Black Rain, Red River

by onehotsummer

The fire that consumes is the fire that feeds, but inside Dragonstone, one tiny tide rises.

Chapter 1

Dawn broke like a boot to the jaw between one window of Dragonstone and the next, as the thin sunlight opened on the dancing dust and the carved walls. Even the fires were out, Davos noticed with dull relief. Whatever the red woman said, that would not be the way he'd die - not screaming for mercy, writhing on a pyre.

But he would die - whether in the morning or at night, or the time between night and morning when the red flush of sunrise was only a hint behind the edges of the world. Melisandre had said it would be the only way Lightbringer could burn forever - "through the heart of the one you cherish above all others," she had said, ready to tear her red gown, bare her own breast in her certainty - and Stannis had turned away from her, heavy black cloak raking the flagstones, and he had looked at the Hand of the King and he had said: "Then you must die."

Hardly hearing or understanding why he did it, Davos asked his king - his god - for one favor. Hadn't he told Salla that Stannis was his god? The Seven had burned then but Stannis froze where he stood when Davos asked if - for this last day - he could take his son Devan's place, and garb Stannis for the ceremony that was to take place. "You would clothe me?" Stannis asked, disbelieving, and Davos thought it would be over right then - the hand, unconscious, to the hip where the sword waited; the jaw clenched in something like bewilderment.

But he turned - Stannis away, toward the stone walls - and if the room had not been so silent, silent as a crypt, Davos couldn't have heard the words: "As you will."

Davos' eyes went wide. "I … must die, Your Grace?" He wasn't sure he understood. But he chanced a look at Melisandre, and her face was seared with fury. If she wanted death so badly, why did she stop me before, he thought dazedly before the full force of it overtook him. Cherish above all others she had said, and You must die he had said, and the cold floor and wild sea below were swelling up to take him.

When he awoke in his own chamber - a faint, Davos, at your age - he knew Stannis would not seek him out - not now, or never again. That dread, more than the fear of the scorched steel, clouded over Davos' eyes and nearly blackened the world again. He won't come to me, he told himself - so I must go to him.

Chapter 2

"When you took my fingers," Davos said, voice shivering along with the air through the cold chamber, "I asked you to swing the blade yourself."

"You did," Stannis agreed.

"This …" Davos looked down at the boiled leather doublet he twisted in his hands, "This is not only for that." He took a deep breath and willed himself to go on. "This is also for Devan. He … he shouldn't …"

A pained expression twisted across Stannis' gaunt face but was gone just as quickly, replaced by the usual resolve. But Davos had seen. "No, my lord of Rainwood. He should not."

All Stannis' senses seemed to spark in unison as Davos fastened the leather doublet across his king's chest. Davos' eyes, lowered to their task, seemed to draw Stannis' gaze toward the honest and solemn face, the weather-chapped lips, the soft hair and rougher beard. The silence was broken only by the metallic clink of buckles and Stannis' forced breath. In, out, the stale air on his tongue and in his lungs. Davos leaned toward him and Stannis could smell his scent, woolen and sea-air and clean. And then he closed his eyes and felt Davos' hand on his waist while the other struggled with the laces on the doublet, and a stab of pure sensation shot through Stannis toes to head: he held himself very still as Davos, rapt in concentration, lips slightly open, held him steady.

"Your Grace," he said finally, his voice an ocean swell, "It is the best I can do."

"It is … well done," Stannis choked out. Drawing another deep breath, he found words. "Thank you."

Davos looked him over - raised an eyebrow - and shook his head slightly, dissatisfied. "Devan could have laced it tighter," he said. "And your mail is crooked." He reached for Stannis again, but Stannis caught his hand before it could reach the softly shimmering chains that hung from his shoulders.

"It is well done," he said again. "And you will leave it as it is."

Davos blinked, surprised. "Yes, Your Grace." Once more he lowered his eyes in acquiescence to his king - the last time? - and then raised them again to look into Stannis' face. "This … you didn't have to allow me."

