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SLW Chapter 91 : The Seven's Servant - 2
🕑 Added 2025-06-23 22:40:23 +0000 UTCThe stone beneath Aeron’s feet quivered as shadows clung closer, reacting to his rising intent. Before him, the statues of the Seven stood still, eternal, their empty eyes watching a scene of judgment.
Without a word, Drakaryzor shimmered into Aeron’s hand.
The obsidian greatsword breathed black flame its edge jagged, pulsing with malevolent heat as if it had been dragged from the belly of some forgotten abyss. The flames danced around it.
Aeron’s voice was cool and calm, but it hummed with threat.
“Old man,” he said, “are you really sure?”
The High Sparrow did not step back.
He only lifted his head slightly, eyes fixed on Aeron with a serenity that bordered on madness.
“The light of the Seven is clear,” he said, voice unwavering. “The path to salvation is never easy, but the gods guide the faithful. If I must be the blade's edge against your darkness, then I'll gladly accept that quest no matter the cost.”
Aeron’s lips curved into something between disdain and grim amusement. “So be it.”
He stepped forward. Drakaryzor blazed brighter, casting jagged shadows against the stained-glass windows.
And then the sword swung a black arc of roaring flame cutting through the air, aimed straight for the High Sparrow’s neck.
But it stopped.
Not against flesh.
A faint dome of golden light surged into being around the High Sparrow translucent, humming, and sacred. The black flame recoiled from it like a wounded thing.
The High Sparrow didn’t flinch. He simply whispered, “The Maiden.”
The dome glowed gently, pulsing in rhythm to his breath.
“She protects the innocent, the young, the meek,” he said, his voice rising like a sermon within the vastness of the Sept. “Within her veil, all weapons miss, all magic withers, and evil cannot cross. It is the divine right of the pious to walk unscathed by the wicked.”
Aeron blinked.
Then he stared, unimpressed.
“Goodness me...This madman,” he muttered, exasperated. “I forgot. He talks too much.”
In a blur of movement, he struck again.
Drakaryzor howled its black flames intensified with his will, and with a single, explosive blow, it shattered the dome. Golden light cracked, then burst apart like glass under the hammer of war.
The High Sparrow’s eyes widened not with fear, but in solemn realization as Aeron lifted his free hand.
The very air around the Septon twisted.
With a violent crack, Ruler’s Authority snapped into place. The old man was yanked from the floor, robes fluttering, and dragged across the chamber, his feet never touching stone.
Aeron caught him by the throat.
Lifting him with ease, the Shadow Monarch’s violet eyes ignited, glowing. Their power was ancient. Alien even.
“All of you, servants of these petty ‘Gods’.” Aeron said coldly, tightening his grip, “are weak.”
The High Sparrow gasped, but he did not struggle. His hands folded in prayer even as his feet dangled.
Aeron leaned in, voice low, sharp.
“What’s the point of all this? All your talk. All your efforts to hunt me, They’re throwing you at me like meat to the fire. To die in vain. Can’t you see that none of you can do me any actual harm? Is my existence that scary to you?”
The flames of Drakaryzor curled hungrily around his arm.
The gods, if they were watching, said nothing.
The High Sparrow smiled.
Even with Aeron's hand around his throat, fingers like a vice of shadow and fire, he smiled.
“There is one…” he wheezed, blood bubbling at the edge of his lips.
Aeron’s violet eyes narrowed. “Who?”
The Sparrow only laughed. It wasn’t manic or cruel it was calm, certain. That quiet, maddening certainty of a zealot who welcomes the noose.
Aeron’s face tightened in annoyance. The laughter grated against his pride like dull iron scraping stone. With a flick of his wrist, he tightened the grip.
Bones shifted beneath his hand. The High Sparrow choked.
But he spoke still.
The words of the chant fell from his cracked lips soft, old words from a language too ancient to belong to men. The stones trembled beneath their feet, and the air rippled.
Then, from every crevice and shadow of the Great Sept of Baelor, chains erupted.
