A Dance with Dragons ÔÇö Quentyn I

Three Dornishmen bury a friend and take ship in Volantis under false names; Quentyn Martell carries a secret pact east toward a queen with dragons.

The chapter retold

Three young Dornishmen ÔÇö Quentyn Martell and his companions Gerris Drinkwater and Archibald Yronwood ÔÇö bury a friend lost to fever on the long road east and take ship out of Volantis under names that arenÔÇÖt their own. Quentyn, Prince DoranÔÇÖs heir apparent in all but the ordinary sense, is carrying a secret his father entrusted to almost no one: a marriage pact with Daenerys Targaryen, struck years before the dragons hatched, meant to bind Dorne to the Iron Throne through a queen instead of a king. He is a diffident, unglamorous young man asked to do a very glamorous thing, and the mismatch worries him more than the danger does.

The chapter quietly reintroduces DorneÔÇÖs long game ÔÇö Doran Martell playing decades ahead of everyone else at the table, sacrificing his own sonÔÇÖs comfort, and possibly his life, on a bet placed before RobertÔÇÖs RebellionÔÇÖs ashes had even cooled. QuentynÔÇÖs road toward Daenerys is framed from the start as a mismatch between plan and person: everything about the scheme is clever except the man sent to close it, who has spent his whole life being second choice and knows it. Nothing about this errand is going to be simple, and the book lets the reader feel that dread a full book before it matters.

This movement: The Lost Lords

• Tyrion drinks his way across the narrow sea in a wine cask, bound for a queen with dragons ÔÇö 'wherever whores go' ringing in his ears.
• Jon Snow rules the Wall: he sends Mance's son away in secret, gives Slynt one last order, and takes his head personally.
• Dany rules Meereen in a tokar while the Sons of the Harpy paint the bricks red by night.
• Bran travels north beyond the Wall with cold hands guiding ÔÇö toward a cave, a weirwood throne, and a thousand eyes.