A Dance with Dragons
Chapters - George R. R. Martin
Prologue
The dying skinchanger Varamyr Sixskins stumbles through the frozen wilderness, remembering the cruelties of his youth and the dark arts his master Haggon forbade him. As his body fails, he commits the greatest abomination by attempting to seize the body of his companion Thistle, but she fights him off and he perishes, waking at last inside the body of one of his wolves. Later, his pack discovers Thistle among the dead, her blue eyes gleaming with the cold malice of a wight.
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 1: Tyrion I
Tyrion crosses the narrow sea in a wine-soaked haze of guilt and self-loathing, smuggled in a barrel to the Pentoshi manse of Magister Illyrio Mopatis. Over a tense supper of mushrooms that may or may not be poisoned, Illyrio dismisses both Stannis at the Wall and Myrcella in Dorne as lost causes, and tells Tyrion that Westeros needs a saviour from across the sea. When Tyrion asks who that might be, Illyrio answers with a smile: a dragon with three heads.
POV: Tyrion Lannister·On page: Illyrio Mopatis
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 2: Daenerys I
Daenerys is presented with the butchered body of Stalwart Shield, the first of her Unsullied soldiers murdered by the Sons of the Harpy, his sword stolen and the genitals of a goat stuffed down his throat. She holds court in her tokar and refuses Cleon's offer of alliance against Yunkai, denies Hizdahr zo Loraq's sixth plea to reopen the fighting pits, and pardons a boy who tries to attack her after she cannot punish the slaves who murdered his family. The day ends when a man empties a sack of charred bones on the marble floor, and Barristan recognises them as the remains of a child killed by her dragons.
POV: Daenerys Targaryen
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 3: Jon I
Jon wakes from a wolf dream in which Ghost hunts south of the Wall, sensing that Grey Wind is dead but Summer, Shaggydog, and Nymeria still live. He treats with Stannis, who has received nothing but rejection letters from the northern lords and demands castles from the Night's Watch, but Jon refuses and offers to garrison the abandoned forts himself. As he departs, Melisandre follows him beneath the Wall and warns him of daggers in the dark and enemies at his back, parting with the words that haunt him most: you know nothing, Jon.
POV: Jon Snow·On page: Stannis Baratheon
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 4: Bran I
Bran journeys through the haunted forest toward the three-eyed crow, skinchanging into Summer to hunt and even slipping into Hodor despite the giant's distress, while Jojen grows weaker by the day. Coldhands rides ahead on his dying elk to deal with unnamed foes, and Meera observes that the ranger never breathes, eats, or sleeps. When Bran enters Summer to find shelter, the wolf discovers a pack led by another warg and defeats him, claiming the pack and the choicest portions of flesh from the dead men in black beneath the snow.
POV: Bran Stark
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 5: Tyrion II
Tyrion rides east in Illyrio's litter, learning that he is to meet a sellsword called Griff in Volantis and together escort Daenerys to Westeros. Illyrio tells the tale of how Varys and he were thieves together in Pentos, building a network of little birds that eventually drew the attention of the Mad King Aerys. Over several days of travel through the hills of Andalos, the magister reveals that the Golden Company has broken its contract with Myr and will fight for the dragon queen, for she alone can give those exiles what the Blackfyres never could: a way home.
POV: Tyrion Lannister
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 6: The Merchant's Man
Quentyn Martell, disguised as a wineseller's servant, searches the docks of Volantis for passage to Meereen to fulfil his father's command to marry Daenerys. His party has already lost three companions to corsairs on the crossing from Dorne, and every captain they approach refuses to risk the war-torn waters of Slaver's Bay. When they encounter a party of Windblown sellswords recruiting for the war against Meereen, Archibald Yronwood suggests a path less honourable but faster than any other.
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 7: Jon II
Jon forces a devastated Gilly to surrender her own child and take Mance's son south in his place, warning her that Melisandre will burn the babe for the power in a king's blood. He sends Sam to the Citadel to train as a maester, dispatching him with Gilly, the baby, and the failing Maester Aemon by ship from Eastwatch. When Lord Janos Slynt refuses a command twice and mocks him before the entire garrison, Jon has him dragged outside and strikes off his head with Longclaw, and from the steps of the King's Tower, Stannis meets his eyes and nods.
POV: Jon Snow·On page: Mance Rayder
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 8: Tyrion III
Tyrion meets Haldon Halfmaester and Ser Rolly Duckfield, who take him from Illyrio's litter under the alias Hugor Hill and ride to the banks of the Little Rhoyne. They board the poleboat Shy Maid, where he encounters the enigmatic Griff and the purple-eyed boy called Young Griff. Tyrion studies the older man and recognises him as no ordinary sellsword, but a knight who can read, and promises to serve Daenerys faithfully while privately wondering what he will find at journey's end.
POV: Tyrion Lannister
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 9: Davos I
Davos is captured on Sweetsister after Salladhor Saan's fleet was wrecked by storms and the pirate abandoned Stannis's cause, leaving his old friend stranded. Lord Godric Borrell tells him that Tywin Lannister is dead, that the Freys have reached White Harbor, and that Lord Manderly has pledged allegiance to King Tommen. Borrell recounts how his father once sheltered Ned Stark during Robert's Rebellion rather than turn him over to the Targaryens, and decides to let Davos go on his way under the same terms: if Stannis loses, Davos was never there.
