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"Your heart is burning," she said. "I can feel it right through your skin, through your bones, through your robe. You're not like Stannis. His fire is borrowed—stolen from his ancestors' bloodline. Every time he uses it, there's less left. Your fire is your own. It grew inside your body. It burns from your bones. You don't need anyone else's life to make shadows. Yours is enough."
She pulled her fingers away, turned back to the altar, and started putting everything away. She closed the iron box, stoppered the glass bottle, wiped the dragonglass knife clean, and returned each item to its exact niche. Slow, careful movements. Everything went back exactly as it had been.
Limpick stayed in the doorway and watched her. His pulse hammered, but his face showed nothing. She was testing him—watching to see if he would look afraid, excited, or sickened. He chose calm.
"How many people have you killed?" he asked.
Her hands paused. She didn't turn around. "Many. I stopped counting."
"With shadows?"
"Not all of them. Some with blood magic, some on the pyre, some with poison. Whatever the Lord of Light needs, I provide."
"Did they deserve it?"
Melisandre turned to face him. Candlelight from below carved her face into light and shadow, but her red eyes stayed bright—two burning coals. "Deserve it or not isn't my judgment to make. I'm only the tool—the torch, the knife, the arrow. Wherever R'hllor points, I burn."
She walked to the doorway and stopped beside him. "Are you afraid of me?"
Limpick thought about it. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because you said you're a tool. There's nothing scary about a tool. The scary part is the person holding it."
Melisandre looked at him. Something flashed in those red eyes—not fire, not light, but water. It welled up, then she forced it back down. Her throat worked once as she swallowed whatever had tried to rise.
"You're right," she said. "The person holding the tool is what's terrifying."
Her red robe brushed past him and disappeared down the corridor, the soft rustle fading into silence.
Limpick stood in the doorway, staring at the black liquid still slowly pooling in the altar's grooves. It followed the carved channels toward the center, gathering right over the heart of the fetal-shaped hollow. The mist on the ceiling had already dissolved, but the air still carried a faint scent—something colder and thinner than sulfur or blood. Like frost on the walls of Riverrun at dawn.
He reached into his robe and closed his hand around the dragon bone. It was hot now, almost scalding. He pulled it out and held it up. The dark-red glow on its surface pulsed hard and fast, like it was about to burst. He squeezed it in his fist, letting it burn against his palm.
He stood there looking at the altar, the black candles, the empty iron cage with its deep claw marks. He remembered winter mornings in Riverrun, the thin white frost along the base of the city wall that vanished the moment the sun touched it. He remembered the old dockside drunks saying that powerful people—rich men, lords, sorcerers—always paid for their power with someone else's life. Never their own.
He turned and left the room. The stairs were steeper going up. He took them slowly, one hand on the warm wall. He knew what lived beneath that warmth: cold fire, living shadows, something coiled and waiting to be woken.
At the iron door he stopped and glanced back once. The corridor was dark except for the rows of dragonglass set into the walls—dark-red eyes watching him in the blackness. The wooden door at the far end remained shut, its runes glowing faintly, spinning in slow golden circles.
He slipped the dragon bone back into his robe, pushed open the iron door, and stepped out.
By the time he reached the upper floors, night had fallen. Torches burned along the corridors, throwing ordinary shadows on the walls—normal ones, not the living kind. As he passed the great hall he heard voices—dozens of islanders chanting evening prayers around the brazier. Normal orange firelight, normal prayers.
He didn't go in. He kept walking.
Back in his room he shut the door, pulled out all seven pieces of dragonglass and the dragon bone, and laid them on the bed. Moonlight spilled through the window and made the black stones gleam. The dragon bone sat in the middle, pulsing dark red, painting the rest of them with faint crimson light. He rested his hand on it, feeling the heat. It was still hot, but slower now, rising and falling in time with his heartbeat.
He closed his eyes and thought about everything Melisandre had said. Shadow assassins. Blood magic. Burnings. Using other people's lives to create power, watering their faith with someone else's blood. She had called him fire-chosen. Said his fire was his own, grown inside his body, burning from his bones. Said he wouldn't need anyone else's life—he could use his own.
His own.
He pulled his hand back, made a fist, and set it on his knee. His fingers were long, knuckles sharp, ink stains still caught in the nail beds from all the High Valyrian he'd written. These hands had hauled cargo in Riverrun, split wood in Harrenhal, held a quill on Dragonstone. They could hold a dagger. They could hold a pen. They could hold dragonglass.
But what else could they do? Kill with shadows? Cut a throat a thousand miles away while the victim slept, leaving no mark, no trace, no killer to hunt?
He opened his fist and stared at his empty palm—smooth, unmarked, no burns, no scars, no calluses worth mentioning. He looked at it for a long time, then gathered the stones one by one and tucked them back inside his robe. He lay down on the bed.
The dragons carved into the ceiling moved in the moonlight like living things. He closed his eyes, hand resting over the dragon bone against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Thud… thud… thud. It matched the bone. It matched the black shape breathing in the woods north of King's Landing, hundreds of miles away.
Just a little longer. Almost time. Just wait a little longer.
He rolled over to face the wall. The stone was cool and thick enough to block the sea wind, but it couldn't block the cold fire burning far below. He could feel it—under the lowest level, behind that wooden door, beneath the altar—coiled, sleeping, waiting. Waiting to be called. Waiting to be used. Waiting to be fed. Someone else's life… or his own.
He closed his eyes and pressed his face into the pillow. The pillow was dry and cold. He kept his hand on his chest, over the seven pieces of dragonglass and the single dragon bone, feeling their weight and their heat.
…