Once Shireen's tightening screams vanished into the fire, Hephaesta and Luvnac drew their cloaks back around their shoulders and used the terrible, silent spectacle as their opportunity to slip back out of the camp. Behind them, they could hear Selys Baratheon screaming on the ground for her child, something that had nearly distracted them from their enchantments simply out of pure shock. Neither had foreseen in the flames that the mother would try to rescue her child – though touching and heart-warming to know that there was something redeemable within the woman, Luvnac had nearly forgotten half the incantation.
Unlike when they were entering the camp earlier that afternoon, the sentries within the surrounding trees were little trouble to slip by – distracted and haunted by Shireen's and their own silence, they made no register of the soft scuffles in the snow or the broken branch Hephaesta tripped over in her haste to clear the camp. Once they were out of immediate danger, the pair ducked into a small clearing where the dead from Bolton's raid had been buried and stripped themselves of their Baratheon colours. Pinching a small fire between his fingers, Luvnac disposed of their clothes, whilst Hephaesta retrieved their camouflage capes from a small hovel. Not even waiting to see if they were fully burned, they fled back towards their camp.
It took them another hour to reach the rock face on the rim of the Wolfswood, and a short while after they had scrambled up the vertical face and inside a small crawlspace, which took them into a large cavern. A small stream of water bled from the rocks, and away again into a small tunnel, which they had planned as their escape route should they be discovered. Once inside, Hephaesta discarded her thick cloak in front of the entrance and began piling a small cooking fire together beneath a small funnel in the ceiling. Once the first few twigs had begun wilting away, dripping their ashes into the palate, Hephaesta muttered the incantation and, seizing a handful of ash and fire, dragged the debris across a soft flat shelf of chalk.
For a moment, nothing happened, then the fire began to burn into the rock, emitting a pure red flame, splitting it open and dragging a small crack open. Blowing softly against the void opening there to disperse the black smoke pluming from its core, she called out for Quaithe.
It did not take long for her friend to appear before her, wearing her customary mask as ever. "Did she make it?" Hephaesta asked, foregoing the usual pleasantries.
"She's fine, physically. Mentally, she's traumatised. Nuski tried to calm her, but she wouldn't stop screaming. At least, not until we put the torches out. I decided she might feel more comfortable with a woman, especially one who did not look like Melisandre, so I left her with Zhuronga." Quaithe spoke evenly regarding the young princess, yet there was a tension in her voice that pulled the chords in her shoulders tight. "Hephaesta, I can do it myself."
"No Quaithe, rescuing Shireen Baratheon was my idea, my game and we played by my rules. I shall be the one to complete this rescue. Just see that the girl is delivered to those who can save her."
"I shall, Hephaesta. I shall remember you well."
"Give my regards to the Princess," Hephaesta gathered some water in an earthen bowl and poured it across the portal before she could change her mind and take Quaithe up on her offer. "Luvnac, will you help me pile the wood?"
"Yes," he hesitated. "Hephaesta, you know that I can do this, right? You do not need to…"
"Luvnac, did you not hear what I said to Quaithe. I am responsible for the sacrifice that was not made, hence I must be the one to take her place. Now help me take the wood outside for the fire."
"Won't they see the smoke from the campsite?"
"Which is why we will be performing this ceremony at night, but we should build the bonfire before it's too dark and we cannot see the ledge." Hephaesta addressed her apprentice sharply, hoping they could drag the logs through the small cracks in their ceiling up onto the main body of the cliff and out to the ditch where the glow of the fire could be masked from the camp in the distance.
Outside, the snow had stopped falling, which the pair took as a sign that they should move quickly before the winter renewed its assault on the North. Luvnac stacked some logs at the base to be pushed outside, whilst Hephaesta cleared the snow outside, leading all the way down to the ditch. If she found moss beneath the snow, she scraped it off with her hands and pocketed it in a small bag at her waist, the same with small twigs and sticks. Once she was done with that, with Luvnac's help, they dragged the logs out of the cavern and into the ditch, not bothering to give them any great ceremony by lining them up together.
By the time they had finished the bonfire, the sun was nearly set upon this day. Luvnac, twitching in a melancholic fashion, asked his mentor if she would like to get the deed over and done with, but Hephaesta simply shrugged and reminded him that it would be better once the sky was black so the smoke would not be seen. "You know," she casually remarked. "You can say what you will about the never-ending nights and the black harvests, but the winter sunsets… oh they are sublime. Small little tears of washed-out sky brighten like winter roses, blue as frost. See the sun behind grey clouds; like a candle flickering behind its shade."
"Our Lord of Light," Luvnac agreed, following Hephaesta's line of sight towards the spectacle, dimming darker and more potent with every passing second. "I see him trying to reach us in the coming darkness to shed his light upon us, to repel the Great Other that marches upon us." With a soft crick of his neck, Luvnac glanced towards his mistress – she was beautiful in a classic and unusual manner. She was blessed with dark skin that glowed like burnished copper, yet carried a full, silken mane of long, dark red hair more vivid than Melisandre's could even be. Her eyes were an unusual shade of violent violet, if that could even be the term to describe them, and shaped almost like perfect circles. Similarly, her mouth was round and full, which could curve up into a perfect smile. It was an unusual beauty, he thought, like Melisandre. Shivering, he cursed himself for drawing such a comparison between Hephaesta and the hypocrite. "I heard some of my fellow apprentices discussing the manifestations of the Great Other before we left Asshai."
"Oh," Hephaesta replied with calm curiosity. "Would you care to share?"
"I will not name names," he said quickly. "Some say that the Great Other has manifested his evil within the White Walkers, which has been proved by the vision of the Snow Prince and the Slayer, who vanquished its followers with fire and the beasts with dragonglass. I and a few others advocated the doctrine of what you teach, that as priests of R'hollor we must acknowledge that we worship the Great Other as much as the Lord of Light."
"And why is that?"
"Because our religion demands sacrifice to the Gods. Yet if death and war are the domain of the Great Other, why do we conduct the ceremonies in honour of the Lord of Light."
"So?"
"So when Priestesses make offerings for the successes of war, they worship the Great Other as much as the Lord of Light."
"You learn well. But do you believe it?"
"I do. Actually, I believe that at this time in our lives the Great Other is more present here in this world than the Lord of Light, which is why when I see that sunset I think of how far apart the darkness draws him from us."
"For the night is dark and full of terrors, indeed," Hephaesta recited the litany, watching the last remnants of the sun scatter like ash behind the earth, plunging the night into darkness. "And will they grow darker still."
Without another word, she picked up the torch and cast it upon the bonfire she had made, using the twigs and moss she had collected earlier as some kindling. When the platform of fire they had built across the ditch was effectively spread and climbing higher from its roots, Hephaesta removed the rest of her clothes and took several even breaths.
"You don't have to do this, Hephaesta. Why not let Baratheon and his army fall to the Bolton's? They don't deserve victory for what they did to that young girl."
"Stannis may be a hypocrite and destructively ambitious, but I have seen what would happen if the Bolton's rule the north – blood will run so thick through this land, it will take years to wash it from the soil. Come spring, fields will be so poisoned they won't be able to grow anything, and the water all decaying with dead bodies from their flaying's," Hephaesta turned towards her apprentice, cupping his face gently with her long fingers. "I must try."
Quietly sobbing, Luvnac squeezed his mentor's hand and let her go, watching as she walked straight into the flames without looking back, and was swallowed by the Light of R'hollor.