PROLOGUE: THE USURPER'S COUNCIL
The small council chamber in the Red Keep was heavy with the smell of fear disguised as ambition. The newly crowned King Aegon II sloshed his wine as his counselors debated strategies for the burgeoning war. Lord Tyland Lannister argued for the need to secure shipping routes, while Grand Maester Orwyle suggested diplomatic caution.
The meeting was interrupted by the hurried entrance of an acolyte, his pale face betraying the urgency of his message. He handed a sealed scroll to the Grand Maester, who read it quickly before looking up, his face even paler than his assistant's.
"Your Grace," Orwyle began, his voice trembling. "News has come from our... observers at the Neck. Prince Jacaerys Velaryon was seen flying towards the North."
A sudden, heavy silence fell over the room. Even Aegon stopped drinking, his fingers tightening around the cup.
Otto Hightower was the first to break the silence, his voice as grave and calculating as ever. "Then we must pray to the Seven that the bastard meets the same fate as Maegor the Cruel." All eyes turned to him. "If the King in the North joins Rhaenyra's side..." He didn't need to finish the sentence. The conclusion was obvious to everyone in the room.
Prince Aemond, who had remained silent in a corner, raised his head, his single eye gleaming with arrogance. "We need not fear a witch-king. Vhagar and I will deal with him, if necessary."
Otto laughed. It was a dry sound, devoid of humor, that echoed strangely in the silent room. Everyone looked at him, confused.
"Maegor the Cruel thought the exact same thing," said Otto, his voice laden with bitter irony. "He flew North on Balerion the Black Dread, convinced his dragon was answer enough to any threat." He paused dramatically, letting his words hang in the air. "And we all know what Maegor's fate was."
Aemond stood up, his face twisted with rage. "You dare compare me to that—"
"I dare remind you of history, my prince," Otto interrupted, his voice now sharp as steel. "If you seek death, jump from a battlement on the castle wall and be done with it. It would save us all a great deal of time and trouble."
The shocking statement hung in the air. Aemond seemed on the verge of drawing his sword, but a furious look from Aegon made him stand down. The silence that followed was more eloquent than any war planning—it was the sound of pure terror in the face of a power that not even dragons could tame.
PARTE 1: THE ARRIVAL OF THE ICE QUEEN (POV RHAENYRA TARGARYEN)
The salty air of Dragonstone carried a weight of anxiety and expectation. Rhaenyra watched from the harbor, her court assembled behind her, as the warships of the North cut through the grey waters. They were imposing vessels, with black hulls and sails that seemed woven from the night itself, unlike any ship she had ever seen. Her heart, still heavy from the betrayal in King's Landing and the death of her father, beat with a mix of hope and apprehension. Jacaerys had succeeded. But at what cost?
Then, a sound began to grow above the low clouds. It wasn't the familiar roar of Syrax, her golden dragon. It was a deep rumble, a beating of wings like rolling thunder that seemed to make the very air vibrate. The clouds parted.
Silverwing descended like a silver storm. The sight made Rhaenyra lose her breath. The she-dragon, once the mount of her great-grandmother Alysanne, was unrecognizable. Her size now rivaled Vhagar's, her body a mountain of silver scales that reflected the weak light with blinding intensity. She was in her prime, a rejuvenated primordial force.
Almost immediately, a second, deeper and more furious roar answered from the Dragonmont. Vermithor, the Bronze, emerged from his cave. The two great dragons, once companions, met in the skies above Dragonstone. They did not fight. Instead, they began an ancient and complex aerial dance, circling each other, their roars sounding less like challenges and more like recognized greetings. The scene was one of terrible, hypnotic beauty. For a long moment, Rhaenyra's entire court stood paralyzed, watching the terrifying majesty of that reunion.
"It is beautiful, their dance, is it not?"
The voice was melodious, familiar, but laden with an icy authority Rhaenyra had never heard before. She and everyone around her turned sharply. Guards raised swords, and her sons placed their hands on their hilts.
But it was not a threat. It was Gael.
