Lynd had long known from Willas that the White Walkers possessed cities. Under the influence of the Three-Eyed Crow, Willas had once projected himself onto a raven and flown deep into the Land of Always Winter, where he had seen a White Walker city—and their queen.
Lynd himself had never witnessed such a place before. But now, he had.
In the distance, rising from the icy plains, stood a massive castle of ice and snow. Its footprint wasn't much smaller than King's Landing, but in scale, it far surpassed it.
To say Lynd was shocked would be an understatement. The awe he felt at the sight of the castle was beyond words.
King's Landing, after all, was a city—filled with flat-roofed houses and buildings—with only the Red Keep qualifying as a true castle. What Lynd saw now was entirely different: towering walls a hundred meters high, enclosing countless soaring structures within. To someone with poor eyesight, it might have looked like a mountain range, not a man-made fortress.
From every angle, the structure was an architectural marvel. Building something like this—no, even designing it—would be a challenge even for the most advanced human civilizations.
Yet, in stark contrast to the grand beauty of the ice castle, the snow-covered plains around it teemed with grotesque wights, stretching endlessly to the north.
When Lynd had first estimated the wight numbers, he'd already assumed a worst-case scenario, which was why he'd concluded that the Night's Watch—then only around a thousand strong—could never withstand a full-scale wight assault, even with the Wall's protection.
But now, seeing the sheer number of wights around this colossal fortress, he realized even his worst estimates had fallen short. Just within his field of vision, there were likely over a million wights. And they kept going, stretching into the northern horizon, their numbers only growing.
For thousands of years, the White Walkers had been preparing for their southern invasion. Even if they'd created just a thousand wights a year, they would still have amassed millions by now. And as for where the bodies had come from? From the wildling tribes Beyond the Wall, of course.
The Night's Watch had long maintained surveillance records on the wildlings. Those records made it easy to deduce that, at their peak, the wildling tribes numbered in the tens of thousands, with each tribe boasting at least a few hundred people. Ruined huts and ancient camps in the forests near the Wall still bore silent witness to the wildlings' former strength.
According to records from the time, Night's Watch rangers didn't even dare venture beyond the Wall for patrols. They remained holed up in their castles, relying on the Wall's natural defenses to keep the wildlings at bay.
Over thousands of years, every man, woman, and corpse from those tribes had been taken in by the White Walkers. The dead were turned into wights. The living—into White Walkers. Add it all together, and the White Walkers' army of undead and transformed humans reached astronomical proportions.
And humans weren't the only source of material for wights. Among the forces Lynd now saw were countless undead giants, woolly mammoths, giant bears, and even smaller beasts like direwolves. All of them turned into wights—and far more dangerous than human ones. In close combat, these creatures-turned-wights posed a far greater threat. When battle lines clashed, they would be the true killers.
"Good thing there aren't any wight dragons," Lynd muttered with a hint of relief as he stared at the overwhelming scene.
Unlike the television series, in the real world of ice and fire, it was impossible for a dragon to be turned into a wight. Even in death, a dragon's blood, muscle, hide, organs, and bones contained ancient, mysterious power—power that inherently repelled both White Walkers and wights. Against such resistance, the White Walkers' magic had no effect.
Lynd considered his next move—whether he should sneak into the castle to investigate its interior, or keep heading north to get a better grasp of the army's full scale. But just then, the distant crunch of hooves on snow snapped him out of his thoughts.
He immediately raised his Dragonbone bow, nocked a rune arrow, and aimed toward the sound.
From behind a snow-covered hill, a human White Walker rode into view on horseback. Just as Lynd was about to loose the arrow, the rider suddenly called out:
"Lord Lynd, please—don't shoot."
The voice stunned him.
The fact that this White Walker not only recognized him, but could speak the Common Tongue, caught Lynd completely off guard. He narrowed his eyes, studying the rider's face carefully. Though the figure had changed, the features were still familiar—and Lynd quickly realized who he was.
"Benjen Stark? How is it you?" Lynd asked, visibly surprised.
The human White Walker before him was none other than Benjen Stark, the long-missing former First Ranger of the Night's Watch. As the shock settled, Lynd vaguely recalled from books in his past life that Benjen had become a White Walker who retained his human consciousness.
"It's been a while, Lord Lynd," Benjen said as he approached and gave a respectful bow.
Staring at Benjen—who, apart from the icy pallor of a White Walker, looked almost entirely human—Lynd couldn't help but ask, "How did you end up like this?"
"This isn't the place to talk," Benjen said, glancing warily toward the ice castle in the distance. "Let's move somewhere safer."
Lynd nodded, slinging his Dragonbone bow over his back and gesturing for Benjen to lead the way. He wasn't afraid this might be a trap—if anything, he welcomed the possibility. It could be the chance to capture a White Walker with true intelligence, someone who could actually be reasoned with.
They left the outer edge of the ice castle, circled around a ridge of snow, and headed east toward the tail end of the Frostfangs.
"How did you find me?" Lynd asked as they traveled, using a controlled gust of wind to propel himself on his skis and keep pace with Benjen's undead horse.
"He told me," Benjen replied, pointing to the sky.
At first, Lynd thought he meant a god—but then he noticed several ravens flying overhead.
"The Three-Eyed Crow?" Lynd asked.
Benjen nodded, then shook his head, offering no clear answer and instead quickening his pace.
