The night over the Broken Arm was silent in a way that felt unnatural.
No wind touched the jagged cliffs. No insects chirped among the dry grasses clinging to the ancient stone. Even the sea below seemed muted, as though the waves themselves feared disturbing the old ruins sleeping beneath the darkness.
Inside the cavern, the campfire had long since faded to embers. The sellswords on duty rested near the entrance, blankets wrapped around their shoulders, while two guards stood watch outside. Isolde and Lily slept in the first tent. Esteban occupied the middle tent beside Thaddues'.
Thaddues did not fall into a normal slumber. The moment his eyes closed, he knew he had stepped into something vast, ancient, and deeply rooted in the earth itself. This wasn't the familiar, sharp pull of the magic that answered his wand. This was power that felt less like a spell cast and more like a memory woken up.
He opened his eyes beneath a heavy, iron-grey sky.
Rain fell in a soft, relentless mist over an endless forest. The trees were colossal—pale, towering giants with weeping faces carved into their bone-white bark. Weirwoods. Thousands of them stretched out toward the horizon, their pale trunks stained by sap the color of dried blood.
The air smelled of wet earth, crushed leaves, and the metallic tang of impending war.
When Thaddues looked down, he expected his own hands, but he was trapped in an echo. His fingers were smaller, slimmer, and tipped with dark, obsidian nails. He was clutching a spear of dragonglass. He wasn't just watching history; he was feeling it through the skin of a Child of the Forest.
Suddenly, a wave of foreign emotions flooded his mind, carried by the dream itself: Terror. Hatred. Desperation.
The First Men were coming.
Through the thick mist, the forest came alive. Hundreds of small, sleek forms with golden eyes and leaf-patterned skin darted silently between the pale trees. Beside them walked the Green Men—gaunt, towering figures draped in roots and bone, their antlered crowns sweeping toward the sky.
But the true center of the power lay in the heart of the grove.
There, gathered by the hundreds, were the ones with the weeping red eyes of cats. The Greenseers. To see one was a myth; to see hundreds together was terrifying. They began to sing, their voices rising in a discordant, non-human melody that made the very dirt beneath Thaddeus's feet vibrate.
The dream surged forward, dragging Thaddues' consciousness along the currents of the magic. The trees abruptly ended, giving way to a massive, towering cliffside.
Below lay the Broken Arm.
But in this memory, it wasn't broken. A colossal land bridge of solid stone, mountain ridges, and deep green valleys stretched across the roaring sea, physically anchoring Essos to the untouched wilds of Westeros.
And across it poured an endless, suffocating tide of bronze and leather.
War horns echoed sharply over the stone.
These weren't just raiders or armies. Thaddues could feel the collective weight of their minds—it was an entire migration. Thousands of First Men, women, and children, driving heavy wagons and pulling beasts of burden, fleeing their old lives to claim a new continent.
With that image came the flashing memories of why the Children were desperate:
The ancient, sacred forests being hacked to splinters.
The screaming faces of weirwoods fed into massive bonfires.
The slaughter of the giants and the rapid, unchecked multiplication of these bronze-wielding invaders.
The First Men were pushing deep into the heart of the Arm, and the Children had run out of land to retreat to.
The dream shifted violently, blurring time and space. The rain turned into a blinding, howling deluge. Thaddues was no longer on the cliffs of the south; the echo dragged him hundreds of miles north to the dark, swampy towers of Moat Cailin.
The song of the Greenseers reached a deafening crescendo.
Atop the fortress towers, a great circle of the old sorcerers held hands around a massive weirwood. The tree itself seemed to be agonizing, thick red sap pouring from its carved eyes like tears.
Then, the ocean answered.
From his vantage point in the sky of the dream, Thaddues watched the cataclysm unfold. On the land bridge, the marching First Men didn't notice the danger until the ground began to shudder. The earth split open beneath their wagons, swallowing entire clans into the dark fissures.
From both sides of the horizon, the sea rose. It wasn't a wave—it was a towering, black wall of water, driven by the wrath of the old gods.
