A lead-gray sea stretched endlessly below, shrouded in a thick, quilt-like fog of ice and mist.
"Rumble " The north wind howled, and the ocean churned like the trembling death shroud of a reaper from hell. The lifeless gray waves surged upward, crashing into spray that soared dozens of meters high.
All around, the world blurred into a single shade of ashen gray sky and water indistinguishable. Through the heart of that storm, a dragon streaked forward like an arrow, cutting through the tempest in lonely flight.
"Crack! Boom " Overhead, the coal-black clouds flashed with pale lightning, white as a corpse's bony fingers. The following thunder exploded in their ears, making the hair on their scalps stand on end.
"Crackle, snap!" Hailstones as large as fists pelted down like divine hands overturning a celestial Go board. They thudded against Drogon's dark wings like drumbeats and struck the armor of Daenerys and her four knights with a deafening metallic clatter.
The sky seemed lower, and the sea seemed higher.
Though they soared between heaven and ocean, the space felt oppressively narrow, like a great cat trapped in an oven stifling and suffocating.
This was the Shivering Sea, one of the Four Great Oceans.
The Jade Sea to the east at least had borders. But the Summer Sea to the south, the Sunset Sea to the west, and the Shivering Sea to the north all stretched to infinity. No one had ever reached their ends.
The northernmost city of Essos was Braavos. From Braavos, one had to fly two thousand kilometers north to reach the Wall, and another two thousand beyond that to approach the Tomb of the Green Seer.
That day, after ending her conversation with Quaithe and as Aemon wept for Jon's tragic death, Daenerys found Tam and asked her a question:"How much are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of magical progress?"
Tam had countered, "Didn't you read my notebook?"
The memory of Tam's Notes a work ten times more horrifying than any ghost story left Daenerys silent.
Then, she made her decision: she would risk everything.
The worst outcome would be to end up like the Red Dragon Egg, her soul bound to Drogon and Viserion, existing eternally in draconic spirit form.
Still, she didn't find that prospect particularly pleasant. As Quaithe once said, "Asking gods for salvation is pointless. Strengthen yourself instead."
Daenerys began taking stock of her assets. The 5,000-watt Steel Men were out of the question, but in Astapor alone she had three White Knights Ser Bear, Ser Gars, and the Fat Eunuch as well as her Bloodrider Rakharo.
She summoned all four of them, and added one more Ser Quello, her dragon-guard, who favored the attire of Westerosi knights and owned a full set of Valyrian steel armor.
Her five most loyal guards each wielded a Valyrian steel sword. Rakharo carried a dragonbone bow and twenty "Demon-Breaking Arrows" tipped with Valyrian steel.
Ser Bear and Ser Gars also wore full Valyrian plate. The Fat Eunuch and Rakharo, disliking the weight, opted instead for Valyrian steel chainmail vests made of fine-drawn steel wire barely ten pounds each.
Even her followers now had Valyrian armor. Naturally, the Dragon Queen's own "Knight-King Suit" had long since been forged.
Daenerys had to admit Blue Saber's appearance was iconic. At first, she had even toyed with the idea of cosplaying as the "Ahoge King."
But once her reason returned, her battlefield-hardened instincts told her otherwise. When she carefully sketched Saber's armor design, she realized it was utterly impractical good-looking, yes, but useless.
Saber's armor consisted of a gold-trimmed blue gown, iron gauntlets to the elbows, a sleeveless cuirass, two skirt plates, and iron boots.
That was it.
Anyone wearing such armor against her on a battlefield she swore would have both arms chopped off within three exchanges.
Besides, a skirt that reached the ankles was a deathtrap. On a corpse-strewn battlefield, one misstep could mean tripping over your own hem.
Just as Daenerys was about to abandon her dream of becoming the "Knight-King," a thought struck her: why not wear a blue-and-white Knight-King's armor?
It was beautiful and regal.
She suddenly understood. She hadn't been designing this armor for war at all.
Which meant Saber's armor perfectly suited her needs!
As for what to do in battle? Simple just take off the skirt.
The upper half of Saber's armor was actually sound enough; she only needed to add shoulder guards and arm plates.
To preserve aesthetics, she could even cover them with fabric matching her gown.
The ornate skirt armor could be redesigned into detachable sections.
In daily life, the gown would flow gracefully. In battle, a single press of a button would release the skirt, transforming her instantly into a steel-clad warrior queen.
Still, Daenerys didn't copy Saber completely. Their circumstances were different.
For one, Daenerys's newly forged "Sword of Kings" was carried across her back, not held in hand.
And in design, while Saber's armor leaned Gothic, Daenerys's focused on battlefield functionality.
No decorative filigree, no lace-trimmed edges only smooth, seamless steel plates that left no gaps for blades to catch.
Even so, her armor was far more elegant and refined than any man's plate.
That wasn't merely because of Saber's aesthetic influence. Any armor that revealed the soft curves of a woman's form would naturally look magnificent.
In her previous life, every female knight in anime had been beautiful not because of any single style, but because their armor accentuated their femininity.
If even the moon goddess Chang'e wore a drab green army coat, no ordinary mortal would find her attractive from behind.
Her old gray armor had been unisex designed for men, really.
Would a change of armor make her a more obvious target on the battlefield?
Well, not exactly. Targets weren't chosen by color, but by contrast "a single red among the green."
A white horse draws arrows not because it's white, but because its rider can't afford to give everyone else a white horse too.
If every knight rode a white steed, no one would stand out.
In that case, the man on the plain yellow mare would be the one catching stray arrows.
