125: The Son of Ice and Fire, Before the Night pt.3

Maekar walked slowly through the broad archway that marked the entrance to the Fireguard headquarters—the order he had created, the order that had set him on the path to becoming king. The place had been transformed over the last three years. No longer merely a garrison or training ground, it had been repurposed into one of the largest public gathering spaces in King’s Landing.

Around him, the ruins of the Dragonpit sprawled wide and skeletal, its upper domes and vaults long since dismantled. It now held grain. Great wooden silos and storehouses rose from the bones of the pit like new growth on a battlefield. Wagons creaked over the cobbles, loaded with sacks of barley, dried meat, and smoked fish. Hearth-fires burned in orderly rows, and ration counters called out names in steady rhythms, distributing supplies to the gathered smallfolk.

Maekar stood at the edge of it, his cloak dusted with snow, watching the city move with quiet discipline. Families walked away from the central queue carrying their weekly allotments—bread wrapped in cloth, strips of dried vegetables, and fish. The sky above was iron-grey, and snowflakes drifted steadily downward, blanketing roofs and cobblestones.

A few people recognized him as he passed: wide eyes, quiet gasps, bows, kneels.

He raised a gloved hand. “Get up,” he said softly. “Stay in line. Don’t slow the process.”

They obeyed.

At his side, Viserys stood wrapped in a thick sable cloak, having just dismissed a breathless messenger from the Red Keep. His mouth twisted with irritation.

“Nephew,” he said flatly, “the starry cunts attacked one of the kiln fields in the Kingswood.”

Maekar turned to him. “And?”

Viserys exhaled sharply. “They were all killed—eventually—but they managed to sabotage some of the kilns. The whole operation’s delayed; it might take a week to fix.”

Maekar muttered under his breath. “Fuck. This is getting out of hand.”

The Church of Starry Wisdom had failed to achieve any decisive blow—that much was true—but it had grown bold. And in its boldness, it had become dangerous. The sprawling infrastructure Maekar had spent three years building—rations, roads, supply lines, stores—all required constant maintenance. A single disruption created a ripple effect, and the Church knew it.

“They just need to keep bleeding us,” Maekar said darkly, “and that’s how they’ll win.”

“They’re costing us time,” Viserys agreed grimly, “and resources.”

Maekar’s eyes drifted southward, toward the Reach.

“Any word from Dany?”

Viserys’s expression tightened. “No,” he said. “Not since she reported putting down the assault on the largest granary.”

Maekar studied his uncle and saw the worry in his eyes.

“She’ll be fine,” he said quietly. “She has Morghul—and she’s not alone.”

Viserys looked away. “I should have gone with her. Or perhaps you should have…”

“You can’t,” Maekar said. “And I certainly can’t—not after how long I was gone in the East. We’re needed here, and she knows it.”

He paused. “Besides, Daenerys needed this. Not just regular flying—she needed to learn how to fly into battle.”

Viserys gave him a sharp look. “She… she—”

Maekar smiled faintly, though there was little humor in it. “She’ll be fine. She’s been preparing for this since the dragons hatched.”

Daenerys had surprised him—truly surprised him—not in her willingness to fly to the Reach and disrupt the Church’s plans, but in how prepared she had been.

She hadn’t asked permission. She hadn’t waited to be called. She had walked straight into the council chamber and declared that she was leaving with Morghul.

She had been wearing armor—Queen Rhaenyra’s old plate, reforged and reshaped to fit her smaller, leaner frame. Crimson and black, polished like obsidian, with the sigil of House Targaryen etched anew across the breastplate. A blood-red cape trailed behind her. The fire in her eyes that day had left the room silent.

And Maekar had said yes.

He’d had no choice—not really. She wasn’t asking; she was commanding. And he saw then, clearer than ever, that she was no longer merely his queen. She was a dragonlord.

“She surprised me, too,” Viserys muttered beside him, watching the lines of smallfolk still leaving with their rations. “I don’t know how my sweet, gentle Daenerys could become so—”

Maekar laughed. “She’s still the same Daenerys, Uncle. She’s doing what she’s always done—protecting the ones she loves.”

