Demon of Ice and Fire [FOR ADOPTION]

by AlexOfTheStone

Summary:

Beyond the Wall, a boy of snow-white hair and violet eyes rose like a ghost from myth—Aegorren 'Ren', the Dark King. But he is no ordinary boy—within him lives the soul of Muzan Kibutsuji, the Demon King of another world, reborn in ice and fire.

Shaping the shattered Free Folk into the Bloodborn, he offers them strength, knowledge, and power through his own blood. Giants march beneath his banner, and a monstrous dragon named Draghar rules the skies. As a War of many Kings tears Westeros apart, a seventh king rises—one forged in fire and shadow, bearing the hunger of a thousand lifetimes. And the realm has yet to understand the true meaning of conquest.

Notes:

I wrote this idea, but I do not have the patience to complete a full story.
So anyone that want to adopt it and make something out of it, feel free to do so.
:)

Chapter 1

Long ago, the terror of demons was put to rest when Muzan Kibutsuji, the progenitor of all demonkind, was destroyed at last—his monstrous reign ended by mortal hands. But evil does not die easily. Cast into the Void, his soul drifted beyond time and reality, festering in silence for millennia. In the absence of a body, he was nothing—a thought, a whisper in the endless dark. But where gods sleep, evil stirs. And Muzan, ever the manipulator, ever the survivor, waited.

And then, he returned.

Reborn as Aegorren Targaryen, the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, Muzan’s soul was fused into a new form—human, innocent, but touched by ancient darkness. His reincarnation began in blood and sorrow, born amidst the dying gasps of a secret love, in a tower far to the south in Dorne.

At the Tower of Joy, seven fought for honor, and only three survived: Lord Eddard Stark, Lord Howland Reed, and a grievously wounded Ser Arthur Dayne. Drawn by a woman’s screams, they found Lyanna Stark lying in a bed soaked in blood, a newborn in her arms. With her last breaths, she made Ned promise to protect her son. Bound by honor and grief, Ned took the child as his own, naming him Jon Snow, and claimed him as a bastard to hide his true identity from the enemies of House Targaryen.

But Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning and sworn protector of Prince Rhaegar’s legacy, refused to accept the lie. Weakened and bleeding, he could not stop Ned—so he left, disillusioned and bitter, believing he had failed the last Targaryen.

 

In the cold halls of Winterfell, Jon Snow grew up under shadow and scrutiny. He was kind, quiet, and intelligent beyond his years. Yet beneath the surface, there was something… other. A presence. An aura. People were drawn to him—his grace, his eyes, his elegance. Servants and lords alike felt compelled to listen, obey, and admire, though they could never say why. Lady Catelyn despised him for reasons she couldn’t explain—his beauty, his calmness, his eerie charm—and a reason she could.

Even as a child, Jon excelled in everything. Swordplay. Strategy. Rhetoric. His brother Robb laughed with him and called him brother, though a seed of jealousy always gnawed beneath his smiles. Sansa, influenced by her mother, kept her distance, but her gaze lingered longer than propriety allowed. Bran idolized Jon and sought his counsel for every wonder his mind could conjure—and Jon always seemed to have an answer.

But it was Arya who loved him most.

Fiercely loyal, bold, and wild, Arya shadowed Jon’s steps like a second soul. She admired his strength, his kindness, and the way he looked at her not as a little girl, but as a person. Their bond was unbreakable, and though they were young, her love for him ran deeper than even she understood.

Yet Jon’s dreams were not always his own.

In the stillness of the night, memories not his would surface—images of crimson moons, decaying bodies, and the echoing voice of a long-dead demon whispering secrets of immortality, control, and chaos. Though he could not comprehend them, those fragments stirred something within him… something ancient and terrible.

 

It was on the seventh name day of Arya Stark that the fragile illusion of peace began to unravel. As Winterfell prepared for feasting and laughter, fate guided two children away from warmth and revelry into the bowels of ancient stone. Deep beneath the earth, where time slept in cold silence, Jon Snow and Arya Stark ventured further into the crypts than any living soul had dared in generations.

