Thoros of Myr lifted his left hand, staring at the unscarred skin where the thick blood of his own ritual still clung like grease. His brow furrowed in a deep, troubled line.
Beric Dondarrion watched the miracle with a hollow, weighted expression. "Thoros," the Lightning Lord asked softly, "could your prayers ever heal a living man with such... surgical grace?"
Thoros shook his head slowly. "No, my Lord. I have no such art. I am a gutter-priest with a single, terrible trick."
"How many times, Thoros?" Beric persisted. "How many times have you brought me back from the dark?"
"It is R'hllor who brings you back, Lord Beric," the red priest replied, looking away. "I am but his breath."
"How many?"
"Six," Thoros said, the word tasting like ash. "And each time it grows harder. You have become too fearless, my Lord. Is death truly so sweet that you seek it at every turn?"
Beric shook his head, a ghost of a smile touching his cracked lips. "Sweet? No, my friend. It is anything but sweet."
Thoros met Beric's lone eye. "Then do not be so eager to find it again. Tywin Lannister sits behind his walls. Stannis Baratheon commands from the rear. You should do the same. It is the wiser path. A seventh death may be the one that takes us both."
Beric reached up, touching the jagged, sunken pit of his left temple. "This was Ser Burton Crakehall. He used a mace to find the brains beneath my helm."
He unwrapped the tattered silk from his neck, revealing a thick, black-and-purple ring of bruised flesh. "This was the knight with the manticore on his shield. At the Rushing Falls, he took a pair of beekeepers, named them my spies, and swore to hang them unless I appeared. When I did, he hanged them anyway—and put me between them."
He raised a single finger to the raw, red hole where his eye had been. "The Mountain's dagger, through the visor's slit." A tired shadow of a smile flickered. "I've died three times at the hands of Clegane's men. You'd think I'd learn to duck."
It was a joke, Aldric realized, but Thoros didn't laugh. The priest placed a heavy hand on Beric's shoulder. "Do not dwell on the scars."
Beric's lone eye clouded with a sudden, profound emptiness. "What else is left to dwell on? I remember I once had a castle in the Marches. I remember there was a woman who waited for me. But I can no longer find the castle on a map, and I cannot recall the color of her hair. Who knighted me, Thoros? What was my favorite meat? It has all faded into the smoke. Sometimes I feel I was born on that bloody grass in the Ashford woods, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest... and you were my mother, Thoros."
Aldric watched the Myrish monk. Thoros was a mess of tangled hair and gray stubble, his face a map of exhaustion and reluctant sorrow.
Jon Snow's voice was a low, somber rasp. "Master Thoros... can you bring back a man without a head?"
Thoros turned, a flash of regret in his eyes. "I am no sorcerer, boy. I only know how to pray. The first time, the Lord Beric had a hole through his heart and his lungs were full of blood. I knew there was no hope. When his chest stopped its labor, I gave him the Last Kiss—filling my lungs with the Lord's fire and breathing it into him. Through the throat, into the lungs, straight to the soul. I had seen the elder priests do it a thousand times for the dying. I had done it myself. But I had never seen the fire take root in a corpse. I did not bring him back. R'hllor was not done with him. Life is warmth, and warmth is the fire of the Lord."
Looking at the ruin of Beric's body, Aldric felt a sharp, heavy pang of grief. This broken vessel of a man carried a soul of singular purity. It was perhaps the only thing keeping the meat together.
Aldric stepped forward, his voice hushed with respect. "Lord Beric... does it still hurt? The scars?"
"Hurt?" Beric rubbed the rope-burn on his throat. "No. They no longer feel pain. They are simply... part of me now."
"I would try to heal you," Aldric offered. "I cannot promise success, but I would try."
Beric looked at Thoros. The priest turned to Aldric. "Have you ever failed, Captain?"
Aldric nodded. "In Winterfell, I tried to mend a boy whose legs were dead. The Light did not answer. I suspect there was another magic—a colder one—at work in his blood. Your state, Lord Beric... it feels similar."
