Jon was given his audience. He looked somewhat surprised that he had, actually, which was ironic about the entire situation. But his determination to see through the situation also came across in the set of his face. He was here with a cause, which he was sure was righteous. And as all things are dependent on circumstances, in another circumstance, his assumption might have even been true.
He was composed, and dignified, if having gone soft over the past year and a half. Grey Worm could see this, in the eighteen months subsequent to his being abandoned for the mission to the North, he had abandoned much of his practice at arms. One more court layabout.
The dignity was only skin deep. Daenerys sat on the low throne in Dragonstone Palace, inscrutable behind her mask. Only Grey Worm actually knew her thoughts about the matter.
"Your Majesty, thank you," Jon offered, rising when given leave, just to bow again. "I an grateful you have allowed me my voice."
"I do so at my own discretion and not due to any right of your's that I might acknowledge, for I see none," Daenerys replied.
Grey Worm hid a smirk at the way those words set Jon aback.
"I have come only to plead the simple cause of a father before you," he answered. "That basic right which even beasts of the field know, Your Majesty."
"At least you are honest in your comparisons about yourself," Daenerys sounded genuinely bemused.
"Your Majesty, please. I had two children by Princess Elaena Targaryen. I am their natural father. I have been given to understand that you gave the order for her to take me to bed, she has not returned to me since they were born, and you have legitimised them as Targaryen. I know I have lost that opportunity…"
"You never had it." She breathed softly. "But come, there is much for us to speak about, Jon Snow. You are right about that. Come with me." She rose from the throne. "Grey Worm, a troop of Unsullied, if you please. I am retiring to my private apartments to conduct this discussion with the petitioner, privately."
"Of course, Your Majesty." He selected twelve of his best men from the coterie of guards around the throne, and they formed a phalanx around Jon as he was led back into Daenerys' private apartments within Dragonstone castle, even as Grey Worm walked one step to the left and one step back, at Daenerys' side. Once they were out of the audience hall, they stopped long enough for the Unsullied to thoroughly search Jon, and then they carried on, back into this private place for a wounded Sovereign.
Daenerys stepped back into the atrium of her apartments, black rock opening to rainy but pretty vistas of the green inland regions of Dragonstone Island, with the rushing rivulets cascading down through the natural granite to pool and then plunge in little waterfalls down to the beach below. A rough rope-path connected Dragonstone Castle, nestled in a glen along the heights of those sea-cliffs, to the small Castle Harbour, a key-hole harbour within the midst of the iron-bound coast, some distance from Derlyn, with its much larger military and fishing harbour.
Daenerys could follow the thread of the water, descending from the Moors above, filled with sheep, as it ran down from the abrupt, looming mass of the Dragonmount. She could trace it back to the creeks in the moors, and then down again, to the little harbour below. A small number of guard and dispatch frigatas. were drawn up at the tiny rock-wharves. Above, a few fumeroles wafted out from the Dragonmont. For all that, the island was as at peace, and as much of a natural paradise, as any Valyrian could desire.
Salt and smoke, as it was when she had been born. She unclasped her mask, and handed it to Grey Worm, who reverently set it aside. Then she faced Jon. "Come closer."
He did so, having the sense, at least, to bow when he did, and the sanity to remember to use a proper address, rather than slip as he had done at their first encounter. "Your Majesty. Thank you. So, I have two children by Elaena Targaryen, the Princess and your heir…"
"I know all of this Jon. What makes you think you have any right to ask me?"
"Your Majesty, I am their father, that is all…"
"You are their sire, or rather, I have pressed your blood like a Vinter presses grapes!" Daenerys exploded, pointing her finger sharply, her ruined features taut with a sudden fury. Or perhaps it was not so sudden at all, but instead merely long suppressed. "I have gotten what I needed from you! The blood of my mother and my father runs in your veins, the blood of my brother Rhaegar runs in your veins. It was precious, but it now it runs in the veins of my blessed grand-niece and grand-nephew instead. I shall have no children of my own. That power was twice-denied me, though I am a woman and I desired it, God did I desire it, once. A family, and all the happiness that it meant. Indeed, I even hoped, and prayed, that the curse of the Witch was false or could be undone, and that WE would have children, Jon, we would have children, the two of us, as husband and wife!"
Her violet eyes flashed with violence. He stared, incredulous, faintly pale. "Jon," she continued. "Do you deny that you murdered me? Murdered me as you came to me, whispering your loyalty and love?"
