CASTERLY ROCK – WESTERLANDS
They came around the tip of Kayce, treading the silken waters that had softened in the still, laying calm as the lake region while great currents dragged beneath. The ugly castle on the prow of sandstone raised no objection to the passage of Ironborn ships gathering beneath. It had been torn down and rebuilt so many times that no one inside its walls could remember who their kin was or if they cared for anything beyond the drink and whores that flocked into its weary perch.
Beyond it, even from the sea, Victarion saw the tower of gleaming stone lift toward the sky. Casterly Rock was a bitch of a thing, thrice as tall as the white wall in the North and etched with traps carved by a thousand years of paranoia. If gold made men mad then this was the seat of fools. The Ironborn had been trying to fuck its walls since they'd first set eyes on them and every time they'd been dashed in the harbour. The water was full of drowned men and their barges. They littered the sea floor like sand with creatures making nests of their bones.
The Lannisters were strong, Victarion respected that. They cared for little but gold and power yet the attaining of the latter left them weak. He could see the fault lines through their strength. The error in their strategy. The Great Tywin Lannister was dead and even together, his children could not muster half the sense of that old man.
"It is as you said," one of the Ironborn joined his captain at the wheel. "The harbour is stocked but the walls are bare. The bulk of the Lannister forces are elsewhere."
"Rob Stark and Stannis Baratheon chipped away at some, the rest are North at Winterfell or swarming the streets of the Capital." Victarion replied. "Lannisters worry too much about the dragon queen and not enough about the foundations of their house."
Victarion stalked the deck of his ship. He could hear the crash of waves against the shore to his left and the screech of gulls. They roved between the water and the cliffs, fishing in the afternoon light. By the time the sun dipped below the cusp of horizon, they'd round on the bay of Lannisport. All three-hundred ships.
CITADEL – OLDTOWN
The remains of the Citadel cooled. For weeks the embers in the depths of the stone building smouldered, holding the maesters at bay with its ferocious heat. The fire had burned so hot and for so long that the rock itself melted into the floor, laying in puddles of ruin. There were no square edges left. Every surface had mellowed and dripped into a gnarled, unsalvageable wreck.
"Something was kept down here…." One of the maesters said, kneeling to a discolouration in the floor. Obsidian bars – or what was left of them. He'd never seen anything like it.
"There is no mention of this place in the archives." The other replied.
"Perhaps not but they were the property of Lord Hightower. He was a man of a secrets and liked to keep his dealings with the Citadel off the books."
"That he was. Not all of them good." The other agreed. A quiet settled over them as they took in the very real devouring of the room. It had been a long time since anything of note had been destroyed in Oldtown. "There are more stories coming out of Dorne." He added. "The Dragon queen has cleared her throat. House Martell marches with her across the Dornish border. There hasn't been a Dornish army outside Dorne for a long time and yet here we are – foreigners and savages."
"Never a good thing," the other agreed. "This Targaryen means to move on the Capital."
"What is to be done?"
The other maester lifted his gaze, surprised by the question. "What we always do. The only thing we can. Record it with accuracy. If this is the foundation of a new empire then it falls to us to enshrine it in print."
"Not all maesters are taking such a..." he searched for the word sufficient to describe the despicable actions of Grandmaester Marwyn and his apprentice, "...academic approach."
"The day it snows in Oldtown is the day I'll write about the snow." Some men were prepared to die in the stone cells they were born too. Others were not.
Outside, fresh stone was unloaded off a steady line of carts purchased with Northern coin. In exchange those same carts were piled with vats of wildfire. The businessmen of Oldtown were not the same as the maesters. They did not need to be convinced of dead men on the march – the only convincing they required could be measured on a scale. If Winterfell wanted to stockpile green fire they'd happily supply it.
