( Jon POV )
Lady Melisandre did not miss much, it seemed.
"The Onion Knight has returned," she told him, just as the letter arrived on his desk, sealed with the black wax of the Watch.
Jon unfurled the parchment, perused it once, twice. He swallowed. Rickon...
The thought that another member of his old family was alive was one he desperately desired to be true, he could not deny. But it was also a dangerous one. Ser Davos is loyal to Stannis alone. And so what happens should my loyalties be torn? Rickon or Arya? Stannis wouldn't kill a child, surely? Nor would Tommen, Jon was certain, though there was no speaking for Tywin.
The Red Woman eyed him up and down. "What does it say?"
"Ser Davos was delayed, sent down south to the capital on demand of the king. He claims that King Tommen is amenable to a truce. He says the chances of turning Lord Wyman are slim. Yet he insists the best chance lies in the far north, in Skagos."
"With your brother," she added, almost reading his mind.
Jon took a deep breath. "Is he alive? Rickon?"
Melisandre shrugged. "I could not be sure. I would need to look in the flames, search specifically for your littlest brother. Yet if half of what I hear about the isles are true, then flames are likely to be scarce in Skagos."
Jon closed leaden eyes, deep in thought. "And the Iron Throne?" he asked. "What do your flames say of the Boy King's offer? Is it genuine?"
When Jon opened his eyes again, Melisandre's lips were pursed. "The flames... they do not show me the Red Keep. Something dark lurks over the throne, shielding the Boy King from my vision. Only glimpses come through the shadows."
Fire is a fickle thing, Jon remembered Val had said. "And the glimpses?"
"Incomprehensible, for the most part. Too susceptible to misinterpretation to be much of any use."
Jon hummed in understanding, struggling to settle himself comfortably. Something about the Red Woman always seemed to make him uneasy. Her eyes seemed to see too much, to linger in places they shouldn't. Her attention was enough to make his skin crawl. Yet he brushed away the sensation and leaned back in his seat, pretending to relax. On the floor besides him the Old Bear's raven was busy pecking dried corn. Ghost sat in the corner, curled up, gaze lazily following the raven's flappings. The window was open, a cold blast of air rushing in. And not even the Red Woman's flames could withstand that.
In an age of change, only the chill remains.
Jon sighed, suddenly exhausted. "Why are you here, my lady? Why come to speak to me? And why now?"
"You have been avoiding me," she said. Jon did not bother to deny it. They both knew it was true. "You feel you cannot trust me."
Again Jon kept his peace.
"Tell me. What can I do? How might I earn your trust? You know I am on your side. The Lord of Bones has served you well, has he not? Stannis may be the lord's chosen, destined to lead the fight against the dark, but that does not mean you don't have a role to play. We need not be at odds."
"Who said we were at odds?" Jon asked. "I am merely a busy man, my lady. You would have done better to depart with your master, to tend to his fires and tell of his future. Most the work here at the Wall is menial enough, far beneath you. Rattleshirt has been a boon, I'll grant, helping to smooth relations between the Watch and the wildlings. But unless you have other boons to grant, I am afraid there is little for you to do."
She looked him up and down, confident features contemplative a moment. "What boon would suit you best, Lord Commander?"
"You could stop trying to convert my men."
Melisandre smiled. "And what else?"
Jon scratched his beard in thought. "You say that your flames do not let you see into Skagos or the capital. But what of Hardhome? I sent Cotter Pyke north with the Eastwatch fleet to rescue some wildlings gathering there. What will be the fate of that mission, I wonder? And what of the south? What of Stannis? What can you tell me of what has become of my homeland?"
"I would need to look to your man specifically to be sure of anything. Yet I cast my gaze north regularly, and see much every time I look. What may concern your man was a tempest. Frothing seas blown into cresting waves by roaring winds and heavy rains and thunder. And at Hardhome, a thousand red eyes lurking, painted onto faces as white as your weirwoods."
Jon's lips pursed with displeasure. Not good tidings, exactly, but not unexpected either. "And Stannis?"
"When I search for my lord's chosen, the flames only show me snow," Melisandre admitted after a moment's reticence.
Jon scowled. "Is there any place you can look?" The moment the words tumbled out of his mouth he regretted them. "I am sorry, my lady. I-"
"The flames show me a girl," the Red Woman cut in. "A girl in grey atop a dying horse. I have seen it as plain as day. She's coming here. Soon."
Val, was Jon's first thought. A girl atop a dying horse? Who else could it be? With any luck she would have the Giantsbane with her.
Melisandre's eyes drifted from Jon to Ghost. "May I touch your wolf?"
The question startled Jon. He looked at Melisandre, at Ghost, then back at her. "... Best not."
"The wolf will not harm me," she assured him. She leaned down from her seat, met and held Ghost's gaze, and then uttered the wolf's name as though it was a chant.
Ghost uncurled from his seat in the corner, padded warily towards the Red Woman, sniffing the fingers she offered. Jon was certain for a moment that the Red Woman was liable to lose a hand, but Ghost only reached out to lick her fingers.
"He..." Jon frowned in disbelief. "That's strange. Ghost is not usually so..."
"There is more to this beast than you know, Jon Snow. And the Wall is a strange place besides. There is a power here, something ancient. Something you can use, if you so desired. Yet you resist it."
"Dalla - Val's sister - once told me that sorcery was a sword without a hilt. That there was no safe way to use it."
"A wise woman," the Red Woman noted, fingers wandering Ghost's fur. "Yet all life is risk. Danger. And a sword without a hilt is still a sword. A skilled warrior could still make use of such an implement."
"Or a desperate one," Jon added.
"Better to learn whilst you still have the chance, then. I could show you."
"How?"
"The Lord of Light made our species as we are for a reason. Male and female. Two parts of a greater whole. In the joining of these two parts there is power. Power to make life. To make death. This is the fastest way, though there are gentler methods."
All of a sudden, Jon could feel the Red Woman's warmth radiating off her. He could be in no doubt about her power. But something deep in his gut told him that this was not a woman to be indebted to. It may well be safer to owe the Iron Bank, Jon mused.
Melisandre shook her head, rose from her seat, a gust of wind from the open window rippling the folds of her robes as though they were the tongues of a flame. "And yet still you harbour doubts. Very well. But hear me now, Jon Snow. The day will soon come when you are forced to behold the blind and ravaged faces of the dead. Mayhaps even the faces of men you once knew. Men you may have once respected. And when this day comes, I will again offer you my hand." Jon could swear he saw a subtle flame dancing in her fingertips, making her flesh glow. "And if you wish to save your Wall, then you will take my hand, Jon Snow."
And with that the Red Woman was gone.
A week passed without incident as Jon pondered her words. Even as he inspected the progress of the southern recruits in the yard, visited the building sites, watched with an obsessive eye the flow of food from Eastwatch, and ploughed through the pile of letters that seemed to relentlessly grow on his desk, the vision of Melisandre's glowing fingers reaching out to him never seemed to fade from the back of his mind. Even as the Red Woman herself had become scarce, her presence seemed to weigh even heavier on his shoulders.
Still, Jon had plenty of distraction to take up his time. He noticed the man in the yard - one of the new arrivals - swinging his sword with surprising confidence. He had broader shoulders than most, a highborn bearing, and a pair of wandering eyes that always seemed to land on Jon. Davos had mentioned him, in his letter. Always another complication, eh?
Still, the men in the yard were progressing at a fast pace, and the time had come for them to take their vows.
...
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