CASTLE BLACK – THE WALL

"That She-bear," the red witch said, as Thorne slammed the door to his office against the freezing wind, "does not trust your ability to hold the Watch together."

Thorne snorted in response, picking out a bottle of sweet wine tucked between the scrolls and books. It was mostly empty and what remained was full of grit. He didn't care, taking a swig before staggering over to his desk. "It might surprise you to learn, witch, that I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks of my command. Bear, wolf or damn dragon. Besides – Dacey is miles away, headed East. Gods be with her and the poor fucks that follow. I heard you were heading off yourself..."

"The fires draw me West," Melisandre replied.

"Yeah, I also heard that Dorin wasn't much interested in your company. He thinks witches are bad luck. Honestly, can't blame him much for that but if you go with him I might happen on a bit of peace. About time."

A lashing of snow and wind set the door shaking on its hinges. The windows had frozen over months ago and through them Thorne saw nothing except the underside of frost.

"You are as genuine as the vine of thorns..."

"Aye and no relation to those rose-footed Southerners. The only allegiance a Commander of the Watch has is to his men and that fucking lump of ice that gets on my nerves. So, it's decided, you'll go West with Dorin and take some of my men with you. As it happens, I agree with the old bastard. Them dead shits will be looking for cracks in this wall and Westwatch is a fucking ruin last I heard. Go – cast a few spells on it or whatever it is that fire priestesses do."

His words weren't intended as rude he was simply short by nature. The cold bittered everyone after a while. 'Sad fucks' Tyrion had called them, when he visited The Watch. Miserable fragments of humanity. That's all the realm had left. A wall built on rotted flesh.

"Promise me one thing," Thorne added, tossing another correspondence into the fire. It curled and turned to ash. "When that mad son of a bitch sets the world on fire, you take the fastest horse and ride back to this keep."

"Why ever would you want me to do that?"

"I might not be the smartest man in the realm but I'm not fucking stupid. This ice demon that thinks himself a king – he's made of ice and you're a quick hand at fire."


The nights spent curled in the corner of a sky cell passed into blissful memory compared to the road North. Petyr carried everything he owned, including the gifts from his Winter Queen, in a satchel tied to his back. The rest he wore. Layers and layers. Anything to stave off the cold that bit at his limbs. It was the same for the others that lined the King's Road in their hundreds, meandering toward the sheets of ice. They fled one war for another, drawn to the Wall solely on the promise of food and a bed. How wretched the Westerosi had become.

Now he was one of them. The filth. He even smelled like horse shit – or he did when he managed to find a place by the fire at night and share a meal with the farmers that hunted along the road and fished in the ice holes that dotted across the lakes in the far North. Every night the fogs came in and each morning they waited longer and longer before lifting from the land. Most of the time they were left to walk through the impenetrable grey with nothing but the road and the person in front as a guide. A sea of watery torches. Tears and the groans of those dying out of sight.

It was a rare clear afternoon that Petyr Baelish spotted the Wall. This was not his first time seeing the razor of ice stretched over the horizon but it was the first time that a shiver ran down the bones of his spine at the thought of touching it again. The reality of holding his sword to the demons on the other side he could make peace with, in his mind at least, but the shame of facing the men that manned Castle Black?

He turned away from the path and threw up his lunch of sparrow. Someone patted him on the back – whispered a word of encouragement and set him on the road again.

Castle Black was a venomous thing. Whomever built its ugly walls had a bone to pick with the old gods. He could see the resentment in every stone. If he'd expected any special treatment befitting his previous status it was dashed immediately. Those headed for The Watch were broken away from the farmers and told to stand in the mud. Recruits were no longer the scum of the Seven Kingdoms. The people that stood with him were terrified and poor, shivering with the cold. They'd gladly face hell's warriors for a bed by the fire. Personally, Petyr would rather make a pact with the gods than endure this fucking hell. He only did it because his Winter Queen had asked it of him. He was a fool for her. A dead fool, he thought sadly. An unremarkable story – a footnote in a future book. He wondered how many idiots like him had fallen on their swords for a royal smile on swollen lips.

"Of all the sad fuckers this side of the continent and I get you..."

