Chapter Text
"Faithless dog. You dare draw steel upon your king?" Stannis Baratheon snarled, his eyes blazing in the weak lamplight.
"Never," Davos whispered, with a hard swallow. His hand shook and sweat coated every inch of his skin, though he'd not felt warm in weeks. "But my king would not do so foul a thing as murder his own child, an innocent maiden..."
"Sacrifice." The word came out between teeth clenched so tight they sounded like the great cracks of ice when slabs would cascade from rocks and trees, or snap below a man's boots.
"Aye, call it what you will. But it's murder, wicked and wrong and my king is a just man." Davos gripped his sword tighter, tasting blood in his mouth. "If you cannot sacrifice me in her stead, still you'll have to kill me before you lay a hand upon Princess Shireen, your daughter. Your heir!"
"I'll have your head for this."
Davos didn't know what pained him more - the dark and awful sound of his king's voice, half pure fury and half a tortured anguish, or the way his shadowed and weary eyes were wide shock and...hurt.
Stannis whipped his head to one side, as if to shake these conflicting emotions from his face and soul, casting them off like droplets of blood from his sword. When he returned his gaze, his eyes were narrowed and his voice colder. "Or perhaps you should feed her fires as well."
"My head is yours, to do with as you please. But do it yourself, like a king, like a man should. I once told you I'd accept punishment from no lesser man, but there must be some part of you that hasn't bent the knee to that foreign whore and her bloody demon-god. Then you can fling your own daughter onto the flames and listen to her cries and I will never have to see the man I worshiped become a slave to -"
The king drew so quickly Davos barely saw his arm move. A steel arc flickered and glittered, and Davos barely got his own sword down in time to block the cut that would have gutted him from hip to shoulder.
The power in that blow made him stagger back. He'd never crossed swords with his king. Stannis Baratheon dutifully sparred with the arms masters and knights in his service, and had done so since he was a child. He was a fearsome warrior, strong, savage, fast and brutal; and Davos...was not.
At the first clash of steel, his guards plunged into the tent, weapons drawn. "He is mine," Stannis barked, Lightbringer tracing another oily grey trail through the smoky air. Davos countered, brought his own blade up and felt the king's blow shake his arm down to the bone, his tight fingers wrenched nearly out of their sockets in his desperate effort to keep his grip.
Despair flooded his heart.
Father, Warrior, guide me, what must I do? were his thoughts when he found himself standing by his laden mount, not even thinking of the cold and lonely ride all the way back to Castle Black. No, all he could think of was the unthinkable. Every time he started to mount, he would put his leg down and stand there, dumb and useless as a mooring post in a desert. He is not...he'd start to think. He would not.
Not my king. Not my lord, my stubborn, brave, honest and just master.
Not that hollow-cheeked, gawky young man, wasted from hunger and duty, his own hand tight on the kitchen cleaver. Staring at him with all the hope and anguish of a man who wanted to be assured he was doing rightly, but could never ask. Yet he aimed, struck true, and stayed while the maester tended to those shortened fingers. His lips were so tight, the feathery black shadows of what could not yet rightly be called a beard seemed to pulse. Davos found himself watching his new lord through the haze of strongwine and the maester's care.
Davos had never thought to bend knee to anyone. To give himself to this lonely and awkward Baratheon was madness. But it was a sublime sort of madness, perhaps. As salt and copper filled his mouth and his fingertips were lost, he found himself a new man. The smuggler turned knight.
Do you swear to serve me loyally all your days, to give me honest counsel and swift obedience, to defend my rights and my realm against all foes in battles great and small, to protect my people and punish my enemies? the king asked him as he knelt. Years after the loss of his fingers, years of doing his duty for and with his lord, lighting candles in the sept in the hope of a son and for the life of Shireen when the greyscale struck. Fighting by his side, enforcing the king's law and justice at sea and against the Greyjoys. Advising him when asked, learning from him always. Bringing his sons into service as well, watching them rise to be men of worth and respect, his Devan a squire, reading, learning the ways of court, even jousting!