Viserys didn’t argue, offering only a soft grunt as he pulled his cloak tighter against the rising wind.

A disturbance rippled through the fifty or so guards surrounding them. Maekar turned and saw a very familiar figure crossing the square: Robb Stark. Ghost padded silently behind him, the direwolf towering now, nearly as tall as Robb himself. A few smallfolk stepped back at the sight, giving the beast a wide berth, but Ghost paid them no mind.

“Robb,” Maekar said with pleasant surprise. “I didn’t expect you so soon.”

“Your Grace,” Robb replied, bowing his head. He gestured toward Ghost. “This one spotted me riding in and led me straight to you.”

Maekar looked down at the direwolf, whose red eyes met his for a moment before the beast gave a low, impatient whine.

“Good boy, Ghost.”

Ghost whined again.

Maekar rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes. She’ll be back soon.”

Robb laughed. “Is he your wolf or hers now?”

“Good to see you back, Maekar. How was the East?”

“Killed an emperor of Yi Ti,” Maekar said bluntly, smiling at Robb’s reaction. “Other than that, the quest was successful.”

“You killed—?” Robb began.

“Enough about me. How was Storm’s End?” Maekar asked.

“The royal army there is ready to march,” Robb replied, now more serious. “Supplies are packed, morale is high; they’ll depart within the week and make their way to the Kingswood encampment.”

Maekar nodded, satisfied. “Good. I want you to lead them north.”

Robb blinked once, then nodded—no hesitation. “Yes, Your Grace.”

Viserys raised a brow. “And who’ll be your Master of Laws, then, Maekar? Jon Arryn’s still in the Vale, and Robb here was—”

“Arryn will be back soon, and so will my other councillors,” Maekar said without pause. “They’ll govern here while I’m in the North.”

Viserys didn’t argue, merely exhaled, snow gathering in his hair like starlight.

Maekar clapped Robb on the shoulder. “Come. Let’s return to the Keep.”

Robb nodded, and together they made their way to their horses and then back toward the Red Keep.

=======

Maekar, Robb, Viserys, Lyonel, Robar Royce, and their guards rode through the snow-choked streets of King’s Landing, the hooves of their horses thudding softly against the frozen cobbles.

Smoke curled from nearly every rooftop—thin grey lines rising into the pale sky, caught by the wind and swept east toward the Narrow Sea. Maekar watched it all in silence, his eyes flicking from building to building, noting the glowing hearths, the shuttered windows, the bundled smallfolk moving quietly with firewood or charcoal in hand.

Three years. That was how long he had laboured for this—preparing the realm not merely for war, though war had come, but for winter.

It had started with food. Granaries—massive ones—had been raised across the kingdom, their designs borrowed from his old world: fire-proof, elevated, sealed against moisture and rats. Barley, rye, salted meat, dried beans, and root vegetables were stored and rotated weekly, tracked by an entire corps of royal quartermasters. The Reach bore the bulk of the burden; its fertile fields fed all the kingdoms, and special routes carried grain northward for both the people and the war effort.

Then came the cold.

He had ordered vast kilns built across the Kingswood, the Stormlands, the Rainwood, and the Riverlands, where timber was still plentiful. Charcoal—hotter-burning and longer-lasting than raw wood—was stockpiled and hauled in iron-bound wagons to cities and hamlets alike.

He had even reached out to Cersei and the lords of the Westerlands, as well as to the Vale, to mine coal in the mountains—and had met with some success.

Each city received daily wagons of charcoal, rationed by the King’s Men. Large communal hearths were lit in squares and in the courtyards of inns and septs, guarded and tended like sacred fires. The poor could warm themselves, eat, and return home with enough fuel for another night.

In the countryside, Maekar’s command had gone further still. Subterranean dwellings—half-buried homes dug into hillsides, sealed with clay and roofed with sod—had appeared in villages and farmsteads. Modelled after Viking and Mongol winter shelters from his old world, they required less fuel, retained more heat, and sheltered dozens.

