Daenerys POV
The wind that cut like a blade from the True North hit Daenerys with full force when the twin towers of Winterfell finally rose on the horizon. It wasn't a damp chill like King's Landing, but something pure, ancient, and relentless. She tightened the thick furs over her riding leathers, feeling the weight of history that place carried. The castle of the ancient Kings of Winter, in its granite austerity, was magnificent. Since she was a child, she had been fascinated by the stories of Westeros, but she had always felt a special attraction for House Stark and for Brandon, the Builder.
A command whispered in High Valyrian, and Red Comet inclined his powerful wings. The great dragon, black as night with scales that shone red in the pale sun, responded smoothly. She had given him that name because her mother, Queen Rhaella, always said a red comet had streaked across the sky on the night of her birth, and the egg placed in her crib had hatched at that very same hour.
The landing was smooth before the great gates of Winterfell. Red Comet let out a low roar, steam issuing from his nostrils in the icy air, before settling down. Daenerys slid from her saddle with practiced ease.
The gates were already opening. A small entourage emerged, led by two youths on horseback. The first caught her attention immediately. He was auburn-haired, with blue eyes – the colors of the Tullys. But his face had the long, solemn structure of the Starks. Robb Stark, she deduced. The Heir to Winterfell.
Her gaze then fell on the second youth, and recognition enveloped her. Aemon. Her nephew. But contrary to what one would expect of a Targaryen, he was totally Stark. His hair was dark brown, thick and unruly like his uncle Ned's. His eyes were Lyanna's eyes: storm-grey, deep and observant. The Targaryen blood seemed to have been completely lost in the Northern inheritance, leaving only the solidity of House Stark in his posture and features.
Robb Stark urged his horse forward, a grey stallion. His smile was open and warm. "Princess Daenerys," he said. "Welcome to Winterfell. House Stark is honored by your presence." He gestured, and a squire brought forward a docile mare with a white coat. "Your mount, if you wish."
"Thank you, Lord Robb," she replied, accepting the reins and mounting with ease. Aemon then approached, and she saw a slight nod of his head.
"Aunt," he greeted, his voice firm, but without his cousin's effusiveness.
"Prince Aemon," she returned. "Are you well?"
"Well," he answered simply, but his grey eyes observed her with a quiet curiosity. He was decidedly handsome, she thought, but in a completely Northern way – a severe, earthy beauty that had nothing of the ethereal beauty of the Targaryens. Ice and fire…, she reflected, but here the ice seems to have dominated completely.
The entourage passed through the great gates, and the inner courtyard of Winterfell opened before her. And there, on the step of the great staircase, was the family. Lord Eddard Stark, the Ice Man. Beside him, two women. Catelyn Tully, with her auburn hair and blue eyes, and Ashara Dayne, still stunning with her night-black hair and violet eyes. Ashara's melancholic beauty was legendary.
Around them, the children. With Catelyn: Robb, of course; a girl with a red hair who must be Sansa; another girl with a fierce look, Arya; a curious-eyed younger boy, Bran; and the littlest, Rickon. With Ashara, a young woman of impressive beauty with violet eyes – Lyarra – and a younger boy, Rickard.
The ritual was simple. An elderly servant approached with a wooden bowl. Inside, dark rye bread and coarse salt. "May the departing guest have bread and salt, and may the receiving host know no hunger," he intoned. Daenerys broke a piece of bread, dipped it lightly in the salt, and ate. The flavor was earthy, strong, honest.
Inside the Great Hall, the banquet was already bustling. The air thick with the smell of roast meat, fresh bread, dark ale, and wood smoke. The difference from the feasts in King's Landing or even Summerhall was abysmal. Here there was no intricate dance of words, only loud laughter, tabletop pounding, and a genuine joy that moved her.
After the first greetings and food, Lord Eddard rose from his seat at the high table. He did not raise his hands, did not shout. He merely stood. And as if by magic, the noise in the hall diminished to a whisper, and then silence. It was a display of authority so pure that Daenerys was impressed.
