Thousands of years ago, the warrior queen Nymeria crossed into Dorne from Essos, fleeing the dragonlords of Valyria. After she landed, she burned her ships, all ten thousand of them so no cowards could slink home.

"That is Nymeria's star, burning bright, and that milky band behind her, those are ten thousand ships. She burned as bright as any man."

A Song of Ice and Fire

"Arya, please!"

Hurriedly, she waded to the Krylst's embankments and donned her raiments, her angst, her anger and aching pouring upon her face like literal rainfall. She brushed the drops away.

Despite their strongest remonstrance, the Rhoynish women were dismissed by the queen, and so they aborted the scheme to slay the Valyrian before he slays her.

The Woman denounced her decisions.

Foolishness! A quick throat-slash, no rune called for at all. What good had the Man done for you to spare him?

Arya justified the acts.

I cannot kill him. I…love him.

'Mazverdagon se Nissa,' the Woman spoke once more. A firesword to your breast. Soul and steel, anguish and ecstasy. What have you learned, Woman? A Man is not to be trusted. Love leads to ruination.

The lifting of the thrall, his betrayal of his blood-brothers, scorning the womb of the Mother Freehold, ten thousand ships—all these for the sake of me, she thought.

The Woman in her scoffed. A great charade, that is what! Valyrians are known for this. Empty promises. In truth—a shattering and a reforming, the death of one woman for the spawning of another. Tearing of the body and rebuilding it from the fragments. Loss of self.

Arya shook her head.

I love him.

"Arya!" Jaqen had emerged from the river, clothed himself with whatever garments he had left. He rushed to her, chained her in his arms. "Please, please…" he was collapsing—his voice was that of breaking crystal. "I know nothing of these, goddess mine. It was only now, and from your lips that I heard of it."

She flailed about ferociously, hell-bent on freeing herself from his grasp. This fall…this fall was the greatest that she had ever known. Defenselessly and with the innocence of her trusting heart, she had abandoned what is real and right and reasonable, smashed the strongholds she had built around herself, allowed all that she is to plummet into the nebulous chasms of him, as if the darkest of his darks is the only light she would ever know in her damned life. She was sobbing, clutching her chest lest the shards of her heart fall to the waters and get carried by the torrents. "You…you should have killed…killed me in Rhoyne…" she choked in her own words. "Made me love you…so much. Then, take away my breath with your own hands? And let your tempered sword swallow the whole of me…and my child…my dear child…"

Jaqen held her face firmly and kissed it all over. He beseeched all known gods, though he was not at all a man of faith, but a scorner of beliefs in fact. This is the woman I cannot breathe without, don't let her hide from me. Let her not undo all these. "Our child, Arya. It's ours. Nothing, jorrāelagon, I will allow nothing to happen to you both! I should have known, should have...no, beloved." There was nothing in his desperate recollections but the Elder Mage who had spoken endless of times about that red sword of heroes, a forbidden marriage between Valyrian and Rhoynar. He clenched his teeth in rage, tightened his hold of her. "We are each other—you are the cause of me, Arya. How can I kill the one who had breathed in me life, do tell? How ever can I kill my own self—you, you? This is a ploy from those enemies of ours, to put us asunder. See reason, my love—"

"Let go of me!" She thrashed against him, clawed his face with her bare hands. Under her fingernails, she felt his flesh and smelled metallic blood from the skin she had scraped. "You demonic beast! I am exhausted of you ruthless, sickening slavers! Your arrogance, defining time through your dragons that eat their own tails, your perpetual cycle of cruelty and redemption that would justify your animalisms! You magnify yourselves, connive against your fellow men, and for what? To defeat Winter and save us all when you have stolen more lives than those wights ever had? Let go!"

She broke away, ran to the willows…away, away from him. Away from his cruel promise of Death.

Away from his heartless deeds of forging a sword shaped in fire and covered in her own blood, the blood of his Nissa—woman, wife, mother.

To him, I am nothing but an instrument, a tool for furtherance of his personal gains, and those of his Valyrian kith.

Her feet got caught by thick roots, causing her collapse. It was the sodden ground that met her face. With much difficulty, she lifted herself from the dirt, fell once more. Torrential rains mocked her strengthless state.

Still, I love him.

Oh, I love him so.

I love you, Jaqen.

By some mercy of the gods, she was able to hoist herself up. Arya! She heard him call, and ignored it though there was nothing in all the world she desired to do but throw herself into Jaqen's arms so he may kiss the pangs away, calm her perturbations and maelstroms, assure her that it was all a lie. She ran, splashing wet all over the paths, praying to the ones higher—may she be denied of wind in her lungs so she may pass away and not leave this realm with her liquid scarlet in her beloved's hands.

Perhaps, he had never loved me…I am just a Rhoynish slut after all. The words of those lords at the Conclave were true. I'm just another one of that Valyrian's many whores.

A realization—once a Valyrian had set his mind to kill you, then you are as good as dead.

If he wishes that I die for him, I would...

She held her belly as she rushed farther.

But our little angel…what would become of it if I allowed myself to be killed by Jaqen?

Strong hands caught her, and they both descended to the ground with him taking the fall and shielding her from hurt. His mouth closed in on hers, the sweetness of it mingling with the saltiness of rain. "Arya…Arya, my wife. I love you, please…heed me, goddess, please…" He never released her lips whilst he spoke. Wordlessly, he sent the rains his gratitude—the downpour was then one with his own tears. "Don't leave like this, Arya…I know nothing."

"Let me go," she whispered as she rose. He was unyielding, he pulled her to him so she sat astride his lap. She slapped him repeatedly, yanked his rain-soused hair, removing some of it from his crown forcefully. "I'm nothing to you, Jaqen! A fish-stinking, squid-smelling harlot, there, that's what I am! I do not expect you to preserve my life or whatever shred of honor I still have left—I'm chattel, a property. I can offer you nothing now, I'm with child and my body will swell unceasingly in the moons forthcoming; I will be far from that beauteous river nymph that amused you the first time you laid eyes on her! Let me go!" He was too strong, and he still held her, calmed her through his whispers of tenderness. "Let me toil in your mines in the morn like all thrallsmen do, and fuck me at night should you find me still enticing, but spare me! I beg not for myself but for my child…" she sobbed on, buried her face in his wet hairlocks of ivory and cursed herself for her inevitable weakness in the face of him. "My people need me and…my child, Jaqen…my little one."

"Ours," Jaqen stroked her hair, pressed his lips over and over upon her bare shoulder. His voice was shattered. "Ours, ours, ours, Arya…don't strip me of my right to that child, it is from us—my seed and your womb both. You have awakened a god out of me when you first spoke of our young one; to create something so beautiful with you, Arya, it's just beyond me yet here it is now in you, greatest of all gifts, though so, so unworthy I am of it." He held her close, kissed the side of her mouth that the soft floods of her tears have reached, smelled her divine scent meshed with the gentle petrichor and soaked grass. His fingertips caressed her belly—babe's alcove, and he lowered his face to kiss it too. "I do not possess the knowledge of deities, my judgments are not always the wisest, my truths do not always resemble good, my utterances are perhaps far from being just, as I am far from being perfect. What I do know is this: I broke through your wall of rune in the heights of the war, we dueled in Ice and Fire by the sight of the gods," Jaqen shook his head, rested his temple against hers. "I've realized much—years of plundering, sacking cities through dragonfire, and bedding the maidens of those ruins, all these had been me. Years, Arya. But mere seconds, I beheld your face after hauling you to me through my slaver's chain, you were bloodied and broken. You…you were the purest, most absolute thing I have ever seen in all the world. Nothing mattered—none at all. Not my kith and kin, the empire, the archonship. Not even my own life or all other lives besides mine. You transfigured me, gave me a name I do not even deserve, surrendered to me all of you. Dear gods...after all these, how do you even think would I possess the slightest will to to lose you? I knew nothing, and forgive me for that—"

"Take me to the shacks," her tone was firm, unaffected by all his declarations. "That's where I belong. A Rhoynish slave, a Valyrian lord—this is nothing but a sickening farce for your lot. Let us stop this, Jaqen."