Thoros thought for a long moment, then shook his head. "The choice is yours, my Lord. I know little of the Captain's 'Solar Grace'."
Beric toyed with a fallen leaf, the silence of the Isle of Faces pressing in on them. When the last shard of the leaf hit the dirt, he nodded. "Do your best, Captain."
"The neck first," Aldric said. He stepped behind Beric, his large hands forming a loose ring around the bruised throat.
Thoros stood aside, his eyes fixed on Aldric's hands, his breath held in anticipation.
Light of the Sun, Aldric prayed, the first time he had truly reached for the source since the Wolfswood. Grant me the strength to mend this man. He has given enough.
A blinding, incandescent white light erupted from Aldric's palms. He poured every drop of his mana into the touch, his own vision blurring as his reserves hit bottom. A pillar of solar radiance seemed to descend from the canopy, washing over them both.
When the light faded and the spots cleared from their eyes, the three of them stared at Beric's neck.
The black bruising remained. The sunken temple was still a pit of bone. The scars did not fade.
Aldric's heart sank. He had used the Sun-Healing, the strongest restorative he possessed, and it had done nothing. There was only one conclusion.
"Lord Beric..." Aldric's voice was heavy. "The Light... it did not take. I am sorry."
Beric adjusted his silk scarf, tying it back over the wound. "Perhaps this is simply my fate, Captain. Do not trouble yourself over it."
Thoros watched Aldric with a complex mix of sorrow and—shamefully—relief. As a servant of R'hllor, there was a part of him that feared the Sun-God's rival power. To see that even the "Lightbringer" had limits gave him a small, petty comfort.
But as a brother of the road, he knew the Dawnguard were a force the Brotherhood needed. He struggled with the balance between his faith and the survival of the smallfolk.
"Captain Seres," Thoros said finally. "Would you allow me to attend your Conclave at the monastery?"
Aldric blinked. "Thoros? I intend to merge the faith of Anshe with the Seven. There will be words spoken that may offend a priest of the Red God. I don't want a rift between us."
Thoros laughed, a dry, booming sound. "Captain, you underestimate me. The Red God's temples grow like wildflowers in the East—among the Weeping Lady, the Lion of Night, and the Merling King. We do not flourish by closing our ears to the world."
A confident man, Aldric thought, and a dangerous faith.
"You are welcome," Aldric said. "You, Lord Beric, Harwin—any who wish to witness the Vigil. But I worry for your own war. Can you spare the time?"
Thoros looked at Beric. "My Lord, allow me to take my leave for a time. Accepting these Sunwalkers is a grave decision. I wish to know the Golden Dawn for myself." He turned to Aldric. "I do not doubt your resolve to shield the weak, but many in our Brotherhood have turned to R'hllor. I fear your men may find us... difficult."
"I understand," Aldric said. "And you, Lord Beric? Will you come?"
Beric shook his head. "My face is too well-known. I will stay in the shadows. Thoros shall speak for me." He turned to the priest. "When the Vigil is done, if you find their hearts are true, bring the Captain's men to find me."
As the camp prepared for the evening, Jon Snow wandered down to the stream to fill their skins. Thoros followed him, ensuring they were out of earshot.
"Jon," Thoros said quietly. "You have the very face of your father. I knew Ned Stark well. And King Robert. I was usually the one pouring the wine."
Jon didn't look up from the water. "I am only Jon Snow, Thoros. A bastard with a sword."
"Your master," Thoros pressed. "Where did he truly come from?"
"Winterfell," Jon said. "I met him there. He brought a spider the size of a cart to my father's gates. He bested the Hound in the yard without breaking a sweat. He went to the Wall with Tyrion Lannister, with only a boy named Kevin at his side. Kevin says he found the Master shipwrecked on the coast, and that the Master didn't even know the Common Tongue back then."
"I see," Thoros murmured. "He has the wisdom of a scholar and the magic of a high priest. A man like that does not simply wash up on a beach."
"He speaks of 'saving the world'," Jon said, looking Thoros in the eye. "My father trusted him. So do I. I don't care if Seres is in the East or at the edge of the world. He is a great man. That is all that matters."