Finally. The wait is over — HBO has set a premiere date for Season 7 of its blockbuster fantasy drama Game Of Thrones, The seven-episode seventh season will launch July 16. The network also released the first teaser for the new season. You can watch it below.

In an extraordinarily elaborate, elongated Facebook Live video announcement watched by more than 150,000 fans, the premiere date was revealed as a big block of ice was melted by flaming torches. Fans were asked to type the word FIRE in comments to speed up the melting. Also interspersed were short videos of the series’ stars such as Alfie Allen breathing fire. The ice and fire theme — underlined by the name of the book series, A Song of Ice and Fire — was played up in the Season 7 poster released earlier this week.

HBO promo’ed that the reveal would be made at 11 AM PT, but the first iteration of the video ended abruptly without a premiere date. A second version also ended without a reveal. Third time (after an excruciating wait) was the charm.

GOT, whose previous seasons consisted of 10 episodes each, typically premiered in April after filming during the second half of the previous year. Season 7 was delayed because the storyline required a longer period of shooting in winter conditions.

This is the beginning of the end for GOT, whose creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had revealed that the Emmy-winning series will end with Seasons 7 and 8. While Season 7’s episode count was set at seven last summer, before it went into production, the length of GoT’s final installment had been in flux. Benioff and Weiss had said that they were considering a 6-episode final season.

GOT is executive produced by Benioff and Weiss as well as Carolyn Strauss, Frank Doelger and Bernadette Caulfield. George R.R. Martin, on whose books the series is based, is a co-executive producer.

Denise Petski contributed to this report.