Before the wights approached Winterfell last night, Stannis had already received word. He had ample time to adjust himself to his best condition.
Tonight, I will fulfill my destiny. I will end the Night King, end the Long Night, and bring summer back to the world.
As Melisandre fastened ruby chains around his wrists and neck, Stannis looked at himself in the full-length mirror and thought this.
He had every reason to be confident, because the red woman had seen his fate in the flames: today, he would not die.
If he would not die, then the one who must die could only be the Night King.
"I am with you!" Like a vine, the red woman wrapped herself around his lean, muscular body from behind, her red lips wandering across the skin he had left bare.
Her crimson eyes shone, the ruby at her throat gleamed brilliantly, and he felt heat rising from his wrists and neck.
In the mirror before them, the three rubies on the man's neck and wrists blazed with radiance.
"I am with you. Tonight, glory belongs to us," Stannis murmured.
This was no empty promise.
Her spiritual power and magic flowed through the rubies into his body, coursing beneath his flesh, through his marrow, and into his mind.
In the three-dimensional world, they remained two separate individuals; in another dimension, their bodies and souls were nearly fused into one.
He would not walk onto the battlefield alone.
Melisandre was fulfilling the promise she had made to him years ago on Dragonstone: I am with you. We will face our final destiny together, and together we will fulfill the prophecy of Asshai, my lord savior.
That year, on that night, she had made him understand his true destiny and given him a new purpose in life.
To save the world.
It was also that night that they had become one in body and soul.
At thirty years old, with a daughter already five, it was truly the first time he had experienced the supreme joy between a man and a woman.
It was a strange sensation he had never found with Selyse.
He was fascinated by it, yet he did not indulge himself in it.
He needed her to help him fulfill his responsibility.
He pushed her away and refused her eagerness. "I must face the Night King in my best condition."
Melisandre slipped from him like a lifeless snake.
"Tonight, you will fulfill the ancient prophecy," she said with a smile as she helped him into his armor.
Hand in hand, they went to the King's Gate.
When Daenerys faced the dark sky and loudly challenged the Night King, Stannis was already prepared for battle.
But the Night King wanted to test humanity's worth and postponed the challenge until noon the next day.
Stannis felt somewhat deflated.
Then, wielding his red sword, he slaughtered relentlessly along the western wall. Ten kills, fifty, one hundred—he cut down two hundred wights.
He began to feel exhausted.
Jon Snow urged him to return and rest.
He agreed.
With six hours remaining until noon, he returned to the castle, embraced the red-haired priestess, and after an intense bout, collapsed onto the bed soaked in sweat and fell into a deep sleep.
Including the time he had spent with Melisandre in fierce passion, less than two hours had passed when the western wall fell, and he was jolted awake from his slumber.
Only when he saw two dragons retake the wall did he relax. He returned to his bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep again.
So he tore open her red robe once more.
Half an hour later, just as he lay down and drifted into sleep, the fire in the hearth, the candles on the table, and the torches on the walls were extinguished all at once.
The sudden, extreme cold was like Melisandre's tongue, licking at his skin, raising goosebumps before burrowing into his body and making his soul tremble.
He abruptly sat up in bed. "It's here."
"Yes, it has come." The red woman had already changed into another red robe. With a snap of her fingers, sparks burst forth from the hearth, torches, and candles, and flames flared to life once more.
"Go back to sleep. It is still early before the appointed time," she said gently.
"I cannot sleep." He made to rise.
"I will help you sleep." She leaned toward him again.
He pushed her away, his face stern. "It has come to challenge us. I cannot avoid it."
"With Daenerys there, Winterfell can hold for another three hours. Making it wait a little longer may unsettle it. Perhaps that is why it came early," the red woman said as she embraced him.
"It has succeeded. Saving the world is the greatest responsibility in the world. Knowing it stands outside the city, my heart cannot be at peace," Stannis said, letting her help him into his armor.
After dressing fully, he hesitated for a moment and said to her, "Let us look into the fire one last time and see the outcome of this battle."
Melisandre was startled. "Didn't we already look before?"
"A new day has begun," he reminded her.
Only then did the red woman remember that she had not yet made her prophecy for today.
Every day, just before the sun rose, she would divine whether she would live or die that day.
For hundreds of years, without exception.
To Melisandre, a day began at the moment just before sunrise, around six or five in the morning, not at midnight.
Midnight was the hour when shadowbinders and blood mages were most active, and the warlocks of Qarth also moved at night. How could that be the beginning or end of a day?
She had made her prophecy at dawn yesterday as well: before the next dawn, she would not die.
Thus she was one hundred percent certain that Stannis would fulfill the ancient prophecy and end the Long Night.
Because their fates were intertwined. They shared life and glory.
If she did not die, then he certainly would not die.
She was so certain for one reason alone. Like the Gatekeeper, the Dragon Queen, and Goat Egg, those top-tier transcendent beings, she too possessed her own talent.
In this era, without an extraordinary gift, one would hardly dare call oneself a great figure.
There was no doubt that Melisandre was one of them.
