145: Chapter 145 The Iron Throne - Stepping In

Red Keep · The iron throne Hall.

The high windows were half-shattered during the siege.

It was not frozen by Drogon—it was shattered by the shockwaves of Dragon Breath when Rhaegal and Viserion suppressed the ballistae.

Stained glass shards were scattered across the stone floor of the hall, each fragment still retaining a small piece of the pattern depicting the conquest of the Seven Kingdoms—the image of Aegon riding a Dragon had shattered into dozens of pieces, with fragments of dragon wings and Aegon's sword mixed together, making it impossible to tell which was which.

The noon sunlight streamed in through the broken windows, casting a long, slanted shadow of the iron throne.

The sunlight hit the stained glass shards, refracting scattered spots of color onto the floor.

There was no one on the iron throne.

Daenerys Targaryen walked in through the main entrance.

She was not wearing battle armor—she had changed into a black gown.

It was prepared by Missandei before she departed from Dragonstone, made of dragon-silk satin woven in Meereen, with extremely fine, dark red threads woven into the black, giving off a very faint red glow in the sunlight, like cooling lava.

An emerald necklace and a pigeon-blood ruby hung side by side at her neck—the two gems each shimmered with different light in the noon sun.

On her left thumb was the purple flame stone ring.

She wore the crown of Aegon on her head—of the seven gems, the one representing the Iron Islands had been replaced with obsidian from Dragonstone.

She had polished that piece of obsidian herself.

She spent an afternoon grinding it with the black sand from the shores of Dragonstone, polishing it until the surface was smooth as a mirror but retaining one tiny natural pit—the mark left by a burst bubble when the obsidian was formed during a volcanic eruption.

Her violet eyes looked straight at the iron throne.

She walked very slowly.

Every step she took on the rubble and broken glass made a very faint, crisp sound.

Her hem dragged across the stone floor, making a very fine, rustling sound as it swept over the stained glass fragments.

Following behind her were Jorah, Barristan, Grey Worm, and several veteran Unsullied.

On Grey Worm's shield, there was still rust splashed on when the battering ram struck the iron gate.

Barristan's white armor was stained with ash from the direction of the city walls—just like the ash on Jaime's pauldrons, it was ordinary wood ash from burnt oak artillery mounts.

Drogon walked at the back in his dragon-man form.

His tail swayed slowly behind him, and his vertical pupils scanned every high window and dark corner of the iron throne hall.

His gaze lingered on the iron throne for a moment—then drifted away.

He had no interest in the iron chair.

He was more interested in the hidden chamber behind the iron throne where he had stolen the crown.

The secret door to the chamber remained as it was when he last left—a thin layer of dust had accumulated in the eye sockets of the dragon relief, and his fingerprints were still on it.

Daenerys stopped before the iron throne.

She reached out her hand.

She did not touch the blades of the throne—she merely hovered her palm above a curved blade on the armrest of the iron throne.

Dried blood still remained on the blade—she did not know if it was Joffrey's, Cersei's, or someone else's.

The bloodstain had oxidized into a very deep, dark brown on the valyrian steel, almost blending with the dark ripples of the blade itself.

Her palm was only half an inch from the blade.

She did not grip it.

She just held it there.

Then she turned around.

Facing everyone present in the hall.

Her voice was clear and calm, every word amplified several times by the echoes of the rubble and broken glass.

"Aegon I forged this chair three hundred years ago. He did not just do it to let Targaryen sit on it—it was to tell Westeros that a Dragon can forge iron, and iron can also forge a Dragon."

Her violet eyes swept across every row of blades on the iron throne.

"For three hundred years, some Targaryen family members sat well, and some did not. The Mad King ruined it. Robert Baratheon sat it down—his weight was heavier than a Dragon, yet he could not suppress the blades. Joffrey sat on it. Cersei sat on it. They all cut themselves. When my father sat on this chair, he was covered in blood—not cut by the swords, but cut by his own madness."

She paused for a breath.

Her violet eyes moved away from the blades and looked at the people in the hall.

"I am his daughter. I did not come to avenge him. I came to finish what he did not do well. Targaryen—it is not just about mad blood. Targaryen also has Dragons. From today on, the Dragon is not just on the throne. The Dragon is also in the furnace. In the kitchen. In the smithy. In the rookery. In the sewers—the sewers that Tyrion Lannister just repaired yesterday. The Dragon is by the stove. The Dragon is on the black sand beach. The Dragon is in any place that needs it, not just where it needs to breathe fire."

She took a deep breath.

The crown of Aegon remained still on her head.

