WINTERFELL – THE NORTH

The eye was old. Sansa found herself in the reflection, shimmering over the black pit of Silverwing's pupil. It went on forever, straight into the depths of the world. A chasm looking back at her with an ancient intelligence, terrible and hungry having weathered the centuries in silence. Ice-blue bled out from the edges, flirting with silver and pink to form a halo around the void. The dragon blinked and instantly that black sphere became a slit. The ground vibrated underfoot. Loose rubble danced. The water boiled vigorously, about to catch fire. The dragon was staring at her. Watching or waiting. The last human it witnessed stood amidst the smoke on the smouldering fields of battle, blade dripping in the frost, her mate dying with the light with a mournful song.

"Sansa, back away slowly," Brienne whispered, holding out her hand. It shook like the building surrounding them. Brienne was all too aware of the weight of rock and castle on their heads. They weren't the only ones that could feel the dragon awakening. Above, the Bolton's party had paused. "Come on, please..."

Sansa retreated, one step at a time – watching as cracks worked their way across the wall, growing out of each other until everything began to crumble, smashing onto the floor at her feet. The entire wall of the crypt came apart. A moment later her hand found Brienne's and together they fled into the tunnels. As soon as they were out of the dragon's sight they turned and ran.

The ground shifted violently, throwing them to the floor with a disturbing groan of rock. Podrick squeaked as he hit a wall and felt the warm slide of blood over his face. It was in his eyes – through his mouth. He was picked up by the knight and tossed onto his feet – forced with a shove into the first glimmer of moonlight. Parts of the tunnel collapsed onto them. Seconds behind it had begun folding inwards. The sound was so intense, Theon imagined he was drowning and that the walls were waves rearing onto an icy shore. There was no time. All of Winterfell was coming down.

Four bodies threw themselves onto the fresh snow near the wood. Sansa was the first to roll over and scramble up the small rise between the pines. She gripped one of their narrow girths as she looked down at the ancient stronghold of Winterfell. It was lit by moonlight, alone on a plane of ice. For a moment it was serene, like something she'd seen in her dreams. As long as she lived, she'd remember those walls. They were a perfect memory of home.

Then they were gone.

The ground broke apart beneath the castle, crumbling inwards long enough for the main turrets to tilt dangerously past the point of no return, then collapse into the square with a roar. Fires sprung up through the dust, ripping into the reserves of hay, quickly spreading across the building, crawling up the walls as though it were alive. Then the foundations erupted, forced upwards by the creature making its way out of the heart of Winterfell. Bricks, iron and bodies were tossed into the air, arcing as gravity snatched them back and into graves of snow.

A dragon, half the size of the castle, crawled out of the earth. It felt the moonlight on its pale skin and turned, casting an orange set of eyes toward the floating orb of light. The creature unfurled its wings, brushing the horned tips against the collapsing buildings – knocking over the last tower where Sansa had spent the worst months of her life. It opened its mouth, allowing any lingering, terrified Boltons to see the three rows of curved, serrated teeth that lined both jaws. Then it started to sing at the moon.

Podrick, Theon and Brienne joined Sansa in the snow, staring in bewilderment at the dragon inside Winterfell. It was majestic and transfixing. None of them moved as the dragon turned on the few foolish Boltons that tried to attack it. She snapped her jaws then took a deep breath of the freezing air. It rushed back out her throat aflame. She lit up the night, covering the buildings in rivers of green fire, so hot that it made the stones drip onto the snow.

When the dragon was done, her huge wings lifted her body from the smouldering ruins. She took to the air and flew toward the snow-capped mountains in the North, heading for the Wall and the lands beyond.


THE SUMMER SEA

The queen's boat listed sharply. A storm of claws and leather wings lashed against the network of masts. Its crew shrieked, scampering like mice to the edges of the deck, cowering under life boats and whatever bits of cloth they could grab at. It was night, pitch and without stars. Instead of a storm this demon creature was tearing their ship to pieces.

In reality, a dragon was trying to make a difficult landing on the ship's bow. The vessel moved on the waves, rocking with the swell with a confusing array of lamps tied to its masts. Rhaegal, having been momentarily tangled in the rigging, frantically flapped his wings and drew back, tilting his long head so that a stunning set of golden eyes could get a better look at the awkward floating land.

