KING'S LANDING – WESTEROS

The scarlet dragon screeched wildly, thrashing around in her cage. The bars groaned when her scaled body hit again and again, forcing the joins to shake loose. Covered in a plain cloth, the screams sounded human – half muffled in a mixture of terror and jealousy. Sam stumbled over to the cage and wrapped his arms around it, pushing it back onto the cart where he tied it down with a thicker rope. Ash's jaws caught some of the cloth through the bars and shook it like a dog with a piece of meat.

"Careful!" Gilly rushed over with Little Sam crying in her arms. The babe had streams of tears down its cheeks.

King's Landing burned in front, crumpling into ruin. Sam, Gilly and a sizeable portion of Daenerys' army had been left on the bank, away from harm. Many felt the urge to join the fray as the carnage unfolded but they held back, tied to the muddy bank by the Queen's orders. They'd not disobey. Not even in the face of certain murder. Every single one of her soldiers would stand there in the cold stink with the sea until the waters came if the dragon queen wished it so. She was more than their queen. She was their god.

The cage lurched from side to side. Sam did his best to hold it steady but the tiny dragon had more strength than he realised, nearly tearing itself free. "Being careful!" He insisted.

Laughter drifted on the air. Sam glared over to the patch of weed where the enormous drunken Marwyn rolled his eyes toward the sky and lifted his bottle in mocking praise. All the world was burning and he revelled in the violence with a sick acceptance. These were his darkest fears come home to roost. A Capital on fire. Innocence screaming with the last breath of their tortured lungs. Crowns switching heads like crabs shifting shells along the Braavosi shores. Chaos. Exactly as the mad cunts in the streets of Oldtown had preeched.

"Shut up! Just – just shut up!" Sam yelled at him in uncommon vulgarity. He couldn't stand it. God knows what was happening to the others. How dare Marwyn sit there like a drunken fool.

"What else – can one – do – but," Marwyn's words were terribly slurred by the wine, "laugh at – at – Death's many – faces?"

"Oh I don't know – help out, maybe?" Sam snapped. He didn't see the young Stark girl watching them keenly. She heard Death's whisper too. Like Marwyn, its greeting left a smile upon her lips. She and Death were old friends. "This bloody dragon is gone mad."

"It can smell terror." Marwyn replied. "The females are the worst. That's why the Valyrians fed them the flesh of children to keep them quiet."

"That's not true." Sam protested.

"Why? Because you – didn't read – it in your – Lordly books?" Marwyn's laughter deepened. "Ah Tarly. So much of – the world is a mystery – to you. The things I've seen. This – this..." He prodded his bottle at the air in the direction of King's Landing. "This is glorious. An empire is on its knees. Take a – a moment. A toast – if you will. Capture this image in your mind for all will say that this is the day the walls of the last Valyrian hold in Westeros fell. Shall we see – what – rises from the ashes? A phoenix or an eyeless corpse?"

Sam secured a second rope on the cage and stumbled back, sweat running off his face. The smoke sank over the pale walls of King's Landing, pushed down by the cold. Some of it lay on the murky waters of the river while the rest billowed off toward the horizon. The air was filled with the scent of scorched flesh and the cry of the queen's dragons echoed above like thunder. Ash screeched again, begging to join the others in the violence.

"It's not a game, Marwyn," Sam hissed. "People are dying in there. Thousands of people. This isn't what the queen wanted."

The wine was finished so Marwyn tossed the bottle into the river where it bobbed about. "Dragons feed on this shit. That's why your little pet is trying to break its bonds. Wants a go at it. Wants to get its beak in some poor peasant's chest. Fire and blood. This is all they've ever been."

"Daenerys is more than that!" Sam insisted. The queen reminded him of Jon Snow.

"Is there a problem here?" Darkstar rode over on his horse, pulling up beside the cart. His eyes flicked between Gilly, Sam and the drunken mage who looked about ready to pop – all red and swollen with his leathers loosened.

"You have been in the city," Sam replied. "What's happening in there?"

Darkstar's horse took a step backwards, bowing its head restlessly at the dragon's cage. "Nothing folk like you need to see." He could not get the image of melted corpses from his mind. Their pieces had merged with the destroyed buildings into one great mess of death. "From what we understand, the city defences ignited old stores of Wildfire hidden in tunnels. That triggered several explosions which frightened the dragons. They're skittish buggers."

"Wildfire – inside their own city… Who would do such an irresponsible thing?" Sam asked.

"Cersei the cunt Lannister," Marwyn replied. "The maesters at the citadel warned Robert Baratheon that the Wildfire should be moved but he couldn't be bothered to clean up after the Mad King. It is something to behold though, wouldn't you say? A wall of fire reaching to the sky. Who could imagine such terror cooked by a cult of cockless scholars..."

One of the ropes holding the cage snapped. Sam lunged toward the cage, trying to hush the dragon but its claws were already picking at the bolts. "She won't settle!"

Darkstar dismounted and strode over to help. Arya moved as well but Darkstar pushed her aside with a gloved hand. As he and Sam tossed another rope over the came loose and the whole thing tumbled off the cart with a crash. They stumbled away on instinct and were thrown into the mud as the bars snapped and Ash came screaming out.

