Date/Time: Concurrent with Chapter 44 — Winterfell / Castle Black
Arya Stark — Third Person
Winterfell's great hall was warm and quiet, the fire burning low in the hearth while snow piled against the windows outside. Sansa sat across from Arya with a cup of ale she hadn't touched, her auburn hair loose around her shoulders. She held herself still — hands folded, back straight, face giving nothing away.
Arya was talking.
She'd started from the beginning — Yoren and the Night's Watch recruits, Harrenhal, the Hound — and now she was deep into the Essos chapters. Geralt. The Wyrmborne. The Dragon Witcher Trials and the forty-percent mortality rate that hadn't stopped her from stepping into the pool.
Sansa's hands had tightened around the cup when Arya described her heart stopping on the third day. Her eyes had gone bright when Arya mentioned seeing their father in the godswood vision.
"He said the things worth having usually hurt," Arya said. "And then he was gone."
The fire popped. A log shifted in the grate, sending sparks spiraling up the chimney.
"You died," Sansa said. "And then you came back."
"I came back different. Faster and stronger, everything sharper. Everything I'd been trying to become through training was just — there." Arya turned the cup in her hands. "But I'll tell you the rest tomorrow. There's a lot more, and you need sleep."
"I've been sleeping in Littlefinger's house for over a year. I can manage one more night awake."
"Tomorrow."
Sansa studied her for a long moment. Then she nodded, drained her cup in three long swallows, and stood. At the door, she paused.
"Arya."
"What."
"Thank you. For coming to rescue me."
"I was always going to come."
The door closed. The fire burned on.
Triss Merigold — Third Person
The Wall appeared through the cloud cover like a scar cut across the world.
Seven hundred feet of ice, stretching east to west until it vanished into the grey horizon on both sides. From Enoch's back, the structure looked less like something men had built and more like a cliff face of frozen ocean pushed up from the earth by forces too old to name. Frost clung to its surface in patterns that caught the weak northern light, and the wind that came off it carried a cold that bit through Triss's enchanted furs and settled into her bones.
Melisandre sat behind her in the riding harness, crimson scales dusted with ice crystals from the altitude. They'd left Mikhail and the Scarlet Wing detachment at a staging point fifteen miles south. Two dragons descending on Castle Black would look like an invasion. One was already going to be difficult enough.
"Castle Black," Triss said through the rider bond. "Ahead, at the base."
The settlement looked tiny from this altitude — a cluster of dark buildings huddled against the Wall's southern face. Smoke rose from a dozen chimneys. And below Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, the dark shapes of ships rode at anchor. Stannis's fleet.
I see it, Enoch replied. His green scales rippled as he adjusted his wings against a crosswind. And I see something else. On the Wall itself.
Along the top, figures moved — small but purposeful. Men responding to a threat.
They've spotted us, Enoch said.
"They were going to spot us eventually. We're not exactly subtle." Triss patted his neck. "Take us down. Slow approach, wide circles. Give them time to —"
The scorpion bolt cut the air thirty feet to their left.
Enoch banked hard. Triss grabbed the harness with both hands, the sudden g-force pulling her sideways. Behind her, Melisandre's hand locked onto the saddle strap.
A second bolt followed — this one closer, the iron head whistling past Enoch's right wing close enough that Triss felt the displaced air against her face.
"They're firing!" Melisandre called.
Three more bolts launched from the Wall's upper platform, the scorpion ballistae tracking Enoch's descent. Each bolt adjusted for wind and altitude. Each one tighter than the last.
Triss's hands moved. Her mana surged through Enoch's rider bond, drawing on his reserves, and the incantation left her lips in a rush of practiced syllables.
The Warding Wind snapped into existence around them.
Twenty miles per hour of concentrated force spiraling in a tight vortex — the air screaming as it compressed into the spell's ten-foot radius. Triss's red hair whipped wildly. Melisandre's crimson vestments snapped and cracked behind her. The temperature inside the vortex dropped as the wind pulled cold air from every direction.
The next bolt came in fast and low, aimed at Enoch's belly.
It hit the wind wall and stopped.