"Lord Commander Thorne..." Littlefinger dipped his head in a bow. It was all he could manage with frozen limbs and a bad leg.

"Never thought I'd see the bloody day. Things must have really gone to shit in the South if folk like you are washing up."

"You could say that," Littlefinger replied. "Politics has become a risky business. Lady Sansa of Winterfell thought my skills might serve of greater use in your company, My Lord."

"Not if you call me, 'My Lord' again. You can call me Thorne, Commander or cunt. Up ter you. Aye Tormund!" Thorne waved the enormous Wildling King over. "New batch of chicks for you to sort."

"An' tha' one?" Tormund tilted his head ominously at the slight man who didn't look like he'd live out the Winter.

"He won't be much good with a sword but see what you can do. Then send him my way after yer done and the vows are said. I want him on the side of the living, yer hear?"


He was terrible but a long way from the worst. A 'three-stroker' they called him, same as all the others who'd last three swipes of the sword against one of the dead soldiers. Still, Petyr decided to approach the situation as he'd done with all others in his life and learned what he could from the experience. He was convinced that politics were the same wherever you went and in this part of the world the object of most worth was survival. Well, so be it. He would learn how to survive.

They were still leading parties of men through the gates to take the oath in front of the Weirwood. Petyr had no need of that. His words were said in Winterfell so he fastened his black cloak and watched the others trail through the tunnel in a sad commune.

"Commander Thorne will see you now," the Wildling king said, laying his hand unwisely on Littlefinger's shoulder. "This was not the castle I had in mind when we made conversation last time," Tormund added.

"But a castle it is," Petyr replied. "Is she not a beauty?"

"Ugliest bastard of a thing I ever seen," Tormund reply, rising a laugh out of the small man. "You're gonna die up 'ere quicker than the firewood if yer don' learn how ter use that fine sword of yours." He added, far more quietly this time.

"What difference is it to you if I die? I ask out of pure curiosity, you see. We are not well acquainted beyond a bit of stitching."

"I might not wear one of 'em fancy crowns like them Southerners," Tormund replied thoughtfully, "but I know a thing or two about rulin'. Mance taught us that the only thing that matters – the only thing – is the continued beat of your heart. While ever you've got that, you're one of us. You're one of us, Smallfinger." He repeated firmly, with another smack to his back.

Littlefinger flinched at the butchering of his name. "I'm not one of anything."

"That will change. Right now the war that you were sent here for is someone else's nightmare. I promise, the moment you see one of them ugly cunts coming at yer with flesh falling off the bone you'll know the truth. Here we are. Commander's office. When yer done with grisly cunt we might take a walk."


He was still made to sleep with the others. They were stacked, beds atop beds suspended on pine frames, four high until they reached the roof. Part of him was glad of the cluster of bodies in the small room. Their collective heat was almost enough to melt the veneer of frost from the stone walls.

Petyr rolled onto his side, tucked his knees to his chest and held the blankets in place. He shivered beneath them, trying to find warmth that simply refused to come. The greatest threat to the army at The Wall was freezing to death before war. It was alright for Northerners raised on frozen landscapes but most of the people here now were unable to survive.

He closed his eyes anyway. Petyr knew exactly what he'd see. She haunted him – from one world into the next. Sansa and her pale blue eyes. Snow dusted in fiery ribbons of hair. A queen and a wolf. He was done dreaming of the dead. From now on he'd think only of her.

In the morning he waited outside the kitchens in the mud. It was the only place warm enough in Castle Black for the ice to melt and reveal the stinking ground. He tore at a scrap of bread, picking at it like a bird while he waited. Snow flurried down in waves, dusting the black rock like a capped mountain peak. It was nothing to the rise of white towering above. He could hear the chains of the lift screech as the lift went up and down. Somewhere, beyond the square, men brawled in practice with the slam of wooden shields to wooden swords.

"Yer carry your sword wherever yer go," Tormund observed, lumbering across the mud. He was draped in skins and fur, strapped together with thick lengths of metal. That alone made him impervious to most stray blades. It'd take a mountain of a man to hack through to the flesh. "Good start. Never know when things will go ter shit 'round this fuckin' place."

