The Hound fought his opponent with vigour. Steel clashed against steel while their audience watched around them. Finally, the Hound managed to gain the upper hand and thrashed his weapon against his opponent, making him fall to his death on the paved streets below them.

Joffrey stepped forward from his balcony. It was his name day, and he was having a pleasant name day indeed. He looked over at the crowds cheering and then at the Hound. "Well struck," he commented. "Well struck, dog!" Then, he turned to Sansa Stark. "Did you like that?"

"It was well struck, Your Grace," Sansa agreed, albeit meekly. The last tourney that Sansa had attended had been different. The previous tourney King Robert had staged in her father's honour. High lords and fabled champions had come from all over the realm to compete, and the whole of King's Landing had turned out to watch.

Sansa remembered the splendour of it: the field of pavilions along the river with a knight's shield hung before each door, the long rows of silken pennants waving in the wind, the gleam of sunlight on bright steel and gilded spurs. The days had rung to the sounds of trumpets and pounding hooves, and the nights had been full of feasts and song. Those were the most magical days of her life, but they seemed a memory from another age. Robert Baratheon was now dead, and her father was beheaded for a traitor on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor. Now, there were three kings in the land, and war raged beyond the Trident while the city filled with desperate men. So it was no wonder they had to hold Joffrey's name day tourney behind the thick stone walls of the Red Keep.

"I already said it was well-struck."

"Yes, Your Grace." Joffrey looked down at the paved streets below them, watching as a few guards dragged the bloody corpse off to the side, where it left a bloody trail behind. "Who's next?"

"Lothor Brune, freerider in the service of Lord Baelish," cried the herald. "Ser Dontos the Red, of House Hollard."

The freerider, a small man in a dented plate without a device, duly appeared on the platform beside the herald. But Ser Dontos appeared moments later, cursing and staggering. He dropped his helmet, which clattered on the paved streets. He picked it up and placed it on his head.

The crowd was howling with laughter . . . all but the king. Joffrey had a look in his eyes that Sansa remembered well, the same look he'd had at the Great Sept of Baelor the day he pronounced death on Lord Eddard Stark. "Are you drunk?"

"No. No, Your Grace. I had two cups of wine."

"Two cups? That's not much at all." Joffrey gestured to the cups on the table beside him. "Please, have another cup."

Ser Dontos looked over at him. "Are you sure, Your Grace?"

"Yes. To celebrate my name day. Have two. Have as much as you like."

Ser Dontos nodded. "I'd be honoured, Your Grace."

Joffrey turned to one of his Kingsguard. "Ser Mandon, help Ser Dontos celebrate my name day. See that he drinks his fill."

Ser Mandon and two other of the Kingsguard approached Ser Dontos, dragging him to the centre of the podium. They grabbed a cask of wine off to the side before bringing it over and began to pour the contents down Ser Dontos' throat.

Sansa was horrified at what she was witnessing. "You can't."

Joffrey turned his head. "What did you say? Did you say I can't"

Sansa could not believe she had spoken. Was she mad? To tell him no in front of half the court? She hadn't meant to say anything, only . . . Ser Dontos was drunk and silly and useless, but he meant no harm. "I only meant it would be bad luck to kill a man on your name day."

"What kind of stupid peasant's superstition …."

"The girl is right," the Hound interrupted. "What a man sows on his name day; he reaps all year."

Joffrey sighed. He shifted in his seat and flicked his fingers at Ser Dontos. "Take him away. I'll have him killed tomorrow, the fool."

The Kingsguard let go of Ser Dontos and carried the cask of wine away. Ser Dontos collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily as he threw up some wine.

"He is a fool," Sansa replied to Joffrey. "You're so clever to see it. He'll make a much better fool than a knight. He doesn't deserve the mercy of a quick death.

Joffrey studied her a moment. "Did you hear my lady, Ser Dontos? From this day on, you'll be my new fool.

Ser Dontos got up and bowed. "Thank you, Your Grace. And you, my lady. Thank you."