POV: Davos Seaworth
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 10: Jon III
Melisandre burns Mance in a cage of haunted-forest wood before the assembled wildlings, and the King-Beyond-the-Wall goes to his death begging and shrieking, all courage gone. Jon orders his archers to loose arrows into the pyre as a mercy, and Stannis draws the blazing Lightbringer, promising the wildlings food, land, and justice if they kneel. Most of the captive free folk pass through the gates to bend the knee, feeding R'hllor's fires with fragments of weirwood, though Jon notes privately that Stannis's miraculous sword gives off brilliant light but no heat at all.
POV: Jon Snow
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 11: Daenerys II
The Sons of the Harpy escalate their campaign, ambushing fully armed Unsullied in pairs and killing nine, including one of Missandei's brothers. Daenerys imposes a blood tax on the noble families to fund a new city watch and locks down two houses attempting to flee, then receives a cryptic warning from Quaithe through magic: the glass candles are burning, and kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon are all coming for her. Barristan defends Ned Stark's memory when Daenerys denounces him as a traitor, and reveals that her remaining unchained dragon Drogon has vanished north toward the Dothraki Sea.
POV: Daenerys Targaryen·On page: Missandei
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 12: Reek I
Big Walder and Little Walder descend into the dungeons of the Dreadfort to fetch the broken creature who knows his name is Reek, though he once had another. The wretched prisoner remembers his failed escape with the bedwarmer Kyra, who suffered horribly at the hands of Ramsay's hounds, and his own flayed fingers and toes. When Arnolf Karstark recognises the ruined man as Theon, Ramsay promises his pet a bath, for he rides to war and needs Reek's help to bring home a bride.
POV: Theon Greyjoy·On page: Ramsay Bolton, Roose Bolton
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 13: Bran II
Coldhands leads Bran and his companions up a steep, snow-covered hill toward a cave, but the Others lurk close and wights erupt from the frozen ground around them. Bran falls from Hodor's back as the dead men rise, enters Hodor's mind to help him fight, and crawls the last fifty yards toward the firelight while someone sets the wights ablaze behind him. Inside the cave, beyond the ward that bars the dead, they descend through a floor of ancient bones to find a skeletal figure seated on a throne of tangled roots: the three-eyed crow, the last greenseer.
POV: Bran Stark
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 14: Tyrion IV
Aboard the Shy Maid, Griff has banned Tyrion from wine, and the dwarf fills his days writing everything he knows of dragonlore while playing the fool in motley. He challenges Haldon Halfmaester to a game of cyvasse, wagering information against information, and wins a secret he keeps to himself. As the boat passes the ruined Rhoynish city of Ny Sar, a massive turtle surfaces from the river, and Yandry proclaims it the Old Man of the River, while Tyrion reflects that gods and wonders always attend the birth of kings.
POV: Tyrion Lannister
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 15: Davos II
Davos arrives at White Harbor aboard the Merry Midwife and finds the city newly fortified, with a warship flying King Tommen's banner docked in the harbour. He takes a seat at the Lazy Eel to listen for gossip, learning that the Freys have come with the bones of Ser Wendel Manderly and marriage proposals, and hears a Braavosi oarsman speak of Daenerys and her three dragons in the east. Seeing little hope but bound by duty, Davos shows his seals as Stannis's Hand and demands an audience with Lord Wyman Manderly.
POV: Davos Seaworth
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 16: Daenerys III
Daenerys hosts Xaro Xhoan Daxos, who offers her thirteen galleys if she abandons Meereen and sails for Westeros at once, provided she resumes trading in slaves. She refuses his advances and his terms, and when she tells him she cannot leave, his flattery vanishes into naked threat: she will die screaming, and he should have killed her in Qarth. The next day, after she refuses to defend Astapor against Yunkai, an emissary delivers a bloody glove, and the Qartheen have declared war.
POV: Daenerys Targaryen
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 17: Jon IV
Jon discovers the Watch's stores cannot feed his men, the wildlings, and Stannis's army through winter, and grimly orders rations cut. He advises Stannis on the ways of the northern lords and bluntly tells the king that his planned assault on the Dreadfort will fail, explaining that the castle is nearly impregnable and the Boltons will outnumber him five to one. In a private audience, Jon refuses Winterfell once more, then counsels Stannis to march through the mountains, rally the highland clans to his banner, and strike Deepwood Motte to prove himself to the north, a plan the king grudgingly accepts.
POV: Jon Snow
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 18: Tyrion V
The Shy Maid drifts through the eerie fog of the Sorrows past the drowned palace of Chroyane, and Tyrion drops his pretences, revealing that he has deduced Young Griff is truly Aegon Targaryen and that Griff is Jon Connington, Rhaegar's exiled friend and former Hand of the King. Before anyone can respond, stone men hurl themselves from the ruins onto the boat, and in the chaos of the attack Tyrion is dragged beneath the black water by one of the afflicted, sinking into darkness.
POV: Tyrion Lannister
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 19: Davos III
Davos is held for eighteen days in a comfortable chamber of the New Castle at White Harbor before being brought to Lord Wyman Manderly's court. He pleads Stannis's cause, but the Frey envoys counter with their lie that Robb Stark transformed into a wolf at the Red Wedding, and young Wylla Manderly's passionate defence of the Starks is overruled by her grandfather. Lord Manderly calls for Davos's head and has him dragged off to the Wolf's Den as a traitor, though something in the old lord's performance strikes Davos as a show staged for Frey eyes.
POV: Davos Seaworth
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire