My collection of some ideas floting around some are unfinished52.57%

Chapter 5: The Candle in the Dark

280 AC, Month of the Frosts

The silence that followed Alaric's demand was a living thing. It filled the high-domed chamber, pressing down on the seventeen Archmaesters with a weight greater than the centuries of tradition that encased them. In that moment, Alaric was not an eleven-year-old acolyte; he was a fulcrum upon which the entire institution of the Citadel was precariously balanced. He had challenged them not with petulance, but with impeccable, irrefutable logic, and they had no easy response.

Archmaester Ebrose, his face a blotchy red, looked as if he might suffer an apoplexy. "This is an outrage! A mockery! We do not test children in the higher mysteries! The risks are..."

"The risks of ignorance are greater," Archmaester Vaellyn interjected, his voice as smooth and cool as the gold of his mask. He had not taken his eyes off Alaric. He was looking at the boy as a miner looks at a newly discovered vein of pure, unadulterated ore. "The acolyte's treatise, for all its... youthful arrogance, presents a compelling argument. His models, Ebrose, are sound. I have checked them myself. If his intellect can produce such work without access to the restricted materials, what might he produce with it?"

"He might produce his own doom! And ours!" retorted Archmaester Mollos, the master of poisons, his voice a dry rasp. "These are not mere academic subjects. They are forces that broke the greatest empire the world has ever known."

The debate raged for the better part of an hour. Alaric stood impassive, a statue of quiet confidence in the eye of the storm. He had planned for this. He had analyzed the psychological profiles of every member of the Conclave based on their writings, their reputations, and the anecdotes he had gathered from Pate and other sources. He knew which ones were traditionalists, which were pragmatists, and which were simply cowards. His treatise had been designed to appeal to the pragmatists like Vaellyn while enraging the traditionalists like Ebrose, creating a schism he could exploit.

It was Archmaester Perestan, the jurist, who finally brought order. His gavel cracked through the chamber, sharp and decisive.

"Enough. Our own laws are clear. An acolyte who has forged a link in every other available discipline may petition to be tested in the higher mysteries. It is a law that has not been invoked in over a century, but it stands. Acolyte Blackwood," he turned his piercing gaze on Alaric, "has met the prerequisite. He has forged sixteen links. His chain is heavier than my own was when I was named Archmaester."

A murmur of shock went through the room. It was true. Alaric had methodically, relentlessly, mastered every subject the Citadel had to offer, save one.

"We are bound by our own laws," Perestan continued. "However, the nature of the test is at the discretion of the Conclave. We will not test you on theory, Acolyte. We will not ask you to recite passages from forbidden books. The higher mysteries are not a subject to be learned, but a force to be weathered. You will be given a practical examination. It will be dangerous. If you fail, the consequences could range from madness to death. There will be no second chances. Do you understand and accept these terms?"

"I do," Alaric said, his voice unwavering.

A grim silence settled once more. "Very well," Perestan declared, a note of finality in his voice. "The test will be administered tomorrow, at sundown. Be prepared."

News of the Conclave's decision spread through the Citadel like a contagion. By the time Alaric returned to his room, the entire institution was buzzing with rumor and disbelief. Acolytes and novices stopped and stared as he passed, their expressions a mixture of awe, terror, and morbid curiosity. He was no longer just the prodigy; he was the boy who was tempting fate, who was about to step into the Citadel's most sacred and feared sanctum.

He found Martyn in their room, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. His face was pale, his eyes wide with a frantic fear.

"Is it true?" Martyn demanded, his voice cracking. "Alaric, by the Seven, tell me it isn't true!"

"It is," Alaric said calmly, unfastening the heavy chain from his neck and laying it on his desk. The clatter of the metal links was the only sound in the room.

"You're mad!" Martyn burst out, grabbing his brother by the shoulders. "Completely mad! A test in the higher mysteries? Do you know what they say about those tests? The last acolyte to attempt it, a hundred years ago, was found screaming in the chamber, his eyes burned to cinders in his skull! They say he just stared into a candle and lost his mind!"