His sons could be knights. Would be lords.
But that morning he had awakened in his king's dungeon, waiting to die because he had been driven to destroy the woman who brought her filthy fire god and the demonic magic of shadows and blood to Dragonstone. It had been his duty, he thought. She was his king's enemy. She gave him power, aye. But leeched away his honor.
His king pardoned him and raised him for his honesty, and then demanded it of him forever.
"Please, your grace," he pleaded, backed as far as he could go in the tent. "I beg you–" He couldn't even attack, his instincts and training fighting him as earnestly as the king.
Stannis batted away his Hand's weak defense and brought the tip of his sword right up against the layers of fur, felt, chain and leather that guarded his heart. "You beg for your life now?" he demanded.
"No," Davos panted, stepping forward, into that blade, until he could feel it. "My life is yours. Kill me. Take my head. Burn me if you must, but spare Shireen. Will you build your kingdom on the blood of your own daughter?" Tears pooled in his eyes.
"Take him," the king growled, lowering his sword. He dropped his gaze away from Davos and stepped back, turning in an almost contemptuous dismissal. His guards started moving.
"Will you spare her, your grace?" Davos demanded, pointing his wavering sword toward the two men coming for him but remaining focused upon his king.
"It is...necessary. But you shall have your wish and follow her, traitor." The king dropped his sword onto the map table, sending troop markers shaking and rolling. He placed both hands on the edge, his head lowered. "Get him out of here."
Davos commended his soul to the Seven and charged at his king.
It was clumsy and his conflicting duties made it worse. The king whirled as his guards shouted warnings, and Davos found his lunge deflected against the king's fine chainmail; it did nothing but slash his cloak. Stannis had his own sword in hand in the next instant and with a formidable backswing smashed against Davos's blade with an explosion of such pain, Davos knew something had broken in his hand. He cried out, wanting to plead again, wanting to beg, wanting to grab his king and make him see reason, or gods-be-damned, yes, kill him, at least send his king to whatever justice awaited him beyond death, far away from that Red Witch and her god, so Shireen could be safe–
He tried again to strike his king, but now there was a man pulling at his arm from behind and he couldn't aim, he couldn't do anything but blindly hack forward...
And Stannis Baratheon effortlessly deflected that attempt and drove his sword through Davos Seaworth's chest.
It felt like massive weight fell upon him. It was too heavy for him to withstand. He staggered back, but stayed somewhat aloft, for the guards had him now, one on each arm. The light in the tent seemed to flicker, orange and yellow, blazing white and scarlet, and his knees buckled. He gasped in a breath and that made the weight heavier.
He saw the dark figure of the king, his gaunt and shadowed face like a painted mask.
"Davos," Stannis Baratheon rasped. "Damn you, damn you!"
"Spare her," Davos whispered. "For the love I bear you, my king."
The king pulled his sword back, and as it drew came free, the blood shimmering along its polished steel pulsed and wavered, then became brighter. The blade reflected the lamps and candles and then absorbed the flickers until miniscule licks of flame birthed along the razor-sharp edges. One of the guards cried out as the tent filled with a furious incandescence that would shame a Dornish noon. And when the tip came free and blood spilled, a palpable heat rose, with a scent of burnt honey and salt.
The king stared at the sword, his eyes wide, and then down at Davos who was gasping, laughing as blood pooled and bubbled at his mouth. The guards bore him to the ground, one of them whispering some sibilant prayer.
The king thrust the flaming sword into the ground and threw himself onto his knees next to Davos. "Damn you," he forced out, grasping for Davos's hand. "Davos..."
"For the love you bear me, then," Davos whispered. "Spare...her..."
"I shall. I swear it."
Davos couldn't speak any more. He tried to breathe, but the no air came, and his heart beat like war drums on a hundred galleys. But he could feel the heat from the sword and a faint smile came to his blood-flecked lips. He died with the king holding his head and hand, and he would have sworn he could feel the warmth there as well.