Melisandre III
The Long Night
The people cheered, far below, their cries rising through the stone belly of the Red Keep like the smoke of some pyre. It was not her fire they sang for, not R'hllor's, but the wolf crowned in the Great Sept, the boy-king with grief in his eyes and a kingdom burning in his hands. Robb Stark, King of the Realm. It had a bitter taste on her tongue, like bloodied copper.
The chamber his men had given her was cold in its bones, but the cold did not touch her. It never did. The red priestess sat still as a carving of flame-given flesh, her robes pooling around her like a pool of spilled wine. The ruby at her throat pulsed faintly, catching the light from the candles she kept burning in every corner of the room. No darkness was welcome near her. Darkness was the enemy.
She stared into the torch she kept in her room.
The flames licked and cracked and leapt in the hearth, but they gave her no vision. Not yet. Not tonight. They were quiet now, as if even R'hllor slept beneath the tumult of a kingdom not yet wise enough to fear the cold that marched behind the Wall. She waited still, eyes like coals, unblinking.
Her jaw clenched.
Stannis. Azor Ahai. Her mouth curved into a sneer so small it did not move her lips. It was only in her mind. He had taken the black. Robb Stark had decreed it, and the boy's court had clapped their hands like seals for fish. Fools. Summer children. They know not what they cast away.
Yet she had not burned for her part in the wars. The wolf king had spared her.
No, not spared. Sentenced. That was the word they used, though it came with no irons, no whip. Just a quiet voice from the Stark king, a heavy gaze, and the soft persuasion of the sorcerer by his side to help until the long night has passed.
Melisandre touched the ruby at her throat, letting its warmth sink into her skin.
"They will call it mercy," she whispered in the tongue of Asshai. "But it is R'hllor's will."
She had burned infidels, crowned usurpers, drawn shadow from her womb to slay in darkness. She had cast bones into fire and seen dragons in smoke. Yet in that court, she had said nothing. She had not raised her voice when the Northmen growled like wolves and called her names. She had not struck when the Tyrell girl judged her. She had not so much as blinked when Stannis was marched off in silence to don black, his eyes hollow, his mouth tight with shame. Her silence shamed her.
All she had done was bow her head. Obedient. Silent. Serene. A priestess in red.
She would be no use to R'hllor dead, and being a woman at the watch may have doomed her.
She could have fought, but the Lord of Light had not commanded it. There was a reason she still drew breath. And a reason she was handed, like a relic, into the service of Lord Ersae.
Some in the court had laughed. "Let the witch tend the other sorcerer," they said. "What punishment could be worse than that?" A jest for them. A chain, they believed. But Melisandre saw the fire's favor. She saw purpose in it.
Bryan Ersae was not Azor Ahai, but the flames whispered of him often. They did not trust him. She did not trust him, no more than she had ever trusted mortal men. But the fire danced around him. It danced, and it waited. It saw his motive to defeat the cold and believed him. She had seen the cold in his past, the fire in his future. His soul smelled of burnt offering. A ruined thing, cracked and bleeding, but not yet broken. She would watch him.
And if he proved unworthy, R'hllor would feed his soul to the flames like all the others.
A log cracked loudly in the hearth. She did not flinch. Instead, she stood and drifted to the fire on bare feet, robes whispering around her. The ruby flared, as if answering some unheard summons.
"Show me," she murmured.
Only snow. Falling thick and endless, until it covered all.
Melisandre exhaled. "The Long Night still comes."
She turned back to the room, to her silence, her exile. Her punishment. She would play her part, no matter how low they thought she had been cast. The gods worked in riddles and wrath.
Robb Stark was no chosen prince. But his hand had been guided. As had Bryan's. They had not crowned the right king. But in the dark places of the world, even broken candles could hold back the night. For a time.
She placed her hand over her womb, though there was no child within.
"R'hllor preserve me," she whispered, "for I walk amongst the blind."
Outside, the cheering rose again, louder now. It echoed through the stone like the howling of beasts. It was not her name they called. But that, too, would change.
When the fires dimmed and the world turned cold, they would come running to her flame.
Bryan Ersae. A sorcerer, some whispered. A man of many names who was only feared by Robb Stark, and all others but her feared Robb Stark. Too many, in Melisandre's eyes. He wielded no crown, but men obeyed him. He gave no sermons, but he worked signs and wonders, sometimes greater than hers.
He does not kneel before R'hllor. And yet R'hllor listens to him.
He had come to her alone, just after midday, with sunlight slanting hard through her window like spears. No ceremony, no courtesy. She had been grinding red lotus seeds with a pestle when he entered, and the dust clung to her fingers like powdered blood.
"You'll watch the girl," Bryan had said.
The fire hissed in the hearth.
"Missandei is clever," he went on. "Too clever for a maester's dull tongue, and too strange to fit in with the noble brats. She'll stay here, under your care. Please teach her what she can bear. Magic. Language. Discipline. What she is ready for, and not a step more."
Melisandre had smiled at him then, the slow curling smile she wore like a veil. "She is not a child chosen by fire."
"I do not care," Bryan had commanded. "Teach her magic. I have left a curriculum."
His gaze was unreadable, hard as hammered steel and just as cold. "I'll be at Harrenhal. Then Winterfell. There's something in the stones of both that needs studying. Jon will travel with me. Marwyn and Ashara as well."
"And you would leave her with me?" Melisandre arched a pale brow. "Are you not afraid what I will do with her?"
"If I thought you would do something evil, then I would not trust her with you," he said, without malice. "But you won't. You know she's of value. If not to me, then to the fire you pray to. If we die, Missandei is our only hope."
He had handed her a bundle then, amongst them were parchments, scrolls, old skins scrawled in runes that smelled of ash and mold. "From time to time, ravens will come. Glyphs, spells, languages we've yet to name. Send back what you learn. All of it."
Then he had gone.
And now her chambers held only flame and silence.
She found Missandei in the godswood, a sad thing here in the Red Keep. The girl sat on a flat stone reading a book of Westerosi histories, her small legs tucked beneath her.
"Come," Melisandre said.
Missandei followed without question. The girl was obedient, if not faithful.
That night's lesson began in darkness. No fire, no candles. Only the sound of breath and the faint hum of the city beneath them. Melisandre placed a brass bowl between them and sprinkled powder. It was a blend of shadowmoss, dried nightshade, and flakes of obsidian crushed fine as flour. When she whispered the word, the bowl caught fire with a hiss.
"Magic," Melisandre said, "is not trickery. It is sacrifice. You pay with blood. With pain. With truth."
Missandei leaned close. Her dark eyes were wide, but not fearful. "You use powders."
"I use power. Would you rather I offer your soul to the Lord of Light?" She loathed her station, but oddly R'hllor had not commanded her to do anything but obey for now.
Missandei look at Melisandre puzzled. "I can already start fires," she explained. The girl snapped her fingers and lit her own bowl full of powders.
She had been taught much already.
Over the weeks, Melisandre taught her the names of shadows, the tongues of ancient Valyria, the bones of spells that even the maesters would not dare write. She burned dead rats and snakes in bowls, showed her how smoke could be shaped by breath and thought. And when Missandei asked questions, Melisandre answered them with riddles.
They argued, often.
"He's not real," Missandei said once. "Your god. The fire is real, the heat is real, the light is real. But not the rest. R'hllor is just a name you give it."
Melisandre had seized the girl's wrist and pressed it close to the hearth, not touching the flame, but close enough for her skin to sweat. Her ruby glowed.
"Say that again," she said softly. "Say it while the fire tastes your blood."
Missandei didn't. But she didn't take it back either. Melisandre let go. If she burned non-believers here, she would simply die.
One morning a raven came, black wings and black eyes, bearing a scroll sealed in pitch. Inside were runes written in a tongue that predated Valyria. Coiling things. Sharp as claws. Melisandre sat with it for three days, studying its curves by candlelight, her ruby flashing in the dark like a living heart.
It was not Valyrian. It was older, with bits of symbols common in ancient Asshai and the first men. She sent back a page inked with her thoughts.
There were more ravens after that. Some bore only pictures, charcoal sketches of murals or etchings found in crypts. Others came with lines of poetry, written in languages that had died when the sea was still young.
And still, the Long Night did not come.
