The news had spread through Volantis like spilled oil upon the waters of the Rhoyne: a foreigner with immunity to fire resided in the Red Temple, favored by High Priestess Kinvara and the legendary Melisandre of Asshai. The rumors grew with each passing day, transforming and mutating like living creatures. Some spoke of a lost descendant of ancient Valyria; others, of an avatar of R'hllor himself, sent to guide the faithful in times of darkness.
Ethel contemplated these rumors with a mixture of fascination and apprehension as he wandered through Volantis's central market. Two temple guards flanked him at a prudent distance—silent men with skin dark as obsidian, dressed in scarlet tunics over which gleamed bronze breastplates worked with flaming motifs. A concession that Melisandre had insisted upon implementing after the growing interest his presence generated.
"Power attracts both devotion and envy," the red priestess had explained to him in that melodious voice that seemed to float through the air. "And both can prove equally dangerous for one who is not prepared."
The market air vibrated with a cacophony of smells, sounds, and colors that still, after months in this world, managed to marvel him: the penetrating aroma of spices piled in perfect cones; the singing cries of merchants promoting their wares in half a dozen languages; the metallic tinkling of coins changing hands; the occasional squawking of exotic caged birds destined to adorn the mansions of the most prosperous merchants.
Beneath the multicolored awnings that provided shade against the relentless Volantine sun, humanity unfolded in all its diversity: weathered sailors from Braavos, portly merchants from the Free Cities, occasional Dothraki warriors with long braids and defiant stares, tattooed slaves transporting goods for their masters. A microcosm of the known world, congregated in this crucial commercial node between Westeros and the eastern lands.
Ethel stopped before a stall where a man from Qarth sold musical instruments carved from exotic woods. His fingers traced the taut strings of an instrument similar to a lute, drawing notes that floated briefly before dissolving into the general bustle.
"A gift for a special lady, perhaps?" suggested the merchant with a calculated smile, evaluating the quality tunics Ethel wore. "Or maybe to please the gods with sweet music?"
"Just curiosity," Ethel replied with a courteous smile, returning the instrument to its place.
It was then that he noticed it: a subtle stillness that spread like a ripple through the organized chaos of the market. Not complete silence, but a modulation in the ambient noise, as if dozens of conversations had imperceptibly changed tone at the same time.
One of his guards—Maqqoro, the most veteran—also perceived the change. With a fluid movement that betrayed years of training, he approached Ethel until he almost brushed his shoulder.
"We should return to the temple, my lord," he whispered in a grave voice, his eyes methodically scrutinizing the side alleys and shadows between the stalls. "Something is not right."
Ethel nodded, suppressing the impulse to correct the treatment of "my lord" that the guards had adopted despite his protests. With a subtle movement, he shifted his right hand toward the hilt of the Valyrian steel sword that Melisandre had given him weeks earlier—an ancient weapon recovered from some secret chamber of the temple, with runes carved along the blade that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
They did not manage to complete their turn toward the street leading to the temple district. Six hooded figures materialized from nowhere, forming a semicircle that blocked their escape route. They wore gray tunics without ornaments, their faces hidden beneath deep hoods. They bore no symbols or insignia, but their coordination spoke of professional training.
The second guard—Lariyr, younger and more nervous—unsheathed his curved sword with a metallic hiss.
"Back!" he ordered in the Volantine tongue. "In the name of the Red Temple and the Lord of Light."
In response, the hooded figures extracted daggers from beneath their vestments. Not common weapons—Ethel immediately recognized the greenish reflections and unnatural curvature of the blades. Valyrian steel. Legendary weapons of incalculable value, capable of maintaining a supernatural edge for centuries, impossible to forge since the Doom of Valyria.
Time seemed to slow as his mind processed the statistical improbability of what he saw. Six assassins armed with Valyrian steel daggers—when in all of Volantis there probably existed no more than a dozen such weapons. This was not an opportunistic attack. It was a meticulously planned operation by someone with virtually unlimited resources.
"Protect the prince!" shouted Maqqoro to his companion while adopting a defensive position.
The first attacker lunged forward with great speed, his dagger describing a lethal arc aimed at Ethel's throat. Months of training and his new ability allowed the young man to dodge the attack with millimetric precision, while simultaneously unsheathing his own sword.
The market crowd scattered amid terrified screams, creating an improvised space for combat. The nearby stalls were abandoned in seconds, their owners disappearing among the stampeding multitude.
Ethel summoned the power he had learned to control during months of relentless practice. The ancient Valyrian sword in his hands responded instantly, its blade wrapping itself in crimson flames that danced with their own will, licking the air with predatory hunger. The runes carved in the metal came to life, glowing with inner light like veins of lava beneath the earth's surface.
