The impact had been brutal. Drogon, wounded, crashed against the Red Keep opening a crater of stone, dust and extinguished fire. The entire world seemed to break.
Inside the throne room, turned into ruins by the blow, Daenerys and Jon lay badly wounded among remains of fallen columns, ceiling fragments and broken ice. Drogon, lying next to the entrance, panted with difficulty, his breath coming out in smoking spirals. He was still alive, but barely.
Daenerys opened her eyes among the frost and dust. She crawled to a cracked wall, with a bleeding leg she could barely move. On the other side of the hall, Jon was also beginning to sit up, stumbling and dazed.
The hall was frozen, but next to the throne, a single brazier remained lit. Its embers trembled with their own life, as if they resisted out of pride. Jon, seeing Daenerys crawling, ran toward her limping, helping her reach the warmth of the brazier.
The fire from the brazier radiated a comforting warmth that managed to melt the snow that fell constantly from the cracks in the destroyed ceiling. Around the flames a puddle of warm water had formed, the only refuge against the merciless cold that invaded every corner of the ruined hall.
Their breaths were irregular, turned into white clouds. The silence was tense. The world was falling down around them.
And then, a sound cut through the calm: the dry cracking of ice. The torches went out one by one, as if something was devouring them.
The White Walkers had arrived.
They entered in formation, crossing the doors opened by the collapse. Drogon, weak but still defiant, raised his head. With a pitiful roar, he launched a column of fire that swept away all the enemies that came. But the effort was too much. The flames went out, and his body trembled. He couldn't go on.
When the fire faded and the smoke dissipated, only one figure remained standing among the charred remains. Motionless. Intact. Imperturbable.
And then, he appeared.
The Night King walked over the remains of stone and fire like an ancient god. Ice formed in his wake. The cold thickened so much that even the stone creaked. His presence stole breath and made bones vibrate.
However, Jon saw his opportunity. Drogon's fire attack had eliminated all the White Walkers accompanying the Night King, leaving him completely alone in the hall. Without guards, without protection. It was now or never. With Longclaw firmly gripped, he launched forward with all the determination he had left. His Valyrian steel sword gleamed in the frozen gloom.
With a slow and fluid gesture, like a frozen river, the Night King unsheathed his ice sword. Jon advanced without hesitation, a cry of rage in his throat. The first clash of swords was like lightning trapped between fire and frost: violent, absolute.
The entire hall trembled. The clash of steel against ice was not only loud, it was elemental. The embers of the last brazier stirred with fury, and the frozen walls of the throne room let out a deep lament, as if the stone felt fear.
The Night King attacked with surgical precision, his style was like an ancient art, perfect, impossible to read. Each blow had the weight of centuries. Jon resisted, retreating step by step, blocking with his whole body, his muscles at their limit. He knew he couldn't win by force: he had to survive by rhythm, by heart, by fury.
They jumped over debris, turned between columns. The King was fast, faster than seemed possible. His sword whistled through the air leaving trails of frost, cutting Jon's very breath vapor.
Jon rolled under a vertical slash that would have split a rock in two, and counterattacked with a series of diagonal blows, seeking to unbalance him. But the King didn't lose balance. He retreated with supernatural elegance, his cape floating like solid shadow. Each thrust from Jon was deflected, each feint read, each attempt, frustrated.
Once, Jon managed to graze his arm. Just a scratch. But the impact of *Longclaw* left a white crack in the armor. The King turned his head toward the wound with slight curiosity... Not of emotion. But like one who observes an insect bite before dying.
The temperature dropped with each minute. The floor creaked with frost. The walls sweated ice. Jon began to pant. Not from fear, but from pure effort. His arm hurt. Longclaw's grip slipped between his numb fingers. The cold didn't come from the environment. It came from the King.
Then, the King pushed him with a frozen shock wave. He didn't touch him. He just raised his open hand and Jon shot back against a wall. He fell to his knees. Coughed blood. Ice stuck to his skin. His vision blurred. But he got up. He always got up.
With a roar of pure instinct, he charged again. This time the King stayed still. He waited for him. And when their swords met, the energy explosion froze the air around. Only the sound of their swords filled the world.
Jon began to adapt. He couldn't match the King's precision, but he could resist it. He began to move with less impulse and more calculation. He read the movements. Waited for the angles. He knew that if he failed even once, he would die. And still, he found rhythm. One blow. Another. A dodge. A counter. He was fighting not like a knight, but like a wolf against a storm.
For an eternal instant, they fought as equals. Ice against Valyrian steel. Ancient against human. The King raised his sword above his head, and Jon anticipated it. He turned on his right foot and slid Longclaw diagonally, like a desperate slash.