BRONZEGATE – THE STORMLANDS
Daenerys itched for war. Waiting at the edges – imagining the depths of conflict whilst being kept at arm's length had grown intolerable. She felt the cold walls of the castle at her back like bars of a prison. Delay surely ate away at any advantage she had. Each day allowed the Lannister King another chance to prepare. He was a boy, she knew but he was surrounded by motivated, clever creatures that had coveted the throne longer than she'd been alive.
"You'll wear a hole in the stone, Khaleesi." Jorah watched her from the edge of the room. He hated the bare walls of the castle as much as she did but it was a safe port in a dangerous world. "Waiting is the hardest part of war."
She placed her hands on the windowsill and stared down at the river snaked across the bottom of the hill. Her dragons had gone out to the water to hunt while her army pitched on the marshy ground among the insects and cold. "It is not the waiting I mind, ser Jorah," she replied, attempting to drag fresh air into her lungs but it was rotten with poverty and filth. It was not how she'd expected Westeros to taste. "I am at the mercy of my council. I've never had a council to be at the mercy of."
"Whose council do you fear more... Varys, Tyrion or Daario?"
All of them. "What do you know of this Tyrell woman?"
"Olenna?" Jorah shifted. He'd remained in his armour but had the grace to drape his cloak across the steel breastplate. "She fancies survival, Your Grace. Above all things she'll serve the continuation of her house. Olenna is..." Jorah searched for a meaningful comparison, "...like Dothraki. So long as you are strong she will be loyal."
Behind them, the door pushed open. Jorah's hand wrapped instinctively around the base of his sword but it was only the maester with a raven's note. With a polite dip of his head, he was gone. Jorah turned the slip of rolled parchment in his fingers. There was a bear paw print on the seal, the same as his father's pin. "From my cousin."
"I told you she would write." Daenerys replied, moving back to the table where she nodded at him to sit with her.
Jorah took up a place opposite before snapping open the wax seal and unfurling the message. Lyanna had the hand of a child but the will of a lord. It came through her words and Jorah feared the day when she was grown.
"What does it say?" she prompted.
"Lady Sansa Stark, Queen of Winter has wed Lord Andar Royce whose father Yohn Royce now rules the Vale. The armies of the North, including some Lannister forces, hold Winterfell. Winter is here..."
"That is not a look I've seen cross your face..." The queen observed quietly.
"She adds, 'the North wishes the dragon queen good fortune in the wars to come'."
"It is not the tragedy that you imagined."
Jorah set the message on the table and sat back, staring at it. "Polite forgiveness is not a family trait."
"Though you admit to never meeting her."
"She's a bear, Your Grace, but what she says about the Lannisters is of greater interest. We may very well take the city but ser Jaime – who is almost certainly still in command of the army, could ransom Winterfell and hold all our allies in the noose." He fell quiet for a while, deep in thought. Jorah had always been a military strategist – it's how he'd survived so long in a violent world. "I know you want to kill every living Lannister with your bare hands but we may need them alive."
"Cersei dies." Daenerys hissed, with absolutely no room to give.
"The boy then, Tommen. He is Jaime's son, what better piece to hold?"
"You want me to spare the king? Of all those who must die, the king is one if I am to rule."
"Not if you strip him of his titles. Banish him to the Night's Watch. You have that power. It might also help with Tyrion's loyalty. He has no stomach for the murder of his nephew."
She hated that there was logic in his words. Is this how wars were fought? Where threats of murder cheapened to slaving – a practice she thought herself above. Was it worse than murder? "He is married to the Tyrell girl. Could she be convinced to help us?"
"Shall I write to Varys?"
"Tyrion..." Daenerys corrected. "He has more motivation to succeed."
Arya woke to the bitter taste of blood on her lips. She lifted her hand and brushed her fingertips against her mouth only to find it dry. The blood was in her dreams – devoured by jaws and fangs that were not her own. She remembered The Twins, rising up from their sad stretch of grey water. The long, frost-tipped grass against her snout and the sound of the pack shifting in the moonlight.
The killing had started when a cloud passed over the moon. Her wolves slipped out from the forest and, silent as a sword cutting through the darkness, they caught people by their ragged clothes and dragged them into the shadows.
