Chapter 22: The Children's Secrets, The Wall's Desperate Stand
The biting winds that howled south from the Lands of Always Winter carried more than just snow and ice; they bore the palpable chill of an ancient, malevolent power reawakening, a creeping dread that settled over the North like a funeral shroud. King Brandon II Stark, the Greenseer, his youthful face etched with the grim wisdom of his visions, had confirmed their worst fears: the Long Night was no longer a distant threat, but a gathering maelstrom poised to break upon them. While the southern courts of King Viserys I Targaryen were consumed by feasts, tourneys, and the simmering tensions of succession, the true guardians of Westeros, the immortal Starks and their hidden dragons, were engaged in a desperate, secret war for survival.
The expedition Kaelen had authorized – a perilous quest led by Arya, with King Brandon II himself and their uncle Eddard, to seek out any surviving Children of the Forest – had ventured deep into the Wolfswood, then further north, towards regions shunned even by hardy Northern clans for millennia. Brandon's greendreams, fragmented and often terrifying, guided them through landscapes increasingly twisted by the encroaching cold. Wights, singly and in small, probing groups, harried their path, their dead eyes burning with blue fire. Arya, with Umbra a flowing shadow at her side, proved an invaluable scout and silent executioner, her soulfire arrows finding their mark with deadly precision. Eddard's knowledge of ancient lore and healing arts kept them alive through blizzards that seemed to possess a malevolent intelligence and encounters with frost spiders the size of hounds.
After weeks of relentless travel, Brandon's visions led them not to a hidden grove, but to a network of ancient, weirwood-root-choked caverns deep beneath a forgotten tor. The entrance was concealed by potent glamours, illusions that would have turned away any mundane traveler. But Brandon, his greenseer's sight piercing the deception, and Arya, her senses augmented by Umbra's affinity for shadow, found the way.
Inside, they found them. Not the diminutive, childlike figures of legend, but beings of immense antiquity, their forms gnarled and twisted like the roots of the ancient trees they served, their skin like mottled bark, their eyes glowing with a faint, mossy luminescence. There were perhaps two dozen left, the last remnants of a people who had once sung the song of the earth across all of Westeros. Their leader, a female whose eyes held the wisdom of ten thousand winters, her voice like the rustling of ancient leaves, was named Leaf.
The Children were wary, their power diminished by the long ages of man's dominion and the encroaching cold. But Brandon's greenseeing, a gift they recognized as kin to their own, and the Starks' deep connection to the Old Gods, forged an uneasy bridge. They sensed the truth of the Stark's immortal nature, the presence of dragons (a power they had once warred against, then allied with in the first Long Night), and the looming threat of their shared, ancient enemy.
"The Great Other stirs from its prison of ice," Leaf rasped, her voice echoing in the vast, root-lined cavern. "The song of winter grows loud. You come late, Stark Greenseer. The world has forgotten the pacts."
"We have not forgotten," Brandon replied, his voice steady despite the awe he felt in their presence. "We have prepared. We have dragons. We have magic, old and new. But your wisdom, the secrets of the First War… these we seek."
The Children, after days of council amongst themselves, their whispered conversations like the wind through weirwood leaves, agreed to share what little knowledge they had preserved. They spoke of the Night King's origins, not as a fallen Stark of legend, but as something far older, a being of pure, elemental cold given will and malice, perhaps a First Man corrupted by the Others' touch during the Age of Heroes, or even one of the Others themselves, a prime among them. They revealed weaknesses: dragonglass, yes, and dragonfire, but also the potent magic woven into the Wall itself, a barrier not just of ice, but of forgotten spells cast by the Children and the First Men in unison. They spoke of specific rituals that could amplify this magic, of vulnerabilities in the Others' necromancy, and of the critical importance of the weirwood network, which acted as a spiritual nervous system for the North, a conduit for life magic that was anathema to the Others. They could offer no armies, their numbers too few, their strength too wan. But their knowledge, passed down through eons, was a treasure beyond price. They also gifted Brandon a small, intricately carved obsidian dagger, said to have been used by the Last Hero himself, its edge capable of shattering a White Walker with a touch.
While the expedition sought ancient wisdom, the war at the Wall and beyond escalated. Kaelen, with Brandon Sr., Torrhen, and Rickard (the "shadow kings"), along with Lyra, orchestrated a desperate defense from Dragon's Maw. Their dragons, now seasoned veterans of this secret war, became instruments of precise, devastating power. Nocturne, his shadowflame a beacon of defiance in the frozen night, would lead lightning raids on wight mustering grounds, incinerating thousands in a single pass. Solara and Sylvan, their fire and fury a terrifying combination, would create walls of flame to halt wight advances or melt paths for retreating Night's Watch patrols. Glacia, under Eddard's command (before he left with the expedition), proved invaluable in creating blizzards that confused the enemy and reinforced ice barricades, her breath a focused lance of absolute zero that could shatter even the largest undead beasts. Azureus and Lyra wove intricate illusions over vast swathes of land, redirecting wight columns into ambushes or making sections of the Wall appear impassable or supernaturally defended.