"The Seven Kingdoms—no. The Six Kingdoms. The North has not joined yet. From today, the Six Kingdoms are no longer Lannister's. And they are not just Targaryen's. They belong to the Reconstruction Committee. They belong to the blacksmiths. They belong to the farmers. They belong to everyone who has hidden the old Targaryen banners in Flea Bottom for decades. I—Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, sitting on the iron throne is not to rule. It is to rebuild. And then head north."

She turned around.

She sat on the iron throne.

She did not cut herself.

Her back was straight, and her violet eyes looked from the high window toward King's Landing.

The crown of Aegon remained motionless on her head.

The obsidian patch absorbed the noon sun, and the tiny natural pit on its surface formed a minuscule shadow in the light—like a black pupil.

No one in the hall spoke.

Drogon walked up from the back wall.

He gently rested his tail on the curved blade on the armrest of the iron throne—the tip of his tail perfectly covered the dried bloodstain on the blade.

His vertical pupils swept across the obsidian patch on the crown on Daenerys's head, then turned to the people in the hall.

His voice was soft, but every word was as clear as Dragon Breath.

"You have heard it. She is not sitting on the iron chair to lie down and count money. The Six Kingdoms need reconstruction. The Iron Bank's debt needs restructuring. The Night King is heading south. There is endless work to do. Whoever wants to swear allegiance now—line up on the left. Whoever wants to negotiate terms—line up on the right. Whoever wants to surrender—line up at the back."

Grey Worm was the first to line up on the left.

He put down his shield and knelt on one knee.

Barristan lined up second.

Jorah lined up third.

The veteran Unsullied lined up behind them in turn.

No one lined up on the right.

No one lined up at the back.

The Wall.

Eastwatch.

The blizzard on the eastern section of The Wall reached an intensity not seen in decades that night.

The snow was not falling—it was flying horizontally.

Ice crystals condensed into soybean-sized hail in the gale, striking the wooden walls of the Eastwatch watchtower with a dense pattering sound, as if someone were throwing stones at the door.

The black-clad brothers of the Night's Watch were wrapped in three layers of fur cloaks, their beards covered in ice beads, and every quarter of an hour, they had to rub their faces with their gloves to prevent frostbite.

They could not see what was in the blizzard.

But they heard a sound.

It was not the sound of the wind.

It was a dull roar of ice crystals resonating at an extremely low frequency—a frequency so low that the human ear could barely hear it, but could feel it.

The black-clad brothers on the watchtower simultaneously felt a tightness in their chests, as if something extremely heavy was pressing on their hearts.

An old ranger—who had served on The Wall for thirty years—knelt down and pressed his fingers against the wooden floor of the watchtower.

The floor was shaking.

It was not the shaking from the wind, but a very low-frequency vibration, coming from the base of The Wall, traveling up along the wooden structure to his fingertips.

"Below. It is below. It is striking the foundation."

The ice Dragon of the Night King descended slowly from the blizzard.

Its wingspan exceeded fifty meters.

It was not the wings of an Old Valyria Dragon, but ice wings reshaped by the Others using the eternal ice of the Lands of Always Winter—each wing scale was a translucent ice plate, with no membrane between the plates, connected only by extremely fine threads of ice crystals.

The flapping of the Dragon's wings did not create wind—it was the core of the blizzard itself, and when it flapped its wings, ice crystal fragments from the edges of the ice wings were flung out, drawing streaks of ghostly blue ice marks in the air.

The scales were not biological scales, but ice facets, each reflecting the faint moonlight in the blizzard.

There were no eyeballs in the Dragon's eyes, only two dancing ice-blue flames—the projection of the ice core the Night King had infused into the ice Dragon with the magic of the Others.

In its mouth, it carried a battering ram forged from eternal ice.

The battering ram was about twenty meters long and nearly two meters in diameter, its surface covered with runes of the Others—not the runes of the Old Valyria Dragon Clan, but the same Old Gods runes that the Children of the Forest had carved on obsidian, re-etched by the Night King with ice crystals.

Each rune glowed with a cold ice-blue light in the blizzard, and extremely fine ice crystals constantly grew and shattered at the edges of the rune strokes, as if the runes themselves were breathing.

The Night King rode on the back of the ice Dragon.

His ice crystal sword pointed to the foundation of The Wall—the spot where the roots of The Old Gods' weirwood penetrated the rock layer.

The weirwood roots were planted by the Children of the Forest eight thousand years ago, spreading through the rock layer for thousands of years, serving as the natural reinforcement layer at the very bottom of The Wall.

But the weirwood feared ice.

Extreme cold would cause the weirwood roots to freeze and crack from the inside.

The ice Dragon smashed the battering ram heavily into the base of The Wall.

It did not just strike once—it smashed it in and left it there.

The moment the battering ram pierced the rock layer, the runes of the Others on the hammer body lit up simultaneously.

