Year 300 AC

  Sunspear, Dorne

  Sam clutched the rough stone of the merlon, his knuckles white. The air smelled of rot. Not the clean decay of a forest floor, but the sharp, copper tang of old blood mixed with the foul stench of a stagnant tidal pool.

  What terrified Sam most, however, was the silence. He had read accounts of the Doom of Valyria in the vaults beneath the Citadel, crumbling scrolls that spoke of a silence that fell before the fire.

  Below him, the Shadow City clung to the outer walls like barnacles on a ship’s hull, a maze of mud-brick shops and hovels that usually teemed with life. Now, it was a landscape of mute terror. The narrow alleys were choked with people fleeing toward their homes, but their screams sounded distant, muffled soldier's screaming orders.

  "I prepared for Tywin Lannister," Prince Doran Martell said softly.

  Sam turned. The Prince of Dorne sat in his wheeled chair, his hands gripping the armrests so tightly the veins stood out like blue cords. He looked smaller than Sam remembered; the vibrant orange silks of House Martell seemed to hang loosely on his frame, and his face was grey in the bruised, purple light of the dying sun.

  "I prepared for the Baratheons," Doran continued, his voice thin in the stillness. "I waited for the grass to hide the viper. I played the game of cyvasse while others played with swords. But how do you strike a man who is untouchable?"

  Princess Arianne paced the flagstones in front of her father. She wore ringmail over her silks, her dark hair bound back in a tight braid, but her large dark eyes betrayed a terror she fought to suppress.

  "We must hold the outer perimeter," she said, though her voice wavered. "If we lose the Winding Walls, they will have a straight run at the Old Palace."

  Ser Daemon Sand shook his head, wiping a mixture of dust and sweat from his forehead. "We cannot hold the outer perimeter, Princess. My men are veteran spears, but when they loose arrows, the shafts drop like stones."

  "They are terrified," Daemon continued, his hand resting uneasily on the pommel of his sword. "They say the Stranger is walking the tide. They say the laws of nature have broken."

  "It... it’s not the Stranger, Ser," Sam said.

  The highborn Dornish turned to look at him—the fat boy in the black mail. Sam felt his cheeks flush, but the thought of Gilly and Little Sam gave him a desperate kind of courage.

  Sam waddled forward, pointing a trembling finger toward the sea where the black fog churned around the flagship. "It’s the Crown," he stammered. "The thing on his head. Maester Marwyn called it the Bloodstone Crown."

  "A crown?" Arianne asked sharply. "Speak plain, Slayer. How does a crown stop arrows?"

  "It’s... it’s a parasite," Sam said, searching for the words he had read in the Scrolls of the Amethyst Empress. "It doesn't just rule men, Princess, it subjugates the world around it. It feeds on life itself. That’s why the arrows fall. They aren't hitting a wall, they’re... they’re being drained. The magic starves them of their motion before they can fly."

  Ser Daemon Sand frowned, looking out at the unnatural stillness. "So we are defenseless? If we cannot even attack him, how do we fight?"

  "We can't fight the air," Sam said, his mind racing. "We have to break the source. The Crown spreads a... a circle of influence. But the Crown needs a host. It binds itself to him."

  Sam looked at the Scorpion placed along the wall, the heavy iron winches and thick bolts.

  "Arrows are too light; the magic swallows them instantly.," Sam reasoned aloud, his voice gaining strength. "But something massive... something with weight and speed... if we keep shooting at him with the scorpion and if we can hit him—or the ship—we might disrupt his focus. If the Crown slips, or if he falters, we have our chance."

  "Hold them, Daemon," Arianne commanded, seizing on the hope in Sam's explanation. "Tell the archers to conserve their strength. Their twigs are useless here. Man the scorpions. Use the heavy iron bolts. If we can knock that abomination into the sea, the Shadow City might yet survive."

  Prince Trystane stood beside his father, looking far too young for the sword at his hip. He was pale, lips moving in a silent prayer to the Seven. "And if the that fails?"

  "Then we fight with steel," Lady Nymeria Sand said, stepping from the shadows. She was elegant and grim, her face a mask of cold fury. "To our last breath."

  Below them, on the lower ramparts, a different kind of storm was brewing.

  Sam leaned over the edge, peering down at the chaotic scene near the main gate. Obara Sand stood there, a spear in each hand, her rat-brown hair whipping around her face despite the lack of wind. She was screaming at the massive figure of Areo Hotah.