A year passed. The girl grew taller.
Then came the raven of the Wall, according to the newly appointed grandmaester. The wildlings had come, but the North had crushed them like beetles. Jeor Mormont had died from something unrelated. A dozen brothers slain. Stannis Baratheon risen from the ashes of failed kingship to take command of the Night's Watch.
She stared at the parchment long into the night. No reply had ever come to her own, despite writing to Stannis many times.
Was it punishment? A test? Or was the man simply dead in spirit?
The fire gave no answer.
"Remember who you are, Stannis. You are not done."
Bryan Ersae returned on a night of thunder. The air was heavy with wet heat, and the sky above King's Landing wept fire and rain, streaks of white lightning splitting the clouds like broken bone. The Red Keep groaned beneath the storm, and in her chamber, Melisandre lit her candles with a whisper and waited.
He came to her at midnight, dripping water and secrets in equal measure, his cloak torn and crusted with road filth, a stench of blood about him that no rain could wash away. He looked tired and older, though no older than he had left. The eyes, though. They had seen too much again.
"Only a few days," he told her, his voice graveled and raw. "Then I ride north once more."
"You walk too close to death," she said, and the ruby at her throat flared bright with each word. "The fire warns me."
He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. He spoke of ruins, of old gods beneath the Winterfell, of Marwyn's wisdom, and Jon Snow's grim silence. When she asked of the wall, he spoke of Stannis' victory and disdain for the sorcerer.
It was the third night, when the storm had passed and the moon hung bloated above the city, that he gave her the paper.
"Keep it safe," he said, thrusting it into her hand. "And if I die, give it to Missandei and the whoever is Hand of the King."
She unrolled the parchment. Ink black as pitch, names spelled out in a Westerosi hand too neat to be honest. A marriage certificate, false and clean. Bryan Ersae wed to Missandei of Naath, now of Sea Dragon's Point. A documented heir, should he fall.
"She will need a shield if I die. A name. Land. Blood. This makes her my widow. No one will question her."
Melisandre let the firelight touch the paper.
"You will not die."
He smiled. "No. But I might."
He left later, when the sky was red with dawn and the streets were still slick with rain. Melisandre stood atop the Tower of the Hand as he rode out with his guards and strange men from the east, and Missandei stood beside her, quiet as always.
"You will remain under Mel's care," Bryan told the girl, firm. "Use your wits and make good friends." The girl spoke of becoming friends with a few of the Sand Snakes when they have visited.
Melisandre raised her chin. "And what of you?"
"I'll send ravens," he said. "And if Daenerys comes, you need to be here. Someone with magic. And someone to guard Missandei."
"I remember," she said.
He was gone.
The days turned quiet again. The red priestess resumed her studies with the girl, though Missandei's questions had grown sharper, her tongue more bold. They read scrolls together, and sometimes Melisandre would wake to find the girl poring over parchments. It pained Melisandre, but eventually the small girl knew more than her about the ancients. She gave more robust input than Mel did herself, although she scarcely let the girl know that to keep her from going cocky.
The flames grew restless.
One night, the ruby at her throat began to burn. Not warm. Not hot. Burn. Her skin blistered beneath it, her breath came in gasps, and when she finally fell into prayer before the fire, she saw a thousand screams dancing in the flame. A wall of ice breaking. A king's hand shattering like glass. Wolves howling beneath a red sky. A great eye opening in the North.
Then pain. Fire beneath her skin. A voice, terrible and vast. Her heart wanted to go north.
She collapsed.
But when she crawled to her knees, sweat soaking her silks, the flame whispered another word.
Stay.
It was not confusion. It was command. Two orders, opposed yet true. She stared into the coals until dawn, and the ruby throbbed with heat against her throat.
She fasted for three days, drinking only water, until sleep took her on the third night.
In the dream, she walked barefoot through a field of ice. Each step hissed with flame, and behind her she left a trail of red snow. The wind screamed her name, but it was not the sound of mortals. it was a song of ash and sorrow. In the distance, a mountain burned. And atop the peak stood a single flame, not flickering, but steady as a sword raised in battle. It pointed north.
When she woke, the sheets were scorched beneath her.
She dressed in silence, her robes of blood velvet and red fire layered over each other like armor. The ruby at her neck pulsed like a heart not hers. Missandei found her in the hall.
"You've seen something," the girl said.
"Yes."
"Are you leaving?"
"I do not know."
The waiting gnawed at her like rats in the dark.
A year had passed since Bryan rode north beneath a banner of whispers, and Daenerys Stormborn had yet to set sail like he said. The flames had gone quiet. Missandei studied her glyphs and scrolls, asking questions Melisandre had answered a hundred times. The girl was clever, yes, but the priestess felt herself withering, not in body but in purpose.
She was made to burn, not rot in silk and stone.
So she left.
The Red Keep watched her go with a dozen wary eyes. No one wished to stop her, nor did they see her as anything more than a fancy servant. She rode from the city in scarlet robes, her face veiled against the dust, her choker glowing faintly in the predawn mist. No escort, no guards. Only a horse, her heat, and her god.
She passed the ruins of towns stripped by wolves and war. In Maidenpool, beggars swarmed the gates, coughing up blood in the cold. At Harrenhal, black crows circled high over broken towers and bones too fresh for comfort. The Trident was thick with ice, crusted and sluggish, and the farther north she rode, the more the land seemed to die.
At night, the cold pressed against her robes like an unwanted lover, but she did not shiver. The ruby at her throat pulsed with warmth.
By the time she reached Winterfell, her horse was near collapse, its breath steaming thick in the bitter air. The towers of the castle rose black against a sky of iron, and the wind screamed down from the mountains with voices she did not trust. Smoke rose from the chimneys, but there was no warmth in it. Only readiness.
The gates did not open swiftly. Men in boiled leather and dark cloaks peered down with arrows nocked, their faces pinched and grey from the cold. When they let her through, it was with muttering and narrowed eyes.
Inside, the courtyard teemed with motion. Smiths hammering out spearheads, men oiling blades, women boiling rags and stuffing wool into crates. Horses were being shod, carts filled, wagons lashed down with stores. The smell of old blood lingered, beneath the sharp bite of pine tar and sweat.
And then Bryan was upon her.
He strode with a cloak of wolf fur thrown over one shoulder, a scowl carved deep into his face. His eyes burned hotter than her ruby.
"You left her," he said, his voice low and hard. "You left her."
Melisandre stood tall. "Daenerys had not arrived. She is not coming."
"You were supposed to wait."
The wind picked up, sending the hem of her robe twisting like flame.
"You hadn't sent a raven. R'hllor guided me here."
Bryan gave a short, sharp laugh. It had no mirth in it. "Your god needs better ravens. We've sent notice to every lord in the Seven Kingdoms. The Night's Watch is gone."
Her breath caught.
He looked her up and down, as if weighing her like a bolt of cloth. "You left before the word came. The Wall fell weeks past. The Long Night has begun, and you abandoned your charge to come chasing shadows."
"No," she said. "I came for the war."
He turned away from her, disgust writ plain on his face. "Then you're late."
Melisandre's eyes roamed the courtyard. Among the men gathering weapons and sorting stores, she saw the few. Night's Watch survivors, cloaked in black. Their faces hollowed by loss. One bore no nose. Another had a maimed hand wrapped in leather. The last of the Watch.
And among them, leaning against a cart, arms crossed beneath a sable cloak, stood Stannis Baratheon.
He looked thinner than she remembered. His beard had flecks of gray and white. A blade hung from his belt, and his jaw was clenched tight enough to crack stone.
"Stannis," she said, walking toward him. "I have returned."
He did not look at her.
"Stannis," she repeated, stopping just a pace away. "Do you remember the flames? Your destiny? You are Azor Ahai. This is your chance to claim the throne"
"Spare me," he said, flat and cold. "Whatever lies you tell yourself, the Wall bought them in blood. Leave me to the real war, witch."
Her lips parted to reply, but he turned and walked away without a glance. His back was bowed under more than age.
Oh Lord of Light, what do you want of me now?
She returned to Bryan as the sky darkened, a thin snow falling like ash from the clouds.
"What must I do?" she asked, quiet.
Bryan's eyes did not soften. "You can stay. You can fight with spells. Enchant as many weapons as you can, staying by my side to support me and Marwyn."
