"They said someone would come."
Thaddues remained silent. Sometimes the frightened spoke more freely when they were not interrupted.
The boy's fingers tightened around the doll until the fabric creased beneath his grip. Cold rain trickled through his silver hair, dripping from his chin, yet he made no move to wipe it away.
"I did what they told me," he whispered. "They said to stand here... and hold the doll. They said if I didn't move... everything would be all right."
His voice faltered.
"It still hurts."
The simple confession carried more weight than any scream.
"My chest hurts... and the air tastes like ash." He swallowed with obvious effort before lowering his eyes to the doll pressed against his chest. "I tried not to cry."
A faint smile crossed his face, uncertain and painfully small.
"I wanted to... but I didn't."
His shoulders trembled.
"They said Mother would come back if I was brave."
The words lingered in the stillness.
Behind the child, the ritual continued its steady pulse, utterly indifferent to the innocent life trapped within it. Violet light spread through the carved runes before fading again, each heartbeat of the array feeding upon a village that had already surrendered everything it possessed.
Something cold settled deep within Thaddues chest.
He had witnessed cruelty.
His first life had taught him that history was written as much by monsters as by heroes. He had studied the rise of dark wizards whose pursuit of immortality had demanded innocent blood, and since arriving in Westeros he had learned that ordinary men required no magic to commit unspeakable acts. The reach, Daemon...
But this...
This possessed a different kind of wickedness.
Someone had found a frightened little boy, soothed him with promises of seeing his mother again, placed an artifact of terrible power into his hands, and left him standing at the heart of a ritual that had murdered an entire village.
The child had never understood.
He had obeyed because children trusted adults.
Because they believed promises.
Because they still thought the world was kind.
Thaddues felt anger rise within him, slow and measured like molten iron heating within a forge. It was not the reckless fury of youth but something colder, sharpened by reason and discipline.
Whoever had conceived this ritual deserved judgment.
Whoever had used this child deserved none of the mercy they had denied others.
He forced those thoughts aside.
Vengeance could wait.
The boy could not.
Slowly, Thaddues lowered himself to one knee outside the boundary of the ritual until they stood nearly at eye level. He kept his wand lowered but ready, careful not to make any movement that might frighten the child.
"You've done enough," he said quietly. "You don't have to hold the doll any longer."
The boy blinked.
"I... don't?"
"No."
A faint warmth entered Thaddues' voice.
"You've been very brave."
The child's eyes widened.
No one had praised him since Thaddues arrived.
For the first time, his grip loosened ever so slightly around the doll.
"Can I... go home now?"
The question struck harder than any curse.
Thaddues looked beyond the child.
The answer surrounded them.
Silent houses.
Cold hearths.
Empty streets.
Mothers who would never wake.
Children who would never laugh again.
The boy's own mother almost certainly lay somewhere among them.
He could not lie.
Nor would he steal the child's final shred of trust.
"You don't have to stay here anymore," he answered gently. "Come with me. We'll leave this place together."
The boy nodded eagerly.
He shifted his weight, lifting one foot as though preparing to run.
It never left the stone.
Confusion replaced hope.
He tried again, this time with both legs, straining hard enough that tears welled in his eyes.
Nothing.
His feet remained fixed to the ritual as though the earth itself refused to release him.
"Mister..."
Panic crept into his voice.
"I can't move."
His breathing quickened as he struggled harder.
"I can't... I can't..."
Before Thaddues could answer, he felt a familiar pull to a gods domain.
Thaddues' expression hardened.
In that instant, every lesson Rowena had carved into his soul came to fruition. His soul arts ignited without conscious command, layer upon layer of mental fortifications rising to shield his spirit as the unseen presence sought to draw him into its domain.
The resistance came at a terrible price.
Pain lanced through his mind with such violence that his vision blurred. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, splattering against the rain-darkened stone as his knees nearly buckled beneath the strain.
Only then did understanding dawn.
Whatever had reached for him possessed a strength that eclipsed even the Old Gods. It was not merely ancient.
It was something greater.
Silence settled over the village square.
The blood Thaddues had coughed onto the ancient runes spread through the shallow grooves carved into the stone before slowly disappearing into the glowing lines. Around him, the ritual continued its slow, relentless pulse, each beat sending another wave of pale mist rolling through the deserted streets beyond the plaza.
The child did not move.
His small body remained rigid, the crude cloth doll still clutched against his chest. Yet the frightened boy who had spoken only moments ago was gone. In his place stood something immeasurably older, peering through borrowed eyes with a patience that seemed to belong to another age.
The white gaze rested upon Thaddues without hostility.
Nor was there kindness.
It was the look of a scholar examining an unexpected discovery.
The ancient voice spoke.
"You resisted."
Its tone remained calm and measured, neither praising nor condemning.
"Few among mortals remember how to defend the soul."
Thaddues wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. The pain still lingered, but it had become manageable.
"I had an excellent teacher."
For the first time, the child's head tilted ever so slightly.
The movement was subtle, almost curious.
"I know."
Those pale eyes lingered upon him.
"She lingers."
