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Melisandre watched Lynn's retreating back, her mind a tangle of confusion.
An army that plays with fire?
That's it?
That was a miracle. That was the power of a god. If Lynn were to master it as well, the strength Stannis had put on display would be enough to send all of Westeros into a frenzy.
"My lord, you must not underestimate him!"
Urgency crept into her voice.
"Stannis has gone mad. He must have witnessed a divine revelation firsthand — he's a true fanatic now. He will stop at nothing to kill you. In his eyes, you are a false believer who has stolen divine power!"
Lynn turned around. He walked toward her, reached out, and gently caught her chin between his fingers.
"Do you think I am?"
Melisandre looked into his eyes , those eyes that seemed to see through everything , and her body trembled before she could stop it.
"No! I don't think you are!"
She shook her head hard, her gaze unwavering.
"Good."
Lynn released her and nodded, satisfied.
"Then what are you worried about? What's so frightening about the Lord of Light — does he have an extra body part I'm missing?" He didn't wait for an answer. "He hasn't personally descended to wipe me out. That tells you something. It means he still needs mortal hands to do his work. And mortals? I have plenty of ways to deal with mortals."
He waved a hand.
"These fools with their blinded eyes can toss a few little fireballs. I don't lose sleep over them. Where I come from, we have a saying: 'Those who play with fire wet the bed.' We have another one too: 'Those who play with fire get burned.'"
"Let them come. Better yet, have Stannis call every man he can scrape together."
"I happen to be short on some experience..." A brief pause. "Combat experience."
Experience?
Melisandre didn't understand the word. But she could feel it , the undisguised killing intent woven through his voice, calm as a man reading a ledger.
She understood then.
Lynn didn't take Stannis seriously. Not even slightly. In his eyes, Stannis and his so-called Flame Legion were nothing but a flock of lambs waiting for the knife.
Something settled in Melisandre's chest , a strange, unexpected sense of safety.
Yes. Why should I be afraid?
"I understand, my lord." She bowed her head. "I was overthinking."
"Good that you see it." Lynn patted her shoulder. "Go and rest. Your body still needs time to recover."
"Yes, my lord."
She curtsied, turned, and withdrew from the hall.
She needed to sit with everything that had happened today.
The hall fell quiet. Only Lynn remained , and three women who had not dared to breathe too loudly.
Cersei watched him, her eyes heavy with worry. She had heard every word.
Stannis had assembled an army that could conjure fire?
This was not good news.
...
As it turned out, the reality matched the fragments she had glimpsed in the flames , only Stannis was far more aggressive about it.
Stannis Baratheon had performed a miracle on Dragonstone. He had proclaimed himself the chosen messenger of the Lord of Light, and the news hit Westeros like a bombshell.
It struck hardest in the Stormlands and the Reach.
Those lords had just lost their king. Renly was barely cold, and now Renly's older brother, that second son no one had ever thought much of, had suddenly remade himself as the voice of a god?
At first, no one believed it. They assumed it was a desperate lie, something Stannis had invented to absorb Renly's armies.
Then the first refugees staggered out of Dragonstone. Septons, faithful men, their faces white and their eyes hollow, carrying stories that turned stomachs.
"A devil! Stannis is a devil!"
"He's forsaken the Seven! He worships some evil god from Asshai!"
"He can set soldiers' hands on fire! I saw it myself!"
"He ordered every sept on Dragonstone burned to the ground! Tied the septons to posts and let them burn alive!"
The accounts spread a chill that no hearth could drive out. It struck the devout hardest of all.
King's Landing.
The Great Sept of Baelor.
The High Septon stood before the statues of the Seven, his face a mask of fury unlike anything his congregation had ever seen.
"Heretic!"
His voice rang off the stone walls, carrying all the weight of a man who believed in his own authority absolutely.
"Stannis Baratheon has forsaken the holy faith and thrown himself into the arms of a false god! He uses demonic sorcery to deceive ignorant men! This is the greatest blasphemy that can be committed against the Seven!"
The sept was packed , believers and septons who had come running the moment word reached them. They knelt in row after row, faces flushed, hands clenched, burning with righteous hatred.
"We will not tolerate heresy!"
The High Septon raised his staff and pointed toward the city gates.
"In the name of the Seven, I declare — Stannis Baratheon is a traitor to the realm and an enemy of the gods! Every soldier who follows him will be branded heretic, condemned beyond all redemption! I call upon every faithful soul in this city, in this kingdom , take up your arms! Defend the glory of the Seven! March against the devil who squats on Dragonstone!"
"Fight for the gods!"
The crowd erupted.
"Fight for the gods!"
"Fight for the gods!"
They surged to their feet with raised fists, voices crashing against the vaulted ceiling like a wave hitting stone.
The fervor spilled out of the sept and into the streets, and from the streets into every corner of King's Landing, and from there outward across the Seven Kingdoms. Mobs formed without any order from above. Anyone suspected of worshipping the Lord of Light found themselves dragged into the open. The whole of Westeros began to shake, not from armies yet, but from faith tearing itself apart.
...
Storm's End.
