Archive of Our Own

Presage (n.):
An intuition or feeling of what is going to happen in the future.

DAENERYS

The end of her world was the beginning.

Daenerys’s lips were cracked and raw… throat parched from far too many hours spent inhaling the Red Waste’s dusty air.

With every step taken by her khalasar or their horses, piles of silt kicked up, filling the sky with chalky, dry dirt. The heat was oppressive; the horizon was endless.

As far as she could see in any direction, there was nothing but barren wasteland.

What kind of khaleesi was she, if her men and women were starving to death around her — if she could not lead them to safety?

One who had already endured too much, she supposed. Daenerys had already lost her husband... and Rhaego, the pain was still far beyond words. She could barely stand to think of him, to imagine what his little face would've looked like once he grew into it. She knew she would give anything — anything in the world — for the chance to hold her son in her arms.

There was no price she would not pay, no journey she would not undertake.

But she couldn’t focus on him... Not right now. Rhaego was already dead, but her people weren’t.

Not all of them.

Not yet.

They needed water and shelter. They needed walls they could rest safely behind. And her dragons… they needed time to grow. They were still too small to defend themselves. Weakened and starving as her khalasar was, she knew they were stretched to their limits. How much longer could they wander in the Red Waste?

Desperate, she’d sent three of her bloodriders to search for a city — anywhere that would provide relief to their party.

How had she been repaid? With Rakharo’s head. Whatever callous group had claimed his life returned it to her. Another loss. Another lash to her heart.

Exhausted and distraught, she’d called their party to a halt. It seemed to matter little where and when they rested — every direction she turned led them to more and more nothingness.

Daenerys finally succumbed to exhaustion, dozing off with her head rested on a small bundle of cloth she’d been able to repurpose from her meager possessions. She slept longer than she should have, until the shade provided by their horses became irrelevant and the sun had slipped beneath the horizon.

There, in the desert — in the endless waste, he came to her.

Like a mirage, he stood in the shadows of her dreams, just beyond the border of her sight. The man was more silhouette than person: a dark outline reaching toward her.

But there was more to him than mere shade. As she squinted toward him, she was filled with an overwhelming, soothing calm — like nothing she’d felt in years.

His hand was still outstretched, and she reached out toward him. The desire to take his hand was impossibly powerful. But just before their fingertips brushed, she was wrenched from her sleep.

There was silt in her eyes, and Daenerys rubbed at them, careful not to brush anymore dirt in. It was morning in the waste again.

Waking was no reprieve; reality was worse than the unknown.

***

She went to Qarth.

What could she say about the ‘greatest city that ever was or ever will be’ that they had not already said about themselves?

But beautiful or not, it was a city of loss for her. Xaro Xhoan Daxos and Pyat Pree had nearly ruined her… she had come so very close to being trapped. Lost forever in the House of the Undying — her children languishing in dark confinement.

And Doreah.

She would never have believed that Doreah would betray her, but she had. She had, and Daenerys could have been left to rot in the warlocks' maze because of it. And so she had done what she must. In the final moments before Xaro Xhoan Daxos and Doreah had been locked away, she had fought to maintain composure.

Irri’s face swam behind her eyes. Sweet Irri, who had taught her the Dothraki ways and words. Irri, who comforted her. Irri, who was gone now.

Another loss. For a woman so young, how little of herself Daenerys had left to give.

Sleep came slowly that night; but when she finally drifted off, he was back.

The man she’d dreamed of in the Red Waste.

He came closer this time — close enough that she could see him. He was strangely out of focus; she could see dark hair, could process the shape of his jaw and shoulders. But he looked more like a memory than anything real.

It didn’t stop her from reaching toward him.

The man took her hand this time, and she felt that same feeling that eluded her whenever she was awake: security and trust.

Slowly but deliberately, he wrapped her in his arms. She could smell the leather he was wearing. Daenerys wondered when the next time such affection would be shown to her outside her dreams.

He never pushed or prodded; he didn’t even speak. The man simply held her as she cried — her face tucked into his shoulder. She cried until she could simply cry no longer. 

The realization that she was able to run out of tears was jarring; perhaps she was stronger than she thought.

It settled in the pit of her stomach, this strange feeling. It might have been pride, or maybe it was just relief. But it was something.

If her heart must be hardened, then it would be. Daenerys promised herself then and there — in the safety of her own mind — that she would make it home one day. She swore it to herself.

Then, she would rest in the shade of a lemon tree. She would paint her doors red and welcome those who had been lost the way that she was now. She would build herself a family and a home. Perhaps she would even find this man, and they could belong to each other.

But for now, she must press forward. There was nothing left for her behind.

When her eyes opened the next morning, her cheeks were covered with dried streaks… but for the first time in a long while, she believed.

***

She went to Astapor.

For perhaps the first time in her life, she found herself on the offensive. It exhilarated her, after so many losses, to have helped so many people.

She had freed them all, and they had chosen to remain with her.

But the severity of it had been horrific. Even just her new Unsullied captain’s decision to keep his name had all but crushed her; Daenerys had never known she could feel so much at once. Grey Worm — she still had trouble thinking of it.

And Missandei... she deserved so much more than a life serving Kraznys mo Nakloz. She deserved so much more than life as a slave. Everyone did.

How could she return to Westeros like this — how could she leave Essos when so much of the known world still bore the abomination of slavery? Her homeland called to her each night and morning: ‘Home,’ it whispered. ‘Don’t you want to come home?’

She did. So much. More than anything.

But she wasn’t ready yet. There was so much she still needed to do, and her dragons were still so young. One eve, on the road from Astapor, she called Missandei to her.

“What do the people of Essos need?” she asked. The woman’s eyes were wide.

“Your grace?” she asked gently.

“Please, Missandei,” Daenerys replied. “Tell me what you would do, if you were me.”

Silence. An eternity lived in the gap between their words.

Finally, after an endless quiet, the woman spoke again: “There are… so many in need, your grace.”

Daenerys nodded. “Then where would you go next?”

“Yunkai,” Missandei said finally. “I would go to Yunkai.”

That night was the third time she dreamt of her shadow lover, his face was more detailed than it had been before. With a jolt, she realized he seemed close to her age.

She had wondered one thing since she last saw him in her mind’s eye. One thing that kept her awake and nervous — desperately wanting. Finally, she mustered the courage to ask: “Are you real?”

She wasn’t sure she could stand it if he said no.

He tilted her chin up with his finger until her eyes were locked on his and then, finally, he nodded.

Daenerys had never felt so relieved.

***

She went to Yunkai.

Daario Naharis was a sellsword — and not a very trustworthy one, at that. He’d betrayed his other captains so quickly that it seemed almost as if he’d been waiting for a chance to. Then, he had pledged himself and his men to her.

Daenerys did not fool herself that his pledge had been made because he believed in her cause; she was almost certain he was here solely because he’d weighed the masters’ odds against her Unsullied, Dothraki and dragons. Still, the Second Sons were a useful addition to her forces.

The city fell.

“Mhysa!” the people cried. “Mhysa, mhysa.”

Her heart nearly burst.

That night, the man came to her again — it felt as if he appeared more frequently on the nights of her victories, though she couldn’t imagine why it mattered.

For a moment, they just stared at one another. He picked up a hand and cupped her cheek softly. Then the man took a deep breath, and she knew that this was the part of the dream in which he’d pull away and fade from her sight.

