The fifth installment of George R.R. Martin’s epic cycle shifts the lens from the immediate carnage of the battlefield to the agonizing weight of the crown. As the fires of the War of the Five Kings cool into embers across Westeros, the survivors find that winning a throne is a far simpler task than holding one. In the frozen heights of the North and the sweltering humidity of the East, leaders are forced to confront the moral decay inherent in compromise and the high price of maintaining peace in a world built on ancient bloodlines and shifting loyalties.

While the previous narrative focused on the movements of the South, this volume reunites the reader with the exiles and the watchers at the edge of the world. Here, the traditional boundaries between hero and monster, ally and enemy, be...

The fifth installment of George R.R. Martin’s epic cycle shifts the lens from the immediate carnage of the battlefield to the agonizing weight of the crown. As the fires of the War of the Five Kings cool into embers across Westeros, the survivors find that winning a throne is a far simpler task than holding one. In the frozen heights of the North and the sweltering humidity of the East, leaders are forced to confront the moral decay inherent in compromise and the high price of maintaining peace in a world built on ancient bloodlines and shifting loyalties.

While the previous narrative focused on the movements of the South, this volume reunites the reader with the exiles and the watchers at the edge of the world. Here, the traditional boundaries between hero and monster, ally and enemy, be...