NIGHTFORT – THE NORTH
Dacey Mormont gazed at churning skies. Razors of light flickered silently in their depths, clasping at madness while she lay broken on the Black Gate's frosted iron. Barely an ember pressed against the snow, walls of ice stretched either side as far as she could see. To her right, the glistening barrier curved, following an ancient rise in the land that might have been a mountain. The forest, once green, was now entirely hidden by freshly fallen snow. Pines creaked under the weight. Some snapped, tumbling into oblivion.
"Let me in..." she whispered, unable to find her breath. It was snatched away by the cold along with most of her strength. Dacey lifted her hands, watching them vibrate. Even her tears froze before they could fall. "P-please..."
There were no gods to hear her prayers this far North. If they had ever existed, the ancient ones were sleeping, ambivalent to the torment of men. It wasn't death that troubled her. Dacey knew death – had looked into its smiling eyes a thousand times. It was the living after that terrified her. Corpses risen from their tombs had been set back upon the snow. Snatched by beckoning hands. Such unnatural torment. What form of mad deity sanctioned their corruption? Were there gods older and darker than hers that laughed in the face of death? If so, who had the courage to pray to them...
In truth, she knew that too. The things she'd seen...
Trembling, Dacey dragged herself from the ground and turned to the door. She beat on it again, pleading with the heartless surface until her face pressed against the nicks of arrows and swords. Nothing. Abandoned, as she remembered. A castle of ghosts like all the rest. The dead guarding the dead.
That left two passages South and both felt impossibly far from where she stood. If only she could fly like the ravens and pass over The Wall – dance with the storm as she did in her dreams.
With no choice, Dacey headed East toward Castle Black. If the old bear was still alive, he'd let her in. Mance was right. There were things the Night's Watch needed to know if they intended to stand their ground and fight the dead.
THE SUMMER SEA
A gale tore between New and Old Ghis. Funnelled in from the Gulf of Grief, the winds rippled, rising and falling in unique tides that confused the sails. The white sheets hung loose one moment and strained against their ropes the next. It was nauseating. The pirate fleet weathered it, fixed on deck with their eyes to the sea and the fear of its gods heavy in their hearts. There wasn't a man on the water that didn't whisper to the Drowned God – offer up promises as the waves itched at their ships. Those bound to the land could never understand the power of the waves – the great ferocity and anger swelling in the depths that licked at every shore. Their islands of rock existed at his will yet they mocked and dismissed the watery god.
The oldest stories; older than the First Men, older than Children's songs, older than the Dawn – these stories were of the creatures that lived beneath the water with their dark gods. Things that once walked the world and later, having had their fill of man and his troubles, sunk back into the depths to palaces built of filthy black stone. Silent. Unknownable. A terrible thing waiting for flesh fresh from the sun. Some outposts remembered. The people of The Thousand Islands whose blood had mixed with water. The Iron Born and their precarious castles, strung out over the ocean in temptation of the waves.
The sailors of the world were one people. Pirates. Traders. Iron Born. Adventurers. It made no difference. They were all at the whim of the waves. Brothers in fear.
Quaithe kept to her cabin, laying on the bed while its contents dragged and scraped across the floor. It was pitch – no windows or safe place for a lantern in waters like these. Above she could hear the footsteps of pirates, racing across deck in a fruitless effort to steady the craft. They may as well let it drift. There was only one way to ride these waters. Merchants had been doing it since before time had history.
In the darkness, Quaithe fell in and out of sleep. Sometimes she thought of Wreab, his body falling beneath the waves to be feasted upon by sharks until he settled on the bottom with the swaying weed. His bones became coral. Colourful fish ducked in and out of his ribs. Gone was the fallacy of a place at the god's table and a feast with those that were dead.
Lies from the lips of priests.
She had been granted a glimpse of what lay beyond. Near death herself, she'd felt the approaching ice run through her veins. Her skin shivered. Heart stopped. Then the darkness draped its veil across her shoulders. After that – nothing at all. The Great Silence. A place without gods. That's where men went. Perhaps that's what the Old Ones meant by 'peace'.
The sea claimed magic. Amid the saline vapours, Quaithe found herself slipping between visions. They were darker than before, infested by malevolence.