No. Not yet.

It was too soon; she did not know when she might see him again.

Daenerys threaded her fingers through his hair before he could disappear. “Don’t leave,” she whispered before she could stop herself. “Stay with me.”

She pushed the pads of his fingers into his scalp gently, massaging the skin beneath his unruly curls. The groan that escaped him was intoxicating.

His only response was to pull her closer, his hands wrapping around her waist. The feeling was indescribable: strangely familiar, though she was certain she had never met him.

Everywhere he touched felt warm, but it wasn’t enough. She needed more.

The man had begun to interfere in her life outside her dreams; lately, she found herself comparing others to him. Daario Naharis had more than made his interest known, but something about him was just wrong. His stature — his eyes.

She held him at arm’s length, neither able nor willing to admit how much she longed for a stranger. It was absurd. She didn’t know his name.

Daenerys had never even heard his voice.

***

She went to Meereen.

Before she even arrived, Daenerys found her self-control tested in a manner unlike any before in her years. When she had seen what the masters did… when she had seen the innocent lives they ended for naught but to send her a message…

Crucifixion was a beastly act, one she could not and would not abide.

In that moment, Meereen became a personal conquest. Daenerys knew that she would not be able to rest until she had taken the city. Until the masters paid for their crimes — their cruelty.

And they had, with fire and blood.

The city was hers now, and she was theirs, too. The queen of Meereen.

Staring out from her chamber onto the newly christened Bay of Dragons, she wondered (not for the first time) if she would not be better to simply stay here — to stay in Essos, where she was loved.

She brushed the thought away. She had dreamed of her homeland for so many years; one day, she would return to it.

But for all that she loved her people, and they her… she was not just a queen. She was also a woman.

A lonely woman. Daenerys had not felt the touch of a man’s hands since Khal Drogo’s death. It felt foolish to continue abstaining now that she was no longer actively laying siege to cities. She could not bear children, in- or out-of-wedlock. What other purpose did it serve to be so solitary?

And so she took Daario into her bed. The sellsword was a distraction, but he provided her with some relief.

Still, each time he left her, smug and self-satisfied, she found herself wondering when the man from her dreams would return to her.

Wondering what it would be like if he took her. The very thought was scintillating; it nearly brought her to her knees.

And once in a while, when the lights had been extinguished and there was only her in the night and quiet, she wondered whether when he finished, he would stay.

Daenerys was so very tired of being alone.

When she at last slipped into unconsciousness, her only surprise was how utterly unsurprised she was to see him here again in her mind. It seemed only natural that he should return to her this night, when she had allowed herself to feel so vulnerable.

He was silent, as ever, and Daenerys found herself trying to bait him. She cajoled him — she teased him. He didn’t budge. Finally, tentatively, she voiced a quiet fear: “Is it that you don’t want me?”

She’d found his weakness, it seemed, for the man snapped.

“Of course I want you,” he let out harshly, as if she’d greatly offended him. He stared at her for a beat and then finally melded their mouths together.

It was better than she imagined. She could feel, more than hear, his whispers against her lips.

“I want everything,” he muttered. “I’ve always wanted everything.”

It was the first time she’d heard him speak. His voice was low and deep. It sent shudders through her body. Dimly, she noted that her lover spoke to her in the Common Tongue.

His voice reminded her of Ser Jorah’s. Westerosi. Northern.

“All I want is a home,” she replied. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“We’ll be each other’s homes,” her murmured back. “You’ll never be alone again.”

His words were everything she’d dreamed for since she was just a little girl. Their effect was as forceful as a cannon ball — they crashed into her, and she woke up in the wreckage.

Her cheeks were wet.

***

Hizdahr zo Loraq was dead.

He was dead; and in a matter of minutes, she probably would be, as well.

The Sons of the Harpy were closing ranks around them, cutting down everyone in their paths. Missandei stood beside her, proud and loyal — she did not try to flee.

Daenerys reached for her handmaiden, their fingers clasping together. In what were surely her final moments, she allowed herself just one last thought of each of those not with her: Ser Jorah, Drogo, her brothers, the dark hair and gray eyes of the man from her dreams, and her children… all four of them.

She lifted her chin and closed her eyes — their faces would be her final sight, not these armed, masked men.

And then a screech rented through the air. Drogon, bigger by far than she’d last seen him, tore through the arena, flames bursting from him toward the nearest attackers.

Daenerys walked forward without thought, without reason; she pulled an arrow from him, her most volatile child, who had come for her.

It was an instinct when she climbed onto him, when she spoke the word. When she became the first dragon rider in her lifetime.

They flew — away from the arena, away from Meereen. They only stopped when Drogon decided to, finally landing somewhere far from her people and her palace.

She walked and walked, until she was no longer certain how long she’d been away.

At one point, she heard the keening howl of a wolf, and a terrible sadness gripped her.

Then the Dothraki found her, and she no longer had time to understand such despair.

In the darkness of the Dothraki camp, she was alone in her dreams. Daenerys didn’t see her lover in her sleep every night, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong — that he wasn’t there when he should have been.

This time, it was only her, alone in the endless grass.

The implication made her feel hollow. If she had survived the fighting pit attack just in time for him to die… If he was truly gone from the world — gone before she could ever know him — life was crueler than even she’d believed it to be.

***

Vaes Dothrak.

It was strange to be back here, in this place where she had once believed in such a different life. She had eaten a stallion’s heart here — had listened as Rhaego was proclaimed the stallion who would mount the world. Her hand went to her stomach automatically, and she retracted it quickly, as if she’d been burned.

Some wounds stayed raw forever.

But she would not live out her days here; she would not remain with the Dosh Khaleen until she withered into the earth. She would be queen of her homeland, as her ancestors had been before her.

Ser Jorah and Daario had come for her, but she would leave with more than just the two men.

Inside their tent, the leering khals boasted and bantered. These men, short-sighted and unambitious as they were, mocked her. They sought to cage her here… but a dragon was not a slave.

And Targaryens were dragons.

“You are small men,” she said. The khals’ faces were born of fury.

Good.

When the flames engulfed the last of them, she stepped out into the camp. The stunned faces of the different khalasars greeted her. All who remained bent the knee.

Eventually, she needed rest — it would take time to travel back to Meereen.

They made a camp beneath the stars, and Daario slipped into her tent after nightfall. Afterwards, she sent him away — he wasn’t the man she’d dreamed of sleeping beside.

When she finally closed her eyes, they reopened in a breathtaking place. Blue or white — she could hardly say. Daenerys had never seen such a world.

Her breath was like smoke; the ice shimmered around her like crystals.

He was there.

All she could feel was relief — pure, overwhelming relief that her lover had come back to her, after all.

Daenerys threw herself in his arms, uncaring if she was too open with her affections. She knew in her very core that he would not judge her for such displays.

“You’re here,” she whispered. “I thought you were gone.”

“I was,” he said simply. “I died.”

She had never been less pleased to have been right — because she had known, hadn’t she? A wolf had howled in the desert; she had felt him leave her.

And yet, here he was.

With a jolt, she surged forward, suddenly desperate to feel his lips on hers again. He met her intensity, tearing at her garments with a ferocity that surprised her.

She was shaking as she pulled at his leather jerkin; he helped her along but left his tunic in place.

