Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Bloodraven was confused.
It was a new feeling or him.
It wasn’t just that some of his plans have taken minds of their own, to the point where he cannot predict what will happen next. But it wasn’t just that. Because that had definitely happened before.
No.
It was something else.
He didn’t understand where he made his first mistake, but it all went downhill from there. Maybe it was loving Shiera. Or listening to her poison-filled whispers.
But he was young back then.
Arrogant.
Stupid.
He naively thought that ‘love conquers all’. Wholeheartedly believed in that foolishness spouted by poets to compromise young, impressionable minds. That if he reached a high enough, if he became someone important enough, that maybe his beloved would finally marry him.
But he was wrong.
He can see it now.
If only he understood that sooner. If only…
But he only admitted the truth when it was already too late. Too late for change. Too late for him.
And now, as a crippled old man, the best he can do is scheme. Like the Spider. Only he is the Raven. And that comparison disgusts him.
Maybe he should have supported Daemon. It was an opportunity. An opportunity he foolishly missed in his arrogance. Or maybe he should have left. To Essos or even Sothoros. What are slavers and cannibals in comparison to a Dragon?
But a Dragon was the one thing that he wasn’t and would never be.
He may have the hair, he may have even had the looks a very long time ago, but regardless of what he was like on the surface, he would never be a true dragon on the inside. He had too much Blackwood in him for that.
A greenseer instead of a dreamer.
A warg instead of a dragon rider.
He could never measure up.
But he wouldn’t exchange his abilities for anything. And maybe that was why he had lost the Game. Because where an ordinary man is forced to rely on other men, he trusted only his crows. And they? Oh, crows are capable of a great many things, but political and physical power is not one of them.
And that was how he ended up in the Night Watch.
At first he was devastated. Because a life among criminals? Criminals that held no love for Targaryens, even bastard ones? A disaster in the making.
He didn’t know how he survived the first years. Of constantly fighting to stay alive with not just the wildings but with his so-called ‘brothers’. Of having to eat the fallen just to survive because there were no supplies left at all.
Even the ascent to the Commander position didn’t alleviate the gravity of his situation.
He could never understand those romantic little boys that entered this nightmare willingly.
But he couldn’t leave. When he gained the opportunity he lost the ability. It was so ironic. Because a vow sworn by a mage?
Unbreakable.
And binding.
And so he was as much a prisoner of the Wall and the lands that lay beyond as the rest of the ‘Black Brothers’ and the wildings. As long as the Wall remains standing, as long as the true purpose of the Watch remains, his hands are tied.
So when approached by the Children of the Forest, those that gave him hope that the nightmare he was forced into can be ended, he foolishly said yes.
And that was a mistake.
One that he would live to regret.