Fire & Blood — The Dance of the Dragons — Rhaenyra Triumphant

The queen's arithmetic: the Red Sowing gives dragons to bastards and boasters — Hugh Hammer on Vermithor, Ulf White on Silverwing, Addam of Hull on Seasmoke — and the sky belongs to the blacks. The price is paid in the Gullet, where the Triarchy's ninety ships break the blockade and Prince Jacaerys falls with Vermax into the sea. But King's Landing cannot be held against six dragons: the gates open, Rhaenyra takes her father's throne — and the Hightower host coming up the roseroad meets betrayal at Tumbleton, where the Two Betrayers burn the town they were sworn to.

The chapter retold

Rhaenyra's high-water mark, and the section where every victory arrives welded to the loss that will undo it. The Red Sowing puts dragons under bastards and boasters — Hugh Hammer on Vermithor, Ulf the White on Silverwing, Addam of Hull on Seasmoke — and the sky belongs to the blacks, more dragons than the greens can ever answer. But the price comes due at once in the Battle of the Gullet, where the Triarchy's ninety ships break Corlys's blockade and Prince Jacaerys is lost with Vermax into the sea, last seen swimming as the Myrish crossbows found him: the queen's own heir, spent for a naval victory.

King's Landing cannot be held against six dragons, and the gates open; Rhaenyra takes her father's throne at last, the thing every oath in the premiere promised her. Fire & Blood lets her keep it for exactly as long as it takes the reader to remember what such victories cost in this history. Far to the south the Hightower host comes grinding up the roseroad only to meet betrayal at First Tumbleton, where the crown's own hired dragonriders, Hugh and Ulf, turn on the town they were sworn to defend and burn it — the Two Betrayers announcing, in fire, that dragonseed loyalty was always for sale, and that the war has no side left clean enough to root for.

This movement: The Fall of the Dragons

• The Red Sowing fills the black sky with bastard-ridden dragons; the Gullet breaks the blockade and takes the queen's heir under.
• King's Landing opens its gates; Rhaenyra sits her father's throne — and the city starves, whispers, and turns.
• Tumbleton burns twice-sworn; Helaena falls onto the spikes; the Shepherd's ten thousand storm the Dragonpit and butcher five dragons in their vaults.
• Above the Gods Eye, Daemon and Aemond end the question of the uncles the old way: Dark Sister, one eye, two dragons in the lake.

The fallen — spoilers

• Ser Steffon Darklyn — Burned on Dragonstone's slopes trying to claim Seasmoke — proof the dragons wanted blood, not pedigree.
• Prince Jacaerys Velaryon — The queen's heir, lost with Vermax in the Battle of the Gullet, last seen swimming as the Myrish crossbows found him.
• Lord Ormund Hightower — Commander of the green host, cut down at First Tumbleton when his own hired dragons turned.
• Ser Criston Cole — The Kingmaker, dead at the Butcher's Ball with three arrows in him — he refused to run, and the river lords obliged him.