The crypts of Winterfell—long believed to be the sacred resting place of House Stark’s most honored dead—were far older and deeper than most knew. Generations of wardens, kings, and warriors lay entombed beneath grey slabs of stone, their effigies carved with stern faces and loyal wolves. But that day, the children discovered a hidden truth buried in the silence of forgotten halls.

Past the tomb of Lord Cregan Stark, where few ventured and fewer dared linger, they came upon a crypt unlike any other. It was smaller than the others, less grand in construction, and nestled almost humbly into the wall as though its occupant had been buried in secret. And yet, it bore the unmistakable mark of purpose. The statue upon it was that of a woman, her face carved with solemn grace, and at her feet, two symbols—an etched direwolf and, beside it, a dragon coiled in regal repose. A union of ice and fire.

This was no common resting place, nor did it belong to any Lord or Lady of House Stark whose name was recorded in the songs of the North. The stone bore the name Sara Snow, a long-forgotten daughter of Winterfell, reputed to have lived and died during the era of the Dance of Dragons. A bastard born of House Stark, she had, according to legend, fallen in love with a dragonrider prince and vanished into history. No bastard had ever been laid to rest in the crypts of Winterfell—none but her.

What secrets had warranted her inclusion among the honored dead? What the reason to justify the dragon carved at her feet? The past did not answer, but it watched as the children disturbed its slumber.

Driven by a curiosity beyond the ordinary, they unsealed the tomb, expecting only dust and brittle bones. But what they found within was something far more extraordinary—a single object, untouched by time, resting atop a velvet cushion of faded blue.

An egg.

Large, round, and covered in shimmering, sapphire-hued scales, it pulsed with a quiet, dormant power. A dragon egg—ancient, cold to the touch, yet thrumming faintly, as though some slumbering heart beat within. There was no mistaking its nature, nor its value. The blood of old Valyria spoke through it, silent yet deafening.

From the moment Jon Snow’s fingers closed around it, the world shifted.

Something awoke deep within the boy—something old, something dark. Though Jon did not yet understand it, the faint remnants of another life stirred in the depths of his soul, fragments of memory long sealed away. The egg, too, seemed to recognize him—not as a stranger, but as kin.

And so, the children left the crypts, changed in ways they could not name. The egg hidden, their secret unspoken. But in the darkness beneath Winterfell, a tide had begun to rise. A spark had been struck in the abyss. The blood of the dragon had been claimed.

 

Later that same day, as the light began to dim and the shadows lengthened across the stone courtyards of Winterfell, the castle held its breath in quiet anticipation of Arya Stark’s name day feast. The air buzzed with warmth and noise, but within the cold, quiet sanctum of the castle’s ancient library, Jon Snow sought solitude. He sat alone among crumbling tomes and moth-eaten scrolls, the firelight flickering against the rough-hewn walls. Beside him, nestled within a worn leather satchel, lay the object that now consumed his thoughts: the dragon egg, its blue-scaled surface pulsing with faint heat like the embers of a dream not yet born.

Unaware of the silent storm building in the corners of fate, Sansa Stark entered the library in search of fairy tales and courtly songs—remnants of a world more beautiful than the cold North could offer. She moved with careful grace, her fingers brushing against spines and faded titles, when chance or misstep struck. A torch, dislodged from its wall sconce, crashed to the floor and ignited a nearby shelf with frightening speed.

The fire spread with unnatural hunger, licking through scrolls and dry wood like a beast long-starved. Sansa, gripped first by disbelief and then by panic, struggled to quell the blaze, but her efforts were futile. The flames swelled and curled into a living wall, trapping her in a narrow aisle, smoke filling her lungs and blinding her eyes.

Jon heard the scream—sharp, raw, filled with terror—and raced toward the chaos. He plunged into the inferno without hesitation, his mind consumed by instinct. Through searing heat and swirling ash, he found her. He wrapped her in his cloak, shielding her body from the fire, and pulled her through the blaze with what strength remained.