Her talent was prophecy: foreseeing all the mortal dangers she would encounter within a single day.
In the flames she could see the cause of her death and the entire process, and ultimately alter that fate.
Over hundreds of years, she had risen from a mere temple prostitute in the Red God's temple to a demigod giant renowned in Asshai. How many life-and-death trials had she endured?
She had survived until now entirely because of her unfailing talent to foresee life and death.
She had assumed the Night King would arrive at midnight and challenge the child of prophecy then.
But it postponed the duel to noon the next day, and at six that morning, she had been entwined with Stannis and afterward had fallen into a deep sleep. For the first time in centuries, she had forgotten the habit she had upheld for hundreds of years.
"Let us look together," she said, taking his hand as they went to the hearth.
With a light wave of her hand, the flames grew stronger, and an image unfolded before them.
Stannis's heart sank.
"If this is the fate arranged for me, I am willing to accept it," he said hoarsely after a long silence.
Melisandre looked at his resolute profile for a long time, then nodded gently.
When he saw the Night King arrive alone for the meeting, Stannis was shocked.
Even though everyone understood that countless wights and Others must lurk upon the dark land in the distance, he was still astonished by its boldness.
This was a Night King with courage.
When Jaime proposed that they all attack together, he hesitated deeply.
Perhaps this was an opportunity to change fate?
But after only a moment's wavering, he grew firm as iron once more. This is my responsibility and my mission.
The King of the Seven Kingdoms and the savior bore not only glory, but also a heavy responsibility. He had believed that from the very beginning.
After regaining his resolve to challenge the Night King, he suddenly felt a trace of regret and grievance. He had always wished to shoulder his responsibility, yet he had never enjoyed the glory that belonged to the King of the Seven Kingdoms and the savior.
For no reason at all, as he stepped out from the shield wall, he thought of his brothers, Robert and Renly.
He had fulfilled all the duties of a vassal and a younger brother to Robert, yet had received neither honor nor reward in return.
If Renly had been able to show the same loyalty and devotion to his elder brother and king as he had, to be a good younger brother, he swore he would never have been like Robert. He would have praised him and given him the honor he deserved.
But alas.
Perhaps this was his fate.
As the sun dispelled the darkness and rose above Winterfell, he felt for the first time how close the Lord of Light was to him.
Light and heat surged like a torrent, flowing through Lightbringer into his body. He felt like an animal bladder being frantically inflated, about to burst.
It was divine power granted to him by the Lord of Light, though he felt it was perhaps a little too much.
That thought changed immediately after his first clash with the Night King.
The icy power transmitted from the ice sword was terrifying. With every exchange, it consumed a vast amount of light and heat.
He was like a deflated ball, rapidly shriveling.
Facing the invincible Dragon Queen, Stannis Baratheon felt ashamed to be called the God of War. Yet as a seasoned veteran of countless battlefields, he possessed the most basic judgment of the situation: he could not continue exhausting himself against the Night King like this. If his divine power ran dry, he would surely be defeated.
Moreover, after more than a dozen rounds of high-intensity combat, he began to feel fatigue creeping over him, faint yet relentless, like the steady passage of time.
Damn it. He had not rested well last night.
Perhaps he should not have gone to defend the wall.
But that was not right either. Without guarding the wall and fighting the wights and White Walkers, how could he gain experience in battling them?
Perhaps he should not have been with Melisandre. No, he should not have done it again and again.
He felt a trace of regret.
It was all the Night King's scheme.
He had calculated the time carefully. After being with Melisandre once, he would have had a full six hours to rest. Yet the western wall was breached, and the Night King arrived ahead of time.
Benjen Stark.
Melisandre had been right. It had deliberately prevented him from resting properly and had intentionally disturbed his state of mind.
Behind his visor, his teeth ground together.
Born into a great noble house, Benjen Stark had received a complete and professional military education. He had also served ten years as First Ranger, honing a wolf-like cunning.
Damn it.
He had underestimated it.
Stannis began to alter his tactics. Relying on his superior swordsmanship and the impenetrable defense of his armor, he intended to trade wounds with the Night King.
After one exchange, as the people of Winterfell cheered the Night King's injury, Stannis discovered another terrifying fact: the ice sword had left a scratch on his Valyrian steel armor.
That in itself was nothing.
The myth that Valyrian steel was indestructible had already been shattered at Eastwatch, when a shadow demon, an incarnation of R'hllor, had broken it.
At the time, the bull-headed, serpent-bodied monster had left deep claw marks on Daenerys's iron armor and on the Unsullied's Valyrian steel shields.
Afterward, he had personally seen her in Winterfell's forge, wielding a hammer to restore the armor and shield to perfect condition.
As Daenerys put it, the Valyrians had infused high-energy earthfire magic into their steel. In essence, Valyrian steel was merely enchanted metal.
Magic was incomprehensible to ordinary people, but transcendent beings themselves wielded transcendent power, and gods were the most powerful of them all.
Clearly, when facing a deity, the magic within Valyrian steel would be greatly diminished.