Daenerys didn’t have the patience for such things; even though she longed to feel all his skin against hers. He pressed his lips to her neck, and her eyes fluttered shut.

When he finally sank into her, she gasped. The sheer emotion she felt overwhelmed her.

“You came back,” she keened as she arched her back. A sentence, not a question.

“Aye,” he responded. “I wasn’t done yet. I hadn’t found you.”

***

Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of Meereen, returned to her throne just after the masters made the foolish decision to attack the city.

Their ships had been easy to spot from above — Drogon blending into the dark sky.

To her relief, when she entered the pyramid, she saw Missandei, Grey Worm and Tyrion. Despite Ser Jorah and Daario’s insistence, she had not been able to believe they were alright without seeing them.

She had commanded her Dothraki to camp just outside the city, determined to handle the threat from the Sons of the Harpy before revealing her increased forces to the world.

Tyrion, sheepish as he was that his negotiations had resulted in betrayal, put together a competent strategy for the Sons of the Harpy. Timing would be everything.

The bulk of preparations had been made; they’d sent an overture to the masters to request a meeting.

All that remained was to receive their response, and then they would regret crossing her.

After their planning session was complete, she dismissed everyone but Missandei, calling her to her chambers. Her handmaiden moved toward the chair where she often undid Daenerys’s braids; but before she could reach the seat, Daenerys stopped her and pulled her into her arms.

“I’m glad you’re safe, my friend,” she said softly.

Missandei’s smile was always kind. Always reassuring. Always patient.

Daenerys fell asleep easily that night.

He was there again. He had been coming to her more and more frequently since his… death. (She hated to even think the word.) Still, this was a surprise.

And he seemed happier than normal — more relaxed. She greeted him with a kiss, realizing that he had grown so corporeal that she could feel the individual bristles of his beard brush against her face.

“You’re different tonight,” she smiled. He grinned back and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her close.

“It’s almost time for us to be together,” he said, kissing her again. “We’ve waited so long.”

“Have you been waiting, too?” she asked. It was a question she’d wondered more than once: If whoever this man was, he was dreaming of her.

He shook his head slowly, brow furrowing a bit. “Not that I know of. I don’t know what I’ve been waiting for — but I know there’s something just beyond my reach.”

For a moment, her heart fell. But he seemed to sense it, because in the next moment, he’d reached for her chin and tilted it up again, the way he had when she dreamed of him in Astapor. When she’d summoned the nerve to ask him if he was real.

“We’ll be together soon, Dany,” he said in his low voice. “And then I’ll love you more than anyone has ever loved another person.”

Her chest felt fit to burst. All she’d ever wanted was just outside her grasp. “When,” she whispered desperately, “when will it be time?”

His reply rang in her ears like the victory bells wound into her hair did as she rode with her khalasar, clanging over and over again.

Soon, they chimed. Soon. Soon.

Daenerys woke with a start.

Tonight had been different than the other nights. It felt different. He had appeared to her sharper than ever — and warmer, too. She could still feel where his fingertips had pressed into her skin.

The space beside her on the bed was cold and untouched — it was a strange contrast to the warmth inside her dreams.

The stars were still high in the night outside her window; their soft light flooded her chamber.

JON

There was nothing, and then there was everything again.

Jon was alive. He shouldn’t be, bloody hells, he shouldn’t be. But here he was.

He had died, and now he lived again…

Despite his best efforts, Jon hadn’t been able to make much sense of anything beyond the cold and his confusion.

The Red Woman who revived him — Melisandre — kept a constant, fervid eye on him. She watched him with a sort of rapturous look, as if he were her fire god made flesh. Over and over, she insisted he was a prince from some prophesy.

It unsettled him, but he could hardly banish the woman who had brought him back from the dead. For as long as he remained at Castle Black, he knew he would have to tolerate her presence.

What wasn’t certain was just how long a time that would be. The gods knew that if his sister hadn’t arrived at the Wall so shortly after his… resurrection, for lack of a better word, then he may very well have already gone south.

But Sansa had come to the Wall. His sister was alive and afraid; she needed him.

Jon’s oath to the Night’s Watch had been fulfilled, and he was bound to their brotherhood no longer. Sansa was… the Starks were his family. That was one of the few truths he still knew, even if most of them were gone now. Without each other, they had nothing left.

But for all Sansa had changed, she was still the same relentless girl she’d been. His sister wanted nothing but to reclaim her home — their home. But they had nowhere near enough men and no realistic options left.

The free folk, the Mormonts and the few other houses that had agreed to come to their aid weren’t enough to stop Ramsay Bolton. It wasn’t even close.

He stared into the fireplace, the burning red light licking the stones of the shabby hearth in front of him. Again and again, he thought of Sansa’s words as they’d argued earlier that day. She was insistent that they recruit more men to their side before attacking, but there were no sizable houses left to call on.

The more they prolonged this battle, the more forces Ramsay had time to assemble. And if Ramsay’s claim of having Rickon were true, then attacking at a disadvantage was even more dangerous.

Sansa seemed to think there were more allies waiting in the wings to aid them — hells, maybe there were. But there weren’t enough.

Absentmindedly, Jon reached for his chest, resting one hand over his jerkin, over the wounds that seemed as fresh as when he’d received them. He’d been frightened when he changed for the first time after waking, frightened of the warped, mutilated skin that outlined the proof of his failure. They still looked as if they were about to spill blood. He had a feeling that they would always look this way.

Some wounds stayed raw forever.

A log crackled in the flames before him, one spark flinging itself from the hearth into the night air, landing on the cold stone, fizzling.

It was so cold at the Wall that even fire withered away into nothing. It reminded him of himself, of what he had become: a ghost of a man. Little more than smoke.

Fire and… he touched his chest again. Maester Aemon’s face swam behind his eyelids.

There was one other option.

Across the sea, there was a woman with an army large enough to defeat Ramsay’s and dragons that could burn wights to ash. It was an impossibly simple solution, if he could only sway her to their side.

He watched the log burn, wondering whether he’d have a harder time convincing Daenerys Targaryen or Sansa that this was a good idea.

The answer, it turned out, was Sansa.

***

His sister’s voice was cold: “You want to escort the Mad King’s daughter North to conquer it?”

His heart fell at her tone. When the idea of asking the last Targaryen for help had first come to him, he’d felt something so foreign to him that he’d almost forgotten what it was at all: hope.

Even at the Wall, stories of her reached them — how she had a massive army and three full-grown dragons. If even half the tales about her were true, then Daenerys Targaryen was perhaps the one chance they had to take Winterfell with an army big enough to overrun the Bolton men.

“You said yourself that we need more men to fight,” Jon insisted. “She has tens of thousands of them. She has dragons. And the gods know she probably hates Cersei Lannister nearly as much as you do.”

Sansa looked at him sharply. “No one hates Cersei Lannister as much as I do. But we don’t need an exiled Targaryen. The North doesn’t need her. We can fight our own battles.”

He slapped his hands against the wooden table. “No we can’t, Sansa. Not with these numbers. And we aren’t only fighting one battle,” he exclaimed. “The dead are coming, too. If we try to take back Winterfell with only the men we have, many of those men will die. We don’t have the manpower. Not for one war, and certainly not for two.”