This was their walk, Littlefinger assumed, as he followed without request.

"I have already said my vows," Littlefinger spoke up, when it became clear that they were descending into the heart of the castle and, naturally he imagined, toward the tunnel that led through the ice.

"We're not goin' through the gate, Smallbird."

He blinked away another terrible version of his name and followed in silence as Tormund took a pair of flaming torches from the wall and handed one to him. It was crude compared to the ones from the Red Keep, with its wild flames licking down at his hands.

"Mmm… Yer feel it too..." The Wildling King observed, as his company fell quiet. Their breath came as whispers of fog as the stone walls gave way to ice and they found themselves in the narrow passage of ice. "Felt it myself, first time I came down 'ere with the bear woman. Watch your step. There are a thousand dead hands reaching from beneath."

Tormund lowered his torch to the ground. Littlefinger stumbled back. Beneath the milky surface were the shadows of dead men. They'd been frozen there, preserved by the cold. "Who are they?"

"Our future..." Tormund replied.

The narrow passage opened up to a shock of daylight. The heavy fog had lifted halfway up the ice wall leaving the forest and open snow field exposed. Littlefinger turned several times, swiping his torch madly. "It's – open."

"There's been cracks like that in this wall since it were built." Tormund hissed. He waved Littlefinger on, leading him toward the forest.

Instinct snapped his limbs. He felt it creep along his veins – that irrepressible urge to turn and run back to the safety of The Wall.

"Don' look so worried. I'll make sure your wings aren't snapped. If the army of the dead were out this way we'd know it by now. They're not like your sneaking demons in the South. They don't wait in the shadows – they run the fuck at you. You can hear them in your sleep. Them and their bones." He paused at the edge of the forest where the limbs of the pines were so heavy with snow that they bowed onto the ground. There was a break in the tree line where a few trees had been snapped and lay, frozen, almost entirely consumed. "This is what we're 'ere for."

Littlefinger stepped over the thick body of the tree – pushed away the brown limbs and all their dead needles and entered the roughly circular deluge behind it where a dozen more trees had been felled.

"They've been crushed..." He whispered, noting the splinters and pulverised wood. Littlefinger dropped his torch in fright when he noticed the open, half-corpse of a man along the edge. All it's bones curved out of pink, frozen flesh while its entrails lay, half chewed and dragged apart by wolves.

Tormund picked up the torch and handed it back to Littlefinger. "It's a nest..."

"A nest of what?"

"Fucking dragon."


KING'S LANDING – WESTEROS

The explosion rose from the depths of the city, roared through the sewers, drains and tunnels that hollowed out the underside of the ancient settlement and forced its way out of Visenya's Hill. The market place, with its elaborate homes and temporary encampment of Tyrell soldiers was obliterated by the first flush of green flame. Claws of fire stretched over the Muddy Way, some of them reaching right to the King's Gate where the remaining Lannister forces knelt in sudden terror.

It was only the first hold of barrels stockpiled by the Mad King. The second, larger room of poorly kept Wildfire sat directly beneath The Great Sept of Baelor. Connected by a low, arched passage of stone, the flames spiralled in a nightmare toward it with such a force of heat that the barrels caught alight before the fire front reached them.

This time the escaping detonation levelled a quarter of the city, centred on The Great Sept of Baelor that found itself torn out of existence in an instant. Within the beat of a dragon's wing, the immense building, with all its prayers and horrors, evaporated into a cloud of ash that rained down over the city. Cinders burned in the air while the ground shook underfoot.

Rhaegal, perched on the wall at the Fishmarket, was blown off the stone and landed on the fragile slips of wood and cloth that made up the market. Most of it was destroyed by his panicked flailing. He cried out at the hideous thunder and cowered away from the unnatural fire that melted the buildings which fronted onto the Muddy Way and boiled those people that hid inside.

The trio of fleets in the harbour were pushed into a list by the invisible rush of air. They bowed together, captor and captive sliding over the decks while their masts tangled. The chaos struck a hundred tussles and, ship by ship, a fresh war sparked into life.

