GOT: I Plunder Skills — Chapter 418 - Journey to Bear Island

Inside the tent, the Northern commanders were clustered around a crude map, arguing over the next target.

The Lannister supply lines coiled like a serpent across the Westerlands. Supplies were everything , pinch off that snake's throat and the old lion of Casterly Rock would have no choice but to crawl back into his den.

Maege Mormont, Lady of Bear Island, had a temper as fierce as her house's sigil.

She slammed her palm onto the map. The crack of it silenced every voice in the tent.

"A bunch of grown men, and you're all dithering around!"

"We take this place. Tomorrow."

At that moment, the oil lamp at the center of the tent flared without warning. The warm yellow light shifted , twisted , and turned an eerie, ghostly blue.

A biting chill swept through the tent in an instant.

Every hand dropped to a sword hilt.

"Who goes there?"

Robb Stark's voice cut sharp and hard. He was already thinking Lannister assassin.

Then a voice spoke , not from any direction, but from everywhere at once, as if it had risen directly inside each person's skull.

"Maege Mormont."

Lady Maege went rigid. She knew that voice.

Lynn.

"My lord?" she asked, the word barely making it past her lips. Her eyes were wide with shock.

"Euron Crow's Eye's Iron Fleet is sailing for Bear Island under cover of night."

Maege Mormont's heart seized.

Bear Island. Her home.

Her daughter Lyanna was the only one left there.

If anything happened ,

"No..."

The color drained from Lady Maege's face. She swayed, nearly going down.

The tent erupted.

"Impossible! How dare the Ironborn!"

"Is the information reliable? Lord Lynn, you're in Winterfell , how could you possibly —"

"Abandon the harassment of the Westerlands."

Lynn's voice cut through every objection, carrying a weight that left no room for argument.

"Robb, Maege — march north at full speed. Pass through Moat Cailin. Intercept Euron's fleet along the western coast of the North."

"But our advantage here —" one of the lords started.

"This is an order."

The blue flame died. The voice vanished. As if it had never been there at all.

Silence fell over the tent like a stone dropping into still water.

Everyone stared at each other, faces blank with shock. Orders delivered across a thousand miles, directly into their minds.

What kind of ability was that?

"By my command!"

Robb moved first. He threw back the tent flap and bellowed at the guards outside.

"Assemble the entire army! Strike camp! We march north. Now!"

He had no need to question it. He had no desire to doubt.

Maege Mormont was already gone. She'd charged out of the tent, vaulted onto her horse, and was riding hard before the dust had settled. Her eyes burned , anxiety and cold, absolute murderous intent, bound together.

If anything happened to her daughter, she would make every last Ironborn pay in blood.

The war in the Westerlands reversed in a single breath.

Because of one word from Lynn.

...

Winterfell. Lynn's chamber.

He withdrew his hand from the glass candle. The ghostly blue flame faded and went out.

He opened the door and told the guard outside: "Go and invite Lady Margaery, Lady Sansa, Cersei , all the ladies. Melisandre and Brienne as well. Bring them all to the main hall."

The guard looked puzzled but obeyed without a word.

Within the hour, the main hall of the keep held a gathering it had never seen before. Lynn's collected women, assembled together for the first time.

Margaery wore her usual composed smile, though curiosity moved behind her eyes.

Sansa stood close beside her, slightly stiff.

Cersei stood apart on the other side, watching Lynn with a look no outsider could have parsed , layered, guarded, unreadable.

Myrcella had a soft smile on her face.

Brienne stood like a tower of iron in the corner. Silent. Still.

And Melisandre , the Red Woman's gaze had fixed itself on the object at the center of the hall. The great dragon egg Lynn had brought. Her eyes didn't move from it. She could feel something radiating off that shell, a power so deep it made her soul flinch.

"I called you here to give you something," Lynn said.

He walked to the egg and ran his hand along the surface , cold, perfectly smooth.

"A gift that will help you protect yourselves."

He turned to face them. Each one different. Each carrying her own weight and her own particular fire.

"I'm going to grant you the power to command the dead."

Silence.

Margaery's smile stopped moving.

Sansa's eyes went blank with confusion.

Cersei's pupils contracted to points.

"No — that's impossible!"

Melisandre's voice cracked through the hall. Every trace of her usual composure was gone.

"That is an authority that belongs to the gods alone! A mortal cannot , how could any mortal grant magic to another!?"

Her faith had never taken a blow like this. She had built her entire world on one certainty: magic was a divine gift. You earned it through prayer and sacrifice. The Lord of Light gave, and mortals received.