Her great-aunt, the dreamy princess who had left for the North, was unrecognizable. Not by age – her face maintained a supernatural youth, her Targaryen features still perfect – but by the aura that surrounded her. She wore a stunning armor of icy steel, of a whitish-blue and gold, with complex runes that pulsed with a soft light along the metal. She was the very image of a warrior-queen from an ancient legend.
"Great-Aunt Gael," Rhaenyra said, regaining her composure and signaling for her guards to lower their weapons. She kept her tone formal, appropriate between two sovereigns.
Gael responded with an equally formal nod, her violet eyes – now with icy depths reminiscent of the King of Winter – scanning the group. Her gaze stopped at Rhaenys.
"My dear niece Rhaenys," Gael said, her voice soft, yet penetrating. "You have changed. I hope you are well."
Rhaenys, the Queen Who Never Was, maintained her haughty posture, but a spark of genuine emotion shone in her eyes. "I am, my lady. And you... time seems to have forgotten you. An eternal beauty."
An almost imperceptible smile touched Gael's lips. "The North offers its own blessings." Her gaze then returned to Rhaenyra, and her expression became serious. "It should have been you, Rhaenys. You should have been our queen after the Old King. It would have been better than the fool my nephew Viserys became."
A murmur of shock ran through the court. Some were surprised, others, like Prince Daemon, seemed to agree with a sardonic smile. Rhaenyra felt a pang of anger at the insolence, but also a painful truth in those words.
Before she could respond, everyone's attention was drawn to the dock. The Black Pearl, the flagship of the North, docked with an eerie grace. And then, they disembarked.
Jacaerys had warned her. He had described the guards. But nothing could have prepared her for the reality.
The first to descend were the warriors of the Black Guard. Men who made even the tallest knights look like boys. Each must have been nearly three meters tall, true colossi clad in black armor from head to toe, a dark, gleaming metal that seemed to absorb light. The weapons they carried – greatswords, war axes, hammers – were masterpieces of steel forged with shimmering runes. Rhaenyra could feel the power emanating from them, an intense cold that rivaled the sea's. The information was correct. Any lord from the South would give his fortune for a single piece of that armor.
And then, the true monsters appeared.
The giants disembarked, making the stone dock tremble under their feet. Standing four meters tall, wearing chainmail and plates of crude metal, carrying swords as wide as shields and axes that could fell a castle gate. Their mere presence was overwhelming, a reminder that the North held secrets and horrors the South could never comprehend.
A deathly silence hung over Dragonstone. The sound of the dragons in the sky seemed distant. It was broken by a casual, familiar laugh.
"What's the trouble, folks?" Captain Jack Sparrow asked, descending the gangplank of the Black Pearl with his characteristic staggering walk, a bottle of rum in his hand. "Forgot how to speak? Or are you just admiring our... modest entourage?"
Queen Gael ignored the comment, her icy gaze fixed on Rhaenyra. "I am here. I brought what was promised. Now, I want to know your strategies for this war. I did not come to waste time."
The coldness in Gael's voice, the physical reality of the power she had brought, was like a bucket of ice water for Rhaenyra. The initial arrogance she had felt – the belief that the North would come begging for an alliance – evaporated. She was not receiving a vassal. She was receiving an equal, perhaps even superior, power.
Nodding, Rhaenyra straightened her shoulders, the Lady of Dragonstone once more. "You shall have your briefing, Queen Gael. Lord Corlys, Prince Daemon, with me. Let us go to the map room." She looked at the black warriors and the giants, a new spark of hope born in her breast. Perhaps, with these forces by her side, they could not only win the war, but win it without seeing their world completely reduced to ashes. The Dance of the Dragons had just gained new and terrible participants.
PART 2: THE GHOST OF THE RED KEEP
Theon Stark was a shadow wrapped in mist and magic, an invisible king walking the halls of his enemy's stronghold. His grey armor reflected no light, and his cloak of giant black wolfskin merged with the depths of the darkest corners. On his head, the Crown of Ice shone with a faint inner light, a beacon only perceptible to him. He was not an illusion; he was an absence, a gap in the perception of all around him. Men-at-arms, servants, lords, and ladies passed by him, their eyes sliding over his form as if he were merely a cold draft from the Narrow Sea. He was a specter, an omnipresent observer witnessing the fall of the House of the Dragon.
