GO GIVE YOUR POWER STONES TO MY NEW STORY, IF YOU CAN. "A BLADEMASTER IN WESTEROS."
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The red woman turned to me from across the great hall, and I froze.
For a moment it felt as if the room had vanished around me. The smiling king and the old man at the stake disappeared. The murmur of the lords and ladies gone. All there was left was the woman in front of me, her red eyes glowing in the torchlight like the ruby around her throat.
Melisandre. It could only be her, and she was stunning.
Pale and slender and taller than most men I'd ever met. Her long hair, the color of burnished copper, fell down to a narrow waist that only emphasized the fullness of her breasts and the curve of her hips even beneath the crimson robes. Her face was heart-shaped and delicate, so beautiful even a goddess would weep with envy.
She was fire turned female. As alluring as the warmth of a hearth on a wintry night. And I could see how a man as cold as the future Stannis Baratheon could so easily fall into those flames.
Harsh clangs broke through to me and I blinked out of my haze. The gold cloaks ringing the pyre and the throne banged their spear butts on the ground in unison. The sound echoed in the cavernous room, reverberating off stone walls. All the whispers from the crowd ceased at once, cut off like a candle snuffed.
Behind the pyre, above the dais that loomed over the great hall, Aerys Targaryen rose from the Iron Throne.
From a distance, standing there with a crown on his head and that monument of swords beneath him—blades springing out of the stone like the cutting spine of some slumbering beast—he looked every inch the Targaryen king the stories spoke about. Regal. Terrible. Powerful.
"Ser Galladon Tarth."
His voice was raspy, still worn from months of screaming and raging beneath the Dun Fort. But it was not weak. And it was not completely mad. A dangerous combination.
"Come," he said, gesturing with one pale hand. "Come closer before your king."
I swallowed, my eyes flicking back to the woman by the pyre. Melisandre did not seem to mind the attention. A smile curved her pouty lips, and I felt a spike of desire lance through me, hot as molten iron.
Her smile widened, showing white teeth.
This fucking bitch. My jaw ground so hard it hurt.
It took some effort to look away from her, but then I was walking across the room. My boots struck the marble with a confidence I didn't feel. I should have been shaking right now, trembling like a leaf. But the good thing about desire was that it felt much like anger sometimes, a rush of emotion that got your body moving like nothing else.
I tried to hold onto that as I went around the pyre and approached the throne. Showing my back to Melisandre made me feel like a hare parading before a hungry fox.
A damn sexy fox, to be fair. But for all I knew she could be a decrepit old lady hiding behind an illusion. Not the kind of thing you wanted to risk for your first time.
Here, closer to the throne, the Kingsguard formed a line before the king. All seven of them stood in their white cloaks, the fabric draping like shrouds above their shoulders. Ser Barristan Selmy, who must've gotten past me in my daze, stepped forward to take my sword from my belt. His fingers were gentle but firm as he unbuckled it, his face carefully blank. Then he rejoined his brothers, and I was left unarmed before the king.
To one side of the throne, Prince Rhaegar Targaryen watched me with a blank face. He stood beside his mother, Queen Rhaella holding a sleeping Viserys against her shoulder. Her eyes met mine for just a moment. Dark purple and filled with something I couldn't name. Then she looked away.
On the other side of the throne, the Small Council members shuffled in place. Pycelle with his ridiculous beard. Velaryon standing tall and proud. Chelsted and Staunton looking uncomfortable. The whole lot of them.
Lord Tywin too stood stiff as an oak tree, arms crossed behind his back. His expression was carved from stone, giving nothing away. Beside him, Lord Steffon Baratheon did not look pleased to see me. His face was stormy, heavy brows tight and furrowed.
I tried not to show the confusion on my face. Did he think I wanted this somehow? That I'd met with King Aerys to ask for this spectacle?
With all those eyes on me, I did the only sensible thing I could think. I went down to my one knee right in front of the Kingsguard, the marble cold beneath me.
"Your Grace," I said, loud enough to carry. "I am yours to command."
That seemed to be the right thing to do. Aerys smiled.
"Well?" he asked, leaning forward in his seat. Eager. Almost childlike in his excitement. "What do you think of my surprise, ser? The man responsible for taking your mother hostage. For maiming her. For scheming to lay your family low."
His voice grew louder as he spoke, projecting so that all in the hall could hear him clearly.
"I present him to you as my gift, young Galladon, for inspiring Ser Barristan in my own rescue!"
His smile widened, lighting up his face. In the torchlight, his teeth looked yellow like a dog's fangs.
"I... I do not know what to say, my king." I kept my voice steady with effort. "I had thought Lord Elmar would be at Castle Black by now. Or at least halfway there."
"The wandering crows always stop in King's Landing on their way back north." Aerys waved a dismissive hand. "The Starks may boast of manning the Wall for thousands of years, but it's the poor fools from the Black Cells that truly guard the realms of men now. I had a chest full of gold and half a hundred men sent in Elmar Whitehead's place as a show of my generosity to the Watch." He chuckled. "The black brother was quite pleased, if you must know."
"Your Grace is kind."
"Yes, yes, but you must not think me so unselfish. Oh no." His expression darkened, purple eyes going hard. "This is the fate that should have befallen those who dared touch the dragon. Those that so cravenly imprisoned their king. But I was cautioned against it by my so-called... advisors."
He practically spat the word.
