The crypt was utterly silent except for the faint hum of the runes and the soft burning of the torches. Alderic stood still before his father's spirit form, his heart heavy yet steady now, the initial storm of emotion settling into a deep ache of reverence and guilt.
Thalen's figure remained clear and bright — the sun had not yet risen.
Alderic took a slow breath, his voice unsteady yet sincere.
"Father… if we can summon our kin from beyond — why is Mother not here with you?"
For a heartbeat, the spectral figure of Lord Thalen Ravenshade flickered — his once-calm eyes glinting with something unspoken. Then, quietly, he answered.
"Your mother…" Thalen began softly, his tone weighted with years of sorrow, "was a woman of unmatched kindness and virtue. She was not born of our blood but carried a gentleness the shadows could never taint. When she married into our House, she did so knowing the burdens we carry… yet she bore them with grace."
He turned slightly toward her stone likeness, where her carved smile lingered eternal.
"She was frail, Alderic — her body weak even before you were conceived. When your birth came, the healers said she would not survive the night. So I—" his voice faltered, "—I broke one of our oldest laws. I used my power — the ancient life-binding magic — to substitute her failing strength with my own sorcery. It saved her body, but not her soul."
Alderic's eyes widened, a tremor in his hands.
Thalen's voice grew quieter. "The ritual scarred her essence. Her soul was damaged, fractured… she lived on, but the connection between spirit and flesh had grown fragile. In the years that followed, her life force slowly unraveled. When she passed, her soul could not remain tethered to the bloodline — it dispersed into the winds. That is why she cannot be summoned here. She has gone beyond all mortal recall."
Alderic lowered his head, his chest aching with an old, buried grief. "So she's truly gone…"
Thalen looked at him with deep sorrow. "Not gone, my son — freed. The chains that bound her to our shadowed legacy have been broken. It is a peace I could never grant myself."
The two stood in heavy silence — father and son divided by death but bound by love.
When at last Alderic found his voice, it was hoarse. "Then… tell me, Father. Why did you die? If our blood carries such power, how could even death claim you?"
The question seemed to pierce through the spectral calm. Thalen's expression hardened, and his spectral form flickered — his tone turning grave and heavy.
"That," he said, "is a tale steeped in fire, madness, and treachery — and one you must hear, no matter how it burdens you."
He raised his hand, and the torches dimmed, casting the hall in a twilight of memory.
"Our House has long stood in the shadows," Thalen began, "not merely to hide, but to watch — to guard the balance of realms from behind the veil of power. Your grandfather served as Lord of Ravenshade during the reign of the Mad King, Aerys II. In those days, the world teetered upon the edge of ruin."
He paced slowly, his form gliding rather than walking. "The madness of Aerys did not rise from chance. Your grandfather suspected an external hand — whispers of dark , the stench of foreign influence. So he began to investigate."
Alderic listened intently, his breath held.
"It was your granduncle," Thalen continued, "your grandfather's younger brother, who took the path into darkness — seeking to uncover the truth behind the Spider, Varys, and his unnatural ascension to the Mad King's favor. What he found… led him east, to a shadowed man of Asshai — a sorcerer who had once experimented upon Varys himself."
Thalen's eyes burned faintly. "That wizard killed your granduncle — ripped the life from him like parchment from fire. Your grandaunt, stricken with vengeance, pursued him across the Narrow Sea. The realm, meanwhile, began to fracture — the execution of Rickard and Brandon Stark ignited the storm that became Robert's Rebellion."
Alderic's mind reeled as the connections formed — the great events of history suddenly threading through his own family's secret legacy.
"While the realm tore itself apart," Thalen went on, "your grandfather, seeing what chaos was to come, faked his death to keep House Ravenshade from being drawn into the war. Yet we still acted from the shadows, lending aid to Jon Arryn and the rebels as vassals with minimum value."
He moved closer, the faint echo of waves filling the chamber as if time itself bled through his tale. "During the war, your grandfather journeyed to King's Landing under secrecy. There, he found that Aerys kept Princess Elia Martell and her children hostage, while he met Queen Rhaella and fled to Dragonstone with her son Viserys — and little Princess Rhaenys, barely four. Your grandfather was tasked by the Queen to be arranged for Rhaenys to be smuggled safely to her uncles, Doran and Oberyn Martell. The Martells never forgot this debt — it is why our House and theirs remain bound in quiet friendship even now."
