PROLOGUE: THE SHADOW OF WINTER
POV Tywin Lannister
My years at court had taught me many things. When my father, Tytos, was still demonstrating his weakness by sending me as a royal cupbearer, I had witnessed the reign of Aegon V - the well-intentioned, the "Unlikely." I had watched his futile efforts to restore the Targaryens' ancient splendor. And finally, I had witnessed his tragic end in the flames of Summerhall. Now, here I was, no longer a mere cupbearer, but one of the court nobles, standing beside Jaehaerys the Second, waiting on the walls of King's Landing for a living legend.
The King in the North had always held a peculiar fascination for me. An immortal sorcerer, the stories said. A man so powerful he had faced dragons in their prime and survived to rule for centuries beyond what was natural. I had caught a glimpse of his kingdom when I accompanied Prince Aerys and Princess Rhaella on their futile journey North years ago. Every Targaryen tried, every one failed miserably. I remember Aegon V confessing during a rare night of relaxation, his voice laden with bitterness, that he believed his lineage had been cursed by the very dragons his ancestors had slaughtered for "a stupid iron throne."
And then, finally, I could witness with my own eyes.
First came the army on the horizon - a vision I must admit was deeply disturbing in its almost supernatural perfection. Men clad in black and grey, marching with a synchronization that defied comprehension. There was no commotion, no shouted commands, only the rhythmic, threatening sound of thousands of footsteps echoing in unison, making the very earth tremble slightly beneath our feet. Within minutes, they were before the gates, an organized, silent mass that seemed to breathe as a single organism.
The army then parted with military precision, and there was no need to guess the reason. Moving through the perfect ranks came the famous beast of the King in the North - a giant wolf of proportions that defied reason. Larger than any horse, its fur black as the deepest night and its bright green eyes that seemed to examine each of us with a disturbing intelligence, completely alien to any animal.
I then felt a sudden chill, despite King's Landing's usual heat. I looked up and saw - impossibly - tiny snowflakes beginning to dance in the air.
The roar that followed made the very air vibrate. Three massive shadows emerged from the north. A silver dragon that could only be Silverscale, another brown and ancient one that matched the descriptions of Sheepstealer, and one with pink scales that was obviously Morning - now fully grown, not the small dragon from the historical records. They flew over the city, and even from the walls I could hear the panic spreading among the populace below. Since the Dance of the Dragons, no dragon had flown over King's Landing - the sound of terror rising from the streets was testament to that.
A soldier beside me pointed to the sky with a visibly trembling hand. And then I saw him.
The King in the North himself descending from the sky, not like a bird, but floating with a supernatural grace that defied all laws of nature. He stopped a few meters from us, hovering in the air as if standing on an invisible platform. Every detail of his appearance became clear - a man with youthful features, but eyes that carried the weight of centuries.
The water in the air began to condense above his head, forming an intricate crown of ice with a large red ruby at its center. The process was hypnotic - ice crystals dancing in the air before uniting into the majestic form. It hovered for a moment that seemed eternal before slowly descending to rest upon his head, as if the world itself was crowning him king. The records were right - it was truly a unique, almost divine moment.
The king then opened his mouth, and his voice cut through the air like an ice blade, echoing clearly despite the distance.
"Will they make me wait forever before these gates," he said, his words laden with a millennial patience that, paradoxically, sounded like a threat, "or will I need to open them by force?"
King Jaehaerys, as if awakening from a trance, stammered an order. "Bring the bread and salt! Quickly!"
After the hospitality ritual was performed with trembling hands, the King in the North inclined his head slightly. "I thank you for the welcome to King's Landing." He then made a casual, almost negligent gesture, and the massive gates began to open as if moved by their own will.
Up close, I could assess the man - if one could call him that. Had I not known the history, had I not seen him floating moments before, I might have mistaken him for a young Northern lord. His features were youthful, almost untouched by time, his posture relaxed. He did not appear dangerous.
That was until he looked into my eyes.
His eyes... were as cold as the very winter of which he was king. And when his grey eyes met mine, I felt completely naked. It was as if all my deepest secrets, all my ambitions and fears, all my carefully laid plans were being exposed to the harsh light. A shiver ran down my spine - it wasn't from the wind, nor the cold, but from something much more primordial, something that spoke directly to the most ancient part of my being.
The king then returned to his army, joining the Northern lords, giving me a chance to catch my breath.
Aerys, beside me, seemed as affected as I was. "Are you alright, Tywin?"
"Yes," I lied, my voice firmer than I expected. "Let us prepare for the days to come."
But as I turned to follow the king into the city, I already knew the truth: this would not be a war. With the Northern army, the dragons, and especially with the King in the North himself leading them, it would be a massacre.
