Setting: Red Keep, 130 AC — post-Lucerys' death, political tension boiling, and war with the Greens on the horizon
The throne room was not empty for long.
Though no raven had flown and no herald had spoken, the entire court was converging upon the scene, drawn by an invisible summons that neither law nor logic could refuse.
In the bowels of the Red Keep, word had already spread.
Not by tongue—but by instinct.
Something had happened. Something old. Something real.
And so they came, from every corridor and tower, like moths to a flame that neither comforted nor destroyed—but judged.
The first to arrive were the servants and retainers, half-curious, half-fearful, faces pale and wide-eyed as they filtered in along the periphery. Their whispers were carried on the stone like insects crawling through the mortar:
"A fire without smoke."
"A disk… floating."
"The king did not scream."
"The queen is still watching it."
"Magic… true magic…"
The guards at the doors had not dared move. Even Ser Harwin Strong's brother, Lord Larys, now Master of Whisperers, limped slowly into view, his cane tapping with deliberate rhythm. He said nothing, but his eyes gleamed like wet ink, already calculating the implications.
From separate halls they came, but they were not equal.
Rhaenyra's faction was already in place—the Princess herself now standing at a respectful but unyielding distance from the Flame Screen, her face tense, eyes flicking with intelligence and awe.
Beside her, Daemon Targaryen watched the disk not as a man observing wonder, but as a warrior measuring an opponent. His hand occasionally twitched near the hilt of his sword, Dark Sister, as though half-hoping the fire would attack.
Jacaerys, her eldest, was whispering something to Lucerys, who clutched at the sleeve of his mother's gown. Young Joffrey, too young to pretend stoicism, stared at the screen with open wonder. The girls—Baela and Rhaena—stood silent, shoulder to shoulder, like twin shadows born of different stars.
Then came the Greens, each announcing themselves in their own way.
Alicent, first, her jaw tight, chin high, her steps even and controlled. But the flicker in her eyes betrayed the truth: fear.
Otto Hightower followed, as if he were already preparing a speech to deliver before a council not yet called. His presence was grim but grounded, like a wall built of stone and suspicion.
Aemond Targaryen entered without ceremony. He moved like a shadow with purpose, slow, smooth, dangerous. His sapphire eye did not blink. It stared directly at the floating disk, and his mouth curled into something that might have been a smirk—if not for the unease behind it.
Then came Aegon.
Late, of course. His steps were unhurried, one hand holding a goblet, the other adjusting the folds of his tunic, still wrinkled from a nap or a drunken dalliance. When he saw the flaming disk, he laughed softly.
"Ah. The gods tire of riddles, and now they send us a flaming plate."
"Perhaps the kitchens grew ambitious?"
No one responded.
Even Helaena, who entered behind him with her pale hair in soft waves, seemed distant. She walked barefoot—no one knew why—and her eyes were locked on the screen as though it whispered only to her.
She said nothing at first.
Only when she stood in the fire's glow did she murmur:
"Fire tells no lies.
But it forgets the cost of truth."
They stood divided by position, by family, by fate.
The Blacks to one side.
The Greens to the other.
And between them, at the very center, the Flame Screen pulsing like a second heart in the Red Keep.
A low hum still thrummed through the stone, so subtle it barely touched the senses—yet none could ignore it.
The air smelled not of smoke, but of ozone, lightning before a storm.
Even the Iron Throne, forged of the swords of the conquered, seemed to lean slightly forward, as if listening.
At last, Otto broke the silence.
He approached the king, his voice low, but not so low that the others could not hear.
"My king… this is unnatural. A conjuration, perhaps. A deception. I would urge you—have the maesters examine it. Destroy it, if need be. This reeks of sorcery."
Viserys did not move. He remained seated upon his throne, his body hunched but strangely serene. When he spoke, his voice was dry, quiet, but clear:
"I dreamt of fire and shadow once.
Perhaps this is the fire speaking back."
A silence followed. Even Otto found no words.
Rhaenyra looked to her father, and something unreadable passed through her—gratitude, perhaps, or the last flicker of hope in a dying unity.
Alicent, meanwhile, clenched her hands together, knuckles white. Her gaze lingered on the disk, on the flames reflected in her daughter's hair, and on Aegon—who was now leaning against a column as if bored already.
She did not speak, but her silence rang louder than words.
Daemon, still half in shadow, murmured under his breath:
"The gods finally answer… and they speak in riddles. How quaint."
No one moved to leave.
No one dared turn their back on the disk.
