The world folded in on itself. Light twisted. Time recoiled.
Galon staggered forward as if pushed from another reality, breath tearing in and out of his lungs.
He braced one hand against his racing heart, the other reaching for balance while his vision swam with green motes of floating light.
They drifted like fireflies. Silent. Watchful.
'What is this place? What happened just now?'
'The raven…? Was that… him?'
There was no answer. Only the eerie stillness of a place that felt neither dream nor memory, but something older than both.
Galon took a careful step.
Crack!
The sharp sound jolted him. He looked down.
The ground beneath his feet was not earth — but broken mirrors, spread wide like shattered ice on a frozen lake. And inside those fractured reflections, scenes played like living windows.
Ned praying at the heart tree. Jon speaking with Ser Rodrik. Sansa whispering secrets with her friends.
Bran climbing a tower with reckless delight.
And one frame — the most recent — showed his encounter with Lady Catelyn.
Galon froze.
His red eyes narrowed — and then, strangely, glowed.
The image shifted as if answering an unspoken command, rewinding itself until it showed someone else.
Theon Greyjoy.
Theon stood before Catelyn — speaking fast, agitated, shaping her mood word by word. And with each sentence, Catelyn's expression hardened into anger, then contempt.
Galon's expression flattened into something cold and lethal.
"So it was you," he murmured.
A pulse of power rippled through the space — as if the world itself had reacted to his realization.
He straightened, eyes sharp.
'So be it, Theon Greyjoy.'
'If you're the first obstacle — then you're the first piece to remove.'
As that thought hardened in him, the floating green lights stirred — gathering, rippling, forming symbols in the air like ink on parchment.
A message.
[Tonight. Godswood. Meet.]
The instant the final word settled, the illusion shattered.
Darkness swallowed everything.
...
Galon stumbled back into reality.
He braced himself against Winterfell's cold stone wall, chest rising and falling as the chill of the courtyard reminded him he was truly back.
The raven was gone.
But the memory remained — too vivid, too deliberate to be a dream.
"That wasn't illusion," he muttered. "That was magic. Greensight."
His thoughts raced. 'The last greenseer. The Three-Eyed Raven. Bloodraven. Brynden Rivers.'
A figure older than kingdoms. Older than living memory.
'Why would he reach out to me? I haven't interfered. Not yet.'
Another thought sliced in — unwelcome. 'Did he sense the shift? Did taking Sansa alter something he foresaw?'
'Does he see what I plan?'
He ran a hand across his jaw, considering.
'Why show me Theon speaking to Catelyn? And why a meeting… tonight… at the godswood?'
Questions tangled in his mind — but one truth stood clear:
Avoiding the invitation was impossible. In the North, the godswood did not belong to lords or kings.
It belonged to the Old Gods.
To greenseers.
To him.
Galon exhaled slowly. 'Whether I go or not, he already sees me — So I go.'
A voice broke his thoughts.
"Lord Galon!"
Galon turned. Jon Snow approached with an easy stride and a rare smile.
"Jon?" Galon blinked away lingering dizziness. "What brings you?"
Jon stopped in front of him and replied, almost proudly, "Robb sent me. Lady Catelyn… needed him. So he asked me to finish showing you the castle."
For a moment, Galon almost told him to leave — his mind still half in that strange realm.
But Jon shook his head. "No, I gave my word. And Robb wouldn't leave a guest unattended."
There was something warm in that simple logic — simple, but dignified.
Galon nodded.
"Very well. Then walk with me."
They began moving through Winterfell's stone corridors.
"Anywhere you'd like to see first?" Jon asked.
Galon answered absently, still half watching the shadows. "The highest place in Winterfell. The view might clear my head."
Jon chuckled.
"Then you're thinking of the broken tower. We call it the 'old watchtower', but most people just call it the ruined tower now.
Lightning struck it a hundred years ago. No one's repaired it."
"Except Bran climbs it constantly."
Galon lifted a brow.
"Bran?"
Jon grinned, already amused by the memory.
"He climbs everything. Walls, chimneys, roofs — even the godswood trees. Lord Stark once punished him by ordering him to stay there and pray."
He paused for effect.
"Next morning? They found him asleep at the top of the heart tree."
Galon laughed, genuinely.
Jon glanced toward him, then hesitated before asking quietly, "I saw Lady Catelyn earlier. She… didn't seem pleased with you. Is something wrong?"
He rushed to add, "Not that it's my place to pry. I just—"
Galon waved it off.
"It's nothing. She simply dislikes me."
Jon blinked in confusion. "But you're meant to be betrothed to Sansa."
Galon gave a small shrug.
"Some things even the Old Gods can't explain." He paused, then added with a crooked grin, "Maybe it's the Seven instead."
Jon stiffened for a heartbeat... then, understanding the joke, let out a rare laugh.
Two men, both unwelcome under the same roof, sharing the same bitter humor. Their laughter echoed along the hall — light, careless, unguarded.
Neither noticed the shadow passing overhead, nor the raven perched on the battlements watching them leave.