124: The Son of Ice and Fire, Before the Night pt.2

Willas Tyrell rode in silence, the steady rhythm of his horse’s hooves echoing on the frost-covered ground. The cold bit through his cloak, though he barely felt it; his mind was heavier than the armor strapped to his chest.

Alongside him rode Lord Unwin Peake, named after the infamous schemer who had once dreamed of placing his own blood upon the Iron Throne. The resemblance was more than in name. Willas had seen the same ambition in this man’s eyes—the same quiet hunger that had now led him to betray humanity itself.

Behind them stretched a column of a thousand souls—peasants, knights, and others. Nearly six hundred hailed from the lands near Highgarden, and that, the Chantor had said, was why Willas must lead them: old loyalty still lingered in their bones. His presence, the Chantor claimed, had emboldened them.

Willas had spoken to many. They greeted him with cheers, with tears, with hope.

To his horror, some were women. He had asked no questions; he did not need to. The truth was plain on their faces. They were not soldiers, not really, but they had turned to the Church in fear. Many had been convinced that King Maekar planned to offer his enemies to the Others as tribute—stories all too believable in lands that had once belonged to House Tyrell.

How long had the rot been there? Willas wondered. It had spread only after the king revealed the coming of the Long Night, yet surely the Church had hidden in plain sight for centuries, waiting for this moment to show its true face.

“Willas,” came a voice, slick and familiar—Unwin Peake.

Willas glanced over. “Unwin.”

“We’re almost there,” Peake said, his tone strangely cheerful.

“Yes,” Willas replied quietly. “We are.”

Unwin’s eyes glinted with something ugly. “Today begins my vengeance—for my father, my brothers, burned alive by that bastard and his beast.”

Willas did not answer for a long moment. Then he gave a single nod.

He remembered that day well. His own father had died there too. Many others had fallen. His face still bore the scars of that fire—a twisted line of flesh down one cheek, a reminder that dragons did not discriminate between traitor and lord, hero and coward.

“For you as well, I imagine, Lord Tyrell,” Unwin went on, glancing sideways. “For your father—and mine.”
Willas inclined his head. “Yes.”

But inside, the word felt hollow.

Yes, my father died. Yes, I was burned. Yes, I carry the scars still. And yes, I once held a grudge against Maekar Targaryen.

Yet what Unwin would never understand—what separated them—was that Willas had moved on. He had made peace with Maekar, seen the weight the king bore, and come to believe that the dragon’s fire was necessary to save the world from the cold and the dead that marched against them all.

Unwin Peake, by contrast, had never found peace—only poison. He had fallen into the hands of the Church of Starry Wisdom like a drowning man clutching a stone, and he would drag the world down with him for the promise of revenge and power.

Willas was going to bring down this monster—and all the others like him.

“There it is,” came the smooth, echoing voice of the Chantor from behind.

Willas looked ahead.

Rising from the fields like a fortress of wood and stone stood one of the largest granaries the king had commissioned—a marvel of design. High walls were reinforced with stone buttresses, roofs were angled to shed snow, and massive sealed bins and towers were built to preserve grain for years, even decades. Maester Marwyn had told Willas that the ventilation systems inside could keep rot and moisture at bay, making these stores far more effective than any that had come before.

“Remarkable,” murmured the Chantor. “So much food. So much hope.”

Unwin grinned, cruel and thin. “This is the largest. Burning it alone will cripple the war effort.”

Willas turned his head slowly, meeting Unwin’s eyes. “Millions will die.”

“Aye,” Unwin replied without hesitation. “Followers of false gods, worshippers of dragons. The Chantor has shown me the truth. The Silent God shall cleanse this world—and make me a king in the one that comes after.”

Willas felt a chill deeper than the wind. He’s truly lost.

Unwin believed every word—no doubt, no hesitation, only fanatical certainty.

The Chantor drew his horse alongside, hooves crunching over the dry frost. “What do you think, Lord Willas?” he asked softly, as if offering a gift. “I want you to lead us.”

Willas looked at the granary, then at the thousand men behind him—many from lands he once called home.

He raised his eyes to the gray sky, snowflakes drifting silently through the air. Each breath emerged in a pale plume and vanished in the cold. The snow was thicker than it had been the day before, and thicker still than the day before that. Winter wasn’t coming—it had arrived, burying the Reach inch by inch.

He rose in his saddle, staring at the granary’s silhouette, black against the white haze.

Why isn’t the king here? he wondered, pulse quickening. Did the Hand not receive my message? Is he still in the East?

His heartbeat thundered in his chest.

He couldn’t let this happen.

He couldn’t let them burn it.

Not with winter deepening, not with thousands relying on it to survive.

He needed more time.

He turned to the Chantor. “We should attack at night,” he said calmly. “Catch them unawares.”