"Watch out!" Darkstar caught Sam by the back of his cloak and slammed him into the mud just in time to miss the cat-sized creature's sharp claws. Gilly turned away, cradling her toddler as the dragon flew a few feet then tumbled back onto the soft bank. "Quick! Use the cloth. Hurry!" He shouted at the men – who all rushed over from their posts in pursuit of the dragon.

Many threw themselves at the dragon. All missed. Ash tumbled over, covering her scarlet scales in filth before finally plopping into the river where she swam like a bloody snake, skirting easily to the other side and out of reach.

"Gods of the sea!" Sam sank to his knees and stared at the vanishing dragon. "She'll kill us."

"I'll get her back for you." Arya stepped forward to the edge of the reed. "I used to chase cats in that city."

Darkstar eyed the wolf. "No. You'll wait with the others until this is done. Never mind the dragon."

The minute Darkstar turned his back on the Stark girl she was gone. Wolves hunting dragons.


Ships groaned as they sank into Blackwater Bay. Tommen closed his eyes and listened to their dying cries. Masts snapped. Sails floated off in tatters. The contents of their bellies spilled into the abyss. Those that caught fire crackled like the torches that lined the inside of the Red Keep. He was familiar with the sound. It had been his sole comfort during the long nights he spent as the forgotten child. The third and unneeded heir left in the company of cats and fools. Yes. He'd made friends with the fire while he read tales of dragons and knights late into the evening. Those were his friends. Ghosts and dreams written in lonely ink in the twilight hours.

Tycho did nothing but stare at his unexpected company. "You are just a boy, aren't you?" He gripped the edge of the row boat as another wake of water rocked them. "A child. A tall child."

Without opening his eyes, Tommen replied, "I am your king."

"Not my king, I'm afraid," he corrected. "We have no kings in Braavos. Only cold vaults full of gold and men to count them. Our gods are the mountains and kings the doors that hold our fortune."

"Empty chasms, according to the birds." This time Tommen turned to the old banker. He looked twice his age – withered by terror and the brush of deathly fingers that had grazed him more than once. "Or you wouldn't be here making deals with traitors to the realm. The allure of my wife's wealth did not escape your notice, nor did the lack of mine."

"You are as much a king as I am a traitor," he countered. "And we'll both have our heads on spikes before the sun sets if we don't find a way out of this harbour."

They turned their attention to Blackwater Bay. It was a mess of death and fighting. They needed one of Euron's ships but they were difficult to make out through the thick smoke that sat in a layer over the water. They had no choice but to continue waiting in the shadows.


The deep covered Varys in wet kisses. Lips of fallen souls that sucked at his throat – going for the last beats of his failing pulse. He felt their tentacles wrap around his legs right up to his thighs and drag him down. Claws caught his billowing clothes and tore the silk into shreds of golden blood. It was there, in the closing moments, that he heard the voice again. Sickening, it whispered in his ear as it had done from the flames. Fishy eyes watching. Toothless mouths mocking.

'You'll outlive them all...' The voice caressed, even as Varys felt Death come for the air in his lungs. 'They're coming with the Winter. Dead men and their king.' He thrashed against the water – bubbles of air escaping his lips like great engorged jewels rising through the darkness. Then Illyrio's face – white with eyes as blue as the Sapphire Isle. 'Burn it all.' His lips moved but the words were said in Varys' mind. 'Burn it all.'

Then Varys realised that he was laying on the sandy floor of the shallow water, lodged on a dangerous bank of sand. He unlatched the leather belt from his waist and let it and the steel weapons slip free. Without the weight he was able to stand and broke the surface for a breath of air. Shoulder deep, he turned – taking in the war. Either side the water was deep and black but even then some of the ship masts poked through the waves, marking the graves of their ships.

"Varys! Varys! Behind you! Varys!"

He heard Tyrion shouting through the crash of waves but he didn't see the imp hanging off the side of a smashed boat, jabbing his sword in the air, pointing at the Lannister soldier lumbering through the water with half his cheek torn off and a mouth full of blood.

The soldier, armed with a plank of wood, swatted Varys like a fly. Pain ripped through his head and sent him toppling into the waves. Blood mixed with water. Varys reeled around, lifting his arms in time to catch the second hit. To both their surprise, he caught the plank and dragged it out of the soldier's hands. Varys was a large man, a head taller than most and it was his sudden realisation of this that saved him. He took that plank of wood and swung it back with all the force he could muster, smashing into the man's skull where it ripped free the rest of his skin.

He tossed it into the water in disgust, sparing a moment to stare at the lifeless body floating away with the current.

"Quickly!" Tyrion found his voice and waved Varys toward the boat. "Hurry you fool!"

Varys stepped off the sand bank and swam through the soup of blood. He was pulled out of the water by Unsullied arms and left on his knees, blood pouring from the side of his head along with the salt water. Tyrion stood beside him and rested a hand on the Spider's back.

"All right, old friend?" Tyrion asked.

"Get me off this fucking water," he replied.


