67: Chapter 65 Three Conditions

Daenerys stopped tapping her fingers. She stepped forward, standing between Drogon and Melisandre. Her violet eyes looked calmly into Melisandre's red ones. She had changed out of her nightgown—she was now wearing black dragon-scale armor, the scales fitting her body closely, the waistline pulled tight, and the shoulder pauldrons slightly upturned.

A valyrian steel dagger hung at her waist. However, the black silk scarf on her wrist remained. Its frayed edges glimmered gray under the blue-green light of the nightfire.

"Lady Melisandre. You may stay on Dragonstone. You may continue to seek your prophecies in the nightfire. But if you wish to become Drogon's 'Servant in the Fire'—I have three conditions."

Melisandre nodded slightly. The reflection of the flames in her red eyes quietly mirrored Daenerys's face. "Please, Mother of Dragons, state them."

"First. You are forbidden from arranging any rituals regarding 'bloodline propagation' for Drogon without my consent. He is not a breeding dragon. He is my mate."

Melisandre did not hesitate at all. She didn't even blink. "Agreed. A marriage contract requires the approval of the core mate—this is the rule of Old Valyria itself. I will not overstep. If anyone forces me to, I will refuse."

Daenerys held up her second finger.

"Second. Your nightfire prophecies—if there is any intelligence regarding the war in Westeros, report it to me first. Not to Stannis. I respect your faith, but the ownership of intelligence belongs to me."

A faint smile appeared on the corners of Melisandre's mouth. It was not mockery. It was a sense of relief, a 'just as I thought.' It was as if this was the very condition she had been waiting for.

"His Majesty Stannis no longer listens to my prophecies. His intention to wage war against you has been rejected by me three times; he is currently considering whether to banish me as well. So—agreed. From now on, intelligence from the nightfire will be reported to the Mother of Dragons first. This includes intelligence regarding Stannis himself."

Daenerys held up her third finger. Her finger paused in the air. Her voice was lower than for the previous two.

"Third—you just saw the image of Drogon's left wing being pierced by an ice spear in the fire. Tell me. What else did you see regarding danger to him?"

Melisandre fell silent.

Her red eyes looked toward Drogon. Those slit pupils were glowing with a dark golden light under the reflection of the fire. The scales at the base of his left wing were slightly thinner than the surrounding ones—newly grown. They were barely visible in sunlight, but in her flames, they were magnified.

She looked back at Daenerys. Then she said in a low voice. Every word was very light, yet every word seemed as if it had been fished out of a fire. It even carried sparks.

"I saw... after the ice spear, there was another gaze. It is not the Night King's gaze—it is a gaze older than the Night King. It comes from the starry sky. It comes from the ancestral land of the dragons. They are watching him. They are on their way. They are not enemies, but they are not necessarily friends either. They carry judgment."

Drogon's tail suddenly stiffened.

He heard the four words "ancestral land of the dragons." It was the location of the Dragon Senate that the system had repeatedly warned him about. The Sea of Myriad Cosmos.

That divine realm composed of dragon bones and dragon crystals. Five statues of ancestral dragons were suspended in the void. The Enforcement Squad was gathering. The timetable was moved up from eight weeks to six weeks.

Now, it had been confirmed by the mouth of this priestess. It wasn't the system saying it. It was the image in the flames. It was an information channel older than the system.

"She knows about The Senate? A human priestess. She can't even clearly explain what she sees in the flames, how could she possibly know about the ancestral land?"

The system popped up a window. A rare emergency pop-up. The font was orange.

"Melisandre's prophetic ability originates from the Lord of Light—the true form of the Lord of Light, according to the Sea of Myriad Cosmos power map, is highly likely to be one of the subordinate deities of the Heavenly Dao Arbitration Tribunal or the Dragon Senate. Through the channel of the Lord of Light, she has indirectly received information about the Dragon Senate's attention on the host. She may not necessarily know the specific name 'The Senate,' but her flames have already captured the gaze cast by the Time-Space Ancestral Dragon. The gaze itself carries trace amounts of information—what she has received may be more accurate than the system's remote warning."

"So her arrival time for the Enforcement Squad might be more accurate than ours."

"It is possible. It is recommended that the host maintain intelligence exchanges with her. Her sensitivity to the 'gaze from the ancestral land' far exceeds the system's remote warning range for The Senate. She might even be able to track the movements of The Senate in reverse through the flames."

Drogon stepped forward. He lowered his head to look at Melisandre. The light in his slit pupils became serious. The dark gold in the center of his pupils changed from a molten ball-like form to a more focused needle-point shape.

"The 'gaze from the starry sky' you spoke of—when did it arrive?"

Melisandre did not flinch. Her red eyes met his slit pupils. The distance was only an arm's length.

"About two months ago. The gaze suddenly intensified when you broke through a certain threshold. That day I saw golden light in the flames—the same as the golden light on the ramparts of Meereen. From that day on, the gaze became more frequent. In the last few days—ever since you absorbed the dragon bones—the gaze is no longer an occasional sweep, but a continuous lock. It is as if... they have confirmed your location and no longer need to search."

"Can you find out exactly when they will arrive?"

Melisandre closed her eyes. She reached her fingers into the nightfire. The flames coiled around her fingertips, blue-green tongues of fire crawling over her knuckles, outlining web-like patterns of light on the back of her hand. She remained silent for a long time. Her breathing became extremely shallow.

Her shoulders under her red robe trembled slightly—not from cold, but because the information in the flames was too dense and too hot. Then she opened her eyes. Her voice was lighter than before.

"Before your first direct confrontation with the Night King. About six weeks from now. They will appear at the moment you are at your weakest or your strongest. The flames did not tell me specifically—they only told me 'Beware of the visitors, they are not all enemies.' This sentence—" she hesitated for a moment, "when the Lord of Light mentioned them, he used the term 'Star Dragons'."

Drogon's tail flicked slowly behind him. It flicked very slowly. Six weeks. Two weeks earlier than the eight weeks predicted by the system. It was not an error. It was The Senate actively shortening the timetable. Because he had absorbed Orys's dragon bones. Because he had upgraded from "pseudo" to "legacy." Because his bloodline had jumped to 1600. The stronger he became, the more anxious they were.