  "Open the gates, you ox!" Obara roared, her voice raw. "I’ll swim out there and gut him myself!"

  The captain of guards did not move. He stood immovable as a mountain, his longaxe barred across the gate mechanism. His white scale armor gleamed dully in the purple light.

  "The Prince said hold," Areo rumbled, his voice deep and resonant. "We hold. The air is dead, Lady Obara. Your spear will not fly."

  "My spear flies where I tell it to fly!" Obara snarled.

  She spun around, facing the sea. Through the unnatural fog, the black silhouette of a longship was emerging, cutting through the sludge-thick water toward the piers.

  With a cry of pure rage, Obara launched the spear in her right hand.

  It was a perfect throw. The weapon sang through the air, aimed straight for the helmsman of the enemy ship.

  It flew ten feet.

  Then, it hit nothing.

  There was no sound of impact, no spark of magic. The spear simply stopped. All its strength vanished in an instant, stolen by the invisible force that surrounded the fleet.

  Obara stared at it. Her rage faltered, replaced by a look of profound confusion. She looked at her empty hand, then at the fallen spear, as if the world had suddenly decided to speak a language she did not understand.

  "It... it just fell," Sam whispered to himself. "Like a bird shot from the sky."

  The ground shuddered. It was not a tremor but a heave, a violent convulsion of the earth that nearly threw Sam off his feet. He grabbed the stone merlon to steady himself, his heart hammering against his ribs.

  Trystane threw his arms around his father’s wheelchair as the battlements groaned beneath them.

  "Look!" Nymeria cried, pointing downward.

  Sam looked. And wished he hadn't.

  The Shadow City was moving.

  The entire shelf of rock upon which the mud-brick houses sat was tilting toward the sea. Cracks appeared in the streets, widening into fissures that swallowed carts and stalls. Buildings crumbled into dust, their foundations groaning as they were torn apart.

  Then the water erupted.

  Massive shapes burst from the black sludge beneath the piers. They were pillars of wet, glistening muscle, the color of bruised plums and rotting kelp. Tentacles. Thick as tower trunks, covered in barnacles and weeping slime.

  They did not strike. They wrapped.

  Sam watched in horror as the tentacles coiled around the limestone shelf that supported the outer city. They tightened, the sound of grinding rock drowning out the screams of the dying.

  "Mother have mercy..." Nymeria whispered, her hand covering her mouth. "It's tearing the roots out."

  The kraken pulled.

  With a sound like the world cracking open, a massive section of the Shadow City sheared away from the main wall. Houses, streets, and people slid into the churning black water. They didn't splash. The sludge simply swallowed them whole.

  Below, the lower wall cracked under the strain. The stone beneath Obara’s feet gave way. She stumbled, sliding toward the abyss where the sea rushed in.

  "Obara!" Arianne screamed.

  Areo Hotah moved with speed that belied his size. He dropped his longaxe and lunged, his massive hand clamping around Obara’s wrist just as the rampart vanished into the black water. He hauled her back, straining against the collapse, dragging her to the safety of the inner gatehouse just as the spot where she had stood was consumed by the deep.

  "The scorpion!" a voice shouted. "Get the scorpion turned!"

  Sam spun around. On the upper platform of the tower, Sarella was wrestling with the mechanism of a heavy scorpion. Tyene Sand was crouched beside her, her hands stained with green fluids.

  "I coated the bolt in basilisk venom," Tyene said, her voice trembling slightly as she carefully painted the iron tip. "If it scratches them, they die."

  Sarella cranked the winch, sweat dripping from her brow. "It won't scratch them if it doesn't reach them, sister. We might as well throw pebbles."

  "Step aside."

  Archmaester Marwyn stepped forward. He held a jagged knife of obsidian in his hand, the black glass drinking the purple light. His face was set in a grimace of pure, focused malice.

  "His magic is fed by blood," Marwyn growled. "It must be broken by blood."

  Prince Trystane stepped forward, drawing the jeweled dagger at his belt. His hand shook, but his jaw was set. "Use my blood," he said, offering his arm. "I am a Prince of Dorne. It has power. The Rhoynar magic runs in my veins."

  Marwyn pushed the boy back with a rough shove that nearly sent Trystane sprawling.

  "King's blood has power, boy," Marwyn spat. "But this magic has consequences that you are too young to face."

  The Archmaester turned to the scorpion. He looked out at the black ship, at the figure standing on the prow—a man in armor dark as night, laughing at the destruction.

  "You are not the only one who understands magic." Marwyn whispered.