Daenerys closed her eyes as Rhaegal coughed up another wall of flame. She could not stop him. He was not listening to her silent calls or indeed, the screams that had sent her hoarse. He was terrified and calmed himself by swooping low over the rooftops and setting them alight. Jorah had tried – taking Viserion around to head him off but there was nothing either of them could do to bring him to heel.

Drogon banked and headed into a particularly thick cloud of smoke. It wiped the world of all presence. Daenerys gripped his hide once they were inside, suddenly unable to pick any detail. She struggled to breathe, choked by the filth in the air. It was there, peering into the grey that she saw something not quite real. A waking dream. A silver woman kneeling under a bower of blood. There was a beating heart laid on a bed of bone and a wolf licking one of the severed arteries. Ash fell in place of snow but that could have simply been the hell raining over King's Landing seeping into her thoughts. Daenerys looked up and saw a circle of light. The sun pulled back to reveal the moon. Then a red tide she'd seen lap against Dorne's beaches and finally, a nest of snakes slipping through the bones of a dragon and out its eye with a flick of its forked tongue.

It was Drogon's mournful chirp that woke her from the vision. The air had cleared enough for her to see the shadow of the Red Keep and the individual glows of fire spotted throughout the city. Drogon reached his enormous paws forward and landed on the bridge of stone that vaulted across city anchoring the Red Keep to the rest of the settlement. His weight and sudden landing knocked part of the wall down. Those Lannister men and civilians that had been on the bridge quickly dispersed, fleeing back toward the flames preferring them to the snarling monster. Viserion copied the larger dragon and soon both tucked their wings in, taking a break from the skies.

Daenerys dismounted amid Jorah's vehement protests. He joined her, taking her roughly by the arm when she appeared to wander in a daze across the crumbling stone.

"Khaleesi stop..." He implored, tugging her back toward the protection of the dragons. "It's not safe to be out here. The Keep is held by the Lannisters. The city is burning. My Queen..."

She tried to tug her arm free but his grip was determined. "I – I need to breathe..." Her eyes watched her raging child cast a shadow over the city. "I can't think."

"Then let me fly you out of this smoke."

"No I – I..." She couldn't form the words while the world around her was thick with screams. There were people dying in every corner of the city. Almost all of them were lives she'd sworn to save. They'd never accept her as queen, not after a massacre like this. That was exactly what it was. A slaughter to sing songs about on the darkest nights. Not even her father, mad as he was, had torn the capital into ribbons of flesh. "This isn't what I saw. It's not – this is not it!"

Keeping a cautious eye on the bridge, Jorah stepped in front of his queen and took her by both shoulders, forcing her back into the world with a firm shake. "Daenerys!" He hissed her name sharply. "We're not in one of your dreams. This is real. Whatever you saw in your visions, forget it. Open your eyes." He begged. They were open, staring wildly at the scene but he wasn't sure they saw through the reveries of her nightmares. "Prophecy is like the wind, Your Grace. It comes and goes as it pleases."

Daenerys followed the skeletal stretch of bridge, sprawling out from where they stood. One side dipped down in a casual arc and vanished into tightly packed houses with cloth-covered awnings. The other lifted toward a closed gate re-enforced with steel and old iron dragon motifs left over from The Conquest. They were high, even on this low tier of the Red Keep. Blackwater Bay contained the burning corpses of her fleet – indiscernible from each other. People died on every side, extinguishing like candles before the storm. It was difficult to hear anything above the general roar.

"This is real," Jorah repeated, softer than before. He raised one of his hands to her cheek and cupped it, using his thumb to wipe away a line of tears that had fallen unnoticed.

Finally, she nodded whispering, "Real…" in agreement. There was no denying the roughness of the leather straps around his hand or the smell of smoke that lingered in the air between them. She'd been in pits of violence before but when the Dothraki fought it was on the grasslands where the smoke was white. The crash of buildings falling into the city and crunch of ships dying in the sea was as foreign to her as the shores of Westeros.

"There was Wildfire stored in vats beneath the city," Jorah hurried to explain, looking over the destruction that continued to rage around them. King's Landing was in a perpetual state of collapse. "Cersei must have set the whole lot alight. We never dreamed that… That…"

"She would burn her own city." Daenerys finished for him. They knew it was there, Daenerys thought to herself. They all knew and they failed to advise her. "It wasn't only Cersei that burned the city," Daenerys breathed, her gaze drifting to Rhaegal who'd finally found a perch on one of the surviving outer walls where he calmed himself, blackened by soot. He was nearly as dark as Drogon. "Everyone saw my dragon and they'll not forget his shadow over their homes."

"We cannot think about that now," Jorah insisted, then turned his attention to the Red Keep. "Cersei still lives and while ever that is true, the city remains in the Lannister name."

Even with the company of dragons The Red Keep was built to keep out the largest fire-breathing monsters. It was a castle within a castle within a castle. The only way in was to tear the walls away one by one. The ground shook and she reached for his arms, holding on to him as tightly as he held onto her. Her hands left smears of blood over his armour.

"How do we get into that pink crypt of hers?" She demanded.