"Lord Davos, you must stop this. … I am … you know what I am about to do. You had this wish. I had the power to grant it to you. I don't pretend to know why you wanted it, but…"

Davos seemed to sway suddenly and put a hand on Stannis' forearm to steady himself. Stannis cursed himself for again broaching the subject, his lord's death - "I am sorry, Davos," he said almost gently. "Let us not speak of it."

"No," Davos seemed to shake his head once to clear it, "that is best."

"You didn't let me kill the boy," Stannis said, an eternity later, as Davos knelt behind his king to fasten a greave behind his knee.

"Edric Storm was innocent," said Davos. He had not - probably would not ever, for the short time he had left - fall out of the habit of calling the black-haired bastard of Robert's by his full name.

"You were … forgiven," Stannis reminded him, almost hesitating on the last word. "You paid for your acts. You too are innocent."

"I am not." Davos' left hand shook on the buckle. It gleamed a dull silver and the shadows of his fingers played across it. "Your Grace."

"Of what are you still guilty then, my lord Davos?" asked Stannis. "I absolved you of your sins. Or have you forgotten?" He turned then to look behind him at Davos.

"You absolved me of them," Davos agreed. Still kneeling, he looked up, straight into Stannis' face. "And then you created more."

Chapter 3

The words burned like acid, like pure white alcohol sluicing through a pink slice of torn skin. "You created more," he said, and he rested his head against the back of Stannis' thigh, and Stannis' breath caught him hard and he almost wasn't sure it would let go.

His knee nearly buckled against Davos' warm and weary forehead; his heart thudded like a hammer and turned his entire body into a forge, a crucible, dark and longing and full of swollen embers that flared in the blackness and sparked into full flame - not for R'hllor or Melisandre, not for the kingdom, not for the chair of swords or the dominion or the revolution. Only for the one man, slight of stature, who knelt in his last hours behind him, before him, who surrounded him with warmth and more than that; whose devotion - divine in its expansiveness - enwrapped him, enfolded him and protected him from the world's malevolence; whose very life was loyalty made light. The flaming sword held no luster next to the treasure he had kept close beside him for so many years: more than a glamour, Davos - only Davos - was the source of Stannis' true fire.

But he had told Melisandre. Promised Selyse. Looked into the flames and saw it happen. He would not look again; he tore himself from Davos like a man stepping into the first hell with leagues to go. "What is is what must be," he ground out, and Davos bowed his head.

Sorrow like soot blackened the heart of Stannis Baratheon as he sharpened the blade. Lightbringer would not, he vowed, cruelly tear the skin of his knight, would bring only mercy and an end to the torment he saw in Davos' eyes. "It is the right thing," he told himself. "He wishes to serve me, how better than to seal my fate, to seat me on the Iron Throne … ?" But doubts crept in on the back of the question. Melisandre's prophecies could be wrong; the look on Davos' face, never. The sword might stay cold, or else burn to a cinder. The sword might burn, but the Lannisters refuse to obey it. The Lannisters might bend the knee, but the dragon queen could appear from the sea and burn his kingdoms to the ground. Or, he thought with a resigned sigh, most likely Melisandre would be right and the Iron Throne, and indeed all of Westeros, would be his - Stannis' alone - to command. He would rule for many years, a ruler firm and wise, respected and feared, a weighty chapter in the histories after all. Feared, but not loved - never again loved.

Davos would be with his sons, Stannis told himself. Dale, Allard, Maric and Matthos. Their names were sweat beads of regret running down his chest when he thought of it. These boys - these men - all so different, but all so very like their father in so many small ways. And all four gone, because of him. Stannis guarded Devan jealously, keeping him by his own side and out of danger to the extent that the boy fretted, while his daughter Shireen smiled secretly to herself when she thought her father took no notice.

They would all despise him now, Stannis knew with wearying certainty. There would be no wedding in a godswood, sept or fiery temple. There would be no children to bind their lines together in blood. There would be no more quiet, steady, sandy-haired boy at his shoulder, forever wishing to be of use. There would be no more word of young Stannis and Steffon at Cape Wrath, until one of them grew strong and bold and desperate enough to come and try to avenge his father. The game would continue - Stannis closed his eyes against the weight of it - blood on the stones, swords in the nighttime, families flung to the far corners of the worlds, there to breed and die and hate.

