Davos?

  His return to Dragonstone saw the royal fleet arrayed across its harbor in strength. A nervous breath escaped him when no signs of a struggle showed, his hand clutching at his fingerbones.

  His lord met him at the docks with all the candor of a statue. "You are delayed, Ser Davos."

  "Aye, my lord. The Lady Melisandre had spoken truly…"

  "And how did Lord Stark take the news?"

  A courtesy cold as winter, he wanted to say. "Unhappily. I suspect he intended to confront the sorcerer."

  A soft snort escaped his lord's frown. "I expect he had no more luck than myself."

  He hadn't any insight to offer on a sorcerer's doings. The few words they had exchanged when he had ferried his person to King's Landing had only served to muddle his wits until it seemed as though up was down and east was west.

  "No matter. We will see what Eddard Stark has set his mind to once he returns to King's Landing." His lord's shadow showed as the clouds in the sky outpaced the sun. "When his Dornish peace turns to smoke in his hands and he finds Storm's End lost to him, the realm shall see my brother's crown revealed as motley."

  "Lost to him?" he questioned in a whisper.

  "We sail for the stormlands on the morrow, Ser Davos."

  He clutched at his pouch of fingerbones again. "A siege might take years. And to storm it…"

  "We will take it in the night, but not with a storm over its walls." Those cold blue eyes looked out across the sea. "I am not without honor. Ser Cortnay shall have the one chance to spare himself, and no other."

  He was given leave to spend the rest of the day breaking bread with his sons. They were eager. Too eager perhaps, but he would not dampen their hopes with his uncertainty. Their lord's cause was just.

  If they were successful, he might even be granted leave to return to his wife. At least for a time. He whispered a prayer to the Mother and the Crone for it.

  They set sail with the sunrise cresting the narrow sea, a strong wind hastening them south.

  Davos touched a hand to his son's arm as Dragonstone vanished behind them. "I mean to find a ship for you once we've seen this through."

  They had waylaid enough would-be smugglers these past moons, and he had coin enough to spare for repairs.

  Matthos carried a smile. "I'll have to think of a name."

  "I know you will think of a fine one."

  It was not even a sennight later that they reached Storm's End, a thing of stone softly illuminated by the dying sun and what fires crowned it. He spied Fury venturing ahead, the parlay visible by the sight of torches upon the cliffside.

  It only lasted long enough for the sun to set completely.

  His lord soon joined him aboard Black Betha, the red woman on his heels turning the night's chill to flight. He watched more warily as grim-faced knights brought the wildfire aboard from Fury. They had not sent all of it to the bottom of the narrow sea.

  "Ser Cortnay will regret his folly before dawn."

  It was not as mad a plan as storming the walls, but only by a shade. He had seen how quickly wildfire devoured a ship. One misstep would see them all meet the Stranger sooner than they hoped.

  His lord returned aboard Fury, where the red woman stayed. There was not a hint of worry about her.

  Her eyes just as red touched his knowingly. "The Lord of Light has already revealed our triumph this night, Ser Davos."

  "Then I pray your god is right, my lady…"

  He still whispered a prayer to the Seven as he traced the steps that he had once taken, slowly easing them between the jagged rocks to a passageway one could reach only at high tide.

  The rest of the royal fleet disembarked and played at a siege.

  His blood turned to ice at a grinding sound that could have only come from the treacherous waters they navigated. When he had made this journey last, his ship had been smaller and sleeker than Black Betha. His heart only relented when his son shouted some fair news from below deck. They were not taking on water.

  Finally they weighed anchor, mooring her to the cliffside.

  The hours of the night lulled by as they waited with bated breath. They needed its defenders to think that no storm was forthcoming.

  It was nearer to the hour of the wolf that they stirred, thirteen of his men joining him. Where the knights were to open a path for them, their task would be to open Storm's End to the three thousand men waiting outside it. His lord had instructed him personally on all the parts involved.