Jorah was about to reply when the bridge did something almost indescribable. The ancient stone construction rippled, rising up and down like a wave casually making its way toward the shore. Everything on it rose and fell but, after the first surreal moments of tranquillity, the unusual tension placed on the stone bridge sent a shockwave of devastating cracks in tow. It began at the edges of the bridge which crumbled, mostly dropping over the side without ceremony. Then it was the turn of the ground which had liquefied in places and torn itself into a gaping ruin in others. Stones exploded under the pressure. Dozens of fragments hit Jorah and Daenerys, tearing holes in their armour. The larger pieces, the size of arrow heads, went straight through their flesh.

Daenerys dropped, clutching her leg with a shriek of pain. She looked over to Jorah who had not flinched despite the fresh gush of blood from his thigh.

"Khaleesi," he begged, extending his hand. "Run!"

The bridge lifted again, this time curling back as the last and largest cache of Wildfire forced its way out of the ground next to the Red Keep with devastating explosions – like dropping a stone into a pond. It exploded with all the fury of the Red God, blanketing the world in a green sunrise. Tendrils of hell pawed at the remaining buildings, searing marks into their stone faces.

Drogon spooked and backed off the ledge. He screeched, flapping his wings furiously creating a draft of wind that knocked both Jorah and Daenerys to the ground. The whole thing was both coming down and exploding out. She'd seen this before – in her visions of Valyria when the mountains had opened their throats and forced their outer layers away in a hellish doom. Now she was trapped in a similar malady. The bridge had broken free of its ancient holds and was now lifting, riding a cloud of green fire that had smashed its way out from the sewers below.

"Jorah!" Daenerys caught his arm – her hand sliding down until it locked around his wrist.

Jorah contorted his body, reaching for one of the great stones that used to line the edge of the bridge but now became the only thing stopping the pair from sliding off into the flames. The heat followed the noise, scorching the underside of the bridge and melting the stone at the edges. Daenerys shuffled away from it, climbing over the rubble. The floor of the bridge leaned right over into a near vertical wall. The last of the soldiers that had manned it tumbled off into the flames with short lived screams. The entire structure separated from the Red Keep, which was also beginning to waver in the extreme heat. Somewhere in the background, Jorah noticed the dragons screeching.

There was nowhere to go. All Jorah could do was hang onto the stone with the queen dangling beneath while the eerie glow of the Wildfire surrounded them, beckoning them toward death. The sound of the explosion was so loud that it blew off layers of stone from the castle walls. The birds were knocked out of the sky, falling like snow into the burning waters.

Fire did not scare her but she'd been warned about the green flame. It had its own magic and for all she knew, it'd turn her to ash like all the rest.


"Can you hear that?" Tommen asked, edging toward the front of the boat. It sloshed about in the water as the candle in Tycho's lantern started to die.

"I don't-" but Tycho stopped when he too heard the rumble coming out of the throat of the sewer. It was like a storm – or a dragon – or the gods themselves waking from their long slumber. Yes, he definitely heard that. He turned back to the boy-king, face white. "Sit there!" he pushed the boy back into his place, grabbed the oar and forced it below the water where it made contact with the silt. Tycho heaved and the boat drew its reluctant body along the water.

"You said it was too dangerous in the harbour..."

Tycho's eyes were set on the depths of the tunnel where the sound was deepening. "Never you mind about pirates, boy."

Their boat exited the shadows and entered the smoke. Immediately, the choppy water tossed them from side to side, knocking the candle over in its glass cage where it quickly extinguished itself in a pool of wax.

"Steady! What are you-" Tommen gaped at the depths of the tunnel. Their darkness was replaced with a green eye that grew and grew until he realised that it was a rush of flame forcing its way through the arteries of the city straight toward them. Tommen grabbed the old banker by his robes and dragged him to the edge of the boat. He tossed himself into the water, taking the struggling Tycho with him.

A moment later, the force of the explosion erupted out of the tunnel and hurled their boat a dozen feet into the air, smashing it to splinters before evaporating the first foot of water with flame.

Beneath the surface, the pair of them saw green light dance across like aurora in the Northern skies.


The bridge smashed back into the ground, collapsing the last of its arms into piles of pink rubble. Its innards of iron and Valyrian steel were exposed running through the structure like veins. The impact left Jorah dazed, laying on the gentle slope. He'd hit so hard that one of his shoulder plates shattered and tumbled along beside him in pieces. The world shimmered, hidden under veils of smoke and heat. He shook his head. Daenerys…

Jorah forced himself to sit. Pain ripped down his arm of course, it wasn't his. "Khaleesi!" He saw her hand clinging to one of the silver rods, poking out from the edge of the bridge. He half-crawled, half-slid down the slope toward her. There was a short rise of stone at the edge and then a nasty drop from the edge of the bridge. Beneath there was nothing but flames where the city had been turned into an ocean of fire. The explosion of Wildfire had opened the ground and left a crater below exposing the bedrock.