He walked away then, into the keep.
Melisandre watched the flames of the forge, and wondered if they would speak again. They were silent.
The priestess followed him down into the cold.
Bryan Ersae said nothing as he led her away from the solar and the stone halls where the lords and captains slept, down a winding stair that stank of mold and burning tallow. His steps were slow, heavy with the weariness of men who lived too long without sleep, without peace. He looked more corpse than man beneath the torchlight, pale and scowling.
She did not speak as they descended, nor did she shiver. Her heat clung to her like a second skin.
He opened a wide door set deep in the foundations. Hinges groaned like dying things.
Winterfell's library was a long, low cavern of a room with ceilings that sagged and beams that looked ready to collapse. The walls were stone, cracked with age, and covered in soot and smoke-darkened banners of forgotten lords. Candles flickered in iron holders nailed into wooden beams, casting the space in a perpetual dusk, where shadows stretched long and narrow.
Shelves lined the walls, hundreds of them, all burdened with books and scrolls. Some had slumped into one another like drunkards at a feast. The oldest tomes were chained, their locks rusted shut. Piles of loose parchment were on tables, on chairs, underfoot, and anywhere they could lay. Most were torn, bloodstained, burned at the edges. The scent of old ink and rotting vellum hung thick in the air, mixed with the musk of too many bodies packed in too close.
He had made it his sanctum.
Cots filled the spaces between. Simple frames of wood or straw mats, some stripped bare, others piled with furs. Men slept among the tomes, ragged and sallow, black brothers and castle folk both. A boy lay snoring on a bed of books, face flushed with fever. Another sat cross-legged beneath a hanging tapestry, whispering a prayer to the Crone. One man had hanged himself from a beam above the fiction shelves; his body still swayed, faintly, back and forth.
"I sleep here," Bryan said, brushing aside a curtain of moth-eaten velvet and revealing a circle of candles and three desks laden with scrolls. "Better light than the cellars. It is cold though. Most of the town has come inside the walls. There's no space left. They're sleeping in stables, crypts, storerooms. I'm lucky to be where I can be of use."
Melisandre stepped inside, her heat pressing against the frost in the air like fire against parchment. "You squander your gift in here," she said. Her voice carried in the hush like a hymn. "You bury your face in books."
Bryan sat cross-legged at one of the tables. His hands were ink-stained. "These books may be worth more than men now. If I can find one spell to banish their cold, one ward to hold our walls, or flame worth more than a thousand fireballs. Knowledge is the only shield left."
She walked slowly around the room, her fingers brushing the spine of an ancient codex. He was currently looking at fire related texts. Strange that anything valuable would be in Winterfell. She wondered if he brought it with him. "Fire alone will not stop what comes. You know this. Why do you study lesser flames, when shadow is stronger?"
Bryan looked up from his parchment. "If your shadows are so strong, kill an Other. I'll watch."
"A shadow is a child of fire, given form. Give me your seed. I'll make one. Stronger than swords, stronger than flame."
"They must be born," she said gently. "Shadows are not called. They are made. And the making requires a man. A king's blood. Or magic."
She stood above him, tall and blazing, her ruby gleaming like a second sun at her throat. Her fingers went to the sash of her robe. "You have both."
Bryan scoffed. "I have no crown. I serve a wolf-king and sleep in piss and parchment."
She began to untie the sash. Her voice dropped to a whisper, but the words were rich and heady. Some of the men nearby began to stare at her. "You have power. That is enough. Lay with me. Give me your seed, and I'll bring forth death clothed in darkness."
He stood. Anger surged beneath his skin, visible in the twitch of his jaw, the lines etched deep around his eyes. "I don't care if you fuck a sheep and birth a fucking dragon," he growled. "I have no time for your holy whoring."
Then he turned.
A young man had been watching from the shadow of a collapsed bookshelf. Pale hair, cracked lips, eyes wide and watery. He looked no older than twenty.
"You," Bryan said. "Come here."
The boy stepped forward, trembling.
"Do whatever she tells you. She wants your seed, give it. Fuck her until her god believes it is enough. Understand?" He walked away again, mumbling. She could not hear exactly what, but it almost sounded like he spoke of being loyal to his wife.
The boy nodded and gave himself to Melisandre.
Melisandre studied him. Thin shoulders, bony hips, no strength in the limbs, no light in the eyes. She could smell the fear coming off him in waves.
"No," she said, curling her lip. "He is nothing."
Power must come from kings."
Melisandre turned from the stinking boy and swept from the room, her heat rising like incense in her wake.
She would find someone.
At first, she went back to Stannis. He had taken to calling himself brother now, same as the others, though no black cloak would ever hide the king in his bones. He sat hunched beside the firepit of the armory yard, feeding logs into the flames with a faraway look, the red glow casting lines across his stern, hollow face. The cold had taken his fingertips on one hand, and most of his pride with them. Even so, there was something in his silence that spoke of steel not yet melted.
"Your Grace," she said softly, the title slipping out like a lover's kiss.
He did not look at her. "I am no king. Not here. Not now."
"You have king's blood," she said, kneeling beside him. Her voice was velvet and spice, and her ruby pulsed like a heartbeat. "I can use it. Let me. Let us make a shadow together. The cold comes."
He flinched, holding back rage. "I will not be used again, woman. Not by you. Not by your god."
Then he rose and left her in the snow.
She tried others.
A brother of the Night's Watch, tall and dark, backed away from her when she touched his arm. "Witch," he spat. "Your fires won't warm the dead."
A supposed bastard among the black brothers is who she spoke to next, missing an eye and stinking of fear. He pushed her away when she began to undress.
The hours grew long, and the torches short, and all through Winterfell her heat smoldered and boiled beneath her skin.
Then she found him.
Joffrey Waters. He had once been a prince, before the wolf stripped him of the name Baratheon. A sullen boy grown into a bitter young man, sharp-jawed and lean, with curls like gold silk and eyes that burned with resentment. He drank like a Braavosi sailor and looked like he would fuck like one.
He was sharpening a dagger when she approached him near the armory wall.
"You're one of the Lannister queen's bastards," she said. "Your father was a king. That blood still flows in you."
He gave her a sideways glance, lips curled. "What of it? Come to mock me like the rest?"
"I want you to lay with me," she said, smiling.
That got his attention.
They lay together in a forge, the stones still warm from the embers. Melisandre stripped without shame, her scarlet robes slipping from her like flowing wine. Her body glowed in the dark, pale and perfect, her hair spilling like fire over the anvil she leaned against.
Joffrey was angry and eager. He kissed like a lion tearing at a carcass, all teeth and tongue. He mounted her in the shadows, grunting with each thrust, hands wrapped in her hair.
She whispered prayers beneath him, calling on R'hllor with every breath. Her ruby blazed like the sun. The forge groaned. The shadows danced. And as he spilled himself inside her, she bit her lip and whispered thank you to the Lord of Light.
The next night, it began.
She took herself to the godswood, where the snow lay in heavy drifts and the heart tree's red eyes watched like silent judges. The branches were hung with ice. Beneath them, she dug a circle into the snow, candles staked in the frozen ground, firewood heaped high.
Naked beneath her cloak, she knelt in the heart of the flame.
The ruby at her throat burned red, brighter than the fire. Her eyes rolled back in her skull.
She screamed.
The pain came deep and wrenching, not like birthing a babe of flesh, but something fouler, darker, more ancient. Her belly twisted, and her spine arched, and her breath steamed in great white clouds.
Blood poured from her thighs, thick and black as tar.
The shadows lengthened. The flames bent toward her. The candles flickered and died.
Then it came.
It clawed its way out of her like a stillborn curse, slow and steaming. Long arms of shadow, fingers like bone, eyes like smudges of void. Its shape was manlike, but wrong. Too tall, too thin. Its face was a blur of hunger.
She collapsed as it stood.
"Go," she whispered. "Find the Others. Kill them. Tear them apart for the Lord of Light."
The shadow bowed its head. Then it vanished into the trees, silent as smoke.
She lay in the snow for hours, her blood steaming where it touched the ground, her ruby cooling.
And she felt it.
Her son of darkness found one of them in the wildwood, not too far north.
It leapt.
The Other turned.
There was no battle.
