The Northern Blight
The forest beyond Moat Cailin was not as it once was.
Snow no longer fell as flakes but as soft, white ash.
The Weirwoods stood in silence, their faces twisting, their eyes bleeding sap that glowed faintly red even in daylight.
Althea rode beneath their branches, her hood low, her pulse echoing like the roots themselves.
The whispering never stopped now ancient voices murmuring her name, sometimes gently, sometimes with rage.
"Child of crow and crown you carry our memory."
"You broke our sleep."
Job followed at a distance.
Every time his horse's hooves struck frozen ground, faint runes appeared in the snow symbols of old magic, Valyrian and Northern entwined.
Davos rode beside him.
"My king," he said quietly, "the men are frightened. The trees are weeping blood, and the shadows move even in the firelight."
"They should be frightened," Job replied. "The world's ending one root at a time."
Althea stopped before the oldest tree, the one whose trunk was wide as a hall.
Its mouth opened literally opened and she stepped inside.
Job dismounted and ran after her, shouting her name.
But when he reached the bark, it was solid again.
Inside, Althea found herself walking through tunnels made of bone-white wood, pulsing with a slow, living heartbeat.
The Weirwood's core the place where time bent, where past and future were the same.
There, she saw faces carved in the walls the First Men, the Starks, even her own.
And in the final chamber, a throne of roots waited, dripping sap like tears.
"Every crown grows from a root," whispered the old gods.
"Yours was watered in blood."
When she touched it, her veins lit with red light her blood mixing with the tree's sap.
Outside, the forest shuddered as if taking a breath.
And every Weirwood in the North began to bleed at once.
The Fire Throne
Far to the south, King's Landing was not weeping it was burning.
Lily Lannister walked barefoot through the Great Hall, now remade from blackened stone and wildfire glass.
Above the Iron Throne, molten light streamed down, forming a halo of liquid gold.
The hall smelled of brimstone and roses.
The city outside screamed hymns to her name.
Qyburn's successor knelt at her feet.
"The wildfire veins are complete, Your Grace. The pyromancers say the city will never freeze again."
"Then let it never sleep again," Lily murmured.
She stood before the Iron Throne melted, reforged, and still sharp enough to bleed her when she touched it.
Blood trickled down her hand, but instead of falling, it rose in the air, swirling into green fire.
"Old gods, new gods all false," she whispered.
"There is only fire and will."
She ascended the steps, every droplet of her blood igniting another spark until the whole throne burned not with destruction, but creation.
When she sat, the flames wrapped around her body like silk.
Her crown melted into her hair; her eyes turned gold and green, like wildfire itself.
"Long may she reign," whispered the Ash-Born below.
"Long may she burn," answered the city.
And the earth beneath King's Landing trembled, veins of green fire spreading outward toward the Trident, toward the North.
Fire Meets Root
In the North, the Weirwoods screamed as the fire veins reached them.
Green flame burst from the earth, crawling through the roots, devouring the red sap.
Althea fell to her knees inside the Weirwood's heart, her veins burning from within.
"Lily" she gasped, feeling the heat even from hundreds of leagues away.
"She's merging her soul with Valyria."
Job drew his sword Longclaw's blade glowing blue from the frost that now lived inside it.
"Then we cut her from it," he said.
"No," Althea whispered, rising slowly, eyes glowing with twin colors red from the Weirwood, blue from the curse.
"We bind her to it. Let her burn herself out."
She pressed her bleeding hand against the root-wall.
The Weirwood responded its roots shot downward, tunneling through soil and stone toward the South.
Miles away, beneath King's Landing, those roots met fire.
The Dual Coronations
At that same hour, two crowns formed.
In the North, a crown of crimson roots coiled around Althea's brow, pulsing like a heart.
In the South, a crown of molten gold formed upon Lily's head, flowing down her temples like tears of light.
Both women spoke the same words, unknowingly
"Let the old gods watch. I am the storm that ends them."
The sky cracked open.
Half of it burned, half froze.
Snow fell as embers. Ash fell as frost.
Every raven in the realm screamed at once and burst into flame.
The Twin Thrones
North:
Job looked at Althea and saw that she was no longer merely human.
Her skin glowed faintly, her pupils thin as a cat's, her breath steaming cold.
"What are you now?" he asked softly.
"Something the gods feared would return," she said.
South:
Lily sat unmoving upon her burning throne.
Qyburn's heir dared to speak, "My Queen, the fire grows unstable."
"Good," she said, smiling faintly. "Let it consume the world."
Closing Image
From the Trident outward, the land itself began to split in two.
To the North rivers froze into mirrors.
To the South the ground burned like living coal.
At the center, on the horizon, lightning danced where ice met fire.
And in that storm, a shadow formed a figure neither god nor mortal, watching both thrones.
"Two queens. Two crowns. One world to break."