Even in King’s Landing, bunkers had been built beneath the septs, inns, and granaries—sealed against the wind, stockpiled with food and firewood, ready for the coldest days.

Special units of the King’s Men, called the Winter Watch, patrolled the streets each day. Their orders were not to fight, but to check—on homes, on families, on any soul who might freeze alone in the dark. They carried nothing but cloaks, food, and fire.

Across the realm, every lord, knight, and castellan had received a Winter Codex—a plain, utilitarian book bearing the seven-pointed star beside the royal seal, made quickly with the printing press Maekar had quietly introduced (the crisis had convinced even the most skeptical maesters of its worth). Inside were clear, illustrated instructions: insulating walls with straw, dung, and spare cloth; building safe indoor hearths and chimneys; preventing rot and rats in grain stores; recognizing and treating frostbite;and dozens of other lifesaving practices.

The smallfolk’s faith in Maekar—fueled by tireless royal messengers, septon sermons, and carefully crafted broadsheets—had turned preparation into a kingdom-wide movement. Had they not believed him the gods’ chosen bulwark against the coming darkness, none of it would have been possible.

The snow thickened as the Red Keep loomed into view. Hoofbeats thudded on the frozen streets while Robb edged his horse closer, his breath a pale mist.

“How long, Maekar?” he asked softly. “How long will this last?”

Maekar kept his gaze ahead.

“In the legends,” Robb continued, “the first Long Night lasted a generation. Even with all our stores, we couldn’t survive that. Whole kingdoms would vanish.”

Silence fell, broken only by the steady clop of hooves and the hush of falling snow.

“That’s why we have to win the war,” Maekar said at last—low but firm. “Quickly. Decisively. We can’t let it drag on. Not even a year. If it does…” He shook his head.

“Leaf told me something once,” he went on, voice softer. “Even after the first war ended, winter lingered for a decade.”

Robb swore under his breath. “A decade…”

Maekar nodded grimly. “The Long Night didn’t end in victory—only a reprieve. The Others weren’t destroyed, just driven back. That was a mistake.”

“And you won’t repeat it,” Robb said.

“No.” Steely resolve sharpened Maekar’s tone. “This time we don’t send them back. We end them—all of them.”

Robb stared ahead, thoughtful. “If we do… perhaps we’ll earn an eternal summer.”

Maekar allowed himself a faint, wry smile. “Maybe, Robb. Maybe when they’re gone for good, Westeros will finally have sensible seasons—no more winters that last for years.”

Robb smiled at that. “That sounds wonderful.”

They reached the Red Keep’s gates just as the sky turned silver with evening light. The outer courtyard was bustling despite the cold: lords, envoys, knights, and maesters pressed together in a restless tide around the entrance.

As Maekar dismounted, voices rose at once.

“Your Grace—”
“King Maekar, a word—”
“My triarch begs an audience—”
“From Volantis, Your Grace—urgent matters—”

He did not stop; he did not even glance their way. These pale-faced Essosi diplomats had arrived laden with disbelief and demands, baffled by tales of wights and Others. For years they had dismissed the Seven Kingdoms as gripped by madness—until winter reached Volantis as well. Now they came seeking answers.

Maekar strode through them, guards clearing his path.

Robb and Viserys peeled off, bowing slightly as they turned to their own duties. Maekar gave each a brief nod, then took the steps two at a time.

At the door to his solar, Lyonel halted beside him.

“No one enters,” Maekar said.

Lyonel nodded. “As you say, Your Grace.”

Maekar closed the door, shutting out the world, and dropped heavily into the chair behind his table. A thousand thoughts pressed in on him—yet his gaze fixed at once on three black metal discs lying in the center of the desk.

The keys.

Keys to Lightbringer.

He picked one up without thinking and tapped it against the wood.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

The soft, rhythmic sound seemed to echo with fate. These were no ordinary pieces of metal; they were meant to guide him to the sword that would end the war—the blade that could cleave night and winter itself.