She walked along a wall of ice, wind rushing up from the edge, pushing her back as she leaned into the fall. Below an army of corpses razed the Haunted Forest, reducing it to pillars of smoke that sunk heavy with the cold, shifting along the surface of The Wall in a dead tide. Weirwood roots stuck out like bones where the ice had melted in the heat from the fires below. They sprouted, feeling sunlight. Red leaves tumbled into the wind, kicked off onto the Southern side of the wall where they transformed into a bloody rain, turning the snow flats red from Castle Black to Mole's Town. Abandoned swords were thrust into the surface, marking the corpses of their masters. A forest of steel. Wolves padding softly across the leaves.
Quaithe woke, rolling over restlessly in the bed as waves hassled the ship.
Now a mighty straw effigy, built in the likeness of a lion. The sun rose and with its soft dawn, set the lion ablaze. A living dragon emerged from the ruin, unfurling its wings to the golden light. It basked in the ash, licked death and made a home from the pyre.
Startled, Quaithe roused from sleep. She sat in the darkness, kneels pulled to her chest. The gold mask felt hot against her melted skin as though during the night it had fused to her flesh. She reached up, touching it. The metal was cool. Something in the air was playing tricks with her mind.
The darkness transformed in front of her. Quaithe gasped as a vision took over her waking mind. Not since drinking Nightshade had her reveries been so bold as to infringe upon her conscious hours. The darkness became an ocean. Black at first but then, as she moved through it, a land mass appeared.
Quaithe recognised the mountains behind Asshai and the terrible, liquid shapes of the buildings. The city was alive. Its harbour waters were clear and sweet, filled with ships. Dragons circled the mountains which themselves were forested to the snow line. The fires that burned there now were pressed deep into the earth, sleeping. Other cities dotted the mountain peaks that had since become ash. They were grand and beautiful, as if made of glass. The envy of fallen stars.
This was a place entrenched in the dimmest corner of history. A time recalled in songs and illegible markings carved into stone. The Age of Heroes – when the great empires of the world reigned, leaving the pitiful city sprawls of today in their shadow. Asshai was a marvel of black stone. Newly built, its oily surface glistened, washed with salt. It picked up the light from the rising sun, shifting into gold and pink – sometimes its surface reflected the sky so perfectly that the tangled faces of its buildings vanished entirely, like a desert mirage, neither here nor there.
It was beautiful. More than beautiful. It was divine.
A million people swelled within its buildings, snuffing candles in the windows – flooding the street with their prayers. A dragon perched on a temple roof, lifting its red wing. It tucked its nose under the fleshly layer, licking at the leather.
Beyond the mountains, these people lay as bones. A sea of souls and a desert of dragon skulls.
Quaithe stared in wonder at the leviathan metropolis and wondered how can I see this? What force of magic holds sway over me this night? Is it the waves? The Drowned God himself, angered by their passage across his back? Or was this something more sinister.
A sharp wave broke the vision. Pitch returned to Quaithe's cabin. She reached out, running her hands through the empty air. Why did the gods taunt her with such things?
Light broke into her room. Daario was at her door, holding a lantern. "Islands," he announced. "Shrouded in smoke. They've appeared just this hour."
"Where are we?"
"The cursed waters of Valyria. In a moment, the ships will still. We're at the last of the trade winds. Are you certain this is wise? If we stay this course we'll have no choice."
Quaithe left her bed and wandered over to the halo of light surrounding Daario. Her golden mask shimmered, dripping sweat from her tormented dreams as though they were tears. "Fear keeps us from those waters. Fear built from stories whispered long ago to keep us out. Why do you think that is?"
"I thought that was obvious. Tyrion and Jorah have been down this way before. The whispers are true. This is no longer a place for men. There is plague in these parts – Dragon Scale."
"And treasure," she placed her hand on Daario's chest. "Knowledge, protected by that fear. Tell your pirates to cover their skin. Gloves. Boots. Everything. Use their spears to defend the boats. They will be fine. If a man is touched, send him to a swift death in the waters."
"Some of the captains are mutinous at the thought. Sea-folk are god fearing."