There she was, his queen, dangling over the abyss with a single pearly hand latched onto the stone. The rest of her body swung beneath. How like the young princess she looked, her face awash with ash and blood. Jorah steadied himself against the wall and reached down, wrapping his hands around her arm. He tried to drag her up but the constant quakes rippling through the ruined bridge threatened to send them both into the fire.

Daenerys knew that he would drop her. She could feel the slip of his fingers against her sweat. The flames waited beneath, dancing wantonly. "Jorah-"

"No!" He snapped, before she could finish. "Bring your other hand up."

"Jorah..." There were many things her knight could do but he could not fight the pull of the world any more than she could stand against death. "Forgive me."

And she was gone.

Jorah leaned over the edge and stared into the abyss of flame. His eyes searched the seething hell but his queen was nowhere.


The plume of green fire rose above the Red Keep, dominating the city. Like ink from a giant squid, it grew in bulbous clouds – clawing into the air. A pale exterior of heat rushed ahead of it, knocking men of every army to their knees, including Sam and Gilly waiting on the bank. They were pushed backwards into the muddy grasp and the air stolen out of their lungs by the sound.

Even Marwyn sobered at the sight, crawling forward before dipping his head in some kind of prayer to whatever gods he'd picked up on his travels. They all watched as the great bridge that connected the Red Keep to the rest of the city lifted into the air and then was thrown back to the ground in a cloud of white ash.

Quaithe wandered out from the woods. Neither the empty cage nor rage of debris in the air turned her head. Her eyes were fixed on the flames. She'd seen them many times in her dreams. She, alone, knew what was about to emerge from their depths.

"Wait..." She breathed, her long gown rippling in the wind.

Marwyn stumbled to his feet to stand beside the Eastern star-witch. "This glorious war of man is over."

"Her flames burn like the stars," Quaithe continued, absently staring. "And her arrival in the Capital is like the great moon that crashed into the world, scattering fire over the land."

"You knew," Marwyn hissed.

"So did you, in your drunken reveries – or weren't you listening to the whispers of sleeping gods?"

Marwyn's blood went cold.


Black leather unfurled in the fire, catching the silver queen. Her crimson cloak covered her body as she rolled along Drogon's wing, tumbling all the way over his shoulder until she lay draped across his back. Flames licked around her, catching hold of her clothes which caught alight and burned. Dazed, she reached for the curved spikes that lined Drogon's spine and clung to them like a child to its mother's breast.

The dragon emerged from the flames. Its enormous wing span dwarfed the remains of the bridge where Jorah sat. It climbed into the sky, carrying the queen away from devastation. The fire curled into vortices at the tips of his wings.

There was no one coming to rescue him. Jorah shuffled along the perilous edge toward the Red Keep. Pieces of the bridge fell away constantly, crumbling into the city. There were fewer screams. Beyond the city walls a tide of people funnelled out into the surrounding grasslands, fleeing. Those soldiers that remained had no idea if their commanders lived. Tyrell, Lannister, Pirate, Unsullied or Dothraki, they all brawled in the pockets of civilisation.

There was a three foot gap separating the bridge from the Red Keep. Jorah lingered at the edge where the rush of wind from below reminded him of the drop beneath. With a pair of long swords and a full suit of armour, it was not an insignificant jump to attempt and, he lamented, his advanced years were not making things any easier.

With a nod to the Old Gods, Jorah took a run at the gap and launched himself across it. He hit the ground, rolled and came to a stop at the foot of the great doors. Their pewter dragons looked down at him, mocking from their ancient masters. Jorah was no fool. He understood that the Targaryen conquerors were murderers escaping the demise of their people. Opportunists looking to survive. What had he brought the realm? Another dragon queen and still he believed that this was the only way. Without her fire and the vicious beasts the realm was lost.

So he stood there, in front of the great door with nothing but a smouldering wasteland at his back, and drew his ice-made sword. He touched Snowflake's tip to the metal hinges and flinched as they shattered. Finally, when enough had been destroyed, the mighty door groaned.


Cersei stood by the window, coveting a goblet of wine with her corpse-guard silent at the door. Wide cracks rang around her room. Books had fallen off the shelf and dashed themselves on the rug while the ink bottles on her desk were all smashed and dripping black blood onto the stone.

The goblet of wine was empty. She nudged it forward until it teetered on the edge. A moment later it fell. Cersei turned and eyed her wasteland of a room. Her last loyal servant was a walking dead, conjured into life. Her son had been smuggled into the inner sanctum of the Keep along with his bitch of a queen leaving her, a lioness, to growl at the predators.

"Enough of this," her words rattled out of her throat. She reached up, touching the thin crown she'd placed in her hair then tightened each of the ties on her corset. Cersei was dressed in crimson and gold robes left over from the days she was queen in name as well as heart. Dress in life as you wish in death – those were her father's words though she wondered how he felt about his last breaths forged with a crossbow in his chest and shit on the floor. For all his glory and finery he'd died as the basest of creatures.


Wet footsteps glistened on the shale floor. The lower levels of the Red Keep were made of barely polished bedrock, lifted out of the water with the same malcontent as Dragonstone's walls. The two buildings concealed the same black heart within their folds. It was all one coastline, stretching from the frozen North of Eastwatch by the Sea to the golden, dune-edged waters of Dorne. Beneath it all lay fire.

