Let’s predict what happens in The Winds of Winter

Prologue

The Winds of Winter will begin with two battles originally planned for the previous book. But before that, as is custom, comes the prologue. This chapter will reportedly involve Jeyne Westerling, the young wife of the late Robb Stark. Jeyne was devoted to Robb and is still in mourning his death.

The last time we saw Jeyne was when Ser Jaime Lannister ended the Siege of Riverrun. To avoid tales that her dead husband Robb had given her a child and thus an heir to the north, Jeyne is to remain unmarried for two years. Ser Prester Forley will take men to escort her and Edmure Tully to the Crag, her home. Before sending Jeyne and Edmure with the escort, Jaime mentions he fears Brynden Rivers or the Brotherhood without Banners may try to rescue her. If there was any attempt to escape during the travel from Riverrun, the escort of soldiers had secret instructions to kill her and Edmure.

Martin has mentioned before that readers will eventually see Highgarden and Casterly Rock at some point in the series. I think this prologue would be a great way to introduce us to the Lannister home base.

The Battles of Ice and Fire

Next up are a few battles the author has been planning for a long time. They were cut from A Dance with Dragons because of their length, but will set things in motion at the beginning of The Winds of Winter. These battles are large in scale and contain a number of main characters, most of whom are point of view characters.

"“I’m going to open with the two big battles that I was building up to, the battle in the ice and the battle at Meereen—the battle of Slaver’s Bay. And then take it from there.” – GRRM, 2012 in Smarter Travel"

The battle in the ice is the Battle of Winterfell, between the Boltons and their allies and Stannis with his northern clans. The Battle of Meereen pits Barristan the Bold, in command of forces loyal to Daenerys, against Yunkai and the Slavers.

And there’s actually a third battle: the Battle of Storm’s End sees Prince Aegon and Jon Connington defending Storm’s End against the Tyrells. These three events will be a cornerstone of the book, and should kick things off with a big bang. We’ll address them all in detail in a bit.

Across the Narrow Sea

Taking a look at the released sample chapters, Barristan Selmy will be in the thick of things during the Battle of Meereen. He is preparing his youthful calvary to charge against Yunkish slave legions. At the same time, Tyrion Lannister and the sellswords of the Second Sons are a few miles away from the main fighting. The Windblown, a mercenary company comprised of two thousand men, have just turned their cloaks for Daenerys. The mood in the tent is grim as Jorah Mormont notices ships in the distance of Slaver’s Bay, flying banners of the dragon.

With Stormcrows and fighters from Daznak’s Pit on his side, Barristan launches an attack on the Yunkai to some success. Near the end of the chapter, he sees that Greyjoys have arrived in Meereen and are coming on shore. They are fighting on his side, or so it seems for now.

Taking a look at the released Victarion sample chapter, it doesn’t seem that his presence in Meereen will bode well for Barristan or Tyrion, even if he is fighting the Yunkish. Sailing towards the city the night before, Victarion reveals his plan to have someone sound the Dragon Horn Euron found in the ruins of Valyria, a horn that could control Rhaegal and Viserion, who are loose in the city at this time.

"“Let the freedmen hear you in Meereen, the slavers in Yunkai, the ghosts in Astapor.” – Victarion Greyjoy"

The Dragon Horn of Valyria is known also as Dragonbinder. With this horn, Euron claims he can bind dragons to his will. Right now, Daenerys’ dragons — freed by Quentyn Martell in Dance — are causing havoc in Meereen. In Tyrion’s sample chapter, Viserion is seen spitting fire and eating corpses while Rhaegal is ominously circling the Iron Fleet.

Basically, Meereen is a powder keg on the edge of exploding. In the midst of battle, Victarion may sound the horn and gain control of one or both of the dragons currently loose in the city, probably Rhaegal. If it works and Victarion actually has his own dragon, he’ll have no more need to help those fighting for Daenerys, and could send his Ironmen against Barristan’s battle-weary soldiers, and the mercenaries may do as they always do and turn cloak after the tide turns. With Barristan dead, a power-hungry Victarion could rule Meereen as a dragonlord.

If such a disaster occurs, things don’t look good for Tyrion, who is planning to use what control he has over the Second Sons to have them fight for Daenerys. But whatever happens, Tyrion will survive the Battle of Meereen. When Martin received the Brown University Library’s inaugural Harris Collection Literary Award, he let slip that Daenerys Targaryen was given a small stack of old histories and songs of the Seven Kingdoms from Jorah Mormont, but neglected to read them. “But you know who does know a lot of that?” he said coyly. “Tyrion.”

The only way for Tyrion to gain access to these books is for him to join up with Daenerys, maybe even becoming her Hand of the Queen as he is on the show. However, it may not happen like it does onscreen. Here’s what Martin told Entertainment Weekly about these two characters in 2014:

"Tyrion and Dany will intersect, in a way, but for much of the book they’re still apart. They both have quite large roles to play here. Tyrion has decided that he actually would like to live, for one thing, which he wasn’t entirely sure of during the last book, and he’s now working toward that end—if he can survive the battle that’s breaking out all around him. And Dany has embraced her heritage as a Targaryen and embraced the Targaryen words. So they’re both coming home."

So Tyrion and Daenerys will be separated for “much of the book.” This could mean that they meet and are then separated for a while, as happens on the show, or it may mean that they won’t meet up until pretty far in. Still, it looks like a Dany-Tyrion team-up is in the cards.

Image: Game of Thrones/HBO

Let’s move on to our favorite soon-to-be assassin. On the show, Arya completes her training as a Faceless Man before sailing to Westeros with vengeance in mind. In the books, she is still training. In a sample chapter released in 2014, Arya takes on the persona of Mercy, a stage performer in Braavos. HBO took ideas from this chapter when it had Arya infiltrate a troupe of actors in season 6 of Game of Thrones, but things go a little differently on paper.

In Winds, Arya will run into Raff the Sweetling, the guy who killed Arya’s friend Lommy Greenhands back in A Clash of Kings, moments before she has to be on stage. She kills him, taking her revenge. But this means she has to abandon the identity of Mercy.

What comes next is up after is up for speculation. On the show, Arya kills Meryn Trant and is severely punished by the Faceless Men. Is this what awaits her in Winds?