"Once they are in the mists they will see. We sail through the ruins."
Daario returned to the deck. The sun was rising, lifting its fiery body into the sky. Directly in front, the waters were still and a soft cover of grey lay atop the surface. Peeking from the mist were the first shadows of land. Peaks. Thrusts of crumbling rock. Pieces of land thrown from the destroyed mountain ranges that now lay in the shallow water on their sides. Some of them had broken bits of civilisation attached, like flesh on a rotting corpse. Then there was the shoreline – a vast platform of bubbled rock, black and deformed. Fire made solid by the salt. White molluscs clung to the folds like stars. These were the tortured shores of Valyria.
He looked to the pirates on deck, wrapped from head to toe in rags and leather. They glanced nervously at each other as the mist climbed up the sides of the boats. It smelled of ash and death, of rot and dirt. The men in the crows nest leaned over, pointing the way through the treacherous waters. From that height they could see the water and the wreckage beneath. Their cries steered the fleet safely around. The vessels creaked in the water. Those were the only sounds.
Viserion spread his wings and soared high, vanishing into the chain of smoking islands.
"Don't worry about him," Quaithe said, joining Daario on deck. "This is his home."
"I'm not. I'm worried about us." Daario closed his eyes and focused on the breeze against his face. It was warmer in the ruins, tainted by the fires that still burned below the waves. The waters spat, bubbling in places. He'd heard the stories of rivers made from fire – a city suspended over the heat. If anything, Valyria had cooled in the intervening centuries. "What exactly are you looking for? I need to know."
Quaithe considered her answer. The first breaths of civilisation were beginning to take form as the sea became a river. Part of a stone bridge had collapsed into the water on their left and been consumed by the rich jungle which now covered the entire continent. "Weapons. Armour. Knowledge."
"We have those already," Daario insisted. "A fleet this size can take the capital."
"I know. This is for the battles that come after."
"What battles..."
"There is a war on the edge of our view, Pirate King, which all men must fight. You may live today but without the relics of Valyria you will perish tomorrow. We're looking for the steel factory that once stood on the banks of this river – when it was aflame. It was one of the largest buildings ever built and with any luck, enough of it will be standing for your men to raid."
"We're really here for some steel?"
"We're here for Valyrian steel."
Daario rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. It was forged somewhere in this calamity.
The pirate fleet edged forward, keeping close and away from the banks. All eyes were on the jungle which leered toward them. No birds or creatures dared breathe. The ruins thickened. First it was the odd bridge, crumbling into the water but soon those bridges had buildings, then collections of towns and finally, as they headed toward the city itself, enormous walls of arched stone that had once formed fortifications around Valyria.
"Seven gods and all the rest..." Daario whispered, leaning over the rail as they passed beneath the shadow of the wall. Where it reached the water, the rock vaulted across the expanse in a series of arches, stacked seven levels high. Even after the ruthless passage of time, Daario could still see the reliefs etched into panels between each one. They contained stories – images of dragons fighting and mountains smoking. "How beautiful this must have been," he added.
"Oh it was," Quaithe replied, tears hidden behind her mask. "I see it often in my dreams only the walls were capped with gold to reflect the burning river below. Now the sky is red and the stone a sickening imitation. We will never see the likes of them again."
"Perhaps that is a good thing," Daario replied. "By all accounts they were butchers."
"Maybe but you will thank their violence soon. Are you unwell?"
"It's nothing – sleep..." Daario rubbed his eyes when they started to water again. He worried the small pocket hidden his sash where the tiny gem lay safe. Yin's Bloodstone slumbered against his skin. "This place gives me bad dreams."
Quaithe nodded and returned her eyes to decay spread ahead.
WINTERFELL RUINS – THE NORTH
Alone, Sansa wandered through the thickening snow. She looked to the sky and found an angry blue forming at the Northern horizon. The ice in the air was palpable, brushing against itself, cracking apart in distant shards of thunder. It was headed their way. Behind, men wrestled horses toward the re-built stables and chopped down pines, piling them into huge pyres which they would light against the cold while the red witch whispered her words.