Drogon reared up against the surge of fire, staggering in flight. He rolled away to the left, plummeting through the sky with Daenerys barely keeping hold as her body hovered free, floating above the dragon's back until the beast pulled up and she smashed into the surface with a groan that Jorah felt echoed in his chest.

Viserion took a wider path, heading to the right instead, where he took a lap in front of the cliffs above which the Red Keep loomed. The dragon used the protection of the fort to shield himself from the subsequent explosions that popped up through weak points in the city, flaring like the innards of a volcano – a mirror of the final days of Valyria.

Jorah's dragon landed on the beach exposed by the low tide and snapped at the few Lannister guards that approached. They wisely dropped their spears and fled toward the Iron Gate.

"Sh! Sh..." Jorah hissed at the great beast, attempting to settle the thrashing dragon. Thick, black smoke surged into the sky and the screams, oddly absent from the beginning of the battle, replaced the silence.


"Get down!" Tyrion snatched Varys by the neck of his robes and smashed him onto the deck. The pair of them hit the wood as ship lifted out of the water. Its limp sails swelled and tugged the vessel sharply to the side. Varys and Tyrion were swung over the deck until they slammed into the railing where the salt water lapped hungrily a them through the rail.

Accompanied by an almighty roar, every man and beast screamed. Even the stoic Unsullied rattled screeches out of their lungs as the ship righted itself.

The heat of the explosion was felt as far as the bay as if some great god were waking.

"Get up – right now. Varys!" Tyrion's hands were back in the fabric of Varys' clothes, hauling him away from the flooded deck.

Varys touched his head where an old wound had opened and dripped blood over his brow. Slightly shaken, it took him a moment to catch up to the roar of pandemonium that surrounded them. "Where are we going?"

Tyrion answered that by shoving a sword into his hand. "Off this fucking ship. This all just went to hell."


Euron wrapped his arms around the boy King and pulled him away from the window. The foundations of the castle shook violently. Stone dislodged itself from the architraves and shattered on the floor. Dust and smoke followed, blanketing the city with the stench of vaporised flesh.

Without explanation, the pirate dragged Tommen out of the room and swiftly down the crumbling corridors. There were no soldiers. They'd amassed in the court of the Red Keep, manning the entrance to Aegon's High Hill in case the rebellious armies tried to breech the keep. The Tyrells were known as traitors to the Crown. Most had already fled into the greater city, which they held but some unfortunate souls left behind were now in pieces, painting the granite floors. A mass of terrified civilians raced towards the Keep and pounded their bare hands against the stone, begging for the safety of the palace walls.

"Down here!" Euron ripped off the iron grate in the floor and tossed the boy down the hole. He followed, landing in knee-deep water.

"I thought the object was to kill me?" Tommen asked, as they waded through the sewers. Rats screamed around them, swimming toward the ocean. Other charred corpses floated with the current.

"You are dead," Euron replied firmly. "As dead as they fucking come."


Daenerys' hands bled through her ripped gloves and onto Drogon's scales. His flight levelled out as he distanced himself from the burning city where the highest towers were busy collapsing in on themselves. He'd clawed his way higher, circling around and around until the ships reduced to broken dots and she could see the scale of destruction that wracked King's Landing.

One quarter of it was covered by smoke, beneath which the opening gasps of green had shifted to regular orange flame. The wildfire had burned away leaving the fire gods to wrestle against the deformed stone and mud. It was hot enough to fire the Muddy Way into ceramic – captured in the moment of its death.

She could see Jorah and his dragon standing on the sand and Rhaegal stalking out into the water, away from the destroyed Fishmarket. Of all the dragons, he'd been closest to the carnage. Without a rider, there was nothing to stop him ducking his head and vanishing, like a sea-serpent, beneath the waves.

His shadow tracked under the fleets in the harbour. He circled them, zooming through the water as easily as the sky. Drogon turned away and she had to lean awkwardly to keep track of Rhaegal.

"Where are you going?" She asked the wind. Daenerys knew that her dragons loved to swim but she'd never seen it from above. They moved like reveries, swift and ominous without breaking the surface.