His silent journey through the Red Keep was a pilgrimage through the rot consuming the heart of Targaryen power. In the training yard, he saw Ser Criston Cole, the Kingmaker, his hatred a tangible, foul thing, discussing battle tactics with a City Watch commander. Theon listened to troop movements, planned sieges, and dragon locations, invaluable information he absorbed with the coldness of a strategist.
In the private sept, he witnessed Queen Alicent Hightower kneeling before the Seven. Her lips moved in frantic prayer, but her eyes, when she raised them to the face of the Father, were empty of true faith and full of the cold gleam of ambition. She prayed for her son's victory, but Theon felt she prayed more for the power that victory would bring her father, Otto.
The king's chambers were the most depressing sight. The acrid smell of cheap wine and sweaty bodies hit Theon before he even passed through the closed door. There, King Aegon II was, not a conqueror at rest, but a frightened boy drowning his terrors in an amphora of Gold wine, his attention divided between his fears and the attentions of a servant girl. Theon saw in him not a formidable usurper, but a weak boy wearing a crown too large for his head, a puppet whose strings were pulled by his family.
Finally, he found Prince Aemond. The young prince was in his chambers, polishing his sword, an arrogant, empty smile on his lips. The memory of the argument in the Small Council, which Theon had probed from their minds, echoed in the King in the North's head. Aemond truly believed in his own invincibility. He saw Vhagar as a final answer, not a tool. A fool, Theon thought, with silent contempt. Ego is fragile armor. It will shatter under pressure.
But his true destination was the chambers of the king's children. He followed Queen Helaena with a sense of dark purpose. He saw her enter her chambers, coming from the mother's room. She seemed like a sleepwalker, her eyes distant and filled with a sadness that transcended the war of succession. Her twin children, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera, played on the carpet. The youngest, Maelor, only two years old, slept in his crib. It was a domestic scene, fragile and innocent, about to be forever stained.
Theon realized he was not the only intruder. Two men were already waiting inside the room, hidden in the shadows. He recognized them immediately from Lily's descriptions: Blood, the hardened and cruel one, and Cheese, the opportunistic, smiling rat-catcher.
As Helaena entered, the two men emerged. The air in the room grew heavy and dangerous.
Cheese was the one who broke the silence, his voice a sinister whisper: "Your Grace. An eye for an eye, a son for a son. Prince Aemond sends his... regards."
Helaena froze, her face pale as parchment. She pulled her older children closer to her, her trembling body forming a powerless shield.
"Which one will it be?" Cheese asked, his smile a horrible thing. "The boy or the girl? You choose. Or we take all three."
"Please," Helaena's voice was a thread of hope. "They are just children."
"The choice, Your Grace," insisted Blood, impatient. "The heir or the spare? Choose, or they all feel the steel."
Pressed by the terrifying gaze and the implicit threat against all her children, Helaena, with a muffled sob, pointed to Jaehaerys, the male heir, believing in some perverse logic that this might save the other two.
Cheese laughed, a rough, unpleasant sound. "You hear that, boy? Your mother chose you to die."
He raised his dagger, but the blow meant to behead the little prince never landed.
Blood's arm, which should have been holding a dagger, ended in a stump at the elbow. There was no spray of blood, just a perfectly severed limb, as if cut by a blade of pure energy. The stump was instantly sealed by a glowing blue ice. For a second, there was only silence and disbelief.
Blood and Cheese then heard a single word, whispered in the air like the wind from an open grave: "Vermin."
They turned. There, in the center of the room, his invisibility dissolved, stood Theon Stark. His eyes were slivers of eternal blue ice, fixed on them without a spark of emotion. The Crown of Ice on his head shimmered, casting patterns of cold light on the walls.
Before they could scream or react, the world around them collapsed. They were not struck; instead, the very air solidified around them, and in an instant, they were no longer in the room. They were hovering at a dizzying height above King's Landing, the wind howling around them. The castle below was no larger than a toy model.
