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The cold mists over Bay of Seals concealed whatever had taken place there, and far away in the castle of the Twins, Clay Manderly remained unaware of it all.
He was still busy in the bustling castle, moving from one matter to another.
Halfway through the council meeting, Daenerys arrived, soaring through the sky on Drogon's back, her shadow sweeping over the Water Tower.
Clay had not known the exact day she would come, but he had guessed it would be around this time. Her arrival, therefore, did not surprise him.
Outside the castle walls, on the wide open ground, the black dragon descended with a deep rumble that rolled across the field.
Daenerys, her long silver-gold hair gleaming in the sunlight, leapt gently from Drogon's back. She landed with the easy grace of one long accustomed to the creature's might.
She already knew why Clay had summoned her here.
He wanted her to meet the people who stood behind him; the northern faction centered around Clay himself. Surrounding him were the lords of the North and the Riverlands, men who had once fought beside him on the same battlefields. They cooperated easily, bound by shared blood and war-forged trust.
The other faction, however, revolved around Daenerys Targaryen; the southern alliance.
That one was simpler to define. The whole of Dorne had gathered beneath her banner, drawn both by her presence and by the power of the Targaryen name. They sought to use that legacy to advance their own ambitions along Dorne's borderlands, and to pursue their long-held vengeance against the Lannisters.
Clay, for reasons of circumstance, had never been able to spend much time in Dorne. That absence had allowed this division to form and deepen between their two camps.
He had seen the problem clearly, which was why he had called Daenerys north.
The young queen, at such a council, served more as a symbol than a strategist. Yet her presence still carried weight, a reminder of unity and legitimacy for all who saw her seated there.
In the days to come, Clay intended to visit Prince Doran himself, as well as several of Dorne's greater lords. The logic was the same: to prevent seeds of mistrust from taking root in the foundations of the new realm.
There was no sense in letting such matters sow future discord.
"Clay, the air of war here feels far stronger than in Sunspear," Daenerys said, walking slowly along the bridge that spanned the Green Fork. The river rushed beneath their feet, the sound steady and alive. She turned, her silver hair rippling in the wind, and looked back at him.
"That's only natural," Clay replied with a faint smile. "The people you've met today once served under my command. They're used to strict discipline, and I've always ruled my men with a firm hand."
Daenerys tilted her head slightly, nodding in quiet agreement. She had to admit, though both of them were dragonriders, when it came to the art of warfare, she was far behind him.
She had never been good at strategy: at how to position troops, where to station garrisons, how to plan a defense or a siege. Those were matters that Clay handled with calm precision.
When she arrived earlier that day, she had found Clay standing beside a large sand-table map of the Riverlands, surrounded by a ring of riverlords. They were deep in discussion, studying the defenses west of Riverrun and debating the best deployment of forces.
She had quietly stood by his side, listening through the entire discussion. The conversation was sharp and complex, full of details and contingencies she could hardly follow.
By the time it ended, she could only sigh inwardly and admit she was not made for such things.
It was not without reason that her husband had risen from a mere heir of White Harbor to become the true commander of all the armies of the North and Riverlands.
Even without her, even without the dragons, Clay might have carved out his own throne one day. It would simply have been a different story altogether.
Now, with Robb Stark's body finally returned to Winterfell, the transition of power across the North and Riverlands had gone remarkably smoothly. Thanks, in large part, to Clay Manderly's position as the undisputed leader of these lords long before the war had ended.
"Nothing troubling in Dorne, I hope?" Clay asked after a moment, turning his eyes from the river to her.
Daenerys blinked, pulled from her thoughts. She smiled faintly.
"What do you mean exactly?"
"I'm not worried about them holding the Prince's Pass," Clay said. "Skyreach itself is a fortress by nature; easy to defend, hard to attack. What I mean is, has Prince Doran or any of the Dornish lords taken issue with my order to keep their forces behind the mountains, within Dorne's borders?"
His tone was even, but Daenerys could sense the weight beneath his words.
That was something he had done deliberately.
The lands of the Stormlands and the Reach were rich, fertile, and tempting, and Clay had no intention of letting Dorne gorge itself on them.
If the Dornish expanded too far into those two regions, it would complicate his rule over King's Landing in the future.
Who would ever sleep soundly with another power lying so close beside their bed?
Yet endless suppression was not a long-term solution either. Clay knew that well enough, which was why he had to quicken the pace of unifying the North and securing his own foundation.
