Chapter 29 – The Sealed Notebook
[She may be a priestess.]
[Her status on this island is… complicated.]
[Estimated age: between 25 and 35.]
[Her entire body radiates an unknown energy.]
[She bears mild hostility toward you.]
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Her hair was a deep copper-red, cascading like molten metal in the torchlight. Her eyes—two gleaming rubies—shone with an inner fire, their warmth laced with something fluid, almost hypnotic. Around her slender neck hung a scarlet gem that pulsed faintly in rhythm with her heartbeat, completing the image of a woman both divine and dangerous.
Her lips curved faintly, and her smile was as polished as her face—heart-shaped, flawless, seductive. Beneath the folds of her crimson robe, her figure was graceful yet powerful, as though sculpted with sin in mind.
This was Melisandre—the Red Woman of Dragonstone. Around thirty, by appearance at least. She had the beauty of a ripe peach—radiant, intoxicating, and dangerous to touch.
But the first thing she said to Charles made her beauty feel more like venom.
"I advised His Grace to have you shot with a thousand arrows before you ever set foot on this island."
Her tone was calm, her lips still curved in an almost serene smile.
Charles blinked. "I don't believe we've met before."
She was stunning—so much so that it was distracting—but if his memory of the world's lore was right, wasn't she supposed to be… far older than she looked?
Melisandre tilted her head, her smile never fading. "You walk in shadow," she said softly. "The darkness clings to your soul, yet you act in the name of justice. The flames showed me… not evil, but a fog—a veil of mystery."
"So," Charles asked with a half-smile, "you decided not to kill me?"
"No," she said simply, "His Grace refused."
Her crimson eyes glimmered as she studied him. "No mortal can cast such a curse without sacrifice. Tell me—what price did you pay?"
Charles thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Nearly shouted my throat raw. Does that count?"
Melisandre gave no answer. She merely looked at him for a long, unreadable moment—then turned and walked away without another word.
"…What the hell was that?" Charles muttered, baffled.
The corridor around him was quiet again. He glanced around: carved stone walls, flickering torches, and far below, through a narrow archway, the faint outlines of the harbor and the men unloading supplies.
He sighed. "Now how do I get out of here?"
Before he could turn back, a servant girl appeared, curtseying politely.
"My lord, the Lady—our Divine Lady—has instructed me to show you to your chambers."
"Divine Lady?" Charles echoed.
"Lady Melisandre," the girl replied with reverent awe. "She is the true god's chosen messenger. We… call her that among ourselves."
Charles rolled his eyes, losing all interest in conversation. The girl was pretty enough—freckles on her nose, a soft youthful face—but the moment she started preaching, he mentally checked out.
"You people ever have normal conversations here?" he muttered under his breath as they walked.
Dragonstone was as bleak as its ruler. Stannis, stiff and humorless as a plank of iron. His wife—a shrill zealot with wild eyes. And that fool in the harbor with a bucket on his head? Charles didn't even want to think about it.
And Melisandre—the walking flame cultist—was the cherry on top of this madhouse.
The young maid led him through winding stone corridors and across a cold courtyard to a modest room on the castle's third level. It was small but clean, with twin windows that opened to a breathtaking view of the sea.
Charles stretched his arms, breathing in the salt air. After weeks of chaos, the thought of a bed that didn't move with the tide felt heavenly.
Eddard and his family would be fine—he was sure of it. Whatever tense exchange had occurred at the harbor, Charles recognized it for what it was: two solemn men measuring pride and power, trying not to step on each other's honor.
He collapsed backward onto the bed. "So… what now?"
Glancing at the countdown hovering faintly in his vision, he noted he had roughly five days left before the portal recharged. No sense wasting time.
He pulled a worn leather-bound notebook from inside his boot—the same one he'd hidden since King's Landing.
On the ship, he'd spent every spare moment poring over its pages. But without the proper tools or materials, he'd been unable to test anything beyond memorizing the incantations.
