AMINA

Daenerys threaded her fingers through Amina's, and gave her sister a reassuring smile. In the months since their first visit, the two had spoken often. It was impossible to make up for the lost years, but they had tried their best. Dany had told stories of her childhood in the Free Cities and their brother, Viserys. He had died at the hand of the Dothraki Khal who'd been Dany's husband. Amina weaved stories about Winterfell, the Godswood, and the Starks. Her boys, and her knives, and the war.

Daenerys preferred to tell stories, not to hear them. Amina couldn't blame her sister; she'd been raised on tales of Robert's "evil" deeds and Eddard's part in them. Changing the very foundation Dany's life had been built upon would be a long process. Still, it had warmed Amina's heart to see her sister smile at news of her wedding. "And now I'm Queen in the North, I have a crown."

"You were always a queen," Daenerys said, dismissively. "But it's true men make the crowns. I'm sure you will wear it well."

Now they stood in front of a ruined tower called the House of the Undying. It was a grim place, and Amina felt no magic radiating from the walls. She looked at the strange man, an unspoken question on her face. Pyat Pree was a pale, skinny man, with blue lips. Amina trusted him even less than the merchant prince, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, who'd greeted her with sickly sweet words each time she'd visited his manse.

These people were not Amina's people. She did not understand them the way she knew the men and women of the Seven Kingdoms, and that put her at a disadvantage. Even her sister, with her pretty silver hair and trio of dragons, did little to put her at ease. Daenerys had become Khaleesi to a Dothraki Khalasar, and her sworn sword was a Mormont who had once been banished by Eddard Stark for slaving. Perhaps Amina's own foundations were just as firmly built as her sister's.

"Remember," Pyat Pree said, "always take the first door on your right, never go down, and enter no room till the audience chamber." The twins nodded again. Amina wondered if Daenerys was truly confident in this journey, or if she had just learned to hide her feelings as well. "Drink this. It will unstop your ears and dissolve the caul from your eyes, so that you may hear and see the truths that will be laid before you."

Amina accepted the shade-of-the-evening warily, but Daenerys put it immediately to her lips. Shoving her own worries out of her mind, Amina drank the glass empty in one sip. It tasted the way rotten leaves smelt, and she nearly gagged. But then it hit her, the feeling of warmth, like fire spreading through her veins. The aftertaste was sweet, like honey cakes, and spicy, like the Highgarden hippocras she'd had with Margaery. It reminded her of Robb's lips, though she couldn't say why, and the way the Godswood smelt after a fresh snow. Then it was gone.

Disconcerted, Amina all but slammed the empty glass back onto the tray. Pyat Pree smiled. "Now you may enter." Dany grabbed her sister's hand, and the two stepped through the door. The first three chambers were the same; empty rooms save for four doors. As instructed, they took the door to their right each time. Then they came to a hall, seemingly unending, but all the doors were to the left.

Rhaegal, the small green dragon, reminded Amina of his presence by digging his sharp claws into her shoulder and hissing in her ear. The dragon had taken to her, and she it, in a way she had never felt connected to any of the Stark's direwolves. She reached an absent hand up to scratch behind Rhaegal's ear.

Daenerys tugged insistently on Amina's hand and they moved quickly past the doors. Finally, alone, Amina realized her sister was just as frightened as she. There was a fierce banging on a closed door, as if something was trying to break free. Dany jumped, and Amina squeezed her hand tightly. She tried to stay focused on the path ahead, the dragon on her shoulder, and her sister's hand in hers. But curiosity got the better of her. At the next open door, Amina peeked.

The vision through the door was one of Old Nan's stories come to life. It was if she was experiencing every terrible tale at once. The shadows formed into terrifying shapes. Amina could hardly make out one before it shifted into something entirely different. All she knew was the deep chill in her bones. My kingdom is dying. She turned away quickly, avoiding the sight; it was her turn to pull her sister along.

The second door held a scene more unsettling than the first. A feast of corpses amid a room strikingly familiar, though Amina couldn't place it. The bodies were black and purple, swollen with rot. The stench of death blending with the sickly-sweet smell of rotting fruits and old wine. Chairs and tables were overturned. Swords and arrows lay discarded in the slaughter.

At the head of the room, upon a carved wooden throne, was a figure that sucked the breath right out her lungs. Grey Wind's head, large and grey and matted with sticky blood. Though she couldn't say if the blood was his own or if it belonged to the human body it had been poorly attached to. It was all Amina could do to keep herself from screaming. Her Robb, her dear sweet Robb. Dany's fingers dug into Amina's wrist, nails nearly breaking skin. "It isn't real," her sister whispered. They fled to the next open door.

The gleaming white snow caught her attention first. Gods, it had been too long since she'd touched snow. Without thinking, her hand flew through the doorway, to catch a few flakes on her fingertips. As they melted away onto her skin, Amina realized what she was seeing. The Godswood of Winterfell, the Heart Tree in the middle with its carved face and blood-red sap tears. The sight made her chest tighten.

