King Robert Baratheon rides north to Winterfell to ask his old friend Eddard Stark to serve as Hand of the King, setting in motion a chain of events that will tear the Seven Kingdoms apart. In the capital, the Lannisters scheme to maintain their grip on power. At the Wall, Eddard's illegitimate son Jon Snow joins the Night's Watch and discovers that the ancient threat beyond the Wall may not be as mythical as everyone believes. Across the Narrow Sea, the exiled Targaryen siblings Viserys and Daenerys broker a marriage alliance with the Dothraki, beginning Daenerys's transformation from a frightened girl into something far more dangerous. The first novel introduces the multi-POV structure that defines the series, with nine narrating characters whose accounts are sometimes unreliable and frequently contradictory.