The ice sword struck once.
The shadow died with a cry that echoed through her bones, a sound like glass shattering in her soul.
Melisandre wept. It was fruitless. Even shadows cannot kill the cold. She did not know what to do.
She found Bryan atop the battlements, cloak flapping in the wind, his boots crusted with snow and ash. The moon hung pale and listless above the towers of Winterfell, and the stars seemed fewer tonight, as if even the sky knew this was the eve of doom.
Jon Snow stood beside him, grim beneath furs and leather. Marwyn the Mage had come too, wrapped in a thick brown cloak patched with scorch marks, a pipe clamped in his yellowed teeth. They said nothing when she approached, only turned toward the north with hard eyes and clenched jaws.
Now the true winter came.
Far off on the plain, no more than shadows at the edge of night, the cold ones marched.
They moved like smoke, silent and slow, the moonlight glinting off frozen swords and eyes like ice chips. A thin white mist curled around their feet, and behind them, darker still, came the dead. Thousands. Tens of thousands. An army of bones and rot, spears of ice and shields of hoarfrost. Even here, the air trembled with their presence.
"My shadow failed," Melisandre said, her voice low and hoarse. "The shadow. It perished before it could touch the Other."
Bryan said nothing at first. His face was a mask of calm, but she saw the sadness behind his eyes. Part of him hoped her follies would work. The wind played with his black hair and tugged at his cloak.
"They are close," said Jon. "We'll see them at the gates by morning."
"Before the sun rises," Marwyn muttered. "If the sun rises."
She left them then, retreating to her chamber in the broken tower. There were candles burning in a ring, flames dancing like spirits. She d knelt within the circle.
Show me, she prayed. Great R'hllor, Lord of Light, show me the path. I have failed you. Grant me a vision.
The fire crackled. The shadows twisted.
And she saw.
A bear, larger than any man, roaring in grief. He searched through endless shadow, yet the shadow could not touch him. Only a little light could guide him through it, until they found a door that opened not with keys, but with pain. The sky lit red. The sound of chains snapping. Then silence.
Melisandre opened her eyes, gasping, sweat rolling down her pale skin. She would guide the bear. What bear? Where was he going? Had she seen death or deliverance? She could not say. And it infuriated her on the eve of the battle for Winterfell, her Lord only showed her a bear.
She walked the walls alone that night, red robes whispering over stone, the heat of her body steaming in the frigid air. Soldiers huddled near braziers as everything grew colder. Somewhere, a babe cried, and a woman sang softly, voice trembling like the flames.
She found Bryan standing near the walls where he was before. The torch in his hand cast long shadows on the stone, flickering like ghosts. A large bear was on his cloak. She had not noticed it before. She never cared to notice his sigil. A golden bear on green.
"Lord Ersae," she said gently.
He looked up and smiled, weary. He seemed to be accepting what was going to happen, and let go of his anger towards her. His cheeks were pink from the cold, and his hands stained with ink.
"Lady Melisandre."
She sat across from him, crossing her long legs beneath her gown. "I have seen something. In the fire. After the Long Night ends… I may know a way to send you home."
His brow furrowed. "How?"
Her ruby throbbed against her throat. "Blood. Sacrifice. The gate opens only for those who pay its toll."
He shook his head. "That's monstrous."
"Necessity is not always kind," she said. "R'hllor demands. I obey. So must you."
"I'm not going to kill the innocent for a door that might not open," he said, softly but firmly.
Her red eyes narrowed. "You may not have a choice."
"You may be right," Bryan said. "But I do not want innocents to die, especially when so many have yet to truly live."
A silence passed between them. The flames whispered.
Then Melisandre around her and saw men getting ready for battle. Many of them had dragonglass, supposedly to kill the others. Many commoners, women, and children were being forced to leave to survive the night. Jon Snow had taken command and would lead them in this fight. He gave orders and heroic speeches. They seemed almost confident. Mel's voice came softer than she expected it to be.
"You have done more than I ever expected and even spared me for the day of R'hllor ahead. You attempted to prepare Westeros for this darkness… You are a good man."
He chuckled. "Thank you."
"I do not say it to flatter," she said. "I say it because I have failed. My shadows crumble. My fire speaks in riddles. I was sent to help the man who would save the world, but I have only wandered through it like a blind woman."
"You haven't failed," Bryan said. "We're still here. And we're ready. Every man and woman has dragonglass. Jon's men know the stakes. Robb's banner still flies. That means there's still hope."
Hope, she thought bitterly. Hope is not enough.
"And your god may have fail," Bryan said determined, "But my god never fails. We may lose the battle, but the dawn will come."
The wind howled beyond the walls. The cold ones were coming.
No horn blew. No drums of war sounded. There was only the deep groan of the earth beneath Winterfell, and the wind crying through the godswood like a dying man's breath.
Melisandre had not slept. She stood upon the outer wall beside Bryan Ersae, the fat sorcerer hunched in his furs, blue eyes sharp as steel in the darkness. His cheeks were pale, his lips murmuring strange syllables in a tongue that scraped at her memory. Her heart stirred. She felt the ruby at her throat throb in answer.
Bryan's arms lifted, slow as rising smoke, fingers splayed wide. Beneath the walls, thousands of soldiers waited. Northern men, black brothers, and a handful of knights from all over the seven kingdoms. Behind them loomed the gates of Winterfell, flanked by torches that barely held the dark at bay. There was no dawn. Only blackness.
His voice cracked the night open like a blade through ice.
The ruby at Melisandre's throat burned white-hot. A scream burst from her lips before she knew it, and she threw her arms up to the sky, crying out, her voice a whip of fire.
The cold weakened, and every sword ignited.
A thousand flames roared to life at once, wreathed in heat and sorcery. Blades burned golden-red, licking with fire from pommel to point. Even the dragonglass knives glowed, rimmed in scarlet sparks.
Gasps and cheers broke from the soldiers. A horn finally blew. The snow hissed.
And then came the dead.
They crashed into the flaming line like waves upon stone, wights screaming with mouths full of broken teeth and snow-packed throats. Spears punched through ribs, axes shattered bone. The first clash sent men flying. Screams, wet and thick, echoed from the walls.
Melisandre watched it all unfold from above, her hair whipping in the wind. The flames of her soldiers were not all-powerful. For every wight that burned, two more stumbled forth from the fog.
A man fell screaming, his throat torn by blackened fingers. His sword dropped, still aflame, and as it hit the ground, another corpse rose beside him, burned half through and blind in one eye. It seized the blade in lifeless hands.
The fire helped. It did not save them.
Bryan stood beside her still, muttering spells, his cheeks slick with sweat despite the cold. She could feel his strength pouring out of him, like water from a cracked skin.
Below, a direwolf leapt into the fray. Ghost, pale as bone, his jaws red and his eyes like blood. Jon Snow fought beside him with valyrian steel carving through the black tide.
A woman-warrior screamed as she was dragged down, her belly split open like a sausage, her entrails steaming in the snow. A knight from the Vale lost half his face to a hammer blow and stumbled on, still swinging. A boy no older than ten had set his sword against the earth and stood weeping beside it when he grew tired, until a wight crushed his skull with a rock.
Melisandre wept too, though only within. Her face stayed serene. She was flame. She was the light in the darkness.
Hours passed. Or minutes. Time lost all meaning.
The lines broke.
A horn screamed twice. Retreat. Fires guttered. The cold came rushing in.
A handful made it back. Bloody, limping, burned. Some clawed the gates with broken fingers. Others were dragged by brothers. One man braved the gates with a shattered leg, screaming for his wife, only to die with her name on his lips before she would ever see him.
The gates slammed shut. The dead had reached the walls. Winterfell was under siege.
Melisandre felt alone, looking down at the flickering battlefield. Slight smoke curled from the dead. The moans of the wounded filled the air, and beneath it all was the sound of scraping. Bone against wood. Ice against stone.
"Lord of Light," she whispered. "Do not leave us now."
The siege had lasted for hours. Melisandre had thought they might hold, for a time. Long enough for the Lord of Light to answer. Long enough for some great sign to reveal itself in fire and blood. Long enough for dawn.
But no dawn came. Only screams.
It began with a howl from the belly of Winterfell, a shriek unlike any she had ever heard. Not the cry of battle, nor grief, nor pain. The sound of death remembering itself.
