A/N: Chap 27 review responses are in my forums as normal. Please note that there will be no posting next Saturday due to holiday travel. I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday season.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: From the Nitha-Fells
Thoros walked slowly along the pier. Around him, the throngs of YiTish merchants loudly hawked their wares to the Western sailors, most of whom hailed from Qarth, Marahai or Moraq.
The Merchants wore a uniform yellow, men and women alike. Their tunics could almost have been uniform; their cotton trousers of the same cut. From what little he'd learned in his few times in the city of Yin, the sumptuary laws were so extreme that to dress outside the colors of one's class was a death sentence. The poets and playwrights of the land wrote many dramas of young lovers from different classes coming to a bad end by switching their colors.
Each in their place. That was the YiTish philosophy. Not so very different from the rest of the world, Thoros thought, if taken to an extreme.
As he had done so for the past few years, his left hand reached up to hold the ruby pendant that held a fraction of his broken soul. It hurt him to think of the rituals he underwent. The terrible things he had to do in the name of his god. Since then, nothing tasted good. Colors were dulled to his eyes. Sensation was muted. He felt like only half a man, since he had only half a soul within his body.
The fact he would retain a youthful appearance and live for centuries did nothing to change how low the quality of his life seemed. And through all the mysteries, he still felt no more sure in his faith than he had before. If not for the Red Temple's recent militarization, he doubted he would have been elevated at all.
Yet here he was, again doing the bidding of the High Priestess of his Order like the slave he was. They needed ships and sellswords. Red Temples across Essos had emptied their coffers and their barracks over the past years to gather forces for their great crusade.
Unfortunately, the ship that brought Thoros and those Unsullied he was tasked with purchasing limped into Yin with a cracked mainmast and water leaking into the hull as fast as the Unsullied could bail it out. The storms just past the Straights of Moraq nearly ended them. And so here he was, a Priest of R'hllor in his brilliant crimson robes, walking as a giant among the much smaller YiTish people, searching for a ship large enough to transport two hundred Unsullied to Asshai.
Unfortunately, the build-up of Red Temple forces were being met with suspicion by the Emperor of YiTi. Captains were shaking their heads at him just by looking at his robes.
Still he walked, hoping to find a Qartheen or a Maharai ship captain willing to give them transport. Ahead, though, he saw something that gave him a dash of hope. His step quickened until he cleared the bow of a massive YiTish junk and saw the familiar lines of a Westerosi galleas. The furled sails were red, and in the tied bundles he saw hints of gold. The wooden prow was carved into the head of a lion.
"Ho, there!"
A wiry man looked over the railings. "What?"
Thoros recognized the face, even if he could not recall the name. "This is the Laughing Lion, yes?"
"Does the captain 'r crew owe ye anything?"
"No!"
"Then aye, this be that ship. What of it?"
"Where might I find your captain?"
"Whoring, most like," the man said.
"Do you know where he might be?"
"Prolly at a whorehouse."
"Indeed, that would make sense." Yes, Thoros definitely remembered Ser Gerion Lannister's second mate. He began walking with a livelier step as he examined the nearby buildings. Like Qarth, foreigners were not allowed into the city of Yin proper, so the docks were built up to serve as a city for sailors alone. Which meant lots of brothels, taverns and inns.
He studied each, trying to decide where the scion of the richest house in the Seven Kingdoms would seek entertainment. His answer came in the form of the tallest, most exotic woman he had ever seen. She stood over six feet if an inch, with sheer silk robes that did little more than decorate her wares. She looked like someone took a healthy Summer Islander woman, and then stretched her out on a rack and gave her striking gold eyes.
In a collection of languages, three of which Thoros could read, he saw the place was called the House of Leng.
The young priest's only experience with Leng was looking upon it from the deck of the ship that carried him out of Asshai following his elevation into the Mysteries. He hurt so badly from the experience that he never left his cot. Now, three years later, he got his first close look at the legendary giants of that island.
More than the Lengi women's height, he found their golden eyes disconcerting. The handful of women who stood around the front of the brothel looked around them with blank expressions. He could not tell if they were trying to sell their sex or were planning on murdering everyone. However, they accepted his brass zhu to enter.