"What the hell is going on?" Varys cried out over the noise, as Unsullied crawled across the rails of their ship, and navigated a network of wooden planks laid between the vessels. Open warfare had broken out where the trapped Lannister fleet tried to push their way into the poorly manned pirate ships. Their lack of discipline led to a ruthless yet penetrable battlefront where teams of Lannister men managed to make it all the way to the Queen's ships.

"We're going to have to hold our ground the hard way, that's what," Tyrion replied, gripping the handle of his sword. "Plots are elegant, this shit is messy."

The imp's size was an advantage. He was too low to fall prey to any wildly slashing swords unlike Varys, who had to bend double as they wove through the fighting. They were headed to the back of the ship, behind the line of Unsullied who were still in perfect formation with their shields in line and spears pointed at the sky. There were more than a couple of gold plated chests between there and here and all eyes were searching for the greatest traitor of the realm. Him.

"Whatever you do, Varys, keep heading toward those men." Tyrion insisted. "Moving. That's the secret. Keep the feet going."

A moment later the first of the Lannister soldiers broke free of their squabble and set their aim on Tyrion. He swore beneath his breath and pushed Varys to the side, momentarily losing sight of the spider.

"Come on, then..." Tyrion hissed at the swordsman. It was a teenager – slim in his armour and full of misplaced adrenaline. Tyrion remained steady, watching the swagger of death with a keen eye. One. Two. Three. The steps counted down until the other man was nearly within reach. To their left, a surly pirate opened the stomach of another boy, spilling gizzards across the deck with a sickening noise. For the briefest moment, the Lannister soldier looked to the horror. Tyrion struck – his short sword cutting right behind the man's knees. He crumpled to the deck in shock. Tyrion dragged his sword out of the wound and brought it down even harder, embedding it into the skull. The boy's eyes rolled up, taking in the view of Tyrion's blade before those same eyes fell silent.

Varys was caught in the cross-splash of Tyrion's blade. A curtain of blood hit him in the face as the young Lannister soldier fell to the deck joined by another darker stain of blood from a pirate kill that was tossed over board into the water. It was hideous. War. A bloodbath of chaos with no obvious direction. Varys marvelled. There were no fucking ladders to climb as a certain bird liked to brag. There was just this. Terror.

He took a step forward toward Tyrion but his foot missed the deck as the entire front of their ship lifted out of the water. Everyone on the deck tumbled carelessly into the water, plopping beneath the surface where they were tossed about by the waves.

The winged serpent launched itself out from the depths of Blackwater Bay, sending ships flying off into the waves. Rhaegal spread his glistening wings and beat them hard and fast, clawing his way into the sky with a rush of fire that erupted out of his mouth.

Varys ended up with a throat full of sea water as he was dragged beneath the surface, face to the heavens. The sunlight was instantly corrupted by the thrash of waves. His world grew darker as he sank into the depths of Blackwater Bay.

The water was surprisingly clear. Such a strange thought to have but Varys had it none the less. He could not shake his marvel at the bones of old wrecks poking out from the sandy bottom or the enormous fingers of ancient black rock that lay on the white sand like a rotten corpse. There were other voices down there. Whispers of sailors, mermen and fish that flicked past him like flashes in the storm. No. Deeper. There was another voice calling to him. A friend that rotted through the eternal years. He'd be there, long after Varys succumbed to the will of the gods that he hated, mocking forever. Deeper. Yes. He allowed the waters to drag him down.


Euron pushed the boy forwards. Tommen fell face first into the sewer. On his hands and knees he crawled forward along with the squealing rats. There was a rush of foam where other raging channels emptied into the main tunnel. Euron grabbed the boy again, pulling him up and suspending him almost entirely from the scruff of his kingly clothes.

There was no time. Euron knew shit when he heard it and the city above had descended into a mad rage. One thing he knew for certain was that Dany would rise out of the ashes with her fire breathing monsters and then this king would be thrown into their jaws.

"Down there!" Euron hissed, pointing to an old wooden ladder nailed into the side of the tunnel. It led down fifteen feet into the next, wider passage which funnelled into the quiet part of the bay. The fresh air breathed on them, offering a mouthful of something other than floating pieces of corpse.

Tommen reached for the handle of the ladder. The water was freezing and his already pale skin had taken on a sickly grey, inching closer to death. "What's down there?" He asked the pirate.

