Three days after the storm, Melisandre saw the sign in the flames.
Limpick stood behind her and watched as she slid both hands into the brazier. The fire burned hotter than usual, orange flames licking the iron rim and painting her face deep red. She closed her eyes, lips moving fast—sharp, urgent syllables that weren't part of the regular prayers. Her brow furrowed, two vertical lines cutting deep between her eyebrows. She kept chanting until half the charcoal had burned away and Limpick's legs started to ache. Finally she opened her eyes and pulled her hands back. Her fingertips glowed red from the heat, but she didn't flinch.
"I saw you," she said, turning to face him. Firelight danced in her red eyes. "You were at sea, on a ship heading east. Small vessel, white sail, figurehead carved like a seahorse—Pentoshi style."
Limpick waited.
"You stood on the deck in your red robe," she continued. "There were others with you—also in red. You were talking, but I couldn't hear the words. The sea and sky were the same gray-blue, no line between them. Then the flames died and the vision ended."
Her fingers trembled slightly at her sides. Every deep vision cost her. The night of the storm she had prayed without stopping until her voice cracked and her knees turned purple. The next morning she had to grip the altar just to stand. She never mentioned it. He never asked.
"Pentos," Limpick repeated. He remembered the name from the docks back in Riverrun—free city across the Narrow Sea, full of merchants selling colored silk, curved knives, and blue wine in glass bottles. He had never thought he would go there. But if Melisandre saw it in the flames, he was going.
"The flames didn't show me why you're going," she said, turning back to the brazier. She stirred the dying coals and added two fresh pieces. "But you were searching for something. Your eyes kept moving, scanning, looking again and again. What are you looking for?"
Limpick stayed quiet. He couldn't tell her the truth—that he was searching for Ember, Plume, Yuan, and the clutch of eggs the storm had ripped away. He needed a reason she would accept. "I don't know yet," he said. "Maybe I'll understand once I get there."
Melisandre studied him for a long second, then gave a single nod. "I'll arrange it. You sail from Dragonstone to King's Landing, then switch to a larger ship for the Narrow Sea. The temple has a foothold in Pentos. Hand this to the high priest when you arrive." She pulled a sealed letter from her sleeve—wax stamped with the burning sun of R'hllor—and handed it to him.
Limpick tucked it inside his robe. His hand brushed the empty spot where the dragon bone used to rest. Nothing there now. Just cool skin.
Three days later the ship left under a clear sky. Long Summer sunlight turned Blackwater Bay into liquid gold. Limpick stood on the dock in a new dark-red wool robe, black trim at the collar and cuffs. Melisandre had it made for him. "A priest of the Lord of Light can't dress like a pauper," she'd said.
Davon and three other red-robed guards waited behind him. Davon was young, maybe twenty, freckled, with a short, patchy beard and a sword whose hilt was wrapped in red leather. He kept glancing at Limpick the same way he always did—measuring, weighing, wondering why Melisandre trusted this man so much.
"Board," Davon said. First word he'd spoken directly to Limpick.
Limpick stepped onto the deck. The wood creaked under his boots. The cabin was tiny—one fixed table, two chairs, a hammock. He sat in the hammock, pulled out the sealed letter, checked the wax, then tucked it away again. He lay back and closed his eyes. The ship rolled gently as it left the dock, the motion slow and deep like a cradle. He didn't get seasick this time. Too much else on his mind.
When they stopped at King's Landing for a day, Limpick never left the ship. He stood at the rail and stared north, toward the woods where Ember and Plume had waited for him once. The forest looked the same. Empty now.
The next morning they sailed east into the Narrow Sea. The water ran deeper and darker. The ship pitched harder. Davon and the others turned green and hung over the rail, vomiting. Limpick stayed at the bow, robe snapping in the wind, hair blown straight back. He watched the gray-blue line where sea met sky. Behind him the sun rose, laying a golden road across the water all the way to the horizon.
He stood at the bow for a long time.
Davon finally came up from the cabin, walked over, and stopped beside him. His face was still pale, but he wasn't throwing up anymore. He gripped the railing with both hands and stared out at the eastern sea. For a while neither of them spoke.
The Narrow Sea stretched ahead, gray-blue and endless, the same color as the sky. The wind carried the sharp, clean smell of open water. Limpick kept his eyes on the horizon, letting the roll of the ship move through his legs. He felt steadier than he had any right to feel.
Davon cleared his throat. "You don't get seasick," he said. It wasn't a question.
"No."
Davon gave a short, humorless laugh. "Lucky. The other three are still down there hugging buckets." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and spat over the side. "Lady Melisandre said you'd be fine on water. Said the fire had already burned the weakness out of you."
Limpick didn't answer. He kept watching the line where sea met sky.
Davon glanced sideways at him. "You've changed since you got to Dragonstone. You know that, right? The way you stand at the altar now… the way the flames lean toward you. Even Lord Stannis noticed. He doesn't notice much."
Still no reply.
Davon waited a beat, then shrugged. "Doesn't matter. We're going to Pentos. You do whatever the flames told you to do. I'll keep the others in line and make sure no one slits your throat in some dockside alley. That's my job."
He pushed off the railing and started back toward the cabin. Halfway there he stopped and looked back.
"You ever need anything on this ship," Davon said, "you ask me first. Not the crew. Not the captain. Me."
Limpick gave a single nod.
Davon studied him a moment longer, then disappeared below deck.
Limpick turned back to the sea. The golden road the sunrise had laid across the water was gone now, replaced by ordinary gray waves. Somewhere out there—east, across the Narrow Sea, past Pentos, past whatever waited in the flames—his dragons were scattered. Ember. Plume. Yuan. The eggs. All of them torn away by the storm and dropped somewhere he couldn't feel anymore.
He closed his hand around the bundle inside his robe. Seven pieces of dead dragonglass and one cold dragon bone. They felt like ordinary stones now.
He didn't care.
He was going to find them anyway.
The ship sailed on, cutting east into the gray-blue nothing.