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POV: Arthur Snow
Location: Wolfsblood Ridge – Outer Clearing
The sky was a slate of silver mist, dawn just beginning to bleed across the tree line. The air was sharp, still holding the taste of night.
Arthur stood barefoot in the clearing outside their camp, the ground frozen but undisturbed. He had cleared the space himself—stone by stone, root by root—until only packed earth remained.
The others gathered at the edge, one by one.
Lyanna leaned against a tree, arms folded. Sarra stood with a single knife in hand, blade down. Redna lounged on a fallen log, curious. Garron, still chewing breakfast, muttered, "This better be good." Thom brought his journal. Vaeren brought questions.
Maelen stood furthest back. Silent. Watching with a knowing stillness.
Arthur stepped forward.
"I told you we'd begin today."
He looked at them each, his voice clear in the cold.
"But you won't begin with weapons. Or strikes. Or tactics."
He raised his hand. Fingers spread.
"You'll begin with breath."
He took a slow inhale—deep and long, his shoulders rising, his frame still—and as he exhaled…
the air around him rippled.
A thin mist danced at his feet, spiraling upward like smoke caught in a rising current. The frost around his boots melted in a perfect circle.
Thom blinked. "What is—"
Arthur raised his hand again—then brought it down, slow, fingers cutting the air like a blade.
And the ground cracked beneath him.
Just one line.
A fracture through the frozen earth—silent and clean.
No stomping. No brute force.
Just will, breath, and motion.
The wind stilled.
"I'm going to teach you what no knight or sellsword will," Arthur said. "A way of walking, breathing, striking—and surviving—that does not belong to Westeros".
They stared.
"This is Qi cultivation," Arthur continued. "And today, we begin with Meditation."
He turned, stepped back into the center of the clearing, and planted his feet shoulder-width apart.
"To gather qi, the body must first learn to still itself. To become more vessel than noise."
He raised both arms to his sides, fingers relaxed, spine straight.
"Breathe in… as if filling your bones. Hold. Breathe out… as if lowering a hammer into water."
As he spoke, the mist thickened around him. Thin streams of white rose from the ground—curling around his arms, his back, as if pulled by gravity in reverse.
"The body will ache. The mind will wander. You will want to move, to speak, to twitch."
Arthur's voice remained steady.
"You will not."
His eyes opened.
And they were glowing.
Not brightly.
But subtly—like frost catching starlight.
Redna stood now. No more lounging.
Lyanna's eyes had narrowed—not with doubt, but with focus.
Garron said nothing. His chewing had stopped long ago.
Thom whispered, "I can feel… something. In the air."
Arthur stepped forward again.
"The first form is called Iron Root. You'll hold it for one hour. Each day. Until the shaking stops."
Vaeren frowned. "This isn't magic."
"No," Arthur said. "Magic is wild. This is law."
He turned.
And for a moment—
He vanished.
Not in a blink.
Not with smoke.
Just… a subtle folding of space.
And then he was standing behind them.
Sarra turned fast, knife up.
Arthur didn't move.
"That was qi-guided motion," he said calmly. "You'll reach it. In time."
They stood silent.
No one laughed now.
He stepped back into the center of the circle.
"Begin."
Just Moments ago POV
Redna's smirk had died the moment the frost melted in a perfect circle around his feet.
That wasn't heat. That wasn't weight. That was control.
When he moved, her instincts failed to track it.
He didn't vanish. He just... stopped existing in front of me for a second.
She didn't speak. She just stepped back once and didn't know why.
Garron had seen men split logs with bare hands. He'd broken bones with his own.
But when Arthur cut the earth without force, he felt something in his gut recoil.
That wasn't strength. That was something quieter. And stronger.
He gripped the handle of his hammer, and for the first time in years, it felt heavy.
Sarra didn't blink.
When Arthur stepped through space and appeared behind them, her knives were already in her hands—but she hadn't seen the movement.
No noise. No wind. No weight shift.
She scanned the earth for prints.
There were none.
He moved without being. That shouldn't be possible.
Her jaw clenched.
Thom watched the mist spiral around Arthur's arms.
It moved in rhythm. Responsive. Not pushed. Not pulled.
It reacted to him.
Not air current. Not temperature. Something else entirely.
When Arthur blinked and shifted space, Thom's heart skipped.
I didn't hallucinate that. I know what I saw. I've studied hallucinations. That wasn't one.
He held his breath longer than he meant to.
Vaeren's brow furrowed.
He didn't believe in miracles. But Arthur's step across space defied every physical law he'd spent years documenting.
He tried to rationalize it.
But his mouth was dry.
He didn't vanish. He folded distance. How do you fold distance without disturbing the air?
He didn't speak.
He just rewatched it in his mind, again and again, and found no answer.
Lyanna saw the frost line crack beneath Arthur's feet.
Not pressure. Not impact.
When he moved behind them, she stepped slightly forward—not from instinct, but to feel if he had left anything behind.
He hadn't.
He bent space by breathing.
That thought stayed with her longer than she liked.
Maelen closed his eyes only briefly, and when he opened them, he did not blink again.
He'd seen dreams that made no sense.
But this—
Thisterrified him more.