But the smoke was thick, heavy, alive. It crept into their lungs, dulling thought and slowing limbs. Vision dimmed. Breath came harder. Jon held Sansa tightly, shielding her with his body, even as his own strength began to fade. The library roared around them, and just before darkness overtook him, through the cacophony of flame and fear, he heard it—a sound that did not belong.

It was not the cry of men or the groan of burning timber, but something sharper, more primal. A shriek, thin and high, that cut through the fire’s roar like a blade through silk. The sound of something ancient waking—a cry not of despair, but of birth.

And then, silence.

 

Consciousness returned slowly, as if dragged from the depths of a black, endless ocean. The scent of burning parchment still lingered in his nostrils, acrid and bitter, but the warmth he felt now came not from fire, but from the gentle touch of sunlight leaking through Winterfell’s narrow windows. He was lying in his own bed, sheets damp with sweat, muscles heavy and trembling. Maester Luwin hovered beside him, concern etched deep into the lines of his aging face. Across the room, voices clashed—sharp, hushed, strained. Lord Eddard Stark and his wife, Lady Catelyn, stood locked in quiet, furious argument just beyond the hearth.

But Jon—no, not Jon—could scarcely hear them. His mind reeled, overwhelmed by a tide of memory not his own. Visions poured into him with terrible clarity: blood-drenched streets of old Japan, silent forests trembling with fear, moonlit nights in which his hands—Muzan’s hands—tore through flesh and bone. Faces of victims, followers, enemies. The scent of fear and blood. The symphony of agony and death. Centuries of domination and cruelty flooded his being in a single, relentless wave. His breath caught. His soul trembled.

As the storm within began to ebb, Jon became dimly aware that Maester Luwin was staring at him—no, not just staring, gaping, as though seeing a ghost in flesh. When he weakly asked what had happened, it was not the Maester who spoke. Lord Eddard, face pale with resignation, stepped forward and gestured solemnly toward Jon’s hair.

Confused, he reached up with shaking hands, pulled a lock before his eyes—and froze.

The strands that once bore the deep brown of the North were now pale as moonlight, silken white and shimmering faintly in the dawn. Panic surged through him, a visceral response born of instincts he could not yet name. But then came the next blow—not from within, but from the world around him.

Eddard Stark sat beside him, the weight of years hanging from his shoulders, and began to speak. In a voice low and steady, he unraveled the carefully woven lie of Jon Snow’s life. Jon was not his son, nor was he a bastard. His true name was Aegorren Targaryen, son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Born in blood and secrecy at the Tower of Joy. Hidden to protect him from the wrath of King Robert Baratheon. Sworn to silence by a desperate promise.

He recounted all that he knew—the noble intentions, the fear, the silence—and as the tale unfolded, the distance between the man and the boy grew wider.

But Catelyn Stark was not moved by tragedy or legacy. Her voice cut through the room like ice, cold and sharp, demanding the boy be sent away. Aegorren—no longer Jon—was a threat to her family, a dagger pointed at their quiet life. With his newly changed features—white hair and the faint violet hue blooming in his eyes—there would be no hiding his identity. The realm would know, and Robert Baratheon’s fury would be swift and merciless.

Aegorren looked to Eddard with desperation, seeking reassurance, a lifeline, a denial—but the Lord of Winterfell, heavy-hearted, could only agree. The boy had to leave.

What followed was not a conversation, but an eruption. Aegorren’s voice broke, not just from betrayal, but from something ancient and festering awakening within. Rage, sorrow, and centuries of Muzan’s quiet malice twisted beneath his skin. He accused Eddard of lies, of using him not to protect but to preserve his friend’s stolen crown. He named every wound inflicted by Lady Catelyn’s coldness, every slight suffered in silence. And he accused the man he once called father of watching it all, unmoved.

The words left scars neither would forget. Lord Eddard, proud and stoic, sat with eyes full of pain, and the boy—no longer a boy—stared back at him with a coldness that hadn’t been there before. Between them lay a shattered bond, and though tears welled in both their eyes, neither reached out.

Aegorren finally turned away, his heart already closing itself to the warmth it once sought.