Nymeria feasted with the rest, focusing her hatred on everything that fell beneath the shadow of the towers. Her brother. Her Mother. Her men. Arya saw all their faces in the river's depths. She paid for their pain with the lives of those the wolves tossed into the river.
This was not revenge. That would require the Freys themselves to float, face down, along the river waiting for the ocean gods at the mouth. No. This was terrorising. Her paws padded against the mud while her nose dripped.
Arya sat up and shook the dream off. Light poured through the window on her left. She could hear the steady clink of metal workers in the town below and the general rabble of humanity. It was the same everywhere that she travelled – from one side of the Narrow Sea to the other. Humanity did not change.
KING'S LANDING – WESTEROS
Cersei Lannister shrieked with fury. Qyburn dipped his head extra-low at her displeasure.
"That pirate cunt!" She hissed, hurling the scroll to the floor where it curled in on itself. "How could this happen? Where were our men? Does the king know? Does ser Jaime know?" Her questions came so fast that Qyburn could not intercede with any answers until she'd finally retreated to the pitcher of wine to pour another glass.
"There are ravens on their way north to ser Jaime," he replied, nervous that the towering flames of the fireplace behind raged in a mimic of her mood. "The king is in the garden with his lady and does not know. Victarion attacked without notice or cause with the full force of his Ironfleet. Most of your army is here on in the North. Victarion's army is not a normal force, Your Grace. Nobody else would have been able to fight their way up the tunnels inside the rock but the Ironborn are well used to rock and sea."
By the time he'd finished speaking, Cersei had drained two glasses and was working on her third. "Casterly Rock is our home!" The tone of her speech was that of a wounded creature.
"Your Grace, if I may?"
Her eyes lifted and her head dipped in a nod. "What harm is there to let the Greyjoy stay unchallenged – at least for the moment?"
"It weakens us, as a family – as rulers – as a great house of Westeros. We cannot have our family home in the grip of raiding pirates! Think of what Tywin would say!" Cersei knew what her father would do. He'd be on his horse, sword in hand and he wouldn't return without Victarion's head on a spike.
"Their hold of the rock is only an appearance of weakness," he pressed dangerously, "but if you were to commit actual troops to uproot Victarion your position here would be empirically weakened. By your own words, there is no gold left at the rock. No wealth to speak of. Victarion holds a Western fortress with no way to feed his men. He'll have to abandon it before long."
Cersei paced backwards and forwards across the unforgiving stone room. The only warmth came from the fireplace and despite the raging flame her bones were left in chill. Several windows laid out to her left, each arched gracefully at the top – one crumbled at the edges where a deep crack threatened to split it into two. Beyond them, smoke hung thick over the city, thickening as the dead were burned. The Dragon Pit held the thickest pillar. She hated to think of all those Sparrows, cowering inside that ruin. How could they eke out survival against the wishes of the Crown? If she could not murder those treacherous zealots in the next street how could they hope to defeat a Targaryen with three dragons?
"Do nothing..." She mused the words – allowed them to linger on the air. Putrid, resigned apathy… It was not the Lannister way.
Tommen did not know what to say to his queen. She trailed her hand along the ironwork at the edge of the garden, stepping back and forth from side to side where the vines encroached and dropped their leaves at her feet. Her hand was set on the base of her stomach which remained flat against the thin layers of silk and silver belt.
"You look to the West, my queen..." Tommen finally spoke, from his position on a sandstone bench. "Highgarden is to the West – well… South-West." Still, she did not speak. "I have been thinking that perhaps you should take leave there."
Margaery hesitated. Turned. Looked upon her young king. He was too young. There were times that she wished her grandmother had let Jeoffrey live. If it was all for this then he'd have deserved the fate of the dragon queen and Tommen would have been allowed to slip into history as another missing heir of a failed dynasty.
"If only we could both go," Margaery lamented. "You would like it, I think – the gardens. They drape over the old walls so that you can't see the scars of the castle."