"Arya…"

"I cannot walk. I have injured myself trying to save my own life. You must carry me there. I leave it to the will of the gods should I die tonight in your dragonlord's hands."

He shook her out of desperation, unashamed of the tears that bathed his cheeks, though heaven's waterworks concealed them. He buried his face in between her bosoms and keened silently.

Is there a chalice that can transform tears into pearls, as in the old Ghiscari lore? The Valyrian thought. If so, I can weep forever so I can bathe her with the beauty of pearls that will arise out of the deepest of our pains.

"Why," Jaqen whispered, voice drained out from him. "Why perform the charge with me, your Rhoynish marriage rituals?" He lifted his face, and his eyes that beheld her were with hues of dying flames. "Some…some sacred act of summoning your god-rune, making a descendant of Fire bow before you, surrender himself so you can reclaim your gifts? A tactic of yours, to ensure that I will not turn my back against my own pronouncements concerning the slaves? So low, your impression of me, Warrior Bride."

She broke away from his grasp, tried to stand once more. She could not, for her feet had been severely hurt by her earlier collapse. Jaqen caught her. "The confluence?" Arya smiled bitterly, as she brushed his hand away. "Simple, Jaqen. I'm mad and stupid and…" she gazed at him—a riot of emotions in her bloodshot eyes. "…and I'm so in love with you, and I needed to feel, even for a moment, how to…to be truly owned by the man who had fathered my child. Like you though, I have realized much—I cannot desire for freedom and desire to be yours at the same time. I must choose."

"And you choose freedom over me?" he asked in between clenched teeth.

"Freedom over Death, yes," she replied. "You cannot tell me: 'bare your breast, know that I love you in all the world,' and thrust your Valyrian steel against my beating heart, then pray that your sword casts out darkness once its forged with fire and blood. Whether or not you know of the arranged prophecies is not the case. Your blood brothers may have conspired against us both—this is greater than all of us, and perchance the end they seek is all-good, all-evil. Matters not. This babe I carry within me, he has seen none of this world, I cannot deny him of life when he has not taken his first breath yet. I will kill every damned person for the sake my child, Jaqen," she declared. "And hear me loud and clear—you own neither of us. You Valyrians should cease with your beliefs that you can own another human being."

Truth is the noblest of all languages, but to hear it come from her mouth, and see it reflected in her face that had been the subject of his many, many dreams and hopes, springing perhaps from her heart that was also his heart, to read the finality that was behind each utterance—all these were beyond what he can endure.

His mind had suddenly become the host of all thoughts baneful. Heinous ploys against them all played in his now malevolent head—against Aurion and the Conclave, that damnable firemage.

His father, Kleitos Esdraelon.

All those with the blood of dragons.

"I love you, Arya," Jaqen stared at her, an anarchy of emotions consuming his very person: rage, despair, obsession unlike any. "I love you, damn it. I will kill them all, kill them…"

"Don't Jaqen," Arya said, her tone resolute. "Even if you do, it will not change anything. My decision is steadfast. Grant me my liberty, as well as that of my people. Don't bind me in your schemes of creating a Nissa—I am not her."

Woman is the creator, the universe, her form.

Nissa—woman, wife, mother.

Yes, Arya. You are 'you'.

Jaqen stood, cradled her weak form in his arms and began traversing the paths to the slave shacks. In the heart of that eventide soaked by rains and tides the Moon controls, there was nothing the both of them could do but weep in silence, allow the keening to suffuse itself within them so they may be convinced that feeling had not escaped from their souls and bodies yet. A prophecy will be scorned, a prophecy will be fulfilled. She holds time in her hands.

He must place himself in the depths of her, shatter time and its many abstractions.

As she had requested, he brought her to the shacks, mended her feet with Ny Sari healing salve he had obtained from the one called Ianthine. The Rhoynish female warriors never left her side, despite her direct orders that they take rest and that she be left alone with Jaqen H'ghar. Four stationed themselves outside the door, three were inside. "Wisest move, Dārilaros Nȳhmēria," the one called Shivalhen spoke to her earlier in Rhoynar. "All Valyrians are known to be the greatest deserters of their own words. If you do recall, the Conclave had vowed to leave Rhoyne alone, proceed to conquest against the Andals. A few moons passed and the Volantenes began building outposts in Sar Mell, and that was after our priests had accepted these disgusting animals into the Mother Rhoyne's bounty."

"Hush, warrior!" the one called Pherenice said in admonition, perturbed glance towards Arya who was then drowning herself in woefulness. "The Valyrian speaks our tongue and…he's still the queen's beloved. It is unacceptable to insult him in such a way. He is nothing like those flaxen-crowned swines."

"What does it matter?" the one called Niamh answered on Shivalhen's behalf. "We are from the old gods. The likes of them demons should mate only with their demonic kin."

Jaqen kept his mouth shut the entire time and allowed the vile of those utterances plunge itself to him.

Now, his gold irises were on Arya, his gaze of fondness guarding her whilst she slumbered, delighting himself with the soft rise and fall of her chest. The night was calm now, and may it remain so.

Sleep is a slice of death. Jaqen feared for her. They say that dreams are a whole realm, that of chaos with territories, characters, forces that are extramundane, unpredictable. "They are mirrors of the Material, without actual boundaries," the Elder Mage had once told him. "Dreams have infinite turfs, and are very, very dangerous. If sleep is a little death, then dreams are the paths to reach it."

Arya moaned softly, Jaqen stroked her hair and kissed her on the lips. "Arya, sweetheart," he called to her so she may be roused. A night of sleep may result to a thousand and one, or more than these if the dreamer is not too careful. When a man dies in his sleep, it is because he was already excised from reality—a product of the sequences that had happened in his sleep. He may have been killed or had chosen to remain in that dream-realm.

Please, he implored the gods. Let her dream of things mirthful, may nothing plague her in her slumber.

He pressed his lips against her belly, spoke to the little one who might be listening though life had not fully formed him yet. "I…" he began, unsure of how to proceed. "I haven't laid eyes on you yet. You are beautiful, no doubt like the woman bearing you. Know that I love you, as I love the woman bearing you."

