You brought your mount down on a wide, windswept ledge of the Keep, one reserved for royal arrivals. The pale silver scales of your dragon, Meraxes, gleamed like moonlit ice in the afternoon sun, while the ember-red membranes of her wings folded with a sound like settling coals. She was larger than a warhorse, smaller than Vhagar—a predator in her prime.

Before the dust had settled, a party was approaching from the archway that led into the Holdfast. At their head was a man in the white cloak of the Kingsguard, his expression unreadable beneath a helm adorned with Hightower sigils. His hand rested on the pommel of his sword.