  He slashed the obsidian blade across his own palm.

  The cut was deep, deliberate. Blood welled thick and dark, pooling in the creases of his calloused hand before spilling over. Marwyn seized the scorpion bolt with his other hand, bracing it against the weapon's frame. He pressed his bleeding palm to the iron head, letting the blood run down the shaft in rivulets.

  But he didn't just smear it. He wrote.

  His finger moved with practiced precision, tracing glyphs in his own blood along the length of the bolt. Ancient symbols, older than the Citadel, older than the Freehold. The characters of the first men who had bound the Others with dragonglass and will. Each rune hissed as it took shape, the blood seeming to sear itself into the metal and wood.

  "May the gods watch over us," Marwyn chanted, his voice a guttural rasp. "And repel all those who mean us harm…"

  The final rune completed itself with a sound like breaking ice. The blood-script glowed with a sickly crimson light that made Sam want to look away.

  Marwyn slammed his bloody hand against the release lever.

  Thrum.

  The scorpion fired.

  The bolt screamed through the air. It hit the magic barrier where Obara’s spear had failed. The air rippled, distorting like heat haze. The bolt slowed, shuddered, threatening to drop.

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  Then the blood on the shaft flared with a sickly red light. The magic of the bolt fought that of the Bloodstone Crown.

  And the bolt punched through.

  It streaked across the water and slammed into the lead longship. It didn't hit Euron—he had moved with unnatural speed—but it smashed into the hull just above the waterline, shattering the wood.

  For a moment, the magic field flickered.

  "They are landing!" Daemon Sand shouted. "The field is down! Archers, loose!"

  The momentary disruption was enough. Arrows flew from the battlements, finding their marks this time. Ironborn raiders on the decks of the landing ships screamed as shafts pierced their leather armor.

  But there were too many of them.

  The Ironborn stormed the breach where the Shadow City used to be. They surged over the rubble of the collapsed shelf, a tide of grey and iron crashing against the broken stones of the Winding Walls.

  "They are coming through the breach!" Daemon drew his sword, the steel singing. "To me! For Dorne!"

  He leaped from the parapet to the inner courtyard, rallying the terrified guards. "Form the line! Shields up!"

  Below, Obara and Areo Hotah joined him. Obara had lost her spears, but she had snatched a sword from a fallen guard. Areo swung his longaxe, the blade cleaving through ironborn shields and helms alike. It was a brutal, muddy slaughter in the ruins of the gate.

  On the battlements, Sam felt a sudden, sickening lurch in his gut.

  It wasn't fear. It was a pull. A physical sensation, like a hook caught behind his navel, dragging him toward the sea.

  He clutched the straps of his pack. The Horn of Winter was hot against his back. Burning hot.

  He turned to Arianne. The Princess was staring down at the melee, watching Daemon fight desperately to hold the breach.

  "Princess!" Sam grabbed her arm, forgetting all protocol. "He’s coming for the Horn. You have to get your father out. We have to run."

  Arianne looked at him, her eyes wide and haunted. She looked at her father, small and broken in his chair. She looked at the sea, where the black ships formed an impenetrable wall.

  "But there is nowhere to run Samwell," Arianne whispered, her voice cracking. "The sea is closed and we will be surrounded. We are trapped in a bottle, and he is pulling the cork."

  The defenses were buckling.

  Sam watched as Daemon Sand was forced back, step by bloody step. His shield was shattered, his face a mask of blood. Areo Hotah was fighting three men at once, his axe a blur, but even the mountain of a man was tiring.

  The ground shook again.

  A massive tentacle rose from the harbor, towering over the walls. It dripped black sludge onto the defenders below. It reared back, casting a shadow over the Tower of the Sun where Doran sat.

  It was going to smash the tower. It was going to crush the Prince of Dorne and everyone with him.

  Trystane stepped in front of his father. He raised his sword, a fragile, glittering thing against the might of a monster from the deep. He stood ready to die, shielding the father who had failed to protect him.

  "No," Sam whimpered. He fumbled for his dragonglass dagger, though he knew it would be useless. "Please, no."

  Then came the sound.

  It was not the roar of a kraken. It was not the shout of men.

  It was a shriek. A high, piercing cry that tore through the heavy air, shattering the silence, vibrating in the marrow of Sam's bones. It sounded like tearing metal. It sounded like a predator.

  The tentacle paused in its descent.

  The ironborn on the ships looked up.

  Sam looked up.

  High above, tearing through the purple clouds, a shape plummeted from the sky.