Even the youngest pages, barely old enough to carry a scroll, stood at the edges of the chamber, lips parted, hearts thudding.
Because now, the prophecy felt real.
Not sung by a bard.
Not painted on a tapestry.
Not whispered through generations.
It was here. Now. Fire made manifest.
And as the silence thickened, the screen pulsed again—once—like a breath held too long.
Then it began to shift.
The glyphs started to spin.
And the image on the screen flickered—
Ice.
Snow.
Darkness.
And a voice—unseen—whispered once more:
"Watch."
The flames surrounding the disk flared once—softly—and then dimmed, leaving only a gentle shimmer of red-gold light bathing the throne room in a glow not of this world. The tension in the air turned from fear to reverence, like that before a sacred ritual.
The circular screen tilted forward slightly, as if acknowledging its audience.
And then, the vision began.
A darkness swept across the screen—true, bitter darkness. The kind not even torches could banish. It was not just the absence of light, but something ancient, something hungry.
The watchers leaned forward unconsciously. Even Aegon lowered his cup.
Snowflakes danced across the screen—silent, sharp, falling like whispers of winter. Trees came into view: tall, blackened sentinels in a forest cloaked in white. The trees of the North—the Haunted Forest, the edge of the world as they knew it.
Three men rode into view.
Cloaked in black. Faces tense, eyes scanning.
Each wore the black of the Night's Watch—those who had "taken the black" and sworn to guard the realms of men from the dangers beyond the Wall.
But what danger, exactly?
The audience inside the throne room didn't know. Not yet.
But unease had already begun to ripple through them.
Rhaenyra whispered, "They are watching for something…"
The vision followed the rangers' slow, careful journey deeper into the woods. A trail of dismembered corpses appeared—arranged in a spiral, unnatural, deliberate.
A collective shudder moved through the Red Keep.
Daemon's eyes narrowed. "That's not war. That's… ritual."
Viserys said nothing. But he leaned forward.
Helaena turned her face to the side, as though hearing a voice the others could not.
"Spirals are always spinning.
They come back to the beginning. They end where they start."
Otto scoffed. "A savage's warning sign. Or a trick of the wild."
Rhaenyra did not look away. "No… it means something."
Suddenly, the first scream cut through the air—not in the throne room, but from the screen.
One of the rangers was attacked.
Not by man. Not by beast.
A figure emerged from the snow—a White Walker. Pale, icy skin that shimmered like death; eyes glowing blue like frozen embers.
He moved like a whisper, slicing with a blade that gleamed like glass but struck like steel.
One ranger fell, his mouth frozen in shock. The others ran.
The screen showed one survivor escaping—only to be captured, later, by men of the Watch.
His expression haunted.
The room in the Red Keep exploded in sound.
"What in the name of the Seven was that?" Aemond demanded.
"Such creatures are tales told to children," Otto growled. "Northman's fear. Nothing more."
But Rhaenyra wasn't listening to Otto.
She had eyes only for the figure who rose from the snow with those glowing blue eyes—the thing that killed without sound.
Daemon said lowly, "That enemy moves like shadow. Like death given breath."
Even Alicent had turned pale.
Viserys spoke, his voice dry, hoarse:
"I once dreamt of a sea of ice. And in it, men screamed, but no sound came. That creature… I saw it then. Before I was king."
There was a long silence.
Aemond muttered, "A trick. Magic made to deceive."
But Helaena whispered from beside him:
"When the fire sleeps, the cold remembers.
When the moon turns black, it walks again."
No one answered her.
As the screen flickered forward, the forest faded, and the Wall came into view—The Wall, ancient and massive, a glacial leviathan rising hundreds of feet tall.
Its top was lined with watchmen in black, tiny as ants against the scale of it. Below, at Castle Black, the Night's Watch trained, ate, lived, and waited.
They waited for something that most of Westeros had long since forgotten.
And those in the throne room now felt the weight of that forgetting.
"Why is it showing us this?" Rhaena asked aloud.
No one answered. But the answer was clear.
Because it mattered.
Because this—whatever "this" was—was the beginning of something greater.
Daemon crossed his arms. "These rangers... they are not prepared."
"They're not even knights," Aemond muttered.
"They don't need to be," Rhaenyra replied. "They need to see the truth."
Otto scoffed again, but even he said no more. The firelight dancing off the screen was now reflected in everyone's eyes.
No one dared blink.
As the screen shimmered again, fading from the Wall into the first shots of Winterfell, the voice from before returned—this time fainter, almost mournful.
"The North remembers…
But the South… has forgotten."
And the fire pulsed again.