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The stairs in the Sea Dragon Tower seemed interminably long today. Daeron’s feet felt as heavy as boulders as he plodded his way up. He paused in front of Joff’s door, which was shut. Although it was the middle of a sunlit afternoon, when he peeked through the crack at the bottom of the door, he could see only darkness within the room.
The darkness didn’t feel ordinary, either. It wasn’t the mere darkness of an empty room, waiting for someone to light a fire or open the curtains. This darkness seemed determined to endure. Daeron swore that he could almost see shadows trying to push out through the crack beneath the door, like dark fingers probing for an escape route.
Daeron swallowed, looked away from the door, and resolutely continued the rest of the way up the stairs.
He found Maester Gerardys in the rookery at the top of the tower. The ravens were a furor of flapping black feathers and anxious croaks. One of them flew straight at Daeron. He quickly threw his hands up to protect his face from the bird’s sharp talons.
No matter what the maester did, he was unable to soothe the ravens. Giving up, Gerardys turned to Daeron and tiredly greeted him, “My prince.”
Daeron nodded at the panicking ravens. “Is this because of her?”
“I believe so. Several moments ago, something…” Gerardys pursed his lips. “…strange, occurred.”
Daeron had sensed that strangeness too, even though he’d been on the other side of the castle. He was in the library, poring through old Valyrian texts that he’d hoped might have answers, when suddenly the whole world seemed to grow still. His lantern dimmed, no longer bright enough to read by. Everything fell silent. No wind. No insects. Even the sea became quiet.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed—four, mayhaps five heartbeats—before everything returned to normal. The chill clinging to his skin didn’t go away, however, and he ran at once toward the Sea Dragon Tower. He wasn’t sure what exactly happened, but he knew precisely who had caused it.
It was always her.
Daeron wearily dragged his hands down his face. He should have thrown that damn candle into the sea when he had the chance. It was far too late for that now—and mayhaps Joff would have drowned herself trying to retrieve it from the depths. “I will visit her,” he declared.
“Good luck, my prince,” Gerardys said quietly as Daeron left.
Daeron descended the tower stairs until he arrived at Joff’s room again. He raised his hand to knock, then paused to take a breath. Please let her be herself, he prayed, although he suspected his prayers were futile.
He knocked, politely but loudly, on the door. “Joff, may I come in?”
He didn’t expect her to answer; she was probably engrossed with the candle. But to his surprise, she said in an eerily happy tone, “Yes, Daeron. I want to show you something.”
Cautiously, he pushed the door open. As he expected, the room was dark. Heavy curtains covered the windows, nailed to the ledge so they wouldn’t shift and accidentally allow sunlight inside. The ashes in the fireplace were cold; for weeks, the maids had been too afraid to come tend to the room.
There was no natural light in the room. But there was unnatural light coming from the glass candle in Joff’s hands as she sat cross-legged on the floor.
Daeron rued the day that he’d agreed to acquire the candle for her. He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. He’d known it was wrong to swap the glass candle with a regular wax candle while the maesters weren’t looking, but he had been a young boy determined to do whatever he could to please Joff. Now he wished the maesters had caught him. Now he wished he had stuck to his principles and told her it was wrong to steal, and “borrowing without permission” was the same thing as stealing.
The light cast by the glass candle made Joff appear even more terrible and beautiful than she already was. Her black hair was darker than a starless midnight sky, and her bronze skin glowed like molten metal in the forge. Her eyes were impenetrably black and glassy, without even a hint of their usual purple, as if they had been replaced with obsidian mirrors.
She smiled at Daeron. Goosebumps rose all across his skin. Once, smiles from Joff had been a rare gift that he treasured, shy little curves of her mouth as if she was uncertain whether she deserved joy. But now there was a sickly quality to her smile, a false happiness produced by something that was no good for her. And she was too unwell to realize it.
“It’s even brighter than last time,” she said rapturously, holding up the candle. “I’m getting stronger.”
Or mayhaps, Daeron thought with dread, the candle is stealing more and more of your strength for itself. “May I take a closer look?” he asked in as kind a tone as he could manage.
Joff beckoned him to approach. When he sat beside her on the floor, she deliberately pressed her leg against his. Even though he knew it wasn’t really her, he could still feel heat rushing to his belly as his body reacted.
She moved one of her hands from the candle to his knee. Her fingers skimmed up his leg, like a spider dancing upon his skin. When she neared the top of his thigh, she stopped, pressing her fingers deeper into his flesh. Her eyelashes fluttered as she gave him another smile. “Do you want to see? You can look into the light, Daeron.”
He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want the candle to dig its claws into him as well. “It scares me,” he said honestly.
“It’s alright. It won’t hurt you. It knows you’re my friend.”
Daeron hated when she spoke of the candle as if it were somehow alive. If it was in any way sentient, it had to be a thing of evil. He yearned to get rid of it—but he feared that Joff was inextricably tied to it now. If he destroyed the candle, what would that do to her?
He refused to look at the candle. He focused on her instead. Her hair had mostly fallen out of its braid, but a red ribbon valiantly clung to several tresses, flimsily holding them together. He gently removed the ribbon from her hair. As he did, she jerked in her seat. The glass candle flickered as she stared at him.
He moved to sit behind her, and he held the ribbon between his teeth as he quickly redid Joff’s braid. Nothing fancy, just three strands that went over each other, again and again. When he reached the end, he tied the ribbon with a fanciful bow that he knew she would hate.
Sure enough, when he showed her his handiwork, she wrinkled his nose at the ribbon. She seemed almost like herself again.
“Let’s visit Tyraxes,” he suggested.
She hesitated for a long moment. A glimmer returned to her eyes, and his heart leapt with hope at the sight. “Tyraxes,” she murmured slowly, as if remembering the sound of his name.
“He’s been missing you,” Daeron continued, encouraged. “We can race the dragons. Tessarion can hold her own against Tyraxes now.”
Her brow furrowed. “I…I would like…”
The candle flared, briefly blinding them both.
As the unnatural light subsided, Daeron saw, to his dismay, that the glimmer was gone from Joff’s eyes again. Her expression slack, she returned her attention to the candle. “Tyraxes can wait,” she said flatly. “I’m busy right now.”
Defeated, Daeron got up and trudged to the door. Before he left the room, he looked at Joff one last time. She was staring at the candle again. Nothing remained of her in her eyes, just a reflection of the candle’s ethereal glow.