Lynn looked down at the violently sobbing woman in his arms, physically feeling her heavy, ragged breaths.
It wasn't fear. It was the profound, absolute relief of permanently dropping an apocalyptic burden.
A hyper-mature woman who had lived for over a millennium was currently clinging to him exactly like a little girl who had just been handed a piece of candy.
"My Lord, I am not disgusted. I am absolutely willing to do anything."
Melisandre tilted her head up. Her eyes—which had permanently lost their bizarre, demonic glow—were now saturated with an unprecedented, ironclad resolve.
She had lived for an impossibly long time; she had weathered apocalyptic storms and the end of empires. But she had never, not for a single fraction of a second, actually felt alive until right now.
Lynn chuckled softly.
He loosened his grip, allowing Melisandre to slowly stand up straight from his embrace.
"Your body is incredibly weak right now," Lynn said, pointing toward the massive, plush bed in the corner of the room. "Get some rest first."
A heavy, visible flush rapidly spread across Melisandre's cheeks.
She shot a look at the bed, and then a deeply loaded glance back at Lynn. The implication in her eyes was absolutely undeniable.
Lynn completely understood, but he deliberately ignored the invitation.
This woman had literally just been brutally murdered, resurrected, and had undergone an apocalyptic, reality-shattering psychological revolution. Both her physical body and her mind were at their absolute most fragile state.
He wasn't the type to sadistically exploit someone at their absolute weakest.
Tomorrow wouldn't be too late.
"Get a good sleep," Lynn's voice was uncharacteristically gentle. "Once you wake up, I'll walk you through all the highly entertaining concepts I mentioned."
"Yes, My Lord."
Melisandre didn't try to push it.
She could actively hear the genuine, unfiltered care in Lynn's tone; it absolutely wasn't faked. It had been so impossibly long since someone had actually cared about her well-being that she had almost completely forgotten what it felt like.
She slowly walked over to the bed and heavily laid down.
The absolute second her body sank into the incredibly soft mattress, an unprecedented, apocalyptic tidal wave of pure exhaustion violently crashed over her entire nervous system.
She closed her eyes and, almost instantaneously, completely blacked out into a dead, heavy sleep.
Lynn stared down at her incredibly peaceful, serene face for a moment before slowly shaking his head.
He turned around and walked out of the bedroom.
Out in the main hall, Cersei, Lyanna, and Sansa were still standing completely frozen in the exact same spots.
The absolute second they saw Lynn step out, all three women violently snapped their heads down, entirely terrified to make direct eye contact with him. They still hadn't even remotely begun to process the apocalyptic, reality-shattering divine miracle of resurrecting the dead.
Lynn didn't waste a single syllable trying to explain anything to them.
He walked directly to the heavy, ornate chair at the head of the hall, sat down, and grabbed the bowl of freshly brewed medicinal herbs the guard had prepared. He downed the bitter liquid in one single gulp.
A massive, soothing wave of heat instantly flooded his entire nervous system, slowly neutralizing the faint, highly annoying weakness caused by the violent extraction of his life force during Melisandre's resurrection.
He looked down at the three women, each visibly drowning in their own highly complicated, terrified thoughts, while his own brain was rapidly, aggressively calculating his next geopolitical move.
Renly was dead.
Stannis was about to actively absorb Renly's massive army , and then he would immediately turn his absolute, blood-soaked military focus directly toward King's Landing to violently rip the Iron Throne from Joffrey.
An apocalyptic, realm-shattering war was literally seconds away from detonating.
And Lynn absolutely intended to extract maximum, highly profitable utility from this impending bloodbath.
After all, he had just acquired four absolute god-tier skills, and he desperately needed a massive influx of experience points to level them up.
The more aggressively unhinged Stannis became, the better. The more bodies he threw at the walls, the better. This was the absolute perfect, golden opportunity to violently draw out every single hidden dissident, every single traitor, and every single highly calculating noble currently plotting in the shadows.