Lynd pressed on, "Are we going to the weirwood cave where the Three-Eyed Crow is?"
Benjen hesitated, then turned to ask, "You've been to the weirwood cave, Lord Lynd?"
Lynd shook his head. "No, but I know of it."
"We're not going there," Benjen replied. "The White Walkers are watching it too closely. If we approach, they'll know. And it's too far—we'd have to cross the Frostfangs to reach it. We're heading for an ancient ruin instead. The White Walkers and wights avoid it. It's safe."
Lynd studied Benjen. "And what about you? Aren't you a White Walker now? Can you go near it?"
Benjen, though he no longer needed to breathe, let out a habitual sigh. "I don't know what I am anymore. Maybe I am a White Walker—because the ruins make me feel... wrong. But I still remember who I am. I still know what I'm supposed to do. That makes me very different from the others. Any human turned into a White Walker always loses their past. Without exception. Their minds are filled only with whatever madness the White Walkers stuff into them."
As he spoke, Benjen's expression twisted, as if fighting off something unseen. It was a long while before he calmed.
Still unsettled, he looked back at Lynd and said, "Whatever questions you have, it's best we wait until we reach the ruins. There's a power there—something that suppresses the White Walker magic in me. It'll stop... bad things from surfacing while we talk."
Lynd nodded in agreement, and they fell silent. After another hour or so of travel, a structure appeared on the horizon. A black fortress stood at the edge of the mountain range, stark and prominent against the endless white of the snowy plain.
"That's the ruin we're headed for," Benjen said with a breath of relief as the dark structure came into view.
"Blackstone?" The moment Lynd laid eyes on the ruined fortress, he immediately understood why the White Walkers avoided this place. The Blackstone clearly still held traces of its original power—similar to the dead city of Stygai. It was that lingering power that disrupted the magic of the White Walkers.
The energy within the Blackstone not only affected White Walkers and wights, but also altered the climate. Inside the ruins, there was no snow or ice, and the temperature was significantly warmer than outside.
However, it wasn't a place fit for Smallfolk to linger. The power here seeped into the body, affecting the mind, slowly driving people into madness. Scattered around the perimeter of the ruins were more than a dozen frozen corpses. Judging by their bronze armor, they were Thenns. Clearly, the temperature in the past had been warmer—warm enough for Thenns to operate here—something impossible under the current conditions.
While the Blackstone's power disturbed the mind, it had little effect on Lynd. On Benjen, however, it seemed to have a profound impact. He retained his memories, had not succumbed to the White Walker's hatred of the living, and perhaps it was this aura within the ruins that helped him resist the corruption.
After entering the ruins, Benjen tied his undead horse to a stone pillar and casually sat down on a nearby slab of stone.
"Now will you tell me how you became like this?" Lynd asked, taking a seat across from him.
Benjen nodded and began recounting his story.
He had been on a routine patrol when he was ambushed by a wildling tribe. Severely wounded, he lost consciousness. His horse carried him north, and by the time he awoke, he had already been transformed into a White Walker. Yet, somehow, he retained his memories. He hadn't become one of those beings filled with hatred for all life. The one who had transformed him was an elf White Walker named Daemoria.
"Daemoria?" Lynd frowned in confusion. Something about the story didn't add up.
From the Night's Watch records, Lynd knew that while wights could be created directly with White Walker magic, creating a new White Walker wasn't so simple. It required a sacrificial process, not just magic—and infants had the highest success rate. Turning an adult was extraordinarily difficult.
"Was there an altar nearby when you woke up?" Lynd asked.
Benjen looked puzzled by the question but answered truthfully. "No. I woke up in an ordinary forest."
"And then what happened?" Lynd pressed.
Benjen continued, "Daemoria taught me how to control the power inside me..."
Lynd cut in sharply, "Wait—this elf White Walker could speak to you?"
Benjen's voice dropped. "Yes. It confused me at the time too, but it was real. I could control the power, think like a normal human. Even this ruin—he's the one who told me about it."
Lynd hesitated, then something clicked. He remembered a figure that could be connected to this Daemoria. "Do you remember what he looked like?"
"I do," Benjen replied and proceeded to give a detailed description.
As Benjen spoke, recognition dawned on Lynd's face. He knew who Daemoria was.
He was the ancient being whose corpse had once rested in a crystal coffin—stolen years ago from Braavos by Euron. That long-dead creature, a relic of a forgotten race, had somehow awakened as a White Walker—neither living nor dead.
With that realization, Lynd's doubts about Benjen's transformation vanished. For someone from that ancient race, with such arcane knowledge, turning a near-dead Benjen into a conscious White Walker likely wasn't difficult at all.
"Did Daemoria give you any sort of mission?" Lynd asked, intrigued.
Benjen shook his head. "No. He only gave me a map of the lands Beyond the Wall, drawn on tree bark. He didn't say a single word—just left."
"And after that?" Lynd asked again.
"I stayed in the Haunted Forest," Benjen said slowly. "Kept watch on the White Walkers and the wights... Eventually, I met three people. One was a wildling. The other two were siblings from Greywater Watch—Meera Reed and Jojen Reed. They were on their way to find the Three-Eyed Crow. I escorted them there."
"So that's how you met the Three-Eyed Crow," Lynd nodded, then asked, "And what of him now?"
Benjen let out a quiet sigh. "The Three-Eyed Crow is dead."