"I do not," he answered, shaking his head, a flush spreading at his cheeks.
"Those children are the children that we could never have. I caused you to have them with Elaena, instead. But you never had the right to be their father. You lost that right the moment you plunged the blade into my breast! You lost it forever, then."
"Your Majesty, I … Forgive me, forgive me a thousand times, I beg you. I ask for nothing, no wealth, no consideration, no title, and certainly not her hand in marriage. Just the right to see the children of my own seed."
"You are not getting the message, Jon Snow. You're not seeing them. You're not watching them grow up. They're not going to call you father, and you're not going to influence them in the slightest. Elaena will raise them to be Valyrians, with Valyrian nursemaids and governoresses and scholars to educate them. They will fly dragons. They will be the heirs of the Dragon, and through them, my dynasty will live forever, or as near to it as the Lord of Light shall grant. Grey Worm, grab him! Hold him! Bind him!"
Grey Worm lunged forward and grabbed Jon from behind in a single and sudden motion. He looped a cord around Jon's neck, and pulled, threatening to garrote him unless he obeyed, dragging him back with the threat of the cord growing taut, until he compelled Jon down into a chair.
He was flushed, an aching, horrified look on his face as he looked at Daenerys. She had casually turned away, and retrieved something long—wickedly sharp—Dark Sister. "A possession of the Three-Eyed Raven, thanks to Bloodraven. Now the Targaryen sword which matters, since Blackfyre was so honourably destroyed defeating the enemies of my house."
She drew the sword and approached Jon, laughing. Now she was calm again, after the sudden expulsion of violent fury. "Oh God, Jon, God. We could have been so wonderful together. I loved you. I was in love with you." Hot tears splashed down her face. "I was in love with you."
Jon wept, in remorse, and confusion, and fear, like enough. "But you had me father children, and now, now, Gods, now, why now?"
"Because of exactly that! Because I needed those children, I needed my mother and father and brother to have heirs!" She answered with a growing shriek in her voice, almost hoarse. "God, why wouldn't I drink poison, why wouldn't I swallow bile, for that? You idiot, you fool, this plan was drawn against you from almost the moment that I rose again in Volantis! And it was sweet, it is sweet, I will tell you the truth. I have triumphed. You hated yourself, you had no will to live. Well, hah, Jon, here you are and you want to live! You have given me heirs and you have given yourself the will to live. Well, now that your life is something you actually had begun to care about, now that it was actually something that mattered to you again, I am going to take it from you! I am going to take it from you," she stepped closer, the sword drawn in her hand.
Jon tried to lunge to his feet. Grey Worm's strong hands and arms, which had not been allowed to go slack and never would be, and the rope around his neck, were more than enough to restrain the massive northern man and yank him back down to his seat. "Gods, Daenerys, please, I … Revenge does not befit you!"
"That is part of what your sister said to make you want to kill me!" Daenerys exploded in rage again. "I could have executed you two years ago. But I had my own family to take care of, and take of them, I did. You will not interfere with the upbringing of House Targaryen, Jon Snow, Bastard of the North! You will not! If you remained alive, your complaining, and your efforts to see your children would sooner or later either cause Elaena to make decisions that would harm the future of my Empire of Liberty, or else would force her to kill you herself, and be known as a kinslayer and cast a stain on her reign. And I will do nothing to jeopardise my Empire , nor the succession, nor the reign of my chosen heir."
Her voice had calmed again. "For the last… For my requiem, I am Azor Ahai, the Prince Who Was Promised. The end is coming soon, Jon, for both of us. And I know well the pain that I have caused, that you would so snidely try to remind me of, and make me uncertain of my own course, as you have done before. But my memory is too great to sully. It's one advantage to being the Chosen of God," she laughed with bitter softness, very close now. "So let the stain of dishonour fall upon me. You killed me because I was mad and a danger, Jon Snow. Taste my madness! Taste my danger!"
She raised the sword high in both hands, and Grey Worm yanked back hard on the rope, Jon frozen in a rictus of pain, muscles clenched in an attempt to resist that was cut short by the position of hopelessness that he was in, the inability to escape or resist.
"In the Name of the Lord of Light, I give my thanks, for the hour of my revenge!" Daenerys plunged Dark Sister down firmly straight into Jon's breast, thrusting the sword deep in until the blade, nicking across a rib, passed through into the cushion of the chair below, a sharp strike which nearly hit the same point that Jon had hit in her, but was just different enough to miss the heart, to let him die slowly.