"People of the North!" Ned Stark's voice filled the hall, clear and firm. "Today, we receive under our roof the blood of our Emperor. Princess Daenerys Targaryen will not merely visit. At her own request, and with the blessing of Emperor Aenar, she will live among us for a year. She will learn our customs, our ways. May she be received not as a stranger, but as a daughter of the North during her time with us!"
A roar of approval arose from the hall, not polite applause, but genuine voices, cups banging on wood, shouts of "Welcome!" and "Stark!". Daenerys felt a real, broad smile spread across her face. It was a warm, brutally honest acceptance. And, she thought, looking at a group of warriors drinking and laughing without ceremony, the Northmen would probably accept any decent reason for a feast.
While receiving greetings from various minor lords and ladies, her eyes scanned the hall. And then, at a more distant table, near the enormous fireplace, she saw three men. They were not feasting with the same vigor. They sat, watching, with a seriousness that isolated them from the bustle. Their cloaks were dark, without insignia, but she recognized them. Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, whose blade Dawn rested before him like a silent testament. Ser Oswell Whent, with a severe face. And Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, now a worn giant. The last three members of the Kingsguard who followed Rhaegar into his romantic madness. She knew that after the trial, they had begged Lyanna for the chance to serve her, to guard her son, as a way to atone for their failure to protect her and the realm. Lyanna, in her stubborn compassion, had granted it.
Arthur Dayne turned his gaze to her, and for a second, his violet eyes met hers. He nodded slightly, a gesture of deep respect and acknowledgment. She returned the gesture.
Her stay in Winterfell, Daenerys realized as her gaze was drawn again to Aemon, who watched her with his quiet, intense look, would be much more than a simple history lesson. And with a pleasant chill down her spine, she knew this year would change everything for her.
Jeor Mormont POV
The wind beyond the Wall was not like any other wind. It did not whistle, it howled – an ancient, icy lament that seemed to come from the very bowels of eternal winter. Jeor Mormont, the Old Bear, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, felt its weight in every fiber of his aged body, even under the thick furs and mail. Atop the Second Wall, a colossal construction of black ice and stone erected generations ago to guard the lands between the walls, he was the first sentinel of the realm of men. His eyes, small and penetrating like his animal namesake, scanned the white immensity before him. The White Desert. A sea of silence and death.
The weight on his shoulders was not just physical. It was the weight of millennia of oaths, of a vigil that might be coming to an end. Not a quiet end, but an end of fire and blood.
Firm steps on compact ice made him turn. The figure approaching was a contrast to the icy landscape. Maester Aemon walked with a steadiness that his more than one hundred years of age denied. His face, marked by wisdom, did not bear the deep wrinkles of extreme old age, but the firmness of a man in his vigorous forties. The blood of Maekar Targaryen, one of the great Lords of Summerhall of yore, ran in his veins, but it was a more recent gift that kept him thus: the rejuvenation potions of Emperor Aenar himself. It was not the true immortality granted to a few chosen ones, but a reversal, a return to the strength time had taken. A gesture of gratitude for a wise man who had served the Watch for countless decades.
"Lord Commander," Aemon's voice was serene, but his eyes, milky but still perceptive, reflected the same worry that consumed Jeor. "What is the state of the darkness?"
Jeor let out a sigh that turned into a dense white cloud in the air. "Worse, Aemon. Always worse." He pointed a gloved hand north. "Attacks on our farthest patrols have tripled. They are not just desperate wildlings. They are things that move in the dark, that pierce the ice silently. Last week, the Shadow Tower reported that an entire patrol of ten men disappeared. Only their footprints were found, heading north… until they simply stopped, as if they had been erased from the world."
A heavy silence hung between them, broken only by the incessant howling of the wind.
"The cold is changing," Jeor continued, his voice a low growl. "It's no longer just winter's cold. It is a cold that bites the soul, that makes torch flames flicker for no reason. The animals are silent. Even the Ravens you love so much, Aemon, hesitate before flying north." He turned fully to the Maester, his face grim. "The time for half-measures is over. Send ravens. To King's Landing, to the Emperor. To all the Lords of the Lands between the Walls, from the Umbers to the Thenns. To the mountain clans. Tell them… tell them to sharpen their swords, to stock their provisions and to strengthen their walls. The Great War is no longer on the horizon. It is beating at our door."