"The glass candle," Alaric corrected him, his voice devoid of emotion as he met his brother's panicked gaze. "And he did not lose his mind, Martyn. He simply saw something he was not prepared to understand."

Martyn recoiled as if struck. "You know of them? You... you planned this. This was your goal all along. Your thesis, the way you provoked them... you wanted this."

"Of course," Alaric said, turning away to light their single candle. "It is the only door that matters. All the other links," he gestured to the gleaming pile of metal on the desk, "were merely the keys to reach it."

"But why?" Martyn pleaded, his voice breaking. "Why do you need this... this dark knowledge? What is it you're searching for that is worth risking your life, your very soul?"

Alaric turned back slowly, the candlelight casting his face in shadow, making his grey eyes seem like dark, empty pools. "Power, Martyn. The power to shape the world, not to be shaped by it. The power that made the Valyrians masters of the world. They controlled dragons, yes, but the dragons were a symptom of their power, not the source. The source was their knowledge, their understanding of the forces that underpin reality. That is the power I seek. With it, House Blackwood will not just be strong. It will be eternal."

He saw the incomprehension and horror in his brother's face. Martyn was seeing a stranger, a monster wearing his brother's skin. The bond between them, already strained, was now fracturing, perhaps irrevocably. A part of Alaric, a small, vestigial remnant of a forgotten humanity, felt a pang of regret. He crushed it without mercy. Sentiment was a weight he could not carry.

"You should get some rest, brother," Alaric said, his voice softening into a deliberate, manipulative calm. "Worry will not change the outcome. Trust me. I know what I am doing."

He spent the rest of the night in quiet contemplation. He did not study. He did not read. He sat in the darkness, his eyes closed, communing with his silent partner.

The next evening, as the sun bled across the sky in hues of orange and purple, two of the Citadel's guards, grim-faced men from the household of House Hightower, came for him. They led him not to a grand hall, but to a small, unremarkable door at the base of the Ravenry tower. Archmaester Perestan was waiting for him, holding a single, heavy iron key.

"There is no turning back, Acolyte," Perestan said, his voice grave.

"I have no intention of turning back," Alaric replied.

Perestan unlocked the door, revealing a narrow, spiraling staircase that plunged down into the earth. The air that rose from the depths was cold, still, and smelled of dust and ozone. They descended in silence, their footsteps echoing in the oppressive quiet.

The staircase opened into a circular chamber, its walls made of the same black, oily stone as the Seastone Chair. There were no windows, no decorations, save for a single, round table of weirwood in the center of the room. The rest of the Conclave was already there, their faces pale and strained in the flickering torchlight.

On the table sat the glass candle.

It was not what Alaric had expected. It was not a grand, ornate artifact, but a simple, twisted spire of black glass, about a foot high. It was utterly black, absorbing the torchlight and giving nothing back. It seemed to drink the very warmth from the room.

"This is the object of your test," Perestan announced, his voice echoing unnaturally in the confined space. "It is one of three such candles in our possession. It has not been lit in living memory. The procedure, according to the writings of Maester Jellicoe, is simple. You must will it to light."

He gestured for Alaric to approach the table. "You may begin when you are ready."

Alaric walked forward, his footsteps the only sound. He could feel the eyes of the seventeen most learned men in Westeros on his back. He stood before the table, looking down at the obsidian candle.

Alaric placed his hands on the cool surface of the weirwood table. He closed his eyes, shutting out the nervous faces of the Archmaesters, the flickering torches, the oppressive stone walls. He focused his mind, drawing on techniques of mental discipline he had learned in his past life, techniques used by corporate raiders and special forces operatives to maintain absolute calm under extreme pressure. He slowed his breathing, then his heart.

He reached out with his consciousness, not with a vague, mystical hope, but with the precision of a surgeon. He imagined a flame, not a hot, chaotic fire, but a cold, controlled point of light. He focused his entire will on the wick of the candle.