KING'S LANDING – WESTEROS

Tommen dragged himself out onto the muddy bank of the northern shore where the black rocks gave way to whispering salt marsh. The outgoing tide left a stretch of crab-holed flats stinking in the sun. Tycho followed warily, using the oar scavanged from the boat to pull himself out of the water, wandering forward until he collapsed on the bank. He lay on his back, blinking up at the smoke. Grey flecks of ash spiralled in the air, rising in graceful arcs where warmth from the burning city met the sea spray. They danced in front of his eyes like something out of a nightmare until they settled, one by one, on his soft flesh.

Scrambling to his feet, Tommen faced King's Landing. Was this the shortest war in the history of the Seven Kingdoms? An hour, no more and all that he'd ever known was gone. The Red Keep remained with deep scars across its face, defiant to the last. He held onto hope that his wife was safe inside, protected by the Tyrell name. It was clear their betrayal preceded the attack. Her betrayal, he reminded himself. Margaery's behaviour made perfect sense. Her rages and her tears. He loved her more than anything in the world and she'd tossed him onto the pyre to burn with his mother whose true fate he could not even guess at.

How ridiculous then, that he smiled at the thought of Margaery safe… He would have torn his realm into raven's scraps to save her life if only she'd asked. There was no going back to her now. The Targaryen queen needed him dead and Margaery as a breathing piece on the board.

"Why did Euron want me alive?" Tommen asked. "Ironborn do not care a shit for Lannisters – or honour. They were clearly brought into King's Landing under treaty with the Targaryen so what is there to gain?"

Tycho gripped the oar which he had laid over his chest. "Insurance, more than likely. A touch extra coin?" His body was not made for this level of abuse. "Who could tell... Euron is a pirate and insane. Easily the most unreasonable man I have ever met. Personally I made a habit of avoiding his business ventures. Now it seems I have one forced upon me."

Tommen remained calm, focused on the ships knocking together in the final hours of battle. Further still, he spied the looming shadow of Dragonstone threaded into horizon. A trail of smoke blackened the sky above the island. He'd seen it many times on clear days. It was named for its fiery breath long before Targaryens landed there and called it theirs. He always thought it looked like an ink bottle belonging to the gods where they might scrawl out their chords of displeasure on the sunrise. "We need a way onto one of those ships."

"There are slim odds of that, Your Grace. It is a miracle we weren't picked off by sharks the first time we swam ashore. Not even a fisherman could make that swim with all their limbs attached. Neither you nor I have a bone of the sea in us."

"Then we'll walk," Tommen insisted, standing over the banker.

Tycho sat up, drenched in mud with a disbelieving look. "You are aware, Your Grace, that Dragonstone is an island. You cannot walk to an island."

"You are most welcome to stay here," Tommen replied coldly, all of his Lannister parentage seeping from his eyes.

Tycho didn't fancy that option. He stuck his oar into the filth and pushed himself up before following the young king. There was a crescent of mud flats ahead of them that they'd have to clear before the tide ran in. It rose nearly three metres with the moon at full face. Nothing compared to Braavos where entire islands vanished into the blue.

He eyed the bank. If they were forced into the long grass they'd never make it beyond the first flush of swamp snakes. Behind that was the constant screech of wagons and screaming children as half the bloody city ran toward the Northwest. In the skies ahead, clouds hung in lashings of ice-blue, churning silently with swells of snow locked in their terrifying structures. A storm feeding off dragonfire...

Tycho looked at those destitute masses and saw them as gold. There was a time when he'd meditate on a way to extrapolate as much wealth as possible from their suffering but the longer he lived in the throes of war, the closer Tycho came to the realisation that annihilation and war were not the same thing at all. Coin only had value if there was someone left alive to lend it to.


"Why do you look at me so?"

"Look at you how?" Varys drawled, slipping into his wry tone practised in the courts of mediocre psychopaths wearing crowns and wielding guts full of sweet wine. The burned remains of the outside wall groaned. Varys glanced at the ceiling, hoping rather than believing it was structurally sound. As long as the flames didn't spread to the rest of the hall they'd be fine.

Another window exploded. Neither of them startled – well used to the constant showers of coloured glass.

"Like I've spawned some kind of demon scraped off the underside of Mormont's boot."

They sat either side of Cersei's body which they'd left draped over the iron throne. Tyrion fussed with his sister's chain, intent on returning it to Jaime if they ever met again. That, at least, he could do. Most of the time he did his best to ignore their relationship. It turned his stomach but Tyrion knew what it was like to be a prisoner of the Lannister name. It was a special kind of madness that drove its captives into unspeakable sins.

"Arya Stark wore your face," Varys replied evenly, "as if you were a painted mask in a Dornish carnival."

"As you said, Braavosi assassins wear faces that do not belong to them. I have not forgotten Missandei." He'd never forget Missandei or Grey Worm or any of the other names that were destined for the abyss before this war was done.

"Or old Hightower, if this Tarly is to be believed."

"Exactly." Tyrion agreed.

"Exactly..."

"What?"

"Both those people are dead." Varys stared into nowhere while flame and shadow played along the windows to their left. The explosions were becoming less frequent as the battle tapered off. Battles were all the same. A great amount of expectation – an elaborate dance like mating birds – a clash of swords – then a dying gasp as both lay on the ash. The first to stand on whatever was left of its legs claimed the crown.

Tyrion stood and walked in front of the seated Varys which made them roughly the same height. "I am not dead."

"It is advantageous for me that you live. A Lannister on the arm of a Targaryen helps break up the foreign conqueror narrative. Who are you? Another nobody from the Free Cities? Did you join us in Braavos or have you been here for many years, placed inside the Capital to wait for the right moment?"

Tyrion was – furious. "This is my face. Father's whore. Look at this." He traced the diagonal scar that went from temple to chin. "Do you think anyone would choose to look like this? This – this face of ridicule and hate? I don't want to be me. Besides. Faces might be conjured readily enough but my wit – that belongs to me."

"You do appear rather calm in the presence of your sister's death."

"Would you rather I bawl and rage? I am tired of feeling where my sister is concerned. She has bled me dry. Any emotion I had for her is at the bottom of a wine pitcher or thrown up against a wall."

Varys hated to go against his infallible logic but Tyrion had a point. "If I accept that you are the genuine Tyrion Lannister, that is almost worse."

Now Tyrion was both cross and confused. "How so?"

"If these zealots can take on the faces of the living, how are we to know what is real and what is the mummer's show? Magic has rules, like everything else but all the old rules are changing."

"Humour." Tyrion dead panned. "In my experience, the devout are rarely blessed in that virtue. They're more inclined toward murder and contemplation." Tyrion was trying very hard to shift the memory of his own face flopping around in Varys' hand before it was casually tossed into the fire. Maybe this was all a dream and he'd wake up on the boat, rocking about on the water with another bruise. He tried to hold that peaceful thought while knowing full well that this nightmare was all a prelude. "Arya did not strike me as a zealot. There was plenty of Stark blood in her veins."

