After breaking my fast and feeding my companion, I headed to the courtyard to meet Robb and Jon. One thing I had noticed when I woke up that morning was that my mana had increased; my maximum mana was now 100. I could feel that I was close to a breakthrough; I thought I could become a Level Three Druid within a few months.
The life-and-death battles in the forest and the training space were beginning to pay off. Thanks to the fivefold effect, those two battles were equivalent to ten life-and-death battles.
I was passing the stables when I suddenly heard a loud crash behind me. The moment I heard it, I spun around and jumped away, chanting Quersumby (Oak Shield) and shielding my chest with both arms. My heart began pounding, and I prepared to cast an attack spell toward the sound. But just then, I realized that a horse kicking the stable door had made the noise.
When I realized this, my heartbeat began to slow, and everyone around me looked at me as though I were crazy. Thankfully, the bark armor on my arms was hidden beneath my shirt, but many people had heard me shout Quersumby (Oak Shield), so they all thought I was mad.
What I had experienced seemed to have affected me more deeply than I had imagined. The fact that I was so tense and ready to attack made me wonder whether this was what they called post-traumatic stress disorder.
My right hand was injured anyway; I thought I had better stay in Winterfell for a while. At the very least, I should rest until my hand had fully recovered.
When I reached the courtyard, I saw Robb and Jon waiting for me. When Robb saw me, he raised both hands and shouted.
"Aermir, you're finally here. Where have you been? We've been waiting so long we're practically turning into trees."
"Stop fooling around. I'm here."
As soon as I finished speaking, Robb's face darkened, and he spoke in a stern voice.
"I think you've forgotten who you're speaking to, you commoner; before you stands the future lord of Winterfell!"
For a few seconds, there was dead silence. We stared at each other without blinking, then suddenly both burst out laughing.
Robb spoke through his laughter. "I scared you just now, didn't I?"
"No, you didn't. I knew you were joking."
"No, you didn't. I saw that look of surprise on your face for a second."
"Whatever, let's get started. What have you come up with today? What prank are we pulling?"
Robb thought for a moment and said, "I haven't decided yet; what do you want to do?"
Jon said hesitantly, "We could explore the crypts."
I said, "That could be fun."
"I have a better idea; let's bring Sansa, Arya, and Bran too," Robb said with a mischievous smile.
"Why? What are you planning? Don't you usually hate having Sansa around when you're up to mischief?"
"Because this won't be that big a prank, and even if Sansa tells Mother on me, it'll be worth a try. What we're going to do is..."
A little later, we headed down the stairs into the crypts with all the Stark children except Jon, while Robb told the others scary stories about the crypts along the way. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, we saw a dark passage with no light except the faint glow of a few torches.
The Stark children really liked playing here, and I also enjoyed exploring the place. The crypts were vast, certainly larger than Winterfell. The passages connecting most of the areas had been buried beneath masses of earth, and the section we could enter now was like a drop in the ocean by comparison.
As we walked down the dim passage, something white suddenly drifted past its far end, and Sansa screamed when she saw it. Hearing Sansa, Bran also began screaming, but Arya was curious because she had not seen the white thing.
"What happened? What happened? Tell me what you saw."
After screaming for a few seconds, Sansa stopped and pointed ahead as she answered Arya.
"I think I saw a ghost. Something all white floated past the end of the passage."
Meanwhile, Robb cut in. "Don't be ridiculous. There are no ghosts. That's just a story." Then he pretended to think for a moment before continuing.
"But maybe it's the Others, like in Old Nan's stories, coming to carry us off and turn us into more of them."
Curious and frightened, we walked to the end of the passage. Meanwhile, Arya tried to pick up a sword from a tomb, but gave up because it was too heavy for her to lift.
We had just turned the corner when something white jumped out from behind a nearby tomb and blocked our path.
"Oh, damn it!!"
"Aaah!"
"Aaah!"
Sansa and Bran screamed and tried to run away, but after her initial fright, Arya realized it was Jon and stopped.
Robb and I were on the ground laughing, and when Sansa and Bran saw this, they stopped too. Then Sansa came over with her hands on her hips and began hitting Robb.
"You're such bastards! How could you do that? Mother will hear about this."
"Ow, ow! Sansa, stop hitting me. You have to admit, it was funny."
Sansa said angrily, "It wasn't funny at all!"
"Of course it wasn't funny for you, but it was hilarious for us."
After Sansa's anger subsided, we began wandering around the crypts and playing games. Normally, children would be afraid to come in here, but to me, the atmosphere felt very different from other graveyards.