Thought streams rushed to his consciousness, as he dissected the grand conspiracy ran by the Elder Mage with some chosen blood-brothers, he supposes. The old man is one bedeviled by prophetic completions and his accursed Asshaii lore on the Warrior of Light. The orchestration proceeded through mere insinuations from the Elder to him; though he was a rebellious questioner on matters of faith, the old man had managed to implant in his mentalities the configuration of one Promised—with his instructions on the annals of Winter and Darkness, the forging of that firesword, the confluence with the Rhoynish queen of the old gods, his beloved. His mistake sprang forth not from belief, but from unbelief and dismissal of the aftermath of that repudiation.

And the three commanding dragonriders? Aurion Archestrad?

The Archon?

Friend to maidens and slaves, goddess of children and waters and magic? Why must the Nissa die for the sword of light to be forged and for darkness to flee?

A solitary tear fell from Arya's lovely face. Jaqen was quick to brush it away, was quick to plant a deep kiss upon her lips for perchance, her struggles in the dream-realm were too difficult. His kiss will seep through all marrows of her consciousness and become part of her dreams.

The Nissa's quietus will be what will give the lightbringer its own animation.

It must be coated with fire, blood, magical soul of her.

Damn that Mage.

In his mind, he had drafted counterploys in order to keep his wife and child safe.

Those ten thousand ships must leave Valyria before the hatching of the dragonlords' plans could come to pass. The threat to Arya's life had been a constant source of torment for him, and he cannot allow her to put her life in greater peril. South to the Summer Sea is Sothoryos, and though strong influence of the Freehold's culture of thrall was present there, the rulers will be forced to receive them should he send a missive to them in his own handwriting—they all knew the name Esdraelon and fear it. The Basilisk Point hosts the isles that were once colonies of the Ghiscari, Zamettar and Yeen are said to have good lands, spices, and fruits. A temporary home, the Valyrian thought. Till I rebuild for her Rhoyne, Ny Sar—her city of poetry. If she finds the peninsula and the isles too lacking for her taste, there is always the Summer Isles past Naath, center of breathing trade. There she must wait, until he exacts revenge upon the demons of the Freehold and their cursed scions, slaughter with his own hands the grand orchestrators of the creation of the Nissa.

"Arya…Arya…Arya…" Her name flowed out from his tongue like healing nectar. He kissed her nose, pressed his lips firmly against her temple. It was not enough, so he suckled her lips with sweet abandon, ignored the disapproving stares of the three Rhoynar who were standing on the corners of the slave-abode. What to do? He's a man possessed. He spoke. "I love you so much, forgiveness…please."

Despite those fervent acts of his, she did not wake that night.

Pardon. I did not mean to interrupt.

Winter's wind was frozen silken lace upon Arya's skin. It was the dawn, and the sky was awashed with faint, prismatic light illuminating the thick snow upon her feet, bathing it with the illusion of hues.

She was in the limit of permanent ices, beyond what the Northerners called the Wall.

There was a voice, that of a raven with the third sight, who from a previous cycle was named King of Winter, the Builder—a moniker passed on from the mouths of mothers to the mouths of babes, along with other sobriquets: the Clever, the Greenhand, the Godsgrief, figures in the west during the age of heroes.

Bran the Builder, the Raven spoke:

The Dead never interrupt. They just arrive.

Practice care, Nissa Nissa.

There is a more powerful god out there, one whose womb has birthed the dead.

She is Death as Nissa is Life.

Her eyes wandered through the expanse of the land of always winter. She felt herself fleeting, far from the icy stronghold and beyond. My spirit is unfooted, was her scream to the Raven. It is neither on earth nor stone. The blue-eyed Raven flew away, leaving her in the core of wintertide, with the promises of returning and a voice she will always hear.

True enough, nothing grew in this place, except for the weirwoods and direwolves and the children of the forest. She beheld the soft snow upon the ground that had now formed into thick mirrors of crystal ice sheets, then knelt to touch these with her fingertips. They burn, she said. Both Ice and Fire scorch the skin.

Upon the now glassy ground of ice was her reflection and that only. She lifted her eyes to the firmaments. Curious, for the Raven flew overhead in its departure, yet light did not seem to ricochet from its dark form to the looking glasses made of clear frost, leaving it reflectionless.

Slowly, she redirected her focus on her mirrored image.

The crystal ice sheet broke into shards of impossible forms and shapes.

Snow…snow…crystal waters of Rhoyne and the seas.

Winter is supposed to be immaculate, yet there is nothing in it but blood.

Where is the mason who carved prophecies out of stone in high shadows of the long night?

In here, light must not come—the dead cannot withstand the Sun's bones.

A voice, more of a hollow and unhallowed series of echoes permeated through her mind. It was a thousand antiphons of frightening reverberations, more chilling than the howls of a perishing direwolf, the cry of a dragon lost.

It spoke. Aid to the Lightbringer—die.

The words came from a woman. All men seek her gift, or perchance, she had forced them to, since dying men make bargains for the sake of continuance. There was no one there but herself and the million reflections of her upon the ground's shattered mirrors of ice, the giant stones bejewelled with frost, and trees stripped naked by winter's breath. This is not just a land of ice, the Nissa thought.

This is a graveyard.

Beyond the curtain of light lies the Heart of Winter.

It was once more the voice of the Raven, as if its sight and speech can permeate turfs where he must not be, time when he must not exist.

Practice care, Nissa Nissa.

Do not let the spires of ice impale your body containing your own heart.

We are not your enemies Woman, but your friends.

We are a wooden face, a corpse white, a thousand red eyes…

And a boy with a wolf's head.

The shattered looking glasses of ice had turned into floes, and were now drifting away from one another. She stood cautiously, limiting her movements in order to not be carried away by the floating ice that hosted her. Winter howled through the desolate marsh of white and its winds were fierce. The ice sheet that acted as her island in the midst of freezing waters drifted…drifted to that far-off cave that was beyond the aurora. She carried no enchantment in the dream realm, and Mother Rhoyne was too far.

God-rune, she prayed. Old gods, they say that you are the only gods beyond this Wall. Hide me, I need your protection.

Perhaps the gods are sleeping.

The sheet of floating ice that carried her began forming small crevices asudden. Smaller and smaller floes were created by larger ones, and these could not hold her any longer. Beneath the glassy cold crystals is the winter water's turf.

A soft sound of breaking ice.

Arya felt herself descending…descending to the chilly, penetrating waters of always winter.

Iāqaen Haegār!

Fatal coldness of the water enveloped her entire frame, and like spikes and spears pierced both flesh and bones of her mercilessly. She thrashed against the deluge of the numbing waters, the cold that pierces and scalds. To open the eyes is to blind oneself, to breathe is to die. The Valyrian shackles with perpetual heat that draws blood and infects the flesh seemed to be all-merciful compared to the pangs of winter's water. She felt herself being carried away by the currents, with the chilling waters suffocating her breathing orifices and burning her lungs. A soundless scream absconded from her—soundless for though the scream may be with sound, not a living soul would hear. The surface seemed eons away, but she tried to bring herself to the surface for dire air. The waters seemed to be pulling her to their abysms. Every corpuscle of her body screamed for wind for her dying lungs.

The currents rushed as if they owned her.

She fought against the unforgiving flow till she was about to explode. There were illusions of survival, but every second beneath the cruel coldness may be lightyears in truth; the will to live was gradually leaving her.

Arya descended once more—further and further to the darkness of winter.

Heartbeats will cease…

Icicles came rushing to her direction horizontally. Their sharp tips and edges came in contact with her now pruny and feeble skin, drawing blood from her.