Stannis had finished absorbing the bulk of the army Renly had left behind. He stood on the battlements, looking down at the dark mass of men filling the yard below, and let a rare satisfaction show on his face.
That fool Renly. All that work, all those promises, a hundred thousand men gathered under his pretty banners , and now every one of them belonged to Stannis.
Footsteps approached from behind.
Davos Seaworth, his loyal Onion Knight, came to stand beside him. The worry on Davos's face was plain.
"My lord."
"News from King's Landing."
Stannis did not turn around.
"Speak."
"The High Septon has publicly declared you a heretic and called for a crusade against you." Davos's voice was careful, measured. "Many of the lords in the Stormlands and the Reach have turned hostile , the faith issue is cutting us. They won't openly defy you, but they're dragging their feet on every order. And some soldiers have already deserted. Quietly. They're afraid of the heretic's brand."
"Is that so."
Stannis turned slowly.
No anger. Only that flat, gray indifference he wore like armor.
"Fools blinded by a false god."
He looked at Davos. Something had gone out of his eyes , whatever warmth or humanity had once lived there was simply absent now.
"Davos."
"Do you believe in the Seven?"
Davos's heart lurched.
He looked at that cold face and swallowed.
"I... I do."
He didn't dare lie.
"Good."
Stannis nodded once.
"And now? Do you still believe?"
Davos said nothing. He didn't understand where Stannis was going.
Stannis didn't wait for an answer. He descended from the wall and walked out onto the training ground below.
Tens of thousands of freshly sworn soldiers stood in formation , men who until recently had served Renly. They watched the man who had killed their king with a mixture of fear, awe, and barely-concealed resentment.
Stannis ignored all of it. He walked straight to the raised platform at the center of the ground and stepped up to face them.
"I know many of you still cling to those ridiculous Seven." His voice carried easily across the yard. "You're afraid of being called heretics. You're afraid of death. Today, I will show you exactly how powerless the god you've been worshipping truly is."
He turned and beckoned to a guard.
"Bring up the septon we captured."
Two soldiers dragged the old man forward, his robes filthy, his face a ruin of bruises and dried blood. He was still fighting them, still cursing with whatever breath he had left.
"Let go of me! You dogs of the devil!"
Stannis stepped down from the platform and stood before him, looking down without any expression.
"Tell them. Can your god save you?"
PAH!
The old septon spat. Blood and saliva caught Stannis across the face.
"Evil heretic! The Seven will punish you! You'll burn in hell for ten thousand years!"
"Is that so."
Stannis smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
He stretched out his hand.
WHOOSH!
A ball of orange flame bloomed from his open palm.
"Is this the fire you mean?"
The old septon's curses died in his throat.
He stared at the flame, unable to move.
Across the training ground, ten thousand soldiers went still. They'd heard the stories. But hearing a story and watching fire appear from a man's bare hand , no words covered that distance.
"Pray to my god." Stannis's voice dropped low, almost gentle. "Pledge your loyalty to the Lord of Light. Do that, and I'll let you live."
The old man's eyes stayed locked on the flame. He could feel the heat from where he stood. Something in his face began to crack , decades of faith starting to splinter under that orange glow.
Then he threw his head back.
"No! I will never kneel to a false god!"
He wrenched free from the soldiers' grip and stood straight, arms spread wide, his face blazing with the certainty of a martyr.
"Come, then! Heretic! Burn me with your devil's fire! The Seven will avenge me!"
The smile left Stannis's face.
He flicked his wrist.
The flame shot from his hand and engulfed the old man in an instant.
The scream that tore out of the septon was not a human sound. It split the air of the training ground from end to end, raw and terrible, as the old man twisted and thrashed in the fire , and then went still, and then was gone, leaving only a blackened shape smoking on the ground.
Every soldier stared at Stannis with the eyes of men looking at something that should not exist.
The silence was absolute.
"You see." Stannis's voice filled the yard. "That is the Seven you believe in. Weak. Powerless. Helpless before true divine strength."
He spread his arms wide.
"And I — the messenger of the Lord of Light in this mortal world — can give you that same power. So make your choice. Keep clinging to your weak false god, and end like him." He let the words settle. "Or follow me. Follow the one true god. And become something more than you are."
The soldiers' eyes moved from the smoldering corpse to Stannis's face and back again.
Fear won.
One man threw down his sword and dropped to his knees with a THUD.
Then another. Then another.
THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD.
Thousands of them went down together, a wave of falling bodies rolling across the training ground until nearly every man was kneeling in the dirt.
"We will follow you!"
"We swear ourselves to the Lord of Light!"
The sound that rose from them shook the walls of Storm's End.
Davos stood at the edge of the crowd and watched it all with hands he could not feel.
He knew.
From this day forward, there was no Lord Stannis in Westeros.
There was only a madman his followers called the King of Holy Fire , and that madman was about to march with his army of fanatics and drag every one of the Seven Kingdoms into the fire with him.
Stannis looked out over the sea of kneeling men. Then he slowly raised his head, and his gaze turned toward King's Landing.
➤ Next: Hostage Loras
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