And yet… he still had not found it.

The final resting place of Lightbringer eluded him, despite the efforts of Citadel scholars, the fires of R’hllor’s priests, and even the cryptic counsel of the Earth-singers. All the magic and learning in the world had not been enough.

He had even tried harnessing his new powers as the Three-Eyed Crow. But when he reached out to find the sword, he met only silence—blank, unyielding resistance.

Leaf had warned him: the Others were not passive. They knew. They watched. Perhaps, as they marched south, they were already blunting the magic of the three eyed crow.

A worse thought haunted him now: Melisandre’s suggestion—forge a new Lightbringer. 

He had rejected it the instant it left her lips, yet the idea clung to him like frostbite. In his dreams it always returned: first Daenerys, then Rhaenys, lying beneath the blade… and worst of all, the nightmare he would never utter aloud—his own unborn child offered in sacrifice.

Maekar’s fist tightened around the key, and the tapping stopped.

The door creaked open. He turned, ready to snap—then the anger melted away.

Rhaenys stood in the doorway, wrapped in deep blue and black. Her dark-brown hair was braided over one shoulder, and both hands supported the gentle curve of her belly.

“Maekar,” she said softly.

He rose at once and crossed the room.

“You should be resting,” he murmured, offering his hand. She accepted it and eased into the nearest chair with a quiet sigh.

“I’m fine,” she answered. “The babe loves it when I walk. She kicks whenever I sit too long—as if scolding me.”

Maekar smirked. “You’ve been certain it’s a girl from the moment we learned you were with child.”

Rhaenys smiled, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I know it’s a girl,” she said, the words slipping out almost absently. “I’ve seen it.”

Her gaze drifted to the three keys on the table. “So—have you found this sword yet? The one that’s meant to save us all?”

Maekar exhaled and leaned forward, turning one of the black metal discs between his fingers.

“No,” he said quietly. “I have the keys—I just can’t find the lock.”

Silence settled between them.

“We’re running out of time,” he muttered, setting the key down. “Another enemy has shown itself: the Church of Starry Wisdom is more entrenched than we feared, and Essos…” He shook his head. “Some of them still refuse to believe, even after everything we’ve shown them. I’d hoped they would send aid—anything.”

Rhaenys laid her hand gently over his.

“Everything will be fine,” she whispered.

Maekar looked up at her, his brows drawing together. “How can you be so sure?” he asked. “Every day that passes, I’m less certain of the future. We’re holding everything together with blood, faith, and hope—and those will soon run thin.”

Rhaenys offered a small smile. After a moment of silence she spoke. “During the tourney, before the war, I had a dream. It’s what convinced me to side with you. In the dream I was older. It was summer—a beautiful day. I was standing in the garden. Our daughter was there…”

A dream, Maekar thought. Was it Brynden’s doing?

“Daenerys was there too, with a son of her own…”

Maekar gave a dry chuckle. “It was only a dream.”

Rhaenys arched a brow. “Oh, so your dreams are prophecy, but mine are just dreams?”

He raised his hands in surrender. “No, no. I just… I hope it comes true.”

She leaned back, smiling. “It will.”

Maekar said nothing. His eyes dropped to the table—parchment maps, fading troop reports, soot-marked sketches of the Wall—until her voice cut through his thoughts again.

“Enough of that,” Rhaenys said. “We need to make plans. Once the babe is born, I’ll need a month—maybe less—to recover. After that I’ll be ready. I’ll ride Sunfyre, I’ll join you—”

Maekar’s head snapped up. “No.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I said no,” he repeated firmly. “Daenerys, Viserys, and I are enough. Three riders. I want you here—with the babe. With Sunfyre.”

Rhaenys stared at him, stunned. She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off, his voice harder now.

“Rhaenys, listen to me. I need you here, with Sunfyre, as a last resort.”

She paused, taken aback by the sudden urgency in his tone.

