Okay, this chapter is a lot. I hope I got everything write, it took a lot of time to figure out what needed to happen and I've gone over it about a dozen times. I'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it, so please review!
CHAPTER 18: The Worst Gift She'd Ever Received
Daenerys had been at sea two days. She was going to be at sea three more. She did not like the feeling of being at sea. For the first day she had been sick almost nonstop; Thankfully after that her body seemed to adapt and she only felt sick instead of being sick.
It was a minor improvement, but one she welcomed. Combing vomit out of her hair was not a feeling she, nor her handmaidens, enjoyed.
She comforted herself by staying to her room on the ship and holding her three dragon's eggs to her. The pulsating warmth of them reassured her that she was not along… as did the letter that had sent her across the sea to Westeros.
"Are you sure about this, Your Grace?" Ser Barristan had asked her again. He seemed doubtful and worried. For all his joy at verifying, to an extent, Jaeherys's story, he was wary of going to Westeros.
"Yes," said Daenerys.
She was sitting on her bed in her chambers, the lion's pelt Drogo had given her wrapped around her shoulders. Two of her dragon's eggs were on the bed next to her, while she clutched the third to her. Ser Barristan, with his hand perpetually on his sword's handle, stood at the door. He was her guard, but also her advisor.
"But why should you trust this Jaeherys? Of your blood or not, we have no reason to trust his reasons for calling you to him. For all we know, the entire thing might be a lie and a plot of Joffrey's, or else he has some other nefarious reason to want to lure you to Westeros."
Any joy he'd felt at a son of Rhaegar surviving, it was overwritten by concern for her wellbeing. She forgave him his fear, and felt endeared to him for it, as well.
"He includes the latest news from Westeros. His cousin Robb Stark has crowned himself King in the North… I doubt he has some nefarious reason, as you say, Ser. More likely he feels the pull of kinship to me as I feel to him. What more could he want from me than to know his father's family?" Dany said.
"Your Grace, forgive me but they could seek to marry you to Robb Stark. It would give legitimacy to his reign."
Daenerys laughed. "Ser Barristan, his reign already has legitimacy, does it not? He is the eldest son of Lord Eddard Stark, the descendant of every king in the North there ever was. He has far more claim to a Northern throne than the Usurper did to mine. And the Targaryens have had nothing to do with the Kings in the North… No, I wouldn't lend them legitimacy, only conflict. And besides, with his cousin in rebellion, Jaeherys is hardly going to be plotting with Joffrey, is he?"
"That is so, Your Grace," Ser Barristan conceded.
"And then there is this Aemon Targaryen he mentions and who writes a few paragraphs of the letter to me. Have you heard of him?"
"Aye, Your Grace. Aemon is a Maester. He was stationed on the Wall as a man of the Night's Watch. How he came to be at Riverrun, I do not know. And then there is the consideration of the Iron Throne."
Deanery's mood soured. "This Jaeherys writes nothing of wanting to take the throne for his own… and he calls me by the style Queen Daenerys. I think he has no intention of stealing my throne, Ser."
"And if he does? He claims to be the trueborn son of Prince Rhaegar and Lyanna Stark, he would unite the North under his cause and plausibly win the throne over you. If what he writes is true… he has the better claim, Your Grace."
"Indeed, he does." Daenerys's voice lacked the humor it had before. "But perhaps that will be a problem for later. Why do you suppose he chose to send me this letter?"
Ser Barristan thought for a moment. "Well, there are the causes he lists, Your Grace. What Maester Aemon says, that a Targaryen must never be alone in the world. That he wishes to learn more of his family from you…"
"There is that," Daenerys said consideringly, her tone rather hard. She was of a mind with Ser Barristan in a few ways, and this trip certainly had her wariness. "They could all be true. There is another that he wants to marry me and strengthen his claim to the Throne."
Ser Barristan's lips twitched into a smile. "You're his aunt, Your Grace."
"We are Targaryens," Daenerys reminded with a shrug. "That means nothing to us. Well, it does, but if anything, it is a positive when it comes to suitors. I grew up thinking I was going to marry Viserys."
"I… I did not know that, Your Grace. But in regard to Jon Snow, he writes he only found out of his lineage less than a year ago. That is… not a lot of time to adjust to the idea."
"He seems to have adjusted to it quick enough."
"That is so, Your Grace, but surely much of his northern upbringing still holds root in him. And marrying your aunt is not common in the north. I cannot imagine the child raised by Lord Eddard agreeing to it. No, Your Grace, I doubt this is why he invites you to Westeros."