"Beloved nephew," came a voice behind them. They turned around and saw Tyrion Lannister approach them, followed by the men of his company, such as Bronn and the men of the hill tribes of the Vale. "We looked for you on the battlefield. You were nowhere to be found." He picked up one of the wine cups and took a large swig.

"I've been here, ruling the kingdoms," Joffrey answered.

"What a fine job you've done," Tyrion said, albeit sarcastic, considering they were in open war with one of them, and another had declared their own king. Tyrion looked over at Myrcella. "Look at you," he said, kissing her cheek. "More beautiful than ever." He turned his attention to Tommen. "And you! You're going to be bigger than the Hound but much better looking." His niece and nephew laughed, and he caught the cold glare of the Hound. "This one doesn't like me."

Can't imagine why," Bronn said.

"We heard you were dead," Joffrey stated.

"I'm glad you're not dead," smiled Myrcella.

"Me too, dear," Tyrion said, taking another sip from the wine cup. "Death is so boring, especially. Now, with so much excitement in the world." He turned to Sansa. "My lady, I'm sorry for your loss."

"Her loss?" Joffrey asked. "Her father was a confessed traitor."

"But still her father. Surely, you can sympathise, having recently lost your beloved father."

Sansa looked over at Tyrion and then at Joffrey, noticing how the latter was looking at her. "My father was a traitor. My mother and brother are traitors, too. Nevertheless, I am loyal to me beloved Joffrey."

Tyrion sighed silently. "Of course you are. Well, enjoy your name day, Your Grace. I wish I could stay and celebrate, but work is to be done." Placing the cup on the table, he walked past Joffrey and was joined by the hill tribes and Bronn.

Joffrey turned around. "What work?" he asked. "Why are you here?"


"A raven arrived from the citadel this morning, Your Grace," Grand Maester Pycelle said as a servant carried a covered birdcage into the room. They set it on the table of the Small Council and took the cloth off the cage, revealing a white raven. "The conclave has met, considered reports from maesters all over the Seven Kingdoms, and declared this great summer done at last. The longest summer in living memory."

"The peasants say a long summer means an even longer winter," Varys added.

"A common superstition," Grand Maester Pycelle said with a shrug.

"We have enough wheat for a five-year winter," Lord Baelish said. "If it lasts any longer, we'll have fewer peasants."

"The city's drowning in refugees, Your Grace," Janos Slynt stated. "They're fleeing the war. We have nowhere to house them. And with winter coming, it'll only get worse."

Cersei Lannister looked over at Janos Slynt. "You command the city watch, do you not, Lord Slynt?" she asked.

"I do, Your Grace."

"And are you not a lord at my command?"

"I owe my title and lands to your generosity, Your Grace."

"Then do your job. Shut the gates to the peasants. They belong to the fields, not the capital."

"Yes, Your Grace," Janos said before hearing whistling from behind them. It was a familiar tune, but it was more familiar to Cersei. The Rains of Castamere.

Cersei looked towards the door and saw her younger brother enter.

"Don't get up," Tyrion told them, even though no one had moved. He walked over to where his sister sat. "More ravishing than ever, big sister." He placed a kiss on her right cheek. "War agrees with you." He walked to the opposite end of the table and sat down at the empty chair. "Forgive the interruption. Carry on."

"What are you doing here?" Cersei asked.

"It's been a remarkable journey. I pissed off the edge of the Wall. I slept in a sky cell. I fought with the hill tribes." Tyrion reached over and began to pour himself some wine. "So many adventures. So much to be thankful for."

"What are you doing here?" Cersei asked again. "This is the small council."

Tyrion took a small sip of the wine. "Yes. And I believe the Hand of the King is welcome at all small council meetings."

"Our father is Hand of the King."

"Yes. But in his absence…." Tyrion began as he took a rolled parchment from his inside pocket, handing it to Varys.

Varys took the paper and unrolled it, where he began to read over it. "Your father has named Lord Tyrion to serve as hand in his stead while he fights."