  Prince Doran Martell looked up. His eyes, so tired and full of defeat a moment ago, widened. He watched the comet of black scales descending upon his city.

  "Fire and Blood," Doran whispered.

  The wind whipped her hair into a silver frenzy, stinging her eyes, but Daenerys Targaryen did not blink. She leaned low over Drogon’s neck, her hands gripping the hot, black scales until her knuckles ached. High above the cloud layer, the air was thin and cold, a stark contrast to the furnace heat radiating from the beast beneath her.

  To her west, Rhaegal was a smudge of bronze and green against the bruising purple of the evening sky. He kept his distance, wary and restless. Since Viserion’s fall, her children flew apart, as if the empty space between them was a wound that refused to close.

  Aurane Waters had brought the warnings to her flagship as his face had been ash-grey when he spoke of the encounter with the Ironborn.

  "Sea monsters, Your Grace. Krakens rising from the deep to smash galleys like kindling."

  His crew had muttered prayers to the Seven, and the Dothraki—who feared only the poison water—had looked at the sea with fresh terror, fingering their arakhs as if steel could cut the tide.

  Daenerys had not dismissed the reports. She knew the world was full of things that had been forgotten. Dragons had returned; why not the horrors of the deep?

  But she dismissed the fear.

  Let him have his monsters, she thought, the anger in her belly hot and solid. A kraken is flesh and blood. It is a beast of the sea, just as the lion is a beast of the grass.

  But there is always a bigger predator.

  Euron Greyjoy thinks thinks a big fish will cow the blood of the dragon? He is a pirate with a stolen horn and a pet from the dark.

  But wood burned. Iron melted. And flesh cooked.

  "Embrot." she screamed.

  Drogon banked. The world tilted. They punched through the cloud layer, the vapor tearing past them in wet, grey ribbons.

  The sun was dying in the west, a bloated red eye that cast long, bloody shadows across the sea. Below lay Dorne.

  Daenerys frowned.

  The map in her head, memorized from Ser Barristan’s lessons and Tyrion’s charts, did not match the world below. Sunspear was a finger of land thrusting into the sea, a defiant fist of stone and mud-brick.

  But the fist was broken.

  The outer city was gone.

  It was not burned. It was not flattened by siege engines. It was simply erased. The coastline had been chewed away, swallowed by a sea that looked too black, too thick. Where the winding streets of the Shadow City should have been, there was only churning sludge and the jagged, broken teeth of foundations sliding into the deep.

  What power is this?

  She spotted the harbor. It was choked with wreckage. And there, sitting amidst the devastation like a spider in its web, was a single ship.

  It was black. Hull, sails, masts. It sat perfectly still in water that boiled around it.

  The Silence.

  It looked so small from this height. A toy boat floating in a puddle. Insignificant.

  Daenerys shifted her gaze to the citadel, searching for the banners of House Martell. Her eyes locked onto the Tower of the Sun, the highest point of the castle.

  She froze.

  Coiled around the pale stone of the tower was a nightmare.

  It was wet and slick, the color of a bruise. A tentacle. It was thick as the trunk of a weirwood, covered in weeping sores and barnacles. It squeezed the tower, the stone groaning under the pressure even from this distance. On the balcony, she saw tiny figures—a man in a wheelchair and a boy standing before him.

  The monsters are real.

  The thought was small and terrified. This was no sailor’s story. This was a god of the deep, risen to eat the world.

  Fear spiked in her chest, but it was quickly swallowed by a surge of protective fury. They were attacking her future allies. They were crushing a cripple and a child.

  She looked back at the black ship. The beast was bound to the ship; she could feel the connection, a dark tether of intent. To kill the monster, she had to kill the master.

  She leaned forward, flattening herself against Drogon’s neck. "Issa."

  Drogon tucked his wings.

  They fell.

  The wind roared in her ears, a deafening scream of speed. The black ship rushed up to meet them, growing larger with every heartbeat. She could see the figure on the prow, a man in black armor standing motionless while chaos swirled around him.

  Euron.

  She would not parley. She would not offer terms.

  They dropped past the thousand-foot mark. Five hundred.

  The roar of the wind changed.

  It happened in an instant. The screaming gale died. It didn't fade; it was severed. The sound went from a deafening howl to a dull, flat thrum, like a heartbeat heard underwater.

  Daenerys gasped. The air pressure dropped so sharply her ears popped painfully. The wind that had been tearing at her clothes vanished.