  Though harder to tell in the gloom, he spied Ser Richard Horpe and his moths leading their procession. Ser Godry Farring and Ser Clayton Suggs followed with the wildfire, the first bearing crossed knights and the second a winged pig. Their brows were wet with sweat.

  There were a score other knights besides, all those that had given their hearts to the fire god.

  "The Lord of Light walks with us," the red priestess whispered into the gloom next to him, the ruby at her throat the only torch they needed. "Let him steel your hearts."

  His own men only sent her queer looks.

  The portcullis that met them at the end had black iron bars too narrow to fit even a lady's hand. Doubtless one could hack away at it for a fortnight and hardly dent it.

  The crate was carefully set against it, some dozen clay pots and tightly packed straw peeking through. He already clutched at his fingerbones when the red woman touched a hand to Ser Richard's shoulder, the knight making way.

  The red silks that trailed after her seemed redder as she touched her fingers to the ruby gleaming at her throat. A breath later the world erupted in a green so bright he had to shield his eyes.

  He still breathed, even if it was rent with the scents of a forge. The heat scalded his skin even through the thick wool.

  When he cast his eyes upon the portcullis again, he saw that the wildfire had not spread. Instead it stuck to the black iron, scorched all the blacker by the sorcerous flames cast from the seven hells. The eyes of the knights there were more rapturous than fearful, where his own men were more sensible.

  The metal soon sloughed like sweet tar from the Summer Isles, snaking across the stones. The ruby at her throat had dimmed slightly, he noticed.

  Steel was drawn as the way opened, and they moved quickly.

  In spite of the punishing pace, the red woman had not even a drop of sweat grace her brow. Not even when bloodshed began to shadow their steps.

  They arrived at the gatehouse as the air came alive with shouts. "Quickly," he urged his men.

  There were three interlocking gates carved into the curtain wall a hundred feet high and half as wide, meaning three mechanisms they were to lock into place without knowing how they worked.

  It had a whisper of sorcery in his eyes.

  Stannis led the charge himself when they were finished, three thousand men sweeping over the courtyard like a wave in a storm. Ser Cortnay was brought before his lord before the sun had ever risen.

  "Treachery," the knight spat, his bald head shining under the torchlight.

  "Not treachery, ser." The courtesy was delivered like a breath of winter. "Perhaps Renly has forgotten, but I held Storm's End for a year as the Tyrells feasted every eve outside my walls. As my flesh wasted away. Did you not think I turned over every stone?"

  "Yet King Robert had not named you Lord of Storm's End in his stead," the stubborn knight spat again.

  Davos winced. He could not doubt Ser Cortnay's courage, but a wiser man would have asked for a clean end.

  "And the Father above knows he was right to!" The knight's eyes turned feverish. "Even the seven hells would balk at the likes of you now. A puppet to a red whore!"

  Ser Godry dealt him a blow that knocked a tooth loose for the insult, and others threatened worse. Yet the lady only gave a haunt of a smile, eyes smoldering like hot coals in the night's gloom.

  His lord's teeth ground themselves to dust a moment. "That's twice you've spurned me now, Ser Cortnay. There shall not be a third."

  The knight dared to spit more insults as he was dragged away, the red woman shadowing their steps.

  "You served me well tonight, Ser Davos." He knew that tone. "Against a hundred wagging tongues that would tell me otherwise, I would name you my master of ships."

  His tongue tied. "My lord, I am lowborn…"

  "And have served me more ably than any of my lords."

  Those eyes blue as a bruising storm held not even a sliver of doubt as his lord continued.

  "The Lady Melisandre has seen that my brother had left no trueborn heirs. Only bastards. She swears on the name of her god that it is true." A tiredness seemed to take him, but it was quickly smothered in steel. "I did not ask for it, Ser Davos, just as you have not. Be glad I do not name you my Hand also."

