The Fire March
The bells of the Capital rang hollow not for mourning, but for war.
Atop the scorched remains of the Red Keep, Lily Lannister stood in armor of gilded flame. Her eyes burned gold; her voice carried across a city rebuilt in fire and madness.
"We rise not as beggars of gods," she declared, "but as gods reborn."
Below, the Golden Faith assembled fifty thousand men and zealots, armored in sun-marked steel, their weapons etched with burning runes.
Priests chanted hymns that sounded like war cries.
The sky itself seemed to shimmer with heat.
Beside her, Jaime's ghost watched silently, his golden hand glowing faintly.
"You can't win against death," he murmured.
"Then I'll teach death loyalty," Lily replied.
Her general Ser Lorent Qorgyle knelt before her.
"The Riverlands burn for you, my Queen. Lord Frey's bastards have bent the knee. The Tullys resist, but not for long."
Lily's lips curved faintly.
"And the North?"
"Silent, my Queen. The snows rise."
"Then let the world burn the silence from their throats."
She turned to the horizon a molten dawn bleeding across the sky.
"We march at sunrise. And when I sit the Iron Throne again"
Her voice hardened.
"I will melt the North from memory."
The Snow That Wouldn't Fall
Far to the North, the world was waiting.
Winterfell stood beneath a sky of quiet steel neither snowing nor clear. The weather had stopped obeying the gods.
Inside the Great Hall, Job Snow and Althea Baelish faced their council.
Maps littered the table; candles burned low, wax dripping like time itself.
"They're coming through the Riverlands," Davos said. "If they take Moat Cailin, they'll open the North like a wound."
"Then we seal the wound," Althea replied. Her tone was calm too calm.
Job's gaze met hers across the table. There was no warmth between them tonight, only strategy and ghosts.
"You mean to let them come," he said.
"I mean to let them break," she answered. "The North doesn't chase fire it smothers it."
The lords murmured, uneasy.
Lady Alys slammed her fist on the table.
"The South burned us once. We'll not wait for their flames again!"
Althea's gaze turned on her sharp, commanding.
"You'll wait because I command it, Lady Mormont. Fire devours the impatient first."
The hall fell silent.
Jon rose slowly.
"And what happens when fire meets ice again?"
"Then we see which god survives," she said.
The War Council
Later, when the others had gone, Job followed her to the ramparts.
The night stretched endlessly cold stars, restless wind, and silence between them that felt heavier than steel.
"You've changed," he said quietly.
"So have you."
"You used to fight for life."
"Now I fight for balance."
Job's jaw tightened.
"Balance doesn't keep men alive."
"Neither does love," she whispered.
That silence again raw, aching, familiar.
"When did we start speaking like enemies?" Job asked.
"When the gods began listening," Althea said.
A raven landed between them, its feathers dripping frost. A message tied to its leg bore the sigil of a sun split by shadow.
Job read it aloud.
"The Riverlands burn. The Faith marches. The Fire Queen demands surrender."
Althea's lips curved in a cold smile.
"Then the Dawn Queen will answer."
Fire Meets Water
In the South, the Golden Faith advanced through the Riverlands, their banners blazing against the gray sky.
Villages turned to ash, rivers boiled as priests called down flame.
But at Duskendale, the first resistance met them not soldiers, but water.
Fog rolled in from the bay, thick as wool. When torches lifted, they showed nothing but white.
Then came the arrows silent, spectral, striking with icy precision.
Lily's captains screamed as shadows moved through the fog the North's assassins, the Crows of the Dawn, sent by Althea herself.
When the fog lifted, half the Golden Faith was gone.
Only their burnt standards remained, fluttering like dying suns.
In her war tent, Lily stood before a map lit by candlelight.
"A trick of mist," her priestess murmured.
Lily's eyes narrowed.
"No. A message."
She looked northward.
"She thinks frost can hide her. But frost cracks."
The Betrayal
Back in Winterfell, Althea sat alone in the godswood. The Weirwood's eyes bled softly into the snow.
"The war will not end with her death," the roots whispered.
"Then with mine?" she asked.
"Perhaps with both."
She bowed her head. "So be it."
But when she rose, she saw movement a shadow among branches.
Davos stepped forward, face pale, eyes full of guilt.
"Your Grace forgive me."
"For what?"
"For what I've done."
From the trees emerged three men in gold and crimson cloaks. Southern agents.
Before she could summon her power, one drove a dagger of Valyrian glass through her side.
Job arrived seconds too late his roar split the night.
Fire erupted from his hands, burning the assassins where they stood.
He caught her as she fell.
"Stay with me," he begged.
Her blood was silver against the snow.
"She's already inside," Althea whispered. "Lily she's using them she's"
The words died as the Weirwood flared white, consuming the forest in light.
The Fire Queen's Triumph
Far away, Lily opened her eyes and smiled.
Her priests gasped as the flames around her throne rose higher, golden and wild.
"It's done," she said. "The frost queen bleeds."
She turned to Jaime's shade.
"You see, my love? Fire never dies. It only learns new shapes."
"And what shape have you become?" he asked.
"The one that ends gods."
She lifted her hand and the map of Westeros burned until only the North remained, untouched by flame.
"Not for long," she whispered.
The Queen's Awakening
In Winterfell's crypts, Althea's body lay still but her soul wandered.
She stood in a field of endless snow, where the stars hung low and time slept.
The Weirwood tree rose before her, immense and ancient.
"You cannot die yet," it said.
"Why?"
"Because love has not finished breaking you."
The ice beneath her cracked and through it, she saw Job, kneeling beside her body, his tears steaming as they touched her skin.
"Then let him live," she whispered.
"Only if you rise."
And so she did the frost in her veins turning silver-blue.
Her eyes opened.
The Dawn Rises Again
Winterfell's bells rang before sunrise.
Althea walked into the hall, pale but standing, her wound already healed though the mark on her chest now burned brighter than ever.
Job rose to meet her, disbelief and awe in his eyes.
"You died," he whispered.
"I dreamed," she said.
"Of what?"
"Of the end."
The lords fell silent as she raised her voice.
"The Fire Queen strikes from the South. The Dawn answers from the North. We march not for vengeance, but for balance."
She looked to Job.
"Fire cannot win if frost remembers what it loved."
He stepped beside her, sword in hand.
"Then remember me."
And as the banners of the North unfurled the Wolf, the Crow, the Sun Winterfell roared to life.