Daenerys shook her head slowly. "They haven't said anything outright, but yes, there have been some murmurs. They don't like standing on the defensive for so long. Still, that was back when both Renly and Stannis were still in King's Landing."
"Now, before I left, the armies from both sides had already moved to their borders with Dorne for garrison duty," she went on. "Renly and the Tyrells seem to be building all kinds of new siege crossbows."
A look of recollection crossed her face as she spoke, "When I came north this time, I detoured past Storm's End. I hadn't even gotten close when a whole line of ballistae started shooting at Drogon. Luckily, he was flying high enough that it didn't matter."
Clay nodded slowly. He already knew about these things through his own network. Nobles unwilling to surrender would naturally try to find ways to fight back against dragons. It was only to be expected.
But there was something else... something curious. Clay had heard whispers that behind the sudden appearance of these new weapons were the faint shadows of certain newly arrived maesters.
Traditional siege ballistae were meant for ground targets. Their power and range were insufficient to threaten a full-grown dragon unless luck struck as cruelly as it had for Meraxes.
And for these new "anti-dragon" weapons, it was impossible to believe that ordinary nobles had simply hired a few craftsmen and invented them on their own.
Clay was beginning to realize that behind this sudden wave of "technical assistance," the Citadel's role was far more intriguing than it seemed.
"We have more enemies than we thought," Clay murmured, almost to himself.
Daenerys looked at him, not quite understanding what he meant. In her view, the situation had already turned completely in their favor. The balance of power was theirs.
To put it simply, they could now decide who to fight, when to fight, and whether to fight at all.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
Clay shook his head. Explaining such matters would take far longer than a few words.
"Dany, for now, stay here in the Twins. Don't return to Dorne yet," he said after a pause. "Some people are starting to panic, and they're beginning to use underhanded tricks against us."
He raised his hand and rubbed at his thick brows with a helpless smile.
"You can't begin to imagine how many tricks these people have up their sleeves, or how dirty their methods can get."
He patted Daenerys lightly on the back and nodded toward the tall, gray-black tower that stood in the middle of the bridge, its stone walls half-buried under withered vines and yellowed moss. "If you want to understand why I said that, go inside and meet my family. Let them tell you the story about the wine."
Daenerys understood. That was his way of asking her to leave.
Her husband had this habit; whenever he needed to think, he preferred to be alone. Yet he never said it outright.
Knowing what he meant between the lines, Daenerys took a quiet breath, nodded once, and turned toward the Water Tower.
She wanted to meet his family anyway. After all, unless fate took an unexpected turn, she would be dealing with them often in the days to come.
There was no need to put on the airs of a queen. Clay wouldn't like that.
…
Two days later
The Wall, Eastwatch-by-the-Sea
As the second-in command left behind to guard the castle for Cotter Pyke,
Glendon Hewett was on the verge of losing his mind.
It had already been two full days since Eastwatch's fleet had set sail, and there was still no word.
The brothers stationed on top of the Wall had reported seeing something strange to the northeast, over the waters of Bay of Seals: a massive, unnatural wall of white fog that had appeared without warning.
For two days straight, fierce northwesterly winds had howled across the coast, yet that fog clung to the sea as if nailed in place.
Commander Pyke had taken more than half the garrison with him when he sailed out. According to their plan, the fleet was supposed to return to port that very night.
But now, as the second evening drew to a close, there was still nothing on the black and viscous sea except that unnatural white fog. The water lay so calm that it made one's chest tighten.
If a violent storm had swept the bay, Glendon Hewitt might have guessed what had become of the fleet. But there was no storm. Not even a wave worth noting.
No survivors, no wreckage. No sign of life or death.
With no other choice, Glendon urgently pressed into service one of the merchant ships that had been meant for trade.
He had to know what had happened to Cotter Pyke's expedition, and Eastwatch needed to be ready for whatever was coming.
Yet the ship he sent out, its belly heavy and round from cargo, had barely sailed into that patch of fog before it turned back.
And what they brought back was a message that chilled every man who heard it.
"The sea out there is full of solid white ice, thick and hard as stone. If we hadn't turned the rudder in time, we'd have been torn apart by those jagged spikes sticking out of the water."
Those were the captain's exact words.
They even hacked off a piece of the ice and brought it back with them.
Everyone knew one simple truth: the open sea never freezes without reason.
The water never stops moving. It shouldn't be able to freeze at all.
