In the deepest reaches of Gorne’s Passage, close by a rift in the earth’s veins beneath the North of Westeros.
The depths stayed warm and damp year-round, natural hot springs and underground rivers threading through the rock, with veins of lava and geothermal fissures constantly giving off heat.
It was more than enough to sustain a dragon that had no business living in so cold a land.
More important still, the entrance to the passage was extremely well hidden.
Even if someone stumbled into it by accident, without knowing the right path, they would lose themselves among its tangled forks.
To keep a secret that could topple the kingdom, only three people knew of this lair.
Eddard Stark, Benjen Stark, and the one surviving witness of the battle at the Tower of Joy, Lord Howland Reed of Greywater Watch.
As Warden of the North, Ned had to hold Winterfell, and could not be away from it for long.
And so Benjen and Howland Reed became the dragon’s secret keepers.
Fortunately, the dragon’s intelligence far exceeded that of an ordinary dragon, more clever, even, than the dragons recorded in the old books.
In four years, it had rarely left its lair on its own, and had not caused the two men much trouble.
With the Gift long abandoned, and the Night’s Watch’s numbers having dwindled sharply, this stretch of wasteland had long since gone unguarded.
Now only two men moved through this land.
Howland saw to the hunting nearby, drawing on the crannogmen’s ancestral knowledge of secret herbs and stealth to keep finding food for the young dragon.
Benjen, meanwhile, saw to bringing in supplies from outside, using House Stark’s authority over the Gift as cover, carrying fresh meat, whole sheep, and specially prepared smokeless coal down into the depths, again and again.
The wind howled, and his horse let out a weary whinny.
Benjen pulled the reins tight and swung down from the saddle in a hidden valley.
He looked warily about, and only once he’d confirmed no one else was near did he walk to the rock face and pull aside the thick tangle of vines and dead branches.
A narrow crack in the stone opened before him.
Benjen led the three pack horses into the passage.
The moment he entered, the sound of the wind and snow outside was cut off by the stone walls, and only the sound of footsteps remained.
The passage sloped downward the whole way, and the deeper he went, the weaker the cold grew, the air slowly turning warm.
After a while’s walk, a wide underground cavern opened up at the end of the passage.
Clop.
Hooves crunched over loose stone, the sound echoing through the cavern.
Suddenly, a short, lean figure stepped out of the darkness.
He wore the dark green lizard-lion leather armor common among the crannogmen, a short blade at his hip along with several pouches full of herbs.
On a nearby rock lay a grey wolfskin cloak and a black sealskin mantle he had shed.
The short bow in his hands was already drawn, its arrow leveled at Benjen, his grey-green eyes fixed warily on him.
Once he made out the newcomer’s face, Howland Reed’s tensed body slowly eased.
He carefully lowered the bow and walked over.
“Benjen. You’re a month early. Has something happened?”
“Something’s come up at Winterfell. I needed to come and see for myself, ahead of schedule.”
Benjen looked at Howland, weariness showing on his face.
“How are things here? Is it well?”
As he spoke, he worked at untying the ropes on the pack horses, studying Howland at the same time.
Howland stepped forward quickly to help, and said in a low voice:
“Something’s off.”
“Come look for yourself in a moment, and you’ll see.”
With that, he wiped the sweat from his forehead, gravity showing in his eyes that he could not quite hide.
Once all the supplies had been sorted and set aside, the Lord of Greywater Watch led Benjen deeper into the cave.
Each of them carried some of the meat in hand.
The temperature deep within the cavern ran higher than outside, heat rising ceaselessly from the cracks in the rock, keeping the air warm at all times.
On a raised ledge in the cavern, a massive white dragon lay curled, its scales giving off a faint sheen in the dim light.
Over four years, sustained by the earth’s heat and no shortage of meat, the once-frail hatchling had grown steadily, and had begun to take on the shape of a true dragon.
It was clad in milk-white scaled armor, sharp bony spines running down its back, its broad, bony wings half-folded at its sides.
Its body was larger by a good margin than the last time Benjen had come.
As if catching the scent of the food and something familiar besides, the white dragon slowly raised its long neck, its violet eyes opening.
Seeing that it was the two familiar men, a low rumble sounded from deep in its throat.
Then it rose slowly to its feet and came toward them, hot breath streaming from its nostrils.
Benjen and Howland immediately set down the food in their hands and stepped carefully back.
Even after four years in its company, neither man dared to come too close.
But it did not lunge for the food as it usually did.
Instead, it lifted its head and let out a low cry toward the south.
Hooo…
hooo..
As though it were calling out to something.
“It’s been doing this often, ever since about a month ago.”
Howland’s brow furrowed tightly, his gaze never leaving the white dragon.
Seeing that it still hadn’t eaten, afraid of drawing its attention, he lowered his voice further and said to Benjen:
“It won’t settle into a deep sleep. It paces the cave often.”
“And it keeps making that calling cry toward the south, like it’s…answering some summons no one else can see.”
“A month ago..”
Hearing this, Benjen’s face turned graver still.
He swallowed, his throat dry.
“That’s when it started, then?”
Howland nodded.
Benjen quickly counted back the days in his head.
It had taken him more than twenty days to travel here from Winterfell.
And Jon’s dreams had begun exactly a month ago.
The two timelines lined up exactly.
More than that, the white dragon had been crying out toward the south this whole time, and Winterfell lay in exactly that direction.
Thinking of this, a suspicion began to take shape in Benjen’s mind, and he turned to Howland Reed, his face grave.
“I came here to check on the dragon, to see if anything was wrong.”
Howland Reed looked at him, waiting for him to go on.
“A month ago, Jon started having a strange dream.”
“He dreamed of this place. And of this dragon…even its size and its look matched exactly how it was the last time I left here.”
At this, Howland Reed’s pupils contracted sharply, and he stared at Benjen in disbelief.
“A dream?”
“He dreamed of this place too?”
“But how is that possible? This place is a thousand miles from Winterfell, and Jon has never even been here.”
He looked at the white dragon, still restless not far off, paused, then went on:
“Could it be that Targaryen blood carries something we don’t know about…”
He did not finish the rest of it.
At that moment, the white dragon, having received no answer, slowly stopped its cries.
It did not so much as glance at the food on the ground.
Instead, it returned to its resting ledge, lay down flat, and every so often cast a look toward the south.
The two men in the cavern exchanged a glance, said nothing, and slowly withdrew from the dragon’s lair.
The cavern settled back into silence.