NIGHTFORT – THE WALL

The wall of ice behind the Nightfort shook.

Inside, its thunderous gasp set the stone trembling. Years of rot, cold, war and abandonment had left it brittle. Slithers of ice crumbled from the cavernous ceiling – whistled through the air and destroyed themselves on the slate floor which vanished into shadow on all sides. Goblets scattered along the uneven table, rattled. Pools of melt-water trapped in their bellies jaded with concentric ripples as if a beast of myth were dragging its corpse across the sky to the horror of the stars. Several tipped. Rolled. Tumbled off the edge. On and on it went – an unholy vibration that echoed down the foundations of the fort until even the face on the Black Gate twitched its rancid wood into a smile.

Every living soul fell silent.

There was nothing now except the drip drip drip of the spilled goblets and crackle of the fireplace.

Motionless, Edd stared dumbly at the pile of snow at his feet. Suddenly the air creaked around him like a boat shifting in the sea. Then a deep, terrible wail came at his ears as a whisper chilling Edd right to the bone. Terror laced his breath. It puffed out in front of him. White – soft...

"What was that?" Cub gasped, as loud as he dared from the table beside his commander. He was first to his feet, tightening the belt that held his sword. The scraps of leather, fur and wool that formed his uniform were tainted with a permanent frost, even inside.

Edd placed his hand on the boy's shoulder to still him.

The crackle from the fireplace spurred into a roar, ravaging cuts of wood. Sparks showered the air, twisting violently. The odd company of Crows and the late Howland Reed's men shifted their attention toward Edd, who was suddenly made meek by the vicious castle. All at once its terror had awoken. The Nightfort's smooth edges sharpened with malice. Shadows found new depths. Old curses chased each other through the collapsed towers which even now dropped pieces of flesh into the snow. Black tears, that's what the Crows called the pieces of stone shed from the main tower for they lay upon the white blanket like Bloodstones. Once brave, the men held their collective breath. They were no more than rats, picking scraps beneath the gods' table during the night. Now all the gods were awakening and the Nightfort guarded the door to the underworld.

"Fuck me if I know..." Edd admitted, with less bravado than his men were accustomed. The minutes dragged on. "No good hidin' in our cribs," he shook himself to life, when nobody dared stir with him. Even Cub's gallantry had faltered. Edd took a torch from a holding on the wall and motioned toward the makeshift door built from bits of table. "You three – with me. Let's get ourselves a look at it, eh? I'll not be felled by a barking shadow."

The chosen three were not so sure but they followed Edd into the night. Fresh snow buried the barren yard which was hemmed in with new, uneven fences. They entered the stables where the horses clustered together for warmth. The winds pushed against the wooden slats covering the barn's windows, rattling them like bones. Cub listened to it swirl back and forth, raging outside. In a few hours it would whip itself into a gale and scream along the Southern face of the Wall.

From there, they used the well-trod path that hugged the Eastern side of the Nightfort. Their eyes avoided a growing black smear surrounded by a dozen swords stabbed into the snow, each adorned with some form of trinket. In place of Howland's sword, which was on its way to Greywater Watch, lay a large rock. The men had chiselled the Reed House lizard onto its face but their craftsmanship was poor rendering the sigil regrettably dragon-like.

Two days of powder collected against the Nightfort, deepening to their knees until they were forced to wade to the gatehouse. The tiny, box-like structure formed a bridge between the Southern lands and the ice staircase which rambled up the Wall, zigzagging to the summit.

"Fuckin' gods of bloody darkness..." Edd muttered, finding the doors frozen closed again. He swiped the shovel from Cub's hands and forced its sharp blade into the gap to crack the ice. Edd leaned against the handle and levered the door open. His men rushed inside to light a pair of antique iron torches. Their muted light was barely enough to illuminate the frozen surfaces which were littered with a thousand years of graffiti. "Told them useless shits to make sure we 'ad more oil an' tinder in 'ere… Cub – that there is your job when we get back. How the hell are we supposed to defend the Wall if we can' darn well see it?"

The door on the other side of the gatehouse opened directly onto the staircase. Chisel marks remained visible, entombed in the lonely blue where Brandon Stark himself had ordered scores of Northern men to chip away at the vast façade. There was no faster way to the summit than up the sharp rise but it was like ascending a jaw of teeth.

They climbed against the wind which shied away from the ceiling of fog.

At first, the steps led away from the castle but eventually the staircase folded back on itself and returned close enough to one of the towers that they could nearly step onto its partially collapsed balcony. The ice did strange things where it touched stone. It infiltrated the world like an infection. Delicate protrusions grew in spirals, reaching out to the rock in shell-like patterns, unfurling gently in a fatal caress. It both glued together the old fort's wounds and tore fresh sores into its hide – dripping into chasms in the Summer only to expand at Winter's yawn. They reminded Edd of the glass antlers on display in the late King Robert's hall. He dreamed of falling asleep and waking consumed by ice – grown into the Wall itself like one of its slaves. A common nightmare, he was told, among those that lived under its shadow. Some even claimed that they could hear whispers in the ice. Edd didn't know anything about whispers but he had seen things move through the forest without laying a finger on the world of the living.

Cub, two steps behind Edd, touched the ice. It existed in a parasitic symbiosis with the Wall, in the same way a fig scaled the limbs of a Weirwood. "She's still," Cub called out, and was immediately hushed.

"Quiet – you fool." Edd reeled around on the boy, nearly smashing him in the face with the torch. "You'll wake the fuckin' dead."

Cub understood that if he did not shut his mouth the other men would do it for him. Fear blurred their sense. He could feel it in the air between their breaths – a common thread that bound nations.

Two-thirds the way up the Wall the reach of the Nightfort's pyres expired leaving them to embrace the absolute pitch of a Winter night. The starlight was smothered by a layer of fog many hundreds of feet above. It undulated rhythmically, neither billowing nor breathing but rather held its ground as a snake shed its skin.

"There..." Cub stopped dead as his torch found a fresh reflection. At the edge of his flame, Cub strained to make out a black stain dripping down the Wall from an unseen source above. Thick slews of sap-like liquid unravelled through the natural grooves and ridges, congealing in places and racing through others. The men looked between each other but found no reasonable explanation.

Hesitant, they climbed higher while the stain grew wider, always shifting closer to the stairs. Then, finally, they came within arm's reach of the mysterious blemish. Edd leaned over and ran his fingertips through the muck. He brought it back to the light of his flame and saw that it was red against his glove.

"Blood." He said to the men, who cowered.

"A god has 'ere died-"

"There are no gods. If there were, you could not kill them. If you could kill them, they would not bleed like a goat." The Westerland thief growled.

"What the shit is this if not a god's savagery?" The pair of Crows bickered viciously.

Cub held his tongue as they jostled. He had seen his share of slaughter in the hills behind Dorne. A butchered animal left a vast river of blood on the forest floor if hung correctly but this was different. The mark on the ice stretched further East than they could see and vanished into the grey fog, glistening ominously like Death's mirror or the Sunset Sea under the eye of the moon. He could separate all the men in the castle from their limbs, string them along the lip of ice at the top of the Wall with their throats cut and still they'd not compete with what was on display. Gods or not, no man did this.

Eventually they reached the fog and felt it press, wet, against their faces. They climbed through guided by the feel of ice on their hands and the raging flames clawing out from their torches. Soon their clothes dripped and beards filled with frost. Forever they continued until finally the fog transitioned into a delicate mist and the top of the Wall emerged as a clean edge against the star filled sky. Perfect and clear, the temperature sank.

The bloody path continued – East and West, now silver in the starlight where it lay scattered over the top of the Wall before vanishing entirely. Either side the heavy fog slithered, impenetrable. The rest was quiet. There was no sign of anything except their own shivering fear.

"Best we go back inside," Edd breathed against the night.

"But – what did this?"

"No idea. Whatever it was, it ain' 'ere no more. There are plenty o' battles waitin' us. No need ter seek them out."

Cub was not so sure. He lingered at the frozen veneer of blood and looked West to the faint glow of the resurrected Icemark fort. How small its glow was, compared to their torches. To the Crows on its back, the Nightfort must appear equally hopeless. It was the Wall that kept the tides of hell from the frozen realm at bay. It was the watcher – the keeper – the shore upon which death broke. Cub was only a raven with his claws set into the perch, head crooked to the side, cawing.