He felt no surprise at all to find a sweaty, partially dressed Lannister in cloth-of-gold and Qartheen-style silks lounging between two dark, impossibly tall women on a settee in the middle of the brothel's lounge. The two women looked at Thoros the same way shadow cats might. He stifled a shudder at the women's gazes and bowed to the sweaty, half-drunk man between them.
Ser Gerion blinked at him. "What…Thoros? Maiden's tits, is that Thoros of Myr I see?"
"It is indeed, old friend," Thoros said.
It took the knight a moment to regain his feet. He took a drunken step before wrapping Thoros in a sweaty, fragrant hug. "Aye, what a sight! But curse me, you look dour! What happened to the happy young acolyte snipping at that girl's heels for attention? What's her name…"
"Her name, despite what she told us, was Telos."
"Right that…no, no, that wasn't it! It was a trade, a …" Ser Gerion rubbed blood-shot eyes. "What, now?"
"I learned only after the fact, Ser Gerion. You had already left when my ship arrived. That girl we spoke to for months on end was Telos, the Kingslayer. It was her, my friend. And the Red Temples of the world are gathering to destroy her before she kills anyone else. I have two hundred Unsullied who need passage, and I have forty Volantine gold tigers to pay their way."
"But that…she was a good lass," Ser Gerion muttered. "She cured two of my crew during the voyage. That couldn't have been her."
"It was. She wore a magical disguise, but she revealed herself in Asshai. We go now to kill her. Will you come, Ser Gerion?"
It took the captain a moment, but eventually he nodded. "Aye. There's a price on her head. Ten thousand gold dragons. If I kill her, I'll have enough to get out from that cunt brother of mine and form my own house. Aye, man!" The more he spoke, the more excited he became at the prospect. "Aye, you'll have my sword. Where…where's my sword?"
He began looking around the brothel. Thoros merely nodded to himself. He felt no satisfaction. Even now, years later, it felt hard for him to reconcile the kind, humorous girl he sailed with to that of the Great Other. But then again, that's how evil worked, wasn't it? It enticed you with kindness, only to stab you in the back.
At least, he considered, he'd found his ship.
~~Voluspa~~
~~Voluspa~~
They were five weeks at sea for the final long leg of their journey from Yin to Asshai. In the years since Thoros last voyaged on the ship, some of the crew had changed through death or leave. But the ship itself remained largely unchanged. This time, however, it was Thoros who had his own small cabin. And when Ser Gerion invited him to join him for dinner, it seemed a strikingly incomplete gathering. Even years later, he found himself looking for Taylor.
The years had not any kinder to Ser Gerion than to Thoros himself. The knight sat with slumped shoulders, and bore a new scar on his cheek from a knife fight in Lys. He'd become partial to the more bitter Qartheen wine, and drank heavily of it over their meal of spiced fowl and Yitish sticky rice balls.
"Did get some good news, though," Ser Gerion said well into their meal and his third cup. "Heard from one of my brothers that Tywin, the cunt, was dismissed as Hand of the King. That young Targaryen named a bloody Dornishman to the post. Oh, how Tywin must be seething."
Thoros knew very little about Seven Kingdom's politics, but he at least knew from previous conversations that the eldest Lannister brother was very powerful, and very much hated by his youngest sibling.
"How fare's your family?"
"Who fuckin' cares?" Ser Gerion muttered. "Cunts, the lot of them. Well, take that back. Tywin's woman was a good one. And my sister. But one's dead, and the other's married to a fuckin' Frey. Me? If I ever get married, I'm telling you now it'll be to a Lengii woman. There is no more exciting a woman than a Lengii. Not only are they taller than any man, you can't help but feel you're fucking a wild storm that will turn and kill you at a moment's notice."
Thoros shook his head. "Ser, that's because they will kill you at a moment's notice. Leng has a long history of slaughtering all foreigners at the behest of their gods."
