Even fifty miles from King's Landing, the disaster was visible in the middle of the day. A smoke column appeared and quickly grew in size, making more than one man falter in fear that the Doom of Valyria had come to the Seven Kingdoms. More pious men feared the end, but when night fell and the smoke gained an eerie green glow as if it rose from a portal to the seven hells. Lightning streaked through the cloud of ash, which reached many miles into the sky.

It took Eddard three horses until he made it to Lord Bolton's camp. He felt as if he could fall asleep on his feet, but the spectral flames demanded an explanation. Not far from Hayford, he reached the vanguard of his army and was quickly shown to the commander's tent. Over the previous months, he had seen a lot of Roose Bolton, but this was the first time the man was visibly unnerved.

"What foul sorcery has befallen King's Landing, my Lord?"

"No sorcery, wildfire."

"But - "

"Aye, the entire city is aflame. My outriders have come back, all telling the same grim tale. Two days ago, the Dragonstone garrison arrived to guard the Red Keep, and with them came the queen. This morning, the Lannister army marched into the city just after dawn, under the guise of helping the dragons. Once they were halfway up Aegon's hill, they turned their cloak and began to sack the capital. There was a column of knights moving towards the Red Keep, the defences of the city all but gone. Then the wildfire was lit. The Mad King used the city as a trap for his former hand, the walls preventing all but a few from escaping."

"How many?"

"Half a million, or as close to that as that it makes no difference," the man, only a few years older than Ned, said, displaying more emotion than ever before. Eddard dreaded what sights and accounts it had taken to unnerve his stoic bannerman. "The army of the Westerlands is all but gone, there might be survivors with a rearguard or baggage train, but no such reports have reached me so far."

"What about the matter your rider could only allude to?"

"I think it is best that you see it for yourself, you would not believe it otherwise."

"Did your men hatch a dragon?"

"No, even that would have surprised me less," the lord of the Dreadfort admitted quietly.

#

From Hayford, the lands gently sloped down to the Blackwater Rush. The Kingsroad followed the terrain until it reached King's Landing, which meant that the capital was clearly visible, the districts inside its walls seemingly boiling with green fire. Some of the cursed substance had burned through the harbour until it reached the river, throwing up a titanic pillar of ash, dust and steam. Hayford itself was not a great keep, but its lands were rich and fertile, its stores full. That made it the perfect spot to gather an army. Not that most of its fighting men were born warriors, it was mostly made up of remnants of the Royal Army shattered at Brindlewood and the third muster of the Crownlands. However, numbering some six thousand, they had an advantage over the Northern vanguard which faced them.

Yet the Northmen advanced, their hearts burning with righteous fury after they watched the inferno from afar. So when the sun rose the next day, the two armies faced each other across the farmland which surrounded Hayford. The Loyalists were surprised that their foes would give battle due to the odds. The cursed blaze had made it rain day and night, the sun was all but invisible as the downpour grew stronger. And with his greatsword in hand, their King led his men into the fray.

It was miserable weather, much more so to fight a battle in. But after seeing the dragon banner with the ruined capital behind them, something in Eddard had snapped. Jamie Lannister had stammered out an account of King's Landing under Aerys, and despite his obvious depravity and the wholesale slaughter, these men still proudly flew the Targaryen banners. The torrential rain covered them until they were upon their foes, who reeled under the assault. For the first time in this war, the young King was fighting afoot, Maege Mormont to his right, Richard Karstark covering his left. Although the North had no tradition of a royal guard, those two had insisted on fighting by his side, as did several others who had been left behind with the foot and horse.

Ned would not know how long the battle raged, or how many men he cut down with Ice, but suddenly there were no foes in front of him. Throughout the fighting, the rain had muffled both screams and horn signals, but he heard Maege's yell of "no prisoners, no mercy" crystal clear. He could have counteracted the order, could have asked Lord Hayford to yield his keep, but with the image of sickly green flames burned into his mind, he watched the slaughter in stony silence.

A week later the whole Rebel army had reached the walls of King's Landing, the thick stone construction akin to a skeleton, the only thing left of the city proper. The fire had finally burnt out the previous day, although many of the ruined houses still smouldered. After the rain, ash had fallen like snow, leaving the surrounding lands desolate, looking like one of the seven hells. Of the city's great buildings, only the Red Keep still stood, its walls blackened with soot but the dragon banners still flew over the battlements. The Great Sept of Balor had collapsed entirely, the harbour had been devoured by the flames and the ruins of the Dragonpit reached into the sky like a skeletal hand.

