Chapter Summaries

Danyla and Rafa watched as Salliss used blood sacrifice and sacred fire to defend the Temple of R'hllor from the sea monsters attacking Volantis. Salliss exhausted her life force and ordered the ultimate sacrifice as one of Danyla’s Dragon Eggs began to stir.

• Danyla recognized the Lord of Light’s miracles as magical power obtained through sacrifice and ordered Rafa to send the sea monsters against the temple.
• Salliss ordered sacred oil poured into the altar channels, then sacrificed more than a hundred slaves to raise a fiery barrier.
• Mellos warned Salliss that the sea monsters had breached the city walls, and the Fiery Hand attacked when several monsters broke through the barrier.
• Salliss stabbed herself and unleashed a beam of red light that cleared the clouds, revealing Rafa to Danyla.
• Danyla saw that one Dragon Egg had developed blood-red veins as Rafa eyed the monsters hungrily.
• Salliss, weakened and coughing sparks, ordered the ultimate sacrifice, and the priests brought twelve silver-haired believers wearing gold collars.

Danyla and Rafa battled R'hllor as the priests sacrificed girls to summon the fire god, while a fire seed drew in the temple’s flames. The seed entered a dragon egg, which hatched into a blood-red dragon that swallowed R'hllor and announced it could finally form a new body.

• Salliss sacrificed six girls, sending their magical energy into the altar’s ruby as Danyla felt a bloodline resonance and Rafa attacked the temple with dragonfire.
• Salliss welcomed the fiery figure summoned above the ruby, but it killed her and struck at Rafa and the sea monsters.
• Danyla disrupted the figure with Proud Sun, then used a dragon blood sacrifice to drain the temple’s magic and challenge R'hllor.
• Hogras carried off the ruby while Hognara attacked R'hllor with iceflame, and Danyla’s fire seed absorbed the temple’s flames.
• The fire seed entered a dragon egg, which hatched into a blood-red dragon that swallowed R'hllor and declared it could form a new body.

Chixiao the Yinglong emerged from Blazing Flame, seized the Fiery Hand’s faith from R’hllor, and warned Danyla that the Great Other would awaken before falling into a long slumber. Four dragon hatchlings then emerged from Rafa’s Dragon Saddle.

• Chixiao appeared as a golden-red, flame-winged dragon and consumed the souls of the sacrificed girls to regain her strength.
• Chixiao healed the Temple Priests and Fiery Hand members, remade the Temple in the image of dragons, and absorbed the priests’ flame tattoos.
• Chixiao identified herself as an ancient Yinglong, warned Danyla against false gods, and foretold R’hllor’s injury, the Great Other’s awakening, and the coming winter.
• Chixiao petrified into a statue, leaving a shining Dragon Pearl in her mouth.
• Four hatchlings—blue-green, red, white, and black—hatched from the eggs in Rafa’s Dragon Saddle.

Danyla took control of the Temple of R'hllor, freed its Valyrian-blooded slaves, and renamed it the Holy Flame Temple as Aurelion and Rhaena conquered Volantis. The city was left under the protection of Chixiao and her dragons, while Danyla commemorated the dead with a monument.

• Danyla sacrificed the sea monsters to Chixiao, strengthened her magic, freed the temple slaves, and renamed the temple the Holy Flame Temple.
• Aurelion and Rhaena led their armies into Volantis, where House Maegyr and nobles recruited by Teran Rhaena helped them seize the city within hours.
• Aurelion and Rhaena used Vermithor and Silverwing to destroy Volantene forces as slaves rose up and broke their chains.
• Danyla named the four hatchlings Azure Scales, Vermilion Claws, White Teeth, and Black Armor, and grew a weirwood beside Chixiao's statue.
• Danyla and the temple priests cremated the dead in a Funeral Rite, strengthening Chixiao, the weirwood, and the dragons.
• Danyla built a Dragonstone Monument with the dead people's ashes, declaring that Volantis would be protected by Chixiao and her dragon emissaries.

