Chapter 24

So, first of all, I noticed that my biggest hater is secretly one of my biggest fans. Hahahahaha.

Second, not gonna lie, some reviews would be appreciated. Like, I actually don't care, but having somewhat committed myself at this point, I would like there to be golden stars, not the colorless bleak ones that have no right to exist.

You don't need to spam 5-stars without meaning, that would be boring too, but if you're honest and not just like, "He slept with 10 different girls, but I don't like this one, so here... 1 Star," then whatever, do what you like.

Yeah, that's about it...

Fun

Oh, and not sure if I am able to post tomorrow, but on Friday again.

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They had been at the Wall for two days, and in those two days, most of the inhabitants of Castle Black had formed an opinion of him—a madman, at least in their eyes.

He had seen the Wall from above, and even though he had ridden on Ancalagon, this was a view that not even Valyria could surpass. Luckily, there was no severe snowstorm that day, and it was clear enough to see all the way to the horizon. Myranda was equally breathless.

Even though Myranda was originally from the North, she had been kidnapped when she was still young. She had never seen the Wall and had only heard stories about it. Most of what she remembered was that the North was beautiful, although she often recanted that statement with much bitterness.

He also learned that nearly 15,000 men guarded the Wall, an immense number compared to the 600 when Jon Snow was Lord Commander in his previous life, and they were able to man all 19 castles along the Wall.

But the reason they thought he was completely mad was that he spent hours examining the walls. He understood why they thought so, but he had a reason.

He wasn't just feeling the walls; he was searching with his magic for some kind of entrance. He knew of none, but he couldn't see any obvious runes on the outside of the Wall, and there was no official way inside beyond the known entrances, like the dungeons of Ice, according to Benjrick.

This led him to suspect that there must be another secret entrance, one that had never been recorded. Why would it be? So that some madman could destroy the only defense against the living dead? No one with even a little sense left in them would do that.

It wasn't easy though. Not only was the Wall massive, but it also radiated magic, which made his task very difficult. But if he couldn't find it, he doubted anyone else could, unless they had lived for centuries and had a good grasp of magic.

According to his aunt, she had rarely seen such talent for magic, something she kept secret from everyone else, for good reason. It was bad enough for the other powerful Houses in the Freehold that his Dragon grew like no other. If they found out about his massive talent for magic on top of his Dragon, they might seek to dispose of him before he can defend himself properly.

His family and House were strong in the Freehold, but the other 39 families weren't weak either, and they couldn't allow one House to stand so far above them. If they found a common reason to ally for the "greater good" of peace in the Freehold, they would do so without blinking. There were Houses as strong as House Baelaeron and many that weren't far from them. They had dragons, after all, so fighting 39 families would be a suicide mission.

He had his unnamed benefactor to both thank and curse for his ability to master magic with such ease.

As his hands glided along the cold ice wall, he felt it. It wasn't a pull or a push, just a sense that if he continued to probe the structure with his magic, it would become uncomfortable. He grinned as he accepted the challenge.

He was about to forcefully break through the door with all his might when a small ice door suddenly opened.

"Huh?" he hummed, confused, then shrugged his shoulders. "Knowing when to back down is sometimes the greatest form of wisdom. But that confuses me even more, are you senient?" he asked.

No answer came back, no action was taken.

"So much for that," he muttered.

Above the door hung blue symbols, runes, obviously. They resembled nothing he had ever seen before. He looked at them, and only questions came back. Even though he couldn't understand the language of the First Men, he understood the language of magic better than most. Magic left traces, as if whispering to him the purpose and intent of its creation, as if the world itself was speaking to him.

And what he heard was almost incomprehensible to him.

"Incredible," he whispered.

The only times he had encountered something like this were when the runes he learned from his aunt were far more complex than those he had known before. This meant that these runes were stronger and much more intricate than anything he could have imagined.

"So, it is a challenge, huh? Whether you are sentient or not, forget about me just walking in without studying you in every detail," he laughed as he walked away from the door, hearing the hiss as it closed once again.

In the days following his discovery, he ventured to the door every day to study the runes and how they were made. It took over two weeks for him to understand them, and they were just the ones on the door, keeping him away from the inner parts.

King Harren couldn't stay that long and rode back, leaving Myranda and Kaelarys alone. Myranda was fortunate that, on the one hand, her lover was Kaelarys and, on the other hand, the Night's Watch was not a band of criminal rapists, but rather an order tasked with protecting the realm of men, or else she would have been torn to pieces already.

Of course, they were just men and hadn't had the pleasure of seeing a woman for years or even decades. He couldn't trust them at all, so he sent some reinforcements where Myranda could spend her time when he wasn't there.

The reinforcement was none other than a giant fire-breathing dragon that could destroy their lovely little boy band of 15,000 with very low difficulty.

The expression on Benjrick's face was priceless, and Kaelarys regretted not having a camera to capture the moment for eternity.

Ancalagon had grown accustomed to Myranda's presence. One of the main reasons was that she carried Kaelarys's scent, and Ancalagon would rather set all of Westeros ablaze than see anything with Kaelarys's scent harmed. She was, in a sense, his mate, and Ancalagon was very protective of him and, therefore, of Myranda as well.

After understanding the first runes, the process became faster and faster, and one week later, he reached the inner chamber. If he weren't of dragon blood, he would surely be freezing, for the temperatures were impossibly cold, beyond what was physically conceivable. It was certainly another 40 degrees colder inside, and outside it was already below freezing, reaching as low as -50 degrees in winter. But the reason for this quickly became clear to him.

Some of the runes inside helped reduce the temperatures to the lowest levels magically possible, so that even at temperatures where the ice should have long since melted, it still held firm. But that was just the beginning. Countless runes adorned the Wall from the inside, from the very bottom to the top, 700 feet high. Fortunately, most were duplicates and served the same purpose as the others; otherwise, he could have spent years studying them.

What quickly puzzled him, however, was that he sensed two types of magic. One reminded him of the forest, and another seemed to seek destruction, yet had an entirely different purpose here.

"Hmm," he hummed, pondering the details and what this could mean.

The one that reminded him of the forest was easy to guess—the Children of the Forest. But the other one? He had a suspicion, but it didn't make any sense. Why would the Night King help with the Wall? Had both sides reached a stalemate where the humans only wanted peace, and the Night King realized he couldn't win and preferred to rebuild his power and strength in peace, far from any humans and Children of the Forest? A barrier for both sides, so to speak.

No, he shook his head; he couldn't imagine that.

He sighed and leaned against the wall. "Whatever, let's just study the runes and be gone from here. The Night King doesn't particularly concern me."

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Piece out.

Once again, there are probably many errors, but meh....