Chapter 43 – The "Healing" Spell
Inside the dimly lit tent, the torchlight flickered across the pale, feverish face of the woman lying on the cot.
Her once-healthy complexion had turned ashen white. Strands of chestnut hair clung damply to her forehead, soaked with sweat from a relentless fever. Her lips trembled, opening and closing as she murmured incoherently—fragments of words lost between pain and delirium.
[A young noblewoman, gravely wounded, likely between the ages of 19 and 24. Her physique suggests extensive combat training.]
Charles stood silently at the bedside, his gaze steady. The bedclothes had been pulled aside, revealing the woman's bare upper torso—a scene that might have seemed intimate under different circumstances.
But now, with the sharp scent of blood thick in the air and death hovering close, even the most lustful of men would have felt nothing but dread.
A vicious crimson wound stretched diagonally from her right shoulder across her chest—nearly cleaving her in two. The strike had been delivered with brutal precision, the weapon's edge slicing deep into flesh and bone.
The camp's healers had done what they could—stitched the wound closed and packed it with herbs—but fresh blood still seeped slowly through the bandages, staining the linen red and pooling beneath her body.
The metallic tang of blood filled the tent.
By the bedside stood a small, broad-shouldered woman—her face lined by age and fatigue. Maege Mormont's eyes flickered with fear as she looked down at her eldest daughter, then quickly away, forcing herself to meet Charles's gaze instead.
"I can't promise I can save her," Charles said finally, frowning. "But I can try. On one condition."
"What condition?" Her voice was hoarse, almost breaking.
"She has to survive until tomorrow afternoon."
Maege hesitated, uncertainty clouding her expression. But after a moment, she clenched her jaw and nodded fiercely.
"She will."
"Let's hope so," he murmured, casting one last glance at the unconscious woman—Dacey Mormont—before turning to leave the tent.
Maege followed him outside. The night wind carried the faint scent of smoke and salt from the distant sea.
"To save her," Charles said, his tone calm but oddly heavy, "there must be a price."
"What kind of price?"
"To give life to one who's dying…" He paused, his eyes gleaming faintly under the torchlight. "Another must die in her place."
Maege stiffened. The soft murmur of the camp faded around her.
Even spoken quietly, his words sounded like an invocation—cold, unholy, and absolute.
"I'll take her place," she said without hesitation. "If my death will bring her back, so be it."
"That won't be necessary," Charles replied, and despite himself, he felt a flicker of respect for the woman's resolve. "You just need to find someone healthy. Anyone will do."
"An enemy?" she asked quickly.
"Preferably," he said with a nod. "But make it a woman. I doubt you'd want your daughter waking up with… unexpected side effects."
"Side effects?" Maege frowned at the unfamiliar term. To her, it sounded like one of those strange words the foreign mages used—probably something unpleasant. But she didn't ask.
Instead, she said curtly, "There's a wildling tribe in the Moon Mountains. They raid the coast sometimes. I'll have my men capture one."
"Wait," Charles said as she turned to leave, his brows rising. "There are other things I'll need prepared first."
"Will it take long?"
"No. But it must be precise."
"I'll have my attendants await your orders," she said briskly. "Time is short—I'll lead the capture myself."
Charles sighed. "Very well. But for safety's sake, bring a maester here as well. If my spell doesn't work…"
Maege turned back to him, her voice rough but resolute. "Even if it fails, House Mormont will remain grateful to you, Ser Cranston. That, I swear."
Charles said nothing. Her tone left no room for doubt—she had already accepted whatever cost this act demanded.
Finally, he spoke again, quieter this time:
"Then understand this, my lady—I have no intention of taking advantage of your despair. If I fail to save Lady Dacey, I will regret it deeply. But if I succeed…"
He let the words hang, unfinished, heavy with implication.
The torchlight flickered between them, casting their faces half in gold and half in shadow—one lined by grief, the other by secrets too dark to name.
"House Mormont will always serve the Starks of the North," Lady Maege rasped, her voice raw from sleepless nights. "But if Dacey lives—if you truly save her—then hear me well, Ser Cranston: your enemies will be the enemies of the entire Bear Island."
She held his gaze for a heartbeat longer, then turned sharply on her heel and strode off into the night.
Charles stood there, watching the stocky, armor-clad figure disappear into the shadows, silent for a long time.
