Please, just let it end.
It was the prayer on every pair of lips, from the scullery maids to the minor lordlings. The war dragged on, fueled by blood and rumors. The latest whisper from Dragonstone was poison: King Joffrey was no Baratheon, but a bastard born of incest.
The smallfolk didn't care who sat the Iron Throne. They just wanted the armies to stop trampling their harvest.
In the quiet of St. Maurus, Brother John tried to forget the outside world. He buried himself in wood shavings and sawdust, repairing barrels, fixing shutters, mending the broken bones of the monastery.
His roommate, Sparrow, was a ghost. The old man was rarely in their cell. He spent his days in the refugee camps and the burnt-out villages, washing the feet of lepers and feeding the hungry with scraps he begged from merchants.
The other monks spoke of Sparrow with a mix of awe and fear. He was a mirror that showed them their own softness, their own greed.
One afternoon, as John was sanding a pew in the sept, Sparrow appeared beside him.
"Good hands," the old man rasped. "The Smith guides them."
John wiped sweat from his brow. "Work is prayer, brother."
Sparrow sat on a bench, his bare feet dusty. "I went to Clearwater Bay yesterday. To baptize a child."
"And?"
"Dead," Sparrow said flatly. "All of them. The babe was floating in his parents' blood. I found a few dying men and gave them the Last Rites."
John gripped his chisel. "Who did it?"
"Does it matter? Lions, wolves, mummers... they are all the same beast."
Sparrow looked at the seven-pointed star above the altar. "Tomorrow, I go to White Willow Village. A funeral. Come with me. You need air."
The path to White Willow was a goat track, hidden in the brambles. Sparrow walked it with the sure-footedness of a man who had spent a lifetime on the road.
"You know the land well," John noted.
"I have walked every road from the Wall to the Boneway," Sparrow said. "Before I was Sparrow, I was a knight's son. My father disinherited me for my brother. Then the Ninepenny Kings came. My father, my brother, my mother... all dead. Bandits took the castle. I took the road."
They reached the village at dusk. It was a cluster of huts that had survived the Dance of Dragons, and the villagers were tough, wary folk.
Roger, a woodcutter, greeted them. "You came."
"I promised," Sparrow said.
The funeral was simple. A pine box, a deep hole, a few words spoken to the Stranger and the Father. No gold, no incense. Just earth to earth.
"It's not much," John whispered as they walked back.
"It is enough," Sparrow said. "The gods do not need gold. They need sincerity."
Back in their cell, the question that had been gnawing at John finally broke loose.
"Sparrow," John asked into the darkness. "Do you ever doubt? That they are real?"
Sparrow sat on his cot, unlacing his sandals. "Every day."
He looked at John with those piercing eyes. "I have seen no miracles. I have seen magic—bloodmages in the east, pyromancers in the city. But magic is not divinity. Dragons breathe fire, but they are beasts, not gods. The Targaryens had dragons, but they brought fire, not peace."
"Then what is a god?"
"Order," Sparrow said firmly. "Justice. A true god brings order to the chaos of men. If a faith makes men kind, makes them just, then the god is real, even if he never shows his face."
John hesitated. He fingered the hilt of the dagger hidden under his mattress.
"What if..." John started slowly. "What if there was a man who could show miracles? Who could heal the sick with a touch? And what if he also wanted to bring order? To save the world?"
Sparrow snorted. "If such a man existed, he would not be hiding. He would be stopping this war. But he is not here. So we must do the work ourselves."
The old man's eyes burned with a cold, fanatical light. "We must scrub the rot from the church. We must drive out the fat septons who sell salvation for wine. And if the lords will not protect the people... then the Faith must take up swords again."
John stared at him. The Faith Militant. It was a dangerous thought.
"Sleep, brother," Sparrow said, lying down. "We have work tomorrow."
John lay awake, listening to the wind. Aldric is real, he thought. The light is real. Does that make him a god? Or just a man with a bigger sword?
He drifted into a restless sleep.
He was woken by screaming.
It wasn't a nightmare. It was outside.
John bolted upright. Sparrow was already at the window, his face grim.
"Fire," Sparrow said.
The courtyard was ablaze. Shouts rang out—rough, foreign voices, mixed with the screams of monks.
John grabbed his dagger. He and Sparrow ran into the hall. A terrified novice nearly collided with them.
"Who is it?" John shouted, grabbing the boy.
"Mercenaries!" the boy sobbed. "The Bloody Mummers! They're killing everyone!"
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