But Davos, he thought with the pain that always came now, Davos would be with his first sons, the ones who came before Stannis, before Melisandre, before R'hllor and any cold, flaming swords. The children of the open waters, again with their father - sailing the ships forever at the bottom of the sea.

Chapter 4

The ceremonial chamber was cold despite the fires, Davos remembered, turning to gather his king's immense wool cloak.

"I will not be going outside, Lord Davos," Stannis started to protest, but Davos moved to stand behind him and Stannis' words died on his lips.

"It will be cold enough there," Davos said, not wanting to say the name of the place, where I will die. "And I would rather you were warmer." The searching look in Stannis' eyes broke and settled into something indescribable, black and bruised; Davos reeled from it and took refuge in his task. He unfolded the cloak, coal black and heavy, and settled it carefully over Stannis' shoulders. He wondered how Devan did this at his height; did he stand on a stool? Davos had to close his eyes hard against the realization that he would never see Devan grow taller, at the side of his king. Devan!, he thought suddenly, I'll have to talk to him. No, he could not. He would leave Devan a letter. He could write almost as well as his son now, although he would never have the easy way with words that his son - or Stannis' daughter - had, but he could still tell him something. Love him, Devan, he would say. At the least, know that I did my last duty. Stand with him - fight by his side - be the brave knight your brothers would have been. Davos' hand stilled on Stannis' shoulders as the words he must say took him leagues away. We are all proud of you, especially your king, though he will not say it. For the love you bear me, stay by his side - serve him and love him. He blinked back the thoughts, intent once again. And love her too.

Four leather straps and steel clasps closed the great cloak, and it was no easy thing for Davos to manipulate them - as much because of his preoccupied mind as because of his shortened fingers. Over the years he had learned to make do with his hand as it was, but his own clothing had always been simple to fasten and unfasten; nothing ornate or embellished was needed for the Onion Knight, nor even for the Hand of the King. Davos preferred to slip through life as unassumingly as possible, as now he wished to slip out of it. Melisandre would have to be present, he thought, his mind as ever returning to his fate - and he expected the crowd would gather after the deed was done, but that did not matter. He could not protect his king then, or ever after.

The cloak's buckles looked almost lustrous in the firelight, the only brightness in Stannis' sea of black. Even the sigil on his armor was dulled. The metal dampened with Davos' sweat and he could not stop his hands trembling. Nerves, he told himself. It will soon be over. The heavy wool pulled the cloak to one side as he struggled with the fourth clasp, and it slipped from his hand. He drew a sharp, frustrated breath, but his eyes widened as he felt Stannis' warm hand on his own. "I will help," Stannis said. "Come around and face me -" and Davos did, barely breathing, heart thudding. Together they fastened the clasp, Davos, distracted, running his fingers along the roughened leather as Stannis easily fit the pieces together with an echoing click. Stannis straightened his shoulders and the cloak fell into its familiar folds.

Stannis in his full raiment looked rather more stricken than imperial, and Davos had to hold himself back against the urge to take it off again - the cloak, and the leather doublet, the linen underneath, the unpolished armor, the stiff boots, and everything else that would presume to stand between Davos' desperate hands and Stannis' bare and heated skin. He drew a shaky breath to steady himself and quiet the roaring of blood in his ears. You cannot, he told himself, you will not. You will go to your chamber and you will write to Devan, and then you will wait.

Chapter 5

He would not close his eyes, he told himself. He would not blink if he could help it - but nor would he look at the sword, the fire, the stag or the heart, or at the red woman who shadowed his king with her flowing robes and sinuous song. Davos would not look at her, or at the carved stone wall, at the eye of the sculpted dragon that seemed to try to catch his own; he would not look at the grey ceiling high above, he would not look at the misty light slanting through the narrow casement, he would not look at the dimming sun outside. Whatever of his sight, his life, remained - the minutes, the seconds - he would give to the only person who shone through his life like starshine in high summer. Whatever time remained to him to see, he would look only on the face of Stannis.

