Chapter Summaries

After a Dornish assassination attempt left Prince Qoren gravely wounded, Danyla ordered reprisals and mobilized the Seven Kingdoms for war against Dorne. As Dornish forces scattered into the desert, allied troops and fleets blockaded the region, and Saewan captured Greyfear Fortress.

• The maesters saved Prince Qoren from immediate death, and Danyla ordered Duke Gerold to seize Reyes Castle and Tarbeck Hall while Tyland administered the territories.
• Danyla sent letters exposing the Dornish attack, prompting the Reach and Stormlands houses to muster armies while King Jaehaerys's council remained divided over the Stormlands.
• After reading Danyla's secret letter, Viserys calmed down, returned to Dragonstone, and departed across the Narrow Sea with his family.
• Rouge led Oldtown and Redwyne warships to blockade Dorne's southern waters as Dornish houses hid their elite troops in the desert.
• Earl of Tarth and Saewan blockaded the Dornish Sea and Greenblood, and Saewan burned Greyfear Fortress's guards before Markris took control of the stronghold and its prisoners.

Markris built up his power in the Stepstones before leading an assault on Yronwood, House Yronwood’s stronghold guarding the Boneway. Saewan arrived on Seasmoke and unleashed dragonfire on the castle walls, leaving Yronwood under attack.

• Markris commanded Grey Gallows Island and a force of over a thousand fighters after Saewan incorporated most of his fleet into the Holy Flame Fleet.
• Markris repaired Greyfear Fortress and surveyed the nearby reefs while Saewan strengthened the fortress’s defenses.
• Markris sailed toward Yronwood with fifty longships and his men, while Saewan followed overhead on Seasmoke under cover of darkness.
• The defenders at Yronwood huddled against the cold night wind as Saewan’s dragonfire struck the castle walls.
• Yronwood’s walls burst apart amid the guards’ screams.

Saewan and Markris captured Yronwood, with Seasmoke destroying the city's defenses and burning the remaining defenders. They enslaved the surviving Dornish, repaired the walls, and secured the city while Saewan used Seasmoke to hunt spies in the surrounding area.

• Saewan rode Seasmoke along Yronwood's walls, destroying its defensive weapons and setting guards and supplies ablaze.
• Markris led his men through the breach, killed the elderly defenders and boys at the north gate, and seized the city.
• Seasmoke destroyed the giant crossbows on the castle battlements, and by dawn Saewan and Markris controlled Yronwood.
• Seasmoke burned the corpses and scrap metal during the Funeral Rite, then fed on the charred bodies as Markris recorded the prisoners and spoils.
• Saewan and the craftsmen repaired Yronwood with dragonstone while Markris forced the prisoners to labor, sealed tunnels, and confined them behind new walls.
• Saewan patrolled the surrounding area on Seasmoke and fed the dragon the Dornish spies he found.

Lord Swann’s Stormlands army captured the Vale River fortress with help from Vhagar and Syrax, then advanced toward Wyl with the route secured. The army reached Wyl after thwarting Dornish ambushes, bringing captured Dornish prisoners with them.

• Lord Swann arrived at the Vale River fortress with six thousand Stormlands troops and camped on the northern bank.
• Vhagar and Syrax attacked at dawn, destroying the fortress tower and burning the Dornish camp while Viserys and Rhaenyra chanted blood sacrifice spells.
• The Stormlands army crossed the fortress and advanced toward Wyl, leaving troops and craftsmen to rebuild the crossing with dragonstone.
• Lord Swann’s army detected Dornish ambushes with help from Dorea Sand and her sisters, captured several hundred Dornish, and paraded them toward Wyl on crosses.

Viserys and Rhaenyra helped the allied Stormlands army capture Wyl, where Lord Swann secured the city and its remaining inhabitants. As Lord Tarly and Ser Crockton marched toward Kingsgrave, the Dornish reinforced the western pass and House Fowler prepared Skyreach’s defenses against dragons.

• Viserys and Rhaenyra flew to Wyl, and the Stormlands army captured the city after a methodical advance against Dornish raiders.
• Lord Swann ordered Wyl searched and its residents confined, while the remaining women and children were sold to slave traders.
• The Stormlands army used demolished buildings to reinforce Wyl’s walls and built a high-walled camp that blocked Dornish infiltration.
• Lord Tarly and Ser Crockton marched from Eyriehold toward Kingsgrave as Dornish forces moved through the Red Mountains to oppose them.
• The great houses along the Honeywine garrisoned a pass near High Hermitage to hinder the Reach army’s advance west.
• Lord Fowler sent elite troops to Skyreach and mounted giant crossbows on its walls in preparation for a dragon attack.

