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Stannis's slap used every ounce of strength in his body.
The room fell silent. Nothing left but his ragged breathing.
Melisandre didn't move.
She didn't even touch her cheek, already swelling red. She simply looked at the trembling man before her with those calm, red eyes.
No resentment in that gaze. No fear.
Only a quiet pity , the kind that sees through mortal weakness and finds it sad.
"I have felt your anger," she said.
"Your love for your daughter is equally moving."
"But, my king."
"That love will soon become the noose around your own neck."
"Silence!"
Stannis jabbed a finger at her, his eyes shot through with red.
"I warn you. Never speak Shireen's name again."
"I will not mention it again."
Melisandre's compliance was unexpected.
"Because you will soon discover how insignificant one girl's life is, measured against true royal power."
She turned and moved slowly toward the great floor-to-ceiling window.
Beyond the glass, Dragonstone's winds howled without cease. Gray waves hammered the rocks below. And at the castle's highest point, massive stone figures stood silent in the wind and rain , creatures shaped like dragons, coiled atop the towers as though they had slept there for centuries.
"My king," Melisandre said, her voice drifting back from the window. "Do you believe a shadow assassin is the greatest weapon the Lord of Light can grant you?"
"You are a man of royal blood. Your life essence holds immense power."
"So long as the blood is true, the power holds — whether yours or your ancestors'. You proved that yourself, just now."
"You carry Targaryen blood. Your grandmother was Rhaelle Targaryen. You meet the condition perfectly."
"Which means your daughter is your most powerful weapon."
Stannis went still.
His mind, rigid with rage, couldn't process it.
Could there be something more powerful than the shadow?
"What are you saying?"
"You underestimate your bloodline," Melisandre said. "And you underestimate the Lord of Light's power."
She turned from the window and raised her hand, pointing at the stone figures outside.
"Look. What do you see?"
Stannis followed her finger.
"Stone." His voice was rough. "Rocks carved into the shape of dragons. Nothing more."
"No."
Melisandre shook her head. Something close to ecstatic reverence crossed her face.
"That is not stone."
"That is sleeping power."
"The shells of true dragons."
"World-ending force, waiting to be called awake by the blood of a true king."
Stannis's breath stopped.
Dragons?
Those stones were actually dragons?
He stared at Melisandre, then back at the statues outside. A thought so absurd it should have been laughable took root in his mind and spread fast.
"You're lying."
His voice shook.
"Stone cannot be dragons."
"The Targaryen blood has grown thin." The corner of Melisandre's mouth curved. "They cannot wake true dragons."
"But you are different."
"You are not only a Baratheon. Running through your veins is the fire of ancient Valyria."
"What does that boy who stole your throne in King's Landing have?"
"He has Lynn."
"He has the dragon that makes all of Westeros tremble."
"And you, my king?"
"What do you have?"
"A lonely island. And vassals who may betray you at any moment."
Dragons.
The word. The power it carried. It was everything Stannis had ever wanted.
To burn his enemies to nothing. To watch every last one of them kneel at his feet and shake. That absolute, unassailable power.
If he had a dragon...
Stannis's body began to tremble. Not from anger. Not from fear.
From something he couldn't contain.
Ambition.
"If I had a dragon..." he murmured.
"The walls of King's Landing would mean nothing before me."
"Tywin's armies would be ash under my dragonfire."
"The Iron Throne would truly be mine."
The light in his eyes climbed and climbed. His breathing came faster.
Melisandre watched him quietly — watched the fire she had lit consume him whole.
"You are right, my lord," she said. "Possess a dragon, and all Seven Kingdoms will prostrate themselves at your feet. You will no longer be Stannis of Dragonstone. You will be the only true Dragon King in all of Westeros."
Dragon King.
Those words hit like lightning, splitting open every last wall of reason.
He lunged to the window and pressed both hands against the cold stone sill, eyes locked on the statues outside. His reflection stared back at him from the glass , the face of a man already lost in a vision of himself astride a dragon, fire raining from the sky, Storm's End and the Red Keep burning to white ash.
Renly on his knees. Joffrey on his knees. Both weeping, begging for mercy.
"How?"
Stannis spun and seized Melisandre's shoulders. His eyes blazed red.
"Tell me how to wake them."
She let him grip her. Her face showed nothing.
"A price," she said calmly. "To wake a true dragon requires a sacrifice. Pure. And powerful."
The blaze in Stannis's face went cold.
He let go and stumbled back two steps.
He remembered.
He remembered the proposal that had filled him with revulsion and fury only moments ago.
"After all of this, you still want me to sacrifice the princess."
"Yes."
Melisandre didn't flinch. She didn't hide a thing.
"She is the only key. Her blood is the only fuel that can wake the stone dragon."
She looked at his face, twisted with the effort of fighting himself, and pressed harder.
"And if you want a dragon, this sacrifice will be nothing like the last. Before, when we created the shadow, we only borrowed the prince's fire — a small draw on a life already burning out."
"But this time..."
Her voice went to ice.
"We need to burn the princess's life away entirely. Every last drop of it. Her flesh. Her soul. All of it becomes fuel for the dragon's waking."
"In return, not only will you wake the stone dragon. That vast life force will be enough to birth an even more powerful shadow assassin than before."
"Two birds with one stone, my king."
"One daughter's life. In exchange for a true dragon and an assassin who can kill Joffrey."
"Is that not a worthwhile trade?"
Stannis stood motionless.
On one side: Shireen's face. Innocent. Trusting. Pitiable.
On the other: himself on a dragon's back, fire raining down, the Seven Kingdoms burning beneath him, a crown being placed on his head.
Father, or king.
Family, or throne.
His heart was being pulled in two directions at once. He felt as though his very soul might tear down the middle.
He had been able to abandon the prince. The boy didn't have long left anyway , he could force himself past his conscience, tell himself it was a final contribution, a last sacrifice for the good of the realm.
But Shireen was different. She suffered from greyscale, yes, but she was alive. She moved through the world with none of the prince's fragility. They were not the same situation at all.
How was he supposed to agree to this?
"A true king must learn to sacrifice."
Melisandre's voice was a whisper at his ear. It circled and would not leave.
Stannis slowly closed his eyes.
"How certain are you?"
A long silence.
"Will it actually wake?"
➤ Next: Renly's Death
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