared, their names strange and guttural. Sothoryos, a dark, unexplored blot, began to glow with the light of magic.
"The world you know," Death explained, "the one you loved so much from your books, is not alone. Thousands of years ago, it collided, in a manner of speaking, with another. A world of monsters, of magic, of people with cat eyes and elves who live for millennia."
" The Witcher, " the man breathed.
"Precisely. The sorcerers, being practical, claimed Sothoryos. Aretuza and Ban Ard now stand on its southern and northern coasts. The monsters… well, they spread everywhere. A new apex predator for every ecosystem. The witcher schools, the Wolves, the Griffins, the Vipers, they established themselves across Essos, and even a few found their way to Westeros. The non-human races—the elves, the dwarves, the halflings—they mostly settled in the Free Cities or hid in the deep woods of Westeros, after the Andals arrived on the continent."
The man watched, mesmerized, as the history played out before him. He saw the Andals arrive in Westeros, their iron swords and their Faith of the Seven. He saw how their hatred for magic, for the Children of the Forest and the Others, now had new fuel. The witchers, with their mutations, were abominations. The elves were demons. Magic was a blight to be stamped out. The Targaryens hadn't even crossed the narrow sea yet.
"This is the world I'm offering you," Death said. "The same politics, the same scheming, the same beautiful, brutal dance of thrones. But with drowners in the rivers and a wyvern nest in the Mountains of the Moon."
The man felt a thrill he hadn't felt in what felt like ages. It was a dream. A mad, impossible dream. To live there? To see it?
"Why?" he asked, his voice full of wonder. "Why me?"
"Because you loved it," Death said simply. "Not for the dragons or the battles, but for the people. For the choices they made. For the heartbreak. I find that… endearing. And, I must admit, I'm curious. What would someone who knows the story, who loves it so completely, do when they can actually change it?"
He didn't even hesitate. Decades in the void, and the choice was made in a heartbeat. "I want to go."
"I thought you might," Death said. "But it will not be as a simple man. You will be my gift to this world. Or my joke. We'll see."
Death raised a hand, and a torrent of pure knowledge slammed into him. It was agony and ecstasy. He saw the magical compositions of a dozen potions, from the cure for boils to Felix Felicis. He felt the precise wand movement for a Shield Charm, the mental discipline for Occlumency. The principles of Transfiguration, the art of Alchemy, the hidden secrets of ancient rituals. The entire magical curriculum of a world he'd only read about was suddenly, completely his. Not the skill, but the knowledge. He knew how to do it all; he just had to learn to make his body and mind obey.
Then, a piece of darkness broke off, of Death and a new feeling appeared. A cool, eternal spring welling up inside him. Death said It was immortality. True, unchanging, forever. That he was a child of Death now bearing a part of his divinity. He would never age, never sicken, never die.
Moreover I shall grant you "Universal comprehension," Death murmured, and suddenly the guttural growl of the Old Tongue and the flowing script of High Valyrian made perfect sense. "And the ability to learn at an extremely accelerated pace. You will pick things up as others can only dream of."
Finally, a figure materialized beside him. A bird, wreathed in flames of silver and blue, its feathers shimmering like liquid starlight. It was a phoenix, but like no phoenix ever described. It turned its wise, ancient eyes on him and let out a clear, ringing cry that shattered the silence of the void.
"A companion," Death said. "For the long road ahead."
The man was reeling, his ghostly form overwhelmed. Death leaned in close, his starry eyes boring into him.
"Your old name is gone. You are my son now. You are Alaric Peverell. You will wake on an island. A place I have prepared for you, with a tower of your own. And you will wake five hundred years before the dragonlord Aegon I Targaryen sets foot on the shores of Westeros."
Death reached out and touched his forehead. A final image seared itself into his mind: a tall man with platinum-silver hair, mixed with streaks of ice blue, and piercing green eyes. He was dressed in black, with silver tracery on his coat and waistcoat, a green tie a slash of color. He was handsome in a way that was almost unsettling, a look of divine, aristocratic grace.
"Be you," Death whispered. "And be interesting."
The void vanished.
♣︎♣︎♧♣︎♣︎
Alaric Peverell gasped, his eyes snapping open. He was sitting. No, he was lounging. He was sprawled on a grand throne of carved obsidian, cushioned with thick, dark velvet. The air was warm and smelled of the sea and something else, something clean and sharp, like ozone after a storm.
He looked down. Black pants. A black, form-fitting shirt. A silver-worked waistcoat. A long black coat. A green tie. He raised a hand. Pale skin, long, elegant fingers. He touched his face, then his hair, pulling a few strands in front of his eyes. Platinum and Ice blue.
The tower rose around him in a spiral of dark stone and crystal windows that offered a breathtaking view of an endless blue ocean. Shelves lined the walls, empty and waiting. Workbenches stood ready for potions, for enchanting, for creation. A massive, empty fireplace dominated one wall.
And perched on the back of the throne, its feathers gleaming, was the phoenix. It tilted its head and let out another soft, musical cry.
Alaric Peverell, son of Death, wizard, immortal, stood up in his new tower, in his new world, five hundred years before the Dragon's Conquest. He looked at his hands, flexed his fingers, and a slow, wondering smile spread across his beautiful, alien face.
He had a lot of work to do.