The world did not move as it should. Snow – endless stretches of it – shifted in the light as broken pearls laying on the ocean floor jostled by the waves. Jorah felt his boots sink deep. Cold ate through the leather. Pierced his bones. Wrapped through his flesh until it died and tore into shreds. This was a Winter that faded into the twilight and became something more... It was 'white' on the horizon that transformed into a bank of storm clouds, shifting shape as keenly as a skinchanger.
Pine stumps protruded on all sides of Jorah. They towered overhead, smouldering like sticks of incense, each one grander than the last. No ordinary fire had felled them. Their wood was petrified with slivers of glass trapped in their bark. The milky light caught them like tears. Jorah reached out as he passed, dragging his fingers through the soot. A chill snapped down his spine. He stopped, turned and saw a field of swords in place of the trees. Nothing but House blades abandoned in the snow with keepsakes tied to their pommels…
In front, The Wall stretched across the edge of the world. There were several places where it had crumbled. Green flames lifted from the fallen blocks, riddling the relic with smoking rivers that released geysers of roaring steam and rock that flowed over the ground, aglow but blue as deep as sapphires. Dragon wings beat the air. He could hear them, banging as thunder in the distance.
Lemons dropped from the sky. Several crashed into the swords and vanished in the powder. Jorah stooped to fish one out of the deep snow. It withered to dust in his hand – long dead. When he looked up, a great fog had blown in and swept away the scene. He was no longer in the North but the snow remained, thick and freezing. The weeping Weirwood from Harrenhal's godswood emerged from the white-out. Its branches stretched out, thick with lines of cawing ravens. They clustered tight to form a black canopy. Daenerys laid against its trunk. Her silver hair tangling in the bark while her furs flowed into the folds of its tortured roots. She beckoned Jorah with her smile. Lips pulled tight. Eyes that went on forever. Cheeks flushed. The blood in her could melt the snows, or so the old whispers would have a man believe. Jorah believed. Behind her smiling face the Weirwood's carved eyes leaked terrible rivers of sap. The smaller roots climbed around Daenerys, strangling her limbs as if it were a vine. It tightened in red veins accompanied by distant screaming until Jorah heard the sharp snap of bone.
Viserion banked, knocking Jorah's cheek against one of his protruding spines. The edge sliced his skin and tore the knight from his vision with a shock of blood. Jorah stumbled back to the world of the living. He blinked profusely at the sun while flecks of snow struck his face, melting on his skin as if it were rain.
Startled, he looked side to side, finding unfamiliar land lazing beneath. The constant beat of dragon wings drummed in the background. Drogon rode ahead, always leading while Rhaegal kept to his left, a slither of green with his long tail locked in a wave. A constant stream of melted snow dripped from its tip, refreezing into tiny tears of ice. He always appeared to be swimming rather than flying.
Jorah wiped his bloody cheek with the back of his glove. He could still hear himself screaming, even if it was only as an echo on the wind. 'The future howls at us from the forest,' his father used to say, 'the mountains echo back, fragments of our past'. These visions were going to kill him if he wasn't careful. There was no controlling what he saw – or when. Like the Queen, Jorah was at the mercy of magic and its warring gods. He yearned for a simpler time when the battles he faced were against men and their hearts. Whatever they were flying towards, he feared their part may already be writ.
He peered around Viserion's sizeable form and caught a glimpse of The Vale of Arryn's mountains clawing up from the ground like a savage forest of knives. Many peaks reached higher than the dragons dared to fly, casting shadows over the land. Thick walls of sea mist meandered through their ruthless valleys, hiding most of the settlements from view. Only The Eyrie stuck out, catching the light. The outpost grew from its position on the bedrock like the knot on the wound of a Weirwood – tortured, complex and inherently part of the mountain. Even at a distance, Jorah could see the feared gaol cells overlooking the wild abyss. He wondered if there were prisoners inside, held captive by nothing but the fierce winds kicking off the Shivering Sea.
The Mountains of the Moon parted slightly around the ancient castle ensuring that it lived its life in the sun. As they approached, an avalanche coursed down a nearby mountain flank, sending a white cloud over the valley. Too much snow had fallen too fast... It was leaving dangerous overhangs on every peak that could divest themselves at a whisper.
The situation worsened as Jorah spied the passage North. Even the Kingsroad that usually traversed beneath them had vanished under the snow. The ease at which man's mark on the realm was wiped away took his breath straight out of his lips. If this continued, by month's end everything North of The Neck would be impassable.
Drogon opened his mouth in a yawn that hit the air as a colossal roar. It shook the sky and then the ground. Jorah looked again to the mountains and saw dozens more avalanches slip free. They rumbled to their deaths. Hissed and faded. He prayed rather than believed that the hills were uninhabited. Dragons did not mean to kill. They did so by accident simply by breathing in the world. It was the same with Targaryens. They could not help the chaos that followed the gods' coin.
Jorah found his gaze settling on Daenerys. She rode Drogon's back as a tiny fleck of silver in a sea of black, becoming smaller as the dragon filled its scales. For years he expected her to die. At the hands of her violent karl. Lost in the Red Waste. Murdered by assassins in Mereen. Betrayed by her Qarthian friends. Torn to pieces by her children… Her defiance gave him hope.
Drogon, Viserion, Rhaegal… They were her wretched children. What would happen to the realm, Jorah wondered, if his Queen died and they abandoned the trials of men and vanished into the mountains?
Or was there a burning vengeance in their hearts waiting to consume the world…
Perhaps it was as Quaithe warned and all of this was another dance, meaningless to the stars. It was nothing to them if the sun and moon preyed upon one another.
Drogon pealed off toward the mountains, slipping quickly down until his flew beneath Viserion. Jorah noticed the creature's shadow stalk across the uneven land like one of the dragon kites the children used to cast into the wind during Summer festivals. He was powerless to stop Viserion and Rhaegal following suit, tipping their wings.
Down Jorah went, gripping to Viserion's horns as the angle of the dragon's back became awkwardly steep. The leathers tightened on his legs, keeping him safe from the drop. All the same, Jorah was in no hurry to test their strength with little but the promise of a hard landing if they failed. It was strange… The fearsome stories of The Eyrie's 'Moondoor' paled when held to the height of a dragon's perch. Drogon landed on a particularly rocky outcrop where the ice was hard and blue and the stone veined with milkglass. His claws scraped the surface.
"We do not have time for this, Khaleesi..." Jorah protested, as Viserion practically shook him impatiently from the saddle.
Daenerys was already struggling to find her footing on the ground, wedging herself into a protected nook out of the wind. "And what, exactly, am I to do about it?" She replied, as Drogon flapped his wings viciously then launched off a nearby drop with a whoosh! "If I stop them from hunting they'll pick off the horses in the next town we come across. We're in the North to make friends, not turn their paddocks into feasts. You, Varys and especially Tyrion have been rather repetitive in your warnings..."
Jorah lost his footing immediately on the ice. He landed in a heap, muttering darkly as he slid several feet toward the alarmingly close cliff before catching onto an outcrop of rock. "At least they could leave us somewhere flat and warm. My mountain climbing days are long behind me, Your Grace, if ever I had them." With considerable effort, Jorah wedged his feet into tight crevices then used them as a rubbish ladder to climb up to her position. His Queen sat out of the wind, facing The Bite and its three sibling islands. Another, far smaller cousin poked out of the bay on the right. All the land around The Fingers was brutal and mismatched. It reminded Jorah of a skeleton with the skin pulled back.
His leather and light armour grazed her arm as he sat down. "I thought we'd be able to see it from here," she added, nodding toward the North. "The Wall."
"Aye, it's a large beast but we've got a way's to go yet. There's another cluster of mountains behind the Dreadfort blocking our view. Once we're clear of those you'll be able to see the full span. That's a worry, though." He added, pointing to two distinct smears of smoke on the horizon. They sat at opposing ends of the view. "That, over there, is near enough to home," Jorah directed her eye line.
"And the other?"
"At a guess? Eastwatch castle." Jorah shook his head, marred with considerable worry. "If I were a paranoid man, I might think we were being flanked..."
