Chapter Summaries

Stannis Baratheon received Corleone, an envoy bearing Tywin Lannister’s banner, after ordering the envoy killed and clashing with Melisandre over her influence. Corleone insulted Stannis’s claim to kingship, and Stannis sentenced him to burn alive.

• Stannis worried that Dragonstone’s supplies were running low while Melisandre promised a fleet and urged him to embrace his role as Azor Ahai.
• A knight reported that a Lannister envoy had arrived with Davos Seaworth, and Stannis ordered the envoy killed and his head sent to Tywin Lannister.
• Melisandre told the knight to bring in the envoy and Alester Florent, then challenged Stannis to burn traitors alive; Stannis warned her not to issue orders for him.
• Corleone entered and addressed Stannis as “my lord,” then mocked the many kings dying across the land when Stannis demanded he kneel and swear fealty.
• Stannis declared that Corleone would be burned alive.

Vito Corleone defended himself before Stannis Baratheon and proposed a deal to supply Dragonstone with food in exchange for Stannis’s cooperation. He presented Davos Seaworth and Gendry as his first gifts, then revealed a document promising ten thousand jin of Riverlands wheat.

• Stannis ordered Corleone seized and threatened to burn him, but released him after Corleone challenged his claim to fairness.
• Corleone argued that serving a rival lord was not inherently treasonous and recounted the injustices he had endured while struggling to survive.
• Stannis offered to pardon Corleone if he renounced the false king, but Corleone instead revealed that Tywin Lannister had sent him to negotiate Stannis’s surrender.
• Corleone warned that Dragonstone’s grain supply from Braavos was uncertain and offered to bring food from King's Landing, prompting Stannis to consider a deal.
• Corleone presented Davos Seaworth and Gendry as his first gifts; Stannis ordered them detained and confronted Davos over his repeated disobedience.
• Corleone handed Stannis a document listing ten thousand jin of premium Riverlands wheat as his second gift.

Vito Corleone offered Stannis Baratheon free grain and promised a steady supply of food, weapons, and other goods, but Stannis questioned whether the offer was a Lannister trap. To warn Corleone against deception, Stannis allowed Melisandre and Axell Florent to burn Alester Florent, then declared that the same punishment awaited anyone who tried to betray or manipulate him.

• Stannis Baratheon bought Corleone’s initial shipment of ten thousand jin of wheat, but Corleone returned the payment and declared it a gift with no conditions.
• Corleone promised to supply Dragonstone with one hundred thousand jin of wheat each month, along with medicine, clothing, shipbuilding materials, weapons, armor, horses, and ships.
• Stannis questioned whether Corleone’s offer was a Lannister scheme, and Axell Florent and the gathered guards called for Corleone to be burned.
• Melisandre ordered Axell to burn Alester Florent instead, and Stannis allowed the soldiers to drag his bound brother away and execute him by fire.
• Corleone watched Alester’s execution without visible emotion, while Stannis studied him and warned that Dragonstone’s fire would consume anyone who deceived or manipulated him.

Corleone offered Stannis a way to lift the siege of Storm's End, but Melisandre saw a vision in the flames of Stannis winning a great victory before being beheaded by a rider bearing Corleone's black-hand emblem. Fearing the vision would undermine Stannis's faith, she denounced Corleone, and Axell attacked him in the name of the Lord of Light.

• Corleone showed Stannis a map of Storm's End and promised that his third gift was a way to lift its siege.
• Corleone argued that threatening Margaery Tyrell's position as queen could force Mace Tyrell to abandon the siege and return to King's Landing.
• Melisandre saw a vision of a crowned-stag banner falling after a victorious figure was beheaded by a rider whose cloak bore a black hand.
• Melisandre suspected Corleone was connected to the vision but concealed its details from Stannis, warning instead that Corleone's help would lead him astray.
• Melisandre ordered Axell Florent to remove Corleone, and Axell drew his sword and struck at him.

Vito Corleone killed Axell Florent after Axell attacked him, then faced a renewed threat from Melisandre and her followers. Stannis Baratheon protected Corleone as his guest by killing two attacking knights, asserted his authority over Melisandre, and sent Corleone back to his guest chamber while Corleone privately resolved to repay Stannis later.