We liked playing here. Yes, it was cold and dark inside, and a little damp. But the cold was not biting like it was outside. Even "cold" was not quite the right word to describe this place.
What word could describe the feeling, then? "Cool" might be suitable.
The cool air inside felt comfortable, as though it were embracing me. I felt almost as though it were calling me to stay here. Perhaps it was because of the magic inside; I could feel it too. It permeated the walls and floor; it was ancient magic. It was so old that it had almost entirely lost its form and effect. The core of this magic was either damaged or drained of mana.
A month had passed since our trip to the crypts, and it had been fairly peaceful, apart from the nights when I woke from nightmares drenched in cold sweat. But these nightmares of death and killing grew fewer every day, because I had to get used to it.
On this planet, you were either prey or a hunter.
Unfortunately, there was no middle ground, and my mana meditation helped me greatly. I discovered another healing effect of mana. I already knew it could heal physical wounds, but thanks to these nightmares, I realized that it also affected mental calm. I simply needed to concentrate the circulation of mana in my brain.
Thanks to the meninvita (nourish and strengthen the body) spell, the fractures in my right hand healed in less than two weeks, but I pretended to be injured for a month to avoid arousing Maester Luwin's suspicions.
That night, I woke from one of those nightmares and opened my bedroom window for some fresh air, then looked out over Winterfell in the darkness. Since we lived in the castle, there were not many buildings around us. Apart, of course, from the small wooden houses several stories high where the servants and their families lived.
Around us, I could see some larger stone buildings, such as the maester's tower, the library tower, and the bell tower, as well as the inner keep and its walls. Faint candlelight shone in some of the buildings. But most of the city lay in darkness. There were, of course, some lampposts with candles inside them, but their light was too dim, and there were too few of them. On this moonless, cloudy night, they did little good.
I was captivated by the view outside the window. Just then, I felt a pull from the north. It was as though someone had taken my hand and was gently pulling me in that direction. I dressed and began following the feeling. It grew stronger with every step I took in that direction. It came and went like a heartbeat, until at last I could clearly feel where it came from; it came from the weirwood.
The moment I entered the Godswood, I felt a powerful attraction. No, calling it an attraction was wrong; it was not an attraction. Now I could feel it more clearly.
It was a wave of mana. I thought this wave had always been there, but my antenna had not been strong enough to detect it, so I was only just beginning to sense it. It spread outward in waves from the Godswood in every direction.
As I approached the red tree, I could feel these waves more clearly. They were like a heartbeat, steady and strong. I could not help falling into a trance, and I touched the red tree. When my hand touched it, I lost myself. It was like a dream, and I became one with the tree.
I could sense every part of it. I could feel its deep red leaves swaying in the cool night breeze, its solid trunk, and all its roots. It felt as though the roots stretched into eternity.
What surprised me most were the tree's roots. They truly felt as though they extended into eternity, as though they stretched for hundreds of kilometers.
I went deeper and deeper into the tree and began tracing its roots, but at the same time, I could feel my mana draining rapidly. A few minutes later, I sensed the presence of another tree, so I followed that tree's roots.
When I reached this tree, everything gave way to a dazzling light. A few seconds later, darkness returned, but this time it was not the pitch-black darkness of the roots, but the darkness of night. I could make out some of my surroundings in it. I was now in the middle of a forest, but this was not the Godswood, because there were no little paved paths around me, and the trees were somewhat different. Yet the place looked familiar.
I began looking around, and when I looked in another direction, I saw something that surprised me. I knew exactly where I was. This was the red tree in the middle of the Wolfswood. In the darkness, I could see the hut I had made by bending trees.
Just then, I felt a wave of weakness, and my vision suddenly darkened. Then I found myself back in the Godswood. My mana was completely depleted, and I felt exhausted, but what I had learned was worth every point of mana I had spent.
All the red trees were connected through a vast network. This meant that if I had enough mana, I could connect to any red tree on the continent.
Through this connection, I realized several other things, the most important of which was that the red trees were all sealed. They were not currently releasing the mana they truly possessed. The mana flowing now consisted of tiny particles leaking through the seals. Their current forms were not the red trees' original forms either, and some of these trees had consciousnesses I could sense, but those consciousnesses were in a deep sleep.
The tree in the Godswood had no consciousness, but the one in the Wolfswood did. Yet the tree in the Godswood looked as though it were made of pure mana.
When I sensed these consciousnesses in the red trees, I also sensed something else. I felt as though someone were watching me, but I never knew where that feeling came from.