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The crow lay in the snow, its pitch-black eyes locked on Lynn, filled with nothing but rage and humiliation.
It struggled, trying to beat its wings again, but the weakness rooted in its very soul wouldn't let it complete even that simple movement.
It had lost.
[You win, young man.]
An aged, exhausted thought echoed in Lynn's mind.
The arrogance was gone. The authority was gone. What remained was the hollow sound of forced surrender.
[State your terms.]
"My terms have been clear from the start."
Lynn crouched down and looked into those eyes, complicated as a storm.
"Harmonic Magic. Natural Magic."
"Hand over a complete inheritance. Both of them."
The Three-Eyed Raven sent back a thought.
[These two magics are among the most closely guarded secrets of the Old Gods and the Children of the Forest. Their power is rooted in bloodline and faith. They cannot simply be taught to an outsider the way you copy out a book.]
[Even if I were willing, you couldn't learn them. Force-feeding you that much would only shatter your soul from the inside. You'd be left a drooling idiot.]
High-sounding words.
Lynn sneered to himself.
He knew perfectly well how brutal the conditions for inheriting ancient magic were. If it were otherwise, Greenseers and Skinchangers would be wandering every corner of the Continent of Westeros.
But that didn't mean there was no way.
This old monster was still playing games with him, even now.
"Is that so?"
Lynn's voice gave nothing away.
"Then our transaction ends here. I'll go to your cave myself and invite those Children of the Forest out one by one. I'm sure, under the right... encouragement, they'll find a way to teach me."
[Don't!]
The Three-Eyed Raven's thoughts snapped to urgent.
It had no doubt. This ruthless young man would actually do it.
[There's a way! There's another way!]
The crow's mental voice quickened , not out of concern for the Children of the Forest, but because it was terrified Lynn would decide it had no value and simply walk away.
[I can give you the most basic, and most essential, 'seed' of both magics.]
[Think of it as the key that opens the door.]
[With it, you'll be able to sense the power of the Old Gods. You won't be able to cast their greater spells, but you'll have crossed the threshold. You'll have pushed that door open.]
[How much of what lies beyond it you can grasp , that depends on your own comprehension.]
[This is the furthest I can go!]
Lynn didn't answer immediately.
He watched the crow, his fingers tapping slowly against his knee.
A key that opens the door.
Nicely put.
This old thing's arithmetic was sharper than anyone's. It wanted to toss him a scrap and call the debt paid. Once Lynn accepted the "introductory" knowledge and let it enter Robert Arryn's body, it would be free. Whether it honored anything after that was a completely different question.
A magic inheritance with nothing but the seed was like a martial arts manual that only contains the table of contents.
Looks impressive. Completely useless.
The old crow wanted to play him for a fool.
Lynn watched it lying there in the snow, quietly pleased with its own cleverness, and his expression turned faintly strange.
What a genuine... colossal idiot.
He apologized to himself silently. He shouldn't curse. It was beneath him. Blame Greatjon for that particular habit.
But honestly, there wasn't a better word for the Three-Eyed Raven right now.
Lynn had been sitting on a mountain of Experience Points with nowhere to spend them. Ice Magic was nearly at the ceiling of what his current understanding could sustain. To push further, he'd need a deeper grasp of this world's fundamental rules. His other skills were already more than sufficient. Sword technique was a waste of resources , nothing compared to the returns from leveling powerful magic.
But these two ancient magics, born from the Old Gods themselves , they were a door to something entirely new.
And the crucial thing was: he didn't need a complete inheritance.
He just needed a primer. A catalyst.
As long as the System could recognize it, he could pour Experience Points into both magics and brute-force them to max level.
The elaborate trap this old crow had spent so much effort constructing had just become the finest gift anyone had ever handed him.
"Only introductory knowledge?"
Lynn put on a show of deliberation, letting uncertainty and wariness settle across his face.
"How do I know you won't renege later?"
Watching Lynn's expression, the Three-Eyed Raven felt something loosen in its chest.
Hooked.
This young man's raw power was terrifying , but in cunning, in experience of the world, he was still green. Still young.
[We can make a contract.]
The Three-Eyed Raven's thoughts took on a warmly "sincere" tone.
[A sworn oath, in the name of the Old Gods.]
[Let me enter that body. Once I have fully fused with it, I will pass on the remaining knowledge to you, piece by piece.]
[An oath to the Old Gods cannot be broken. Violate it, and my soul falls into the icy hell forever.]
Said with such conviction.
Lynn nearly laughed out loud.
Negotiating oaths with a creature that had spent millennia manipulating fate and bending timelines? And dragging in some icy hell? Whether gods even existed in this world was still up for debate.
It was farcical.
But Lynn arranged his face into the expression of a man carefully weighing his options, half-convinced and half-suspicious.
"Fine."
After a long pause, Lynn gave a "reluctant" nod.
"I'll trust you this once."
"But don't try anything."
"Because even if you crawl into the Seven Hells, I will drag you back out and show you what eternal damnation actually looks like."
[Of course, my friend. You have nothing to worry about.]
The Three-Eyed Raven's thoughts overflowed with barely-contained joy.
It could already see it , finally shedding this brittle bird's body, claiming something young, healthy, and brimming with limitless potential. With that, it would return in an entirely new form and rule over all of Westeros.
As for the young man's threats?