"I have to agree." Varys admitted. "My birds tell me that Faceless assassins are similar to the Night's Watch. Their old lives and identities are left at the black and white door. They wash away their identities to assume those of strangers. Ultimately they believe themselves servants of death."

"While taking coin for ambitious murders..."

"Irony aside, you are right. Starks serve nothing except Winter."

"The Night's Watch suffers defectors, Arya may have run away from her new god for a spot of vengeance."

"Or she is truly one of them and her Starkly honour is a pretence."

"How about we worry about that existential crisis after we clean up this mess?"

"Fair enough." Varys raised his hands. "A spider should never leave too many flies in his web with their wings loose."

"This must be very strange for you." Tyrion returned to his step and sat upon the stone. "You have waited a long time for a Targaryen to return to King's Landing and now, here you are, sitting amongst the ash. Is it all you dreamed, Varys? Do spiders lament death?"

"I remember the smell," Varys admitted, "of burning flesh. The Mad King had a cage hanging from that beam." He pointed to a place in the ceiling which was slightly darker than the rest beneath a halo of soot. "He put a lot of people in that cage. Murders. Would be usurpers. Foreign detractors. Political victims. Wrongly accused. Oh yes, I helped put a great many of them into those cages then I'd stand over there, by the window and watch as the fires were lit by nervous guards. Their hands shaking. Flinching away from the first rush of heat. You never forget the screams. It is only when you listen to the cries rising louder and louder that you understand the mercy of the sword."

"Daenerys has not put anyone in a cage."

"Perhaps not but I heard she fed a few people to her dragons in the crypts beneath Meereen."

"Maybe."

"Maybe… Maybe she is like any other ruler, using fear to ensure swift victory. Maybe Targaryens are born in pits of smoking flesh whether they wish it or not. Maybe you and I have orchestrated the complete destruction of our own empire."

"Maybe," Tyrion offered an alternative, "you can't have the dragons without their fire. And if what the ravens say in the North turns out to be true, we're going to need the fire – so we need the dragon that comes with it."

"You must be Tyrion Lannister." Varys eventually submitted. "The Faceless Men hate dragons. Some say they ushered in the Doom with their whispers, punishing their old masters for making them mine too close to the gods."


"Jon – Jon!" Davos tried to catch Jon's horse but the young Northern king rode out ahead toward the dragon only stopping when the great beast reared up and placed its clawed paw forward, bearing all its black fangs that filled a staggering jaw large enough to swallow his horse whole.

Jon clung onto the reigns as his horse shook its head and veered away, refusing to take another step. "Whoa..." he cooed, dismounting in a sweep of cape. He patted the side of its neck and left it to graze but the beast swung its head from side to side, keeping an eye on the dragon.

Davos dismounted a short distance away and loped over to his lord, clutching the parts of his body that protested. Jaqen remained with the horses, wary of the dragon and its silver queen.

"Your Grace – please – Jon..."

"S'all right," Jon insisted. "And enough with the, 'Your Grace'."

Drogon hissed at the two figures approaching but stopped short of openly attacking. He had spent his entire life around armies and no longer snapped at them without cause. The silver creature on the ground beneath his wing shifted, rolling onto her side.

Soft grass brushed across Daenerys' face, tickling her skin. She rolled towards it, imagining the Dothraki grasslands where she and Drogo rode bareback chasing the dusk toward the mountains. Her sun and stars and she, the moon. Where did that leave her bear knight? Jorah was the earth beneath her hooves...

This is not Essos, she reminded herself, and there was ash spread through the grass.

Daenerys sat up as Drogon's wing peeled back, revealing the rolling grassland littered with weed and a pair of men traipsing towards her weighed down with wolf fur and leather. They weren't wearing sashes or Lannister lions. She stepped forward, keeping one hand on Drogon as she sized up the men. With a monster at her shoulder, she had no fear. Even without her snarling dragon, she'd stood alone against many men and bettered them all.

"Let me do this, my Lord," Davos whispered under his breath. "She is a queen. I am well used to their manner. Stannis was – bristly and I hear her temper is as short as her stature."

Jon gave a nod. Davos straightened his cloak and strode ahead, lifting his hand in the universal sign of peace. It was the first time that he had laid eyes on the Dragon Queen. The ravens sang songs of her from Castle Black to Oldtown. She was not a savage horselord from the fringes of the world – she was her father's daughter. Violet eyes – reams of white hair braided past her waist. Yes, she was short but beside her towering charcoal dragon, what did a few inches matter?

"Your Grace, I believe."

Her crimson cloak whipped over her shoulder, torn and burned. Wind whistled through its holes but not even the filth could dampen her royalty.

"I am Ser Davos Seaworth," he began carefully, unsure of how much she knew of Westeros. "Hand of Jon Stark, King of the North, previously Commander of the Night's Watch. You may know him as Snow, or perhaps you do not know him at all."

Daenerys' gaze drifted over Davos' shoulders to Jon Stark. He was shorter than she'd expected. "Stay where you are, Ser Davos." She advised, as her dragon twitched. "I am Daenerys T-"

"Targaryen," Davos nodded, finishing for her. "Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Princess of Dragonstone, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and of the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains - there was one more."

"Mother of Dragons."

"Ah of course." How had he missed the beast at her arm? "Mother of Dragons." Ser Davos bowed lower than necessary to the silver woman.

"Has the North heard the call and come to join the battle, Ser Davos?" She asked carefully.

"This?" Davos eyed the ruined Capital. "Not at all. A spot of awkward timing, I'm afraid. We are here ter beg the ear of whomever is left standin'. That would appear to be your gracious self."

"The battle is not yet over." As Daenerys finished, a piece of the outside wall snapped off and fell into the field with a hideous crash and cloud of white dust. The green flames of the Mad King's wildfire ate the city alive from the inside throwing sparks a hundred feet into the sky.

"Is there somewhere we may speak?"

"We are speaking now, Ser Davos."

"Wit. An unusual trait in a ruler. The birds say Tyrion Lannister serves as your Hand and Varys your eyes."

"I have eyes, ears and hands of my own. My reign is not a series of appendages melted into a chair."

Davos rethought his tact. Trading barbs with a dragon wasn't helpful. "The King – Jon Snow – Stark and I have come a long way to seek your council."

Daenerys watched the lord stumble over his king's title. Jorah had never once mistaken her name. No matter how little she had, Jorah made her into a queen. Power, as she'd learned, was mostly a careful illusion – a piece of fabric at the end of a bannerman's pole. This 'Jon Snow' was terrible at creating illusions with his matted fur and scarred armour plating, therefore real power must reside in his title – or he'd be dead.

Unlike Davos, Jon made no effort of formality. He set his dark, Stark eyes on the Targaryen. His kin. The closest thing to a living relative that he had. Her features were pale and sharp where his were sculpted by his mother's blood. The assassin wanted to call him a dragon but now he'd seen one in the flesh he understood that he was more of a wolf.

"Aunt..."

"You were meant to keep that ter yourself..." Davos hissed in Jon's direction but found himself ignored.

