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"Gods! What is that? Ice magic?"
"How could we ever defeat an enemy like that?"
"It is over. The Westerlands are finished."
Talisa returned her focus to saving the wounded at Ashemark's gate. Robb sent Bloodwind a thought, and the direwolf turned toward the inner castle.
The soldiers and smallfolk around them, who had fallen silent in shock at first, broke into noise like a crowded market. Voices rose and overlapped on every side.
Since obtaining supernatural power, Robb had never truly intended to hide it.
Westeros looked like a society of order and civilization, but beneath that skin lay a brutal world where the strong devoured the weak. He liked displaying his strength at the proper moment. It made his own soldiers worship and fear him, while making enemies doubt their courage.
Why had the five thousand surrendered soldiers who attacked Ashemark fought so fiercely for merit and entry into the North?
Robb's new laws mattered, but so did what they had seen with their own eyes: Robb walking unharmed out of a wildfire trap at Riverrun like one of the old gods walking out of the fire, then breaking Sarsfield alone.
Men who could not defeat such power often chose to join it.
Ashemark was not a large castle. Before long, Robb and the Wolfguard reached the inner keep.
Crey, who had not been at the gate, was accepting the surrender of the remaining defenders. Beside him stood Lord Damon Marbrand with his hands bound behind his back. He was the father of Ser Addam Marbrand, the Westerlands cavalry commander.
"Your Grace, forgive my failure to welcome you at the gate."
Crey hurried forward, knelt on one knee, and bowed his head.
"Rise," Robb said. "What failure? You commanded the assault very well. I am pleased."
He leapt down from Bloodwind, steadied himself, pulled Crey to his feet, and patted his shoulder in encouragement.
Crey's face brightened.
"Your Grace, Lord Damon persuaded the defenders in the inner keep to surrender. He also told me Ashemark has a considerable amount of rough bullion and a great deal of gold-bearing ore that has not yet been through basic refining. He is willing to exchange it for noble prisoner treatment for House Marbrand."
"Mm?"
Robb knew what gold looked like from his previous life, but he had never studied mining.
Lord Damon immediately explained.
"Your Grace, rough bullion means low-purity bars or lumps after the first refining. Gold-bearing ore is stone from the mines that still carries gold..."
Through Damon's detailed explanation, Robb finally understood the true state of the Westerlands mines.
Casterly Rock had once been the richest source of gold. Its reserves had sustained thousands of years of mining before gradually declining. Eventually the cost of digging out the remaining gold exceeded the value of what was found, and the Rock became more important as a capital than as a mine.
Later, the Golden Tooth, Castamere, Nunn's Deep, Pendric Hills, and other deposits were discovered. House Lannister used those mines to arm itself, grow stronger, and become one of the foremost great houses in Westeros.
But Westerosi mining methods remained crude. The easy ore in many Westerlands mines had dwindled, and what remained carried less gold.
The mines still produced gold. They had not become empty holes with no gold left to find. They had simply become harder and more expensive to work.
Ashemark and the Crag lay safely inside the Westerlands and served as overseers, protectors, refiners, and transfer points for nearby gold-producing sites. The Golden Tooth, by contrast, was both fortress and mine. When war began, its gold was usually moved out and mining stopped while the fortress prepared for defense.
Robb had taken the Golden Tooth too quickly for its role as a mine to matter. But his intelligence agents had cut off communication before the wider occupation began. Castles in the western hills had not had time to move their gold away.
That meant the wealth now belonged to him.
"Thank you for explaining," Robb said. "Lord Damon, wait a few days. After I take the Crag, I will arrange for all of you to go to King's Landing together."
According to Bloodwind's thoughts, Damon's heartbeat and body showed no abnormal reaction while he spoke. Robb considered the information fairly reliable.
"Thank you, Your Grace."
Damon let out a quiet breath. His family would live, and they would regain freedom. That was enough.
"Someone find Lord Damon and his family a comfortable place."
Crey, who had been listening quietly, immediately ordered soldiers to escort them away.
Once Damon was gone, Robb spoke again.
"Crey, gather everyone in Ashemark who understands mining. I want to see whether we can improve their methods. Then send cavalry to secure the nearby gold-producing sites as quickly as possible. These are our riches now."
"Yes. I will arrange it at once."
"Wait."
Crey turned back.
"I met a nurse named Talisa at the gate. She is treating the wounded there. Send someone to protect her discreetly, and gather as much information about her as possible."
"At once, Your Grace."
After hearing the second order, Crey wore the sort of smile every man understood. Then he left in a noticeably lighter mood.
Robb watched him go and felt his face warm.
It felt almost like being caught staring at a girl when he was a boy in his previous life.
There were things Robb did not know.
Since becoming King in the North, the life he considered disciplined looked to his nobles like the harsh restraint of an ascetic. Some had even wondered whether his tastes ran toward men. Among the great houses of Westeros, such tastes were not unheard of. In Dorne, they could even be displayed openly.
Among the nobility, relations between men and women were far more open than the North liked to admit. Young nobles like Crey visiting brothels together was as ordinary as young men gathering in taverns.
Many noble sons and daughters took lovers before marriage and enjoyed their youth, because political marriages between houses were common and often unhappy. After marriage, most became more restrained for the sake of family honor, at least outwardly.
Of course, conservative houses like the Starks, where Eddard Stark had strictly taught his children, were not rare either.