"A real shit of a man with a half-arsed row boat," Euron replied. "You tell him Daario Naharis sent you and he'll shit his fucking pants, you understand?"

Tommen nodded. He understood. "And-"

"And what?" There wasn't time for conversation.

"And who am I?"

"You're the fucking king, last time I checked."

The young king turned and swung his legs through the torrent of water and began his way down the ladder. A second later half the side tore away from the wall. It swung out wildly but he clung on like one of those damn rodents making its way along the brickwork.

At the bottom the water was even deeper, up to his chest and there was no way for him to fight against it. He dropped his hands, letting them both lap at the surface as he gave himself into whatever lay at the end. The mouth of the tunnel was a flaming archway of light, too bright for his tiny pupils to make out anything but an overwhelming glare.

Slowly, shapes took form. Tommen heard the eerie cry of dragons as they raced through the sky. Ships cracked and died in the harbour. His people fled along the low tide in the mud and the course sand, with arms full of whatever they'd managed to take from their homes.

Then he came across the row boat tethered under the shadow of the tunnel but off to the side where the waters were calmer. A lantern hung on a curved rod casting a sad halo of light onto the water. Tommen stumbled through the water toward it, startling the narrow old man sitting inside.

"Get away, child!" He used the flat side of oar to whack the boy on the shoulder.

"Stop! Stop!" Tommen shouted, and then repeated the words Euron had told him.

The old man lowered the oar and narrowed his eyes. "That so…?"

"Wait – I know you," said Tommen, wading closer. "The banker. Tycho. That's you, isn't it?"

Tycho took a second look at the child in the water. Blonde hair, made filthy by the sewer. His silk robes sodden and jewels left behind. Lannister eyes though. Sharp and alert. Piercing at him. Then it struck him. Tycho didn't know what to do. His life was a system of carefully thought out steps and gambles but he didn't know enough about the war above to make that gamble. So he did what everybody else did when they were afraid. What he was told.

Tommen clasped onto the offered hand and clambered aboard the narrow boat. "Who are you waiting for?" Tommen asked. "If it is Euron I do not believe that he will be coming back this way. We are meant to proceed direct to Dragonstone. He said there was a ship in the harbour that would take us there. Why do you not reply?"

"The harbour is a disaster. We can't paddle out into it and live. We wait here."

"Something will find us eventually."

"Maybe, Your Grace," Tycho admitted, "but better to be found by a guard of men than a raging dragon and there are three of them flying around the sky at the moment, startled by your mother's massacre."

His mother. Tommen knew that he'd not see her again. 'Win or die...' Those were her words. Casterly Rock was gone. The city was about to fall. Their friends would turn tails like the flip of a merchant's coin. There was nothing he could do about it so he sat and stared at the water.

"You would have been a good king..." Tycho added, a little while later. "Better than half those fire-breathing shits that spent every last coin in the empire. Now we are beholden to monsters."


"No Rhaegal, no..." Jorah watched in horror as the dragon snapped at ships on its way back toward the city. The poor thing was terrified, spooked by the explosion and nightmare of flame. Without a rider there was no voice to whisper calmly in its ear or bring it around to the shore. He looked above to the queen. Daenerys was riding it out of Drogon, taking him higher away from the battle.

"Viserion…" He tapped the dragon gently on the side of its neck, talking through his thoughts more than his gravelly words. "We need to go get your brother back."

Viserion took off from the sand and, as his wings brushed the pastel pink stone beneath the Red Keep, let out a call to his kin. The dragon cooed like a bird, opening its throat. He passed over the River Row and Fishmonger's Square, turning to face the bay at the Mud Gate and head his brother off.

It was such a beautiful sight, Jorah thought. Rhaegal soared like a piece of jade tossed into the sky. Wind whistled across the horns on this spine and around his head. He was frightened – jaw set back and the panels of skin at the base of his neck inflated like a shield.

"Pull up beside him," Jorah whispered.

Viserion did as he was told, curving perfectly until he fell in line with his brother. They were close enough that Jorah felt like he might reach out and touch the other dragon. A shadow passed over them both. Drogon rode above and the three of them took a turn around the water together.