And then came a sound that did not belong in the realm of grief—a sharp, high-pitched chirp, delicate but clear, like the call of something not quite earthly. Aegorren turned his head slowly toward the source and found the impossible waiting for him. Perched calmly on the windowsill, wings tucked against its shimmering blue-scaled body, was a baby dragon. Its eyes, bright and intelligent, locked onto his with something deeper than instinct. It made the sound again, and then padded softly across the table to sit at the edge of the bed.

Lord Eddard spoke then, his voice hushed. In the aftermath of the library fire, they had found Jon shielding Sansa with his own body—unharmed by the flames. His hair and eyes had changed during the blaze, and lying beside him had been this strange, newborn creature. A dragon hatched from the ancient egg long forgotten in the crypt. Something about the fire, the heat, his blood… had awakened them both.

To protect the secret, Eddard had brought the boy and the beast here, swearing those who witnessed the miracle to silence. And though he had prepared his entire life to protect this truth, now, as he looked upon the boy he had raised and the dragon that now answered only to him, he realized that fate had moved beyond his grasp.

 

The next morning dawned gray and still, the sky heavy with clouds that hung low over the towers of Winterfell. Snow drifted in gentle flurries, softening the edges of the courtyard stones, muffling the footsteps of those who gathered in silence. Beneath the shelter of his hooded cloak, Aegorren Targaryen—once Jon Snow—stood beside a saddled horse, his pale silver-white hair hidden beneath layers of wool and fur, his violet eyes veiled in shadow. A small, faint stirring came from the satchel at his hip—his dragon, nestled and quiet, warm against his side.

His belongings were few. A worn sword, a small pouch of coin, a flask of water, and the bag in which his past and future slept in the form of soft blue scales and tiny claws. The life of a Stark bastard had prepared him for a lean existence, but as Aegorren checked the leather straps on his saddle, he knew this departure was nothing like the old dreams he’d once had of riding for the Wall in honor. This was exile, quiet and bitter.

Robb stood at his side, his face somber, his shoulders stiff with helpless sorrow. There were no words grand enough to give this moment its due, no promises that didn’t sound hollow. They clasped arms in silence—two brothers by blood not of the same vein, but of the same home. Sansa lingered nearby, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Where once she had regarded him with quiet disdain, now she looked upon him in awe, as though the silver in his hair and the dragon at his side had transformed him into one of the heroes from the old songs. Her lips parted as if to speak, but no words came. She merely nodded, regal and fragile, the truth still sinking into her bones.

Bran tilted his head in quiet confusion, too young to grasp the weight of names and bloodlines and treason. He did not understand why his brother had to leave, only that he was leaving. He shuffled forward, hugged Aegorren tightly around the waist, and stepped back without a word.

But it was Arya who broke.

She clung to him with the desperation of a child watching the world unravel, her small hands gripping his cloak, her face buried against his chest. Her tears soaked the wool, and when she looked up at him, her gray eyes were fierce with heartbreak. Over her shoulder, she cast a venomous glare at their parents, as though by sheer will she could undo the decision that had been made. Her voice was hoarse from crying, and her breath came in ragged gasps as she begged him not to go.

Aegorren knelt, holding her close for a long moment, memorizing the feel of her arms around him—the only one among them who refused to let go. No matter how far he would ride, that embrace would follow him.

Then, with nothing more to say and too much to feel, he mounted the horse.

The gates of Winterfell opened with a groan of ancient wood and iron, and Aegorren rode out, past the quiet faces of Wintertown’s folk and the fields of the North. He did not look back. The weight of that place—of what it had given him, and what it had taken—hung behind him like a ghost he would not carry forward.

The wind grew sharper as he entered the hills, a harbinger of colder places to come. But the cold no longer pierced him the way it once had. The memories of Muzan Kibutsuji still coiled through his mind, whispering of power and shadow, of eternal nights and blood-drenched dawns. And now they mingled with the Stark values he had once believed in, and the Targaryen fire stirring in his veins.

He was becoming something new—something not of this world, and certainly not of the old one.

Jon Snow was gone. That name was ash now, scattered in the hearth of Winterfell.