A boy ran past, his face pale with horror, lips flecked with spit. "The crypts," he gasped. "They're… they're coming from the crypts!"
And then the dead burst forth.
They came in ones and twos at first. Stark dead, rotted and worm-white. Bones wrapped in velvet and skin as dry as old parchment. She saw a child no taller than her thigh with half a wolf's skull for a face, clamber from the broken maw of the crypt steps, hands scrabbling at the stone like claws.
They wore rings still, some. Jewels glinting on withered hands. One wight had a rusted circlet still clinging to his matted scalp. Another bore a blade of bronze in one hand and a stone direwolf clutched to its breast.
"Burn them," she cried, her voice ringing through the courtyard. "Burn them before they rise—"
Too late.
The first to fall had been guarding the gate, sword drawn. When the dead bit through his neck, it ripped the throat out with her teeth like a dog tearing gristle. He staggered backward, blood spraying in hot arcs, and died gurgling.
And then he rose.
Inside the castle, chaos reigned.
Women screamed. Men shouted over each other. Somewhere she heard Jon Snow's voice barking orders, but they had no time. The dead had opened the gates in a manner of minutes.
The Others walked in.
Not wights. Not clumsy corpses stitched with shadow. No. These were the pale kings, with eyes of sapphire fire and armor of moonlight and ice. Their voices crackled with death and cold. Their breath smoked in the cold, but their steps were silent, elegant, terrifying. They carried spears and swords of crystal like a cold flame.
Winterfell had fallen.
Melisandre saw a girl no older than ten trying to drag her mother toward the kitchens when a spear took her in the back, splitting her like meat. The child's scream didn't even finish before it was choked in her own blood. She twitched for a moment before rising again. More fell. A night's watch archer lost both arms to a white blade and kept fighting with his teeth until a wight cracked his skull open on the stones. A smith fought three at once, screaming "For the North!" before they disemboweled him and shoved his own entrails down his throat. And what the Others did not handle, their wights swept through.
Fire slowed them. Dragonglass stopped some. But there were so many.
R'hllor did not protect them. Was it because they did not serve him? Why would he allow the cold to win against men?
As she moved to the godswood, snow around the heart tree had turned to slush and steaming blood, blackened in the firelight. Ash fell like gray snowflakes as Winterfell had begun to catch fire. Cries echoed from stone and tree alike, echoing too loud, too shrill. Melisandre crept between the shadows of the weirwood roots, her red cloak billowing like a banner soaked in wine. Her ruby throbbed at her throat, hot as a brand.
Survivors.
A knot of men, two hundred strong if that, blades drawn, faces gray with soot and cold. Among them were women, children, the crippled and burned, those too young or broken to run. One boy could not have been older than six, clutching a broken doll with no head. An old man with a caved-in chest wheezed beside him, leaning on a poleaxe for a cane.
And there, in the center, stood Jon Snow barking out commands line a wolf telling his men to hold the line.
His sword was black with blood, his curls stiff with frozen sweat. Ghost was beside him, his white fur turned red and gray in places, his eyes shining like twin moons, but covered in scratches. Jon's mouth moved, barking orders, comforting the frightened, organizing men in small circles to defend the grove.
Melisandre moved quickly, hugging the shadows. Her legs ached. Her breath came in hot gasps. The heat she gave off steamed in the cold night air. A flicker of movement caught her eye.
A wight came crawling across the snows on all fours, skin rotted and blue-black, eyes glowing. One leg was gone at the knee. Still it came. She had no blade.
She whispered words in the tongue of Asshai. Her ruby flared, the heat tightening like claws about her throat. She raised one hand. The fire burst from her palm like a whip, coiling through the air, striking the wight full in the face. Its skull cracked, skin bubbled, and it fell shrieking in silence, limbs curling like burnt leaves.
She nearly fell to her knees. Her vision danced with spots. But then came another blaze of fire saving her.
From the group, a firebolt tore through the dark, a lance of molten light. It struck the wight and shattered it like glass. Bone and flame scattered the snow.
The sorcerer. Fake at first, yet somehow stronger than her.
He stood in the clearing behind Jon, panting like a bull, his immense chest rising and falling. His fat arms trembled with exertion, but the fire danced about his fingers. His hair was wet with sweat. His robes were black with soot. But his eyes were clear, bright as the flames he wielded.
She rushed to him, stumbling through mud and corpses.
"I thought you'd be dead by now."
"Death will not prevail over me."
The dead came again.
They howled, a thousand mouths without tongues. And they came with blades of ice and spears fashioned from femurs, and they came in waves. Men screamed. A spear took a young guardsman through the thigh and dragged him into the trees. Another man was pulled down, his face torn open before he could scream. The godswood filled with blood and fire and fear.
Melisandre joined the fighting, hurling flame with her voice shaking.
But it was the sorcerer who did what none else could.
He stepped forward, both hands bleeding where he had cut himself. From his palm, blood poured into the snow. The blood thick and sickened with sorcery. His voice was low and terrible, chanting in a language she did not know.
A wall of fire rose.
And the wights stopped. The newest dead fell and their blood spilled. It began to pool at his feet, while he absorbed its power. The sorcerer's eyes darkened. Bryan's lips moved still. His knees buckled. His skin had gone gray as ash, sweat pouring from his face. He was coughing now deep, wet sounds, as if he were drowning in his own lungs.
With hands raised high, a flame half as bright as the sun formed above Bryan. It moved and changed shape like the ocean tide.
He has always been a bloodmage. The truth broke her a bit.
"Run," he rasped.
"No," Jon moved toward him.
Bryan turned, and the look in his eyes silenced them all.
"GO," he bellowed. "NOW."
And then he screamed, and hurled the fire.
It burst from his hands, from his chest, from his soul. A fireball the size of a horse, white-hot and streaked with gold and red, roared from his bloated fingers. It slammed into the advancing dead and exploded.
The heat was blinding. Snow melted. Trees burned. Wights vaporized, bones turning to powder in an instant. The shockwave knocked Melisandre back. Her ears rang. Her skin blistered beneath her robes.
But it worked.
The dead halted. The Others were stunned. Confused.
Jon barked the order. "Move!"
They fled. Melisandre, Marwyn limping beside her, Jon Snow dragging a wounded girl in his arms. Dozens followed. Some were too slow to respond to the bright light. Some were too slow and were caught as they fled. A few had simply given up in the dark with little light to lead them.
Behind them, the godswood cracked and hissed as it had been caught aflame.
Melisandre saw the Bloodmage collapse out of the corner of her eye. He gave all he had, and it was worth little more than destroying a couple of hundred dead and stunning a few Others to allow some of them to escape.
She could not weep. Not for the bloodmage, but for the living. The faithless will have even less faith in the Lord of Light when his own priestess is powerless against the cold and dark. For how easy it was in her own heart, for the first time in years, for her to question her own god. He had abandoned them. She still wanted to believe. She wanted to mourn her own loss of faith, but they did not have time.
They passed through the battered remnants of Moat Cailin after a few days, a shuffling column of survivors and wounded, of widows and orphans.
The wind whispered the harsher cold would come again.
Melisandre walked beside Marwyn the Mage, who muttered to himself constantly, rubbing his liver-spotted hands and cursing the cold. Ashara Dayne was behind them, the violet of her eyes dulled by weariness and sorrow, her cheeks hollow. She bore a child in each arm, neither her own, both half-starved. Her cloak was ragged, her boots worn to the leather beneath. Still, she walked with the straight back of a lady of Starfall.
And Stannis lived. She had glimpsed him atop his dying horse, one gauntlet clutched to his swordbelt, face pale as bone beneath his dented helm. But alive. Her lord. The one who had been promised. That flame had not yet guttered out.
When they reached the walls of Harrenhal, its vast black towers rising like the burnt bones of some giant beast, Jon Snow turned to them.
"We will ready for siege here," he said, voice hoarse. "We'll gather what strength we can."
"Then we fight with you," Ashara said.
"No," Jon said. "You, and Marwyn, and… her." His eyes met Melisandre's. "You ride for King's Landing."
"We cannot ride," said Melisandre softly. "There are no horses left."