"Darklyn and his ilk were beheaded or faced the noose. And his wife, that witch Serala of Myr..." His hands clenched on the arms of the throne. "Her I intended to burn alive, as she had no noble blood of note. But she escaped my grasp, and these same advisors have been unable to find her. I was denied my justice."
I held back the urge to look at Tywin. I could almost hear the veins in his forehead struggling to contain themselves.
"How foolish I was to listen." Aerys shook his head. "They mean only to soften the fury of the dragon for their own avaricious ends."
He paused, and in that silence I could hear the crackle of torches. The breathing of the assembled lords and ladies. My own heartbeat thundering in my ears.
"No more. I have seen the light in the fires! I shall follow the tradition of the Targaryens of old. Of Aegon the Conqueror. Fire and Blood!"
His voice rose to a shout that echoed off the vaulted ceiling.
"From this day hence, all enemies of the crown shall burn at the stake! And Elmar Whitehead has broken the King's Peace by taking hostage Ser Galladon's lady mother. His fate can be no other!"
Still on my knees, I looked back at the pyre and the man atop it.
Elmar Whitehead lifted his head from where it had been resting on his chest. He looked dazed, half his face swollen and bruised purple. Blood crusted at his nose and the corner of his mouth. I couldn't even tell if he knew what was happening. If he understood where he was or what was about to occur.
I had no love for the man. If young Adam Whitehead had not stopped me in that tower hallway, I would have likely ended Elmar myself. Even if his wife had been the true architect of their plan, he still bore responsibility for it. As a lord and a husband and a man. A knight.
But this? This was not my idea of justice.
I would feel no pleasure in seeing him burned.
"Your Grace, perhaps—" I started, but Aerys Targaryen was not in the mood to listen.
"Light the pyre, Lady Melisandre!" he called out, his voice ringing with glee. "And let this be a warning to all those who turn against the house of the dragon!"
Stunned, I watched as Melisandre stepped forward. Her movements were graceful, almost floating. She raised her hands from beneath the long sleeves of her robes.
Flames licked at her fingers.
Gasps sounded throughout the great hall. I heard someone cry out in shock. Another voice raised in what might have been prayer or curse.
With a flick of Melisandre's wrist, a tongue of fire jumped from her hand like a whip and struck the kindling at the base of the pyre.
Orange light flashed across the hall as the entire pyre burst into flames all at once. The heat washed over me even from several feet away, making me squint. The fire spread with unnatural speed, growing, consuming the dry wood with a hungry roar.
Despite his injuries, Elmar seemed to wake now that the fire licked at his ankles. He thrashed weakly against his bonds, arms pulling at the rope. His head jerked up, eyes going wide with terror and confusion.
He opened his mouth to scream.
But in that pit of his mouth, I saw only the stump of a tongue.
They'd cut it out. Of course they had. Couldn't have him cursing the king, could they? Couldn't have him pleading for mercy in words everyone could understand.
What came from the man's throat after that was a terrible sound. A moaning scream, ragged and raspy and wet. Like an animal caught in a trap, but worse. So much worse because I could hear the human desperation beneath it.
Despite my heartbeat thundering in my chest, I felt paralyzed, frozen on my knees. All around there was chaos. Women screamed in the crowd. Men cursed. Children turned away, hiding in their mothers' skirts.
But no one moved. No one protested.
All the lords and ladies of the court, knights and guards and men-at-arms—they all watched as a man was burned alive. As Elmar Whitehead tried to scream and plead for his life in terrible, inarticulate moans.
The flames climbed higher, engulfing his legs. His clothes caught fire, the fabric blackening and curling. The smell hit me then, burning cloth and wood and something else. Something sickly sweet and wrong.
Flesh.
I looked around as if waiting for someone to intervene. For someone to stop it.
But all I saw was faces turning. Hands covering eyes. Heads bowing. It struck me then. Of course no one would help. I couldn't blame them. Who would be so foolish when such an action would see them in the man's place instead?
It was what happened with Lord Rickard Stark, I imagined. In another future, another time, hundreds of men and women would watch as a great lord of the realm was cooked inside his armor in a farcical trial by combat where wildfire served as the crown's champion.
And here I was now on my knees doing the same as all those people. Watching.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Queen Rhaella fleeing the hall with her child clutched tight against her. Her maids followed, their faces pale.
Something inside me twisted at that, and then I was no longer thinking of Rickard Stark and the people who watched him die. Or even of Elmar Whitehead and the crimes that led him to this barbarous end.
All I could think about was what that woman would suffer once this sick farce was done. When Aerys got his fill of Elmar's wet screams and sought their marriage bed to hear hers.
With that in mind, the decision came easy to me.
I lunged.
Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, the man who'd knighted me, was staring wide-eyed at the burning pyre. He reacted too late when I pulled his sword from its scabbard.
The blade came free with a metallic rasp. Another brother in white screamed a warning, but I was already moving. Faster than any of them. Running on pure instinct.
I dashed back the way I'd come, shouldering past a trembling gold cloak. The heat from the pyre was intense now, searingly hot. The flames roared like a living thing.
With Elmar's back turned to me and the flames raging beneath his feet, I jumped onto the lower edge of the pyre. The wood was already hot beneath my boots, but I shut the rational part of my brain down and thrust the sword forward with all my strength, driving it into his back and through, all the way into his heart.
The resistance of flesh parting. The scrape of metal on bone. The final push as the blade found its mark. Perhaps I only imagined it for my own sake. But I would swear I heard a gasp. A sigh of relief.
Then the screaming stopped, and I would have fallen down the backside of the pyre if hands were not immediately pulling me down harshly.
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