"So… can I finally pour this stuff out now? It's disgusting," Lynn said flatly.
The laughter still hadn't died down.
"I'd do it quick," Tormund wheezed between chuckles. "She'll be back with another bowl any minute!"
Lynn stared at the half‑full bowl of ominous greenish sludge, then glanced at the tent flap. After one grim beat of silence, he yanked open a bit of the wall and dumped the contents straight into the snow.
The moment after, he sprinted outside, bent double, and punched himself in the gut.
He barely made it two steps before retching violently into the cold air.
"Smart lad!" Tormund bellowed from behind the curtain. "Better than the fools who tried to keep it down!"
By the time Lynn stumbled back in, pale and trembling, Ygritte was returning—with another bowl. And a whole pot.
"Ah, you finished it!" she said brightly. "Good! There's plenty more. If it's not enough, I'll make more tomorrow."
Lynn froze. His smile turned to stone.
"Thank you," he croaked, "but… Lord Mance just told me my wounds need rest. Can't take anything too strong right now."
Mance Rayder nodded solemnly, playing the role to perfection. "That's true. Healing has to be gradual. The first bowl already worked wonders—look at him, nearly running laps."
Ygritte looked disappointed but nodded. "Then I'll make another when you're better."
She gathered the empty bowl and left humming a tune.
The instant her shadow vanished, the tent erupted again.
"If he lives through that," Harma said through tears, "he can live through the Long Night itself."
Lynn groaned, pulled his furs tighter, and wiped his mouth. "All right," he rasped. "Enough laughing. Let's talk business."
Mance's grin faded. He rolled out a rough map on the table—a patchwork of stitched hides and scratched charcoal marks.
"We need a route to bring our people close to the Wall without being noticed," he said. "We'll build camps along here and here, far enough from the Watch's towers not to spook them. Then we move when the weather turns."
Outside the tent, the wind howled over the empty snow. Inside, two worlds whispered plans that might change the fate of the North forever.
They talked well into the night.
When, at last, Mance's shadow disappeared beyond the firelight and the camp settled into silence, Lynn lay back on the furs. Sleep dragged at him like deep water.
The world faded—until he heard his name.
…Lynn Auger.
The voice brushed against his mind, whisper‑soft, like leaves turning in the wind.
…Outsider. Lynn Auger.
He tried to sit up, but exhaustion held him fast.
…The man whose fate cannot be read. Open your eyes.
He did—and found himself standing inside darkness itself.
"Not again…" he muttered.
A pale green light began to swirl around him, coalescing into feathers, wings, and an ancient shape: a raven, its third eye gleaming like emerald fire.
The Three‑Eyed Raven.
"So what is this—a dream?" Lynn asked quietly.
"Not only a dream," the creature said, voice echoing across the void. "I see threads of past and future in every living soul… except yours. You are a stone cast into the river of time, seen only by the ripples you leave behind."
Lynn's jaw tightened. "Then why drag me here?"
"I needed to see you," the raven said, its form flickering with faint light. "I have watched kings rise and rot, heroes birthed and buried. But when I seek your thread, there is nothing—only fog, and echoes from a world not our own. Now, I will look upon your future."
The green light enveloped him, searing bright.
And suddenly he saw it:
A city burning—King's Landing consumed not by red fire but by endless black flame.
The Iron Throne melting. The Red Keep collapsing into ruin. Shadows screaming through the streets. Across both Westeros and Essos, the same darkness spread—devouring, unending.
When the vision faded, the old voice spoke again, strained and weary.
"Destruction," it said. "That is what I have seen. You, Lynn Auger—you are the fire that will consume Westeros. Your coming brings an ending."
Lynn stood frozen, the image still burning in his mind. Was this the chaos Odin had spoken of—the "End's Rebellion"? The breaking of fate by his own blood?
"But why?" the raven continued slowly. "You act not as destroyer, but as guardian. You change fates without hunger for thrones. You saved the boy Stark when destiny demanded his fall. Your current binds should have dragged you elsewhere, yet here you stand—defying what is written."
"Maybe that's all destiny is," Lynn said tonelessly. "Something written until someone picks up the pen."
The creature regarded him in silence. Then it sighed—a sound older than stone.
"Confidence—or arrogance. Perhaps both. Yet perhaps it is that very anomaly that gives you power. You are a thread misplaced upon the loom—one that could unravel the pattern entirely."
Its eyes flared again. "You changed the boy Bran's fall."
"Yes."
"But you have not changed his destiny."
The words struck cold.
"Bran will seek me," the raven said. "He must. It is inscribed in his blood, by will of the Old Gods. You delayed a stone's fall, but not the avalanche behind it. The tower was never the cause—only the path. I will prepare another road for him. He will come—because the future…"
Its voice lowered, almost reverent. "…needs his eyes."
Lynn frowned. He'd hoped saving Bran from the tower meant saving him from that eerie, lonely fate—but fate had other ways of closing circles.
"So you came to test me?" he asked. "Just to measure what side I stand on?"
"Not entirely," said the raven. Its light brightened, washing over him again. "I came also to give you something."
The glow intensified, heating the air. The green radiance folded around him like wings.
"Take it, child of two worlds," whispered the raven. "May it guide you when the night becomes too deep for even dragons to see."
The light consumed everything—fire, shadow, the forest beyond the Wall…
And then there was only silence.