Daenerys was pleased at this concession, for Ser Barristan had been exceedingly leery of Jaeherys. "Then why do you believe he did as such?"
"I… I don't know, Your Grace. It may be as he says. We shall have to see."
"But you don't trust him?"
"I confess I do not, Your Grace. But we shall have to see on that front as well."
"Yes. Yes, we shall." Daenerys shuffled how she was sitting and brought another of her dragon's eggs into her lap.
That had seemed to be an end of the matter, but Daenerys's mind did not want to leave it alone; she could think of little else and had thought of little else since receiving the letter and turning her ships and remaining Dothraki toward Westeros.
She thought for a moment, then said, "Do you believe his story? You told me Lord Eddard was an honorable man, but I don't know what to make of it. It seems… farfetched the more I think on it."
This was a lie. She felt in her heart that the story was true… but she wanted to hear what Ser Barristan had to say about Lord Eddard in the light of this development.
Ser Barristan looked thoughtful. "Lord Eddard was an honorable man. And it is a fact that he slew Ser Arthur Dayne, Sword of the Morning. I can think of nothing that disputes any of his story, Your Grace. It could very well be true."
Daenerys nodded, slowly. "This Jaeherys must take after his mother, for him to be able to hide in the North for so long. If he looked the Targaryen way he would have been discovered."
"I should think so, Your Grace. I was at Winterfell with Robert when he asked Lord Eddard to be his Hand… when Jon Snow claims Lord Eddard told him the truth. I don't remember if I saw him, Your Grace. But I remember it being said the Bastard of Winterfell took heavily after Lord Eddard… while Robb Stark had the Tully coloring."
Daenerys was disappointed. "Yes, that must be so. He must favor his mother."
There was a long few second of silence. Daenerys stroked her dragon's egg, feeling the rippling of the scale-like shell and the heat of life within. Soon, she promised the dragon inside. Soon. She needed someone else, someone to share the heavy burden with. Three would be better… three heads to the dragon and her three dragons. Daenerys couldn't do it alone.
"You called him the Bastard of Winterfell… was he well known?"
Ser Barristan shrugged, something he seemed to be making a habit of. "In the North, Your Grace. He was well known and well liked; I believe. I've heard it quietly said that Lady Stark disliked the boy, and quite a few lords volunteered to have the boy fostered with them. Evidently, Lord Eddard refused them all. He was raised in Winterfell, with his cousins."
Daenerys needed to meet him. She needed to know if he could be the second head to the dragon as she had first thought. She needed to meet him. "How much longer until we arrive, Ser Barristan?"
"The ship will dock in three days, Your Grace."
"You mistake me. How much longer until we will be at Riverrun? How much longer until I can see this Jaeherys Targaryen for myself?"
"Oh. Perhaps, a fortnight, Your Grace. Not more than three weeks."
Too long, she thought. She wanted to meet him now. "Very well," she said. "I would like to be alone, Ser Barristan."
He bowed and took his leave. She knew he wouldn't go far… he would stay outside the door, faithfully guarding her. Having Ser Barristan with her heartened her, but it was not enough. She needed another Targaryen with her, she needed another dragon. Her eyes fell again to the letter as her hands unconsciously tightened on the glittering crimson dragon egg in her lap.
"Soon."
She fell fitfully into sleep later, holding her black egg to her chest. It's heat soothed her, and perhaps influenced her dreams slightly.
Dany dreamed first she was in a desert, far from anyone else. She knew instinctually she was asleep, that she was dreaming. But it was not like any dream she'd ever had, even when she had seen real things in her sleep. This was another sort of dream.
She felt first uneasy, and then afraid.
The desert around her was unyielding.
No mountains rose in the distance, and she could see as far as her eyes would go. But there was nothing to see, except empty expanse. Sand was all she could feel under her bare feet, and a hot wind stirred her hair.
"Hello?"
There was an echo, but she couldn't say why. No one answered her, and she was alone.
"Why?" she asked, unreasonable despair threatening her steady voice. "What is this? Why am I here? Hello?"
There was still no answer.
Daenerys felt strange, as if her emotions had been increased tenfold in this strange place she found herself in her sleep. Heat was pressed against her, and she could feel mingled tears and sweat drip down her face and body. This place made her weak, physically and mentally.
"Please!" she called in despair.
She wept into the silence for a long time. Hours seemed to have passed. Finally, her fear and anguish subsided, and her tears dried.
"Princess," a voice behind her said and she whirled around.
Relief was short lived. Horror and fear took despair's place in her quickly. Daenerys stumbled backwards and fell to her knees, her hair falling thickly in her face.
"Who are you?" she demanded shakily of the man before her.
