Chapter 464 The Three-Eyed Raven

   "Are we there yet?"

   Bran Stark asked.

  Since leaving the Great Wall, he can't remember how many times he asked the same question.

  But every time I can't get a satisfactory answer.

   "Soon," said Jojen Reed, "I promise, the Three-Eyed Raven is ahead."

   You have promised this countless times. Bran complained secretly.

  He dangled in the wicker basket behind Hodor, the snow had been falling non-stop, his hair had been frozen into a tangled mass of frost, and even fine icicles were hanging from his temples.

  The north wind howled, and occasionally a crow passed over the head. Other than that, the eyes were filled with a vast expanse of white silence.

   "Have we gone deep into the land of eternal winter?"

"right."

   "Will you encounter a different ghost?"

  Jojen was silent for a moment, then nodded:

"maybe."

  Bran stopped talking, looking unsurprised by the answer.

  In the far north, it gets dark early. And as the days get shorter, the weather gets colder.

  The lips of the group were frozen blue, and their faces turned purple.

   "Hodor, stop!" Bran said suddenly, "There seems to be something wrong."

  The direwolf Xia Tian also smelled something, and anxiously scratched the snow on the ground with its front paws.

  Jojen was stunned for a moment, but Meera had already exclaimed:

   "Look, there is a real person! Underfoot!"

  When Bran heard Meera's exclamation, Hodor had already fallen to the ground suddenly, and he had gone through a whirlwind. When he came back to his senses, his mouth was already full of blood.

  He saw a black hand, and then something half-human rushed out of the snow.

   "Ghoul!"

  Ghouls poured out from under the snow one after another, there were more than a dozen of them, they suddenly stood up, setting off bursts of snow and mist.

   Some were wearing black robes, some were naked, and some were not wearing anything at all, revealing their black and purple flesh and blood from the cold.

   "Run!"

   Hodor held Bran in his arms, trying to escape, but found that his calf was tightly held by the ghoul.

  The direwolf pounced on the wight suddenly, its fangs tearing half its throat out of the rotting flesh.

   Hodor took the opportunity to break free, and fled towards the distance with clumsy steps.

  Jojen and Meera lead the way, but the ghouls in the snow surround them.

   "Get out!"

  Sister Reed swung her spear, but couldn't stop the ghouls from approaching.

   "Fire!" Bran exclaimed suddenly.

  A ghoul in front of him was suddenly engulfed in flames, and a little girl was holding a torch, walking and running among the ghouls at an astonishing speed, her thin figure almost became an afterimage.

   In the blink of an eye, all the ghouls surrounding them had been set on fire.

  The fire gave them rest and reduced them to ashes.

   "Thank you, you saved us!" Bran looked at the little girl, always thinking that she was very similar to his sister Arya.

   "The fire burned them to death, the fire of hunger." The girl replied, but it was the voice of an adult, sweet and high-pitched, with an unfamiliar rhythm and a vicissitudes of sadness.

  Bran narrowed his eyes to study her carefully.

  Her appearance is indeed a little girl, wearing a cloak of leaves, her eyes are large and clear, narrow and long like a cat's eyes.

  Humans do not have such eyes.

   And she has a mess of hair with vines, twigs and dead flowers in it.

   "Who are you?" Meera asked.

   "She is a child, a child of the forest," Bran replied. The body trembled with excitement.

  The magical creature from Old Nan's story appeared in front of my eyes.

   "The First Men called us Children," said the Children of the Forest. "The Giants called us 'Squirrel People,' because we are small and quick and love the woods. But we are not squirrels, and we are not children. Our name means 'Men of the Earth' in the old saying. And I am over two hundred years old."

   "Over two hundred years old?" Meera's eyes widened.

   "Yes." The Son of the Forest smiled, "Compared to me, you humans are just children. Let's go, he is waiting for you."

   "The Three-Eyed Raven?"

   "It's the Green Prophet." The Son of the Forest turned and left after speaking.

  Bran and others hurriedly followed.

   A group of people walked in the snow for an hour and entered a narrow and curved cave.

  The Son of the Forest walked in the forefront holding a torch, and the cloak of leaves rustled behind him.

  The cave made seven bends and eight turns, and Bran quickly lost his way.

   "We are heading underground." Meera whispered.

   "There may be a weirwood forest overhead." Bran pointed to the thick and tangled roots in front of him.

   "Quack—" Several crows stayed on the tree roots, waiting for their bright black eyes to look at the group of uninvited guests.

   After an unknown amount of time, there was the sound of gurgling water ahead, and they came to an underground river.

  The Son of the Forest stopped: "We have arrived."

   "Are you here?" Bran froze for a moment, "The Three-Eyed Raven..."

  Before he finished speaking, he saw the Son of the Forest holding up the torch, and the light kept jumping and changing, filling the whole cave with a red halo.

   But the next moment, all the colors faded, leaving only black and white.

   Bran gasped.

  Because he saw a pale-skinned man appearing in front of him, a cage woven of weirwood wrapped around his withered limbs, like a mother hugging a child.

  His body was so emaciated that Bran thought he was a corpse at first glance.

   "Are you the Three-Eyed Raven?" Bran asked cautiously, noticing that the man had only one eye, not three.

  A blood-red eye.

  Where the other eye should be, a thin white tree root climbed out of the cheek from the empty eye socket and penetrated deeply into the neck.

   "Crow?" The man's voice was dry, as if he hadn't spoken for hundreds of years, "Yes, I used to be. I have experienced a lot, Bran Stark, and this is what I am now. I have always wanted to find you, but unfortunately, I can't move..."

   "I am also disabled." Bran said empathetically, "And I came here because you told me in a dream that you could heal my leg..."

   "I never said that." The Three-Eyed Crow said.

  Bran felt a cheated anger.

  But the Three-Eyed Crow said again: "You will never be able to walk. But you can fly."

   "How to fly?" Bran rekindled hope.

   "Fly in a dream, green dream." After the Three-Eyed Raven finished speaking, the Son of the Forest walked up to Bran with a bowl in his hand.

  The bowl contained a viscous and pungent white liquid, mixed with wisps of red silk.

   "You have to eat this."

   "What's this?" Bran looked at the bowl suspiciously.

   "Weirwood seed paste."

   This thing makes Bran feel sick, but considering how hard he went to find the Three-Eyed Raven, he certainly can't give up like this.

  So, he picked up the bowl and forced himself to eat it.

   The first bite was the hardest to swallow, and he almost spat it out.

   But the second mouthful was much better, the third mouthful was even a little sweet, and then I almost devoured all the seed paste.

   "Please close your eyes." The Three-Eyed Crow said, "Just like you entered the body of the direwolf, try to enter the root of the weirwood, and follow its guidance to integrate into the earth."

  Bran closed his eyes, his consciousness leaving his body.

  Suddenly, he saw the dark cave, the rushing river below, countless walking corpses, and the black water bay under the storm.

  I saw the one-eyed man on the **** phalanx, and the white dragon standing on the cliff.

   "What did you see?" The Three-Eyed Crow's voice was extremely ethereal.

   "Caesar." Bran immediately recognized the man behind the dragon.

  They had met once before, thousands of miles apart.

"what else?"

   "There are also sea monsters," Brand said, "burning sea monsters."

  (end of this chapter)