The iron-tipped shaft hung in the air two feet from Enoch's scales, spinning slowly, stripped of all momentum. Triss caught it with a telekinetic grip and the bolt began orbiting them in a lazy circle.
Another bolt. Caught. Added to the orbit.
Another. And another. Seven scorpion bolts circled Enoch's body in a slow, deliberate ring. The barbed iron tips caught the grey light as they spun.
That's a statement, Enoch observed.
"That's the point."
More bolts fired — three, four, five more — and each one met the same fate. Caught, absorbed, added to the growing constellation of stolen ammunition orbiting the dragon. Twelve iron shafts circling like a crown of thorns, each one a failed kill shot converted into a trophy.
The firing stopped. Triss counted to ten.
Then she pushed her voice through the wind — raw mana amplifying the sound until it could reach the Wall from five hundred feet.
"IF YOU'RE DONE USELESSLY FIRING YOUR BOLTS, WE WOULD LIKE TO LAND SO WE CAN TALK WITH JEOR MORMONT."
Silence — broken only by the Warding Wind's howl and the creak of Enoch's wings.
On the Wall's upper platform, figures argued. Arms waving. Heads turning. Two minutes of urgent, visible debate.
Then a voice carried down, amplified by cupped hands and the ice face's natural acoustics.
"WE'LL ALLOW YOU TO LAND! BUT YOUR DRAGON WILL HAVE TO BE CONTAINED DURING THE DURATION OF THE TALK!"
Triss looked at the twelve scorpion bolts orbiting Enoch. She looked at Melisandre, who raised one crimson-scaled brow.
"OUT OF THE QUESTION!" Triss projected back. "EITHER WE LAND AND TALK, OR I FIRE BACK ALL OF THESE BOLTS AT ONCE AND WE GO OVER YOUR WALL!"
More arguing on the platform. One figure in black furs gestured sharply at another. A taller shape in darker armor stood apart, arms crossed. The wait stretched — one minute, two — while Triss held the Warding Wind steady.
Finally: "LAND IN THE COURTYARD! YOUR DRAGON STAYS WHERE HE IS! NO FIRE, NO AGGRESSION!"
Triss dismissed the spell. The stolen bolts she let fall — all twelve at once, clattering onto the frozen ground in a scattered heap.
"Take us down," she told Enoch.
Castle Black's courtyard was packed earth and frozen mud, ringed by low stone buildings and overlooked by the Wall's southern face. The place smelled of horse manure, woodsmoke, and the sharp mineral tang of seven hundred feet of ice pressing down on everything beneath it.
Enoch landed one hind leg at a time, wings folding against his massive body while his club-like tail curled against the courtyard's edge. The ground shook on impact. Icicles broke loose from the nearest building's eaves and shattered on the flagstones. A horse in the nearby stable screamed and kicked its stall door.
The courtyard had been cleared — hastily. Crates shoved against walls, a training dummy knocked sideways, a barrel of pitch rolled into a corner. Night's Watch brothers lined the perimeter three deep, armed and staring.
Triss slid down Enoch's flank and landed clean. Her Bladestaff was strapped across her back, and her crimson scales caught the torchlight as her boots hit frozen ground. Behind her, Melisandre descended, her crimson-and-gold Scarlet Wing vestments stark against the black and grey of everything else.
The Watch brothers stared. Some stepped back. One man crossed himself. Another tightened his grip on his spear until his knuckles popped.
Triss let them look. Red hair falling past her shoulders, crimson scales tracing patterns along her arms and the sides of her neck, green-gold eyes with vertical slits. Flames flickered along her fingertips — the fire element responding to the intense cold, her body generating heat without conscious effort.
Melisandre stood beside her. Crimson scales, hair threaded with actual strands of living flame, red eyes with draconic slits, the points of fangs visible when her breath misted in the frozen air.
"Seven hells," someone in the front rank whispered.
A young man pushed through the crowd. Black furs over boiled leather, a bastard sword at his hip, dark curly hair. The long Stark features. Grey eyes. He stopped ten feet away and looked from Triss to Melisandre to Enoch's massive green form filling half the courtyard.
"I'm Jon Snow," he said. "Lord Commander of the Night's Watch."