The dwarf reached out, brushing his fingertips along the walls of the Red Keep as he walked. A smear of blood was left behind as an offering to the ghosts pressed many layers deep.

The Red Keep reared around the ugly figure, full of groans and crumbling stone as the Keep's feet wrestled between the ruin outside and the waves crashing inside its lower tunnels. Flames contained in iron hands lit the passageway. They were beyond his reach, mounted high. To his left, the dungeons howled with all manner of tormented soul. He dared not venture there for the creatures trapped behind the bars were so far departed from humanity that they'd tear apart the flesh of any breathing thing that came to rescue them. That's what it meant to languish in the Black Cells. They were a place of abject misery shuffled beneath the airs and graces of the royal court to remind those who flirted with treason that only horror lay that way.

Past the pale skulls of fallen dragons and up, through iron grate doors and empty hallways littered with abandoned weapons – Tyrion climbed. Black stone became pink and the granite surface glittered. Still he dripped, soaked through from the salt water.

The first Lannister guard he saw froze in the passage. Recognition of his former Lord and an almost longing for the days past caused him to flee leaving Tyrion alone with the walls.

"Coward..." He hissed, at the empty corridor. None of them had the stomach to face him.

He'd expected the Red Keep to be a nest of soldiers but nearly all of them were fighting in whatever was left of the city. The Tyrells were in charge of the inner palace but those turncoats belonged to Daenerys and her army. They had gone from room to room, clearing out any lingering soldiers before joining the fight outside. The bodies they left behind had already gone cold and offered no objection to Tyrion's progress. He avoided their dead eyes.


Cersei stepped aside as the Mountain pushed open the doors of the throne room open. Then she entered the patterned floor and lifted her gaze to the violent vaults of wood and steel knitted together on the ceiling in a spider web. This gruesome marriage formed a rib cage along the length of the hall which was bordered on one side by stained glass windows. The red and gold light they let in danced like flames and suddenly she was struck by how dragon-like the entire building was. Though Robert and his rebellion had taken possession of the castle mounting stag heads and lion motifs in every corner, there was no denying that they were living in the throat of someone else's dream. The room mocked but Cersei set her eyes on the miserable iron throne.

A dragon passed outside the window like a shadow puppet. She imagined the crowds that had welcomed her and Robert in those early days – bloodied faces, fresh from war, kneeling as they passed through the Mad King's domain. All the world glittered that day. The dragon was dead – his blood barely cleaned from the floor beside the throne. All his bitch children dead or scattered to the seas. The last toll of tyranny laid to rest in a shower of gemstones and storm that raged all night over Blackwater Bay.

In that moment Cersei had felt the true love of the people. Their hearts were fickle – easily won by false faith and golden promises. Their cheers became jeers and one by one they'd picked up arms against her.

It was not sunlight but flame that fed the coloured light at the windows. She closed her eyes to its warmth and listened to the crackle of melting stone. This was the dragon's dream. That mad old cunt and all his bastard children. Valyria had been taken by the gods and now those same angry creatures would take Westeros as well.

Her embroidered train scratched over the rough steps as she climbed toward the throne. Without hesitation, Cersei lowered herself into the painful seat, curling her hands over the arms where the blades were at their sharpest. The message was clear. Do not get comfortable with power.

"You may leave."

The Mountain dipped his head and obeyed without thought, following his queen's demands by vanishing into the shadows.

Cersei was left alone with the throne the empty room. Only the dead remained to serve in her departed empire and this time her father wasn't coming through the door to save her. Fleetingly, she imagined Jaime riding in on his white horse, an army at his back. His golden hair, thick and gleaming with a sword in a hand long since taken. For a moment a smile caught the edge of her lips but then it was gone.

Then the door opened.

"I have been expecting you, little brother," announced Cersei from her mournful perch. "One might say I have been waiting for this moment all of our lives." There was a dagger in her hand which she toyed with, turning over and over so that it caught the firelight outside.

The imp closed the door and made his way through the empty hall. His footsteps echoed on the stone while the huge torches burned above, lighting the red marble columns where he could still make out the scratch marks left by the stunted dragons which used to sail around the court.

"Stumbling along as usual with that unholy gait. Your leathers too long and your sword too short. I'd know you from a thousand miles. The runt of the litter, demanding everyone's attention from your first wails until your last, selfish shrieks. Now you have it. My attention." She spread her arms in fearsome beckon. "Whatever shall you do with it?"

He still had not spoken. Tyrion stopped at the stairs in front of the throne and took in the sight of his sister sprawled across his nephew's throne with all her yards of golden clothes falling like liquid fire over the coals. Roaring lions played on her robes, set there with the finest needlework Lannister coin could buy.

"Well – what is it that you want, Tyrion?"

The imp, dripping from every fold of fabric, rested his hand on his own stunted sword. "Not this."