Drawn on deck by the commotion, Tyrion emerged, half draped in a robe and carrying a lantern. Its flame struggled in the gasp of wind from the dragon's wings. Their unexpected guest was difficult to make out in the moonless night but it was one of the queen's creatures all right. Tyrion squinted, crossing the deck and holding his lantern up to the dragon circling above.

"Rhaegal!" He called out to the thing. "Come down from there, you crazy beast!"

The creature tried to obey. This time it swooped around the boat a few times, inching lower with each pass, almost as if it was trying to get a better lay of the vessel. Tyrion watched as it flew right by the railing, clipping the waves. He felt the rush of air that accompanied it and heard the soft, chirping sounds that it made while it flew. It was like a bird – an oversized creature of prey with the flight skills of a chicken... Gods he hoped that improved.

"Everybody stay down!" Tyrion ordered the crew hiding on deck. "It's trying to land – very poorly."

This time Rhaegal's feet touched the deck first. Bravely, it folded its wings up and managed to stop before impacting the cabin area. It was a tight fit but then again, the dragons were growing fast and soon they wouldn't be able to land on the boats at all. The whole ship tilted forward with the full weight of the dragon. Its sails stretched and the boat slowed in comparison to the rest of the fleet. Grey Worm leaned over the side of an accompanying vessel. Tyrion waved calmly back.

"There you are," Tyrion cooed at the dragon, approaching carefully. He'd had cats once when he was small and decided to address the queen's dragon with the same care. It was always a gamble with dragons. Unless you claimed to be their mother, there was always a good chance they might fancy you for a snack and Tyrion was keenly aware that he was bite sized.

Varys materialised beside him. Like his arachnid namesake, the man had a habit of it. He was holding a lantern with hands covered in ink stains. "One dragon is better than none," he whispered. "What is that old rubbish on its back?"

Tyrion tilted and edged in. The dragon had its head down, licking salt off its paws. It was panting from the long flight. "They look like bags."

"Well, it certainly didn't put those there itself. Someone give us a hand." It was an open question to the deck – that was ignored by everybody on board.

Tyrion felt Varys' eyes upon him. "You don't think I should..." Tyrion gestured at the dragon.

"It does seem warmer towards you."

"In the sense that I'd make a good barbecue, perhaps!" Though Rhaegal was the most sensible of the three and in all the time that Tyrion had known the creature, it seemed good natured enough around humans. Well, with the exception of Grey Worm. All of the dragons had attempted to eat the poor man at one time or another. Varys told him to take it as a compliment. Grey Worm didn't. "There are worse ways to go," Tyrion muttered, agreeing. He gave his lamp to Varys to hold before approaching the preening dragon. "There's a good boy," Tyrion whispered soothingly. "Now – what have you got there, ay? Gifts from the queen?"

The dragon was watching the dwarf with a sharp set of slitted eyes but so far made no move to snap at him. Tyrion could hear Rhaegal's black claws scratching against the wooden deck leaving terrible, splintered wood behind. It was probably starving from the flight so Tyrion dragged a bucket of fish over to it. The dragon sniffed the contents and knocked it over with his snout. He licked at the fish, contented.

Tyrion took the opportunity to climb up onto the dragon's back leg and cut free the leather straps tied around the spines on its back. The bags fell to the ground with an unusual crunch. A few brave Dothraki warrior moved over to help drag the bags to a safe distance as Tyrion did the same on the other side.

Varys inspected the contents, holding a sharp object up to the light of his lantern. "Obsidian..." he said. "What on Earth are those two playing at?"

"I don't know," Tyrion replied, sawing loose the last bag. "At least we know that they're alive. That's more than we hoped for yesterday."

Varys rolled the black glass around in his hands. It was nasty, cutting through his flesh. Still, these weapons were no good against the war they'd face in King's Landing.

Tyrion paused, standing in front of the great beast as it practically inhaled the fish offering. "Well done," he praised the dragon, making sure to rub its snout as he'd seen the queen and Jorah do many times. It purred oddly beneath his touch and for a moment Tyrion was amazed that he was actually petting a dragon. He'd been brought up to fear the memory of these things, paraded by the skulls under the castle but in reality they were only animals – wild creatures at the bidding of their masters.

"One does not simply leave a dragon on deck..." Varys said, as the dragon finished with the fish and tucked its nose under its paw to sleep. Its wings were folded neatly up and its arresting, golden eyes closed.