Behind him, another figure emerged. Taller, leaner, rigid. Armor bearing the crowned stag of House Baratheon. His blue eyes locked onto Melisandre and stayed there.
Stannis Baratheon.
His wife followed — Selyse, thin and severe, holding the hand of a young girl with greyscale scarring on one cheek. Shireen. And behind them, Davos Seaworth — compact, weathered, eyes moving across every face in the courtyard without settling on any.
"You," Stannis said. His voice cracked across the courtyard. "You abandoned me. Left Dragonstone without a word, without explanation, without —" He stopped. His eyes had registered the crimson scales, the horns at her temples, the draconic slits. The fury on his face froze halfway to its destination. "What happened to you?"
Melisandre held his gaze. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, the flames along her forearms burning brighter for a moment before she brought them under control.
She said nothing.
Triss stepped forward. "I'm Triss Merigold, representative of the Wyrmborne Empire. We're here on diplomatic business." She scanned the courtyard. "Where is Jeor Mormont? I need to speak with him."
The men of the Watch avoided each other's eyes.
Jon Snow stepped forward. "He was murdered during a mutiny."
Triss's breath stopped for half a beat. Beside her, Melisandre's composure flickered.
"What happened?" Triss said.
"Karl Tanner." Jon's jaw worked once. "Led a group of mutineers at Craster's Keep during a ranging beyond the Wall. They killed the Lord Commander and several loyal brothers. Karl desecrated the body. Used the Lord Commander's skull as a drinking cup."
Triss leaned toward Melisandre, her voice barely a breath. "That's not good. Jorah will not like this."
Melisandre's eyes closed for a moment. A single nod.
"The mutineers?" Triss asked.
"Dead. I led an expedition to Craster's Keep. Karl Tanner is dead. The surviving mutineers are dead." Jon's grey eyes held hers. "Justice was done."
"Then I need to speak with you, Lord Commander. Somewhere warmer."
Jon glanced at Stannis. "Aye. Follow me."
The room was small, stone-walled, heated by a fire that was losing its fight against the cold. A scarred table dominated the center. Maps covered one wall.
Jon took the head chair. Stannis claimed the seat to his right without asking. Selyse settled beside her husband, Shireen pressed close, her eyes enormous as she stared at Triss's scales. Davos stood behind Stannis — on his feet, watching every corner.
And last through the door, supported by a younger brother in black — an ancient man, stooped and thin, wrapped in furs and a maester's chain. His eyes were milky with cataracts, sightless, but his head turned toward the newcomers as he entered, tracking them by sound.
Triss looked at him and went still.
White hair. A face weathered beyond recognition by decades. But beneath it — the high cheekbones, the refined jawline, the skull's shape. Markers she'd seen on Daenerys. On the Valyrian dragonlord statues in the Wyrmborne Lyceum.
"Maester Aemon," Jon said, gesturing the old man toward a seat. "Our eldest brother. He asked to be present."
Triss waited until the maester was settled. "Forgive me, Maester. But your features — the bone structure, the shape of your face. You carry Valyrian blood."
Jon's brow furrowed. Stannis's gaze sharpened.
Aemon turned his sightless eyes toward her voice. A long silence.
"You have sharp eyes, my lady."
"I've spent considerable time among a Valyrian recently. The bloodline is distinctive." Triss folded her hands on the table. "Your name is Aemon. A Valyrian name. You took the black — the one place in Westeros where bloodlines cease to matter." She leaned forward. "May I ask your full name?"
Another silence. Jon was watching the old man, something new in his expression.
Aemon's thin lips curved. "You may ask. Whether I answer depends on what you do with the information."
"I carry news of a relative of yours. A young woman who would very much like to know she isn't the last of her blood."
The sightless eyes widened. Something broke through the old man's composure — raw, painful, decades of grief cracking open.
"Aemon Targaryen," he said. Barely above a whisper, but in the small room it carried like a bell. "Third son of King Maekar, first of his name. I was offered the crown and refused it. I took the black to remove myself from the line of succession, so my brother Aegon might rule without my shadow."
Jon's mouth opened. No sound came out.