"Exactly! Exactly, man! It's thrilling. If I could find one willing, I'd take her to bride in a second, fuck my brother for saying otherwise. I've asked every one I've seen, but they just laugh at me. I'm too short for them, you see."
Neither man discussed the reason for their voyage.
On the third week, they saw a dozen other sails on the sea around them. At first, Ser Gerion feared pirates. But as they grew closer he could see either the fiery hearts of the Red Temples stitched into sails, or high on pennants.
"Maiden's tits, man, how many soldiers are you bringing to Asshai, 'n how are you feeding them?"
Thoros wondered the same. He continued to struggle in reconciling the Taylor he traveled with to a being so powerful that the High Priestesses and Priests felt the need to gather an army. And suppose they did succeed in killing Telos. What then? What would the Red Temples do with so many priests militant? With the unsullied they purchased and now owned?
Idle armies were a threat to everyone. Thoros just couldn't help but feel that there was more to the gathering than just what they were told. It felt as if Kinvara was using Telos merely as an excuse.
Not long after, they spotted what looked like mountains on the eastern horizon. Only when they got closer did the mirage solidify into the ever-present black clouds and the rugged, lifeless land of Asshai.
They were not going to make landfall before night; and even when they did, there were now a dozen ships in front of them also filled with mercenaries, Unsullied and priests militant.
The sun sank below the clouds and mountains, throwing the seas into the dark. He could see the promise of the moon opposite, but it hadn't risen yet. Despite the late hour, ships continued to dock on the small port of the Holy City ahead of them. Cursing at the hour, Gerion ordered his men to furl the sails and break out the oars so they could take their place in line.
Suddenly the food animals in the hold began cawing and bleating in alarm. The crew of the ship shared startled, worried glances. From the aft castle, Ser Gerion walked down to the lower deck of his ship where Thoros stood. "What in the Stranger's name are those beasties carrying on for?"
A strange flash caught Thoros eye. He looked northeast, along the ridge of mountains that led to the dark, cursed city of Stygai. Something terrible lit the dark clouds with a feral red glow.
"Lord of light," he whispered.
The sky flashed, and then caught fire before them. He could hear the sound of alarmed shouts from all the surrounding ships and even the docks ahead of them as a bow-wave of green-hued fire swept across the heavy, permanent cloud. Distant sounds reached them–of dull crashes like mountains cracking. A stiff, foul-smelling breeze swept across the water from the source of the distant explosion, even as over the land the black clouds burned as if to remind Thoros of the visions he suffered through during his elevation.
The wave front came closer and closer; sailors jumped from their ships in fear. They didn't realize the flame appeared limited to the clouds themselves. As it approached he heard the roar of it. But beyond…beyond the wave of flame he saw stars shining.
The green bow of flame blasted past them, scorching only the mountain tops and the tallest towers in Asshai. Where it passed, empty, clear sky winked starlight down on the city of shadows for the first time in eons.
In the stunned silence that followed, Thoros gripped Ser Gerion's shoulder. "That, my friend, is why we gather our armies."
"You believe that was Telos?"
"Who else could it be?"
Eventually, once the shock settled and the crews realized no one died as a result of the flaming sky, the ships proceeded to unload. By the time the Laughing Lion's turn arrived, dawn already arrived.
With a farewell to his friend, Thoros led the Unsullied off the ship. It felt so strange to do so under free, unencumbered sunlight. The shadows that filled the land hissed and steamed angrily as they writhed under the purifying light. The slave-soldiers Thoros purchased hesitated before the horrid scene, but only for a moment. Their conditioning was too strong, and Thoros possessed the whip of ownership that they were conditioned to obey.
Thoros did not recognize the High Priest who met him at the tower which held the Red Temple of Asshai. He bore his ruby pendant like Thoros did himself, but stood taller and broader of shoulder. He carried the curved scimitar of a Temple Guard.
"Brother," Thoros said in greeting. He handed over the whip that signified control of the Unsullied. "I was only able to purchase two hundred Unsullied. But they will fight to the death for our cause."
"Only," the man said, making the word a joke. "My brother, you came with more than any other outside of a full temple. You've done well. Food awaits you within the tower."
