Chapter Text
Melisandre wrapped a crimson shawl around her shoulders to shield her from the cold. She was never cold but it felt like all the warmth within her blood had been drained out. She knelt by the fire in her chambers for warmth and for guidance. “I have failed you,” she whispered. “I have wronged you,” she asked to see Azor Ahai again and from within the flames, Jon Snow looked up at her, surrounded by skulls and a thousand red eyes, his face changing between that of a man and a wolf. His face warped into a skull with two piercing red eyes glaring like fiery pits as if consumed by flame.
“Lord,” she prayed. “Show me your chosen prince. Show me Azor Ahai.” but she did not see Stannis, she never did. The lord of light had shown her the black bastard many times in her flames but she never considered why. “I should have known. I should have seen it more clearly.” she wept silently.
She still remembered the chill that crawled up her bones the night of the mutiny. Her flames blew out and soon shouting and clashing swords filled the air. What have you done? She had pushed through the crowd and fell by the lord commander’s side in the snow. No, no, no. The seeping blood had dripped all done her hands as she searched for a heartbeat. What have you done, fools! His black eyes had stared lifelessly up at her; she closed them. Sheathe your swords and mourn your commander!
It had not been seven nights since all hope against the fight of darkness had been lost.
Melisandre asked to see Stannis but the fires only revealed skulls staring up from beneath planes of ice. “Show me King Stannis!” the ice began to melt away into a sea of blood and swords. She pulled her shawl tighter over her shoulders. She had been wrong about Stannis, the true king had been right under her nose, but now they were both dead. As soon as the men on the watch discovered her king was dead, they would come for her–either way, they were all doomed. The darkness would win the fight with no hero.
“What am I to do, lord?” she begged. “Is there any hope at all in the fight against the darkness?”
The fires crackled and Jon Snow stared back up at her again, haunted eyes as black as night, fire burned within them as if consumed by flames himself. A thousand red eyes surrounded him, staring ominously in every direction. His face began warping between that of a man, a wolf, and a dragon.
There was a pounding on her door that startled her from the fires. The door swung open with a gust of icy wind before she could even gather herself off the floor, and Ser Alliser Thorne marched inside like a grizzly bear in his thick furs.
“Stannis is dead?” Melisandre asked before he could have the satisfaction of telling her.
Thorne gave her a weary look. “The raven just flew in from the Boltons in Winterfell. Your king’s army was weak and famished and half deserted. The Boltons caught them by surprise, a strong army of northmen riding through the snow like a summer’s day. They fought on the ice, then the ice cracked, and it’s said Stannis went under. If you know anything about frozen lakes, once you fall in, you’re not getting out–at least not until summer.” he smiled toothily.
Melisandre felt cold tears roll down her cheeks but she forced herself to look up at him. “Is that all, ser?”
“I’ll be leading a host of men to hunt down the so-called free folk that bastard Snow let through the Wall. Stick them in chains and cut off their heads. You must leave this place before I return. Castle Black is no place for a woman, especially for a witch with a dead king. The Night’s Watch swore oaths to stay out of southern wars. The bastard knew that but it didn’t stop him from forsaking his vows, and he got a dozen knives for it. He’s as dead as his father. He can’t protect his beloved wildling scum from his deathbed. The men are weary with all these assassinations, they claim it’s the bastard’s ghost, but he has no power here anymore, and they will all know it when carts of savages heads roll through the gates,”
Melisandre silently nodded. The disgraced knight turned to leave. “Ser?” she called, staring down at the dancing red flames.
“What, woman?”
“A thousand eyes watch you, watch me, watch us all.”
“The dark arts led you all the way here just to kill your king. You might be a witch but you’re a damn foolish one.” and he slammed the door behind him.
Ghost’s red eyes gleamed in the shadows as he watched Ser Alliser mount his horse and ride off through the gates with a small host of men. The white wolf tread unnoticed behind them. Thorne’s scent left a pungent trail that led the wolf deep into the woods. He stayed just out of sight, but close enough to turn back heads at every snapped twig and rustled bush.
Ser Alliser called out to halt, and the men came to a sudden standstill. The horses jerked on the reigns to keep on moving, skittish by the sudden silence and stillness. Ser Alliser swung off his horse and unsheathed his blade, looking around the wood. His eyes flickered over Ghost without notice. “Come now,” he said coolly as he pulled himself back upon his horse, though the wolf could sense his suspicion. “There ain’t nothing out here but hares being hunted by wolves,” and with a final look around, he rode off with his men.
They travelled steadfast and did not make camp until nightfall. A fire was lit, and they gathered around it, but there was something wrong that none could voice. The men turned with every rustle and creak and Thorne’s long glances off into the dark only heightened their concern. “Who is going to fetch us a hare for dinner?” Thorne asked. The men shared hesitant glances. “Do you fear the dark, lads?” He taunted them. “You fear the bastard’s ghost?”
They all laughed as if it were not true. “What ill could his ghost do?” questioned one man with a spotty face and putrid scent. “He couldn’t even save one little girl when he was alive.” They all laughed hard.
Thorne cracked a smile that looked disturbing on his grim face. “I hope the Bolton’s little bride knows her bastard was put down for her,”
Ghost snarled and the men fell silent, shooting looks of terror over their shoulders. Their hearts began to quicken at what might be lurking in the dark wood around them. Thorne pulled himself onto his feet with a grunt. “Frightened hares, I tell you,” he cut through the low branches with his sword as he searched for the noise. “We ought to snatch them before the wolves find their dinner,” he grumbled something under his breath about cowards.
Ghost circled him in the darkness, the snow crunching beneath his paws. A raven scratched in the branches high above. His prey cautiously followed the sounds deeper into the woods, until the fire from his camp had dimmed through the thick trees and they were shrouded in utter blackness. He held a firm grip on his steel as he stepped in a circle awaiting another noise but only silence lingered.
I think we best change the plan.
Ghost growled as he crept up behind his prey, the man slowly turned around, and the direwolf’s red eyes burned at him like pits of fire in the darkness. “You. . . You black bastard, even in. . .death.”
Stick them with the pointy end, he thought before his mind went black and the man within was lost to the bloodlust of the wolf.
Melisandre stood high on the battlements as commotion broke out in the courtyard below. The wolf from her visions came through the gates, as tall as a man, his white fur dripping with blood as he dragged the mangled pieces of a man dressed in black. The wolf snapped its jaws, snarling in warning to back off, but the men raced forward with their steel, and the wolf lunged on them with open jaws. The wolf tore through the men like they were rabbits and the stench of blood sunk into the thick fog of the morrow.
The flames had not shown her just any wolf, as she had suspected, but the direwolf of old bonded to Jon Snow, gone mad with bloodlust. “Ghost!” she called but it garnered no response from the beast, but perhaps the man within. . . “Jon Snow!” the fighting ceased and piercing red eyes glared up at her. Her heart quickened; she knew what she had to do. “Let the beast through the Wall before he kills us all!” she shouted and the men were quick to oblige. “I must request a horse saddled at once. I know what I must do.”
Only life can pay for death.