"Nephew..." She replied, unfazed. "Neither of us had the good fortune of knowing your father. By all accounts Rhaegar was the best of our ancient house." She pointed to the dragon sitting on the wall of King's Landing. "I am named one of my dragons for his memory. He is the softest of the three and sings beautifully."

Jon dipped his head in acknowledgement but was careful not to bow. "Very few know of our connection. I wonder if we might keep that between ourselves for the moment, as Ser Davos has suggested. Politics in the North are…"

"As complex as they are here, I imagine," she replied, with a burning city at her back. "I have been warned by my closest advisers that should you discover your parentage, as you have clearly done, you may raise a claim to the throne or others may do so on your behalf." Best to ask him now while she had a dragon and he – two men. "Although I heard whispers that your ambitions lay further North..."

"I have no interest in crowns – North or South." Jon agreed. "Which is what I have come all this way to discuss."

"That is not entirely true. You call yourself 'King' and hide your Targaryen name because you know as well as I do that no honourable Northman could follow the Mad King's grandson into war. The rebellious bastard of a greatly loved lord is a story Ser Davos can sell to desperate men. Do not look so worried, Jon Snow. You have written a song for yourself, as have we all. It does me no good to unpick yours but take care in lying to me. Liars I feed to my dragons."

Jon was left to think on her warning while Daenerys shifted her attention to Davos' weathered face. He looked as though he'd seen a storm brew along the horizon. Perhaps he had heard the terrible rumour of her brother's fate. She was not above murdering kin. Eventually Daenerys stepped outside the protection of her dragon. She unhooked the embossed clasp that held her cloak together. As soon as it was free her cloak flew off, tumbling over the grass.

"Accept this gift," she added, handing her dragon pin to the Stark king, "and take the road around to the South of the city. The remainder of my army is waiting on the banks of the Blackwater Rush. There's a man that knows you among their number, a brother of your Watch by name of-"

"Sam-bloody-Tarly… He's alive."

"That's the one. Give him this seal and tell him that I have sent you. They will offer you sanctuary and somewhere to stay until we can meet officially. The field of battle is on place to plan peace."

Jon brushed his thumb over the dragon seal. Its three heads chased each other around the circle, devouring each other. "We will wait there for you."


Several rooms down inside the Red Keep, Jorah found his answer. It started with a scuffle and cluster of screams – all of which were silenced by the thud of a sword. He stepped in front of the door and found the nearest wall carpeted in blood. It sprayed over the surface in a fan beneath which lay the body of a maester twitching with his torso semi-detached and all his insides spilled over the stone. The brute that dealt the butchering was so large that he struggled to turn around in the confined space. His armour grazed the wall. Helmet scraped the ceiling. Through its slits Jorah caught a pair of engorged red unblinking eyes.

The Mountain.

Cersei's loyal guard.

Jorah had not intended to face the monster alone. Only young fools sought battles for glory. He should know – he'd been one of them, parading around the stinking mud of tournament arenas, lapping up joyous screams. The finest young women in the kingdom threw flowers at his horse's hooves and held coloured ribbons to the wind. Knight after knight met their doom on nothing more than a false promise. 'Glory,' warned his father, 'is not earned on the end of a wooden sword. It is pried from terror.'

There was plenty of terror to be had in the world. Jorah gripped the hilt of his frozen sword and backed silently away from the door. The Mountain followed with an ominous thud – thud – thud of his oversized body and seized tendons struggling with the motion. His enormous form was stiff and stank like the marshes near Harrenhal. The rumours were true. Qyburn had made a creature of corpse. Jorah wondered what, if anything, was left of the man beneath.

With all the finesse of a lumbering rock, The Mountain dragged his oversized sword along the stone tiles with a shower of sparks. His gold cloak, feathered with false scales, shimmered in the torchlight.

Jorah steadied himself.

"All right, come on then… You ugly son of a bitch." He taunted the creature. There was barely enough room to swing a sword so Jorah enticed him further. The Mountain staggered into the main hall and straightened to an impressive height. His thick armour was enough to bounce most swords and collapse a normal man to his knees under the weight. "I've got a surprise for you." Jorah whispered, as Snowflake glinted ominously in the half-light.

The Mountain's sword – which was a full foot longer than normal – was raised and swung at Jorah's neck. It cut through the air with a whoosh that made the flames quiver. The moment it touched Snowflake's edge the Mountain's blade shattered with a shrill scream of metal. Jorah immediately stepped forward, swiping immediately at The Mountain's chest where he landed a blow hard enough to dent the breast plate. The Mountain smacked Jorah across the face with the handle of his ruined sword, throwing Jorah off and into the wall where he and the fragments of The Mountain's ruined sword fell to the ground together.

Jorah coughed, expecting a mouthful of blood but nothing came of it. Instead he tumbled to the side, avoiding a fist that hit the wall so hard it cleaved away a layer of stone with a crash of thunder.


Daenerys doubled over on the grass. Blood sprayed from her lips all over her clothes and onto Davos' boots. Both men fell to their knees, reaching for the queen in unison.

"Your Grace..." Davos said, his gloved hand around her arm. It was difficult to get a grip with his shortened fingers but Jon had her other limb and held her plaited hair out of the way as she heaved another mouthful of blood.

"It's – nothing..." Daenerys stammered, as she sat up and wiped her lips.

"Begging your pardon but-" But her clothes were red. The queen looked wild, like a fire-like in the chest of a volcano. Its smouldering heart.

The ground trembled. All eyes turned to the city. It was impossible to tell if the crumbling walls caused the shudder or if it was the shifting of bedrock tearing at the city's feet – furious at the blood letting raging above.

"I must go," Daenerys untangled herself from them and climbed onto Drogon's back. Something is wrong. Drogon made a bird-like call, twisting his head to check his mother was securely in her perch before he pawed at the ground and loped along it.

Davos and Jon watched her take to the air, circling before vanishing as a shadow into the thick smoke. Davos wiped the queen's blood onto the grass.

"You say that this is the future of Westeros?" Jon asked.

"So it would seem. So it would seem… I experienced a great many unusual things in the service of Stannis and the Red Woman. Not even I trusted my eyes half the time but I ain't never seen a man or woman ride a dragon bareback into battle. If she says they are her children, I believe her."

"You hate her more than anyone breathing."

"The Targaryen girl? Barely know the child."

"No." Jon clarified. "The Red Witch."

"Aye. She preys on men's weakest parts and folds them to her will. For most men, that is their cocks."

"And you?"

Davos looked off into the distance, watching the smoke toss and boil with licks of fire.

Jon understood. "What about me, Ser Davos? Which part of me would the Red Woman twist?"

"That is easy. Your honour – like every Stark before you. You are made fools by it. Stannis told me all about the crypt of dead Starks under Winterfell sent there by dedication to principle instead of sense. Me. I like ter be alive. When it's done it's done. No good stacking our bones in pits – it won't make them a darn bit more honourable."

"Lord Stark said that the dead protect us."

"Is that your experience of the dead?"

Jon was silent as the cold blue eyes of the corpse army haunted his nightmares. At least they had, when he used to dream. He hadn't slept or dreamed since his death. It was all a waking nightmare now. "Fair enough." Jon agreed, as Jaqen trotted up bringing their horses.