KING'S LANDING – BLACKWATER BAY

A bronze stallion picked its way between droves of displaced survivors. Masses of people begged along the edge of the destroyed city. Many of them dropped to their knees in the stinking mud, exhausted by the enormity of their despair. Lost children moved in swarms. Riderless beasts grazed the plains to the East with their reins left to drag in the grass. Clouds of marchflies followed, biting through their coats at festering burns until they bled and the flesh congealed. Carts were piled together and turned into shelter among pieces of the Sept of Baelor which had been thrown clear across the field. A stone dragon head from its roof sat upside down with a broken jaw and one painted red eye looking back toward King's Landing. The edge of the Kingswood shifted restlessly as axes hacked through, steadily transforming it into kindling. The poorest were left to make their beds in the bowing reeds of the Blackwater Rush where they were concealed from predators by the seven foot stalks. All that was left for some was to pick over the rough shore and make soup from molluscs and bits of seaweed. Others waded into the water to drag corpses onto the beach where Red Priestesses lit the grey bodies and screeched prayers to their foreign god. Those that gathered in the light did so if only for the heat.

The messenger on the horse recoiled from the view, eyes wide. The sour stink caught in his throat. This was the great city. A ruin and yet it wasn't a shadow of the terror he'd feld from. King's Landing still called the wretched in from the realm and promised them hope even if all they found was each other.

Sweat ran off the muscular legs of his stallion. Its skin quivered. The rider pulled back on the reins causing it to whine where they wore into wounds. The beast steadied at the nine guards patrolling the Southern gate before trotting restlessly from side to side, wearing the mud dry as it waited for passage into King's Landing.


Loras Tyrell dragged himself reluctantly from the struggling gardens that rambled down the terraced beds of the Red Keep. New spurs of weed grew every day, thrusting out from fresh cracks in the stone. If it weren't for his constant tugging and cutting, they'd overrun the walls. Loras combed his hair with soiled fingers, gathering it over his ruined ear before sliding a flowered-pin in place. His grandmother told him to wear the injury with pride but he refused to give the ghosts of those Sparrow-shits the satisfaction. He clung to perfection as petals to their stamen and built himself a gilded fortress.

He passed by Varys, who'd taken to secluded sunny enclaves. Sometimes a few children scattered along the rock walls nearby, descending the eroded façade with a fresh bounty of whispers. Rebuilding his flock.

"For gods' sake, get some wood nailed over those windows. How do you expect to keep the rats out with holes Victarion could sail a ship through in the palace walls?" Loras snapped at one of the workers sweeping glass beneath a smashed window. A pointless exercise with the first wash of Autumn leaves rolling onto the floor from a gaping void in the stone. He softened as the man dipped his head, defeated. There was evidence of Cersei's tyranny in every set of eyes he passed. It was as easy to read as the poverty in their exposed bone. "Go to Lord Tyrion," he added, more gently. "He will give you gold enough to bring a carpenter and a mason then see to it that they pass by the town hall. If we freeze this Winter, we freeze together. If I have to open the doors of the Keep, so be it."

The windows were one thing – the devastated ceiling was a different matter. Loras stopped in the centre of the room and stared up at the bare sky. A few wisps of cloud raced toward the North, dragged by a swift wind. Maybe his instinct was right and they should have torn the whole bloody thing down and started again…

...except there wasn't time. Winter was coming. Even a man of The Reach could sense its shadow.

Loras found the messenger knelt on the cracked floor at the foot of the Iron Throne. Unshaven, dishevelled and stinking of the road, it was clear that the messenger had ridden several days atop one another to lay the thick scroll in his hand. Loras collected it silently. The leather casing was sodden from the storms ripping over the South-West, leaching into the first few turns of parchment.

"What is this?" Loras asked, turning over the scroll. There was no sigil embossed on the seal – only a pool of thick, red wax hastily abridging the join.

"My Lord, Tyrell-" the man began, his accent heavy of The Reach.

"Steward of the Realm, now..." Loras corrected, before inviting the man to his feet. It was only with the last vestige of strength that he was able to comply. "Am I to understand that you ride from Highgarden?"

"Yes, My Lord – Steward – from the battlefield at Horn Hill." The memory of it ghosted his face. "All that's there is done. Destroyed in an afternoon like I never saw before…" His words lingered with a sense of terrible amazement. "The new Lord Samwell Tarly asked that I place this in your hand."

Loras caught his nail under the wax and flicked it off onto the floor. The parchment unwound under its own weight. He knelt and let it unfurl across the stone, tumbling away from the throne to where the courtiers once assembled. Names. Three columns thick in a hurried scrawl. The missing and dead. Loras' hands trembled as if their broken swords breathed down upon his neck all at once. The Reach was his home. These names were his kin. In burying them he'd carved part of himself and placed it in the freezing mud. It was their blood, he realised, which his grandmother had used to purchase a shadow of the throne.

He turned his head to look upon the poisoned mess of steel.

"The Lord wrote them himself," the messenger added, breathlessly. "Did not sleep until it was done. He said that you would know what to do with it."

Slowly, Loras dipped his head. "Take this man to the kitchens and his horse to the stables," he quietly ordered one of the nearby guards, adding, "At once!" When he feared the rider may collapse and die at his feet. He was carried away.

Loras pressed his fingertips to his lips. They smelled of iron and salt. Lord Samwell Tarly was a boy he'd seen briefly on visits to Highgarden. All Loras could remember was that Tarly had been rather fond of his grandmother's books. Nothing at all to suggest that there was any truth to the stories leaking from the North that he'd felled a Whitewalker in single combat. Could it be that there was something of Randyll in him after all?

The Tyrell guards, with their pastel blue sashes shimmering in the firelight, remained in sight of Loras at all times. They were joined by a scattering of eerily silent Unsullied – though Loras suspected they were there to guard the Red Keep rather than his mortal flesh. The Queen had them stationed in rooms all over the palace – always standing motionless in perfect obedience. Sometimes he mistook them for statues or empty suits of armour left idle against a wall. No one had seen loyalty like this since the Conquest. Everything of late was based in passion. Robert's rebellion – the Blackfyre wars – petty feuds, they were affairs of the heart and as unstable as youth. This was different. Daenerys may have draped her Eastern warriors in crimson robes and buckled dragon breastplates over their armour but they remained foreign – to the land and to its customs. Despite claims of freedom, Loras had never seen men with heavier chains.

When he knelt to collect the scroll he noticed the eyes of his soldiers strain to read the names. Searching, Loras presumed, for kin among the dead. "Fear not," he promised them in a hush, "you'll have your chance to read this tragedy in full."


DRAGONSTONE – BLACKWATER BAY

Jorah spent most of the afternoon perched on an outcrop of volcanic rock that stretched hungrily into the bay, stopped by the sheer ferocity of the Blackwater. He knelt at the edge of the ghastly thing within reach of the spray. An onshore wind picked at his white cape, fanning it out behind him like the wings of a dancing lake bird. He faced East, thinking of Essos and the years he'd misspent warring through mindless battles. His memories skipped over the silver-tipped waves and died beyond the swell. There were scars on his flesh he couldn't account for. Places that flickered in and out of his mind before he could grasp hold of them. A few, he suspected, were not his at all. Especially those of fire breathing mountains collapsing behind Valyria and dragons falling from the sky to their deaths in the burning rivers.

Lately he dreamed of a red door in Braavos, cracked at the edges by layers of salt. He tried to open it – pulled the handle from its hold in the wood – beat his hands against the surface until they bled – slashed desperately with his sword but the door held fast. Instead, Jorah pressed his ear to the planks and listened. The sound of his father's quill scratched endlessly. Is that where he is? Jorah wondered. Do we finish our lives trapped in someone else's nightmare? Silent faces, keeping loops like the seasons of the world spiralling… Another wave curled up parallel to the shore. Its form faltered at the imperfections in the seabed beneath. A sunken warship appeared momentarily – the broken mast gasping at the dry air before foam and froth buried it once more.

The spray misted cold against his face. Jorah closed his eyes and returned to a night long ago, when a child of the Rhoyne had come crawling through the swamp with Varys' letter in hand. Such was his utter wretchedness at the time that he'd abandoned his fellow sellswords in the marsh to pursue Drogo's khalasar and oversee the slaughter of a young princess. Worse, he'd approached the slaughter with hope. The promise of home had blinded his honour. He swore never again to submit to those terrible seas where men lost their souls to violence. Jorah was bound, forever, to walk the edge of the shore and feel the lap of water against his boots while the Queen fished the oceans with her dragons. Valyrians, however well-intentioned, were bred of fire and blood. To love her was a sin against his honour but he knew all too well that his collapsed heart always vanquished over sense.