“We don’t know the full extent of the Church’s reach,” he continued. “We don’t know how deep their roots go, or how many they’ve turned. Someone must stay to rule—someone the people trust, someone strong enough to keep the peace when everything else breaks.”

He leaned closer, locking eyes with her. “If the Wall falls—and gods help us, it might—the next line is the Neck. We’ll hold it as long as we can. But if we lose that too…”

He hesitated, just for a second.

“I have a final plan.”

Rhaenys’s breath caught. “What plan?”

Maekar looked away toward the firelight. “You’re to take as many people as you can—the royal fleet, any ship you can find—and leave. Head south. As far as the winds will carry you. If you must, cross the Summer Sea: Naath, Sothoryos… anywhere beyond the cold’s reach.”

Her face twisted in disbelief. “You want me to run?”

“I want you to survive. I want our child to live.”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You’ll be like our ancestor—Nymeria.”

Rhaenys shook her head, eyes bright with anger. “I want to fight.”

Maekar took her hand and pressed it gently over her belly. “And you will—just not the way I do. Please, do this. For me, for her, for the realm.”

Silence stretched between them before she nodded—slowly, painfully.

“Thank you,” Maekar whispered.

Rhaenys exhaled and managed a faint smile. “Oh—she kicked,” she said, teasing. “Seems she doesn’t like your plan either.”

Maekar grinned and knelt to place his palm against her stomach. “Or maybe she agrees with me. Maybe she knows how stubborn her mother is.”

Crack.

A sharp sound—too clean for timber, too muted for thunder. Maekar’s smile vanished.

He straightened, eyes sweeping the room.

“Maekar?” Rhaenys asked, voice tight.

“Stay there,” he ordered. With silent purpose he crossed the chamber, hand falling to Blackfyre’s hilt. At a plain section of wall he felt for a hidden groove.

Click.

Stone shifted inward, revealing a pitch-black passage. Maekar thrust Blackfyre into the darkness. Metal met flesh with a wet crack, and a gurgling cry escaped the shadows as a man collapsed, the blade buried in his chest.

Maekar wrenched the sword free.

Footsteps—four attackers surged from the passage, faces half-masked, weapons raised.

Rhaenys screamed.

The solar doors burst open. Jaime Lannister and Lyonel Storm charged in, blades drawn, roaring as they flung themselves into the fray.

Maekar moved like a storm. Blackfyre slashed through the first man, opening his throat to the spine. Lyonel snatched a shield from the wall, smashed the second attacker in the chest, and ran him through the gut with a brutal thrust. Jaime deflected a blade, stepped in close, and drove his sword into the third man’s ribs. The fourth screamed as Maekar’s sword hacked through his leg and then cleaved his skull.

Four men. Dead in seconds.

Jaime turned, pale but steady. “Your Grace, stay here. There could be more—”

“No,” Maekar said, voice like iron. “You stay—both of you. Guard her. No one gets through that door.”

Lyonel began, “My king—”

“I said stay!” Maekar snapped, eyes blazing. “It is your king’s command. Obey.”

The solar fell silent. Maekar crossed the room, wrenched open a chest, and pulled out his war-hammer—the weight familiar in his grip. Wearing only the leather beneath his cloak, he strode into the corridor, fury burning beneath his skin.

The halls of the Red Keep were dim, torch-light flickering wildly. He didn’t run—he charged, toward the inner wing, toward Viserys, knowing his uncle would be a target as well.

First came the screams.

Then the smoke.

Then the blood.

Rounding a corner, he plunged into chaos: half a dozen guards locked in vicious combat with masked assassins. Lord Merryweather lay slumped against the wall, his throat cut; a servant girl lay facedown, a tray of drinks scattered beside her.

Maekar roared and hurled himself into the melee. The war-hammer swept wide, caving in a hooded attacker’s temple. Another turned too slowly; the hammer crashed into his chest, splintering ribs and spine with a sickening crunch.

The hall reeked of death and confusion. Maekar shoved forward, ignoring a knife that grazed his arm, stepping over a guard’s twitching corpse. He crushed a third assassin against the wall hard enough to dent the stone, then pressed on, boots slipping in blood.