"See – dragons." Jaqen nodded casually at the sky. "A man has warned you."

"A man is a vague, murderous monk half the time," Davos remarked, though not without humour. "I saw the queen looking at you. She remembers your face."

"A man can change his face, if you prefer."

"That – won't be necessary..." Jon flinched. He didn't like the idea of a different dead face. He was used to this one and sometimes, if he wasn't paying attention, he could fool himself into think Jaqen was a normal man.

"Whose face is that?" Davos frowned.

"This face has no name."

"What's the difference between you and one of them necromancers from the far side of the world?"

Jaqen was almost amused. "A man asks, they take. That is why they are cursed creatures. You cannot steal from the gods. They guard their magic jealously."

"I thought your kind only had one god?" Jon interrupted, as he mounted his horse.

"Sansa, Arya, Jon, Eddard, Lyanna, Robb, Bran, Rickon, Benjen – Stark. Many faces, one name."


The next few blows, The Mountain missed – shredding stone tiles to powder. Jorah shuffled backwards with Snowflake rippling through the air – dancing in front of his eyes. His other, larger sword remained sheathed at his hip. Every now and then he heard it scrape the floor.

Suddenly a shudder ran through the heart of the Red Keep, shaking the walls and the floor. Iron torches fell and exploded in cinders with pools of hot oil. One of them caught the edge of a tapestry turning the enormous hanging into a literal wall of fire. It tore away from its hangings and curled, hissing viciously in death.

There was no time to linger. The Mountain stepped over the ruined tapestry with flames licking up his legs and down the four steps to the second level of the hall where Jorah waited nervously. One of his sleeves was torn from the fall earlier. He could see the tattoos showing through, darkening as his opponent approached. He felt like he was back in the fighting pits of Meereen with a jeering crowd baying for his blood. Death snapping at his ankles.

Snowflake faced an iron axe this time and, strong as it was, the ice magic could not shatter it. Jorah's arms absorbed the full force of the blow which lifted him off his feet and sent him flying. He landed in a roll, tumbling twice with his second sword digging into his flesh then back onto his feet, Snowflake raised. He didn't see how this could end in his favour. He'd had a few good swipes but The Mountain was closer to a beast than a warrior and he wasn't entirely convinced a dead thing could die again. He eyed the room for something better and settled on a hefty iron chandelier dangling above. Before could make use of the iron nightmare by severing the rope holding it in place, The Mountain advanced pushing Jorah deeper into the room.


"Did you see that? Over there – on the flats. Near the waterline." Tycho pointed his oar at the muddy shore where something was writhing about in the filth. "An eel?"

Tommen picked up his pace, forcing his way through the calf-deep mud. Progress was slow and rudely interrupted by rotting pieces of flesh left by murderers and war. Half the missing names in the city found their graves upon the marsh. "It's not an eel," the king replied. "More like-" he tilted his head curiously before finishing his sentence. "A dragon."

Ash snapped at the mud weighing down her limbs. She'd become stuck after swimming ashore – sinking into it which further smothered her wings making her too heavy to fly.

Tommen approached the creature that looked as though it had been birthed under the ground and crawled its way to the surface. It was the size of a cat. Thin boned with sharp features, particularly its face which ended in a pointed snout. The boy king reached into the mud and placed his hands under the belly of the dragon, lifting it out of the hole it had accidentally dug.

Its flesh felt like a snake but the scales were sharp and the tiny spines that littered its body, even sharper. Its belly was soft and he could feel its heart beating wildly and a warmth swelling in the throat area. Both back legs curled around Tommen's arm while the dragon's wings reached out so that it could grasp on to his shirt with its clawed knuckles. The creatures enormous eyes, born gold had now cleared to a shade of silver that left them as a pair of lonely moons with a reptilian slit straight down the centre.

"There you go..." Tommen knelt in the mud and released the dragon onto the edge where a wave crashed over it, washing away the silt. The dragon transformed in an instant to its beautiful crimson form, so dark and perfect it looked like a wound upon the earth wherever it sat. It pushed itself up with powerful limbs and snapped its mouth, tasting the air.

Tycho hung back, frightened of the creature. He clutched his oar. "No one mentioned the Targaryen had a fourth dragon," he said.

"Maybe it is not hers."

"Not hers…" He repeated in amazement. "How many dragons do you think there are, dear boy? A few years ago there weren't any now there are four? Preposterous! A calamity for civilisation."

"Five – more than likely," Tommen corrected him. "There is another, larger dragon marauding around the North. A silver creature that crawled up out of Winterfell, nearly destroying it entirely. News came of it via the ravens."

"You would be a fool to believe those stories."

"I do believe them," Tommen assured the banker. "And so should you, if you value Truth's weight. The people who saw it believe the creature to be one of the original dragons from the last great war in the realm. Silverwing. A monster by any stretch, large enough to make these beasts into pets." Tommen pointed at the three shadows circling around the ruins of King's Landing. The Capital was all but gone. The only thing left was a burning ruin.

Ash wasn't like the other dragons. She was a wilful thing and flapped around in the mud, exploring the terrain without fear. It flicked its tongue at a few crabs but was too slow to dig any of them out of their holes. Eventually Tycho crept back in step with the king as they headed towards the parting sea fog and Dragonstone beyond that.

"You best hope that it does not follow us," Tycho added, as they walked. "This is the second time I have been in the presence of dragons in as many months and on both occasions they laid waste to a city. Picture it, if you can, Your Grace, the Bank of Braavos without its roof and all the gilded walls of aeons past lay as rubble with a few broken bodies poking out from the mess. Oh yes, it is a terrible thing. Dragons are chaos and death and servitude built on fear. The Free Cities rebelled against the Valyrians for a good reason."

There wasn't any warning. Both men had their eyes on the endless stretch of mud, taking care where they placed their feet when the tiny red dragon launched itself into the air and latched onto the back of Tycho's knee. Within a moment it had scurried up his pant and shirt climbing all the way to the horrified man's shoulder where it began frantically pawing at his face. Tycho's screams were gurgled by panic. He wailed and fussed, bending every which way to try and free himself of the unprovoked violence. Hot blood ran down his cheeks. There were tides of it making their way beside the veins on his paper-thin neck followed by a dreadful pull of skin as it fought to hold on while Tommen dragged it off and ended up with the creature squirming in his hold.

"What did you do to it?" Tommen demanded.

"What did I do to it? Look what it has gone and done to me!" Tycho screamed furiously, pulling his hands away from his face to see them coated in blood. "That bloody thing has gone and killed me!"

"Calm yourself!" The King demanded. "You'll not die. You'll not even scar."

He would definitely scar. Ash's claws had cut deep into his flesh, diving his face into two sides.


"I may be hanged for saying it but there is something not quite right about that queen." Ser Davos led his horse to the edge of a narrow stream. "Coughing up blood. Watched an uncle go that way. Months of it. Blood everywhere an' not a scratch on the bugger."

