Each step was an assault on the snow, a steady press through the hip-high fluff.

She did not leave footprints so much as a deep gash, black and shadowed in the dull blue mountainside. The moon, or what was left of it, struggled behind a choking net of clouds, even its frail light denied to the mountain below.

Some thirty leagues from the wall, from the wildlings, from any life at all, Melisandre trudged, uphill, snow melting with every step, freezing again in her wake. Even the Others shunned this place, though whether from fear or reverence, she did not know.

Only her heart, beating fierce and afraid, carried the fire of life in this lonely place. The one who waited knew nothing of warmth.

Up she climbed, step by step, pulse by pulse, the silent drum of war pounding in her chest, war against the enemy, against the endless winter whose icy claws were bit by bit raking all life from the world. The one who brought the winter waited ahead.

The night was dark, and full of terror, and Melisandre was afraid.

Then the moon struggled free from its bonds, and she saw it, not a quarter league off.

The citadel of the enemy loomed large on a clifftop, a palace wrought not of stone and sweat, but of ice, ice that obeyed and twisted into impossible towers, massive turrets, queer minarets clawing at the sky.

She stopped in her tracks, conviction wavering in the face of that monstrosity. In her moment of doubt, she felt an icy intelligence press its way through her skin, tighten its grip around her heart. She fell forward into the snow's soft embrace, testing her weakness, testing her resolve. She felt the call of the dark and the cold, and closed her eyes...

The choker round her throat blazed bright, red gold searing her skin, and her cry of pain pierced the silent skies. Slowly, she stood. R'hllor had chosen her for this task, and so on she went, watching the castle all the while, hating its unreal, alien beauty. This is what wants to replace us, what will spread across the world should I fail. This queer un-life, impossibly high crystal cities of ice and light, inhabited by the cold bodies of the Others, bodies which not so much live as are animated, made to move by the enemy's unknowable strength. There could be no failure. Death, death was acceptable, even welcome. Failure was not.

Movement, on a balcony. Again, her heart nearly froze. The dark shape of the enemy stood there, watching her, silent. The castle had no gate, no doors, just a great open maw, a deep slit in the ice through which giants might ride mammoths without hoping to touch the top.

Melisandre made her way toward that opening, and did not falter, even when the snow gave way to perfectly smooth slabs of ice, leading up and up into that terrible place.

She passed through the threshold, into the frozen heart of the great enemy, blind in the darkness, mind retreating behind her body, praying, hoping for some signal or sign. Around her, human forms seemed to flicker in the half-light. Above, she felt the enemy move.

She suddenly stopped, as if by instinct, and spread her arms, scattering powder that caught flame as it fell, a semicircle of fire lighting the atrium, the impossible chandelier, spears of colored ice, a hundred icy statues, and Her.

The other, the Great Other, the enemy whose name must not be spoken, stood not ten strides off, skin pale as snow, hair golden-white, eyes blue and piercing as the crystal citadel itself. Melisandre nearly laughed. She'd never imagined the enemy would be wearing a dress, and an elaborate one at that. Perhaps she was not the enemy, only his emissary, as Melisandre was R'hllor's. Regardless, she had to be destroyed.

And yet, neither woman moved.

The wind whined. Melisandre's heart beat a steady march. The ruby at her throat began to glow, its heat warming her, scorching her, a delicious pain confirming that she yet lived.

"You've come to end the long winter?" The voice was bright, melodious, deep, and full of sorrow.

Melisandre said nothing, heat coursing through her fingertips, pumping through her body, preparing itself.

"Winter is mute. May we speak, before you do what must be done? Words crack the ice and herald spring."

Melisandre's skin was steaming, her body glowing, though the flames around her were dying down. "Who are the girls?" she asked, gesturing to the statues that filled the hall.

The enemy grinned a wicked, bitter grin. "Sisters. I killed them both, a long time ago."

The icy statues stood in pairs, the same scenes over and over, two children smiling, laughing, rolling balls of snow. Was this a trick, or some vestigial humanity? "You have murdered uncounted thousands. Why remember them?"

The enemy frowned. "The past is in the past, yet those days and those dead always remain with us. Guilt reigns forever."

Melisandre sneered. "Where I'm from, we burn the dead."

The enemy looked at her with something like pity. "These girls' hearts were frozen, their bodies entombed in ice. First one, and soon after, the other. They loved each other dearly, but because of me they will remain separate for all time." She cocked her head to one side, and smiled knowingly. "Do you like my tomb?"

Melisandre's hands began to smoke, and she stepped forward.

"Not yet." The enemy held up one hand, and Melisandre felt the heat wicking from her ruby, from her hands, her heart. "I'm the murderer. Out here, I decide when I die."

But Melisandre did not stop, took one step and another, each more difficult than the last, like pushing through six feet of snow and ice.

"Don't come any closer." Her voice was grating, and the walls of the palace echoed with icy groans.

Melisandre took another step. She reached out, to do what must be done.

"Don't!" There was fear in the enemy's eyes, and something else. She stepped back, but Melisandre leapt at her, knocking her to the ground. "No!"

The anguished cry rang throughout the empty chamber, for Melisandre was frozen solid, ice spreading across her body, till her eyes widened and her ruby cracked.

Black smoke rose from the splintered jewel, a few wisps, then nothing.

Elsa put her head in her hands and wept.