Arms, legs, face.

Arya gasped in pain and filled her lungs with winter's water unintentionally. Her eyes flew open and she saw the wielders of those weapons of ice—cold, dead things, scorners of flowing blood and life. They are inhuman, elegant, and dangerous. Seven, eight of them! They made their way through the water, towards her in graceful magnificence, with their skin as pale as the moon and their eyes as blue as stars.

Shadows with teeth…so cold it hurts to breathe…like knives inside your chest…

How do you kill what is already dead?

She flailed about, struggled to liberate herself from the waters whose particles fettered her. Death is the only language that they know, concealed in tongues and utterances whose sound was similar to the cracking of ice. With them were their swords so clear, the blades were almost as blue as the waters; and the shades of these lingered though the abyss that contained not the slightest amount of light. The Sun had hidden itself from her.

Water is friend, not foe. There are traces of the old gods in everything. Water, rocks, trees, wind.

One of the Others raised its sword of ice, prepared to deliver a blow that would sever her head from her frame. She tried to swim away but she was unable, frozen and manacled by the winter water's enchantments.

She heard the sword of ice slicing through the water's particles. Anguish had taken rule of her heart, as she continued descending…descending…her feet hitting the sea's frozen floor. Shockwaves enveloped her entirety, life slowly ebbed away, never to come back. Strength to cling to it had simply…vanished.

But she is the Moon, wife of the Sun. Her womb will be the sacred alcove of dragons a thousand years from now.

In a vanishing span, in a future memory, another great Raven with a thousand and one eyes, whose body had become part of the Weirwood spoke in her rampageous mind.

Your body is married to the Moon's creature, Wolf-girl.

All of a sudden, a gigantic animal of gray and white plunged itself onto the chilly waters, warding off the humans made of ice for a hasty second. Direwolf, Arya thought, though she could not remember having any recollection of interacting with one. It broke through the imprisoning waters and rushed to the depths where she was. Sharp icicles and weapons spawned by Winter found their way through the direwolf's body, and its blood mingled with the currents.

It howled in pain.

Still, the direwolf hauled her out of that void and onto the surface where life awaits. Arya felt herself ascending, though her body had almost given up to quietus. Her consciousness faltered as hues of dark indigo was replaced with clear cerulean. Survival was nigh, but could she reach it?

Hah!

A strong gasp filled her half-dead mortal frame with wind. Fractals of light from the sky bathed her face, as she felt herself being dragged to the icy shores. The Sun has returned, warming her through its rays—a reflection of its heart of fire that broke her and formed her in simultaneous successions. Its magical energy intertwined with the Moon that is her, weaving the very universe with their duality, their twin thread.

Once more, an illusion. The Sun never shows its face in the limit of permanent ices.

Upon reaching the shore, the direwolf collapsed and breathed its last. Its body disintegrated to fragments and was carried of the wind like perceptible mist. But since all lives are interconnected, the life of the Warg and the Wolf are one, and as long as the Warg lives, so does the Wolf.

She struggled to stand, and realized where she was as the beginning of snowstorm whistled messages in the Old Tongue.

The Heart of Winter.

It was the cavern that she had seen from a distance, and it reeked of breathing dead ones; and whoever resided in it has her heart wrapped in crystal ice—unmoving, unfeeling. Die, Woman—these are her words.

Arya shuddered as she stood in the mouth of the cave, and the soft windstorms growing more forceful by the second intensified her inexplicable fears.

This is the Womb that births death.

It was almost leviathan, and perchance able to swallow a hundred an in a single scream of wintertide. All over its threshold were brinicles of sharp edges—ice stalactites and stalagmites protruding in various directions like giant brambles and thorns.

A thousand whispers and raspy breaths and hisses seemed to emanate from the interiors of the icy cavern.

She succumbed to temporary blindness and allowed her mind's eyes to discover what lies beneath the chasms…

Hashalleath…Hochlodwilmi'naghforlodisqo'qun.

It was Death's tongue that she heard. All men must die for men are not gods, the voice said.

And who is the god of death?

There she sits on her majestic throne of ice—naked, with legs splayed as if awaiting the seed that comes from the Heart of Darkness, a nefarious god chained in Stygai that is in need of an animate host. And as long as her feminine crevasse is open to receive the chaos deity's spore, the procreation of walkers will never cease; they will all hatch from her dark soul faster than the Nissa could hatch her dragonspawns that would cause their downfall. There she is, with the animated creatures of Winter at her feet, all as statuesque as a god must be. Her body is of glass, but not the kind that shatters. Her entirety is a mirror of ice—one that reflects the faces of all men in all realms, and endless versions of all these. Within her are their histories and futures of those mortal beings, yet all these she would devour in the end—Valar Morghulis.

She is the Many-faced god.

Death wears many faces, all of them beautiful, in order for men to be lured to her trap.

And since she is all—impressions, shadows, echoes of all men, they see themselves in her, identify themselves in her, find purpose in her.

Like the Nissa, the Universe is her form. She had created it along with the Nissa, for men were dead billions and billions of moons before they were born. Death comes before life; and death comes after life.

Time must only be measured against Death, and all faiths have it as their fundament. Men are nothing but breathing dust and a shadow of reality.

All with flowing scarlet will share her destiny, all that has breath.

The old gods and the red god, with the roots of their weirwood and conception of cycles of continuance are ruining the balance between life and death, they regard the latter as mere illusion through that forking path they have created.

'There is only one god', all will declare; 'And her name is Death.'"

Arya Stark screamed in utter horror as she witnessed the wights crawl out of the death god's feminine orifice, their movements erratic, their screeches murderous, their forms horrendously beautiful.

They slithered out of her womb and dragged themselves towards her…and in the Winter they will lurk…cold mist…lingering…the world is their grave…their dominion…and her wails will feed their soulless bodies…

Ugly susurration of winds…eerie, raspy voices…moaning…spiritless beings…

The dead lives…

The hallowed Moon hid its face from the realms.

Five, ten of them in each second. And their blue eyes bore into the very flesh of her, their stares seemed to rip her soul out of her mortal frame.

Arya continued howling in horror.

The great cabal had revealed itself to him when Arya woke up from that nightmare, screaming like armageddon had arrived without prior portents that would herald its occurrence. She had told him everything—the allusions in those dreams were altogether difficult to unlock, if they could be at all unlocked; however, a thing was clear in all of it.

The Nissa against the death god.

A battle of goddesses? Damn that Mage, I'm going to scorch his body to soot and blow the fragments of him to the Summer Sea. That is if Heraxos doesn't beg me so it could feed on him alive!

"Was there anyone with you in the dream realm?" Jaqen had asked her. It was a senseless question. It matters not whether another character was with her in that turf—the whole dreamscape is a reflection of the material realm, and in the former scape, any damned thing can happen and anyone can exist and not exist in it at the same time. The realm of dreams is a mirror that distorts everything its opaqueness consumes, such that nothing ever remains the same when one sojourns in it in another opportunity.