But the eyes cannot lie. The surface of the sea was frozen solid, and if that was true, then the Eastwatch fleet that had sailed into it…
Glendon Hewett didn't dare finish the thought.
And yet, what happened next was even more alarming.
The shard of ice the sailors had brought back refused to melt. At first, no one noticed. It had been left outside, where the cold was enough to freeze a man's manhood off, so no one thought much of it.
But then someone picked it up bare-handed, and before long he felt something was wrong.
The warmth drained swiftly from his palm, while the ice that should have softened even a little showed not the faintest sign of melting.
At first he thought it was just his imagination, but after a few more tries, his face turned pale. He threw the ice away and ran straight to Glendon Hewett.
No one blamed him for it. If Clay had been there, he would have known right away that this was no ordinary ice formed by cold water.
Through magical sight, that piece of ice would have blazed with dense, cold magic.
For it, freezing was not a state... it was existence itself. In other words, unless met by fire of the same magical nature, its frozen form could never be changed, no matter how long it sat above a flame.
Inside the great hall of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, a group of Night's Watch brothers stood around that shard of 'ice,' a thing that could be shattered with a hammer but could not be melted no matter what they tried. They glanced from one to another in uneasy silence.
None of them could make sense of what they were seeing, but every soldier's instinct told them the same thing — the fleet that had sailed out from Eastwatch was almost certainly grave danger.
After a long silence, Glendon Hewett finally spoke, his voice rough and strained.
"We need to send word to Lord Commander Mormont as fast as possible."
Everyone nodded in grim agreement. It was the only thing they could do.
Then, frowning, Glendon asked, "That red-haired woman, the one who keeps muttering about gods — she hasn't left yet, has she?"
Everyone knew who he meant. Melisandre, the woman Cotter Pyke had questioned for half a day without getting a single word from her.
"She's still here. Locked up beside the armory. Don't know if she's frozen to death yet."
They had no idea that a servant of R'hllor did not fear the cold.
Now acting as Eastwatch's commander in all but name, Glendon gave his order. "Bring her here. I want her to see this thing for herself."
Inwardly, he thought, "If there's something strange and unnatural at work, maybe another strange and unnatural woman can make sense of it."
That gamble, as it turned out, paid off.
When the black-cloaked soldiers opened the small cell beside the armory, they found Melisandre sitting calmly inside, as if she had been waiting.
She still wore nothing but her red robe, her bare shoulders faintly aglow in the torchlight. The freezing air seemed powerless against her.
The men had long suspected she wasn't an ordinary woman. They exchanged a few uneasy glances but didn't question it further.
One of them stepped forward and spoke gruffly, carrying out Glendon Hewett's command. "Get up, woman. You're coming with us to the main tower. Ser Glendon Hewett wants to see you."
Melisandre's sapphire eyes flicked over the soldier's face, and she gave a soft, knowing smile before rising gracefully to her feet. Then she followed the two men out into the corridor.
For her, as long as Clay Manderly hadn't yet learned of what was happening here, she had to find a way to leave and get word to him in Winterfell.
But the Watch would not let her go, and a priestess who was no warrior had few options to force their hand.
So she made up her mind. Today, she would reveal who she truly was to this Ser Glendon Hewett.
In her cell, she had already lit a small fire in prayer, but the Lord of Light had given her no answer.
The moment she stepped into the main tower, she noticed the crowd gathered inside. Men stood around the long table, whispering to each other in low voices, their faces drawn tight with unease.
Glendon Hewett turned, about to speak, when he saw her expression change.
For the first time since she had returned from beyond the Wall, the woman whose face had never wavered showed open fear.
Her eyes locked on the shard of ice that lay on the table.
Her voice trembled when she spoke:
"Where… where did you get that from?"
Glendon Hewstt's brow arched slightly. So she did recognize it.
Frowning, he studied Melisandre carefully, his tone deep and firm, "Before you start questioning us, my lady, shouldn't you explain who you are first? You've been here in Eastwatch for quite some time now, yet none of us know your true identity."
Melisandre forced herself to look away from the shard of ice that made her feel as if she stood before a mortal enemy, her body prickling with invisible needles.
To her eyes, that thing was no ordinary piece of frost. It was, if one were to put it bluntly, like a crystallized drop of the Great Other's blood, radiating a dread so intense it seemed to freeze the very air.