  Drogon’s wings, which had been tucked tight for the dive, snapped open to break their descent.

  They caught nothing.

  The membranes rippled uselessly. There was no resistance. It felt as though they had fallen into a endless void, a hole in the world where the air had no substance.

  Drogon shrieked—a sound of pure confusion. He flailed, his massive wings beating frantically against emptiness. They weren't slowing down. They were plummeting.

  What is this?

  "Dracarys!" she screamed, pouring all her fear and rage into the command. "Burn him!"

  Drogon’s head snapped down. His jaws unhinged.

  A cough.

  A puff of thick, oily smoke spilled from Drogon’s maw. A few sparks fluttered into the dead air and winked out instantly, choked by the invisible void.

  No fire.

  The realization set a panicked alarm in Daenerys' mind. The fire couldn't breathe. Drogon couldn't breathe. The air around the ship was dead. It was a grave.

  She looked frantically back at the Tower of the Sun.

  The tentacle twitched.

  As if responding to a silent command from the deck of the Silence, the massive limb released the stone tower. It slid backward, vanishing into the churning sludge below the walls with terrifying speed.

  It wasn't retreating. It was repositioning.

  Drogon roared, thrashing, his claws raking the empty air. He was ten feet above the water. Five.

  The surface erupted directly beneath them.

  The tentacle shot up. It was a wall of wet muscle. It caught Drogon by the tail.

  The impact snapped Daenerys’s head back, stars exploding in her vision. She screamed as the world spun. The dragon was yanked downward with impossible force.

  Cold.

  Darkness.

  Silence.

  The water was freezing, a shock that drove the air from her lungs. Daenerys squeezed her eyes shut, clinging to the saddle chains as the ocean swallowed them.

  Drogon was thrashing, a storm of muscle and fury beneath her. She felt the water churning, the pressure building against her ears. The tentacle was dragging them down, down into the black muck of the harbor floor.

  I am the blood of the dragon, she thought wildly. I cannot drown. I cannot—

  But she could. She was human. Her lungs burned. The cold gnawed at her bones.

  Drogon’s panic vibrated through the saddle. He twisted, biting at the thing that held him, but he had no leverage. They were sinking into the silt.

  Above, through the murky water, she saw a flash of green.

  Rhaegal, help us!

  Her second child had not dived. He had stayed high, outside the dead zone. Now he came down, not in a swoop, but in a vertical stoop, hitting the water like a spear.

  He didn't enter the dead air. He hit the water just outside the circle of the black ship's influence.

  Through the gloom, Daenerys saw the bronze-and-green shape tear through the water. Rhaegal didn't go for the tentacle. He went for the eye.

  A massive, milky orb, visible in the gloom of the deep. Rhaegal’s talons raked across it.

  The water shuddered. A soundless scream vibrated through the deep, a shockwave that rattled Daenerys’s teeth.

  The grip on Drogon’s tail loosened.

  Drogon didn't wait. He bent his long neck, his jaws finding the thick meat of the tentacle wrapped around his leg. He bit down.

  Black blood, thick as tar, clouded the water. The limb severed.

  Drogon surged upward. His wings, useless for flying, became great fins. He kicked, propelling them toward the light.

  They broke the surface in a spray of ink and foam.

  Daenerys gasped, sucking in air that smelled of salt and slaughter.

  Drogon didn't swim. He exploded from the water.

  Driven by pure, reptilian panic, the great beast launched himself into the air. His wings, heavy with black sludge, snapped open with a sound like a cracking sail. He beat the air frantically, screaming, desperate to escape the grave beneath him.

  He rose ten feet. Twenty.

  But the air was still thin here, poisoned by the presence of the Silence. He couldn't find the updraft. He couldn't soar. He was stalling, his massive bulk threatening to drag him back down into the waiting dark.

  He banked hard, his wingtips grazing the black water, and threw himself toward the only sanctuary within reach—the high walls of the Old Palace.

  He didn't land; he collided.

  Drogon slammed into the battlements with the grace of a falling mountain. His claws gouged deep furrows in the limestone as he scrabbled for purchase, his momentum carrying him skidding across the wide stone walkway.

  Masonry exploded. Dust billowed.

  Daenerys was thrown from the saddle. She hit the hard stone, rolling violently until she slammed against a parapet.

  She lay there for a moment, coughing up black water, her body shaking.

  "Your Grace!"

  Hands grabbed her shoulders. She flinched, expecting ironborn, but the face that swam into view was round and pale and terrified.

  "Who…" she croaked.

