GOT: I Plunder Skills — Chapter 415 - Presenting the Glass Candle

Arya's steady breathing pulled Lynn back from the grand architecture of his "God-Making Plan."

He carefully lifted the exhausted little girl and carried her to the bed, tucking the blanket around her.

He looked at her face , even in sleep, a faint trace of excitement lingered there. Something in his chest went soft.

A weakness is also armor.

What he needed to do was make that armor harder than anything in the world.

But first, he had to clear out the jackals watching from the shadows.

He'd been gone more than half a month. The winds of Westeros had almost certainly shifted.

The next moment.

Green Sight.

In an instant, the entire world expanded within his perception , vast and infinite.

The wind whispered through snow. Branches rustled. A direwolf howled in the distance across the ice fields.

Countless fragmented sounds converged into a single torrent and poured into his mind.

His consciousness followed the tangled web of roots spreading beneath the earth, reaching across the entire North, stretching toward all of Westeros.

His target was clear.

The Iron Islands.

He saw Theon and Yara's sudden return.

And the three Faceless Men who had materialized out of the thick fog.

His consciousness drifted onward until it reached that barren cluster of islands, gnawed endlessly by the sea wind.

Chaos. Violence. Greed.

The negative emotions of the Ironborn hit his senses like solid noise.

Lynn followed the most frenzied thread, the most disordered source, and found him.

Euron Crow's Eye.

Inside a dark cabin, Euron Greyjoy sat alone, facing a mirror polished from obsidian. A low, erratic laugh leaked from his lips.

The mirror didn't reflect his face. It reflected a twisting mass of shadow.

Within that shadow, countless eyes seemed to be watching.

Lynn's consciousness didn't disturb him. It passed through like a breath of wind, silent and unseen.

And he saw everything.

Euron's real plan , the true purpose buried beneath the farce of the assassination attempt.

The Iron Fleet's main force wasn't anchored at Pyke.

Under cover of night, it was already moving , silently sweeping toward the western coastline of the North.

Not White Harbor, too heavily garrisoned. Not Deepwood Motte, too defensible.

Bear Island.

Remote. Isolated. Guarded by fewer than a hundred warriors.

The outline of Bear Island rose clearly in Lynn's mind.

He saw the Mormont keep, built from great timbers. He saw a girl of ten , Lyanna Mormont , already issuing commands like she'd been born to it.

And he saw her mother.

Maege Mormont had already left port, leading the family's finest warriors west to answer his call, raiding the Lannisters across the Westerlands.

With Maege gone, Bear Island would be left with nothing but those few soldiers. An undefended treasury. The Ironborn could plunder it at will.

Euron's calculations were clean.

Use Theon and Yara as bait. Draw all eyes to them. Then strike the exposed flank , offer Stannis, his new master, a bloody tribute substantial enough to buy his way into the war.

A cold thread of killing intent moved through Lynn's eyes.

He was King in the North. Theon's life or death meant nothing to him. But he would not allow anyone to bring fire and slaughter to his lands. His people were not collateral.

He was still drawing his consciousness back, already deciding what lesson he would teach that Iron Fleet, when the sound of hurried footsteps broke the silence outside.

"My lord! A group has arrived outside the city!"

The guard's voice had an uneasy, uncertain edge.

"They say they've come from Oldtown. They're... maesters of the Citadel."

Lynn opened his eyes slowly.

Just in time.

...

Winterfell. The main keep's great hall.

When Lynn walked in, every eye in the room found him at once.

In the center of the hall stood several dozen men in grey robes, metal chains of various links hanging from their necks. They were travel-worn , the fatigue of a long road written plainly across their faces.

But their eyes were something else entirely. Every one of them looked at Lynn the way a believer looks upon a miracle. Reverence. Fervor. Barely contained awe.

At their head stood Archmaester Ebrose and Maester Vaellyn.

The moment Ebrose saw Lynn enter, he didn't hesitate. He led the entire group down onto one knee in a single, unified motion.

"We pay homage to the King in the North!"

The aged voice rang through the hall.

Everyone present went still. Ned Stark included.

The Citadel?

That self-declared institution of neutrality, the one that answered to no king, acknowledged no throne, and served the whole continent on its own terms , was kneeling to Lynn?

It was stranger than dragons returning to the world.

"Rise."

Lynn's voice was quiet.

He walked to the high seat and settled into it, gaze moving across the faces below , animated, bright-eyed, almost overwhelmed.

"I already know why you've come."

"Knowledge is the most precious thing in this world."

Ebrose rose. He looked at Lynn with admiration he didn't bother to conceal.

"And you possess truths none of us could reach in a lifetime of study."

"The Citadel is willing to serve you. To carry your wisdom forward. To let your light illuminate all of Westeros."

"Good."

Lynn didn't waste words.

He led them through Winterfell to a workshop that had been prepared in advance. No parchment. No ink bottles. Only iron furnaces, bellows, and a collection of crude tools Lynn had ordered made.

"You believe in truth," he said. "And truth must be demonstrated."

He picked up a piece of charcoal and drew on a slab of smoothed stone , a structural diagram far more complex and precise than any blast furnace currently standing in the North.

"This is a blast furnace. With it, you can smelt weapons that rival Valyrian steel."

He raised a hand and projected through magic a swarm of tiny things , moving, crawling, alive.

"These are bacteria. The true cause of disease. The reason wounds fester."

"Boiling water, high-proof alcohol, clean bandages — these are ten thousand times more effective than your herbs and bloodletting."

"The reason soil grows crops is because it contains something I'll call a nutrient."

He continued, his voice level.

"Plant the same crop long enough and the nutrient runs out. So you rotate. Different crops, different seasons. Beans, for instance — they return nutrients to the soil."

"You can also use animal manure to replenish it."

Lynn didn't lecture. He didn't theorize.

He simply took truth after truth , each one capable of overturning their entire understanding of the world , and put it in front of them.

Crop rotation. Public sanitation. Basic geometry. The lever.

One after another.

The workshop went quiet except for the heavy breathing of the maesters and the scratch of charcoal on stone.

They were like men who had never seen fire. They recorded every word, every diagram, with the desperation of people afraid the light might vanish.

Ebrose and Vaellyn wept openly , old men undone by something too large to contain. The charcoal snapped in their hands more than once from the force of their grip.

This wasn't knowledge anymore.

This was revelation.

A gift from the gods to mortals.

"This is only the beginning."

Lynn set down his charcoal and looked at the maesters , men who had, collectively, left whatever they once were somewhere on the road from Oldtown.

"I don't need bookworms who hide in libraries and guard old parchment."

"I want you to establish a new academy at Dragon's Rest."

"Teach this knowledge freely — to every person who wants to learn. Noble or commoner. It makes no difference."

"I want knowledge to move through the entire North."

Ebrose knelt again.

This time, both knees.

"We will build a new Citadel here." He raised his head, his aged face hard with certainty. "A lighthouse of wisdom , yours alone."

"To prove our sincerity, we have brought the Citadel's most precious treasure. It belongs to you now."

Maester Vaellyn reached into his robes and produced a long wooden box wrapped in black velvet. He held it with both hands, the way you hold something that cannot be replaced.

He opened it.

A candle lay inside. Completely black. Twisted.

A glass candle.

Lynn looked at it.

He could feel it , the faint residue of his own psychic force still clinging to it, like a fingerprint left on something cold.

He reached out and closed his hand around it.

➤ Next: Peering into Dreams