HBO geared up viewers for a bloody, deadly showdown between the Targaryens and the Hightowers in a new teaser trailer for “House of the Dragon” released Monday. 

It’s the second trailer for Season 3 of the high-fantasy series from the mind of author George R.R. Martin. It’s set to debut June 21. 

Like the first teaser, the new promo promises big battles and lots of blood. And what’s a “Game of Thrones” series without some betrayal thrown in?

Amid clips of fighting, screaming and dragons taking flight, the teaser features the voiceover of various characters warning about the outcome of the impending war. 

“You now have a power no man has ever wielded,” Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) tells his wife—and niece—played by Emma D’Arcy. 

“You will have an empire unassailable, Rhaenyra. And our children will rule it forever and a day.”

But Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), the mother to Rhaenyra’s half-siblings, warns her: “You’ll do things that your heart would have recoiled from before you came to the throne.”

At the end of Season 2, Alicent, Rhaenyra’s childhood best friend-turned enemy, visits the queen at her base in Dragonstone. She apologizes to Rhaenyra about the conflict between the two sides of the family over the throne and offers to open the gates of King’s Landing to let the queen take the capital from her brother, Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney). 

Now in hiding and badly disfigured from battle, Aegon II promises in the Season 3 teaser: “I’m going to kill my brother or die in the attempt.” 

His brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) commands an unseen opponent in the teaser to “draw your sword” as Alicent warns, “it is no longer safe here.”

Rhaenyra gets the last word in the teaser, giving her own prediction on the battle to come.

“There will be no doubt who the gods have chosen to rule,” she says. 

“House of the Dragon,” the first spinoff from the “Game of Thrones” series, is based on Martin’s book “Fire & Blood.” It’s a prequel to the main series based on the “A Song of Fire and Ice” books. 

Also returning this season to “House of the Dragon” are Rhys Ifans, Steve Toussaint, Fabien Frankel, Sonoya Mizuno, Matthew Needham, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell and Phia Saban. Joining the cast this season are James Norton, Tommy Flanagan, Dan Fogler, Tom Cullen, Joplin Sibtain, Barry Sloane and Annie Shapero. 

About the author

Danielle Haynes is the co-founder and co-editor of Booked & Screened, covering book-to-screen adaptations, film and TV development. She’s 100% Team Black, though she’s sure Rhaenyra will commit some new atrocity in Season 3 that will make her question that.