She drew several sharp breaths of the frigid wind, forcing calm upon herself, then spoke in a low, solemn voice: "The cold wind has begun to rise, and what follows soon will be the endless Long Night. I am Melisandre, a messenger of R'hllor, the Lord of Light."
Ser Grandon Hewett had heard the name of that god before. Long before he had ever been assigned to Eastwatch, tales had already reached his ears of a red priest named Thoros serving in King Robert Baratheon's court.
So this woman must belong to the same faith.
Still, her identity was hardly his main concern at the moment. The fleet and that strange white mist remained far more pressing matters.
Pulling on the thick gloves that covered his hands, Ser Grandon reached out and poked the shard of ice with one finger before asking directly, "Judging from your face, I take it you know what this thing is?"
The Red Priestess gave a firm nod. The power of the Great Other was the sworn enemy of all who served R'hllor; she could never mistake it.
"This was something formed by the magic of the cold god. You ignorant mortals… I need to know exactly where you found it."
Her haughty tone stung, and Ser Grandon's jaw tightened. Anger flickered across his face, though he swallowed it down. Whether God of ice or God of fire truly existed, such matters were far beyond the reach of a mere officer of the Night's Watch.
He took a long, steady breath and chose to ignore the insult, answering her instead. "You can climb the Wall and see for yourself. To the northeast, over the sea — if there's still any sunlight left — you'll see a great white fog. The sea there has frozen solid, and it's covered with these things."
At those words, Melisandre's eyes widened in shock. For once, her composure shattered, and she shouted furiously, "Why didn't you say so earlier?!"
She didn't seem to care that Ser Grandon, as commander of Eastwatch, had no obligation to report such matters to a woman whose identity was still in question.
Before anyone could speak, Melisandre spun around and bolted toward the door, her scarlet cloak flaring behind her. She needed to see it for herself, to witness just how far the power of the Great Other had spread.
But the moment she threw the door open, she collided headfirst with a soldier who had been hurrying to come in.
The poor man barely registered the impact. He shoved past her in panic as the door rebounded hard against Melisandre's forehead, leaving her momentarily dazed and dizzy. Breathless and pale, he burst into the room, shouting at the top of his lungs:
"Ser Grandon Hewett! Come quickly to the docks, the fleet's returned!"
"What?"
The fleet… has returned?
For two stunned seconds, the commander of Eastwatch froze in disbelief. Then his instincts snapped back into place. He lunged forward, seized the messenger by the arm, and demanded,
"Say that again!"
The soldier, realizing how serious the matter was, swallowed hard and raised his voice to repeat, "My lord, the fleet's returned! But only two ships made it back!"
"Where's Lord Cotter Pyke?"
The soldier shook his head quickly: "I don't know, my lord. I came ahead to report. I didn't see Lord Cotter Pyke anywhere."
Ser Grandon released the breath he'd been holding and shoved the exhausted man aside. Without another word, he called to his men, and together they sprinted toward the docks. He didn't so much as glance at Melisandre, who was still standing there rubbing her head.
She had heard the exchange clearly. Biting her lip, she pushed herself upright and followed after them, her red robes flaring in the cold wind.
She needed to see with her own eyes who these men were — the ones who had managed to return alive from the hands of the servants of the Great Other.
Eastwatch was not a large fortress. The main stronghold stood close to the port, and the moment they crossed through the outer gate, the sight before them struck everyone silent.
Two longships lay moored by the pier, their hulls torn apart as though they had been swallowed and spat out by a dragon. The planks were shattered, sails in tatters, and the wood so splintered that one could barely tell what shape the ships had once been.
A heavy dread settled over Ser Grandon's chest. He didn't need to ask what had happened. Only a savage and hopeless battle could leave vessels in such ruin.
If not for the mercy of the gods, these ships would have never made it back to shore.
He and his men rode down to the docks. Up close, the damage was even worse. The hulls looked ready to crumble if anyone so much as kicked them.
Ser Grandon recognized nearly every face among the survivors. These were his crewmen — men he'd trained with, drunk with, trusted. Yet when he scanned the crowd, he realized half of them were gone.
And then, a foul stench reached him, thick and metallic, the unmistakable reek of blood.
"Gaspar," he called sharply, his eyes locking onto a familiar figure among the returned crew.
Gaspar had once been a bright young lookout aboard Cotter Pyke's flagship, a lad who wore his black cloak and kept a longsword at his hip. Now he stood there pale as snow, one arm gone at the shoulder, the other trembling at his side.