At last he reached the entrance to the Maidenvault—where the fighting was fiercest.

Bodies littered the floor—three guards, two women he knew as Lady Allyria’s ladies-in-waiting, and even a Kingsguard knight whose white armor was scored with slashes. In the center of it all stood Viserys Targaryen—sword in hand, blood slick down his front, one eye swollen shut, lip split.

He fought like a man possessed.

A curved blade scraped across his side—then Ser Robar Royce, Kingsguard, dragged the assassin back and tore him open with Lamentation’s Valyrian-steel edge.

Maekar leapt into the fray.

The war-hammer fell with a thunderous crack, smashing through an attacker’s shoulder. He pivoted, hooked another by the leg, and hurled him into a table with bone-shattering force. A third tried to slip behind Viserys, but Maekar’s backswing crushed the man’s spine.

More guards surged in, forcing the enemy back. The tide turned.

The assassins fought with zeal, yet zeal could not stop a hammer to the chest, could not stop steel through the neck, could not stand against fury made flesh. One by one they fell.

When the last of them lay dead, Maekar stood amid the corpses, his war-hammer dripping blood. Cuts burned along his forearms where the leather under-mail had gapped.

Viserys leaned against the wall, blood streaking his arm, breath ragged. He gave Maekar a single nod—eyes sharp, rimmed with pain.

Maekar’s anger still blazed.

“They got inside,” he growled. “Through the tunnels.”

Viserys’s eyes widened in shock. “Fuck how…I should have…”

Allyria quickly ran to Viserys' side and  knelt beside him, pressing cloth into the wound on his arm, her hands shaking as she worked. “Hold still,” she whispered, trying to keep the panic from her voice.

“I thought I got them all in the city,” Viserys muttered again, gritting his teeth.

Maekar knelt to help bind the gash, mind seething. From the corner of his eye he saw little Rhaella—Viserys’s daughter—staring, violet eyes wide with terror. Near the far wall, Margaery stood protectively over her own son, arms wrapped tight around him.

Maekar looked up. “Are you hurt?”

Margaery shook her head. “No, Your Grace. We’re unharmed.”

He rose slowly, rage cooling into iron resolve, and faced Ser Robar.

“I want every entrance to the secret tunnels destroyed,” he ordered, voice low and lethal. “You’ll get a full map. Find them—collapse them.”

They bowed without hesitation.

“And double the guard,” Maekar added as they turned to leave. “Sweep the Keep from the dungeons to the highest tower.”

Robar and the guards dispersed, boots thundering along the stone passages. When their footsteps faded, silence settled again.

Maekar met Viserys’s gaze—blood-streaked uncle and battered nephew.

“They were after Rhaenys and you,” he muttered. “Only four were sent against me. They must have believed she was still confined here.”

“I’ll see Marwyn,” Viserys said, already pushing himself upright.

Maekar nodded as he left the maidenvault back to Rhaenys.

He strode through the Keep. The corridors seethed with activity—guards running, servants whispering, the shock of the attack still pulsing through every archway—but Maekar pushed past it all, each step faster than the last, his thoughts fixed on the solar.

Rounding the final corner, he saw someone sprinting toward him.

“Lyonel!”

The lord did not stop. Pale and wild-eyed, sweat slicking his face, he stumbled past the king.

“The queen… the babe—” was all he managed before disappearing down the hall.

Maekar needed no more explanation.

He burst into the solar, heart pounding like a war-drum. Jaime sat at the edge of a couch, trying to calm Rhaenys, who lay breathing hard, one hand clutching her belly. Blood still streaked Jaime’s cloak, yet his eyes snapped to Maekar the instant he entered.

Rhaenys trembled, sweat beading across her brow. She looked up, fear and joy blazing together in her dark eyes.

“She’s coming,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

“Oh, gods,” Maekar breathed.

He was about to become a father.

.

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The next chapter, which will be posted tomorrow, will focus on the Wall, where things are beginning to heat up.