• Axell Florent attacked Vito Corleone, who disarmed him and killed him with his own sword.
• Corleone warned the guards not to challenge him, but Melisandre urged two young knights to attack him as a heretic.
• Stannis Baratheon intervened and killed both knights, declaring Corleone his guest and enforcing his safety.
• Stannis ordered the guards to obey his commands and warned Melisandre that he was king; she outwardly submitted to his authority.
• Stannis sent Corleone to rest in his guest chamber, while Corleone concealed his resentment and decided to settle the score later.

Davos challenged Stannis over the sacrifices demanded by Melisandre, while Corleone offered Gendry a way out of Dragonstone and a chance to see Arya again. Just as Corleone prepared to free Gendry, an enemy fleet attacked the island, and he began their escape amid the chaos.

• Davos confronted Stannis about burning people as sacrifices, comparing his actions to the Mad King, but Stannis defended his duty and left without changing his course.
• Gendry spoke with Davos about how the powerful treated common people as disposable, and Corleone revealed that Gendry was Robert Baratheon's bastard and had been targeted for his royal blood.
• Corleone offered to take Gendry away and promised Arya Stark would eventually seek him out; Gendry agreed to go with him.
• When Davos threatened to expose their escape, Corleone cut the pouch of severed fingers from Davos's neck instead of killing him, urging him to stop blindly serving Stannis.
• An enemy fleet attacked Dragonstone, and Corleone killed a soldier who entered the dungeon before unlocking Gendry's cell and preparing to escape with him.

Corleone freed Gendry from the dungeon during House Redwyne’s assault on Dragonstone and led him through the fighting. After rescuing a wounded Dragonstone knight from Redwyne soldiers, Corleone agreed to help him reach Lady Shireen.

• Corleone explained to Gendry and Davos that Tywin had used him as a decoy before launching the attack, then chose to escape with Gendry while Davos revealed a route to a hidden boat.
• Davos gave Corleone and Gendry directions to an abandoned drain and a boat, and Corleone secretly tossed Davos the key to his cell before leaving.
• Corleone rejected the boat route and guided Gendry through Dragonstone’s corridors, avoiding patrols with his sharp senses.
• Corleone claimed that he and Gendry served Davos, then joined a group of Stannis’s soldiers when they were trapped between them and House Redwyne’s men.
• As the two forces fought, Corleone stopped Gendry from joining the battle and watched until the Redwyne soldiers cornered a wounded knight.
• Corleone killed four Redwyne soldiers in seconds, then urged the injured knight to lead them to Lady Shireen.

As Dragonstone fell under attack, Corleone and Gendry found Shireen hiding in her room after her uncle Eron died protecting her. Shireen accepted Corleone as her godfather, and he then ordered Gendry to take up her antlered helmet and warhammer.

• Corleone, Gendry, and the mortally wounded Eron reached Shireen's locked room and found her hiding beneath the bed.
• Shireen reunited with Eron, and Gendry felt an unexpected connection to her warhammer as she told him it had been modeled after Robert's Hammer.
• Eron revealed that the Red Woman might sacrifice Shireen for victory and begged Corleone to take her away before dying.
• Corleone offered Shireen the choice of seeking King Stannis or accepting him as her godfather, and she chose his protection.
• Corleone swore to protect Shireen as his goddaughter, then told Gendry to put on her antlered helmet and pick up her warhammer.

Gendry wore an antlered helm and wielded Stannis’s warhammer, rallying Baratheon soldiers who mistook him for the returned King Robert. He defeated the Queen’s Men and saved Ser Andrew Estermont’s force, while Corleone watched from above with Shireen.

