Since returning from the Westerlands, Aldric had trekked through the heart of the Riverlands, bearing witness to empty hamlets and fields left to rot. The war's teeth had sunk deep into the earth.
Life is cheap in a time of lions and wolves, Aldric mused. If the White Walkers truly breached the Wall, these lands would be a graveyard before the first snows of autumn settled.
His march toward the Gods Eye was driven by a cold necessity: he needed a base. A sanctuary. He was willing to steal it, buy it, or take it by blood if he had to. Only with a foundation could he train more Sunwalkers and gather the Light-Seekers—those who turned their faces toward Anshe, the Sun-God.
Converting the monks of St. Maur's Monastery would be ideal; at the very least, settling in a village under their shadow would allow his influence to bleed outward like ink in water.
But that plan hinged on one man: John.
Aldric had feared the monk might have met a grisly end on the road home. Yet, hearing Sir Theodore Wells speak of a "Rainbow John" brought a flicker of hope. Unless St. Maur's had a surplus of Johns, it had to be him.
But the title "Rainbow John" bothered Aldric. The rainbow was the bridge of the Seven. If John had earned such a name, he had done something monumental—and he had done it in the name of the wrong gods.
"Sir Theodore," Aldric asked, masking his concern with curiosity as they rode. "When I parted ways with John outside Riverrun, he was but a humble brother. Scarcely a moon has passed. How did he become 'Rainbow John'?"
Theodore cut a side-long glance at Aldric. Seeing the man's genuine ignorance, he spat a glob of phlegm into the dirt.
"I know not what he was before," the knight said. "But the John of St. Maur's can summon rainbows from the air to knit flesh and bone. Two weeks ago, after I cleared a nest of bandits, I sought him out at the monastery for a wound in my shoulder. I saw it with my own eyes: a prismatic light, shimmering in the void. It fell over me like a cloak. There was a sharp sting, then... the strength returned. If it hadn't left me without a single scar, I'd strip my mail just to show you the truth of it."
Behind Aldric, Jon and Kevin exchanged a look of profound unease. Holy Light, they thought. But since when did the Light turn into a rainbow?
Aldric shared their silence. He doubted a man like Theodore—a blunt instrument of war—would have the answers. He would have to squeeze the truth out of John himself.
If the Sun's Grace had been rebranded as a miracle of the Seven, it was a tactical disaster. The Faith was the marrow of Andal society; its hierarchy—High Septon down to the wandering begging brothers—mirrored the feudal lords. To uproot the nobility and plant a kingdom of merit, one had to uproot the Seven.
Aldric's edge was supernatural. People are pragmatic; they follow the god who heals them. But if John had "stolen" the Light and credited the Seven, Aldric's crusade for Anshe would hit a stone wall. To awaken the Light, John had to believe in its core: that the Sun is the source of all life, and from that follows freedom, equality, and compassion.
Why give the glory to the Seven, John? Aldric wondered.
For Sir Theodore, the journey with the "Golden Dawn" had been an education.
Theodore was a scion of House Wells of Dorne, though he had wed into a Riverlands family years ago. His accent still held that faint, salty Dornish lilt, marking him as an outsider even after a decade in the mud.
He commanded forty men—some veterans of his own manse, others sellswords and stragglers who had lost their lords to Lannister steel. They maintained the King's Peace on the roads, avoiding the "rebel" label of the Brotherhood Without Banners by declaring a hollow fealty to the Iron Throne.
He had watched Aldric's group closely. These "Golden Dawn" mercenaries did not raid. They shared their grain with the smallfolk trailing them and kept their hands off the women. Their discipline was unnerving.
But Theodore had noticed a deeper rot.
At dusk, as the sun dipped toward the horizon, the refugees did not pray to the Mother or the Father. They knelt toward the dying light, hands clasped, whispering to a god called "Anshe."
At first, Theodore thought it was a dialect he didn't know—a mispronunciation. But the more he listened, the more his stomach turned.