Aemon showed no surprise, only a deep and resigned sadness. He looked into the white infinity, as if he could see through it, to the darkness gathering deep within. "The Long Night," he whispered, more to himself. "Everything returns, eventually. Even the things the world has forgotten." He gave a slight nod. "The messages will be sent before the sun sets today, Lord Commander. May the Gods, old and new, have mercy on us."
With one last worried look north, Maester Aemon turned and went back inside, his firm steps echoing on the ice.
Jeor remained atop for a time, feeling the cold penetrate to his bones. He then walked to the wooden and rope elevator, a creaking contraption that descended the inner face of the immense Second Wall. The view during the descent was always humbling. Below, sprawling like a stone and wood anthill, was the Black Fort. Not the dark ruin of the south, but the new, imposing, and terribly austere seat of the Night's Watch. Built at the entrance to the true Ice Desert, on the threshold of the Lands of Eternal Winter, it was a statement of stone and steel: you shall not pass.
As the elevator descended, Jeor watched the courtyard. Men training, blacksmiths hammering dragon-forged steel from the imperial lands, builders reinforcing the inner walls. A hive of activity, but he could feel the underlying current of fear. They all knew. The Night's Watch, maintained for millennia as an exile and a symbol, was about to fulfill its true, final, and most terrible function. The end of its mission was approaching, and Jeor Mormont knew, with the cold certainty of ice in his heart, that many of them, perhaps himself, would not see the dawn after that night. But they would die standing. They would die fighting. And, by the Seven, by the Old Gods and the dragon's fire, they would be victorious.
King's Landing - The Godswood
A raven, blacker than night and remarkably larger than its common cousins, cut through the grey skies of King's Landing. Its eyes shone with an unusual intelligence. It ignored the castle towers, the city rooftops, and dove towards the Godswood, a remnant of ancient forest in the heart of the Red Keep.
There, in a clearing where filtered sunlight barely touched the ground, a tall man stood, motionless as a statue. Aenar Targaryen did not look to the sky, but extended his arm just as the raven landed, its claws closing without harm on the steel-Valyrian bracelet.
Without a word, the raven inclined its head and spat a small metal cylinder into Aenar's belt. Only then did it let out a low croak and hop to a nearby branch, watching.
Aenar unrolled the tiny protected parchment inside the cylinder. His purple eyes scanned the encoded message, the almost invisible ink glowing under his gaze. Jeor Mormont's words, transmitted through the Maesters' chain and intercepted by his own system. Attacks tripled. Abnormal cold. Patrols vanished. Prepare. The Great War approaches.
A slow smile, not of joy, but of deep, almost predatory anticipation, stretched Aenar's lips.
"Finally," his voice was a low murmur that seemed to make the very leaves whisper. "It is going to begin."
He then turned, not to the raven, but to the great black, jagged "mountain" that dominated the densest part of the godswood. In the gloom, it looked like a hill of obsidian.
"We will have action soon, old friend," said Aenar, his voice now clear and laden with a tone of command.
The mountain moved.
It was not an earth tremor, but a slow, powerful contraction of muscles under scales larger than steel shields. From the darkness, an eye opened. It was vertical, like a slit, and glowed with a terrifying phosphorescent green. A green of subterranean fire, of ancient venom, of primordial intelligence. The eye, alone, was larger than a grown man. It fixed on Aenar, and there was no submission in that gaze, but rather an ancient recognition, a partnership forged in forgotten ages. The dragon had no name that men could pronounce. It was the shadow under the empire's wings, the ancient fury Aenar kept away from the eyes of the world.
The green eye blinked slowly, a blade of emerald in the dark. An acceptance. A latent desire for hunt and destruction that would finally have a worthy target.
Aenar held the gaze for a moment longer, a silent understanding passing between him and the creature. Then, he turned, and the great eye closed, making the mountain inert again.
With firm steps, Aenar left the godswood, Jeor Mormont's message secure in his mind. He was not walking towards his chambers, but towards the Council Chamber. It was time to stop governing men and start preparing them for the war against the night. The amusement, as he had thought, was over. The true work was about to begin.