She unfastened the top of her heavy fur cloak. Their mountain perch was comparably warm to Drogon's back. With the setting sun falling across her skin, it was almost pleasant. "I thought Varys said that the dead didn't make plans?"
"Varys underestimates the unknown. There are not many military commanders who survive using that approach. You can find stories in every kingdom of vast armies torn down by farmers and pirates. We are facing a king who has fought the realm before."
"The Night King lost..."
"Yes, but he has had thousands of years to learn from his mistakes. What did we do? Until recently, most of the realm thought the war was only a story to frighten children." As the sun warmed his face, Jorah wondered if their task was folly after all. "Our people have forgotten more than we ever learned."
"Forget the first war," she shuffled beside him. "Since when have we been very good at following tradition? If this were an ordinary army, what happens next?" It did not escape her that Jorah was first and foremost a warrior and a damn good one.
Jorah's attention remained with the smoke. He worried for his home and people but he worried more about the feeble castle in the East. "The Night King will be looking for a weakness in The Wall. This will be different from the Wildling invasions. Forget the other castles, he won't try and scale a hundred feet of ice. He doesn't need to. When my father took me to Westwatch castle," Jorah added, more softly, "I crawled right through the cracks in The Wall. The truth is that there has been nothing separating the realm from the Night King's army except his own inclination."
"There are tens of thousands of my army watching the edges of The Wall… Surely that is enough to hold him back?"
"Fighting in the snow is not an easy thing. There's a good reason the Southern armies have never taken a Northern Keep. As good as Northern folk are, you can expect the dead to be better. They don't have to worry about their hands freezing or their blood turning black. Every sword you lose stands up on his side. If we are going to win this war, Khaleesi, I advise we do it swiftly..."
"Now I understand why you are impatient with the dragons..." What could they do? The three creatures were busy trawling through the mountains, picking goats from their perches. "I had another dream – no, not one of those," she quickly amended, as he visibly tensed. "This was from long ago. In Old Valyria..."
"How do you know for sure?"
"It is not the first time I have been there. There was a man – he walked out of a valley in the mountains with a clutch of newly hatched dragons. When I looked to the sky, it was bare… I think they might have been the first in Valyria."
"The Bloodstone Emperor and his fabled dragons…"
"For a moment I thought he was Viserys..." She averted her gaze. "Not all my dreams are laced with terror. Many are just – just threads of time… Whispers."
"You should write these stories down one day," Jorah insisted. "They have been lost and the Citadel has no interest in the true history of the realm. If the Targaryen histories ever existed, they are rubble along with their cities."
"And who is going to write this story," she countered, "if we're all dead?"
Jorah tilted his head to the side so that the light cut into his eyes. "Maybe the Night King will scratch the whole sorry tale straight into the ice..." He looked down, feeling her hand take his. She did that more often – lacing their fingers together. "Failing that, Tyion tells a fine yarn over the table in the whore house. He can keep our spirits alive between ale and wine."
"I hate to think that we'll be reduced to a dwarf's overture… What is it?"
"The smoke near Eastwatch has stopped." There was some laying on the horizon but the wind was quickly dispersing it while the smear near Bear Island coursed in a vast column as though the whole settlement were alight.
WESTWATCH BY THE BRIDGE – THE BAY OF ICE
Flames roared from the mountain precipice forging thick, swarming plumes of fire, smoke and malice. Thousands of crows hovered at the edge of the glow, cawing malevolently.
Theon stood at the tallest outpost of Westwatch castle using his ship's spyglass to follow two figures as they tracked West along The Wall. The approaching storm made it difficult to focus on their features. The wind had been building for days – surging along the edge of the horizon coaxing unstable banks of cloud, stealing the sun each night before it had the chance to set. Every now and then a lick of warmth broke through the clouds, cutting across the silver water like sunlight through cell bars. As it drew closer, Theon noticed that the storm was blue and heavy with snow. He dreaded its arrival. Had it not been for the generosity of the Mormonts who willingly shared their food and resources via a steady trail of ungainly boats, the Eastern army would have starved.
That was no meant as a slight. Many of the Yinnish were excellent hunters but they were used to dense jungles. The snows and bare pines were as barren as a desert to their eyes. As for the Bay of Ice, it was loath to give up fish to the brave men that took boats into the chop to lay nets. Every skerrick of life had sunk into the depths for protection. The fish. The birds. Even the elk – they all knew that something terrible was afoot.
Theon tilted his head backwards. The Wall overshadowed the castle by fifty feet. A visible layer of cold air folded down its surface like a ribbon slipping from a lady's dress. He had to climb higher...
Swaddled in scraps of seal leather, Pol Qo scrambled off the unstable lift that had hauled him the last thirty feet from the castle to the top of The Wall. A small party of Yinnish men waited accompanied by a party of Ironborn. One of them offered a hand.
Pol Qo accepted Theon's courtesy, allowing himself to be pulled onto the icy crest. The ground was littered with signs of activity. Chisels, spears, hammers, empty vats, crossbows, bundles of dragonglass arrows, makeshift stools and piles of fur. Some of it was new but the majority had been discarded for so long the ice had grown over it in thick shells.
"I thank you," Pol Qo struggled, through his thick accent. The coarse Common Tongue left a foreign taste on his lips. "Learning," he added, as a way of answering Theon's questioning look. "Bear people – they teach me. Their – ah – mage."
"Maester…"
"Maester – yes."
Along The Wall a pair of travellers had drawn beyond the last tower and were now on their final approach. "We have company. Strange. Most people take the road. The Wall is dangerous and difficult to pass, especially there, in the mountains." Theon tried to direct Pol Qo's eye to the nearby range but the other man did not show any interest. Instead, his eye was drawn to the landscape.
He had never been in a place so high. This – it was the blade of the world. Pol Qo marvelled at how similar the vistas of ice were to their sandy cousins in the East. They were two edges of the same oblivion – both of which harboured monsters in their depths. The castle under his feet was the mirror of the ominous Black Forts that stood resolute in the sands facing The Lands of the Shrykes. He lifted his arm and pointed to a severe crack that had left a gap between the cliff and The Wall. It harboured an angry shadow in the deepest parts.
"I know..." Theon lost his never every time his gaze settled there. He did not like to think of The Wall as anything other than impervious. The truth proved far more complex. The Wall was not exactly melting but it was certainly beginning to crack apart under its own weight and the brunt of age. "But what can we do? The ground shakes every year and the ice at the edge of the cliff is the least stable. Cracks form and eventually large segments fall into the gorge." There were some there already, obstructing the mouth of the Milkwater. "They are like your Bone Ranges – restless. The Mormonts say that Westwatch has been crumbling since the day it was built. It is the striken child of the pack."
"Mountains-" Pol Qo nodded at the uneven rises of rock beneath the meandering wall of ice, "-men..." he added, at the thousands scrambling around Westwatch castle. "Build. Yinnish good builders. My people, Jogos Nai, fear this."
"The Jogos Nai are fearless..." Theon observed carefully, then realised his error. The Ironborn shared the untrue reputation. "But it is ice..."
"Ice. Stone. Same."
"Maybe you're right," Theon swallowed. "And it is time we started building our own walls."
Theon placed his hand on the low rise of ice, feeling as if the surface sucked the life straight through his glove. "I'm tired of living in the shadow of heroes. Are we stewards or are we kings? We have hands enough to build great things – we should be able to put a patch on an old piece of ice if we really set our minds to it. Old Ned, I never saw him put one stone back in Winterfell. Not one. The heart of the North and what was it? A drafty hell. A castle that couldn't defend itself against a rabble of pirates. All my life, I never felt more betrayed than when those splintered doors opened to my men." The memory of Winterfell loomed large in his mind. "How could we expect The Wall to be any different? Given enough time, even the seas recede and the mountains blow away to dust if they are not stirred..."
He had said the words to himself and the wind in reply, stole them. In the end, only the Old Kings of Winter heard his regret.