"Then walk," he said. "Fly if you can. Take all of the sick and wounded you can with you. Those who can't keep pace will die. Or slow the rest of us. Tell them south is their only hope."
"And the rest?"
"Pray they stalwart against the dead."
She wanted to fight back, but her gods were silent now.
They left. A thin ragged line, two dozen at most. No horses. No food beyond what could be scrounged and some torches.
The road was a death march.
The wind cut like a knife. The snow stung like lashes. Marwyn coughed blood after the second day. They thought he would die, and he himself found it odd he recovered. As if another sorcerer was amongst them, but they would not be so lucky. On the third they lost a woman to fever. The fourth, two boys fled during the night. They were found in the morning, curled together like puppies in the snow, eyes wide open, lips blue after a simple slip in the snow. Melisandre burned them to prevent their rise.
They drank melted snow. Chewed roots. Marwyn crushed bark with a rock, and made a bitter tea that kept them from shitting themselves to death. Ashara never complained, though her lips cracked and her hands trembled. She seemed the toughest of them.
At night, Melisandre stood apart, keeping the fires. She sang holy scriptures, praying for warmth, for protection. Her voice echoed through the woods like a ghost.
By the twelfth day, every step was agony. Blisters had burst, bled, and frozen again. One man hacked off his toes to keep them from going black, and screamed the whole time. The frost crept into their lungs. Even the children stopped crying.
Melisandre dreamed of fire every night. And every night, she saw Bryan Ersae, standing in the godswood, bloated and burning, smiling through the flames. It was over two months to finally arrive in King's Landing, but they survived.
When they reached the gates of King's Landing, the guards did not know them.
"Go piss in the snow," one shouted. "No more beggars."
But Ashara pushed forward, blood caking her sleeves. "You fools. There is no time for your folly. Most of my people are half-dead. The other half have already died. We bring news from Winterfell."
That got them through.
Inside, the city reeked of smoke and unwashed flesh. Refugees lined the streets. Whores plied their trade for onions and dry shoes. The gold cloaks were thin and hungry-eyed. Melisandre felt their stares as she passed, though none dared touch her. Winter had barely come and the people were pained.
She walked to the Red Keep, her cloak dragging behind her like a banner of blood. Inside, the warmth was shallow and cruel. The halls echoed with the whispers of frightened servants and the sobbing of hungry children.
Missandei met them in the great hall. She wore a heavy gray cloak with a fur-lined hood, though it looked twice her size, and her hands trembled from the chill. Her gold eyes betrayed her fear.
"Archmaester Marwyn," she said with a curtsy. "Lady Dayne." Her gaze paused on Melisandre. "Lady Melisandre."
Melisandre inclined her head, making the motion fluid, elegant, an illusion of grace.
Missandei swallowed. "The news has spread. King Robb received a raven from Harrenhal. It said Winterfell was lost." Her voice quavered at the last word.
"Aye," said Marwyn. "Jon Snow and Stannis Baratheon held them off longer than any had right to, but the cold broke the walls. And the dead don't sleep."
Missandei clutched her cloak tighter. "And Lord Ersae? He must have returned with you."
The maester lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry, Missandei. He stayed behind. Burned them down to give us time. He's dead, girl."
The words struck Missandei like a blow to the mouth. She took a step back. Her lips moved, but no sound came. Tears swell her eyes.
"He knew this day might come," Marwyn went on. "Left instructions. If the North fell and the dead marched further south, you were to gather your things and take the next ship to Sunspear. I'll see it arranged."
"No," Missandei said. "No. He cannot die. He is… he is the Stranger. Made flesh. That is what Myrcella said. He can slay demons and heal the dying."
Melisandre stepped forward, her robes whispering on the stone. The ruby at her throat pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat beneath the skin.
"All men must die," she said, her voice low and melodic. "Even kings. Even prophets. Even the strongest of sorcerers. Fire takes whom it must. It was his day to die, but it is not yours."
Missandei stared at her as if she were a blade plunged into her belly. She turned sharply and fled the room, her small feet echoing in the cold corridors, her sobs trailing behind her like smoke.
Ashara let out a long breath and turned her pale violet eyes toward Melisandre. "You have all the priestly tact of a sack of stones hurled at a widow's head."
Melisandre said nothing. She did not care to comfort the girl.
"There is no kindness in the truth," the red priestess murmured, half to herself.
Ashara frowned. "Not with how you tell it."
The bells tolled a dirge the day the dead arrived.
Melisandre heard them from the rookery towers, deep within the Red Keep, where the wind was cruel and sharp, and the smell of ash and piss clung to the stone like a stubborn ghost. The air had grown heavier with each passing day, pressing down upon the city like a damp shroud. No one spoke about the siege, but no one could leave but by ship. There were too many people to leave all at once. Many didn't want to leave, and believed they had numbers on their side. The siege crept in, whispered in kitchens and behind closed doors, passed hand to hand like a pox.
The first word of it came from a red-faced guard who had burst into the solar where she and Marwyn had been drilling Missandei on the properties of dragonbone. "They're here," he had spat, panting. "The Others. North Gate. Hells, they're bloody here."
That was nearly a month after she'd arrived in the capital, her feet blistered and half-frozen from the long walk from Harrenhal. The cold had worsened since then. The sky hung heavy, slate and unkind, and the sun no longer warmed even the city's highest towers. Missandei had begun wearing gloves even indoors. Marwyn drank more than usual.
Word traveled poorly in the siege, but quickly.
Jaime Lannister had come from the Wall, they said, gaunt and grave, with black-clad brothers at his back and frost still clinging to his golden hand. He had brought warnings of wildfire hidden beneath the city. Lost stores from the Mad King's day, buried deep and forgotten. Some had thought him mad himself. But the boy king listened. They began moving it, cart by cart, storing it beneath at strategic locations.
When the dead breached the eastern wall, the king had given the order. Fire bloomed over the rooftops. The sky turned green and howled. It was the first day that was not gray since the dead arrived.
Not everyone evacuated in time. Some died. Many hated Robb for this choice, but many more understood it.
After six months, only Highgarden scraps kept the city fed now. Supply lines guarded by Tyrell ships, ferried by desperate captains through sea lanes running rampant with opportune pirates and ironborn.
Melisandre kept to her duties. She taught Missandei all she could. Marwyn did the rest. He knew a great deal of many things, and Missandei's mind sharpened like valyrian steel.
R'hllor remained distant, a flame glimpsed through a veil of ice.
Outside, the city starved and waited. They were lucky. Robb Stark felt he owed a debt to Bryan Ersae, so he had not cast them out. He was the one who warned Robb of this day. It still was not enough.
Inside, Melisandre waited too. For fire. For her god. Or for death. Whichever came first.
Melisandre did not sleep well for many moons. Nearly a full year from when she first arrived had passed before a ship for Sunspear had come that would take Missandei. The morning sky was choked in haze, the sea like lead beneath the pale sun. Melisandre stood with Marwyn upon the Stone Walk overlooking the harbor, the hem of her scarlet cloak snapping in the wind. Below, the dockhands grunted and muttered in the tongue of Flea Bottom as they loosed the ropes and shoved the narrow Dorne-bound cog from the quay. Ashara did not journey with them. Too busy with her son's friend-and-king Robb Stark.
Missandei stood at the stern, swaddled in wool and furs, her face pale as milk beneath the morning frost. She did not wave. She only stared back, lips trembling, the grief still raw in her small brown eyes.
Marwyn raised a hand, thick fingers stiff with cold. Melisandre did the same, slower, more deliberate, her red eyes never leaving the girl.
"It's good that she leaves," the maester said quietly. "She will be safer there."
"I hope she is safe somewhere," Melisandre murmured, watching the sails swell and the ship slip further into the horizon. "She may have been helpful here."
"Still," Marwyn said, "he'd have wanted her safe."
The priestess said nothing. Missandei was brittle now, like dry kindling. It would take only one spark to burn her whole.
The priestess turned her gaze back to the sea, the ship now a speck on the horizon. The wind tasted of salt and old smoke.
Then she heard it.
Rhaaaaaa.
A cry like a furnace torn open.
Over the water, the sky darkened. Clouds? No. Wings.
Dragons had arrived.