"Well, we're fucked proper. King's Landing is gone, and with it, half a million souls. The survivors meanwhile flood the Crownlands like a great deluge. Worse yet, with all of his madness, Aerys has managed to hatch dragons. We do not know how or how many, but their screams are very distinct," Lord Karstark said aloud what they all were thinking. The dragons, in particular, had been a shock, their unmistakable screeches echoing through the desolate ruins. But other than their bone-rattling screams, they were an unknown, leaving many a rebel wondering if the beasts would be akin to their last ancestors, barely larger than a rodent, or if the Mad King would soon have an entire clutch which would eventually surpass Balerion the Black Dread.

"Worse, the Red Keep still stands, reinforced by the men of Dragonstone."

"They have what, a thousand? We outnumber their army fifty to one, if not more," Lord Swann pointed out. As one of the few Stormlanders in the assembly and one of the few who had fought every battle along their King, his voice carried weight amongst the other nobles.

"If it was just the keep, we could storm it. Costly, but we need to end this war, the sooner the better. We are not short of men who would be the first through a breach or up the ladder, but not enough who would dare to take on wildfire," Lord Bolton summarised. "We know nothing about their supply of Aerys's toy, nor if there are no further caches hidden should the Mad King wish to repeat his defence, and we do have neither knowledge nor the men to search for it."

"We have fifty thousand."

"Soldiers can be trusted to search a village for forage, to pick it clean of food and livestock, but would you trust them with Alchemist's work?" Lord Tallhart said and received nods from his peers. However, the Greatjon was not deterred by that.

"Surely there can't be much left after the City burned down."

"All it takes is one cache and a brave man and we are short five thousand and a Lord of Last Hearth. Is that a risk you want to take, Lord Umber? To leave the North like the Westerlands, ruled by infirm men and girls?" Lord Bolton replied calmly, a stark contrast to the other man.

"We can't do nothing," Lord Mallister said before the Northmen could come to blows.

"We could starve them out," Howland Reed suggested. The man easily blended into the background and rarely spoke during the war councils, but the Lords had learnt to listen when he did. "Leave Aerys to his pyre, in a few months he will come begging to us for food, or let him try eating his wildfire."

"What of his dragons?"

"Hatchlings, not larger than a cat I would wager, and unable to scorch a boot. In twenty years they might make us bend the knee, if they grow at all, but the Red Keep will not even last twenty months," Howland replied to his southern neighbour.

"We don't have the ships to blockade the city by sea," Lord Manderly pointed out.

"No, but if we block the mouth of the Blackwater Rush and put a force in front of the Iron Gate, we can prevent anyone from bringing food or water to the defenders," the Blackfish replied.

"Good, soon the Dragons will know hunger, know how my brothers feel at Storm's End," Robert said grimly, which meant the matter had been decided.

"Which leaves us with the task of lifting the Tyrell siege. How many men do we need to leave here?"

"If we could invest the Red Keep, it would not take more than six hundred. Stakes and barricades along the roads would be enough," Lord Manderly said, but his tone revealed that few would like his next words. "But since we cannot move into a city, five thousand at the very least. The number would leave our lines very thin and a quick sally might even break through, as would a relief host. I would be happier with ten, and satisfied with five-and-ten. That is if we are content to starve them, if we want to chance a storm, we would need double that number."

"No, there is no point in spilling more blood from our men," Ned said and Robert nodded his assent. Then Lord Tully spoke up.

"That leaves us five-and-thirty against the might of the Reach. Battles have been won with worse odds, but we have no other advantage we could leverage. And no matter how pompous Mace Tyrell is, he has competent men to lead his army. If we march through the Kingswood, we will come across a hundred places made for an ambush."

"If we cannot go to the Roses, why not make them come to us? If the Kingsroad is certain death, let us march down the Roseroad and put the Reach to the torch!" Lord Blackwood suggested.

"Robert, what are our goals?" Jon Arryn asked, speaking for the first time during this war council.

"To root out the Targaryens, root, stem and branch. And to rescue Lyanna from their clutches."

"Then it strikes me that we have no quarrel with House Tyrell."

"They besiege my home."

"Have you tried to negotiate with them?"

