140: Chapter 140: The Night King

Dragonstone.

Before the nightfire bronze brazier.

Melisandre had lit the fire once more at dusk.

This time, what she threw in was not dragonglass powder—it was a shattered scale taken from Drogon's reverse scale wound.

The edge of the scale was still stained with a faint trace of dark-gold blood, a remnant from when the reverse scale shattered and was scratched by the fragments.

She threw the shattered scale into the nightfire, and the flames suddenly surged high. The blue-green tongues of fire flickered above the bronze brazier a few times before turning deep blue—not the usual blue-green, but an extremely deep blue, like the depths of the ice in the Lands of Always Winter.

An image emerged within the flames.

North of The Wall. Lands of Always Winter.

The Night King stood alone on a cliff naturally formed from ten-thousand-year-old ice.

Behind him, an army of a hundred thousand White Walkers stood in silent ranks across the frozen plains—not standing, but kneeling.

A hundred thousand White Walkers knelt in the blizzard, like ice sculptures.

The blizzard howled around them, but not even the hems of the garments of the White Walkers kneeling in the front row stirred—they themselves were part of the storm.

The Night King's ice-blue eyes stared toward the south.

He slowly raised his right hand and drew an icy trace in the air before him with his ice-crystal longsword.

In the area where the Ancient Valyrian Dragon Magic · Void Rift had been torn open by the Space-Time Dragon Captain, the remnants of the Ice Element were still dense. The Night King's icy trace precisely captured the wavelength of those residual Ice Elements, projecting a blurry image in the air—it was the silhouette of Drogon's Pseudo-Ice Dragon Form as he confronted the Space-Time Dragon Captain in the skies above King's Landing.

From deep within his throat, he uttered a very low sound in the ancient tongue of the White Walkers.

It was not anger, nor was it intimidation; it was a confirmation spanning eight thousand years, mixed with confusion and a certain ancient longing. When the sound emerged from the flames, amplified by the Glass Candle, the air temperature in the dining hall plummeted by several degrees.

Behind him, three White Walker Generals knelt, awaiting orders.

The Night King spoke in the ancient tongue of the White Walkers. His voice was extremely low, like the final muffled groan before a deep ice sheet cracks.

Every syllable emerging from the flames carried a texture like shattering ice crystals.

“The evolution shard... is no longer in the ice. It is between fire and ice. Find it. Bring it back. It belongs to the ice. From the very beginning—it was promised to the ice by the Children of the Forest in the name of The Old Gods. The Dragon is not its master.”

The White Walker Generals rose silently. Their ice-crystal armor gleamed with a faint blue light in the blizzard as they disappeared past the edge of the flame's image.

The Night King turned from the cliff, his ice-blue eyes sweeping toward the south one last time.

The blizzard closed in behind him, swallowing his figure.

The image in the flames suddenly vanished the moment he disappeared, and the deep blue fire in the nightfire bronze brazier fell back to blue-green at the same time.

Melisandre opened her red eyes. Her breath condensed into white mist above the brazier—a result of the sudden drop in temperature caused by the Ice Elements left by the Night King in the flame's signal.

“He has sent out the White Walker Generals. They are not here to wage war—they are here to find you. He will eliminate obstacles one by one until he finds you yourself.”

Late night in Dragonstone Castle.

Daenerys stood before the map table of Westeros.

The dark red glow of the volcano outside the window was reflected on the map, dyeing the North in a warm red.

In her hand, she held a reply from the North that Jorah had just delivered—the parchment was frozen brittle by the cold winds of the North, with a faint trace of frost remaining on its edges, slowly melting in the warm air of Dragonstone.

The letter was written by Brandon Stark himself.

The Young Wolf's handwriting was neat but carried a strange coldness—not impolite, but the emotional fluctuations between the lines were far lower than those of a normal person, as if written from a perspective transcending human emotion. The content of the letter was very brief:

“Sansa has arrived safely at Winterfell. The intelligence regarding King's Landing's defenses she brought with her has been verified by the maester and is accurate. House Stark agrees to a temporary alliance with the Mother of Dragons during the war against the White Walkers.

