The ruins of Summerhall.
The palace that had once embodied the summer splendor of House Targaryen was now nothing but ash.
Stannis's army was encamped on the relatively flat ground surrounding the ruins. Rows of tents stretched across the fields, campfires flickered like scattered stars, and the air was filled with the noise of men shouting and horses neighing.
He had personally led his forces east from Ashford, completely wiping out the remnants of the Dothraki horsemen who, after their defeat, had fled to Nightsong and Blackhaven and made a last, desperate stand.
Now the army paused here briefly, preparing to return to Storm's End.
Stannis stood atop a raised platform overlooking the entire camp.
He was lean and rigid, his features hard and unyielding.
Viserys Targaryen, the last remnant of the former dynasty, was shackled in heavy chains inside a specially constructed iron prison cart at the center of the camp.
Tyrion Lannister was confined in another cage farther away. His oversized, misshapen head drooped forward, as if he were dozing.
"Your Grace."
A calm voice with a strange, compelling resonance sounded behind him.
Stannis did not turn. He knew who it was.
The hem of a red robe brushed over the blackened rubble as Melisandre came quietly to his side.
"The Lord of Light guided us here for more than mere rest."
Her voice was low and steady.
"You are Azor Ahai reborn, the Prince That Was Promised, the sword forged to oppose the Long Night and the servants of the Cold God. The Cold God's power is gathering in the North, stirring and growing. You need greater strength, Your Grace. Strength harder than steel, hotter than fire."
Stannis's jaw tightened, his gaze sharpening as it fixed on the red priestess.
"Power? A king's power comes from law, from duty, from the sword in his hand and the loyal warriors under his command. What power is more fearsome than these?"
"Law and warriors are the foundations of the mortal world, Your Grace," Melisandre replied calmly.
"But the enemy you face is a shadow and ice that mortal blades cannot reach. Magic is not illusion. It is real blood flowing through the flesh of the world, the authority granted by the Lord of Light to His chosen."
She raised her hand and pointed toward a section deep within the ruins, half-shrouded by massive, charred beams. It had once been the heart of Summerhall's great hall.
"Here. I can feel it. Faint, but alive. It is stirring, awakening. It waits for the one who can truly rouse it."
Stannis followed the line of her finger.
There was nothing there but blackened stone and twisted scraps of metal.
Yet he said nothing.
Melisandre had demonstrated magic before him and before all the Stormlands lords.
He despised such uncontrollable power, yet he could not deny its existence, nor its value.
Especially after the rise of that dragon-wielding man from the East across the Narrow Sea.
Stannis gave the order without hesitation.
"Dig there. I want to see what still lies buried beneath the ruins of Summerhall."
The command was passed along at once.
A group of strong soldiers, carrying torches and shouldering picks and crowbars, moved toward the scorched remains.
The digging continued deep into the night.
Stannis remained on the platform, watching in silence.
Ser Davos stood quietly behind him, his brow furrowed, his gaze fixed uneasily on the patch of blackened earth being dug ever deeper.
Suddenly!
"Found it! There's something here!"
A soldier's startled cry tore through the night.
All digging stopped at once. Soldiers crowded in, torchlight converging on the bottom of the pit.
Stannis's eyes sharpened as he strode down from the platform. Davos followed close behind, and the nobles in the camp were quickly roused, gathering around as well.
In the flickering firelight, fragments of eggshell lay scattered amid the ash. Most were dull and stone-gray, clearly shattered long ago by time and fire.
Yet among the debris lay two relatively intact "eggs," resting quietly in the dust.
One was a cold silver-gray, its surface covered in fine, scale-like patterns, like moonlight frozen solid. The other was a deep reddish-brown, resembling dried, congealed blood.
Larger than ostrich eggs, their shapes were flawless. They were hard as stone and radiated an ancient, dormant presence. In the firelight, their surfaces caught a faint, glaze-like sheen.
"Dragon eggs!" a well-traveled noble cried out.
"Fossils," another voice added quickly. "The dragon egg fossils Aegon V brought to Summerhall."
Stannis stepped to the edge of the pit and looked down at the two stone eggs slumbering in the ash.
His face showed nothing, but his eyes flickered sharply.
That Easterner, Lo Quen, possessed living dragons.
How had he done it?
Could these stones before him also be turned into that kind of world-shattering power?
The nobles around him breathed more heavily, their eyes filled with greed and yearning.
Melisandre bent gracefully and extended her pale hand, gently brushing away the dust from the silver-gray dragon egg fossil. Her fingertips traced the cold, stone scales, the ruby at her throat gleaming with an eerie light.