The second attacker hesitated momentarily at the supernatural vision, but recovered his determination with astounding speed. The assassins moved in perfect synchronization, as if they shared a single mind directing their actions.
Maqqoro faced two of them with brutal mastery, his curved sword gleaming under the sun while he kept the attackers at bay with explosive movements that revealed his training in the combat arenas. Lariyr, less experienced but equally fierce, kept a third at distance, his eyes bulging with the intensity of the confrontation.
Ethel faced the three remaining ones, the flaming sword leaving fire trails in the air while he executed the combat sequences that his masters had instilled in him during endless training sessions. The burning blade hissed with a sound that did not entirely belong to the physical world—a sharp song that resonated both in the air and in the mind.
The first of his attackers made a fatal mistake, overextending his attack. Ethel's sword found its way through the defense, penetrating the abdomen and emerging through the back. The flames that wrapped the steel avidly devoured the exposed flesh, instantly cauterizing the wound while the hooded figure collapsed without emitting any sound.
"Look out!" Lariyr's desperate cry came too late.
A sharp, cold pain pierced Ethel's back. His legs faltered as he tried to turn to face the new threat. The seventh attacker—hidden until that moment—had emerged from the shadows behind him, taking advantage of the chaos of the frontal combat. The tip of his Valyrian steel dagger emerged obscenely from Ethel's chest, having cleanly pierced his body.
Time fragmented into disconnected instants.
The flaming sword slipping from his numb fingers.
The blue sky of Volantis rotating absurdly as his body collapsed.
Maqqoro's horrified face, shouting orders he could no longer understand.
The hooded figures retreating with the same supernatural efficiency with which they had attacked, their objective apparently fulfilled.
The metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth as darkness devoured the edges of his vision.
A final thought, surprisingly clear: "Here this dream ends."
And then, nothing.
The Resurrection Chamber occupied the deepest level of the Red Temple, excavated in the same volcanic stone upon which Volantis rose. Unlike the upper chambers, designed to impress the faithful with their architectural magnificence, this circular space was bare of ornaments. Its black basalt walls absorbed the torchlight, creating the illusion of an infinite void that extended beyond the physical limits of the hall.
In the exact center, upon a platform of polished red stone, lay Ethel's motionless body. The torn tunic revealed the mortal wound: a clean hole between the ribs that had pierced directly through the heart. Dried blood formed abstract patterns on his pale skin, like cartography of some unknown realm.
Melisandre remained at his side, motionless as an alabaster statue. Her eyes, fixed on the young man's serene face, reflected the flames of the nine braziers arranged in a perfect circle around the central platform. The ruby at her throat pulsed with hypnotic rhythm, like a supernatural heart beating for both.
Kinvara and Benerro occupied equidistant positions on the perimeter, completing a perfect triangle with Melisandre. The three high priests of the Red God had remained in ritual silence for hours, since the bloodied guards had burst into the temple with Ethel's lifeless body.
"Impossible," Melisandre had murmured at first contact with the young man's cold skin, her usual composure broken by shock. "He should not... he cannot..."
However, the evidence was irrefutable. The heart did not beat. The lungs did not expand. The vital spark that animated the body had been extinguished, like a candle snuffed by implacable wind.
Now, after hours of silent contemplation, Melisandre finally broke the silence:
"I have seen wrongly in the flames," her voice, usually melodious and sure, sounded hollow, stripped of its hypnotic cadence. "Or I have incorrectly interpreted the signs."
Kinvara, whose perfect face remained as inscrutable as always, shook her head slightly.
"The visions did not lie," she responded with a firm voice. "It is their meaning we must question."
Benerro, his burned face contorted in a grimace of concentration, added:
"Perhaps death is only a test on his path. A threshold he must cross."
A flash of hope briefly illuminated Melisandre's eyes, only to be immediately extinguished, replaced by bitter resignation.
"I have returned souls to the world of the living before," she confessed, her gaze lost in distant memories. "The price is always too high and the result... rarely satisfactory, but even so I cannot manage to apply my magic upon his soul to make it return."
The ruby at her throat intensified its glow, as if responding to emotions her face did not reveal.
"If he is truly who we believe," Kinvara intervened, "then not even death should be able to claim him permanently."
The words remained suspended in the air heavy with incense and smoke. The three priests continued their silent vigil, waiting for some sign, some manifestation of their god's will.
It was then that it happened.
A subtle change in the chamber's atmosphere, so slight that initially it could have been attributed to imagination. The temperature rose imperceptibly. The air became denser, as if charged with electricity before a storm.