For such a small woman, she carried herself like a giant. Her words struck with the weight of an oath carved in stone.
"She's got the heart of a soldier, not a lady…" he muttered to himself, almost smiling. "Feels like talking to a firefighter who's about to run into a burning building."
Still, he didn't regret his decision.
With House Stark's favor, he might already have a measure of protection in the North—but winning the trust of its other lords was worth more than any royal decree. And besides, it was time. He had delayed long enough.
Time to master that spell.
Back inside his tent, Charles took out a quill and began scribbling a detailed list—materials, herbs, binding chalk, a bronze knife, and other ritual components. He handed the parchment to a servant sent by Lady Maege.
"Get everything on this list," he instructed. "Exactly as written."
Then he opened the battered leather notebook he always carried and began studying. Line after line of cramped, ancient text filled the pages, written in sigils and runes that seemed to shift faintly in the flickering lamplight.
He read and reread, tracing symbols in the air, copying notes onto fresh parchment, whispering fragments of incantations under his breath.
The work continued through the entire night.
When morning came, he ate only a crust of bread, then resumed immediately. His body felt unnaturally awake.
Ever since that strange shedding—the night his skin peeled away like the husk of a serpent—something inside him had changed. His stamina was endless, his focus razor-sharp. He hadn't slept in nearly thirty hours, yet his mind remained crystal clear.
He didn't know what it meant, but whatever it was, it seemed to be in his favor.
No one disturbed him. After the devastating night raid, the entire camp was in disarray—leaders meeting, soldiers rebuilding, scouts reporting losses.
By dusk, as the last golden light faded over the northern hills, Charles finally set his quill down.
Not from exhaustion—simply because it was time.
The moment the feather pen left his fingers, he felt the familiar lurch in his stomach—a weightless pull that twisted the air around him. The tent dissolved like smoke.
And then he was gone.
---
Meanwhile, in another tent not far away, a crimson flame flickered once—then went out, snuffed by an unseen hand.
"Impossible to see…" murmured a woman in scarlet robes. Her eyes reflected the last glimmer of the dying fire.
---
Blood for blood.
That was the name of the spell.
It wasn't an easy one. In fact, it was among the most dangerous of the "restoration arts" recorded in his grimoire—something he had meant to study last, not first.
But the situation left him no choice.
Unlike other spells, this one required elaborate preparation: a sacrificial platform, ritual objects, sigils drawn in specific geometric patterns. It wasn't just a spell—it was a ceremony.
A rite of transference.
Charles found it oddly fascinating. He'd never dabbled in ritual magic before, but Blood for Blood seemed simple enough in principle. No prayers to dark gods, no forbidden offerings—just the pure exchange of life force from one body to another.
The logic was almost mathematical. Life, converted into life.
Simple. Elegant. Terrifying.
He'd memorized every sigil, every line of script. The notebook's complex diagrams now lived clearly in his mind, each one etched with uncanny precision—one of the stranger gifts that had come with his awakening as a necromancer.
Now all he lacked was practice.
He would use the gateway—the time difference between worlds—to master it safely. When he returned, he would be ready to save Dacey Mormont's life.
This training would take time. A lot of it.
---
"So… does this count as seclusion training?"
In the other world—the quiet, modern streets of Privet—Charles reclined in a bathtub, half-submerged in warm water, letting the tension drain from his muscles.
He had told the Church's monks he was "working on creative writing." That little white lie had bought him the privacy he needed to vanish for days on end without suspicion.
But sometimes he wondered what would happen if one of them got curious enough to check.
"Am I actually going to have to write a book?" he muttered, groaning.
The thought alone was exhausting. He could memorize spells and rituals effortlessly, but writing—that was a different kind of sorcery altogether. His memories of his previous life were fragmented at best; he couldn't even recall a single book well enough to plagiarize.
"Besides," he said aloud, "who the hell memorizes every book word for word? I'm a mage, not an AI."
The sarcasm made him chuckle.
If push came to shove, he could always "borrow" a book from Westeros, copy it out, and present it as his own. People in this world adored old literature—no one would notice the anachronism.
After all, who could stop a modern soul from writing a classic in the Middle Ages?
With a sigh, he sank a little deeper into the bathwater, mind flickering between worlds, spells, and schemes.
Two realities. One path.
And tomorrow night—he would test the spell that could steal death itself.