"One does what one must, besides, what do you propose I do with it instead?" Tyrion replied. "It's a dragon, not a dog. Just be grateful it's not picking off the crew or sharpening its talons on the mast."

Varys' invisible eyebrows created creases in his forehead that Tyrion had long ago learned to read as, 'resignation'. They had the leather satchels dragged below deck where he, Varys and several Unsullied picked through each bag. It was full of dragonglass – arrow heads, daggers and spears. All of which was coarsely made.

"These are old," Varys observed. He was making an inventory, scribbling in the candlelight. "If I didn't know better I'd say-"

"What...?" Tyrion was forced to prompt him, when Varys paused.

"Only that..."

Tyrion switched to High Valyrian, which the Dothraki helping sort the bags could not understand. "I know." He agreed. "They have the of artefacts brought back from the Wall, kept in Old Town. Made by the Children of the Forest."

"Those are only stories..." Varys replied in kind, with a crisper accent.

"Like dragons and armies of the undead?"

Varys gave a curt nod in reply, tossing aside another arrowhead. "I see your point."

Tyrion took a heavy sip of the wine casket that had appeared beside him. "Most do in the end but why was it strapped to Rhaegal?"

"Mormont and Queen Daenerys must have found it – wherever they are. We may have only seen weapons like these from the North but obsidian is scattered all over the world – especially Essos. It's not impossible that other cultures like those friendly people we met earlier have similar weapons. They could have been a gift. Daenerys has a way of procuring favours."

Tyrion was nursing some particularly nasty scars from those forest natives and he seriously doubted that anyone on this side of the world had time for gift-giving. Life was too harsh. Besides, the Brindled men had a city built from of a sickly imitation of the stone. "Humour me," Tyrion passed more objects to Varys so that he could add to the register. He shifted his attention to the bags. Leather wasn't meant to turn that colour. He had a sinking feeling these were thousands of years old. "What does one use obsidian weapons for?"

"You know very well," Varys replied. "I suspect you simply want me to confirm your suspicions."

"And?" Varys nodded at the dwarf. Tyrion decided that he was going to need a lot more wine tonight. "Why does it feel like we're sailing toward the wrong war?"

"Have you ever sailed toward a war you fancied?"

Tyrion rolled his eyes at the spider. "Obviously no. That is not what I meant. Dragons are all well and good for burning cities to the ground but when our queen is done breaking the wheel and freeing Westeros from the tyranny of the old houses, her dragons will become a problem. They are her children. I don't see her locking them up for a second time beneath King's Landing."

Varys continued counting the dragonglass artefacts, diligently adding each one to his page until it was full and he was forced to start another. His crows tried to sleep in their cages around the room. Their feathers rustled softly at the stroke of Varys' quill, as though expecting to be summoned. The more Tyrion watched Varys handle the weapons, the more certain he became of one the simple fact. Varys was not all that he appeared.

"What is it that you want, Varys?" Tyrion returned to the common tongue, playing with one of the dragonglass arrowheads. He pressed the sharp tip against his thumb and let the blunt base spin on the table. Around and around. Burrowing through the wood. Kicking up splinters until Varys could stand the disturbance no more. The spider reached across the table and snatched it away.

"Please, do not do that."

"Do what? Ask questions or tempt fate?"

"Both." Varys replied, adding the item to his list.

"Who do you write to?" Tryion continued, now eyeing the black ink marks that always stained the other man's fingers. Never, in all the days that he had known Varys, had he seen him with clean hands. "All the days and nights that you spend with your birds... Where do your whispers go?"

"The realm," Varys shifted uncomfortably. Tyrion's gaze was sharp in the lamp light. The dwarf had not had his usual fill of wine.

"The realm. Of course. Always the realm. The realm is vast, it has many kings."

"And several queens," Varys interrupted, without looking away from his list. "Our Grace must know them all if she is to conquer Westeros as her ancestors did. Circumstance is shifting beneath our feet. The board is tilting and the tide waits for no one."

"Did one of your strings break? Is that what has your nose on edge?"

"Perhaps but do not fear, young lion, I shall spin another. Best not worry your regal head mane over it."

"You know, I've seen it."

Varys looked up at his company. The lamps flickered. On deck, the dragon shifted and the boat lurched oddly. "Seen what?"