Dorin's first meeting with Theon Greyjoy nearly drowned in the steep of hostility. They were natural enemies with a thousand years of conflict scratched into their memories. Dorin had taken his axe to more than one Ironborn shit in his time and he felt inclined to do the same now.
That said, Dorin was alarmed to find that the almost mythical Theon Greyjoy who'd taken Winterfell for himself cut a disappointing, withered figure with sharp, gaunt features and wounds that never quite healed. The Ironborn's sad, grey eyes looked as though they'd spent the Summer rolling around under the waves and ached with warmness. Beside Theon stood a squat, cone-shaped king and a several bronze-skinned Easterners. They were taller than Dorin and perfectly formed as if the gods themselves had taken an interest in their making. Were these the people who had ruled great swathes of the world for tens of thousands of years? It was hard for Dorin not to imagine that he was looking at a slither of the divine.
"You've brought a fire witch with you." Theon observed, rudely skipping introductions. He'd been taken by Melisandre's unusual appearance. It was almost ruinous and captivating in its horror. "She must be three hundred years old. Are you to thank for all the smoke?"
Dorin answered for Melisandre, keeping a tight hold on her arm. She had hunched over nearly double with her long, tangled white hair dragging on the ice. One blind eye had a moon over its surface while the other, paler than the sea, stared right through Theon. The ruby in her necklace had shattered. Its blood-stained pieces now lay abandoned in the snows along with their glamour.
"Yes," Dorin nodded, "but the witch is not well. We were forced to burn a dragon corpse. And what is this… The other half of the Queen's army?"
"I think they are here for their own reasons," Theon admitted, "but yes, these people sail under Targaryen banners. Pol Qo is chief of the Jogos Nai and these are survivors from the great city of Yin."
"It doesn't matter if they've come straight from the Sea God's table," Dorin reminded Theon, "the Queen's paid the Raven's Price for all of you." The old Bear shook his head, amazed to see the bay choked with boats and ice in equal measure. "That girl is a fool to make her stand here. Bear Island has fallen many times in the past to the pressures of the North."
"We intend to fix The Wall," Theon insisted.
"You may very well fix this castle and its wall, Greyjoy – with this many men you may even do it well but there is nothing any of us can do about the waters freezing over the bay. Do not imagine your people to be safe. There was a time you could walk from Cape Kraken to Blacktyde. Wall or not, soon this will be a floodgate for Death and all its kind."
"Then why did you come if you think this all a fool's errand?" Theon prodded, a little perturbed by the affront to his olive branch. "You could have run to the Summer Isles while you had the chance."
"To break the ice..." Dorin whispered darkly. "No one succeeds by making the same mistake over and over. Trust me, this is a fuckin' mistake in the making. This 'ere witch and I, we got something new in mind. I am too old, Greyjoy, to be hunted like a dog or to wait out the Winter, drunk and festering on some rotting shore. It's time someone stood up and did the hunting then we shall see if even Death may die. An' believe me when I say, I ain' forgotten what you did to your wardens but for fuck's sake you know, this is the end of Westeros.
"I may not pretend ter like you, Greyjoy," Dorin continued, "but while ever you draw breath I'll stand next ter you on this wall with one of 'em black knives in my hand. When those sad eyes of you turn blue then I'll throw you from The Wall into the Red God's fire."
"Fair enough."
Theon's levity angered Dorin. He stepped closer, worrying the Yinnish men. "The shit I saw come over that bridge," Dorin stabbed the air, pointing vaguely toward the cliff edge where the Bridge of Skulls once hung, "is enough to turn any man into his enemy's embrace – for all the good weepin' will do. You are all dead men if that bay o'there freezes."
Melisandre collapsed into unconsciousness, dragging Dorin to the side and prompting all parties to converge on her. The witch started twisting, her ailing body no longer able to hide behind her skilled shadow of glamour. There was no doubt that her power had grown in recent years but even in all its renewed glory, it paled in the glow cast by the gods. Now she could feel the cold in her bones. The ice clawed through her flesh, ghosting its palm over her heart. She feared the black earth and the crypt that waited. Jon Snow said that he'd been in those depths and heard, from the edges of the darkness, nothing but the slide of a monster's tendril against the dirt.
SUNSPEAR – DORNE
"Do you see, my dear? They have adorned their walls with banners in your honour. Look, won't you," Olenna jostled, with one of her bony fingers, "how fine the silk is, whipping against the stone."
"What's left of it..."
"I beg your pardon?" Olenna rounded her head to stare down her granddaughter. They were standing together at the rail of their ship as it knocked against the dock, awaiting the sailors. Black Scale paced below, disciplined even at leisure. Olenna never changed her appearance except to add another rose to her embroidery or a silver thorn to her pins but Margaery was much changed during the weeks spent on the water. It was not only the emergence of her swelling belly. Her once youthful features had drained away like the Shrinking Sea leaving fresh creases at the side of her eyes. She no longer curled her hair or remade her clothes. Indeed, she had been left to grow quite wild.
"What's left of the city walls," Margaery clarified coarsely. "I can see quite plainly that they are burned and ruined. Most of the city is rubble. King's Landing and the Sunspear could be cousins and how fine a pair they make." Every word dripped with poisoned sap. "Though you are right, I suppose, the silk is of a fine quality. A shame it'll be torn to thread before the vows are made."
Olenna sighed. There was less patience in her now. "You shall have to find your good humour in a hurry, my dear. Bitterness is far from attractive. Like it or not, you are here to marry a prince of Dorne. Quentyn Martell, for all his likely faults, is the best chance we have of surviving. That dragon girl would have your child killed but I doubt even she would raise a sword to its unborn throat if Dorne stood beside you. So do try to cheer up. Find it in your great capacity to overlook the cracks. You may find that Quentyn is a more suitable match than your first three. He is fine looking and his wit is as sharp as his sword. It is true, the Martells are a little free with their affection but that could be said of any king."
Margaery tried to look beyond the faults but everywhere she turned her eye lately the realm was in a state of collapse. Old tyrannies were rising from the corpses of felled ideas. It was as though the whole empire had woken up to the great lie – that power was a house of shadows – dark as night and just as fragile. Was she the only one that had noticed?
An oppressive layer of heat pressed on The Sunspear, turning those failing walls into vast fronts of golden stone. With Westeros in war, much of the Eastern trade had diverted to its open ports rendering the waters around the city were choked with wood and sail. Shanty towns had grown out of the sands beside the city – latching to the dunes. Even the Shadow City had reached breaking point and spilled over its gates.
"It seems to me that people run in one of two directions – to danger or from it. Am I to be queen of those that ran?"
"Princess, my dear – there are no queens in Dorne. There will be no more queens anywhere while Daenerys Targaryen reigns. Dragons are jealous of power. She might shine like a jewel but she's bathed in enough blood to make even Cersei's corpse blush."
"Good luck to her..." Margaery drooped her attention to the water sloshing up against the dock. She found her gaze caught by the columns of shells stuck to the wooden planks. They amassed in their hundreds, clinging to one another and the wood in an ugly mess of grey, blue and pastel pink. It was only when the water washed over them that they took on a shine, more like gemstones than bottom-feeding creatures eating away the wharves.
The great Spear Tower cut a jagged image in the skyline. Like a felled tree, only its stump remained but it was an imposing, ominous piece of wreckage. Margaery, Olenna, Black Scale and their party were forced to walk around the scattered stone blocks that were too large to be moved. Morbidly, some boasted bloodied edges and gods know what crushed into the dirt beneath them. Olenna kept her eyes forward, focused on the palace, keenly aware that power in The Reach had been wounded by the burning of Horn Hill.
The Dornish castle was in a similar state to the streets. Its old doors were beyond salvation and laid on top of each other, resting against the building. Their immense surfaces bore cracks and scars while some of the finer carvings had been smashed off entirely leaving white splotches on the otherwise even slate. A troop of soldiers stood in the gap, glittering in the sun, each one as static as the stone they replaced. As they parted, a bridge of pine scaffolding had been built to cross the void in the foyer. It creaked and shifted underfoot. Olenna glimpsed the spikes and corpses in the pit below. Their rotting flesh left a gagging stink of death on the air. She reminded herself that this was the venom beneath the snake's eyes. A city littered with death traps and forgotten death. They'd build right over this sight...