Aegorren Targaryen rode north with fire in his blood, death in his past, and destiny in his eyes.

Chapter 2: Part II

Aegorren rode north, and then farther north still, beyond the reach of kin or comfort, through fields untouched by man and into the bitter silence that stretched between frostbitten trees and wind-scoured hills. Aegorren traveled with nothing but the weight of memory pressing upon his shoulders, and the quiet heartbeat of a dragon hidden close to his chest. The cold did not bite him as it once had. The further he rode, the more it became clear: he no longer belonged to the world he had left behind.

Eventually, the Wall rose to meet him, vast and unforgiving, a monolith of ancient ice that divided the known world from the forgotten one. Castle Black stood before it like a weary sentinel, its walls crusted with frost, its towers hunched against the wind. There, at the gate, he requested entry—not as the boy he had once been, but as a stranger wearing the name of family like armor. Wrapped tightly in his cloak, he concealed the truth of his blood, his power, and the unnatural stillness that clung to him like a second skin.

Within the walls of the Night’s Watch, he was received with suspicion and curiosity. Benjen Stark, a man hardened by cold and duty, guided him inward with careful eyes. And when the moment came, Aegorren cast aside his cloak, revealing not a bastard of Winterfell, but a son of fire—Valyrian silver hair and amethyst eyes that glowed with the weight of legacy and destiny. Surprise flickered in Benjen’s gaze, but not disbelief. Only the dull resignation of a man who had long known a truth and now saw it made flesh. That recognition marked the final fracture in Aegorren’s connection to the House of Stark. The coldness in his heart—first born in betrayal, nurtured by loss—settled deeper. Another door closed.

He gave little explanation, offered no apologies nor pleas. The past mattered less now than what lay ahead. What he sought was not answers, but a tether to something older, something that had been waiting for him in the shadow of history. He asked to be taken to the Maester. Not any Maester—but the one who had seen empires rise and fall, who bore the same blood that burned in Aegorren’s veins.

Maester Aemon, blind and ancient, received him with the solemnity of a man who had waited for a ghost and found instead a storm. Their meeting was quiet, but its meaning thundered beneath the stillness. Here was the last dragon of an old world, meeting the first of the new. Between them, a connection formed—strange, sudden, and potent. Aemon spoke of things long buried: secrets of House Targaryen, of flame and shadow, of prophecy and promise. Aegorren listened, his heart shifting like the ice outside, thawing in slow, uncertain cracks. In turn, he shared pieces of himself— of dreams and hopes and fires of ambition.

Time passed unnoticed. Night fell and the Wall slept, while the two kindred souls, one old and blind, the other reborn and broken, shared the silence of dragonkind. And when the first pale light of dawn broke across the frozen land, Aegorren was gone.

No eyes had seen him leave. No gate had opened, no watchman had stirred. He had vanished like mist on the snow, and the Night’s Watch was left with only questions and unease. Benjen Stark, burdened now with worry, searched for signs in the wind, finding none. Only Maester Aemon seemed at peace. In his blind, weathered face, there rested the faintest trace of a smile. Something had returned to the world—something long thought dead. Dragons, both of blood and flame, had awakened.

 

Days later, in the vast and frozen wilderness that lay beyond the Wall—where the wind whispered through ancient forests and the land belonged to no king—he appeared. A boy, they said, though no boy ever walked with such stillness. His hair was the color of fresh-fallen snow, untouched and pure. His eyes shimmered with a violet hue that no Wildling, nor even the oldest among them, had seen before. He came like a ghost, without warning, without history, and yet with a presence that stirred something in the bones of those who laid eyes upon him. They did not know his name at first, only the silence that followed him and the fire that seemed to smolder beneath his skin.

Whispers traveled faster than birds in flight. In a land where stories were currency and myth bled into memory, tales of the mysterious stranger spread from one clan to the next. They spoke of a youth who could not be beaten in single combat, whose skin the cold could not touch, who moved through snowstorms as if wrapped in summer’s warmth. It was said that no blade could pierce him, and no sickness could lay him low. Around campfires and in the deep shadows of the frostbitten forests, songs were sung in low voices—of fire given form, of a leader foretold.

