Ethel stopped before the door of his room, his hand suspended over the handle while listening intently for any sound coming from the hallway. After ensuring no one was there, he slowly opened the door and peeked his head out. The corridor was deserted, illuminated by torches placed at irregular intervals that cast dancing shadows against the stone walls.
With stealthy steps, he emerged from the room. His body protested with a dull ache in his side, but he ignored the pain, determined to explore this new world while he had the chance. He needed answers beyond the four walls that had been his prison for days.
He descended a wooden staircase that creaked treacherously under his weight. Each creak made him stop, holding his breath while straining his ears. He didn't want to encounter Daario or Nymerio before having a better understanding of his situation.
The descent led him to a spacious common hall on the ground floor of the inn. Despite the early hour, the place bustled with activity. Merchants of diverse origins shared tables with ship captains, local artisans, and travelers from distant lands. The aroma of spilled beer, lamb stew, and freshly baked bread permeated the air, mixing with pipe smoke and the body odor of those who had gone too long without visiting the city's public baths.
Ethel slipped between the tables, staying close to the walls. His attention jumped from conversation to conversation, eagerly absorbing fragments of information. They spoke of trade routes, of the prices of Valyrian steel for which Qohor was famous, of rumors about Dothraki khalasar movements in the plains, of the latest intrigues in King's Landing.
"King's Landing," Ethel thought, savoring the name. A familiar reference point, an anchor to cling to. If King's Landing existed, then he was definitely in the world of the Seven Kingdoms. The question was: at what point in history did he find himself?
Ethel remained in the shadows of the crowded hall, absorbing every fragment of conversation like a thirsty castaway. King's Landing... the Seven Kingdoms... names that resonated with a disturbing echo between the familiar and the impossible. There was no longer any doubt: somehow inexplicably he had crossed the barrier between worlds, from his own to one that should only exist in the pages of books and in images projected on screens.
A group of Pentoshi merchants argued heatedly about the price of Dornish silk. "—The Lannisters have raised tariffs at Lannisport again," protested one, striking the table with his mug adorned with intricate engravings. "Lord Tywin squeezes every copper coin as if it were the last. They say now even King Robert owes him so much gold that not three summers of prosperity could settle the debt."
Ethel's heart skipped a beat. Was Robert Baratheon still reigning? If so, then he had landed before the events that would unleash the War of the Five Kings. A period of relative peace before the coming storm, though beneath the surface tensions were already forming like tectonic plates about to collide.
"The Arryns and Starks keep the roads safe in the North," commented another merchant, an older man with the distinctive emblem of a Braavosi trading company embroidered on his doublet. "But since Lord Arryn assumed the position of Hand of the King, the Vale is plagued with wild clans. One of our caravans was attacked last month on the way to the Gates of the Moon."
Jon Arryn was still Hand of the King. Ethel tried to remember the chronology. If Jon Arryn was alive, then Ned Stark was still Warden of the North in Winterfell, and the Stark children were still young, unsuspecting of the cruel fate that awaited them.
"Excuse me, boy," a harsh voice interrupted his thoughts. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"
Ethel turned sharply, finding himself face to face with Lazho, the healer from the Summer Islands who had tended to his wounds. The man observed him with a mixture of curiosity and professional concern, his dark eyes evaluating his posture and movements like one deciphering an ancient High Valyrian text without a maester's help.
"I felt... confined," Ethel replied, opting for the partial honesty he had decided would be his best strategy. "I needed to move, to breathe air that wasn't trapped between four walls."
Lazho nodded slowly, as if the answer confirmed some previous theory.
"Northmen are like that," he commented, to Ethel's surprise. "They prefer to die standing than heal bedridden. That stubbornness is both their strength and their downfall."
"From the north?" asked Ethel, unable to hide his confusion.
The healer smiled, revealing teeth as white as ivory that contrasted with his ebony skin, as dark as the wood of carved bows from the ancient trees of his homeland.
"Your accent, your complexion," he explained, making a gesture that encompassed all of Ethel. "And those eyes... blue as the ice of the Wall in deep winter. I've traveled enough with Nymerio's merchant ships to recognize Northern blood when I see it. Though there's something about you..." his voice faded as he narrowed his eyes, studying Ethel with renewed intensity, "something that doesn't quite fit."
Ethel absorbed the information, adding it to the fragmentary mental map he was constructing. So his appearance identified him as a Northerner. Useful data, another piece for the identity he needed to forge. If Robert Baratheon still reigned and the Starks were at their peak, he could present himself as a minor vassal of some Northern house who had been sent on a trading mission. It wouldn't be strange for an inexperienced young man to get lost on the way to the Free Cities.
"My memory is still... hazy," he admitted, seizing the opportunity. "Could you refresh me on where exactly we are? The days in bed have confused my sense of time and space."
Lazho arched an eyebrow, his expression becoming cautious. The rings of gold and jade adorning his left ear chimed softly when he tilted his head.