Then she gritted her teeth, braced herself, and wriggling the blade, slowly wrenched it back out of his breath as his hoarse scream of pain faded away, eyes glassy with the shock of the pain.
She held the blade up. "Clean it for me please," she instructed to one of the Unsullied. As the moment faded, and with it, Jon's life, she looked haggard, exhausted and content all at once. Like she had finally set aside the burden that she had carried since her resurrection.
Then Daenerys quietly turned away, and headed back out to the balcony. Grey Worm checked Jon's pulse, and judged it weak enough; he released the dying man, gasping as his life faded , and followed her out to the balcony. "He will be dead within five minutes or less, Your Majesty."
"Good." She sighed softly. "I am very satisfied, but nor could I bring myself to torture my own blood."
"Your heart exceeds all other sovereigns who have lived," Grey Worm answered; "let me speak that honestly. If Missandei was at our side, even she would not have protested this. Know that you have done right."
"Thank you, Grey Worm." She closed her eyes. "Well, it's almost done then. Just two more things to take care of. And one more person. Summon Elaena in the evening, please. Not until then."
"Of course, Your Majesty." He paused. "She will be furious. She could not help it, when she obeyed your command, she began to become fond of him, though he did not deserve her in the slightest."
"I know. Tolerate anything, except a direct threat to my person, and stop that only with restraint. She is the heir, and nothing will change that."
"Yes, Your Majesty. I will make the preparations."
Elaena entered the Empress' private apartments, well aware that the palace and the guard staff were in a state of consternation. Something had happened, and she felt rather unprepared, returning in a riding habit with bodice, that was not at all suited for active occasions. A herald had met her and requested her presence in the Empress' apartments, and so there she was, arriving only minutes later, making haste through the halls of Dragonstone castle and up the flights of stairs.
"Your Majesty," she began, but was blocked by Grey Worm, drawing back with a start of surprise. "Forgive me, General?"
"Your sword, please, Your Highness," he answered, bowing.
Elaena blinked, and recoiled automatically. "General, I have armorial privileges before Her Majesty."
"Nonetheless, Her Majesty made the request herself," he answered, his face rigidly composed, expressionless.
Elaena closed her eyes, and felt herself go pale, and stiffen. A Dragon was easily angered, after all. But this was Daenerys, this was Grey Worm, and if they wanted her unarmed…. Well, she'd have to trust it was a good reason. As the mother of the descendants of Daenerys' mother, she no longer feared in the slightest for her life, hadn't for years, not in the way when she wondered if she were walking on the bllade of a knife back when she had first started in this role as Daenerys' sword. So she unbuckled the Valyrian steel sword from her hip, removed it in the scabbard, and presented it to Grey Worm.
He offered a faint smile, then. "I shall return it to you, when your audience with Her Majesty is finished, I promise."
"Thank you," Elaena managed a smile, and stepped beyond him and carried on into the atrium, with the balcony behind. That was where Daenerys was, looking out at the stars as the last night of the sun disappeared below the rugged horizon of the mountains. She walked up, and bowed. "Your Majesty. I have arrived as I was summoned."
"You know that something is a-matter in the palace?"
"There is much noise and to-do, Your Majesty. And I was asked to give up my sword. Was there an attempt against your life?"
"If there was, it was much more pathetic and half-hearted than the last time he made it" came the answer, and it made Elaena freeze.
"Jon, Your Majesty?"
"Jon. Oh, he had plenty of provocation, and I'm not sure if he had been allowed to get out of the chair, whether he would have gone for me or for Grey Worm. But he certainly resisted, as much as he was allowed to, when I drove the sword into him." She turned to face the abruptly shocked Elaena. "I executed him. It was past due, for what he had done."
Elaena, frozen, felt torn between a thousand emotions. Sadness, that he was gone. Anger, that he was gone. Anger, that she was angry that he was gone? Anger at herself. Anger at her sadness. Relief that he was gone… A spiral, too many things, a rainbow assaulting her with every feeling under the sun. That was what it was.
She staggered back, and sank into one of the chairs. It was without permission, but Daenerys ignored it. Instead, she faced the woman she had chosen as her heir. "Elaena, I could not let him influence the governance of the Empire of Liberty. I could not let him whisper things into your ear. I would not let him stand between us and justice for his sister. I would not let him influence the children that are mine. You know this. He lost the right to do all of it. But, you were becoming soft to him. Fond of him."