"I am hardly one to judge. I 'ave holes in my chest. I should be dead."

"Aye. You should. Twice o'er." Davos replied, eyeing the Northern king. "You're not though, are you? That witch put something in your veins an' I'm not entirely sure we're gonna like what comes o'it."

Jon could not argue with that. He'd never felt particularly 'alive' since his death. There was every chance he wasn't much better than one of those blue-eyed corpses wandering beyond The Wall. If he'd needed further proof, the assassin's blade in the Riverlands settled the question. He turned to the Braavosi killer, who walked slightly out of step with his horse, preferring to walk.

"And you," Jon asked, "what did you make of the queen?"

Jaqen gave his horse a small tug, leading it to the stream. "A man thinks this might well be the last fresh water we see."

Both Davos and Jon were left perplexed while the horses drank. The assassin turned to watch the river of people fleeing the crumbling city. His eye was drawn to a small woman striding calmly through the hell, her hand on the hilt of a tiny sword little better than a twig. A man would know that creature anywhere. A wolf among the sheep.


Olenna stumbled away from the enormous door. The iron bolts shook a cloud of rust free accompanied by the steady boom – boom – boom of soldiers attempting to break through.

"Come away," she tugged Margaery behind her.

The circular room was near-pitch. As the inner, ancient castle it was built from black, oily rock with no windows. Everyone who touched the walls was left with a translucent slime on their skin that refused to wipe away. Evil. As though the building was dragged up from the depths of Blackwater Bay and left stinking in the sun before the rest of the Red Keep encased it. The foundations continued deep into the ground where they merged with the bedrock. Rumour whispered of skeletons buried there that never died, trapped in crypts where they clawed at the stone, hissing curses with bone lips.

Margaery unhooked one of the metal torches from the wall, holding it with her hand wrapped in cloth to make the heat bearable. She pulled away from her grandmother and lifted the flame toward the door. Olenna watched the flame pick over her granddaughter's features. There was nothing more fierce than a mother protecting their child.

The door buckled. The slab of wood shuffled out of its holds and crashed to the floor.

"Loras!"

Sweat and soot dripped off Loras, especially where his armour was scorched by the flames running rife through the city. His blond hair was curled tightly with the moisture, flecked with ash while traces of blood ran the entire length of his sword.

"Quickly. There are ships waiting." Loras ushered them out of the room. "And quietly. Most of the Lannisters have fled but there are a few swords in the dark."

The building shook. Outside the protective shell of the old black walls, they could hear the outer Keep trembling with smoke slinking through the corridors. Olenna nudged Margaery forward, covering her own face with a torn off piece of cloth to shield herself from the stench of burning flesh.

"What is that wretched sound?" Olenna asked, as they staggered through the hallways, winding their way down the castle.

"The Targaryen girl's dragons. They're screaming." Loras replied, to the horror of his family.

They used the lowest tunnels, wading through the seawater before emerging on the sandy strip that curled around the bay. The tide was creeping in and brought with it a deluge of bodies – wood and flesh. Once outside, Olenna stopped and lifted her gaze to the din. Clouds of smoke swept over the sun, leaving it a cold eye unable to look at the burning city. All three dragons had found a perch on the outer wall. They had their heads lifted toward the air, mouths open and shrill cries echoing over the water. Each one flapped their wings, sending the smoke into chaotic vortices, beautiful and horrific in equal measure. Olenna was not one to pray to the gods but even her, with decrepit limbs an inch from death, felt the faceless creatures of the cosmos shift in delight.

"There's no time, grandmother!" Loras grabbed Olenna's sleeve and pulled her over the sand toward a row boat.

"No wait – what about you?" Margaery asked, turning as the boat began to push away from the shore.

Loras was waist deep in the water, like the last hero facing the end. "There are people trapped in the city. I have to go."

He did just that – wading to shore where he climbed the black steps and vanished into the smoke.


Jorah unhooked a spear from the stone wall. Its beautiful, polished tip looked ornament but it was a foot and a half of sharpened Valyrian steel, a relic from the Dance of the Dragons when would be kings fought each other on dragon-back. It glistened menacingly – brandishing its intricate patterns that almost formed words across the surface. A giant, silver shark tooth, or so Jorah thought. He held it tucked under his left arm with Snowflake in his right.

The Mountain lumbered ever closer. An unstoppable progression of death. Those bloodshot eyes bulged under his helmet while pale flesh, almost blue, peeked out from the gaps in his armour. Jorah remembered the man before and could not decide whether this was an improvement. He was a monster, one way or the other. What man raped a woman after murdering her children? No man at all. Only the gods committed such atrocities.

Where a Lannister soldier might taught, The Mountain offered nothing other than shuffling footsteps. Jorah shored his grip of the spear, leaned forward to brace his weight and held his nerve.

The Mountain's sword had the force of a horse at full flight. Jorah was a sturdy man but even he was trampled to the ground under the axe.

"Argh!" Jorah cried, as the curve edge of the axe found its way through his armour's breast plate, slicing right down the middle of the embossed dancing bears. There it stuck, wedged in the steel. He'd prepared himself for the pain. Through its blinding agony, Jorah thrust the Valyrian spear into The Mountain's stomach where it severed the rotting innards and emerged the other side with a slop of debris. "Get off!" Jorah used all his force to push The Mountain backwards, leaving the undead in possession of the spear.

He was still alive – stumbling around impaled and seemingly unaffected by his severed spine.

Jorah heard his own blood spill down his armour and drip onto the floor. There was more of it on the axe blade, running along the handle to paint The Mountain's hand as he lifted it above his head, preparing for another strike. Jorah was struck by the sight. Trapped watching those tiny congealed bubbles of his life running over the wood. He could fight this creature for five minutes or five years, trapped in this stone room and it would make no difference. How could anyone win against the undead? Death was the finish line and he'd surpassed it. The best Jorah could hope to do was –

Of course.

Jorah sheathed Snowflake and spun. He took two strides and ducked under The Mountain's right flank before he could bring down another blow. There was a low stone doorway behind which Jorah took at a run. The stairs beyond were steep, covered in grime and headed down into the sub levels of the Red Keep where there was little but darkness and smoke. The Mountain followed. Jorah could hear him – spear still in his chest and axe at the ready. He pursued with surprising speed not helped by Jorah's open wounds. Perhaps there are limits to the blood magic, he thought to himself. Thank the gods.

There was no turning back from this plan. The hallways were so narrow Jorah would never make it back past The Mountain now. He committed.

Three more levels and he began to worry that half his blood was painted on the Keep's floor. The world blurred. His hands clammed up. All the sound was sucked out of the air as the little light there was closed in on his vision. Jorah kept his focus on the hallway. The dragon skulls were first. They lined a wider part of the hallway, pushed into the shadows. He did not like to look at them. Dragons were infallible, magical creatures and here they were, dead and turned to bone like every other wretched thing in the world.

Left. Onto the black foundations where the stone never dried. The legendary Black Cells lay ahead. They were filled with the hopeless and yet they sat in silence. Waiting. Predators and madmen. Some, Jorah imagined, placed there by the Mad King himself.


