Carliene Stark

II Chapter 49

Carliene

I hastily read over the pages concerning the Long Night, realising that I was learning nothing new. The maesters that had written True History were very concerned with correcting the timeline of common belief, claiming the Battle of the Dawn was longer ago than everyone believed. But concerning the actual tales about the White Walkers. I just found the same legends and tales that Old Nan had already told me and my siblings in our youth. Slightly dissatisfied I closed the book. I tapped my fingers on the cover, a plan forming in my head. Why read about it when I could just watch what truly happened? If Bran could show me things that happened in the past, surely I should be able to visit the time of the first Long Night. 

Determined, I placed the book aside and exited my chambers. There were no more guards posted at my door, but I was not so naive as to believe that I was entirely unsupervised. Somewhere there was always a guard or a servant who took note of where I went. At least they had the decency not to follow me into the godswood. The Three Singers stared at me with weeping eyes as I knelt down in front of the smooth pool. I closed my eyes and opened my mind to the weirwood trees. I concentrated on the bark and the roots and the leaves, feeling for that wisdom and drive that lay deep within them, which took me not to the fogy meadow, but anywhere I chose. But flying was difficult and without my brother at my side I found myself even more disoriented. Most of the time I couldn't discern if I was flying or falling.

There was a garden with a burned weirwood surrounded by dead ravens in deep snow and frozen pools. There was a sky painted with streaks of red like blood raining down on the realm. There was a woman laying in a bed of blood in a castle of molten black stone and a frozen hill where a man in black stood in a circle of dead weirwood trees, with dead dragons at his feet, lifting a blade that cut through the darkness like sharp steel through silk. Then I saw the Wall, standing tall and mighty, seemingly singing as the wind brushed against it. I concentrated on it, hoping I could find a line or guide to take me where I wanted to go. Then I was in the middle of a circle of white trees, watching a group of small creatures with brown skin and dressed in moss and leaves tie a man to one of the trees. He squirmed and pleased but they showed no hesitation in shoving a dark knife into his chest and just as it disappeared into his ribcage the scene chanced and I suddenly looked upon on a never-ending frozen field filled with corpses shuffling through the snow. As I watched them I felt the cold creep up my legs and enter my eye sockets to fill my veins.

"Carliene" My whole body flinched at the voice in my ear and in the next moment I was back in the meadow. 

"The army of the dead, I saw it" I wasted no time telling him. "There were so many" I realised in despair. "We need to go back, I need to see where they are going" I urged and began to concentrate, but something was keeping me in the meadow.

"I don't want you to watch anything north of the wall" Bran told me seriously. 

I studied him confused. "Why? We need to find out what they are planning, we need to see-"
"Because it is dangerous Carliene. Too dangerous for you" I watched as he spoke, there was something different about him when he said those words. It almost felt like he was concerned. Concerned or even afraid. 

"Why?"

"You and I are not the only ones with these powers" he spoke calmly, but even so I felt a cold shiver crawl down my back. "If you look upon the Night King, he will look back at you. And when he touches you.." he trailed off seeming unsure for the first time since we had been reunited. 

"What happens if he touches me?" I pushed. 

Instead of answering he rolled up the sleeve of his left hand, revealing a blue bruise on his wrist in the shape of a handprint. "He puts his mark on you, which means there is always a link" somehow he didn't have to explain further for me to understand the gravity of what he was saying. "He always knows where I am"