Three, circling wide. One black as coal and twice as large as the other two. Another green, with sails for wings and a serpentine neck. The last, a cream-colored beast that shimmered like pearl when it caught the sun. Their cries made the stones tremble, their shadows passed over the harbor like the wings of death itself.
And then came the ships.
Dozens. More than she could count. Great war galleys, sleek Essosi cogs, slavers' ships reworked with golden hulls, and two Qartheen monsters with sails like silken curtains.
They flew a dragon's head and a crown. Red and gold and black.
"They've come," Marwyn breathed. "She's come. One last divine prediction."
Daenerys Stormborn. Daenerys the Queen. Daenerys, mother of dragons. Fire made flesh.
Melisandre narrowed her eyes at the sight of the ships filling the bay, the dragons circling overhead, the banners of House Targaryen streaming high and proud. Fire and blood.
The dragons had not left her thoughts. As they grew near, she felt as powerful as she had ever been.
She had prayed that night, long and deep. On bare knees upon the cold floor, surrounded by candles whose flames bent toward her like supplicants, she had whispered the sacred words.
"R'hllor, Lord of Light, show me the truth in the flames. Tell me if she is the one. Let your servant hear you."
But the flames did not speak. They breathed a whisper. She no longer heard him as she once had. That troubled her. She told herself it did not, yet still she had stoked the fire again before sleep, whispering words into the smoke until her voice grew hoarse and useless.
It was said Queen Daenerys had landed with her dragons and her Unsullied, and there had been no battle, no bloodshed. She a meeting behind closed doors between her and King Robb and Margaery Tyrell. There they had debated for a fortnight.
Melisandre had passed the solar once, pretending to seek Ashara. She had heard voices within. Daenerys' soft and sharp, like silk wrapped around steel; Margaery's too, high and clear and angry. Robb had spoken least of all, but when he did, his voice carried the weight of doom.
Then, like a serpent slithering beneath a garden wall, came news of the boy Robert Arryn. The lord of the Eyrie, small and sickly, who had come to the Red Keep under heavy guard. There had been an attempt on his life, they said, poison in a cup or a pinprick on a sleeve.
His mother Lysa was not with him. She had flown to Harrenhal, some said. Others whispered she had been taken to Harrenhal. No one knew.
No one knew what had happened, but it was revealed that the boy's father had never been Jon Arryn. That honor, if it could be called such, belonged to Littlefinger. Robert Stone would be his name from then on. Harold Harding would be Lord of the Vale and the Eyrie.
Melisandre did not trouble herself with bastards and lordlings too much. She'd seen false fathers rise and true ones slain. But still, it was a stirring of the stew. It thickened everything.
One blessed day Jon Snow had returned. With rumors of his true father, many thought he would usurp King Robb and wed Daenerys. Many were afraid of a blood civil war when death was already there.
And then news came, as sudden as a thunderclap.
Robb Stark was putting aside his queen. His marriage with Margaery Tyrell, the high garden bloom who had played queen so prettily, was to be annulled by the High Septon. He would take Daenerys instead.
A Song of Ice and Fire.
Daenerys had shared the crown as price, the Iron Throne as her seat. She flew over the walls atop Drogon, and none of the dead could fight her. A rider on a black beast with wings wider than ships and teeth like scythes. She burned the dead outside the walls and nearly broke the siege.
Robb Stark, it was said, had faced an Other in single combat by the ruined gates of Rosby. Blue-eyed and crowned in ice, the creature wielded a sword of frozen glass. Robb shattered it with valyrian steel and wroth. The men who saw it wept and pissed themselves and begged the gods for mercy. Melisandre had heard the tale a dozen times. Each time it changed. In some, he carried a blade wreathed in flame. In others, the dragon Viserion descended at the last moment and burned the creature to ash. But the truth mattered little. Symbols mattered more than flesh.
Viserion had let Robb mount him. No one knew how or why. There were tales of Nettles from the Dance, but all knew dragons as defiant and foolish to ride. No one knew how or why. The beast had reared and screeched and breathed his golden fire into the night, and then, in the bloodless hush after a slaughter, bent his neck to the Young Wolf. A dragon choosing a rider.
Azor Ahai, they called him now. The Prince-Who-Was-Promised. The Dragonrider. Winter's End.
Melisandre should have wept for joy, but her eyes had stayed dry. She had seen Azor Ahai in the fire, long ago, but the face had not been Robb Stark's. And the ruby had stayed cold when Viserion and Robb rode together.
For four years the Long Night held them, and the snow never melted. Daenerys burned their foes from the skies. Robb rode into battle in mail of blackened steel, his banner sewn with the dragon and the wolf. Every inch of ground cost blood. Every victory was bought with death. For every thousand they killed, a thousand more rose.
Westeros was not winning. But they were no longer losing.
It was a stalemate now, and the dead did not tire.
The city starved. Even the highborn gnawed on bones and boiled roots. Women whored for moldy bread. The only food came by ship from Braavos and Lys and Old Volantis. And those came slow, and each cost a fortune.
Gold was running out. The lords sold heirlooms and daughters alike. They borrowed from the Iron Bank, from spice merchants, from pirates. The Crown was mortgaged a dozen times over. But still they ate. They still lived.
Melisandre stood before her flames each night. But they gave her only smoke and silence.
And still, she prayed. Her lord of light gave faint answers. Growing answers after the dragons arrived, but they were more confusing then ever before. Melisandre blamed herself.
Near dusk was when the word first came. A stir through the red halls, soft at first, like the sigh of wind through cracked stone, but rising swiftly to mutter and marvel. A man was approaching the Red Keep, they said. A man in a patchwork cloak, carrying a staff capped with obsidian. A man with a voice like thunder, and a laugh that echoes through the night.
There were few nobles left in the Red Keep, most too old or broken to fight. Many were with their families in secluded castles. The rest were ghosts, wandering in fine silks with hollow eyes and breath like smoke.
But there, in the great hall, was life. The bloodmage was still fat.
Bryan stood at the foot of the Iron Throne, hair greasy under his hood, cheeks red with cold and exertion, a great grin on his face and a thick walking stick slung across his back like a sellsword's spear. His cloak was torn and frayed, stitched in a hundred places by a dozen different hands. The smell of him struck even before he spoke, some offensive mixture of unwashed man, sour beer, and burned flesh. Still, he smiled like the world hadn't ended.
Robb sat the Iron Throne. The wolf was broad across the shoulders now, his beard full and streaked with pale gold. The crown of winter roses sat on his brow, black leather and cold iron, and his hand rested on the pommel of the sword that had slain an Other. The room was mostly empty, yet Robb's voice filled it like a storm.
"This is a day of joy!" he said, rising to his feet. "The gods have smiled upon us. First, my queen brings me word she is with child. And now my sorcerer and wise counsel, my sorcerer returns from the snow like a bear from his hibernation. Seven hells, Bryan, I thought you dead."
"Aye," Bryan said, voice hoarse and warm. "So did I."
The court gave a brittle cheer. Some clapped. Others stared. Daenerys seemed uncertain of what was before her.
He looked unchanged. There was still a weariness in his eyes.
"How?" Robb asked, his tone turning more solemn.
"I don't know," Bryan said. "The Others will not strike me. Not with blades. Not with their cold. They see me, aye. But never attack. I've passed right by them. I've walked through the army of the dead without so much as a growl. Never understood why."
The hall hushed.
Bryan scratched at his chin. "Maybe it's the fat," he said. "They're lookin' for lean meat." That brought a few chuckles, though faint and brittle. He went on, voice growing more distant. "I wandered. Picked my way from village to ruin to holdfast. Killed wights where I found them. Burned those I could. Some nights, I went without fire. Ate roots, rats, things I never thought I'd put in my mouth. I thought I was somewhere near Moat Cailin for a two moons. Turned out I was in Flint's Finger the whole time. Hard to know where you are when the trees all look the same and no one left alive can tell you where you are without a map."
"Tell me you have news of how to win this war," Robb pleaded.
"I do not, your grace." Bryan spoke with the arrogant tone of a man who had to get another word in. "But Jon does. He has a plan for a final offensive. We have reason to believe the bulk of the Others are in Harrenhal. All he needs are three dragons to end this war."
"Could not a raven have told us this?" Daenerys questioned sharply. She seemed annoyed.