Cersei stood up from her chair. "Out!" she snapped, her palm smacking the table's wooden surface. "All of you, out!" The other small council members looked at each other before getting up from their chairs and walking out in a hurry.

"I would like to know how you tricked Father into this," Cersei asked once she was alone with Tyrion.

"If I were capable of tricking Father, I'd be emperor of the world by now," Tyrion replied, then looked at his older sister with more seriousness showing on his face. "You brought this on yourself."

"I've done nothing."

"Quite right. You did nothing when your son called for Ned Stark's head. So now the entire North has risen against us."

"I tried to stop it."

"Did you?" Tyrion asked. "You failed. That bit of theatre will haunt our family for a generation."

"Robb Stark is a child."

"Who's won every battle he's fought. Do you understand we're losing the war?"

"What do you know about warfare?"

"Nothing. But I know people. And I know that our enemies hate each other almost as much as they hate us."

Cersei looked over at Tyrion and was silent for a moment as she took in what Tyrion had said. "Joffrey is king," she stated.

"Joffrey is king," Tyrion repeated.

"You are here to advise him."

"I'm only here to advise him. And if the king listens to what I say, he might get his Uncle Jaime back."

"How?"

"You love your children. It's your one redeeming quality. That and your cheekbones. The Starks love their children as well. And we have two of them."

"One," Cersei corrected.

"One?"

"Arya, little animal. She disappeared."

"Disappeared? What, in a puff of smoke?" Tyrion asked, but Cersei stayed silent. Tyrion cocked his head. Was that actually true? "How did she manage that?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if it is true. But there was a man here earlier. Always snooping around. Joffrey said he pushed him against a wall without even touching him."

"Do you have a name for this man?" Tyrion asked. "Or is he just called 'the man'?"

"Rumplestiltskin."

"A foreigner, perhaps," Tyrion stated. He had never heard of any names such as that. He sighed. "We had three Starks to trade. You chopped one's head off and lost one, supposedly to this Rumplestiltskin. Father would be furious. It must be odd for you to be the disappointing child."


Young Bran Stark was running through the woods of the North. The surrounding woods of Winterfell. He ran past the trees and over rocks and fallen logs, occasionally looking up at the sky, where he saw a streak of red light coming from a red star as it flew across the sky.

He came to a stream that flowed through the woods. The sound of the water flowing over rocks made him thirsty. He looked down at the waters flowing past him, but when he saw his reflection, he saw he was a wolf. And not just any wolf, but his direwolf, Summer.

And then, he woke up. He looked around. He wasn't outside but in his room in Winterfell. He realised it was a dream, for he couldn't run, not since he had fallen from the tallest tower in Winterfell. He had someone fetch him Hodor, who carried him on his back so that he could have some fresh air, and Osha, a woman from Beyond the Wall now in service to House Stark. He wanted to go to where he had seen the bleeding red comet. Ever since he fell, he found most of his dreams (if not all) seemed to come true.

Osha walked in front of Hodor and Bran before approaching some tiny plants growing near a rock near the weirwood tree. "Boil this for an hour and drink the tea," she told them, and she grabbed a clipping. "Makes all your pain go away."

"I don't have any pain," Bran called out.

"Lucky for you."

Bran looked around before pointing ahead of him. "That way," he said. The area felt familiar.

"You've been having those dreams again," Osha commented.

"I don't dream," Bran replied.

"Everyone dreams."

"I don't. I heard some men talking about the comet," Bran said, looking up above them as they approached a clearing. He could see the red comet above them now. "They say it's an omen. They say it means Robb will win a great victory in the South."

"Did they?" Osha asked. "I heard some other fools say it's Lannister Red. Means the Lannisters will rule all Seven Kingdoms before long. Heard a stable boy say it's the colour of blood to mark your father's death." She sighed. "The stars don't fall for men. Red comet means one thing, boy. Dragons."

"The dragons are all dead," Bran said. They had died out over one hundred years ago. "Been dead for centuries."