The Hiemal Vexillum was sounded frequently, its resonant call not just coordinating the dragons, but also, as Kaelen had hoped, directly bolstering the Wall's ancient magic. When the Horn's notes washed over the massive barrier, the faint blue wards embedded within its ice would flare brighter, and sections under assault would often see wights recoil as if burned, or ice constructs of the Others shatter inexplicably. It was a constant, draining effort, requiring immense concentration and magical expenditure from the ruling King who sounded it (first Jonnel, and then Brandon II upon his return) and the immortal Starks who lent their will.
Erebus, the crimson-black dragon, continued his solitary, savage war. He seemed drawn to the most intense concentrations of the Others' power, his appearances often heralded by a sudden, violent disruption in the unnatural cold, followed by cataclysmic eruptions of shadowflame. The Night's Watch, beleaguered and terrified, began to whisper tales of a "Winter's Fury," a black dragon with eyes of fire that fought the ice devils in the deepest, most haunted parts of the North, a legend Kaelen allowed to spread, a sliver of terrifying hope for the defenders of the Wall. Kaelen suspected Erebus was drawn to the unique magical signature of the White Walkers themselves, his shadowflame uniquely effective against their core being.
South of the Wall, King's Landing remained blissfully, dangerously ignorant. King Viserys I was consumed with the upcoming marriage of his daughter Rhaenyra, the factions of greens and blacks solidifying around court, their greatest concerns the line of succession and the grandeur of their feasts. Warnings from King Brandon II, delivered through official ravens, detailing the escalating crisis beyond the Wall and requesting aid, were met with polite skepticism or outright dismissal by the King's Council. The Hand, Otto Hightower, famously quipped that "the North has been crying wolf about winter for eight thousand years; it seems they've finally found one made of ice." This southern apathy was a source of cold fury for Kaelen and the Hidden Council, but it also reinforced their reliance on their own strength.
The constant magical warfare, the empowerment of the Wall, the creation of soulfire weapons, and the maintenance of Dragon's Maw's secrecy began to tax even Kaelen's vast resources and the seemingly limitless power of the Philosopher's Stone. The Stone could provide raw energy, but the complex, specific applications required immense personal will, intricate knowledge, and often, rare material components that even Kaelen struggled to procure in the quantities needed. He found himself making increasingly difficult choices, prioritizing certain enchantments over others, and even delving into Flamel's most guarded research on drawing ambient spiritual energy from the land itself – a perilous art that, if mishandled, could blight the very earth they sought to protect. The cost of this eternal war was not just in lives unseen, but in the constant, wearing pressure on their immortal souls and magical reserves.
When Arya, King Brandon II, and Eddard finally returned from their quest, they were gaunt, exhausted, but their eyes burned with a new, desperate understanding. They brought with them not just the Children's lore, but a chilling confirmation: the Children were dying, their magic fading with the encroachment of the Great Other's cold. They were the last song of a dying world, and their final gift was their knowledge.
"They showed me, Grandfather," King Brandon II said, his voice hoarse, as he relayed their findings to Kaelen and the assembled council. "The Night King… he is not just a commander. He is a nexus, a conduit for the Great Other's will. To defeat him is not just to kill a leader, but to disrupt the very source of the Long Night's power in this world."
The Children had also spoken of an ancient ritual, performed during the first Long Night, a ritual involving the combined magic of greenseers, the fire of dragons, and the heart of a weirwood tree empowered by blood sacrifice, designed not to destroy the Night King outright – for he was perhaps beyond true death – but to bind him, to force him back into a slumber of ages within the deepest crypts of winter. It was a desperate, perilous gambit, one that had cost the lives of many Children and First Men heroes in the distant past.
"A blood sacrifice…" Kaelen murmured, his gaze distant. Flamel's memories held echoes of similar, terrible rituals, where immense power was bought at an ultimate price.
"They said the sacrifice must be willing," Brandon continued, "and of a bloodline strong in the Old Gods' magic, linked to both winter and the fire that opposes it." His eyes met Kaelen's, and then his father Jonnel's (now a shadow guardian), and his uncles'. The implication was clear. A Stark sacrifice.
As this grim new knowledge settled upon them, a new crisis erupted. A raven arrived from Castle Black, its message scrawled in a desperate, freezing hand by the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. The Wall, near the ancient castle of Nightfort, was under direct, sustained assault by what appeared to be the Night King himself, accompanied by a retinue of his most powerful Walker generals and a colossal, reanimated ice dragon – the very beast from young Brandon's earliest, most terrifying visions. The ancient wards were cracking, the ice itself groaning as if in agony. The Night's Watch was being overwhelmed. The Wall, their ultimate bastion, was on the verge of being breached.
Kaelen Stark rose, his ageless face a mask of iron. The time for subtlety, for hidden strikes, was over. The enemy was at the gate.
"The Long Night has truly descended," he said, his voice ringing with a power that made the very stones of Dragon's Maw tremble. "The Children have given us a path, however desperate. But first, we must hold the Wall. All of us. All our dragons. King Brandon, you will lead the public defense of the North, rally our bannermen, show the world that Winterfell stands. We, the Hidden Council, will engage the Night King and his inner circle directly. The Hiemal Vexillum will sound its true battle call. Today, the dragons of winter go to open war."
The fate of Westeros, perhaps of all life, now rested on the shoulders of these immortal guardians and their magnificent beasts of fire and shadow. The greatest battle of their long, secret vigil was about to begin.