Melisandre turned around. Her crimson eyes, looking as though they had been soaked in liquid fire, held an unsettling, all-knowing calm.
Stannis sat paralyzed on the stone floor. He felt entirely hollowed out, utterly drained of life.
Everything that had just transpired felt like the most absurd, sickening nightmare!
Right before his eyes, his wife had just "given birth" to a monster.
A shadow entity wearing his exact face.
"What... what the hell was that thing?"
Stannis's voice vibrated with absolute disgust and sheer terror at what he had just participated in.
Melisandre looked down at him from above. There was zero sympathy in her gaze—only the freezing, indifferent absolute authority of a divine envoy looking at a pathetic mortal.
"That is your will."
"It is your sharpest sword. It is the absolute ultimate weapon bestowed upon you by the Lord of Light."
Stannis stared up at her, his face locked in absolute disbelief.
"What exactly is a shadow supposed to do?"
A deeply mysterious, dark smile stretched across Melisandre's face.
"You will know soon enough."
But seeing Stannis's frantic confusion, she offered a clinical explanation to soothe his fraying nerves.
"That shadow is a literal extension of you, an absolute manifestation of divine power."
"It is not an illusion. It can wield a blade. It can slaughter absolutely anyone you wish dead."
Melisandre's voice dripped with a dark, hypnotic gravity.
"It is you."
"It wears your face. It will carry out your most deeply guarded, absolute executions."
"Mortal steel cannot harm it. Impenetrable fortress walls cannot stop it."
"It can phase through the tightest cracks like smoke, materializing silently right in front of your enemies."
"Distance means absolutely nothing!"
Stannis's heart violently hammered in his chest.
Phase through walls? Entirely silent?
If she was telling the truth, this was... the absolute perfect assassin!
"It's going to assassinate Renly?" Stannis forced his trembling limbs to push himself up off the floor.
"Yes." Melisandre gave a slow nod.
"It will track Lord Renly with absolute precision and drive a blade forged from pure darkness straight through his heart."
"And the exact second the execution is complete, it will instantly dissipate."
"As if it never even existed."
A one-time, absolutely loyal, and entirely unstoppable assassin!
Stannis's brain raced at light speed.
He pictured the impenetrable, towering walls of Storm's End. He thought of the highly skilled knights making up Renly's arrogant "Rainbow Guard." A direct military siege would cost an unfathomable amount of blood and resources.
But now, all it took was a single shadow.
A massive, violently intoxicating surge of pure terror and euphoric triumph swept through his entire nervous system.
He had made the absolute right choice! The Lord of Light had genuinely handed him the ultimate key to victory!
"The absolute second Renly drops dead, his entire army of bannermen will be completely leaderless."
Stannis began aggressively pacing across the room, his rigid face warping into a deeply sinister, psychotic grimace of pure excitement.
"They will have absolutely no choice but to kneel and swear fealty to me, the one true heir! The entire Stormlands will be mine!"
"And after that... Joffrey!"
He stopped dead in his tracks, snapping his burning, feverish gaze toward Melisandre.
"We'll breed another shadow! We'll send it straight into King's Landing! To butcher Joffrey!"
He was practically foaming at the mouth, completely desperate to watch that psychotic little bastard violently choke on his own blood.
Melisandre watched his manic, unhinged display and slowly shook her head.
"Manifesting a miracle demands a heavy toll."
"Joffrey is locked deep inside the Red Keep. It is heavily fortified, and..."
She paused, a dark shadow crossing her features.
"There is another... entirely unreadable, terrifying presence currently residing in King's Landing."
"If we intend to assassinate the boy there, we require an infinitely more powerful sacrifice."
"A more powerful sacrifice?" Stannis frowned deeply.
"Prince Shireen's fire of life has already been completely exhausted."
"We require a new offering. A vessel carrying pure King's blood, brimming with an absolutely pristine life force."
Melisandre's dead crimson eyes slowly slid over to lock directly onto Stannis.
Stannis followed her gaze, looking down at himself.
King's blood?
