Games of Thrones: The Heavenly Demon of North

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POV: Arthur Snow

Location: Wolfsblood Ridge – Training Clearing

The frost cracked like brittle glass beneath Arthur's boots as he laid three stones in the heart of the clearing—one after another, solid and unyielding, their weight sinking slightly into the frozen earth. The first was broad and flat, its edges worn smooth by time. The second, rough-hewn and dense, sat heavy even in stillness. The third, smallest but deceptively solid, barely shifted when Arthur released it, as if it had always belonged there.

Around him, the others stood in silence, their breath curling into the cold morning air, drawn tight with anticipation. He let them watch. Let them wonder. These stones were not a test. They were a mirror—each one a measure of what they could bear, of what they might become. And this morning, each of them would come face to face with the weight they carried, and the weight they could wield.

"Today," Arthur said, his voice a steady blade in the stillness, "you feel what you've gathered."

He turned to Garron first, motioning to the largest of the stones. "Lift it."

The big warrior spat into his palms and crouched, muscles coiling in preparation. But Arthur halted him with a subtle raise of his hand.

"Breathe first."

Garron obeyed, dragging air deep into his belly, and something shifted. As he rose, the stone came with him—not with effort, but with surprising ease. His brow furrowed in disbelief, the raw power flowing through him unfamiliar, summoned not by force, but by breath.

A little distance away, Sarra gripped her training staff and struck a dead pine with a clean, decisive blow. The wood split in two with a sharp crack that startled even her. She blinked at her hands, wide-eyed. That had not been mere muscle—it had been something deeper, older, waiting within.

Thom stood with a length of chain wrapped between his hands. Usually his fingers twitched, restless as wind-tossed leaves. But now, as he found the rhythm of breath, the chain stilled. It groaned as tension built in the metal—not from force, but from perfect, effortless control.

Redna had mocked the simplicity of the path of stones Arthur laid out for her. Yet as her breath fell into rhythm, her steps grew softer, her balance more exact. The ceaseless energy that so often made her reckless now moved with precision. Each footfall landed true, as though guided by instinct honed to a blade's edge.

Vaeren, grumbling as ever, trudged around the clearing with a sack of sand strapped to his shoulders. But by the third circuit, the tension in his frame began to dissolve. His gait eased. The stubborn grimace slackened. His body, long used to resistance, began to flow.

At the far end of the clearing, Lyanna moved through her sword forms. The dull practice blade whistled through the air with growing clarity, her movements sharper, cleaner, as though the wind itself parted to guide her strokes. Arthur watched, quiet satisfaction curling beneath his calm. Her breath barely stirred the mist. She was close—so close—to something new.

And then there was Maelen.

The dreamseer stood apart, silent and still. Arthur approached him last.

"You won't lift a stone," Arthur said. "Your strength lies elsewhere."

Maelen's eyes flicked toward him, unreadable. Arthur gestured to the broad flat stone at the center of the clearing.

"Sit. Breathe. Listen. Feel the world's qi—the difference between my breath and theirs, between Garron's fire and Vaeren's ice."

Maelen said nothing, only nodded and moved to the stone. He sat cross-legged, eyes half-closed, his exhale barely disturbing the air. Around him, the world seemed to hush. Arthur could feel it—the way Maelen's senses unfurled, not outward like sight, but downward like roots reaching into the unseen.

The wind shifted, bringing with it the scent of pine and cold iron. Arthur turned to face them all.

"Refining Breath is your foundation," he said, his voice low but firm. "Qi Gathering comes next—when your breath fills your dantian without my hand to guide it."

His gaze swept across them: Garron's clenched fists, Sarra's widening eyes, Thom's focus, Redna's stillness, Vaeren's quiet surprise, Lyanna's steady poise, Maelen's deep stillness.

"Train. Fail. Listen."