The Gathering at the Trident
The Northern host reached the river first.
Its waters were frozen at the edges, steaming at the center where wildfire veins bled up through the mud.
Ravens circled but did not land; their feathers caught fire in the air.
Job dismounted, Longclaw gleaming white as bone.
"This is where the world broke once," Davos muttered.
"And where it will again," Job said.
Althea rode beside him, the Weirwood crown faintly alive on her brow.
Each heartbeat sent ripples through the ice beneath them and the roots answered, whispering.
Across the river, a green glow rose like dawn.
The Ash-Born marched in silence thousands of them, eyes lit like candles behind glass.
At their center rode Lily Lannister, veiled in fire, the golden crown fused to her skin.
The air between the two armies shimmered.
Winter and wildfire touched.
Steam hissed upward the birth of a storm.
The Vision Beneath the World
Far away, in the crypt-roots beneath the old godswood, Bran Stark opened his eyes.
He was no longer boy nor Three-Eyed Raven he was memory itself.
The Children of the Forest surrounded him, their skin bark-pale, their eyes pools of green light.
"The balance is lost," one said.
"Two thrones cannot reign where only one dream may live," another whispered.
Bran reached into the pool of sap-water before him, and the vision unfolded the Trident aflame, the Weirwoods screaming, the Iron Throne molten and alive.
"The gods made them," Bran said softly, "but love unmade them. Now love will finish the work."
The oldest Child stepped forward, offering him a shard of carved obsidian.
"Then the river must choose its tide. Fire or frost or it will drown the world."
Clash at the River
Trumpets wailed warped by the heat.
The first charge began.
The North's spears glowed with runes of ice; the South's blades dripped with liquid flame.
When they met, steel screamed.
Where blood fell, the ground hissed half freezing, half burning.
Job fought like a storm given shape.
Every swing of Longclaw released a shockwave of frost.
The Ash-Born shattered, then reformed in smoke.
Althea moved through the battle like a spirit, her hands weaving sigils that turned arrows into ravens and fire into snow.
But each spell tore at her veins red sap bleeding beneath her skin.
Across the field, Lily watched from horseback, her gown of embers untouched by wind.
"He rides for death," she murmured.
"And you ride for ashes," Althea's voice carried back, cold and sure.
The river rose between them, boiling and freezing at once.
The Prophecy Revealed
In the vision, Bran saw the pattern forming
two lights spiraling, one red, one blue.
"They are not enemies,"
Bran's vision in the roots of the world, revealing what the gods truly planned.
whispered.
"They are halves."
The Children looked afraid.
"If halves meet, the dream collapses."
"If they don't," Bran answered, "it dies anyway."
He pressed the obsidian shard into the water.
Ripples spread across the world.
Every Weirwood eye flared white.
Fire and Frost
At the river's heart, Job and Lily met.
Her sword burned green; his burned white.
"You can't win," she said.
"Neither can you," he replied.
"Then let's lose the world together."
Their blades crossed and the Trident exploded.
Water turned to glass; snow turned to fire.
The shockwave swept through both armies, turning men to statues of ash and ice.
Above them, Althea screamed a sound that was half prayer, half command.
The Weirwoods for miles cracked open, their roots bleeding light that wrapped around her and Job both.
Bran's voice echoed through the chaos:
"Two halves. One soul. One crown."
The River's Choice
The Trident glowed, a line of molten crystal dividing the realm.
For a moment, time froze.
Lily fell from her horse, her crown melting into the mud.
Job stood over her, frost climbing his armor.
He could have killed her but Althea's hand caught his wrist.
"It isn't her we're fighting," she said.
"It's what made her."
The fire in Lily's eyes dimmed.
For the first time, she looked afraid.
"What are you?" she whispered.
"The end of gods," Althea answered.
The Aftermath
When the storm cleared, half the Trident had frozen solid.
The other half burned, green as jade.
No birds sang.
Davos found Job unconscious beside Althea, their hands still clasped.
Lily was gone only her crown remained, buried halfway in ice.
Bran's voice whispered through the wind:
"The river has chosen both tides."
Closing Image
Far above the battlefield, the sky showed two suns
one red, one white.
They revolved around each other slowly, the air trembling with something ancient and alive.
The North and South no longer existed.
Only the realm between them a world of Ash and Snow.
"The war is not over," said Bran's voice.
"It has only remembered its beginning."