The crimson stone of the vaulted ceiling gleamed with the first light of dawn, casting a reddish glow that bathed the chamber in hues of diluted blood. Ethel observed the spectacle from his bed, as he had done each morning for the past month. The quarters assigned to him in the western wing of the Red Temple surpassed in luxury anything he had ever known—even in his previous life, in that distant world whose memories faded day by day like ink under rain.
One month. One month since he had watched Daario and Nymerio's vessels disappear into the morning mist of the Rhoyne. One month of knowledge, power, and revelations that transformed his understanding of this world and of himself.
The rhythmic sound of sandals on polished marble interrupted his thoughts. Three precise knocks on the cedar wood door, spaced exactly alike. Kinvara. Only she possessed that mathematically perfect cadence.
"Come in," he responded, sitting up.
The High Priestess entered with the feline grace that characterized her, her scarlet robe flowing softly as if obeying not only the physical laws of movement but also some invisible aesthetic imperative. The ruby at her throat seemed more luminous than usual, pulsing with an inner light that rivaled the dawn.
"The ship from Asshai has docked at dawn," she announced without preamble, her dark eyes evaluating Ethel with that gaze that always seemed to see beyond his skin. "Melisandre of Asshai has arrived."
A slight tension seized Ethel's shoulders. He had anticipated this moment since Kinvara informed him, a week ago, that the red priestess of Qohor—the first to recognize his extraordinary nature—was traveling to Volantis specifically to observe him.
"Will she be staying long?" he asked, keeping his voice deliberately neutral.
An enigmatic smile curved Kinvara's lips.
"Long enough to confirm what the flames showed her about you. Long enough to determine if you are what we suspect."
Ethel suppressed a sigh. After weeks of training, study, and tests, the priests still spoke in riddles, revealing information in carefully measured fragments. It was a deliberate strategy, he knew. Knowledge was power in the Red Temple, and no one received more than strictly necessary for their designated function.
"I will be ready to meet with her after my morning exercises," he responded with a formality he had learned to imitate from the priests themselves.
Kinvara nodded slightly.
"We will await you in the Chamber of Visions at midday." She made a calculated pause before adding: "Today you will not train with Marandro. Your instruction in martial arts is temporarily suspended."
Before Ethel could protest, the High Priestess had already disappeared through the door, leaving behind only the echo of her steps and the faint aroma of sandalwood and ash that always accompanied her.
With a fluid movement, Ethel rose and walked to the balcony that overlooked the eastern district of Volantis. The city already bustled with activity: merchants preparing their stalls, slaves transporting goods, sailors unloading ships that had arrived during the night. From his privileged position, he could distinguish even the great galley with black and red sails that must be the ship from Asshai mentioned by Kinvara. Its three masts stood out against the morning sky like dark fingers pointing accusingly toward the gods.
Melisandre of Asshai. The name evoked images of the priestess in the temple of Qohor, her intense gaze evaluating him as if he were an ancient text she was trying to decipher. Now she came expressly to study him, and the idea provoked an uncomfortable mixture of anticipation and apprehension.
The hot water of the temple's underground baths enveloped Ethel in an almost painfully pleasurable embrace. These chambers, excavated beneath the foundations of the main building, utilized natural thermal springs that the ancient founders of Volantis—Valyrian nobles who escaped the Freehold before the Doom—had channeled with engineering that bordered on the magical.
Steam rose in capricious spirals, forming figures that a month ago he would have attributed to pareidolia, but which he now studied attentively, aware that sometimes, only sometimes, the shapes in the vapor contained subtle messages for those who knew how to interpret them.
"You seem worried, young Ethel."
The deep voice startled him. He turned sharply to find Benerro emerging from the water a few meters away. The burn scars that deformed half his face gleamed with a reddish tone under the diffuse light of the torches.
"I didn't hear you enter," Ethel apologized.
"Few do," the priest responded with a crooked smile that made his burned face even more asymmetrical. "It's a useful talent for those who must decipher secrets. Stealth allows one to observe truth without adornments."
Ethel nodded, recognizing the implicit lesson. During the past month, he had learned that almost every interaction with the superior priests contained some hidden teaching, some subtle test.
"Melisandre has arrived," he said simply.
"I know." Benerro submerged briefly, soaking his face completely before emerging again. "Her ship brings more than a simple priestess. It brings validation for our theories... or refutation."
"And what exactly are those theories?" Ethel asked, taking advantage of the priest's unusual openness. "A month of tests and studies, and still no one has told me clearly what they believe I am."
Benerro studied him with a penetrating gaze that seemed to pierce flesh, bone, and soul to examine the very essence of his being.
