Aunt Mei abandoned her usual elegant, sensual sway and almost sprinted at a hundred-meter dash, flustered as she hurried to find Er Lu outside the courtyard.
"Your Majesty, I have received a revelation. A great upheaval has appeared in the north. The Long Night has arrived!" she said, panting.
Er Lu had been enthusiastically savoring the thrill of dragon riding, but Aunt Mei's rare look of panic shocked him. He hurriedly climbed down from a seventeen-meter-long shadow dragon and asked anxiously, "Could it be that the seas at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea and near the Shadow Tower have begun to freeze?"
Aunt Mei shook her head and explained, "The northern seas will not freeze. At least, the bays near the Wall will not freeze while the magical formations within the Wall remain intact.
"The Wall is not merely the five hundred kilometers we see above ground. Its foundations extend at least fifty kilometers into the seas on both sides. For the Others to dive beneath it, or wait for the sea to freeze over, is completely impossible."
Er Lu let out a sigh of relief, removed his windproof helmet, and handed it to an attendant. With a puzzled look, he asked, "Then why do you say the Long Night has come?"
"The King of the Others has appeared," Aunt Mei said solemnly.
"The benevolent spirit entangled by the sin of ultimate evil that the maesters speak of? I always thought the King of the Others was a servant of the Cold God," Er Lu frowned.
"It is him, and he is indeed a servant of the Cold God."
"The maesters say he was once just a human."
"A human who believes in the Cold God is a servant of the Cold God."
Er Lu glanced back at his wyvern, pressed his right hand against the scorching hilt of the red sword, and gritted his teeth. "Where is he? I am willing to follow the arrangements of fate and bring this Long Night to an end.
"I will kill the King of the Others, then return to punish the rebels."
The tone was much like Guan Yu saying to Cao Cao: wait until I behead Hua Xiong, then I will return to drink this fine wine.
It was not that Er Lu had become arrogant just because he now had a wyvern.
The main reason was that Aunt Mei had always told him, "You are the child of prophecy, destined to end the Long Night and bring light to the world."
Er Lu felt that with a wyvern and a magic sword, he had already reached the pinnacle of personal power.
If even this could not kill the King of the Others, tell me, how else could I possibly grow stronger?
Then Aunt Mei began to explain how he could improve himself. "Your Majesty, you are indeed the reincarnation of Azor Ahai from the prophecy.
"Fate has decreed that you will end the Long Night and bring light and summer to the world. That is also true.
"But the servants of the Cold God are unimaginably powerful. At present, your strength is far from enough to fulfill your mission."
"But Azor Ahai ended the Long Night with this sword alone," Er Lu said as he drew the longsword at his waist. The courtyard was instantly enveloped in strange red light, waves of heat spreading from the blade and stirring the hair of both Er Lu and Aunt Mei.
Only Er Lu's hair was singed and curled, while Aunt Mei seemed caressed by a spring breeze.
Aunt Mei glanced at the red sword, shook her head regretfully, and said, "Your sword is not yet in its optimal state, and you also need the power to break through the defenses of the King of the Others' underlings.
"Just like that day beneath the Wall, a mere probing attack drew out more than ten Others and several thousand wights. Even Daenerys relied on the help of several thousand wildlings to deal with them with great difficulty."
Recalling that scene like a clash between gods and demons, the faint self-satisfaction Er Lu had felt from possessing a wyvern vanished without a trace.
He nodded heavily and said in a deep voice, "You're right. I need more power. First, before Bronze Yohn and the others return, I must swiftly take the Vale.
"I don't need to seize the entire Vale. I only need to launch a surprise attack on the Eyrie, then occupy the Bloody Gate from back to front. The Vale lords left outside will have no choice but to surrender.
"After gaining the Vale's allegiance, I'll move on to the Crownlands. Ten wyverns should be enough to take King's Landing, right?
"Once I am formally crowned king and wield the power of the Seven Kingdoms, that should be enough to deal with the army of the Others, shouldn't it?"