Her lips pursed. Though his sister claimed to believe him about the Army of the Dead, he could tell she was skeptical. And right now, with her Tully eyes, red hair and drawn expression, his sister had never looked more like Lady Catelyn.

‘But she isn’t Lady Catelyn,’ a terrible voice whispered in his mind. Sansa was the eldest Stark left — maybe the only Stark left. By all accounts, Winterfell should be hers. But they weren’t in Winterfell right now.

‘She’s not the lady of this keep,’  his mind insisted. ‘You don’t need to do as she commands.’

Her mouth opened for a moment, as if she had an argument to make. But then she hesitated, and Jon didn’t. He was certain this was the right move.

Aemon Targaryen had not been mad. Perhaps Daenerys Targaryen wouldn’t be, either.

“We need her help, Sansa,” he said. “It’s the only way we’ll ever be safe. You came here so we could be a family again. Let me protect you.”

She hesitated but didn’t respond immediately, and he tried one last appeal: “If we meet with her and don’t like what she has to say, we leave.”

Sansa exhaled hard. She stood and crossed toward the door, pausing as she passed him.

“You should know, Jon, not all queens let you leave if you displease them.” Her plait swayed as she stalked from the room.

Jon pushed down his irritation and focused on the victory. Sansa had never had much regard for him as a child, but he had hoped it would be different now — especially after her sweet apology to him when she arrived. It seemed, however, that she still didn't trust him to make the right call.

Strangely, it didn’t matter much to him. Where Jon had once ached for every Stark’s approval, he could now separate that desire from his decision-making.

It had been a long time since he’d been this certain of anything, and he knew — he knew — that seeking out the dragon queen was their best option. Ser Davos had already agreed to come with him.

Sansa would see when they arrived in Essos.

DAENERYS

He was here. The man from the shadows — who had infiltrated her dreams for years — was standing in front of her.

She had dreamed of him so many nights. The dark curls, the gray eyes. All was as she’d seen it.

He hadn’t spoken yet; the only voices she heard were her dear Missandei’s and that of an older man, grayed with age.

In a low brogue, the older man was introducing her guests. It felt strange to have someone introduced to her when she knew him so intimately.

Daenerys knew what his voice sounded like. She knew the weight of his body on top of hers. She knew the heaviness of his gaze. The only thing she hadn’t known was his identity.

“This is Lady Sansa Stark,” said the man, “and Jon Snow of House Stark.”

It rang in her mind over and over: Jon Snow. Jon Snow. Jon Snow.

Of House Stark. Ned Stark — the usurper’s dog.

But those were Viserys’s words, and that was Viserys’s story. Her brother been wrong about their father. What if he was wrong about Ned Stark, too?

It was too much. She stood abruptly, afraid that if she remained seated, her strength would fail her.

Instead, Daenerys focused on what she knew: He was Jon Snow, and he was here. Finally.

She looked at them again — from her periphery, she could see Tyrion’s surprised face, the slight alarm in his eyes at her reaction. Dimly, she realized she had been gripping the arms of her throne so tightly that her fingers were now numb.

Missandei, ever gentle, stood on her other side, facing forward.

And then Daenerys looked at Jon Snow. He was exactly as she’d seen him last in her dream, just the night before.

Soon, indeed.

Before she could so much as speak a word, the door to the throne room swung open, and Varys hurried forward. He approached her straightaway, not sparing a glance for her guests.

A chill ran down her spine; little could dissuade Varys from taking stock of his surroundings.

“Your grace,” he said quietly when he reached her. “The masters have agreed to meet and have temporarily ceased their assault on the city. They said if you do not surrender within the hour, they will begin their attack again…” Varys trailed off, seeming unwilling to say his next bit. “They also demand that the Unsullied and Missandei be turned over to them.”

Her neck nearly snapped at the speed with which she turned to Tyrion. His eyes were narrowed, mouth tight. Then she turned to Missandei.

Her handmaid’s voice was calm but tight: “The masters are unaccustomed to having their commands ignored.”

Rage filled her. If Viserys were here — if he were still alive — he would say they had woken the dragon. But where her brother had bluffed, she could make good. Drogon was back with her now.

No one would sell those who had been freed. Never again.

Already on her feet, it would be nothing to storm wordlessly from the throne room, but she had guests.

And him… He was one of them.

She looked at them again; Sansa Stark was rigid and stone-faced, staring straight back at her. Her red hair was braided away from her eyes, but her face was entirely closed off. It bore no sign of surprise at the interruption — no interest in what had taken her attention.

The Northern girl simply watched her with a dry, unhappy look on her face. She almost seemed bored.

Jon, by comparison, was an open book. The concern was apparent in his eyes, as they cut from her to the window.

Enough. She could analyze the Stark siblings later. For now, she needed to attend to her people.

“I apologize for leaving before our discussion has even begun,” she said, “but I’ve just been given urgent news that I must address. We will speak this evening, when my enemies are no longer at my gates.”

With that, she nodded to to Tyrion and swept from the room, Missandei and the bulk of her guards following behind.

The last sound she heard was her Hand’s voice, telling Jon Snow and his sister that the queen would dine with them that evening.

JON

The Targaryen queen was more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen. That was his first, foolish thought — that he had been unprepared for her.

Her hair was silver-white; her only crown was a twist of her own elaborate braids. And gods above, Jon knew it was hotter in Essos than any summer he’d seen — but still. Her dress.

A fitted blue number that dipped low at the neckline, revealing a hint of her chest. Her arms were bare. The skirt was looser than the bodice, but it still fell close around her, highlighting the curves of her hips and waist. The dips of her body made his mouth water.

All of it paled in comparison to her gaze… gods, her stare felt like it cut through to his bones. No one had ever looked at him so fully, so intensely. He knew he was letting his mind run away with him. Jon was a stranger to her — and a bastard one, at that. Daenerys Targaryen would not look at him longingly.

Still, he didn’t think he’d imagined all of it. Even her eyes were not so strong as to affect him like this if she were paying him no mind.

No, the dragon queen had judged him worthy of her attention, and she had paid him more of it than she paid his trueborn sister. That, at least, he was certain of.

From the look on Sansa’s face, he could tell she’d noticed too. Noticed and taken issue with it.

The queen departed in a storm of blue cloth and moonlight hair, and Jon felt her impending absence keenly. He had looked on Daenerys Targaryen for less than five minutes in his life, but watching her leave so soon made him feeling strangely like he’d been gutted. This infatuation was surely unhealthy — wrong, even.

But before he could further weigh the issue, Tyrion Lannister had walked toward them, coming to a stop close enough to grasp their hands.

“I apologize that her grace must take off so quickly, but she will dine with you both this evening,” Tyrion said in greeting. In his periphery, Jon could see the queen’s white braid whip out of sight. “We’ve been having some trouble with the men who used to run Meereen. It seems they’ve taken their loss of power rather poorly.”

His sister’s face was tight. Sansa hadn’t spoken since their arrival at the palace, but she did now.

“Not fans of the new leadership, then?” she asked, and there was no word for her tone but cold.

Jon was up to his last nerve with Sansa’s stubbornness. She had complained throughout their entire trip to Meereen — it seemed that there were no words, no assurances, no vows powerful enough to stop her from insisting this was the wrong course of action. Never mind that she seemed to have no other plan. He almost regretted bringing her at all.