"We fought a battle at Ashford - "

"That was before we united half of the Seven Kingdoms under your banners. We can fight the Reach, and if we stay true and the gods favour us, we might even win, but the price we would have to pay in blood would be steep," Jon Arryn said and caused a commotion.

"Peace with Mace Tyrell, what's next, peace with Dorne?"

"We will have to talk about Dorne, just as we will have to talk about the Westerlands."

"We don't even know half the Lords there now, why should we waste time talking about them when we have a war to win?" Lord Harding asked.

"Ser Jaime Lannister is currently the guest of House Stark. The vows of the Kingsguard usually exclude them from the succession, but everyone knows that the boy was only made a Kingsguard to spite his father. Furthermore, we consider all other vows to the Mad King voided, so why not this one?"

"The Kingsguard serves for life," Hoster Tully shot back defiantly, staring at his son-in-law, although the effect was lost since the Lord Paramount of the Vale was twenty years his senior.

"Has anyone asked the lad about his opinion?" Tytos Blackwood asked.

"You can try asking him, but he will only answer one question in ten. I had to get him drunk to get past his stupor; he blames himself for his father's death. Ser Jaime knew that wildfire was prepared to defend the capital, but not that he intended to torch the entire city," Lord Bolton explained.

"Not that he could have done anything to stop the Mad King."

"A sharp knife always has its uses."

"That boy kill the King? For all his showings in tourneys he is still so green, he pisses grass."

"He would have done it," Lord Bolton said quietly. "He has seen the monster on the throne. The King who needed to burn a man before he could mount his wife. I am a hard man, but his account gave even me a sleepless night. He would have become a second Bloodraven for it, a man who forsook his honour for the realm, before he allowed the city to burn."

"What about Dorne? We have their Prince's sister," Jason Mallister asked over his father's insult towards Lord Bracken.

"Elia Martell is no prisoner, and we have no quarrel with Dorne."

"She would be a useful hostage for our negotiations with the Prince."

"Using her as a hostage would be the fastest way to make an enemy out of Dorne. And surely we are better than the Dragons who used her to get her brother's spears."

"So what do you propose then, Lord Arryn? That we give the Dornish the children and pray that we won't see a repeat of the Blackfyre rebellions?"

"The children are innocent."

"It's not the children I would worry about, your Graces, but their claim," Lord Royce interjected. "We must ensure that they cannot be used to threaten either of your reigns."

"Our best hope there is peace, both with Dorne and the Reach," Lord Arryn repeated himself.

"Of course peace would be better than another war, the question is how we would get it?" Lord Cerwyn asked. "We have to be thorough, otherwise we will have a war after every winter."

"Do you trust me, Robert?" Ned wanted to know, desperate for an honourable resolution of the issue. Neither a small girl nor a babe were responsible for the sins of their father and his line, as monstrous as they were.

"Of course, without question."

"Then I shall raise the children at Winterfell. I have no quarrel with the Dornish and the succession of the South is of no concern to me, so I am impartial in that regard. Elia can visit them as much as she likes, as can anyone else from House Martell. She can even live there, before this whole madness the Princess was a good friend of my wife

Her children will be treated as befits their station, but if they try to rise above it, it is the Wall or the Faith for them. And if not, if the Sun is stronger than the dragonseed, I'm sure we won't be short loyal men who need a lady or a consort."

"On your head it will be. If you raise the lad well, my word, no harm will come to him as long as he takes his mother's name. If he has ambitions, the Wall. And if he takes after his father's family, I am coming up to Winterfell myself to take his head."

"Aye, I can live with that," Ned conceded. The children were innocent of the Targaryen crimes, but if they showed the same madness when they were grown, it would be a mercy to put them down before another city is devoured by fire and blood. And only then.

A month later, the rebels approached Bitterbridge when a sizable force of knights and free-riders came up the Roseroad. Several scores of men rode out to a parley, the banners of the Reach fluttering behind them. The size of the party made Ned wary of an ambush, flag of truce notwithstanding, but in the end, they had no choice, anything else would have been craven. Robert, Jon and he picked a dozen men each and crossed the fields, tens of thousands of eyes on them. Judging by their banners, everyone from House Tyrell to Fossoway was present, which did not bode well for Storm's End. But Ned did not have to worry, one by one the great lords of the Reach rode forth, only to throw their blades to Robert's feet and proclaim him their king.