He was going to violently sweep the entire board clean!
Lynn smiled. It seemed the Iron Throne of Westeros was rapidly, inevitably falling directly into his hands.
---
Inside the bedroom.
Melisandre was deeply, heavily asleep.
It was the absolute most peaceful, secure rest she had experienced in over a thousand years. Without the suffocating collar of the Lord of Light, and without the apocalyptic, crushing weight of a fake prophecy, she felt her soul become incredibly, profoundly light.
She began to dream.
In her dream, she violently snapped back to Asshai, back to the exact place she was born.
She was just a little girl again, and her parents were right there beside her. The sun was incredibly warm, and the air was heavily saturated with the sweet scent of blooming flowers.
Everything was absolutely, flawlessly perfect.
But just as she was deeply sinking into this profoundly lost, innocent happiness...
The entire world around her suddenly began to violently, aggressively warp and shatter!
The warm sunlight instantly mutated into a freezing, apocalyptic blizzard!
The beautiful, fragrant garden was violently reduced to a massive wasteland of dead ash!
And her parents... they violently incinerated into pure dust right in front of her eyes!
"No!"
Melisandre let out a bloodcurdling, soul-shredding scream, desperately trying to physically rip herself out of the nightmare.
But her physical body was completely, utterly paralyzed.
An invisible, incredibly terrifying, apocalyptic force—like thousands of unseen, freezing steel chains—violently locked her consciousness dead in place.
And then, that impossible force began aggressively, violently dragging her consciousness straight down into a bottomless, pitch-black abyss!
Falling!
Endlessly, violently falling!
An impossible amount of time passed.
Her consciousness finally violently slammed to a halt.
She realized she was currently suspended in a world entirely, completely forged from solid, dead ice.
Massive, apocalyptic glaciers pierced the sky in every direction, and the ground beneath her was a perfectly smooth, freezing mirror of solid ice. The temperature was so unfathomably low it literally felt like it was actively freezing her soul solid.
And directly in front of her stood an impossibly massive, towering throne.
A throne entirely carved from pure, razor-sharp ice crystals!
A highly blurred, heavily shadowed silhouette was sitting dead still upon the throne.
The silhouette vaguely resembled a humanoid figure draped in heavy robes.
But Melisandre could actively, instantly feel it—that thing was absolutely, undeniably not human!
It was a power... an apocalyptic power she was incredibly, profoundly familiar with, yet simultaneously completely, terrifyingly alienated by!
It was the Light!
It was the exact, undeniable power of the Lord of Light she had absolutely worshipped for over a millennium!
But why?!
Why the actual fuck was this power so unfathomably, apocalyptically freezing?!
Why couldn't she feel a single fraction of warmth?! Why was there absolutely nothing but bone-shattering, lethal cold and the suffocating stench of pure death?!
"You have arrived."
A voice violently echoed across the dead, frozen world.
Every single syllable of that voice carried an apocalyptic, sub-zero temperature that actively froze her soul, sending violent, terrified shudders straight down her spine.
Melisandre's consciousness violently, uncontrollably spasmed.
That voice!
Was that the voice of the Lord of Light?!
It was the exact, undeniable divine voice she occasionally heard echoing from the flames during her most fanatic, desperate prayers!
"My Lord!"
Melisandre's consciousness desperately screamed out.
"Why... why are you here in this place?!"
"This has always been my true domain."
The silhouette on the throne spoke slowly, its voice dead and flat.
"And you. My absolute most devout believer. My most lethal envoy."
"You have actively betrayed me."
BOOM!
Melisandre felt her consciousness violently shatter, exactly as if she had just been brutally struck by a ten-thousand-ton warhammer!
Betrayed?!
When the actual fuck did I betray you?!
"You actively surrendered the absolute authority I explicitly bestowed upon you directly to a false god."
"You surrendered your absolute faith, your entire soul, to a pathetic mortal actively stealing divine power."
"Did you genuinely believe he could conquer the darkness?"
"No."
