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American Horror: Grind Edition
The next day, Limpick went to the Red Temple.
Pentos's temple was much bigger than the one on Dragonstone, but it was also far more crowded. Every morning and every evening the hall filled with people—merchants, craftsmen, sailors, prostitutes, beggars, all of them. They knelt in front of the brazier, hands stretched toward the flames, murmuring their own prayers. Limpick stood beside the altar and quietly helped Terys: passing charcoal, pouring lamp oil, straightening the scriptures. He did it all without talking, without looking up, without meeting anyone's eyes. He didn't want to be remembered here. In Pentos he was just another priest from Westeros—ordinary, unremarkable, not Melisandre's favorite, not the man who saw blue fire, not the one who had raised three dragons. Those parts of him had been swept away with the storm.
Terys was pleased. "You work fast," he said. "No slacking, no complaining, and you don't spend all day bragging about what you saw in the flames like some of the others." He gave Limpick a small, knowing smile when he said it. Limpick just nodded and kept working. He didn't talk about what he saw in the flames anymore, because he didn't see anything. When he put his hand in the fire now, all he saw was ordinary fire—orange, flickering, warm. No blue passage. No visions. Melisandre told him it was because he was in a strange place and the flames didn't know him yet. In time they would open to him again. Limpick hoped she was right. Not because he wanted visions, but because when the fire stayed silent, he felt ordinary again, like something important had been taken out of his chest and he couldn't remember what it was.
On his seventh day in Pentos, Terys sent him to preach in the market. Not inside the temple—outside, in the street. Every seventh day the Red Temple sent priests to the market square to speak to people who never came to services, hand out bread, and sometimes give a few coppers. It was a miserable job: standing in the sun for hours, shouting scripture while most people walked right past. The other priests hated it, so Terys gave it to the new arrival. "You're fresh," he said. "Your turn."
Limpick didn't argue. Preaching in the market was better than staying inside the temple anyway. Inside, he kept looking east, toward the sea, half-expecting to see a black or white or purple-black shape drop out of the sky and land in front of him. But nothing ever came. No dragons on the water, no dragons in the sky, no dragons in the flames.
The market lay near the harbor, a big open square packed with stalls and awnings. Bread, fish, olives, figs, wool, linen, pottery, knives, rope, shoes, candles—everything. People jostled shoulder to shoulder, shouting in a dozen languages. Limpick stood at a crossroads with a small iron brazier at his feet, flames crackling. He wore his red robe, stretched his hands toward the fire, and began reciting the blessing in the Common Tongue.
A few people glanced at him, then kept walking. He raised his voice and tried again. Still nothing. On the third try a kid ran past and tossed a pebble into the brazier, laughed, and darted away. Limpick fished the stone out, set it aside, and kept going.
He had been preaching for about half an hour, throat raw, lips dry, half the charcoal already gone, when he heard a voice.
"Look at that one," a young man said in heavily accented Common. The voice came from under a nearby awning.
Limpick lifted his head.
Two people stood there, watching him. A young man and a young woman. Both were thin. The man was taller, sharp-faced, high cheekbones, pointed chin. His hair was silver—not gray, pure silver, like moonlight on foam. His eyes were purple, pale and almost translucent in the sunlight. He wore a dark-blue coat that had once been fine but was now threadbare at the cuffs and patched at the knees. He stood very straight, chin high, as if the muddy market belonged to him.
The girl beside him was shorter, still round-faced and not quite grown into her features. Her hair was a lighter silver, almost white-gold, braided down her back. Her eyes were a deeper purple, like ripe grapes. She wore a faded gray dress and a worn leather belt with a small pouch. One of her shoes had split open at the toe. She stared at Limpick with an intense, searching look—curious, puzzled, like she was trying to figure out exactly what she was seeing.
Limpick's hands stayed over the fire, but his heart gave one hard, sudden beat.
He knew those faces. He had seen them carved on half the walls of Dragonstone. Silver hair. Purple eyes. Targaryen blood.
The girl kept staring. The boy beside her narrowed his pale purple eyes, studying Limpick like he was deciding whether this red-robed stranger was worth noticing.
Limpick lowered his hands. For the first time in days, something inside his chest moved—not the dragon bone, not the old system, just a small, quiet spark of recognition.
The girl tilted her head, still watching him.
And for the first time since the storm, Limpick felt like the world had just taken one small step back toward him.