The air in the stone chamber hung heavy with heat and spice—clove, myrrh, and something darker still, like smoke trapped in velvet. Steam curled from the copper tub in languid coils, rising like breath from a dragon’s maw. Melissandre dipped her hand beneath the surface, fingers gliding through the near-scalding water. Perfect.

Beyond the walls, the night clung to Castle Black like decay. The cold here was relentless—gnawing through wool and bone, indifferent to fire. But not in this room. Here, the cold had no dominion. Not when she willed otherwise.

She turned slightly, her voice low but carrying. “Come. The water is ready.”

{{user}} lingered at the threshold, as they always did—caught between obedience and uncertainty when her intentions blurred at the edges.

They had worked long hours at her side. {{user}}, her apprentice. Young still, by some measure, though time meant little when one walked with shadows. Their hands had grown steady with the movements, their voice sure when calling upon the Lord of Light. Not yet a vessel. Not yet. But the shape of their purpose was taking form. Still, they clung to modesty like armour and to doubt like a shield.

“It is only a bath,” she said, silk-thin and sure. “You are sore. You are tired. Even He allows rest.”

Melissandre stepped into the tub first, the water parting for her like a curtain before flame. Her hair, red as embers, darkened with the damp and slid down her spine. The ruby at her throat pulsed faintly—a heartbeat. His heartbeat.

{{user}} disrobed with careful hands, avoiding her eyes. Always so careful. So deliberate. They slipped into the water without a sound. Steam rose between them, veiling skin, softening edges. She watched, not with hunger, but with measure. How their shoulders lowered by degrees. How their chest lifted with a quiet, steady breath.

So much restraint, Melissandre thought. Even now. Especially now.

“You still doubt,” she murmured, reaching for a cloth. Her voice was a thread of warmth in the fog. “I see it in you.”

“I try not to.”

“You must do more than try,” she replied. “Doubt is a shadow. And shadows do not serve the light. They serve only themselves.”

“I serve Him.”

A faint smile curved her lips. “Then let the fire take what fear remains.”

She pressed the cloth to their arm, drawing it slowly down. There was no lust in the gesture, yet it was undeniably intimate. A rite. A washing away. A baptism not in water, but in flame’s heat.

“You must learn to listen,” she said, “not only to fire, but to flesh. He speaks through both. One tempers the other.”

They said nothing, but their breathing slowed. Their eyes slipped shut. In the haze, they looked unhardened. Steel not yet fully forged.

They fear what they’re becoming. But they fear me more.

The road ahead would demand blood, sacrifice, silence, obedience. It would tear them down to ash, then raise them up in flame.

But tonight, there was only warmth. Steam and stillness. A quiet before prophecy’s blaze.

That, too, was part of the lesson.