Rebuilding Winterfell seemed a hopeless task. For the moment they had secured the buildings left standing and repaired those that were mostly intact. Their tent city was slowly migrating into the confines of the compound where they might find some protection from the weather. The rest they moved into the crypts.
Sansa toyed with the idea of sending a raven to Petyr but feared that he was in the midst of a delicate game. Better to leave him to his own devices – whatever the hell those might be. Fastening her cloak, Sansa turned away from the storm and eyed the fortress of Winterfell. Her brother kept talking of the wars to come. Tomorrow he would gather their forces and tell everyone the truth, including her.
If wars were coming they could not fight them here. Sentiment did not blind her to the fact that in this state, Winterfell was a liability unless they hid in the tunnels like rats.
The tiny bear held a candle to the stone. It was formed into the likeness of a Lyanna Stark, sister to the late Eddard Stark and her namesake. It was strange, Lyanna Mormont had asked her mother many times why she had chosen that name and the answer was always, 'when you're older'. Her relatives had been less discrete, taunting her with cruel truths of the young woman's life.
"Your namesake..." Jon Snow appeared beside her in the darkness. They both carried tiny halos of light, candles in the dark with wax dripping into the dirt. "And my aunt."
She seemed so tiny next to him and yet without her support the wolf would be cold in an ice grave. "I am aware, Jon Snow. All my life I have walked in her shadow."
"Odd, isn't it?" Jon started, reaching forward to lay a small, half-frozen rose in the statue's outstretched hand as his father used to do. "We're all trapped by things we never did and people who passed before we were born."
"Not you, Snow." Lyanna replied. "You're named for the white drifts. For the storms. The songs that were never told. Whereas me? I'm named after a woman that threw the realm into chaos. Now I am mistress of war. It is a cursed name." She could feel his eyes on her, confused. Jon was a simple man like all the Starks before him. "I paid for your sword and goaded the other Northern houses to your side in conflict, preying on their wounded pride. We are at war with the South now whether you wish it or not."
"That is not the war that matters."
"I understand that is how you feel but the Southerns do not see things as we do. They'll view our rebellion as a threat to their sovereignty. Without a thought they'll march to thin our numbers. We cannot afford that."
"I've sent ravens to King's Landing."
"I've sent ravens to Varys." Lyanna countered, her candlelight on his face. Jon's eyes were so dark that they stole the light right from the flame. "King's Landing will have new crowns shortly."
"What are you doing, Lyanna?"
"Making sure that you survive." Lyanna knew that she wasn't old enough to fight his battles with a sword yet but she could certainly manipulate them from a raven's wing. "There's one more thing – your sister."
Jon did not understand. "Sansa?"
"She's Queen of the North. When you ride for The Wall, as King, you need to leave her here. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. That is our way."
Jon was shaking his head. "I doubt she'd agree to that and I cannot leave her undefended."
"We do not know why those words are uttered but they are old words. My maester, a wise man, is of the belief that they are a form of magic. Oh dear, have you forgotten such things?"
"I have lived death," Jon stepped closer to the tiny bear. "Then I was ripped from it as babes are torn from the womb."
"But what did you see, in the world of the dead? I think not feasting tables with the gods on one side and our fathers the other. Mmm... As I thought. The very young know what the old forget – that death is a pit, not a gilded crib."
"It was..." Hot wax dribbled over Jon's hand. He barely felt it burn. "Nothing at all."
Lyanna reached forward, placing her gloved hand on his arm. She was so small against him and yet all the strength came from her. Perhaps that's why they called them 'bears'. "Then we have nothing to fear."
Jon was left alone with the statue of his aunt. Dried flowers lay in pieces on the floor, all brought by his father in the years past. It was odd – when he was a boy, no more than six, his father had taken him down into the crypts and stood before this statue, crying with him in his arms.
'I can't. I can't...' Ned had whispered through his tears, holding Jon closer until the little boy thought he might be snapped in half. Ned Stark died with many secrets, none so precious to Jon than the story of his mother. He wondered if he would ever know her name, probably not. It was entirely possible that there was simply nobody left alive who knew the truth.
"Sansa?" Jon noticed the light approach.