But he did not simply conquer with might. Aegorren offered something rarer than safety: vision. To each clan he encountered, he gave not just the proof of strength but a dream. A future shaped by more than survival. He spoke of greatness, of unity, of a time when the free folk would no longer scatter and scrape and flee before the long shadows. And many listened. Many followed.

Those who pledged themselves to him underwent a ritual—strange and ancient in feel, though never seen before in these lands. Aegorren, the fire-made-flesh, would offer them a gift: seven drops of his blood, taken willingly, shared in solemn ceremony. And though the change was not immediate, something deep within each of them began to shift. Their souls, once wild and untamed, began to resonate with his own. Their wills did not vanish, but bent gently toward his. Their minds grew clearer, keener. They learned faster. Understood more. Dreamed bolder dreams.

What they became were not demons, not monsters, but something more. Something new. A people reborn not through chains, but by shared purpose—and blood.

Word of this fire-eyed warlord reached even the ears of Mance Rayder, the self-proclaimed King-Beyond-the-Wall, who had begun marshaling thousands to his banner in fear of a greater threat still—the Others, pale demons from the Land of Always Winter, whose icy fingers raised the dead and left nothing but silence in their wake. Tribes vanished in the night. Fires went cold. The air itself turned cruel.

And yet, curiously, the one whose name now stirred both awe and dread—Aegorren—marched not with Mance, nor did he challenge him. He carved his own path. He did not seek to conquer the free folk; he changed them.

 

In the years that followed, the men of the Night’s Watch noted a strange stillness in the wilds. Raids ceased. Wildlings no longer came in scattered bands. There were no skirmishes, no sightings. Only an eerie, spreading quiet. Patrols returned empty-handed. Rangers whispered that something vast moved in the far north—unseen, organized, purposeful.

And south of the Wall, in Winterfell and the scattered villages of the North, rumors filtered in like snow beneath a doorframe. The wild folk were no longer just surviving. They were preparing. For what, none could say. But something had taken root beyond the Wall.

 

The whispers changed with time. They no longer spoke of Wildlings as they once had—scattered clans surviving on the edge of the world. No, now they were something else. Something reborn. They called themselves Bloodborn.

What had once been fractured became forged. The clans, once proud in their independence and defined by old grudges, now stood united under a single banner. A banner black as night, marked with symbols no man of the south could read.

The whispers claimed that the Dark King had taught them things no Wildling had ever known. He showed them how to mine deep into the frostbitten bones of the earth, to draw forth iron and ore. He taught them to smelt and to forge, to craft armor like obsidian shadow and blades that gleamed with cruel purpose.

Clad in heavy black steel and wielding weapons of uncanny make, the Bloodborn no longer fought with bone or scavenged bronze. They were disciplined, unified, sharpened. And it was not only their hands that had been armed—it was their minds. For the Dark King had taught them to read and to write, to count and to plan, and in doing so, he lifted them from legend into something far more dangerous: a moving civilization on the rise.

But even those facts paled beside the darker rumors. Whispers, terrified and half-believed, spoke of a beast that ruled the skies—a monster of scale and flame, larger than a mammoth, whose roars could shake the peaks and whose shadow blotted out the stars. Some said it was a dragon, long thought lost to the world, bound not by blood alone, but by the will of the one who called himself king.

And so, it was no surprise when the tales reached their inevitable conclusion.

The King-Beyond-the-Wall, Mance Rayder—the man who had united Wildlings—was said to have ridden to the Dark King. And he too had been brought low. Some said he lost a battle. Others said he bent the knee. But the truth, whatever it was, mattered little in the end. He and the thousands who followed him were absorbed into something greater, consumed by the will of the Dark King who had risen not only to rule the free folk—but to transform them entirely.

 

The Free Folk were no more.