"There are... possibilities," he finally responded. "Fire runs through your veins, that is undeniable. Your affinity with it confirms this. But there is something more, something none of us has seen before." He made a significant pause. "Not even the most ancient texts speak of someone who possessed your abilities."
The silence that followed was interrupted only by the constant bubbling of the thermal water and the distant crackling of torches.
"Melisandre believes I might be..." Ethel hesitated before pronouncing the words, "the Prince that was Promised."
A complex expression crossed Benerro's marked face: something between amusement, intrigue, and caution.
"Melisandre has dedicated her very long life to searching for the Prince that was Promised," he responded carefully. "She has seen candidates in the flames before, some with more potential than others. The question, young Ethel, is not so much whether you are the Prince that was Promised, but what you would do if you discovered that you are."
The question struck Ethel with the force of a revelation. For a month he had been so focused on discovering his nature, on understanding his strange abilities and his place in this world, that he had barely considered the implications of being identified as the central figure of a millennial prophecy.
"I don't know," he admitted honestly.
Benerro nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer.
"Honest ignorance is preferable to false certainty," he said, rising from the water. "You will have time to contemplate these questions. But not today." He reached for a red linen towel and began drying himself methodically. "Today you must prepare for Melisandre. Her gaze is sharper than mine, her methods more... direct. I advise you to present yourself before her with a clear mind and shields well raised."
With those cryptic words of warning, the priest wrapped himself in a scarlet robe and left the baths, leaving Ethel immersed in turbulent thoughts that not even the comforting warmth of the water could dissipate.
The Chamber of Visions occupied the very heart of the Red Temple, a perfectly circular space beneath the great central dome of the complex. Unlike other ceremonial halls, this was not open to common faithful nor even to acolytes of lower rank. It was the sanctum sanctorum where the greatest secrets of R'hllor were revealed to his most worthy servants, where the most important visions were interpreted and recorded.
Ethel had never entered there. During his month of residence, he had explored much of the vast temple complex, from the underground libraries where ancient texts in forgotten languages were preserved in chambers sealed against humidity, to the workshops where artisans created amulets and talismans imbued with fragments of the Lord of Light's power. But the Chamber of Visions had remained forbidden, mentioned only in whispers by the acolytes.
The guards posted on both sides of the double bronze doors—two colossi from the Summer Islands with skin dark as obsidian and ceremonial armor of scarlet scales—scrutinized him with impassive gazes before stepping aside without uttering a word. The doors opened silently, revealing a space that defied expectations.
There was not the ostentatious luxury that characterized other areas of the temple. No gold or jewels gleamed, there were no elaborate statues or colorful frescoes. The chamber was austere to the point of seeming naked: walls of red stone polished to brilliance, a circular floor of black obsidian so perfectly reflective that it created the illusion of an infinite abyss beneath their feet, and in the exact center, an iron brazier shaped like an open lotus flower, from whose petals rose flames of an unnatural crimson color.
Three figures waited beside the central brazier: Kinvara, whose presence was already familiar; Benerro, his marked face now completely expressionless; and between them, a woman who could only be Melisandre of Asshai.
The priestess he had briefly known in Qohor looked different here, in the heart of her order's power. Her copper hair fell like a cascade of liquid fire over her shoulders and back, contrasting dramatically with a robe of such intense red that it almost seemed black in the shadowed folds. The collar with its characteristic pulsing ruby encircled her throat like a promise of barely contained power.
But most striking were her eyes. In Qohor they had been intense, scrutinizing. Here, under the supernatural light of the crimson flames, they seemed to contain fires of their own, as if the brazier were reflected in them or, more disturbingly, as if the flames emanated from within her.
"Ethel," she pronounced his name with a melodious voice that resonated in the circular chamber. "At last we meet again."
She advanced three steps toward him, studying him with that burning gaze that seemed to want to consume every detail of his being. Ethel remained firm, remembering Benerro's warning words about keeping his mental shields raised. For weeks he had practiced techniques of concentration and psychic resistance, preparing precisely for moments like this.
"Lady Melisandre," he responded with a formal bow he had learned from the priests. "I hope your journey from Asshai has been peaceful."
An enigmatic smile curved the priestess's lips.
"Journeys are rarely peaceful when undertaken following the designs of the Lord of Light," she responded. "But they are necessary. Especially when the flames show... significant anomalies."
Her choice of words—so similar to Benerro's hours before—did not go unnoticed by Ethel.
"Is that what I am?" he asked directly. "An anomaly?"
Kinvara and Benerro exchanged a meaningful glance, but remained silent, yielding the stage to Melisandre.
"You are much more than that," responded the priestess of Asshai, circling the central brazier to approach him. "You are a variable in a cosmic equation we thought immutable. A factor that did not exist in visions until a few moons ago... and that now appears with disconcerting clarity in every flame pattern from Asshai to the Wall."