Alderic's eyes widened in surprise — so many hidden threads, so many unseen acts of honor beneath history's bloodstained pages.
"But your grandfather," Thalen continued, "discovered more — that Prince Rhaegar had annulled his marriage to Elia Martell and eloped Lyanna Stark as his bride. Seeing the storm this would unleash and at the same time he got the location of the wizard who murdered his brother, So he left the war behind and journeyed to Essos to aid your grandaunt's vengeance upon the Asshai wizard."
Thalen's tone darkened. "They succeeded. The wizard was slain — but the cost was great. The blood magic they unleashed by cult of multiple wizards consumed them both. Your grandfather returned to Westeros a dying man, his spirit burned out by the very arts that once sustained our House. He passed within two years, leaving me as his heir."
Thalen looked at his son — his expression weary but resolute.
"I continued his investigation. I learned that Varys had formed a network of spies — the so-called 'little birds' — and had allied himself with a Pentoshi magister named Illyrio Mopatis. The two sought to play kings like pieces upon a board. I found that Illyrio had taken to wife a Lysene courtesan named Serra — whom he claimed to love deeply. But she was more than she appeared."
He lowered his voice. "Serra carried the Blackfyre bloodline — a remnant of the old exiled branch of Targaryens. Through her, Illyrio sought to reforge the dragon's claim. I tried to trace their designs further… but the Greyjoy Rebellion erupted."
Alderic's jaw clenched — he had lived through that time as a boy, never knowing how close his family had stood to the storm.
Thalen's voice grew colder. "I feigned my death during the war, much as my father once had, to protect you. But when I pursued my leads into Essos, I was found."
He turned his gaze downward, as though reliving the memory.
"It was Euron Greyjoy who found me — aboard his cursed ship, the Silence. He had sailed to Asshai, plundering warlocks and butchering mages, stealing their secrets to fuel his madness. He sought to control the very magics that we, the Ravenshades, were sworn to balance. We clashed upon the Smoking Sea — and though I severed his sword hand, the battle's fury drew the wrath of that cursed place. The sea boiled beneath us. My body burned, but I struck him down and cast him into the abyss. Whether he lived or died, I cannot say. I perished soon after — claimed by fire and shadow alike."
A heavy silence fell, broken only by Alderic's ragged breathing.
Thalen looked at him gravely. "That is the truth of my death, my son — and the legacy you inherit. Beware them all — the Spider,the small council,the Magister, and the Crow's-Eyed Kraken. Each still plays their part in the great game. And know this — our purpose has not yet ended."
He stepped closer, placing his spectral hand upon Alderic's shoulder.
"The realm will break again, Alderic. But when it does, you must stand among those who will mend it. The dragons must rise once more — not merely of blood, but of purpose. Restore Westeros to balance. Aid those who can bear the light in the long night to come."
Alderic, though shaken, nodded — the vow of his blood still glowing faintly upon his chest.
"What should I do, Father? Tell me how to begin."
Thalen smiled faintly, pride softening his ghostly face.
"You will find your own path — but if I must give you counsel… aid the one who walks with both ice and fire. Jon Snow — the son of both Stark and Targaryen. Help him rise. Let him unite the realms, and through your guidance, let peace be born anew. Bind him to the future with ties of kinship — let him wed the dragon and the wolf both, that the old bloodlines may heal the wound of the past."
Alderic felt his knees weaken beneath the gravity of his father's words.
"Go to your aunt in Essos," Thalen continued, "she holds the last fragments of our knowledge there. And in Westeros, trust Sebas. He has been more than a servant — he is the last keeper of our House's sacred oaths."
The spirit's glow dimmed slightly — the first pale touch of dawn brushing the highest edges of the crypt walls.
Thalen looked upward, his form wavering. "My time wanes, my son… but remember this above all: live freely. Not as a weapon of legacy, but as a man who bears his ancestors' strength with pride. Continue our line. Let the Ravenshade name shine once more — not in shadow, but in the light of a new dawn."
As the first light pierced through the narrow slits above, Thalen's form shimmered like morning mist. Alderic reached out instinctively — but the spirit's smile was serene.
"Until we meet again, my son," Thalen whispered. "The blood remembers."
And with that, the light consumed the shadow.
Alderic fell to his knees before the altar — tears cutting through the dust upon his face — as the silence of the crypt returned once more.