Chapter 3

Four months have passed since we settled down in Winterfell. The end to the freezing cold winter was still nowhere in sight. If anything, it seems to get worse with each passing month.

'Why do these people continue to live here? ' I thought to myself as I walked back to my house.

"I am back." I said it out loud as I entered the house. 

No one answered my greetings.

' Guess he is still knocked out from that dosage of the milk of the poppy the meister gave him' I thought to myself as I set the loaves of bread I got from the baker on the table.

It had been a month since the old man fell sick.

Fever, a cold and uncontrollable shivering were just some of the symptoms that he showed. The meister called it the winter's embrace. A harmless disease that occurred frequently during the winter.

However, due to the old age of the old man the harmless disease was slowly turning into a fatal one. 

So far, the old man had shown no signs of getting better.

Just like this dreadful winter, his condition seems to only be getting worse with each passing day.

"Damn this backward world and its lack of proper medicine. " I cursed under my breath as I took a piece of cloth and a bucket of water before I walked up the stairs.

"Wake up, old man. You need to eat something soon." I called on to him as I shook his body as gently as possible. 

Thankfully, I was able to nudge him awake after a few more tries.

I watched as the old man groggily woke up and pushed himself against the headboard. 

He looked nothing like the jovial, strong man that I knew before. Instead, what was in front of me looked like a feeble old man that had one foot in his grave and judging from that soulless look in his eyes, I'm sure that the old man knew that too.

"How are you feeling, old man. ? " I asked him gently. 

"Like shit. I don't think I'm going to be able to hang on much longer. I can already feel the stranger coming to get me. " The old man replied bitterly.

Ah, yes. The stranger. Aka the entity they worshiped as death in Westeros. 

How much more is death going to take from me before it is satisfied? 

In my first life, I was orphaned at the age of 7 when my parents died in a fatal car accident. 

Death came for them then.

At the age of 11, my grandparents passed on, leaving me all alone until I too finally died at the age of 20. 

Death came again.

In my second life, My mother was claimed by death as soon as I was born, and now this old man is being claimed too.

' Do I have a curse on me ? ' I thought to myself.

"Well, we don't know that yet, do we? Who knows, maybe the meister can make something that can make you feel better. Do not lose hope, Bradie."

" Anyways I'll be back with some warm bread and stew for you to eat." I told the old man with a smile on my face in an attempt to cheer him up.

I couldn't help but let out a sigh as I turned around and walked down the stairs.

"You are a good kid, you know? If it weren't for you, I would have been long dead by now. " I heard the old man say as I was about to take my first step down the stairs. 

Turning my head slightly toward him, I replied. "And I would have been long dead by now if it wasn't for you." 

Without waiting for a reply, I went downstairs. 

I didn't want the old man to see the tears that were pooling near the ducts of my eyes.

How pathetic. 

A grown man crying because of an old man he had just met a year ago. 

Unwilling to let even a single drop fall. 

I quickly wiped my eyes with my hands and took control of my emotions. 

And just like how I practiced for the past year, I focused all that misery and all that hate, all that pain and pointed my right palm towards the wood pile the stew pot was on, and let the gates that were holding back my emotions open. 

A ball of fire materialized in front of my palms and shot towards the dry wooden twigs making it instantly catch on fire. 

"Fire ball " I silently muttered out. 

Not that I needed to of course. The name had absolutely nothing to do with what I did. 

After all, I have long come to a conclusion that whatever sorcery or power I had was not incantation based. 

 Instead, it relied heavily on my emotions, specifically those that were tied down to frustration or anger. 

' It looks like those priests were right. Maybe I did make a deal with the devil when I died the first time. ' I thought to myself as I stared at the flames that I conjured. 

As the Months went by the brutal winter had finally started to show some signs that it was coming to an end. 

The ice and snow had started to melt, and signs of life had been returning to the otherwise dead looking trees. 

Flowers had started to bloom and the castle was more active than I had ever seen it before. 

Farmers eager to take advantage of the weather had already started to plow the land outside winterfell to grow their wheat crops.

' Such a shame that you could not see this with me braddie. ' I thought to myself as I watched the northerners move on with their lives from my window seat inside the house. 

It had been exactly 19 days since the old man had died and his body had been turned to ashes and exactly 9 days since the Stark men had come to give the deed to the house and all the wealth and land the old man had. 

Unbeknownst to me, the old man had sent a raven to the lord of the north regarding his will. 

It seems like he, who had no heir, had chosen to gift me what little he had as a form of compensation for taking care of him.

If only he knew what he had actually done. 

By giving me his lands and wealth, the old man had not only saved me from being a beggar in this medieval world but had also fulfilled the conditions set by the entity that reincarnated me. 

Conditions that allowed me to unlock the memories from the time I was in that entity's presence to when I was finally reincarnated. 

" Thank you, old man.Thank you for everything." I mumbled as I closed the curtains. 

*AZEROTH* I whispered as I closed my eyes.

The space around me folded, and with a cracking sound, I disappeared.

When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the house gifted to me by the old man. Instead, I was in a green meadow that spanned as far as my eyes could see. 

I was in Azeroth.

My own personal haven that was just waiting for me to introduce more life into it.