Choppy water overtook the row boat. Olenna clutched the edge, all her rings pressed against her bone. One of the Targaryen girl's ships waited ahead. Its sails were unfurled but an anchor held its place in the water. They'd been spotted by the Unsullied who lowered a rope ladder in preparation that Olenna was not entirely convinced that she could climb. Mounting a ship from the water was uncivilised. In war the sick, young and old died first. Well, fuck that, Olenna refused to die in a bay of screaming souls. She'd made plans to pass into the next world with a view of the gardens in full bloom.

"You must go first," Olenna announced sternly to Margaery. "You carry the future of our house in your belly. Never forget that. No matter what happens here or tomorrow surviving is your priority. Do you understand?"

"Even if I have to crawl on my hands and knees to Highgarden, I will make it to her walls." Margaery replied.

The hand that pulled them on board belonged to the commander who had been watching the battle play out. "This one is Black Scale," he said of himself, an impressive statue with his full battle armour. There was not a scratch on him. "You are Olenna Tyrell, friend of the Queen. Your granddaughter, Margaery Lannister-"

"Tyrell." Margaery corrected immediately. "As agreed with the Targaryen Queen, I renounce my claim to the Iron Throne and submit to her rule, may it be a long and glorious one." Margaery repeated the words her grandmother coached without the faintest air of irony, even as King's Landing and its throne turned to nothing.

The anchor was pulled in, groaning in pain. Blackwater Bay's winds kicked up and the hull shifted against the waves.

"Whose ships are those?" Asked Olenna, lingering by the rail. There was a cluster of four ships, sails full and men raging at the remnants of the Lannister ships, sinking everything they touched.

"Those vessels belong to Lord Emmon."

A rare moment of emotion washed over Olenna. "Ah yes. The ghost of Togarion the Terrible lives in him today." Then, more quietly. "I watched his daughter strung up on that wall and her children fed to dogs. Had I been born a man I'd have taken a sword to Cersei that day but my sword is a pen and my strike, the wings of a raven."

Margaery felt for her hand, weaving their fingers together as they watched the battle rage.


Loras screamed orders until his voice choked on the smoke and fled him entirely. Pirates, Tyrell, Dothraki, Unsullied, Lannister and civilians – eventually they all became one herd of frightened creatures. He managed to funnel them into channels, fleeing the burning parts of city and out into the open fields. The panic wore off after they exited the walls and led to a mass of people loitering in the field, staring at their home so Loras sent more men out into those fields to point them onto the King's Road, sending them toward Highgarden with a horsemen riding ahead to ensure they made it. Survival was dependent on time and they had none of it to spare.

Many Lannister men made eyes at him as they passed, defeated and unarmed yet none raised their voice in challenge. The dragons had done what Cersei could not – broken their souls.


"That's a terrible sound..." Gilly sat on the back of a wagon, Little Sam in her arms as Rhaegal cried from his perch on the wall. He was nearest to them, mounted like a grotesque. She was used to the dragons singing but this was not a song. "What will happen to Ash?"

The wagon dipped noticeably as Sam sat beside her. "This is horrible. You're not… Not upset?"

"Of course," Gilly replied. "But you get used to it. The butchering. The terror. It becomes part of your life. One of my sisters used to say that the horror is like the cold, it leaves you numb."

"You have a sister?"

Gilly turned her head, staring right at Sam.

"Oh – right..." Sam's mind caught up. "How many?"

"Alive or dead?"

"I'm sorry, Gilly..."

She was confused. It might be impolite to pry about the dead in the South but in the far North, speaking of the dead was all that kept them alive. "Sixty-two. All dead."

"All? I don't-"

"The Queen received a raven from the Lord Commander. A ranging party travelled to Craster's Keep. They expected to find my sisters and some of the Freefolk men holding the position but there was nothing. A snowed out building."

"Well there, you see, they could be alive? Maybe they fled?"

Gilly shook her head. "The Freefolk call them 'bare bones' – villages stripped of life. My sisters are dead. I only hope they do not know it."

Sam looked towards Blackwater Bay and the horizon that curved beyond the ships. "We could still go to the Summer Isles," he said wistfully. "Wait out the storm. Teach Little Sam how to swim."

"I love you but please, stop asking to go on more boats. You are terrible on boats."

Sam only heard the first part. "You love me?"

Now Gilly was even more perplexed. "Obviously."

Sam nodded, not quite believing. "Obviously." He repeated. "Is that wall melting?"

Gilly watched the stone soften and drip into the water like raw metal heated in a forge. "Yes."

He nodded, ready to accept more and more alarming realities as time went on. He'd seen dead men and dragons – how long, he wondered, would it be before the gods themselves came out of the ground to look upon the hell they'd waged? "Oh my bloody oath!" Sam slipped off the cart and stumbled forward, eyes set on the left curve of the bank where three horses strode out of the river.

The filthy water rushed off the underside of the horses before their hooves sank into the mud. There were hundreds of soldiers pressed into the woods nearby, protected by the pines and ferns. Jon kept the reins on his horse taught while Jaqen and Davos rode close, shouldering him.

"Who are all these people?" Jon asked.

"The Targaryen queen has kept some of her army back from the fight," Davos replied. "Impossible to tell how many. The forest goes back a long way. Is that the fella you're looking for?" Davos nodded at the rotund creature stumbling through the smoke towards them, waving frantically.

For the first time in many months, Jon's features softened and a smile crept into them. Even his eyes glittered. Jon dismounted his horse and strode forth, arms open as Sam stepped into them and pressed himself against Jon's cold armour.

Davos grinned and looked away. There were few enough friends in the world.

"Sam..." Jon drawled out his friend's name. "Whatever are you doing here? I thought you'd be in the Citadel." Where nothing could come for him. Jon wanted Sam safe with his books – as he should be. Not traipsing around the fields of war.

"I was there all right," Sam assured him, finally stepping back. "But things became – complicated."

"You are not a maester, then?"

"Technically? No." And he wasn't sure he wanted to be one any more, having met more than his fair share of them. "There was another one of those bloody dead things kept in a vault under the citadel," he continued, lowering his voice. "It was old Jon, older than the ones we saw in the North. I think it's been there since the last war. I don't think they ever die."

Jon was more interested in how Sam was. "You're alive though. And Gilly. And the child?"

Sam nodded. "They're over there. But Jon. This is the queen's army. You're a rival king from the North. I'm not sure you should be here. Not like this. Not without formal terms. She's no Cersei but that isn't saying much."

"Sam. I have already met the queen. She flew down onto the fields outside King's Landing on one of her dragons. It was her that asked me to come here and meet with you." He held out the dragon pin plucked from the queen's cloak.

Sam remained wary. "Even so..."

"We have come a long way and there is much to tell you. Please, is there somewhere we might sit?" Before they fell. Davos was leaning over on his horse. With the warmer climate came the defrosting of his pain. Even Jaqen had a veil of death about him, thinner than a ghost with gaunt cheeks and bones that threatened to pierce through the false face he wore.