  The man in black blinked at her. He was fat, soft, and trembling like a leaf in a storm, sweating profusely despite the wind. He wore the heavy wool of the Night's Watch, absurdly out of place in the Dornish heat.

  "My name is Samwell Tarly. Are you hurt, Your Grace?" He patted her arms with clumsy, gentle hands. "Did the fall cause any dam—"

  "The ship," a woman screamed.

  Daenerys turned. A Dornishwoman stood nearby, her dark hair whipped by the gale, her silk dress torn at the shoulder. She did not look at Daenerys. She stared out at the harbor with wide, wet eyes.

  "You have to burn Euron! He is the source! Why did you not burn him?"

  Daenerys pushed herself up. The stone of the parapet was rough against her palms. She looked for her child.

  Drogon cowered against the inner wall of the battlements. The black beast was shaking, a low and pitiful whine escaping his throat. Black slime coated his scales. He hissed at the sea with his neck coiled tight, terrified.

  It was a sight that chilled her blood more than the cold wind. He is a dragon, she thought. He is fire made flesh. Yet these monsters make a dragon shiver.

  "I tried," Daenerys said. Her throat felt raw, as if she had swallowed sand. "The fire died."

  She looked at the Dornishwoman, seeing the desperation in the stranger's face.

  "I commanded it. He opened his mouth. But the air... there was no breath in the air. It choked him."

  "The Crown is too powerful," the fat man in black said.

  "Crown? What crows?" Daenerys asks impatiently.

  "The Bloodstone Crown, the crown that madman wears. It eats magic. It eats the fire. You cannot fight him there, Your Grace. The air around that ship is a grave for anything that gets near."

  Daenerys looked out at the Silence.

  "He is dragging the castle into the sea," the fat man said, his voice trembling. "He is taking the whole island down."

  Daenerys stared at the black ship. She stared at the man who commanded the deep. She had a dragon. She had the fire that had forged an empire.

  But she was standing on a sinking ship of stone, with an ocean of water rising to meet her.

  The terror threatened to take her then. It would be easy to weep, to let the madness of the Targaryens claim her as she watched her world tilt into the brine. But the heat in her blood was still there. It was the only thing keeping the cold at bay. She remembered the moment before the wall of force had gone up, the single instant of hope she had witnessed earlier in the battle.

  She turned on the fat man in black. He flinched at the sudden movement.

  "The tower," she rasped. "I saw a bolt. A spear of crimson light. It pierced the sorcery surrounding the ship. I saw it strike true."

  The fat man wiped sweat from his brow. "The scorpion on the Spear Tower. Yes."

  "Who fired it? Can it be done again?"

  "It was not the machine, Your Grace."

  The voice was like gravel grinding together. Daenerys turned to see a man stepping from the shadow of the stairwell.

  "Maester Marwyn," the fat man said. He rushed to support the older man, but Marwyn waved him off with a trembling hand.

  "The bolt," Marwyn coughed. He spat something onto the stones. It was not the red juice of sourleaf. It was blood, dark and clotted. "Runes carved in blood. Old spells. Dangerous spells."

  "It worked," Daenerys said. She stepped toward him. "We need another. If we can break the field for a minute, Drogon can fly. He can burn the Silence."

  Marwyn looked at her. A grim smile stretched his pale lips. "Magic is a sword without a hilt, girl. There is no safe way to grasp it."

  He tapped his own chest.

  "The bolt does not fly on tension alone. It feeds. It took years of my life to loose that first shaft. It drank the strength from my marrow."

  The Dornishwoman made a noise of distress. "You are dying."

  "We are all dying," Marwyn grunted. "Some faster than others. I have enough left in me for one or two more. Perhaps. If I loose it, my heart will likely stop before the bolt hits the water."

  "No," Daenerys said.

  She looked back at the breach. The ironborn were wary now. They held back, terrified of the fire that had erased their vanguard. But in the harbor, the tentacles were tightening. The Silence sat untouched.

  The terror threatened to take her then. It would be easy to weep, to let the madness of the Targaryens claim her as she watched her world tilt into the brine.

  But she looked at Drogon. Her child was shivering, coating the stones in black slime, waiting for her to tell him how to be brave.

  She looked at the sinking tower. She looked at the smiling pirate in the distance.

  She realized she was trapped. Brute force had failed. Fire had failed. If she attacked again, she died.

  She turned to Samwell Tarly.

  "Get me to the war room," she commanded, her voice hard as iron. "We need to find a way to kill this demon."