I must see the queen.
Your Grace.
He is risen.
- Who? - Aegon!
Sunfyre is alive.
Out!
Sunfyre is dead, rotting in a wasteland.
- Oh. - Sit down.
Aegon burned the Mooton host at Rook's Rest,
and then flew...
I don't know where.
His supporters have already sent ravens throughout the realm...
announcing the king's return.
The smallfolk name it a sign from the gods
that Aegon is ordained to rule, that he and his dragon
have been resurrected to reclaim the throne.
At this moment, mine own subjects gather outside the Grand Sept,
beseeching the gods to say who is meant to rule them.
After all for which I have fought and suffered!
Rhaenyra.
The lesser gods have no say in what is to come.
We are the blood of Old Valyria.
You have an absolute power within your grasp.
You have only to wield it.
Fucking Viserys!
He put me here.
His prophecy has tested me again and again,
and I have met its every challenge!
Your Grace, have plans been laid for the Sea Snake's rescue?
There will be a rescue?
Your father will search Tumbleton
for the Sea Snake once the town has been reclaimed.
He'll be long dead by then. Send me now.
You and Addam are needed here to guard the city,
if indeed these rumors are true and Sunfyre was allowed to live.
Corlys is your Hand, your oldest ally.
I do not wish your grandsire ill, but he made his choice,
and we must now pay its price.
It was your fault.
What?
That Lord Corlys was out there to be taken.
You do not dare.
It is how you've always treated those who serve you.
Addam and I have labored without rest
over countless sorties in search of your enemies,
only to be repaid in your anger.
Yes, that is because your sorties have yielded nothing,
while my enemies have been allowed to muster their strength.
If a person is useful to you, you wield them.
But if not, you abandon them
as you have with Rhaena.
And now, she is broken, like my grandsire.
I would have been justified in abandoning you after the Gullet.
Perhaps.
But you need my dragon.
Insolent child.
I should not blame you for it truly. Insolence runs in your blood.
As your sister has lately reminded us.
Good morrow, my lords.
"Good morrow," indeed.
We've just sailed through the night from Driftmark,
after learning our Lord Admiral is hostage to the Hightowers.
The queen has called upon you to secure King's Landing.
To answer her could mean our lord's death.
Lord Corlys knew of the risks of his adventures.
He would want us to appraise Velaryon honor
as greater than his life.
Who are you to speak to our lord's desires?
His eldest living son.
And named successor.
Your once and future Lord of the Tides.
Open the gates!
About face!
Forward march!
That...
all of it, is for you.
Remarkable, is it not?
But...
you must be made a knight...
before you can be crowned king.
Kneel.
Daeron Targaryen,
do you swear before the eyes of gods and men
to defend those who cannot defend themselves...
Everyone inside!
...to protect all women and children...
Come back here! Back!
...to obey your captains, your liege lord...
Seal the gates!
...to fight bravely whenever needed...
and to do such other tasks
- as are laid upon you... - Steady!
- ...however hard... - Hoist!
...or humble or dangerous they may be?
Halt!
I swear it.
Then, rise a knight.
Ser Daeron the Daring.
And light the way.
The Queen of Bastards' armies are at the gates.
And leading them to the slaughter
will be her uncle. No.
Her lover.
No. Her husband.
Daemon fucking Targaryen.
- And his dragon. - Of course he's got a fucking dragon!
But he's not gonna use it.
And how do you know?
'Cause his lady wife, the queen, won't let him.
Rhaenyra's got Daemon on a short lead.
Like a bitch in a kennel.
Another ale for the dragonlord.
The Rogue Prince will soon quake
before the mighty and terrible
Lord Ulf the White!
Your Grace.
Your Grace, is aught amiss?
What is it?
The Princess Helaena.
She still has not taken food.
The maesters worry for her health, especially for the babe in her belly.
Summon Ser Alyn.
I require a full escort to the Grand Sept.
There, today, the High Septon will anoint me
and bless my reign for all of King's Landing to see.
