The horsefolk have a custom: if a child dies before reaching the age at which they can tame a foal, they are not qualified to enter the Night Realm of the Horse God.
Just as back in the Red Wastes, there had been infants and elders who died within Daenerys's Khalasar.
The elders had "grass horses" to ride, allowing them to follow Khal Drogo into the Night Realm.
Infants, however, could only be buried in the earth, without even the chance for reincarnation.
In truth, Westeros has a similar custom in the doctrine of the Seven. When a child dies young, the family buries them quietly so the Stranger may take them away unnoticed. They are not placed on vigil for seven days like adults—seven days symbolize the Seven Gods—and no grand funeral is held with countless guests.
"He is a child. Not long after death, his soul was taken away by the Stranger and can no longer return to the mortal world. This is his fate." The Mother gave this explanation and then withdrew.
Let alone Tommen's soul entering the world of the dead; she did not possess the priesthood of the God of Death and could not retrieve him. Even if Tommen had been as devout as the High Sparrow and his soul had willingly broken free from the pull of the death world to enter the divine realm of the Seven—the Pool of Faith—Daenerys still would not have been able to revive him.
The power of the Song of Water remaining in her hands was already scarce. It was barely enough to assist with practicing the magic of the Rhoyne's waters. Reviving a person had become an unattainable luxury.
Perhaps, someday centuries from now, when she sings her own Song of Water again, fully develops the divinity of "fire-born creation," and acquires the priesthood of the Stranger… if she fully masters the "Song of Ice and Fire" (the laws governing the cycle of life and death), she may truly be able to revive anyone at will, without even needing a corpse.
The High Sparrow shook his head and sighed. "Your Grace Dowager Queen, King Tommen was not yet an adult, and his faith was not yet settled."
"What does the Mother require? I will agree to anything," Cersei said urgently.
He struggled for a moment, wrestling with his thoughts, trying to turn the Mother's words into a "classic doctrine" of the Seven.
"The Mother asks only for piety, compassion, and kindness from the people."
After saying this lightly, he went on to explain, "If the king had been an adult, his soul might have entered the Mother's divine realm.
"But he was still a child. His belief in the Seven was not yet mature, and he had not lived a complete life. He must be guided by the Stranger onto a new journey, which is reincarnation.
"If he had just died, perhaps we could have begged the Mother for mercy, but now…"
The High Sparrow bent down, lifted Tommen's collar, and frowned. "The body has begun to rot. He has been dead for more than a night."
Upon Tommen's death, the great bell of the Sept rang through King's Landing once again.
The people of the Seven Kingdoms were first shocked, then immediately began to speculate: Who murdered the king?
—The twisted little monster struck again, sneaking into the Red Keep to kill his young nephew.
This was Cersei's version.
And many believed it.
After all, the dwarf had killed his father, murdered his uncle, and openly sided with Aegon VI to rebel against the Iron Throne. He had both motive and ability.
—This was revenge. A brutal retaliation by Reach nobles loyal to House Tyrell against the Lannisters, or perhaps a revenge plot devised directly by Queen Margaery, who had been held in the Maidenvault.
Whispers spread among the nobility, and many believed them as well. After Cersei returned to the Red Keep in hysterics, she had specifically gone to the Maidenvault and beaten the emaciated Margaery half to death.
If not for Euron and Ser Davon intervening, Margaery would have died that very day.
—The queen and queen mother brought too much disgrace upon him; Tommen could not bear it and drank poison to kill himself.
This explanation spread widely among the common folk.
Their thinking was simple: if they were in Tommen's place and saw their mother and wife competing with each other in adultery, they would have jumped off the Red Keep long ago, even if they had bread and cheese to eat every day.
—Euron had the ambition of a wolf and sought the Iron Throne, and King Tommen stood in his way.
This was Sansa's version.
It was intended to provoke conflict between Cersei and Euron.
And truth be told, even Tyrion and Daenerys suspected this possibility.
Not because they had forgotten Arya.
But because anyone could guess: if Arya truly entered King's Landing, the person she would kill first was always going to be Cersei, not the innocent, chubby Tommen.
Only Euron would murder Tommen while sparing Cersei.
And, in a way… they were not wrong. Tommen was indeed murdered by Arya and Euron working together.
Arya had come down the mountain.
She had left the House of Black and White.
But she had not deserted. She was carrying out a mission: to go to the Citadel and kill Archmaester Walgrave.
The Faceless Men could no longer tolerate the big mouths of the maesters, especially Archmaester Walgrave.
Recently, he had become extremely active, producing numerous masterpieces that would be passed down for generations. Countless writers and opera composers around the world praised him as "the greatest literary genius of the Seven Kingdoms."
And because the Dragon Queen had been busy with wars for the past two years, no new masterpieces had come out of Slaver's Bay. Some even argued that although Archmaester Walgrave had imitated the Dragon Queen's writing style, he had surpassed the original and deserved the title of "world's greatest literary master."
Walgrave's works had become popular culture, and his criticism of the Faceless Men had become the mainstream public opinion of the age.
Their reputation and business plummeted.
Now even children running naked in the streets were imitating characters from plays, treating the Faceless Men as demonic villains.
Children now subconsciously believed the Faceless Men were vicious, sinister, inhuman, godless, and devoid of morality… How could the Faceless Men have any future?
Children are the future!
What enraged them even more was the rise of "Anti–Faceless Men Special Hounds."
Over the past two months, several Faceless Men on missions had been exposed and captured after being attacked by fierce dogs that suddenly lunged out and bit their trouser legs.
