CHAPTER 1

-Daenerys-

What had brought her here?

Faith. That is what Daenerys Targaryen had told herself, was it not? It was not faith in gods or magic that brought her here. It was not a love for a man, nor a simply the desire to rule these lands — though that desire burned the brightest in her heart. It was faith in herself that had brought her to this moment, tearing through rules and tradition, burning down injustice and breaking age-old systems wrought of chains and golden coins.

For one cold, poignant moment, however, Daenerys' faith had slipped from her grasp. Faith in herself had done little to shield her from the nightmare of darkness and death around her. It did not block the sounds of her child screaming in agony as countless undead creatures clambered and clawed across him, forcing him to writhe and lurch in the skies above her. It did not bring some wondrous agility to her legs to allow her to flee this graveyard of a battlefield. It did not shield her from the loathsome creature lurching towards her, sword scraping along the ground and slicing through a carpet of corpses, both its own fallen comrades and her Dothraki, her Unsullied, Northern banner-men and their fallen horses.

Faith had no place in this battlefield. She demanded her legs to move, but they had frozen in a crumpled heap beneath her. She commanded her arms to move, to shield her in vain, but they refused. Her mouth ran dry, her tongue unable to form the word she wanted to scream in hopes Drogon would hear her and bring a deluge of dragonfire from above to rescue her.

In this moment, Daenerys was back where she began. Without her dragons. Without her people. Without a weapon. She was alone.

Steel sung through the air, the sound clouding her own sharp intake of breath as the undead soldier's head thudded to the ground. Her heart may have hoped Jon Snow had heard the cries of Drogon and returned for her, but her head knew there was only one person who would cross hell itself to find her. The hand that grabbed her arm was rough, but she had never been more grateful to be hauled to her feet. Daenerys was no fool — the presence of her bear knight would not guarantee her survival. He had been the first to charge into this god-forsaken battle, and even now as they all but scrambled from the rising dead, she could see exhaustion lowering Jorah's sword arm, the limp slowing his pace, the blood prickling in his eyes as he tried to blink and wipe it away.

No, Jorah would not guarantee her survival here. But there was no man in Westeros who would fight harder for it.

After all, what had brought him here? No sane man could fight for as long as he had on love alone. Plenty of men had claimed their hearts were hers, and plenty had left her side unguarded when it became clear the offering would not become an exchange. Unspoken, both she and Jorah knew well that his heart still lay at her feet, but something more had grown between them in recent years.

The word rung in her head, both reassuring and terrifying all at once:

Faith.

She had not returned his love, but she would join the Night King's army before she let his faith in her go unanswered. As he cut down the Night King's warriors left and right of them, the queen quickly found a fallen sword from the carnage at their feet; it was too heavy for her, and felt unnatural in her hand, but she steadied it well enough. A blade was not her preferred weapon, but Daenerys was no stranger to wielding a sword. Her whole life had been an endless war — what fool would not ask her knighted advisors to train her in the basics of swordsmanship?

Ah, but how far away the dusty courtyards of Qaarth seemed now, with the sickening crunch of the fallen underfoot knocking her every step. What lifetime had passed since she, having only just become accustom to the powers of a queen, demanded lessons in swordsmanship from a wholly reluctant Ser Jorah? How many times had she admonished him since those days, when his constant apologies for tapping her arm with the flat of his blade to show her where she had let her guard down had grated on her patience?

Gods, how far they had come. Gods, how a part of her, small and quiet, wished they could go back to those days.

The dead around them would not know mercy from the Dragon Queen for this wishful thinking though. Teeth bared, she plunged the blade into one, two, and another. They fell at her feet, joining the piles of fallen soldiers her knight brought down in turn. Her battle cry followed her blade, but the dead kept rising upon them. Where she and Jorah were tiring, the blue-eyed demons were not. One turn, too slow, brought a blade slashing across Jorah's side. His attention was split between his own defences and covering Daenerys' own — it wasn't long before an undead saw this weakness to exploit and leapt upon the knight's back, arms around his throat. With a cry, she cut the assailant down, freeing Jorah in time for him to take down yet another that had darted forward towards the Queen.

His left flank unguarded, a blade burrowed into his side before Daenerys could bring her sword to the creature's face. Her heart shivered to a stop, plummeting cold as Jorah fell to one knee. But he allowed himself only this heartbeat before getting back to his feet with her help, unsteadily but upright all the same. Jorah's eyes were fixed on the growing swarm surrounding them, and other than his brief fall he had not seemed to register the wound at all.