He despised revisiting his past but Varys' letter kept coming back to his mind like a faithful bird. That simple, callous letter…

Varys.

Jorah shifted his boots against the rock. What did the letter really teach him about Varys? In the absence of history, he was a man who could only be judged by his actions. The truest measure of a man, Drogo once bragged before his hoard of savages.

Varys served death with a smile.

Yes, Jorah had caught Varys slaughter Marwyn in a fit of madness but he suspected no one could tally the faces set into the sea by the Spider. Dozens. Hundreds? Who could know when there was no sword to bear the blood… There was no evidence to suggest he'd mended his ways so who, Jorah was left to wonder, did Varys set his smile upon?

It was a thought that kept him awake at night and restless in the daylight. If he truly served the realm as he claimed, why did poor Old Ned lay headless and the world in tatters?

Jorah dipped his head to stare at the tortured rock beneath his feet. It was stained by fire but lacked the oily residue of Asshai's monstrosities. He wondered if it had been tempered by the sea instead of magic. Hushed in a moment of chaos…

Standing, Jorah turned his attention on the interior of the island. Long ribbons of the same rock folded down the flanks of the Dragonmount, poured like honey until it had dripped into the water in bulbous forms. Clouds wandered regularly across the jagged summit, occasionally joined by smoke hissed from fissures that glowed orange at night. Between savage thrusts of uneven cliffs the forest thrived. Taken from a corner of Essos, its nature was unlike anything of mainland Westeros. The entire island did not belong on these Western shores. It was as though it had drifted across the seas and washed up in the bay like so many travellers had done over the centuries.

In truth, it reminded him of the broken waters of Valyria. Stories of The Doom followed Jorah from childhood. As a boy, he'd tried to heed his maester's words and imagine fire rolling over the ground like water while Valyria's great city sank into the hills – smashed to dust. Such things seemed impossible to a child of the North where the world had a tendency toward eerie stagnation. There were days upon days where the only sound in the forest was that of snowflakes tumbling onto naked branches.

Then he had sailed through the smoking wreck and seen its sorrow for himself. Now, with whispers of unfamiliar memory, Jorah finally understood that empires were as fickle as their kings. They could be broken, smashed and burned – drowned or stolen – even won with a decent hand.

The blood was not yet dry on Daenerys' reign and already carrion birds shuffled in from the hills.

A shriek floated across the air. Jorah stiffened. He heard it again. Cries reached out from the smouldering island.


Several hundred pirates scattered over the rocks like fleas on a dog's back. At their centre lay a deep, salt water pool fed by the moon tide. The dragonmount loomed impossibly high behind with its face buried in cloud. Patches of lurid jungle intruded. A torn net stretched abandoned at the edge of the water. A few crabs tugged at the knots, struggling against the sunlight, flipping over as they tried to escape.

A pair of Crabbers were tied to trees nearby. The old man had a head as bald as a river stone and sagged against his restraints. Wounds gaped on his legs, shoulder and neck. Part of his face was burned away but his eyes remained open in death, staring down the nearest pirate who sauntered toward the woman, wiping her husband's blood off his blade with a rag. She screeched desperately as the old man's body twitched. The sorrow of the sea ran from her, rattling through the world like the beads in her hair that clicked together in the wind.

Jorah was spotted immediately. Several pirates made sharp whistles then rose from their lookouts, hands menacingly hovering the pommels of their swords. Jorah ignored their hostility and continued on toward the despairing woman. He had not seen these pirates before but sense told him these were a single crew and the filthy creature taunting the old woman was their rogue captain.

"Hold steady there..." Jorah stopped within a dozen feet. He could hear the pirates closing in on him from behind but no one was game to raise a sword to the Queen's guard. Not yet.

"Move along, Andal. This here is none of your trouble. A private matter..." The captain replied, twisting his curved knife so that the sunlight picked out scars on the blade. He was easily as tall as Jorah but twice as heavy. A generous mix of muscle and fat were barely contained by a grey shirt which he left open to the waist. He kept a thick, red beard and tightly wound dreadlocks while one of his eyes was larger than the other with an oddly pale blue centre. It gave him a demonic air. A whisper, his men liked to boast, of the gods.

"Westeros is my business," Jorah replied firmly. "Who are these people?"

"Thieves." One of the pirates knelt down and freed a crab from the net, grabbing it from behind. The captain nodded in their direction. "This island and everything on it, is ours. Somethin' we're explainin' to these folk."

Crabbers, Jorah realised. They had probably been coming to the abandoned island for decades.

The men shifted, inching closer. Jorah didn't like the scent of insolence. There were more than twenty of them. If they were bold enough to swing a sword in his direction, they could easily be his undoing. "The man is dead," Jorah said carefully, "punished, I think you would agree, for any crimes trespassed. Let the woman go."

"These are not your terms to draft… Fuck off back to your demon queen," the captain's voice rolled along the air.

The woman began to sob. Jorah dared not look at her directly. "You, and all your men, are here by the grace of the Queen."

"The Queen is here by our grace," the captain darkened his tone, losing patience. He did not like to be questioned in front of his men. "Was our men that did her slaughter so that she didn't have to bloody her pretty Targaryen hands. Those flowery cunts held a few banners an' kept the look of honour, you might have even stained your sword but it was us that tore the heart from the empire. Butchered the wings off those Sparrows. Malevolent or not, they were men of the gods whom we offended by plucking their servants. Now – that pretty little child has her ugly fucking palace," he eyed the peaks of Dragonstone in the distance. They were indeed monstrous. "And she's most welcome to it. You, I hear, are most welcome to her as well. But this..." He opened his arms to the island. Spun gratuitously. "This is our domain. You ser, will kindly move along and let us be about our business."

Jorah considered drawing his sword. He itched to take the heads of such bastard men but even if he could vanquish the pack what then? If word spread of the slaughter to the remainder of the pirate fleet, Daenerys would have a vicious rebellion on her hands that may very well lose her the Capital or her life. The old woman must have sensed his reluctance for her sobs transitioned into terrified screams. She strained against the rope holding her in place, cutting herself in the futile grasp at freedom.

She should save her whispers for the gods, Jorah thought, as his hand lifted off Snowflake's pommel in a sign of surrender. Then, carefully, he stepped around the pirate captain and headed toward the howling woman. Her tears had worn clean tracks of skin down both her cheeks. Her rags were painted with faint impressions – sea creatures, Jorah realised, and other mythos from the water.

"P-ple-ease ser – please – I – please..."

"That's close enough, knight..."

Jorah stopped. The woman's incoherent ramblings blurred while her husband turned cold beside her. She was far from the first who'd begged for life at the end of Jorah's sword but perhaps she was the first that he had a true choice. He could save her. He could bloody the rocks with pirates. He felt the precipice of honour and annihilation beckon. And so he chose – not to. Dismayed, Jorah shook his head once then whispered to the woman, "Isse zȳhon lentor rȳ R'lyeh morghe kēlio umbagon qrimbughegon."

Silent tears struggled loose as the woman looked through Jorah's skin to his soul as if he were one of the world's demons, brought to ferry the dead across the water. In return she nodded, set her eyes upon the slip of pale blue water beyond and said no more.

"What the hell did you say to her?" The pirate captain demanded, as Jorah walked away.

"Old words..." Jorah replied. "May they stir the gods in your direction."


Lugg stooped to retrieve a Valyrian coin from the ash. It lay abandoned on the tunnel floor, kicked into a crevice by some careless foot. Deeper, his pirates chipped away at the dragonglass walls, filling wagons for the Queen that were rolled onto the wharves and poured into North-bound ships like black diamonds. Her horse savages stood on the decks, shovelling the glass chips. It came away from the caves in natural blades. The sound of pirate labour was a constant drone in Lugg's ear as he strolled through the tunnels. They worked like slaves instead of ravaging the seas as free men. Beneath their toil, the vast wealth they'd amassed waited safe beside the growing lakes of fire. Nothing escaped Lugg's attention on this island. Not a man, not a fucking Western gull. Certainly not coin which he flipped idly into the air to the temptation of fate. One face bore a flame with fourteen heads and the other the bust of an unknown queen.


CASTERLY ROCK – LANNISPORT

Victarion could always tell the contents of a ship by how low it hung on the water. Banners, sails, uniforms and paint – they were all false flags. He laughed while the lords of the realm wasted time advertising their allegiance, blind to the targets painted on their elaborate crests. Better to sneak through the shadows, unseen by man and god. To live as an island and take stone as heart.

