Chapter - 62

This wasn't what she had planned at all. That fucking Tully bitch had ruined everything.

If she had wanted to kill her husband, why did she have to pick now of all times? 

She had been carefully making the Hand sicker, hoping no one would notice. The Hand of the King getting ill would definitely draw attention, especially since he was also the king's foster father.

If he had gotten sick enough, the mage would have certainly been summoned to King's Landing and then... well, she wasn't sure yet what she would do now.

Okay, first things first - she needed to make sure that no one would suspect she had any part in the death. Although that was pretty easy, as even if someone was suspicious of the old sick Hand's sudden demise, they would suspect the Hand's wife, who had fled the capital with her son and all the Arryn men without the king's leave.

While she was plotting, someone knocked on the door. She had told everyone to leave her alone, so who—

"Come in," she called out.

One of the attendants came in fearfully and bowed.

"What is it?" If she didn't have a good reason to disturb her, she would regret it.

"Your Grace, the king has decided that he shall travel north with some of the court after the funeral to see Lord Stark at Winterfell."

Oh.

That worked out just as well.

"Very well. You can leave now."

The oaf probably wanted to make Stark the next Hand, not that she cared. If the situation wasn't what it was, she would have probably been annoyed that her father hadn't been chosen for the position, but now she didn't care.

She now had a way to reach the mage without arousing much suspicion. Once she was in Winterfell she could...

Well, what was she going to do...?

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I was the only one who had an issue with the travel.

I was restless and bored. Even though we were covering distance quickly, I had never been able to survive long, tedious journeys that offered no significant change in scenery.

I had even introduced Hobbs to the rest of the group, which had been funny. As shy as Hobbs was, he had been lured by the smell of the A1 Wagyu beef I had been grilling for everyone.

The group's reactions were funny and expected; however, they had chilled out after seeing him scratch his ears as he devoured the steak.

Then he was no longer shy and was openly following us.

We crossed the forest and found no sign of the zombies.

We trekked alongside the milkwater and kept going north towards the haunted forest.

The weather was the same as usual - gloomy skies. I was starting to doubt that these people had ever seen the sun. It was slightly colder than normal but not enough to cause any problems for my guides. Much to my dismay, we hadn't come across a single living or dead being.

While I was once again contemplating whether I should have just flown around, I realized I could have found some white walkers by now.

We stopped for a bit of rest when someone said, "Found something."

Two simple words, but they sent a jolt of excitement through me. Like a kid on Nameday morning, I perked up immediately.

Orell's eyes had gone white - he was seeing through his eagle now, soaring high above the endless expanse of snow and ice. When he came back to himself, his expression was grim.

"There's a small settlement fleeing from the dead," he reported, voice tight. "Quite a few of them too, both the living and the wights."

"Perfect!" I exclaimed, then caught myself as everyone turned to stare at me with varying degrees of worry. Right - probably not the best response to news of people in mortal danger.

"Not the people being in danger part," I clarified hastily, raising my hands. "But this is exactly what we're looking for. Did you spot any White Walkers with them?"

Orell nodded slowly. "One. Hanging back behind the main force."

I couldn't have asked for a better scenario. A White Walker, a decent-sized force of wights to test our capabilities against, and a chance to save some lives in the process. The strategic part of my brain was already running through possibilities.

"Lead the way," I said, already checking my preparations one last time. "We can help these people and accomplish our goal at the same time. Two birds, one stone, and all that."

The others gathered their weapons, and I could see the shift in their expressions from uncertainty to determination. They might think I was crazy, but at least they were crazy enough to follow me.

When we finally got close enough to see what was happening, it seemed that the wildlings running away had some sort of plan. They were heading toward a valley in the mountains where they wouldn't be overwhelmed by the number of wights.

The wildlings approached the frozen Milkwater, needing only to cross it to reach the valley. 

"We can go toward the valley. It will be easy to funnel them in there," I suggested.

I received no complaints from my party members.

Since we were on the correct side of the river, we reached it before the other wildlings. While the wildlings were confused and scared at our arrival, seeing that we hadn't impeded their way, they ran straight past us.

Just a few curious ones slowed down at the entrance to look back and see what we were doing.

Tormund was already grinning and spinning his axe.

"So mage, as fun as it would be to break every single bone among all these wights single-handedly, I hope you have a plan."

"Of course,"

I kind of lied. As tempted as I was to just straight up unleash the curse's flames, Vaylara's presence, along with my earlier experiences, held me back.

I had one idea that I hadn't tested but should work perfectly in this scenario, in theory.

I instructed them to form a sort of loose circle around me.

With the main five frontliners and me in the middle, Ygiritte was positioned at the back with her bow.

It was going to take a few moments for them to reach us. "Don't move from where you are standing unless I tell you."