A few moments later, Sansa appeared, shedding fresh snow on the tunnel floor. She nudged her fur hood back and released her red hair which had grown longer and thicker with the cold making her look more like her mother every day. "We were looking for you. Lyanna said that I could find you down here." Sansa stopped in front of the statue. "What are you doing?"
"Thinking about my mother," Jon replied honestly, stepping back until he was laying against a nearby wall. Sansa remained beside Lyanna's statue.
"In the crypts?" Sansa replied. "You won't find your mother here."
"I won't find my mother anywhere," Jon replied. "That secret died with father. He promised to tell me when he returned from King's Landing."
Sansa knew how that story ended.
"Did he tell you anything?"
Sansa shook her head. "I think you forget how young I was when he died."
"Then no one knows. Sansa? What is it?"
"I doubt that. There are two people who I can think of that might know who your mother is. Varys, who knows everybody's secrets, from the fish monger to the king and -"
"And?"
"Lord Baelish. He seems privy to more than he lets on and," Jon pealed himself from the wall and was now inching toward her, candle held aloft so that the light hit her face. "He's kept company with Varys long enough to know many of those secrets. He hinted to me, in this very place, that there is more to be told of our Aunt and if he knows that intimate detail about our family, why not the story of your mother?"
"Did he say something?"
"No." She replied quickly. "It's only – I know him. Better than you would like."
"Be careful, Sansa. Our father didn't trust him. Baelish is dangerous."
She wanted to say, my mother loved him but held her tongue. "Of course he's dangerous," Sansa agreed. "Dangerous men are what we need in the North if we hope to keep it. Besides, I know what he wants. That's the key to owning any man."
"I forget," Jon whispered, reaching forward to gently brush his hand against her cheek. "That you are fierce like our mother. Your mother." He corrected.
"She was your mother too, in every way that counts. You might not think it or have ever felt it but she loved you. She should be – here..." Tears caught Sansa by surprise, welling up in her eyes as a sob caught her throat. The candle fell. Wax spilled into a pool, revealing the wick which burned all the fiercer, illuminating the statue.
Jon set his candle on the floor and took Sansa in his arms, holding her. They had never been very affectionate as siblings but now they found themselves alone in the world. The last Starks of Winterfell.
Davos Seaworth near fell flat on his face. He pushed himself off the wall, turned and carefully traversed the ice around the stables. Horses shuffled, nudging their noses as bags of hay. It was all shit, smoke and straw but in the centre someone had built a rudimentary furnace. A blacksmith was set up in the middle of Winterfell, casually guarded by some of The Vale soldiers who'd been left behind. Dammit it all to hell though, he knew that man covered in soot. Small, bloody world that it was.
"Fuck all the gods," Davos said, wandering up to the man beating the life out of a sword. There was mud beneath him instead of ice, melted away. The man looked up, dripping sweat and filth into the flames which hissed angrily. "Never thought I'd see your like again."
Gendry's first priority was the weapon he was crafting. He hit the steel over and over, sparks flying into the dirt before he thrust it into the water to cool for a while.
"Careful what you say to the gods, old man, they might be listening."
Davos laughed heartily, honestly pleased for the first time in months. "I thought you were for the waves, lad."
"So did I," Gendry admitted. "Couldn't row to save my own arse – as was proved when the weather turned and I went where the wind and waves wished."
"Which was?"
"Tarth."
"Tarth!"
"Aye. I was near dead when I washed up on a beach, surrounded by quite honestly the most beautiful waters I have ever seen. Thought I was dead and was happy for it. Shame, after all the trouble you went to regarding me."
"Yeah – trouble is what I'd call it. Stannis set me in the dungeons over you. Oh I didn't mind so much. It was that red witch that did it." Davos stopped – realising. "She's 'ere you know. The woman. You can' stay if she's about."
"Can't go either. Witch or no witch. Is Stannis 'ere then?"
Davos shook his head. "Stannis is dead. I'm sorry. Your uncle, niece..."
All Gendry could do was nod curtly, gripping his hammer. "Thought as much. You don't hear a name for a while and – well I know what sort of a world it is. You with the Starks then?"
"Aye. With the North an' all. I've nowhere left to go."
