Melisandre of Asshai, sorceress, shadowbinder, and priestess to R'hllor, the Ruler of Light, the Core of Fire, the Lord of Fire and Shadow.

Melisandre,whose frenzy should not be permitted to spread past Dragonstone. His chambers appeared to be faint and desolate after the brilliance of the morning. With mishandling hands, the elderly person lit a candle and conveyed it to the workroom underneath the rookery step, where his treatments, mixtures, and andmeds stood conveniently on their racks. On the base rack behind a line of ointments in squat dirt containers, he tracked down a vial of indigo glass, no bigger than his little finger. It shook when he shook it. Then, Cressen blew away a layer of residue and, what's more, conveyed it back to his table. Imploding into his seat, he pulled the plug and poured out the vial's contents. Twelve precious stones, no bigger than seeds, shook across the material he'd been perusing. They sparkled like gems in the candlelight, so purple that the maester wound up thinking that he had never really seen the variety. The chain around his throat felt extremely weighty. He contacted one of the precious stones softly with the tip of his little finger. Such a seemingly insignificant thing to hold the force of life and death. It was made with a specific plant that grew exclusively on the islands of the Jade Ocean, half a world away. The leaves must be matured before absorbing a wash of lime and sugar water, as well as some intriguing flavors from the mid-year Isles. A short time later, they could be disposed of. However, the elixir must be thickened with debris and permitted to solidify. The cycle was slow and troublesome, the necessities exorbitant and difficult to obtain. However, the chemists of Lysknew its method, as did the Anonymous Men of Braavos... and themaesters of his request as well, but it was not discussed beyond the walls of the Bastion. All the world knew that a maester earned his silver connection when he learned to mend; however, the world preferred to forget that men who knew how to mend also knew how to kill. The Cressen at this point has not reviewed the name the Asshai'i gave the leaf, or the Lysene poisoners the precious stone. In the Bastion, it was just called the Thestrangler. Broken up in wine, it would make the muscles of a man's throat tighter than any clenched hand, stopping his windpipe. They said a casualty's face turned as purple as the little gem seed from which his demise was developed, but so too did a man stifling on a piece of food. Also, this very night, Ruler Stannis would eat his bannermen, his woman-spouse, and the red lady, Melisandre of Asshai.