Danyla prepared the realm for an approaching winter while settling the fate of Princess Senyra and Volantis’s remaining nobles. She left Aurelion to govern Volantis and ordered its exiled nobles sent to cultivate land near the Sea of Sighs.

• Danyla used the weirwood to confirm that northern cold and magical energy were increasing, warned the Citadel that winter was coming, and sent Sevan and Shirei to inspect the reserve granaries.
• Danyla restored Senyra’s princess status and granted her the title Duchess Qoh Targaryen and Coldhowl Castle, but threatened to send her to Ghost Hill when she complained.
• Danyla compelled Senyra to accept her grant and warned that only legitimate descendants bearing the surname Gaod Targaryen could inherit after passing a royal assessment.
• Aurelion proposed appointing Teran Rhaena governor of Volantis, and Danyla approved the appointment.
• Danyla told Aurelion to exile Volantis’s nobles and any willing slaves to Mataris, and ordered them to rebuild near the ruins of Baharasi despite Teran Rhaena’s warning about deformities and monsters.

Aurelion and Danyla planned to develop Baharasi and settle Volantis’s freed slaves according to their skills and preferences. Danyla then traveled with Rhaena to the edge of the Smoking Sea to improve its environment and establish a fortress, where the chapter left them facing the region’s hellish conditions.

• Aurelion agreed with Danyla’s plan to build a fortress at Baharasi and secure the trade route, while Teran Rhaena warned of monsters, bandits, disease, and extreme weather.
• Danyla explained that Volantis’s freed slaves needed different resettlement plans, then proposed farmland for willing farmers, jobs for skilled workers, and a chance for some to follow their former masters to Baharasi.
• Danyla proposed military farmland west and north of the Sea of Sighs, and Aurelion left with a new plan for Volantis.
• Aurelion and Teran Rhaena issued a decree offering land, supplies, and money to households volunteering to settle upstream along the Valanna River.
• Danyla asked Rhaena to take her on Silverwing to the Smoking Sea, where she planned to improve the harsh environment and build a fortress to guard Valyria’s ruins.
• Danyla and Rhaena reached the Smoking Sea, and Rhaena wondered aloud whether it was the hell described in books.

Danyla, Rhaena, Silverwing, and the hatchlings encountered deadly sea monsters near a submerged Valyrian Dragon-Taming Tower in the Smoking Sea. After the hatchlings landed on the tower and awakened a colossal creature, Danyla began a Blood Flame Sacrifice to fight it.

• Rhaena flew Silverwing toward the cliffs at Danyla’s direction, and Danyla discovered the remains of a Valyrian structure beneath the water.
• A tentacled sea monster attacked, but Danyla and the hatchlings used dragonfire to sever its limb while Silverwing drove it back with cobalt flames.
• Danyla insisted on investigating the enormous blackstone tower, which she recognized as a Valyrian Dragon-Taming Tower.
• Azure Scale and the other hatchlings ignored Danyla and landed on the tower, causing it to tremble as a gigantic creature rose from the sea.
• The creature attacked Silverwing and struck Rhaena with a mind-piercing sound, so Danyla cut her palm and cast Blood Flame Sacrifice at it.

Danyla and Rhaena used blood magic, weirwoods, and the Great Dragons to defeat sea monsters around the Dragon-Taming Tower and make the Smoking Sea safer. After Rhaena returned to Volantis with news, Danyla explored the tower, found strange eggs, and used them to grow more than a hundred weirwoods along the Sea of Sighs.

• Danyla burned a sea monster with blood flames and drained its strength by planting weirwood seeds in its body.
• Amoros and the other Great Dragons answered Danyla's summons and helped her kill the monsters around the Dragon-Taming Tower.
• Danyla and Rhaena planted seven weirwoods near the tower, where they transformed the surrounding magical energy and grew to over ten meters tall.
• Danyla sent Rhaena back to Volantis on Silverwing to report to Aurelion while she explored the Dragon-Taming Tower with the four young dragons.
• Danyla discovered over a hundred strange eggs, used them with Amoros to germinate weirwood seeds, and grew more than a hundred trees along the boundary between the Smoking Sea and the Sea of Sighs.

