It’s a great week to be a fan of epic fantasy! Hot on the heels of the release of A Memory of Light, George R. R. Martin has unveiled a new excerpt from the next volume in A Song of Ice and Fire, The Winds of Winter.
The excerpt is from the viewpoint of Arianne Martell, the eldest princess of Dorne. A snippet:
It was then that pasty, pudgy Teora raised her eyes from the creamcakes on her plate. “It is dragons.”
“Dragons?” said her mother. “Teora, don’t be mad.”
“I’m not. They’re coming.”
“How could you possibly know that?” her sister asked, with a note of scorn in her voice. “One of your little dreams?”
Teora gave a tiny nod, chin trembling. “They were dancing. In my dream. And everywhere the dragons danced the people died.”
The excerpt focuses on Arianne reacting to the news of the appearances—and disappearances—of the Targaryen family and gives us one of the first indications of how Westeros will react to their return. Will Dorne overlook the events at the end of A Dance With Dragons in return for a prominent place in a new Targaryen court? Read and find out.