DAENERYS

Black candles burned in the torch sconces, and the air was heavy with the smell of incense. It sounded like she was in a temple, though the songs of worship were faint and far away. The light streamed down from a high window and pooled around her feet, the pale amber colour of honey.

She heard her name spoken by one voice and echoed by ten thousand. "Daenerys Targaryen…"

"Quaithe?"

The woman stood shrouded by a cowl of shadows, her face hidden as always behind a lacquered red mask. Her eyes burned through the dark, shifting red and blue and green. "Remember the Undying, Daenerys," she whispered. "Three fires must you light, one for life and one for death and one to love; three mounts you must ride, one to bed and one to dread and one to love; three treasons you will know; once for blood and once for gold and once for love."

"Three treasons," Dany echoed, "who… who will betray me? Do you know?"

"I cannot see that far," said Quaithe, "so you must learn to look. Soon you will dance with mummers. They will wrap you in perfumed silks and drag you down, still hiding behind their masks and cowls and painted faces. And you must sing a song for them."

"I must sing a song? You… that doesn't make sense. A song for mummers."

"You are dreaming," said Quaithe, "when you wake, the words will speak to you differently. You know they will."

"Yes," replied Dany, "but if I am sleeping… then how…?"

A crack of thunder split the night wide open, and she fell from the dream as raindrops fell from the sky. They beat down mercilessly outside her window, playing a song on the cobbles below. And I must sing a song too, Quaithe says. She shifted in her bed and pulled herself up onto the pillows. The air tasted of salt and storm. Her brow was slick with sweat, and her nightdress clung to her. Half-dazed, she stumbled up from her bed. She went to the window, steadying herself against the pane, and gazed out. Below her, King's Landing sprawled, its streets and buildings black shadows against the blacker sky above. Atop Visenya's Hill, the sparrows were holding a vigil near Baelor's Sept, so she saw plenty of lights there, glowing brightly enough for her to make out the seven crystal towers. From the north, on Rhaenys's Hill, she thought she heard the cry of one of her nesting dragons. Viserion, mayhaps. His screeching sounded odd to her ears.

Was she still dreaming? Wearily, Dany rubbed her eyes.

When she looked out again, she could see beyond the city walls, to where the Dothraki camp sprawled, docile tonight. Were she still a naive girl, Dany might have said that all was well in the city again. Alas, it was not so. The sparrows were attacking brothels and pleasure houses now, declaring them sinful to their gods, and on occasion they had been known to attack markets to smash up casks of wine as well. I will have to see to them soon enough, and it will not be easy. Varys's little birds reported that her dragons were often the target of the sparrows' sermons. "They call them unnatural and a danger to the ways of men," he had said.

"Your Grace."

Dany jumped from the shock. "You must not do that," she said.

"Beg pardon, Your Grace," said Ser Jorah Mormont, "I heard you and I thought you might be in distress."

"I am fine. You may leave…" But when he turned to go, Dany stopped him. "No, send for Irri instead. I would take an early bath. My handmaidens will not love me for it, though." Not that anybody else does.

Ser Jorah went, leaving Dany alone with her dreams and her doubts. The Undying promised me three betrayals, but I have been betrayed too many times to count, and certainly more than thrice - once for blood and once for gold and once for love. But if Jorah was one, and Brown Ben another, and they have both come back to me, then am I still owed two betrayals?

She decided not to dwell on it. Soon after her handmaids came up with pails of water for her bath, still scaldingly hot from the kettles. Dany undressed before the window and lowered herself into the steam, letting the water suckle at her legs and her breasts. It was still dark, so Irri lit a lantern and placed it on the side table with her wine cup while Jhiqui scrubbed her back with soap and put lavender oil in her hair.

"I hope I did not wake you too early," Dany said in Dothraki, "the hour is unseemly, I know."