Besides the two spells he'd already mastered, four more were recorded within:
Whispers of the Dead
Evil Eye of Malice
Touch of Fatigue
Blood for Blood
All necromantic in nature, and all requiring… corpses.
He exhaled, closing his eyes briefly. "Yeah, try explaining that to the locals."
Still, he couldn't bring himself to abandon it. These grim arts were all he had—the only real power at his disposal. The so-called "Purification" magic of the Church had been a farce, a leash disguised as faith.
His eyes flicked toward the window, where the last crimson streaks of sunset bled across the sea.
"Then again," he muttered, "that red woman clearly knows her magic…"
He frowned suddenly. "Wait—how the hell did that bald bastard know I used hair for the doll spell?"
The waves outside crashed violently against the cliffs, as if echoing his unease.
Charles turned past the section describing the four necromantic spells, his eyes settling on the latter half of the notebook—pages darkened with age and the faint scent of ash.
Three new titles greeted him:
Phantom's Veil
Tongue of Oaths
Wraith Substitute
At first glance, they appeared similar to the previous spells—grim and steeped in death. Yet unlike the earlier incantations, these three required not bodies, but souls.
Spiritual essence. Soulfire. The lingering fragments of the dead. Whatever one chose to call it, all three demanded vast quantities of it.
There were no shortcuts. No substitutes. Only the harvest of spirits could fuel these forbidden arts.
Even among necromancers, such spells were rarely practiced—their difficulty and cost were far beyond reason. A normal sorcerer could live an entire lifetime without ever using them.
But Charles couldn't afford to ignore them.
These three spells were more than tools—they were protection. The very key to hiding his identity as a black magician in a world where the Church burned heretics by the dozen.
He continued reading. The next section appeared to be written in a different hand, its tone reverent yet weary:
"Before the Carnival of the Necromancers, our numbers had dwindled to fewer than a hundred. It was not until Lady Phyllis devised the Three False Spirits that our order survived the Church's purge. We must forever remember her name and those who followed her path…"
Charles exhaled slowly. So that was it.
This "Lady Phyllis" had created the trio of forgery spells—designed not to destroy, but to conceal. To let necromancers walk among the living unrecognized by the divine light.
Phantom's Veil cloaked the caster's aura, allowing them to appear holy and radiant under spells of detection.
Tongue of Oaths severed the binding force of divine vows, freeing the user from the consequences of lies and broken promises.
And Wraith Substitute… the most unsettling of all—created a spectral double that would absorb punishment meant for the caster when even Oaths failed to protect them.
As Charles traced the ink with his fingertips, a slow grin tugged at his lips.
"If I can master these three," he murmured, "I'll never have to worry about being exposed again."
He already possessed a strange, inexplicable immunity—something that made divine detection overlook his use of dark magic—but he didn't trust it. Whatever power protected him might vanish as suddenly as it came.
Which meant learning these spells wasn't just useful. It was necessary.
In truth, that was part of why he'd agreed to join Eddard Stark's coming war. The battlefield would provide more than opportunity—it would provide souls.
"Shame I can't get started yet," he muttered, flipping to the final pages.
They were blank—or so it seemed.
Every so often, however, faint black letters would rise from the parchment like bloated corpses surfacing in dark water. The words would shimmer in and out of existence, twisting across the page before sinking again into the paper's depths.
He could never read them fast enough. It was as though something unseen dragged them back down, sealing them away beneath an invisible barrier.
It reminded him of fish breaching the surface for air… or perhaps a curse that refused to be unveiled.
Charles frowned, drumming his fingers on the leather cover.
"What the hell are you hiding?" he whispered.
The silence of the stone room offered no answer. Only the rhythmic crash of waves against Dragonstone's cliffs echoed faintly through the window.
Whatever secret these pages held, it was buried deep—sealed tight by a power he could neither name nor break.
But one thing was certain.
He would find a way to unseal it.