A Vow Without Honor

The Battles

Or perhaps that came from the man before her.

Lord Stannis did not sit in the lord's seat. He stood beside it, fingers tapping on the arm rest; he was looking down, as if lost in thought.

Davos stepped aside. "My lord, allow me to introduce the Lady Myra of Winterfell and Ser Jory."

"He's not a ser," came a mumbled reply.

"My lord?"

Stannis Baratheon looked up. His hair was short and graying, and his face clean shaven. He appeared much older than Renly, and even Robert, and carried an authority she had never seen either brother possess. Even when King Robert was angry and bothered to look from his drink or his women, he could never encompass the cold, calculating feel of his younger brother. She had to wonder what sort of life led a man to feel like that.

"The North worships the Old Gods, not the Seven, thus there aren't many knighthoods north of the Neck," Stannis replied, so matter-of-fact that she wondered if it occurred to him how insulting the statement might be. "You aren't a septon, Ser Davos. I suggest you don't knight anyone."

Then his eyes were on her, dark things she doubted anyone could ever read. They were watching, waiting, and it took her far too long to realize that she was expected to speak next.

"Lord Stannis," Myra spoke with a nod. "My father has spoken a great deal about you..."

"No, he hasn't."

Myra blinked, "My lord?"

"No one has ever spoken about me at any length unless they needed something. I'm not ignorant enough to not realize that, nor am I vain enough to accept your poor attempts to tell me otherwise in what I assume is supposed to be flattery," Stannis continued. He sat in the lord's seat, a great piece of rock that looked to have sat on the island long before the castle did. "Whatever you've heard from your father, you heard only now because he was sending you to see me, so spare me your false courtesies or our business is concluded."

The hall grew frightfully silent. Outside, Myra could hear the booming of wave upon wave crashing against the rocks of the island. It sounded as though the whole sea wished to drown the castle and everyone within its walls, yet Dragonstone stood, indifferent to it all.

She saw Ser Davos, his face sympathetic, very much like any father watching a child in distress. It made her feel small, as though she had never been up to the task of speaking with the likes of Stannis, and he was witnessing her inevitable collapse.

It made her angry.

"My father, the Hand of the King, requests that you return to King's Landing."

Stannis watched her for a moment, his back as straight as his seat. "No."

Something waned deep inside, hope maybe, but Myra stood her ground. "And why not?"

If Stannis took offense to her sudden lack of propriety, he did not show it, though his next words had more bite.

"Because requests can be denied."

"My father is investigating the death of Jon Arryn and he needs your help."

"Jon Arryn got sick and died. It happens to us all."

"And if that were the case, you would not have fled the capital and hid yourself away in Dragonstone."

Stannis stood then, stepping from the dais to within an arm's reach of her. Like his brothers, he was a tall, built man who towered over her. It must have worked wonders in making his opponents feel much smaller than they were, but Myra found a strange sort of courage nestled deep within that encouraged her to maintain eye contact, the kind only found in desperation, when all you held dear was in danger.