Unwin snarled. “Fuck that. They’ve already seen us coming; there’s no point in waiting. We end it now.”

Willas kept his gaze on the Chantor. “You asked me for my opinion.”

The robed man gave a slow nod, his eyes gleaming through the falling snow. “We shall follow Lord Willas.”

Unwin spat into the snow but said nothing more. He did not look pleased.

Willas turned his horse slightly and stared at the granary again. The sun was sinking—low and dull on the horizon, bleeding orange through the grey. Two hours, maybe less, before night fully fell.

He needed to think, needed to act. But the noose was tightening; every moment wasted was another step closer to the unthinkable.

Time bled away like melting snow.

Around him, the indoctrinated men and women—former farmers, soldiers, even young girls—gathered in tight circles. The Chantor moved among them, preaching in that smooth, honeyed voice, promising salvation, telling them they were the chosen, that their suffering was sanctified, that they would be remembered when the Silent God remade the world.

They listened with rapt attention, their faces hollowed by belief.

Willas sat frozen in the saddle, caught between time and terror.

A voice cut through his thoughts.

“It’s time,” Unwin said coldly.

Willas turned. The man was already mounted, blade at his hip, eyes fixed forward like a hound loosed from the leash.

Willas’s mouth was dry; he could barely swallow.

He was just one man, one soul against hundreds.

There was no choice—at least, not yet.

He turned his horse toward the granary, hands trembling on the reins, and raised his arm.

“Form ranks,” he called, his voice a stranger in his own throat. “We march.”

Slowly, like a great beast waking from sleep, the army began to move.

=====

Willas’s mind was blank as they neared the granary.

His horse moved on instinct, hooves crunching through the snow, and all he could do was hold on. His limbs were numb—not from the cold, but from dread. Before them loomed the granary—vast, black, and silent beneath the snowfall. A few figures scurried near the entrance, then turned and ran, disappearing inside the structure as soon as they saw the armed host approaching.

Willas clenched the reins so tightly his knuckles went white. A wild, desperate part of him screamed to act—to ride alone into the thousand-strong ranks, to swing steel and shout truth. To do something, anything, to stop the atrocity about to unfold.

But what could he do?

What could one man do?

He looked up at the sky. Clouds hung low, thick and dark, and the snow was falling harder now, blanketing the world in a cold silence broken only by the crackle of torches.

Then he saw it.

A shape.

A shadow.

High above, a silhouette moved through the clouds—wings vast, sweeping across the grey sky like the hand of a god.

His breath caught.

Yes, please—let it be…

Then came the roar, a sound that shook the marrow in his bones.

Unwin turned, eyes wide. “What was that?”

The entire column slowed to a halt. Heads tilted skyward, torches lowered, murmurs spreading like wind through wheat.

“The king… it’s the king…”

“It’s his dragon…”

“He’s here…”

The Chantor’s voice rose, sharp and trembling. “No! He cannot be here! It is a trick—a trick of the mind—”

He never finished the sentence.

A streak of fire lit the sky.

In an instant, the rear of the host was gone—engulfed in a curtain of flame. A howl rose, human and horrible, as bodies ignited in waves. The heat hit Willas like a wall, forcing his horse to rear.

He turned—just in time to see it.

The dragon.

So fast he could barely track it, the beast sliced through the storm like a black blade, wings folded tight as it dove. Its eyes burned red—not the emerald inferno of Maekar’s beast.

It was smaller.

Far smaller.

Willas blinked hard, struggling to focus through smoke and falling snow. The silhouette was leaner, faster—eighty feet long at most from snout to tail, sixty across the wings.

Not Neferion. That monster was a moving castle, a god of fire and ruin. This one… was young.

The dragon tucked its wings and swept across the field again, unleashing a torrent of fire that scoured the ground clean. Men and women who had marched behind Willas screamed and ran, only to vanish in pillars of flame. Some tried to shield themselves with cloaks; others threw down their weapons and begged the sky for mercy. It didn’t matter. The dragon came again and again, carving fiery lines through the snow-covered host with terrifying precision.

The traitors broke completely—formation shattered, order forgotten. It was no longer a retreat; it was a slaughter.

Willas could barely breathe. Who was the rider? He knew there were three other dragons… Was it Viserys himself?

Unwin Peake let out a strangled cry and bolted, spurring his horse away from the inferno without a backward glance. He vanished into the haze like a shadow fleeing the sun.

The Chantor did not get the chance.

His horse reared in panic and threw him into the snow. He landed hard, robes tangling around his legs, smoke curling through the air as he crawled across slush streaked with blood. His mask, half-melted, slid free.

“Lord Willas… help me!”