• Gendry used the warhammer to kill or disable three Redwyne soldiers, then rallied the battered Stannis loyalists to fight on.
• Ser Andrew Estermont led his knights toward Princess Shireen’s hiding place but was surrounded by Gaudi Farring and the Queen’s Men.
• Andrew refused to surrender Shireen to Melisandre’s followers and fought Gaudi Farring’s forces as his knights were overwhelmed.
• Gendry arrived wearing the antlered helm, killed Gaudi Farring with a hammer blow, and broke the Queen’s Men’s resolve.
• Ser Andrew knelt and hailed Gendry as King Robert, while Corleone explained to Shireen that some people stood in the sunlight and others worked in the shadows.

As Dragonstone’s defenses collapsed under the Redwyne assault, Stannis rallied his men but learned that Melisandre had ordered Shireen seized for sacrifice. Selyse died shielding Melisandre from an assassin, whom Stannis unmasked as Davos.

• Stannis ordered his scattered forces to fall back, regroup, and delay the Redwyne advance as reports described the loss of towers, docks, and outer walls.
• Ser Gerald Gower urged Stannis to retreat, but Stannis condemned his men’s despair and reminded them of their earlier campaign to unite the Seven Kingdoms.
• Selyse rushed in and begged Stannis to spare Shireen, revealing that Ser Gaudi Farring had been sent to seize her for a sacrifice; Melisandre admitted she had sent him.
• Melisandre rejected Selyse’s offer to take Shireen’s place because Selyse lacked the king’s blood, and an armored assassin lunged at the priestess.
• Selyse shoved Melisandre out of the dagger’s path and was stabbed in the heart; she died in Stannis’s arms after asking him to protect Shireen.
• Stannis knocked down the assassin, tore off his helmet, and recognized him as Davos.

Davos confessed that he had tried to kill Melisandre to prevent Shireen’s sacrifice, but accidentally killed Queen Selyse, leaving Stannis torn over whether to execute him. Before Stannis could decide, Leo Sunglass’s Lannister force stormed the terrace and nearly overwhelmed the defenders, until Robert Baratheon arrived in an antlered helmet and confronted Sunglass over Melisandre.

• Davos told Stannis that he had escaped prison to stop Melisandre from sacrificing Princess Shireen, but Selyse had thrown herself into his attack and died.
• Stannis considered executing Davos for the queen’s murder, but a battle cry from beyond the terrace interrupted him.
• Leo Sunglass and his Lannister troops burst through the terrace doors, and Leo revealed that he had joined Tywin to avenge his brother Gunthor, whom Selyse had ordered burned.
• Stannis and his guards fought Leo’s assault force as the Lannister soldiers drove them toward the cliff and Leo’s men reached Melisandre.
• Leo threatened Melisandre beside a brazier, but she foresaw an antler-helmeted warrior who would kill him with a warhammer.
• Robert Baratheon arrived with reinforcements, smashed the flagstones with his warhammer, and challenged Leo over what he intended to do to Melisandre.

Corleone saved Gendry from Leo Sunglass, rebuked him for risking his life over Melisandre, and helped defeat the Lannister forces on Dragonstone. After the battle, Corleone told Gendry to literally kill the woman he loved, and ordered him to do it while he watched.

• Leo Sunglass wounded Gendry and nearly killed him before Corleone intervened and stopped the fatal blow.
• Corleone mocked Gendry for disobeying orders to impress Melisandre, and Gendry knelt and apologized.
• Corleone defeated Sunglass while rebuking Gendry, then charged into the battlefield and killed the Lannister knights.
• Gendry killed the surrendered Sunglass and joined Corleone in finishing off the remaining enemies.
• Stannis asked Corleone why he had saved him, but Corleone ignored him and praised Gendry before warning him to sever his attachments.
• Corleone told Gendry that he meant his order to slay his beloved literally, pointed toward Melisandre, and told him to do it.

Gendry obeyed Corleone and struck Melisandre, but she survived through the power of her ruby necklace and proclaimed her visions of the Long Night. Corleone forced her to reveal a terrifying vision of him before destroying the necklace and killing her, then told Gendry the lesson was over.