Irri was not bothered. "I dreamed a strange dream this night, until Jorah the Andal woke me. A swarm of moths came down from the moon and spoke to me in the long grass. They had glowing wings and shone like stars, but they had the voices of the blood of my blood, of the brothers and sisters who have died since we left Pentos with you, Khaleesi. And even more than that. I saw the mother who gave me life and the father who let me ride on his shoulders when I was but a girl…"

"You are dreaming cursed dreams," Jhiqui told her. "A swarm of moths is bad. It was the night lands that you saw, girl, and to see the night lands is to be cursed. It is known."

Irri nodded soberly. "It… it is known." She looked almost afraid.

"We all have evil dreams from time to time," Dany told her, "oftentimes they mean little and less." And I can only pray that is true, with all my heart.

The handmaid seemed comforted by her words. "It is not known," she said, "but perhaps it is so." She towelled Dany's hair and brushed out the tangles.

Later, when dawn was peeking above the horizon and her skin had turned wrinkled and red from her long immersion, Ser Jorah opened the door a crack and said, "Archmaester Marwyn has come seeking an audience, Your Grace."

"I am breaking my fast with Tyrion Lannister before he leaves," Dany replied. "But I will receive the archmaester, though I cannot promise him a long meeting." When Jorah was gone, she climbed out onto the towels and let her handmaids scrub her down. She chose a long ivory dress with dagged purple sleeves, and pale blue sandals for her feet. On the balcony, Irri brought her lime cordial, figs and wedges of blood orange, while Jhiqui ushered in Marwyn the Mage.

The archmaester did not wait for her invitation to take his seat. "There is good news to start, Your Grace. I have it on good authority that a tribe of mountain clansmen have been flushed from the Kingswood and were last seen heading off in the direction of the Vale of Arryn."

"Where they will likely continue with their present actions of raiding trade caravans and unsuspecting travellers. I thought you had good news?"

"It is a matter of perspective, I suppose." He folded his arms. "Far be it from my place to impose any suggestion to you, but I have word of a number of visitors who sailed into the harbour this morning."

"What sort of visitors?"

"Unusual visitors, to say the least. Cloaked all in red like our friend Moqorro." His lip curled with distaste. "You might do well to-"

"-receive them," Dany said.

Marwyn shrugged. "I was going to suggest that you ignore every word they say, but I suppose that would be impolite."

"It would be ungenerous to banish them from the city," the queen said, "However, it will not do to have them freely preaching the Lord of Light's religion among the people, especially with our sparrow problem as yet unresolved."

"Very well. Send Moqorro and a litter to retrieve them, with drapes over the windows so they are not seen… on second thoughts, do not send Moqorro. Aurane Waters should be sufficient company for them. Bring them to the Red Keep and have them see me this evening, when the audiences are done." Waters was informally the master of ships in Lord Celtigar's absence, but he was known to overstep his authority. Ser Jorah mistrusted him, Dany knew – though Jorah mistrusted most everyone.

"Wise thoughts, Your Grace. And with Lord Waters leaving by week's end, any threat of conspiracy will be soon gone."

Dany gave him a wry smile. "You have a suspicious mind, Archmaester."

"I have spent most of my life in Oldtown. There a man learns to be suspicious, else he might find poison in his porridge."

Something I might need to be aware of myself, she thought darkly. Marwyn shifted in his seat, rose, then left her with a bow. I trust him more than Varys or Lady Olenna or Lord Tyrion, but only because he has never served another king. Three betrayals I shall have… but could he be one of them. She thought not: Marwyn had no hunger for gold, no thirst for blood, and he loved no one, as far as she knew. But he did know Mirri Maz Duur… perhaps they were more than mere acquaintances…

After, Irri draped her shoulders in a half-mantle of ivory wool and coiled the three-headed dragon necklace around her throat, amber and jade and onyx burning in their eyes. That done, Dany descended the stairs from the balcony to her solar, where she found Tyrion Lannister sitting, staring deeply into his wine cup as though trying to discern its secrets.

"I am sorry for my lateness," Dany told him, "Marwyn held me up."

