POV: Jon Stark
I rowed the small boat across the lagoon toward the House of Black and White. Ghost sat in the middle of the boat.
The boat sat low in the water, not from Ghost's weight, well, he is heavier than a horse, but not from his weight, but from the heavy sacks strapped to his back.
Compressed biomass. Dense blocks of organic material I'd prepared specifically for this.
Ghost barely seemed to notice the burden. The enhancements I'd made to his body back at Winterfell had increased his strength far beyond what any natural Dire wolf should possess.
The black and white door of the temple opened before I reached the shore. A young woman stood there.
"A boy comes to pay his debts," she said.
"Life for life," I replied. "As agreed."
She stepped aside. Ghost jumped from the boat to the stone dock, landing with barely a sound despite his size. I tied off the boat and followed.
Inside, the temple was dark and cold, the dark fountain at the center absorbed all light, reflecting nothing.
Jaqen emerged from the shadows with an old Summer Isles man beside him.
"Jon Snow honors his word," the old man said.
"I do. Six lives were taken when your order killed the Archmaester and his followers. Six deaths that served my purpose. 'A life for a life' that was our agreement. Are there those among your order who need my services?"
The old man studied me. "There are. Three died serving the Many-Faced God in distant lands. Two more were injured and maimed. Can a boy restore them?"
"If they wish it. That's the payment I offered."
"Come."
They led me deeper into the temple, downstairs, into a chamber that felt like a crypt. Ghost followed me with the biomass sacks still strapped to his back.
There in the center of the chamber, three bodies lay on stone slabs, preserved by cold. Two men and a woman.
Against the far wall, two more sat on benches. A man missing his right hand. A woman missing her left arm from the elbow down.
The woman stood as we entered, from the expression on her face, she wanted to say something, but she was hesitating.
"You mean to disturb the dead." She finally said, looking at three bodies on stone slabs
"I mean to honor my debt," I said.
"By bringing back those the Many-Faced God has already claimed?" Her voice was flat, controlled, but I heard the tension beneath it. "Death is His gift. Once given, it is absolute. To take it back is to deny Him."
I set down one of the biomass sacks Ghost carried, then straightened to face her. "Do you believe they are..."
"Already in the embrace of many face god."
"Are they?" I stepped closer to the nearest slab. "Dead? I don't think so, but you can say they are mostly dead," I said,
"Come here, let me show you." I put my hand on the side of her head, above her ear.
I used technique similar to warging but with use of contact to share my vision.
As I used biokinesis on one of the dead men, a vision of his inner structure appeared in my mind; most of the cells in his body were black, dead, after all, he had died around three days ago.
However, a notable amount of cells where green; alive
Like most cells in bone marrow.
Group of cells inside skin, lungs, heart, and liver, as well as in structures such as tendons. Commonly known as Fibroblasts are still working like they still don't know their neighbors died long ago.
"You can see this right? Those green parts? That means that there is still life in them." I said,
But it was because of the vision I saw her, which was in too much detail, too much data for her brain to process, that her expression became blank.
'She won't be another Hodor, will she?'
To my relief, she turned back to normal. "How?" she asked in a shaky voice. "They should be…. Dead!"
"But you saw that right?"
"It's not like I want to disrespect your god, from my perspective, a few parts of them are still alive." I said, "I'm not denying their death. A few more years, maybe decades if they're lucky. But eventually, the Many-Faced God will claim them."
The old man spoke up. "The boy speaks truth. Even the greatest blood mages of old could not grant true immortality. They could only delay, extend, or preserve. But all of them died eventually."
'I can, if I want but I'm not gonna say it here.' I thought.
The woman looked at him, then back at me. "You say death will claim them eventually. But how can you be certain? Perhaps your power will grow. Perhaps you will learn to reverse aging, to heal any wound, to bring back the long dead."
I shook my head. "Even if I could, Everything in this world breaks down over time. Mountains erode. Steel rusts. Even the sun will eventually burn out after billions of years from now. That's the true inevitability." I met her eyes. "The Many-Faced God is patient. He doesn't need to claim these souls today. He can wait years, decades, knowing with absolute certainty that they will come to Him in the end. Nothing escapes that."
The woman was silent for a long time. Finally, she looked to the old man. "What does the god say?"
"The god is silent," the old man replied. "Which means He does not forbid it. The boy's words are true, all things die, whether today or in thirty years. If these servants can return to His service for a time, perhaps that pleases Him more than their immediate rest."
She nodded, now fully convinced. "My arm, can you regrow it?" she asked in a meek voice.
"Yes. I can. And..." I hesitated, then continued. "I can sense something else wrong with you. Your magical pathways are blocked. You can't change your face, can you?"
She stiffened, her eyes flashing with something that might have been anger or shame she nodded.
"I can fix that too. While I regrow your arm, I can open the blocked pathways. Give you what you should have had from birth."
She looked at the old man again. He nodded.
"Do it," she said. "Perhaps the Many-Faced God sent you here for a purpose."
I knelt beside the first body a man with a blade wound to the heart. Ghost lay down nearby, patient as I unstrapped the biomass sacks from his back.
I placed my hands on the corpse's chest and reached out with my power.
Three days dead. Cellular damage had begun but wasn't catastrophic. The cold preservation had helped.
I opened the first biomass sack and pulled out a block of compressed organic material. It was dense, heavy, packed with proteins and nutrients in their most concentrated form. I broke off pieces and began converting them, feeding them into the corpse as I worked.
Rebuilding damaged tissue. Clearing clotted blood. Restoring organs to functionality.
The heart was hardest. I repaired the puncture in the left ventricle, ensured all chambers were intact, and rebuilt the damaged muscle tissue. When everything was ready, I placed both hands over the silent organ and channeled my life force into it.
The heart contracted. Once. Twice. Then, they settled into a rhythm.
The man's chest rose as his lungs drew breath. His eyes opened, confused and disoriented.
"Welcome back," I said quietly.
The gathered priests watched in silence.
I moved to the second body, using more of the compressed biomass. Then the third. Each resurrection drained me, pulling from my reserves to restart lives that had ended. 'My life force will increase notably after it recovers.' I thought.
By the time I finished the third, a woman who'd died from poison, I was trembling with exhaustion but still functional.
All three were breathing. Alive. Returned.
After a few moments of rest, I turned to the man missing his hand. "Your turn."
He extended his arm, and I examined the stump; it was a clean amputation, well-healed.
After turning off all pain receptors, using more biomass, I constructed a new hand from the stump outward. Bones first, then muscles and tendons, then skin and nerves. I copied the structure from his remaining hand for perfect symmetry.
When I finished, he flexed his new fingers experimentally. "A man thanks you."
"You're welcome."
Finally, I approached the woman. She extended her truncated arm, her face composed but her eyes holding something like hope.
As I began examining the stump, I also examined her magical circulatory system with my power. The pathways were severely malformed—twisted, blocked, preventing proper energy flow.
"This will take longer," I said. "The arm is simple. But fixing your magical circulation..." I pulled out more biomass.
"That's delicate work. Years of malformed tissue, nodes that never developed properly. I'll have to rebuild the pathways from scratch."
"How long?"
"An hour, maybe more."
She nodded. "Do it."
....