Danyla explored the strange forest by the Sea of Sighs, finding useful mutated plants and clashing with a herd of mutated bison alongside the young dragons. After they feasted, a dangerous rain transformed the landscape, and Danyla watched as poisonous mushrooms killed a hare.

• Danyla examined the sharp red grass and fragrant resin, considering their practical uses.
• Azure Scales attacked a herd of mutated bison, and the bison leader wounded the young dragon before the herd charged.
• Azure Scales, Redclaw, and the other young dragons drove off the bison with dragonfire, then feasted while Danyla cooked some of the meat.
• Danyla noticed the soil quickly decomposing the bison bones and returned with the young dragons to the Dragon-Taming Tower as the sky darkened.
• Danyla watched dark red rain transform the forest and saw a poisonous mushroom release spores that killed and dissolved a hare.

Danyla led the young dragons on a jungle hunt and tested them against a pack of Bone-Blade Direwolves. The wolves’ disciplined tactics and the wolf king’s deadly tail blade injured Azure Scales, White Teeth, and Vermilion Claws as the battle continued.

• Danyla trained the young dragons against the jungle’s mutant animals, while they hunted rabbits, Scabby Sheep, and Scaled Boars.
• Danyla led the dragons through the jungle, where Azure Scales sensed a Bone-Blade Direwolf pack approaching.
• Danyla guided the pack toward a rock face, then ordered Azure Scales, White Teeth, and Vermilion Claws to attack.
• Azure Scales and White Teeth killed wolves but suffered deep wing wounds as the pack surrounded them and struck from multiple directions.
• Vermilion Claws attacked the wolf king, but it blocked her claws and slashed her neck with its bone blade.

Danyla and the four young dragons fought the giant wolf pack and its formidable king, suffering wounds as they gradually overwhelmed their enemies. After Azure Scales’s dragonfire left the wolf king charred and weakened, Danyla approached to brand him with a blood pact.

• Red Claws, Black Armor, and Azure Scales attacked the wolf king, while Danyla struck him with her Valyrian steel sword’s flame slash.
• Danyla ordered the four young dragons to unleash dragonfire, tearing through the wolf pack, but the wolf king wounded Black Armor before Black Armor’s clubbed tail crippled him.
• The surviving wolves used the forest to ambush the dragons, who continued fighting despite their injuries as the wolf king returned to battle and badly wounded Azure Scales.
• Vermilion Claws, White Teeth, and Black Armor coordinated attacks on the wolf king, and Azure Scales engulfed him in electrically charged dragonfire.
• Danyla cut her palm and invoked a blood pact art, moving to brand the charred wolf king’s forehead with flaming runes.

Danyla strengthened her bond with the direwolf king and expanded his pack while Aurelion reported on Volantis and the region’s recovery. She laid out reforms to unify the Kingdom of Reclea and Holy Flame Island’s territories, warning Aurelion that their future enemies could come from across the world.

• Danyla completed a blood pact with the direwolf king, whose wounds healed and strength increased after receiving her blood essence.
• Danyla fed the direwolves sea monster carcasses, and the recovered wolf king helped her absorb nearby packs into his own.
• Aurelion arrived with Aegon and Aemond after reopening Dragonstone Avenue and reported on farmland recruitment, workshop production, and resettlement efforts.
• Danyla explained that Volantis required different policies because its people had lost their established livelihoods and were relying on relief.
• Danyla proposed abolishing feudalism, unifying currency and measures, and adopting Qi Yin’s refined Yi Ti-based language as the official language.
• Danyla stayed to help Aurelion carry out the reforms and warned him to prepare for threats from Slaver’s Bay, the Dothraki, the Summer Isles, and Westeros.

Danyla welcomed the children to the Smoke Sea Fortress and advised them on their restless great dragons, while the settlement and its surrounding trade routes expanded. As winter arrived, refugees and Free Folk were resettled, reforms were completed, and Dax returned to Danyla, who bore him a son and granted Cisland to Osirion.