'Immensity' was a concept taken seriously by the Dornish. Their palace vaulted to the furthest reaches of structural possibility. Free-standing domes towered overhead, crammed with dense patterns of gold, silver and sapphire. Even Olenna licked her lips at the trappings of the Rhoynar heirs.
There was no physical throne in the throne room. Doran Martell had never needed one, being wheeled from room to room and Prince Quentyn Martell had not seen fit to erect one for himself. He stood in the sunlight, staring at his smoking city – eyes closed – listening to the incessant sound of a thousand chisels hammering out repairs. His guards announced the entrance of his guests. Music drifted from nowhere. A gasp of cool air disturbed the stifling humidity. Still, he did not move.
Piles of mismatched trunks were stacked along the walls. Those that were opened revealed piles of coin and jewels. Sand covered the floor and it was clear that these possessions had been looted from the rival armies plucked straight from the surrounding dunes. For Olenna, war had always been measured in sacks of grain and bales of hay but she could see the attraction of the simple transaction – blood for gold – no interest required except that of fear.
"Tomorrow night is advantageous for the Dornish." Quentyn announced, without looking to his guests. "We honour our greatly beloved Nymeria and her ten thousand ships. A good time for weddings, when spirits are high and the wine can be bought by the barrel at the docks. In situations such as these it is crucial to preserve the fragments of civilisation that keep us from the sands. A wedding is like mud on thatch – it holds the roof against the rain..."
"Oh – I agree." Olenna interjected, as Quentyn's mind wandered. Yes, she could see now why they called the Prince of Dorne a ruthless man. It was written in his soul. At least, Olenna consoled herself, this one was not mad. "Nothing stirs the spirit like a good few hours of drink and song. When the people are placated, they are unlikely to cast too close an eye on your ambitions."
The edge of Quentyn's lip twitched. Finally he turned to greet them, amused by the old woman's cheek. "I congratulate you," he nodded at Olenna. "Dissent has been in short supply since I buried a thousand sword hands in the sand outside the city gates."
It was difficult to tell whether Quentyn's words were meant as a warning or a dowry. "Good for the soil, I say," Olenna chirped brightly. "Blood and bone – there's nothing like it to raise a forest and you are indeed in need of a tree or two. Prince Quentyn, may I introduce my granddaughter..."
Margaery did not dislike his looks but there was an air to him somewhat like a cobra raised from the dirt with its hood out. A swaying, dancing warning. Obediently, Margaery bent down as low as her pregnancy would allow.
"You are smaller than I imagined. Not as small as the dragon queen but certainly not of any great statue. There is something in your eyes though." He hesitated, drawn in by them. He gave up his perch by the window, tracking down the stairs until he came within striking distance of The Reach girl. "A touch of ice." Silence. Margaery remained bowed before him as Quentyn brushed his fingertips beneath her chin and dragged her from subservience. "When is the child due?"
"Five weeks, my Prince."
"If it is born a boy he shall have to marry into one of the mountain tribes. They are greedy for royal blood and a lion will do. Tradition has the male children raised in trusted houses from very young, as I was myself. A girl may stay in the palace until she is old enough to see where the ashes of these battles fall. Those are my conditions."
"As you wish it..." Margaery replied, praying for a girl.
Ten barges were floated into the calm waters of the turn-tide. At sunset, the sea swirled like silk, unable to coax a single wave. Pale gold, it continued to the horizon in a second desert as brutish as the first. The people of Dorne amassed on the crescent beach, pressing up against the water all along the curve of the shore in both directions. Thousands of them already had their bonfires lit. They danced around the flames, drinking and revelling as the stars peeked out from the twilight, one by one. Smoke filled the air where it, too, caught the golden light and whispered out over the water with the press of cool night air pinning it down.
The cities of The Sunspear and The Shadow City brandished all their candles. Old books and furniture where brought forward to burn in great piles of rubbish. It was a cleansing ritual – one that the common folk embraced with as much fervour as the harvest festivals.
"A dreadful waste." Olenna stood on the sand with the salt water licking her boots. Black Scale flanked her with a Tyrell guard – a small collection of silver and blue in the sea of Dornish peasants. They were not interested in her presence. Instead, they sang songs to the water. They repeated them in slurred praise, as steadfast as a priest on his knees. These were the gods of the old world – shameless animals that preyed on chaos and here the men were, revelling in it.
The ten barges went up in flame. They roared as high as fallen stars, each casting a staggering glow over the ever darkening waves. Soon they became pyres, refusing to sink and yet somehow still alight as if Nymeria herself held them from the waves.
Lit by the thousand orange dots upon the shore, Prince Quentyn Martell and Margaery Tyrell emerged from the city and made their way along the beach followed by scores of children throwing petals savaged from private gardens across the city. Then they were married as all the Dornish royalty – with their feet in the water and the desert at their back. The waters filled with burning embers and, like a billion stars, they washed back up onto the sand and continued to burn.
Within moments it was done. Margaery gripped the Spear of Dorne beneath her husband's hand and the sacred words were said. Another crown was placed upon her head, small and light compared to her last. Silence fell over the beach. Those drunken fools all stopped and turned toward the royal couple. In unison they bowed down, showing their respect. Olenna watched – always watching... Despite the bloodshed visited upon the Dornish it had only served to harden their loyalty. They were as wolves, rewarding strength however savage.
"Do not tell me that you have lost your husband already?" Olenna asked, hours later when she found her granddaughter alone inside the throne room. All the windows were open and the great fires were even more beautiful in the depths of night.
Margaery sat on the floor with the ceremonial spear laid across her knees. "Lost? No. I know precisely where he is – enjoying the festivities with the rest of them. Fear not, grandmother. There is nothing acrimonious. With this-" she nodded at her stomach, "I cannot drink or revel alongside him. You do not find my husband somewhat inhuman?"
"Not particularly, my dear."
"I suspect he is a species of stone or a creature formed from the desert he pledges to love so much. You've got cinders in your hair..." Olenna dragged her long nails through her grey hair, dislodging flecks of ash. Margaery flipped the spear over in her hands. It was nearly eight feet long, made entirely of milkglass – from tip to base. The only part of it not made from glimmering metal was a gold ribbon tied beneath the head with the Martell crest embroidered in repeated patterns until it ended in a plaited tassel. "It is ten thousand years old – or so Quentyn likes to tell me." Margaery allowed it to slip from her hands. From there, it rolled across her knees and clattered onto the ground like every other worthless trinket in the palace.
Olenna shook her head, struggled to rescue the spear from the ground, then used it to help herself back up. She proceeded to lean on it like a common walking stick. "You have to let go of the past."
"He is the father of my-"
"I forbid you to speak of it! In all likelihood Tommen is dead or soon will be. Tonight you have a new husband and a new crown. Marriage is the glue that binds the realm together. You mustn't cry. My dear… If you cry I swear I shall leave you here." Her empty threat made no impact. "Quentyn has been more than fair now you must do what you do best – make him love you or if you cannot do that, cause him as little trouble as possible."
Olenna set the ceremonial spear back into its iron hooks. She stared at it for a long time with the sound of the party creeping in through the windows. Blood ran over her palm where its edge had sliced a fresh scar. Still sharp...
"Perhaps it is ten thousand years old – or even twenty." Olenna eyed the relic. "What good are all those years no when an old fool like me is left to return it to its dust-gathering?"
"You are not old."
"I am. The years are slipping from me. How can I die if you and your brother are not safe?"
The royal bed chamber was easily twice the size of the throne room. Split between open levels, each set of stairs harboured bowls of smouldering incense which shrouded the room in several layers of blue smoke. Its walls and furnishing were em-brazened with images of the Dornish sigil – the burning star, the crimson backdrop and the spear. They were repeated again and again across every surface like a visual mantra. It was broken only by other symbolic relics holding pride of place on the tables and shelves. Free-form statues carved by the Red Mountain tribes snarled, agape with fangs and deformities while every sadistic weapon imaginable was mounted in its place as if arranging paintings. There were even gifts from the old Targaryen kings and more, she suspected, from Essos and its thousand lords.