"I cannot go. I am the king." His words were as sad as her eyes. "I wish that it were not so."
"You are very like your uncle."
"Jaime?" Tommen had heard it a thousand times and with good reason. Sons are often like their fathers but Margaery was shaking her head. "Do you mean Uncle Tyrion? No..."
"It is a compliment, Your Grace."
"I asked you not to call me that..."
"You are better than the station granted to you and, had you not inherited a lecherous mess of a kingdom, you'd be a fair ruler."
"My grandfather said that a good ruler builds kingdoms from the ash. I never expected to see mine returned to it."
"You're thinking about her too."
"She has three dragons. Of course I think about it. Three dragons and several savage armies. A birthright and magic, they say. I dream of little else."
"And so you wish to send me away. Me and the child."
"Tell me – is it such a bad idea?"
Margaery shook her head. "No – it is not but I cannot accept. I married you, Tommen and I am queen beside you."
He reached out and she walked toward him. Their hands met and he dragged her down to sit beside him.
"Of all the kings I've wed, I like you the best..." she teased softly and pressed her forehead against his. If only he'd be allowed to live a little longer. Such a king he might make.
"What is it that has you all a flutter?" Olenna barely lifted her eyes as Cersei stormed into her offices. A pair of crows picked at each other on the ledge, dropping feathers. "It is not a social visit. Of that I am sure." Cersei was actually cradling a goblet of wine which told her everything she needed to know. "Then it must be about that great big ugly rock. Before you ask, the armies of Highgarden are on their way here to defend the capital. They cannot be diverted to the other side of the continent based on nothing but sentiment and even if they could, that sort of fighting is not their strength. It would be folly."
"Good. Then we agree." Cersei cut sharply. "Highgarden's army are to hold King's Landing so you can still your scheming quill, Olenna."
Olenna set the enormous brown and cream feather down on the leather covering. "What are your feelings toward pirates?"
"Is – is that a joke?"
"No indeed. I have a proposition I believe you may enjoy."
KINGSWOOD – WESTEROS
The click of hooves was softened by a layer of pine needles and dried leaves. They lay across the Kingsroad as a veil, hushing the progress of the Tyrell army. Unlike the North, these woods were full of life. The mists, kicked up by the nearby sea, washed between the girths of swaying trees and caressed the ferns which sprouted, vibrant, against the morning dew. Fresh webs collected droplets of water, several of which fell from above and splashed against armour.
Loras road at the head of the army. He lifted his hand and, in silence, the men behind came to a stop. Forest birds whittled and cried. They vanished flashes of colour above. Then, Loras continued around the curve in the path alone.
His chainmail glinted like silver thorns while he'd combed the thickest of his hair down over the ruined ear. He was a vane man learning to wear his scars. Once he had come far enough for the forest to obscure his army, a pair of figures emerged from the mist.
Lords Varys and Tyrion… There was no mistaking the bald eunuch and his dwarf.
"My grandmother never ceases to amaze." Loras said, kicking his leg over the horse and dismounting. He paced up to the pair. They wore the Targaryen colours – red and black with dragon sigils woven into the fabric. "The pair of you are the first tangible proof that the pieces are in motion for war."
"Says the man with an army at his back." Varys replied. His hands had dipped into his sleeves in his usual manner. Part of him was glad to be coming out of the shadows at least. The fringes of the world were no place for a politician. "Queen Daenerys Targaryen hopes that our presence here, unarmed and alone as you see, is proof enough of our sincerity."
Loras dipped his head. "What is this message that I am to collect which could not be sent on the back of a raven? Am I to marry the queen of dragons in exchange for a kingdom?"
"Mother of Dragons," Tyrion corrected carefully. "The dragons are her children as she birthed them into the world."
Loras placed absolutely no stock in the ramblings of superstition after what he'd endured. "As you say."
