Chapter Twenty Five

A/N: Thank you to xenocanaan, Arianna Le Fay and Goldspark1 for reviewing the last chapter.

Vorsannys stood in front of the glass, putting the final touches to her hair. She normally did not care to bother about such things, but today she would need all the strength she could possibly show. Her silver locks tumbled down her back, glinting in the white light of the Wall, with a single braid tied at the front. Today would be her first victory; the first of many to come.

"Yeri hrazef hethkat, khalakki." called the excitable guard from outside her door. She was becoming rather endeared to the boy, whose enthusiasm for battle had not waned since the last night.

"Thank you." she answered, and with a final glance in the glass, she swept from the room. The men- if a smattering of green boys and criminals could be deemed as such- would be waking soon, and she would rather not have an audience for her departure.

Too little, too late it seemed, for when she descended from her tower, the Lord Commander and his advisors were gathered before her once again. Vorsannys fought the urge to sigh in frustration, keeping her head held high. Her decision was made, and her mind would not be changed.

"Princess Vorsannys." Jon Snow greeted. His expression seemed torn between false niceties and his own honest fear. Ever the Stark, it seemed; he could not lie even in a glance. "I would like to speak to you alone, if I may."

"I have quite a way to go, Lord Commander." Vorsannys responded, her voice as icy as the chill wind swirling the snow at their ankles. "I must be on my way."

But as she went to pass the group, Jon Snow took a step to the side, blocking her path. Immediately, Vorsannys heard the scrape of steel against leather, but held up a hand to restrain her guards. They were hotheaded boys, not willing to let slights against their khalakki go unpunished, and she could feel them bristling behind her even after she bid them let it be.

"Princess, this is a matter of great urgency." Jon pressed, and the girl fought not to roll her eyes. All the great men she had ever met had shared the same weakness; they all thought their own struggles to be more pressing than the rest of the world's. "More urgent even than the war in the south."

Vorsannys blinked in surprise, wondering if it were possible for the Lord Commander to have read her thoughts in her face. She quickly regained her composure, standing a little taller. "And what would that be?"

Jon Snow scarcely missed a beat. "The war in the North."

This time, the young woman hid her surprise beneath a perfectly arched brow. "A scuffle with the wildlings and you call it war? I thought the men of Westeros brave."

"The wildlings are no enemies of ours, princess, so long as they maintain our pact of peace." A few of the men nearby shuffled where they stood, clearly uncomfortable. If they were so alarmed at the thought of having wildlings among their number, it was no wonder they could not look her Dothraki guards in the face. "I am speaking of a far greater threat. I've thought long and hard on it, I did not wish to tell you this. I am sure this country must be already so frightening for you, no need to add fuel to the fire."

"I am not so easily frightened, Lord Commander." Vorsannys spat, making no effort to hide her indignation. Why must every man think she would cower at the falling of a leaf? She was Dothraki. She was strong. "I would not have you spare my bad dreams for the sake of withholding information that might challenge my life. Any woman who would is a fool."

For a moment, the dark-haired man looked close to smiling, though quickly the corners of his mouth became downturned. "Very well. All the lords of Westeros know, so why should you not? The White Walkers have risen again."

Beneath heavy furs and layers of fabric, it was easily to conceal the hitch of breath that accompanied the Lord Commander's revelation, but he was studying her so intensely that Vorsannys imagined he had seen it regardless. The White Walkers were legend in Westeros, a tale that left children cowering in their beds as they listened to the winter wind howl beyond the windows. Ser Jorah may have ignored the wildlings, but he had told her much of them, the rumours he himself heard as a boy, of the creatures that rose up out of the snow and threatened to snatch away the dawn.

So lost in her childish memories, it seemed only a childish response that she could give. "The White Walkers are not real. They are folklore, nothing more."

"They were," Jon Snow conceded gruffly. "Until they came again."

The princess turned her head over her shoulder, studying the great wall of ice that towered above them. It had held the White Walkers at bay once before, or so the legend told. But the tiniest fracture, the tiniest weakness, and all would be lost.

Several long moments passed in this silence, with only the swirling wind to fill the void. Eventually, it would be Jon Snow to break the frozen tableau. "Princess, I understand that this is difficult to believe. But I ask you-"

"What use could I possibly be?" Vorsannys cut across, the words pounding too loudly in her head to be kept there any longer. "If the White Walkers truly are coming, nothing but the Wall can stop them. These are creatures of myth and magic, Lord Commander. How can we hope to fight against them?"

"You've another creature of myth and magic at your disposal, Princess Vorsannys." From the speed of his reply, it was clear that Jon Snow was not grasping at thin air. He had thought this plan through long before she descended from her tower. "Three of them, in fact."

"The dragons are with my mother." Vorsannys reasoned. Her voice was slow, unwavering, devoid of feeling. There were so many feelings swirling round her heart that the young woman was not sure which would have left her tongue, had she allowed it to. "You told me she struggles against the Lannisters as it is, I cannot take from her what might be her only advantage."

"If the White Walkers cross the Wall, it will not matter a damn who won the battles in the South!" It was as close to anger as Vorsannys had ever seen from Jon Snow, and she would be a liar to deny that she flinched a little as she turned to face him. Whether he noticed this or merely composed himself she could not be sure, but the next time he spoke, his voice was lower. "This is more than the Iron Throne, this is survival itself. I have seen the numbers of the White Walkers' army; even if we armed every man in the Seven Kingdoms with dragonglass, it would not be enough. The dragons may be our only chance to weaken them. Can you honestly say you could not sway even one of them to our cause?"

Vorsannys thought of green and bronze, flickering with the candlelight, and the steady thud of a heartbeat, strong against her own.

"Lord Commander, I would strike a bargain with you." Of the few men still gathered with their commander in the cold, only a few had the decency not to titter; Vorsannys committed their faces to memory. "If I am to remain at Castle Black, to lend my support to your cause, I will not do so passively. There is no possibility of my knitting stockings by the fireside whilst my mother's dragons fly alongside your army. Either I shall fight at her side, or I shall fight at yours."

The silence fell once more, but it was not uncomfortable. Jon Snow's eyes had met hers, and she could see the answer in them long before he spoke it aloud. "I accept your terms, princess. You shall fight with us."

A silent nod of affirmation, and something seemed to have changed in the air. True, some of the Night's Watch were glancing at each in indignation and disbelief, appalled at the concept that, after so many centuries, a woman would fight their cause. But for others, Jon Snow included, they looked at her the way her Dothraki did. As a fighter.

As the Lord Commander assembled his counsel again, he made a point of inviting Vorsannys into the room alongside them. If she were going to fight these battles, she ought to know what they were facing. But as the princess made her way to the chamber, feeling the heat of the fire already melting the snow that speckled her hair, she stopped, a glint of light on the ice having caught her eye.

"Is something wrong, Princess Vorsannys?" asked a kindly-looking man. Maester Samwell, she recalled. He was waiting near the doorway, the relief that had painted his face beginning to slip away.

For a moment longer, Vorsannys stared up at the thin fracture lining the surface of the ice. There were hundreds of them, she knew, had always been, and the Wall had stood until now. Still, it was more than an icy gust that sent a chill running up her spine.

But when she turned, she forced a mask of indifference onto her face. A royal woman must always appear strong, her mother's voice echoed inside her head. "Nothing at all."

A/N: Still on hiatus, but since one of my awesome followers asked for an update, here it is! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, I think the introduction of the White Walkers is really going to raise the stakes here. Please review!