There will be no doubt who the gods have chosen to rule.
At once, Your Grace.
Will that be all?
No.
What is this?
Sers.
- Sers! - My lady.
Beg pardon for the intrusion. We weren't given much time.
Time for what?
Your passage has been arranged aboard the Mermaid's Kiss.
You are to sail for Pentos at dusk.
I am to inform you that your services here are at an end.
You have served the queen and the realm most faithfully,
and Her Grace wishes to extend her gratitude.
You will be provided with gold sufficient for a manse
and servants of your own.
Be quick about it.
I do not understand either, my lady.
The hour has passed, my lady.
I must return you to your quarters.
This way, princess.
Do not trust the queen.
Aegon has returned. His dragon lives.
Your unborn child is a hostage,
a prize by which she can hold power
- over her enemies. - Keep moving.
- Enough. - She will never release you.
Do you remember?
Help me.
Fret not.
You're alive.
Here.
Drink this.
There'll be another in an hour.
She poisoned me.
You have realized you're alone in this world.
In that, we are together.
But I no longer wish to suffer it.
Do you?
Why do you care whether I'm alone?
Whether I live or die?
I'm a kinslayer, Alys.
My own brother is dead by my hand.
I have been damned for my trespasses and cursed to suffer.
You should abandon me.
Lest you bring mine own fate upon yourself.
When the dragon Balerion burned this place,
it was to end Lord Harren's line.
But his line was not so easily ended.
A child, a...
a boy...
lived on.
Burned terribly, but alive.
His mother would have given anything to save him.
She summoned maesters from across the Seven Kingdoms,
but to no avail.
So, she turned to older cures.
She uncovered incantations more ancient than the land.
She treated with things that lived in the forest.
But none of it could unmake what dragonfire made.
And when the boy was gone...
she tried to go with him.
And that is when she learned the cost.
She discovered then she was cursed.
To live on...
to remain within the bounds of the river kings of old...
cursed for sharing in Harren's avarice.
Stripped of her name, her title,
her castle.
And sentenced to serve every ha'penny lord who came here to rule it.
That was a hundred years past.
It's a long time to be alone.
You must eat, sister.
Think of the babe.
You are thinking of him now, too?
You're saying it's a boy?
Do you know this?
Look at me.
You cannot think I would harm you.
Do you think life is nothing more than not being dead?
Our father would hate you for this.
And yet he did nothing to prevent it.
I strove to honor his philosophy
until I saw that it would be the realm's undoing.
There is a beetle that emerges on the cusp of summer.
It has lots of colors.
Blue, gold, purples.
It looks like a turtle.
Have you ever noticed it?
I can't say I have.
You can only find it in King's Landing.
It sustains itself on the waste of other creatures.
It's beautiful.
Well, when summer returns, you will have to show me.
You don't care about it.
You're pretending.
All the things you care about are ugly.
This place...
is ugly.
You, yourself...
ugly.
Eat.
Or you will force my hand.
No.
No! No!
No! No! No!
Stop! Stop.
Forward march!
Brother.
Will you march on Tumbleton as well?
No. Today we guard the queen in her purpose.
Where does she go?
News of Aegon's return has set the queen on a dark path.
She has grounded Baela and confined her to the Keep.
Did you know this?
These are dangerous days,
and it is not mine to question Her Grace.
Why would you?
While our father awaits the Hightower gallows,
Rhaenyra raises you up in his place.
A glorious ascent for a bastard.
I have no ambition but to discharge my duty.
Be ready!
Form up!
March!
Gods.
How will we face them all?
Bravely and pointlessly.
Take your places, boys.
Keep coming, take your places.
Keep coming. Be brave.
Put the boys to the front. They must be seen.
My lord, Ulf hasn't reported, and he's not with his dragon.
Take a tithing of men off each post.
Search the town.
Find him.
You! With me.
- Something's wrong. - Yes.
We're all going to die.
No.
With Uncle.
He and Roxton have some secret plot afoot.
He has kept it even from me.
- Whatever it was... - Get away from me!