Then, time... changed. The blink of a bird's eye in the air became an event lasting minutes. The smoke rising from chimneys froze into solid, twisted shapes. They could still think, still feel, but the world around them had slowed to an agonizing crawl.
Theon's voice echoed in their minds, not through their ears, but planted directly in their thoughts, clear and cold as a frozen lake: "I have slowed your perception of time. A single instant for the world below will last for you many, many years. Plenty of time to reflect on your sins."
Blood, still holding his dagger with his other hand, tried to scream, but no sound came out. Theon hovered before him. Without haste, without apparent effort, he reached out and enveloped Blood's head with his fingers. It was not a violent motion, but a slow, deliberate, and terrible action. He began to pull. The connection between Blood's head and body stretched, tendons and muscles tearing in slow motion, cervical vertebrae snapping one by one with cracks that sounded like thunder to them. It was a process that seemed to last an eternity, an infinite agony before the head finally came free, the face still frozen in a mask of silent horror.
Theon then turned to Cheese. The rat-catcher, witnessing his partner's fate at a glacial pace, was psychologically shattered. Theon used no complex magic. He simply closed his hand and punched Cheese in the chest. The impact was so brutal and powerful that the man's ribcage collapsed instantly, crushing lungs and heart into pulp. Then, with a gesture, Theon hurled the body at high speed towards the ground.
The air resistance, amplified by the supernatural speed, became a force of dismemberment. The skin and flesh on Cheese's back were stripped away, leaving behind a trail of destruction until what remained of his body, unrecognizable, hit the ground far below. The impact, even in the slow world, created a visible crater in the training yard, a point of sudden and inexplicable destruction that would confuse all who saw it later.
Theon then vanished from the sky, teleporting back to Helaena's room. The queen was on her knees, clutching her children, who were crying in panic. She could not see him, but she felt a change in the air, a sudden, supernatural peace. Her eyes, filled with tears, turned to the exact spot where he was, as if his essence were a beacon to her troubled sensitivity.
Before she could speak, she felt something in her hand. She looked down. A small, folded piece of parchment was there. With trembling fingers, she opened it and read. Her eyes widened for a moment, then filled with a silent understanding. She looked into the emptiness from which the presence seemed to emanate and simply nodded, a gesture of silent thanks and acceptance.
Far away, in his sanctuary in Winterfell, Theon opened his eyes. He looked at the perfectly preserved head of Blood, which now rested on a stone table in his chamber, the face still frozen in an eternal scream. A barely perceptible smile touched his lips.
"Perhaps," he whispered to the silence, "I should send it to the sender."
FINAL PART: THE COURT OF SHADOWS
The atmosphere in Dragonstone's map room was as heavy as the air before a storm. Rhaenyra Targaryen stood before the great carved wooden table that showed the contours of Westeros, feeling the physical weight of her father's crown upon her temples. The Black lords were assembled - Corlys Velaryon with his face marked by decades at sea, Rhaenys, the Queen Who Never Was, with her perceptive gaze that seemed to see through men's souls, and her prince consort, Daemon, whose impatience was an almost palpable energy emanating from his tense form.
The relative peace of the moment was brutally shattered when the massive oak door opened violently, slamming against the stone wall with a bang that made everyone jump. A guard, pale as a ghost and panting as if he had run for miles, burst into the room, his armor creaking with the abrupt movement.
"Your Grace! Urgent news from King's Landing... an unspeakable horror!" he shouted, his voice visibly failing with anxiety and fear.
Rhaenyra felt a deathly cold run down her spine, her hands instinctively gripping the edges of the table. "Speak. What happened? Speak quickly!"
"A vile assassination attempt against Queen Helaena's children! The little princes and princess!" the guard continued, swallowing hard as he tried to catch his breath. "The Greens are already spreading throughout the city that it was our work! They say we sent professional assassins called 'Blood' and 'Cheese.' They accuse Your Grace directly of ordering the attempt!"
The silence that followed was so dense and heavy that one could distinctly hear the crackling of torches on the walls and the messenger's panting breath. Rhaenyra felt her legs weaken under the weight of the accusation, her fingers whitening as she clung to the table for support.
