The Kingdoms of Iron and Ash

Iron rusts. Ash settles. Thrones await.

The Obsidian Throne has sat empty for three years. Its last occupant died without a recognized heir — or so each of the seven great houses claims when it suits them, and the opposite when it does not. The Kingdoms of Iron and Ash are seven territories as different from each other as their people: the cold and austere North where men are as hard as the stone of their castles; the warm and perfumed South where poison is served in cut crystal goblets; the Iron Islands where the men of the sea do not ask permission to take what they need; the Desert of Ash where merchant cities float upon the dust of buried civilizations; the Frozen Wildlands where something not quite human has begun to gather with a troubling degree of organization; and the ancient Valyrian peninsula, whose civilization — razed by fire — left heirs who claim dragonblood as though that still meant something. It will mean something very soon. In this world, promises are made to be broken at the right moment, loyalty is measured by what it costs to maintain, and the most dangerous man of all is not the one who holds the sword but the one who writes the letter.