The red comet shone brightly through the darkened skies of Dragonstone. The air around the shores smelt of the smoke of the burning gods. Maid and Mother, Warrior and Smith, the Crone with her pearl eyes and the Father with his gilded beard; even the Stranger, carved to look more animal than human. The old dry wood and countless layers of paint and varnish blazed with a fierce hungry light. Heat rose, shimmering through the chill air; behind, the gargoyles and stone dragons on the castle walls seemed blurred.

Cressen, the old master of Dragonstone, ran along the shore as he approached the burning gods. Hundreds had come to Dragonstone to witness the burning of the Gods of the Seven. The smell in the air was ugly. Even for soldiers, it was hard not to feel uneasy at such an insult to the gods most had worshipped all their lives. Cressen could hear the red woman in the distance as she spoke to her audience.

"Lord of Light, come to us in our darkness," she called. "We offer you these false gods. Take them and cast your light upon us, for the night is dark and full of terrors." The crowd around her echoed the words.

"After the long summer," the red woman, Melisandre, the Red Priestess of R'hllor, continued, "darkness will fall heavy on the world. The stars will bleed."

Cressen had run up to Davos Seaworth, one of Lord Stannis Baratheon's most trusted men. "We need to stop her," he told him in a hushed voice.

"Not now," Davos hushed back.

"The cold breath of winter will freeze the seas …" Melisandre continued, "and the dead shall rise in the North."

Cressen didn't want to take no for an answer. He ran into the centre, standing in front of Melisandre, and looked over at the Lords and knights who had pledged themselves to Stannis. At how they were all going through with this blasphemy. The Gods of the Seven were the gods that all these men had worshipped for most of their lives, and now they were being tossed aside for some foreign god?

"All you men were named in the light of the Seven!" Cressen called out. "Is this how you treat the gods of your fathers? Are you so eager to spit on your ancestors?" But there was no answer. Everyone was silent.

Melisandre turned to look at Cressen. "You smell of fear," she told him. "Fear and piss and old bones. Do you want to stop me? Stop me."

Cressen looked at Melisandre, Stannis Baratheon, Stannis' wife, and their men. No one stepped forward to join him. He sighed and stepped back into the crowd.

Melisandre looked at the crowd of lords and knights. "In ancient books of Asshai, it is written that a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him."

The red woman strode over to Stannis, her eyes as red as the great ruby that glistened at her throat as if it, too, was ablaze. "Stannis Baratheon, Warrior of Light, the Son of Fire. Come forth; your sword awaits you." She pointed to the fiery statue of the Mother, where a sword had been lodged deep in the wood.

Stannis Baratheon strode forward like a soldier marching into battle. His squires stepped up to attend to him. He plunged his hand into the fire with his teeth clenched, holding the leather cloak before him to keep off the flames. He went straight to the Mother, grasped the sword with his hand, and wrenched it free of the burning wood with a single brutal jerk. Then he was retreating. The sword held high, jade-green flames swirling around cherry-red steel. Guards rushed to beat out the cinders that clung to the king's clothing.

Stannis held the burning sword in his hand before plunging it into the ground beneath him, and his men knelt before him. "Lord, cast your light upon us!" they cheered.

"For the night is dark and full of terrors," Melisandre stated.

"For the night is dark and full of terror," Stannis repeated before retreating towards the fortress of Dragonstone. He took the queen by the elbow and escorted her back into Dragonstone, leaving Lightbringer where it stood.

Davos stayed on the beach once everyone departed. He looked at the fiery statues as they burned, then over at Lightbringer. It looked like a mess. But, wherever Lightbringer was, he knew that it was not on the same beach as him. A legendary sword such as Lightbringer should surely withstand the flames of fire.

Cressen approached him. "This woman will lead him into a war he cannot win," he warned.

"Stannis is our king," Davos told the master. "We follow where he leads. Even if we don't like the path."

"King," Cressen spat. "Since that boar killed his brother, every lord wants a coronation."

"I don't serve the others. I serve Stannis."

"As do I, but loyal service means telling hard truths. Fools and fanatics surround him, but he trusts you, Davos. If you tell him the truth …."