• Corleone ordered Gendry to kill Melisandre, and Gendry overcame his hesitation and agreed.
• A fanatical knight tried to shield Melisandre, but Gendry killed him with his warhammer and then struck Melisandre, leaving her apparently dead.
• Corleone suspected Melisandre was still alive, tested her body, and discovered that her ruby necklace held a faint glow.
• Melisandre rose unharmed, declared herself protected by the Lord of Light, and urged Corleone and the survivors to join her cause.
• Corleone seized Melisandre by the throat and threatened to tear off her necklace until she revealed visions of the Long Night and screamed about hands reaching from the darkness.
• Corleone saw an immense void-like eye in Melisandre's gaze, tore away her necklace, and stabbed her; she aged into dust, and he told Gendry the lesson was over.

After Melisandre’s death, Corleone urged Stannis to use Gendry’s resemblance to Robert to rally the defenders of Dragonstone. Stannis legitimized Gendry as Gendry Baratheon, and as the Redwyne assault continued, Paxter Redwyne learned that Corleone remained unaccounted for.

• Stannis summoned Gendry, saw his resemblance to Robert and Renly, and asked about the warhammer he carried.
• Corleone warned that Dragonstone was badly outmatched and recalled how Garlan Tyrell’s impersonation of Renly had broken Stannis’s army at the Blackwater Rush.
• Corleone proposed that Gendry pose as Robert’s ghost to unsettle the Redwyne forces, but Stannis first condemned the plan as dishonorable.
• Stannis knighted Gendry in effect by declaring him legitimate, recognizing him as a member of House Baratheon, and naming him Gendry Baratheon.
• Paxter Redwyne heard that his troops had breached Dragonstone’s eastern wall and ordered them to keep searching for Corleone, whom Tywin wanted dead.
• A pale messenger rushed into Paxter’s cabin with urgent news from the front.

Paxter Redwyne withdrew his troops from Dragonstone and established a naval blockade after Gendry, disguised as an antlered ghost, helped rout the Redwyne landing force. As Stannis faced starvation, Corleone proposed accepting Paxter’s invitation to peace talks on terms of their own choosing.

• Paxter ordered Hobber to attack the supposed ghost, but Gendry’s fierce fighting and rumors of Robert’s return spread panic through the Redwyne troops.
• Hobber reported that his soldiers would not fight, so Paxter ordered a retreat and pulled most of his forces back to the fleet.
• Paxter chose to blockade Dragonstone, protect House Redwyne’s strength, and use the island’s dwindling food supplies to pressure Stannis.
• Stannis learned that Dragonstone had fewer than a thousand fit soldiers and food for at most twenty days, while Corleone warned that moldy supplies could bring a crisis within ten.
• Stannis offered to arrange for Corleone and Shireen to escape, but Corleone argued that the blockade made escape impossible.
• Corleone proposed accepting Paxter’s peace-talk invitation while choosing the time, place, and representatives himself.

House Redwyne’s negotiations with Stannis’s representatives on Dragonstone collapsed when Corleone manipulated Hobber Redwyne’s resentment toward his family. Hobber killed Ser Desmond and began considering an alliance with Corleone to become House Redwyne’s heir.

• Hobber Redwyne and Ser Desmond arrived on Dragonstone to negotiate with Corleone and Gendry Baratheon, and both sides accepted bread and salt under guest right.
• Desmond offered terms requiring Stannis to take the black and Dragonstone to return to royal control, but Corleone rejected them and challenged House Redwyne’s loyalty to the lawful succession.
• Desmond dominated the talks and repeatedly silenced Hobber, while Gendry remained quiet and deferred to Stannis’s decision.
• When Desmond tried to leave, Corleone threatened to hold Hobber hostage and taunted him about being a disregarded second son, prompting Hobber to imagine becoming heir if his elder brother Horas were gone.
• As Desmond dragged him toward the door, Hobber drew his sword and killed him, then listened as Corleone proposed they conceal the murder and work together toward their respective goals.

Hobber returned from Dragonstone with Corleone and convinced Paxter that Desmond had been executed and Stannis had agreed to surrender. After Paxter betrayed Corleone and ordered Hobber to kill him, Corleone revealed he had faked his death, and Hobber joined him in killing Paxter.