"No, it's still not enough," Aunt Mei shook her head. "I can sense that after defeating the servant of the alien god, the King of the Others has grown immensely stronger. Relying solely on mortal power, it will be impossible to achieve final victory."
Er Lu immediately understood what Aunt Mei was implying. His gaze sharpened, his cheeks puffed out, and he ground his teeth. "I cannot kill him!
"Even if his father muddled the Targaryen red dragon bloodline, even if he intended to usurp the Iron Throne, he is still a Targaryen, a descendant of a noble bastard, not a complete foreigner.
"He was captured in war as a noble and even paid me a ransom. I cannot harm him!"
"Yes, he possesses true Targaryen dragon blood. Precisely because of that, his king's blood is even more valuable.
"Your Majesty, by offering his blood in sacrifice to the great R'hllor, you can hatch a demonic dragon from stone.
"Only dragons are true dragons, and only dragons can stand against the tide of Others," Aunt Mei urged for the nth time.
Well, this was not the first time.
After Aegon's identity as a false prince was confirmed beyond doubt, Aunt Mei began urging Er Lu to sacrifice him to hatch a demonic dragon from stone.
She had never made such a suggestion before, not because she did not want to.
In fact, she wanted it desperately, even dreamed of it.
The Dragon Queen's own nephew!
That king's blood, rich to the extreme, might it pull R'hllor's divine realm into the material world?
But she did not dare.
Aunt Mei feared neither heaven nor earth. She burned statues of the Seven, burned sacred weirwood groves, burned anyone who dared to blaspheme the Red God, burned nobles, burned those of royal blood. She dared to burn anything, because none of those posed a threat to her.
But the Dragon Queen could take her life.
Did Aunt Mei fear death?
Hard to say.
But she certainly did not want to die, because she bore a mission.
To fulfill the Azor Ahai prophecy, she had waited for hundreds of years. Before seeing the Long Night end, she definitely did not want to die.
But if you laid a hand on the Dragon Queen's beloved great nephew, then even if you did not want to die, you still had to die.
Yet if Aegon were a fake nephew, then the more she had loved him before, the more she should hate him now.
She burned him, and it had nothing to do with the Dragon Queen anymore.
But the Second Stag was stubborn to the bone, clinging to illusory honor and refusing to yield.
Was the Second Stag a rigid and just man?Daenerys had never been able to pin down his character.
But when the situation was not a matter of life and death, the Second Stag truly could be strict with himself and harsh with others.
In fact, to understand the Second Stag's personality, one can look to Liu Bei from Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Everyone cursed Liu Bei as a big-eared thief and a hypocrite, yet over the course of his entire life, he truly never committed any great evil.
Compared with the "frank and straightforward yet lovable villain-hero," Boss Liu, who never massacred a city, was so kind he seemed like an angel.
If there really were gods watching from three feet above, then even if Liu Boss were not canonized after death, at the very least he could be reborn into a middle-class family in his next life.
Old Cao would probably have to roll in boiling oil and be flayed on a mountain of blades.
Considering that he did have great merit in resisting foreign invaders, sending him to the eighteen levels of hell would be a bit harsh, but in his next life he could at least be reborn as a woman and then meet some lecherous old scoundrel who liked to acknowledge wives.
The Second Stag was the Liu Bei of the world of A Song of Ice and Fire.
The difference was that Liu Bei sold an image of "benevolence," while the Second Stag sold "justice."
Boss Liu was luckier. At his side were Zhang Fei, Guan Yu, Zhao Yun, and Zhuge Liang, all loyal, brave, and morally upright men.
The key was morality.
The people around Boss Liu, regardless of ability, were all paragons of virtue. As long as he was not facing a life-or-death, success-or-failure decision, even if it was only to keep his companions from being disappointed and leaving, Liu Bei had to continue being benevolent.
The Second Stag was far less fortunate. He was mired in the rotten swamp of the Seven Kingdoms. Early on, those around him were Robert, Renly, Littlefinger, Jaime, Cersei, and a whole pack of terrible people. Later he encountered a shadowbinder who bewitched hearts and lacked all moral restraint, and he was directly corrupted by close association.