With that understanding, Stannis was not overly concerned about the sword mark on his armor.
It was like an iron sword leaving a mark on finely tempered steel armor. Few knights worried that their armor would be cleaved apart in the midst of battle.
By the time an enemy cut through one's armor, either he would already have killed the enemy countless times, or the enemy would have killed him countless times.
But the Night King's ice sword did more than scratch the Valyrian steel plate. He felt that the area frozen by the ice had lost a certain kind of magic.
This was no illusion.
Valyrian steel was not only sturdy; it also reduced magical damage and even possessed an effect akin to immunity against evil sorcery.
Fighting the Night King was no simple matter. Beyond the soul-rending impact of clashing weapons, there was also the cold and darkness radiating from its very presence.
It was like fighting a pile of filth. You would inevitably be choked by its stench. When battling the Night King, embodiment of cold, darkness, and death, one was constantly assaulted by evil power.
In Stannis's hand, Lightbringer likewise emitted light and heat that harmed the Night King.
He himself could not withstand the active and passive evil power emanating from the Night King. The Valyrian steel armor filtered out part of it; the remainder was borne by Melisandre's divine soul power, and then the Lord of Light's divine power helped repair the areas eroded by that evil force.
After taking a sword strike to his left waist, Stannis keenly sensed that the armor in that area had completely lost its defense against evil power.
It was like walking in the rain with an umbrella, only for a hole to suddenly tear open and let the water pour through.
Stannis did not know what change had occurred in his armor, but he understood his predicament.
Alertly, he used different sections of his armor to block the Night King's attacks, while using his Lightbringer to inflict maximum damage upon his foe.
More and more people above and below the walls cheered for him, and the cheers grew ever louder.
They called him the God of War, the Savior, the King.
At last, he had gained everyone's recognition.
The feeling was exquisite. He wished this moment could last forever.
Perhaps, before the armor completely failed, I can finish off the Night King. After all, I have already struck it so many times.
The thought filled him with excitement.
Then he saw his opponent reveal an expression for the first time.
On the Night King's pale cheek, covered in strange swirling patterns, appeared a mocking smile.
Faint and subtle, yet deeply unsettling.
The Night King was sneering?
"Fool," its voice drifted into his ears on the wind, followed by a sharp cracking sound.
The Night King's ice blade was a one-handed sword; Lightbringer was a two-handed sword.
At the very instant Stannis swung to parry, the Night King performed a move almost unheard of in knightly combat: it struck him in the chest with its palm.
This was not a martial arts tale. There was no such thing as palm force.
Unless under special circumstances where a palm strike could knock an opponent down, extending one's hand was a massive opening and risked losing an arm.
The Night King's withered, wrinkled, pale left hand pressed against Stannis's chest. The Valyrian steel armor that had once belonged to Aegon immediately froze over with a layer of pale blue frost, then split apart and exploded into countless fragments.
An intense sense of crisis struck him as abruptly and vividly as hearing a crowd of women outside the door while squatting in a public latrine. It came so swiftly and sharply that his whole body trembled and his scalp went numb.
Ice spread across him like a web, sealing him into a frozen statue.
I am going to die.
He realized it clearly.
I do not fear death. I have fulfilled my duty as King of the Seven Kingdoms and as the Savior, though I did not succeed.
No. I can still think. I still have allies. It cannot end like this. I cannot give up the final chance to drag it down to hell with me.
Just as he had seen in the fireplace.
He reached his resolve.
(Postscript: Being the older brother of "Second Stag" is quite fortunate. He is capable, loyal, reliable, and tireless.
But being his younger brother is truly unfortunate.
Second Stag is a typical product of the education given to a second son under a feudal system.
In a feudal society, any ruler hopes for a smooth succession and no internal strife among heirs. Therefore, the eldest and second sons are raised differently.
The eldest inherits the family estate, while the second must obey and assist the eldest in preserving and expanding it.
Second Stag's education was very successful, and it cannot be said that Renly's was a failure.
The situations of Second Stag and Renly were actually quite different.
Second Stag was raised entirely as a second son until adulthood.
Renly, however, lost his parents shortly after birth. At only five years old, he became the Duke of Storm's End.
At that point, as Duke of Storm's End, Renly was no longer merely a second son. He was a duke, meant to inherit the Baratheon legacy, and thus had to be raised as the eldest.
Therefore, after Robert's death, even in the face of the Baratheon dynasty's collapse, the two brothers still fell out.
Second Stag demanded Renly's obedience, while Renly had never been taught the responsibilities of a younger brother. One of them was destined to die.
Because there can be only one "eldest son."
The series of failures that followed for Second Stag also stemmed from the fact that he had been raised to assist the eldest. He was suited to obey a king, not to become a king whom others would obey.
He lacked the temperament and experience of the eldest.
He had never been raised as one.
In fact, many characters' failures in Game of Thrones can be traced back to education.
Another typical second son is Eddard Stark.
And then there are Robb and Daenerys; all of them suffered from flawed family education.)
(End of Chapter)
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