Stannis went rigid. Davos stepped forward, then stopped himself.
"You're a Targaryen?" Jon managed.
"I've been a Targaryen for over a hundred years, Lord Commander. The black cloak doesn't change one's blood." Aemon's head turned back toward Triss. "You said you carry news. Of whom?"
"Daenerys Targaryen. Your great-niece. She's alive and ruling in Essos, allied with the Wyrmborne." Triss watched his face. "She knows very little about you beyond your existence. But she will want to see you."
Aemon's hands shook. He pressed them flat against the table, thin fingers splayed on scarred wood.
"I knew she lived," he said, his voice thick. "Ravens brought fragments — news of a Targaryen girl across the Narrow Sea, with dragons. I prayed that the rumors were true." A breath that rattled in his chest. "But I am old and blind and sworn to the Watch. I could do nothing for her."
"You're not alone anymore," Triss said. "And you don't have to be blind."
She turned to Melisandre. The former Red Priestess had been standing against the wall, silent since they'd entered. Now Triss nodded.
Melisandre crossed to Aemon's side. She knelt, bringing her face level with his, and placed her hands on either side of the old man's head. Her fingers touched the papery skin at his temples, and the flames along her forearms shifted from ambient flicker to focused, warm light.
"What is she —" Jon started forward.
"Healing magic," Triss said. "Let her work."
Melisandre closed her eyes. The fire element threaded through her fingers into the ruined tissue behind Aemon's cataracts. The cataracts dissolved. The nerve pathways reknit. The lenses cleared, layer by layer, like frost melting from glass in morning sunlight.
Aemon gasped. His hands flew to his face.
"I — there's light. There's —"
Melisandre pulled back. The fire along her arms dimmed.
Aemon Targaryen opened his eyes.
Purple. Deep, clear Valyrian purple, unclouded for the first time in decades. They found the firelight first — the orange glow of the hearth, the flicker of shadows on stone walls, the grain of the wooden table three inches from his splayed fingers. Details he hadn't seen in years. The room swam, sharpened, held.
Then the faces. Jon Snow — young, dark-haired, grey-eyed, staring at him with an expression Aemon had never been able to see before. Stannis — gaunt, rigid, blue eyes burning. Davos behind him, mouth open. Shireen, pressing forward, the greyscale on her cheek visible in the firelight. Selyse, thin and pale, one hand covering her mouth.
And Melisandre, inches from him. The crimson scales, the flame-threaded hair, the red eyes with their draconic slits. The face of a woman who had just given him back the world.
"Thank you," he said.
Melisandre's jaw tightened. She nodded once and stood.
"How did you —" Davos stepped forward, looking from Aemon to Melisandre. "He's been blind for years. No healer, no maester —"
"We are not maesters," Triss said. She reached into the satchel at her hip and withdrew a device — a flat disc of Wyrm-Forged metal, no larger than her palm, etched with channels that pulsed with faint amber light. She set it on the table. "And that's only the beginning."
"What is that?" Jon asked.
"Communication array. It allows real-time visual and audio contact across any distance." Triss tapped the disc's surface, and the amber channels flared brighter. "I'm going to use it to connect you with someone who will want to see Maester Aemon very much."
"More magic," Stannis said. His voice was flat. His eyes cut to Melisandre. "You left me. You left Dragonstone, you left your prophecies, you left your fire god — and you went there. To these people."
Melisandre met his gaze. For the first time since arriving, she spoke. "R'hllor may exist, Stannis. But he is not what I told you he was. Every vision I interpreted, every prophecy I spoke — the power was real, but I was reading it through a framework that distorted everything it touched. The Wyrmborne showed me how much I got wrong." Her voice was steady but her red eyes held something raw. "I couldn't stay after that."
Stannis's jaw muscles stood out like cables. Davos put a hand on his shoulder. Stannis shook it off.
"We'll discuss this," Stannis said through his teeth. "Later."
Triss closed her eyes and reached through the rider bond. Past Enoch. Into the deeper network. She found Daenerys's thread — warm, distinct.
Daenerys. I'm at Castle Black. I have someone here you need to see.
Who?
