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CaveLeather
Melisandre's words seemed to instantly drop the temperature in the entire room by several degrees.
Stannis stared at her, his gloomy eyes swirling with confusion and a heavily suppressed, volcanic fury.
"Fire?"
"I already sacrificed Shireen! What else could you possibly want?!"
He had already made the absolute ultimate sacrifice!
He had offered up his one and only son—that poor, sick child—as a literal sacrifice!
And this witch was still not satisfied!
"That was merely the kindling."
Melisandre shook her head. Her face carried the pitying look of someone looking down on the pathetic ignorance of mortals.
"Prince Shireen's fire of life was only enough to light the candle for the miracle."
"The true power required to ignite the flame—to turn it into an inferno that will incinerate absolutely everything in its path—must come directly from you, my King."
She took a slow step closer to Stannis, her crimson eyes burning with absolute fanaticism.
"I need your fire of life."
"The King's seed."
Stannis completely froze.
The King's seed?
He wasn't an idiot. He knew exactly what those words meant.
For the first time, his rigidly stoic face warped in sheer shock.
He instinctively took a step backward, looking at the woman in front of him like she was a highly venomous monster.
"You want me to... with you?"
His voice dripped with absolute, unfiltered disgust.
He might have bought into her dark magic, but that didn't mean he was willing to sleep with some mysterious, alien witch!
"No."
Melisandre's expression didn't shift a single inch.
Her body belonged exclusively to the true Prince Promised by the Lord of Light. And unfortunately, Stannis was not him.
"My King, you misunderstand."
"It is not you and I."
Melisandre spoke as if she had effortlessly read his mind.
"For the miracle to manifest, it requires a physical vessel to act as the furnace."
"A furnace capable of bearing the King's fire and incubating it into form."
She turned her head, looking toward the stern-faced, fiercely fanatical woman standing quietly by the doorway.
"Queen Selyse. She is deeply devout."
"She is more than willing to become this furnace for you, and for the Lord of Light."
"She is willing to birth the... child... that will slaughter every single one of your enemies."
BOOM!
Davos, still kneeling on the floor, felt like his brain had just violently detonated.
Insanity!
These people were completely fucking insane!
Forcing the Queen to incubate a... a monster?!
What kind of sick, twisted, demonic ritual was this?!
"No! Your Grace! You cannot do this!"
Davos practically scrambled on his hands and knees, desperately throwing his arms around Stannis's legs.
"That is your wife!"
"How could you possibly subject her to—"
Stannis didn't say a word.
He just looked down at his own hands, the veins bulging violently from how hard his fists were clenched.
Selyse.
His wife.
He had never loved her. Their marriage was nothing more than a cold, calculated political alliance.
But she was still his wife. The lady of House Baratheon.
And now, he was about to actively participate in subjecting her to an incredibly bizarre, utterly degrading ritual.
"For victory."
Selyse's voice cut through the heavy silence.
She walked right up to Stannis. Her face was completely devoid of shame or hesitation; there was only the psychotic, euphoric thrill of a zealot about to sacrifice herself to her god.
"For the Lord of Light, I am willing to sacrifice absolutely everything."
"My body, my soul—they all belong entirely to the great flame."
She looked at Stannis. The eyes staring back at him held zero marital affection; it was just the dead, absolute submission of a fanatic to a divine instrument.
"Come, Stannis."
"Let us welcome the descent of the miracle together."
Stannis squeezed his eyes shut.
He felt like he was standing on the absolute edge of a cliff, a bottomless abyss yawning right behind him.
He had absolutely no way out.
"Davos."
He spoke slowly, heavily.
"Get out."
"Your Grace!"
"I said, get the fuck out!"
Stannis delivered a brutal kick, violently shoving Davos away once again.
This time, Davos didn't get back up.
He just slumped helplessly on the stone floor, staring at the completely absurd, terrifying nightmare unfolding in front of him, tears and snot streaming down his weathered face.
His King had been completely, permanently destroyed by this red witch!
---
Melisandre nodded in absolute satisfaction.
She walked over to the simple, unadorned cot in the center of the room and signaled for Selyse to lie down.
Selyse didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. She compliantly laid back, actively untying her own robes and opening her legs.
Melisandre didn't even look at her.
She simply turned her head and extended a bare hand toward Stannis.
"Now, my King."
"Please, pour your fire into the furnace."
Stannis rigidly walked forward.
Like a completely soulless wooden puppet, he followed Melisandre's exact instructions, forcing himself to complete the agonizingly degrading ritual.
The entire process was completely devoid of any human lust or passion.
There was only a freezing, bizarre, and absolutely nauseating darkness.
Melisandre stood right beside the bed, placing one hand heavily on Stannis and the other on Selyse.
She began aggressively chanting that dead, ancient incantation once more.
An invisible, raw energy was violently siphoned out of Stannis's body, channeling directly through Melisandre's hands and injecting straight into Selyse.
The flames on the candles around the room instantaneously flared into a sickly, pitch-black color!
A freezing, lethal chill violently flooded every single corner of the chamber.
Davos couldn't take another second of it.
He practically crawled out of the room, sprinting down the hall like literal demons were snapping at his heels.
He hid just outside, peering back through the crack in the heavy door in absolute, paralyzed terror.
He watched.
Melisandre's chanting rapidly spiked, growing faster and impossibly frantic!
On the bed, Selyse's body began to violently, uncontrollably convulse.
Her face warped into an expression of absolute, excruciating agony.
And her stomach... it was actually swelling, expanding at a terrifying, visible rate right before his eyes!
Exactly like a woman heavily pregnant and ready to burst!
"No... no..."
Davos was shuddering so violently his teeth chattered.
What in the actual fuck was that thing?!
Suddenly.
Selyse let out a bloodcurdling, entirely inhuman shriek!
A massive, suffocating cloud of thick black smoke violently erupted from between her legs!
The black smoke aggressively twisted and churned in mid-air, slowly condensing into a shifting, blurred humanoid silhouette!
A shadow... a shadow wearing the exact face of Stannis Baratheon!
Davos's eyes practically bulged out of his skull, his jaw hitting the floor.
What the hell was he looking at?!
A shadow!
A literal shadow that had just crawled its way out of the Queen's body!
"Demon... it's a demon!"
Davos felt like his heart was going to seize in his chest.
---
Inside the chamber.
Melisandre looked at the shadow suspended in mid-air, a highly satisfied smile stretching across her face.
She reached out a single finger and gently tapped the shadow dead center on its forehead.
Her lips moved rapidly in a silent blur, issuing a lethal, unspoken command.
A single name violently echoed inside her mind.
Renly Baratheon!
As if receiving the absolute order, the shadow gave Melisandre a slow, stiff nod.
Then, it dissolved into a wisp of dark smoke, effortlessly phasing straight through the heavy stone wall and vanishing into the night.
On the bed, Selyse's stomach instantly flattened back to normal.
She looked like she had just been dragged out of a freezing river, completely drenched in heavy sweat as she passed out cold from sheer exhaustion.
Stannis collapsed onto the stone floor, his face the color of dead ash.
Everything that had just happened had completely drained him of every single ounce of his strength.
Melisandre walked over, staring down at him from above with absolute authority.
"Congratulations, my King."
"Your absolute strongest warrior has just been born."
She turned around, locking her gaze in the direction of Storm's End, a dark, incredibly cruel smirk hooking her lips.
"Go."
"Bring absolute victory back to Stannis."
She finished, turning back to the completely broken, hollowed-out Stannis to deliver a lethal whisper.
"Lord Renly's time is officially up."
"Next... it will be Joffrey's turn."
---