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On Maester Aemon’s bed, Zite had finished smearing some kind of cream-like ointment he’d found gods-know-where.
When he noticed Leon’s brow furrow tight and his eyelids flutter, like he might be coming around, Zite hurried over to check.
The moment he got close, Leon — still buried deep in his dream — puffed up his cheeks.
The next instant, a foul wad of bloody phlegm came flying straight at Zite’s face.
Zite had no time to dodge.
He took it square in the face.
Then Leon’s eyes stayed shut as he exploded up from the bed, his sledgehammer fists raining down on Zite’s meticulously maintained features like a hailstorm.
“Ow!
Ow!
Stop hitting me, my lord!
Please, stop!”
A moment later, Maester Aemon shuffled into the bedroom with the help of another apprentice, drawn by the noise.
He arrived to find Leon pummeling Zite like a man possessed.
“Stop this at once, Leon!”
Maester Aemon’s ever-present cane slammed into the floor with a thunderous crack.
The fine wooden floorboards of the Maester’s Tower couldn’t withstand the blow.
They shattered cleanly into splinters.
That sound jolted Leon fully awake.
He blinked, dazed.
Looked around at the unfamiliar room.
Thought: Where am I?
Wasn’t I just beating the hell out of a White Walker?
Then he looked down at the “White Walker” pinned beneath him.
What he saw was a face crisscrossed with deep gullies and tender pink polyps, smeared with some unknown substance that caught a faint, dark gleam.
A thing that barely qualified as a human face.
Leon frowned and said nothing.
“Looks like I’m still dreaming.
White Walker, come on then — take three hundred more punches from your daddy.”
Seeing Leon awake but not fully awake, Maester Aemon bellowed, “Enough!
Keep going and you’ll beat Zite to death!”
Hearing that familiar voice, Leon finally registered that he wasn’t dreaming.
He scrambled upright and hauled the horribly battered Zite off the floor.
“Sorry, sorry, Zite.
I mistook you for a White Walker.”
It was only because Zite’s facial structure was unusually resilient that, after taking at least several dozen punches from Leon, he still had the energy to leap back several steps and stare at Leon with the pure terror one would reserve for an actual White Walker.
“Though strictly speaking,” Leon added, “White Walkers are much handsomer than you.”
…
After dismissing the two apprentices, Maester Aemon sat Leon down and gently asked him to recount what he’d dreamed.
Leon spoke freely and told it straight.
What he said left Maester Aemon utterly dumbfounded.
For a long while, this man who had weathered nearly every great storm the kingdom had seen across more than seventy years sat in stunned silence.
“So you’re saying…
you encountered a legendary White Walker…
beat it half to death…
because it wanted you to become its subordinate?”
Maester Aemon finished speaking and wasn’t sure what to make of Leon’s delirious ramblings.
Leon’s expression and tone didn’t suggest he was lying.
But that was precisely why Maester Aemon’s deep-seated worldview refused to let him accept it as true.
“Very well.
Let’s leave that matter there.” He shifted in his seat.
“I’ve been waiting for you to wake because I need to confirm one thing with you.
I hope you’ll agree.”
It seemed the old man’s vigil had nothing to do with Leon’s sleep-talking.
There was something else.
Something more important.
“Of course, Maester Aemon.
I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.”
Leon agreed without a second thought.
What ill intentions could a kindly old man with one foot already in the grave possibly have?
Seeing Leon’s consent, Maester Aemon said nothing.
He simply rose and shuffled slowly toward a light source across the room.
Leon watched him go and figured the old man wanted to fetch something.
He was the type who would absolutely give up his seat on a crowded cart for an elder, so he stood immediately to help.
But Maester Aemon’s legs were unusually spry today, moving with the energy of a man who sensed something good was about to happen.
Before Leon could take a step, Maester Aemon had already brought over a lamp.
“Now, place your hand upon it.” He removed the lampshade, revealing a candle made from the fat of some unknown creature.
“On the flame?” Leon asked, wanting to make sure he’d understood.
“Yes.” Maester Aemon extended his own hand, a bony palm speckled with age spots, and pressed it directly onto the flame.
“Place your palm upon it, just as I have.”
Leon’s expression turned strange.
He thought: Is this old man using me as a test subject?
But Leon didn’t resist.
He respected his elders too much for that.
He watched Maester Aemon hold his hand in the flame for a long moment as if it were nothing, and found himself genuinely curious.
He placed his own palm onto the flame.
SSSSS!
Unlike the old man’s dry, wrung-out hand, Leon’s palm began to sizzle the instant it touched the fire, like meat hitting a hot pan.
Leon gritted his teeth against the piercing, bone-deep pain.
He kept his hand there, frowning, enduring.
After a moment, as if fed by Leon’s presence, the candlelight in the room seemed to brighten.
Maester Aemon said nothing.
No signal to stop.
So Leon stayed, pain and something almost like satisfaction twisted together, and held on.
Thankfully, the old man called it off before long.
“Leon.
Are you truly unafraid of the fire, or are you enduring it?”
Watching his subject’s face twist in obvious agony, the last shred of hope in Maester Aemon’s heart quietly died.
Still, he asked one final question.
“To answer the Maester…
I can still endure.”
That reply shattered what Maester Aemon had been holding onto.
Less hope, really, than a fantasy.
“True dragons do not fear fire.
Leon, you…” He paused.
“You are clearly not even a Blackfyre.”
“Blackfyre?” Leon turned the word over, unable to make sense of it.
“It’s nothing.
You may go.” No explanation followed.
In that single instant, Leon watched something leave the old man.
His bearing seemed to sink.
His posture dropped.
He looked ten years older than he had a moment ago.
The streaks of gray in his hair seemed to have taken over entirely.
“Ah, yes,” Maester Aemon added quietly.
“You needn’t come back to have yesterday’s wound dressed.
I examined it.
It’s fully healed.”
He paused.
“Also, while you were asleep, a young lad named Jon came looking for you several times.
He may still be waiting outside the door.”
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