The blue eyes, darkened by grief, met Davos' and locked with them, hard, like a steel castle gate slamming closed somewhere far away and long ago behind him as he came to a starving garrison with fish and onions. He saw Stannis as he was then, young and starved, unbroken and hard. The years seemed to sway forward in Stannis' eyes like a windblown bridge, to fall away until they had just met, alone amidst a crowd of sailors on a rocky beach. Davos remembered it - how he had fallen on the deck in a sudden squall, his son Dale holding his hand to Davos' face to wipe away the blood and splinters before he met the lost lord of Storm's End - how then Stannis had reached for Davos' arm to steady himself when he knew that he would live.

As I now know that I will die, Davos thought. The Silent Sisters were said to be brides to the Stranger; soon he would know what that meant. The steel of Lightbringer shimmered at the edge of his vision but Stannis' eyes held his own and everything else dimmed around him. Stannis' mouth was a thin line as he held it firmly closed. Davos forgot to breathe as he watched the sword ascending higher, and felt Stannis' other hand, hot as fire, come to rest on his chest, almost as if to comfort him. Stannis let his lips open in a great gasp of air. He held Lightbringer aloft and the silvery gleam of it caught in his suddenly widened eyes - the brightest blue Davos had ever seen, bluer than the summer sea. Stannis' hand shook violently as it held the heavy sword; Davos trembled with it, and saw no more.

The dawn to end all nights stole gently through the windows, lighting them one at a time in soft blues and purples. Summer will come, the silent air seemed to say. First the melting spring, then the rush of warmth, the hand that opened like a sunrise on a hot and damp cheek.

This was the heaven of the Father, Davos decided, as stern and serene as it was - almost like Dragonstone after a violent storm had passed. And the hand on his face … it could have been real, he thought. So soft and slow and gentle it held him - almost like Stannis, Stannis before the cold world swallowed them both.

"Davos," Stannis-not-Stannis said, and the tenderness made the tears come. That's what he would miss more than anything - more than the sea breeze on a warm day, more than Marya in their feather bed, more than the laughter of his sons - whether in the world or out of it, he would wish for Stannis, and his voice, and his tenuous touch. Davos let his burning eyes fall closed.

Chapter 6

Stannis sat against the stone wall beside the soft pillows, never taking his hand from Davos - from his drawn face, or his shortened fingers, or his shoulder or his flushed neck. Melisandre and Selyse pleaded, threatened, gave up - but he would not leave Davos' side.

"Feverish," Maester Pylos said. "The shock - perhaps a few leeches …"

"We won't be using any leeches," answered Stannis sharply. Never again would Davos' blood come under threat. As simply as Davos had knelt in front of his king when he had been knighted, Stannis had dropped his sword and silently pledged his life to protect his lord of Rainwood, his Hand, his most trusted adviser, his dearest friend, the only keeper of his heart.

"It is no use," he had told Melisandre, who stood still as rock when he let Lightbringer slip from his hands over a swooning Davos and fell to his knees before him. His voice was numb and lost, but he did not falter. "I will not do this thing."

"You must," she had said. "Without the blood sacrifice, Lightbringer is nothing."

He flung the sword aside. "Then it is nothing."

Melisandre flinched as though struck when the weapon rang off the echoing stones. "You must," she had repeated. "You are Azor Ahai reborn! But you must kill Nissa Nissa once more. The soul and the steel must be one. Or you will be no king."

"I will be no king without Lord Seaworth," Stannis had said.

"You cannot fight the darkness without-"

"Without Davos."

"We have come so far, Your Grace-"

"And no further." He was unmovable, as hard as the stone floor upon which he still knelt. "If your Azor Ahai would slay the one he loved the best, did he really have the conscience of a king?" That was all he could say: Pylos had rushed into the room when he heard the voices, went to collect the body of Davos and stopped short when he saw no blood, no sword, and no fire.

"Your Grace-"

"He lives," said Stannis, before a thunderbolt of fear hit him, shaking him all over again - "does he not?" Had he slain Davos with terror after all?