You cannot kill a shadow, at least, that is what the Red Priestess he had locked in the dungeon rambled on about when his men gave her mortal flesh a chance to breathe. Her screams warmed Victarion's soul as they echoed within the sandstone monstrosity, following the spiral steps that reached from the highest tower of Casterly Rock all the way to the ocean caverns from which it was birthed. The priestess was tied a few inches above the high tide – shackled to the rock with the same chains his great-great grandfather had riled against for ten years. Despite appearances, Victarion cared nothing for revenge against the Lannisters. Cruelty wasn't even a competition. No. He indulged in the misery of others for the sake of it. Their screams pleasured the voids in his soul. He had pyres built and children burned in front of their parents to mock the Red God. He would follow the worms into the caverns of the earth if he thought he could bend the ear of sleeping evil.

Captured Lannister slaves pulled the curtains back so that Victarion could watch the ship wander into the harbour under the guise of a Southern fishing boat. It barely managed a blind man's pace with its hull sunk seven planks deeper than normal. The crew stood rigid, watching the waters like crows instead of folding nets and packing fish into the racks. He had several of his vessels sidle up to its flank and escort it to the docks.

"Early..." Victarion lofted an eyebrow, amused. "The empire must have unravelled faster than predicted if these shits are here. We should be sad, yes?" He asked his soldiers, who were too terrified to offer an answer. "To learn our bones were so fickle gives most men a moment's pause. No matter. The neck's well and truly snapped." Victarion sank deeper into the Lannister throne. He'd had the lion head sliced clean off and thrown into the harbour. The walls of their hall were painted black and filled with artisans from Kayce who pressed pieces of shell into the surface, creating spectacular tentacle patterns that twisted into a spiral. "Unload the gold and pay the men then promise them a second helping for every shipwright and sailor they bring back alive from our neighbours. If our hands are to be tied with golden chains, let us make use of the Crakehall mills and build ourselves a fleet… Anyone that wants to join our great venture – you be sure to drown them in the harbour. If they live, hand them a sword. If they die, cut those cunts into quarters and feed them to the tiger."

His man bowed low. "Of course – it's only..."

"Only what?"

"The tiger. It – Your Grace – this place is too cold."

Victarion shifted dangerously. Sometimes his eyes were as black as the pitch he had suspended along the walls. "That tiger was gift. Gifts are good fortune – except if they are allowed to die. You'll not let my tiger die, will you?"

"N-no..."

"Because if my tiger were to die I'd need to replace it – put something else in a cage and feed pieces of my enemies through the bars. Human flesh is a delicacy in many parts of the world."

A vision of himself gnawing on the flesh of his friends made the man cower to the ground.

"What of The Mother?" Victarion jolted.

The man steadied himself. The Salt King's mood was fickle. He feared for his life every time he breathed. "She's not been sighted for weeks. Last chart had her on the horizon off Sea Dragon Point but no ravens have made it back since she set out. No report from our spies at Bear Island either. Chances are, if she made it to Last Man's Bluff she's caught in unseasonal pack ice. Those waters are notorious for the ships they consume. Perhaps an overland-"

Victarion refused to accept such a pitiful fate. "Twelve of my best men are tightening her sails. There is no possibility they have steered into slurry."

"No one has sailed beyond the Frozen Shore and returned to tell the tale, my Lord."

"You are a fool to believe the maesters' lies. Do you imagine that the rumours in their library come from Wildling cunts and lost Crows? The Frost Fangs are impassible. Suggest it again and I'll make sure it is you that walks the grey peaks with a pack of wolves at your back. No. Someone sailed North. If they managed it a thousand years ago by the gods I'll do it again."

"Perhaps they had wings, not sails..." The man muttered softly. He flinched immediately, thinking Victarion would come down on him with force for speaking out of turn but the king had a wicked smile set in his misshapen lips.


KING'S LANDING – BLACKWATER BAY

The mass of people choking the streets of King's Landing parted at the sound of spears thudding rhythmically against the cobblestones. An official party of soldiers made their way through the ashen passage to the smoking Sept of Baelor. It rose from the peak of Visenya's Hill all wretched and destroyed with vast sheets of cloth tied to the remaining colonnades. A shanty market swarmed in the shade beneath, with baskets of dried crabs plucked from corpses washed ashore during the night. Some had tables of fruit stolen from the royal garden and others piled vats of Summer wine, selling it by the bowl to those with silver.

Loras led the procession, taking his men around the sept to the badly damaged but intact Alchemists Guild Hall. Pieces thrown from the explosion of the sept had taken chunks out of the hall's façade. Those lay in the road, diverting the crowd like pebbles in a stream.

"Tell the men to light the torches..." Loras commanded one of his soldiers. Then he waited, in full view of the public, deliberately encouraging them to converge on his position and whisper. He felt his guards shift uneasily at the baying crowd, whose voices began to lift in desperation. They demanded, in a dozen languages, for help and repatriation for the destruction of the city. To them, Loras said nothing, waiting instead with his eyes fixed upon the hall. The crowd inched closer. Hands dragged against his silk cape. They begged through tears, muddied with soot. Open wounds blemished their tanned skin. Loras could smell them turning foul. Many would be dead before the week closed. More still, before the first frosts. Their drone reached a fever until they sounded quite wild. All it would take to break the peace was the roar of one brave fool.

Then, one by one, the iron torches inside the Alchemists Guild Hall were summoned into life. Green balls, churned in the darkness like unnatural stars. The crowd stilled. All eyes averted to the gaping doors and the pitch beyond. Its innards were made of black marble and its columns forged from even blacker dragonglass mined from an ugly scar on the Western edge of the Dragonmount. Wildfire spiralled violently – both fascinating and terrifying to the people, many of whom bared scars of melted flesh.

Now that they were quiet, Loras stepped onto an overturned crate. Lifted above the crowd, he raised his arms as they did and let them see his blood stained bandages.

"I beg you, calm..." And to his surprise, they settled. Perhaps it was exhaustion but if Olenna's suspicions were correct, the people craved a little grit in their leaders. It was the chief reason, she had preached when they were young, that lords followed lions and wolves into battle. "Many of you have seen the fires burning in the South-West. I have heard some express fear that the great grasslands of the lower Reach have been set alight – that is not so. Nor have the sacred streets of Oldtown been pillaged by the pirate Victarion. His wars and his ships remain in Lannisport occupying Lannister lands and there have been no ravens to suggest they intend to sail South. The smoke rising from the edge of the Dornish Marches comes from the battlefield between Horn Hill and Highgarden. It is true that my liege lord Tarly thought to destroy the green heart that feeds this city and truly their retribution would have left all of you turn to bone right here, among the ash. Randyll and all his bastard men would gladly have seen you starve. They laughed at your terror and drank wine to your demise. The smoke that you see rise above the Kingswood is what remains of the disloyal. Of the treacherous. Of those that would defy the realm."

It was only then that Loras brandished the parchment. "But it is known that we are one empire under the Sunset Sea. We are the land of slumbering gods, ancient pacts and shared blood. I am not blind to your grief. We, all of us, have friends among the fallen. Brethren who followed obediently those to whom they were sworn. There is no shame in their fight and no punishment beyond their vanquish. These," he thrust the scroll higher into the air, "are the names of your dead. Of our dead. The new Lord Samwell Tarly has written them in his own hand so that you may know the names of the lost and honour them in accordance with the old ways. I will leave this list on display in the guild hall and beside it my scribes will take another list of your names. Of those you lost here in the city. Henceforth, across the realm, we remember the dead for our silver queen speaks the truth. There is a new war upon us. The Great War. The war between the living and the dead. I know you feel it. Dusk drags its feet. The morning waits before stirring. There is frost on the Gate of the Gods. More than that. I doubt any of you has escaped the stories in the North. They travel the Kingsroad faster than ravens.

"There will be seven days of mourning declared, beginning now. One," Loras drew another breath, taking care to project his voice over the shocked masses, "for each of the gods we have here offended. On the eighth day we shall meet again in the old Dragonpit. There, citizens of the Capital, all secrets will die and you will see the world as we see it. Then you may judge our actions and may the Old Gods and the New be with you."

