The icy winds Beyond the Wall swept over the snow-buried wilderness and the bare, skeletal forests.
Lo Quen dismissed his golden dragon form and returned to human shape.
The radiant golden dragon-scale armor, automatically formed from his true Dragonblood, gleamed like a sun in the deathly white world of ice and snow, standing in stark contrast to its surroundings.
His gaze fixed on the massive weirwood ahead.
Its trunk, pale as bone, was twisted and knotted, while a sparse crown of blood-red leaves trembled stubbornly in the wind and snow.
The ancient, weathered face carved into the trunk seemed to stare at him through the endless storm.
Yet what truly drew Lo Quen's attention was not the sacred tree itself.
Beneath it lay a fissure in the slope, half-hidden by piled snow and hanging icicles.
Within that crack was a concealed cave entrance.
He stepped closer. The moment he neared it, his brow tightened.
The area around the entrance was in complete disarray, bearing unmistakable signs of a violent struggle.
Several scattered rocks were scarred with deep cuts from bladed weapons.
Nearby snow had been torn aside by some force, revealing the black, frozen earth beneath.
In a few places, scorched marks remained, clearly left by fire.
"Someone forced their way in here…"
A thought stirred in Lo Quen's mind. "The Others? Or someone else?"
If the Others had already come here, then Brynden Rivers and Bran Stark, who were hiding in this place, were likely in grave danger.
His hope of finding Brynden Rivers might already have been crushed.
Without hesitation, Lo Quen stepped into the cave.
The entrance was narrow, barely wide enough for a single person to pass.
Inside, the light faded at once. The air was dark and damp, with only a faint trace of daylight filtering in from behind to illuminate the mouth of the cave.
Cold, stale air filled his lungs, carrying the smell of earth and decaying roots.
Countless thick, gnarled weirwood roots pierced the cave walls and ceiling, twisting and winding through the darkness to form a dense, tangled network.
Lo Quen moved deeper.
The cave system was far more complex than he had expected, plunging downward and branching repeatedly like a labyrinth.
He searched his mind for the fragments of memory he had from the original story and stopped at a fork in the path.
"Right…"
He murmured to himself and chose the route he remembered Bran and the others had taken.
This passage was narrower and more treacherous, his boots occasionally crunching against something hard underfoot.
He glanced down, and a chill ran through him.
Littering both sides of the tunnel were countless skulls, from squirrels and rabbits to elk and wild bears, and even some skeletal remains that looked disturbingly humanoid.
After passing through this grisly corridor of bones, a natural stone bridge appeared ahead, spanning a bottomless, light-devouring abyss.
The bridge was narrow and slick, and beneath it yawned a darkness that swallowed all light. A biting wind howled up from the depths, carrying an icy chill.
Lo Quen steadied himself and crossed with measured steps.
Beyond the stone bridge, the space suddenly opened up, only to be swallowed by an even deeper darkness.
It was a vast underground cavern, so immense it seemed large enough to hold an entire castle.
The ceiling arched high overhead, vanishing into shadow.
The surrounding walls were covered in an even denser mass of weirwood roots, subtly writhing like living things.
At the very center of the cavern stood its most striking feature: a colossal throne, naturally woven from countless pale roots.
And upon that throne sat a figure.
It was a "man" with skin so pale it was almost translucent.
His body was strangely fused with dark, ebony-like wood grain, as if he himself were part of the massive weirwood.
His expression was frozen in place. From beneath his robes, innumerable fine roots extended, coiling around his limbs and torso.
Some of them seemed to pierce directly into his flesh, binding him tightly to the throne below.
It was less that he sat upon the throne, and more that the ancient tree itself had grown him there.
He had only one eye, a blood-red orb that looked as though it might drip with blood at any moment. Now it fixed Lo Quen with a gaze heavy with endless exhaustion.
Beneath his throne lay piles of bleached bones, stacked layer upon layer.
Most were human in size, but one skeleton, unusually tall and broad, immediately caught Lo Quen's attention.
It lay near Bloodraven's feet. Unlike the other remains, its skull was not intact, but shattered in a horrifying way, as if it had been smashed open by some tremendous force. The broken edges were jagged and uneven, like… something had cracked it apart to extract and consume the brain within.
"You… have finally come…"
A frail voice emerged from the figure seated upon the throne.
It was Bloodraven, or rather, whatever presence now occupied the body of Brynden Rivers.
Lo Quen did not lower his guard. Standing at the edge of the bone heap, he met that single blood-red eye head-on.
"How did you know I would come? And what should I call you? Brynden Rivers… or the Three-Eyed Crow?"
The figure on the throne twitched his lips ever so slightly. In the dim light, his pallor looked even more pronounced.
"I can see fragments of the future. Broken, scattered, yet clear enough… A conqueror from the east, wielding golden flames, ending the disaster at Moat Cailin… As for names, call me whatever you wish… I am close to death. The Others broke into this place. The last of the Children of the Forest has already fallen. If I had not long since fused with this weirwood, sustained by the final traces of its life force, I would not have lived to see you…"
Lo Quen went straight to the point. "What about Bran Stark?"
"He…"
Bloodraven broke into a violent coughing fit. "He is dead as well… No one… could stand against those creatures…"
Lo Quen narrowed his eyes, not taking the words at face value.
He studied Bloodraven's condition and the surroundings with care, his thoughts racing as he dissected every detail, weighing each sentence for truth or deception.
The scene before him was horrific, yet something about it felt subtly wrong.
Bloodraven seemed unconcerned by his suspicion and continued in a voice as faint as a wisp.
"Young one… I suspect… you have already discovered something…"
Lo Quen let out a cold laugh. "I do have a few ideas."
His gaze swept across the sea of bones, pausing briefly on the towering skeleton with the shattered skull before returning to Bloodraven's half-man, half-tree body.
"I've seen those black stones from beyond the sky. I've been told that the power of the Lord of Light and the Cold God may both come from them. Now I want to know… what is the secret behind the power of your so-called 'Old Gods'?"
At that, Bloodraven gave a hoarse, rasping chuckle.
"The Lord of Light… the Cold God… the Old Gods… such fearsome names. Whenever humans speak them, their minds tremble with awe and reverence… Yet just as you said, the roots of these so-called powers do indeed come from those black stones that fell from beyond the heavens."