The ice-blue light spread along the weirwood roots into the interior of The Wall, and the roots froze and cracked from the inside out in the extreme cold—emitting a muffled sound like a low horn as they cracked.

It was the final lament of the remaining will of The Old Gods.

Within seconds, a massive crack split the eastern section of The Wall from the base all the way to the battlements.

The fissure spread westward, following the roots of the weirwood—shards of ice and broken rock cascaded into the sea like a waterfall. The seawater churned at the bottom of the fissure, frozen into an incredibly thin shell of ice by the debris.

A Night's Watch horn sounded. Three blasts—three blasts meant White Walkers. The sound of the horn was fleeting in the blizzard, swallowed by the roar of the crumbling The Wall. But someone heard it.

The commander of Eastwatch—Martin Clegane, a sixty-year-old veteran of the Night's Watch, whose left hand lacked three fingers and whose right hand had only a thumb and forefinger remaining, could still hold a quill.

He climbed the watchtower alone and lit the last raven cage. Inside was only one grey-feathered raven—the last raven at Eastwatch, as the others had frozen to death in the previous blizzard. He pinched the raven with two fingers and tied the secret message tube to its leg. Then, using his only two remaining fingers, he cast the raven into the blizzard.

The raven tumbled a few times in the wind. Its left wing was struck by ice particles, causing it to drop momentarily. Then, it adjusted its angle and struggled to fly south. Its grey feathers were almost invisible in the blizzard.

Martin Clegane stood on the watchtower, watching the raven disappear into the blizzard. Then he bent down to pick up his longsword leaning against the corner—an old sword he had sharpened countless times during his forty years of service in the Night's Watch, its blade covered in whetstone scratches.

He gripped the sword in his right hand. Lacking three fingers on his left hand, he could not hold the hilt, so he supported the back of his right hand with his left wrist. Facing the collapsing The Wall, he stood straight.

King's Landing. The iron throne hall. Afternoon.

The oath-swearing ceremony had just ended. Several former servants of House Tyrell were sweeping up broken glass in the hall—sorting the stained glass shards by color, putting red in one pile, blue in another, and gold in a third.

Barristan was in the side hall discussing the rendezvous route for the Northern coalition forces with Jorah, tracing a line on the map from Moat Cailin to the Fist of the First Men with his finger. Grey Worm stood at the hall entrance, his spear held upright at his side, maintaining his guard posture.

A raven flew in through a broken window.

Not through a crack in the window frame—it dove straight in through the shattered window above. It was a grey-feathered raven, its feathers stained with ice shards and blood. The ice shards were melting in the noon heat of King's Landing, dripping onto the stone floor of the iron throne hall, leaving a trail of fine water droplets.

The blood was not the raven's own—it was from the frostbite on Martin Clegane's fingers, which had torn and bled while he was tying the message tube. The raven flew very low, its left wing beating noticeably slower than its right—it had been injured by ice particles in the blizzard.

The raven landed directly on the armrest of the iron throne. It landed right beside the curved blade that Drogon's tail tip had just been covering. It tilted its head and pecked at the string of the message tube with its beak. The string was a black leather cord of the Night's Watch, frozen stiff in the blizzard, and the raven had to peck twice to loosen it.

Jorah stepped forward quickly. His footsteps echoed in the hall—the House Tyrell servants sweeping the glass stopped their work. Barristan walked out from the side hall. Grey Worm turned around. Jorah removed the message tube from the raven's leg and unfolded the secret missive.

The parchment of the missive was frozen brittle by the blizzard, with several cracks along the edges—but the handwriting was still clear. Martin Clegane wrote in large letters, pressing hard with every stroke, as if afraid the recipient might not see it clearly.

Jorah read it. His expression sank abruptly as he read. It was not anger, nor fear—it was the extreme calmness of a soldier suppressing all emotion when receiving the worst military intelligence. He looked up. His voice was extremely low, yet everyone in the hall heard every word.

"The eastern section of The Wall—Eastwatch—has been breached. The Night King's Ice Dragon used a siege hammer to freeze and crack the base of The Wall. Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Martin Clegane... added a personal postscript at the end of the missive—'Tell the Mother of Dragons: The Ice Dragon does not fear Dragon Flame. But its Ice Fire has a temporary neutralizing effect on Dragon Breath. You must hit its ice crystal core at close range. The core is in its throat. Tell that black dragon—I am sorry I could not wait for him on The Wall.'"

Daenerys stood up from the iron throne. She said nothing. She removed Aegon's crown and placed it on the throne. The seven gemstones—six rubies and one obsidian—each shimmered with different colors in the noon sunlight. Her violet eyes turned to Drogon.

