The Provenance || Jon Snow | Game of Thrones

6.09

"Tell him," Davos shouts for the first time before Jon's eye.  "Tell him who it belonged to."

"The Princess Shireen," Melisandre says, Jon's eyes flickering to her and then to Stannis as he stands firm at the back of the room, although his eyes are pained.

"Step forward you bastard!" Davos screams at the Red Witch, "Tell him what you did to her.  Tell him!"

Melisandre's fingers trace the stag up to Jon before dropping completely to the ground at the look of brown.  "We burned her at the stake."

"Why?" Davos cries.

"The army was trapped," Melisandre pleads with Jon to understand, his eyes revealing nothing but the burn of horror singeing his veins.  "The horses were dying.  It was the only way."

"You burned a little girl alive!"

But she shouts back at him, "I only do what my Lord commands!"

"If he commands you to burn children, your Lord is evil!" Davos rightly accuses.

"We are standing here because of him," the Red Witch reminds the adviser.  "Jon Snow is alive because the Lord willed it."

"I loved that girl like she was my own.  She was good.  She was kind," the man sobs with a rage Jon did not know that Davos possessed.  "And you killed her!"

"So did her father," Jon's eyes shift to the cringing Stannis aback the room.  "So did her mother.  Her own blood knew it was the only way."

The doors creak open again, and certainly it is someone who heard the fight, revealing Gabrielle as she walks in with the direwolves behind her and the room instantly chills.  Eyes adamant on Melisandre—knowing this is the choice she must make—Gabrielle's firm as she accuses, "No, you seduced Stannis into believing in your god.  You seduced him into believing it was the only way.  You put his daughter up against the country—he would have been a good king because he chose his country.  But that wasn't the only choice.  This is entirely your sin."

"You told everyone Stannis was the one," Davos echoes, "You had him believing it, all of them fooled.  And you lied."

But she shakes her head, "I didn't lie.  I was wrong."

"Aye, you were wrong.  How many died because you were wrong?" Davos pinpoints, and their eyes lock in a fierce battle between grief and magic that finally ends as the man turns to Jon.  "I ask your leave to execute this woman for murder.  She admits to the crime."

Jon's eyes flicker to the Red Witch's as the others watch in stiff silence, "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"I've been ready to die for many years.  If the Lord was done with me, so be it, but he's not," she emphasizes with deep sorrow.  "You've seen the Night King, Jon Snow.  You know the great war is still to come.  You know the Army of the Dead will be upon us soon.  And you know I can help you win that war."

Jon stares at her before stepping forward and closer to her, his voice gruff in its delivery as he orders her, "Ride south today.  If you return to the North, I'll have you hanged as a murderer."

Nodding slowly as her head drops, Melisandre places the burnt stag on the high table and turns to leave when Davos blocks her path, growling, "If you ever come back this way, I will execute you myself."

Her blue eyes flicker to his and then back to the ground before she vacates the hall and leaves the four to the other perpetrator, even if he was seduced.  Turning his eyes on the stiffened Stannis Baratheon at the other end of the hall, his eyes flicker in that fiery rage, "You killed her, you killed your own daughter.  Did you even love her?"