In truth, if the Second Stag had always followed his own nature, chosen people like Davos as close friends and loyal ministers, and had never met Melisandre, he absolutely could have been like Liu Bei, a "good man without flaws" for his entire life.
Now, speaking of decisions of life and death, success and failure.
The most morally testing choice Liu Bei faced in his life was whether to seize Yi Province from Liu Zhang.
At that time, Cao Cao had already decided to send troops against Hanzhong, and Liu Zhang had indeed asked Liu Bei for help. Liu Zhang and Liu Bei had no lord-subject relationship, nor were they really relatives. They were simply too distant.
So Liu Bei's success-or-failure decision on that occasion did little damage to his moral standing.
The Second Stag was the complete opposite.
The greatest stain on his life was kinslaying.
At the beginning of the War of the Five Kings, the Second Stag had hoped that the Third Stag would abide by the Baratheon tradition of "the younger supports the elder," a tradition the Second Stag himself had defined.
His limitless loyalty to Robert had nothing to do with brotherly affection. It was purely a responsibility born of family interest and national interest.
Robert was gone. Now he was the elder brother, and he hoped the Third Stag would be as loyal to his elder brother as he himself once had been, for the family and for the realm.
Then Renly, grinning, tossed him a peach. "I can offer you a peach to eat, but loyalty? Hahahaha."
At that moment, the Second Stag faced his decisive choice. Either swallow the insult, retreat to Dragonstone under his brother's contemptuous gaze, admit defeat, and give up his own rights, since his claim truly was stronger than Renly's. Or hand that foolish, lovable jester a peach, then pluck his peach away, take King's Landing, and fulfill the duty of Robert's heir.
If Liu Bei had been placed in the Second Stag's position, perhaps Liu Bei's carefully maintained persona would have collapsed once as well.
Of course, it was also because the Second Stag lacked capable aides. If Zhuge Liang had replaced Mel, the Second Stag would very likely have been able to pluck Renly's peach easily and honorably.
Perhaps with a single clever stratagem, he could have made Renly bow his head and willingly serve like an ox.
Or perhaps a Zhuge of a fantasy world could have produced an Eight Trigrams Formation, defeating the enemy with fewer troops without ever plucking Renly's peach, and wiping out Tyrion, that fake Zhou Yu. The ugly dwarf burning the Blackwater did have a bit of the elegance of Handsome Zhou burning Red Cliffs.
In any case, with Zhuge Kongming's wisdom, the Second Stag would never have had to face a decision that determined success or failure.
All right, that was a digression.
The Second Stag did not have Liu Bei's luck, and thus became a failed Liu Bei.
But even a failed Liu Bei would not abandon his principles when it was not a matter of life and death.
That was why the Second Stag kept rejecting Mel's proposal to sacrifice Aegon.
Just as he had once firmly opposed sacrificing Robert's bastard, Edric.
Mel, though not as clever as Zhuge Liang, still understood the character of the man she served.
She said solemnly, "Your Grace, if the Night King does not move, so be it. But once he appears, it means the Long Night has officially begun."
The Second Stag raised his head to look at the sky. On a rare clear day in winter, the sun parted the heavy gray clouds, like a shy girl peeking at the mortal world from behind a curtain.
"This is the Long Night?" he asked, pointing at the sky.
Mel nodded. "The Long Night is like the wind. Once the wind rises, it blows from the distant Lands of Always Winter. Though the distance is great, it will surely come."
"Tell me," the Second Stag asked again, "if that Night King crosses the Wall?"
Mel frowned and said, "In theory, the Night King cannot cross the Wall under any circumstances."
The Second Stag glared at her.
"But I can clearly sense that the crisis is about to arrive. If you do not hatch the demon dragon from the stone now, it will be too late!" Mel said with grave urgency.
"Can it really be hatched?" the Second Stag asked softly.
"I swear, I received a revelation from the Lord of Light in the flames. The demon dragon broke the stone egg and emerged."
The Second Stag's expression twisted in struggle. The failed Liu Bei once again faced a choice of life and death, success and failure.
(End of chapter)
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