>>6189942He and his two followers then do as he instructs, taking a knee before the tree’s face and giving their devotions in silence. You hesitate for a moment, then do so as well.
He and Eva both finish their prayers around the same time. “It is not often the lord allows outsiders in his godswood.”
“Where does everyone pray, then?” Eva asks.
“In Brandon’s Shrine. Come, strangers.”
You and Eva look at each other as he turns away. She clearly wants to stay longer, but it would be rude to refuse him in his own home. You smile as if to say ‘we’ll talk after’ and fall in behind Keeper Brennan.
He leads you to the east side of the grove, through a portcullis and into a hall of dark brown wood. On one wall floor to ceiling is a painting of a heart tree in vivid colours. Either wall is covered with smaller paintings, each depicting a different animal in stylised form, a wolf, a lion, a boar, a stag, raven, owl, eagle, bear, horse, ox, and more, all against a backdrop of a shadowed wood and snowy mountains. Beneath every beast is a brass urn, and in each are sticks of incense, their smoldering filling the air with their rich smoke.
These are the old gods, the nameless spirits of the wild.
But for you, Eva, and Brennan’s group, Brandon’s Shrine is mostly empty, with the only worshipper at this hour being a lone guardsman before the bear, and he leaves not long after you arrive.
“Before men, the Children dwelt here,” the Keeper says, leading you all to stand before the painted tree. “They kept the ancient woods, and held the weirwoods beloved above all. It is they who first carved faces into the trees, to wake up and give them sight. When the First Men came in the Dawn Age, before the Long Night, they waged war on the Children of the Forest with fire and axe, until there were no more heart trees south of the Neck. Even now the weirwoods of southern halls are young and blind, mere decorations for a lord’s garden.
“The Children and the First Men warred for centuries. In the end, the Children were driven from the fields and plains, but they held the deep woods and high hills. The war only ended when the Children agreed to leave men to their farms and castles and towns, and men agreed to cherish the weirwood, and the true gods of the land. On the Isle of Faces they sealed the Pact; there the Green Men remain even now.
“Bran the Builder who was the first Stark king built this shrine. When the Long Night came, he sought out the Children, lived among them and learned their tongue and their other secrets, and helped the Last Hero bring an end to the Night. The Andals lords of the south have forgotten. But the North remembers. The blood of the First Men runs strong in us. The Children are gone, but still we hold the true gods, the heart trees that are their eyes, and the Pact that weds us to the land.”
“Who were the Children?” Eva asks excitedly as you translate the Keeper’s words to her.
