The Fire Below Dragonstone

When she called herself Melisandre, Ronan studied her more carefully. She looked far younger than she had when he first met her.

"What do you mean, because of me?" he asked.

Melisandre gave a soft huff. "You truly do not know what you did to me?"

Ronan held out a hand, and Melisandre, practical enough even in resentment, handed him the ruby at her throat. He turned the strange jewel between his fingers and looked back at her.

"Without this, you will not turn back?"

"Is that not thanks to you, Lord Ronan?" she said, her temper sharpening her smile. "You did not merely make me younger. You also made me..."

"Made you what?" Ronan asked. "Go on. I am interested."

The changes in Melisandre were not small. She was the third person touched by the miracle-light after Beric and Cersei, and her reborn state gave him more questions than answers.

Her face had grown younger, yes, but even her mood had changed. There was a liveliness in her now, a playful defiance that had not belonged to the woman he remembered.

Melisandre lifted her chin. "I refuse to tell you. Let that annoy you." For a moment, she seemed to forget one important thing.

She was not free. She was his prisoner, and at the moment she was being carried through Dragonstone's inner ways because her body still had not settled into its new strength.

Ronan glanced down and almost laughed. The fire had changed more than her face.

"Put me down," she snapped.

Watching the exchange, Sansa and Margaery both fell silent. The narrow stairway made the woman on Ronan's back uncomfortable, but Ronan was not overly concerned. A prisoner could hardly demand fine treatment. Being carried was already more courtesy than most captives received.

After following for some time, Margaery was the first to break the strange quiet.

"Captain Ronan," she said, choosing each word with care, "are you always like this? Do you always see a beautiful woman and..."

"Be quiet." Sansa cut in before Margaery could finish. "You are not allowed to speak of Lord Ronan that way. He is not usually like this. This is only..."

She searched for a reason and failed to find one. Margaery supplied one with a politician's smile. "Then perhaps she tempted him."

Sansa was not foolish enough to miss the needle in that answer. She looked at Margaery coldly.

"Is that what Lady Margaery intends to do as well?"

Color touched Margaery's face, but her composure held.

"Sansa, a man like Captain Ronan will draw women whether he seeks them or not. In the end, each woman relies on what she has."

She let the words settle, then added, "As the eldest daughter of House Stark, you should think carefully about how to balance your position with his favor."

Over the past few days, Margaery had seen Sansa more clearly than Sansa would have liked. Sansa was sincere, dutiful, and painfully easy to read. Beyond personally caring for Ronan, she had few advantages in the game unfolding around him.

That was why Margaery did not truly fear her as a rival for queenship. Sansa might be close to him, but closeness alone did not build a throne.

Margaery's own mind could solve the problems Sansa did not even know how to name. As for Ronan's interest in women, Margaery was not jealous by nature.

Her husband in the eyes of the realm had loved men, and she had survived that arrangement with a smile.

If a little humiliation bought the position she wanted, then it was simply another price of power.

Because of that, she deliberately slowed Sansa's steps.

"Why so anxious, Sansa?" Margaery asked lightly. "Afraid Captain Ronan will forget you?"

"You..." Sansa breathed out through her nose and forced herself to slow down.

Ronan, meanwhile, did not delay once he entered the deeper part of the castle. He walked straight toward the lower passages, where heat breathed through the stone.

Melisandre seemed to understand what was happening and lowered her voice.

"Put me down. I can walk."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because if I put you down, you will make me chase you. This saves time."

"That is your excuse?" she said. "I never thought Lord Ronan would enjoy taking advantage of prisoners."

Ronan smiled without shame. "I have helped you a great deal. A little advantage hardly seems excessive."

Her breath caught as the heat rose around them.

"Do not struggle," Ronan said. "Things can go wrong if you move too quickly in a place like this."

"What things? You bastard."

Before her rebirth, such words would never have left Melisandre's mouth. She would have accepted Ronan's touch with religious intensity, perhaps even welcomed it as part of the strange grace he had given her.

Since her renewal, however, her faith in R'hllor had become less pure. The flames no longer answered her as they once had, while the power that had grown inside her bore Ronan's mark.

Little by little, the man had become clearer to her than the god she served. The temperature rose again.

It was not simply Dragonstone. Melisandre herself was drawing the fire closer, reacting to it without understanding how to master it. A normal person would already have thrown her from his back and run.

Ronan did neither. If she wanted to make trouble, he would let her. In the end, he doubted the one paying the heavier price would be him. Then he stopped.

Something was wrong. They had not yet reached the deepest level, but the fire beneath Dragonstone had shifted from sleeping pressure into active hunger. Ronan did not fear it, but the woman on his back was another matter.

When he looked at Melisandre properly, her state had already turned dangerous. As a servant of R'hllor, she had gained a measure of power. That did not mean she could endure flame as Ronan did.

Her clothes had burned away, and because she had given him the ruby, she had no other protection on her body.

Her eyes were unfocused. Fire had begun eating into her from the inside.

Ronan tried to purify the invading heat with miracle-light. The attempt only made the situation worse. The light could not cleanse this old fire. Instead, it fed it.

"Ah!"

Flames broke across Melisandre's skin. She instinctively began chanting in a harsh, ancient tongue, calling on R'hllor for help. No answer came.

For a moment, Ronan had no clean solution. Her condition reminded him of Daenerys during the hatching of the dragon eggs: a body forced to bear fire beyond ordinary limits.

Back then, he had solved the problem by offering his own strength in a manner only fire and flesh could understand.

Through the pain, Melisandre's fingers closed around his arm instead of pushing him away.

"Then help me," she rasped. "Do it."

Looking at Melisandre now, blurred by pain and heat, he sighed.

"Do not blame me for being rough," he said. "Bitter medicine is still medicine."

He lifted her properly and carried her toward the fiercest heat below.

Sansa and Margaery, following at a distance, could no longer continue. The air became too hot for either of them to bear. When familiar sounds reached Sansa's ears from deeper below, understanding settled on her face.

She was angry, but there was nothing she could do. In the end, she turned back the way they had come.

Margaery, who had never experienced Ronan's blessing and whose senses were far less sharp than Sansa's, did not understand as quickly. She thought Sansa had simply reached her limit in the heat.

Sansa did not want to spoil Lord Ronan's mood. Better to return early and prepare something good for him to eat. If he remembered her kindness, perhaps he would trust her enough to keep her near.

That thought sent her walking faster, without the slightest concern for whether Margaery followed. Curiosity, however, had always been dangerous.

Margaery was no warrior, but her curiosity was stronger than common sense. She endured the scorching air, studied the stone around her, and continued downward. Only when she heard sounds she could not mistake did she stop, unwilling and unsteady.

One step back meant freedom. One step forward meant the abyss. That was the truest image of her position.

She had to admire Ronan's monstrous composure. In heat that should have driven any sane man away, he still had room for desire of his own.

Margaery told herself she felt nothing. Her body was less honest. She pressed herself against the stone wall, breathing through the heat, and continued deeper.

At last, just as she could go no farther, she saw something she would remember for the rest of her life. Figures bathed in molten fire.

"This..." Her voice failed. "How is this possible?"

Fear struck her cold despite the heat. Because of her curiosity, she had uncovered a secret that no courtly lesson had prepared her to bear. Ronan was not simply a man.

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