"Don't blame me for this, Your Majesty! With all due respect, I was obeying your commands to lay with him, how could I harden my heart so much that I would not feel a kindness toward him, when he was tender?" Elaena felt a surge of bitter anger. "How will I ever explain this to my children."
"Don't," Daenerys answered simply. "Few people know the father of your children. They just know that Azor Ahai legitimised them, so now they are a Prince and Princess, and thus heirs. Do even your own children need to know more? Tell them that they are Maekar's, even. They are Targaryens, nothing can take that from them, and even if people don't know the line of my parents and brother still exists, it does still exist, and it will exist as the House Targaryen. That's what matters to me. The less they know about Jon Snow, the better."
"He lunged at you?" Elaena asked, seizing that as if to find some justification for what had been done, even as it gnawed on her that Daenerys already had plenty.
"Well, it was quite obvious by that point that I was going to run him through with Dark Sister."
"You were taunting him." Elaena stared up with almost an expression of shock, and real anger, then. "Did you torture him, too?"
"Wouldn't you taunt the man who murdered you, Elaena Targaryen, if you were given the opportunity?"
Elaena felt like she had been slapped. She leapt up. Neither of the two Valyrian women were particularly tall, but Elaena had a few inches on Daenerys, whose great courage and moral strength had always made her seem like an outsized figure compared to her actual tiny body. "Damn it, Your Majesty."
"I know the woman I educated to be a Princess and my heir too well to think the answer is anything other than yes. Oh yes, I taunted him. But I didn't torture him. Don't you ever think so lowly of me!"
Elaena cringed, and flung herself around, stepping back, flushing, hot tears falling from her cheeks. "Forgive me, Your Majesty. But I feel most cruelly used by this! Most cruelly! I had intimate relations with him and his children, he was your kin, they are your kin, we are kin, and …"
"You'll soon wear three crowns on your head. I could not risk those crowns to whatever malign influence such a man, in such a position, might have over you."
"Your Majesty created that position."
"I did, but anyone would be a damned fool to think I wouldn't take advantage of the opportunity which was given me to save the legacy of my family and my dynasty. You, Jon, your children. It all came together beautifully. As long as Drogon lives he will have riders, now. And … There may yet be more dragons."
"More dragons?"
"The seven eggs at Summerhall. I've been speaking with Shiera about it. Soon. Soon."
Elaena glared in frustration. "And what does that have to do with any of this? You won't be able to take Drogon from me."
"Why would I take anything from you, my heir?" Daenerys shrugged. "Do not fear that I speak of other dragons as a way to remove your power. Jon was less than nothing. I did you a favour, and perhaps you will understand it soon enough."
"Well, if that's what you think, then I know what I will do."
"And what is that, Princess Elaena?" Daenerys asked, calm, too mild, it was irritating, driving Elaena to the limit.
She turned toward the door. "I am taking Drogon, and I am going to Lys! I will elope and marry Maekar, and there's nothing you can do to stop me! I would be anywhere but in Your Majesty's presence!" She spun on heel and turned toward the door. To her surprise, and momentary consternation, Grey Worm returned her sword, exactly as promised.
There were no words calling after her, and no-one trying to stop her.
But a thought struck her, a terrible one. What will Arya do when she hears the news? A black rage, pale with anger, the kind of anger which is as cold as ice, the kind of anger which is dangerous, not raging like she just recklessly had against the Empress, but the kind of anger that was very dangerous. In fact, Elaena could not bring herself even then in her moment of passionate fury, to hate Daenerys, and Arya was her friend. The collision between the two terrified her.
So she flung herself down a side-hall, to the room in which Arya lodged, her boots muffled by the fine carpets laid down upon the black stone. She arrived and rapped quickly on the door, trembling and obviously discomfited, she couldn't help that. Arya, in her usual ranking servant's dress with androgynous features, tossed it open, with a dagger at the ready. Arya was always ready for a fight like that, and Elaena couldn't blame her. "My friend, I am flying for Lys, right now, without a pause. I want you to accompany me," Elaena explained, the words spilling out like a torrent.
"Ela, what's wrong?"
"Please don't ask, just come with me."
"Ela, this is as strange as ... Is there some political matter to-do?"
"You might call it that."
"We are kin now, of a kind," Arya acknowledged. "I... I don't want to leave Jon and Sansa here alone, but..."
"Please." Elaena twitched faintly. "Please."
Arya froze, and spun, and put on her boots, took her rapier, and a heavy cloak, and the bag she held ready for emergencies. Instantly, she was ready to go.
