King's Landing. The Red Keep.
The last rays of the setting sun passed through stained glass, dyeing a luxurious guest chamber in blood-and-honey gold-red.
The air was so thick with the smell of wine and sweat it could almost be set alight.
King Robert Baratheon drained a cup of Arbor red in one gulp, slammed the heavy golden goblet down on the oak table with a dull thud, and sent deep crimson wine splashing in every direction.
His already slightly bloated body sank into the chair, the fine silk doublet pulled tight against his swelling belly.
"Seven hells!" Robert's resonant voice was now completely at odds with his increasingly corpulent frame. "That old man Jon keeps telling me no, over and over again!"
Across from him, the Myrish red priest Thoros sat bleary-eyed with drink, red robes askew, a head of wild hair matted with wine stains.
Robert grabbed the wine flagon from the table and drank straight from the spout, wine running down his tangled black beard and soaking half his expensive garments.
"It's only that Iron Islands fool Balon Greyjoy making trouble at sea!"
"I want to lead an army to Pyke myself! Wring his head off and hang it from the prow of my ship!"
"And they won't allow it!!!"
His thick arms swung through the air as if he still gripped the warhammer that had once made an entire kingdom bow before him.
"He has the nerve to say the King shouldn't move lightly, that sending Stannis would suffice!"
"Stannis! He's a block of ice! He can't do it! Only I can!"
Robert's face flushed crimson with alcohol and fury.
"To hell with the kraken! Let me go myself! Look at what the lion and the fish have accomplished — not a single achievement to their names yet!"
"If I went!! The war would already be over!!!"
His angry tirade spent, he patted his belly with something almost like nostalgia. What had once been iron-hard was now a mass of soft flesh.
"Even so! I'm still the Robert who smashed Rhaegar Targaryen's chest in with a single blow!"
"But they only want to lock me in this damned castle! Dealing with endless bills and the petty nonsense of lords!"
"Instead of letting me do what a king ought to do! Fighting wars and chasing women!"
Thoros let out a loud belch, his large, fat body shaking with laughter. Too drunk to care, he pointed at Robert's belly and let out a muffled, slurred laugh.
"Then you'd better hurry, Your Grace."
"Otherwise it won't be long before that gut of yours gets stuck inside your stag-antler armor."
Thoros took another swig and wiped his mouth, teasing further: "I suspect whether your warhorse can even carry you anymore is an open question — never mind your warhammer."
Robert blinked first, then erupted in thunderous laughter, bold and bright yet with a thread of bitterness he could not entirely hide. He threw an arm around Thoros's neck and squeezed with a force that nearly cut off the priest's air entirely.
"You Myrish drunk! Save your breath!"
He let go and pointed toward the roaring flames in the hearth, a drunk gleam of challenge in his eyes.
"That red god you worship — don't his followers always boast that you can see the future in the fire?"
Robert leaned in close to Thoros's face, hot wine breath washing over the red priest.
"Come then! Show your king!"
"You in your red robes may not believe in the Seven, but you're always saying you believe in fire and that fire shows the future — so come on, show me the future tonight! Find me something interesting!"
He dropped back into his chair, its wood groaning beneath his weight.
"Show me the future of the realm! Show me where my next great war will be!"
"Show me when those two Targaryen bastards' heads will be in my hands!"
Robert grinned, showing teeth reddened by wine, and called out in mock threat:
"If you can't see anything, I'll shove that big head of yours straight into the fire!"
Thoros laughed bitterly to himself. The Lord of Light? R'hllor? In all his years in Westeros, he had never once seen that god perform a true miracle — or perhaps he had simply never been the one chosen. By now he had long since drowned himself in fine wine, good food, and the hollow glory of tourneys, and his faith had worn thin as old parchment.
He knew that what he called "visions in the flames" were, most of the time, nothing more than vague, slippery little tricks — the patter of a street conjurer. He used such tricks to fool credulous smallfolk in the countryside, or, as now, to amuse a drunk king. But a king's command was a command, even slurred with drink.
Thoros cleared his throat with theatrical ceremony, hauled himself upright, and swayed over to the hearth. The wave of heat that hit him from the fire sobered him a fraction.
He muttered under his breath, reciting a few lines of the old prayer, long since grown rusty, nearly forgotten:
"Lord of Light, the long night is dark and full of terrors... drive back the darkness..."
"Guide us..."
Thoros's voice was dry and hesitant, his mind dulled by alcohol.
"In the flames... reveal to your servant... the future..."
He fixed his gaze on the leaping flames within the hearth. Orange tongues of fire licked at the blackened logs, crackling and snapping.
Nothing happened.
Thoros felt a flicker of disappointment. He was not the chosen one — or perhaps the Lord of Light simply did not exist. He was already preparing to rattle off something harmless to Robert, something like "the Seven Kingdoms shall enjoy eternal peace," just to discharge his duty. He knew Robert was only after a little fun to go with his drinking, anyway.
But suddenly, he froze.
At first the fire was no different from usual — warm, bright, flickering in its shapeless, restless way. Yet just as Thoros was about to open his mouth and start making things up, he felt a force from deep within the flames, irresistible, pulling.
Not a physical pull. Something deeper. More fundamental. Something that reached near to the very root of the soul.
The world before his eyes instantly warped and vanished. The luxurious guest chamber, the stupefied king, the wine cups on the table — everything dissolved into spinning patches of color, then collapsed into nothing.
His soul felt as if an invisible hand had seized it and ripped it bodily free of his flesh. He fell — plummeting into a world composed entirely of fire.
No up, no down. No left, no right. Only endless, burning light and heat.
Then the vision congealed.
He found himself standing within a vast, unbroken range of mountains, towering and magnificent.
Thoros felt he had no solid form — only a pair of floating eyes, a witnessing consciousness. As if guided by some unseen hand, he looked into the distance.
What is the Lord of Light trying to show me?
Far away, the peaks of the Mountains of the Moon stabbed up like blades toward the cold sky. The air was bitter. Dense fog smothered everything. From deep within the mountain range came rolling, muffled thunder. The earth trembled. His soul trembled.
Then from the valleys and the dense forests, countless black wolves came pouring out.
They were not creatures of flesh and blood. Their bodies were made of pure darkness — flame twisted and corrupted into something wrong.
Their forms were flowing dark fire, and within each empty eye socket, fierce flames burned.
Every wolf carried with it the scalding breath of hatred, blood, and slaughter.
The pack merged into a single black torrent of fire — roaring, surging, sweeping toward the open plains below.
Thoros tried to will his soul-body to flee. He found he could not move at all. He could only watch, helpless, as the black flames came rushing toward him.
In the end he shut his eyes and waited for his soul to be consumed.
A bone-piercing cold stabbed through his consciousness in an instant. Not the cold of winter ice — the cold of death and of nothingness.
He opened his eyes slowly, taking stock of his own soul. The pack of black-flame wolves passed straight through his formless, ghostly body.
He watched them go.
They were not savage in expression. They ran in silence, purposeful, driven entirely by what they were.
Slaughter.
Revenge.
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