"The guidance of the Lord of Light never errs," she murmured, her voice like a dream.
"Dragons are born of blood and fire, and they shall be reborn through blood and fire. Cold stone is not the end, only slumber. To awaken them requires the ultimate sacrifice. Each dragon egg demands the life of a king, strengthened by magic."
Her gaze swept across the nobles, trembling with barely restrained excitement, before finally settling on the prison cart at the center of the camp.
Inside, Viserys, who had been curled in on himself, seemed to sense something and suddenly raised his head.
The last trace of color drained from his handsome face.
He saw the nobles' cruel stares, Melisandre's red eyes burning with inhuman fire, and Stannis's cold, emotionless scrutiny.
"No…" Viserys cried in terror.
"What are you doing?! I am Viserys Targaryen! I am the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms! I am the true dragon! You can't do this to me!"
Stannis looked away, his gaze returning to the two dragon egg fossils.
"There are two," he said evenly. "We'll try one first."
He turned to Melisandre.
"The silver-gray one. What do we need to prepare?"
"Your Grace!"
Davos stepped forward at last, unable to remain silent.
"Dragon egg fossils cannot hatch. That is common knowledge. Aegon the Fifth learned that lesson, and Summerhall itself was the price. Using living men as sacrifices is even more—"
"Ser Davos," Stannis interrupted.
"I have never doubted your loyalty. But some paths can only be understood by walking through fire. Stay here."
He turned away from Davos and addressed a knight at his side.
"Send a fast rider to Storm's End. Bring Edric Storm here."
Davos froze as if struck by lightning, staring in disbelief at the king's cold profile.
In that instant, he understood the meaning of Stannis's unspoken words.
Two dragon eggs. Two kings' lives.
A chill ran from his feet straight to his skull.
Stannis paid him no further attention. His gaze returned to Melisandre and the silver-gray dragon egg fossil.
"What else is required?"
Melisandre smiled faintly, a smile both mysterious and dangerous.
One hand caressed the large ruby at her throat, while the other rested firmly on the cold, unyielding surface of the silver-gray dragon egg fossil.
"Some of the magical power granted by our Lord, the Lord of Light."
As she whispered, the ruby at her throat flared to life. A visible surge of heat flowed down her arm, through her palm, and poured steadily into the long-dormant silver-gray stone egg.
Humm…
The dull stone surface of the shell flickered, just barely.
That tiny change made every noble watching the dragon egg instinctively hold their breath.
Even the muscles in Stannis's rock-hard face twitched almost imperceptibly.
"No! Let me go! You traitors! Kingslayers! I am the true dragon! True dragons do not fear fire!"
Viserys was hauled roughly from the prison cart by two burly soldiers, his chains clanking loudly.
He kicked and screamed, cursing wildly. His silver-gold hair was a tangled mess, tears and snot streaming down his face, all trace of a prince's former pride completely gone.
His shrill cries echoed across the empty ruins, piercing and desperate.
In the center of the camp, a massive pyre had already been erected.
The soldiers carefully placed the silver-gray dragon egg fossil, faintly glowing with an eerie light, atop a stone platform at the heart of the pyre.
Viserys was dragged in front of it.
When he saw the stone egg at the center of the pyre and the torches raised in the soldiers' hands, the last shred of his sanity shattered.
"No! No! You can't burn me! I am a Targaryen! I am the true dragon! Fire cannot kill me! I'll return riding a dragon and burn all of you to ash!"
He shrieked hysterically.
The soldiers remained expressionless. Together, they lifted the struggling, screaming Viserys, pinned him at the center of the pyre, and bound him tightly to the stake.
"Light it."
Stannis's voice was cold and unyielding.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Several blazing torches were hurled into the oil-soaked base of the pyre.
Whoom!
The dry wood crackled violently under the intense heat. Thick, oily smoke surged upward as the flames roared, quickly swallowing everything at the center.
"AAAH—!!!"
A scream so piercing it barely sounded human tore through the night above the ruins of Summerhall.
It was the last sound Viserys ever made in this world.
Inside the prison cart, Tyrion Lannister jerked his head up. For the first time, all trace of mockery vanished from his misshapen face, leaving only raw shock and terror.
Through the gaps in the cart, he stared at the towering inferno that had instantly consumed the so-called "true dragon," listening as the screams were quickly drowned out by the roar and crackle of the flames.
His throat worked, but no sound came out.
Madmen…
They were all madmen.
...
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