The roar of the ocean split the heavens as the Arm shattered. Stone collapsed like glass. Massive forests vanished into the foam, and tens of thousands of souls were swallowed whole by the roaring sea in a matter of seconds.
Thaddues gasped in the dark, feeling the phantom weight of the magic. It wasn't a triumph; it was a tragedy. Back at Moat Cailin, the song abruptly died. Dozens of Greenseers collapsed into the mud, blood bursting from their eyes, ears, and mouths as the sheer magnitude of the spell consumed their life force.
The land bridge was gone. In its place, only a scattered chain of broken, drowned islands remained amidst the endless waves.
The Hammer of the Waters had fallen, and its echoes finally released Thaddues back into the quiet dark of his own mind.
He finally understood. This was the truth behind the legends—no myth, no exaggeration, just history.
The vision trembled. A sharp pain lanced through his chest.
Something was wrong.
The dream was no longer passive. It clung to him, pulling him deeper into the echoes left behind. The Children's emotions flooded his mind—grief, rage, despair—pressing in until even his mind arts strained to hold them back.
His breathing turned uneven.
The magic in the vision wasn't just watching him anymore.
It was reaching for him.
Not to consume.
To take hold.
The Broken Arm still carried the remnants of that ancient ritual. By looking too closely, his mind had become caught in the memory it left behind.
He realized it too late.
Without hesitation, Thaddues turned inward. His mastery of mind arts snapped into place.
The vision fractured like glass under pressure. The singing cut off, the storm vanished, and the weight in his mind scattered as the connection snapped.
Thaddues awoke violently, dropping to one knee, breathing hard, cold sweat clinging to his skin. The arc lamp lit the inside of the tent.
For several seconds, he remained motionless.
Then he heard it—a scream outside, followed by steel scraping against stone.
Thaddues immediately rose.
Every instinct sharpened at once—danger.
He did not waste time dressing properly or regaining composure. In his maroon wizard robe he stepped out of the tent. Another shout echoed outside—this one abruptly cut short by a wet tearing sound.
By the time he emerged from the cave, chaos had already erupted.
One of the sellswords slammed against a rock wall, blood spraying from his shoulder as a massive dark shape lunged past him.
The creature moved with terrifying speed.
Moonlight revealed black fur, enormous claws, and pale eyes glowing like cold silver in the darkness.
A shadowcat.
Thaddues immediately recognized it.
But confusion flashed through him just as quickly. Shadowcats belonged in the mountains far to the north, not here amid the ruins of the Broken Arm. It carried a familiar trace of magic, similar to what he felt in the dream.
Another mercenary screamed as the beast pounced toward him.
Thaddues raised his hand instinctively.
The air exploded outward.
An invisible force struck the shadowcat mid-leap and hurled it violently across the campsite. The creature crashed into a boulder hard enough to crack stone before landing with a furious snarl.
By then Esteban had already emerged from his tent, sword drawn.
"My lord!"
The others scrambled awake in panic. Torches flared to life one after another, casting wild shadows across the cliffs.
Then Lily stumbled from the servants' tent, fear evident in her eyes.
Thaddues snapped his fingers.
A translucent barrier instantly enveloped the tent entrance.
Lily gasped as she tried stepping through it only to recoil when invisible force pushed her backward.
"Do not step out," Thaddues commanded sharply. Isolde immediately held her daughter and nodded to her.
The shadowcat slowly rose again.
Then another emerged from the darkness.
Then another.
The sellswords stared in growing horror as shapes appeared among the rocks surrounding the campsite.
One became two.
Two became four.
Four became eight.
Silver eyes reflected beneath the moonlight from every direction.
"A herd of shadowcats," one sellsword whispered weakly.
"Seven save us…"
Fear spread immediately through the camp.
Even hardened sellswords knew how deadly shadowcats were. A single beast could tear armored men apart with ease.
And now there were eight.
Esteban stepped beside Thaddues, gripping his sword tightly.