"The Wall," Tyrion replied. "In all it's bland glory. It's – difficult to grasp. Abstract. If one cannot appreciate the Wall when standing at its edge, how can a realm perceive the terror that lays beyond it? I know that some of your little birds fly into the snow. I've heard many of the whispers that they bring back. My father used to go through your scraps of parchment-"

Varys shifted uncomfortably. He had not known that about the late Tywin Lannister.

"-some of them he chose to share – mostly out of amusement. You see, my father didn't care much for the North. 'Superstitious half-breeds', he used to call them. I'm not sure if he was referring to the Wildling or First Men blood that runs through their veins, perhaps both. Winter is coming, he used to mock. Wish it would fucking hurry up, he'd add. If it weren't for Robert's friendship with Ned Stark, my father might have slaughtered the old houses in the snow as sport."

He has his father's eyes, Varys thought, while Tyrion spoke.

"Good thing he didn't," Tyrion continued. "I met those same Northerns, stood under their sacred tree and felt the chill in the air. When you stand at the foot of that bloody great wall it is impossible to deny the truth."

"What truth?" Varys finally spoke.

"That it is real."

"Every fool knows that the Wall is real."

"That it was built for a purpose. If the Wall is real, then so are the creatures it was built to keep out. Winter is coming for us all," Tyrion whispered. "Mormont knows it. I saw it in his eyes. He's the one that sent us this present, I'd lay my life on it, for what it's worth."

"Not very much at the present, I'm afraid..." Varys quipped cruelly.

Tyrion laughed and re-commenced his relationship with the wine. He was no fool. Varys knew it too.


MILKGLASS SANDS – ULTHOS

"It's getting worse..."

Jorah grimaced in reply. Yes, it was but there wasn't anything to be done about it. The lower half of his leg ached but he couldn't bring himself to peel the bandages off. Priorities. At the moment, there was only a very small chance that either of them would make it across the desert and over the mountains to Asshai. If they survived the trip, then and only then would he worry about the leg. "Do not trouble yourself, your Grace. I am well enough."

She didn't believe a word of it and told him so with a look.

It has been dark for many hours and the temperature had dropped to a very bearable cold. Jorah's burned skin dried out and stretched, adding a new agony that very nearly took his mind off the debilitating hunger. There was a carpet of infant dragon bones at their feet. His queen could not look at them. Her eyes were fixed on the red streak in the evening sky. It was as though someone had taken a sword and sliced through the heavens, leaving it to bleed.

They travelled fast. The black ranges, walling in Asshai, cast a shadow nearby. Distant rumblings accompanied flares of light from their peaks. Fire trickled down some of their flanks, touching the edges of the shallow water where it hissed and froze into gruesome shapes.

"Ser?" Dany asked, when Jorah halted her progress with a hand in front of her waist.

There was give in the ground beneath them. Instead of dragonglass beneath the grey dust, he found mud. They were standing at the shallow see dividing Ulthos from mainland Essos.

"Can we cross it?" Dany whispered.

"Difficult to tell," he replied, taking a few cautious steps closer. Stars reflected on the water. Five kilometres of shallow swamp lay ahead with reeds poking up from the water level all the way to the other side. There were deeper sections, were currents ran and he caught the beginnings of waves but if they stuck to the islands of vegetation they could probably cross it. "It's shallow but we've no way of knowing if it's silt, sand or rock below the water line. If it's silt we'll die here tonight."

"It's narrower over there." They traced the edge of the filthy swamp until they reached the neck. It was torment, being at the water's edge but unable to drink. Not only was it sticky with salt but it smelled of the worst corner of a fish market. It was as though the filth from all the oceans of the world had collected in this place and been left to rot. "Oh my god..." she withdrew her first step when she saw what truly lay beneath the water.

Jorah closed his eyes and turned away. "This isn't a sea," he breathed. "It's a battlefield."

"A graveyard," she corrected, keeping her eyes on the endless ocean of sculls that lay between her and the mountains of Asshai. "Do not look away, ser," she insisted. "The dead do not fear us."

Daenerys pushed into the cool water, finding her footing amidst the skulls. Jorah remained on the shore for a moment, watching her. Every now and then the veil was lifted and he saw Daenerys for what she was – a creature of myth. They would write songs about the dragon queen but those whispered words would never serve justice to the visions that he saw – to the picture of a young woman striding over death as though it were her plaything. His vision blurred and Jorah felt the poison in his body bite. Daenerys turned, beckoning him to follow. He watched her ragged clothes melt away with blood and the waters take her under...