The voice was ragged and trembling, a rasp rising from smoke and ash. Willas turned. The Chantor knelt in the snow, soot-stained and bleeding, his robes torn and blackened. Without the mask, his pale, sweat-slick face twisted in desperation.

“We must go to Highgarden,” he gasped, staggering upright. “We’ll be safe there—they’ll listen to me—you’ll see—”

Willas dismounted without a word, boots crunching through snow muddied by flame and gore. He moved steadily toward the Chantor.

The man glanced around wildly—at the burning remains of the host, at the dragon still circling overhead, its scales glowing red against the night sky.

“There’s a traitor among us,” he rasped, voice quaking with manufactured righteousness. “Someone betrayed us—”

Beyond the smoke, Willas saw armed men approaching from the south: tight formations, clean armor, banners of red and black snapping in the wind.

The King’s Men, he realized. They’re here.

“Willas! Lord Willas!” the Chantor cried, wide-eyed with panic. “We must go!”

Willas stopped two paces away.

“You were right,” he said softly. “There is a traitor among you.”

Confusion flickered across the Chantor’s face—too late.

Willas’s gauntleted fist smashed into his jaw. The crack of bone echoed over the fire-lit snow. The Chantor reeled, stumbled, and Willas struck him again—and again—fury long buried driving each blow: one for every fool who followed him, one for every life already lost, one for every life the madman had hoped to take.

The Chantor collapsed, unconscious, blood trailing down his face.

Willas knelt, breathing hard, dragged the limp body away from the spreading fires, and lashed him across the saddle of his horse. He rode toward the granary, dismounted, and watched.

The soldiers of the King’s New Army swept forward like a tide. The last of the traitors were cut down one by one, some still burning as they fled. Overhead, the dragon circled once more and then, slowly, descended.

It landed nearby with a thunderous gust of wind and snow. The beast’s scales were deep crimson, its eyes the same shade; smoke trailed from its nostrils. As it settled, the rider slid down with practiced grace.

The figure strode toward him. It was not Prince Viserys, the Hand, but his sister.

She wore red-and-black armor that gleamed in the firelight—dark, fitted plate chased in the colors of House Targaryen. A flowing crimson cape curled behind her. Her silver-blond hair whipped about her face, and in the glow she looked less a woman than a goddess from the old tales of Valyria.

Willas stared.

“Queen Daenerys,” he whispered.

She looked like Visenya come again—so much so that she had just incinerated a thousand men and women.

She stopped before him and glanced first at Willas, then at the unconscious Chantor slumped over the horse behind him.

“Lord Willas,” she said, her voice calm but firm.

“My queen,” Willas replied, dropping to one knee. “You arrived at a… fortunate time.”

Daenerys folded her arms. “It wasn’t fortune. We’ve been tracking their movements for days. It was you who warned us, after all.” She looked past him toward the smoldering wreckage of the host. “I’m only annoyed you waited for the sun to go down.”

Willas bowed his head lower. “My fault, Your Grace. I thought… no one would come.”

She regarded him, expression unreadable. “There’s nothing to apologize for,” Daenerys said. “You made the right choice, Lord Tyrell.”

“I burned the two other ‘armies’ before I arrived,” she said, her eyes still fixed on the charred remains of the traitors. “I believe there are four more…”

Willas nodded, the weight of it all settling in his chest.

He turned slightly, glancing at the limp body tied to the horse behind them. “This is the man who led them,” he said. “He called himself the High Chantor of the Church. I believe it is a high position.”

Daenerys looked at the Chantor and then at Willas with a small smile. “Maekar will be pleased that you caught this one alive.”

She walked a slow circle around the horse, studying the unconscious man as if memorizing his face.

“I want you to take him to Highgarden,” she said. “Deliver him to the King’s Men there. You are to root out the presence of the Church as well; with your familiarity with the land, it should be faster.”

Willas straightened. “As you command, my queen.”

She nodded once, stepping back toward her dragon, whose head lowered slightly at her approach.

“Your loyalty will not go unrewarded, Lord Tyrell,” she added, glancing over her shoulder. “Who knows—perhaps the king will even return Highgarden to you.”

With that, she mounted the dragon in one smooth motion. The beast rumbled low, wings spreading wide.

Then she was in the air, rising into the snowy sky like a scarlet comet, wind and ash swirling in her wake.

Willas stood alone for a long moment, watching her go. He let out a slow breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

She’s more ruthless than the king…

The king always offered a choice. Even during the worst days of the war, Maekar had given his enemies a path to surrender, a way to live. Daenerys… she offered only fire.

He turned and secured the Chantor more tightly over the horse. Mounting up, he set off as the snow began to fall again, soft and steady. With one last look at the burning field behind him, Willas Tyrell turned his horse northeast and began the short ride to Highgarden.