And there, on those walls of King's Landing, with the cold of the North still in my bones, I began to plan how to capitalize on this situation. How to ensure that the Lion of Casterly Rock found favor with the most dangerous man ever to set foot in Westeros. For if there is one thing I learned from observing the court, it is that when winter comes, even lions must know when to bow.
Part 1:
POV: Theon Stark
The days passed with the meticulous and familiar routine of preparation for war. It was a spectacle I had witnessed countless times over the centuries: the frenzy of men, weapons, and logistics crashing against the wall of ice that always awaited them. The smell of fear, masked by sweat and the boiled oil of armorers, was an ancient perfume to my nostrils. The armies of the so-called Seven Kingdoms had converged on King's Landing, a multicolored, noisy stain against the city's dirt and stench.
The title always elicited an internal smile, a brief spasm of bitter irony at the corner of my mouth. "Seven Kingdoms." I vividly remembered a conversation, centuries ago, where I corrected Jaehaerys the First himself. He, with his precarious wisdom and his iron desire for unification, used the term in my presence during one of our rare audiences.
"The Seven Kingdoms are in your debt for your assistance, Theon," he had said, his voice a well-tuned instrument of statesmanship.
My reply came out smooth and cold as the blade of Ice Just, the sword that rested at my hip that day. "Your kingdoms, Jaehaerys. Only yours. It would be wise not to forget that the North never bent the knee to your Conqueror, and Dorne still bleeds the dragons that dared cross its mountains."
He did not flinch, of course. Jaehaerys was a master at disguising his annoyances. But his eyes, the color of lavender, narrowed for a fraction of a second. The seed of discomfort was planted. It seems, however, that the Targaryens kept that correction not as a reminder of humility, but as a debt of pride. For when Dorne finally joined them through marriage, not conquest, the first thing they did was adopt the title of "Seven Kingdoms" with an almost religious fervor, as if the simple repetition of the words could erase the truth of history. A truth that I, in flesh, blood, and ice, personified.
The departure of the armies, however, was efficient, sped up largely by the fleet of the North. My ships, with their hulls black as a winter night and sails white as freshly fallen snow, were giants among the heavy, clumsy vessels of the South. The magic of the enlargement runes, carved into their masts and keels by artisans trained in the deepest traditions of Winterfell, granted them an internal space that defied logic, capable of carrying legions of men, provisions for a long campaign, and even disassembled siege engines, without seeming overloaded.
It was this spectacle of naval power that finally broke the barrier of fear and distrust that always surrounded my person. While the Southern ships rocked heavily in the waves, mine cut through the water with the silent grace of a giant wolf hunting. And that attracted the opportunists.
Some Southern lords, swallowing their superstitious fears at the prospect of profit, dared to approach. The advances were always the same: hollow praise, observations about the "inclement weather" – as they called the twenty-year summers I had brought to the North – and, finally, the inevitable question.
"Your Grace, such vessels... a marvel of Nordic engineering, without a doubt. Would it... be possible to commission some for the Fleet of Lannisport? Price would be no object."
The answer was always the same, given with a coldness that made the heat of the southern summer retreat. "No."
The refusal, dry and final, was a bucket of ice water on their ambitions. Most backed away, muttering apologies with faces flushed with shame and anger. But one, in particular, was not easily intimidated. Tywin Lannister.
The Lion of Casterly Rock was young, younger than most of my rugs in Winterfell, but he already carried a solemnity and a coldness in his green eyes that I only saw in much older men. He approached not with the hesitation of the others, but with the calculated precision of a chess master.
"Theon Stark," he said, dispensing with titles, a calculated test. His voice was flat, emotionless. "Your ships would change the balance of power in any sea of Westeros. The North guards its secrets zealously, I understand. But Lannisport's gold can buy more than weapons and loyalties. It can buy... the future."
I looked at him, seeing not just the man, but the specter of all the Lannisters who had come before him. Ambitious, intelligent, dangerous. "The future of the North is not for sale, Lord Tywin," I replied, my voice a whisper that cut through the noise of the port. "Not for all the gold under your Rock. Our secrets are our strength. And our strength is not negotiated."
He did not insist, merely inclined his head slightly, an almost imperceptible gesture. But his eyes did not leave mine. There was a cold respect there, and a deep assessment. Interesting, I thought. It took two hundred and sixty years for a Southern lord, the most powerful of them, to realize that attempting an alliance with the North – a true alliance, not the fictitious vassalage the Targaryens pretended to have – would be the shrewdest political move in generations. He saw beyond the myth and the fear. He saw power. And power was a language Tywin Lannister understood perfectly.
The war itself, when it finally reached the Stepstones, was a bloody farce. A spectacle of horror staged to remind a fool and a forgotten continent of the price of challenging the North. Maelys the Monstrous, with his grotesque twin head and his drunken dream of an empire, made his final mistake by ordering the attack on White Harbor. It was a move of desperation, an attempt to plunder the North's wealth to fund his pathetic war. He did not understand that the true wealth of the North was not in our coffers, but in the ice under our feet and the blood in our veins.