"A great Raven," she had told him, her lips quivering. She did not pull her hand away from his grasp, found comfort in the act instead. Jaqen kissed her temple, then her lips. "I canot remember all, but time had shown itself in chaotic glimpses. That Raven was a subject in the age of heroes fourscore centuries ago—Bran the Builder they called him. He was with me, his voice and words were my guide yet…his existence was prior to mine, and after mine. I saw flashes of events forthcoming, and a thousand years from now that Raven will assume its existence simultaneous with mine, albeit we will be in different forms—we will be brother and sister…I don't know…it was all a blur…makes no sense at all, these anomalies."

"Stay here with your warriors, Arya," the Valyrian had told her. He knew not a thing about the great Raven she spoke of, its intents, its antecedents. All matters must therefore be resolved with everyone on similar footing. "I must proceed at once to the Hill, speak with Kleitos and that Mage. These were all products of their mindwork, those bastards. I will return; but if speaking with them would require more time on my part, I will send one trusted of mine—Veldahar. Through him you will be informed of our succeeding actions."

"The Rhoynar, Jaqen," Arya had voiced out her irrepressible qualms. "Now, we have children numbering more than two hundred thousand. The lords will soon find out that all ore reserves in both Tyria and the straits of Senthyril had been digged up, and you know what that means—"

"Deployment of all slaves to the Fourteen Flames," Jaqen completed her pronouncement in gritted teeth. "The young ones will perish instantaneously at the foot of those volcanic mines; even the strongest Ghiscari men who were once part of the old legions have perished in there by the hundreds. The Conclave is done listening." He held Arya's face, gazed at it with fondness and worriment, then wolfed down her mouth akin to one starved and desperate—proof of his obsessive passions and love for the woman. She whimpered against his sweet plundering. "Oh, Arya…" he breathed. "I must leave for now. Ten thousand ships await by the Gulf of Grief. Gather your men—Orin, Mes'ard, Eritai, your most trusted. Have them form a small phalanx of message-bearers. Women and children first to eight thousand ships, the remainder of the men in the two thousand. Those ships were equipped with necessities for eight straight moons of seafaring. You will pass through the paths of Celbhar—dragonlords do not venture that way since it's practically a wasteland. Bring what you must, but do not overburden yourselves. The evening is still young, you must all be in the gulf by midnight."

"Forgive me for all. Come with us, Jaqen."

"Not until I have spoken with those accursed plotters. My own father! If Aurion Archestrad is at all part of the entire scheme, I will feed his treacherous face to my firebeast."

"It is much to ask," Arya implored, gripping the fabric of his tunic tight. Firsthand she had witnessed the cruel aftermath of the Second Spice, and the coins have but two faces—victory or downfall. One is as probable as the other, and Jaqen must not be exposed to either states while the coin is spinning. "Much to ask, to leave the Mother Freehold for my sake, and for the sake of what is ours," she led Jaqen's hand to stroke her belly, as if infusing life to the babe that was within her through mere touch. "I want you both with me, Jaqen. Please…I lost Ny Sar and Rhoyne, more than a hundred thousand men in battle. Don't make me lose this family. Relinquish your rule of Valyria, we don't need the Freehold! Let Archestrad take over after Lord Kleitos—"

"Aurion will never leave us alone even if we settle in the Grey Waste, Arya," Jaqen cut her. "This diabolical Empire will be worse than what it already is if I allow the Archestrads to assume rulership. He will waste no time ravaging unmapped cities and hauling slaves in the mines. He was the proponent of the statutes of Gorgossos—forcing slave women to mate with beasts in order to spawn half-breeds. Mass executions, all other horrendous enactments. What more can he do with the archonship on the palm of his hands?"

Arya shook her head, threw herself in Jaqen's arms. "He will kill you, Jaqen."

"Not before I kill him."

"He has the whole Conclave behind him."

"I have you."

Jaqen H'ghar rushed to the dungeons where the Elder Mage's workchamber was. Adamant about obtaining answers, he opened the Mage's iron door with a forceful push once he reached it.

Empty.

Scrolls were at a disarray—some strewn on the floor and some half-consumed by either fire or concoctions gone awry. Vials were all broken, iron and copper implements were scattered in various directions. A faint whiff of smoke glissaded in the chamber.

The Mage is gone. Did he flee? Was he captured and killed?

The firesword.

Blackfyre is missing.

He scoured the entire room, turned over wooden lockers and repositories, hurled objects here and there. It was nowhere to be found.

Jaqen took a hasty exeunt from the dungeons and dashed to the upper towers where Kleitos Esdraelon's inner chamber was. "Father!" he called to the Archon. "Father! We need talk!" He dashed through the cloister, reached the threshold to the Archon's function and turned the knob. The Esdraelon patriarch was not there.

A distant cry made him run out of the chamber and survey the skies from the topmost cloister.

Lethrax—the Archon's firebeast.

Its glistening scales of bronze and silver toyed with the break of light as the Moon started departing. It circled the firmaments, its wings splayed as if commanding the then fierce winds to aid it in its flight. Every flap of its scaled limbs resonated mightily in the Tyrant's Hill, and from each breath of it came forth recalescent blue flames.

Upon its back was Kleitos.

In front of the Archon and his firebeast, and as prepared as they were in an unsanctioned duel of fire, was Aurion Archestrad upon Urkon's spinal plates.

It was an attack of conscience; more than this, a father's devotion. Kleitos had learned of Aurion's convoluted ploys—at the last minute he had banished the Elder Mage to the Fourteen Flames, had him fettered in Valyrian manacles that withholds rune. "Killing that Rhoynar is forsaking my loyalties to my own heir," Kleitos had told the Mage. "Persuade me to abandon all but the blood of my blood." Aurion Archestrad was enraged at the Esdraelon patriarch's decision of sparing the Rhoynar and her kin for the thousandth time.

There was only one way to settle the great discord—challenge the archonship.

The Conclave would be dealt with after the clash.

All the other dragons seemed to shy away, with some settling themselves on the apexes of the Hill's roofless towers, riveted by the scene, and others flying straight to the dragonpits in horror. Very few screeched at the two imperial firebeasts in their flight, intensifying the looming fray—of course, dragons do know how to mock their kin.

Upon Kleitos's lips were two commands that should be uttered only in the fighting stades and during conquests, not in an offstage, unlawful battle of fire and blood against one's kith.

Rhaenagon. Drakarys.

Begin. Dragonfire.

A dance between two dragons commenced its magnific display.

Surges and spheres of flame pervaded expanses and breadths, bathing the whole Tyrants' Hill with mortiferous flames. Lethrax flew in helixes and thwarted the deadly flames dispensed by Urkon, before blasting it with fire and smoke from its own orifices. Aurion's firebeast swooped asudden to avoid the flames, though not without its scaled wings catching some of it.

Kleitos's firebeast continued spewing orbs upon orbs of dragonfire unto Aurion's while glissading across aerial turfs in pirouettes, as if merely frolicking with the opponent dragon's offenses and defenses. The Archon is the Archon for such a reason; and none dared challenge him or his dynasty for half a millennium because writ chronicles have identified the Esdraelons as a clan almost unconquerable.

Scarlet and black smoke followed both dragons in their flight.

Lethrax continued owning the firmaments, gliding east and west to fend off attacks, and charging with a sea of flames ten times stronger than what the foe had dealt him with. Debris from the Hill's towers—collateral to the combat—fell with an ear-crashing thud, destroying centuries-old obelisks and sculpted quartzite that had once witnessed the Freehold's wrathful grandiosity.