...it has not appeared to have come to pass.
Please!
Please, ser, we don't want to do it.
- I just want to go home to my mom. - Don't make us.
I must take wing against the enemy.
No!
All these men, these boys, are here for me.
- I cannot let them fight alone. - For what purpose, boy?
To become another body amongst Ormund's countless dead?
What are my choices?
I either fight, or I flee.
Mayhaps there is another.
Dragon!
Ulf the Dragonrider!
I'm looking for Ulf the Dragonrider.
Ulf!
And now, Lord Ormund's boy king and his faithful squire.
Shut up.
Driftmark lies in ruin, your legacy in tatters.
But King Daeron, in all his generosity and wisdom,
can offer a richer future than the one Rhaenyra has laid for you.
My honor is all that remains to me.
Do you really think I would hawk it for Hightower coin?
Very well.
The hard road, then.
Make way!
Clear the way!
- Move back! - Get back! Get back!
Move! Clear the way!
Get back!
You are my heir now, Joffrey, and the duty I pass to you
is more than simple rule.
There is a story that your grandsire told me.
It was told to him by the Old King.
And I passed it on...
to your brother...
following mine own ascent.
Tumbleton, my lords!
At long last.
If it weren't for Cole, we'd have been here a fortnight ago.
So easy to forget about him. Do tell me how he died.
Badly.
My prince, my lords, a Hightower knight approaches.
So? Kill him.
With Lord Corlys.
Hyah.
Prince Daemon.
I am Ser Gwayne Hightower.
Well met.
Fuck me.
I've seen more meat on a butcher's knife.
Can I kill him?
You already know Lord Corlys.
Are you well?
I'm well enough.
So, speak.
My cousin Ormund has taken leave of his senses.
He would rather die than admit defeat.
And you?
Well, I'm not blind.
I know we will not survive the day if you attack.
So, as a token of good faith...
I return your Hand.
Four fingers of him, at least.
I've come to sue for peace.
To plead with you
at the behest of Daeron Targaryen.
The latest in your line of false kings.
The war will end when all the traitors' heads
are mounted on spikes above the King's Gate...
and not before.
Listen to Daeron's entreaty.
Divide the realm.
Let the queen rule over the Crownlands, the North, the Vale,
all the lands watered by the Trident,
and let Daeron rule from Oldtown.
Oh, please!
Let me kill this milk-suck southerling cunt.
The realm was once seven kingdoms,
before the Conqueror, when we were divided
- but at peace-- - Stop!
My good Lord Hand.
I thought the Hightowers might have cut off your tongue as well.
Hightower is not wrong.
There are great houses who still hold to the precedent
set by the Great Council that a woman cannot rule.
It was your wife who was passed over, Corlys.
Rhaenyra seized the throne with a horde of dragons.
Her rule is now unassailable.
The queen has many dragons, yes,
but the great houses hesitate.
Her subjects do not feel safe, nor should they.
Aemond and Vhagar remain at large.
Give Prince Daeron Oldtown.
Name him Lord Paramount of the Reach.
Daeron will never be king,
but he and his dragon can be wardens of the South.
That wasn't what I was offering.
Wed Daeron to Rhaena.
Seal the breach between your houses.
With the combined will of King's Landing,
the Reach, the North, the Riverlands, and the Vale,
Rhaenyra can quickly bring the West and the Stormlands to heel.
And what will the usurper Aegon say
when he hears of this pact?
He now scuttles about somewhere on his crippled dragon,
half-cooked, but still fit to rule.
Or so he thinks.
Was that news?
It is so tragic to see brother set against brother.
Aegon and Aemond would be common enemies of this new alliance.
Alliance?
I never took you for a traitor, Corlys, and worse, a craven.
What price has the boy king offered for your fealty?
Peace.
Two paths diverge before you, Daemon,
but both lead to the same end.
Rhaenyra sitting the Iron Throne ruling the Seven Kingdoms.
All that remains for you to decide...
is what you want from this war.
Victory?