The dwarf lord shrugged. "I came at your invitation, Your Grace, so you cannot be late. I am sorry for being early." Grinning, he spread his hands in apology. Does he mock me? Dany wondered. She could not tell.

Jhiqui brought their breakfast, but Dany pushed hers away. Her hunger had dissipated, though she did not know why.

Lord Tyrion had no such qualms. "Fried bacon and fried bread. I must be blessed. Why, I can think of nothing better to remind me of King's Landing on my journey east."

"I expect you'll be glad to leave the city behind."

He speared a rasher of bacon on the point of his knife. "Well, it does have its faults – many of them, truth be told…" Here he took a moment's pause to sip his wine, "And yet I have grown with it, and I have learned alongside it. King's Landing has been my home for nearly two years now. And while I hate the stench and the treachery… and most of the people… there are things here that I love. Things I will miss."

Is that what it feels like to be home? Dany wondered. She had never known. The word sounded funny in her thoughts. Home.

"Lord Varys is not one of them, though," Tyrion said.

"Yes. I suppose it is my turn to contend with the eunuch now."

"He's not so bad… once you get past the fact that he has ten thousand spies across all Seven Kingdoms doing his bidding and learn to ignore the fact that Varys knows everything that you ever do."

"That seems rather difficult to ignore," she quipped.

"It's all a part of the game, Your Grace." With a small sad smile, he said, "I suppose I've grown so used to treachery by now that anything else seems too good to be true."

"Too good to be true." Strangely, Dany thought of her brother then. There had been a time when Viserys had been her hero, come to think of it. Before…

"My brother," she said, unsure why she was telling Tyrion Lannister of all people. "Viserys… he was flawed... but perhaps his dream was real... he made out that the Seven Kingdoms were some sort of paradise."

"I'm sure. With houses made of gingerbread, and rivers flowing with blackberry wine. Well, I have to credit his optimism, if nothing else."

"He did not know this place. Not truly… and neither do I."

The dwarf curled his lips into something that resembled a smile. "You will learn, in time. You have the good fortune to possess a certain shrewdness that will doubtless prove useful at some point in the wars to come."

Dany shook her head. "There are no wars to come."

"You have enemies, same as anybody else."

And many more, I'm certain. "Yes, I have enemies. But I also have dragons."

"Fire and blood cannot solve all your problems," he said. "You have dragons, yes… but dragons die."

Jorah Mormont had said the same, in Qarth, what felt like an age ago. Dany replied as she had then. "Dragons die. But so do dragonslayers."

"That they do," said Tyrion Lannister. "I seem to recall that several thousand smallfolk were killed storming the Dragonpit during the Dance of the Dragons. Of course, the five dragons were slain in the end, and Princess Rhaenyra's youngest son along with them, but... well, dragons are no man's playthings."

No, Dany had to remind herself, no, they are not. Drogon was near ninety feet from wingtip to wingtip now, Marwyn estimated, and certainly more than big enough for her to ride. "My foes would do to remember that." As would my so-called 'friends'.

"Oh, indeed," the dwarf said. "I have a sellsword friend who tells me that your dragons can be heard fighting over scraps in the Dragonpit on Rhaenys's Hill every night."

"Yes. But that is only Rhaegal and Viserion. Drogon spends his days hunting." And that worried her all the more.

"Woe betide any who have the misfortune to cross him," Lannister said. He bit his lip, looking for a moment like an overgrown, sullen child. "I never thought that I would ever see a dragon. When I was a boy, I asked my uncle Gerion if I could have one for my nameday. 'It wouldn't have to be a big dragon,' I said, 'only a little one, like me.'

"My father was never a kind man, Your Grace. I suppose he was about as far from kind as a man could possibly be. 'The dragons are all dead,' he told me that night, 'they died out over a hundred years ago. There is no magic in the world.'