The battle was a one-sided massacre. The disciplined ranks of my men, each marked with the runes of strength, endurance, and precision they received on their fifteenth name day, advanced like a wall of steel and will. They cut through the disorganized hordes of the Ninepenny Kings like a scythe through dry straw. The screams of men, the shock of metal on metal, the smell of blood and entrails – it was a symphony of violence I knew by heart.
The only note of genuine sadness, a solitary minor chord in that carnage, was the death of Ormund Baratheon. The man died with honor, defending his king. A foolish death, in a foolish war, but a dignified one. I bowed my head in silent respect when the news reached me. The Baratheons were always stormy, but rarely dishonorable.
Meanwhile, in the skies, the true lesson was being taught. It was a spectacle only the North could offer. My beloved Gael, riding the majestic Silverwing, a vision of lethal grace against the sky. The great beast, whose silver scales shimmered even in the darkness of battle, unleashed jets of pale, cold flame that froze ships the moment they touched them.
Beside her, Baelor Truefyre, grandson of my Helaena and lord of his own Northern lineage, commanded the fierce Sheepstealer. The brown dragon, once a wild thing from the Mountains of the Moon, was now an instrument of calculated fury. Its roar was the sound of the earth shattering, and its fire, a living furnace that consumed everything, leaving only embers and ash.
And then there was Visenya. Helaena's great-granddaughter, a young woman with the blood of the dragon running strong in her veins, as fierce as her namesake. She rode Morning, the dragon born from the rubble of the Dance. Its scales were pale as the dawn, and its fire, a pink and golden ray that cut through the enemy ships' masts like a celestial blade. Together, the three dragons were a storm of steel, fire, and ice. The fleet of the pretenders, the pride of the Golden Company, was erased from the face of the sea in a single afternoon.
Maelys, the architect of all this insanity, had a mundane end. He fell by the blade of Barristan the Bold. A quick end for a monster. And, unlike the tales that would undoubtedly arise in the songs of Southern bards, there was no clemency. My orders were clear and executed with the Northern efficiency that characterizes my people. None of the soldiers, mercenaries, or captains of the Ninepenny Kings survived to carry the news back to Essos. The sea swallowed some; the land, under our feet, swallowed the others. The message did not allow for survivors.
But the lesson was not complete. A warning must be burned into the collective memory of a people, and the Essosi, with their passion for trade and intrigue, had short memories when the gold of coins flashed in their direction.
We followed to Tyrosh. The city-island, with its colorful towers and proud people, was the financial and moral heart of the resistance to Maelys. They needed to understand the cost.
Over the city, hovering in the air currents like gods of destruction, our flight unleashed fire and death from the skies. It was not a battle. It was a judgment. From Silverwing, a silver mist that silenced and froze life. From Sheepstealer, an avalanche of primitive fury that reduced markets and mansions to smoldering rubble. From Morning, beams of pink light that pierced the strongest defenses, incinerating everything in their path.
I observed from the ground, feeling the heat of the inferno on my face. I did not feel pleasure, but a deep, weary resignation. I watched half of Tyrosh burn, the vibrant colors of the towers giving way to the black of charcoal and the red of fire. The smell of ash and burnt flesh rose to us, a fetid incense offered to the altar of power.
When half the city was a funeral pyre, I gave the order to withdraw. The lesson had been given. I hope it lasts at least a generation. I hope the survivors of Tyrosh, and the magisters of Pentos, and the priests of Volantis tell their grandchildren about the day the North and its dragon allies made fire rain upon the proud. But I knew the nature of men. Selective memory is an incurable disease, especially when the cure costs more than the disease. The glitter of gold always outshines the glare of flames, until it is too late.
It doesn't matter. I can always return. I can always make it rain fire again. Patience is the advantage of the immortals.
The journey back North was silent. The air grew colder and cleaner with every league we put between us and the stinking, burned South. As I made my way home, my thoughts wandered to Gael. My Gael. The sad girl of the court who found in the eternal ice of the North a refuge, and in me, a love that transcended mortality. Seeing her up there, riding Silverwing with the courage of a true queen, was a reminder that it had been worth it. Having her by my side, equally immune to the passage of time, was my greatest victory, a triumph that made all the wars and all the bloody lessons worthwhile.
And, in the back of my mind, a familiar and ancestral presence whispered. It was the voice of the memory of my first Governess, a woman of sharp wit and sharper instincts, whose teachings had been passed down through the women who served my house. Now, that legacy of cunning and counsel was embodied in Alice Makima, the seventh and last. The most powerful, the most disturbing. Her very existence was a reminder that even the oldest memories can find new and dangerous vessels. And that winter, whatever it may be, never comes alone. It brings with it not only ice and death, but also long-buried secrets, ready to awaken.