Jorah pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbed his eyes and looked again. Daenerys was still waving, unharmed. He gritted his teeth and braved the water. Whatever fray had transpired it was long ago. The bones crunched under his boots. Their fragments washed together with hundreds more obsidian weapons.

"How many?" Daenerys asked. She'd taken his hand and they now concentrated on moving from island to island, following the shallowest parts.

"A hundred thousand, at least," he replied. "Larger than any army Westeros has to offer."

"Everything is larger in the East, including the quantity of blood spilled."

"They say Asshai is a dead city – all it's people vanished. Perhaps we have found them."

Daenerys watched fire tumble from the black ranges in front. "The largest city in the world – in such a terrible place. It is not so different to Valyria."

"I have been to Valyria, your Grace. The forests have re-claimed what remains of the continent. Ruins peak from the jungles like violent cliffs. They are draped in natural finery while deep rivers cut their way under bridges that once vaulted fire. I assure you, Valyria is beautiful."

That made her smile.

"If we survive all that is to come," he continued, "I will take you there."

"I shall hold you to your word, ser."

"I quite expect you do," he assured her. "A knight's word is his honour."

"And you, an honourable man."

"My father was an honourable man," Jorah replied. "He had more of it than was good for him. A little less honour and he might yet live."

Daenerys often wondered how much of the old bear was in her knight. Even now, as Jorah waded through the water he had the look of a bear in the snow. He was no stoic hero though – that was plain. There was a wildness about Jorah that she had long assumed gifted by his mother. He never spoke of her. "Did your father tell many stories?" she asked instead.

"Some," he replied, helping her onto another tuft of weed. They were used to the morbidity of their surrounds. "His stories were for the forests. The only ones I ever heard that weren't about the rabbit he caught last Tuesday were when I snuck out of the log house and crept through the snow after him. I'd find him at the top of the cliff, whispering to an old Weirwood tree. My father's stories were not fit for the lips of men, you see, so he told them to the winds and those bloodthirsty leaves to stop himself turning mad."

"And you – do you tell your stories to the gods?"

"Certainly not. The gods are fickle, your Grace. You can never be sure what they want. If you don't know what a thing wants it becomes impossible to predict."


YIN – YI TI

The waves saved him.

Choppy water, broken by winds ripping into the harbour, fresh from the Jade Sea, parted as his boots hit the water. Daario threw his arms above his head, stretching like an eel, letting the water suck him under. He slipped in without a sound, vanishing.

Whitewash screamed all three-hundred and twelve feet from the palace balcony to the surface of the harbour. He momentum resulted in an awkward tilt, leaving him to hit the water sideways. It may as well have been stone. His shoulder was pushed through the socket then the water grasped onto the sword lashed to his back and tore it off along with part of his spine. Both his legs broke. One of them ended up half way through his pelvis leaving a mangled corpse sinking to the bottom of the bay, weighed down by the iron on his back. The water turned brown as his blood mixed with the pulverised seaweed. A terrified eye remained open.

Daario found himself deep under the water, propelled further into the depths. His eyes were wide open as well, focusing on the light vanishing above. He knew the dangers of the sea. Countless sailors lost sight of the surface and instead of swimming toward air, they headed off into the infinite lands below the water, never to be seen again. Perhaps that's where the stories of underwater cities came from – places where drowned souls lived again. The undead of the storm god.

Not Daario. He decided that he was going to live. Eventually his motion stopped and he found himself floating in the dark, near the bottom of the harbour. There was sand below, white like the deserts above. He could make out the murky shadow of shipwrecks on all sides and the occasional tangle of weed surging out from the seabed, shivering like a creature.

A glint. Something covered in sand. Daario twisted in the water. A golden hilt lay a few metres away, embedded with grape-sized rubies. He'd never seen anything like it and Daario had held a good deal of swords in his time. With his lungs beginning to burn, he swam toward the sword, venturing deeper. He reached out, sending the sand into a storm that stung his eyes. Then he felt it – the cold touch of Valyrian steel.

His body started to convulse – desperately seeking air. Daario kicked off the bottom and tried to swim toward the light.

The great sword was too heavy.

Its weight dragged him back down, pinning him to the harbour floor. Daario could feel the gods of the sea laughing at him. Even now, the light felt so far away. It would be so easy to breathe the water, let it take him – lay himself to rest with the whispers of his ancestors. The silence of the water. The peace of the depths. Nothing died beneath the waves.