"I almost cried at that, as my father no doubt wanted me to. 'Don't listen to him,' Uncle Gery said. 'There is no magic in the West, aye... but until we have explored the whole world, then we cannot know that there is none at all.' And he was right. For here I am, still the same ugly dwarf boy... but I have seen a dragon."

"And another sits before you," the queen said.

Lannister nodded. "Well, then," he said, raising his cup high, "a toast, to us. The children of terrible fathers. May we be considerably less awful than our forebears."

Dany supposed she could toast to that. She swallowed down her sour wine even as Tyrion Lannister lowered his cup to the table. "My ship is leaving soon, Your Grace. I had better be on it, if you'll excuse me."

"Yes," said Dany, "I suppose you ought." She had been about to say something else, but the little man had distracted her, and now she had no clue what she had meant to say. So she could only sit and watch as he bowed and waddled away, his wisdom lost to her. A queer sense of unease washed over her. We will meet again, Tyrion Lannister, she thought, half-prophetically, though not like this.

She ate half a pomegranate to finish her breakfast, sprinkled with lime juice. Neither fruit grew in Westeros, and Dany knew that their supplies of exotic eastern goods would run out soon, but they tasted too good. Last night she had thought of opening a trade route with the Free Cities of the East… but she needed money to make her trades, and for that she needed Tyrion Lannister. As she did for a dozen other things. The chests of gold they'd ransacked from ancient Astapor and proud Yunkai were running low, as were the gifts of wealth that the Lysene magisters had given her to stop her dragons from burning their cities to ruin. Without money, she could not pay her sellswords, and Dany was not such a fool as to believe that they would stay with her out of some sort of devotion. Brown Ben has turned his cloak twice already, and Daario… Daario is as fickle as they come. He'd sent her letters from Bywater and the Ring, where House Roxton had its seat, reporting that the Dothraki were dissatisfied with the plunder there and wanted to return to grazing lands before it started to snow.

His words spoke ill, but Dany had spent an age with his letter all the same, tracing the form of each and every word he'd written. She knew it was foolish, and yet she did it all the same. So what does that make me?

Ser Jorah and Lord Varys awaited her in the antechamber, the knight looking none too pleased at the eunuch's presence. Varys moved towards her in a wash of perfume and sweet-scented violets. "I am ever your servant, Your Grace," he said, bowing his head. "Your pardon, but I bring ill news. From Storm's End. Lord Jon Connington's company was attacked by rebels in the night, and his lordship was sorely wounded by an arrow that took him in his lower leg. He will recover, so says Ser Harry's letter, but this may delay the Lord Hand's return to King's Landing."

Not that the Hand has ever made his intentions to return known. Dany was convinced that Lord Connington was merely wasting time in the Stormlands for some reason she could not quite discern. It worried her, but there was little she could do. I must trust in Aegon, and in his judgement of Lord Connington. I have no other choice.

And I must say the same for Varys, it would seem. "I pray Lord Connington recovers soon," she said coolly. "These rebels you speak of… Lannister supporters?"

The eunuch glanced at his feet. "That is the other thing, Your Grace. The Grandisons have sworn oaths to us, as have the Fells and the Bucklers and the Bar Emmons who supported Stannis, but your foes now come from a different quarter. Men are calling them the Kingswood Brotherhood come again, but it is not anarchy they seek to spread, but distrust in you."

"I faced the Sons of the Harpy in Meereen. I am no stranger to insurgency. And no friend to it either."

"It is not the nature of this uprising that concerns me, Your Grace, but fear that it might reach King's Landing, and the ears of the sparrows. Religious fanatics will be only too keen to jump onto the bandwagon of these rebels if they find their aims favourable…"

"And their aims are?"

Varys shifted uncomfortably. "To overthrow the established order of the Seven Kingdoms, to knock down the kings and queens and create equality for all. Or so they say. A similar revolt happened in Lorath a century before Aegon's landing, and was successful for a time. Maester Korliss was known to write that the Lorathi believed all men were equal… but in practise some men are more equal than others. It was not long before tyranny imposed its hold over the city."