A chorus of shock broke out as Loras stepped off the crate and headed directly into the Alchemists Guild Hall. His personal guard followed, closely shadowed by the first hoard of people. The cavernous hall arched over them, its buttressed roof almost indiscernible from the darkness while its featureless gave it all the charm of a tomb. Along the Gallery of Iron Torches, the Wildfire cast a soft, flickering glow over the mourners, leaving them with mer-ish features and unnaturally black eyes.

The people queued for days on end to check the list. It had to be copied and set in other places in the city and all around people collapsed against the city walls, howling at the names they read. Then, those that could, whispered names of their own to the scribes. Lists bore lists. Sorrow flowed through King's Landing as if Loras himself had slit its throat.


Varys' fury knew no bounds as he stormed the tiered water garden where Loras waited. He paced and screamed, threatening all manner of things – to which Loras offered no explanation or apology. With the Queen locked away on Dragonstone overseeing the shipment of dragonglass as promised to the North, there was little Varys could do about the Tyrell's seeming loss of sense.

"You try!" Varys all but threw the city ledger, when he was alone with Tyrion. It was as though the wails ebbing through the air clawed at his mind.

Tyrion caught the book and set it safely on the desk. He feared Varys' skin might peel of at any moment and birth some form of shadow demon, such was the extent of his madness. Unravelling, that's what Tyrion feared of his co-council. "I did try," Tyrion insisted. "I went and spoke with Loras as you asked and he told me exactly the same thing as you. Which was, admittedly, not much… He did accept a pitcher of wine so there is some hope for his sanity."

The calm in Tyrion's voice angered Varys almost as much as his ambivalence. "Is he punishing us for what the Tyrells lost in the war? This is Olenna. Only she could be so flippant with our lives and pass on the credit."

"Calm yourself, Varys." It was exhausting being near the ranting advisor. "Olenna is busy with the Dornish. Whatever our Flowery Knight is up to, I dare say he hatched the idea himself. Look – look," he implored the panicked man, whose veins pulsed so close to the surface of his skin they might yet burst through. "Loras is not a stupid creature. You might never have thought much of his talents but aside from lacking ambition, I've not seen anything to suggest malice or disproportionate risk. Whatever you think he's doing, I suspect you are wrong."

"I am never wrong." Varys insisted, despite the sentiment being demonstratively falsifiable.

"This is the final day of mourning," Tyrion opened the ledger and smoothed the page down with his hand. "Tomorrow we'll hear the end of it, one way or another. Then, if we're still fucked, I'll dust off my axe and meet him in the pit. There – a smile. You can enjoy a few moments of levity before I lose my head."

"The blade's come close a few times." Varys pointed out, to which Tyrion merely winked. "The Queen is a fool to ignore Tyrell." Varys continued. "It is all well and good to take up in her family castle while the Red Keep remains a wreck but she forgets that this ruin of stone is a symbol. The people won't like her abandoning it, Tyrion. They won't like it at all. I don't know what's wrong with Daenerys but every step she takes of late makes her look more and more the foreign conqueror and less like the realm's salvation. What does the Mormont say? He can't possibly agree. He was always a bit of sense at her side."

"Mormont doesn't say anything of late. Never said much in the first place..." Tyrion flinched at the thought of a Mormont backhand. "Disapproving looks were more his area. Last I heard he was wandering the shores of the island alone while the pirates run rampant. They've started killing fisherman that trespass on the rocks and indulging in nightly raids as far as Claw Isle to snatch women. Things could always be worse, Varys. At least you haven't got fucking Victarion tearing your home apart. There are hundreds of the Ironborn shits in Lannisport. They've all but taken the town hostage and no one will send help because it suits the Crown to keep Victarion busy, as far away from here as possible. My entire history is being raped and turned into gravel but you don't see me abusing the official archives."

"I am sorry about your home," Varys offered, almost honestly. "But Loras is destabilising the empire with grief."

A quiet thought crossed Tyrion's mind. One that made his scarred face curl slightly in amusement. "Wasn't it you that told me once, oh gods, long ago now when we used to take our walks along the sea wall, that grief is a more powerful unifier than fear?"

"I was speaking of love," Varys exhaled quietly. "You misquote me and that wall is in the sea."

"No," Tyrion insisted, "they are cut from the same stone. Love makes misery of us all. Give the boy a chance before you feed him to the dragons. We cannot burn every ambitious face in the realm or we'll be left with cowards and thieves."

Even as Tyrion said the words, his thoughts drifted to the Night's Watch. Cowards, thieves, murderers, bastards and the rest.

Tyrion plucked the ledger from the table. "Might – might actually need this," he ventured, quietly. "If we're all still breathing tomorrow afternoon. Best of luck. To both of us."

"Forgive me if I'm not brimming with confidence."


On the morning of the eighth day the centre of the Dragonpit had been cleared. The pyre of Sparrows was replaced by a thick carpet of purple flowers – weeds picked from the surrounding fields. They were knee deep, deposited by Unsullied, Tyrell and Dothraki soldiers who had worked through the night. Upon arriving, the people of King's Landing were given a stem each and told to walk out the main entrance, down The Street of Sisters which, with its swaying bowers of Ironwood, remained the most beautiful promenade in the realm. At the end, where it met Trader's Square, they were to turn left and walk back along the Street of Flour which passed through the scraps of Flea Bottom.

Their journey ended at a staircase, fanning them along the city wall overlooking Blackwater Bay. Where it had collapsed, people rambled over the rocks and perched like gulls. It was a natural amphitheatre, embracing the beach where Loras Tyrell stood. His words vaulted the cliffs, gaining volume with an ominous vibrato that left Loras sounding like the Storm god made flesh.

Varys and Tyrion watched on, blanketed by bored Dothraki who squatted down, wrapping lengths of coloured twine around the handles of their knives.

"I have not brought you to the banks of Blackwater to throw your hearts into the sea or to stand on the walls of the city with tears and scars. You are not here to rage against Fate's storm for what are we but transient ships passing the Narrow Sea from one world to the next?"

With the skies clear they could see sails meandering along the horizon.

"In Highgarden, life is never more evident than in death's wake-less sleep. When the vines curl and wither at the end of Summer, their fruit sits in the press turning into wine. Becoming something new. No. As your keeper, I invite you to look upon the waves..." Loras turned his head, catching his long, golden hair. The sun shone through it like a crown. "Remember, for your children and theirs that are yet to be born, the white trim of salt that cuts the endless grey. Remember how the tide rises up against the wall with the dawning of the moon. Remember the catch you heave onto your trawlers and bury in the fire pits. Remember the sound of the surf in the fiercest storm and how the water hits the stone so hard you fear the Keep itself will crumble into the sea to join the old gods at their feast. Remember the sea fondly, in all its treachery and violence, for we have reached the first dawn of Winter. White ravens have arrived from Oldtown. They have shed their feathers upon the North. The Winter that breathes upon us brings more than short days and early frosts. Doubtless you have heard the stories well I tell you now, from the Queen's lips to mine, I swear to you that what you've heard whispered shall now be shouted in the street.

"The dead are coming.

"Many of you were here when the last Lord of Winterfell lost his head in the square. Old Ned Stark – the hero of King Robert's war – trusted most truest friend – a man whose veins ran more honour than blood – came South to warn us. Now he son has come. A man of the Watch. Some call him Snow, others – Jon. I tell you true I have seen the bastard's scars myself. He died upon the Wall. Days he lay, cold as ice and many men set their eyes upon his corpse. The Red god brought him back. He rose, from fire, as our Queen Daenerys birthed her dragons in her husband's funeral pyre. These two leaders are brought into the world together. Woken from death. That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons, even death may die."

"The sun and the stars..." Murmured the people, in response to the Faith's prayer.

"Your Queen is on Dragonstone filling ships with black glass. When they are full her armies and her dragons are North-bound. She does not go to fight the Starks. She does not go to slaughter the men of the Neck or the Barrowlands. She is at peace with the Vale of Arryn and the Riverlands. I, and all my liege lords of the Reach, march beside her Eastern allies. The Dornish you see stand in front of you placing flowers in the sea."

And so they did. A group of scarlet clad, Dornish guards moved into the waves and laid a wreath of purple weeds. Nothing but a show, thought Varys cruelly, even though real tears marked the eyes of the soldiers.

"Who then, you ask, does this Queen seek with her ships and dragons? The Mormonts of Bear Island? Their man stands at her side. The Wildlings, then, who sneak into our lands through the cracks in the Wall? Their king eats in the halls of Winterfell… What then? Who then?" He demanded an answer of the crowd.