His own blood?
No.
An apocalyptic, absolutely freezing realization violently clawed its way into his brain.
He thought of another person.
Someone who carried his exact royal bloodline, possessing an entirely untainted life force.
Princess Shireen.
His daughter.
That poor, fragile little girl whose face had been half-consumed by dead, grey stone.
"No..." Stannis's voice violently shook.
"What... what the hell are you planning?"
Melisandre's expression remained entirely blank as she calmly dropped the name.
"Your daughter. Princess Shireen."
"Her blood is pure, and her soul is unbreakably devout."
"She is the absolute most flawless, perfect sacrifice to offer the Lord of Light."
"If we offer her to the flames, the Lord of Light will manifest an infinitely more powerful miracle!"
"We could breed two—even three shadows!"
"One to butcher Joffrey, and another to slaughter Tywin Lannister!"
"When it is done, the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms will be completely, utterly prostrate at your feet!"
BOOM!
Stannis felt his entire sanity permanently detonate.
Shireen.
She was actually targeting Shireen!
That was his little girl!
He had already stood by and watched his own wife degrade into a literal incubator for a monster! He had watched his own child's life force violently siphoned away!
And now, this venomous, psychotic witch actually wanted him to murder his own daughter with his own two hands!
"You are out of your fucking mind!"
Stannis let out a heavily suppressed, guttural roar. His face warped into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury, looking infinitely more terrifying than a literal demon.
"She is my daughter! My little girl!"
"How could I ever—"
"For the throne, any sacrifice is an absolute necessity." Melisandre brutally cut him off, her voice entirely stripped of human emotion.
"The Long Night approaches. The White Walkers march south."
"Personal sentiment is entirely irrelevant in the face of absolute, world-saving necessity."
"The life of one single little girl, versus the ultimate survival of the entire realm—which do you truly believe is more important?"
"My King, this is a choice you are destined to make."
"A true King must master the absolute iron will to let go."
A choice?
Sacrifice?
Stannis stared dead at the woman preaching about gods and absolute destiny. He looked at her flawlessly beautiful face, yet right now, she looked infinitely more grotesque than the most sickening, rotting corpse.
He thought of Shireen.
He thought of the little girl who was in agonizing pain from greyscale, yet still always managed to force a bright, warm smile for him.
He thought of the innocent child clutching her heavy books, reading to him in her soft, tender voice.
That was his daughter!
Fuck the crown!
Fuck the Iron Throne!
A massive, apocalyptic tidal wave of unprecedented, volcanic fury violently erupted from the deepest pit of Stannis's soul, permanently incinerating every single ounce of his cold logic and political calculation!
He violently raised his hand.
SMACK!
A brutal, explosive slap echoed like a gunshot as he backhanded Melisandre squarely across the face!
Dead silence instantly crashed down over the entire chamber.
A bright, vivid crimson handprint rapidly swelled across Melisandre's pale, flawless cheek.
She didn't look angry. She didn't look surprised.
She simply, methodically turned her head back around, locking her dead, bottomless crimson eyes onto Stannis.
Her gaze held a chilling flicker of absolute disappointment—and the condescending, omniscient pity of a god looking down on an insect.
"You actually have the absolute audacity to demand I sacrifice my daughter?!"
Stannis leveled a trembling finger right at her face, his entire body shaking from the sheer, catastrophic rage.
"You vicious, venomous witch! You fucking monster!"
"Let me make this absolutely clear! Do not ever let the thought of touching Shireen cross your mind!"
"Never!"
He roared, roaring like a fiercely territorial lion who had just been stabbed in his most vulnerable nerve.
Melisandre stood perfectly still, silently letting him vent his apocalyptic rage.
She waited until his vocal cords were completely raw and hoarse.
"You are far too weak, Stannis."
Melisandre's voice was barely a whisper, yet every single syllable drove like a jagged, freezing dagger straight into his heart!
"A man who lacks the iron will to sacrifice his own flesh and blood... how could he ever be fit to rule as the one true King?"
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