• Hobber claimed Stannis had executed Desmond and agreed to surrender Dragonstone in three days.
• Paxter decided that protecting Horas mattered more than honoring Stannis's surrender agreement and planned to use Corleone for leverage.
• Paxter persuaded Corleone to reveal the locations of his three secret vaults, then reneged on his promise and ordered him killed.
• At dinner, Hobber challenged Paxter about his future and learned he was expected to serve Horas as House Redwyne's second son.
• Hobber stabbed Corleone, but Corleone had feigned death and killed Paxter with the same dagger.
• Hobber admitted he wanted to be earl, and Paxter died aboard the Arbor Queen.

At Joffrey and Margaery’s wedding feast, Joffrey publicly humiliated Tyrion before being poisoned and dying, while news arrived that Vito Corleone had killed Paxter Redwyne and the Redwyne Fleet had rebelled. Tywin ordered Tyrion arrested for kingslaying and sealed off King’s Landing as the kingdom’s crises converged.

• Joffrey poured wine over Tyrion and forced him to drink before the wedding guests, then laughed at a dwarfs’ farcical play depicting the War of the Five Kings.
• Jaime confronted Tywin about sending Vito Corleone to Dragonstone as expendable bait, and declared that he would go there to bring Vito back.
• Joffrey collapsed at the feast with signs of poisoning and died in Cersei’s arms, after which Cersei accused Tyrion and had the Kingsguard seize him.
• Ser Addam Marbrand announced that Vito had killed Paxter Redwyne and that Hobber Redwyne had taken control of the rebel fleet and was sailing for the Arbor.
• Tywin ordered Tyrion confined in the Red Keep Dungeons, the Red Keep sealed, the ports controlled, and the Small Council assembled.

Rorge sought House Rykker’s help finding Vito Corleone, and Earl Ralf Leek tested his loyalty before Corleone revealed himself alive. After hearing how Tywin Lannister’s takeover had devastated Flea Bottom, Corleone condemned Tywin’s rule and declared his intent to show that Tywin did not know how to govern.

• Rorge asked Ralf Leek to help find Vito Corleone, and Ralf demanded that Rorge cut off his right hand as proof of his devotion.
• As Rorge raised the cleaver, Herb Lake and the living Corleone emerged from a side passage, and Ralf welcomed Corleone.
• Rorge told Corleone that Addam Marbrand and the Gold Cloaks had seized the House of Order, arrested Black Hand Mafia members, and imprisoned Yego in the Red Keep.
• Rorge described how the Gold Cloaks’ mismanagement had ruined gambling houses and brothels, closed grain outlets, and driven up food prices in Flea Bottom.
• Corleone challenged Herb Lake’s claim that Flea Bottom’s decline was normal, argued that Tywin’s policies amounted to plunder, and vowed to expose Tywin as a ruler who did not know how to govern.

After the Gold Cloaks’ takeover left Flea Bottom hungry, sick, and barricaded, Vito Corleone’s debts and the people’s testimony undermined the Lannisters’ efforts to discredit him. As Flea Bottom rose in revolt, Corleone returned and led the crowd into the streets, leaving Humfrey Waters fleeing and the uprising spreading toward the rest of King’s Landing.

• Marga joined Flea Bottom residents demanding bread after Tom said the Gold Cloaks had prevented flour from reaching his bakery, and she led Lina toward the House of Order to seek answers.
• Lasso revealed that Vito Corleone had borrowed more than sixty-two thousand Gold Dragons from pawnshops using collateral now seized by the Gold Cloaks, while Luna refused to falsely accuse Corleone during interrogation.
• Logan tortured Yego for evidence that Corleone had conspired with Stannis, but Yego resisted and answered with Dothraki beliefs about the stars and the Horse God.
• After the Gold Cloaks tried to seal Flea Bottom and violence escalated, thousands of residents marched toward the House of Order demanding bread, medical care, and Corleone.
• Corleone confronted Humfrey Waters, offered him money to resign and recommend Balman Byrch, then walked into the crowd and was carried through the streets as the people chanted his name.
• Humfrey accepted Corleone’s money and escaped through the back door as the torchlit uprising spread through Flea Bottom and lit the sky over King’s Landing.