She stopped in front of him, so close that Ethel could feel the heat emanating from her—a heat that did not seem to come entirely from her physical body, but from some interior source, as if she harbored a fragment of the sun itself beneath her skin.
"I have dedicated centuries to interpreting the signs of the Lord of Light," she continued, her voice dropping until it became almost an intimate whisper. "I have made mistakes. I have seen what I wanted to see instead of what was really shown to me. But with you..." she extended a pale hand toward Ethel's face, stopping millimeters from touching his cheek, "with you the signs are unequivocal. Incontestable."
Ethel contained the impulse to step back. There was something about Melisandre, an intensity that surpassed even that of Kinvara or Benerro, as if her religious devotion bordered on something close to obsession.
"What signs?" he asked, keeping his voice firm.
In response, Melisandre turned toward the central brazier, extending both hands toward the flames. Instantly, the fire responded like a living creature, rising in a spiral column that rotated slowly. The colors changed: from crimson to orange, to gold, and finally to a blinding white.
"Look," ordered the priestess, her voice acquiring a reverberating quality that did not seem entirely human.
Ethel obeyed, fixing his gaze on the dancing flames. For weeks he had practiced the art of pyromancy under Kinvara's tutelage, learning to discern significant patterns among the apparent chaos of fire. But what he saw now surpassed any previous experience.
In the white flames appeared defined forms, images as sharp as if they had been painted by a master: a colossal wall of ice, so tall it seemed to tear the sky; a battle in the snow where the dead rose to fight again; a throne forged with melted swords; and finally, a man—or something resembling a man—with eyes of supernatural blue, so cold they seemed to burn, crowned with bony protuberances that resembled a crown of ice.
"The Great Other," whispered Melisandre. "The eternal enemy. The antithesis of R'hllor."
The images changed abruptly. Now Ethel saw what appeared to be himself, but transformed, wrapped in flames that did not consume him, wielding a sword whose blade burned with its own light, confronting personified darkness. The vision was so vivid, so real, that he could almost feel the weight of the weapon in his hand, the heat of flames licking his skin without harming it.
With an abrupt gesture of her hand, Melisandre dispelled the images. The flames returned to their previous state, swaying gently in the brazier with their usual crimson color.
"Do you see now?" she asked, her bright eyes fixed on him. "Do you understand why I have traveled from the other end of the world to find you?"
Ethel breathed deeply, trying to process what he had just witnessed. Was it a genuine vision of the future or simply skillful manipulation by an experienced priestess? A prophecy or an elaborate strategy to bind him irrevocably to the cause of the Red God?
"I saw images in the fire," he responded cautiously. "But I don't know what they really mean."
Kinvara stepped forward, intervening for the first time since the beginning of the encounter.
"They mean that the ancient prophecies are in flux," she explained with a serene voice. "The destiny that once seemed fixed now branches into new possibilities. And you, Ethel, are at the center of that bifurcation."
"The Prince that was Promised," added Melisandre with barely contained fervor. "Born amidst salt and smoke to wake dragons from stone and face darkness with Lightbringer in hand."
Benerro, more pragmatic as always, moderated the enthusiasm with measured words:
"One possibility among several. Prophecies are notoriously... flexible in their interpretation."
Melisandre directed a sharp look at him, but did not contradict the marked priest.
"What matters," she continued, addressing Ethel again, "is that you represent something unique. Something that R'hllor himself has placed in our path for reasons we must yet fully decipher."
Ethel observed the three of them, these powerful priests who seemed to place enormous hopes in him based on interpretations of magical fires and ancient prophecies. A part of him—the rational part that remembered a world where science explained phenomena and magic was fiction—wanted to reject all of it as elaborate superstition. But that part diminished day by day, eroded by experiences he could not deny: his immunity to fire, his accelerated healing capacity, and now, these disturbingly vivid visions.
"What do you want from me?" he finally asked, the most honest question he could offer.
"To train you," responded Kinvara.
"To prepare you," added Benerro.
"To guide you," concluded Melisandre, her eyes shining with supernatural intensity, "toward the destiny that corresponds to you, whatever it may be."
The following weeks passed in a whirlwind of activity structured with mathematical precision. If his first month in the Red Temple had been intense, Melisandre's presence elevated that pace to almost unbearable levels.
Afternoons were dedicated to the study of ancient texts under the alternating tutelage of Benerro and Kinvara. Manuscripts in High Valyrian, scrolls rescued from the ruins of ancient Valyria, codices from Asshai written with ink mixed with blood and volcanic ash. History, prophecy, magical theory, and esoteric astronomy intertwined in an education that no university from his previous world could have offered.