"It will not get that far," Dany promised. "Lord Connington has this all in hand, I trust?"

"So he says." Varys's words did little to reassure her.

She nodded, and turned away from that subject. "How many petitioners are there this morning?"

"One-hundred and eighty-three, Your Grace, at the last count. That will take a few hours, at the very least."

Dany had chosen to forego the throne room in favour of the Small Hall in the unoccupied Tower of the Hand, where she could sit on a cushioned chair, eat figs and sip wine while the petitioners begged favours of her. Lord Varys had protested that most fervently. "Your Grace, the Iron Throne is more than just a seat; it is a symbol of power, your birthright, the-"

"My dragons are my power. And my birthright." She was defying tradition, but what of it? She had defied tradition in Slaver's Bay, and the people of Meereen and Yunkai and Astapor had come away so much better.

"All rise for Her Grace Queen Daenerys," the herald declared as she came in, "the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm." Dany took a seat on the throne amid pale purple cushions. Ser Jorah Mormont stood at her right, his brows furrowed with distaste. Below the dais sat Grand Maester Gormon with his ponderous chain, Lady Olenna Tyrell, dignified in her moonstone-studded wimple; Haldon Halfmaester, Marwyn the Mage, and lastly Lord Varys, who was acting as her steward, much as Reznak mo Reznak had in Meereen. Beware the perfumed seneschal, she thought, as Varys conducted the petitioners inside. The eunuch always smelled of fruit and flowers, but Dany found no cause to be wary around him. I am seeing foes in every shadow, where I ought to see friends. But if they are my foes…

First came a pair of Pentoshi captains who were angered by the tariffs she had placed on their goods being sold in the harbour. Lord Tyrion had imposed them himself before leaving, so Dany left the explanation to Haldon Halfmaester, who seemed to have a better idea of what he was saying. Then a farmer who claimed that Drogon had come down from Blackwater Bay and eaten all of his livestock, but Dany was certain that he was lying, since the man did not seem to know what colour her dragon was, nor where his own farm was situated.

Midday brought the arrival of a pair of begging brothers from Baelor's sept, in roughspun robes and old sandals on their feet, who stank of the city. They bowed to her and looked up distastefully with pinched, mean faces. "Your Grace," one of them said, "We have been sent to beg audience with you, at the Great Sept of Baelor."

"Sent by who?"

"His High Holiness," said the brown brother.

Lord Varys coughed. "There is no High Septon, goodmen. The Most Devout have not chosen-"

"The Most Devout are old men, their souls black with sin. Let them use that gilded monstrosity of a sept on Visenya's Hill as a breeding ground for their immorality, Your Grace. Let them continue with their tedious process of choosing their High Septon. Your people have chosen theirs."

Dany looked to Lord Varys. "Did you know about this?"

It was Marwyn the Mage who answered. "The smallfolk choose a dozen leaders at dawn each day, Your Grace; most have fallen by dusk. Tradesmen, merchant guilds, even thieves, they all have their leaders. So it goes for begging brothers."

"His High Holiness is different," the brother said, "he was chosen by septons from all seven corners of the city, raised up from among thousands by the light of the Seven. It would please us greatly if you were to receive him. It would please your people."

Lady Olenna Tyrell spoke up. "I must admit some concerns about this High Sparrow you seem to speak of with such reverence. I seem to recall that Cersei Lannister raised such a man to prominence, and he stormed her daughter's wedding and executed the groom. If this man has returned to the city, then Crown Law dictates that his head be mounted on a spike."

"This High Sparrow was last seen headed for Oldtown with five thousand of his followers," said Varys, "but that was half a year ago. I think it is safe to say that we would have noticed his return."

"Would we?" Lady Olenna raised an eyebrow. "For a master of whispers, you do not sound very certain."

"My lady, if I knew every single person coming into this city and their business here, things would be so much easier, don't you think?"

