Chapter 22: The Ember's Kiss
The door to the guest chamber was indeed ajar, a sliver of firelight cutting across the darkened stone of the hallway. Y/N paused, the memory of Sansa’s measured gaze in the yard still cold on her neck. She pushed the door open just enough to slip inside and closed it with a final, soft click.
The room was warm, fragrant. Missandei sat in the high-backed chair, a book open but unread in her lap. She didn’t turn.
“She knows,” Missandei said, her voice quiet but clear in the stillness. “About us. About Meereen.”
Y/N remained by the door, her cloak damp with melted frost. “Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.” Missandei finally looked over her shoulder, the fire painting gold highlights on her cheeks. Her eyes were dark, serious. “I have been a translator. A counselor. A tool for a cause. With you, in that room, I was… something else. I was just a woman.”
She placed the book aside and rose. The silk of her dress whispered with the movement. She crossed the space between them, the fur rugs swallowing the sound of her steps, and stopped a breath away. She pressed her palm flat against Y/N’s chest, over the worn leather of her tunic, right where her heart hammered against her ribs.
“I will not be used again,” Missandei stated, her gaze locked on Y/N’s. “Not as leverage. Not as a political token. Not by her. Not by anyone.”
Y/N looked down at the hand on her chest. She covered it with her own, her scarred, calloused fingers completely enveloping Missandei’s slender ones. The contrast was stark. “Then don’t be,” Y/N said, her voice a low rasp scraped from somewhere deep and rarely accessed. “Stay here. With me.”
A single tear escaped, tracing a path down Missandei’s cheek where the firelight caught it. She leaned forward, her forehead coming to rest against Y/N’s collarbone. Her lips brushed the line of Y/N’s jaw as she whispered, “I am afraid.”
Y/N didn’t move, didn’t dare breathe too loudly. “Of Sansa?”
“Of what I want.” Missandei’s voice was muffled against her. “It is a very large thing, to want something for myself. It feels… reckless.”
A rough, quiet sound escaped Y/N—almost a laugh, but too weary for humor. “I’ve faced Dothraki screamers, dead armies, and Southron intrigues. Nothing in my long life has ever been as terrifying as walking into this room.” She felt Missandei’s slight tremor. “So be reckless with me. I’ll stand with you.”
Missandei pulled back just enough to search her face. She saw the truth of it in the storm-grey eyes, in the tight set of the warrior’s jaw. The fear was mutual. It was a common ground, perhaps the only one they truly needed.
She reached up and traced the line of a recent, thin scar on Y/N’s temple. “You need stitching,” she murmured, her practical tone a sudden, warm contrast to the tension.
“It’s fine.”
“It is not fine. Sit.”
It was an order, delivered with a counselor’s gentle firmness. Y/N, who commanded garrisons, found herself obediently shrugging off her cloak and sitting in the chair Missandei had vacated. Missandei moved to a small chest, retrieving a sewing kit of fine bone needles and silk thread.
She knelt before Y/N, her dress pooling around her. She cleaned the wound with a cloth dipped in wine—Y/N didn’t flinch—and began the quick, precise work of closing the cut. The pull of the thread was a faint, sharp tug.
“You said you loved me,” Missandei said quietly, not looking up from her work.
“I did.”
“Do you remember?”
“Every word.”
Missandei snipped the thread. “Good.” She sat back on her heels, her hands resting in her lap. The intimate act of care had diffused the last of the formal distance. “Sansa believes my presence complicates your loyalty.”
Y/N leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “My loyalty is to the North. To its people. To her as my queen. It is not a blind thing. It sees you. It…” She struggled, the words clumsy. “It wants you here. Those things don’t fight each other unless she forces them to.”
“And if she does?”
Y/N was silent for a long moment. The fire popped. “Then I will tell my queen she is mistaken.”
The simplicity of the statement, its utter lack of drama, seemed to calm Missandei more than any oath could. She nodded, accepting it. She stood and offered her hand. Y/N took it, rising to her full height, suddenly aware of how she dominated the small, feminine space.
“You are tired,” Missandei said.
“I haven’t slept properly since you left the first time.”
That earned a true smile, small and soft. “Then stay. Not for anything else. Just to sleep.”
They moved to the bed. Y/N removed her boots and sword belt, placing them neatly within reach—old habits—but kept her tunic and breeches on. Missandei blew out the single candle and slid beneath the furs in her thin shift. They lay on their sides, facing each other in the dark, close but not touching.
“In Meereen,” Missandei whispered, “you looked at me across the strategy table and you saw me. Not the chain around my neck, not my mistress’s voice. Me.”
“You had a mind like a Valyrian steel trap. It was… impressive.”
Missandei’s hand found Y/N’s in the darkness, lacing their fingers together. “You were the first person in that room who did not speak to me as if I were a bridge to be crossed. You spoke to me as if I were the destination.”
Y/N brought their joined hands to her lips, pressing a kiss to Missandei’s knuckles. The gesture was unbearably gentle. “I was.”
The silence that followed was comfortable, filled only with the crackle of the fire and the gradual slowing of their breath. The weight of the day, of the confrontation, of years of loneliness, began to lift from Y/N’s shoulders. Her eyes grew heavy.
Just before sleep took her, Missandei’s voice came again, a drowsy murmur. “The silk handkerchief… you kept it.”
Y/N, half-gone, squeezed her hand. “Yes.”
“It smells of Winterfell now. Of leather and pine and you. I like it.”
Y/N didn’t have a reply. She just held on, anchor and harborage at once, as the deep, quiet snow of the North continued to fall silently beyond the window, burying secrets and, for this one night, granting peace.