Fire & Blood ÔÇö The Dance of the Dragons ÔÇö The Blacks and the Greens

The king is a day dead before the green council has crowned a new one: Aegon, the Conqueror's crown on his head, anointed before the mob in the Dragonpit while his sister labors on Dragonstone, unknowing. Grand Maester Orwyle is sent with terms; Rhaenyra answers with her father's crown on her own head. The realm chooses sides ÔÇö the Vale, the North and the rivers for the queen, Oldtown, the Rock and Storm's End for the king. And at Storm's End, in a storm, Vhagar falls upon a boy flying home with an answer.

The chapter retold

The war begins not with a battle but with a delay: a king a full day dead before the realm outside his chamber is told, the interval spent making certain the crown is already on Aegon's head before anyone can invoke the succession Viserys spent a lifetime swearing lords to. The greens crown their king before the mob in the Dragonpit with the Conqueror's own crown; Rhaenyra, laboring on Dragonstone, answers the news by setting her father's crown on her own head. Two monarchs, one throne, and a realm forced to choose ÔÇö the Vale, the North, and the riverlands for the queen; Oldtown, the Rock, and Storm's End for the king.

The section's hinge is a single death in a storm. Rhaenyra, still trying to fight a war of envoys rather than dragons, sends Lucerys to Storm's End to treat with Borros Baratheon ÔÇö and finds Aemond and Vhagar already there. What follows over Shipbreaker Bay, whether Aemond meant murder or only meant to frighten his cousin, takes Arrax and Lucerys both, and Fire & Blood names it exactly: the point of no return. A succession dispute conducted by councils becomes, in one rain-lashed instant, a war fought between children on the wing, and no peace after this will cost less than the war itself.

This movement: A Question of Succession

• The council of 101 sets the precedent ÔÇö the realm will not have a woman ÔÇö and Viserys spends his reign unsetting it for his daughter.
• Two courts grow inside one Red Keep: the queen's greens and the princess's blacks, named at a tourney and armed within a generation.
• Daemon and the Sea Snake win the Stepstones; marriages, funerals and one convenient corpse bind Targaryen to Velaryon twice over.
• The king dies; the greens crown Aegon in the Dragonpit; the blacks crown Rhaenyra on Dragonstone ÔÇö and Vhagar kills a boy over Shipbreaker Bay.

The fallen ÔÇö spoilers

• Lord Lyman Beesbury ÔÇö Master of coin, the one green councillor to say 'treason' aloud. Opened at the throat, or dead of a chill in a black cell ÔÇö the accounts differ on everything but the timing.
• Prince Lucerys Velaryon ÔÇö Lost with Arrax in Shipbreaker Bay ÔÇö a messenger, unarmed, run down by Vhagar in the rain. The Dance's point of no return.