110: Chapter 110 The Memories of the Storm Ancestral Dragon

Melisandre's red eyes flickered in the light of the night brazier. She offered no words of comfort. She reached her fingers into the flames, gathering a wisp of the blue-green holy fire—the flame coalesced into a glowing droplet at her fingertips.

She then gently touched the edge of the Brand on the back of White Mane's neck. The holy fire hissed ever so slightly against the Brand, like a drop of water falling onto red-hot iron, instantly vaporizing into a small puff of white steam. The temperature of the Brand temporarily receded a little—dropping from a searing level to merely scalding.

"The answers are in the flames. Do not repel it—let it enter. Then, read it in return.

It is reading your combat memories, attempting to learn every move you have practiced against Lord Drogon in the training grounds.

But you can read it as well. If it uses your combat style against Lord Drogon during the trial—if you know in advance which moves it has stolen from you, you can transmit the weaknesses of those moves to Lord Drogon during the Brand calibration."

"How do I read it?"

"Use the Brand. The link between you and him is bidirectional. The Storm Ancestor Dragon is using your Brand as a conduit to touch him, which means your Brand can conversely perceive the residual will of the Storm Ancestor Dragon—treat it like an intrusive, foreign signal.

Focus your attention and let the Brand actively receive it. Just like how you identify the sound of enemy hooves on the battlefield—not with your ears, but with the vibrations against the soles of your feet. Treat the back of your neck as the soles of your feet."

White Mane closed her eyes. She placed her right hand completely over the Brand on the back of her neck.

The Brand suddenly grew scorching hot under her palm—so hot that the old calluses from sword handles on her palm stung, the skin of the calluses curling slightly in the intense heat. But this time, she did not resist.

She let down all the defenses of the Brand, allowing that residual will from beneath Storms End, spanning thousands of years, to surge in like a storm.

Deep within her consciousness, scenes that did not belong to her began to emerge.

The perspective of the Storm Ancestor Dragon. It dove through a storm, and the air currents stirred by its dragon wings were not wind, but fragments of space.

Each fragment of space reflected a shredded bolt of lightning—the lightning was purple; it was not lightning from the sky, but cracks created when space itself was torn apart. Its opponent was not a dragon—it was an ancient dragon rider mounted on a colossal sea dragon.

The sea dragon's scales were the black-blue of the deep sea, each scale crusted with salt frost, shimmering with the crystalline light of salt grains under the lightning. It saw a weakness in an old scar at the base of the opponent's dragon wing—the scales of that old scar healed at a slightly skewed angle, and when the wing base folded, it would reveal less than half an inch of soft scales, pale blue and much thinner than the surrounding scales.

It drove its tail barb precisely into that old scar—the barb pierced in from the edge of the soft scales at a tricky angle—and then bit off the opposing rider's arm. Blood sprayed into the clouds, sliced into countless tiny droplets by the fragments of space.

Then the scene shifted. It had read something from White Mane's combat memories.

On the ramparts of Meereen. The triple-strike combo she used to sever the spears of the Unsullied with her arakh. Each strike's connection was slowed down, dismantled, and reassembled—the first strike slashed diagonally from the upper left, hitting one-third of the way down the spear shaft.

The second strike was a backhand flick, hitting the middle of the same spear shaft. The third strike was a forehand vertical slash, severing the spear shaft at the root. Outside Yunkai. The near-successful angle when she fought Drogon one-on-one, mounted on him and stabbing at his throat with a dagger—the tip of the dagger was less than an inch from the scales on his throat, and a white scratch had already appeared on the scales.

On the Dragonstone training grounds. The straight thrust she used to pierce through the spear shafts of three Unsullied with the dragon-kiss sword—the sword tip passed through the first, second, and third spear shafts; the trajectory was a perfectly straight line.

White Mane opened her eyes abruptly. Her amber eyes retained an unprecedented icy blue afterimage—the pupil color of the Storm Ancestor Dragon, which lingered on the edge of her iris for less than a second. She released the Brand, gasping for air. Sweat dripped from her braids, falling onto the blade of the dragon-kiss sword.

"It has stolen three of my techniques.

First, the combo slash followed by a backhand stab—it intends to use this move in the trial to force him into a defensive stance, then immediately after he defends, cut into the thinnest part of his dragon scales—the old scar at the base of his left wing.

Second, mounting the opponent and stabbing the throat with a dagger—it won't use a dagger, but it will use the tip of its tail. Its tail barb is longer than my dagger. Third—"

She gripped the hilt of the dragon-kiss sword. She stood up. In the center of the room, she performed the starting stance for that straight thrust. The sword tip remained motionless in the air. She could feel every particle of air the sword tip pierced.

"This one. The straight thrust of the dragon-kiss sword. It has read the image of me piercing through the spear shafts with this move. It might conjure a sword in the trial that is identical to the one in my hand. If Drogon sees 'me' stabbing him with the dragon-kiss sword during the trial—he might hesitate."

Melisandre's red eyes narrowed slightly. The firelight flickered in her pupils.

"He will not hesitate. Because the real you is at Dragonstone, holding this sword in your hand. He will know that the other one is fake."

"The Brand will make him hesitate. The emotions transmitted by the Brand—the Storm Ancestor Dragon can simulate them. If it uses my face, my voice, and my Brand signal in the trial to influence him—he needs a mark that will allow him to instantly recognize that 'this is not the real White Mane'."

"What kind of mark?"

White Mane placed the dragon-kiss sword on the bed. She picked up the old scabbard beside it—the one she had mended herself, with cracked leather and rough stitching.

The leather thread gleamed a lighter color than the old leather under the Dragonglass Lamp, like an unhealed scar. Her fingers slowly slid over the stitching, her fingertips feeling the rise and fall of every stitch.

"The scabbard. He owes me a scabbard. I mentioned it to him when we spoke in the treasury—'You gifted the sword, but you owe me the scabbard'."

If the scabbard of the 'me' in the trial is new—with intact leather and neat stitching, not the old scabbard I mended myself—he will be able to recognize instantly that it is fake."

Melisandre stared at the old scabbard. The leather thread was crooked, and one stitch was clearly askew—the position of the crooked stitch was three fingers down from the mouth of the scabbard, where the thread veered from the left to the right. She reached out and touched the stitching with her fingertip.

Her fingertip lingered on the rough leather thread for a moment, as if touching a holy relic.

"How many times has he seen this scabbard?"

"Once at the training grounds. Twice in my room. Once on the walkway before we departed from King's Landing. He remembers. He doesn't rely on his brain to remember these things—he is a dragon.

He relies on his eyes. A dragon's vision can distinguish every single pattern on a scale, finer than a human fingerprint. He can remember the number of stitches on the scabbard with just one glance. Seventeen stitches. Nine on the left, eight on the right. One stitch is crooked."

"If the scabbard of the you in the trial is perfect—without a crooked stitch—he will recognize it at first glance."

"Yes."

White Mane placed the old scabbard by her pillow. Then she picked up the dragon-kiss sword, her fingers gently tracing over the intertwined dragon-shaped guard on the sword's body.

Her movements were very slow, as if she were stroking a sleeping little beast—her fingertips slid from the dragon's head to the dragon's tail, then back from the dragon's tail to the dragon's head. Her amber eyes gleamed with something in the blue-green light of the night brazier that she herself might not even be aware of.

"When he returns, I will take this old scabbard to the training grounds. One look, and he will know—I haven't been replaced by the Storm Ancestor Dragon. Then we will spar again. I will make him break all three techniques. Break them until he can dodge them with his eyes closed."