And now Lynn stood there and said he would grant it.

"Gods?" Lynn let out a short, dismissive sound.

"If the gods you worship can only leave you on your knees, praying helplessly while danger closes in , then those gods aren't worth much."

He let that sit for a moment.

"I am your god now."

He offered nothing else. No explanation. No ceremony.

"Put your hands on the egg."

The women hesitated. Then they moved.

Margaery stepped forward first, smiling as if this were a game she intended to win, and pressed her soft hand against the shell.

Then Sansa. Then Ygritte.

One by one, until every hand was touching the dragon egg.

Lynn placed his own over theirs.

"Close your eyes."

He pushed a current of pure magical energy through the egg , using it as an amplifier, a channel , and let it flow slowly into each woman in turn.

The response was immediate.

A cold, commanding force crashed through their bodies all at once, flooding from their cores out to their fingertips.

Margaery felt herself suspended in an endless field of stars. Countless eyes, each one burning with cold blue fire, turned toward her and bowed.

In Sansa's mind flashed the merchants of King's Landing , every sly face, every humiliation , and she saw them on their knees, wights tearing them apart at her feet.

Cersei felt something shift. The thread connecting her to Lynn pulled taut. Closer than it had ever been. This power was the mark he had placed inside her. A brand. Hers alone.

Lynn snapped his fingers.

The heavy oak doors of the hall swung open. Two fully armed wight warriors marched in together, stride for stride. Their eye sockets blazed with hollow blue light as their empty gaze swept the room.

Sansa and Myrcella scrambled backward.

"Now," Lynn said. "Try commanding them."

"Imagine they're part of your body. An extension of your arm."

The women looked at each other. Skeptical. Uncertain.

Margaery tried first. She fixed her attention on the nearest wight and sent the thought inward, clear and precise: Raise your left hand.

The wight's body jerked. Stiff. Mechanical.

Then, slowly , in full view of everyone in the hall , it raised its left arm. Sword and all.

The room went dead quiet.

Then it broke.

Something lit up in Margaery's eyes that had never been there before. Raw, open, blazing.

This. This was better than any title. Any fortune. Any political game she had ever played.

The others began to try. Commands came in fragments, halting and uncertain. The wights moved clumsily, twitching and stopping. But they moved. They obeyed.

It was real.

Melisandre stood and watched, completely still, her worldview coming apart piece by piece.

"A god," she whispered. "Walking among men."

...

Lynn watched the women take their first steps with their new power , some delighted, some focused, some visibly shaken , and allowed himself a quiet smile.

Their control was limited. The deep authority over the wights stayed with him. A failsafe, deliberately built in. Even if Cersei decided to use her power against someone in a moment of spite, the wights would turn on her before they touched anyone else.

He walked to the entrance of the hall.

Ned Stark was waiting outside.

"I'm leaving Winterfell for a while," Lynn said.

Ned frowned. "Where?"

"Bear Island. Time to introduce myself to those Ironborn."

"I'm going with you." Ned said it like a fact.

"No." Lynn shook his head. "Winterfell needs you here. And I move faster alone."

He paused. "One more thing , if Theon comes back, watch him. Don't believe a word out of his mouth."

He didn't wait for a response. Ned's next question died in the air as Lynn turned and walked out of the keep.

He didn't go to the dragon pit.

Euron Crow's Eye had the Dragon Horn. Whether the thing actually worked, Lynn didn't know , but he never went into a fight unprepared. Winter was his most powerful card, and Winter's attributes were already dozens of times beyond his own. Even Lynn wasn't sure he could stop the dragon in a rage.

He would not risk it. He would not let Winter near anything that might pull it out of his control.

He went to the stables.

The Shire horse spotted him the moment he stepped through the door. She snorted and shoved her nose against his shoulder.

Storm.

The mare who had ridden with him since the tourney at King's Landing. She was sleek and bright-eyed now, well-fed and glossy. Ned had clearly taken good care of her, bad temper and all, even after she'd stopped being useful.

She'd had beans at every meal. Gotten quite fat. Seemed pleased about it.

Lynn mounted up. No guards. No pack. Nothing extra.

Just him and the horse.

He rode at an easy pace through Winterfell's gates and out into the grey expanse of ice and snow, until the walls were behind him and there was only open country ahead.

The King in the North did not take his dragon.

He rode out alone, like the most ordinary ranger in the world, and the North swallowed him whole.

➤ Next: Arrival at Bear Island