They walked together to Elaena's apartments. There, her riding habit and her dragon-saddle bags were ready for all emergencies, heavy warm cloak, emergency rations and water. Five minutes after they had reached Drogon, who seemed agitated all at once, and Elaena flung herself onto his back, helped Arya up, and with whip in hand, lunged straight to the air and on to the south and Massey's Hook. As she rose from Dragonstone Castle, out of the corner of her eye, she could see Daenerys, on the balcony.
They had just let her go.
She didn't tell Arya until they reached Lys. Arya's first reaction was to punch her in the face, which Elaena forgave without a blink. Then both women broke down into tears, and spent the next week alternating between raging and crying, drinking and carousing and flying and generally being a terrible imposition upon the Governor. Then she used a draft from the local representative of the Iron Bank against her account there to buy them a villa, and moved in with Maekar, and Arya as a guest, and declared she would not return to Dragonstone. Drogon nested in the old fighting arena, and the city settled into having a dragonrider and the heir in residence.
Daenerys had implied to Grey Worm that, in truth, she was pleased at Elaena's improvisation of taking Arya Stark with her. It suggested the young woman's instincts were as good as she's hoped in nurturing her like this as an heir-she truly was ready to deal with the Empires, for she had the ability to make snap judgements on her feet. The castle had grown silent and subdued, after the fatal moment. It gave time for Daenerys to proceed with the plan she had been working on with Shiera. Together, the two, with Grey Worm, now descended deep into the passages that led toward the Dragonmount from Dragonstone Castle. This time, she had said she intended to explore them fully, Grey Worm carrying a fine Myrish oil lamp that would last the journey, and Shiera holding a precious glass candle, to bring forth light if the lamp failed.
They passed by sealed tubes of Valyrian black rock, which served to channel heat through steam from deep in the volcano up to the Palace. They passed by the secret room, with Queen Visenya's writings, which had been found in the previous explorations.
They passed through chambers where the heat grew more and more uncomfortable, and Grey Worm was envious of Shiera, whose body did not respond to the heat as might one of those who were fully alive. But he drank from his flagon of water and carried on. It was another good hour, when they arrived at the most incredible of passages. It seemed like a natural tube through the lava, but down, toward an opening which actually showed the sea-coast beyond, a massive cliff-side cave, inaccessible from the land above, opened out before them.
And inside of it was what seemed very much like a forge, but not one meant to be worked by the flames of a natural fire, for none was possible here, in the melted and curved rock. It seemed in this case like it must only be heated by the flow of the lava, or…
Daenerys smiled. "I think this cavern is big enough for a dragon, and perhaps even for Vhagar."
"It was, though she grew uncomfortable with it as she was older," a thunderous ancient woman's voice echoed through the cavern.
Grey Worm looked around, searching for the source, but then realised that Daenerys was fixed upon the forge. Daenerys could see the woman behind the voice, even as Grey Worm could not.
"Your Grace," Daenerys said with a polite incline of her head.
"Your Majesty," countered the voice. "You have done well for yourself." A pause. "Both of you have, Lady Shiera too."
Daenerys started softly to weep; in fact, Shiera now approached, and took her firmly by the arm. It was clear that she, too, could see the figure beyond.
"Having family again matters like nothing else in the world to me."
"What is a dragon alone?" The voice mused. "No, no, it's no easy thing. You were given the chance to save the family, and you did."
"Is it true that you have your own line?"
"Perhaps I do," there was a soft laugh. "But far away, and I don't think you need to worry about your throne… Or your chosen succession. I've no quarrels with a Volantene line descended from Jaehaerys, as much as the people of my time may have assumed that I would."
"Thank you. Your endorsement matters a great deal, the only one that's mattered since … Since my friend, Missandei." Daenerys quietly got down to her knees. "Queen Visenya I am in a great deal of pain and I don't want to leave this world but I can't go on, either. I can't just exist like this. At least someone like Shiera can…. Sleep, can have pleasures. I've … Nothing. But I am selfish. I can give Elaena the crown, the future. I want to fly. I want to be with Drogon again. We came to seek your audience because we think there is a way, and I thought you might still have a place of power here."
"It's not quite here, but I could hear your plea, and I did make my arrangements to come."
"Then, Your Grace, … Is there a way for me to escape a second death?"
"We must be practical about all things. It won't be exactly the same, but, there is something you can try, if you want to be with Drogon. I suspect Lady Shiera already has some idea of it. So let me reassure you: It can work."