Margaery took stock of the room and realised, with a shudder of alarm, that this was the den of a religious zealot – something her grandmother was unaware of… There was nothing Margaery feared more than surprises. To hide a truth from Olenna took work.
She'd had her fill of Sparrows and seen with her own eyes how easily the Eastern fire worshippers adorned their pyres with the whispers of the gods. What form of poison was this, then, she wondered? Margaery tilted her head back and saw a carpet of diamond stars set into a lazuli ceiling. Silver lines were drawn between them forming the faces of the ancient gods. The Storm God held his spear. Rearing from the horizon was the trident of the Deep Ones. There were half a dozen more.
"Beautiful, is it not?"
Margaery turned to a rustle at the corner of the room. She had not seen the male servant emerge from the shadows. He held an oil lamp with which he used to light the iron torches in the room.
"My apologies, I did not mean to startle you, Princess Martell."
It was the first time she had heard her new name. Lady Tyrell. Queen Baratheon – three times, no less. Princess Martell…
"Only, I notice you admiring the ceiling," the young man continued. He was a beautiful creature with skin like the sands in the West. "My Prince had it commissioned himself. Prince Doran, may the gods dine with his soul, gifted the money to complete it. He, like his father, has a passion for all things old. A collector."
"A collector with a rather specific interest."
"He is a great study of history, yes. All Dornish kings are – though perhaps he has more passion for it than most."
Margaery considered the servant to be either naive or a liar. There was more here than adoration. "Have you served the Prince long?"
"I am from the Yronwood court," he brought his lantern down when a stray current of air worried the flame at its spout. "There were three of us who grew up together. The Prince, myself and a village orphan." The man smirked slightly at some distant memory. "The runt liked to pretend he was a Southerner but he was born of the snow. The Prince taught us all how to spar with spears but all Cub wanted was a sword." The servant held the flame nearer his chest so that Margaery could see a series of fine scars across his chest. "Never suited me terribly well."
"Are these the same Yronwoods that were killed in the fighting pit by the Targaryen's knight – the Mormont? How did the Prince take that…? His father killing off half his childhood friends cannot have been an easy thing to endure..." The man shrugged in reply, offering no comment. Margaery wished that she could partake of the wine but she'd watched Cersei tear apart her sense with it and reserved never to dull her wits. "Is there anything I should know about my new husband, aside from the obvious?"
"He speaks half a dozen languages, including Volantene, Ghiscari, High Valyrian, Dornish – of course, the Common Tongue more fluently than native borns and a true rarity, Asshai'i… Are these the things of which you wish to know?"
Her eyes darkened. No. There were other things she wanted to know but she feared for the sensibilities of the servant boy. "When can I expect him tonight?"
"Oh, forgive me, Your Grace. The Prince has gifted these rooms to you as part of his wedding ceremony. He will not attend them tonight – or any other night until after – well..." He nodded at her pregnancy. "Shall I draw the curtains?"
She nodded and he did so, moving from towering archway to towering archway, dragging heavy columns of silk across each one. The golden weave glittered as though it were the sun. Then the man went to the various doors that led to the bedroom, bolting them closed.
"For you safety," he explained, as the heavy bolts slipped into place. "You may have noticed on your way in that the palace is missing a set of front doors."
"The Dornish people seem happy enough..."
"They are," he assured her, "but this is Dorne. The knives come in silence and so we are in the habit of locking our doors."
"Before you go-" Margaery asked, as the servant moved to leave, "I did not catch your name?"
He shook his head, snuffing out the flame on his lamp with a sharp breath. "I am nothing. A grain of sand in the desert."
WHITE HARBOUR – THE BITE
"If you die on me I swear to every vengeful fuck of a god that I'll kill you myself, you thankless shit of a Freefolk whore."
"S-s-steady on, yer mad Bear." Tormund dragged his enormous but aching body up the bed. It groaned under his weight, digging into the stone floor. He rested against the headboard, turning his face away from the moonlight that cut through the barred window. It wasn't meant to resemble a prison but the necessity of keeping the overgrown seagulls out left the inhabitants of White Harbour living as prisoners.
The tavern they'd chosen to lay up in overhung the Whiteknife River but they were close enough to the broad mouth to see the harbour and their ship moored in the docks. The poor thing was an odd addition to its kin – foreign in every kind, even in the darkness. No doubt its Captain Maynard was below deck, drinking and singing himself to death.
Tonight it was low tide and the sandy base of the river edged so close to the surface that the water peaked in line after line of ripples full of jumping silver fish. Men waded out, dragging nets and singing old songs. Dogs, barely more than wolves, hopped through the water, yapping at the moon.
Dacey shook her head with more compassion than she meant to feel. Tormund was infuriating but she refused to let him die. "I told you, didn' I, eh? Standin' on bloody deck in the snow all tha' time. I said – I warned you – that you'd catch somethin' and die. Did you listen? No. Because you're a stubborn bastard thinks he's impervious to the cold because he was born on a mountain!"
"Enough of your nagging!" Tormund wished he could be free of the bed if only to escape the Bear's attentions. "I ain' dyin' in some Southern shit hole."
"You are dyin'!" Dacey insisted, wringing out the rag she'd been using to keep the sweat from freezing on his forehead. "Dead a week fer all I know with a rash like this!"
Tormund tried to flinch out of her fussing. "No one would believe you've been on your own for years. What happened to the last poor fool you nursed? Yer kill him with kindness?"
Dacey's eyes immediately set on him in fury, already riled to life by worry.
"Sorry..." Tormund muttered quietly. Bringing up Mance's ghost never ended well. "How long have I been in this bed?"
"Long enough that I fantasised about leaving you here to rot."
The lie was oddly transparent, hitting the floor so hard they both found it in themselves to laugh.
Dacey shook her head, setting the rag back in the bowl. She dragged the bedding higher up over Tormund's chest despite his protests. "For a while there you were speakin' entirely in High Valyrian. You scared the Inn keeper good and proper. Thought you were a warlock..." As an easy peace dragged between them, Dacey moved from her perch beside his bed and set about lighting the candles.
"Better they think me a warlock than a Wildling, eh?"
"Faultless logic, as usual," she quipped. "White Harbour is not particularly strict on moral standards. They'd sell fish oil to a Whitewalker so long as he paid with the King's gold."
"Cunt of a place."
Dacey was eyeing him with a half-scowl. As if he would know what a city past Winterfell was like...
"Or – or so I've been told."
"By whom?"
"Traders..."
"Traders of… You've no idea." Dacey wanted to slap him for his lax hold on the truth but there was a good chance that might prove the end of him. "Are you aware that you exaggerate more than most Northerners? All these stories of your exploits – I wager half of it is invented to keep your Freefolk followers in awe. I guess you have to do something to keep the Thenn entertained."
"Sh..."
"Did you just try to hush me…?"
"Quiet! Mormonts are meant to be stoic but yer make more noise than a Mole's Town tavern wench. Listen!" He added, before Dacey had a chance to reply.
Instead, she did listen. Coming through the open window, rising above the sound of the city and its surrounding waters was a strange beating – like drums or thunder or…
"Dragons..." Tormund breathed. He dragged himself the rest of the way out of bed, wrapping his fists around the bars and shoving his face as far as it could reach into the night. A halo of moonlight drenched the river. Fires burned on every bank, set by fishermen and crabbers to keep warm. The emerging mud stank of river silt and the ships moored in the harbour rang bells at each other like birds trading song. Then, etched into the black, the moonlight picked out a trio of dragons high above. "Fucking bastards!" Tormund tugged at the bars, as if he thought to go straight through them and claw his way into the skies. "They're going North! That shit of a Queen is headed back the way we came! Do something, Mormont!" He demanded.
"What would you have me do, King?" Dacey teased his title. "Have our captain affix wings as well as sails to our ship? Wherever the Queen is going, you are not leaving this room until you can prove you'll not die just from standin'."