"The dead..." Loras thundered. Every time the words left his lips, the crowd swayed closer. Soon, he would have them. "Daenerys Stormborn is the daughter of a tyrant." A rustle of hisses. "Good King Robert, who brought you peace is to be honoured, by her will, with the Baratheon name enshrined upon the glorious new sept. Daenerys, Mother of Dragons, has restored our peace with Dorne and the North. She has freed us from the incestuous reign of Cersei and her bastard children. Daenerys, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, has no children but her dragons. This is not the resurrection of the Targaryen empire. You are not to be ruled forever by unquestioned terror. Our Queen, glorious is her name, sent me here as proof that power is not your blackened swords beneath her arse. Power is the realm which she has combined for one purpose only – to survive.

"Now look again, my friends, and remember the water. Soon it will sleep as still and white as death, locked against your shore. Snow will fall in place of rain. Then, when you are used to the silence of ice, you will hear the dead marching over the Crownlands. All your neighbours, blue-eyed and lifeless, will take up arms. Remember then that you stood here with a chance. A moment between the waves. Throw the Tumbleton Tears into the waves and with them, your fear."

They obeyed, compelled by his propaganda to toss the weeds into the sea. From below, Loras' heart stirred. Around him the flowers fell as purple rain. Some landed on his face, grazing his cheeks before slipping into the water.

"Your flowers are gone." Loras said, when they had finished. "Your dead are gone. We are the living. Turn – face your city," Loras waited as the mass of people shuffled shoulders and looked, as newborns, upon King's Landing. "Rebuild her walls – higher than before. Use your hands to make them grow, as the Gardeners of old tilled the unwilling land. Do not stand here idle while your brothers and sisters in the North grasp their swords and face the snow. Their days of terror will soon be your nightmares if we do not come together and support this war. This seeming peace will crack apart and fill with poisoned fog – like The Sorrows and their haunted waters. Your bones must not stain the sky and stand, in the terrible hive of malevolence, for years that cannot be counted."


Varys leaned against the stone wall that looked out to the bay. It was the only place he found calm although he did have a tendency to shuffle further down the garden tiers. The Red Keep made his skin crawl. Part of him wished he'd let it burn to the ground. "He played them like a song..."

"Are you all right?" Tyrion asked delicately. "You look as though you've had a stroke."

"The gods have never shown me such kindness. Imagine that… To vanish in an instant like drawing a curtain across the sun."

"Loras turned the city around to the Queen's cause, Varys. You have to be happy with that."

His head dipped. Fine wisps of silver hair, barely visible, caught the light around the base of his neck. There were tiny purple petals all over the city, stuck in the cracks like amethysts. "Your cheer for the human spirit is admirable, Lord Tyrion."

"Lord?" He scoffed. "Gosh… You have suffered, my friend. I am not lord of anything anymore."

"Young Loras painted himself King, in everything but name. The people see him as their spirit and this little theatrical display which we were witness to was a spectacular dance – a battle of rose petals designed to undermine our cause with a smile."

"You trouble me… The Queen made a promise that after her there would be no kings. That is precisely what Loras conspires toward. I do not understand your frustration. Everything you wanted is-" Tyrion was interrupted by Varys' cruel laughter.

"You cannot fight human nature." Varys lamented. "Even savages have kings. Even the free cities have kings by a different name."

"But – you agreed with the Queen's wishes… Signed off on her ambitions. Fuck's sake, Varys. It was you that drew up the framework for the future of the realm!"

"What persuades you that I share her ambition to break the wheel and send the cart tumbling into the sea? There waits chaos. Dark gods. Death and misery for a thousand years until someone comes along and builds another wheel. No, Tyrion. When the Queen marches North I fully expect Loras to burn those papers and scatter the ashes of her dream into the wind." He paused. "Loras' ambition is not what frustrates me. Empires are won and lost with the work of a moment. We must be very careful. Loras has realised his power sooner than I expected. He must not be allowed to wield it until Daenerys is safely in the North."

Tyrion rather thought he should take more care with Varys. "This is madness. If the risk is so great we should remove Loras."

"And replace him with…? There is always someone worse waiting in the wings. Olenna is not worth crossing, especially with her granddaughter in bed with Dorne. Gently – gently, Tyrion, or the ice will crack beneath us."

"This, I take it, is why they call you, 'The Spider'. Are we all moths stuck to your threads, Varys? Do you spin us lies to sell us truth?"

"You compliment me… Even the smallest child may break a web."

It was a pleasant afternoon. The smoke cleared and most of the wreckage washed out to sea. The stench of death had lifted. In truth, the city smelled better than it had in years with all the decay of poverty burned away by the fire. Right on schedule, the wagons of food from The Reach arrived at the Western gate and the four largest granaries re-opened. There would be bread in the hands of the poor by nightfall.

"Earlier," Varys continued, much calmer, "you asked me about my mother and I was rude. It is only natural, I suppose, to wonder about the lives of others. I made a life's work of curiosity."

Tyrion noticed Varys' eyes had a gloss as they looked over the edge of the horizon. Whatever he was searching for, he didn't find it. "Varys, you don't have to-"

"When she was pregnant, my mother had a vivid dream about a boy standing in the waves, staring up at a burning shore. The ground moved and the waters ran black. A blood moon rose from of East then she turned to hear the cry of dragons. The fright sent her into early labour and when I was born she swore that the eyes from the dream were the same as her newborn. I was cast out." Varys shook his head. "I wish she had drowned me in the sea. For a long time I felt that I was better set beneath the waves."

"What changed?" Tyrion asked.

He shook his head a little. "Me. I decided that our lives are not whispered from the smoke in some mad-man's fire. They are ours. We are creatures that live and breathe and choose what we become. I'll not see this world burn, Tyrion. Nor will a faceless god dictate my future."

Which explained, Tyrion realised, why Varys was all too keen to enlist the help of godfearing assassins. He enjoyed having power over Fate, even if it was only through vassals. "And your mother? Did you find her when you returned to Lys?"

"I did not look." Varys lied.

"Varys..." Tyrion murmured gently, wishing he was tall enough to lean on the stone. He was about to say something he'd no doubt regret when they were interrupted by Loras. Tyrion withdrew, sidestepping the Tyrell before ducking into the next sheltered garden.

Loras took pains to emulate royalty with his silk sash and polished armour. Varys reciprocated with the barest effort, hardly bothering to dip his head in greeting.

"I admit," Varys opened carefully, when Loras stared at him coldly without comment, "congratulations are in order. The city is raised from the ashes – or will be soon. One can almost hear the chisels from here."

"Did you truly believe that I'd allow the realm to be fucked?" Loras tilted his head. As he did, his blonde hair fell away from his ear, leaving his horrific scar on show. There were other scars hidden beneath his fine clothes that he'd never show the world. This strange foreign man knew every corner of his soul second hand. "Of course you did..." He answered before Varys had the chance to lie. "For all your whispers you know nothing about the Tyrells. Perhaps it is because we were so far down your list you did not have time to pick us apart. Let me help you. We value life above all else. To live – that is what we worship. The Summer rains and the harvest moon. Even if I was a rash, ambitious lord you forget that I have seen with my own eyes the absoluteness of defeat on offer. The Queen likes to think that she rules by divine right or a morbid bastardisation of love but I tell you, Varys, it is fear that rules the people of Westeros. They are fucking terrified of her. Every last one. And so am I. Their swords are frozen at their sides. If an eagle shrieks too loudly in The Reach, the lords shit themselves and barricade their castles. She is the white dove of Winter which the maesters scour the sky for and pray never to see."

Varys did not have a reply to the young lord.

"So you see," Loras finished, all charm, "you know nothing of me but I know you. The next time you want something killed out of sight of the Queen, best take care not to throw it in the sea. The tides have a way of bringing our sorrows back."


DRAGONSTONE – BLACKWATER BAY

Dusk lingered long after the sun set behind the distant mountains of the Westerlands. Jorah kept to the shore, treading carefully in the field of uneven boulders collected at the base of Dragonstone. He could hear the castle above. The wind made a distinct, sorrowful sound as it grazed along the fin-like outcrops of rock that made its flanks impossible to scale. First and foremost, it was a fortress.

All manner of terrible creature had been crafted into its hide. Even the entrance to the sewers yawned beneath a sightless wyvern. A giant octopus latched onto a building within, unfurling its tentacles into the barren terraces while its head formed the dome of the abandoned sept. Valyrians did not build like the Westerosi, brick-by-brick. This stone had first been melted then fashioned by magic leaving it to sweat grease.

