Chapter 2: Blood Ritual

Magic is a subject that is difficult to learn and even more difficult to understand. Sometimes it abides by rules that it must follow and other times it is erratic and nonsensical.

From what I've read the most simple form of magic is the type that affects the physical world in a way that is visible to the human eye.

For example, summoning fire from nothing. Although this seemed ridiculous and borderline impossible for any human to do, it was the most simple form of magic, or at least, in my opinion it was.

I knew that more obscure forms of magic existed, shadow binding, green sight, and even necromancy.

But those were beyond reasoning. Blood magic was really the only magic I could attempt. There were some very vague records of people reciting lines of curses in a few of the books Luwin had given me to study.

As one of the only maesters to form a Valyrian steel link in their chain, maester Luwin had many ancient books on the subject. Most of them were incomplete and crudely translated but a few did have genuine methods to do rituals and curses.

Blood magic was something I could attempt, that is, if I ignored the dangers of such magic.

Most of the materials needed for blood magic were fairly simple and easy to collect. Blood magic, unsurprisingly, needed large amounts of blood and bones.

The only problem was that almost all of the magic rituals and curses recorded in the ancient books were harmful to the user. The repressions of using magic was something I was wary of, which was why I hadn't tried any magic yet.

Still, I knew I had one net to catch me if I really did try blood magic. Unlike other practitioners of magic, I was lucky to be born with the blood of dragons.

The Targaryens of the past were closely linked to pyromancy and dragons, beings said to be fire taken form. Given that I had their blood, I knew that I had the potential to be a practitioner of magic, to some capacity at least.

Knowing that I had a higher chance of succeeding, I was willing to take the risk of failure. It was time to begin my venture into unknown territory. I couldn't sit around doing nothing, just mindlessly swinging a sword until I reached adulthood.

The only form of entertainment I had for the past 3 years was learning with maester Luwin. I didn't like fighting, I wasn't a battle maniac like Robert Baratheon and I didn't intend on becoming one.

I was going to live as long as possible, with the highest level of comfort that this world had to offer. Magic was going to be my trump card that would get me to that level.

"It's time."

I grabbed the legs of the skinned wolf I had killed and dragged it over to the ritual circle. My fingers were covered in blood and the disgusting texture of the animal's flesh made me nauseous.

The ritual circle was even more revolting. Heads of the animals I had killed marked the outline of the bloody sacrificial circle. Bones stripped from their bodies extended from the skulls to the inside of the circle.

Crude letters made of smaller bones were in the center where I placed the skinned body of the wolf. Once I made sure all the letters were correct, according to the book, and that all the animal heads were in the correct order, I began reciting the ancient language.

"Rattan ke qer Ohsee, renon sayor nem zuqir. Guz mujor vanan ko blor."

The blood that had been stagnant suddenly began to boil, as if something was making it burn. The bones that made the letters I was reciting turned black, as did the skulls on the ground.

A sharp pain attracted my attention to the skin of both my arms. Somehow, my skin was opening up in the shape of the very same letters in the ritual circle. Although I should have bled from such wide open cuts, no blood left my body.

I walked over to the skinned wolf, knife in hand, and carved out both of it's eyes. At this point, I was convinced that the ritual would succeed, and so I did the unthinkable.

I lifted the knife in my hand, and aimed to my own eye. With one single push I blinded myself in my right eye.

"Hmm!"

The pain was something I couldn't handle. Endless tears fell from my other eye as I fell to my knees and rolled around in the dirt. Even though I had prepared myself with a cloth I put in my mouth to prevent from biting my tongue, blood still gushed in my mouth.

I struggled for a few minutes, punching and kicking at air, just waiting for what seemed like eternity for the pain to finally go away. Once it did, I took the cloth out of my mouth and swallowed one of the wolf's eyeballs.

The taste was horrible and the texture was even worse, it felt like I was doing something that violated some type of sacred law. But the aftereffect was incredible.

The sight in my right eye returned to me ten times fold. I could see so much clearer than before, it was as if I was a blind person experiencing what the world looked like for the first time.

Once I had a taste of what the ritual could do I knew I had to complete it in it's entirety. How could I possibly not do so, who cared about temporary pain when the benefits were so intoxicating.

I bit down on the cloth again and blinded myself in the other eye. This time, thankfully, the pain wasn't as bad. Perhaps it was my own delusion or maybe the magic helped but it really felt more bearable to me the second time around.

After only about 30 seconds I took the cloth out and swallowed the other eyeball of the wolf. Red covered my vision and I heard a rough voice that sounded like metal scrapping against metal.

"Remember the animal you envisioned yourself as. Never forget it's face, or the role it plays in your life."

With those parting words the voice disappeared, seemingly forever since the ritual had completely stopped.

The blood had all evaporated and the bones and skulls had turned to ash and gone flying in the wind. There was no evidence left that a ritual had taken place here.

The open cuts that had opened on my arms closed, leaving only faint scars. But the biggest change that had happened to me was obviously my eyes.

I lifted the piece of glass I had brought with me and looked at my appearance. My reflection didn't look much different, it was the same immature face of a young teen.

But my eyes were massively different, instead of the black color I had grown accustomed to over the past 3 years, they were now a peculiar dim yellow color.

"This will be hard to explain. I'd better meet maester Luwin first and come up with an excuse."