Cersei laughed cruelly. "Of course you want this," she insisted. "You killed our father because he borrowed your favourite whore then fled the realm with your tail between your legs and took up arms against your own kin." She lifted her finger, pointing to the windows. "Is your foreign tyrant all you hoped? Mother would be so proud of your achievement. Burning the heart out of the realm in one afternoon – climbing up the ranks of greatest slaughters in recorded history. Did you bring the cock-less spider with you too? Of course you did. He has had his beady eyes on the throne long before you or I. Or didn't you know that he was a Targaryen by birth, floundering around for another dragon for the throne? Not all the whispers in the realm belong to him."

That, at least, gave Tyrion pause. It could have been a lie but then it made equal sense for it to be true. "One way or another, Lannister rule is finished. The glorious dynasty that never was."

"My son lives."

Tyrion shook his head. "No. The king is dead. Long the live the queen."

"Liar."

"I am many things, dear sister, 'liar' is not one of them. Drinking and the Eastern philosophy of wet-lipped whores are better suited to a dwarf. I'll dabble in coin, partake in murder but lying is a pet of yours."

There was a definite hesitation before Cersei mustered a reply. "If my son were dead I'd know. I'd feel it."

Tyrion shrugged. "You did not notice Jaime slip into the shadow world. Oh yes, he came for you. We caught him on the outskirts of the Blackwater Rush. The Dothraki butchered his horse and Daenerys fed everything except his golden hand to her dragons or didn't you wonder why he never sent any ravens in return? I read your ravens and tossed them into the wind."

A heavy tear coated the curve of her eye. She dared not blink in case it fell. The world around her rippled. The windows. The columns. Even the chandeliers with their dripping wax. Ash swirled in the air, falling in the throne room. Grim snow that refused to melt.

"He left the rest of your army in the North. They'll defect, of course, when they learn of what happened here today. Ironically it is my wife that will inherit them. A bit of justice from the Father for all that we have ravaged in this world. I am at peace with it. Let the Starks have the men. They'll need them when the Winter comes."

This time a pair of tears escaped Cersei. "And you expect me to believe that the Targaryen bitch let you come here alone to-"

"Daenerys does not know that I am here." Tyrion interrupted. "No one sent me."

Cersei straightened in her chair. That meant that he was alone. She became more aware of the dagger in hand. "Have you come to kill me, little brother? I have been waiting for your blade all my life." With that, Cersei stood, dagger in hand, towering over the room. Her power lasted for a flickering moment before the room blurred and she stumbled backwards, reaching for the Iron Throne to steady herself but the melted swords cut her hand.

"No need, I have already killed you." Tyrion pointed to her face. Cersei lifted her hand and found a river of blood slipping from her nose. "The poison takes a while to work but my new friends assure me that death will come as surely as the wine you drank earlier."

Cersei dropped her dagger. It clattered to the stone floor – tumbling down the steps until it landed at Tyrion's feet. He eyed the blade then kicked it aside. Cersei fumbled her way back into the throne, unable to stand as she felt the life dragged from her veins.

"I said your name every night." Tyrion continued, squaring off against the throne. The queen was draped over it like the corpse she was about to become. "Whispered it to the gods. Cersei Lannister. Cersei Lannister. Cersei Lannister..."

He climbed the steps, one for each time he said her name. The poison had paralysed Cersei.

"Yours is not the only name on my list. The truth is, I couldn't give a fuck about the war or the games men play with thrones." He reached forwards and took hold of the golden lion-head necklace. "I came all this way for one reason. To kill you."

Cersei gasped as her brother wound the chain around his hand, shortening it. Then it dawned on her. He was going to strangle her before the poison finished its work to make sure she felt the pain.

"This is right, isn't it?" Tyrion asked. "I would not wish to offend prophecy."

Cersei could not even lift her hand to stop him.

"There's one more thing, sister..." Tyrion had to climb into her lap to get enough force on the chain to choke her. As Cersei turned a pale grey in hastening death, he leant in and whispered against her ear. "The North remembers."

Bewildered, a final moment of fight entered her veins. She struggled for a breath causing the chain to cut into her throat. Then, in horror, she saw the eyes of a wolf – not a lion – pushing her into death.

When it was done, the imp descended the stairs, clutching the bloodied lion's chain while Cersei's corpse hung limp across the throne.

He was halfway across the room when the great doors opened again and two figures stepped into the room and stopped dead, rooted in horror.

Varys mouth hung open while his beady eyes went wide. In front of him, Tyrion strode away from the Iron Throne with a demonic snarl on his lips while the real Tyrion stood beside him, aghast.

There were no words for Tyrion, only utter shock as his doppelganger dropped a bloody necklace onto the ground. Then he reached up, running his hand under the edge of his chin before peeling the skin back to reveal-

"Arya!" Tyrion mouthed, as the Stark girl emerged.

Varys reached for one of the columns, barely able to stand he was so shocked. "This is the magic of the Many Faced God," he hissed. "You're – you're one of them."

"You found me in Braavos, or did you forget, Lord Varys? The Faceless God knows all your secrets."

Varys looked paler than Cersei's corpse.

"What have you done..." Tyrion eyed the Iron Throne where his sister lay dead. "Is she..." But of course she was.