• Danyla explained why she had stayed at the Smoke Sea Fortress and reassured the children that their great dragons would not leave if they stayed close and hunted with them.
• A hundred warships opened the fortress’s sea routes, and more than ten thousand Volantene criminals arrived to farm as exiles.
• Aurelion, Aegon, Aemond, and Rhaena completed the Baharasi Wall and Abaharasi City, while settlement and trade revived across the region.
• Lysandro unified the currency, weights, and measures of Westeros and the Kingdom of Reclea, and Qi Yin helped introduce a common continental script.
• As winter spread south, Danyla’s Free Folk settlers moved to the Smoke Sea Fortress, while the Wildlings who stayed behind were transferred to Cisland except for the Thenns.
• Dax returned, pursued Danyla until she bore their son Osirion, and Danyla granted Cisland to him.

Danyla established a fortified settlement around the Dragon-Taming Tower, where the transformed land supported abundant crops and livestock, while her children grew stronger and expanded their realms. When Ishys reported that a grain inspection had exposed nobles violating the law, Danyla upheld the penalties and warned Ishina to focus on preparing for winter rather than seeking more land.

• Danyla and Aurelion cleared the Dragon-Taming Tower, and the Second Legion built a fortress around it with the help of dragons and craftsmen.
• Danyla planted weirwoods and inscribed runes around the fortress, improving the water and surrounding environment as the Second Legion established farms.
• The first harvest yielded about twice the crops of other regions, and livestock born near the weirwoods grew larger and stopped producing malformed offspring.
• Rafa carried Hogras and the others across the Sunset Sea to hunt sea monsters, giving Danyla's children more experience riding dragons.
• Ishys told Danyla that inspectors had found thirteen earls and over a hundred lesser lords breaking grain laws, leading to the exile of four earls, sixty-three lesser lords, and their families.
• Ishina asked Danyla how the reclaimed lands would be distributed, and Danyla refused to grant her Acorn Hall while warning her to prepare her lands for winter.

As winter and the Long Night began, Danyla prepared to leave Cisland after strengthening its defenses and helping the North stock supplies. Dax stayed behind to rule and raise Osirion, while worsening cold disrupted trade and drove refugees from Lorath and Norvos into Andas and Rhoynar lands.

• Danyla inspected Rafa's dragon egg and warned Dax that winter and the Long Night might bring dangers despite Cisland's strong defenses.
• Dax promised to learn to govern and raise Osirion, whom the giants had already recognized as their Giant King.
• Winter buried the Frozen Shore, froze the Bay of Ice, and forced most of Bear Island's people to seek refuge at Oldstones.
• After years of worsening winter, Northern lords grew anxious as livestock dwindled and their grain stores ran low.
• Lorath and Norvos ran out of supplies, and Dothraki attacks devastated their caravans traveling toward Slaver's Bay.
• More than a hundred thousand refugees fled Lorath and Norvos for Andas and Rhoynar territory, where they were allowed to settle.

As winter devastated much of the world, Isilia prospered through rain, migration, and grain trade, while Ishys expanded the Kingdom of the Rhoynar by conquering Norvos. The chapter ended with Lorath surrendering and Ishys accepting some of its territory while offering aid to its people.

• Winter left much of Westeros and Essos starving, while Reclea’s cultivated lands supplied grain to neighboring kingdoms and Westeros.
• Daemon conquered Qarth and helped Isilia secure the Red Waste, where rain and newcomers fueled the kingdom’s growth.
• Isilia married Murong Zun, gave birth to Murong Huang, and named her heir; Daemon brought five dragon eggs for his granddaughter.
• Ishys marched on Norvos, where the lower city’s commoners welcomed her after its nobles abandoned them during winter.
• When Norvos’s bells disrupted Isalorn’s magic, Ishys stopped the dragon from attacking them and instead blasted open the upper city’s walls.
• Ishys annexed Norvos for the Kingdom of the Rhoynar, then accepted part of Lorath’s mainland and promised to help its people survive winter.

After Norvos fell, Qohor surrendered to Ishys, who founded the Andalos Kingdom and brought its people under unified rule. Meanwhile, Danyla’s kingdoms resettled refugees and weathered a severe winter, as the Seven Kingdoms Law and Central Bank reshaped the lords’ responsibilities and fortunes.

