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The Red Priestess could bring back the dead—that's what everyone said.
The rumors and whispers drove Rey from Bear Island north to the Wall, where Melisandre indeed waited as if she had foreseen her approach to Castle Black. The priestess ushered Rey to her chambers, ignoring the glares of the Night's Watch and the Wildlings alike.
The fire in Melisandre's hearth was huge and bright, and burned in strange colors. "Your beloved has gone into the shadows between worlds," she said without much preamble.
"But you serve the Lord of Light," Rey said. "So you cannot find him after all."
"I am R'hllor's servant, it's true,” said Melisandre. “But I am also a daughter of Asshai by the Shadow, and I bend the shadows to my design. Would you find your love?"
"Yes," said Rey. The women of Bear Island were known for their fierceness, and even amid that company her deeds were acclaimed for their boldness.
"Very well," said Melisandre and sprinkled something on the flames. "Then seek him, and bring him home." She murmured something in a language Rey didn't recognize, and the room went dark.
It didn't brighten again all at once. Slowly, the gloom surrounding her shifted. Rey remembered the chants that some of the knights and Black Brothers had sung outside: “The night is dark, and full of terrors.” But it didn't terrify her.
The light became grey, like the sky on a winter's day. She was no longer in Melisandre's tower room at Castle Black. Before her was a formless plain, and shadows wavered at her feet like dry grass in the wind.
She wasn't alone in the space. There was a man there, standing a small distance away. She walked closer, or perhaps simply floated.
He was pale, with dark hair and the darkest eyes she had ever seen. He was dressed entirely in black, with a sable-trimmed cloak over a fine coat with silver buckles. In one hand he held a dagger, tossing it into the air and catching it by the pommel over and over, without looking at it.
“Are you the Lord Commander?” Rey asked. She only knew of one group of people who wore that much black.
He threw the dagger, caught it, and paused. “A Lord, yes. I have been in command, in the past. But no, not as you mean it, I think.”
“I'm looking for Ben Solo, in the shadows between the worlds.”
He smiled at that, a small and terrible smile, and the darkness pooled at his feet. “The shadows of all places are mine, she-bear.”
“Are you the Stranger?” she asked. “Or one of the Old Gods of the Forest?”
“No,” he said. He tossed the dagger and caught it again. “I am also one caught in between.”
“Are you dead?” she asked. The courtly games of the South, all veiled references and poisonous politeness, had never been to her liking. She was blunt and direct, straightforward as a bear seeking honey in a stump. She hoped she would not get stung this time.
The man shrugged, and actually laughed. “Perhaps. But it would take more than this trinket to remove me from the world, for good or for ill.” He tossed the dagger to his other hand. “Sooner or later, my Sun Saint will call me back to life. She bears my shadows now too. We will not be apart forever.”
“Does she love you?” Rey asked, fascinated.
The man laughed, bitterly this time. “She would say she does not. She stabbed me, after all.” He held up the dagger.
“Do you love her?” Rey asked.
“Yes,” he said, with the utter certainty of winter and the coming of the snows. “Tell me she-bear, the one you seek, does he love you?”
“Yes, though we once were enemies.”
The man smiled at that, and the shadows rolled calmly away from him once more. “Ah, I can see it. There is a connection, a tether, between you and this Ben Solo, as there is between me and my beloved. Such a thing may stretch and not break. You will find him.”
“Can you show me?” Rey asked, not sure if she should trust this strange being no matter how appealing his words were. Still, she had come here for a reason, and she wasn’t going to give up if there was a chance she could find Ben.
He brought his hands together in an impossibly graceful gesture, and Rey felt a tugging in her chest. A line of light ran from her off into the distance.
“You will find him,” the man said again, and the shifting shadows hid him once more.