Your great-uncle. Aemon Targaryen. He's alive, and he can see again.
The link blazed.
Angelus — First Person
Daenerys was on her feet before I finished processing Triss's message.
She'd been beside me at the Council table, reviewing supply reports — grain tallies, harbor schedules, the paperwork that made an empire run. The reports scattered as she stood, purple eyes wide.
"Aemon," she breathed. "He's alive."
"Triss confirmed it at Castle Black. She's set up the communication array."
Daenerys crossed the chamber in four strides and stopped in front of the communication crystal on the wall. Her hand hovered over the activation rune.
She looked at me.
"How do I look?" she asked.
"Like a queen."
"I look like I've been reading grain reports for three hours."
"You look like a queen who cares about grain. He'll love that."
She pressed the rune.
The crystal flared. The image resolved — a small stone room, firelight, faces around a scarred table. Triss's crimson scales. Melisandre's flame-threaded hair. Faces Daenerys didn't recognize — a young man in black furs, a gaunt man in Baratheon armor, a thin woman holding a young girl's hand, a stocky man standing behind them.
And at the table, sitting straight for what looked like the first time in years, an old man with white hair and purple eyes that locked onto the projection with desperate focus.
Daenerys made a sound in her throat. Small, involuntary.
"Aemon," she said.
The old man's hands flew to his mouth. His purple eyes — Targaryen eyes, the same shade as her own — filled with tears.
"Child," he said. "Let me see you. Let me see you properly."
Daenerys stepped closer to the crystal. The projection captured her — silver-white hair braided in the Wyrmborne command style, violet eyes with draconic slits, pale iridescent scales along her cheekbones and jawline, the obsidian-black streaks spreading through her features.
"I'm here," she said. "I'm right here."
Aemon wept openly. His thin shoulders shook. "They told me you were dead. When the news came — when Robert's assassins were sent — I thought I had lost the last of us. I prayed, and I waited, and I grew old at the end of the world with nothing but rumors and the cold." He drew a shuddering breath. "And you're alive. You're alive."
"I'm alive, Uncle. And I'm not alone. I have allies, dragons, and an empire across Essos. The Targaryens are not finished."
"I can see that." He wiped his eyes with trembling fingers, laughing through the tears. "They gave me my eyes back just in time to see a miracle."
Daenerys's voice steadied. "Tell me about Rhaegar. About our family. Everything the ravens couldn't carry."
"Where do I begin?" Aemon's restored eyes were bright, the purple vivid in the firelight. "Your brother was the finest man I ever knew. He was born in grief — Summerhall burned the day he came into the world — and he carried that weight his whole life. But he was kind, Daenerys. Brilliant and kind. He played the harp and read prophecy and believed that the world could be saved through understanding rather than conquest."
"They say he started a war for a woman."
"They say many things. Most of them are wrong." Aemon leaned forward. "Rhaegar believed in something larger than himself. Whether his actions were right or wrong — I could debate that until my remaining years run out. But his intentions were never selfish. He loved your mother. He loved Lyanna Stark. And the realm punished him for it."
In the projection, Jon Snow's face did something complicated. Triss and Melisandre noticed. Nobody mentioned it.
"I want to know everything," Daenerys said. "About him, my grandfather, the Targaryens before the madness and the wars."
"And you will. But not tonight." Aemon's voice was thick. "We have time now. For the first time in decades, I have time that matters."
"You do, Uncle." Daenerys pressed her fingertips to the crystal's surface. "We'll speak again. Soon."
I touched Daenerys's shoulder. "The array draws significant power at this range. Triss still has business to conduct."
Daenerys nodded. "Uncle — I have to go. But this is only the beginning."
"Yes." Aemon pressed his palms flat against the table. "I have waited a hundred years. I can wait a little longer." He paused. "Daenerys."
"Yes?"
"You have your brother's eyes. Rhaegar's eyes." His voice broke. "He would have been so proud of you."
A single tear tracked down Daenerys's scaled cheek. She caught it, pressed her fingers harder against the crystal.
"Thank you, Uncle."
The connection dimmed. The image faded.