The condition is—the Dragon must not cross north of The Neck. It is not that we do not trust the Dragon.

It is the Northern lords who do not.

During the alliance, the Mother of Dragons herself may enter the North with her guards. Winterfell welcomes you. Brandon Stark. King in the North.”

Daenerys placed the letter on the map table. Her purple eyes looked at the location of the North—The Neck, Winterfell, The Wall. Her finger tapped on the location of The Neck.

“Brandon Stark. Legend says he absorbed all of The Old Gods' observation records in the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven.

He knows who the Night King is. He also knows about the evolution shard.

But he did not mention it in the letter—he only mentioned that the Dragon must not cross The Neck. He is not afraid of the Dragon. What he fears is that the Dragon will draw the Night King's attention to Winterfell.”

Jorah stood on the other side of the map table. His finger drew a line between The Neck and Winterfell.

“The Night King has already sent out the White Walker Generals. Their target is you—or more precisely, the evolution shard inside you.

If you go to the North, the White Walker Generals will track your Bloodline signal.

Brandon likely knows this. He is letting you go to Winterfell, but not allowing the Dragon to cross The Neck—he wants to draw the White Walker Generals to the battlefield north of Winterfell, rather than having them cross The Neck and head straight for Winterfell.”

Daenerys turned her purple eyes to Drogon.

“You heard them. The Night King has sent someone to look for you. House Stark wants me to go to the North, but won't let you fly there. What do you think?”

Drogon leaned against the edge of the map table in his human form.

Ointment was still applied to the shattered reverse scale on his left chest, but his posture was much straighter than in the morning.

The obsidian foam bracelet woven by Sansa on his left wrist shimmered with a very faint iridescence under the red glow of the volcano. He looked at the location of the North on the map and was silent for a few breaths.

“Your Grace. The Dragon not crossing The Neck is fine. But I don't need to cross The Neck. I can take the sea route—White Harbor. Ride from White Harbor to Winterfell. Human form. No flying.”

“Brandon knows you are a Dragon.”

“That is why he only mentioned 'the Dragon cannot cross The Neck' in the letter—he didn't mention 'the Dragon cannot enter the North'.

He left a loophole for me. He wants me to go. Because he knows the Night King will come looking for me.”

He paused. His deep brown round pupils flashed with a dark-gold light under the red glow of the volcano.

Drogon sat in his human form on the floor beside Daenerys's bed, leaning against the bedframe. Melisandre's nightfire ointment was applied to the shattered reverse scale on his left chest—the ointment had already dried, its surface cracked with several extremely fine fissures that opened and closed slightly with his every breath. On his left wrist, he wore the obsidian foam bracelet woven by Sansa. The iridescence of the foam had dimmed significantly under the moonlight—the bracelet was slowly fading. Sansa had said that when the foam stopped glowing, he would come. Right now, the foam was not completely dark, but it was no longer glowing.

As always, his tail slipped under the blanket and wrapped around Daenerys's ankle. The tip of his tail gently rubbed against her ankle bone—it was his habitual movement when half-awake, not a conscious display of affection, but his body moving before his mind.

Daenerys sat on the bed. Aegon's crown rested beside her pillow, side by side with the chain and the emerald necklace. The chain was hand-forged by him on The Walls of Meereen when they established their blood bond with the blood of his reverse scale—extremely faint dark-gold bloodstains still remained on the valyrian steel links, a permanent mark left after the blood of the reverse scale had seeped into the steel. The ruby on the crown gleamed with a very faint red light in the moonlight, making the steel rings of the chain look exceptionally simple beside the crown.

She held Brandon's reply in her hand. She had already read it several times. But this time she did not look at the letter—she looked at the chain and the crown beside her pillow. The two valyrian steel items lay side by side, one the crown of a conqueror, the other the chain of a binder.

“The chain was forged by your own hands. The crown was stolen by your own hands. The chain is proof of our blood bond. The crown is a symbol of conquest. You placed them both beside my pillow—both are made of valyrian steel. Both were given by you.”