Septon Raynald stood at the prow of the Prayer, holding a cloth soaked in rosewater to his nose, trying to block out the reek of unwashed bodies, stale beer, and the peculiar rotting-fish smell that seemed to cling to all those damned squid-worshippers.
The Faith had insisted he take ironborn sailors for this mission—they knew these waters, they feared nothing, and they could be paid to keep their mouths shut.
But by the Seven, they were animals.
Behind him, the sellswords weren't much better. A dozen hard men from the disputed lands, cutthroats and killers who'd murder their own mothers for a handful of silver. They lounged on the deck, drinking, gambling, scratching themselves like the vermin they were.
"This is the Faith's gold they waste on wine," Raynald muttered, watching one particularly brutish sellsword—a scarred man called Hargor—pour another cup. "Gold meant for holy work, wested on these… these sinners."
But what choice did he have? The High Septon himself had given Raynald this sacred mission: Find the heretic who dared to raise the dead, who wielded unnatural powers in defiance of the Seven's will, and deliver the Father's justice.
Jon Stark. The abomination from the North who'd defiled the Great Sept with his sorcery, who'd brought a corpse back to shambling life like the Great Others from the old stories. The boy had fled to Essos like the coward he was, but the Seven's reach was long.
And Septon Raynald would be the instrument of divine justice.
He touched the seven-pointed star hanging from his neck, feeling its reassuring weight. He was doing the gods' work. He was pure, righteous, chosen. Not like these animals he'd been forced to travel with.
"Oi, holy man!" one of the ironborn called from the helm. "We're making good time. Should reach Braavos waters by nightfall tomorrow."
Raynald didn't deign to respond. Speaking to these heathens was beneath him.
The ironborn captain—a gap-toothed savage who called himself Dagon—spat over the rail. "he might already be in Braavos "
"The Seven will guide us to him," Raynald said coldly. "His blasphemy cannot hide from divine sight."
Actually, it was the Citadel's network of informants that had tracked the heretic, but Raynald preferred to think of it as divine providence.
A boy, around 8 name days old, gets Raynald mug of arbor gold, most expensive wine on ship. As Raynald's hand touched boys, boy instinctively jurked back.
Boy continue to look down on floor and move away from Raynald, Raynald saw dark red blood between boys legs.
He has brought that boy for 5 gold coin from brothel in the Old town. He even let his friend who is maester made some changes in his body.
"Continue to serve me like this, and the seven will except—"
Raynald never finished the sentence.
There was a sound—a sharp, hiss like wind through a narrow gap—and then Hargor's raised hand simply… stopped.
The sellsword looked down at his chest with confusion.
There was a hole there. A perfectly round hole, the size of a fist, punched clean through leather armor, flesh, bone. Raynald could see through it to the grey sky beyond.
Blood sprayed from Hargor's mouth, then crashed to the deck like a felled tree.
The boy scrambled backward, screaming.
For a moment, everyone on deck froze, staring at the impossible corpse.
Then Raynald's eyes tracked upward, following the trajectory of whatever had killed Hargor.
A raven perched on the mast sail above them.
But not just any raven. This bird was covered in blood—fresh, red, dripping. As Raynald watched in horror, droplets fell from its feathers onto the white sail, leaving crimson streaks like paint.
The raven's black eyes fixed on him.
And Raynald knew, with absolute certainty, that he was looking at something unnatural.
"What in the Drowned God's name—" Dagon started.
The raven moved.
It didn't fly so much as shoot forward, a black blur of impossible speed.
One of the ironborn sailors exploded—there was no other word for it. His torso simply came apart in a spray of blood and bone as the raven punched through him like he was made of parchment.
The bird didn't stop. It banked sharply, diving toward the sellswords clustered near the stern.
Chaos erupted.
Men screamed, reaching for weapons. But steel was useless against something that moved like lightning.
The raven tore through them—literally through them.
Raynald watched in frozen horror as it flew straight through a sellsword's chest, leaving a gaping hole, then wheeled and came back to do it again to another man.
Blood sprayed across the deck. Bodies fell, twitching.
"It's the Seven-damned heretic!" one of the sellswords shrieked. "He sent a demon—"
The raven flew through his skull. The man's head simply… emptied. He collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
Raynald backed against the rail, his heart hammering. This couldn't be happening. This was impossible. Ravens didn't—they couldn't—
The bird turned its attention to the ship itself.
It dove toward the hull, and Raynald heard a sickening crack as it punched a hole straight through the wooden planks below the waterline. Then another. Then another.
Water began flooding in.
The ironborn tried to fight back.
The captain gurgled and fell, blood fountaining.
The ship was dying. Raynald could feel it listing, taking on water fast. All around him, men were dying—torn apart by a single bird that moved with unholy speed and struck with the force of a ballista bolt.
"Please," Raynald whispered, clutching his seven-pointed star. "Father above, Mother protect us, Warrior give us strength—"
The raven landed on a broken piece of sail ten feet away, its black eyes now fixed on Raynald.
Up close, he could see it clearly. Blood dripped from its beak, its talons, its feathers. But beneath the blood, there was a wrongness to its movements.
Raynald's mind flashed to the stories. The heretic could create life, they said. Could reshape flesh and bone.
"You," he whispered. "Its you, aren't you? Bastard, Jon Snow!"
"I'm doing the Seven's work!" he shrieked, his voice breaking. "You're a heretic! A blasphemer! You mock the natural order!"
The raven hopped closer.
"I'm righteous! I'm pure! I serve the gods!" Raynald's back pressed against the rail. There was nowhere left to go. "You—you're a monster! An abomination! You deserve to die!"
The raven took flight.
Raynald saw it coming, saw the blood-soaked bird arrowing toward his face.
...
POV: Jon Stark
I pulled out of the warg connection and opened my eyes, gasping.
I was in the cab of my ship, sitting cross-legged on the floor with Ghost lying beside me. The afternoon sun slanted through the window, casting long shadows.
My hands were shaking, but after few moment it stopped.
I'd just killed over a dozen men. Brutally. Efficiently. Without mercy.
Through A-Train.
Ghost raised his head and looked at me with those intelligent red eyes.
I'd known this was coming.
The Faith saw me as a blasphemer. The Citadel saw me as a threat. And both decided that the solution was assassination.
I'd sent A-Train to intercept them before they reached our ship.
"I need to move faster," I said to Ghost. "Build stronger defenses. Create more… more magic beast like A-Train. Even send few to Winterfell as well.
…