Davos picked up Lightbringer, then looked over at Cressen. "And what is the truth?" he asked, but the master was silent. With no answer from him, Davos turned and followed the others back to Dragonstone.


Later that night, Stannis and his court found refuge in a great round room with walls of bare black stone and four tall narrow windows that looked out to the four points of the compass. In the centre of the chamber was the great table from which it took its name, a massive slab of carved wood fashioned at the command of Aegon Targaryen in the days before the conquest of Westeros. The Painted Table was more than fifty feet long, perhaps half that wide at its widest point, but less than four feet across at its narrowest. Aegon's carpenters had shaped it after the land of Westeros, sawing out each bay and peninsula until the table nowhere ran straight. On its surface, darkened by nearly three hundred years of varnish, were painted the Seven Kingdoms as they had been in Aegon's day; rivers and mountains, castles and cities, lakes and forests.

While seated at the head of the Painted Table, Stannis listened to Matthos dictate a letter he had written to every lord and lady of the Seven Kingdoms.

"'And I decree upon the honour of my house that my beloved brother Robert…'" Matthos read but was interrupted by Stannis.

"He wasn't my beloved brother. I didn't love him. He didn't love me," Stannis pointed out.

"A harmless courtesy, Your Grace," Davos stated.

"A lie," Stannis said. "Take it out."

Matthos looked down at the paper and crossed out 'beloved'. "'That my brother Robert left no trueborn heirs, the boy Joffrey, the boy Tommen, and the girl Myrcella being born of incest between Cersei Lannister and her brother Jaime Lannister. By right of birth …'"

"Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer," Stannis corrected. "Call him what he is."

Matthos added to his letter. "'And her brother Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. By right of birth and blood, I do this day lay claim …'"

"Make it Ser Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer," Stannis told him. "Whatever else he is, the man's still a night."

Matthos nodded. "'Ser Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. By right of birth and blood, I do this day lay claim to the Iron Throne of Westeros. Let all true men declare their loyalty.'"

Stannis nodded. "When Eddard Stark learned the truth, he told only me. I'll not make the same mistake. Send copies of that letter to every corner of the realm from the Arbor to the wall. The time has come to choose. Let no man claim ignorance as an excuse."

"Your Grace," Davos began. "The Lannisters are the true enemy. If, for the time being, you could make peace with your brother …."

"I'll not make peace with Renly while he calls himself king."

"Well, many have already declared for him: Mace Tyrell, Randyll Tarly."

"Stannis does not need to beg this lord or that lord for support," Melisandre said. "The Lord of Light stands behind him."

"And how many ships has the Lord of Light got in his fleet?" Davos asked her.

"He does not need ships."

"I'm sure he doesn't, but we do if we're going to war," Davos pointed out. He turned to Stannis. "If not Renly, Your Grace, join forces with Robb Stark."

"Who would steal the northern half of my kingdom. As you well know, Ser Davos, I've always served thieves according to their deserts," Stannis said. "Joffrey, Renly, Robb Stark, they're all thieves. They'll bend the knee, or I'll destroy them."

Cressen looked around at everyone seated around the painted table, then stood up, holding his wine cup in his hand. "I owe you an apology, my king. My duty is to serve. You have chosen the new god over the old gods. May the Lord of Light watch over us all. Shall we drink together? A cup of wine to honour the one true god." He walked around the table to where Melisandre sat. He held the cup up before taking a large gulp from it.

Melisandre got up from her seat, watching as the master drank. She smiled as she took the cup once he had finished and drank from it, long and deep. Cressen watched as she drank from it. However, his hands were shaking, and he held onto the table's edge to keep himself upright and strong.

Blood began to pour from his mouth before he collapsed to the ground. The others around the table watched and stood, looking over at the former maester's body, watching as his blood pooled around him on the floor.

"The night is dark and full of terrors, old man," Melisandre commented. "But the fire burns them all away."

The last thing Cressen remembered was the red woman looking down at him, her ruby at her throat shimmering redly, and the candle flames dancing in her red, red eyes.