  A shadow of a smile he saw at the last words. He might have seen himself draining a cup of poison as another Hand had for such folly.

  He fell to a knee. "Your Grace."

  "Rise, Davos Seaworth, rise as Lord of the Rainwood and master of ships."

  In a few words Stannis had made him a high lord.

  He returned to his feet unsteadily, not knowing what words to say. A red priestess would soon save him the trouble, her silks exchanged for scarlet satin and blood velvet.

  "It is ready," she intoned into the night. The words put his hairs on edge.

  They proceeded into the godswood where he found Ser Cortnay lashed to the tree at its heart. A weirwood with a solemn face, its bark bone pale and its leaves blood.

  A sea of faces had joined them, even his sons, though he thanked the Mother that Devan was not there. It was not a sight for a boy of one-and-ten.

  He quietly joined them. "You are the sons of a lord now," he whispered. Perhaps it might see Allard comport himself with a shade more seriousness.

  The red woman's melodic voice carried easily across the godswood. "The Lord of Light heralds you, Your Grace. All can see it."

  He followed the eyes of the others. His mouth went dry at what he saw in the heavens. A thing red as blood streaked across half the sky, brighter than the moon.

  It was not there the last night, he knew, nor any night before it.

  His eyes returned at the sound of footsteps in the quiet wood. The knight lashed to the weirwood stared spitefully at her approach.

  "May R'hllor hold you close to his heart, Ser Cortnay Penrose."

  "The Others bugger your Red Rahloo," he spat at her.

  No anger touched her. Instead a flicker of her fingers saw the kindling around the weirwood set alight.

  She began to chant in the speech of Asshai, a tongue as dark as any he had heard, then High Valyrian, and finally the Common Tongue.

  "Lord of Light, we offer you this false god of the dark wood, servant of your enemy, and a soul strayed far from your path." The shadows of the godswood grew deeper for each word that passed her lips, red tongues of flame licking at the knight's legs. "Take them and cast your light upon us, for the night is dark and full of terrors."

  Half of those there repeated after her. Davos spied a deep frown on the Lord of Sweetport Sound, his moonstones reflecting the flames, but no more. Doubtless he did not care for it, but he would not stir himself for gods he did not keep. Neither did Ser Hubard Rambton and his pious sons. Not a one of those there moved as insults turned to screams, the stench curdling his stomach.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  None but his king when he strode forth to plunge a sword into the knight's heart, a fat ruby cresting its crossguard.

  The screams ebbed, only for a queer wind to replace them, the leaves of the weirwood blackened with soot now. The red priestess continued in a voice almost rapturous, the ruby at her throat burning torch-bright again.

  "In Asshai it is written that there will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword." The bark of the weirwood began to crack from the heat, its tears black. "And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him."

  The sword stuck in the weirwood began to emit a glow all its own, drawing whispers like a storm.

  "Azor Ahai, beloved of R'hllor!" Her smoldering eyes found his king, his shadow stretching into the gloom. "The Warrior of Light, the Son of Fire! Your sword awaits you!"

  Stannis stirred again to pull free the sword from the heart of the corpse and the weirwood both. The red woman joined him with a crown of red gold in her hands, its points like flames, and placed it upon his brow.

  Though the flames had spread to his gloved hand, he still raised the sorcerous sword high into the sky, just as the sun dawned in the east.

  A chant soon joined the crackle of the flames devouring the weirwood.

  "STANNIS! STANNIS! STANNIS! STANNIS! STANNIS! STANNIS! STANNIS!"

  Arianne?

  She drank in the night sky, her heart quickening in her breast. For all she had heard the words leave a sorcerer's lips, to actually see it…

  Viserys stood upon the balcony next to her enraptured, his lips parted as his pale eyes reflected the red of the sky. Though she had grown fonder of her betrothed since his seeding her belly with a dragon, he still sometimes turned her thoughts to worry.