"The wolves always come for the lions." Arya warned, then pushed past them, dropping Tyrion's face onto the floor where it flopped against the tiles in a sickening thud.

When she was gone, Varys bent down and retrieved the hideous piece of flesh, holding it up to the light. Tyrion's likeness stared out from the flesh except for the gouged holes where the eyes should be. Those were a kind of glamour.

"What are you doing?" Tyrion asked, as Varys walked over to one of the torches and held the edge into the flame until it caught alight.

"You killed your sister," Varys insisted, returning the face to the floor where it continued to burn until it was an unrecognisable pile of ash. "We never speak of this."

"But Arya's a – a-"

"Forget what you saw, Tyrion old friend, or you'll end up a set of eyes on a stone wall. They already have your face. Only the very foolish play with magic of the dead. Even the Braavosi know that. Whatever Arya is now, she is no longer a Northern Lord's daughter or a piece for the board of kings."

Tyrion stepped toward his sister, whom he could barely look at. Blood ran in a pair of rivers from her nose while a scar of red around her neck matched the chain he rescued from the floor. He'd dreamed her death a thousand times and yet the reality of it shook him through to his withered fragment of a soul. Whatever else Cersei turned into, she'd begun as family. Blood of his blood. His father always said that Cersei had the look of her mother.

"There are worse ways your sister could have met her end," Varys continued, dabbing the side of his head where the wooden plank had ripped away a gash of flesh. "She certainly tried to make yours a public mess for the cheap entertainment of the masses."

"We have to find the king." Tyrion insisted, pocketing Cersei's necklace. "There's a chance my nephew survived the butchery."

"As you wish but take care, little Lord. Cersei may be dead but her guardians are not. No one has seen the Mountain since the fight began."

"Cersei is dead…" Tyrion repeated Varys' words as they deserved to be said again. "You know, Varys, sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if mother had not died in a pool of blood and screams, bringing me into the world. Were my sister's sentiments of hatred the product of grief or were they fears of a whispered prophecy from the lips of a mad woman?"

"We can never know the truth of what did not happen," Varys replied carefully. "These things are little more than dreams."

"Of course, you are right," Tyrion agreed, "but of all the Lannisters, Cersei was the truest. I remember the only time I saw her cry was when Rhaegar Targaryen passed her over for the Martell princess. She liked his pretty face and soft voice."

"A terrible match that would have been."

"Perhaps. Robert was a brute who loved a ghost and Jaime-" Tyrion felt sick at the thought of what he would tell Jaime. "In any case, the debt is paid. My sister is dead and all her wickedness with it."


The explosion spooked the horses. All three of them rose up onto their back legs, kicking at the flames engulfing the city. Jon, Davos and Jacquen pulled them away, cooing at the animals as the man made thunder rumbled over the hills that surrounded King's Landing. A tide of people ran from the city, spilling onto the dirt roads.

"What manner of hell is this?" Asked Jon, eyes wide. He had never been to the Capital. It was a thing of legend, brought to life from the pages of his maester's scrolls. Now its edges were black and heads tumbled from spikes set into the walls in a ghoulish vision he'd come to expect from beyond The Wall.

"A different kind of war than you're used to," Davos replied. "Not the first I've seen in this neck of the world. I was 'ere the day Blackwater Bay turned to fire but this…"

The largest of the dragons – a great black beast, soared over the wall of the city and came to land on the grass fields not far from where they were standing. All of them fell silent as the creature dragged its clawed feet over the ground, kicking up dirt before rolling slightly. A woman fell down its back, tumbling onto its wing and finally the ground. The creature carefully lifted its wing over her body, protecting the queen from view.

Jacquen felt sick as he watched the dragon shuffle around in the dirt. As much as he'd like to put a spear through its heart, he'd seen things lately that steadied his blade, including the resurrected Targaryen bastard at his side. His god had plans that included these creatures of fire and he'd not argue. "A man believes that this is your aunt, queen Daenerys."

Jon did not need an advisor to tell him that the streak of silver on the dirt was a Targaryen.

"Now then – where are you going?" Davos rode forward in alarm, as Jon started off toward the dragon. "Snow!"


The great door twisted to the side leaving a gap with the stone big enough for Jorah to climb through. It was dark inside the Red Keep and eerily quiet. Usually soldiers from the losing side retreated into the holdfast as the battle drew to a close but most of the Lannister men had been turned to ash and rained down over the city to join their melted swords.

Jorah kept his ice-sword raised as he made his way along the hallways. There was a deeper castle, buried inside the walls constructed in the earliest years of King's Landing. If anyone in the royal family was left alive they'd have taken up refuge with Olenna Tyrell. If she was true to her word and Daario's pirates towed the line then he should find only friends ahead.

Instead, Jorah stumbled upon corpses. Dozens of then. It was hard to say what had killed them but he doubted it was the pirates. They looted the bodies of nobles but the minor lords and ladies that he found butchered in their rooms were dripping with jewels. The Tyrell soldiers did not have the stomach to gut young women and children – nor did Jorah, which is why he turned out of a room and threw up against the wall, coughing back bile at the sight inside. Whatever did this – it was a lifeless monster.