Kleitos is most skilled in aerial combat and warfare, but Aurion never plays fair.

Nigh—three firebeasts of one other Valyrian greathouse, led by Lathos Hadervaren.

"Father!" Jaqen heard himself screaming. It was a futile act, for the deafening sound of dragonwings against space had consumed all other sonances. He saw the Hadervaren dragonrider's firebeast darting towards the unsuspecting Kleitos. Hair's breadth, and Lethrax will be devoured by flames from its defenseless rear. "Father!" He still called. "Digress! Ajax, behind!"

Come, firebeast, came forth Jaqen's summoning. Heraxos.

All of a sudden, he leaped from the topmost cloister and allowed himself to descend to the unsure depths a thousand feet from the Archon's roofless tower.

Cruel winds seemed to slice through his flesh as he plummeted, heightening all emotions—suspense, worriment, thirst for both blood and fire.

Two seconds of descent…three.

Heraxos sped to his aid. Jaqen landed on the beast's spine in his usual dragonrider's rhythm, bent on one knee. He settled on the dragon's back, did the fastenings and flank billets, locks and clasps in haste. "Ilie naejot vīlībāzma," he ordered the imperial—straight to combat.

Heraxos rushed in flight to the center of battle. Rain fire! was Aurion Archestrad's usual command. Shades and merciless dragonflames were now bathing Lethrax in various directions, as both Ajax and Urkon took turns in spewing fire orbs to it and its rider.

Jaqen maneuvered the beast in horizontal flight, breaking the triad of dragons. Two other Hadervaren firebeasts took off in opposite courses upon seeing Heraxos approaching with force that was unparalled by any other in Mother Valyria's cradle.

Lethrax took a quick descent, weakened by those traitorous attacks from its sides and rears. Urkon followed its flight.

Heraxos collided head on against Ajax, ramming its chest velociously, forcefully against the other firebeast. "Nābēmagon!" Jaqen screamed in utter wrath—Attack! Hammer him! Ajax was unheeding of its rider's command, mindful only of the physical torment inflicted by its foe. It was forced backwards, as Heraxos continued spitting fire on its face and wounding its neck with its merciless fangs.

Ajax's spine crashed severely against one of the towers, sending colossal fragments of metamorphic stones in the air and to the ground. Lathos Hadervaren fell—all bloodied, unconscious, injured to near fatality; but the dragon was quick as it caught its lord upon its back, and sped away in erratic flight.

Jaqen surveyed the expanse for signs of Kleitos. "Father! Where are you?!"

The Archon lay on the ground, crushed under the scarlet-soaked frame of its imperial dragon. Both were reflections of each other—torn limbs, mangled bones, bodies half-scorched.

"Father…"

Urkon's victorious screech echoed in Jaqen's ears which were then drowned by sounds of keening trumpets. Dragons are the wind of morn, and skies dream of them, many long for their scorching kisses with profound desire. Winged crafts—this is what they are. They do not wield magic, they are magic.

And now, one of the Freehold's greatest dragons is dead—Kleitos Esdraelon, Archon.

Jaqen struggled against weeping. Let me mourn when it is time.

"Sōvegon!" was his order. Heraxos obeyed, chased Urkon who was now heading towards Celbhar near the Gulf of Grief where ten thousand ships await.

Arya…Jaqen's mad heart whispered.

"Come now, Child."

"What is it, Mother?"

"Signs have shown themselves. The day is here—when all these will end. The sweat and toil, the blood and the misery."

"Will we leave the Freehold? When? Whereto?"

"Now, Child. Northwest of the land of the east—this is where we will find our abode."

"Will we live to see it, Mother?"

"Have faith, Child. We will."

Arya smiled as she witnessed the great liberation of her people.

They were now in the paths of Celbhar leading to the gulf eastward from the Freehold. Now, they stand at the summit of that proverbial mountain, hands spread out—celebrating oneness with the wind's whispers and the leaves' rustles, with the quiet murmurs of the rivers and the strong cries of the seas.

Ceri-hafe.

It is finished.

They were all bodies and spirits at the end of the quest for sweet emancipation. Now, they needed no sanction for being. They now belonged to no one but themselves. "The gods have sent that man, truly," she heard one of the thrallsmen declare to four others. "Valyrians are all purple-eyed—hue of bruises and broken bones, of blood that doesn't flow. Iāqaen Haegār's irises are gold—like the Sun, the spouse of the Moon that is Mother Rhoyne. Light, new morn. Ten thousand ships! The maiden goddess whispered, and the lover god obeyed."

Men hoisted sacks of provisions upon their backs as they marched in blithe to the bay. Women carried upon their heads baskets of clothing and healing implements, with their babes strapped securely to their bosoms. Ever since the redrafting of the laws, slaves were allowed to own cattle and fowls of certain numbers, and these too they brought with them, herded by their youth of ten and three to ten and five. The old who were too weak to walk were transported to the gulf by colt-drawn wagons. Fathers carried their children upon their shoulders, lit torches in hand; and mothers watched as sons and daughters ran around and hopped buoyantly atop fallen monuments of that wasteland east of Valyria.

"A boy!" cried one of the men. His wife had just given birth in one of the enclosed wagons in the midst of their short journey. "By the gods, it's a boy!"

Sounds of mirth suffused every soul. There was nothing in the air but lightheartedness, blessedness—the nightmare that is Valyria will be a thing forgotten.

But it was in the nightmare that my most beautiful dreams were built, Arya thought, caressing her babe's alcove. Worry not, my dear one. Your father will soon be with us.

A small girl sang her canticle of worship, hopscotching through the carpets of grass in bare feet. Her voice was the sound of tinkling bells and birds' lilt.

'Ni indóe líre- ana Rhoyne i amil an se tŭre -o ulcu-

-Esse your mel tye tulime- i nórë tye salce.'

I will sing to Mother Rhoyne for she has triumphed,

In her love, she led the people she has redeemed.

Arya stroked the girl's crown of chestnut and smiled at her softly as the child looked up to her. "Yes, Mother Rhoyne had been truly gracious."

They reached the gulf by midnight. The skies were clear and cloudless, and the Moon's face looked down upon each of them. The waters of the Summer Sea were calm and obliging, unselfish; reflecting the stars and their patterns that will serve as their celestial guides in their seafaring.

Sails were raised, women and children embarked on the ships.

All of a sudden, an ocean of blaze started devouring twelve of the vessels. The flames were from Varathis, firebeast of the fourth dragonrider. With her were two other dragons of the Valyrian greathouse Ophistor.

Daxen's screams were those of one unhinged as she continued ravaging the water vessels with Drakarys upon her lips. "Burn them all! All of them!" Sails were reduced to ashes, wooden foremasts, shrouds, hulls and bowsprits all. The wreckage was swallowed by the sea's depths.

The Rhoynar started scampering in all directions, and some who had embarked on the ships leaped onto the wet and swam frantically to the shore. "Mother Rhoyne, save us!" was their cry. The firebeasts scorched eight men to death, fed on their carcasses afterwards. One boy of seven years was paddling in haste to the sea's front, its movement attracting the beast's sight. With its leviathan mouth and deadly dragon's fangs it wolfed down the boy—the sound of cracking bones and the shade of scarlet flowing from his young frame intensifying the caterwaul and blur.