With each day that passed, Winter grew stronger. Sansa took to the godwood, sitting under the Weirwood. She had nothing to say to the gods but she felt closer to the ghosts of her family beneath the shedding bower. Red leaves dropped onto her like tears. Sansa held one of them between her fingers.
Something moved. Branches bending with snow. Then the sweep of a man's cloak. Sansa stood to face the disturbance. Instead of steel a pair of kind eyes emerged. Petyr lifted his hands.
"Forgive me, I did not mean to startle you."
"You did not," Sansa replied. They were alone. She preferred it this way. "Is the Dreadfort secure?"
He nodded. "The Vale banners fly beside Stark from her towers. We cleared the dungeons of the dead and buried them, as you wished. The gold is intact, Your Grace. You have money enough to rebuild Winterfell, should you choose."
"Should I choose that course?" she asked, quite seriously. "Winterfell is a ruin and the weather has turned. Who is left to build at times like these?" Sansa turned away from him and faced the pale tree. The screaming face in its bark changed every time she laid eyes on it. Today it was young, twisted and crying streams of sap from the corners of both eyes. "Do you ever think that this is hopeless?" Sansa listened to the crunch of snow behind her. The scrape of Littlefinger's cloak across the ground.
"Nothing is hopeless while we live," he whispered, lingering behind her. He dared not touch her, frightened she might transform into mist and blow away with the snows. "We both understand what it is to have nothing. Imagine, if we had felt then what you do now. I'd be a corpse beneath your father's sword and you a pet of a mad king."
Sansa removed her glove and reached forward, touching the sap. It was sticky and cold yet somehow its touch burned her skin. She turned, startling Lord Baelish. His eyes were unguarded, clear like the ice hanging from the tree's branches. "I cannot decide if your will is that of a fool or -"
"Or?" Petyr asked, looking down.
"Or if you are as wise as I've been warned."
Those eyes lifted. He thought of kissing her again. Of offering once again to gift her all that was his. Instead, Lord Baelish sank to his knee in the snow and said, "Your Grace, the money is yours. If you wish to build Winterfell, then it will be done. If you intend to bribe the Southern houses then that will be done. You've only to tell me what your particular wish is."
Part of her knew that Lord Baelish was acting on his own ambition rather than her whim but she suspected it aligned with her purpose. They'd always been of one mind about these things. All Baelish lacked was the proper information. As did she. "My brother is holding a meeting today which I wish you to attend and say nothing. After, you and I will decide where we go from here." She offered him her hand.
Petyr took it gently in his and lowered his lips to kiss her warm skin. "Nothing?"
"Nothing." She confirmed. Lord Baelish nodded.
RUINS OF VALYRIA THE SMOKING SEA
The Valyrian Steel Works lay on an angle, partially submerged in the river with its backside covered in dense jungle. That didn't matter. It was immense. The largest construction that any of them had set eyes on. It was longer than the great Pyramid of Ghis had been tall, nearly as wide and too large for the cataclysm to destroy.
"Gods..." Daario climbed up a small section of rigging as they slowed in the water. "How can men build such things?"
"We've forgotten," Quaithe replied. Her visions were bleeding into her waking hours. Even now, she saw the silhouettes of dragons grace the sky and the constant glisten of gold that had long ago melted into the fires.
Daario was the first to brave the plank bridging their ship to the building. It laid at an angle and shifted beneath his feet as he crawled along. The waters below him were grey, stinking with putrid gases. It was enough to burn his eyes, forcing tears from them.
"Right?"
"Right..." Daario called back to the anxious pirates. They leaned over the edge of the boat, clinging to ropes and watching the jungle for movement. Nearing the other side he stood up and walked the last few feet, stepping onto the granite building. He was probably two floors up with the building tilted just enough laterally for him to scamper along the walls toward the nearest window.
Inside it was dark but with huge streams of light coming in from each gaping archway. Vines tangled down from the ceiling. Cobwebs clustered around the windows and he could hear the shuffle of bats somewhere in the depths. This was a cave made by man.
A cave full of treasure.
"What do you see, captain?"
Daario extracted himself from the window and perched on the stone. His caution gave way to a grin. "Come on over and have a look for yourselves."
