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Lynn didn't spare a glance at the Gold Cloak still kneeling on the floor. He looked over the herbs on the table and gave a single nod.
Even a minor wound needed treating. Medicine was medicine.
He had the Gold Cloak take charge of the herbs, then turned. His gaze settled on Melisandre, who had just pulled herself up from the ground and was staring around with the blank look of someone who had no idea what world she'd woken up in.
"You. Come with me."
"I need to speak with you privately."
Melisandre shivered head to toe and instinctively dropped her gaze.
She was terrified of Lynn. Completely, thoroughly terrified. The man had walked up and stabbed her through the heart without so much as a hello.
What kind of person does that?
"Yes, my lord."
She didn't dare resist. She followed behind him like the most obedient servant in the world.
Lynn led her through the Hand's Tower and into a quiet bedroom at the back.
The door clicked shut.
In the great hall, only Cersei, Liana, Sansa, and the Gold Cloak remained , the last of whom was still kneeling on the floor, afraid to move.
The four of them looked at each other.
The silence was unbearable.
"He..."
"Is he really... a god?"
Liana's voice cracked. Her whole body was trembling.
Everything that had happened today had shattered the worldview she'd spent her entire life building.
Raising the dead.
A miracle that existed only in ancient stories had just happened right in front of her.
"If he's not a god, then what is he?"
Cersei's face was pale. But her eyes burned with a fervor she had never felt before.
She gripped the nearest pillar just to keep herself upright.
"The dragons are his pets."
"The crown is his game."
"And we, all of us, every mortal breathing in this world β we probably don't even register as ants to him."
Sansa's body trembled at that.
How fortunate. How impossibly fortunate.
To serve a true god who walked among men.
The same thought bloomed in all three of them at once.
...
Inside the bedroom, Melisandre stood at the center of the room with her head down, not daring to breathe too loudly.
She could feel Lynn's gaze moving over her. It felt like it passed straight through skin and bone and reached something deeper , as if he could read every secret buried in her soul.
Lynn, for his part, was looking at his system panel.
He had opened it a moment ago with a thought.
A new line of skill information floated before his eyes.
[Skill: Eternal Youth (Novice) 1/100]
[Effect: Can link to one target, sharing youth. The host and linked target will no longer age.]
[Upgrading to Skilled level unlocks one additional link slot.]
Oh?
Share youth?
Lynn's eyebrow went up.
So not only does he stay young forever , he can bring someone along for the ride?
He liked that.
It was basically the couple buff from every online game he'd ever played.
The upgrade cost was brutal, though. Novice to Skilled was 100 points, while every other skill only needed 10. He didn't even want to think about what the numbers looked like at higher tiers.
Still. If he maxed it out... every woman he had could live alongside him, forever young, never aging.
Just picturing it sent a little thrill through him.
He closed the panel. His attention returned to Melisandre.
This woman. He'd stabbed her through the heart not long ago, and now she was standing in front of him, alive.
The ruby that had sustained her life for centuries , he'd broken it down and absorbed every trace of its energy.
Which meant Melisandre was alive again, yes. But her immortality was gone.
She would age now. Slowly, like anyone else. And one day she would die.
Lynn rubbed his chin.
He had taken something from her. He'd killed her once too, even if he'd brought her back. It didn't feel entirely right to leave it at that.
Not giving her this first link slot seemed hard to justify.
Call it compensation.
"Look up."
Melisandre flinched and slowly raised her head.
Her face still held the dazed, frightened look of someone returned from the dead.
"My lord... you..."
"You were resurrected by me," Lynn said, cutting her off.
"But the price is that you've lost your immortality."
"From today, you'll age and die like any other person."
Melisandre went still.
She reached up instinctively and touched her neck. Nothing there. The ruby was gone.
She looked down at her hands.
Still pale. Still slender.
But she could feel it , something she hadn't felt in centuries. A quiet, steady current of time moving through her body. The ordinary sensation of a life that would one day end.
She really had become human again.
And strangely , there wasn't a single thread of grief in her.
Only a feeling like setting down a weight she hadn't realized she was still carrying.
Then Lynn spoke again.
"However. As a reward for your loyalty."
"I can give it back to you."
He extended one hand, his index finger pointing gently toward the center of her brow.
He was about to use Eternal Youth's link function.
But at that moment ,
Melisandre lurched backward a full step. She shook her head hard, and every line of her face was refusal.
"No!"
"I don't want it!"
Lynn's hand stopped.
He studied her.
No?
She didn't want eternal youth?
Did I actually break something when I stabbed her?
"Why?"
"Immortality is not a blessing."
Melisandre's voice was hollowed out with exhaustion.
"It's a curse."
"The cruelest curse in the world."
She raised her head. Something fragile moved through those red eyes , something Lynn had not expected to see there.
"Do you know how long I've lived?"
"I've lost count. I only know that when I was still a little girl, Valyria hadn't fallen yet."
"I watched the dragonlord families burn in the Doom. I watched the Targaryens ride dragons across Westeros and conquer it. I watched the Targaryens rot from within and collapse."
"Everyone around me β friends, family β they all left. Every single one. Until there was only me."
Her voice was aching.
"That loneliness. Watching time flow past while you stay frozen in the same moment, forever , can you understand what that feels like?"
"I'm tired."
"I'm so tired."
Melisandre sank to her knees.
Tears were running freely down her face.
"I didn't follow the Lord of Light for immortality."
"I only wanted an answer. I wanted to know why I was still alive."
"I believed Stannis was the prince that was promised. I believed he could lead us through the Long Night. But he was just a man, blinded by the hunger for a crown."
"And now I've found you."
"You are the true god."
"To serve you. To see the darkness ended. And then to die quietly, like any mortal , that is the only thing I want."
"Please. Don't condemn me to immortality again."
Lynn looked at the woman kneeling at his feet, crying like a child.
He was quiet for a long moment.
Melisandre genuinely didn't want to go on living.
He had always assumed immortality was something every living person craved. The one wish everyone shared.
But he had forgotten. For someone who had already lived a thousand years, who had seen everything the world had to offer and watched it all fade ,
Death might truly be a mercy.
Her entire life had been spent in service to something outside herself. A distant, voiceless Lord of Light. A prophecy that had never quite fit any of the men she'd tried to crown.
She had never once lived for herself.
The thought settled in him.
Lynn smiled.
He crossed to her, crouched down, and reached out , tipping her tear-wet face gently upward with one hand.
"You're wrong."
Melisandre looked at him, lost.
"Immortality is not a curse."
His voice carried something in it that left no room to argue.
"You gave a thousand years to the Lord of Light."
"Don't you want to take a thousand years for yourself?"
Melisandre went completely still.
For myself.
Live another thousand years , for myself.
The thought struck her like lightning splitting open a sealed room, light flooding a space that had been dark for centuries.
She looked into his eyes, those eyes that seemed to see straight through everything. She looked at the warmth in his smile.
And her heart , that heart she had believed was long past feeling anything , lurched back to life and began to pound.
Live for myself?
β€ Next: The Lord of Light's Authority Secured!
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