Somewhere Beyond Sight – A Weirwood That Bleeds
In the cold heart of the world, where roots twisted through time and memory like gnarled fingers clutching at secrets, an ancient tree groaned. The sound carried through the wind like a mother's lament, echoing across leagues of snow and stone.
Its face—carved by time and faith into the pale bark—wept blood that steamed in the frigid air. Not from pain, but from recognition. Something had changed. Something fundamental had shifted in the world's bones.
*He has touched the storm… but not the name. Not the shape.*
The thought rippled through the weirwood's consciousness like a stone dropped in still water. A dozen crows, black as sin and twice as knowing, burst from its red-leafed branches. They scattered in every direction, carrying whispers of change to every corner of the world.
In a village three leagues south, Old Nan pulled her shawl tighter as the crows passed overhead.
"Marta," she called to her daughter, who was hanging laundry despite the chill. "Bring that washing in. The birds are speaking of ill tidings."
"Just crows, Ma. Probably smelled something dead in the woods."
But Nan shook her head, watching the black shapes disappear into the grey sky. "Not these ones, girl. These ones got purpose."
---
The Seven – The Sept That Survived
In the ruins of a long-burned sept, where weeds grew through cracked stone and memories of prayers lingered like ghosts, a lone Septon knelt among the debris. His name was Donnel, and he had been twenty years making pilgrimage to forgotten holy places, seeking signs that the gods still watched.
His knees ached against the cold stone as he prayed before the remaining statues. The Father's statue wept blood from carved eyes, the crimson trails fresh and warm despite the morning frost.
Where the Stranger's statue once stood, only ash remained—a perfect outline against the wall, as if the carved stone had simply... ceased.
"The divine has shifted," Donnel whispered, his voice cracking. He'd been alone so long that speaking felt foreign on his tongue. "But we have not been told why."
His words seemed to echo strangely in the ruined space, multiplying until it sounded like a chorus of confused voices all asking the same question.
Three villages away, young Willem the blacksmith's apprentice dropped his hammer as the sept bells began ringing. Every bell, all at once, though no hands pulled the ropes.
"Master Quill!" he called, voice shaking. "Master Gendry, the bells!"
Quill emerged from the forge, sweat still beading on his brow, and listened to the impossible sound. His dark eyes narrowed with worry.
"Aye, I hear them, boy. Question is, who's ringing them, and why?"
In the nearby tavern, Old Tobho the cooper set down his ale with trembling hands. "Haven't heard that sound since I was a lad. Day my father died, all the bells rang. Said it meant the gods were calling someone home."
"But these ain't death bells," muttered Sera the barmaid, wiping glasses with nervous energy. "Death bells ring slow and mournful. These sound... urgent."
The entire common room fell silent as the bells continued their ghostly chorus, ringing without ringers, calling without purpose any living soul could name.
---
The Rhoynar's Forgotten Waters
In the ruins of Ny Sar, where once the water-priests had commanded rivers and blessed barges, the Rhoyne ran red with more than just silt. The ancient city lay half-drowned, its spires poking from the water like the bones of some great beast.
Near the muddy banks, a group of river children had gathered. Orphans mostly, living by their wits and what they could fish from the fouled waters. Today they sang, their voices mixing in harmony despite themselves. The words came from somewhere deep, in a language none of them had ever learned.
"The storm has come / But bears no name / The gods awaken / But not in flame."
Kyra, barely nine and their unofficial leader, stopped mid-verse and blinked in confusion. "Why are we singing that? I don't... I don't know those words."
Little Daven, who'd never spoken anything but broken Common Tongue, looked equally bewildered. "It just... it felt right. Like the river was teaching us."
An old fisherman named Yandry poled his boat closer to shore, his weathered face creased with concern. He'd lived on these waters for sixty years, knew every current and eddy.
"Children," he called, "where did you learn that song?"
"We didn't learn it nowhere," Kyra replied, defensive. "It just... came. Like breathin."
Yandry felt a chill that had nothing to do with the morning mist. "My grandmother used to tell stories. Said when the old magic stirred, the river would remember. Would teach the children songs their mothers never sang."