The onslaught continued, Daenerys' yells quickly descending into primal roars tangled in fear and desperation, her already unpolished swordsmanship becoming a flurried frenzy for survival, the hoard around them waning under the fury of the dragon and the bear.

Another strike brought her weary knight to his knees once more, and she looked away for but a moment in order to help haul him back to his feet again. No sooner had Dany's hands grasped his arm, however, than Jorah shoved his arm back, having only the strength left to roughly knock her behind him.

Then she heard that awful sound: steel biting through steel, and a reprise of a now-blood coated blade tearing out of Jorah's chest. Daenerys managed to regain her footing and brought down the fiend whose blade had sought her knight's heart, with Jorah able to sluggishly bring his own Valyrian steel blade up into the skull of another. This bought the pair a brief moment of reprieve, the silence broken only by Jorah burying Heartsbane into the ground in order to use the sword as a crutch to bring himself agonisingly to his feet again.

Daenerys reached out to steady him again as he swayed, his eyes glazed and unfocused, face caked in blood, sweat, and dirt. She had seen Jorah's unrelenting energy in battle before, and his staggering inability to give up while he still had a sword in his hand had often factored in to her strategies. But how, how was he still on his feet now? Any one of the blades he had shielded her from should have been fatal, though she dared not think it lest she seem insolent of this miracle keeping her knight alive.

How quickly Daenerys learnt that it was no miracle. Somewhere, unseen to them, the Night King had fallen. His thralls quickly followed suit, crumbling to dust and ice around them, leaving Daenerys and Jorah standing in a field barren of life, save for them.

No sooner had the last undead faded did Jorah's strength fade too. It was as if the only thing that moved his broken and bloodied body beyond his numerous wounds was the sole purpose of protecting his Queen. The moment this task was complete, the knight collapsed to his knees for the final time, crumpling to the ground.

In unison, what little was left of Daenerys' composure shattered as grief and disbelief poured through her veins, robbing her of her fire and drowning her heart in an impossibly cold dread.

Dragging her fallen knight into her arms, the Dragon Queen did nothing to stem the tears that cascaded freely, the sobs and wails that built in her throat. Men would die in this battle, she had known this. Of course, she had known this. She knew that blades and war did not care who was who — and yet, some naive part of her that had survived the ordeals of her life had thought her bear knight would always return to her side. The little part of her heart that still believed in stories of knights and princesses, the part she had thought had been long since burned away when the cruelties of the world had forged her anew.

He always returned to her. He always had…

Daenerys wanted to speak, but what could she say? If she commanded Jorah to stay, if she gave him to ridiculous command to live, no doubt he would fight off the cold hands of Death until it tore his limbs apart and dragged him from the world. But all of her words crumbled to stammers of weeping for the agony in his clouded eyes, already losing focus.

Jorah whispered something, a breath ragged and broken, but every last spark of his strength had been given in shielding her, and he had nothing left. And then, even that last, exhausted breath was gone, and her knight moved no more.

The war was won, and yet, the victory did not strike Daenerys' heart. Though she was seated at the head of the table, an impromptu war-room created from one of the few least-damaged structures within Winterfell, the voices around her were but a drone. She was not, it seemed, immune to grief after all. Though she had thought her heart knew well the pain of it through its countless encounters with that numbing stranglehold, here it was again at her doorstep. An unwanted guest.

Lilac eyes flicked to her Hand, having noted a sudden pause in discussion and feeling the Lannister's eyes pressing against her, waiting for a response.

She did not insult him with a feigned reply of understanding. Tyrion's sharp wits would cut through such dishonesty in a heartbeat. Instead, she rose from the table, causing a ripple along the room as others got to their feet in reflection of their Queen. Not that many were present, with the majority bedridden, resting or — gone.

"Forgive me...my strength for battle regrettably pales in comparison to the men and women you speak of," Daenerys said instead, a truth if nothing else. She may have missed the discussion, but few such conversations in the wake of the battle had not touched upon their numerous losses. At last count, over half of their combined forces had been cut down by undead blades. Entire Dothraki clans had ended that night, whole houses had been extinguished.

Her Hand bowed, though she caught a glimmer of sympathy in Tyrion's mismatched gaze before his head dipped.