The dragon spat out what remained of the boy onto the sands—half-burnt flesh, bloody sinews, skeletal remnants.

Fright was lost at the demonic act. Arya was enraged at the sight.

An outraged cry escaped from the lips of the water enchantress, her voice thus forming colossal waves from the Summer Sea. There were flashes of fiery red against the silver shades of the waters, as ships and their sails were tossed from east to west like playthings; still, they were undamaged, as if the water's crests were thinking beings that knew friend from foe.

In front of the Rhoynar, the sea rose like great mountains—wrath in the form of water, thunderous and remorseless.

Darkness prevailed as those wave alps rose to highest of heights, covering the skies and the celestial spheres above them. Two dragons were swallowed by that mighty swelling of the ocean, their flames annihilated like mere candlefire under breeze's moist. One dragon communed with the depths, while the other was tossed by the gigantic surge against a large searock, severing both wings from its body. Varathis flew higher to evade the attack.

Arya collapsed to the ground, weakened by her own rune. Something warm came from between her legs, its scent metallic and with vile pungence. She touched her inner thigh and gasped with horror at what she saw upon her fingertips—blood.

Blood from my womb.

Jaqen, beloved…where are you?

Ny Sari healers rushed to her aid. The waves have ceased.

"To the ships!" she heard Orin carrying out orders. "Leave the sacks! Carry the children, the elder ones!"

At this, the Rhoynar began rushing once more to the sea vessels still undamaged by dragonfire. All belongings were abandoned—one must carry only oneself if one would seek righteous continuance.

Another dragon's screech. Aurion Archestrad had arrived.

The dragon queller Arya wore around her neck had lit up at the appearance of another imperial. Ny Sari healers voiced out their fear at the sight—blinding, phosphorescent light, and within its scarlet pendant, Valyrian glyphs. Regency over the magic of Old, the words seemed to whisper. She could hold the dragons back, though not for long.

Jaqen Jaqen Jaqen Jaqen…

The great Raven with the third sight she had seen in the limit of permanent ices spoke to her—he was seven thousand years before her, and a thousand years after.

'Iksa Āria Stārke. Ňellyarlinio ezīmagon se zaldrīzes…'

You are Arya Stark. Warg into the dragon…

You can wear the skin of any beast that can swim or walk or soar. You can look through the eyes of a Weirwood, and see the truth that lies beneath the world.

It was an ancient gift from the old gods she didn't even know she possessed. With her eyes shut, she infiltrated the beast's consciousness—intents and desires, inner wonders and workings.

She felt herself being torn in an infinitely expanding and evolving realm, with its chaotic fractals of blurs and clarities. Arya tried to scream at the orderlessness she was witnessing, but what came out of her lips was a beast's cry, and she was…flying.

With her eagle-eyes from the sky's vantage, she saw the Rhoynar running in haste to the ships; and she was there by the shore—unconscious, with the Ny Sari healers still around her. One thing became clearer to her as she glided in magnificence through the ethereal spaces—she was wearing Varathis's sapphire-hued scales, seeing through Varathis's midnight eyes, soaring through Varathis's wings.

I am a dragon, Arya thought.

She rushed to Urkon who was then about to spew dragonfire onto ten more ships filled with women and children. With velocious force, she rammed herself against the dragon, and the strength of the impact sent both of them plummeting and crashing onto the unforgiving waters of the Summer.

She felt her scales bleed, as the waters reacted by forming an upsurge, flooding the decks of the fifty ships.

Urkon was still within the depths. With much struggle, she lifted herself, threshed against the currents and soared once more to the skies. There was another dragon's cry—and that cry was closest to her heart.

Heraxos. Jaqen.

Slowly, she felt herself leaving the dragon's frame and succumbing to powerlessness. Her feeble frame convulsed violently as she regained her human's consciousness. She was then lifted from the sands by a strong pair of arms, and rushed to one of the ships. Most of the sea vessels had started moving. Arya hoisted herself from the wooden deck and lifted her eyes to the heavens where the dance of three dragons continued.

It was Jaqen against two other imperial firebeasts, and she could hear his shouts of command. "Vīlībagon, Heraxos! Sȳz, sȳz!" Arya called out to him: Jaqen!—useless, with the din and upheaval all over her. Both dragons disgorged balls and surges of flame from their bestial orifices, but Heraxos eluded the fiery charges with its movements of whorls, and in flight it carried a hellish vortex of wind and water. Even the seas obeyed it.

With ferocity, it spewed billows upon billows of flame towards two other firebeasts, as it soared and plunged and sailed in the skies in intricate, convoluted movements. Urkon and Varathis retreated for the time being so their lords could design and calculate attacks. Heraxos flew to the vessel where Arya was. "Go! Leave!" Jaqen shouted his orders. "Aurion is near, he withdrew for a while but he's coming back!"

"I won't leave Valyria without you, Jaqen!"

"Don't disobey me, wife. You will sail without me! Worry not. I will find you wherever you are."

The dragon flailed its wings, sending gusts of strong wind that pushed the sails and allowed the hulls to be carried by the sea's currents. In a matter of seconds, the ships have already moved half a league from the gulf. The firebeast sped away for another bout of colliding fires.

Perchance, the gods are truly asleep that night, for even as what remained of those ten thousand ships navigated their ways across the murky, unsure waters towards the thresholds of emancipation, three other dragonriders have entered the scene of fray, casting Valyrian dragonchains to bind the Archon-heir's firebeast.

The dragon's tormented cries as it wrestled against those behemothic manacles pervaded in that horrifying evening's peak.

Her strength was failing her, and she might die tonight. Still, she uttered those words: -o iluvǣtar ingole.

God-rune.

Mist from the old gods enshrouded those ships, concealing the Rhoynar until nothing more was seen apart from the sea's haze.

Iāqaen Haegār felt himself being hauled facedown by three others across the sparkling sands of Mother Valyria's bosoms. Flowing scarlet from his defeated mortal frame adorned the dust of the earth like scarlet-hued jasper. Declarations, victorious outcries:

Mirre syt se sȳz hen Muña Valyria!

All for the good of the Mother Valyria!

In the distance was the screech of his imperial firebeast, still locking horns against those chains of rune that tortured it with static shocks, ones that were built in those manacles by higher Valyrian enchantments.

That lamentable evening, even as his marred and burnt flesh scraped against soil and stones thus intensifying his agony, even as his Valyrian kin spat on his face and locks of silver, even as they towed his already mangled limbs with wrathful force and brutality to his place of torment, he drew impossible strength from that one name whose bearer had christened him with an appellation he never deserved, who had gifted him with his own life and with his babe's life that would carry his blood over the ages.

Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya…

His face had gone bloodied-red and blistering, one eye blinded because of traces of flames and first twenty lashes of dragon-forged whips. Hair strands began falling from his crown in dainty clusters. His body was more broken than broken—they had to cripple him, had to shatter the bones of his shoulders and ribs and knees through their torture hammers.

Where is that damnable enchantress?! The relics?!

He never gave a word away.

Yet, anguished cries escaped from his chest like treacherous sounds, revealing his inner weakness to his foes. His voice twisted into raspy, agonized moans, and the sounds grated hellishly against his scarlet-soaked lips.