Longclaw sank into the ice monarch's chest.
The world stopped.
The Valyrian steel had penetrated deeply, piercing the ice armor like paper. The Night King remained motionless, his blue eyes fixed on Jon. Frost sparks began to fall from the wound like burning snowflakes.
Daenerys sat up from the throne, her violet eyes shining intensely.
Jon pushed the sword deeper. The King remained motionless. The frost sparks intensified.
And then, slowly, the Night King lowered his gaze toward the sword stuck in his chest. Without an expression, without pain, without surprise. Just a cold and indifferent observation, like one who looks at a fallen leaf on his shoulder.
A supernatural cold began to run through the blade, freezing Jon's hand to the bone. With a muffled cry of pain and horror, he released the grip. The Night King, with a calm that hurt, pulled the sword from his body and threw it away as if it were a mere inconvenience.
The wound in his chest closed with a crunch of reforming ice.
Jon understood with horror the terrible truth: the Night King was not like the other White Walkers. While Valyrian steel could destroy any specter or ice general on contact, this ancestral being possessed a power that transcended such mortal weapons. He was something more primordial, more absolute. It would take a much greater power to defeat him. Perhaps something more mystical.
The Night King raised his sword for the final blow. Jon was defenseless, with his hand frozen, unable to defend himself. It was the end.
For an eternal second, Jon remembered the cave with Ygritte, the snow falling over the Wall, his father's gaze before leaving. All that seemed now foreign, distant, as if it had never belonged to him. The cold stripped not only his breath, but his memories. Dying here was not falling in battle... it was vanishing into nothingness.
But a dragonglass arrow whistled in the gloom, impacting the Night King's armor. Then another. Arya had appeared from a side entrance to the hall, shooting with precision from the shadows. The arrows didn't destroy him, but made the King stumble, enough for Jon to get away and recover his weapon.
Jon retreated to where Daenerys was, his gaze confused not knowing what to do next, but the battle wasn't over.
Like a nightmare without rest, more White Walkers began to arrive. Dozens of them, entering through the main entrance of the hall, following the same path as the first wave. The sound of their steps was like the cracking of bones under ice. They were countless, an unstoppable tide of frozen death.
Arya entered the room, doing everything possible to prevent them from approaching. She shot arrow after arrow of dragonglass, each projectile finding its mortal target. Each arrow she launched was one less specter, the White Walkers disintegrating in explosions of crystalline ice. But there were too many, too many, countless. The air vibrated with tension while her quiver emptied quickly.
When Arya ran out of arrows and the remaining specters kept entering, Drogon, seeing the mortal wave approaching his companions, gathered his last strength. With a heartbreaking roar that seemed to emerge from the deepest part of his being, he stood up staggering. His wings, broken and bleeding, extended one last time. The great dragon inhaled deeply, his chest swelling with the effort.
A column of golden fire sprouted from his jaws, brighter and fiercer than ever. The blaze swept away all the remaining White Walkers, disintegrating them in an explosion of light and heat that completely cleaned the hall. All except one. The Night King remained intact among the flames, immune to dragon fire, his figure motionless like a statue of eternal ice. But the effort was devastating for Drogon. He collapsed, panting, his body convulsing while the last breath of fire faded on his lips.
The air filled with thick smoke and burning steam. The flames had created a thick curtain that enveloped the entire hall, making it impossible to see beyond a few meters. Jon squinted, trying to make out something through the mist. Arya covered her mouth, coughing from the acrid smoke that filled her lungs. Daenerys, from the throne, could only distinguish blurred shadows moving in the gloom.
When finally the smoke began to dissipate and the steam cleared, the terrible reality revealed itself before their eyes. The Night King was already next to Drogon, observing the fallen dragon with that frozen indifference that characterized him. He took advantage of Drogon being completely exhausted and defenseless to get close enough. Jon tried to move, Arya raised her bow, but they had no more arrows and the distance was too great. There was no way to stop him. It was too late.
With terrible calm, the Night King raised his ice sword over the dragon's neck. Drogon lifted his head one last time, his golden eyes meeting Daenerys' across the hall.
"NO!" Daenerys' torn scream resonated throughout the room, a lament that seemed to tear the very air.
The ice sword slowly sank into the dragon's neck. Drogon emitted a final moan, a sound that was part roar, part sigh. His eyes went out, and the great body that had soared through the skies remained motionless forever.
Daenerys collapsed against the throne, tears freezing on her cheeks before they could fall. Jon and Arya remained silent, helpless witnesses to an execution that broke the soul.
No one spoke. Only the Night King remained, still standing. Invincible. Inhuman.