Danyla returned to Oldtown to collect Dreamfyre, but found the dragon asleep, then traveled to Sevan City to bring her family into hiding. After explaining the assassination attempt and her plans to strike Dorne, she found her family worried but ready to support her.

• Danyla rode toward Oldtown with Fiona, Bethany, Mungo, and their dragons, while Bennard stayed behind to secure Reyes Castle and Tarbeck Hall with Tyland.
• Danyla taught Fiona to control her white crane in combat as the dragons hunted fish on the journey.
• At Oldtown, Danyla discovered Dreamfyre had been asleep for several days and suspected the dragon was transforming after eating dragon flesh and blood.
• Danyla learned Dornish spies had been caught trying to infiltrate Oldtown and poison the dragons, then departed before dawn without Dreamfyre.
• Danyla arrived at Sevan City, where Viserys had brought the family to hide, and told them about the assassination attempt and her plans against Dorne.
• Viserys and Aemma worried about the cost of war but supported Danyla's retaliation after recalling Dorne's past crimes against the Reach.

Danyla and her family prepared for war in Dorne, then used Vhagar’s blood to awaken a weirwood in Sevan City. The weirwood drew in magical energy, and both Vinylla and Senylla’s dragon eggs hatched, leaving the family with two new dragon hatchlings.

• Danyla shared her plan to make Dorne pay with Viserys and her family, and Rhaenyra enthusiastically agreed to help.
• Danyla had Saewan bury Borros’s fallen black dragon’s head with a weirwood in Sevan City’s Godswood, then drew blood from Vhagar to awaken the tree and leave her imprint on it.
• The weirwood absorbed the dragon blood and gathered magical energy, making the air cooler and allowing the dragons to absorb the energy more easily.
• Vinylla and Senylla’s dragon eggs began absorbing the gathered magic, and Danyla realized both were about to hatch.
• Senylla’s egg hatched first, producing a pale green female dragon that Danyla recognized as Moondancer.
• Vinylla’s white egg hatched next, revealing a beautiful ivory-white dragon with rose-gold markings.

Danyla’s forces began their campaign against Dorne, using dragons and aerial intelligence to cut off supplies and undermine Dornish guerrilla tactics. As the campaign progressed, Bethany noticed Danyla’s waist had grown thicker, prompting Danyla to fear she might be pregnant.

• Rhaenyra named Senylla’s hatchling Moondancer, and Aemma named Vinylla’s hatchling Frostflame.
• Danyla’s fleet surrounded Dorne and attacked Dornish ships abroad, cutting off the region’s outside supplies.
• Saewan and Markris captured Yronwood, while Seasmoke destroyed the channel feeding the Greenblood and Markris’s troops seized crops.
• Viserys and Rhaenyra helped Stormlands forces capture Wyl and control the Boneway, while dragons and bird scouts exposed Dornish troops and hideouts.
• Danyla used King Vulture and the hatchlings to monitor Dornish movements and relay intelligence, relying on Eyriehold’s weirwood to recover from the strain.
• Bethany remarked that Danyla’s waist seemed thicker, and Danyla wondered if she might be pregnant.

Danyla warned the Reach lords about Dornish sabotage as she prepared their army to march, while the chapter revealed the spies, profiteers, and exploitation surrounding the campaign. The army tightened its security after a Dornish courtesan poisoned Earl Florent, and Danyla’s dragonfire destroyed a spy hideout.

• Danyla asked Bethany to prepare looser clothes, then summoned Earl Tarly and the Reach lords to announce that the army would march the next day.
• Danyla warned the lords to watch for Dornish attacks and sabotage, recalling that spies had infiltrated the army at the Prince's Pass.
• Danyla’s Secret Guards discovered that Lysa, a Dornish spy posing as a courtesan, had recorded military intelligence and poisoned Earl Florent with a concealed blade.
• Herb saved Earl Florent, while Earl Tarly increased patrols and screened the camp’s prostitutes, exposing cases of rose rash among them.
• Danyla burned a Dornish spy hideout, where a charred merchant ledger recorded the sale of a twelve-year-old girl to a noble lord.

Danyla cracked down on caravans and nobles implicated in corruption and collusion, confiscating their goods and sending thousands to forced labor. After nobles challenged her methods, she ordered stricter discipline for the army, and they submitted.

• Danyla ordered Ser Roxton to seize supplies from implicated caravans and send their members to labor in Eyriehold’s iron mine.
• Ser Jon Rookton inspected the remaining caravans, confiscating property and assigning suspected offenders and others to slavery or forced farming.
• Danyla arrested Reach nobles named by the merchants and demanded gold dragons from their families as ransom.
• Earl Rowan and his supporters objected to Danyla’s harsh punishments, while Earl Oakhart, Earl Tarly, Ser Roxton, and Earl Clement defended them.
• Danyla declared that army discipline and supply rules would become stricter, and the nobles bowed and agreed.