"Qohor, the City of Smiths," he replied after a brief pause. "Last of the Nine Free Cities before the vast Dothraki plains. Famous for its smiths who still know the secret of reforging Valyrian steel, for its carvings in wood black as night, and for devotion to their bloody god, the Black Goat, whose temple is watered daily with the fresh blood of the condemned and, when need is great, with that of innocent children."
The healer leaned slightly forward, lowering his voice to a whisper as faint as the rustling of dry leaves carried by autumn wind.
"It's no place for a disoriented Northman without protection. The Qohorik are superstitious and wary of foreigners, especially those who appear mysteriously in sacred groves surrounded by charred corpses. Here, rumors have shape and substance, and can end a man as effectively as the sharpest blade."
Ethel felt a chill run down his spine, as if the icy fingers of the old gods of the North had descended to remind him of his vulnerability.
"Have the rumors already spread?"
"Rumors always travel faster than truth," Lazho nodded. "You're already being spoken of in the temples and markets. The stranger with blue eyes who walked among flames without burning. Some say you're an envoy of the Lord of Light, R'hllor. Others, that you're a warlock from the Shadow Lands, beyond Asshai. The most fearful whisper that you're an emissary of the long night, sent to herald the return of eternal winter."
Panic began to form like a knot in Ethel's throat, tightening with the relentless force of vines from Valyrian ruins. Attention was the last thing he needed, especially from those seeking supernatural signs and omens.
"They exaggerate," he murmured, trying to maintain composure. "I was lucky, nothing more. Panic can play tricks on witnesses, transforming a simple survivor into something mystical."
Lazho studied him in silence for several heartbeats, as if evaluating not his words but what they concealed, like a skilled cyvasse player anticipating future moves instead of focusing on the current position of pieces.
"Luck is just another name for the gods' favor," he finally declared. "And the gods rarely grant their favors without expecting something in return. In my lands we say every miracle generates a debt, and the gods, unlike men, never forget to collect what they're owed."
Before Ethel could respond, a commotion at the hall's entrance drew everyone's attention. The bustle of conversations died like a candle exposed to sudden wind, leaving behind only expectant and fearful silence.
The silence that took hold of the room had an almost tangible quality, as if the air itself had solidified. Ethel felt the tension before understanding its source, a subtle pressure that seemed to emanate from the hall's entrance like a wave of invisible heat.
A woman had entered, flanked by four men clad in robes of red so deep they seemed black in shadows, but gleamed like fresh blood when torchlight reached them. The guards carried curved swords at their belts, their hilts carved with motifs of intertwined flames, but it wasn't their presence that had silenced the hall.
It was her.
Tall and slender, with beauty that was simultaneously seductive and terrifying, the woman wore a crimson dress that seemed to absorb surrounding light and return it transformed into a hypnotic glow. Her hair, red as newly molten copper, cascaded over her shoulders like a mantle of liquid fire. But it was her eyes that captured Ethel's attention: two burning rubies set in an alabaster face, which seemed to penetrate the soul of whoever gazed at them too long.
Around her neck, pulsing with life of its own, a collar of reddish gold held a garnet the size of a dove's egg that glowed with inner light, as if it contained an inextinguishable ember.
"Melisandre of Asshai," Lazho whispered, his voice barely audible. "The red priestess of R'hllor."
Melisandre. The Red Woman. The priestess whose power had altered the course of history in the world he knew through the series. Seeing her in flesh and blood, breathing the same air as him, made the reality of his situation strike him with renewed force.
The priestess stopped at the threshold, her eyes sweeping the hall like a hawk evaluating a field of potential prey. For one terrible instant, her gaze met Ethel's, and the young man felt as if something inside him ignited and responded to the scrutiny, a spark unnoticed until then that now burned with intensity under the attention of those supernatural eyes.
The corner of Melisandre's lips curved in what might have been interpreted as a smile, though the gesture didn't reach her eyes. With majestic step, she began to advance through the hall. The crowd instinctively parted, as if they feared the touch of her garments might incinerate them.
"Don't look at her directly," Lazho warned, placing a hand on Ethel's shoulder. "Followers of the Lord of Light can see things in men that are better kept hidden. Secrets, fears... truths."
But it was too late. Melisandre's trajectory had changed imperceptibly, and now she was heading directly toward where they stood. Each step resonated with inexorable purpose, as if it had been predetermined since the beginning of time. The guards followed her like crimson shadows, their hands never straying too far from their weapons.
"Valar morghulis," the priestess greeted when she stopped before them, her melodious voice tinged with a strange accent, as if common words were unfamiliar instruments to her.
"Valar dohaeris," Lazho responded automatically, inclining his head slightly in a sign of cautious respect.
Melisandre ignored the healer, her attention completely focused on Ethel. Her scarlet eyes studied him with an almost physical intensity, as if she could see through his flesh and bones to the very essence of his being.
"The fire speaks of you," she finally said, each word measured and precise like a surgeon's cut. "You walk among us like a man, but the flames whisper another truth."