Dany sighed and looked to the sparrows. "Tell His High Holiness that I will see him." I am consorting with liars and braggarts every day, why not zealots too? "Soon." That was vague, but it was enough to placate them for now, and it was more than she needed to do. Dany thought they ought to be pleased by that, but they were frowning as they retreated from her.

Lord Varys said, "Your Grace would do well to ensure the loyalty of your people, especially in the wake of all this terrible warring." He pressed his soft hands together. "No doubt our good Lady Olenna would not hesitate to lay on supplies from the Reach for the poor beleaguered folk of King's Landing."

The Queen of Thorns snorted. "All paid for with Tyrell gold, of course. But yes, I shall consent to that, out of the kindness of my heart." She smiled at Dany. "Fear not, Your Grace shall have no doubts about House Tyrell's loyalty."

"There are warehouses and stores around Rhaenys's Hill that could hold the foodstuffs from the wagons," said Lord Varys.

"Yes, but you shall have no part in their storage, eunuch. I don't want your grubby hands poking everywhere. I daresay none of us do."

They took a brief recess, during which Varys and Olenna complained some more and Grey Worm came to make his report. Moqorro came in alongside him, swaddled in his blood-red robes. The red priest was helping her Unsullied commander with his investigation into the murders of her Unsullied. "We have dire news, Your Grace," he said, with nothing to soften the blow. "Ten of your men were found dead this morning, in a winesink near the Lion Gate."

"Ten?" asked Lady Olenna. "That many? And you are no closer to knowing who has perpetrated this?"

"This one does not understand," admitted Grey Worm, "we are thinking that it is the sparrow people, but there is no evidence, my queen. It is like Sons of the Harpy, come again."

It is worse than that. In Slaver's Bay, I was a foreign queen in a foreign land. Here I am among my people, my father's people, and yet still they cast me away. "How did ten men die?" Dany asked. "I ordered them to patrol in pairs." As though that would protect them. The excuse sounded pathetic now.

Grey Worm sounded as ashamed as he could. "This one sent ten to patrol western wall, my queen. Perhaps they were enticed into wine-place and set upon, perhaps killed and then dragged inside."

Marwyn the Mage said, "And still you suspect the sparrows?"

"This one saw the winesink with his own eyes. It is near the Sept."

"I have met with the sparrows only this morning," Dany said, a sour taste in her mouth, "they seemed to want me as their friend… though liars rarely present themselves as such."

"On that we are agreed," said the Queen of Thorns, with a sidelong look at Lord Varys.

After Grey Worm had gone, Varys brought the petitioners back in. One was a messenger boy sent by Brown Ben Plumm from Tumbleton, announcing that Lord Footly had surrendered to her sellswords, and that the Second Sons had barricaded the goldroad near Stoney Sept, so that no wagons or horses could pass through that region to deliver supplies to either Lord Stannis or the Lannisters. "Is there news of Daario Naharis and his Stormcrows?" Dany asked eagerly, but the boy knew nothing, and she got nothing in answer. A captain of her City Watch came to tell her that Tyrion Lannister's ship had departed, with the dwarf, his squire and his sellsword friend on it. "Good riddance to him," Lady Olenna said with pursed lips.

Lord Rosby brought forth claims of a border dispute with Lord Rykker, blushing and bowing his head over and over again. He is half in love with me, Dany thought, but I have nothing for him. He half-reminded her of Hizdahr zo Loraq, and that made her oddly sick, so she promised to hear his words and had him dismissed as quickly as she could. Fifteen-year old Lord Monford Velaryon came before her to bend his knee and say some words of fealty. But when Dany asked after his cousin Aurane Waters, he shook his head and said that he had not seen his cousin since his departure to the docks this morning on her orders. How long can it take to find a few priests? she wondered.

A balding man claimed that a Dothraki horde had attacked his village on the far side of the Blackwater Rush, carrying off his chickens and a nanny goat, and reportedly groping his wife when she tried to protest. Dany promised the man recompense in the form of silver, but when she admitted that it would be impossible to charge anyone. When he heard that he spat at her feet, and Haldon Halfmaester and Ser Jorah had to haul him out.