He looked at the red water lapping against his boat's hull. "She said it was how the river warned folk. When the world was about to change."
Behind him, in the ruins, stones that had lain silent for centuries began to hum with a sound like distant thunder.
---
Asshai – City of Shadow
In the deepest darkness of Asshai-by-the-Shadow, where red candles barely held back the pressing gloom and even the bravest souls whispered their words, the Shadowbinders stirred from their eternal slumber.
In the Streets of Red Silk, a young acolyte named Quassi was serving wine to his master when the cups began to rattle on their table. The red liquid rippled in perfect circles, like a stone dropped in still water.
"Master kinvara," Quassi whispered, his voice barely audible, "the wine... it moves without touch."
The red priestess raised her eyes from her flames. They had been flickering strangely all morning, showing her visions she couldn't interpret. A storm without lightning. A boy who was not a boy. Lightning beneath human skin.
"R'hllor shows us change, young one. But the visions are... clouded. As if something blocks the light."
Outside their window, the shadow city's eternal residents—those pale, thin creatures that had never been quite human—gathered in unusual numbers along the streets. They pointed with elongated fingers toward the west, chattering in their strange, clicking language.
A spice merchant from Yi Ti, loading his cart for the journey home, paused in his work. "Twenty years I come to this cursed city," he muttered to his assistant. "Never seen them gather like this. Like they're waiting for something."
His assistant, a local boy born in Asshai, nodded nervously. "My mother says when the shadow-folk point in the same direction, death follows the line of their fingers."
But despite visions and whispers and pointing shadows, none could see his face. The source of the disturbance remained hidden, like a star behind storm clouds.
---
The Isle of Faces
On the sacred isle in the center of the Gods Eye, where no man was supposed to tread save the green men, ancient guardians wept for the first time in a thousand years.
Brother Elm, eldest of their number, felt the great pain first. It struck him like a physical blow, driving him to his knees on the moss-covered ground. The other green men rushed to his side as his breathing became labored.
"Brother," whispered one, his voice like wind through leaves, "what do you see?"
Elm's eyes were wide with terror and wonder. "The tree... the great heart tree... it bleeds not red but silver. And the face in the bark... it changes. It shows a boy, then a man, then... something else."
As they spoke, Brother Elm clutched his chest. His heart burst from the inside—no weapon touched him, no poison coursed through his veins. Simply, the vision was too much for mortal flesh to bear.
The remaining green men gathered around his body as the great heart tree above them began to move. Its massive branches, each thick as a castle tower, pointed first east, then north, then turned toward Storm's End... and there they quivered, as if afraid to point any closer.
On the shores of the Gods Eye, a fisherman named Edmyn pulled his nets from the water and gasped. Instead of fish, he'd caught dozens of white flowers—flowers that only grew on the Isle of Faces, where no man was allowed to go.
"Impossible," he breathed, then looked across the water toward the forbidden isle. Even from a distance, he could see the great tree's branches moving, though no wind stirred the air.
He rowed for shore as fast as his old arms could manage, leaving the flowers to float behind him like tiny white stars on the dark water.
---
In a Forge
Thor sat alon cold embers telling their own story of neglect. He'd been here for hours, maybe days. Time seemed to fold and stretch around him like heated metal.
He stared at his hands—a boy's hands, but with calluses that spoke of work no lordling should know. Lightning still flickered under the skin, tiny blue threads that danced beneath the surface like veins filled with starlight.
"What am I becoming?" he whispered to the empty room.
_________
Outside, the wind howled through Storm's End's massive walls, but it offered no answer. Only the endless moan of air through stone, the same sound that had echoed here for seven centuries.
But far away, in temples and sacred groves, in the dreams of holy men and the nightmares of sinners, the same question echoed among the gods:
*What wakes us now?*
They did not know his name. Not yet.
In the kitchens below, Cook Bessie ladled soup with hands that shook despite her best efforts. "Third day running," she muttered to her scullery maid, "and not a sight of the young lord. Boy hasn't eaten more than a piece of bread."
"Maybe he's ill?" suggested the girl, whose name was Mya and who couldn't have been more than fourteen.