The fury that rose in Rhaenyra was so intense and sudden that for a moment she was completely speechless, her lips moving without emitting sound. When she finally found her voice, it was a sharp, icy blade that cut through the heavy air: "This is a vile lie! A repugnant slander born from Otto Hightower's sick mind! I would never... NEVER... in my worst nightmares order such monstrosity!" Her eyes sparkled with pure indignation, her hands trembling slightly. "I am a mother! By all the Seven, what mother would order the death of another's children? What kind of abominable monster do they think I am?"
Her angry gaze swept the room, challenging every present face to contradict her. "And I swear by all the Seven that no one here present, under my banner and my authority, would commit such a cowardly and despicable act!"
The room remained silent, but it was an eloquent silence, laden with unspoken meanings and unuttered truths. It was Rhaenys who finally broke the pact of silence that had been established. The Queen Who Never Was did not utter a single word. Her wise, ancient eyes, which had witnessed so many betrayals and power games, moved deliberately across the room and landed on Daemon with the deadly precision of a poisoned arrow. He remained motionless, his face an impenetrable mask of coldness, but his eyes... his eyes shone with a light Rhaenyra knew all too well - the dangerous light of a secret conquest, of a satisfied vengeance that needed no words to be understood.
The pieces began to fall with the crushing weight of a stone tumbling from a cliff, each puzzle piece fitting into a horrifying picture.
"Daemon?" she whispered, the name leaving her lips like a mortal accusation hanging in the air between them. "Was it you? Did you order this... this barbarity?"
He didn't answer, he didn't need to. His silence was louder and more revealing than any confession could be, a tacit admission that filled the room with its ominous presence.
Before Rhaenyra's overflowing fury could explode into a storm of accusations and denials, Queen Gael rose from her seat with supernatural grace. She wasn't looking at anyone in the room, but toward the great entrance door, her head slightly tilted, as if listening to a distant melody that only she could hear, a melody that brought both comfort and apprehension.
"He has arrived," she said simply, her voice laden with a curiosity that belonged both to the dreamy princess she had been and the Ice Queen she had become. "My husband is here, on the island. I feel his presence as if it were a change in the very atmosphere."
As if her words had conjured reality itself, she moved toward the door, expecting the assembly to follow. "We should receive him in the throne room. It is... appropriate."
A palpable unease moved with the court as they followed Gael through Dragonstone's stone corridors, leaving the strategic maps behind for the symbolic power of the throne room. They had barely taken their positions around the Stone Drum when the great oak-and-bronze doors of the hall opened with a resonant groan that echoed off the stone walls.
There, shrouded in an aura of icy air that made their breath mist, stood Theon Stark, the King in the North.
He advanced through the room with measured, silent steps, his wolfskin boots making no sound against the polished stone. His face seemed carved from ancient ice, immobile and inscrutable like the highest peaks of the North. His cloak of giant black wolfskin swept the floor behind him, and the Crown of Ice on his head emitted a cold, faint light that seemed to suck the warmth from the environment. He stopped a few meters from the Dragonstone Throne, his gaze sweeping the room until it settled on Daemon with the intensity of a predator spotting its prey. It was a gaze that made even the experienced and fearless Rogue Prince shudder involuntarily, a primal reaction to a danger that transcended human understanding.
"Theon Stark," Rhaenyra spoke, regaining her composure with visible effort and squaring her shoulders under the symbolic and real weight of her crown. "You are received in the court of Queen."
Theon slowly shifted his penetrating gaze from Daemon to her, his blue-ice eyes seeming to freeze the very air between them. "Rhaenyra Targaryen." An almost imperceptible smile touched his lips, a gesture that carried no warmth. "The only 'king' I see in the so-called Six Kingdoms is a usurper sitting on a twisted iron throne in King's Landing. The King of the Idiots is the one sitting on the idiot throne - and as far as my eyes can see, you are not currently occupying that chair of swords."
He made a dramatic pause, letting his words hang in the air like stones of ice.
"You may have the best claim, the best story, the best supporters - but while Aegon sits on that throne, it is his name people speak when they say 'Your Grace.' That is the crude reality that matters, not the laws of succession or oaths made in other times."
