"Be careful, White Frost is coming!" Bran cried in terror.
Dany looked up and saw a gigantic vortex spanning ten kilometers slowly yet swiftly stretching downward into a long tube, like a funnel.
No, not quite like a funnel. The elongated tail of the vortex was far too slender, like a fishing line dangling from a Boeing 747.
If it had not been white and glowing with a faint luminescence, standing out starkly against the black vortex, Dany would not have been able to spot it even with Bran's warning.
However, the white trail descending from the center of the vortex was extremely fast. In a short while, it drifted crookedly down five thousand meters, leaving only a little over two thousand meters between it and Dany.
"Run, that's White Frost!" Bran urged anxiously.
"What is White Frost?" Dany moved with the wind, not lowering her altitude, flying sideways in the direction away from Winterfell.
"Do you remember why I asked you to rebuild the Wall?" Bran asked.
That day, Dany had discovered that runes were still functioning within the Wall, even preserving part of her magic, yet she had no intention of repairing the thirty-kilometer section that had already collapsed.
Because she believed that once the Wall had a breach, it was completely useless.
Then Bran had appeared and told her: our world is a closed system. After the Long Night arrives, the cold from the north pours into the world, and the Wall is the dam that blocks the frigid current.
A damaged Wall is still better than no Wall at all, just as a broken house is warmer than the open air outside.
"At every moment, cold tides pour into our world from the north. The Wall cannot block all the chill.
There is less in summer, more in winter, and the Long Night is the peak of the cold current's invasion.
Now the Long Night has arrived. The North is shrouded in dense power of ice, and that power is still intensifying, gradually eroding all of Westeros and even the entire world. In the end, it will drag the world into an abyss of ice and darkness.
The power of ice is like poison to the living, yet the Others thrive by drawing upon it.
We cannot break the Night King's ice armor because it constantly absorbs the power of ice from heaven and earth to replenish itself.
Now the Cold God is extracting the ice power of the entire North and condensing it into a single ice spell.
That is White Frost.
Because of this spell of the Cold God, the ice power within the North has dropped sharply. You can see it: the distant sky has brightened, and the average temperature will rise.
Measured by your dragon-degree scale, it will increase by at least twenty dragon-degrees."
"In other words, the White Frost we are about to face is an ice monster capable of lowering the temperature of the entire North by twenty dragon-degrees." Dany's voice trembled.
How large was the North?
At least two million square kilometers.
Then how much energy would it take to lower the temperature of such an expanse by twenty degrees Celsius?
"You don't need to exhaust all of White Frost. That's unrealistic. It's like a great flood rushing toward you; you can't drink it dry.
You only need to make sure White Frost cannot hit us," Bran said gravely.
That made sense.
"White Frost isn't chasing me. It's heading toward Winterfell. Can dragonfire deal with White Frost?"
Dany glanced back, then hurriedly turned and flew toward Winterfell.
"You can try, but be careful. Dragons are not agile enough. Their massive bodies can easily be caught by White Frost."
Sansa regretted it.
She should not have brought her sister back to Winterfell just because of that absurd prophecy about encountering the Others.
The Night King's ice armor was so thick and solid that dozens of knights hacking and chopping with swords and axes could not break through it. What use was the dragonglass dagger Arya held, the one Littlefinger had given her?
Fine, before this, no one had known the prophecy was true: only the Lightbringer could kill the Night King.
But she should not have stayed in Winterfell.
She had long considered that as the main battlefield of an unprecedented war, Winterfell would surely be fraught with danger.
At first, the battle had still been within mortal comprehension. Stannis and the Night King were evenly matched, trading blows back and forth, perfectly fitting the pattern of a legendary tale.
Then the Dragon Queen twisted the story. She had played the fool to catch the tiger, appearing at the start to struggle even against an ordinary Other, locked in a prolonged fight. Even humans believed that was her true combat strength, let alone the Night King.
If the Night King had known her true level of swordsmanship beforehand, it probably would not have appeared alone.
Uncle Benjen was, after all, a Stark. Even as the Night King, he seemed simple and unsophisticated, lacking in cunning. Well, that was not entirely accurate. During the decisive battle with Stannis, it had used many small tricks and ultimately severed Lightbringer, the only weapon capable of dealing it fatal harm.
Unfortunately, against the Dragon Queen's sudden eruption of power, no schemes were of any use.
Even though she did not understand swordsmanship very well, she knew that Uncle Benjen fell far short of the Sword of the Morning, and the Dragon Queen had surpassed Arthur Dayne.
The Night King being beaten like a child by the Dragon Queen deviated from the fixed pattern of legend, yet it was still barely within reason, still a human battle.
But what came after, the hailstorm, Winterfell's fires going out, the space gate slicing through towers, even the old nurse's tales had never been so exaggerated.
And yet that was not the most outrageous part.
The gigantic vortex spanning ten kilometers made even ordinary people who did not understand it tremble instinctively. As for those who could sense the terrifying magic within it, they were already in despair.
Sansa understood deeply that it was the prelude to a dreadful spell.
As a Moon Singer, she could even foresee, through the violent tidal surges in the sea of magic, the fate that was about to descend upon Winterfell.
Even when the Dragon Queen suddenly grew a pair of wings and soared into the sky, drawing excited shouts from the defenders in the city, Sansa found little comfort in it.
When Bran's raven loudly warned the defenders of Winterfell to hide in the crypts, she hesitated like the others.