For the absolute first time, the dead voice carried a flicker of raw emotion.
It was pure, unfiltered, highly toxic mockery.
"He is the absolute darkness!"
Melisandre's entire reality violently, permanently collapsed into sheer chaos.
Lynn... is the darkness?!
How is that physically, logically possible?!
"You have committed an absolute, unforgivable sin."
"And you will pay the ultimate, apocalyptic price for your treason."
"I am going to force you to actively watch as the false god you chose, and every single one of his pathetic followers, are violently, permanently ground into dust by the absolute true savior!"
"I am going to make you watch as this entire fucking world permanently drowns in the apocalyptic destruction I bring!"
With that final, lethal verdict.
The silhouette on the throne slowly, heavily stood up.
And in that exact second, Melisandre finally, clearly saw its true form!
It absolutely wasn't a blurred, robed silhouette!
It was a massive, towering giant... entirely, physically constructed from solid, jagged ice crystals!
Its body was completely translucent, violently radiating a sickening, freezing blue aura!
Its eyes were two literal, swirling vortexes of burning white fire!
She couldn't feel a single ounce of life force radiating from it—only the absolute, ultimate manifestation of pure cold and permanent death!
A White Walker!
No!
It was infinitely, apocalyptically more terrifying than a White Walker!
It... it was the Great Other! The literal God of Cold and Death!
The Lord of Light... was actually the Great Other?!
That singular, reality-shattering revelation violently detonated like a nuclear bomb, permanently incinerating every single ounce of faith and logic Melisandre had ever possessed!
The god she had absolutely worshipped and slaughtered for over a thousand years was the exact, literal enemy she had spent her entire existence trying to destroy!
How incredibly, sickeningly ironic! How absolutely, apocalyptically absurd!
Right at that exact second.
The towering crystal giant slowly raised a massive, freezing hand.
A highly vivid vision violently manifested directly in front of Melisandre.
It was Dragonstone.
Inside the freezing, heavily shadowed fortress, Stannis Baratheon was aggressively kneeling before an altar carved from solid black stone.
"Stannis Baratheon."
The freezing, dead voice echoed again.
"He is the absolute true chosen."
"He is the one, true Prince That Was Promised!"
"He will wield the apocalyptic fire I bestow upon him, and he will violently, permanently incinerate every single false god in this realm!"
"And as his ultimate reward, he shall be crowned King!"
The vision violently snapped to black.
The entire frozen, apocalyptic world instantly, aggressively collapsed in on itself!
Melisandre's consciousness was violently, brutally ejected by a massive, impossible force!
"AH!"
Inside the bedroom, Melisandre violently bolted upright in bed!
She was violently gasping for air, her entire body completely drenched in freezing, terrified sweat.
That dream was incredibly, horrifyingly real!
So absolutely real she could still actively, physically feel the soul-freezing aura clinging to her skin!
The Lord of Light was the Great Other!
Stannis was the true chosen one!
Lynn... was the apostle of a false god?!
Wait, didn't you literally, personally tell me Lynn was the chosen one before?! Why the fuck are you suddenly completely flipping the script and screaming treason?! What the actual hell is going on?!
Melisandre's brain was an absolute, chaotic mess of terrified confusion.
She instinctively snapped her head toward the window.
The sun had already risen.
And the absolute second she looked.
A raven violently flapped its wings, heavily landing directly on her windowsill.
A small, tightly rolled piece of parchment was tied to its leg.
Melisandre's heart violently skipped a beat.
She threw off the blankets, stumbled to the window, and with violently shaking hands, untied the heavy parchment.
There was only a single, hastily scribbled line of text on the paper.
The handwriting was incredibly familiar. It was Davos Seaworth's.
"Stannis has completely lost his mind. He absolutely refuses to acknowledge he used dark magic to assassinate his brother. He has already dispatched a shadow assassin directly to King's Landing. If you receive this, get out of King's Landing immediately! "
"Flee to Essos. And never, ever come back."