Chapter 16 – The One Who Waits

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Year: 271 AC

Location: Beyond the Wall… and everywhere the roots touch.

The roots whispered.

Beneath the frozen earth where time no longer flowed straight, where the bones of old kings slumbered and children of leaf and storm once danced, he watched.

The Three-Eyed Raven opened his eyes—one in the bark of a weirwood near Winterfell, one in the hollow of a hill tree, one in the shadow of a heart tree far north where men no longer walked. And a fourth, buried in ash and memory, newly open.

It pulsed.

A wrinkle in the river of time.

It should not be.

But it was.

The boy.

He saw him again—Arthur Snow. Eleven years old. A blacksmith's apprentice in name, but the hands that shaped metal had also broken bone, carved steel through flesh. No rage in his eyes. No innocence either.

Only resolve. As if he'd done this a thousand times before.

The Raven had seen heroes rise. Had watched bastards become kings. But this boy was neither storm nor song.

He was decision.

The other children of Winterfell—the Stark brood—still ran within their roles.

Brandon, proud and reckless, questioning nothing.

Ned, cautious and aware, sensing the shift but not yet understanding.

Lyanna, her spirit wild and still unbroken, already catching echoes in the roots.

And now Benjen, the youngest, standing at the edge of shadows, unsure which way the wind pulled.

They moved forward along time's path.

But Arthur…

Arthur bent time ever so slightly. Step by silent step.

As if he remembered something that had never happened.

As if he rejected the script before it was written.

The Raven leaned closer.

He saw the breath in Arthur's lungs—shaped by something, not by the winds of this world. He saw the sword—its edge inked with a craft no maester could name. He saw the blood in Arthur's veins, running hotter than fire on some days, cold as snow on others.

But what drew him most—what froze the roots themselves—was the calm. The cold calm of a boy who killed and did not blink. Who vanished before the guards could ask questions. Who spoke with steel and silence.

He is not of here.

And yet… he is shaped by here more completely than any other.

The Raven twitched a claw against the stone of memory.

He must be watched.

He must not be touched.

Not yet.

The gods were stirring. The pattern was cracking.

The Raven saw paths where Arthur stood on the corpse of kings. Paths where the Wall broke or stood stronger than ever. Paths where dragons did not return—because they were not needed.

Too many timelines shifted around one child.

He was the storm before the snow.

And deep beneath the earth, the trees whispered the name they had not yet spoken aloud.

"Demon of the North."

The Raven watched.

And waited.