Hearing his name, Gaspar turned his head in a daze. His eyes were hollow, unfocused, until they landed on Ser Grandon Hewett.
His lips, bluish and cracked from the cold, quivered faintly but no sound came out.
Ser Grandon felt a rush of desperation. He strode forward and gripped the boy's shoulders tightly, and shouted, "Talk to me, damn you! Where's Cotter Pyke? What happened to the rest of the ships? What in the seven hells did you run into out there?"
Under normal circumstances, that rough shake would've meant nothing. But now, the moment Grandon's hands pressed down, Gaspar's frail body sagged backward as if his bones had turned to water.
It was like the man's strength, his very structure, had already been drained away.
Melisandre, who had just arrived, spoke softly from behind him. "Ser, this man is gravely wounded."
Her words were met with a roar of fury.
"Silence, witch of R'hllor!"
The Night's Watch held their brothers' lives dear, yet their vows bound them to a greater duty — to guard the Wall above all else.
Right now, with danger looming and no clear idea of its nature, Ser Grandon had no patience to wait for the wounded to recover.
Then, through the tense silence, a voice weak but steady broke through.
"Grandon Hewett… I'm here."
Everyone turned. Ser Grandon lifted his head sharply and pushed through the cluster of men.
On a stretcher made of rough planks lay Cotter Pyke.
He was in a worse state than Gasper. His left arm was gone completely. The whole of his lower torso was soaked in dried blood, and a gaping wound carved across his face. What little blood still seeped from it had already frozen into a thin crust of red ice.
"Old friend," Grandon's voice cracked with disbelief. "Y-you... What in the seven hells did this to you?"
Seeing his former commander and comrade torn apart like this sent a hot wave of rage surging through him. His fists trembled, and for a moment it seemed he might tear something apart just to vent it.
But Cotter Pyke's answer hit him like a bucket of cold seawater.
"I don't know," the man rasped. "I truly don't."
His lips twisted into something that resembled a smile, but the expression was hollow, edged with pain and despair.
"It was enormous," he murmured. "Three times larger than the biggest ship in the Iron Fleet. Sails as black as midnight, towering higher than the masts of any vessel I've ever seen. And the ones on board… they wore full plate armor, the kind only the finest smiths in Westeros could forge."
His eyelids fluttered shut, and he began to whisper again and again, his voice barely audible.
"A slaughter… a slaughter…"
"The Talon… the Black Bird… both shattered to pieces."
Ser Grandon mind was filled with questions he could not put into words. The names, the fragments, the madness in Cotter Pyke's voice — none of it made sense to him at all.
"You…" He started to ask, but the words died halfway. He didn't even know what to say.
That was when Melisandre spoke again, calm and deliberate. "Commander of the Night's Watch," she said, "the ones who slaughtered your men came aboard a warship, vast beyond imagining. It was at least four or five times the size of any vessel you possess, its hull and sails as black as pitch, its design unlike anything seen in either Westeros or Essos. Am I right?"
Her words struck Cotter Pyke like a distant echo from the fire. The memory she spoke of brought her own vision back to life — the same one she had glimpsed within the flames.
The strength in Cotter Pyke's body had nearly vanished. The commander of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea was barely clinging to life now. His wounds were too deep. Even the stubborn fire in his eyes was dimming fast.
When he heard her question, he drew a long, ragged breath and forced his voice to rise one last time.
"Yes… every word you said is true," he whispered. "You must have seen them too…"
Then, a faint, broken smile appeared at the corner of his lips.
"You were right all along. We should have listened to you. This is no longer something Eastwatch can face alone."
He tried to turn his head toward Grandon, but his neck refused to move. So he fixed his fading eyes on the knight instead, mustering what little strength remained.
"Old friend," he said weakly, "go. Do as this woman says. Reach out to Clay Manderly and Castle Black at once. Tell them everything that's happened here."
He paused, his chest heaving with effort, then spoke again in a voice barely above a whisper.
"The blood of our brothers… must not be spilled in vain."
As the last word left his mouth, his breath grew faint, then faded altogether. The stains upon his chest had already dried into a dark crust, and at last even that battered body fell still.
No one spoke.
All around him, men stood in silence, each one staring at the fallen commander. Here, at the edge of the world, every man of the Night's Watch — flawed, rough, and weary as they might be — was a treasure beyond measure.
And now, Cotter Pyke had finished his watch!
His final breath stopped at the foot of the Wall.
**
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[CHAPTER END]
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