Black Castle.Command Tower, King's Bedchamber.
Outside the tower, the night was as cold as ice. Inside, the fireplace blazed warmly. A blood magic ritual was underway.
"Daenerys is gone. She didn't even give us a chance to act," Stannis lay on the bed, his head resting on his arm, eyes fixed on the ceiling. "Compared to me, she seems more like the prophesied one."
"Mm, ah, oh, ya, ee, ha, hey, hoo—"
The Red Woman swung her sweat-drenched crimson curls as she continuously chanted incantations of blood magic.
"She is not the prophesied one. You and I both know this with absolute certainty. She has never appeared in the flames," Melisandre said.
"But she has dragons. She activated Lightbringer. And she has the will and ambition to end the Long Night," Stannis gritted his teeth.
"Your Grace, isn't that what I'm doing for you right now—replenishing your magic? Lightbringer has already had some of its runes activated by her. Once I fully decipher them, you'll be able to wield the Red Sword through my power.
Sigh... it's just a pity that Lightbringer hasn't been completely unsealed, or else—"
She paused, then continued, "As for the dragons, if she can hatch them, so can you. I told you long ago—you could hatch a magical dragon from stone."
"Edric, my nephew... but Davos already let him go," Stannis clenched his jaw and ground his teeth. "If we took him back... is it still possible? Or perhaps Mance Rayder and his son? They both carry royal blood."
"All I can tell you is this: the more sacrifices, and the purer the royal blood, the greater the chance of success."
After a moment of silence, Stannis asked, "How did that woman hatch the dragons? Was it truly as the legends say? That she sacrificed three of her loved ones to R'hllor?"
Melisandre's body moved slowly, her cheeks reflecting an eerie red glow from the firelight.
"In that matter, the Lord of Light has not answered my questions. The sacred flames are elusive, not all can be seen or known."
Then, with conviction, she said, "But a wise person can reason it out. The truth is clear.
A long, long time ago—when we first met, Robert was still alive, and Daenerys hadn't yet married the Horse Lord—I suggested to you that we should sacrifice royal blood to hatch a magical dragon."
"Sigh, I should've listened to you back then." A trace of regret flashed in Stannis's deep blue eyes.
Feeling the faint trickle of magic entering his body, Stannis groaned softly, then frowned, saying, "But at the banquet, when we spoke of the Free Cities hatching dragons through sacrifice, Daenerys swore that no sacrifice was needed to hatch dragons. She claimed that the theory of sacrificing a loved one was a paradox. She even said the slave masters of the Free Cities were mad."
"Ah," Melisandre laughed seductively, "With your wisdom, can't you see her true intent? Everyone wants dragons. Once they get them, they want to be the only dragonrider."
Stannis nodded heavily in agreement, "Anyone who's not a fool knows she's lying. She wants to keep the dragons for herself.
That's why she's been flying around on one, raiding and stealing dragon eggs—to prevent the Free Cities from hatching dragons."
"Exactly!" Melisandre praised him approvingly.
"But she didn't sacrifice any close relatives for her fourth dragon," Stannis said with confusion.
"Hmph. That's exactly where her deception lies." The Red Woman replied confidently, "Did I ever ask Your Grace to sacrifice your dearest loved one?
I did not, right?Because blood is blood—its power is real. And royal blood naturally contains the magic of kingship.
Just look at the ends of those three false kings—Robb, Joffrey, and Balon. You'll see I wasn't lying. The power of king's blood is immense."
"You mean…" Stannis suddenly understood. "From the very beginning, she used royal blood to hatch her dragons. But she feared others might imitate her—after all, she isn't the only one with dragon eggs.
So she deliberately created a paradox—that dragons must be hatched by sacrificing the one you love most.
If I tried to hatch dragons following her logic, then anyone I sacrifice couldn't possibly be the one I love most. And if I loved someone more than dragons, I wouldn't sacrifice them.
In such an irrefutable paradox, her lie can never be disproven."
"Your Grace is truly wise!" Melisandre sincerely praised him.
"What a cunning woman!" Stannis sighed, pulling a small wooden box from the headboard.
The black box was etched with red runes. Lifting the lid revealed a blood-red dragon egg speckled with deep violet spots.
The Red Woman glanced at the egg and smiled proudly. "I carved those runes myself. The stone egg's aura is completely sealed. Even if you placed the box in front of the Mother of Dragons, she wouldn't sense a thing."
Tap, tap, tap—Stannis knocked on the dragon egg, frowning. "Who knows what era this came from—it's completely petrified."
"Precisely because it turned to stone, generations of Targaryens didn't bother with it, giving you the chance to dig it up from deep within the dragon caves of Dragonstone," Melisandre said, smiling.
"She sacrificed the Horse Lord, Viserys, and the unborn little prince—three kings—for the three eggs. The fourth…" Stannis hesitated, "Surely the fourth dragon isn't that Lysene handmaid?"
"Heh. Not every king is as merciful and just as you. That's why you are the true prophesied one," Melisandre's eyes glinted as she sneered.
"What do you mean?" Stannis asked curiously.
"Was that handmaid really killed by assassins?" A hint of mockery flashed in Melisandre's eyes.