But Tyrion took the overt slight in stride. “They weren’t much satisfied with Her Grace ending slavery, so I suppose they are not.”

Sansa, thank the gods, had nothing to say to that — though what even could be said to such a statement, Jon wasn’t sure. At her silence, Tyrion gave a small smile.

“It is good to see you both,” he said.

Jon smiled back at the man; it had been so many years since Tyrion had come to Winterfell. “You too, my lord.”

The dwarf seemed content to leave it there, turning to stride toward the door Daenerys had exited out of. But just before he reached it, he turned back.

“I imagine you came here for a reason, but our queen cannot delay handling this situation,” Tyrion said. “The masters have caused a great deal of trouble for her since she came to Meereen. Now, they have done something unforgivable.”

Jon nodded brusquely. Duty first; everything else afterwards.

Tyrion hesitated for a moment, hand still on the doorknob. Then he spoke again: “She will be greeting them shortly. If you’d like to see how Her Grace rules, I invite you to join us outside.”

“Aye,” Jon replied immediately. “We would like that.”

Tyrion nodded again. “I’ll send someone to fetch you when she’s ready. Lady Sansa, Jon.” And then he was gone.

“Well,” came Ser Davos’s voice from behind him, “What do we think odds are that we get to see the queen’s dragons?”

***

One of Daenerys’s Dothraki guards led them from the hall to a set of adjoining chambers. He was stern and silent. A hooked blade gleamed at his waist, deadly sharp.

When they arrived, the man simply grunted and gestured. Jon took the cue for what it was.

The moment he was gone, Sansa whirled to face him. “Do you still think this is a good idea? Trusting our home to the hands of a woman who left within moments of meeting us? Did you see how quick to anger she was?”

Jon ran a hand through his hair, already fatigued from the fight he knew was coming.

“Sansa, the city is under attack — what else would you have her do?”

His sister’s face was tight. “Direct her men. She’s a queen; she’ll hardly be the one on the front lines.”

It seemed unnecessary to make this the mountain he died on, but Jon felt reasonably certain that Daenerys Targaryen did plan to directly involve herself in any action against those who invaded her borders.

He knew little of the dragon queen as a monarch, but any woman who raised dragons from petrified stone seemed unlikely to be faint of heart.

Sansa was still waiting for a response.

“She’s being responsible. Cersei is the kind of queen who remains behind her walls during a fight — I don’t think it’s a bad thing if Daenerys Targaryen is different than Cersei.”

Ser Davos, ever the compromising voice, spoke for him: “I think the lad’s right. If she really didn’t care what we’ve come for, she wouldn’t be having a private meal with us,” he said.

For better or for worse, Sansa seemed reluctant to outright dismiss Davos. With as polite a comment as Jon thought she was capable of mustering, his sister excused herself to the adjoining chamber.

All he could focus on was trying not to pace — he wanted to see the dragon queen again.

He wasn’t sure how, but a line seemed to have formed in his life, dividing before and after his decision to travel to Essos.

It had been his first major decision since being revived at the Wall. Hells, it might have been the first major decision that he’d made by himself in his life. Everything prior had been done out of a sense of duty or from desperation.

Jon passed the time pondering what he might see. In truth, the feelings stirred in him at the sight of her meant little. If she were ruthless or selfish or cruel, the North might be better off without such a ruler.

But there was also little chance he could succeed in defeating Ramsay’s army without her.

Soon enough, one of her guards knocked on their chambers’ doors. An Unsullied, this time.

“Come,” he said in his brusque voice. “The queen will deliver justice now.”

They followed the soldier through the palace and outside to a plateau, where the queen stood opposite three richly dressed men.

Jon, Sansa and Davos took their places at the side of the group — the masters had already begun speaking: “Once before I offered you peace. If you had not been so arrogant, you could have returned to your homeland with a fleet of ships,” one of the men said. “Instead you will flee Slavers Bay on foot, like the beggar queen you are.”

Jon felt his hand twitch toward his blade but steadied himself. There was no reason for his reaction. He barely knew Daenerys Targaryen; her honor was not his to defend.

He could dimly hear Tyrion’s reply through the rush in his ears, and then the men were speaking again: fouler words.

“…The translator you stole from Kraznys mo Nakloz will remain, to be sold again to the highest bidder. The dragons beneath the Great Pyramid will be slaughtered.”

Jon could see the queen’s handmaiden stand a little straighter, chin high and proud. He thought of the fury on Daenerys’s face back in the throne room, and it seemed obvious now what Varys had said to inspire such a response.

The rumors had made their way to Westeros; Tyrion had said it earlier in the throne room. But he had never seen slavery in action before. Only now did Jon understand the gravity of Daenerys having freed so many thousands.

None of that anger showed on her face now; instead, she looked impassive. Watching her — poised, serious, regal — filled him with something undefinable.

“We obviously didn’t communicate clearly,” she said finally. “We’re here to discuss your surrender, not mine.”

Beside him, Sansa’s face was blank. He couldn’t tell what she thought of the queen’s approach; she seemed to be waiting for something.

“Your reign is over,” one of the men said.

Daenerys’s retort was vicious — her voice clear and calm. “My reign has just begun.”

And then, from nowhere, her dragon was before them — a towering beast, impossibly large — loud and roaring and furious. He dropped from the air, landing hard on the ground between their group and Daenerys.

The blood had drained from the three masters’ faces. He couldn’t blame them. If Jon had not looked on the face of the Night King, he didn’t think he could have imagined a more terrifying sight.

The queen’s black dragon was enormous, and he seemed entirely attuned to her, dipping his head toward her the way Ghost leaned into his own touch. She climbed onto his back, a gleaming white figure against the dark scales.

Jon chanced another glance at his sister; her spine had gone ramrod. She did not shake, but neither did she breathe.

And then Daenerys was in the air — a crash, and two more dragons broke through a pyramid’s walls, joining her in the sky.

He thought he might have been in shock, for he could barely hear the next words spoken. Her Unsullied captain said something Jon thought might have been in Valyrian, and soon the masters’ soldiers had dropped their weapons, fleeing.

Tyrion was speaking, but all Jon could do was stare into the distance at the small white dot that was the queen. His focus didn’t return to their group until her handmaiden spoke in the Common Tongue, voice clear: “Our queen insists that one of you must die, as punishment for your crimes.”

One of them.

Jon thought of his killers’ faces once more — he had not allowed any of them to live. And then Jon looked on the faces of these so-called masters, who were reduced now to groveling. His jaw steeled as they pushed one of their own forward: the lowborn one. Even in Essos, it seemed one’s birth was still determinate.

But the man begged. The man kneeled. The man lived.

As the other two masters dropped to the ground beside him, Jon came to a terrible realization.

The worst he’d heard of her were tales of her crucifying the Essosi highborn — stories that made her sound bloodthirsty. But these men had been monsters, and that meant that Daenerys Targaryen probably wasn’t.

Whatever conclusion Sansa had come to, she seemed unable to confront it. The second Tyrion began to leave, she stepped away, hurrying back toward the palace.

Jon remained frozen in his space.

The rest of the group followed, with only the queen’s handmaiden pausing. “My lord?” she asked.

“Aye. I’ll, er, i’ll just be a few moments, if that’s alright,” he said.

She inclined her head and followed the group out of sight.

Alone, finally, Jon looked back out at the bay.