"There we are." Jorah tried to settle them all. It appeared to work. The frightened chatter between the creatures tapered off. Drogon sank down to join them when they were furtherest out to see. They turned as one, Daenerys on Jorah's left and Rhaegal on the right. The city stretched in front. The Red Keep, untouched by the violence, stood resolute against the water as it always had while terrible clouds of ash burned furiously in a third of King's Landing.

They had a long way to go before these dragons would be disciplined enough for war. They were somewhere between an animal and a general – both needed training and experience. These poor things, they had none. Their lives were so different, it was a wonder they'd survived at all.

Jorah realised that Daenerys was staring at him, laid on her dragon's back, clinging like a leaf tied down with silver web. Her crimson cloak rippled out behind her like a gaping wound. He nodded at her, all he could manage without letting go of Viserion. They were riding bareback, at the mercy of the interlocked scales and protrusions of bone that hooked in lines of razor horns.

They sailed toward the burning city as a trio. A glorious rush of gold, green and black wings. Rhaegal bucked at the wind, dipped his head and flapped his wings, pulling ahead. Drogon and Viserion gave chase. Together, they all dived through the smoke billowing out of the innards of what was once The Great Sept of Baelor. Jorah held his breath as the smoke hit his face. It stung in his eyes, leaving tears behind as the dragons broke out the other side. The fires had spread through the poor market areas and was creeping from rooftop to rooftop, tearing the canvas awnings apart. Those who weren't wielding weapons in the street were throwing buckets of water over the flames, trying to save what little of their homes remained. Others died at their feet.

Jorah could see the green dragon's throat paling with the surge of flame welling up. Rhaegal was building a plume of fire, salivating so heavily at the thought of what he was about to unleash that the sticky substance dripped onto the screaming people below.

"Rhaegal – don't – please-" Jorah heard Daenerys scream something similar, reaching an arm out futilely toward her wayward child.

Rhaegal burned it all. From Lion Gate to Cobbler's Square. A flaming scar cast down onto the already ruined half of the city. The dragon vanished along with his flames, stirring them up with the mad flap of his leathery wings. It was a storm of fire and Jorah and Daenerys had no choice but to pull away and fly their dragons around the Keep.


Cersei stood on the roof of the Red Keep and watched with a sickening delight as King's Landing burned. It was not the first time she'd seen it set to cinder. Terror and violence suited the bleeding walls and the black water that lapped at its feet. It had always been a place of horror, all she was doing was returning it to its roots. That and she took a special kind of joy at the suffering of others. It was as though their pain lessoned hers – lancing the wounds in her soul that had been left to fester for decades.

Now one of those monsters was joining in and she could not stop a nasty cackle in her throat. The other two dragons buzzed the tower where she stood, close enough for her to see that they were both ridden. One was the queen and the other – the other she had no fucking idea. Probably that Mormont Knight Qyburn's birds whispered about.


"Down. Down!" Loras Tyrell raised his shield to the flame, covering himself at the last moment. The fire hit the building in front, vanishing into the stone's depths. He could hear it roasting the mud building into glass, incinerating the contents. The fire cut through the streets like a knife and everyone dropped to the ground, cowering as it passed overhead.

Smoking shield in hand, Loras returned to his feet and watched the dragon curve around the city, whipping up the ash with its tail. He'd heard the stories of the dragon queen and her creatures but to see them, to understand what it meant to enter the field with one of those things breathing fire down your back – it was like going to war with the gods themselves.

The thinning Lannister army appeared to be coming to the same conclusion. As Loras pushed forward with a mix of unruly pirates and Dornish men, more and more Gold Cloaks and Lion Chests knelt with their swords tossed aside. They did as the queen commanded and rounded them up into slave lines, chaining them together. It was not enslavement. They'd soon be given their choice, once was the battle was over.

Not everyone had given up. A nasty cluster of soldiers that Loras knew personally had backed themselves into a bottleneck of narrow streets, forcing Loras to send men down one at a time. There was barely enough space to wield a sword let alone a spear so the pirates went first with their curved knives and toothless snarls. Their savagery had a lot in common with the dragons, free of fear.