"The queen is of no mind to marry," Varys explained, "but instead offers you 'Caretaker of the Throne' further-" he continued before Loras had the chance to intercede, "-she proposes an alliance between your sister and the new Dornish prince on the condition that the child she is carrying be allowed to live. The Dornish are particularly open about these things and the queen has no wish to continue the tide of infant bloodshed that her predecessors revelled in."
Tyrion stepped forward and extended his hand. Laid across his palm was a black dragon scale. "Take it – to give to Olenna."
Loras picked up the scale, turning it over in his hand. "For what reason would the queen require a caretaker?"
"I assure you, if you accept these terms, we shall tell you."
Loras rubbed his thumb over the surface of the dragon scale. "And my sister's husband? Ah yes… Of course." How could he be allowed to live…
"It is a generous offer, Lord Tyrell. The queen will name you her heir and it will be the children of your name that sit upon the throne in the years to come." Varys watched Loras carefully. Of course, Loras could decide to capture them both and take them before Cersei but there was no reward that she might bestow to counter the breath of a dragon. It was not exactly a choice they were offering him but an open door to a cell.
"I have brought the red sashes," he replied finally. "As you asked. You best sink back into the wood. My army comes now."
DRAGONSTONE – BLACKWATER BAY
"Who's that from?" Tycho asked, sulking from his corner of the room. The island trembled beneath his feet. It was as though it breathed, in and out, all day and night. He hated everything about the mournful place – most of all the brooding pirate whose arse was firmly planted on Dragonstone's ugly throne. The irony was that Braavosi money paid for every wall in this filthy establishment.
Daario rolled the message up and tapped it on the black glass beneath his arm. "The Wall. Lord Commander Thorne implores me to mine obsidian and send it North."
"Odd request. What does Castle Black want with old dragonglass?" Tycho was not exactly a prisoner but he couldn't very well swim off the island and though he'd bent the knee to Daario it was taking some time to locate a ship. "What aren't you saying?"
"Thorne says it is to fight an army of dead men marching on The Wall. Ordinarily I'd toss this into the fire but after what I saw in Essos… I'm not so sure."
"I'll not deny the East has problems."
"You said it yourself that your neighbours beyond the Forest of Qohor have fallen silent. The trade routes of the Far East have run dry. Terrible stories trickle in from those traders that survived. I stood in the ruins of Yin while corpses tore it apart."
Tycho shifted uncomfortably. "I am a man of numbers, not superstition." He began quietly. "That said, a pair of dragons dug their claws into my home. What are you going to do? Did Thorne offer to pay you?"
Daario laughed quietly. "With what coin? The Night's Watch have an abundance of snow and that's it." He kept tapping the message on the stone – thinking. "I'm going to mine the obsidian and send it North. The pirates are restless and it will give them something to occupy their minds and keep them fit. There is shit stirring at the edges of the world. Only a fool would ignore it."
"Where are you going?" Tycho tried not to let panic rise in his voice. As much as he distrusted Euron at least he was born in Westeros and understood the games of ransom and reason. He had no wish to be left alone with the savages that roamed the halls.
"A walk. You will stay."
"And my ship?"
There was no reply.
The waves of Blackwater Bay were low and cold. True to their name, they sulked in a dark grey stain, tainted by the obsidian beneath the waves. Nothing grew under the water. It was like ice – a clean slice. Daario walked along the shore to the left of the pirate fleet. The beach was made of rolled glass that glistened like dragon eyes broken up by the white bones and shards of armour. A miserable island of death and war waiting to meet its end beneath the waves. No wonder the conquerors of old abandoned it.
Targaryens had a fondness for dangerous ports. Valyria, beautiful as it was, morphed quickly into a tragedy of ash. Daario turned so that his back faced the sea. He'd expected to be met by the angry shadow of the mountain but another cloud had passed overhead and curled around its tip.
A shrieking mass of gulls caught his eye. They were skipping over the rise of an old lava flow that sat a few feet above the water. Every now and then one of the larger waves crested over the rock and drowned the hundreds of glimmering pools. The seagulls picked their way through the contents, prying molluscs and seaworms free of their hides.