Sam took a final look at the crumbling city. The war for the capital was over but the fighting continued. He wasn't doing anyone any good watching from the flanks. "Before we do, you should know. There's a Red witch here. Not that one." Sam quickly said, as Davos shifted dangerously behind. "She's not even a true Red Priestess – she's from Asshai. Quaithe. Her faith is that of the Church of Starry Wisdom and from what I've seen, she shares magic with the Targaryen queen. You must be careful, Jon. This is not another conquering warlord. There's a lot of talk among the men. The superstitious among them consider her a god."


Sam organised for their horses to be left with the Unsullied who brushed them down and fed them bags of grain. Jaqen took himself to the edge of the river where he bathed in the muddy waters, whispering enchantments to his faceless god, lurking under the surface. Davos, Jon and Sam moved toward Blackwater Bay where they sat on the huge black rocks, flung there at random by the throat of an ancient mountain. Their surfaces glittered with chips of obsidian and veins of white quartz. Sam ambled over a few of the giants then tucked himself down in the shade. Beneath, Blackwater Bay crashed against the rocks, flinging salt spray at the tides of smoke. On a clear day you could see Dragonstone. Today the masts of a hundred ships poked out from the thick smoke like dead trees in a fog-choked swamp with the occasional lick of flame.

"I remember you, Tarly." Ser Davos positioned himself painfully on a rock. "You are nothing like your father."

"I've not heard any news of them."

"Nor have we." Davos replied. "Ravens are not finding their way though several parts of the North. The starving are shooting them down and roasting them over their fires."

"They're eating the ravens?"

"Aye. Eating the ravens." Davos nodded. "And whatever else comes by. Horses. Rats. Other men…"

"Bolton's war has left the Northern lands unprepared for Winter. The armies used the stores for their campaigns now there is nothing. Thousands are on their way to The Wall."

"That's a good thing though, isn' it?" Sam perked up. "You were always trying to find men."

"Feeding and training them is more difficult. Winterfell is sending everything they can. We've come to implore this Dragon queen for supplies."

"And why would she agree to that?"

Jon explained their family ties, to which Sam merely shook his head. "She murdered her own brother, you know. The Dothraki sing songs about the night a golden shower crowned the white haired prince. The queen had her horselord husband poured molten gold over his head and boiled his brain as entertainment. You are a nephew she has never met..."

"Tarly, if I may." Davos spoke up. "This queen romanticises Jon's father. She named one of them beasts after him. Irrational sentiment is nothing to sniff at. I've seen it coax otherwise wise leaders into terrible mistakes."

"You might be in luck. Daenerys Targaryen has a fascination with the North. Her dragon flew off course and took her via the Wall. She witnessed the Wildlings storm Bear Island."

"That is not common knowledge..."

"No. I imagine not." Sam replied. "Hundreds died and when the queen came back to us, she started talking about the real war – the great war. I don't know what it is about bloody Targaryens but they seem to think they're chosen by the gods. The celestial pits of Meereen, Tyrion calls it. She intends to go North. There's a Mormont whispering tales of snow and ice in her ear."

Davos sighed. "These days everyone thinks they're the chosen one. They end up without a head."

Sam shook his head. "Not this time. I watched her walk out of the burning ruins of Summerhall. Both of them. The Mormont too. I was there when she stuck an ancient sword into a tree and watched it catch alight with screaming flame and one of those blue-eyed things staring out from them. She scares me."

"This one scares me." Davos nodded at Jon. "He died again. Dead as those raven corpses. I tried to bury him but he climbed right out of the cold earth."

Sam turned pale. "None of this is right."

"Of course not. Nothing is right in war." Davos assured him.

Silence fell over the three men as they contemplated the rolling waves. The sun had scooped its way through the zenith and now began its tumble toward the West, setting behind them so that the shadow of the cliffs crept over the water. The tide was climbing up the rocks, scaring the red crabs back into their holes while clumps of kelp marooned in crevices.

"Are you certain one of those Whitewalkers was fighting South of The Wall?" Jon asked.

Sam nodded. "It attacked the queen's caravan. Killed a dozen men. The queen herself killed it."

"How?" Jon asked.

"The thing went for her throat. The moment it touched her skin it shattered into snow. Magic. I'm telling you."

Davos was deeply concerned. "I thought the magic in The Wall stopped those things from getting South?"

"That does not mean they can't fight if they get past it." Jon said quietly. He'd fought wights inside Castle Black. "Winter is coming that means the Bay of Seals and Bay of Ice are both going to freeze over. When that happens, there's no reason they can't walk right around the edges of The Wall without having to go over it. They're already amassing at the borders." Jon flinched as another wall came down in the city. It enraged him. "This is waste. All this death."

Sam closed his eyes, listening to the ruin mixed with the endless sigh of the water. There were times when he thought he could hear the moon pull its way into the sky and the breath of Winter hissing softly over the world. "This was not the queen's plan." He replied quietly. "Everything was in place for a bloodless takeover before… Before the wildfire caught beneath the city."

"There are hundreds of barrels of this wildfire on its way to the North," said Jon. "Commander Thorne has men transporting it to the forts along The Wall. He is going to rain all of hell down upon the army of the dead." Maybe it would be enough, Jon thought. If it could level a city perhaps it could destroy death.

"Who is making it – the citadel?" Sam asked. Jon nodded. "Your supplies are dependent on the maesters. I hope you bought them with coin rather than good will."

"The gold from the siege at the Dreadfort."

Sam watched the gulls cawing at the smoke. "I failed you. I went to the citadel to find information to defeat the Whitewalkers and all I found was a drunk grandmaester, a dragon queen and a priestess from Asshai. There were more questions than answers. All they speak of are prophecies, what good are those? And this..." Sam pulled out the small, gold bound horn from his robes. A relic from the snow at the Fist of the First Men. "Marwyn told me to bury it and let time hide it away." Sam shook his head. "He was terrified of it." It was such an unassuming thing. Light and fragile. "I couldn't leave it at Oldtown."

It was Davos who recoiled at the sight of the horn. "I know what that is. Well, I know what it could be. I've shared company with a lot of pirates in my time and there ain't nothing a pirate likes more than a good piece of treasure. Horns are the rarest. They sell them in the far ports of the East. The Valyrians used to use them to call their dragons. Dragonbinders… A few remain, washing around the fringes of the world."

"And what is the other?"

"That's the thing. There's only one other sort of horn but it's been lost ter the world since before the pirates began treading the seas. The Horn of Winter. A relic of the first war." Davos turned to Jon. "You'd have heard of it, in nursery stories."

"Mance Rayder was looking for a horn in the snows." Jon replied. "All he found was a war horn from the First Men. A great big thing that was burned in the flames. If that is what Marwyn says it is then he is right, we should throw it into the sea." Jon reached for the horn, Sam recoiled. "Sam, the Horn of Winter brings down The Wall. Only the Night's King would want that therefore it is a tool for darkness."