"No, you mustn't Ser..." One of his knights tried to stop Loras from entering the tunnel when there was only one determined Lannister man left.

"Out of my way," Loras insisted, pushing by his men. He undid his belt and the sword that sat in it, instead withdrawing his pair of matching daggers. The anger of everything that was done to him because of Cersei's political misstep rose to the surface of his rage. He saw the guard as the embodiment of everything he'd suffered during his incarceration and utterly unleashed until the largest part left of the corpse could be carried in one hand. His men had to drag him off in the end with his clothes matching the crimson sash around his body.


THE HAUNTED FOREST – NEAR CASTLE BLACK

"Best not ter look," Tormund nodded in the direction of the dismembered corpse. "Not the worst thing I've seen out 'ere. Not by a long way." He added.

At least the smell didn't carry, thought Littlefinger unkindly. He'd seen all kinds of violence inside the walls of his brothels and heard tales of even greater depravity. Men were capable of the worst things. Not remarkable monsters – common folk. People you'd sit down with in a great hall and share a pitcher of wine by a roaring fire. Those were the ones that surprised him the most.

"What is the worst thing that you have seen this side of the Wall?" Littlefinger asked, stepping over a piece of arm that had been left nearby. It was followed by parts from a deer and others from a bear. The dragon, it seemed, had feasted indiscriminately.

Tormund had not expected the question. "Usually, when Southerns get a taste of what goes on up 'ere they close their eyes an' pretend they didn' see shit."

"I like to wade into the sea with my eyes wide open."

"Twelve year ago, worst thing I saw this side of the Wall was half my village scattered in the snow – legs an' arms all removed and placed in great big spirals. The heads were nailed to Ironwood trees so that the blue leaves fell over the bodies like tears. They were left there for us to find. The woman an' children. Animals too. Everything that didn' go out hunting. That was the day I left to join the King Beyond the Wall. Was art. You now? Like the fuckin' patterns left on the stones by the First Men. We found them again and again. More villages."

Littlefinger was used to being surrounded by liars but the Wildling King had no cause to lie and no patience for it. Indeed, it was harder to lie when no one else did. He was not used to it at all.

"Here. Take the side of this fucking thing." Tormund added, pointing to the end of the pine branch. "Two years ago," he continued, as they dragged the awkward branch aside, "the worst thing I'd seen was that Stag prick and his army mowing down Freefolk with their horses and takin' Mance to the pyre."

"I read the reports of Stannis Baratheon and his victory in the North. Of course, it was shortly followed by a stunning defeat. Fate is fickle with her grace."

"Fuck fate. That was a pointless bit of murder. A waste. Fucking waste."

"None of this, I take it, is the worst that you have seen?"

They dropped the tree branch. Tormund looked over to where their torches were stuck in the snow, burning furiously but pointlessly against the daylight. "No. No it wasn'. You already heard the whispers, I think. You only ask because you want to know if there's any truth in 'em."

"Is there?"

"I faced those thousands of dead men, Smallbird, thousands upon thousands upon thousands. They picked their bones up from the ice and flung their corpses off the cliffs above the harbour so that they could reach us sooner and when they breached the wooden gates of Hardhome the fiercest, most terrifying fragments of humanity you've ever seen turned tail and ran in terror toward the water. Then, when it was done, their frozen fuck of a king stood on the bank among the corpses of our family and friends, raised his hands," Tormund mimicked the Night King's action, "and all the dead took to their feet."

"The dead are dead," Littlefinger whispered.

"Aye… An' they want ter fuckin' kill us all."

Littlefinger felt a chill take his bones. He wasn't sure if it was the oppressive cold of the Haunted Forest or the fingers of ice reaching down from the pines but he could have sworn his blood had stilled and a pair of blue eyes faded into the forest. "And this is the war that the Stark bastard petitions the realm to fight?"

He wasn't given an answer. Tormund's attention had been caught by a large, flat piece of translucent material buried in the snow. Easily the size of a man's shield, he used his boot to kick away a layer of snow. He gave a satisfied grunt. This was what they'd come for.

"Take there that edge." Tormund pointed at the edge peeking from the snow.

Littlefinger hesitated. "What is it?"

"Dragon scale."