The Night King's voice carried across the howling snow like cracking ice.
"I still prefer Westeros. It has the most heroic blood."
Rhaegar tightened his grip on the True Dragon longsword. Azure flames already licked along the blade, runes of shield, hammer, and tree flickering to life. The Silver Emperor's wings beat once, twice, holding steady against the unnatural wind that poured from the ice throne.
"You offer me a choice that is no choice at all," Rhaegar answered. "Leave the North so you may feast on the rest of the world? I am not so generous."
The Night King's face shifted again—briefly a long Stark visage, then something older, sharper, with the high cheekbones of a Hightower and the cold eyes of a Bolton. He raised the glass-like longsword. Frost bloomed across the air between them.
"Then burn, Child of Fire."
The first clash was not steel against steel but ice against flame.
The Night King's sword met True Dragon in a shower of blue sparks and white steam. The impact shook the air. Below them the wights surged forward like a living tide, blue eyes glowing through the white mist. From Farwinter the horns of the wildlings and the Night's Watch sounded in answer. Giants roared. Dragonglass arrows began to fly.
Rhaegar wheeled the Silver Emperor higher. "Dracarys!"
Golden-silver fire poured down. The purple dragon and the black dragon answered at once, purple-copper and black-red flames joining the storm. For a moment the ice throne was lost in a sphere of light and heat. The outer layers of profound ice cracked and ran like water.
Yet the throne endured.
The Night King stood unmoved within the firestorm, shield of dead ice held high. When the flames thinned he pointed his sword southward. The white mist thickened. Wights that had been burning rose again, half-melted flesh reforming under blue light. Others on the ground began a low, keening chant. The ice throne's blue array pulsed brighter.
Rhaegar felt the cold press against his own runes. The Shield Rune strained. The Tree Rune's green light flickered. He poured more of the mammoth's strength and the sea serpent's cold fire into his core, forcing the flames higher.
On the Wall, Roberta watched, one hand clenched around the silver circlet Rhaegar had given her. Beside her stood Lord Rickard, face carved from stone, and the surviving members of the Direwolf Suicide Squad. Eddard Stark's eyes never left the sky.
"Hold the line," Rickard said quietly. "The Prince buys us time."
Below the Wall the King-Beyond-the-Wall raised his spear. "Fire everything that still burns! Giants—logs and oil! Do not let the dead climb!"
The battle for Farwinter became two wars at once: one in the sky between Dragonlord and Night King, one on the ground between the living and the endless dead.
Rhaegar dove again. True Dragon struck the Night King's shield three times in rapid succession. Each blow left a glowing scar of azure flame. On the fourth strike the shield cracked. The Night King answered with a thrust that would have frozen Rhaegar's heart had the Silver Emperor not twisted aside. Even so, frost spread across the dragon's left wing. Silver scales dimmed.
"You carry too many living flames," the Night King said, almost conversationally. "I will take them, one by one."
He raised his free hand. The mark of the Green Hand glowed in the center of his palm. Green light—wrong, inverted, cold—lanced toward Rhaegar. Where it touched the air, snow turned to crystal and time itself seemed to slow.
Rhaegar met it with the Rune of the Tree and the Rune of the Net together. Living green and binding silver light tangled with the dead green of the Green Hand. The two forces screamed against each other. For a heartbeat the entire battlefield fell silent.
Then the ice throne pulsed again. More Others collapsed into blue flame that fed the seat. The Night King grew taller, his sword longer, his presence heavier.
Rhaegar's lips peeled back from his teeth.
"Then take them if you can."
He called every fire he still held—dragonflame, mammoth strength, sea-serpent cold fire, the residual heat of Valyria's ruins—and poured it into the True Dragon sword until the blade shone like a second sun.
The Silver Emperor folded its wings and dropped like a falling star straight at the ice throne.
Below, the living of Farwinter saw the sky ignite and raised their voices in one raw, defiant roar.
The final war had truly begun.
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