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thinking that he had never truly seen the color
before.
    The chain around his throat felt very heavy. He touched one of the crystals
lightly with the tip of his little finger.
Such a small thing to hold the
power of life and death.
It was made from a certain plant that grew only
on the islands of the Jade Sea, half a world away. The leaves had to be aged,
and soaked in a wash of limes and sugar water and certain rare spices from the
Summer Isles. Afterward they could be discarded, but the potion must be
thickened with ash and allowed to crystallize. The process was slow and
difficult, the necessaries costly and hard to acquire. The alchemists of Lys
knew the way of it, though, and the Faceless Men of
Braavos . . . and the maesters of his order as well, though it
was not something talked about beyond the walls of the Citadel. All the world
knew that a maester forged his silver link when he learned the art of
healing—but the world preferred to forget that men who knew how to heal
also knew how to kill.
    Cressen no longer recalled the name the Asshai’i gave the leaf, or the Lysene
poisoners the crystal. In the
Citadel, it was simply called the strangler.
Dissolved in wine, it would make the muscles of a man’s throat clench tighter
than any fist, shutting off his windpipe. They said a victim’s face turned as
purple as the little crystal seed from which his death was grown, but so too
did a man choking on a morsel of food.
    And this very night Lord Stannis would feast his bannermen,

his lady wife . . . and the red woman, Melisandre of
Asshai.
    I must rest,
Maester Cressen told himself.
I must have all my
strength come dark. My hands must not shake, nor my courage flag. It is a
dreadful thing I do, yet it must be done. If there are gods, surely they will
forgive me.
He had slept so poorly of late. A nap would refresh him for
the ordeal ahead. Wearily, he tottered off to his bed. Yet when he closed his
eyes, he could still see the light of the comet, red and fiery and vividly
alive amidst the darkness of his dreams.
Perhaps it is my comet,
he
thought drowsily at the last, just before sleep took him.
An omen of
blood, foretelling
murder . . . yes . . .
    When he woke it was full dark, his bedchamber was black, and every joint in his
body ached. Cressen pushed himself up, his head throbbing. Clutching for his
cane, he rose unsteady to his feet.
So late,
he thought.
They
did not summon me.
He was always summoned for feasts, seated near the
salt, close to Lord Stannis. His lord’s face swam up before him, not the man he
was but the boy he had been, standing cold in the shadows while the sun shone
on his elder brother. Whatever he did, Robert had done first, and better. Poor
boy . . . he must hurry, for
his
sake.
    The maester found the crystals where he had left them, and scooped them off the
parchment. Cressen owned no hollow rings, such as the poisoners of Lys were
said to favor, but a myriad of pockets great and small were sewn inside the
loose sleeves of his robe. He secreted the strangler seeds in one of them,
threw open his door, and called, “Pylos? Where are you?” When he heard no

reply, he called again, louder. “Pylos, I need help.” Still there came no
answer. That was queer; the young maester had his cell only a half turn down
the stair, within easy earshot.
    In the end, Cressen had to shout for the servants. “Make haste,” he told
them. “I have slept too long. They will be feasting by
now . . . drinking . . . I should have been
woken.” What had happened to Maester Pylos? Truly, he did not
understand.
    Again he had to cross the long gallery. A night wind whispered through the
great windows, sharp with the smell of the sea. Torches flickered along the
walls of Dragonstone, and in the camp beyond, he could see hundreds of
cookfires burning, as if a field of stars had fallen to the earth. Above, the
comet blazed red and malevolent.
I am too old