Her dragons had brought down the fleet’s main ships in a matter of minutes. Entire crews fled their vessels.

Jon couldn’t imagine what they must think, seeing dragons overhead. He had never seen anything like it; no man could hope to fight one of them, let alone three.

The stories from his youth seemed strangely real to him now. He could picture Torrhen Stark — looked on as weak today — grappling with the weight of so many Northerners’ lives.

Three dragons then. Three dragons now. The only true difference was that instead of an Aegon, there was a Daenerys. A queen who was fierce and wild — powerful and free.

There was an odd pull in his chest that he couldn’t place. Some yearning, dreadful chasm that threatened to swallow him whole.

The Boltons held Winterfell, and the Night King was headed south. There was no time for him to be enraptured by her, but that seemed to make little difference.

He could not tear himself from the sight of the harbor.

After what felt like ages, the queen turned to fly back toward where they’d been standing.

She seemed surprised to see him standing there but landed her dragon all the same. Though she was unguarded, she didn’t seem concerned about his presence.

In fairness, he supposed there wasn’t much to fear with so mighty a beast beside her.

Then the dragon did something strange — it stepped closer to him, its massive face close. Then it smelled him, mouth curling back until its teeth were mere inches away.

Unthinking, he reached forward slowly and brushed his fingers against the hot scales.

When he looked back up to the queen, she looked stunned.

DAENERYS

He was here; she still wasn’t used to it. And as if it were not jarring enough already to see Jon seated across from her, she couldn’t believe Drogon’s reaction to him.

Her son had all but purred for Jon. No one but her had touched Drogon since he was a babe — no one else but Doreah, ever.

An old wound.

But her son was not a babe any longer. Balerion reborn, some called him. And it was true, in a way — his wings cast a shadow now. No one dared approach him; he was far too frightening.

And yet, Jon Snow wasn’t frightened.

She wondered if Drogon knew what this Northern man meant to her, if he had chosen to show his acceptance in such a manner. The alternative was too wild to consider. Too fantastical.

Daenerys was the last Targaryen and would remain so; to hope otherwise was simply exercised futility.

But with him sitting here before her, it was hard to remember that. Hard to fight the hope that perhaps she wasn’t entirely alone.

He had shuffled in with his sister and Ser Davos at the exact appointed time, and from the moment they’d been escorted in, she felt nervous.

This would be there first real conversation, and she did not have the protection of power imbalance — the distance from her throne to where they stood earlier — to bolster her confidence.

Jon seemed unwilling to look directly at her, though he kept stealing glances whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.

“Good evening,” she said finally, when Tyrion was also seated. "I apologize for the delay in meeting with you." 

Ser Davos was the one to reply: "It's no trouble, your grace. We came from the far North. A bit of time to rest in the sun was welcome."

Daenerys smiled at the man. He seemed kind. Friendly.

Sansa Stark, on the other hand, was oddly withdrawn. She hadn't spoken earlier in the day, either. But unlike then, her face did not appear bored. Instead, she looked upset.

“I’m pleased you're comfortable so far here in Meereen. But surely you didn’t travel to Essos for the climate,” Daenerys said, voice teasing. “What is it that you want from me?”

At last, Jon spoke, and despite knowing his voice, it still sent a shiver down her spine to hear it aloud. "Your grace, we've come to ask for your help."

Tyrion sat up straighter, brow furrowed.

"A man named Ramsay Bolton has taken control of Winterfell. He's dangerous; he's got our youngest brother Rickon as a hostage. My sister... when she was forced to wed him, he did unspeakable things to her. We want to take our home back, your grace, but we don't have enough men."

Stiff as her back was, Daenerys could see Sansa's shoulders fighting not to tremble. Her heart ached; she had no doubt what had happened. No doubt at all.

The fire inside her simmered, ready and strong. There could be no mercy for monsters.

"You want me to bring my forces to Westeros to fight for you?" she asked calmly. "My men can do that, but what will you give me in return?" She wanted to help, but she was still a queen.

From her periphery, she could see Tyrion's face. It was blanketed with approval.

Jon, strangely, seemed uncomfortable. He should've been relieved — surely, the hardest part was over now. And yet, he did not look as if the worst was behind him. He looked rather as if he'd prefer to stare down Drogon again than to say what was on his mind.

Finally, he spoke: "There's something else, your grace," he muttered. The low voice sent shivers down her spine. It reminded her of the way he'd whispered to her so many times before.

Daenerys inclined her head, curious. She could see Tyrion's furrowed brow, Sansa's tightened mouth, Ser Davos's hesitant eyes.

What was this?

"There is another threat we're all facing... the... the Army of the Dead," Jon said. If it had been anyone else — if he had been anyone else, she would've snorted. But he wasn't anyone else. He was Jon Snow. She had dreamed of him for years.

Surely, anyone important enough to infiltrate her mind was important enough to take seriously. But still... she'd never heard of such things.

Fortunately, Tyrion spoke for her: "The Army of the Dead?" her Hand asked. His skepticism was plain. "And who leads the Army of the Dead?"

Jon's face seemed distressed — clearly, he'd heard such statements before. He stuttered out explanations about wights and White Walkers. It was fantastical, the stuff of stories. Most upsettingly, she believed him.

Finally, Daenerys interrupted his monologue: "Assume I were to say I believe you," she began, "what would you require from me?"

She rather enjoyed the stunned look on the Stark siblings' faces; Daenerys felt certain in that moment that neither had truly thought she would buy into it.

The delight slipped away at his response, as she realized the gravity of his request. Her children... to defeat these White Walkers, it would require she endanger her children.

“I’m not sure,” she said to break the silence. Her desire to help was at war with her desire to protect her dragons. “Two wars for one kingdom is steep. It sounds as if the North may be more trouble than its worth.”

“The Vale then,” came a quiet voice. Daenerys looked up sharply. Jon seemed stunned, too.

Sansa’s eyes were trained on her plate; the words were so soft that they could have been imagined. “My late aunt, Lysa, was Lady of the Vale until her death not long ago. Her son, my cousin… I think he’ll listen to me, if I tell him it's in the Vale's best interests to bend the knee.”

“How can you be certain?” Tyrion interrupted.

Sansa met his gaze. “I can’t,” she said. “But my cousin is not strong-willed. If I tell him to, I think he will.”

If anything, Daenerys appreciated the honesty. So many had come before her with promises of riches, easy-won lands and boundless affection. But words were wind. Daenerys eyed Tyrion, who seemed surprised by the woman’s offer. She inclined her head as Tyrion curled and uncurled his fingers around his goblet.

Daenerys hadn't known until this moment that she trusted Jon so much. Realistically, he was a stranger... but she could not discount the years her mind had readied her for his arrival. 

At last, her Hand nodded.

In an instant, she turned to meet her guests’ eyes again. “Very well, then,” she said. Her voice was steadier than she expected. “I shall assist you in reclaiming Winterfell from Ramsay Bolton and defeating this… Army of the Dead…” she trailed off. “And in exchange, the North and the Vale will bend the knee.”

Jon seemed so relieved that it was hard to keep a straight face. He looked at her as if she'd answered all of his prayers, and then some.

And then Sansa Stark finally lifted her gaze to meet her. Daenerys was surprised by how much she recognized the searing pain on the Northern woman’s face.

