In the shadow of the Citadel at Oldtown, a novice named Pate waits through a long night at the Quill and Tankard for a mysterious alchemist who promised to turn iron into gold. He has stolen an Archmaester's master key in exchange for a single gold dragon, the price of the girl he loves. When the alchemist finally appears at dawn with his nondescript face, the trade is made, but Pate collapses dead on the cobblestones moments later, the coin still warm in his hand.
Aeron Greyjoy, the Drowned God's prophet, drowns men on the shores of Great Wyk when word reaches him that his brother Balon is dead and Euron Crow's Eye has seized the Seastone Chair. Repulsed by his godless brother's claim, Aeron recalls Balon's wish for Asha to succeed him and dismisses Theon as likely dead. After days of prayer at Pebbleton, inspiration strikes him like a crashing wave, and he calls for a kingsmoot on Old Wyk, where the ironborn shall choose their king in the ancient way.
At the Water Gardens, Prince Doran receives each of the Sand Snakes in turn as they demand vengeance for their father Oberyn. Obara wants open war, Nymeria whispers of assassination, and sweet Tyene counsels crowning Myrcella to provoke the Iron Throne into marching on Dorne. Doran refuses them all with measured patience, and after the last has departed, he commands Areo Hotah to imprison every one of them, praying that Lord Tywin hears the howls of Dorne and knows what a loyal friend he has in Sunspear.
Cersei wakes from a nightmare of the Iron Throne tearing her flesh to learn that her father has been murdered, shot with a crossbow on his privy. She races to the Tower of the Hand, finding Tywin's body already cold and a secret passage yawning behind the hearth, while Jaime descends into the tunnels below. When she discovers the strangled whore in her father's bed, Cersei orders the Kettleblacks to dispose of the body and silence all who know, then turns to Jaime with a whispered plea that he become Hand, only to be refused and mocked before the assembled court.
Brienne rides toward Duskendale in search of Sansa, questioning every traveller she meets without speaking the girl's name. She falls in with two hedge knights and later encounters Ser Shadrich, who reveals he too hunts Sansa for the bounty Varys has offered. Disturbed that her careful descriptions have already betrayed her quarry's identity, Brienne slips away from the inn alone at nightfall, swearing she will not fail Jaime as she failed Renly and Lady Catelyn.
Deep beneath Castle Black, Sam searches for any scrap of knowledge about the Others while Jon Snow labours above to prepare the Watch for the wars to come. Jon reveals his plans to send Sam to the Citadel to train as a maester, along with Gilly, her babe, and the ailing Maester Aemon, a journey that terrifies Sam to his core. Before they part, Jon gives Sam one final command: never call himself a craven again.
Arya sails into Braavos aboard the Titan's Daughter, passing beneath the great colossus that guards the harbour, and is rowed to the steps of the House of Black and White. Inside the dark temple of the Many-Faced God, among the dying and the dead, a kindly man in a cowl asks her name until she admits she is Arya. He shows her a face of horror and decay, but she sees through the glamour, and when he asks if she is hungry, she thinks: yes, but not for food.
Cersei presides over her father's wake at the Great Sept of Baelor, where the stench of Tywin's decomposing body fills the nave and Tommen fidgets beside her. She spars with Mace Tyrell over his uncle's appointment as Master of Coin, installs the sickly Gyles Rosby in the post instead, and bristles at the Queen of Thorns' refusal to leave until Margaery is wed. That evening, Kevan refuses to serve as Hand unless Cersei removes herself to Casterly Rock, and parts with the cutting revelation that he knows the truth about her children's parentage.
Standing vigil over his father's bier, Jaime is consumed by guilt and memory, recalling Rhaegar's last words before riding to the Trident and his own role in freeing Tyrion from the black cells. Cersei comes to him in the night, begging once more that he take up the office of Hand, but he refuses her again. The next morning, when Tommen retches from the nauseating smell and Jaime takes the boy outside to comfort him, the golden knight advises his nephew to go away inside when the world becomes too much to bear.
Brienne reaches Duskendale and speaks with the castellan, who tells her that many have already come asking after Dontos Hollard and Sansa, and that Duskendale is the last place a Hollard would flee. She meets a dwarf septon who mentions a man called Nimble Dick in Maidenpool bragging about smuggling a fool and two girls across the Narrow Sea. That night she dreams of Renly dying, but when the shadow's victim falls, the face beneath the crown is Jaime's.