  "Solomon will be awaiting me," he voiced. "Awaiting us," he added more softly as his eyes touched hers.

  They dressed richly, for it was not an occasion that happened every day. Twining garnets into her hair and silks, she spied herself in the mirror under the soft gloom of torchlight, a smile taking her full lips.

  The Bastard of Godsgrace quietly shadowed them as they departed, even as his white cloak shadowed him. The cast of his summer eyes hid his thoughts from her.

  They rode west into the Dornish desert, for the hot sun and wind that had shaped the sands touched closer to the nature of a dragon than the waters that Sunspear looked over. Her own forays into sorcery had not been as productive as she hoped, but it was not as if she had a water witch of old to whisper in her ear. Even the orphans only remembered a scant few spells they whispered to the Greenblood when the moon sat highest in the sky.

  Yet Solomon had promised they could rediscover it together, using her blood to cast his sight into the past. He even shared with her something of the Second Spice War, when the Rhoyne washed over three cities in vengeance for Sarhoy.

  The sight of a wall of muddy water some hundred feet high had stuck with her as much as the sights of Ny Sar and Chroyane. Now she walked her nights among the ghosts of a people gone a thousand years.

  It was torchlights that she spied first from the back of her red stallion, three great circles set into the sands. Where the three intertwined a great pyre had been placed.

  A blot of yellow stood nearer to the boundary, conversing with the archmaester that haunted Sunspear of late. Though every maester she had ever known preferred subdued greys, this one vestured in stark blues and blacks, the maester's chain around his thick neck and broad shoulders bearing links in dozens of colors.

  Her princely uncle, newly returned, had also preempted them as he affixed what remained of Amory Lorch to a pyre in the shape of a dragon some fifteen feet high. The fat knight had melted away to leave only skin and bones, and that was but the least of the eyeless, tongueless horror that stared at nothing.

  It was a fate he had well earned half-a-hundred times over.

  "Arianne," he greeted cheerfully as she slid from her stallion's back. "Your Grace."

  Viserys eyed the false knight upon the pyre with a satisfied smile. "Prince Oberyn," he greeted more absently. He stirred to caress the cheek of the quivering skeleton. "It is only right that a beast that had stolen a dragon from this world pay for the return of her cousins."

  A sorcerer approached with a smile of his own, a silver maiden at his back. The yellow that bedecked him had drunk of all the torchlight like a glutton.

  "Are you ready, Your Grace?"

  Viserys met him boldly. "I am."

  Solomon turned his eyes on the night sky next, a bloody star still smeared across it. "Is it not beautiful?"

  "Everything you promised," her betrothed whispered.

  "It warms my heart to hear."

  More arrived, Tyene first with all her sisters except for the two youngest that had stayed in Sunspear, and finally her father and brothers.

  Many of the lords and ladies of Dorne were also in attendance, Yronwoods and Ullers, Santagars and Daynes, Qorgoyles and Blackmonts. She idly spied the Heir of Kingsgrave, Mors Manwoody, speaking quietly with Darkstar.

  The wind tugged at her hair as her eyes glanced at the mountains to their north. Otherwise it was only the sands on every side of them.

  Tyene touched her shoulder to whisper in her ear. "This is certain to be a spectacle."

  "If it doesn't turn into another Summerhall," she whispered back. The worry had never gone, only been subdued by their sorcerer's certainty.

  Nymeria had heard her, separating from her mother of the Old Blood to join them. That they had matching braids threatened to stir a jest from her still, one black as night and one pale silver.

  "Mmm, I think it would be a spectacle even so," she whispered in her other ear.

  The very last to arrive were Maegon and his sister-wife, Maena, clad in rich silks and gemstones that would have beggared most of the Houses of Westeros. They had come from Volantis a sennight ago in the company of the snake hanging off of her.

  She had told her the story, and suddenly Arianne understood the mystery that was Maegon Laessaryon.