Daenerys stood with her hand on the crystal for three long breaths. Then she turned, and I stepped into her path. She pressed her face against my shoulder, and her hands gripped the edges of my armor.
"He's alive," she said against my collarbone. "He's been there the whole time, and I didn't know."
"You know now."
She pulled back, wiped her face, and straightened. Spine first, then shoulders. The queen returning.
"There's something else," I said. "Triss confirmed it. Jeor Mormont is dead."
"Jorah's father."
"Murdered during a mutiny at Craster's Keep. Karl Tanner led it. Jon Snow dealt with the mutineers, but the Lord Commander's body was desecrated. Karl used his skull as a drinking cup."
We both looked toward the door that led to Jorah's station.
"I'll tell him," Daenerys said. "He should hear it from me."
Jorah was in the administrative wing, reviewing intelligence reports. He looked up when Daenerys entered.
"Your Grace."
"Jorah. Sit down."
He read her face. The warmth drained from his expression. He sat.
"We've made contact with Castle Black," Daenerys said. "Jon Snow is Lord Commander. Stannis Baratheon has arrived with four thousand men." She held his gaze. "Your father — Jeor Mormont — is dead."
Jorah went still. His dark-scaled hands didn't move. His slitted eyes didn't blink.
"How?" Rough. One syllable.
"Mutiny. Karl Tanner led a group of brothers against the Lord Commander at Craster's Keep. Jon Snow killed Karl Tanner and the mutineers afterward."
Jorah's jaw tightened until the scales along his neck shifted.
"There's more. Before he died, your father gave a message to a brother named Samwell Tarly. He ordered you to take the Black and join the Night's Watch." She paused. "And he said he forgave you."
The silence stretched. Jorah's hands curled into fists on the desk, claws leaving thin scratches in the wood.
"He forgave me," Jorah said. Barely audible.
"He did."
"I can't take the Black. My place is here." His eyes met hers. "You know that."
"I know. And I think he would understand, if he could see what you've become." She placed her hand over his fist. "You're not the man who dishonored his name, Jorah. You haven't been for a long time."
Jorah looked at her hand on his. His jaw worked once, twice. He pressed his fist harder against the desk, then opened it — fingers uncurling, claws retracting — and turned his hand over to hold hers.
"He forgave me," he said again. Quieter. Something settling into place behind his eyes.
Daenerys squeezed his hand once and left him to his grief.
Triss Merigold — Third Person
The communication crystal dimmed, and Daenerys Targaryen faded from the air above the table.
Jon Snow sat with both hands flat on the table, staring at the space where the projection had been.
Stannis hadn't moved. Davos had one hand on the back of the king's chair, knuckles white.
"She's real," Shireen said. She'd pressed forward during the entire exchange, resisting her mother's grip twice. "The dragon queen is real. And she's beautiful."
"Shireen," Selyse said sharply.
"She is."
Aemon sat at the table with his restored eyes bright, his thin hands clasped together. He looked like a man who had just been told the sun would rise tomorrow after a lifetime of darkness.
"Well," Triss said, breaking the silence. She placed both hands on the table. "Now that we've established who everyone is — perhaps we should discuss why we're here."
Jon looked at her. His grey eyes held something that hadn't been there an hour ago — the look of a man recalculating everything he thought he knew. "Aye. I expect we should."
"The Night's Watch. The threat beyond the Wall. What the Wyrmborne can offer, and what we need in return." Triss glanced at Melisandre, who stood against the wall, her red eyes meeting Stannis's cold blue across the room. "All of it."
Davos cleared his throat. "Before we begin — the woman who healed Maester Aemon's eyes. The woman who once served King Stannis as advisor and priestess." His weathered face turned to Melisandre. "You can bring fire from nothing, catch a man's sight back from the grave, and you ride a dragon. What are you now?"
Melisandre's mouth curved — not quite a smile. "I'm better than what I was before."
Jon looked from Melisandre to Triss, from the disc on the table to the window where Enoch's massive shadow blocked the grey northern light. Outside, the dragon's green scales steamed in the cold, and the men of the Night's Watch watched from a distance that was getting shorter by the minute.
"Then let's begin," Jon said.
---
End of Chapter Forty-Six