Aldric's brow furrowed. "Valyrian Steel? No, Roger. This is ripple-iron—pattern-welded steel from my homeland. In the East, in a place called Damascus, the smiths have mastered the art of folding the blade until the impurities are bled out. It is strong, yes, but it is not Valyrian."
Ser Roger Hughes ran a thumb over the shimmering grain of the sigil, shaking his head. "A knight of my standing has no right to handle Valyrian steel, Captain. But as a squire, I served Ser Beren Wyke. He told me the sorcerer-smiths of the Freehold would hammer their blades ten thousand times, binding them with spells of fire and blood. When the Doom took Valyria, that art was lost to all but the smiths of Qohor."
Roger held the sigil up to the light. "There are perhaps two hundred such blades left in Westeros—ancestral treasures with names like Ice or Heartsbane. They say Valyrian steel is as light as a feather and as sharp as a dragon's tooth. Your ripple-iron looks the part, Captain, but it lacks the weightlessness of the ancient dragon-glass."
Aldric rubbed his jaw. "My steel is lighter and harder than any common forge-work in these lands, but it isn't magic. At least, not yet." He turned to Jon. "Jon, your father... he carries a blade of Valyrian steel, does he not?"
Jon stiffened, his eyes darting toward the other men. He realized with a jolt that Aldric hadn't named him a Stark, but the question was a trap regardless. "My father... Lord Stark... has a greatsword called Ice," Jon said, his voice tight. "He never let me touch it as a boy. He said such a blade was for a man's work, not a child's play. By the time I could lift it, the sword's path was already set for my brother Robb. I cannot tell you the difference in weight, Master, but I know the look of it. Your ripple-iron is a close cousin to the eye."
Aldric nodded, satisfied. If his master-work could pass for the most legendary metal in the world at a glance, its value was incalculable. He distributed the sigils, reinforcing the law of the Order: two Sunwalkers must vouch for a seeker before they could earn the Sun-Spark.
With the monastery slowly regaining its breath—refugees returning from the woods and fields being tilled once more—Aldric felt it was time to move. He left the bulk of his forces under John and the Sparrow's care. He took only Jon, Ser Roger, and two veterans who had failed the anointing, Jack and Val, to meet the Brotherhood Without Banners.
The Isle of Faces sat at the heart of the Gods Eye, a place of ancient power that even the most cynical sellsword approached with a hushed voice.
As they stepped off the small fishing boat onto the silty shore, the atmosphere hit Aldric like a physical weight. Not two paces from the water's edge stood a weirwood of impossible size. Its trunk was so vast it would take five men, fingers interlaced, to encircle it. Behind it stood others, their pale white branches tangled like the fingers of giants, stretching deep into the island's interior.
Every tree bore a face. Some were blurred by time, but the emotions carved into the sap-red wood were unmistakable: a weeping woman, a screaming warrior, a silent, judging elder.
As Aldric met the carved eyes of a twisting oak, he felt a sharp, predatory gaze pinning him to the spot. His hand reflexively went to the hilt of the Serpent's Striker.
"Master... I feel ill," Jon whispered, his boots shifting restlessly in the damp leaves. Without his wolf, Ghost, and stripped of his heavy plate for the boat ride, the boy looked exposed. He looked like a sacrifice.
Ser Roger Hughes, a Riverlands man by birth, looked on with grim reverence. "The Isle of Faces is holy ground, Jon. Eight thousand years ago, the First Men and the Children of the Forest signed the Pact here. Even the Andals, who burned every weirwood south of the Neck in the name of the Seven, did not dare touch this soil."
Roger was a man of the region, and even as a Sunwalker, he felt the ancient weight of the island. "If it felt like a common forest, boy, it wouldn't be the Isle of Faces."
Aldric took a deep breath, the air tasting of damp earth and ancient sap. "We camp here on the shore. I have no desire to push further into that wood."
Jon and Roger agreed instantly. Only Jack and Val, the two un-anointed soldiers, seemed immune to the pressure. They wandered toward the treeline, curious to see the "faces," but Aldric ordered them back to build the fire.
As the sun dipped toward the horizon, the island grew silent. No birds chirped. The only sound was the lap of the lake against the stones.
"They'll find us," Aldric said, watching the shadows lengthen. "Harwin wouldn't have named this place if he didn't have eyes on it."
Night fell, and the three Sunwalkers took turns at the vigil. Aldric took the first watch. Sitting by the low fire, he felt the forest behind him like a sleeping beast. Its dreams were a low, rhythmic hum he couldn't quite translate.
I wonder, Aldric thought, if there are others like me out there? If a Druid of the Cenarion Circle were here, they would be talking to these trees. They could wake them. If a Shaman stood on the shore, the lake would be his servant. He thought of the Mages of Kirin Tor, wondering if they'd survived their first nights in this mana-starved world—or if they'd been plucked up by pirates before they could cast a single frostbolt.
He felt a sudden, sharp pang of loneliness. He was a Highlord in a world of peasants, a god in a land of mud.
At dawn, a small boat appeared on the mist-shrouded water.
Jon stood by the shore. "Master. It's Harwin."
The boat grated against the pebbles. Harwin jumped out, pulling the line and securing it to a large stone. "Jon. Good to see you're still breathing."
"You as well, Harwin."
"And you, Captain Seres," Harwin said, nodding to Aldric.
Four other men hopped from the boat, unarmored but carrying the aura of men who lived in the brush. Harwin stepped aside, gesturing to a man in a tattered black cloak stitched with silver stars.
He was a ghost of a man. His golden-red hair was thin and patchy, and a massive, jagged depression marred the side of his skull above the left ear. A black strap ran across his face, covering an eye that was likely gone, and the skin of his throat was ringed with a dark, rope-burned scar.
Harwin spoke with a formal gravity. "Captain Seres, allow me to introduce the Lord of Blackhaven, the Lightning Lord of the Brotherhood: Beric Dondarrion."
Aldric extended his hand to the gaunt nobleman. "Lord Beric. Your name is a song in every tavern in the Riverlands. The smallfolk say the Lightning Lord cannot be killed."
Beric took Aldric's hand. His grip was dry and cold, and his voice sounded like it had been dragged over gravel. "And I have heard of the 'Sun-Seeker' from the East. A champion of the light, who heals the dying and strikes with the fury of the dawn."
The two leaders stood on the ancient shore, their hands clasped, the Sun-God's champion and the R'hllor-raised revenant, as the weirwoods watched in silence.
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