"And what of Telos? It's been years since she left for Stygai. Why does she return only now?"
The larger high priest looked to the clear blue sky. "Ask not the motivations of the Other. To even try to understand the enemy is to risk becoming the enemy."
"Well said. But we know she comes?"
"After last night's display? The candles hinted. Now we know. There can be no doubt. We've sent patrols out into the mountains to seek her out. For now, rest while you can."
Thoros nodded and left his purchased Unsullied with the other priest to be slotted into their growing army. He guessed the Temples had amassed nearly ten thousand men so far, judging from the tents that filled the open center of the ancient city. He found himself studying it with new eyes as he skirted the billets toward the Red Tower.
He could see striking differences between the four towers and all the buildings that occurred around them. Though constructed of the same colored dark stone, the towers rose in seamless pillars, as if the rock were grown or poured down to make the impossible heights. The other buildings, though, were comprised of shaped blocks and never rose more than three levels. Past the open billets just inside the port gate, narrow streets wove between smaller structures that snaked into the narrow valley of the mountain that sheltered the place.
He'd never noticed before, because when the shadows lingered overhead he could never see so very far.
As he approached the tower, he saw the charred remnants of a bonfire in the front. A few bones rose up in a motley collection from the coals. The liturgical response at such a sight was for him to thank the poor soul for their sacrifice.
He found he could only think of the poor soul. From the size of the bones, it was likely a child. Likely a girl child, since the potential for future life made for a more potent sacrifice.
Within the tower, he found a hundred temple child slaves in their plain red smocks sitting in the room singing the Five Praises of R'hllor. Thoros could easily have been one of them, having done the same as a child in Myr. The children were obviously struggling to maintain their composure. He could see tear tracks on some of their faces.
The children, he knew, were not there as future priests. They were there as fodder for the sacrificial flames necessary for the Mysteries.
Even with his senses dulled and his soul split, his chest suddenly ached at the thought. Thoros quickened his step. He wove his way through walls filled with ornate Tapestries of R'hllor spreading His word. Always the Lord of Light was present as a giant, powerful figure bathed in white light.
Finally, he reached the kitchens. A tongueless slave–likely a failed priest beaten into subservience–handed him a bowl of rice and a YiTish fish dumpling. He accepted with a nod and sat at one of the many empty tables to eat.
The sleeping chambers Thoros was assigned to held two other priests. Though both appeared young, only one acted like it. The YiTish man was slight of build, and though his face was a blank mask he moved slowly and in great pain. His left hand clutched desperately at the ruby pendant around his neck. It did not take much imagination to know the man was newly elevated to the mysteries.
Thoros said nothing as the elder of the three led the way in the nightly prayer before they sought sleep.
~~Voluspa~~
~~Voluspa~~
Thoros woke before dawn; the two others did as well. They dressed without speech, using bowls of water and sponges to bathe themselves before the morning sacrifice. They made their way down the tower in a long line with hundreds, even thousands of other priests.
There was no body hanging from the bonfire that morning. Here in Asshai, where there were a limited number of people, they had to preserve their sacrifices for the most important occasions. The hundred remaining children that were carefully gathered for prayer were too precious to use for anything other than the elevation of a priest or priestess.
The fires were lit and the prayers were sung. Thoros' mind, however, found no comfort in the old, familiar words. His eyes drifted from the fire to the rows of tents where their mercenaries, Unsullied and temple guards from across Essos, slept. He saw a few other fires as the temple guards gathered for prayer. The Unsullied and the mercenaries awoke simply to eat.
Far, far to the north, Thoros saw a smudge of darkness staining the sky. Whatever terrible divine wrath burned the shadows from the sky still made the ground rumble under their feet occasionally.
A hint of motion from the shadows caused by the House of Knowledge drew Thoros eye. He could see shadows writhing and burning as the sun broke the horizon. Those shadows that survived the light of the previous day sought shelter in whatever darkness they could find.
"Lead us from the darkness, O my Lord. Fill our hearts with fire, so we may walk your shining path. R'hllor, you are the light in our eyes, the fire in our hearts, the heat in our loins. Yours is the sun that warms our days, yours the stars that guard us in the dark of night!"