"Ill, aye. But not in his body." Bessie tasted the soup, made a face, and added more salt. "I've seen that look before. In men coming back from war. Sometimes they come back wrong, even if they look the same on the outside."
The castle's steward, Ser Daveth, appeared in the kitchen doorway. His usually neat appearance was disheveled, his grey hair uncombed.
"Any word from the young lord's chambers?" he asked.
Bessie shook her head. "Maester tried this morning. Boy wouldn't open the door. Just said he was fine and to leave him be."
"This isn't normal," Daveth muttered, running a hand through his hair. "Even for a grieving child. Lady baratheon would have wanted—"
He stopped himself. Lady baratheon was dead. They all knew it, but speaking it aloud still felt like sacrilege.
---
Storm's End – Thor's Chamber
Thunder without lightning shook the ancient walls. In his chamber, Thor's body lay still on his bed, locked in restless sleep that wasn't rest. His breathing was shallow, irregular. Sometimes he whispered words in languages that didn't belong to this world.
His mind had broken open like an egg, spilling memories that weren't supposed to exist.
The Nightmare
Fire.
But not dragon fire. The smell was wrong—petroleum and burning plastic instead of sulfur and char.
The courtyard of Storm's End dissolved, replaced by sun-baked sand and concrete barriers. Garrick's face remained, but now it wore desert camouflage instead of mail. The betrayal was the same. The widening eyes. The breathless goodbye. A friend dying.
Then everything shattered again.
Sand. Guns. Helicopters cutting the air with mechanical thunder. Blood that tasted of dust and desperation.
He wore modern armor—Kevlar plates that were somehow heavier and lighter than steel. Dirt clung to his face like a second skin. The stench of diesel fuel and fear surrounded him like a shroud.
"Raven-3, contact left! Get the fuck down!"
The voice—his sergeant's voice—cut through the chaos. Corporal Ramiel, that was him. That was his name, before. The name his mother had given him in a life that felt like someone else's dream.
Screams. Gunfire. A street in Afghanistan, or was it Iraq? The wars blended together after a while. They all smelled the same.
"Corporal Ramiel, back to the wall!"
His CO's voice. A good man. Died two weeks later when an IED took out their Humvee. Thor—Ramiel—he'd been sick that day. Food poisoning. It saved his life and damned his soul.
And then she appeared. In the memory, in the dream, standing in their apartment back home. Coffee in one hand because she lived on caffeine and determination. A plastic Gundam kit in the other because she knew he collected them, knew they reminded him of better days.
"You promised," she said, and her voice was exactly as he remembered. Soft but strong, like steel wrapped in silk. "After this last tour, you promised we'd get married. Start a family. Remember?"
She smiled, and it broke his heart all over again.
Then she was gone. Like Garrick. Like everything good he'd ever touched.
"I didn't want to remember," he whispered into the memory-soaked darkness. "I wanted to stay here. I wanted to be just... him. Just a boy in a castle who never knew war."
But the memories wouldn't stop. Years of blood and sand and the weight of decisions that turned boys into killers. The taste of MREs and the sound of incoming mortars. The way hope died by inches in places where hope was a luxury nobody could afford.
_______
The Awakening
_______
Thor gasped awake like a drowning man breaking the surface. The storm outside roared its approval. But something inside him roared louder.
He sat up slowly, his movements different now. More controlled. The aimless energy of a storm-touched boy was gone, replaced by the careful precision of a man who'd learned to conserve motion because waste could kill you.
His eyes were no longer the wide, storm-lit eyes of a Baratheon boy discovering his power. They were sharper. Wiser. Older. They'd seen too much to ever be young again.
"Goddamn," he murmured, voice hoarse from disuse. The profanity felt right on his tongue in a way courtly speech never had. "I remember. All of it."
He stood and walked to the mirror with the measured pace of a soldier. The reflection showed a boy of twelve namedays, but the eyes belonged to a man who'd buried too many friends and carried too many scars.
"Reincarnated into Game of Thrones." His laugh was bitter. "Really? Thought I was done with all that. Done with war. Done with pain. Done with watching good people die for the ambitions of assholes."