• Qohor’s nobles, facing winter hardship and the loss of their ally Norvos, sent Ishys a declaration of surrender three days after Norvos fell.
• Ishys accepted Qohor’s submission in exchange for five million Gold Dragons and weapons and equipment for ten thousand men, then proclaimed the Andalos Kingdom.
• The Andalos Kingdom distributed supplies during the winter, while remote communities gathered into towns and cities along the Rhoyne expanded.
• Reclea and Isilia took in refugees fleeing Slaver’s Bay, and Reclea resettled hundreds of thousands by year 126 of the Conqueror’s Calendar.
• Danyla coordinated winter relief from Holy Flame Island, while the Seven Kingdoms Law imposed penalties on lords whose people suffered excessive casualties.
• As the winter continued, lesser lords borrowed from the Central Bank, and wealth across the Seven Kingdoms flowed into it.

Omanrion's white dragon Mylar hatched, followed by many other dragons across the realm, while the four ancient eggs from Asshai remained unhatched. By 127, Danyla gave birth to Ilisa and decided she would have no more children, as House Targaryen's dragon numbers continued to grow.

• Omanrion's white dragon egg hatched into Mylar after Danyla used his blood to help him bond with the hatchling.
• Lann Lyon's and Ityla's nine-year-old eggs hatched into the golden Tabertan and red Tyratan, and Osirion's egg hatched into the aqua-blue, ice-and-fire dragon Titangor.
• Ovanrion worried that his ancient dragon egg had not hatched, but Danyla reassured him that a longer incubation could mean greater potential.
• Over the following year, House Targaryen's other dragon eggs hatched, bringing its dragon total to 119 besides the twenty-five that had flown away; the four Asshai eggs remained unhatched.
• In June of 127, Danyla gave birth to Ilisa, whose companion dragon was Aphrodite, and decided to have no more children.
• The High Septon feared the rising cost of dragon allowances, as the Faith of the Seven was already burdened with enormous loans and interest payments.

As the Long Winter began to ease, Rhaena died after giving birth, and Danyla investigated the circumstances before opposing Aurelion’s plan to make Teran Rhaena his queen. Danyla backed Helaena as his future queen, and Helaena bonded with Silverwing; the story left their marriage awaiting the end of Rhaena’s mourning period.

• Danyla flew to Volantis after Rhaena died in childbirth and discovered that Aurelion’s affair with Teran Rhaena had worsened Rhaena’s grief and anxiety.
• Aurelion asked Danyla to care for his son Aegon and proposed making Teran Rhaena his new queen, but Danyla rejected the plan on legal grounds.
• Danyla urged Aurelion to keep Teran Rhaena as a court lady and choose Helaena, the Holy Flame Temple’s holy maiden, as his queen.
• Three days later, Helaena bonded with Silverwing, and Danyla gave her a Valyrian steel sword named Moon Companion.
• Danyla trained Helaena in court etiquette and statecraft, while Helaena grew to love and respect her; Danyla expected Helaena to marry Aurelion after Rhaena’s year of mourning ended.

Danyla guided Helaena through spacetime, where they discovered the White Walkers had grown stronger and learned that dreams could affect reality. When they later searched for the future, Danyla found hostile demigods in the mist and declared that another Extreme Cold Long Night was coming.

• Danyla taught Helaena about ruling and showed her memories of House Targaryen’s struggles, but they encountered a vastly increased number of White Walkers near the Heart of Winter.
• Danyla used golden flames to escape with Helaena, then hurled her Valyrian steel sword Dawnlight into the Heart of Winter before returning to reality.
• Danyla recovered in the temple while Teran Rhaena brought Helaena clothes and jewelry from Aurelion, and the women shared a peaceful meal.
• As the long winter appeared to be ending, Danyla and Helaena entered the mists to investigate the future but found it obscured.
• Danyla used Proud Sun to set the mist ablaze, revealing a group of demigods who had joined forces against her.
• Danyla ordered that the Extreme Cold Long Night would return and commanded people to burn idols of the heretical faiths to survive.