With the hymns sung, High Priestess Kinvara called for the morning invocation. Thoros mouthed the words that others spoke so firmly. "Lord of Light, defend us. The night is dark and full of terrors. Lord of Light, protect us."
Kinvara was a strikingly beautiful woman, like all priestesses elevated to the Mysteries. She faced the bonfire, but her voice reached them all as she raised her arms in ecstasy. "R'hllor who gave us breath, we thank you. R'hllor who gave us day, we thank you!"
Thoros saw a shadow move against a distant mountain. He turned his head, only to freeze at the impossible sight. It was a dragon–a dragon with black scales and wings that spanned almost the entire city. Its head was larger than the top of the Red Tower, and baleful golden eyes glared down with their own piercing light. It seemed to grew larger not just with its approach, but was actually getting larger as it came.
And atop its neck, riding between its shoulder blades and dwarfed by the beast, he saw what looked like a young girl with long dark hair and eyes so bright they burned like stars.
"We thank you for the sun that warms us," the assemblage chanted. "We thank you for the stars that watch us. We thank you for our hearths and for our torches, that keep the savage dark at bay."
No one else saw the beast. Thoros himself could barely believe his own eyes. He knew he should have called out; he should have raised the warning. But his mouth remained closed as he watched his death approaching.
Telos, I was wrong. Please forgive me.
He had the thought moments before the dragon's piercing roar echoed through the valley and startled every soul into stillness. Seconds later, a pillar of white-hot flame splashed down almost like a fluid in the middle of the encampment. It swept forward with a deep, terrible rush. Painfully hot air billowed over the assembled priesthood as hundreds of soldiers died so quickly, they could not even make a sound.
Kinvara spun about and screamed, but to Thoros' ears it was a sound of rage rather than fear. "To arms!" she cried. "Kill the Other! Summon your fires and your magic! It is what you were elevated to do!"
The priesthood rushed out into the open to do just that; to her credit Kinvara ran out in their midst. Their chanting quickly fell into unison as the entire Priesthood summoned those magics taught to them by R'hllor himself, when he came and changed the small YiTish cult into its current form five centuries before.
Thoros did not rush out; he stood transfixed by his own doubt and guilt. He stood frozen by the blasphemous hope that Telos struck them all down–himself included.
The priests of R'hllor shouted their spells, and to Thoros shock the sky rent apart with a strike of lightning at the massive dragon. If it were the beast alone, that might have been sufficient to drive it away.
But a goddess rode on its back. Telos caught the lightning like one might a casually thrown ball, and then redirected the powerful blast into the Red Tower that loomed over them. The golden dome shattered and blew debris out over the yard.
The screaming of the children finally broke Thoros from his fugue. He turned and saw the kids scattering. One of them had been struck by debris, crushed almost into unrecognizable paste. For a moment, he found himself remembering the sacrifice from his own elevation. His eyes strung from it, and finally he found the will to move.
He rushed across the field of debris while behind him another pillar of deadly fire raked across the soldiers and priests of the Red Temples. He picked one of the younger ones up in his arm and shouted to the others children. "With me! All of you, with me!"
Afraid and desperate for direction, the children did not argue. As he ran not toward the Red Tower, but to the distant House of Knowing, the children ran after him.
A concussive blast of fire and magic struck in the middle of the priestly formation. A shockwave of air lifted Thoros and the little girl in his arms right off his feet. He fell, sheltering the child's head in his hands. Around him, all the other children were tossed off their feet entirely.
He looked up to see the dragon looking around over the field. The beast spat fire at the Red Tower; but Telos did more. He didn't see how she did it, but with a motion of her arms the dragonfire seemed suddenly to condense from a long, arching stream of burning fluid into a tight ball of energy.
He realized, then, where the concussive explosion came from. When the ball of condensed dragon fire struck the tower, it shattered like a child's toy. The heat and force from the explosion pushed Thoros flat again and stole his breath. Debris rained down among those who thought to fight against what could only have been the king of all dragons.