Arya did not go directly to Oldtown because her Death God's Codex was not yet mastered. She could not avoid the Citadel's special patrol dogs.
Uh… yes, Arya has changed classes and become a shadow assassin, practicing the "Reaper Arcana" that Uncle Jaqen had painstakingly acquired from the Citadel.
Jaqen was very selfless, because his mother had always whispered to him: "For the future of the Faceless Men, you cannot keep the Reaper Arcana to yourself. You must make it public and allow this meditation technique to become a foundational skill of the Faceless Men."
After returning to Braavos, obedient Jaqen truly hid nothing. He transcribed in full the Reaper Meditation that "Flame Demon Hades" had left in his mind.
The meditation of 108 runes caused a tremendous uproar the moment it appeared in the House of Black and White.
After examining it carefully, they were one hundred percent certain that this was a magical inheritance on the same level as Valyrian fire sorcery.
Moreover, it truly contained power that was cold and deathly silent.
Perhaps it really could, as Flame Demon Hades had claimed, condense the Song of Death.
The Faceless Men were ecstatic.
Of course, the Faceless Men were not ignorant of magic. They were well aware of the extraordinary world and knew that some meditation methods carried major side effects.
For example, Shadowbinders feared light, and unorthodox necromancers often turned themselves into neither-man-nor-ghost abominations.
Moreover, "Flame Demon Hades" had made it clear that practicing this meditation would cause a person to transform into a "Death Evil God."
They had no idea what a Death Evil God truly signified, so they let the trainees learn it first.
Arya was a trainee, so she became the test subject.
Arya was gifted and mastered it as soon as she learned it.
"When circulating the meditation, it feels like a bucket of cold water pours through my mind. My heart becomes icy clear, unshaken by anything," Arya told the Kindly Man.
The Faceless Men were overjoyed. This was precisely the state of mind that assassins like them dreamed of.
An even greater surprise followed.
Since the Citadel trained guard dogs to defend against Faceless Men, the House of Black and White naturally had its own "anti–Faceless Men specialty hounds."
Recently, Arya's training curriculum had added the challenge of the "Alley of Fierce Hounds."
Eighteen pairs of fierce hounds were prepared. Their sensitivity to scent and killing intent differed, forming eighteen levels.
To pass each level, she had to kill the puppy in the kennel next to the hound without alerting the hound.
The Kindly Man decided to make the "Eighteen Hound Alley" the final test before a Faceless Man could graduate.
Arya originally could only pass two levels, but ever since she practiced the Reaper Meditation, her breathing, scent, body temperature, killing intent, and emotional fluctuations had all begun to weaken.
Her assassination mastery soared. In just half a month, she cleared the seventeenth level.
She was still a bit short of the last one. She said she needed more experience, and the Kindly Man agreed.
Arya also became more resistant to the cold. Snow had begun to fall in Braavos, yet she could soak in the icy river for a whole day and night.
Moreover, when her magic circulated, her speed and strength increased as well.
Well, that was perfectly logical. White Walkers were clearly transformed from wildling infants, yet their speed and strength far surpassed human limits.
More importantly, Arya showed no obvious side effects. She was as cold as before, her emotions faint, like a death god capable only of ruthless killing. That was exactly what the Faceless Men aimed to shape their trainees into.
With all this, how could the Faceless Men not be overjoyed?
Without further hesitation, all the Faceless Men began learning the Reaper Meditation.
Combined with their original face-changing skills, the Reaper Meditation formed the sacred inheritance text of the House of Black and White: the Reaper Bible.
Even in their excitement, the Faceless Men felt deep regret. The Reaper Meditation was incredibly powerful, yet the inheritance they received was incomplete. They possessed only the magic, not the divine abilities to match the Reaper.
Because of this, they specially sought a master skilled in magical rune arrays to restore the jar that housed "Flame Demon Hades."
However, not only did the rune master fail to find any flaws, he instead marveled at the mysterious sealing runes inside the jar and exclaimed that "this type of array comes from the ancient ages and has been lost for thousands of years; I never expected to see it today."
Hearing this, the Faceless Men cherished the jar even more.
To gather the power of faith, they placed it on the temple altar. Every Faceless Man or believer who entered the House of Black and White would pray to it.
Even Arya went twice a day. She knelt before the altar, picked up the jar, puckered her lips and kissed it a few times, then recited a magical incantation: "Faceless Men are all…"
Not everyone was qualified to kiss the jar.
Arya was the first to master the Reaper Bible, and her power was the strongest. She was essentially the senior apprentice of the House of Black and White.
Now, the senior apprentice has returned to her craft and begun her revenge.
She kept a "List of Arya's Revenge," and Cersei was on her death list, though Tommen was not.
Arya's original target was indeed Cersei.
Princess Elia of Dorne had a son and a daughter. The daughter, Rhaenys Targaryen, once raised a black cat.
Every Targaryen longed for dragons from the depths of their bones.
Rhaenys was no exception.
But dragons had long gone extinct, so the little girl placed all her longing for dragons onto her black kitten and named it "Balerion."
When King's Landing fell, the little girl was terrified. She wore only a nightgown and clutched her cat while hiding under her father's bed. A knight under Tywin found her, dragged her out, and hacked her fifty times.
The girl died, but her cat survived, and it lived all the way until Arya followed her father south to King's Landing.
Arya often chased that one-eared "demon cat" around the Red Keep.
The cat was uncanny, extremely humanlike, and familiar with every passage and secret corridor in the Red Keep.
After Arya returned, it became even stranger.
(End of chapter)
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