Sam shook his head. "Wait – that does not make any sense. Why would the First Men create a thing like that? What reason could they have for bringing down The Wall? There's something about it, Jon, something else. I was meant to find that horn in the snow, along with the dragonglass. Whomever buried that cache was fighting against the Whitewalkers. They buried those things in a Night's Watch cloak where they hoped they'd be found. We can't just – toss it into the sea without first knowing what it does."

Jon and Davos were uneasy about it. "All right, Sam." Jon finally relented. "But for the sake of argument, do not tell anyone else that you have it. No one. Make sure it dies with you."


The unmarked doors of the Black Cells faded into darkness. Jorah had no way of telling how many rooms were embedded in the walls of the Red Keep, only that they numbered in the dozens, possibly a hundred. The dead were left to rot and fresh men placed in their hold. The bones in some piled high with rats dragging them into nests while they gnawed away the last of the flesh.

Eventually Jorah found what he was looking for – an open cell with its door gaping ominously at the hallway. With a heavy breath, he stepped over the threshold into the room. Akin to a cave, the walls were malformed, breathed rather than built with thick seams of dragonglass wedged between the oily stone. There were no torches at all – only bedrock and a few scraps of hay pushed to the sides. Jorah kept his eyes away from the edges of the room and focused on the door and the faint flicker of light.

The Mountain ambled along, stopping only to remove the spear from his chest. He brandished that instead of his axe, pointing the Valyrian tip into the cell first. Jorah made himself visible, taunting the brute to follow him into the room. As he'd hoped, there wasn't much of a brain left in the corpse. He stumbled in, unaware of the trap Jorah had laid.

Jorah ducked under the first lunge from The Mountain's spear – sliding across the stone with his swords scraping against the surface. Then he rolled, ignoring the stab of pain as he pushed back onto his feet. The Mountain reeled around and made for him again but Jorah backtracked, skirting straight through the open door which he immediately slammed shut in The Mountain's face.

...no keys.

No fucking keys…

Jorah was forced to hold the latch shut with brute force as The Mountain rammed his body again and again against the door. The cell would hold the monster but only so long as he kept pressure on the lock.

"This might come in handy..." A pirate slinked along the corridor with a circular ring of keys dangling from his hand.

"Bloody hell, I thought you were dead!" Jorah exclaimed. He never thought he'd be pleased to see Daario Naharis wander in but he was. He was fucking thrilled.

Daario slid one of the crude iron keys into the lock and turned it. Both men relaxed. The Mountain was trapped. "Hideous thing," Daario added, nodding at The Mountain. "Did you see what he made of the noblemen upstairs?"

All Jorah did was nod in reply – exhausted.

"Hell of a scrap, by the looks." Daario added, eyeing the shattered armour.

"The rest?"

"Buggered off or bent the knee, so to speak." Daario replied. "Once those dragons got a go on, most people ran. The smart ones, anyway."

"The King? Cersei?"

Daario shrugged. "How do I know?" He lied. "Fucking mess, isn't it? Will take us days to find out what happened. Come on. We're not going to come across the answer to anything down in the dungeon."

He had a point but Jorah needed to take another minute to catch his breath. As he was about to continue, the ground beneath the Red Keep shifted. Daario and Jorah eyed each other.

"Is it meant to do that?" Asked Daario.

Jorah shook his head.

"Mmm didn't think so. Perhaps the gods really are coming out from beneath the sea."


Quaithe laid her hands on the black rock at the edge of the cliff. There was fire growing beneath, swirling like rivers only made of burning stone. They pushed against the cracks in the ground, searching for weakness. Magic called to it – tempting its fury. In Valyria the dragonlords burrowed too deep into the tempestuous mountains. They revelled in the violence of the flames and it had consumed them. She watched the final night replay in her dreams. The jagged mountain peaks quivering like pine needles then all at once their ashen sides slid away and from their throats coughed all the manic chaos of the Red God.

Her gaze lifted. Across the water, peaking out above the thick band of smoke was the tip of a black mountain.


Gilly laid Little Sam down in the shade of the pines where he slept on an old piece of heshen cloth. Darkstar followed, tying his horse to a nearby tree where it dipped its head and tugged at the long, sweet grass among the white flowers. Here, away from the nightmare, it was almost possible to pretend the world was at peace.

"Why do you follow me?" Gilly asked, as Darkstar wandered through the trees, never more than a few steps away.

He was a quiet sort of creature and took his time before replying. "A woman should not be alone on the edge of war." He replied. "Desperate people would not think twice before tearing the clothes from your back and the shoes off your feet."

Gilly brushed Little Sam's soft hair from his forehead. "Did Sam ask you to?" He did not reply. "You look like the queen," she continued, if only to break the silence. "Or do all Dornish look like you?"

"I am not Dornish," he laid against one of the larger pines. Its mottled bark pressed against his back now that he'd removed most of his armour. "The Daynes are far older."

"Like the First Men?"

He nodded. "Like the First Men but older still." Wildlings were meant to be simple people, uninterested in anything but hunting and fucking. Basket weaving and skinning bears were thought to be the limit of their talents but Gilly had taught herself to read and write and showed a scholarly interest in the world. Indeed, she was not so different to Arianne. "Here," he began, moving over to kneel beside her. He laid his hand on the pine needles and brushed them away to reveal the bare earth. Then he took a stick and drew a crude map of the world. "This is Westeros, where we are. The North – Essos and the great Southern Land."

Gilly pointed to the tiny place beyond the wall where the ruins of Craster's Keep lay. "Home."

Darkstar nodded, then drew in the line of The Wall. "The Daynes come from Starfall which, I believe, you have been. Here is Valyria, the original land of the Targaryens. A very, very, very long time ago all of this land," he traced a circle that ran from Asshai to the edge of Dorne then up, all the way to The Shivering Sea and right down past the Summer Isles, "belonged to one great kingdom. They called it, 'The Empire of the Dawn'."

"Like the name of your house's sword?"

Darkstar smirked. She was cleverer than most. "The kings and queens of this empire had long, white hair – purple eyes and silver skin. They rode dragons along the hills of Asshai and conquered nearly the entire world. Their cities were bigger than any living soul could imagine. They were gods – as close as men could be to them."

"What happened to them?"

"They fought a war against death," he replied.

"And lost..."

"No – they won but when the fighting was done, there were so few people left that they scattered into tribes and their empire fell apart. They travelled the oceans. Some, rumour has, landed in Valyria. Others made it as far as Starfall… So, if the tales are to be believed, the queen and I are ancient cousins."

"Is that what's going to happen to us – if we fight the Night King?"

"Only if we live. Chances are, this is the last war. We are a poor imitation of our past, Gilly. This battle is played, over and over, each time edging us closer to the end."

She was quiet for a while, simply holding Little Sam's tiny hand in hers. It seemed cruel that he be born into a world at its end. What was the point of life if it could not outlive the Winter? "Sam says that if we read enough of the old texts we'll find the answer to defeating the army of the dead. That's why we went to the citadel in the first place."

"And what do you think?" He asked, quite seriously.

"That we should spend less time reading about ancient conquests and more time preparing for the war. Each time it has been fought on different fronts – with different solutions. We have to find our own way through if we have any chance of surviving."