Though his legs trembled, Thoros forced himself to his feet. The girl in his arms whimpered pitifully as she clung back. "All of you! Up! Up! Run, now!"
The other kids gathered themselves as best they could and the whole gaggle of them began once again running or limping toward the House of Knowing.
Once more the surviving priests called on their terrible magics. The air shimmered ahead of where the dragon rode, and for a brief moment Thoros thought he saw impossible colors beyond. Every hair on his neck stood on end and the girl in his arms moaned in terror as something primordial and wrong seared the very air they breathed.
Abruptly clouds formed overhead. Lightning a hundred times more dense than what the priests could summon lashed out at the terrible rent in the world, forcing it closed almost as fast as the priests opened it. On the fields, Thoros saw some of his fellows collapse in exhaustion.
It was the last thing they ever did. The goddess's voice rang out across city, shouting in words that made Thoros' ears bleed. The dragon spat his fire and Telos spun her arms.
The storm she'd summoned turned into a spinning funnel that dropped down into the midst of the surviving priesthood. The dragon sprayed his terrible fire again onto the ground, and the cyclone gathered the flame and spread it far and wide like destructive whips that tore even armored bodies apart like a blade cutting down grass.
The sight defied description; it defied madness itself. The cyclone spun about capturing and swiftly killing every man and woman in the open; every priest and priestess as well. The whole time the dragon made a lazy circle over the city, and Telos swirled her arms as if directing the fiery maelstrom.
The heat of it buffeted the line of children. Thoros cried out from it as he continued to shelter the nameless girl in his arms. Ahead, he saw a masked attendant standing before the door of the House of Knowledge. To his surprise, Ser Gerion stood beside the black-cloaked figure, motioning desperately for Thoros to reach them.
Abruptly Thoros was past ancient magical protections in a much cooler space. Children poured in after him, crying and whimpering from their many hurts and the terror that drove them. Ser Gerion carried the last child in, followed by the attendant, as the city beyond burned.
His knees collapsed; Thoros sank to the floor and cradled the child. He glanced up to see the Attendant's mask facing him. The red lacquered tiles of the mask showed only dark eyes. "You chose to save sacrificial children rather than fight Telos."
He said nothing; he simply held the child.
"Maiden's tits, I fuckin' pissed my pants!" Ser Gerion sounded enthused by the idea as he stood at the door. "That beast is bigger than the city!"
The little girl cried in alarm when Thoros tried to put her down. So he continued to hold her as he awkwardly regained his feet and walked to the knight's side.
The priesthood of R'hllor was gone. The fire scoured the city center so profoundly that not even the stone remained on the ground. He watched as Telos floated gently down from the neck of the massive dragon. It leaned its head down to her, so huge that she could have stood unaided within its jaws. She reached up and touched the creature's snout.
It raised its head on a long, sinuous neck and roared so loudly that even within the shelter of the House of Knowing, the children cried. Massive wings, each larger than the Laughing Lion, rose like cloudbanks and swooped down with unbelievable power. The beast rose into the air, and with another hair-rising roar, turned and flew back north into the mountains. Again, Thoros was unsure of his own eyes, since it seemed to shrink both with distance, and in actual size.
Telos stood alone in the scoured plains of the city center until she turned her starlight eyes directly to Thoros. Rather than attack, she slowly sank cross-legged to the scoured, broken earth below her.
"What's she doing?"
Gerion's voice sounded obscenely loud in the sudden silence. Not even a breeze blew through. Which is why when the attendant of the House of Knowledge spoke, it made them all yelp in surprise.
"She waits to see who else would seek her end. She waits to see who has the courage to go to her to seek absolution. Telos is not a tool of the Other. She is the sworn enemy of the Other, and those foolish enough to serve it."
With her piece said, the mysterious woman turned and glided away. Thoros remained, his mind racing. Absolution.
"Children, listen to me," he said. He turned to see bloodied, dusty faces staring back at him. "We were misled. Come with me, now. I finally understand. Telos is not our enemy. She is our salvation. Come with me, now. Come, and we'll be safe."