The maester bent over the still man; the seconds crawled by like years. "His heart beats and his breath is warm - yes, he lives, Your Grace. But he - this is his second faint. He will need to rest, Your Grace - truly and for many days. And then he cannot strain himself. Perhaps if he were to go home …"

The thought of Davos at Cape Wrath, with his wife and his youngest sons, in his own bed in his own keep, away from his king's side, twisted a bitter dagger through Stannis' belly. "We will ask him when he is stronger," he said, steadying his voice. "For now - he stays here."

It was like the most perfect dream he had ever had, and Davos did not want to stir and break it into splintering shards, to fall around him and be forgotten. Pure light danced before his closed eyes, bright enough to filter through the thin skin of his eyelids. The voice he loved best in the world was speaking to him, sounding as though coming from underwater. And the warm, firm hand in his, with the roughened thumb rubbing ovals on the back of his hand … "Stannis," he gasped, waking fully, sitting up so quickly he saw silver sparks in front of his eyes, fading to grey around the edges of his vision.

"Davos," his king said, his voice cracking around the word. "Once again you are returned to me."

"Your Grace," Davos said, his head spinning, the room tilting like the deck under a stormbound ship.

"There was no pain," he murmured, remembering. All he'd needed to do was lie still and accept the first incursion of cold steel. How had he failed in that simple, final duty? "Did I not … not die for you?"

Stannis bent forward, bowed his head, his forehead resting on Davos' maimed knuckles. He seemed unable to speak. Davos brought his other hand from under the covers and laid it gently across Stannis' shaking shoulders. "Your-"

"Davos. Please," the king's voice came choked against the rumpled blankets. "Let us be silent."

Chapter 7

Davos woke and did not need to open his eyes to know Stannis sat still beside him. But when he looked he saw the severe lines of his king's face set off in the shadows of sunset, and stifled a sharp gasp at the beauty of it.

"Shireen," Stannis said then, bringing Davos back with a lurch, "I had hoped … she and Devan …"

"Shireen is a princess, Devan only the son of a smuggler."

Stannis turned toward Davos almost savagely. "Devan is the son of my Hand of the King, Lord Davos." Davos lowered his eyes in acquiescence - they both knew the children's fondness for each other, but Shireen, still, was a princess.

"I had hoped," Stannis said, quieting, "they might unite our lines, our families …"

"We do not need them to do that," said Davos almost recklessly, "if they do not wish it."

Stannis turned to him, his dark eyes suddenly on fire. "But they do wish it," he said, far too quietly for the intensity on his face. "As you wish it."

Tomorrow I may yet meet my death in the flames, Davos thought in some recess of his mind that wasn't burning for Stannis, to be closer to him. "I wish other things," he said in a hoarse whisper. "I wish answers. And I wish …"

"Yes, Davos?" Stannis closed the rest of the space between them with authority. In the flickering light he almost seemed to glow, even as his face betrayed the slightest impatience. "When I thought you may be dead of shock, Lord Davos, I fell to my knees - before Melisandre, before Pylos - and I swore my life to yours. I return your loyalty a thousandfold with my own, with my body and my sword ..." Davos almost could not hear him for the singing of the blood in his ears and his veins. "The least you can do for me, then, is tell me - what is it you wish?"

Stunned and speechless, Davos tried to will the words to come. "Your Grace …"

"Davos," came the response, and Stannis' voice held a forbearance Davos had not heard there before. "I understand."

Davos let his eyes close to bask in the warmth of that voice, those three words sending his pulse skyward. Then he felt a hot breath, a scratch of rough stubble, and Stannis' lips were upon his own, taking fiercely what they wanted - all Davos' shuddering bliss and the words he could not speak. As if in a dream Davos' arms found their way around Stannis, pulling him closer. The fire's light shimmered against the ashen walls and Davos gave himself up to it, to the inevitability that his king would know his true longing - and found that the surrender to this truth was sweet to the taste, all summer wine and honey and a swelling rapture deep enough to drown in.

"What stayed your hand?" Davos asked. "I cannot begin to understand what possessed you … but then what stayed you?"

"You know."

"I do not know." Davos' voice held no frustration, only confusion. Yes, they had shared a warm, dark kiss, Davos yielding willingly to the embrace and Stannis holding him steady - but Stannis was overcome, he did not think what he was doing -

"You do," and Stannis' arms were suddenly around him again, making him shiver into the touch, "You know, Davos."