"Of course, Your Grace. You must still be weary from your own part in the battle — this discussion can wait. But, if I may advise Your Grace," Tyrion straightened up, not one to remain bowed under the Queen's gaze. It was partly why she had chosen him to be her Hand. It was partly why she regretted that choice. "We need to discuss the damages to our numbers before we entertain the thought of marching on King's Landing. Our numbers may have dwindled, but I have no doubt in my mind that my sister will have—"

"Your sister?" Daenerys' scoffing remark came far colder than intended, but she had left her grace and pandering for nobles somewhere on the battlefield, along with her patience. "Your sister is nothing more than a false queen. We have destroyed a king born of darkness and death, found victory in a war that prophets claimed could not be conquered by the living. Your sister can summon nothing that comes close to what we have faced. The sooner she is naught but ashes, the better."

With that, she turned on her heel and made to leave. Perhaps she was being reckless, but this inhuman war they had all found themselves a part of had inevitably left poison and anger pent up and boiling within her. For her losses, Daenerys wished it had been her to plunge a dragonglass blade into the Night King's heart. She would make do with cremating the unworthy snake coiled on her throne.

Before she had reached the door, she heard Tyrion's footsteps.

"Your Grace, I know you think this battle must be trivial compared to the Night King, but we mustn't underestimate her. If you would allow me the time to—"

The Dragon Queen whirled upon the lion.

"Time? For whom? For us to bolster our forces, or for her to?"

Her snapping rebuke was bitter on her tongue, as she recalled one of the last conversations she had had with Jorah. He had wanted her to forgive Tyrion, to trust him. Usually, Daenerys would inclined to follow his words, even if they jarred against her personal preference toward a situation. Usually, her wise bear was right. But despite this, and despite the circumstances, she found herself unable to honour his final piece of advice. Something in her gut told her her Hand was not to be fully trusted until Cersei breathed her last. Something in her mind whispered of the third betrayal yet to come…

She stared down at the man in spite of Tyrion's darkening glower, a familiar sight these days as Daenerys' cutting words struck him more frequently. Daenerys could see the frustration in his expression, no doubt wondering what he could do to prove himself trustworthy. But that was not for her to answer, and in this silence, she turned for the exit once more, letting the wooden door rattle shut behind her. She managed but a few steps before a voice behind the door brought her to pause.

"Never mind the battle with Cersei," Davos' gruff and blunt tones hummed through the door behind her, "you'll have a battle on your hands getting her to see reason."

"...I rather think I lost that battle some time ago," Tyrion's sighing response was laced in exhaustion, and Daenerys heard the scrape of a chair. "She barely trusts me, let alone my words. I can convince a king not to go to war, but I daresay convincing a dragon not to breath fire is a little beyond my repertoire. There's only one man in the world who I witnessed managing that, and the last time he was absent from her side, we established 'death by dragonfire' as a new and apparently reasonable method of public execution."

The bitterness in his voice, along with the manner in which these men were discussing her method of rule nearly brought Dany storm back to the room, but she exercised a beat of patience. If only to spite them in proving she wasn't as wholly reckless as they seemed to believe.

"Ser Jorah did have a talent for tempering the Queen's fury, it's true," a voice running too-smooth and sickly sweet trailed under the door, "but alas, that door is...closed."

How did Varys always manage to speak as though he knew every little detail, Daenerys wondered, as his apparently-coincidental choice of words managed to make her freeze up further in silence.

A long pause settled, before a single, dropped word duly bludgeoned the silence with all the elegance of a drunkard staggering into an inn.

"...Bollocks."

"...For want of a better phrase, I would have to agree with you, Ser Davos."

"No, I...er..." The Onion Knight tripped on his words, clearly toying with something he both wished, and did not wish, to speak about. Frowning, Daenerys crept closer to the door — it wasn't the first time the man had backtracked on a strange outburst. Both he and Jon had been quick to dismiss his phrase that the self-styled King in the North had 'taken a blade to the heart'. Though she had pressed the matter further with Jon since, no amount of their growing trust and connection seemed to break through to unearth this secret.

"Well, it's just...might've been useful if that bloody Red Woman hadn't flung herself out to die in the snow after all — Gods forgive me for sayin' so because no woman's walked Westeros who didn't deserve to die more than her for what she's done."

"Melisandre?" The name came with a quiver of fear from Varys; another strangeness that Dany kept tucked away for future use. "What of her?"