Once numbering two hundred thousand, the folk beyond the Wall had suffered greatly. The cold demons from the Land of Always Winter—the Others—had carved their way through the clans like a frozen scythe through wheat. Tens of thousands had fallen beneath blades of ice, their corpses risen again as twisted echoes of themselves. But one hundred and thirty-five thousand had survived. For they were Bloodborn.

And Aegorren—child of two worlds, reborn from the sins of a monstrous past, and touched by dragon’s blood—was preparing them for a destiny written in ash, flame, and crimson skies. A destiny that would soon come to pass.

For far to the south, the realms of men were ablaze in chaos.

The War of many Kings had begun.

Robb Stark, a boy no longer, was now hailed as the King in the North. He marched through the Riverlands, the blood of his father still staining the halls of King’s Landing. Eddard Stark had been slain by royal decree—executed as a traitor in truth, though all knew his only crime had been honor. His son now sought vengeance and justice, a direwolf loosed upon the fields of war.

Stannis Baratheon, dour and proud, had crowned himself with flame and fury. With a Red Woman whispering in his ear and an ancient god fueling his ambition, he had sacrificed his own brother, Renly, beneath the shadows of foul sorcery. Renly Baratheon, bold and vain, had dared to seize a crown he had no right to wear—and for that, he had perished.

And still the throne remained. The Iron Throne—sharp, cruel, forged in dragonfire—was ruled by the boy-king Joffrey Baratheon, whose blood was false, whose temper was cruel, and whose power came not from righteousness but from fear. His armies were the legions of his grandfather, Tywin Lannister, whose cunning knew no mercy. Soon, they would be joined by the armies of the Reach, as young Joffrey was promised to the golden rose of Highgarden—Margaery Tyrell, beautiful, clever, and hungering for a crown of her own.

From the storm-lashed Iron Islands, another had risen—Baelon Greyjoy, the Salt King, whose ironborn now ravaged the North while his son, Theon, betrayed friendship and oaths by seizing Winterfell itself.

And from the far East, across the seas and sands of Essos, came a whisper cloaked in golden armor. A boy claiming the name of Aegon—Rhaegar’s son, long believed slain in the sack of King’s Landing—had returned with the Golden Company at his back. An army born in exile, forged in ancient oaths and Blackfyre blood, marching now with a prince who may be no prince at all.

The world was fracturing, kingdoms crumbling under the weight of crowns and ambition. The flames of war burned across the continent, and no one knew who would stand when the ashes settled.

But now, Aegorren was ready.

In the frozen silence beyond the Wall, where only wind and memory once roamed, the last of the giants—ancient and near-forgotten—had knelt before the Dark King. Three hundred and thirty of their kind still drew breath, and all now stood beneath his banner. A hundred of them, the greatest among their kin, had been clad in war-plate the size of small towers—blackened iron and heavy steel forged in the new forges of the Bloodborn. Each bore clubs hewn from the trunks of ancient trees, reinforced with sharp steel bands and cruel spikes, capable of shattering walls and trampling battalions.

They stood now beside fifty-five thousand of Aegorren’s most hardened warriors—the elite core of the Bloodborn—trained, armed, and drilled for war as no wildling ever had been. The chaos of their past lives had been reforged into the discipline of conquest. These were no longer scattered tribes. These were legions.

Above them soared the beast of flame and terror—Draghar. The dragon, once small and unbound, had grown vast and terrible, far beyond the limits of time or natural order. Its transformation was no miracle, but the result of ancient science and forbidden sorcery: the blood of Aegorren himself, mingled with fire and will, coursed through the dragon’s veins. Its scales shimmered like black diamonds, its wings spanned wider than castle courtyards, and its fire—searing and hot—could reduce stone to molten sludge. Draghar was no simple mount. It was a weapon of war. A god reborn in scale and fury.

And in the far south, the flames of war still raged unchecked.

The kings of men clashed in fields of mud and ruin. Crowns were seized and shattered, blood spilled in rivers, and the realm fractured like broken glass. The North warred against the South, brothers turned on brothers, and the people cried for peace that would never come.

But soon, they would learn the name of a seventh king.

The South would feel his coming.

The Age of Crowns was ending.

The Age of Fire and Blood had begun.