Radiant silver, pulsing with holy energy, they burst from the walls and air alike wrapping themselves around Aeron's limbs, coiling like vipers of judgment. They sang with light and a hum of divine hatred, binding his arms, shoulders, even the base of his spine.
Aeron snarled, pulling against them, shadow flaring but the chains pulsed with a strange, crushing weight. His strength answered… and failed. They grew heavier.
He staggered a step back, violet eyes blazing in disbelief. “What the hell.. They are getting even more heavy..”
The High Sparrow fell to his knees, coughing blood onto the floor, but his smile didn’t fade. He looked up, barely able to raise his chin.
“The Smith…” he rasped. “His chains nullify magical abilities… crush weapons… and grow heavier the more pride the victim holds.”
He coughed again, blood spattering his robes.
“They bind the hands, hearts, and minds of those who misuse power.”
Aeron breathed slowly through his nose, the effort it took to simply move now like lifting a mountain with his spine. He tried again to shatter the chains with a burst of shadow but nothing came.
No power.
He could feel the absence like a wound.
“Cool abilities you have there,” he muttered, almost with admiration.
“I do not need praise from a thing such as yourself,” the Sparrow wheezed.
And then the ceiling above groaned.
A light had gathered.
A spear, radiant and blinding, formed above Aeron. Holy fire coursed down its shaft, the glow pure and cruel. It spun in the air, crackling with divine vengeance. “Shit.” Aeron muttered to himself.
The High Sparrow looked up, voice now trembling with fury.
“The Warrior,” he said hoarsely. “His holy wrath. It is the greatest threat in battle… his strikes true and cannot be blocked. Only the righteous may survive.”
The spear launched.
A golden streak tore through the air, and the chamber was drowned in light.
A sound like thunder then the world seemed to hold its breath.
When the light cleared, the chains shattered and fell to the ground with the clatter of broken bells.
But Aeron was no longer there.
Instead, a Shadow Knight writhed on the floor, its dark form pinned beneath the spear of light, twitching as the radiant weapon burned into its essence. Smoke curled from its body like incense.
The High Sparrow gasped.
His eyes widened.
“No…”
The cold kiss of steel answered his prayer.
A blade vast, black, and burning pierced through his back.
It slid clean through his chest, black flame crackling around the wound.
The High Sparrow’s lips parted. Blood bubbled between his teeth. His legs faltered.
Aeron stood behind him, his form solid once more, Drakaryzor buried hilt-deep in his spine.
He leaned in, whispering.
“That was a nice display,” Aeron said, quiet but deadly. “Really impressive… for an old man.”
With a sharp pull, he twisted the blade.
The light in the High Sparrow’s eyes dimmed.
Yet, even in death's grip, he tried.
His bloodied hand rose feebly, fingers shaking with the last dregs of life. His voice was a whisper, no longer preaching, no longer commanding just a final breath offered to a god that would care very little about his life.
“The Father…” he wheezed, red spilling from his lips. “Judges the unworthy… and burns the sinners…”
His hand fell.
And so did he.
The High Septon collapsed in a pool of spreading crimson, robes soaked through, blood seeping across the floor beneath the looming statues of the Seven.
Aeron said nothing at first.
He stood above the corpse, Drakaryzor pulsing softly in his hand, ember-light dancing along its edge. His violet eyes narrowed at the lifeless zealot.
“…What was that about..” he muttered.
But then
A strange stillness fell over the Sept.
Aeron’s breath caught in his throat.
He looked up.
Above him, hanging in the air like a god’s eye turned inward, a massive ethereal scale had appeared.
Formless, glowing gold, yet very much real it hovered high above the central dais of the Sept. No sound came from it. No chant, no light from heaven, no chorus of angelic wrath. Just that cold, perfect balance, tipped ever so slightly.
One side sagged lower than the other.
Then Aeron noticed.
He was beginning to glow.
Not his shadow or his blade. Him.
A soft, golden aura was creeping across his body like sunlight trying to force its way through his skin.
“What the…” he whispered.