The hall seemed to have shrunk to that point of encounter, the rest of the inn and its occupants faded to the periphery. Ethel felt each beat of his heart like thunder in his ears, the wound in his side pulsing at the same accelerated rhythm.
"I don't know what you speak of, my lady," he replied, struggling to keep his voice steady. "I'm just a traveler who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place."
An enigmatic smile formed on Melisandre's red lips.
"The wrong place? Or precisely the place where you were meant to be?" Her fingers, long and pale as weirwood twigs bleached by winter, rose to touch the garnet pulsing against her throat. "R'hllor makes no mistakes. Every flame, however small, burns with purpose."
One of the guards leaned to whisper something in her ear. The priestess nodded without taking her eyes off Ethel.
"They say you survived a fire that consumed all others," she continued, her voice now lower, more intimate, as if they were sharing a secret in the midst of a crowd. "That you walked among flames without your flesh being consumed."
Ethel felt cold sweat sliding down his back. This woman represented a greater danger than any soldier or spy; she could see through lies, read omens in flames, manipulate shadows and light.
"Rumors exaggerate," he insisted, repeating the same words he had used with Lazho. "I was lucky, nothing more."
"There are many gods," Lazho intervened cautiously. "Each man finds truth in the one he prays to."
Melisandre didn't deign to look at the healer, her attention completely fixed on Ethel.
"The fire that burns within you is different," she murmured, her voice barely a whisper. "Ancient and new at once, like a newborn star from primordial stardust." Her fingers extended, stopping a palm's width from Ethel's chest, as if she could feel heat radiating from him. "The Lord of Light has sent me to find you. The flames showed me your arrival."
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through Ethel. Had she seen something in her visions? Was it possible that R'hllor, if he truly existed as a conscious force in this world, had perceived his anomalous arrival from another universe?
"I think you confuse me with someone else," he said, trying to maintain composure. "I'm nobody important."
A flash of something—amusement? irritation?—crossed the priestess's marble face.
"The river doesn't decide its course; it flows where the land guides it," she replied enigmatically. "Your importance isn't determined by you, but by the role you're destined to play in the great battle that approaches."
With a fluid movement, Melisandre extracted from the folds of her dress a small object that she extended toward Ethel. It was a medallion of red gold with R'hllor's symbol engraved in relief: a heart wrapped in flames.
"When you're ready to accept the truth that burns within you, seek me at the temple of the Lord of Light," she said, letting the medallion fall into Ethel's palm before he could refuse it. "The night is dark and full of terrors, but fire consumes them all."
Without waiting for a response, the priestess turned with the fluid grace of a dancing flame. Her guards immediately surrounded her as she made her way toward the hall's exit, leaving behind an overwhelming silence and the scent of sandalwood and ashes.
Ethel looked at the medallion in his hand, feeling its weight like a burden much greater than its size suggested. The metal seemed warm to the touch, as if it retained the heat of previous hands, or perhaps, he thought uneasily, as if it generated its own heat.
"You've been blessed and cursed at once," Lazho murmured beside him, observing the medallion with evident concern. "The Red Woman's interest rarely brings fortune to whoever receives it."
Ethel closed his fist around the medallion, feeling how the engraved symbol pressed into his palm.
"What do you know about her?" he asked in a low voice, while the hall's crowd slowly resumed their conversations, now in cautious murmurs.
Lazho looked around before responding, as if making sure no one could hear them.
"She arrived in Qohor three moons ago, with a small retinue of fanatics and guards. She established a temple in the eastern district, near the river. At first, the priests of the Black Goat tried to expel her, fearful of losing influence." The healer passed a hand over his face, as if trying to erase an unpleasant memory. "The next day, the High Priest of the Black Goat appeared on the steps of his own temple, completely charred but with eyes still open, staring at the sky as if he had contemplated something so terrible that his expression remained frozen even after death."
Ethel felt a chill run down his spine. The description perfectly matched what he knew about the red priestess's power to create shadow assassins.
"And no one tried to stop her?"
Lazho let out a bitter laugh.
"Who would dare? The inhabitants of Qohor are superstitious to the core. Now they see her as a divine envoy. Even the Council of Smiths, which truly governs this city, has granted her audience." The healer lowered his voice even more. "It's rumored she seeks something in Qohor, some artifact or knowledge related to fire and forging. The Qohorik smiths guard secrets from Valyrian times, techniques that not even the maesters of the Citadel know."
Ethel's mind worked at full speed. If Melisandre was in Qohor and not with Stannis Baratheon, that meant she hadn't yet found her "prince that was promised." She was in an early stage of her search, prior to the events narrated in the books.
"She said the flames showed her my arrival," he murmured, more to himself than to Lazho. "Is it possible she can really see the future in fire?"
"Followers of R'hllor possess gifts that others would consider witchcraft," the healer replied with evident fear.
Lazho didn't hesitate and ordered Ethel to return to his room.