In the end, it took all of Dacey's strength to haul him away from the window. With both hands on his shoulders, she pressed him down until his will failed.
"Yer are the worst travelling companion I have ever had. An' I travelled with nothin' but skinchangers once."
"Thorne considered giving you the Red Witch. She would have tied you to a pyre and set you alight to please her Red God by now. Worse still, he could have given you a Stark. Starks are a fuckin' misery an' all."
"Is that wine?"
"And here I was about ter waste a prayer on you."
"An' why's everything got fuckin' fish on it?" He added, staring at the ceiling and its worn-thin painted schools of long, thin fish. Their blue and ochre patterns might have been painted five thousand years ago, along with the ruined statues that marked the edge of the water with their features hacked away by wind and salt.
Dacey fetched him his wine but from the corner of her eye she could have sworn the fire surged a little as the dragons passed overhead.
BEAR ISLAND – THE BAY OF ICE
Melisandre awoke in the shadow of an Ice Spider. Its dead, hollow limbs imitated crystal, refracting the light around its strange angles and eight terrible legs. The eyes were the worst part – collapsing back into their pits, shrivelling into oblivion like grapes left out in the sun. Instinct pushed her away from it until a hand held her down.
"Bastard's dead. It won' bite. Hell o' a thing." Dorin continued, loosening his hold as she relaxed. "Saw one meeself when I was a lad. They made us row out ter the Froze Shore – see if we live 'an all. They're skittish things – normally. Strange that one should come in this far."
"They are – are – stories..." Words scratched in her throat now. The full force of her centuries bore down against her bones. She'd run from her years for too long.
Dorin shrugged, leaned forward and snapped off the bottom of the ice spider's leg. The very act of it appeared to offend the witch, which suited him just fine. He waved the severed limb in her face. "A few monsters from the snow are the least of our worries. What's all this?" He nodded at her withered form. "Not a trick of magic, I think."
"Only magic that has worn thin…" She held up her arms and let the skin stretch down like the folds of wood in the white trees. "It is god's wish that I die in the snow. He told me so, many years ago."
Dorin laughed in her face then tossed the spider leg in the fire. It crackled into ash like any other bone. "Fuck you and your god. We came 'ere to do something. You ain' dyin' until you make good on yer promise."
She very nearly laughed. "What do you care if I die? You do not like me."
"No – I hate you but I need you. So there – you see? You're gonna live until you make right. You have other gods to beg forgiveness of."
Melisandre closed her eyes and saw the poor Baratheon princess burning in the flames. Her screams echoed in her ears and she felt the anger of R'hllor close around her heart. "How many ships are there?"
"More than we hoped," Dorin replied, backing up against the wall as the glow of the fire pushed a front of heat in his face. "The bay is freezing fast. I'd say we'll have a hard time convincing this mob ter do what has ter be done."
"Tell them that they're ships are no good for anything except firewood."
"I was hopin' ter phrase it a little differently."
Fights broke out on the ice outside Westwatch castle. Several of the Yinnish sea captains unsheathed their swords and brandished them aggressively at Theon and the Maester of Bear Island, who had translated the argument with as much delicacy as possible.
They loved their ships – a sentiment that Theon understood – while others feared marooning themselves on foreign soil.
"These boats are stolen," Theon attempted to implore them. "You shall have more ships than you can sail when this is done!" And on and on it went with the clamour falling short of bloodshed. Meanwhile the barrels of wildfire continued to be rolled onto the barges and loaded into their ballasts. One by one, as captains were won over, the ships were sailed to the Northern side of Bear Island where the water was chop with ice already and difficult to push through. Were it not for the gale blowing from the mainland, the sails would not have power enough to move in the thick sludge.
Theon's was the first ship. Positioned days ago, it had sat idle long enough for the sea ice to take root against its hull. It grew out from the wood, first in thin sheets then in blocks which had wandered by and been caught in the growing creep of white. Snowfalls expedited the dire situation for the line of wrecks. Their sails were slit and draped over the rails where they were tied in place. What was left turned white until the empty masts appeared like bare pine branches.
The line of ships grew like a forest, forming a distinct but open barrier along the front of the island. A constant creak and groan came from them, as if they were wailing in agony.
Asha Greyjoy sat on the black boulders that used to line the beach of Bear Island. Now any fool could walk over the freshly laid ice all the way to the line of ships. There were men assigned to chip a passage through the closing waters so that more could be tied up to die.
She held a scroll in her hand – one that she'd barely bothered to read. It was more of the same. Threats of horrific violence from Victarion. He never tired of his toxic mirth or the sound of his quill against parchment.
"Stranger..." Asha greeted her brother, as he scampered over the rocks like one of the children. He was looking better each day but he'd never rise above his scars. "Word from our great uncle – another bore of mad ravings."
"What is it this week?"
"He accuses us of stealing one of his exploration ships." She shook her head. "If he was fool enough to sail a ship up this way in the depths of Winter than he deserves all the misfortune the gods dish out." Asha allowed the paper to slip through her fingers and tumble across the ice. "This plan of yours has as much sense as our dear uncle's threats. At least, that is how the Bears feel. Building a wall of ships in the ice? It is a wall that any common child could navigate at a moment's notice… I can see where their doubts originate. The common folk are sharpening their axes and making offerings to the gods. There is a crowd, day and night, at the Weirwood. They says its branches drip with glass beads and bone idols."
"Did you hang anything off the white wood?"
Asha averted her eyes to the teams of workers chopping at the ice from their tiny fishing boats. Another great Eastern ship buckled, giving off a shriek as its wooden hull crushed. It tilted slightly but the ship was comfortably held above the water by the clutches of the ice sheet. "I'd give my prayers to the sea if it were not frozen solid. Yesterday I walked half the way to the Frozen Shore. A stretch of raging water separates us from the North but it shrinks by the hour. This plan of yours needs to move faster."
"We are running out of wildfire."
"Send ravens to Castle Black."
"I have. I've sent every raven we have and then a few pigeons. It takes time to make wildfire and even longer to drag it along the Kingsroad. Our uncle has cut off the faster sea route so we have no choice. Whatever we have here has to be enough."
Asha shook her head. "It's not going to be enough… Shame that dragon died. We could use one of those. Write to the Targaryen Queen."
Theon shook his head. "I wrote Varys, he says that Queen travels beyond the reach of ravens."
"Bloody hell. Are we all to fight our corner alone? We know better than any, brother, that the only defence for islands is the sea."
And their sea was swiftly giving over to new gods...
"I guess neither of us thought we were going to die on Bear Island."
"Bear fucking Island..." Asha scoffed, but she did not hate it so much as she'd thought. "It was always nicer than home – if we're being frank. Cold but green."
"Careful. They'll never put the Salt Crown on your pretty head if you go native with the Mormonts."
"My ambition in life shattered." A cold blast of wind assault them, almost pushing them off the rocks. Neither spoke until it was done. "There aren't going to be any crowns when this is finished. No thrones either, I imagine. Just a lot of starving, barely breathing people looking for hope."
"You're wrong." Theon insisted. "You can't kill a kingdom. It's an idea. If all the crowns are lost and broken we'll make news ones, out of bone and ice if we have to. There-" he pointed at the water, as another ship came into view, "-they're coming faster now. Pol Qo has won the argument with the Yinnish."
Snow tumbled out of the air. It was near constant, materialising on a whim, burying anything green that dared push its head above the ground. Soon Bear Island would be little more than a berg in the Bay of Ice.
LAST HEARTH – THE GIFT
Wind whistled through the wound in the barn door. Its lower half had been slashed inwards by a body. Too cold for the blood to run, the fleshy pieces lay in the ice – pink and blue.
Petyr closed his eyes. He brushed his thumb over the carved pommel of his unused sword. Even through the leather he could feel the bumps of the inlaid sapphires Sansa had set in the eyes of the mockingbird. Like winter roses, he thought, so that is what he'd named it, 'Winter's Rose'.