Once it had its strength back, the question of who was a threat to whom would look very different.
[Then let us begin.]
A faint green light bloomed across the crow's body.
A massive, chaotic torrent of information crashed into Lynn's mind all at once.
In that instant he seemed to hear it , countless rustling whispers, wind moving through weirwood leaves. He saw vast primeval forests stretching to every horizon, the Children of the Forest crouched beneath ancient trees, humming songs older than memory. Then he felt his consciousness fracture into threads, fine as rootlets, driving deep into frozen earth, connecting with a pulse that had slept beneath the land for ten thousand years.
Torrents of fragmented images. Ancient syllables. Arcane runes with no names.
An information storm, tearing through his mind without mercy.
Any ordinary person would have had their soul ripped apart the moment that flood hit them.
But Lynn's will was solid as ten-thousand-year ice.
He stood still at the eye of the storm and let it wash over him , quietly sorting, cataloguing, absorbing everything worth keeping.
Time passed. How much, he couldn't say.
The torrent stilled.
The crow in the snow looked diminished. Its feathers had gone dull and flat, as though it had aged decades in a few minutes. The light in its eyes was completely gone, replaced by a hollow, empty quiet.
Constructing this "magic seed" , generous in appearance, honeycombed with traps , had cost it nearly the last ember of its soul's foundation.
But it was worth it.
It could already feel that perfect vessel ahead of it, reaching out, beckoning.
[Your turn, friend.]
A thought so faint it was barely a whisper sounded in Lynn's mind.
Lynn opened his eyes.
He glanced at the crow, barely clinging to life. Then he glanced at the wight standing quietly behind him, wearing Robert Arryn's face.
He reached out and pressed one finger lightly to its forehead.
"Go."
From the crow's body came a low HUM. A wisp of black smoke, nearly invisible, curled slowly upward.
It drifted in a lazy circle. Then, drunk on the ecstasy of a creature that had survived against all odds, it dove without hesitation toward the body it had dreamed of, pouring itself through the wight's seven orifices.
The wight wearing Robert Arryn's face shuddered hard.
The icy blue flames that had burned in its eyes vanished in an instant, swallowed by a deep and ancient darkness.
An aura rose from the body , old, commanding, saturated with the weight of millennia.
It rolled its hands and feet, relearning the long-forgotten sensation of flesh and force.
And it could feel it clearly: this body held potential beyond imagination.
It didn't stop to wonder why a child's body would contain so much. Victory had gone to its head.
[Ha... hahahaha!]
A silent, wild laugh rang through the depths of its consciousness.
It had done it.
It , the Three-Eyed Raven , had finally broken free from the weirwood's prison and been reborn.
"Robert Arryn" raised its head and looked at the young man still standing in front of it.
Those pitch-black eyes held none of the wariness or exhaustion from before.
What replaced them was the measured assessment of a predator examining prey , and something that looked almost like pity.
"Young man, thank you for your generosity."
It had reclaimed its height. Its authority.
"To repay you, I'll give you a clean death."
"Your dragon, and this little slave girl beside you — I'll take very good 'care' of them."
"You've no one to blame but yourself for being so foolish."
Miranda heard every word laced with malice. The color drained instantly from her face.
She tightened her grip on her longbow on instinct , but the crushing pressure rolling off the thing in front of her left her unable to lift her arms.
Lynn's face showed nothing. No panic. No surprise.
He looked at this "new god" basking in its own triumph the way a person looks at someone who has made a very public, very irreversible mistake.
"Old crow."
Lynn spoke.
"Does this body feel... cold to you?"
"What?"
The Three-Eyed Raven's elation stuttered.
Cold?
It focused its attention inward. There was indeed a bone-deep chill running through the body , the kind that felt like it could freeze the soul itself.
But that was simply the nature of undead flesh.
Why would it be here, in this body?
"What are you playing at?"
Unease crept into its voice.
"Nothing." Lynn's mouth curved into something slow and merciless. "I just wanted to remind you of something you seem to have forgotten."
"This body — yes, it was prepared for you."
"But..."
"Its master..."
"Is me."
The words had barely landed.
The icy blue light in Lynn's eyes ignited like a struck flint.
"Kneel."
BOOM——!!!
An irresistible will , the will of an absolute sovereign , detonated like divine judgment from the highest heaven, slamming directly into the Three-Eyed Raven's newborn soul.
[AH—, !!!]
"Robert Arryn" screamed , a sound no human throat should have been able to make.
It felt invisible fingers, cold as frost and vast as mountains, close around its soul.
Then it was dragged down.
Into a darkness with no bottom.
Every ambition it had nursed. Every dream of standing above the world. Crushed utterly in a single instant.
Its millennia-old soul , the thing it had been most proud of , was as helpless as a newborn before that absolute dominating will. Locked inside a wight's body, the Three-Eyed Raven had nowhere to run.
Its knees buckled and it hit the snow with a THUD.
It looked up at the man standing over it, and in its eyes there was nothing left but terror and the blank incomprehension of something that finally, too late, understands.
From beginning to end, it had been a trap.
A trap a thousand times more vicious than anything it had ever laid.
It had thought itself the hunter.
It had walked straight into the net.
It was the prey.
"Mr. Old Crow."
A devil's smile settled across Lynn's face.
"Or perhaps I should call you something else."
"My..."
"New slave?"
➤ Next: Greedy Lynn
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