In short, after reading Robb's expression, Crey felt relieved.
At least they no longer needed to worry about the question of Robb's heirs.
Northern soldiers soon finished clearing the inner keep, and Robb took the lord's chamber for himself.
His original plan was to combine knowledge from his previous life with what he had learned today and think through ways to improve Westerlands mining or reduce costs.
Instead, he sat at the lord's desk and thought only of Talisa's face.
'Is this love at first sight?'
'When I knew her story in my previous life, I never thought she was this beautiful. Why does she seem more beautiful than any woman I have seen in this life?'
'Something is... wrong.'
The thought flashed through his mind, and his caution rose at once.
Robb turned toward the corner of the room. Bloodwind, shrunk by Control, lay there in a smaller form. The blood pact data appeared before Robb's eyes, but nothing looked unusual, and the number of blood pact points had not changed.
'So I have not been attacked by magic?'
"Wyl!"
"Your Grace, command me."
The Wolfguard commander pushed the door open at once and knelt.
"Bring Leaf here. Quickly."
"Yes."
Wyl rarely saw Robb look so grave. He understood the seriousness of the matter and left without hesitation.
After he was gone, Robb stood in the center of the chamber. His ice-bright eyes examined his own body carefully, but he found nothing wrong.
Before long, Wyl returned with Leaf. Thorn and Vine came as well, unwilling to let her move about alone after her recent exhaustion.
"Wait outside," Robb said. "I need to ask Leaf something."
Wyl set Leaf inside and closed the door.
"Leaf, I suspect I may have been affected by magic, but I cannot find anything abnormal."
Leaf circled him slowly, studying him from every angle. Then she pointed toward Bloodwind in the corner and shook her head.
"Your Grace, apart from Bloodwind's magic, I sense no other trace of magic on you."
"Could it be something other than magic? Some other mysterious power that can affect me?"
Asked so vaguely, most people would have no idea how to answer.
Leaf was different. Born in the age of dragons, she was the only child of the forest Robb knew who had spent two centuries moving through the human world, watching, listening, and learning.
She thought for a long while.
Then, as if remembering something, she searched through the little pouch at her waist and took out a handful of powder made from an unfamiliar substance. She scattered it toward Robb.
Bloodwind rose lazily from the corner.
Robb felt no danger and soothed him through the bond. Only then did the direwolf flop back down.
Leaf began to sing in the True Tongue. Her voice was unusually beautiful.
The powder on Robb's body glowed with living green light. Under that glow, strange symbols appeared around him, dancing like tiny living things.
"Your Grace," Leaf said with certainty, "this is the Love Song of the Moon Singers from Essos."
"Love Song?" Robb frowned. "You know I can dissolve magic. If it is influencing me, why can I not erase it?"
"Because, Your Grace, this is not magic in that sense. In a way, it is a blessing."
"A blessing?"
"Yes."
Leaf sighed inwardly when she saw that he meant to pursue the matter to the end.
"Most Moon Singers are women. As we children sing to the earth, they sing to the moon in the sky. Those truly recognized by the moon carry mysterious power in their songs of blessing. The Healing Song, the Birthing Song, the Love Song, and others."
"Mostly women..." Robb rubbed his chin and gave a soft laugh. "Then they are impressive. They managed to bless me from across the narrow sea."
"Impossible. They must be nearby."
"Wyl!"
Having obtained the information he wanted, Robb called toward the door.
The door opened at once.
"Your Grace."
"Bring all the Silent Sisters and nurses who were at Ashemark's gate to the inner keep. Be measured. Do not harm them.
"If anyone resists violently or anything abnormal happens, you may use lethal force."
Wyl nodded and left quickly.
Only then did Leaf realize what he had done.
"Your Grace, if you wanted to know, you could have asked me directly."
"From your tone, I could tell you think well of the Moon Singers. If I asked directly, you would not tell me everything."
"They are harmless women," Leaf said sincerely. "Healers, midwives, or diviners. The Love Song is a blessing. It poses no threat to you. Please do not hurt them."
Robb looked at her with a faint, unreadable smile.
"Whether it is a threat is not for you to decide. It is for me to decide.
"A blessing? They came all the way from Essos to Westeros merely to bless my love? I do not believe that."
He did not have to wait long.
Wyl returned to report that everyone had been brought to the inner keep's gate.
When Robb arrived with Wyl and the Wolfguard, seventy or eighty Silent Sisters and more than ten nurses were gathered outside, whispering uneasily among themselves.
The moment they saw him, they fell silent.
They understood that whatever the king meant to do, they had no power to resist.
'Bloodwind, watch their reactions carefully.'
Robb glanced at Talisa, who stood quietly among the group, then faced the women, nearly a hundred in all.
"Since you dared use the Love Song on me in secret, you will bear my anger. If you cannot give me a satisfactory answer, I will reduce the temple of the Moon Singers to ruins."
Most of the women looked confused by the sudden accusation.
One woman dressed as a silent sister did not.
Her heartbeat abruptly quickened. Her breathing changed. Bloodwind's gaze fixed on her at once.
Robb followed that gaze.
Their eyes met.
The woman knew she had been exposed. She reached into her robes while turning to flee toward the alleys of Ashemark.
A small ice spear, no longer than a forearm, shot from behind and pierced her left leg.
She fell hard.
Several Wolfguard closed around her and dragged her before Robb.
Robb looked down at her.
"There you are."
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