In the Eyrie, Marillion sings ceaselessly from his open cell while Sansa steels herself to corroborate his false confession to Lysa's murder. She weeps before Nestor Royce and his son as she tells her lies, and her fright makes her all the more convincing. Littlefinger rewards Nestor with a hereditary grant to the Gates of the Moon, binding the man's loyalty to his own survival, and that night young Robert creeps into Sansa's bed and asks if she is his mother now.
Asha waits at Ten Towers for supporters who never come, then climbs to the Book Tower where her uncle Rodrik the Reader warns her that no woman has ever ruled the ironborn and that Euron will kill his rivals. He offers her the safety of his castle, but she refuses and descends to find Tristifer Botley, whose father Euron murdered, begging for her hand. She rebuffs him sharply, reminding him she is his queen, not his wife.
Tommen and Margaery wed in a modest ceremony, and Cersei watches the festivities through a haze of wine and suspicion, haunted by the prophecy of a younger, more beautiful queen who will cast her down. She recalls the words of Maggy the Frog and studies Margaery with fresh dread, while Lady Taena Merryweather whispers that one of Cersei's own maids is a spy for the Tyrells. As the night ends, Cersei leads the court outside to watch the pyromancers set the Tower of the Hand ablaze with wildfire, and she lingers arm in arm with Ser Osmund Kettleblack long after the others have gone to bed.
Ser Arys Oakheart slips through the shadow city of Sunspear for a secret tryst with Princess Arianne Martell, tormented by the oaths he has broken. Arianne unravels every scruple with seductive words and historical precedent, invoking Criston the Kingmaker and the Dornish law of equal inheritance to convince him that Myrcella should be crowned queen. She weeps and trembles in his arms as she tells him of her father's plan to pass Dorne to her brother Quentyn, and by dawn the Kingsguard knight has sworn to defend both his princesses, no matter the cost.
Brienne arrives at Maidenpool and is brought before Randyll Tarly, who dismisses her quest but cannot deny the royal warrant Jaime gave her. She learns that Lysa Arryn is dead, removing one possible refuge for Sansa, and later waits at the Stinking Goose for Nimble Dick Crabb, remembering the cruel wager the knights at Highgarden once placed on her maidenhead. Dick arrives and spins his tale of a frightened fool seeking passage for three, and agrees to lead her to an old smuggler's cove past Crackclaw Point.
Sam struggles to keep his charges alive aboard the Blackbird as they sail for Braavos, with Gilly inconsolable and Maester Aemon growing weaker by the day. The ancient maester tells stories of travelling to the Wall with Duncan the Tall and Bloodraven, but when Sam finally looks closely at the babe in Gilly's arms, he realizes Jon switched the babies to save Mance Rayder's son from Melisandre's fires. Aemon murmurs that he can only guess what threats the Lord Commander made, and Sam is shaken to understand the terrible price Gilly has paid.
Jaime rides alongside Tywin's funeral procession and tries to speak with his uncle Kevan, who coolly reveals that he knows the truth about the twins. Returning to King's Landing, Jaime finds Cersei raging over Bronn naming Lollys's bastard Tyrion, and warns her she is making foes of friends and seeing dwarfs in every shadow. In the White Sword Tower, he speaks with Loras Tyrell about the Kingsguard's history, reminding the young knight that the most infamous brothers are remembered alongside the most famous, and that some men are not easily placed in either camp.
Cersei convenes her new small council, stacked with men she considers meek and loyal, and sets about governing the realm with reckless confidence. She defers the crown's debts to the Faith and the Iron Bank, dismisses the envoy from Braavos, plots to have Jon Snow assassinated at the Wall, and schemes to entrap Margaery by ordering Osney Kettleblack to seduce the young queen. That night she instructs Lady Taena to drop hints of a secret admirer in Margaery's ear, never doubting that her web of intrigue is anything less than masterful.
Victarion sails the Iron Fleet to Old Wyk for the kingsmoot, blockading Euron's ship Silence as he arrives. At the feast, Asha warns him that the Damphair's gathering has attracted more claimants than intended, and Euron himself appears to cow Aeron into fleeing the hall. Walking outside, Asha tells Victarion the truth he has never spoken aloud: that Euron fathered a child on Victarion's wife, whom Victarion killed with his own hands.
On Old Wyk, the kingsmoot unfolds beneath Nagga's bones as lesser claimants fall away and Victarion makes his bid with a short, blunt speech and generous plunder. Asha answers with a daring call for peace and land in the North, and for a moment the crowd's roar nearly carries her to the Seastone Chair. Then the hellish bellowing of a dragonhorn silences them all, and Euron Crow's Eye steps forward to promise the ironborn not just peace or land, but all of Westeros, conquered with dragons bound to his will.