"You mean..." Stannis's expression changed dramatically. He trembled, "She... she killed her closest handmaid just to keep up the lie?"
The Red Woman didn't answer directly. She merely smiled faintly and said, "I'm certain—the fourth egg was also hatched with king's blood.
Think carefully—Astapor, Qarth, Meereen... how many Good Masters, Wise Masters, and Great Masters died?
They all descended from royal lineages over six thousand years old!"
"Hiss—" Stannis drew in a sharp breath. "That's completely different from how she behaved at the Wall—noble, heroic, just... That woman is two-faced."
At that, he suddenly fell silent.
It seemed… she was just like him!
He too was brave and fearless, upright and noble, resilient and unyielding. Yet, there was a shadow in his heart—Renly and Cortnay Penrose.
Perhaps, within every radiant and towering hero lies a hidden, unknown darkness deep in their soul—this is but one of the hardships on the lonely road of a king!
Suddenly, he felt a sense of kinship with the Dragon Queen.
Melisandre, who had spent several intimate years by his side, instantly sensed his thoughts through the shadow in his stag-like eyes and quickly changed the subject:"Your Grace, on her way to Westeros, she seized dragon eggs from Volantis and burned hundreds of kings or royal descendants in both Volantis and Lys."
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"Those people carried Valyrian noble blood even purer and nobler than that of the Targaryens!"
"You must act quickly. I fear it won't be long before the fifth dragon is born."
"Sigh, why does the continent of Essos have so many royal bloodlines, while I have only a single insignificant Wildling King?" Stannis muttered, clearly displeased.
"That old Maester Aemon was a pity. We let him get away—his royal blood was thick," Melisandre said regretfully.
Stannis shook his head. "Whether Aemon leaves or not makes no difference. As long as she lives, we cannot harm him."
"Ah…" Melisandre suddenly tilted her head back, body stiffening, unmoving, as wave after wave of magical power surged toward Stannis's lower abdomen. Flaming runes flickered rapidly across his firm abs, and even he couldn't suppress a moan.
"Are you alright after all that?" The stag-eyed man looked at the pale face of the Red Woman with concern.
Melisandre stood, draped her red robe over herself, and walked barefoot to the window. She pushed open the wooden shutters, letting the howling wind whip inside. Her red hair and robe flailed wildly in the gusts.
Gazing at the towering crystalline wall opposite, she spoke with a complex expression, "Don't worry. The Wall is a place of miracles, filled with boundless magical power. Here, my magic grows stronger by the moment."
Crack, crack— The sharp sound of ice breaking came from afar, and a black line appeared on the icy surface, slithering like lightning from the distance.
Boom! A deafening explosion echoed above the silent Black Castle as an ice mountain shattered.
Melisandre's eyes widened in horror:A crack, two fingers wide, had appeared on the crystalline Wall—like a scar on a beautiful face. It was still spreading, upward, downward, eastward...
"Ahhh!" she screamed, clutching her head in hysteria. "The power is fading. The Wall... it's collapsing!"
"Ahhh! The Wall is cracking!" From atop and beneath the Wall, Night's Watch brothers cried out in fear, faces twisted.
"The Wall is falling! Someone's blown the Horn of Winter!" a wildling shouted in terror.
Crash! Just then, a massive ice block the size of a bedboard broke off near the King's Tower, plummeting from seventy meters up. It smashed the hanging bridge between the tower and the wooden staircase, then tumbled down with a thunderous rumble, striking the stone ground like a bolt of thunder.
In an instant, all of Black Castle was thrown into chaos. Night's Watchmen and wildlings alike were jolted awake. Some ran screaming and half-naked across the training grounds like madmen.
"What's happening to the Wall?" Stannis hurried forward, his face pale with dread.
At nearly the same moment, in Eastwatch-by-the-Sea...
"What's happening to the Wall?"
Queen Selyse, clad in only a thin robe, clutched her daughter tightly as she stared in horror at the chunks of falling ice from the Wall outside her window. Her face twisted in fear as she murmured the same question as her husband.
"Mother, I'm scared," Princess Shireen said, eyes wide with fear, curling closer into her mother's embrace.
"Beneath the Wall, the wind rises! The wind I've waited for is here! Time to set sail—wooo woo woo! I know, I know! It's time to search for treasure!" sang the patch-faced fool nearby, waving his arms and swaying his plump body.
Shireen turned toward her jester, but the moment their eyes met, she was so frightened by the strange glint in his gaze that she fell flat onto the wooden floor.
It was a kind of blue she had never seen before—divine, solemn, deeper than any ocean trench. Greed and madness swirled within, like a tsunami, so intense it seemed to spill out of his eye sockets.
"Ardin, stop yelling… you're scaring me!" she said through tears, shrinking back.
The jester's body twitched instinctively a few times. The words from his mouth became muddled, tuneless. The madness in his eyes faded into absurdity, the greed into dullness.
He returned to his usual foolish self, clapping and laughing at the princess:"Beneath the Wall, the wind rises! The wind we waited for is here! Woo woo woo, I know, I know! The treasure has appeared! Woo woo woo!"
Though it was nearly the same song, Shireen suddenly felt inexplicably at ease—and laughed along with him.
(End of Chapter)
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