"My lord, they are dangerous. You need to retreat inside the cave."
He ignored him.
"How many casualties?"
A sellsword swallowed hard before answering.
"The two guards outside… they're dead."
He looked toward the bodies.
One corpse lay nearly torn apart beside the rocks while another had been dragged several feet across the ground, leaving a thick trail of blood behind.
Something tightened painfully in his chest.
Negligence.
He should have been more cautious. He had accepted Esteban's assessment of the Broken Arm without confirming it himself, without truly reading the terrain or its dangers. That failure was his alone. Men lay dead defending him.
The pack surged forward again.
Rage flickered behind Thaddues' eyes.
He vanished.
Gasps erupted among the sellswords as he appeared instantly in front of one of the wounded men moments before a shadowcat reached him.
"Insolence."
His voice was cold.
A violent burst of magic exploded outward from his wandless gesture.
The charging beast was blasted through the air like a ragdoll before crashing into another shadowcat.
The remaining creatures immediately shifted their attention toward him.
Predatory instincts recognized the true threat.
They attacked together.
Time itself seemed to crawl.
He shoved the wounded sellsword backward toward the cave before sweeping his hand outward.
A massive protection charm formed across the cave entrance, shimmering faintly beneath moonlight.
A shadowcat slammed into it and rebounded with a furious screech.
At the same moment, Thaddues drew his wand in one smooth motion.
An explosion charm roared from the tip of his wand and detonated among the charging beasts. Stone shattered violently as four shadowcats were thrown aside.
One landed motionless.
Another staggered up with half its body burned black.
But the others continued forward despite their injuries.
Fast.
Too fast.
One leapt from the rocks above while another circled from the side.
He stepped backward calmly.
The world slowed beneath his heightened perception. Not chaos—clarity. He did not hear everything. He heard what mattered.
A shadowcat descended from above.
Thaddues tilted slightly.
Claws passed inches from his face before his right hand drove a wandless transfiguration directly into the creature's side. The shadowcat was transfigured into ice and shattered as it crashed into the ground.
Another charged low toward his legs.
A severing charm sliced through the air.
Blood sprayed across the stones.
The beast collapsed mid-lunge.
Yet still they came.
Driven not by fear but fury.
He glanced briefly toward the corpses of the fallen sellswords. Their broken bodies lay illuminated beneath torchlight.
Something cold settled inside him then.
The surviving shadowcats circled carefully now, growling low as green eyes reflected beneath the moon.
Killing intent filled Thaddues gaze.
Green sparks began crackling at the tip of his wand.
Esteban felt it immediately, the sellswords did too.
The air grew heavy around Thaddues as immense magic gathered within him. Hatred, anger, intent—none of it reckless, only focused will.
His wand slowly rose toward the remaining beasts.
The shadowcats froze instinctively, as though even they could sense death approaching but it was too late.
"Avada Kedavra."
Green lightning erupted from his wand—not a single beam, but a storm.
The killing curse erupted with terrifying brilliance, splitting through the darkness like divine judgment itself. Emerald light struck the first shadowcat directly before branching instantly toward the others.
His mastery of the spell allowed it to expand beyond a single point of death, the curse carried and amplified by his intent.
One after another.
No explosion.
No scream.
Only death.
The creatures collapsed where they stood, bodies stiffening the moment the curse touched them. Eight shadowcats lay dead beneath the moonlight.
The sellswords stared in stunned disbelief.
Some looked at the shadowcats.
Others looked at Thaddues.
Fear lingered in their expressions now—not directed toward the shadowcats anymore, but toward the young man standing calmly among the corpses with glowing green sparks still fading from the tip of his wand.
Thaddues lowered his hand slowly.
His breathing remained steady.
But inwardly, his thoughts lingered on something else. Shadowcats did not hunt in groups—they were solitary by nature. Their presence here was wrong, nearly impossible.
And when his eyes had met theirs earlier, he had felt it—a faint, familiar magic he had seen in the dream.
He could confirm it now.
This was no coincidence.
TBC
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