So the Dragon Queen decided: if she was to wear silver-white armor and a blue gown, her men would match her white steel armor, blue cloaks.
She was the Queen, after all. Her word was law.
Daenerys did not fly to the Wall. Instead, she continued north over the Shivering Sea, soaring until she reached the same latitude as the Tomb of the Green Seer if this world was truly a globe and then turned west, into the frozen wasteland beyond the Wall, the Land of Perpetual Winter.
The Shivering Sea was certainly a harsh place its waters roiled with turbid waves, and the sky was filled with endless snow and ice but the frozen lands beyond the Wall were no more peaceful.
They were colder, and far more dangerous.
At least, the Shivering Sea had no White Walkers.
After flying westward for more than three hours, they arrived at a hill shaped like a burial mound.
It stood over 500 meters tall and stretched seven or eight kilometers across. The mountainside marked a clear divide below it grew dense clusters of pine, ironwood, and sentinel trees; above, the branches of weirwoods gleamed white as bone and bled red leaves.
Except for the weirwoods, all the other trees were bent low beneath the weight of heavy snow. Many were buried so deeply that one could hardly tell they were trees at all.
From root to crown, they were encased in ice and snow, growing haphazardly across the slope like a huddled host of giants cowering against the bitter wind.
The sun in the sky was no brighter than a lone lamp hanging over a schoolyard at midnight. From its faint glow, a shadow burst forth, growing larger and larger a black dragon.
The howling wind rose like the shriek of ghosts, stirring fine flakes of snow from the ground. They glittered like glass beneath the dim afternoon "light."
"Khaleesi, there's fire over there!"
The dragon circled about 300 meters above the mountaintop as Rakharo suddenly pointed toward a rocky wall halfway up the slope.
Prompted by his shout, Daenerys still in her dragon-riding trance saw through Drogon's eyes the figure holding a torch.
At the midpoint of the slope, a crack in the mountain hid within the surrounding weirwood thicket.
Before that fissure stood a tall man, nearly two meters in height, waving a pitch torch burning with orange flame.
Yes, he was a ranger.
His face was obscured by a hood and scarf, but his black wool tunic, black boiled leather, and black ringmail marked him as a member of the Night's Watch.
Suddenly, from the massive weirwood at the mountaintop its sprawling canopy as broad as a football field a storm of ravens burst forth, dark as thunderclouds blotting out the sky.
Thousands of them.
Black feathers. Red eyes.
"Come, come," they croaked, circling Drogon without the slightest fear of the dragon's presence.
"With that going on, I almost don't dare to go down," Daenerys muttered.
Her voice was quiet enough that even her bloodriders behind her couldn't hear clearly but in an instant, the ravens fell silent.
One large raven dropped a cloth bundle the size of a pencil box from its claws. Daenerys reached out and caught it, and at once all the ravens flew back into the weirwood grove, landing among the branches. Thousands of blood-red eyes blinked up at the dragon in the sky.
Inside the bundle was a piece of still-warm, golden-brown roasted bread, and a small pouch of coarse salt.
Frowning, Daenerys tore off a piece of bread, dipped it in salt, and ate. Then she passed the rest to the knights behind her.
Once everyone had tasted the salty bread, Ser Belwas being the last swallowed the remaining portion in one gulp. Only then did Drogon beat his wings and descend toward the pine forest below the mountain's rocky fissure.
Boom crack
The dragon's massive body sank deep into the snow, crushing several ice-hardened trunks before finding stable footing.
"Your Grace, Belwas will go first to clear the way," said the fat eunuch, wrapped thickly in furs.
He leaned sideways and vanished, leaving behind a man-shaped hole in the snow.
The snow was deep deeper than a man's height.
"Seven hells! Belwas has never seen snow this deep or weather this cold!" the eunuch howled from the pit below.
"Khaleesi, does this count as the Long Night?" asked Qhoro, shivering. "You can barely see the sun, and everything's covered in snow."
Daenerys looked up at the pale yellow glow in the sky and said uncertainly, "The White Walkers haven't shown themselves yet. So… not quite."
She had barely finished speaking when Belwas screamed, "Ahhh! No something dead just grabbed my leg!"
Crack crack crack
It was like a scene from a zombie movie: the director shouted "Action!" and suddenly, every actor playing a corpse rushed into view.
One, two, three, four… too many to count. The wights burst out of the snow like weightless turnips springing from the ground.
There were black-cloaked brothers of the Night's Watch, wildlings wrapped in furs, half-naked corpses, and even long-dead bodies from ancient graves, their muscles rotten and frozen stiff.
Their skin was pale, their hands black, and their eyes glowed faintly blue like cold stars.
The wights glided over the snow.
It was as if Newton himself had climbed from his coffin to join their ranks his laws of motion discarded and turned undead along with them.
They weren't as graceful as White Walkers, but indeed, they did not sink into the snow under their own weight.
The icy land was far too kind to the White Walkers and their dead servants.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The White Knight and the Bloodriders leapt from the dragon's back, finding footholds on tree trunks and rocky outcrops before drawing their Valyrian steel swords.
A sharp hum filled the air like the rapid flutter of cicada wings as two enormous, pearly-white wings burst from the Dragon Queen's back. Every feather was visible, its texture lifelike, the shape resembling the wings of a dove magnified a hundredfold.
Yes angel's wings.
The armored queen who bore them stood upon the snow without leaving a trace, just like the White Walkers themselves.
(End of Chapter)
Want to read the chapters in Advance? Join my Patreon
https://patreon.com/Glimmer09