"May the old gods protect us!"
Sansa knelt on the ground, eyes closed, praying silently in her heart.
"Protect Father, Arya, and Rickon, and keep them safe in King's Landing.
Let Bran awaken soon.
Protect Winterfell, so Mother and Robb can be at ease.
Bless Galon, and let all his wishes come true…"
The young girl knelt before the heart tree, making wish after wish, as if the tree itself were a wishing machine.
What unsettled Galon was not Sansa's wishes, but the fact that he could hear her prayers.
His consciousness drifted within the heart tree.
Through the carved eyes on the tree's face, he could clearly see Sansa praying in silence, yet her voice flowed endlessly into his mind.
'So my ability when skinchanging into a heart tree is to hear people's inner thoughts?'
'What is this supposed to be, the old gods listening to their believers?'
If he had not transmigrated into Galon, perhaps he could have used this ability to impersonate the old gods and fool the descendants of the First Men in the North.
But right now, all he wanted to know was how to return to his physical body.
By the time Galon tried again, Sansa had already finished her prayers.
She stood up quietly and followed the stream out of the godswood, never noticing anything unusual about the heart tree behind her.
By then, the sky was beginning to brighten.
Only at that moment did Galon realize he had been trapped within the heart tree for nearly an entire night.
'Damn it, how do I get out of here?'
'I can't live inside a heart tree forever!'
Fear rose in Galon's heart, and his consciousness began to waver.
The next instant, everything went black.
When he woke again, he was already back in his own bedchamber at Deepwood Motte.
Galon instinctively sat upright, breathing heavily.
"I'm back?"
He lifted his hands in confusion and pinched his thigh.
A faint pain answered him.
"I really am back!"
Only then did he let out a long breath of relief.
Galon got out of bed and walked straight to the window, pushing it open.
The godswood in the courtyard came into view again. The heart tree's sap-red eyes seemed to sense his gaze, and its branches swayed slightly.
Galon startled, then realized it was only the wind in the grove.
He turned to the table, lifted a cup of cold water, and drained it in one gulp, steadying his nerves.
'Can skinchangers really possess plants? And not just any plants, but heart trees?'
Galon searched his memory for anything he had read in his previous life about skinchangers, but no matter how hard he thought, he found nothing like his own case.
Even the most powerful greenseers of Westeros were only said to enter human minds.
There were no records of anyone possessing plants.
For now, Galon was unique.
He shook his head.
'It must all trace back to the promise between House Glover and the old gods.'
'Once the composite bow is finished, I should have Maester Beckman search the family records again.
Even if the chances are slim, I hope he finds something.'
For reasons he could not explain, Galon felt a faint certainty that he would one day have to go beyond the Wall.
He turned the cup slowly in his hand, thinking.
'No rush. I can first study what this skinchanger ability really does and how to control it.'
'I can't keep relying on luck like this every time I want to return.'
After some thought, he saw that dawn had fully arrived. He dressed and went out for his routine training.
From then on, Galon trained the Steel Fist during the day, and at night his skinchanger ability would occasionally trigger, allowing him to inhabit heart trees.
After several days of experimentation, he concluded that his ability activated at night whenever his state of mind was particularly calm or content.
He also figured out how to return.
Aside from waiting until mental exhaustion forced his consciousness back, he could also be awakened if someone physically shook his body.
Once he confirmed that skinchanging at night did not affect his condition during the day, Galon began entering heart trees more frequently.
He wanted to test the limits of this power.
No matter how he moved between heart trees, however, his range was still limited to the Wolfswood and Winterfell.
Beyond that, he could not sense the presence of any heart trees at all.
Moreover, as he skinchanged more often, Galon felt his mind growing increasingly active.
'Could it be that, like the Children of the Forest, I might one day wield magic?'
The thought filled him with anticipation.
With that, the matter of inhabiting heart trees temporarily came to a pause.
Over the following days, Galon continued training the Steel Fist while working with Maester Beckman on the composite bow.
As the fish-bladder glue technique progressed, bonding the backing and belly of the composite bow was put on the agenda.
At last, after Galon had fully grasped the mechanics of his skinchanger ability, Maester Beckman sent word for him to test the new bow.
The composite bow was a deep purplish-red, nearly as tall as a man.
Eagle-Eye Mihawk, the Steel Fist's best archer, tried a few test shots and immediately fell in love with it.
Seeing this, Galon had Mihawk assist Maester Beckman in taking detailed measurements of the new bow.
On the training field, Mihawk drew the heavy bow and loosed an arrow that pierced a mail-clad dummy over a hundred meters away.
Against scale armor, however, its performance was slightly lacking.
The problem was not the bow, but the arrows.
So Galon arranged for Maester Beckman to begin researching armor-piercing arrowheads.
With testing complete, it was time to form a unit equipped with the new bows.
Given the high physical demands, Galon selected three hundred elite guards from Deepwood Motte for training.
At the same time, he sent Mihawk back to the Trunk Clan to recruit two hundred more archers.
It was not that he could not recruit more, but that production could not keep up.
Even with Maester Beckman working nonstop, and with help from Galon's confidants and Uncle Robett, they could only produce a few hundred bows in the short term.
More than that was simply impossible.
Besides, Maester Beckman still had other duties.
'Five hundred men are enough for now.'
'The next step is to shape them into a true fighting force as quickly as possible.'
'Time is running out.'
While Galon was busy drilling the Steel Fist and training the archer units, Newgate, after more than ten days on the road, successfully led one hundred archers to Moat Cailin.
But upon arrival, Newgate received bad news.
The king's party had already left Moat Cailin the day before.
Unable to ask Lord Stark how long they were to remain stationed, Newgate could only send men to the nearest city with ravens, asking the local lord to send word to Deepwood Motte.
The closest such city was White Harbor.
The exchange cost time.
By the time Galon received the letter, a full month had passed since Nugate's departure.
Meanwhile, the execution of Theon for plotting against the son of the Warden of the North had been conveyed to the Iron Islands by royal raven.
Inevitably—
In the letter, Robert harshly condemned Theon's actions and warned Balon Greyjoy not to make any reckless moves.
A storm long foreseen was about to begin.
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