The words sent a chill through Thaddues.
Thaddues instinctively rested a hand over the Diadem. Its enchantments dormant beneath the influence of the fog, yet this being had noticed Rowena's lingering presence all the same.
"So even this fog cannot hide her from you."
The child regarded him in silence.
"I do not see as mortals do."
The answer was quiet.
Silence followed.
The ritual continued to pulse beneath the child's feet, yet Thaddues noticed something peculiar.
The fog no longer pressed against him as fiercely as before.
It still surrounded the square, but its oppressive weight had eased, as though the ritual itself had shifted its attention elsewhere.
The ancient gaze settled upon him once more.
"Two histories dwell within you."
Thaddues said nothing.
For the first time since arriving in this world, he felt truly seen. He almost unleashed his magic.
But he knew using his magic is useless against an entity powerful than the Old gods.
Just why I keep on bumping with these gods in these world?
"You do not seem surprised," Thaddues observed.
"I have watched this world since men still feared the night more than one another."
The ancient voice carried neither arrogance nor pride.
Only memory.
"You are not the first soul to wander where it did not belong."
"There were others?"
The child was silent for a long while.
"Once."
"Long ago."
Those words settled heavily upon him.
Until now, he had assumed his arrival had been unique.
If others had crossed between worlds in ages long past, then perhaps the impossible was not as unprecedented as he had believed.
The ancient presence returned its attention to him.
"You are different."
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"When you came..."
"...the river changed."
Thaddues waited.
"It has not flowed the same since."
The words stirred something deep within him.
He thought of every choice he had made since awakening aboard that doomed ship.
Lives that should have been lost had survived.
Meetings that should never have occurred had already reshaped the future.
Perhaps history itself had begun to bend.
"You have changed more than kings."
The voice softened, almost thoughtfully.
"You have changed possibility."
Before Thaddues could reply, the doll pulsed again.
A stronger pulse this time.
Every glowing rune surrounding the square answered in unison.
The light climbed the walls of the nearby buildings before spreading across the empty streets beyond.
The ritual was reacting to him.
Thaddues tightened his grip on his wand but did not raise it.
"You are not afraid," the ancient voice observed.
"I've found fear rarely improves a situation," he replied quietly.
A pause.
"No," the voice said at last.
A faint trace of amusement slipped into the ageless tone.
"It seldom does."
The child lowered his head for a brief moment, as though listening to something far away—something no one else in the clearing could hear.
When he looked up again, the weight behind those pale eyes had deepened.
"I sensed another mark upon your soul… but it no longer exists."
Thaddues' expression sharpened.
"The Old Gods?" he asked like he didn't know.
"They have looked upon you."
The answer came slowly.
"They remember."
"They watch."
Thaddues wanted to ask more but chose silence instead.
Curiosity was a risk he did not take lightly.
"I have waited."
The voice was softer now.
"Long enough to see kingdoms become dust."
Its gaze lifted beyond the village.
"Now..."
A silence that seemed to stretch beyond the rain.
"...the song changes."
Then the ancient presence regarded Thaddues in silence.
Its pale, lifeless eyes never blinked, revealing neither hostility nor compassion. They carried none of the expressions found upon mortal faces, only the detached stillness of something that had endured long enough to outlive such emotions. For what felt like an eternity, the being studied him without speaking, its gaze lingering upon the strange duality of his soul as though weighing truths that lay hidden beyond flesh and memory.
The village square fell into a silence so complete that it seemed to suspend the passage of time itself. The violet runes no longer pulsed beneath the cracked cobblestones, while the gray fog hung motionless between the ruined cottages. Even the wind and rain had vanished. It was as though the world itself waited for the ancient being's judgment.
The movement was slight, yet it shattered the oppressive stillness that had gripped the plaza.
"…Very well."
The words did not belong to the child. They carried instead the deep resonance of shifting mountains—ancient, deliberate, and absolute.
Slowly, the child's dirt-stained fingers loosened around the worn cloth doll at the center of the ritual. For a heartbeat, nothing changed.
Then reality answered.
Thaddues did not leave the ground. The plaza remained beneath his feet, the runes still burning in their slow violet pulse, the fog still clinging to the broken village like a shroud. And yet everything beyond it began to fall away—not by disappearance, but by replacement. Stone stretched into impossible distance, buildings bent as geometry lost meaning, and the sky became a surface pressed against something far deeper.
Sound broke apart next. The ritual's pulse dissolved into a silence that felt like thought itself. Thaddues breath caught as the vision settled over him, not around him. The village split into layered realities—alive, dead, and ruined at once—each version real enough to be true, yet none stable enough to remain.
The child lifted its head. But the face that met Thaddues was everywhere at once—every rune, every shadow, every breath of fog. And the voice came through the world itself.
"I will show you what remains unchosen."
The sky began to fold inward.
TBC
For 18+ advance chapters.. Join me on Patr*on.
Patr*on.com/Rabbinwriter.
Be a Chapter Seeker!
Be a Chronicle Reader!
Be a Lore Archivist!
Or buy me a coffee ~~~