Prologue
Drayke
She crooked a gnarled finger at me. Beckoning. Beckoning.
I took a hesitant step, then stopped. The soil beneath my feet was hot. As though a river of fire flowed just below the surface.
Wordlessly, she bade me come closer.
I glanced around, apprehensive. Darkness had swallowed up every landmark. No stars lit the night sky. All I could see was the ground beneath my feet, now glowing like the embers from a dying fire, and the shadowy figure perched on a rock in the distance.
She’d called me here. Sending her message over and over, until I was compelled to do as she commanded.
“Claim your destiny.”
First a faint whisper, deep in the recesses of my mind. Then more insistent. Finally, a cacophony of sounds and images disturbing my rest every night.
Tonight, I woke from a sound sleep with her shrill voice echoing in my ears. Left my bed in the middle of the night, drew on my clothes, and climbed out the window. “No one must know,” warned her voice in my head. “See that no one follows you.”
I took the route she showed me in my dreams. If dreams they were. The interludes were more like private sessions with a cranky sorceress who read the bones to foretell my fate. One who delighted in tormenting me, denying me rest until I did as she commanded.
Leaving the lights of the city behind, I headed for the deep purple mountain looming over our homeland. No one ascended to its peak. Over the centuries, strange occurrences had frightened off the curious. Others who ventured there disappeared, never to return. The summit was shrouded in mystery, said to be the dwelling place of ogres and cunning imps. Of strange beasts uttering mournful cries and terrible roars. As a lad, my nurse had me listen for them in the wind howling down through the pass on dark and stormy nights.
“Do ye hear them? ’Tis a cursed place,” she’d say. “Filled with demons. Promise me ye’ll never venture there, my lord. No good will come of it.”
Fear gnawed at my belly, but I went on. I was no timid lad. Tomorrow, I’d be thirteen. Practically a grown man. It was time to face this night terror. Put it to rest, so I could dream of golden-haired maidens on the eves to come.
I marched on, humming under my breath. A fight song, though why they called it that was a mystery to me. I doubted our warriors crooned catchy tunes when marching into battle, and I was quite certain they didn’t break into song as they lopped the heads off their enemies. In truth, it should have been called a drinking song. One the old men belted out as they clanked mugs in the tavern, swapping lies of their exploits back when they were valiant and virile. All the same, I found a scrap of courage in the stirring melody.
Gods knew, I needed every ounce of bravery I could muster when I caught sight of her at last.
I could barely make her out in the dim red glow, but from what I could see, she was old. Ancient. She sat hunched over with her back to me, head slightly turned so I caught just a sliver of her wrinkled face. Her nose was sharp as a crow’s beak, her eyes mere slits. A tangled mess of silver-white hair hung down her back, nearly reaching her waist. She was shrouded in a shapeless black cloak. Despite the stifling heat emanating from the earth beneath us, she held the garment tight around her neck with her other hand.
I grimaced as the scorching heat penetrated the soles of my boots. Burned my feet.
“Closer.” Her voice was thin and reedy, the voice of an old crone.
Narrow slashes began to appear in the ground around me, open wounds in the earth oozing fire red as blood.
To this day, I don’t know why I obeyed. I’ve thought about it long and often. She hadn’t put a spell on me, though I had no doubt she could have if she’d wanted to. I’d never seen anyone look more like a witch straight out of the tales I read in my childhood. I still believe I had the freedom at that moment to choose my destiny.
But like the foolhardy young man I was, I kept going – and thereby sealed my fate.
Melisandre
I stood in the shadows, watching. Neither of them could see me, of that I was certain. I’d been there so many times before.
The young man stared wide-eyed at the fissures appearing in the ground beneath his feet, glanced around wildly. There was no safe path to take. Behind him, lava began bubbling to the surface. In front of him, flames as tall as a horse shot from ragged openings pockmarking the surface. He headed toward the old woman, leaping over the widening gaps.
When I first saw him, he’d been just a lad. Over the years, he’d aged, until now the figure I beheld was that of a full-grown male. Tall and strong.
He swiveled his head in my direction, and I saw his face clearly for the first time. Square jaw and chiseled cheekbones highlighted by the light and shadow of the flickering flames. High forehead with a stray lock of wavy dark hair falling over it. And warm brown eyes, reflecting the glow of the fire.
He looked straight at me. I shrank back into the shadows, but he never acknowledged my existence. It was as though I was a wraith, a spirit hovering at the scene.
The old woman beckoned him again. He turned away from me and walked straight across the glowing coals.
As I watched, his boots burst into flame, yet he kept moving forward. He stripped off his shirt and tried to smother the blaze as he walked, but the garment caught fire. He tossed it aside. It hurtled through the dark sky like a dying comet.