Davos stayed silent, watching his king. Stannis, my lord, my heart, my eyes, he thought. If you truly mean this, then I am lost.

"It is you I want beside me …"

"For the war?"

"For as long as I am alive," Stannis finished, his voice lowered, sounding like a calm sea after the spasm of a storm. Then Davos did know what possessed Stannis, and it possessed him too, and it swallowed them both together like a black ship into a dark rain.

Chapter 8

"Did you really believe I was the … that I was Azor Ahai reborn?" Stannis murmured, some time later, into Davos' warm neck. "You must have, or …" He didn't finish the thought; there was no need.

Davos was quiet a long while before he spoke. "I do not think-" he started, stopped, closed his eyes and began again. "It is not a question of belief. You had commanded that I was to die, to permit the red god to grant you the kingdom." He felt Stannis tense at the words, but went on. "So it was not my belief that mattered. It was yours."

"But you yourself, Davos," Stannis persisted. "What did you believe?" He nestled closer. "I would hear the truth."

"I am not a septon …"

"Tell me, Davos," closer still.

"I was born to this life," Davos said, gingerly setting aside caution, "to be by your side. And as fortunate as I count myself, I feel … I will only be born once. I feel the same for you. For your brothers, for my sons … for everyone. Even Azor Ahai, I suppose. Only once in this world did he appear - he lived long, far too long. He died, and he watches now from another world, perhaps. His shade may watch from this one. But he will not return, not in the body of you, or of any other man. You are yourself," he said, and brought his hand up to trace a gentle path from Stannis' hairline to the nape of his neck. "There is no need for you to be anyone else."

Stannis was silent so long that Davos feared he had said too much after all. But when he shifted to look at his king - his king still, even if not a reborn prince of the fables - he saw that Stannis was gazing off unfocused, contemplative. "Melisandre," he said, as though from far away, "thinks I have failed the prophecy."

"Will she desert you?"

"That I don't know. She has spent all her time with Selyse, since …"

Davos lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"I can only imagine what they find to discuss about me," Stannis finished. "It is no matter. Do I have to shed even more blood - your blood, Davos - to save the blood of Westeros? Do I need the red magic to rule justly? She … she expected great things from me, far greater than I can ever accomplish. And she expected dreadful things from me - far … far worse than I could accomplish." Here he paused and tightened his arm around Davos. "And you were always right. A king protects his people. I almost lost you, not once, not twice, but three times. You were starving on a sea spear and I thought you dead, and then you were imprisoned in Manderly's dungeon and I thought you dead, and you returned both times-"

"It was my luck that carried me back to you," Davos said, feeling Stannis' body rigid around him. "The luck that brought me to you the first time always brought me back."

"And what was it," Stannis asked, calming, "that carried me to you?"

Davos could not answer. Shaken by the question, and its possible answers, he could do nothing but pull Stannis down on top of him, consuming him again, forgetting the world.

Chapter 9

As evening fell on Dragonstone, Stannis, exhausted and fiercely incensed and out of breath, found Davos standing at the window in his bedchamber, looking out at the thundering sea. Stannis crossed to him in seconds, tension within him simultaneously loosing and building as he reached the place where Davos stood silent and still. After the long night in his arms, being without Davos since morning was like a maddening itch that made Stannis unable to focus on anything else - least of all on the priestess Melisandre, who had showered him with her rage and the remnants of her pride.

Disdain flowed into desperation and thence into towering fury as Melisandre seemed again to become one with the fire she stood so near.

"I have burned for you," she told him, "not in the way you think you burn for your Davos but I have actually burned, I have suffered in your service, I have given to R'hllor more than you could ever give to … to him," not saying who she meant, R'hllor or Davos. "I have thrown my body on the flames when you burned the leeches and the traitors. Every flame set to crown you consumed a part of me. Every scream was my scream. For you," she said, and she would not cry although her eyes shimmered in the flickering light, "I have given half my strength, untold amounts of my blood … I have suspended my sanity for you, Stannis."