The others did not know who controlled the flock of crows, nor did they understand the severity of the situation. But she understood even more clearly that hiding in the crypts might not necessarily help.
Riding a wyvern and fleeing would have been the best strategy.
But besides Jeyne Poole and Theon, the only two people she could truly call her own, Princess Arianne and her entourage were also with her.
Earlier, she had been watching the Night King's decisive battle from the city wall, surrounded by a crush of people.
She could not possibly mount a dragon and escape in front of them.
While she hesitated, she was escorted back to the inner castle by Jeyne and Theon, lining up to enter the crypts.
Perhaps the Dragon Queen could stop the forbidden spell in the sky. Perhaps the crypts could shield them from the magic's reach. After all, Bran had told them to enter the crypts but had not reminded her to ride a dragon and flee. And there were also Jon and Arya.
Thinking of Jon and Arya, Sansa began to worry about her siblings again.
Just moments ago, the black dragon's voice had thundered, "Anyone who cannot enter the crypts within five minutes, immediately turn back to the walls and gates, lower the wooden ladders, and leave Winterfell!"
Sansa understood what he meant.
Winterfell's crypts originally had only one entrance and exit. After the Others broke through the Wall, Jon knew that a great battle at Winterfell was inevitable. He had no choice but to painfully burn the remains of the Stark ancestors and clear out the crypts, turning them into the last fortress against the army of wights. Only then were three additional passages carved out.
There were now four narrow, winding stairways that allowed only two people to walk side by side, yet Winterfell held twenty thousand people.
It was very likely that when the forbidden spell descended from the sky, not all of them would have entered the crypts in time.
The thought made her even more anxious and even more hesitant.
"Sansa, don't worry. It will be our turn soon. We will definitely get into the crypts within five minutes," Theon said softly, supporting her as he felt her trembling.
Even if the Stark eldest daughter chose to be courteous and stand behind the Dornish princess, the lords, and the knights, she would not fall behind the commoners and the wildling soldiers.
"Perhaps I should ride a wyvern and leave." Theon was someone she could trust, so she voiced her thoughts in a whisper.
"Not now. So many people are watching, and Princess Arianne has just gone in." Theon shook his head with difficulty. "You should not have gone to the battlements. If you had stayed inside the castle, it would not have mattered what you did."
That was precisely the reason for Sansa's hesitation.
"The crypts are thirty or forty meters deep. Even if a tornado can destroy the castle above, it cannot possibly tear up the entire earth, can it?" Jeyne Poole said.
She had once been Sansa's personal maid. After Eddard was executed, she had spent a year as a prostitute under Littlefinger. Later, posing as Arya, she was married to Ramsay Bolton. On their wedding night, Theon had even been forced to help prepare her. Now, after enduring countless hardships, she had returned to the side of the Winterfell lady, who had also shed her youthful innocence.
Mistress and maid had both become pretty widows.
"The tornado vanished before it fully formed. It seems the north wind has died down as well. Ah, what is that?"
Theon's gentle reassurance suddenly turned into a hoarse cry.
Sansa felt a sudden surge of cold from behind. She turned her head and glanced toward the gate.
That single glance froze her soul.
A white line hung down from the center of the gigantic dark vortex, swaying softly like a ribbon, perhaps no thicker than a finger. It lightly brushed the right tower of one of the outer gate's twin towers, paired with the stone tower that had been cut by a spatial gate. Built of gray stone, it stood three stories tall.
As the white ribbon brushed over the parapet at the top, particles emitting a faint white glow drifted down. Perhaps the ribbon itself was made of powder.
In the darkness, the fluorescent white dust was so delicate, so enchanting.
"Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack…"
Gray-white ice crystals appeared out of thin air. Starting from where the white frost had "touched" the tower's summit, they spread downward and outward at a running speed.
Within a few breaths, the tower and the fifty-meter stretch of wall connected to the gate were entirely cloaked in a layer of ice crystals.
A long line had formed inside the gate passage. The commander shouted curses, urging the sluggish soldiers to move faster.
Even though the black dragon had given a warning, those who could not enter the crypts in time were still unwilling to leave the city.
"Leave the city to take shelter? Shelter from what? The city is surrounded by Others, wights, and even the Night King. Going out there is suicide!" the soldiers shouted in complaint.
"Crack, crack…"
"Huh? What is that sound?" The soldiers looked up.
Their expressions froze. Their movements froze. White frost crawled along the walls of the gate passage. The moment they began to feel the chill radiating from the frost, they were frozen into ice statues.
Bang, bang, bang—crash…
Many had still been stepping forward. Their raised feet froze into ice, their bodies naturally pitching forward, shattering into a spray of ice-blue powder.
"Crack, crack…"
Ice dust filled the air, blocking the view near the gate. Only the merciless sound of frost creeping onward could be heard.
"No!" The people lined up to leave the city saw the horrifying scene ahead and were the first to scream.
But their terrified cries seemed to attract some presence. Or perhaps the white ribbon floating in midair was an intelligent, living thing. It sensed human fear. It came.
"Crack, crack…"
The white ribbon, light as if weightless, skimmed over the heads of the panicked, fleeing crowd.
Like a dragonfly touching the water.
It left behind a circle of ripples. Wherever the ripples passed, white frost spread like ink diffusing in clear water.
The whole world fell silent.
"No…" Sansa's delicate features twisted into something monstrous. She was so terrified that she wet herself.
(End of chapter)
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