Yara glanced toward the four n assigned to keep watch.
They exchanged looks among themselves, each wearing the sa bewildered, innocent expression.
Clearly, none of them had seen anything.
Holding the scroll, Yara examined it more closely.
It looked like any ordinary letter—parchnt, simple twine, and a seal imprinted by two small claw marks.
She crushed the wax seal and unrolled the parchnt.
The first line made her frown slightly.
The next few caused her eyes to widen in shock.
The letter claid that even if she reached Theon, he would refuse to leave with her.
And worse—it stated that her long-absent uncle Euron would soon return to the Iron Islands, murder her father Balon, and seize control of the Isles.
The second claim was not impossible.
Though Balon had forbidden Euron from returning, Yara never believed that her uncle—a madman by all accounts—would obediently obey anyone.
But the first claim was absurd.
She could imagine how brutally Theon had been tortured.
He must be waiting desperately for her to save him.
How could he not follow her?
Yara lifted her gaze from the letter.
Her n stared back, curiosity plain in their eyes—each wondering what ssage could be delivered so silently, slipping past their watchful periter unnoticed.
She detected no suspicion in their expressions, but she did not allow herself to relax.
Whoever could slip a letter into the middle of an ard Ironborn camp without drawing a single blade…
was either terrifyingly skilled—or soone inside the group was helping them.
A traitor in her small rescue party would an disaster.
A single betrayal could doom not only the mission, but every man she brought with her.
Yet they had co too far to turn back.
She had no choice but to proceed—cautiously, warily, ready for anything.
---
Watching from afar, Drogon saw Yara take the letter.
That was enough.
He turned north again.
As long as Yara delivered the ssage to Balon, Drogon doubted Euron would have such an easy ti pulling off his coup.
Both Greyjoy brothers were vicious and cunning—if they fought openly, even a partial victory would cripple one of them.
And even if Balon still died, forcing Euron to pay in blood made the letter worthwhile.
---
Over an hour of flying later, the temperature dropped sharply.
Cold bit into Drogon's scales, and he spotted patches of snow lingering stubbornly in the mountain shadows.
The Wall was close.
Ten more minutes of flight brought him into the heart of the freezing winds.
And there—rising from the blizzard like the spine of a frozen giant—
stood a colossal blue-white wall of ice.
The Wall.
As Drogon drew nearer, he felt it—
a pressure, an ancient weight that seed to radiate from the frozen monolith itself.
The oppressive, solemn might of the edge of the world.
The Wall towered nearly two hundred ters high and stretched so far that its ends disappeared into the horizon.
To the east, it t the sea; to the west, the mountains.
From the carved map table on Dragonstone, Drogon had learned that the Wall extended almost five hundred kiloters in total length.
Its base was made of colossal stone blocks, the body of the Wall forged from layers of stone and ice, reinforced with ancient spells.
At its foot sat a small fortress—Castle Black.
Most of the Night's Watch brothers lived there, while the rest were scattered between Eastwatch-by-the-Sea on the far east end and the Shadow Tower on the west.
Beyond these three, all other keeps were abandoned, empty relics of better days.
The Wall had no gates—only a single tunnel carved beneath it.
Inside the tunnel stood a series of iron gates spaced evenly apart.
In tis of crisis, the Watch would destroy them and seal the tunnel entirely with boulders to block wildlings or, in the worst case, Others.
A massive elevator platform, driven by huge winches, connected Castle Black to the top of the Wall, hauling n and supplies upward.
But compared to the age when the Others first invaded thousands of years ago, the Watch had dwindled to a shadow of its forr glory.
Once honored defenders—they were now mostly thieves, poachers, raiders…a dumping ground for criminals.
Drogon gave Castle Black only a distant glance before veering aside.
If he wanted to see the Wall, landing near the castle was too risky.
He descended slowly onto the top of the Wall.
The broad roadway atop it spanned almost fifteen ters across, littered with stones, logs, and abandoned equipnt.
Every few hundred ters stood a ballista—most so weathered and frozen that their functionality was questionable at best.
Standing atop the Wall, Drogon—small-bodied in his juvenile form—felt even tinier than usual.
The frigid wind cut across the ice like knives.
He inhaled deeply, cold air burning his lungs yet refreshing his body, as though cleansing him inside and out.
Beyond the Wall stretched a vast, empty whiteness—snow, wind, and endless forests buried beneath pale frost.
Drogon found it hard to imagine how the wildlings had survived in such a brutal environnt for thousands of years, only to be driven south by the advancing army of Others.
If this tiline was correct, Jon Snow likely wasn't at Castle Black right now.
After hearing of Ned Stark's beheading, Sansa's imprisonnt, and Robb marching south to war, Jon had attempted to desert to save his family—failed—and was then sent on a ranging mission beyond the Wall.
Drogon circled above Castle Black for a while.
In this kind of blizzard, almost no one ventured outdoors.
Only a handful of Watch brothers huddled in corners, avoiding the biting wind.
He peeked into several courtyards and windows but didn't spot Jon Snow—or Samwell Tarly's rotund figure.
With no results, he abandoned the search.
Jon was probably sowhere out in the wilderness, in a cave with a wildling woman.
Drogon wasn't about to freeze himself waiting for him.
After leaving Castle Black, he flew for no more than twenty minutes when the air grew warr.
His stomach rumbled—ti to hunt.
He still had at least three hours before reaching the Dothraki Sea.
Flying on an empty stomach was not an option.
The North's vast wilderness was a haven for wildlife.
And after eating nothing but fat sheep and strong horses on the Dothraki Sea, a change of flavor would be welco.
After two minutes of searching, he spotted a sturdy wild stag grazing peacefully.
It noticed Drogon but didn't know what he was—until his wingblade slashed across its throat.
It collapsed after a brief struggle.
Lifting the stag—ten tis his own size—Drogon easily carried it to a creek.
There he skinned it, gutted it, and divided the at into neat portions on nearby rocks.
He gathered branches of various sizes, stacked them as firewood, and built a spit over the flas.
Opening his pack, he pulled out a flint and tinder.
A few strikes, and the fire crackled to life.
Once the flas stabilized, he skewered the venison, brushed it with salt, spices, and minced scallions, and began roasting it evenly from the air.
Soon the at sizzled, fat dripping into the fire with a satisfying hiss.
Golden brown crust ford, and Drogon switched to another piece, eating and cooking at the sa ti.
"Not bad," he murmured internally.
Not as good as Missandei's cooking, and certainly inferior to Dothraki barbeque, but the venison's natural tenderness made up for his technique.
Half a stag disappeared into his belly in short order.
Then—
"Hmm?"
Mid-bite, Drogon sensed a disturbance.
He turned toward the hillside behind him.
A group of people was climbing toward him—n, won, even children.
But Drogon's focus imdiately locked onto the man at the front:
A towering figure, at least two ters and a half tall, wrapped in ragged hides, dragging behind him a massive wooden plank as wide as his body.
And on that plank…
lay a person.
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