Ethel absorbed knowledge with an ease that amazed even his instructors. Concepts that took acolytes years to master crystallized in his mind in days. Dead languages flourished on his tongue as if he had spoken them in previous lives.
"Your mind is a miracle almost as great as your affinity with fire," commented Kinvara after Ethel deciphered a particularly obscure text in the ancient tongue of Asshai after only three days of study. "It is not natural, this capacity of yours. But it is welcome."
However, it was the nights with Melisandre that truly transformed his understanding of the power that lay dormant within him. Under moonlight or in closed chambers illuminated only by special candles made with fat from ritually sacrificed animals, the priestess of Asshai taught him the fundamentals of the mystical arts.
"Fire is life," she explained to him while Ethel maintained a small flame floating above his palm, a trick he had mastered after weeks of practice. "It does not only consume; it also creates, purifies, transforms. The flames you control are physical manifestations of the Lord of Light's will acting through you."
Some rituals proved disturbing. When Melisandre extracted blood from his arm with a black obsidian knife to mix it with perfumed oils and create a fire that burned with an unnatural bluish tone, Ethel felt a chill that had nothing to do with the room's temperature.
"Blood has power," she had explained, observing how the blue flames formed hypnotic patterns. "And yours... yours contains secrets that not even you fully understand."
Not all experiments were successful. When Melisandre tried to teach him to project illusions through smoke, to create animated shadows, or to induce visions in foreign minds—abilities in which she excelled—Ethel found an insurmountable barrier. His talents, though extraordinary, seemed limited exclusively to the direct dominion of fire and heat.
"It is fascinating," commented Melisandre one night, while Ethel made flames dance between his fingers as if they were living creatures. "Your power is both more limited and deeper than that of any pyromancer I have known. As if R'hllor had granted you a single gift, but in its purest form."
Sometimes, in the rare moments of rest between his multiple responsibilities, Ethel allowed himself to contemplate his situation with a certain analytical detachment. He had become something unprecedented in this world: neither conventional priest of the Red God, nor Valyrian noble with dragon blood, nor simple apprentice of magic. He was his own category, molded by the unique intersection of his foreign origin and the gifts manifested in this realm.
It was during one of those rare pauses when Melisandre found him on an elevated terrace of the temple, contemplating the Volantine sunset. The sun descended lazily toward the western horizon, tinting the great river Rhoyne with golden and crimson reflections that reminded him of the flames of the sacred brazier.
"A beautiful spectacle," commented the priestess, joining him beside the reddish stone balustrade. "But only a pale echo of the sun's true fire. A daily reminder that darkness always threatens to engulf the light."
Ethel had learned to recognize when Melisandre initiated one of her tangential lessons, apparently casual but carefully designed to reinforce the fundamental principles of her faith.
"Don't you ever tire of seeing enemies in the shadows?" he asked, allowing himself a frankness he rarely showed before the priests. "This world has its own beauty, even when the sun sets."
A sad smile curved Melisandre's lips.
"I have lived long enough to appreciate ephemeral beauty, Ethel. But also to know that beneath the surface of that beauty lurk dangers few can imagine." Her gaze lost itself in the distance, as if contemplating memories from epochs no living man could remember. "The Long Night is not a poetic metaphor nor a tale to frighten children. It is a historical reality that threatens to repeat itself."
"The war between R'hllor and the Great Other," recited Ethel, repeating the doctrine that had been instilled in him for weeks.
"An eternal war in which each generation fights its own battle," she confirmed. "And now, the balance tips dangerously."
Ethel remained silent for a moment, carefully considering his next words.
"If I were really what you believe," he finally said, "if I were this... Prince that was Promised you speak of... what would happen then?"
The question hung suspended between them like a fragile bubble. For a long moment, only the whisper of wind and distant sounds from the city could be heard.
"For us?" asked Melisandre finally, her voice acquiring a tone of reverence unusual for her. "We would become your most loyal servants. Every priest, priestess, and acolyte of the Lord of Light in the known world would kneel before you as the living manifestation of R'hllor's will."
A chilling declaration in its absolutist simplicity.
"And for me?" insisted Ethel.
Melisandre's eyes blazed like living coals when she turned to look at him directly.
"For you it would mean accepting a destiny no man should envy," she responded with brutal honesty. "You will face the Great Other and his hosts of the dead. You will wake dragons from stone. You will wield Lightbringer and stand between humanity and infinite darkness."
She paused, evaluating Ethel's reaction before continuing:
"Some will die so that you may fulfill your destiny. Others will live thanks to your sacrifice. You will have power as few have dreamed... and responsibilities that would crush any common man." Her words resonated with the absolute certainty of one who harbors no doubts.