Later that evening, while a feast was held at Bitterbridge, Mace Tyrell asked for a private audience with the two Kings. For that purpose, he had commandeered Lord Caswell's scholar. He welcomed them with a bottle of Arbor Gold, but did not rise from his chair. Instead, he stared at an ornate, golden goblet, decorated much like the rest of the room with centaurs and archery trophies.

"After word from King's Landing reached us, my lords all but begged me to don the crown of the Gardener Kings. They said that Storm's End had to fall soon, that we had the numbers to win the war even without the Iron Throne," Mace said and drowned his wine. "But I also knew that the moment that war was won, the same Lords would come forth with their claims of blood, say that the Kingdom of the Reach was theirs by rights, citing some long-dead forefather. I would be condemning my children to endless rebellion, the Reach to decades of war. Eventually, our forces would be spent, and whoever cast us aside would find his reign just as insecure. And all for what, the gold we had to send the Iron Throne? As easy as it would have been, coin does not make a war just."

"That is a noble sentiment, Lord Tyrell."

"Don't be so surprised King Stark, I know exactly what my words say, and a war does not make my lands grow strong. As long as I maintain the same rights and privileges I had under the Dragons, I will be your friend's most loyal banner."

"Aye, I can drink to that," Robert said and raised his own cup. "And if any of your sworn houses gets another bright idea, you will have my swords to teach them the error of their way."

The three men sat in silence, sipping wine as the gravity of the moment sank in. With a few words, they had ended the war. And while the terms for House Tyrell were generous, they had been undefeated on the field and had merely done their duty. With their submission, the loyalist cause was done, its remnants hopelessly outnumbered.

"If not for the Targaryen madness, the Reach would have fought on. The Mad King - my father had been plotting something to dispose of him, but his schemes died with him. He wrote often to Lord Tywin after Aerys wed his son to the Dornish, but that knowledge is lost as well. If not for the shock from King's Landing, for the needless butchery there, I could have never convinced my banners that this war had already spilt enough blood without us adding more to it."

"If you are opposed to war, why did you declare for the Mad King ?" Robert asked.

"I swore an oath and I do not make a habit out of breaking them. I heeded the call to arms in the hope that there would be changes, that Rhaegar would rise to the occasion and rein his father in. Instead, the Crown Prince disappeared for six moons, and when he appeared in Oldtown, he pressed men into his host. Lord Hightower was on the verge of declaring for you then, your Grace. If he had gotten the Raven a week earlier, he would have joined the Royal Army just to turn on them."

"How did that cunt get to Oldtown?" Rober snarled, the fingers around his cup white.

"The letter from Lord Hightower's castellan only mentioned that Rhaegar rode down the Prince's Pass. Wherefrom I do not know, but I would wager that that's where he hid your sister."

"Robert, I will ride out at first light - "

"I'm coming with you - "

"But you - "

"Gods be damned Ned, I went to war for Lyanna, and I will see this through. We have the Mad King trapped in his keep so there is not much we can do until he crawls out of his hole," Robert said in a tone that left no room for debate.

"I will join you!"

"Lord Tyrell, I do not want to cause offence, but this will be many weeks in the saddle, hard riding from dawn till dusk - " Ned pointed out in an attempt to be tactful, but the man just waved his hand dismissively.

"I might prefer a life of luxuries, but I am a knight in the light of the Seven. And most of the journey will be through the lands of my banners, which will go a lot faster if I arrange fresh horses along our way," Mace pointed out, and Ned cursed that he could not refute what the man had said.

"A large party will slow us down."

"You will not need an honour guard, the Reach is safe, untouched by war."

"It is not your lands I am worried about, Lord Tyrell, but what awaits at the end of our journey. Three of the Kingsguard are still missing, and Ser Jamie said that they had not been seen since my sister's disappearance."

"I shall write to Highgarden, have a hundred knights of my household guard meet us at the Dornish border. The best knights of the realm they might be, but the Kingsguard will not stand a chance against such numbers," Mace announced and Ned could only shake his head. Retaining a hundred knights was no easy feat, but the way Lord Tyrell spoke about it made it sound trivial. The man had maintained a host of sixty thousand in the field for months and despite this, his lands knew neither hardship nor shortage. His personal guard would seemingly have no problem with finding another hundred knights to dispatch at short notice. That was the moment Ned truly realised who, after Robert, was the most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms.