60 AC, The Great Winter
The brutal winter had already lasted a full year.
The cold alone might have been endured, but a plague the maesters called the Shivers had begun spreading across Westeros, plunging the entire continent into chaos.
Outside Harrenhal stretched a vast plain.
The deep snows lay farther north, around the nearby towns. Here the ground was covered instead with yellowed winter grass. A steady drizzle fell from the gray sky, mixed with thin flakes of snow. When the wind rose, the damp chill cut deeper than snowfall ever could.
Standing before the castle's great gate in the biting wind was Rhaegar.
His grandmother, Rhaena Targaryen, had wrapped him in layer after layer of clothing. His arms stuck straight out from his sides, immobilized by the thick padding. A heavy white felt wind-cap covered his head, leaving only a pair of dark eyes visible through the swaddling.
Beside him stood Rhaena.
Not yet forty, she possessed a pale, refined beauty. The wind had brushed a faint flush onto her cheeks. Over her red noblewoman's gown patterned with black embroidery she wore a thick white fur cloak for warmth. Her long silver-gold hair was wound neatly atop her head, lending her an air both regal and striking.
Rhaegar kept his legs still but twisted his upper body toward her.
"Grandmother… how much longer must we wait?"
After four years living at Harrenhal, Rhaegar could now speak the Common Tongue fluently and write simple words as well.
"Soon," Rhaena replied softly.
She lowered her hand to brush the falling snowflakes from the boy's felt cap.
A dull ache throbbed again in the brand on Rhaegar's left shoulder. Turning his body the other way, he asked,
"Will the king come riding the Bronze Fury?"
"The king and queen will arrive on dragonback shortly," Rhaena answered. "The servants' wagons will take three more days to reach us."
Seeing the boy wriggling again, she grabbed him by the collar to stop him.
The friction of cloth against skin created a trace of warmth. When heat touched the branded mark on his shoulder, the searing pain eased slightly.
So Rhaegar twisted inside his thick layers like a beetle trapped in armor, enduring the ache while staring up into the gray sky.
It would not be long now.
Soon two dragons would descend from the clouds.
When they arrived, all three dragons in Westeros currently ridden by dragonriders would be gathered here at Harrenhal.
From the stories Rhaena told him, dragons were the living legacy of the Valyrian Freehold, whose empire had endured for five thousand glorious years.
After the Doom destroyed that empire, the surviving dragons had continued to live and breed on Dragonstone. There were now more than a dozen known dragons by name.
But only those of Targaryen blood, the blood of dragonlords, could win a dragon's acceptance and mount its back.
King Jaehaerys Targaryen's dragon was Vermithor, known as the Bronze Fury.
Violent in temperament and immense in size, he was the third largest dragon alive. When Vermithor spread his wings, he could cast the Red Keep itself into shadow.
Queen Alysanne's dragon was Silverwing, a dragon with pale green scales and shining silver wings. Ranked roughly seventh in size, she shared her rider's gentle temperament. Dragonkeepers could walk close to her without fear, even feeding her by hand.
The final dragonrider present was the woman standing beside Rhaegar,
Rhaena Targaryen.
Unable to move with his clothes being held, Rhaegar withdrew his hands into his sleeves and twisted again within the thick layers.
He looked up at the towering ruins of Harrenhal's broken towers.
This world…
It seems like the world of A Song of Ice and Fire.
And yet… it isn't.
Rhaegar pondered quietly.
First, there was the Ancient Scrolls game system inside his mind.
Whenever he closed his eyes and focused, it appeared within his consciousness.
But every time he entered the system, all he saw was endless darkness, except for a small spinning circle in the lower right corner.
Still loading.
Then there were the names.
Targaryen. Baratheon. King's Landing. Storm's End.
The places and family names all matched the world he remembered.
Yet none of the people here, and none of the dragons with known names, were familiar.
Even the famous Kingsroad seemed not to exist yet.
The skull of Balerion, which in the stories should have rested in the Red Keep's throne hall, belonged instead to a dragon still alive and flying.
The television series he had watched in his previous life was utterly useless here.
After much thought, Rhaegar reached a simple conclusion:
He had arrived a little too early in history.
Harrenhal, built by the tyrant Harren the Black, had been destroyed sixty years earlier by the very dragon that once saved Rhaegar, Balerion.
The dragon's flames had melted the five enormous towers like wax, leaving only jagged stumps. The towers' current names were given later by those who inherited the ruins.
Rhaegar and his household lived in Kingspyre Tower.
Empty towers nearby included Widow's Tower, whose base contained vast prison cells, and the Tower of Dread, whose enormous vaults stretched underground. Another was the Wailing Tower.
The tallest ruin of all, the Tower of Terror, was now claimed by a dragon.
Dreamfyre, Rhaena's dragon.
Dreamfyre possessed a slender, graceful form. Her pale blue scales were streaked with delicate silver lines, and her wings shimmered in soft blue with silver ridges along her spine. Behind her dragon's head curved a pair of elegant silver horns.
Across the Seven Kingdoms, people often said she was the most beautiful dragon alive.
Rhaegar gazed upward toward the silver-blue dragon perched high upon the tower.
As if sensing his gaze, Dreamfyre slowly uncoiled her long neck and lowered her head over the tower's edge, staring back at him.
"Mind your manners!"
Rhaena noticed Rhaegar spinning inside his clothes again and crouched down, gathering her skirts to fix his layers.
Rhaegar and Rhaena were not the only ones waiting in the freezing wind.
Everyone living in Harrenhal had gathered here.
The castle's lord, Lord Maegor Towers, was frail and sickly. Only sixteen years old, his face was pale and his lips tinged blue.
He was the last surviving member of his house.
His wealth was nearly gone. His entire household consisted of one cook and three aging soldiers.
Having grown weary of court politics, Rhaena had moved to Harrenhal years earlier with four handmaids, three cooks, one dragon...
and Rhaegar.
That brought the population of the largest castle in Westeros to a grand total of fourteen people.
One old soldier held Lord Towers' banner: five black towers on a white field.
Another carried Rhaena's banner: the three-headed red dragon of House Targaryen.
Lord Towers sat on a small wooden stool, wrapped in a faded robe. The crooked wooden cane in his hand seemed almost as dear to him as the robe itself.
Smiling weakly, he said to Rhaena,
"King Jaehaerys was quite restless as a boy too. A lively lad is a healthy lad."
"Rhaegar is too lively," Rhaena replied sternly. "One day he'll fall into the Gods Eye and drown."
Her tone sounded harsh, but her concern for the boy was plain.
"Haha… I've seen him swim in the bathhouse before-"
Lord Towers began coughing violently before he could finish.
Watching him cough like that, Rhaegar half-expected the man to cough up his lungs.
A gray-haired soldier, nearly fifty, hurried over. He had served the Towers family since childhood and helped raise the young lord.
He loosened the top button of Lord Towers' collar and gently patted his back.
"The clothes are tight," Lord Towers said awkwardly. "I wished to look presentable before the king."
In truth, he had already sold nearly everything he owned just to survive.
The robe he wore was the only respectable garment left to him. Wearing it over thick winter padding made it painfully tight.
Once, Rhaegar had asked Rhaena why she did not simply gift him better clothes.
She had not answered, only told him to observe.
Eventually, Rhaegar understood.
This was a matter of noble dignity and pride.
After finishing with Rhaegar's clothing, Rhaena stood and asked,
"Have you taken your medicine today?"
Lord Towers shook his head gently.
"The apothecary has not visited in two months."
"Damn this winter!" Rhaena cursed the sky.
"And damn this plague!"
The servants beside her nodded grimly.
The seasons of Westeros followed no fixed rhythm.
Sometimes summer lasted ten years, called the Long Summer.
Other times winter arrived with brutal severity.
This winter had buried even the mountains of the Westerlands beneath snow.
And now, as winter slowly faded, the plague had arrived.
The disease the maesters called the Shivers showed no mercy. It cared nothing for rank or birth, commoner or noble alike.
Once infected, there was no cure.
The plague had spread across the Seven Kingdoms, through King's Landing, and even to Dragonstone across the sea.
Lord Lyman Lannister of the Westerlands had died from it at the end of the previous year.
Just days ago, Princess Daenerys Targaryen, only seven years old, had also succumbed.
From the moment the chills began until death took her had been less than half a day.
Even the Red Keep was no longer safe.
Through his correspondence, King Jaehaerys eventually learned that there was one place where the plague had not appeared.
After discussing the matter with Queen Alysanne, he made a decision.
Two royal princes, and two Baratheon children fostered at court, would be sent to Harrenhal to wait out the plague.
Situated beside the Gods Eye in the Riverlands, Harrenhal was the largest castle in Westeros.
Built by the ironborn tyrant Harren the Black, it had been melted by Balerion's flames during Aegon's Conquest.
Though located in the Riverlands, the castle had remained property of the royal crown ever since.
Normally it would be granted to a noble family as a reward for service.
If that house lost its titles or died out, the crown reclaimed the castle and granted it to someone else.
Four years earlier, at Rhaena's request, King Jaehaerys had allowed her to settle there.
The plague had not spread to Harrenhal.
Not because of any miracle cure.
But because the castle was so empty that disease had no one to infect.
Fourteen residents.
Even the rats had either starved or fled elsewhere.
Just as everyone began shivering in the freezing wind—
Two shadows descended from the clouds.
"They're here!" Rhaegar cried, the first to notice.
"Stand still," Rhaena warned quickly. "Do not embarrass us."
The old soldier helped Lord Towers to his feet.
Rhaegar stood beside Rhaena's leg while the servants formed a neat line behind them.
BOOM. BOOM.
With two heavy impacts, the dragons landed on the distant grasslands.
One large.
One smaller.
They folded their wings close against their bodies and began walking slowly toward the waiting group on all fours.
The king had arrived.
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