  She watched him now as he brought the villains of that story, his own father and elder brother, before a dragon of wood and straw and pitch.

  Unlike Amory Lorch still squirming against his bindings like a worm in white, there was hardly any life to them, as if they had each drunk a cupful of poppy.

  "My lords. My ladies. Princes and princesses…" Solomon's voice easily carried on the wind, and he had three eyes again when men only had two. "You have waited long enough."

  There was a Targaryen on either side of him, one determined and the other hungry. And in the sand at their feet were glyphs she recognized as High Valyrian. Though Caleotte had never managed to teach her the tongue, something must have remained.

  Areo Hotah soon carved through the throng with a pair of smoking torches in his calloused hands, the Norvoshi's eyes shadowed in the gloom. He surrendered them to a brother and sister before he retreated to stand over her father again.

  Solomon beckoned them forward, and they cast their torches, the flames taking to the pitch like a cup of spilled wine.

  When they reached the false knight, it did not take him long to give a tongueless scream. She saw her youngest brother pale for it.

  The two of the Old Blood of Volantis did not stir even as their silver hair burned.

  Solomon's silken voice carried over the wet screams, and though she did not understand the words, she knew it was the tongue of the dragonlords. The glyphs had caught fire, their flames as bloody as the bleeding star in the sky, and at the heart of the conflagration she spied three eggs gleaming like fat gemstones.

  One was in Targaryen colors, black and red, one had all the colors of a forest, and the last was milk and honey, silver and gold. Yet as the flames reached the dragon's head and the wood of which it was fashioned hissed and splintered, the three stone eggs remained only that.

  Solomon stared into the flames as whispers spread.

  "Had it not worked?" Tyene questioned herself.

  It was a Targaryen princess that would stir first. "I hear them," she whispered, taking a step nearer to the flames as if she were a moth instead. "They are only children…"

  Solomon glanced at her a moment. Then he walked into the flames.

  Her lips parted at the madness, if madness it was. Though all his cloak of black hair vanished in a breath, the rest of him was unharmed, a haunting figure wreathed in flame.

  His blushing bride and her brother followed.

  The next moment a crack broke across the night, the crack of stone, not the crack of wood. The conflagration grew brighter, hotter, madder, tongues of flame licking at the sands. They stepped some paces back as black smoke threatened to smother the world.

  Then came a second crack that put a fright into the horses, sounding as if it were thunder.

  Her father leaned on her uncle and her elder brother, his pale cane bursting into flames where it was abandoned. Obara sheltered her younger sisters with herself where Sarella watched enraptured with the archmaester.

  The dragon black as char would soon collapse on itself, leaving a sight so bright it was as if the night had turned to day.

  As the heat and smoke scorched her breath, a part of her wondered if there was anything left. The babe in her belly might be all that was left of House Targaryen.

  The third crack sounded as if the earth beneath them had split asunder.

  When the flames had at last begun to subside, the night had turned to day as dawn had broken over the horizon. Amidst the embers stood three figures.

  The Kingsguard stirred to guard the modesty of their king and princess, for the flames had devoured more than their hair, leaving only a Valyrian steel sword. But that was not what her eyes were on. They each held a dragon to their breast, one as black as Balerion the Black Dread and the other bright as the rising sun in the east. And the third…

  It twined around a sorcerer's arm, suckling from a cut nearer to his wrist like it was a kitten at its mother's teat.

  It too shared the same colors as its egg, she saw, its scales green and its teeth and claws black as dragonglass, and with every drop of sorcerer's blood that it quenched its thirst with, its eyes turned more yellow.

  Though where the flames had left the Targaryens bare as newborn babes, the yellow that bedecked him had stubbornly remained, only blackened slightly. And where the eyes of every soul there stared at the first dragons in an age, all three of his stared at the red smear in the sky, easy to see even at dawn.

  Even when faced with her beauty, she had never seen a man's eyes so hungry…