After another, prolonged pause in which Dany could visualise in great detail poor Ser Davos shifting uncomfortably under the scrutinising gazes of both Tyrion and Varys, stubbed fingers no doubt twisting in his beard, but the man finally relented.

"She — and this goes no further than this room, because if Jon knows you know, the rest of my fingers'll be the direwolf's supper — she...I once saw her bring...well, I don't know what she did really, but...well, Jon Snow, he was dead. Dead for days. Saw it with my own eyes."

Daenerys felt her face drop, the frown untangling and her lips parting in shock. Ser Davos could be trusted with a great many things. The blunt and unrelenting truth was one of those things. She had no reason to believe the man was lying; after all, what use would it be to him to do so now? Plus, Dany of all people knew this magic was indeed possible. That it could be done quite so successfully was, however, new to her.

"He can't have been terribly dead, Ser Davos. You might have noticed him wandering around the castle." Tyrion's dry response sounded.

"He was dead, I'm tellin' you. Cold and blue and dead. And she...well, I don't know what she did exactly, but she brought him back to life."

"And you didn't think this would be useful to know before we started building funeral pyres for those that fell against the Night King?" Tyrion responded, incredulous both in this information being withheld but also in clear disbelief of Davos' claims.

"Wouldn't matter if I did or didn't. She's gone. After the battle, she walked out into the snow and—"

Daenerys didn't wait to hear the rest of his words. She was already dashing through the ruined halls, pushing past haggard-looking and overly-tired Northerners already set to work repairing the castle, tripping over debris and slipping on the snow she was still not quite accustomed to.

The Red Woman was all but a stranger to her really, but her mysterious nature only led credence to the idea that perhaps she held such powers. Was it so ridiculous then to believe the woman might not be dead at all? Could a follower of fire survive out in the cold wastes of the North?

As the Dragon Queen burst out of the front archways, snow crunching underfoot, nothing greeted her but an eye-watering bright blast of ivory-white, the snow sparkling as the broken night gave way to daylight. Broken battlements, a few fallen soldiers still being moved off the battlefield, but no sight of ruby among the snow. Daenerys walked out further, arms wrapping around herself against the bitter cold as she searched through the snow for this impossible hope.

Nothing. Footsteps, half-filled by snow that had been gently falling in the last few hours, led outwards, but stopped abruptly. The hope had not truly had chance to root in Dany's heart, and for that, she was glad. For certainly it would have been enough to bring tears to her eyes once more, and she did not think she had the strength left to grieve again. She remained for the moment, standing out in the cold, her black garb cutting a deep wound against the otherwise almost-serene landscape. Lilac eyes gazed out, not really watching the world around her, rather, looking through her memories.

Ser Jorah was gone. She could not deny that the man had a knack for removing the veil of anger that often clouded her judgement of late, of not only advising her, but explaining and teaching her of these new approaches to problems that she could better understand any and all situations a queen may be presented with. With the rush of adrenaline now ebbing away, Daenerys' mind cleared enough to think — even if she had found the red witch out in the snow, would she really ask her to bring her knight back to life? Years may have passed, but she would never forget her how the maegi had twisted blood spell, killing Dany's unborn child and bringing Drogo back in body, but not in mind. She could never trust the magic of another, that much she had learnt.

From now on, Daenerys would make these choices alone. The idea, more than it scared her, filled her heart with sorrow. She had not considered the idea of ruling alone, not truly alone. She knew well that beneath the crown, many heads ruled a kingdom in truth. But whose council remained that she could completely trust?

Bringing her from her reverie, a glint of crimson jolted Daenerys' spirit up in a fool's hope before her rational mind could stop it. Half-showered in snow, a large and prominent ruby gleamed and glittered not far from her left foot. Curious, she knelt down to dig the gemstone up from its frozen bed, and discovered it was attached to an intricate metalwork frame: a choker, one she had seen before adorning the slender pale neck of Melisandre. With the ruby in hand, Daenerys turned the stone over, noting its strange, dull nature. It still caught the light at angles, but oddly, did not seem to hold a brilliance of its own. And yet, it felt slightly warm, like a cinder in the hearth that was but a breath away from being extinguished. Dany had no need for gemstones and trinkets, but found herself oddly drawn to this one.

If the fallen woman's magic was a blessing from fire, Dany thought to herself, then it belonged to the Mother of Dragons. For her to command.