The blow hole on the other side roared to life. Jorah stopped at a purple weed trapped beneath the stones at his feet. He smiled warmly at the spark of colour. Another struggled nearby. There were half a dozen more behind it. Jorah lifted his head and looked toward the water to see a thousand lost flowers washing up with the salt-froth and a thousand more littered in the waves, rising and falling like an unkempt field.

Blackwater Bay's grey waters were painted mauve and there, in the shallows, stood Daenerys.

Jorah muttered furiously under his breath. He unhooked his pair of swords and dropped them to the beach as if they were nothing. His white cape followed – whipped over in the wind while he waded into the water, shouting her name.

The swell quickly rose to his waist. Flowers brushed by, catching in his shirt while the pull of the tide threatened to drag him ever deeper. Beneath his boots, rough pieces of rock slid uneasily with his weight. There was an uncharacteristic bite of ice to the bay which had already turned the Queen's flesh white.

"Daenerys!" Jorah struggled – pushed back by the awkward break of waves. One hit his face. Another the back of his head as he turned away. None of them moved the Queen from her reverie. Her braid floated on the surface of the water, snaking around in her wake. Bronze arm bands held her flesh like iron confined a torch's flame.

"There are sharks in these waters, khaleesi," Jorah warned, hoping to stir her. Finally he was close enough to wrap his arm around her waist but it was like capturing driftwood. She tossed and bucked with the water. At first he feared that she was trapped in another one of her dreams, unable to hear his pleas but Daenerys' eyes were open. She held one of the purple flowers in her outstretched hand and looked toward the pink blur of King's Landing.

"There are flowers in the water." Her voice trembled.

"You are freezing..." Jorah attempted to tug her into the shallows but she resisted.

"I have had cataclysmic nightmares since we came here," she continued, softly. "I used to dream of endless sheets of ice under a night sky whose stars refused to move but now – now sometimes I imagine that the whole world is burning… I am at the heart of a pyre – looking out. Screaming but..." But nobody answered her screams.

"They are only dreams, khaleesi. Quaithe warned you in Asshai."

"Alass 'ul sia..." She murmured, at the end of a breath.

"And those are not your words."

Daenerys turned in her knight's arms. A line of flame burned like blood at the shore, taunting her waking hours. "It is not a dream," she replied, as the vision flickered in and out of reality. "It's a warning – a – a – we cannot stay here – we..." Or maybe this was the past and, as with Valyria, death had come and gone. She could not keep the world straight...

The imaginary flames collapsed into smoke and took her with them. Daenerys sagged in the water, nearly vanishing beneath a hungry wave if it weren't for Jorah lifting her into his arms.

Her weight sagged onto his chest. She kept the flower, crushed against her heart. "What's wrong with me?" She begged, grasping for his embrace against the sea.

"What are you doing to me?" He countered, as he carried her through the sea. It made hostile attempts to tear him into oblivion, lifting waves to crash on his back. The water ran harmlessly through his armour. "Every day I fear that I will find you broken on the rocks – or drowned. These visions tempt you into harm." His failure to protect her was inevitable.


An Unsullied guard stirred the fireplace into life, thrusting the poker under the pine logs to a dazzling storm of embers. Many fell on the black stone where they were suffocated into soot. A thick woollen rug sprawled at a safe distance with a pair of ancient sea-chairs holding its edges in place. Jorah spurned them both, preferring to sit directly on the rug – closer to the flame. Daenerys was draped over his chest. Unconscious, her head sagged against his shoulder. One of her Dothraki women fussed, wrapping a shawl over her exposed skin. Jorah wiped the last bead of water from her skin as she stirred.

"Gently, Your Grace," his voice rode the air, warming her flesh as much as the fire.

Her hand tightened on his thigh. She opened her eyes, expecting to see the sea. The sparse, dreary contents of her room replied. There was nothing joyful about this place.

"W-why did we build such a misery?" She struggled with the oppressive nature of the castle. Part of her longed for the flaps of hide erected on the sand.

"I imagine it was built for a purpose," he replied, holding her tightly, "and that purpose was not beauty. There are places like these in the North and we are glad of them when the snows fall too heavy to pass. Beauty can be found in a good set of walls and kindled fire if the world outside is fierce enough."

"I thought it would be home." Daenerys was mistaken. Home were the white islands of Braavos and their towering limestone cliffs. The glittering blue waters and the ferocious mountains that trailed into the heart of Essos. She sat up and pulled away from him slightly. "Varys advises that I remain on Dragonstone until the marriage is settled between the Tyrells and the Dornish throne. Two weeks of hell. Stability be damned… I cannot stay in this place."

"Khaleesi I-"

"Or in the Keep," she cut him short, sensing his next words. "As Tyrion wishes. That is worse. I brought those walls down myself. Everywhere I look there's death. I – I think I shall go mad."

"Your visions are getting worse..."

She nodded slowly. "The day will come when I'll not be able to tell the difference but it is not only the visions. The childish dream of a throne has turned into a massacre. I cannot even count the names but I can hear them, shrieking from the place beyond death. Your father did his best to teach Viserys and me about war. How stupid we were..." she shook her head. "We idolised the butchery. Killing comes easily to me, Jorah. I fear I have a talent for it."

"I beg you, do not cry," Jorah shifted so that she was sitting against him, her tears falling on his cheeks.

"I don't think they're my tears..."

"If this were about a throne," Jorah replied, "then I may agree. I have seen tens of thousands die in pointless wars. Targaryen, Baratheon, Lannister – the common people do not care who sits the throne so long as the weather holds. Those days are gone. Loras has convinced the Capital that you came to these shores to fight a war against Death itself. Bloodshed can be justified. I would and have killed a thousand men to see you sit here tonight."

Daenerys studied his face before lifting a hand to trace the line of his jaw. Jorah had the look of the eternal – an echo of the Northern men who'd come before. "Then Loras will understand why I must go North."

Pressed, he was forced to add, "Without Daario, what can be done with the pirates? I am loathe to leave them within spitting distance of King's Landing."

"We risk it. The wealth of the empire is already in their possession. There's nothing left to steal."

"Pirates desire more than gold..." Jorah replied carefully.

Daenerys failed to heed his warning. Instead, she left his embrace entirely and moved to the other side of the room. She draped herself in a purple nightgown gown with a wolf trim dragging on the stone. Then she set her mother's tiara back in her hair, preferring the illusion of regalia which she used like armour. "My nephew is not what I expected."

The comment took Jorah by surprise. He pushed himself up from the floor and moved into a nearby chair instead. His skin was sticky with salt leaving him to rub his fingertips together subconsciously. "He has a Northern look about him – more of his Stark mother. I wager that is what kept him alive."

"His heart is Stark as well," she added. "I don't know what I was hoping for. A ghost of Rhaegar?" Daenerys flinched. "How foolish it was to think I might come to know a dead sibling through a child that never met his parents. I'd sooner learn about my father by looking in the mirror."

Jorah collected Dawn from beside his chair and laid it across his knees. His fingers dipped into the empty claws where the gem Daario carried was meant to go. Quaithe had kept the relics apart. At least for now he took that as a sign the main war remained in the distance. There was comfort in that. "Why don't we meet Loras half way. Support his caretakership and make a show of leaving. It would be better if they saw your dragons calm."

"You mean, more like horses..."

"Rather than fire-breathing beasts, yes, that would be wise. People love dogs, not wolves."


Another day glistened across King's Landing. Repairs had begun on the Eastern wall and for once the air was filled with the reassuring chink chink chink of honest work. Filled with purpose, the city calmed, ready to receive its Queen.

Daenerys readied herself inside the Keep while Varys and Tyrion cornered Jorah.

"Steady…" Jorah eyed them, as if they were a pair of ravens.

Varys leaped in first. "She is insufferable."

"The Queen," Jorah corrected, calmly. "And disagreeable is the word I'd choose if I wanted to keep my head in place."

"Politics takes time," he was far from diverted, "rushing wildly about threatens to ruin everything we have planned. Do you know how long it has taken me to fashion a peaceful match between Dorne and the rest of the realm? Do you! Ten years, that's how bloody long."

"Calm yourself, Varys." Jorah insisted. "There is no reason to fret about the marriage. Dorne has nothing to gain from breaking peace now. The Queen's presence is neither here nor there."

"Literally..." Tyrion quipped jovially, and was immediately chastised with a Varys-glare. "Sorry, it is only, you do have a tendency to panic. I agree with Mormont. The quicker we get these dragons out of the city, the better for everyone. My only worry is your apparent reservation. Your glower is darker than usual."