It was made from untested Valyrian steel, forged fresh in the smelters of Winterfell by the smith he'd dragged out of the thrall. Light and beautiful, he tugged it silently from its sheath. This gentle action sent a note onto the air. He'd never appreciated the song of swords and yet they all had voices – perhaps that is why men gave them names…
He opened his eyes to see fog curl around the steel. The animals that shared the barn with him cowered in the corner, struck dumb with fear. Petyr knew exactly how they felt…
His hand was too cold to shake so his heart did the trembling instead.
There was something in the barn with him. He could hear the broken door open, dragging its corner along the ground. Heavy steps entered – clunk – clunk – clunk – weighed down with old iron and inflexible bronze.
Petyr tilted his head forward, lining his eye up with a small hole in the wall. The only thing he could see was the white world outside the open door… His breath stuck at the back of his throat, trying to choke him. He swallowed. The goats shifted their hooves.
Silence.
Icy wind…
Crack!
A blade made from dark blue ice thrust through the wood beside Petyr's cheek. His eyes widened, nose-to-nose with the knife-like edge. Splinters stuck to the wet surface which was already marred by shadows of blood. He gasped. Pushed himself away from the surface. Hit the outer wall of the barn. Raised his sword with both hands gripping, vice-like at the handle.
The wooden division inside the barn groaned. Petyr's gaze flicked from side to side, watching as the nails strained out from their homes and clattered to the ground. Dozens fell as the wooden divider bent inwards near the blade until the tension snapped and the entire wooden structure broke free and fell forward with a rush of air. It smashed at Petyr's feet. His terror was so great that he did not hear the accompanying boom!
A Whitewalker turned his blue eyes on Petyr.
At seven feet tall, it stooped slightly to fit inside the barn – drawn by the sound of Petyr's breath. Unlike the wights, its flesh was smooth and intact, wrapped around its bones like any other living creature except that it caught the light like a block of quartz. Instead of thread, the scraps of cloth around its torso were woven with metal wire and interspersed with segments of human hide baring the faded tattoos of slaughtered Wildlings.
Petyr felt the wave of cold on his skin. It hurt, pricking into his flesh like a thousand needles. Beside, the goats stared back with dead eyes – frozen solid. He was cornered. The Whitewalker stepped closer and raised its terrible sword with a hiss. Petyr closed his eyes – waiting for the blow to strike his neck. Seconds dragged until he could not tell if time had drawn to a pause or this was death.
No. His heart still beat. Breath escaped his lips… Petyr opened his eyes to find that the creature had hesitated – its attention absorbed by the sword in Petyr's hands. He tilted the blade ever so slightly.
Fear.
As distinct as raven's crow. The only thing keeping him alive was the promise of death.
Petyr forced himself to push off the wall and lift his sword higher. The Whitewalker shifted its weight ever so slightly backwards in reply.
"Not so keen, are you?" Petyr taunted, in a whisper. "Perhaps you are not gods after all..."
His moment died as the Whitewalker called the bluff, striking Petyr's sword with a clamour. Petyr's grip was unbreakable but the force of the blow tore him down, dragging his whole body sideways to the ground. He had the sword but not the strength to wield it…
Cheek to the mud, Petyr looked up the joining of their blades. The Whitewalker's ice bubbled against the Valyrian steel.
SUNSPEAR – DORNE
On the eleventh day of Margaery's reign, Olenna made the controversial decision return to King's Landing. Margaery walked her down to the wharf at sunrise with the burning red eye rising out of the Narrow Sea. There was no bickering between them but the tension followed as surely as the sand which rustled over every surface, forever trapped in the Dornish winds.
She had never been this alone. The world was a simpler place during her marriage to Renly with only a trio of disquiet brothers to shake the peace of the realm. Now, the rules had been torn down and the armour of 'title' stood as frail as the last leaves on an Autumn Oak.
Stepping onto the ramp, Olenna paused. She reached out and placed her soft, weathered hand on her granddaughter's cheek. Either Margaery was unusually warm or her own blood was running cold. "I wish I could stay to see you through the birth," she said, with sincere regret, "but be assured, Dorne has the most skilled healers in the realm. Your brother… Well, I dare not leave him to his own devices any longer with the Golden Company on their way. His heart means well-"
"-but his will wilts in the sun… Yes, I remember what you used to say. Go..."
"He is just as likely to be undone by some pretty, blue-eyed servant."
Margaery slipped from her touch, turned her back and withdrew from the wharf without a second look. Olenna cast a sad, final smile at the Dornish shore. It was a land of sand, blood and not much else. None of which mattered. There was wretchedness wherever she turned.
With two pieces on the board, Olenna had to take care of both so she strode onto the deck and nodded at the captain to pull away from the dock.
...
The city's inhabitants paid her little attention. In King's Landing, Margaery could not step outside the palace doors without a full guard to flank her from the common people's adoration and animosity – often in equal measure. Here there was neither. Indifference. That is the best they could offer. The streets were a veritable tide of busy people. Like ants swarming their nest, they hurried to rebuild. Their mood could not be further out of step to the bewildered inhabitants of King's Landing.
Halfway down the street toward the palace Margaery diverted, drawn into an alley that had faced the full brunt of the recent battle. Crumbled in several places, the walls shed veils of dust while the top few feet were marred by soot, set there by a dragon's breath. At the end of the short alley lay a pile of corpses slowly breaking down into each other. They writhed with the creatures of death – particularly from their skulls which had all been scalped. Hoof marks littered the dirt.
Dothraki, Margaery thought quietly, backing out into the crowds.
"My dear, I have something to show you."
Margaery nearly dropped her goblet in surprise. Quentyn rarely sort her out. Indeed, in little over a week of marriage, most of their time had been spent together in front of other people. As soon as the officiations were completed, he'd make his excuses, always politely, and rush off. To where, she had no idea.
"My Lord..." She replied, setting her drink down. Margaery dipped her head in a polite bow.
"I see that you have styled yourself in the Dornish way with just enough of a Tyrell flourish to be fashionable." Quentyn closed in on her – circling as he inspected her drapes of blue and gold silk. Faint silver roses were scattered through the folds, only visible if the sunlight caught them directly. He paused behind her shoulder, close enough for his breath to brush her skin. "You are an illusion," Quentyn accused. "A construction."
"Is that not the point?" She countered.
"Oh… A flicker of your grandmother, I think." A hand he'd been ghosting over her fell harmlessly away. "Come with me."
Quentyn took Margaery to her room and for a moment she wondered if he meant to make good on their delayed wedding night. His mind was clearly elsewhere as he dragged one of the largest old crates out into the centre of the room. Its locks had rusted off while the copper designs pressed into the black leather were green.
"Another relic? It is possible to exhaust one's curiosity of the Old World."
"This one will renew your interest, I assure you." The clasps snapped. Quentyn shook the lid to free the dust before he pried it open.
Margaery drew closer, peering at the chest. It was full to the brim of old straw which Quentyn dug through. The action highlighted a fresh series of scars scattered over his arms. "I am not that easy to impress," she warned him. "Honestly… On my eighteenth birthday I found out that my father had grown a maze made entirely from wild roses which are notoriously difficult to train. He'd been preparing it since I was born – spending his free time tending to the design and fashioning bowers. It was a perfect creation. The roses were as large as saucers and they wept down through the latticework, heavy and dripping with dew but all I wanted was a tiara. To be a queen. I cried and cried and cried..." Margaery averted her eyes. Her father wasn't always grounded in reality but something had broken inside him that day that never quite healed. Knowing she was the cause of it cut her heart so deep she blocked it out entirely. "What is it, then? This relic of yours..."
Quentyn needed both hands to lift the slender cloth bundle from the chest. The layers peeled away revealing the hand-and-a-half longsword. Its handle was bound in thin, black strips of dragonhide while the largest ruby Margaery had ever seen was set into the top of the pommel, clasped by bronze claws. The blade was slender with grey ripples marring the unusually dark surface. Valyrian steel. There was nothing like it in the realm. There was an unreal quality to it – imperfect like a mirror compared to the surface of a lake.
"Quentyn..." It might have been the first time she'd addressed him without his title. "By the gods, where did you find Aegon's sword?"
