A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Davos I

Half-dead on a spur of rock in the bay, Davos is rescued ÔÇö and sails back to Dragonstone with one purpose: to kill the red woman. The dungeons take him first.

The chapter retold

Davos Seaworth washes up alive on a spur of rock in Blackwater Bay, the sole visible survivor of the wildfire that ended Stannis's siege of King's Landing, and is fished out more dead than not by men who do not recognize the Hand of the King in a half-drowned onion smuggler. He has had a long time alone with the sea to arrive at one clear purpose: find Melisandre and put a knife in the woman he blames for burning his sons along with the fleet. He sails back to Dragonstone with that intention fully formed and precisely no way to carry it out.

The homecoming he gets instead is the dungeon ÔÇö Stannis's justice for a defeat Davos did not cause and cannot explain away, delivered by a king too proud and too frightened to simply be grateful his most loyal knight survived. The chapter reintroduces Davos as the series' most reliable moral compass by putting him somewhere his honesty cannot help him, which is exactly where the book intends to keep testing him for the rest of its length.

This movement: Wolves at the Crossing

• Brienne rows the Kingslayer downriver under a flag of lies; the banter starts sharpening into respect.
• Robb returns to Riverrun with a Westerling bride and a broken treaty; the Freys go home cold.
• Beyond the Wall, the survivors of the Fist stagger to Craster's; Sam earns the name Slayer with a dragonglass dagger.
• Dany sails for Astapor, where an army that feels nothing is sold by men who feel less.