Melisandre was the first to perceive it, her eyes opening with renewed attention. Kinvara and Benerro reacted seconds later, their bodies tensing in anticipation.
The wound in Ethel's chest began to emit a faint reddish glow from within, as if a tiny ember had been implanted in the depths of the dead flesh. The luminescence gradually grew in intensity until it became unbearable to the sight, forcing the priests to shield their eyes.
An impossible sound emerged from the body: the crackling of flames where there could be no fuel.
The flesh around the wound dissolved into ashes that floated like black snowflakes, revealing regenerated tissues beneath. Veins, muscles, nerves—all reconstructing themselves at visible speed, weaving anew the intricate architecture of the human body.
"R'hllor have mercy," whispered Kinvara, her eyes overflowing with tears that shone like diamonds under the supernatural light.
A sharp gasp broke the silence when Ethel's lungs expanded violently, devouring air like a man rescued from drowning. His eyes snapped open, wild and disoriented, momentarily reflecting the same fire that had healed his mortal wound.
He sat up partially, coughing violently while his body relearned the rhythm of life. His fingers clutched the edge of the platform with enough force to whiten his knuckles.
"What...?" he managed to articulate between desperate breaths.
Melisandre knelt beside him, holding his shoulders firmly while spasms ran through his body.
"Be calm," she murmured in her most soothing voice. "You are safe. You have returned to us."
Ethel's confused eyes surveyed the chamber, stopping at each of the priests before returning to Melisandre.
"I... died," it was not a question, but a bewildered statement. "I felt the blade pierce me. I felt how my heart stopped beating."
"And yet, you live," Melisandre replied, an unusual tremor in her voice betraying the magnitude of her contained emotion. "Not through our intervention, but through the power that dwells within you."
Ethel tried to sit up completely, but a sudden dizziness forced him to lie back down. His right hand moved instinctively to his chest, feeling the newly formed scar where the mortal wound had been.
"How is it possible?" he asked in a whisper.
Kinvara approached, her face illuminated by an almost religious reverence she had never shown so openly before.
"You have returned from the shadows by your own power," she explained. "Your flesh has healed itself with fire and ash, as no human being could do."
A dense silence filled the chamber while Ethel assimilated the full meaning of what had occurred. Finally, his eyes settled on Melisandre with new intensity.
"I may now have a small idea of what I might truly be," he recited slowly. "Could it be true? That I have been reborn as something akin to a phoenix?" the young man thought.
Benerro, who had kept silent until that moment, stepped forward. His face disfigured by ancient burns seemed even more grotesque under the fluctuating light.
"Prophecies are like distorted mirrors," he responded with his characteristic caution. "They reflect truth, but rarely in a direct or complete form."
Melisandre, however, no longer harbored doubts. Her eyes shone with renewed fervor as she took Ethel's hand between hers.
"Salt from your tears. Smoke from your regenerated flesh. Fire from your own blood," she enumerated with vibrant voice. "You have returned from death's embrace with your own power. If this is not sufficient proof, I do not know what could be."
Ethel closed his eyes momentarily, overwhelmed by the weight of the implications. When he opened them again, a new determination shone in them.
"The assassins," he said with a firm voice. "Who were they?"
"They disappeared among the crowd," Kinvara responded. "But they were not common assailants. Their movements, their weapons... everything indicates an extraordinary level of training and resources."
"The key question is not who they were," Benerro intervened, "but who sent them. And why specifically against you."
Ethel tried again to sit up, this time managing to remain seated despite the persistent dizziness.
"Someone knows what I am," he deduced. "Or what I represent."
Melisandre nodded slowly, her face darkening.
"News of your existence has spread beyond Volantis," she confirmed. "The enemies of light always seek to extinguish flames before they grow too large."
"I need to rest," Ethel murmured, exhaustion suddenly taking hold of him. "I need... to think about what this means."
The three priests exchanged significant glances before nodding in silent agreement.
"Of course," Kinvara conceded. "Death, even temporary, demands its tribute from body and spirit."
As the priests helped Ethel to stand, his trembling legs barely supporting his weight, a thought crystallized in his mind with devastating clarity: he was no longer simply a stranger in an alien world, learning to control inexplicable abilities. He had become a prophetic figure, a living symbol in a cosmic conflict he was only beginning to understand.
Outside, in the streets of Volantis, the news began to spread: the Red Temple's protégé had survived a mortal attack. For some, it would be a miracle attributable to the priests' intervention. For others, further proof that ancient prophecies were materializing before their eyes.