Drogon walked up from the back wall. He had heard Martin Clegane's postscript—he had heard every word. Ice Fire and Dragon Flame flickered simultaneously in his vertical pupils. It was not anger, nor sadness. It was a hunter hearing the final message of another hunter.

Daenerys's voice was very soft. But extremely steady. "North. The Northern coalition is waiting for us. The Wall has fallen, but the North still stands. The Starks still stand."

Drogon's tail drew a half-circle very slowly behind him. His vertical pupils pierced through the broken window, looking north—across the Blackwater River, the smoke of King's Landing, the fog of The Neck, and the snow of the North. There, above the ruins of the collapsed The Wall, the Night King's Ice Dragon was circling. Its ice-blue dragon eyes were staring south.

"The Night King breached The Wall to find me. He thinks the shard is still in the ice—The Old Gods promised it to the ice. He does not know that the shard has already completely bound with the Dragon Clan Bloodline within me."

He turned his head. His vertical pupils fixed on Daenerys. "I am going to The Wall—not to guard it for the Night's Watch. It is to tell him that the object is no longer his. If he wants it, he can come and take it himself."

Less than a day after the fall of King's Landing. The port of Dragonstone had already begun preparing supplies for the fleet heading north.

The Unsullied transport ships were being refilled with grain and fresh water—the grain was sourced from the granaries of House Tyrell at Highgarden, which Margaery had arranged to ship overnight after receiving the raven about the fall of King's Landing.

The fast sailing ships of the Dothraki Cavalry were being fitted with anti-freeze oil specialized for the North—sails would freeze stiff in extreme cold weather and required a coating of whale blubber anti-freeze oil to maintain the elasticity of the canvas.

Missandei was filing the data from the siege of King's Landing into chapter twenty of her notebook in the temporary office. The notebook spread across the entire table, with the King's Landing siege section occupying at least twenty pages, each filled with shorthand symbols. She was using red ink to circle the data on Drogon's frozen flags separately—the Ice Flame Micro-Carving/Flag Freezing Technique Ice Element output curve, with the time each flag shattered, the Ice Flame temperature, and the flagstaff material noted beside it. As she circled, she bit her lower lip and wrote two words next to the Ice Element output precision data: "Invention."

Illyse White Mane finished the final round of left-hand thrust practice in the training ground. Now, the precision of her left-hand thrust had improved to the same level as her right—not innate, but trained. The wooden stakes in the training ground were covered with left-hand sword marks, each one straighter than the last. She drew the dragon-kiss sword with her left hand and thrust three times at the wooden stake—all three thrusts landed on the same point, with the cracks in the stake radiating outward from the point of entry into a small pit. She sheathed the sword back into the old scabbard. The red patch on the hilt was still there. The black leather in the armory had been soaking in oil for two days—one more day to go. She pinched the frayed edge of the red thread with her fingers.

Then she raised her head and looked toward the crater. A steady, warm sensation came from the Brand on the back of her neck—not any message, but the instinctive temperature feedback of the Brand confirming that Drogon was still within range of perception. She hummed very softly toward the crater, then turned and walked toward the armory. The black leather should be done soaking.

Melisandre lit the fire of prayer for the march north on the Nightfire Altar. The silhouette of the Night King's Ice Dragon was reflected in the flames—circling above the ruins of The Wall, scattering countless ice crystal shards as its ice wings flapped, the shards landing on the ruins of The Wall and congealing into a new shell of ice. A faint glint flashed in Melisandre's red eyes under the reflection of the flames—not fear, but the calm observation of a priestess seeing the enemy of the god she served.

Drogon, in his Dragon form, crouched alone on the edge of the crater. The newly grown reverse scale on his left chest gleamed with dark gold Bloodline patterns under the reflection of the lava—the ring of veins at the edge of the reverse scale shone faintly in the high heat. His vertical pupils gazed toward the north.

The Fire Element burned steadily in his chest—180 points, not much, but enough. 480 points of Ice Element congealed into incredibly thin ice crystals on the surface of his scales. The two elements did not interfere with each other; the ice was below, and the fire was above. The dark gold patterns on the reverse scale shone faintly where the ice and fire met.

He spread his wings. He let out a low, clear dragon roar toward the north. The dragon roar emanated from the crater, passing over the shores of Dragonstone and the Blackwater River, through the smoke over King's Landing, through the fog of The Neck and the snow of the North, and through the ruins of the collapsed The Wall. Above those ruins, the Night King's Ice Dragon was circling. When the dragon roar reached it, the two balls of ice-blue flame in the Ice Dragon's eye sockets flickered.

The lava lake inside the crater boiled for a moment at this dragon roar. As the magma churned, it emitted a dark red glow that illuminated the dark gold vein patterns on the reverse scale of his left chest, making them look like burning golden threads.