"There you are, Ami." A tiny sob caught in her throat as Jon walked toward her, hand outstretched. "I've been looking for you." His black curls were longer than she remembered, and she longed to run her fingers through them. But his cloak was wrong. Not the grey of Winterfell, or the black of the Night's Watch. He was clad in sheepskin that meant to be white, but had been matted and dirtied by snowmelt. "Come on, Ami. They're looking for you." It broke her heart to turn away, but it wasn't Jon. Not really.

The sisters ran down the hall, their dragons urging them on, and still the doors went on. Some open, some closed, each door different than the last. Amina refused to look, she'd seen too much already. She thought she would never scrub that image of Robb's body, defiled and displayed, from her mind.

Finally they stopped, Dany's heavy breathing the only sound. Large bronze doors stood closed to their left, and Amina felt as if she should know them. As if they'd been waiting for her, they opened. Inside was the largest hall she'd ever seen. The Great Hall of Winterfell seemed like a child's bedchamber in comparison.

It should have been the throne that drew her in, a towering mass of steel gleaming in the dim light. Instead, it was the Seven-Pointed Star, formed of colored glass in the window, that caught her eye. It seemed so foreign to her, though there'd been a small sept at Winterfell built for Catelyn. The Seven had been the Gods of Amina's ancestors, but to her they were just some Southron folly.

"Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat." The sharp voice drew her attention back to the throne. It was an old man, with grey hair. No, it's silver, like Dany's. He wore a dragon crown, with jewels that seemed to eat the light instead of reflecting it. She knew that crown from the histories, Aegon the Unworthy's crown. But the man upon the throne with the waist long hair and wild eyes was not any Aegon. It was her father. "Let him be the king of ashes. We will rise again, fire cannot kill the dragon." Drogon shrieked on Dany's shoulder, but their father did not hear, and so they moved on.

The man's braided silver hair and indigo eyes gave him away as another Targaryen, only this man was much younger than the last. He stood above a small woman with long dark hair and olive skin. The woman nursed a babe at her breast. "Aegon," the man said. "What better name for a king?" He looks straight out of the songs, Amina thought wistfully. She could see herself in Rhaegar. They shared a sharp jaw and nose, whereas Dany's features were softer, more delicate.

Elia's dark eyes were full of adoration as she looked between her son and her husband. "Will you make a song for him?"

"He has a song," Rhaegar replied. "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire." He looked up when he said it, as if he could see his sisters standing in the doorway arm in arm. "The dragon has three heads." Rhaegar turned suddenly, going to the window seat and picking up his harp. He ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings. His sweet, sad music played as the scene faded away.

Amina had heard the stories of her eldest brother. Rhaegar had stolen Lyanna Stark away and sent the realm into a bloody war. He had fought bravely and valiantly, but he was the reason so many had died. But still, seeing his face had felt like home, the sadness of a family she would never know. A niece and a nephew who'd been butchered, while Amina had been saved. What would the realm be if Rhaegar had sat the Iron Throne instead of Robert?

The hall ended with stairs that went down, and they turned, searching the walls for a door that they had missed. Back the way they came, the torches flickered out, one by one. Soon they would be blanketed in darkness. Then Dany grabbed the last door they passed, which was now on their right, and went through. Another chamber with four doors, and another, and another, and another. It felt as if they were running in circles. Finally they reached more stairs, but these went up. So they climbed.

Finally, they reached the audience chamber. It was dark and dank, lit only by a glowing blue heart, which hung, unsuspended in the air. Beneath it was a long table, and the Undying sat before them, waiting.

The famed Undying were sad, withering things. Old and wrinkled with skin so thin it was nearly translucent. "We have come for the gift of truth." The quiver in Daenerys' voice betrayed her confusion. "In the long hall, the things we saw…were they true visions or lies? Past things, or things to come? What did they mean?"

Their replies came as whispers, a cacophony of ghostly voices all at once. …the shape of shadows…morrows not yet made…drink from the cup of ice…drink from the cup of fire…mother of dragons…and bringer of light…so different yet so much the same…fates intertwined and the trials you'll face…three heads has the dragon…

The voices seemed to be in Amina's head. The bodies in front of her seemed dead and gone, but still their words lived on inside her skull. …three fires must you light…one for life and one for death and one to love… Amina tried to understand, to remember. The voices continued to swirl in her head, and endless stream. …three mounts must you ride…one to bed and one to dread and one to love… The voices were growing louder, Amina realized. All the while her breathing grew shallower. …three treasons will you know…once for blood and once for gold and once for love…

If it weren't for Rhaegal, Amina might have lost herself in their words and the visions they assaulted her with. But the dragon flew toward the Undying with Drogon beside him. They tore at the blue heart and the Undying screamed, a terrible awful sound. By the time the sisters had made it to the door, the room was smoking behind them.

They emerged into the light of day, still holding hands. Amina felt herself being pulled back across the Narrow Sea. When she awoke, in her makeshift bed under the trees, Aylward looked at her with concern. Her sister's violet eyes, so confused, were burned into her memory, but the visions she'd seen seemed far way. "I have the terrible feeling I've forgotten something I must remember, and if I don't it could spell the end for us all."