“When the wars are over, who will you appoint as warden of the North?” Sansa asked. Jon seemed to be trying to glare a hole into his sister’s skull.

It was as charming as it was unnecessary.

She kept her eyes trained on Sansa as she picked up her near-empty goblet, draining the last drops of wine from it. “The Starks have held the North for a very long time,” Daenerys said. “I see no reason why that should change.”

JON

Theon Greyjoy was here.

He hadn’t seen Theon in a lifetime, not since the day he left for the Wall… at the beginning of all things. When they finally stood before one another, it was all Jon could do not to kill the man where he stood. It was only the presence of the queen — who was ostensibly an ally of the Greyjoys — and his sister that held him at bay.

Sansa... when she had learned Theon was here, Jon had seen a rare appearance of the young girl his sister had once been. He hadn't seen her so at-ease since before he left for the Wall.

It was a powerful reminder of what the traitorous coward had done to redeem himself.

She had sprinted forward, for once all sense of decorum forgotten, and thrown herself into the man's arms. Theon certainly looked worse for the wear. He was drawn and pale, shaking as he hugged the redhead.

"Jon," Theon said nervously as they made eye contact.

He grimaced. "Theon."

It seemed the Greyjoy siblings had come before Daenerys just an hour before, pledging to help ferry her armies across the Narrow Sea in exchange for assistance reclaiming the Iron Islands from their murderous uncle.

He tried not to dwell too hard on the fact that the Iron Islands were what Theon had been willing to betray his family for.

It wasn't until Daenerys, looking warm and lovely, came to him that he finally relaxed his shoulders. She touched one hand to him with a soft smile. 

His heart was in his throat.

"You should alert your banners, my lord," she said gently. "We sail tomorrow." Her eyes shined like gems; it was all he could do not to reach for her.

DAENERYS

Once more, Jon Snow was invading her mind as she tried to sleep.

Daenerys wanted him desperately; she didn’t think she could stand the tension between them for much longer. Seeing him in-person, realizing that he was as wonderful as she'd dreamed, made it even harder not to visualize his face when she closed her eyes.

They were to set sail in the morning, and then they would be in close quarters for an age. But waiting wasn't good enough.

Her desire pulled her from her bed, brought her to his door… her fingers twitched at her sides as she tried not to knock.

It was an exercise in futility. 

Before she could overthink it any further, Daenerys rapped her knuckles against the door. It opened swiftly.

Jon did not seem to have expected her; his eyes widened as he took her in, throat bobbing. She had worn one of her more alluring gowns — a thin number that she was certain would draw his gaze.

"Hello, my lord," she said. "May I?"

He stood aside wordlessly, jaw slackened, and she strolled into the room.

When the door was finally shut behind her, she grinned at him.

Jon seemed unsure what to say next; he stumbled over his words as he greeted her. Daenerys had never been so charmed in her life.

She interrupted his rambling: “Have you been with a woman before, Jon?”

The words were blunt; the question was designed to be jarring.

Jon's jaw went slack for a beat before he recovered, nodding slowly. He seemed on-edge — as if he was unsure how to take her question. She felt no jealousy, given that she’d had a lover of her own. But still, she couldn’t stop herself from asking: “Many?”

He took a deep breath — “No, just one.”

She tilted her head and stepped closer to him; there was a ringing sound growing in her ears. He was so very handsome that such a thing seemed impossible to her.

“Surely a man like you has had other offers?”

“One or two,” he rasped. His voice sounded like he'd been electrocuted — shallow and hoarse.

Then she pulled on one of her gown’s ties, until her flimsy dress fell open like a sleeveless robe, exposing herself to him. Jon’s eyes widened as he drank her in, pausing on her chest.

“Any offers from a queen?” she asked.

“I — your grace,” he stuttered.

“Daenerys,” she interrupted.

“I’m a bastard… Daenerys,” Jon replied. “I’m sure you know that bastards are not well-loved in Westeros.”

His arm twitched by his side; he seemed to be restraining himself from reaching for her. She took a step closer; she had waited far too long already.

“You and I are not in Westeros.”

He swallowed hard at her words. His fingers twitched again; Jon Snow would make a dreadful liar.

“Aye,” he admitted, “right now we’re not. But it’ll be hard enough for a Targaryen queen to win over highborn lords, never mind one with a bastard trailing behind her,” he said.

Daenerys took another step toward him, and now they were so very near one another. She had only ever been this close to him when asleep.

“I want to build a world where that doesn’t matter,” she said vehemently. “Where that makes no difference.”

When he next replied, he sounded pained. “I wish it didn’t matter, but it does.”

She had never met such a frustrating man in all her life — never had a man been so concerned for her claim of all things that he would refuse her.

“I can legitimize you,” she said, closing the little distance that remained between them, “if that would make you feel better. If I say you are Jon Stark, then you will be.”

At that, he went quiet. Contemplative.

“You know, you’re the third person who’s offered to legitimize me,” he said quietly. “My brother Robb wanted me to be his heir… and Stannis Baratheon. He suggested it, too.”

She looked at him again, his dark curls and the gray eyes she had envisioned so many times before.

“Perhaps this time, you should accept,” Daenerys replied gently.

She ran her hand over his jaw. 

“I dreamed of you,” she continued. Her entire body felt lighter the moment the words left her lips. The relief to — at last — have shared so deep a secret. “For years, I’ve dreamed of you.”

Jon, for his part, seemed unable to respond. He shook his head once, as if he were trying to dislodge water but stared at her. If she didn’t know better, she’d almost say he was trembling.

“You're beyond anything I could've dreamed up,” he finally replied hoarsely. "You are extraordinary."

“I know,” she whispered. “My dreams come true.”

His mouth was on hers in an instant.

They would have many nights together between Meereen and Winterfell, but she was sure that none could be so sweet as this.

What a change it was, to dream while she was awake.

JON

Ramsay Bolton really was a monster.

Jon had never been gladder for having sailed to Essos — back at the Wall, Sansa had assured him that if Ramsay truly had Rickon, their brother was as good as dead. Seeing him toy with the boy now, seeing the arrows fall haphazardly when he was certainly missing on purpose, only made him more sure that their plan was the only chance Rickon had.

They'd spent the bulk of their voyage from Meereen planning their assault on Ramsay's forces; looking at the field before them, Jon was grateful for it. They'd done their best to disguise Daenerys's forces as they traveled to Westeros. It made their journey longer, but to the best of their knowledge, they'd succeeded.

The Dothraki were laying in wait just a short ride away. If they'd timed it well enough, they would take the Bolton forces by surprise.

He was still galloping toward his youngest brother. Rickon was so close now; for the first time in an age, he could see the whites of his eyes.

In the distance, he could see Ramsay pulling another arrow across, stretching the bowstring tight.

‘Daenerys,’ he thought desperately.

There was no way she could have heard his prayers, but the gods seemed to.

Her screamers became audible seconds before they appeared on the horizon. They charged forward in a vicious wave, a distillation of brute strength. For one beat, his attention turned to them — but it didn’t last.

It seemed even a horde of Dothraki was not enough to distract Ramsay from his prey; if anything, it sharpened him. With a sickening grin, he turned back toward them, arrow stretched tight now across his bow. He angled it up to release it.

And then a screech came from the heavens —  Drogon descended from the clouds with an incredible roar, his wings spread wide as he crossed the distance to the Bolton men. In one swift exhale, the queen’s mount had burned a hole through their line.

