The Red Priestess's Stone

"State your purpose," Ronan said.

Melisandre smiled and did not answer. She approached with light, unhurried steps, as if she had entered a temple rather than a barracks room.

There was joy in her eyes. True joy, not courtly theater. Ronan also felt the same trace he had felt around Thoros. R'hllor.

The scent of roses drifted around her, warm and carefully chosen. Her fingertips brushed his face, and her body moved with the testing grace of a serpent deciding whether the thing before it was prey, altar, or flame.

Ronan did not sink into it. His eyes went to the ruby at her throat.

"That matters to you," he said.

Melisandre's smile remained. "If my lord likes it, he may have it." She removed the jewel and placed it in his hand.

Ronan studied the flawless red stone, then her eyes. They were too calm. If he had not felt the sudden change in the power around her, he might almost have believed the gift.

"Generous."

He slipped the ruby into his clothing. Melisandre's composure broke at once.

Her hand darted after it, sliding beneath his outer layer as she tried to recover what she had just pretended to surrender. She found nothing. Ronan had already hidden it where grasping fingers could not reach.

"Where is it?"

"You gave it to me. Did you change your mind?"

Her strength was fading while she stood before him.

The change came quickly. Color withdrew from her skin. Lines deepened around her mouth and eyes. Her breath thinned, and the red priestess who had entered like a promise began to look like something time had been waiting to reclaim.

Ronan watched with interest rather than pity. Then his eyes lit faintly gold.

The light motes answered him. They poured into Melisandre's body, more than enough power to restore Beric from death. With her, the effect barely held the decay still. So the stone was not ornament.

Melisandre gathered the last of her strength and seized the hand holding the ruby. The moment her fingers closed around it, breath surged back into her. Ronan allowed the jewel to return.

The transformation reversed. Her skin smoothed. Her hair regained its luster. The woman before him looked not merely restored but younger than when she had arrived.

For the first time, Melisandre had no ready words. She turned and left without explanation.

Ronan found that disappointing. The ruby's secret had only become more interesting.

Since Thoros also served R'hllor, he questioned the priest next. The result was almost useless. Thoros knew less than Ronan had hoped. His resurrection gift had been discovered, not mastered.

The first time had come at Beric's funeral after Gregor killed him. Thoros had prayed over a body near a fire and found that death did not remain obedient.

He was certain the same gift did not belong to every red priest. That made the phenomenon rarer, and therefore more valuable.

From the House of the Undying to the presence behind Thoros's eyes, and now to Melisandre's ruby, this world kept revealing cracks beneath its known surface.

On the surface, Westeros was steel, bloodlines, castles, and crop yields. Beneath it, dragons returned from stone. Dead men breathed beside fire. Red priests touched forces that looked uncomfortably like gods.

Someone, or something, had hidden much of that deeper world from ordinary eyes.

Ronan wondered whether the fall of House Targaryen had truly been as natural as history claimed. Perhaps a world that feared dragons had found ways to remove dragonlords. Perhaps the things beyond the Wall had never existed for men alone.

The thought was too large to settle. But if men could not know, records might. Old books, sealed theories, and scholars who pretended not to believe in magic while locking dangerous knowledge in vaults.

That led him to one place. The Citadel. Oldtown was far away, which made the idea inconvenient rather than impossible.

Before he could sink deeper into speculation, Varys brought him a familiar man. Jebe entered and bowed in the manner of his own people.

"Khan. As you commanded, I have allied with Stannis. If nothing changes, the combined force attacks Storm's End tonight."

"So soon?"

Time had moved faster than Ronan expected. Stannis was already impatient to break Renly before the younger brother's following grew any stronger.

That meant pressure on King's Landing would come soon after. What bothered Ronan was Melisandre.

She should have been near Stannis, helping turn Renly's fate. Instead she had come to him, anxious and radiant and carrying a secret she had nearly lost. Had something changed?

Ronan did not yet realize that, in Melisandre's eyes, he had become the revelation.

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