Or a mountain of dead Hightowers?
What do you think?
You would callously cast away the lives of thou--
No one will rule but Rhaenyra,
the ordained Queen of the Andals, of the First Men,
of beggars and thieves and cowards like you.
A new Valyria will rise from the ashes of her usurper half-brothers
and of the Hightowers of Oldtown.
Now, you came to me under a banner of peace,
so I will give you the choice.
Die here, or behind those walls,
like the rodent you are.
Lord Corlys is my prisoner.
Hightower may return to alert his cousin
- to our imminent coming. - Get up! Get up!
Bring the ladders and the rams and form up to march.
The next man to stall on this attack
will be tied to the front of my fucking horse!
It cannot be.
You are dead.
I'm alive!
Imbecile.
Brother. Brother.
I beg for your forgiveness.
Forgiveness?
I should split you in half.
Hm?
I should have Sunfyre burn you alive.
Mm, but slowly.
So I can see your skin...
peel and blister.
You kinslayer.
You usurper.
You cunt!
No.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no!
I was supposed to enjoy this.
What's wrong with you?
Fight me!
I coveted what you had
and judged you unsuited for the crown.
Oh.
I tried to kill you to take your place.
You'd be right to sentence me to die.
Fuck you.
Get up.
We're going to Tumbleton.
My prince cannot. His dragon abandoned him.
- Who's she? - My betrothed.
Do you know what's happening out there?
No?
Rhaenyra declared me dead.
And after you disappeared,
that little twat Daeron decided he should be king.
So, here's what we're going to do.
We're going to find Vhagar,
fly to Tumbleton,
and put Daeron and that shitheel Ormund in line.
And then, we're all going to march on King's Landing
under my banner.
And maybe, when Rhaenyra's head is on a spike...
and I'm back on the Iron Throne...
Aemond.
Maybe then...
I'll forgive you...
for trying to fucking kill me.
Aside from the main gate, there's one other way in.
A disused postern on the northeast side.
They've raised wooden battlements but the defenses are incomplete,
so there are vulnerable areas,
particularly the walls to the southeast.
Simple enough.
I will burn the battlements over the main gate.
Once they're clear of resistance,
our van will lead the attack with Caraxes for cover.
Ulf and Silverwing will guard the rear.
Rhaenyra's banners will fly
above the holdfast by nightfall.
Take every care to preserve the town and its people.
The realm is watching.
The queen's moral standing must remain absolute.
Sounds boring.
My prince.
My lords. Movement at the walls.
The enemy has fortified their numbers with children.
Gods.
- How many? - Scores.
All along the battlements.
And that's just what I could see.
He's testing you, my prince, daring you to use your dragon.
The spineless cunt.
Lord Roderick, are you still prepared to die for our queen?
Can't fucking wait.
Take your greybeards over the walls,
overwhelm them with your northern fighting spirit
and open the gate from within.
But you are not to die until you open the gate.
Aye, gate open, then die.
Lord Oscar will lead the flank as planned.
Ser Garibald has the reserve.
The center is mine.
This is the House of the Seven.
No arms are to cross its threshold.
The people of King's Landing gather,
seeking to know who is ordained to lead them.
You will give them their answer
by anointing me for all to see.
I have already told you that such is impossible.
And now, after Aegon and his dragon have been resurrected,
there could be no clearer sign
of whom the gods have chosen to rule, princess.
I am queen.
The old man forgets.
I wear my father's crown and sit his throne...
with six dragons at my heel.
You will not deny me my right a second time.
You may have six dragons,
but I have a Seven-faced god.
I could not possibly oppose their will.
Then, you name yourself a traitor.
I am the High Septon of the Faith.
To harm me is to declare war upon the Starry Sept.
To damn your soul to the deepest of the Seven Hells.
You are the blood of Old Valyria.
You answer to higher gods than his.
To them, this house...
is an empty work of brick and stone.
We stand on sacred ground.
A place of refuge!
Before his death...
my father, Viserys the Peaceful...
named me his heir.