"That is not on account of the Queen," Jorah assured them. "Actually, this is why I have asked to see you before the parade. One or both of you will have to remain in King's Landing while we travel North with the army." Neither of them were particularly enthused by the idea. "All volunteer at once, then."

"Well Tyrion obviously cannot stay," Varys finally admitted, then had to explain, "in case you cross paths with Jaime. He is useful alive."

"How do you think that is going to play out when he hears I killed Cersei?" Tyrion lofted his eyebrow at Varys, who was forced to shrug. Lannister politics were a mixed bag.

"His mood may improve when he hears that you saved Tommen." Varys tried.

"My nephew may be dead-"

"He doesn't know that you think that."

"All right – quiet," Jorah was almost forced to separate them. "The point is, Varys you must stay here and keep an eye on Loras. When the marriage is done, send word and for gods' sake, make sure the peace pact is set in stone. Tyrion, prepare to leave in the morning. Daenerys will make a show of flying off after the parade but she intends to return to Dragonstone for one more night. The fleet we leave here with Daario's men."

"The – pirates..." Varys clarified.

"You'll also have the company of Tyrell and Dornishmen."

"Do we sail North or ride?" Tyrion asked. "I've had enough of boats."

"Ride. The Queen must fly her dragons and it is best to do that overland – for the Dothraki horses too. The seas of the North are icing up. Soon those passages may be closed to us."

"Pretend that I agree with you," said Varys. "I shall stay here on one condition – you tell me what has you glancing nervously out the window with every second word."

"The pirates have been on Dragonstone for several weeks. They mine dragonglass with surprising efficiency – hunt and fend for themselves. In many ways they are less trouble than a regular army-"

"-but..."

"-they have begun to stray into violent ways. Kidnap. Torture. So far they have kept their activities away from King's Landing but you'd be wise to have the army keep regular watch of them."

"Good thing the Golden Company are on their way," Varys replied casually.

Tyrion's eyebrows lifted. "I am definitely going North. If you ask me to choose between the army of the dead and a Company man I'll take the sack of bones."


Daenerys emerged onto the city streets at the head of a sprawling crimson dress inlaid with silver panels of spun silk. It trailed more a dozen feet behind her with the Targaryen sigil of three black dragons encircling each other sewn into the centre. Her mother's crown sparkled in the sunlight as if it were a halo. Despite all of Loras' posturing, there was no question on the lips of the people as to who held the throne.

Her beauty startled Jorah, freezing him in place as she strode toward the wooden platform constructed especially for her to watch the parade working its way through the city below.

"Mormont," asked Tyrion, "have you ever seen such a thing?"

"Only in dreams..." He breathed, to which Tyrion risked a smile. A man would have to be dead not to falter. Even Varys, it seemed, clasped his sleeves in distraction.

Her three dragons perched on the central tower of the Red Keep. Rhaegal occupied the highest position leaving Drogon lazing on the bridge at the bottom and Viserion half way up the tower, knocking bricks free with his careless claws. Daenerys could see the appeal of the dragonpit but swore never again to chain her dragons.

Beneath, the thrum of the parade closed in. The crowd waved bouquets of river-weed, shaking it through the air to make a hiss. Then, cutting its way through the centre of the procession, Daenerys saw an elaborate mummer's dragon held up with poles, swaying back and forth. Its painted face howled in silence. Its body danced erratically. Its wild black eyes bore through her soul as she remembered the words from The House of the Undying.

Jorah saw it too and shifted his gaze nervously toward her.

Prophecy had a will of its own.


EASTWATCH BY THE SEA – THE WALL

Littlefinger watched on in horror as the cage suspended from a wooden mast beside him was drenched in seal oil and set alight by a baying crowd of foreign savages. They screeched in delight as the iron became a torch and the prisoner inside fitted violently, screaming at the top of his lungs as his flesh peeled off. Smoke welled up and drifted into his own cage – which was still on the ground. Tears rushed from his eyes as he curled into a ball, attempting to remain inconspicuous on his perch.

Finally, after several minutes the terror ended and the Crow became a shadow in the flame. The group warmed themselves in the remaining heat. At first he thought they were all men brought from the East by the dragon queen but at least two of them were Skagosi fishermen from the nearby island. An accord must have been reached because another group carried part of a whale carcass toward Eastwatch castle.

Littlefinger wretched at the stink of smouldering flesh. All his life he'd kept his distance from violence – ever since he'd felt the edge of Stark's sword cut to his bone. He averted his gaze from the filth of human savagery. He could not decide what disturbed him more – the depravity of his kin or the acknowledgement that he was perfectly capable of following suit.

The ice beneath his cage trembled. It was so soft he almost didn't notice. Nobody else did. Littlefinger looked past the assortment of fires burning around the castle and droves of people returning from the harbour to the Wall dwarfing them all. To the West of Eastwatch, a small avalanche of snow was flowing like a Spring fountain, dislodged by the quake. Some of the cracks were longer and several had new branches. Then Littlefinger cast his eye all the way East to where the ice met the water and noted the pile of white rubble collecting in the shallows. The Wall had been disintegrating for years, possibly decades, crumbling at the edges where no one was looking.

It was an unbolted door on a whorehouse.

He was about to speak up when an Easterner slammed his cage with the flat side of an axe. The shock threw him to the other side, nearly toppling it over. Fresh laughter. Another whack of the axe on the bars.

"Not that one..." A guard half-heartedly protested.

"Fuck not?" The protest came in bastardised Valyrian.

"Prince said no."

"He's not our prince. Bloody pretender. Nearly dead anyway. Who gives a shit?"

"You're not wrong, my brother," the guard tensed at his spear, "but our lord sent us here with honour."

There were no flames left on the other corpse but the chain glowed red. Littlefinger found himself captivated by the fire trapped inside the metal links. He was too frightened to pray. What god would listen? All he had were the bars against his flesh and the promise of the ice beyond.

A thunderous 'clink' jolted him back to attention. His cage shifted. Littlefinger looked up to see a chain attached to the ring at the top. It was threaded through a much larger loop affixed to a nearby mast. Three men heaved. The chain moved and as it did, his cage lifted off the ice and started to sway.

"N-n-no..." Littlefinger's voice wavered. "No!" He repeated, finding his breath. There was only room enough to kneel. He took the bars in hand and pressed his face to their freezing surface. "NO!" He yelled down at their rotten smiles. They dragged him higher. "I am the king's man!" They did not understand. "The prince demands I live! The prince commanded my life! Stop! STOP! I beg you – no!"

They lifted him higher until he hung in line with the other cage. Now he could see it all… The blackened bones and flakes of half-cooked muscle. The pieces of metal concealed beneath his clothes now open to the snow. A hairless skull and hands clenched toward the chest in the last moment of agony.

"Oh… Please… Please no..." His pleas dropped to a private murmur. For a moment it seemed as if Petyr might succumb quietly to his fate. To stand, as the Wildling King had, silent at Death's door but he could not summon such subservience.

One of the men climbed the mast, leaned out and poured a bucked of oil into his cage. It sloshed over his clothes in a rank surge. The ground beneath shook again. He heard it above the thud of his raging heart.

In the distance, blocks of ice broke away from the Wall and crashed into the bay. A few heads momentarily turned, saw nothing, and returned to man thrashing wildly in the cage. They took sport of his terror then turns approaching with the flame to see how close they could get without setting it alight.

Petyr retreated to the back of his cage, wrapping himself around the curve of iron – holding his breath as he swung back and forth toward the fire. These people were mad. They'd burn him just to see the flame. This time, the torch came so close he saw the oil flicker amorously. Another go and it would catch.

The air split apart in a ruthless 'crack' that tore into Petyr's soul. It was so sudden and violent that his tormentors dropped their torch in fright. Then he realised that the ground was shaking – sliding back and forth as if the gods were fighting over scraps. His cage bounced roughly, forcing him against the bars. His face – hand – neck – should – leg, all of them bashed against the unforgiving surface. Petyr tried to hold on but the oil coating his body left him at the mercy of the earthquake.

It stopped as suddenly as it began.

For a moment, all was perfectly still at the very edge of dusk. The new moon hung, brighter than the fading sunlight. The fog building over the bay crept forward through the fleet. The pyres lit around the base of Eastwatch continued to burn. Petyr's cage was the only sound, squeaking as it rocked back and forward.

Then all along the Wall came the sound of cracking ice.