"Are you daft, man?" Ser Gerion looked back at the children.
"Gerion, my friend. Think of the girl we knew. She sits out there now, waiting for us. What do you think happens if we don't go to her and beg forgiveness?"
The knight looked from Thoros and then back to where Telos sat. "Right. 'Prolly should change my pants, too." He really had pissed them, it seemed.
Thoros stepped from the House of Knowing. "What's your name, child," he whispered. She whimpered but leaned back to reveal the occidental eyes of a YiTish child. He repeated his question in her language.
"Caihong," she said. She was no more than four, if a day.
"Good. I will protect you, Caihong. Come, now." He looked back to the others. "Stay with me."
He led them out of the House and across the ancient stone of the city, until the stone gave way to charred, blackened earth. They continued forward toward the still, unmoving woman.
Telos wore a red priest's leather cuirass over a temple hand's cotton pants, bunched at the waist to stay on. And right in front of her, Thoros saw a slim, white seedling with two red leaves.
She did not wait for Thoros to speak. "Your ancestors were fooled by the true enemy of humanity to cut the weirwoods down."
Despite the inhuman appearance of her star-like eyes and the lines of tattoos that ran up the length of her exposed arms and legs, she sounded remarkably human. Just like the girl he met while trying to save slaves. "They were misled. The weirwoods were not their enemies, the trees were their salvation. It is the weirwoods that sheltered this world from forces of evil you cannot imagine. The shadows that held sway here would never have found purchase if the trees were left untouched. Just like the demons could never have consumed Melisandre's soul, if she had not split it."
She glanced back up at Thoros. "Oh, Thoros. I hoped you would find an escape. You didn't just split your soul, you broke it."
Thoros sank down to his knees, Caihong still in his arms. His eyes stung with a sudden rush of grief he could barely contain. "Shall I die with my brethren? It's no less than I deserve."
"I might have thought so when I first arrived," Telos said. "Except your first instinct was not to fight or summon evil magic to destroy me. No, your first instinct was to save the innocent. Just like when I met you in Volantis. It means, my friend, that as broken as your soul is, there is still good within you."
She lifted gracefully to her bare feet. Caihong shied away in fear, but Telos lightly touched the girl's nose. When she pulled her fingers away, she held in her hand a gold symbol. A tree. She moved her fingers and suddenly a leather strap went through the eye of the pendant.
Speaking YiTish as if born to it, she gently tied it around Caihong's neck. "This is for your, little rainbow. It will help you have good dreams. It will protect you from bad ones."
Those brilliant, gleaming eyes of hers turned to Thoros. So close, they almost looked like gems in her eye sockets, rather than proper human eyeballs. She took his ruby pendant in his hand.
"Tell me, Thoros of Myr. Now that you have seen that R'hllor was a lie–a demon sorcerer from beyond the stars who misled you into committing acts of depravity and evil, do you grieve for the evil you have done?"
"Unto my death," Thoros gasped, crying freely. "It was never who I was."
"I know." She crushed the ruby. Burning, terrible heat flooded Thoros' veins, his mind and his very soul. He ground his teeth together, not wishing to scream with the children around him. The agony went on for so long he thought he could not survive it, until abruptly it ended. He blinked back his eyes, and suddenly the whole world looked brighter around him. And around the beautiful, glowing figure of Telos, he could see the truth of her.
"My goddess," he whispered.
"I am now. Yes."
Telos stood and looked about the ninety or so surviving children. With a gentle smile, she lifted her hands on either side. The ground under their feet writhed as grasses and plants bloomed from nothing. All around them, green began pushing its way up from the rock and sand, even pushing some of the paving stones that did survive the maelstrom aside.
"I am Telos of the Trees," she told them all. "Sister of the sun, of the moon. Daughter of the sky and sea. Those who act in wickedness must fear me. But those of you who stand in the light shall never have to fear."
The ground rumbled even as life continued to expand out from where her tattooed feet stood. "In the meantime, I'm hungry, and I need a ship. While I can walk on water, that's still a long walk to get back to Westeros. Let's go find something to eat, shall we, kids?"