He touched the glass, and purple eyes stared back—Thor's eyes. But the soul behind them had served three tours of wars.
"But of course. Of course it had to end in blood. Everything always does."
His voice carried the dry acceptance of a man who'd learned not to expect mercy from the universe. A soldier's voice. A voice that had given orders that sent men to die and received orders that nearly killed him.
"I wanted a home. I wanted..." He paused, remembering green eyes and soft laughter. "I wanted peace. Thought maybe this time, in this place, I could be something other than a weapon."
His hand curled into a fist. Lightning sparked under his skin, brighter now, responding to emotions he'd tried so hard to forget.
"But peace died with Garrick."
The name of his friend—this life's friend—came out like a curse. Another good man dead. Another failure to add to the collection.
He turned to the window. Rain slashed against the glass like nature's own attack. Thunder cracked across the sky in patterns that seemed almost musical.
"Okay then." His voice was steady now, calm in the way that came before violence. "One last tour. No more games. No more hiding behind a child's face."
He dressed not as a lordling would, but as a man preparing for war—boiled leather that could stop a knife, black wool that wouldn't show blood, no sigils to mark him as a target. Old habits.
"If the gods are waking..." He buckled on a belt, checked the weight of the dagger at his hip. "They better bring backup."
He paused at the door, one hand on the iron handle. For a moment, he looked back at the room that had sheltered the boy he'd pretended to be. The boy who'd wanted nothing more than acceptance and a place to belong.
"Because now they've got a pissed-off marine with PTSD, storm powers, and nothing left to lose."
He opened the door to his chamber.
The storm outside bowed as he stepped through, lightning splitting the sky in acknowledgment.
In the Hallways of Storm's End
Ser Jalen nearly dropped his torch when the door opened. He'd been about to knock, worried by the strange sounds coming from within.
"My lord!" he gasped, then stopped. Something was different. The boy—Thor—stood differently. Moved differently. The wild energy was still there but controlled now, focused like a weapon held in steady hands.
"Ser Jalen." Thor's voice was polite but distant. "How long have I been... indisposed?"
"Three days, my lord. We were... concerned."
Thor nodded. "I imagine you were. I need to speak with Maester Edric. And I want reports on every strange occurrence in the Stormlands over the past week. Ravens have been flying, haven't they?"
Jalen blinked. This wasn't the impulsive boy who'd nearly burned down the practice yard a week ago. This was... someone else entirely.
"My lord, perhaps you should eat first? Cook Bessie has been—"
"Food can wait. Information cannot." Thor started walking down the hall, his stride purposeful. "And Ser Jalen From now on, I want guards posted at every entrance to the castle. No one enters without my permission."
The steward hurried to keep up. "My lord, is there a threat? Should I send word to your father—"
"No just follow me now"
He continued down the stairs, leaving Jalen to wonder when exactly the boy had become a man, and why it frightened him more than any army ever could.
---
Elsewhere – Gods Tremble
Atop the Isle of Faces, the great heart tree no longer wept blood. Instead, smoke poured from the carved face, silver-white smoke that rose straight up despite the wind.
*He moves...* The thought echoed through the weirwood network, reaching every godswood in Westeros. In Winterfell, three hundred leagues away, the heart tree's leaves rustled without wind.
In the Red Temple of Volantis, the flames that never died suddenly recoiled, pulling back from their bronze braziers as if afraid. The red priests gathered in confusion as their sacred fire cowered like a beaten dog.
A Priestess Benerra stared into the flames, searching for answers. "R'hllor," she whispered, "what do you fear?"
The flames showed her a storm that walked like a man. Lightning that thought like a mind. Power that remembered war.
In the Summer Isles, the dream-speakers who had guided their people for a thousand years fell silent all at once. In their sacred pools, the visions went dark. On every island, from the largest to the smallest, the mystical birds that had never known fear took flight at the same moment, fleeing south as if something terrible approached from the north.
The gods stirred in their eternal realms. Ancient powers that had slumbered since the world was young opened eyes older than memory. They felt it—the awakening. The remembering. The moment when a soul touched by lightning remembered what it meant to be a weapon.
But they still did not know what had awakened.
Not yet.