Among the marine graveyard sat a man, withered by time and weathered from the storms. His silver hair was so long that it caught on the rocks while the scrap of material worn as a tunic was actually construct of old Baratheon banners sewn together with very little skill.
Daario made his way over to the man, striding up the slippery rise of rock. The sea churned and the spray spat in his face. He tasted salt on his lips.
"You there-" he started, as he closed in on the man. He could have been a hundred or a thousand… Whatever he'd been in youth had given way to the shrivelled corpse of time. "-do you have a name?"
The old man looked toward the young voice. His eyes were white like pearls, blind as the clouds set against Dragonstone. "Iii'll not troubble you, ser." The man's voice shook. Dragging it from his parched throat was a battle of its own.
"No – you don't have to move." Daario said quickly, when the man tried to pry himself from the rock. He'd been fishing, albeit unsuccessfully. There was a threadbare bag beside him that rattled with oyster shells. "We're only interested in the castle. The shore is yours."
His words did not stop the man from packing up. He'd lived through many armies and lords. None of them worth a toss for their word. "Last maan said thatt burned 'is men alivee on that beach o'er there." Despite his blindness, the man correctly pointed to the stretch of beach in front of the castle which still bore the remnants of pyres.
"Stannis Baratheon and the Red Witch. I heard of them." Daario nodded. "We're not interested in that sort of thing."
"Gold..." The man replied. "I can hear you chippping away a' it. Soft. Sh… If you listen…"
Mad. Daario resigned to leave the man to his business.
"I hear them too..." The old man added. "Screechin' on the air. Do you ride with dragons, ser?"
Daario paused. He tilted his head, eyeing the man more carefully. It was not some poor fishermen. They knew nothing of kings and dragons. "I do but I am no ser in a lord's army. I am a pirate and my queen is coming with her dragons."
"Her name?" The old man prompted, managing to stand. His dead eyes set themselves on Daario.
"Daenerys Targaryen."
The old man covered his mouth in shock.
"You know her?"
"Know her?" He whimpered. "I was here the day she was born into this raging world and held her mother's hand until the end."
It was a difficult passage around the sea caves but the old man straddled the rock as though he'd grown as a part of it. His feet knew every hold while his hands slid into the nooks beside lazy grey flat crabs who shied away from the motion.
Daario's sword dragged against the unforgiving stone as he skirted down the last drop and landed in the mouth of a shallow stream. To his right lay the sea and to the left, the gaping mouth of a cave. The river spewed from its lips – a constant stream of fresh water which the old man scooped into his mouth.
As they stepped inside, Daario noticed the walls glitter where flecks of quartz corrupted the glass resembling the night sky.
"You were a knight," Daario observed, nodding at the pile of armour left against the wall. Most of it had fallen to rust at the constant beck of the salt air but he could still make out a pair of dragons on the breastplate. Before he could ask any more questions his attention was drawn to the pile of rocks at the centre of the cave. It was a burial pyre like those made by the ancient Children of the Forest.
"There was no earth ter bury her in..." He lamented, placing his hands upon the mound. "So I laid her 'ere. Where they'd not find her."
Daario's boots crunched over the river stones. He was beginning to understand. "Rhaella Targaryen?" He asked, to which the old man whimpered. Daenerys' mother. Daario knelt in the shallow water and dipped his head, muttering one of his ocean prayers.
"You are Ironborn..." The old man said. "I did not know the-e realm had fallen so far."
"We sail beneath the dragon banners, old man. Live a little longer and you'll hear the last of that bastard usurper empire fall beneath her wings." He lifted himself out of the water. "Your name, ser?"
It had been so long since he'd uttered it that the old man could scarce remember. He'd become something else, living among the birds and creatures of the sea. Soon he'd be no one at all. Just another pile of bones on the beach for the gulls to pick at. "Ser Willem Darry..." he replied with a mournful air. "Last of the Queensguard."