What he saw was a blur of emotionless faces and affliction. The gods have abandoned him.

The merciless winds ate away at his nerves, feasted on his scorched flesh. Its searing laughter pulsated around his open wounds, jarring and intense. He was convulsing uncontrollably, yet what he obtained in response to his reflexive fits was a painful blow on the chest, robbing him of dire breath, smashing some more of his bones. He was scattered, utterly fragmented, and he was too weak to even weep at the excruciation that was stealing life away from him in painstaking slowness.

His consciousness ebbed away, as dark fogs coiled themselves around the edges of his empty mind. He prayed for oblivion, sweet death.

Mercy never came.

There are no heroes in the face of hellish pain.

Darkness peered as dreams vanished. The Valyrians needed one word—a place where the Rhoynar will go.

Jaqen H'ghar was unbreakable.

Two voices in a sea of a hundred others rang in his ears. One of them was Aurion Archestrad's.

Not a word?

Not a word. This betrayer is a great rampart of secrets, my lord.

Very well, thirty more lashes. Use the thirteen-tailed torture implement, ten spikes on each thong.

He felt himself being dragged by the hairlocks to a place of higher ground. "Damnable treasonist! Your hair can't even stay on your head!" spat the one who was hauling him, shaking from his hands thick strands that were yanked out of Jaqen's scalp. His seizures were now completely irrepressible, and in his every retch, thick, rancid blood would come out of his mouth. Whence he lay, he beheld the faces of his blood brothers, and there was nothing in their countenance but abhorrence and loud demands of a most painful demise.

End the dynasty! they screamed. This heir is last of their blood! All others are out of the way!

A series of sweltering pain sent more spasms to his already broken body. He inhaled sharply at the unbearable throe, hissed…gasped…as violent shudders took hold of his entirety.

Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya Arya…

The flogging was too severe—the torturous iron thorns cut deep through inches of his skin. His raw flesh stuck to the metal spikes; and in the scourging, fragments of his thews and drops of his blood bathed all spaces and faces.

The executioner spat out a bit of Jaqen's bloodied flesh that had landed upon the side of his mouth.

"Hāre ampā! Izula ampā!"

Thirteen! Fourteen!

The flagellation carried on with intense brutality. Aurion had ordered thirty lashes.

A dreamscape. A realm where he would see her lovely, lovely face once more. Jaqen H'ghar willed himself to cast aside the fetters of breathing life, to feel the firm clasps and sweet kisses of the future, to just…forget about demons and gods and paint instead a beauteous scape of days forthcoming with her.

Arya…

Aurion held a hand up for the flogging to be paused awhile. The dragonlord wiped his own blood-spattered face with the fabric of his raiment, chuckled softly. He ran his palms through Jaqen's sanguine fluid-soaked frame, allowing every molecule of the traitor's blood to cling to his hands.

He brushed his bloodied fingers through Jaqen's silver hairstrands, dyeing them scarlet, leaving just a few traces of ivory in them—a mark of his treachery.

"Where is your whore?" the dragonlord asked calmly.

"Fuck you."

Aurion smiled as he rose, spat on Jaqen's face. All of a sudden, his hard fist landed solidly upon Jaqen's belly, and the impact of that hit sent the Archon-heir regurgitating thick blood in liberal amounts. The ruthless dragonlord nodded to the one holding the torture implements.

"Lantēpsa tōma! Lantēpsa bȳre! ȳdragon, nāpāstre!"

Twenty-five! Twenty-six! Speak, betrayer!

The wooden windlass carried him inverted for all to see—a threat to others who would, at the slightest, dare to act as righteous saviors of those slaves whose 'undeserved humanities' the ruthless ones had stolen.

Jaqen heard nothing but the rhythmic dancing of his fearless heart, saw nothing but Arya's goddess-like smile, desired nothing but to be with her again, and to be with the babe he had created out of shared love with her.

He perceived nothing else—not even Aurion's voice and his command of 'dragonfire'. He felt nothing else, too—not even the flames that consumed all of him, from skin, to sinews, to soul; or the waves of the saltwater that engulfed him whole when his body was thrown at sea.

Escape from time. Touch eternity.

He drew his last breath.

And when Jaqen H'ghar could once more see, he beheld her—the death god that awaits at hood's path, the greatest enemy of his Nissa.

It is said that no one can frolic with time without distorting eternity. The Warrior chose the Woman over the Sword, the firemage thought. In the end, he had lost all three.

Akhrast L'ris was no coward, yet after the death of the second rider of the Esdraelon he had to conceal his intents and wait for the most opportune time to carry out his schemes once more. Better to wait than to err, let them sneer and assume that you are nothing but one gutless. Death gets the last laugh.

Kleitos had sent the wrong man to be imprisoned beneath Fourteen Flames; but of course, Akhrast can never be captured.

For centuries, he hid his face through glamour and witnessed what was left of the wretched slaves from the Old Ghis and the Isles, toiling in the deep mines beneath the Fourteen Flames that lit the dark nights of the Freehold.

Death is food for Winter and for the god that impels it. Slaves are dying by the hundreds per day, and the working conditions have worsened now that the statutes ratified during the series of Dance of the Dragons were overturned by the ruling House Archestrad.

House Esdraelon was history.

"All gods have their instruments. There are men and women who serve them and work their will on earth," were the firemage's words to the Targaryen maiden, daughter of Aenar, who was now under his tutelage. "Those chosen by the gods first get separated from other living mortals through treachery; their spirits' blood get stolen. Their families die—a price they have to pay for the power the gods bequeathed them though they asked not for it."

"And when your spirits' lifeblood gets sucked out of you, you shatter," Daenys offered her purview.

"No," the Elder replied. "You grow stronger. Indeed, you grow stronger through tribulation and the gods smile and nod at you, because you finally become what they seek."

Daenys narrowed her eyes at the mage's words. "How do you avoid all these?"

The Elder smiled.

"Never get noticed by the gods."

The Targaryen maiden exhaled, worriment evident upon her features. "I've been having dreams, Elder, ever since you made me drink the shade of the evening. Much has been unlocked as far as my intellections are concerned." She stood up and paced the room. "I dreamed of a great cataclysm—dragons dying, ash, smoke, fire. There were quakes, and molten rocks a thousand feet to the air, red clouds raining down dragonglass. I saw…I saw Velos and Ghozai being swallowed whole by hell; and though I know that you are not a believer of the Seven for your faith and your heart has been and will always be with the lord of light, I think you may find this most unusual." She paused with her pacing and sat opposite the mage. "I have seen the Stranger's face—a woman. And I have seen the one who would conquer her—also a woman."

The Elder only smiled. "You've been having visions of the fall of Valyria—"

"Doom of Valyria," Daenys corrected him. "Fall is too merciful a word."

The flames that shot so high that even dragons burned…

A fly upon the wall, the waves and sea wind whipped and churned.

"You believe it to be true?" the mage asked with a knowing smile.

"Yes."

"Then, you must tell your beloved father of these dreams of yours," he stood up, prepared to conclude instruction for that day. "Dreams are a whole realm, and mayhap you have sojourned in one."

"You mean," Daenys spoke, her eyes wide with horror. "Such unthinkable tragedy may come to pass?"

"No, no—you don't say it may come to pass," the Elder chuckled. "It will."