He had briefly joined Beric Dondarrion's brood, only to flee when he realized Thoros of Myr was turning the Brotherhood into a cult of the Red God. Now, here was another cult, right under his nose. And their leader was seeking "Rainbow John."
Sir Theodore was a pious man. If this were a band of weaklings, he would have put them to the sword for heresy. But the Golden Dawn was dangerous. Forty armored men-at-arms and twenty armed peasants. An open fight would be a coin toss where he might lose his head.
He decided to watch.
The next day, the prayers happened again—at dawn and dusk. And every other night, Aldric would lead twenty of his best men into the darkness of the woods, returning hours later with the faint, metallic scent of blood clinging to them.
"Sir Roger," Theodore asked one of Aldric's knights, Roger Hughes. "I see your captain leads you into the brush every night. Is it some secret drill?"
Roger laughed, a short, tired sound. "The Captain calls it 'Night Vigil.' We do it every other eve. It gets... spirited. He takes us far so we don't wake the smallfolk."
"I should like to observe," Theodore ventured.
Roger's smile faded into a grimace. "You'd best ask the Captain. Our way of war is... different. He does not like audiences."
Theodore took the hint, but his suspicion only grew. That night, halfway through their march, as Aldric and his twenty men vanished into the treeline, Theodore donned his light leather and beckoned his most trusted man, Dylan. They slipped into the shadows, trailing the scent of heresy.
They found a thicket near a clearing and hunkered down, expecting dark rituals or blood sacrifices.
Instead, they saw Aldric split his men into two groups—spears, shields, and bows. They began a mock battle.
At first, it looked like standard sparring. Then, a spearman lunged, driving his point squarely into a man's chest. The warrior went down hard. Theodore's stomach lurched. But the "battle" didn't stop. Men fell one after another, the sounds of iron on wood echoing through the trees.
Theodore watched, horrified, until he saw the impossible.
The first man who had been "skewered" stood up. He walked to the other fallen men, touched them briefly with a hand that seemed to shimmer, and they too rose, shaking off death as if it were a common chill. They lunged back into the fray.
"Madness," Theodore whispered, his voice trembling. "They are monsters. Dylan, we must go. We must get the men and put leagues between us and these things."
"Dylan?"
Theodore turned. Dylan was frozen, staring behind them.
Theodore followed his gaze. A massive wolf, its fur the color of fresh snow and eyes like pools of blood, sat a few paces away, watching them with an almost bored expression.
And behind the wolf, a shadow loomed. A bear, encased in a harness of thick leather plate, was casually scratching its back against a gnarled oak.
A bead of sweat rolled down Theodore's temple. "Dylan... when did the wolf get there?"
"I don't know, Ser," Dylan hissed, his hand white-knuckled on his dagger. "What do we do?"
"It hasn't bitten us yet." Theodore drew his sword. It was an instinctive move, but a foolish one.
The white wolf instantly shifted. Its relaxed posture vanished, replaced by a low, predatory crouch. It let out a guttural growl, waiting for the word to kill.
They were trapped. If they called for help, they'd have to explain why they were spying. If they ran... well, a man does not outrun a wolf.
Theodore's mind raced. He looked at Dylan. "Dylan. Listen to me. When I move, you run. Run for the camp. If you make it, tell them the beasts took me. Tell them to flee at dawn and carry word to the Warrior's Sons. Let the Faith know what haunts these woods. Do you understand?"
"Ser, I can't—"
"Do you understand?!"
"I... I understand."
They backed away, inch by agonizing inch. Then, with a desperate shout, they bolted.
Theodore didn't make it five paces. The white wolf blurred—a streak of snow through the brush. It slammed into his back, pinning him to the muck. His sword flew into the ferns.
Dylan ran further, screaming for help, until the armored bear intercepted him. A single, heavy paw caught him across the chest, swatting him into unconsciousness.
Theodore struggled, his hands clawing at the wolf's thick fur, until a familiar, calm voice drifted through the trees.
"Sir Theodore? A bit late for a stroll in the woods, isn't it?"
Aldric stepped into the moonlight, his greatsword sheathed, looking down at the pinned knight with an expression of mild disappointment.
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