Danyla's disciplined Western Army marched toward Kingsgrave while Dornish houses prepared an ambush in the Prince's Pass. The chapter ended as desert fire ants swarmed around the Reach army from both directions.

• Danyla tightened discipline in the Western Army and arrested caravans and camp followers who left Eyriehold.
• Earl Tarly led the Western Army toward Kingsgrave as Danyla and her birds monitored Dorne.
• Dornish lords sent elite troops toward Skyreach to harass the Reach army, while Harmen Uller boasted of his dragon-slaying equipment.
• The Prince of Dorne asked the Faceless Men Remnants to locate Queen Aemma and her children, but the Hunched Elder suggested other Targaryen relatives as targets.
• Earl Forrester signaled twelve hundred Dornish soldiers to prepare an ambush in the Prince's Pass and released amber liquid that drew desert fire ants onto the Reach army's route.
• A second Dornish group spread the liquid behind the Reach army, and desert fire ants swarmed around the vanguard and its rear.

Earl Tarly prepared the Reach army for a Dornish attack by poisonous creatures, while Danyla pursued a Dornish force that seemed to be drawing her away from the main army. After Myracis set the Dornish force and the surrounding woods ablaze, Danyla still saw no sign of the weapon the Dornish had apparently prepared.

• Earl Tarly ordered the Reach army to dig a firebreak, light fires, and protect its supply train as poisonous creatures approached.
• Danyla rode with her Great Dragons to intercept more than a thousand Dornish troops who appeared to be heading toward the Reach.
• Little Balerion burned livestock and supplies along the Greenblood, then dropped supplies onto the rafts of the Orphans of the Greenblood.
• Danyla discovered the Dornish force had been circling near a valley and suspected they had set a trap for her.
• Danyla dove toward the Dornish on Myracis, burned their woodland, and then encircled them with fire, but their hidden weapon did not appear.

Danyla and Myracis burned through the Dornish woodland, then were ambushed with pathogen-laced human remains and wildfire bombs. Danyla burned away most of the filth but discovered that cursed water magic was still invading her, and wondered if it explained Greyscale.

• Danyla suspected the Dornish were luring her into a trap, sent Difiral and Ophiral back toward the Reach army, and ordered Myracis to burn the woods from above.
• Danyla let Myracis descend to feed on charred corpses, where Dornish survivors attacked them with filthy water and Caltrop Dragonfire Bombs.
• Danyla and Myracis flew out of range, then unleashed dragonfire until the Dornish woodland became a sea of flames.
• Danyla entered the blaze to burn away the contaminated slurry and used her Valyria Armor to withstand the fire.
• Danyla identified the remaining invading energy as cursed water magic and wondered if it was the truth behind Greyscale.

Danyla struggled to destroy the greyscale energy infecting her while the Reach Army fought off a Dornish ambush at Prince's Pass. Urrax intervened against the Dornish catapults, but the battle remained underway.

• Danyla realized the Dornish had sacrificed more than a thousand people to infect her and burned away her petrifying skin as she fought the strange energy.
• Danyla ordered Myracis to devour the scattered corpses and vowed to punish whoever had betrayed her.
• Earl Tarly ordered the Reach Army to light its defensive trenches and fire powder-laden arrows, driving the attacking creatures away.
• Dornish forces launched bags of venomous snakes and scorpions from concealed catapults on the cliffs.
• Ser Roxton released Urrax, whose dragonfire and wingbeats ignited or knocked aside many of the airborne bags.

Urrax attacked the Dornish positions at Prince's Pass while the Reach army fought off bags of venomous snakes and scorpions. Digral and Ophiral joined Urrax, and the three dragons coordinated their attacks as Earl Tarly's archers struck the exposed Dornish.

• Urrax burned several Dornish catapults and set nearby bags of snakes and scorpions alight, sending the creatures into a frenzy.
• Reach soldiers used Ser Roxton's special powder to weaken the venomous creatures and hacked them down, while the snakes and scorpions overwhelmed Dornish defenders on the cliffs.
• Urrax burned more catapults, but Dornish archers and spearmen wounded his wings with arrows as he flew away.
• The Dornish attacked the Reach army from the cliffs, and Urrax exposed their positions with dragonfire before Earl Tarly ordered his archers to fire, killing hundreds.
• Digral and Ophiral joined Urrax, and the three dragons coordinated dragonfire attacks against the Dornish on the cliffs.

The Reach Army endured a deadly Dornish ambush in Prince’s Pass but used archers and young dragons to destroy the attackers’ remaining weapons and poison supplies. In the Red Mountains, Danyla’s fight against greyscale worsened until she charged into Myracis’s dragonfire.