Rhaenyra opened her mouth to protest, her face a mask of wounded indignation, but Theon continued, his voice low but impossible to ignore:
"And as for the North..." He looked around the throne room as if seeing something beyond the stone walls. "We do not concern ourselves with thrones of iron or stone. Our kingdom was built before the first Targaryens set foot on Dragonstone, before Aegon dreamed of his Conquest. And it will remain standing long after this dragon dance is over and turned to dust in the history books."
He then turned completely to face Daemon, and the air in the room seemed to grow even colder. "And I have a delivery for you, Prince." With a casual motion that was almost an insult in itself, he tossed a bloodied, wrapped object at Daemon's feet. The wrapping opened upon impact with the stone floor, revealing the perfectly preserved, frozen head of Blood, the face still an eternal mask of silent horror, the eyes wide in mute testimony of final terror.
Daemon stood paralyzed in shock for a moment that seemed to last an eternity, his mind struggling to process the grotesque scene before him. Then, like a flame igniting a fuse, rage took over, red and hot against the cold Theon had brought. "You!" he shouted, his hand going instantly to the hilt of Dark Sister. "It was you! You interrupted justice, you saved the usurper's children! Are you allied with the Hightowers? Have you betrayed us to join our enemies?"
Theon didn't move, showed no emotion facing the prince's fury. When Daemon unsheathed his Valyrian steel blade with a hissing sound, the King in the North simply raised a finger, a minimal gesture that seemed almost disdainful. Instantly, Daemon was thrown forward, hoisted by invisible ropes, hovering a few centimeters off the floor, completely helpless before Theon, his sword falling from his hand with a metallic clatter.
"Why?" Theon's voice echoed in the now silent room, each word sharp and clear like shards of ice.
Trapped and furious, humiliated before the entire court, Daemon spat his words, his arrogant, familiar smile returning to his face like a mask of defiance. "IT WAS PAYMENT! Aemond killed Lucerys! Blood for blood! A son for a son! You, who call yourself a dispenser of justice, shouldn't you understand that?"
"I see," said Theon, his voice still low, but cutting like broken ice. "I see perfectly. So, in your next life, when seeking vengeance, remember this lesson: kill the one who wronged you, not the innocents who did nothing. Your fight was with Aemond, not with helpless children."
With an almost negligent gesture, he threw Daemon like a rag doll, making him fall heavily at the feet of Rhaenyra's throne with a dull thud that echoed through the room. She looked at her fallen husband, her face a conflicted mixture of fury and growing suspicion, her heart divided between loyalty to her consort and horror at what he had done.
Theon looked at Rhaenyra once more, his blue-ice eyes piercing as if reading her soul. "I came here because a great injustice was committed against you, because your claim was violated. But do not speak to me of kingdoms and titles - the North knows full well what it means to be a real kingdom, not just an empty title while another sits on your throne."
He turned to leave, his cloak swirling with the movement. Daemon, still fallen on the floor, let out a twisted smile of triumph, as if he had narrowly escaped the worst possible fate. But before Theon completely crossed the threshold, he slowly raised his fist and closed it with a deliberate and final motion.
Daemon's chest exploded inward in a crystalline shower of red ice and frozen blood, his body contorting in silent agony before collapsing, lifeless, on the cold floor.
The King in the North didn't even look back, not granting the fallen prince even a final glance. "Next time," his voice echoed in the now completely silent room, "it will be all of you."
Then, he simply disappeared, dissipating like mist in the morning wind, leaving behind only the cold and the silence.
The court stood in absolute, silent shock, none daring to break the spell of terror Theon had left in his wake. Rhaenyra, pale as marble and trembling like a leaf in the wind, looked at what remained of her husband, her heart divided between fury at the loss and primordial fear of the power she had witnessed. The war needed to be won, and quickly - they needed to distance themselves from the North and its ice king before it was too late for all of them, before the winter he personified consumed not only their enemies, but their allies as well.
Here's the new chapter. So, what did you think? Can anyone guess what was on the parchment given to Helaena? Next chapter, we see the end of the dance and the true winner.