I closed my eyes and held one hand in front of me, forming a single-handed ram sign—something that anyone from my previous world would have cringed at. It didn't really matter; it was just a gesture that helped me clear my mind. I really needed a clear head for what I was about to do next.

I split my attention into 16 threads of parallel thoughts, assigning each individual cluster of my bacterial swarm to one of these threads. 

Now I had 16 invisible arms around me, each capable of independent thought. These hands acted like invisible paintbrushes, rapidly inscribing runes on the snow beneath us with my blood.

What felt to me like a good few minutes in my mind was actually just a few seconds in the real world. Soon, everyone was standing in a giant magic circle that I had created.

When the wights were almost upon us, I invoked the ritual. 

I opened my eyes and said, "Purify." 

At first, nothing happened, but then slowly, everyone standing in their respective spots in the circle was covered from head to toe in a soft white fire that didn't even damage a single strand of hair on anyone. 

It was very similar to the fire I had created to heal Shireen's grayscale, but it was better and channeled throughout the circle. 

As long as I maintained this spot and sustained the ritual, the people I was empowering would not tire. 

They were stronger, they could not be harmed, they could not be killed, and more importantly, the fire burned everything unnatural.

And I didn't even have to tell them what I had done - the bloodthirsty grins on every single one of their faces said it all. Even Benjen, who usually kept his expressions carefully neutral, was smiling quite sinisterly as they examined their now flame-wreathed weapons.

"Have fun," was all the prompting they needed before charging out to meet the incoming wave of wights.

Tormund was the first to reach them, leaping impossibly high and bringing his axe down on a wight's skull. The undead creature crumpled like paper, catching fire but not spreading it to those nearby - exactly as designed.

An arrow whistled past my head, leaving a trail of white fire before landing in the middle of the approaching horde. The projectile exploded like a small bomb, scattering flaming bones in all directions. I glanced to my side as Ygritte nocked another arrow, a fierce grin on her face.

"How long is this going to last?" 

"As long as I want it to." 

She seemed to shake her head in disbelief before a smile crept onto her face as she knocked another arrow into her bow, feeding it more and more fire. 

It was bright enough to annoy my eyes before she let it fly, and it ended up leading to a bigger explosion than last time. 

Tormund whooped with joy as he cleaved through a bunch of wights at once, his axe trailing fire like a comet. Benjen and Val moved with deadly precision, each strike calculated and efficient as flames consumed his targets. The others had spread out in a rough semicircle, creating a wall of fire between us and the endless tide of dead.

Seeing my fiery party members having fun made me feel a bit left out, but I couldn't afford to be distracted. This was still the first time I had used this ritual, and I had yet to work out all the kinks in it that my parallel thoughts were fixing in real-time. 

So I had kind of lied when I said I could keep it up as long as I wanted.

But it was long enough to get through this swarm and reach the White Walker that had been slowly advancing toward the horde. He had since stopped as he looked at my group, absolutely annihilating his hoard.

I could barely see his face beyond the glowing blue eyes, but I could bet he was at least annoyed.

I refocused my attention on the battlefield in front of me. I could see five silhouettes of white absolutely decimating the horde ahead of them and advancing without stopping.

The horde was getting smaller…

Wait, the horde should have been shrinking, especially with Ygritte seemingly having figured out rudimentary carpet bombing, as she was now firing three arrows at once.

But the horde appeared to be about the same size, if not larger.

Something didn't make sense, and a faint sensation of unease settled over me. I looked around, trying to find its source.

Then I noticed it. The sky had gotten darker, and it had started snowing. What I had assumed to be a mountain far away was actually a blizzard getting closer.

Just as I began to understand what the feeling could mean, I heard Vaylara scream, "MOVE!"

I instinctively ducked, but before I knew it, a giant icicle spear was sticking out of my shoulder, pinning me to the ground where I stood.

"Oh." I tried to heal myself and reached for the spear to remove it, but it was far from simple. The spear was infused with the Night King's magic, spreading frost and killing every cell it came into contact with.

If I wasn't panicking before, I definitely was now.

The spear had just missed my heart, but that wasn't going to matter for long. All my redundancies were worthless now that I'd given myself the dragon heart. If it wasn't for Vaylara's warning, I'd already be dead.

But with the way the ice was spreading, I might not last much longer anyway. For the first time since arriving in this world, I felt genuine fear for my life.

My mind raced, desperately searching for a solution. With my one good hand, I drew the emergency knife from my belt and sliced off my entire frozen shoulder along with my useless arm, hoping to stop the spread. But the frost had latched onto my magic, feeding off it and worming its way toward my heart.

Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision as the frost inched closer and closer to my heart.

The last thing I saw was Ygritte's shocked, scared face as the darkness consumed me.

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A/N: If you wish to read ahead you can find 8 more chapters on my Pa treon