Not in secret, but in ceremony.
Hundreds of lords traveled hundreds of leagues
to swear fealty to me before gods and men.
But my rule was already ordained.
It was prophesied...
long before even Viserys was born.
It began with the Doom...
when fire and hell erupted
to destroy Old Valyria and her people.
I need Ulf the Dragonrider!
In there. Find him!
Only the Targaryens survived.
Where is he?
My family alone were spared.
The gods summoned my ancestor,
Aegon the Conqueror...
to the Seven Kingdoms to unite a fractured realm
beneath one banner of black and red.
They named him
Protector of the World of Men.
His duty, to shield it...
from an ancient and sinister darkness
that looms in the far North...
beyond the Wall, beyond the lands of winter.
And only the might of dragons
can stand against it.
The Conqueror passed this sacred charge
to his chosen descendants, to the Old King, Jaehaerys,
then to my father, then to me.
The Hightower line cannot fulfill this prophecy.
If your world is to survive...
I must light the way.
Because I am the Shield of the People.
I am Rhaenyra the Chosen.
Lords, knights, savages, and cutthroats!
Whether you live or die today...
you will be remembered in the histories
as those who began the Hightowers' end!
Grant no mercy!
Give no quarter.
I don't want the best of you, I want the worst!
Go now...
and kill them.
Right, lads!
Blades out!
Bellies in!
Siege engines, make ready!
Archers, draw.
Draw, draw, draw!
Good aim, lads!
Come on, then!
Send your fucking arrows,
you boy-touching cunts!
Loose!
My lord.
There is no sign or word of Ulf anywhere.
- He's deserted. - My lord.
The battle has begun.
- You don't say? - Yes, my lord.
It appears Daemon Targaryen did not accept King Daeron's terms.
Terms?
Speak!
King Daeron, he sent Ser Gwayne
to treat with the enemy under a banner of peace.
He freed the Sea Snake, my lord, as part of the bargain.
Continue the search. Find Ulf the Dragonrider.
Where is the prince?
The king?
Ladders! The ladders!
Oil!
Advance!
South wall!
Arrows!
Light the trenches!
Your Grace, I cannot find Ser Ulf the White.
What do you mean, you cannot find him?
He has a very large dragon.
Begging pardon, Your Grace. He is not with his dragon.
Turret!
Stop!
Find that fucking gate, lads!
Take them.
Draw swords!
- Kill them! - Forward!
Is that Hugh Hammer's dragon?
Hugh is meant to be guarding King's Landing.
Learn why he's here.
Center! Form on me!
Caraxes!
- At ready! - Hold your positions!
Dragon!
Bring down the rider!
Dracarys!
Move! Get down there!
Through the doors!
Come on!
Get out of the way!
Move!
Dracarys!
Forward!
To the main gates!
That's the gates open then, lads.
And we're still fucking alive.
Find me that boy king.
Go now!
I want Lord Hightower.
Get him out!
- Get up! - You worthless sot!
All you had to do was sit on your fucking dragon!
They're inside the walls!
You useless baseborn stump!
You may have cost us everything.
Now, get back on that beast,
and do as you've been told!
Ormund Hightower!
Kat, where are you?
Kat!
Ormund Hightower!
Kinslayer!
Babe killer.
Heathen!
Ser Ulf, I have orders from Prince Daemon
to make certain that you and your dragon are at the--
Daeron!
Your parlay failed.
Daemon's overwhelmed the city.
You will die.
But I won't be remembered a craven.
I have fought beside other brave men
who believed that death was the only path to glory.
Do not die for Ormund's vanity.
My boy.
My boy, please.
Please!
Stay back.
You'll have to come through me then.
Dracarys!
There you are.
There's Ormund's piece on the board.
Perhaps we'll survive the day.
Clear a path!
That's a proper fucking.
By the North.
Fuck you, too.
No. No!
Move! Find cover!
Where are you?!
Ulf has turned.
The town is lost.
We are leaving.
Daeron.
Kat. Kat!
My queen!