She was a constellation above them: a dot of light tearing through the sky.

It seemed Drogon was enough to finally shock Ramsay; his last arrow landed a foot wide of Rickon as he jolted on the release, jaw slackened.

In the time the sadistic bastard spent trying to process how the tables had so thoroughly turned, Rickon reached him.

“Jon,” the boy cried as he grabbed him and turned his horse; he knew Ramsay’s distraction would last only moments longer, and they were still in range of his arrows.

They rode hard back toward the line — further back, even — toward where Sansa was meant to stand. But his sister had advanced well passed there, a look of stunned joy painted on her face.

“RICKON,” she screamed as they reached her. His heart was full, unbelieving still that they’d snatched his youngest sibling back from Ramsay’s grasp.

Sansa jumped down from her horse, and in a matter of seconds, her arms were wrapped around their youngest brother, tears streaked down her face.

Rickon held her tight as well; she was shaking.

Ramsay. He still needed to deal with Ramsay.

Jon turned back toward the keep. There would be time later for Jon to spend with his siblings — right now, there was a battle to be held.

Only it was hard to call it a battle. By the time he’d returned to the front lines, the Dothraki had reached the Bolton forces.

Even the limited time he’d spent with the queen’s horse lords as they sailed across the Narrow Sea was enough to prove to him that their people were no more savage than many others he’d known. But watching them now, he could see why some would say it.

They fought like no one he had ever known, firing arrows while standing on moving horseback — leaping from their mounts into the fray. Their arakhs sliced true, and Jon wondered if they couldn’t have won this battle on their own.

But they needn’t do so, for above them was Daenerys. She was a blinding streak of silver and white on her dragon’s back. The act of looking at her made his heart pound out of time; surely, there had never been such a woman — such a queen.

Drogon doubled back around Winterfell’s walls, and he burned another line of soldiers to ash.

He swiveled his head back toward the field. Everything until now seemed to have happened in slow motion to him, but barely any time had passed. Beside him, the Northerners stood, mouths agape.

Jon had tried keeping his Northern allies read in to only the barest bones of the deal he’d made with the dragon queen, but it hadn’t taken long for them to suss out the truth of the matter. There had been a state of uproar — he’d listened to near-endless shouts about mad Targaryens and the subjugation of their people. As recently as that morning, the tumult had not abated.

Still, watching their reactions, he thought many of them may only now have understood exactly how little chance they stood if they chose to fight the Mother of Dragons.

For another beat, they all stood watching as the Dothraki tore through the Bolton lines, and then one of Lyanna Mormont’s men called out: “Are we going to stand here like a bunch of children while the Dothraki fight our battle for us?!”

There were murmurs through the crowd; but in no time, it became a frenzy. There was little Northerners hated more than to have their stock called into question.

The men charged forward; and in minutes, it was closer to a massacre than a fight. Between the queen’s dragons and the Dothraki, the Bolton men were already being overrun.

Add the Northern forces to the fray, and there wasn’t much hope for their opponent. Jon’s mind took a moment to marvel at the fact that Daenerys had not even brought her Unsullied into the battle. She had not deemed it necessary.

Jon shoved his way through the crowd, a swipe of his blade in one direction — a thrust of steel in another.

Daenerys was no longer breathing fire on them, unable to aim now that their armies were entwined. But she soared above, eyes sharp and calculating.

A metallic clang jolted him as he parried a coming blow. There were embers burning all around them; his face was sweaty and streaked with dirt.

One by one, the Bolton men fell.

But Jon still had not found their leader — and the battle would not end until Ramsay’s life was forfeit.

Ahead of them, the Winterfell gates were closing. The last thing Jon saw before they shut was Ramsay sliding between them.

DAENERYS

It seemed that beneath the bravado and the twisted nature, Ramsay Bolton was little more than an uncommonly soulless coward.

They had broken the gate down with help from a giant who counted himself among Jon's forces; and within moments, Ramsay was on the ground.

For the first time since she’d met him, Jon Snow seemed vicious. He kneeled astride the man, pummeling his face in. Over and over, he struck, until she was certain that he planned to quite literally beat him to death.

It was only when Sansa entered the walls of the keep that he finally pulled himself away, leaving the bloodied man laying broken on the ground.

That evening, the two of them sat beside one another at the center of the table in Winterfell's great hall. On Jon's other side sat Sansa, who still had an arm wrapped around Rickon.

The men were jeering, some still unwilling to accept her presence. Jon had not taken it well in the slightest; she could see his fist tightening. His jaw ticking. 

But before he could say a word, another voice chimed in: “Your son was butchered at the Red Wedding, Lord Manderly, but you refused the call.”

A young girl. Young, but hardened.

Strong.

Lyanna Mormont, Jon had told her hurriedly as he tried to point out who was who to her in the aftermath of the battle. Daenerys sat straighter, her eyes directly on the girl.

She missed her old bear terribly. She wondered how much his condition had progressed — if he’d found a cure.

But his relative was still speaking. “…Lord Cerwyn, your father was skinned alive by Ramsay Bolton, still, you refused the call.” The men looked properly shamed, she noticed. Daenerys marveled at it. These men, who had no trouble insulting her with her children nearby, so easily put into place by a child.

And then Lyanna Mormont took her breath away: “You all refused a call from House Stark that a Targaryen answered.”

For a moment, there was silence in the room. If the Northern lords were better men, that might’ve been enough. If she were anyone but Daenerys Targaryen, that might’ve been enough. But she was Daenerys Targaryen, and the Northern lords were fickle. Malleable, but still proud.

"The North fought a war against the Mad King —" came the voice of one of the men. She was pretty sure Jon had called him 'Glover.'

Then, the last sound she would have ever expected to hear cut across the room: “Enough. Daenerys Targaryen has fulfilled her promises to the North, and the North will remember that.”

Sansa Stark.

Sansa bloody Stark.

The oldest living trueborn child of Ned Stark, who had made no secret of hating her. And now it was h er voice that seemed to do what no other's could. With no support from any living child of Ned Stark, the Northern men finally conceded.

The North was free, but it was also hers.

LAST

In the end, it was all very simple.

They were married in Winterfell’s godswood, beneath a weirwood tree. Tyrion spent the bulk of the three nights prior attempting to browbeat Daenerys into submission: If she must marry Jon Snow, it should be in a sept.

Eventually, Jon and her conceded to holding a second wedding ceremony somewhere in the south when all their battles were won. Tyrion’s lips remained tight, but he said no more on the matter.

She supposed he was following her sarcastic edict: That her Hand put more effort into planning the two wars to come than he did for her wedding.

Daenerys wore her bells woven through her braids for the ceremony — for this greatest victory.

Eventually, the Seven Kingdoms would be hers. But first, now, and always , Jon would be.

When she finally approached him in the forest, his eyes were shining. The stars weren’t half so bright.

He reached out his hand toward her, and like her first dream, she reached back.

***

“I love you,” he said against her neck later that night. “I love you.”

She stilled beneath him before looking up at him, meeting his eyes.

“Not as much as I love you,” she whispered.

His heart unclenched — it beat again, harder than it had even before he’d died.

He kissed her, bruising.

“No,” he said on her lips. “More.”

The wind howled outside their window. Snow began to fall.