"Forgive me, your grace." Bryan spoke sweetly, almost as if he blushed at the young queen. "We believed if Robb saw one miracle, he would be more keen to believe another."
The king smirked. He dismissed the sparse court, to speak with Bryan and Daenerys in privacy.
They rode out at dawn, though no sun could be seen.
The clouds over King's Landing were a thick ceiling of rotted wool, heavy with soot and ash. Rain fell, but only in short spurts, as if the sky had grown weary of weeping. Robb Stark and his queen led what remained of the host. There were not enough men.
The dragons had not taken wing at once. They lingered for a time above the Red Keep, wings furled, heads bowed as if sniffing the stench of death beneath the city. Then they flew, so high their shapes blurred into shadows, trailing smoke behind them.
Melisandre did not follow. Her place was here now, in this red carcass of a keep, half-empty and crawling with flies. She was too weak. Her magic was stronger than ever, yet she could not feel it. It was like the lord of light shined on everyone but her in these days of hopeful triumph.
Marwyn remained too. The old bull came each night, smelling of dust, parchment, and dried piss. His feet tracked dirt across her chamber floor, and his beard was matted with ink. But his eyes were sharp, always, behind the folds and grime. And in that mind, Melisandre found a strange warmth. He was not a beautiful man. He did not care to be. His touch was rough, clumsy, and certain, like a man thumbing through an old tome without fear of tearing the page.
He did not fear her. That, more than his magic, more than his mind, was what kept her returning to him. To be known, truly known, by someone who had no illusions left was the closest thing she had now to safety.
She smiled beside him one night, her head upon his chest, his belly rising and falling beneath the furs.
"You snore like an ox," she said softly.
Marwyn grunted. "You breathe like a dying cat."
She kissed his shoulder. They slept like that, back to back beneath the candlelight, her long limbs tangled with his, and the ruby at her throat faintly pulsing with each heartbeat.
And when she stared into the flames, there was only herself, reflected in orange and gold, alone with small vision and whispers. The Lord spoke little to her.
The hour it happened was not marked by lightning or thunder. No wind howled. No scream pierced the air. It came in stillness.
The coals had burned low, and the flames within the brazier were listless, like children too weary to play. Melisandre knelt before them anyway. Her knees ached upon the cold stone, and her red silks rustled softly as she adjusted herself. Her fingers trembled when she reached for the pouch at her waist.
"Show me," she whispered, voice thick with sleep and something darker. "R'hllor, great and burning god, reveal your truth. Let me see."
The fire stirred, then sputtered. The ruby at her throat cracked.
Melisandre's breath caught. She grew fearful.
She stared, wide-eyed, as the flames refused her. No shapes formed. No shadows danced. No faces flickered behind the veil of smoke.
She saw only flame. And for the first time in half a century, it terrified her.
"No," she hissed. She struck the coals with her hand, scattering sparks across the stone. "No. Lord of Light, why have you forsaken me?"
The fire bit her palm. She did not flinch. She dug her nails into the ash, smeared soot upon her face. It was agony.
"I have served," she said. "I have burned for you. I have bled for you. You cannot leave me. Not now."
The words caught in her throat.
The tears followed.
Hot, silent at first, then bitter, gasping sobs that shook her slender frame. She curled before the fire, her hair falling like a curtain of rusted silk around her. Her breath came in shudders.
Marwyn found her like that.
He did not speak when he entered. Only the door creaked behind him, and the weight of his boots echoed on the stones.
Melisandre turned her face away. She did not want anyone to see her as broken and cast aside; not a priestess, not a prophetess, but only a woman. A woman who had believed too much in a god who now had no use for her.
Marwyn came anyway. He sat beside her with a grunt, lifted her gently from the floor. She clung to his thick arms, weeping against his chest. His hands were large, calloused, unlovely things, but they held her all the same.
"I see nothing," she whispered, over and over, like a mantra. "I see nothing, Marwyn. There is nothing in the fire."
"I am sorry, Mel," he said. There was nothing he could say.
They lay together afterward in the furs. Her eyes were dry but raw, and her throat ached with salt. The fire in her chest was gone. That brilliant, painful light she had clung to for so long was snuffed.
She curled herself against the archmaester's chest, listening to his slow, stubborn heartbeat. She did not love him. Not truly. But he knew her. That was enough.
He was the only fire she had now. But in the marrow of her bones, deep beneath the tears and the shame, Melisandre swore she would find her god again. She would burn what must be burned. She would bleed. She would crawl through snow and shadow, through fire and ruin, if she had to.
Whatever it took to feel R'hllor's warmth once more.
The bells rang loud when the Queen returned. The city was in uproar. The cold had begun to lift. Winter was fleeing. King's Landing had no more tears to give the dead, and no gold to bury them. The wind off the Blackwater brought salt and fresh air, and the people crowded to the streets when a dragon passed overhead.
Queen Daenerys Targaryen entered the Red Keep draped in mourning black, though her belly was round with child. Her hair was matted, her lips cracked.
Songs were sung of victory, but many more songs were sung of mourning. Peace had been made with the Others. A new song of ice and fire is being sung. Three-hundred-and-five years after Aegon's Conquest, in the seventh year of Robb Stark's reign, the Long Night was over.
Robb Stark was dead. Azor Ahain was dead. In his death, victory and freedom. Winter had come, and winter had left.
Then Bryan came to her chambers while Marwyn and Melisandre ate together.
The fat bloodmage had trimmed his beard and wore a green cloak embroidered with a golden bear.
"I'm going North," he said. "Sea Dragon's Point. My fiefdom granted by his grace Robb Stark. I'm starting that school we spoke of. Magic deserves more than whispers and shadows."
Marwyn grunted approval. He stood behind Melisandre, one hand on her hip, half-dressed and half-drunk.
"Come with us," Bryan said. "Both of you. I'll need teachers."
Marwyn was eager, of course. The thought of scrolls and students and his own tower made the old maester mutter with excitement for days.
Melisandre agreed for. She would go too. She had nowhere else to go.
R'hllor had turned His face from her, and she meant to earn it back.
She needed Bryan. There was something about him the Lord of Light still wanted. He had walked through the dark and come out whole. The Others had not touched him. The fire had not consumed him.
There was meaning there. There had to be.
And so she rode north beside him and Marwyn and their retinue of settlers. Mostly common folk who wanted a new life away from King's Landing. It seemed to be a common sentiment. The people who lost all they had wanted to forget, and they left where they lost everything.
The moon changed twice when they arrived. Sea Dragon's Point was cold and damp and reeked of pine sap and sea brine, and yet, she dared not sleep. Each night she lay awake beneath her furs, candles flickering on the stone walls, waiting for the fire to speak.
Her hands trembled. Her lips were cracked from whispering prayers in the black hours of the morning. She told herself it was not fear, only longing. She told herself the Lord of Light was testing her.
The fire kept its silence. It was Lord Bryan Ersae who spoke now, and often as lord of the land. That alone was strange enough. Stranger still was the way he had begun to care for his appearance by trimming his beard, combing his dark hair, choosing fine clothes with his house colors. She caught herself laughing once, watching him fuss with a collar like a vain knight before a feast. But something about him was wrong. He looked unchanged, untouched by time, as if the long years of darkness had passed around him rather than through him. He spoke of his lands, of forging a school, and betrothals and heirs. He made sure his forged marriage was burned in time. He almost seemed angry to have survived until now.
In time, they came. Missandei, sweet-voiced and sharp-eyed. Dacey Mormont, tall and comely but scarred, with her little sister Lyanna beside her. A fallen maester who called himself Qyburn, with a smile like a split fruit. A few smiths, stone masons, wood workers, and more wished to serve the former advisor to the Great Hero Robb Stark.
Melisandre's heart stirred, faint as the last ember in a dying hearth. The bear had to be guided home. Lord Bryan Ersae did not resist when she pressed him. He yielded too easily, agreed to too much, his eyes dark with some desperation she had not seen in him before. That troubled her. But there was no time to dwell on it. The days bled into one another, each marked only by rain, sea wind, and the scent of tallow and wet pine. They had work to do. The path ahead was shrouded in shadow, but she would walk it, one step, one flame at a time.
She would hear the voice of her god again.
Even if she had to burn the world to make Him listen.
A/N: This chapter and the next are POV's from the Long Night over the same time span.