"Was there any truth in his words, do you think?" she asked Marwyn the Mage.

"We have no way of knowing, Your Grace," the archmaester said. "And if it is so, the Dothraki are too far away for us to know about." Two-thirds of the male warriors had gone out on the ranging, though a good forty or fifty thousand women and children remained outside the walls of King's Landing in their ramshackle camp. And there were worrying reports of more raids near the Mud Gate, of shops and businesses being looted. Drogon's appearance cowed them for a time, but they are a warring people. Perhaps I should send them back to Dragonstone, or over to Essos once more. Let them ride in the Disputed Lands, and come back only if I need them.

Lastly, Grand Maester Gormon presented a score of letters to the court, mostly pledges of allegiance and empty words of praise, but there were some interesting messages from Highgarden too, written in the hand of Willas Tyrell, now Lord of the Reach. "Lord Willas regrets that he cannot come to King's Landing to bend the knee in person, on account of his bad leg-"

"Don't expect me to bend the knee either, what with these hips," added Lady Olenna.

"-so he is sending his uncle Garth in his place, and a party of other Reachmen to attend upon Your Grace's court. Meanwhile his brother Garlan is raising a host to march to Storm's End, first to defeat the remainder of Lord Randyll Tarly's host in the field, and then to aid Lord Connington in this rebellion that plagues him in the east." He rolled the scroll and picked up a quill. "How should I reply, Your Grace?"

"Gratefully," said the queen. That meant glad tidings, gentle words, but nothing of substance, nothing that could damage their new alliance. House Tyrell had been battered by the War of the Five Kings that had preceded her landing, yet Highgarden still commanded close to seventy thousand swords, and near as many knights as every other part of the realm put together. She had half a mind to request those swords to bolster King's Landing's defences, but she did not want to seem too reliant on the aid of her vassal lords, nor foolish by believing in their assured loyalty. Three treasons you will know.

The herald was preparing to call the proceedings to a close when the doors opened and in came Grey Worm and Moqorro… and Aurane Waters as well. Dany stared down at the Bastard of Driftmark. "Did you find those red priests?"

"He most certainly did," replied the voice of the man who followed. Tattoos covered his head like a thousand tiny patches of motley, red and orange and smoky umber, rippling with every twist of his mouth. "I am Benerro, Your Grace," he said, bowing deeply before the dais. "The First Servant of the Lord of Light at the Temple of Volantis, the Light of Wisdom, the Flametruth." Others followed in his wake, about twenty of them in all, dressed alike in red, men and women both.

Aurane Waters smirked. "Save your titles, red man. They pale in the face of hers. For this is Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains-"

"-and Mother of Dragons," Benerro finished. "I have come a long way to find you, Daenerys Targaryen. And you have not disappointed."

Dany could not help but smile. "Perhaps you are making a hasty presumption, my lord Benerro. We have barely met."

"They say a child takes after his mother. I saw your child, my queen, as we were crossing Blackwater Bay. The black one, with fire in his eyes. Drogon."

How did you know his name? she might have asked, but Benerro was not done. "A man is truly blessed to see a dragon in his lifetime, Your Grace, but it was you I came for, not him. For you are the blood of the dragon, fire made flesh. I came to see Azor Ahai reborn."


Author's Note:

Hmm... this one wasn't very fun. Luckily, it was the top of the 'hill' that I've been trying to get over for the last couple of weeks, and the last of the setup chapters from part II. I think I channelled ADWD Dany quite a bit here, which isn't necessarily a good thing. It's rare that I write a chapter where absolutely nothing of substance happens, but this one came close. However, we did get some news from Highgarden and Storm's End, and a few tidbits about the sparrows, so I guess we did alright overall.

Next up: Davos and Sansa, though not necessarily in that order.