He freed Blackfyre entirely and let it catch the sunlight. Nothing could dull its macabre – not even time. "As much as I may wish, I cannot take credit. My father was a careful, resourceful man. Dorne has pulled many strings in favour of the realm, enough to weave a web even a spider could pride – it would be foolish to think those actions went without payment."
"Aegor Rivers refused to pass on the Targaryen sword to his heirs..." Margaery mused. Even she was drawn towards the sword. There was depth in its darkness. She was overcome with the desire to touch it even if it was only to brush her fingertips against the charcoal surface. "His remains lie in state Norovs but not his sword. There is no treasure in the world worth more than this… Why do you keep it hidden?"
"Men like Tywin Lannister. We could not risk it being stolen when it has a greater purpose."
"To steal it, Tywin would have had to wage war against all of Dorne. He was a brazen man but never stupid."
"Think that if you wish."
"Purpose?" Margaery added, conceding Quentyn's point.
Quentyn grasped the handle reverently. It moulded to his hand. Slowly, he raised the tip of the blade toward Margaery's breast.
At first she thought that he was playing as Joffrey did. Her second husband liked nothing better than to linger at the edge of a blade and occasionally relish in the sharp rush of pain but Quentyn was not a man fond of antics. His hand was steady and his eyes like amber, set on hers. "My Prince?" She whispered, trying to coax him out of whatever madness had taken hold.
"I never met Rhaegar," Quentyn admitted.
"Neither did I," she replied, flinching away from Blackfyre's tip.
"He had an interest in history. There are many who said that if Rhaegar had spent more of his attention on the present and less trying to fulfil prophecy with his offspring, he could have spared the realm a great deal of blood. None more so than Dorne..."
"Elia Martell and her children. Quentyn, Rhaegar did not kill them."
"And your grandmother did not burn King's Landing to the ground and yet the soot sticks to her skin. It does not matter. Rhaegar betrayed Dorne to complete a prophecy he did not understand. The answer he was looking for has never resided in the blood of kings. Old Hightower destroyed that lie long ago."
Her blood welled around the point of the blade. She did not dare move. "Prince Rhaegar wasn't the only one trying to recreate the Azor Ahai prophecy."
"I choose to live in the realm of the real," Quentyn's voice dropped to a hiss. He tilted the sword slightly so that its edge cut a little deeper. "This sword is real, as are you… Magic demands that the blade be tempered before it can pierce ice. The method is simple enough. You, my dear, are my wife and you carry in your belly a lion."
Margaery reached out beneath the sword, placing her hand against his bare chest. With a terrible horror, she realised what Quentyn intended. It was written in the gem-studded ceiling above – in the sheets of hide hung from hooks, thick with old words. "Some stories are just that – stories." Margaery took a step backwards. He followed. A mural of Nymeria standing at the bow of her ship loomed on the wall behind. "If you want to set the old Targaryen sword on fire you'd do better with a vat of oil. Magic is a fickle thing and I promise you, there isn't an ounce of it in my soul." Blackfyre twisted against her skin. She bit her lip. "Is – is this why you agreed to marry me – so that you'd have someone to kill?"
"The Fates made you perfect. You were destined to die either way," Quentyn replied, coldly. "Why not for something more grand than all the crowns in the realm? This is – immortality. You and I, alone. I intend to take you heart into the Winter and there we'll end the sickness in the North. You'll burn brighter than any pyre the Red Witches could light. Margaery, my dear, your death will outshine the sun." Quentyn believed it, with every ounce of his soul. "Close your eyes."
"No."
"There's no need for you to see this," he insisted. "I am not a cruel man."
He was a monster. "Prophecy is a bitch," Margaery whispered, licking her cracked lips. "You can't force her hand or she will strike you down."
"Words won't save you. If you have gods, I advise you pray to them."
"Screw the gods. They answer all my prayers with irony."
Quentyn pressed forward on the blade, intending to thrust Blackfyre straight through Margaery's heart and soak the steel in blood. As it started to dig in, she turned to the side, deflecting the sword leaving Quentyn to stumble in surprise, the tip knocking a piece of stone from the mural.
She snatched an iron candle holder from the table beside and smashed it down on Quentyn's face, throwing her whole body behind the strike. This time he staggered – shocked by her violence.
"I am no wilting flower!" She screamed at him. Margaery hit him again before he could collect his senses.
The skin above Quentyn's eye split apart, rushing blood into his vision. He growled, wiping and blinking frantically. Before another breath could be taken, Quentyn regained his wits and snatched the tail of Margaery's robes. He hauled his princess back – first sliding her across the stone before throwing her onto it. "I think I might have liked you, Margaery," he growled, earnestly, "if it were not for this. I need you to die. Westeros demands a prince to kill the heart of Winter. Dorne is the land of the sun with a spear – right here..." He beat his chest with his free hand. "There's nobody left in the realm with enough nerve. All the men are dead."
Margaery rolled over onto her knees and crawled. Her ridiculous dress caught immediately between her legs. By the time she tried to stand, he was already looming over her. Blackfyre cast a shadow. She could feel it creep across her skin like a ghost.
"What – what if you're wrong?" She half-pleaded, half-reasoned, flipping herself over. All her weight pressed on her elbows. "Killing me will start another war only this time, you won't be able to win. Daenerys Targaryen will come for you – especially if she hears that you're in possession of her House sword."
"I'll risk it. Once you have that child, it will be too late. Besides, the Targaryen Queen did not strike me as a girl brimming with loyalty to the old Houses of Westeros. She'd betray us all if her dreams demanded."
Quentyn raised his sword again but Margaery managed to find her feet and run – screaming – until she hit one of the doors at the edge of the room. The heavy locks meant to protect her from the Dornish butted up against her desperate hands – unyielding. Without thinking, she pushed an antique statue over. All nine feet of its fragile pottery smashed at Quentyn's feet, scattering like shards of ice. They spun across the floor amidst a plume of dust. Margaery thought the sight of his precious possession dashed to pieces might give him pause but he barely flinched.
Wildly, Margaery shuffled sideways along the wall, always keeping Quentyn in her sight. He came for her slowly, picking his way through the pottery. He was a famously strong and savage fighter. If she couldn't find a way out of the room, she was as good as dead – a sacrifice like one of the screaming bodies vanishing in the flame.
Margaery noticed Dorne's ceremonial spear on the wall above her head. She lifted it off its iron hooks and turned, brandishing the heavy length of milkglass. Its tassel swayed – the only movement in the room.
"Put it down, Margaery."
"I'll break everything in this room if I have to. All your pretty trinkets. Every scrap of your obsession. I have survived too much shit to lay over and die for you. I am so tired of kings and their ambition! What do you really want, Quentyn? Tell me that, at least. Do you imagine the seven kingdoms will finally make you king if you save them from Winter? That's not how the realm works. The lords are an ungrateful rabble of self-serving, near-sighted idiots who'd burn their own kin if it earned them a few extra castles. Look at the Lannisters. Almost their entire family turned to bone for lust of a throne. They were better off in their castle, bathing in a king's ransom. What have you sacrificed, Quentyn? Have you tallied the cost or your dreams? Maybe you haven't paid it yet but the gods always for their coffers – ah!"
Margaery ducked as Blackfyre whistled overhead, missing her by inches. He came at her again, stepping sideways as the tip of the sword carved a vicious curve through the stone. Quentyn raised the sword again and struck. It hit the milkglass shaft of the spear. The pair of weapons reverberated, ringing like a pair of mismatched bells.
With a hoarse shout of pure desperation, Margaery used the spear's shaft to push Quentyn backwards. She tried another one of the doors – shaking its lock manically – almost tearing its latches out of the stone. It held fast.
Pain soared across Margaery's back. The spear fell from her hands. She collapsed forwards – her face hitting the locked door as Quentyn slid Blackfyre through her flesh leaving a deep wound from her shoulder diagonally down the top half of her back.
The pastel silks all turned to black, like the horizon closing its eye on the sunset.
Quentyn lifted the blade so that he could watch Margaery's blood dribble along the steel and start to smoke while her tears ran hot.