He looked steadily into Melisandre's eyes - had they ever been so vividly red, so sharply aglow? "My lady," he said, "I will do what I can to appease you. I will pay your passage anywhere in the seven kingdoms or out of it. I will see to it," he said, even knowing the state of his coffers, "that you are sustained."

She laughed in his face. "Sustained," she said. "My only hope for a balm in this world was to know I had served R'hllor, by seating his warrior on the throne. I would have gone to my death knowing I had done this thing, completed this task set for me. Now I must face the flames and say to R'hllor that his warrior would not fight."

Stannis' hand clenched into a fist at his side. "I will fight, my lady," he said, almost too quietly to be heard. "I still do not know," and the blue of his eyes flashed dangerously; he saw the shadow of alarm in her face, "who my true enemy is."

She trembled, barely perceptibly - she turned and swept out of the room, red robes aswirl. He knew she was going to his wife: they shared more than a god, he knew; they shared a fire, a chamber, a bed. Selyse had never looked pleased with anything, from the day Shireen was taken ill with the greyscale, until she had taken up with Melisandre and her red god. Irrelevantly he remembered his little brother and the wicked hint of a grin when he had said he and the Knight of Flowers spent the nights praying. Stannis shrugged the thought away impatiently and, with teeth clenched as to a tourniquet, went at last to find Davos.

"Your Grace," his knight said, turning toward him, his voice soft with the evening.

Stannis came up behind Davos and put his arms firmly around him, turning them both toward the peaked window to watch the darkening sea again. Pinpricks of pleasure stitched their way up Stannis' spine as he felt Davos melt into the embrace, letting his head tilt back to rest on Stannis' collarbone.

"She was angry," Stannis said, almost to himself. "She thinks … that … was the only way I could prevail, that any other course of action is base folly."

"She is single-minded," Davos murmured, his words set aloft in the still air. "And she does not trust you, only the red god."

"As you never did," Stannis said. "Tell me, Lord Davos, what do you trust?"

Davos reached up to Stannis' hands tight around his chest, as he used to reach for his pouch of finger bones. The familiar gesture shook Stannis to the core; he felt his head swim but steadied as Davos held his hands safely and sure.

"I trust this," he said simply. He turned to press his open mouth to his king's flushed neck and Stannis shivered violently. "Where will she go?" Davos asked, and for a moment Stannis did not remember who they had been talking about.

"She's gone to my lady wife," he said, breathless, a hint of a smile coming unbidden. "I imagine … they will pray."

Later in the candlelight, one word like a benediction echoed through the silence. "Davos," Stannis breathed. It was a chant, a prayersong, a ward against the darkness and the too-bright light. "Davos," again, and the thick curtains around Davos' bed shimmered as they moved together. "Davos," as he was swept up in the man's arms, swallowed by the ocean of time. "Davos. Davos. Davos."

Snowflakes gathered, then melted when they touched the steel windowpanes as Stannis stood in darkness staring out at the pitch-black night. No stars shone through the clouds and no moon lit the cresting waves he knew tumbled and roared below. Darkness surrounded the stone castle, the howling winds buffeted the walls, but Stannis in the chilly air felt warm down to his toes. There was so much to do, and so far to go. He had escaped one trial only to land himself in another sea of troubles should Melisandre try to sabotage him. But he knew Shireen slept soundly in her warm room, he knew Devan waited even in his dreams to be able to serve, he knew Davos' younger sons and his wife were safe at their distant keep, and he knew Davos would never leave his side. "As I will never leave his," he swore to the inky night.

He heard Davos wake and stir, rustling the rumpled bedclothes. Stannis cast his gaze once more out the window before turning away, parting the curtains to sink into the bed, into the safety and warmth of Davos' arms. In the darkness a shiver shook him as he felt Davos exploring, his mouth dancing over Stannis' skin, igniting sparks Stannis could not believe weren't visible. Only this, he thought inarticulately, his breath coming fast as his hands found their way into Davos' hair and tightened there as Davos set his body shuddering again and again under his aching and insistent touch. Only this once more as the waves overtook him. And Davos' name fell frenzied from his lips while the fire within him rose to a searing inferno, and white winter crashed outside.