• The Dornish hurled burning oil barrels at the Reach Army, killing hundreds and badly burning nearly a thousand soldiers before Earl Tarly ordered archers to retaliate.
• The three young dragons attacked the Dornish positions, while Earl Tarly’s archers shot down exposed attackers; the Reach Army suffered heavy losses but gained the upper hand.
• Danyla continued fighting the greyscale virus as Myracis exhausted its supply of charred corpses and the forest fires began to die down.
• Urrax, Digral, and the other young dragons ate Dornish corpses and venomous creatures, recovered their strength, and returned to attack the remaining Dornish.
• The young dragons tore open poison bags thrown at the Reach Army, blowing the powder back toward the Dornish and killing them with their own poison.
• As greyscale spread across Danyla’s body and her strength faded, she charged into Myracis’s dragonfire.

Danyla survived Myracis’s dragonfire when the Flame Rune erupted, cured her greyscale, and transformed her body. The purple-gold flames captured a Black Great Dragon named Ralphanes and made him acknowledge Danyla as his master, leaving her ready to ride him.

• Danyla was burned by Myracis’s dragonfire until the Flame Rune emerged and unleashed purple-gold flames that killed every living creature nearby.
• The flames restored Danyla, cured her greyscale, transformed her appearance, and enhanced her Valyrian steel dragonskin armor and Dragon Wings cloak.
• The flames caught the wandering Black Great Dragon, drained much of his blood and magical energy, restrained his abilities, and made him acknowledge Danyla as his master.
• The flames split into three and burrowed into Danyla’s belly, while Myracis watched in fear.
• Danyla woke the next morning cured and transformed, then listened to Ralphanes boast about his history.
• Danyla told Ralphanes to lie down because she was going to ride him.

Danyla asserted her authority over Rafa, while the Reach Army finished clearing the battlefield at Prince's Pass after defeating the Dornish. The army mourned its dead and continued toward Kingsgrave, leaving merchants to gather the creatures and supplies left behind.

• Danyla challenged Rafa, and the Black Great Dragon conceded after Danyla burned and cracked one of her scales with a Fire Seed.
• The Three Young Dragons discovered Dornish soldiers and Desert Fire Ants hidden in the sand and burned them before Earl Tarly led the army to camp.
• At daybreak, the Reach Army gathered and cremated its fallen soldiers during a Funeral Rite, which filled the Three Young Dragons with energy and left them hungry.
• The Three Young Dragons ate many of the dead, while the army found little valuable loot among the Dornish supplies and Ser Roxton had the remaining bodies charred to prevent disease.
• The Reach Army buried its soldiers' ashes beside the road, built a monument, and continued toward Kingsgrave as merchants stayed behind to collect the remaining creatures.

Danyla made a dramatic public arrival at Prince’s Pass on the enormous black dragon Ralphanes, stunning the Reach Army and displaying the dragon’s extraordinary abilities. After the young dragons tested Ralphanes and backed down, Danyla received the casualty report and promised care and compensation for the wounded and fallen soldiers’ families.

• Danyla rode Ralphanes over the Reach Army, whose soldiers were stunned by the black dragon’s immense size, speed, and power.
• Myracis struggled to keep pace with Ralphanes, while Urrax and Digral approached; Ralphanes sent Urrax tumbling after the young dragon attacked him with fire.
• Ralphanes landed gracefully, and Earl Tarly and the other officers greeted Danyla and reported the previous night’s battle.
• Danyla learned that nearly a thousand soldiers had become casualties and ordered treatment for the wounded and extra compensation for the dead.
• Danyla offered the families of fallen soldiers the option to move to Oldtown or Holy Flame Island and receive the benefits given to local military families.

Danyla and the Reach Army attacked Kingsgrave with Rafa and the young dragons, breaking through the castle’s defenses and defeating its defenders. After the city fell, Danyla realized Rafa could fly at extraordinary speeds through a mysterious power within her.

• Earl Tarly camped five kilometers from Kingsgrave, while Danyla ordered Rafa, Myracis, and the other dragons to devour the charred Dornish corpses.
• Rafa and the other dragons consumed more than a thousand corpses overnight, gaining rich magical energy through Danyla’s sacrificial spells.
• Rafa smashed open Kingsgrave’s gates and swept defenders and ballistae from the walls as Earl Tarly’s heavy cavalry charged into the city.
• House Manwoody’s remaining defenders unleashed giant scorpions and desert fire ants against the Reach cavalry.
• Danyla summoned Myracis, Urrax, and the other young dragons to burn the scorpions and ants while Rafa cleared the walls.
• Danyla discovered that Rafa could fly at several kilometers per second using a peculiar, unexplained ability.