He was tall, taller than her and taller than was natural by a few inches. He was thin and draped over him he wore a black cloak. His head was bald. Where her eyes were purple and her lips red, his eyes were red and his lips blue.
"I am Pyat Pree, Princess."
Pyat Pree was surpassingly pale. She shuddered under his gaze and forced herself to stand again. The artificially sharp emotions she pushed down, not needing them. Daenerys made her gaze hard, although her eyes still leaked tears.
"Where are we?"
"Quarth. The House of the Undying. I am a warlock, Princess. I have been waiting for you."
As he spoke, so it became. The desert changed around them without movement, as if it had always been as she saw it now. Before her lay a large, ruined building. It was rectangular, more tall than wide. It appeared to have no door.
"I must not go there," she said, although she had meant to only think what was more a feeling than a thought. "I must not. I can not."
Something of the place scared her more than she could put into words. It was a primal feeling. She would not go there, she swore. Never would she step foot inside. It could not pass.
"Nonsense," Pyat Pree said breezily.
He took a step to her. Dany tried to take a step away but found she couldn't move an inch. She screamed at her muscles to move but it was in vain. She was stiff, frozen and waiting. The warlock who waited took her arm and pulled her easily to the stone building. His grip wasn't harsh, but his skin was cold and clammy. He certainly didn't feel undead.
She wanted nothing more than to be free of him. In that moment, she would have done anything to make it so.
"No," Dany croaked, unsurprised to find she was begging for the first time in her life. "Please, no, not there. Let me go. Please."
The blue-lipped warrior held her arm tightly and was unmoved by her weeping.
Inside the ruin was cold.
It was so cold Dany felt it in her soul. The door she hadn't seen them pass through roughly shut behind them with a rumble.
They stood together in the middle of a circular room. There might have been moss or some plant growth if it was a ruin as it appeared, but there was nothing. Nothing, but cold and death in the humid, sticky air.
Pyat Pree released her arm.
Daenerys pulled violently away, suddenly free to move again. She hit the wall hard, gasping and crying, and slid halfway to the floor. Daenerys couldn't look away from the blue lipped man and she could barely breath in the cold. She looked behind her for only a second, unwilling to look away from the warlock for long.
The door was vanished, and the stone seamless. No escape would be found there, she knew.
"What did you do?" she asked almost incoherently, trembling harshly. "How did you—I don't understand, what are you doing? Why am I here? Answer me, please! Who are you?! You must help me—I must not be here!"
He gave her his back and ignored her pleas, instead looking around the room. He was a few steps away when he turned to face her.
Daenerys flinched back. His eyes were unnaturally red, and she shook violently under their stare. Something about him terrified her; something in this dream affected her in a way she had never been affected in the waking world. Emotions were sharper, stronger here. She despised and feared this Pyat Pree.
"Rightfully so. Daenerys of House Targaryen, we have been waiting for you for many years."
"Who?" she asked raggedly. She didn't wonder if he had answered her thoughts. It was not even a question. He had. Of course he had. Probably she had said them aloud as before and failed to notice.
"We have," Pyat Pree answered, ignoring her thoughts if he could hear them. "We of the House of the Undying. In another universe you would have sought us, here in Quarth. In another universe you might have hatched your dragons already. But fear not, Princess, it makes little difference. You shall soon. Very soon."
The reminder of her dragons gave her courage. It lent anger to her voice where there had only been fear as she gathered herself and demanded in a voice that shook only slightly, "Who are you to call me here as I sleep, Pyat Pree? How dare you? And how dare you term me as a princess, I am a queen. The queen of the Iron Throne."
Pyat Pree smiled widely at her, like a cat. His blue lips pulled away to reveal disturbingly white teeth… that were disturbingly sharp, as well.
"A mother is nothing without her children. A queen is not a queen without a throne. You are nothing without your dragons, Daenerys, Breaker of Chains, she who sits no throne. Dragons… dragons which you are yet to hatch, Daenerys." And then, sharper, he added, "Mind your arrogance, you're better without it, Princess."
She quailed under his gaze. She'd felt emboldened before and had taken a step away from the wall. Now she stumbled back into it, hard. Her back ached, and she thought, feebly, that it shouldn't have been possible to feel all this in a dream. It wasn't right.
He laughed harshly, and she felt even more ill at ease for it. He was not a man to be trifled with, she thought.
Evidently Pyat Pree agreed.
"Trifling with me is something few live to regret. And you can feel more than cold and harsh stone, Daenerys Stormborn. Fix that in your mind now, lest you forget and have to be reminded."
The open threat did little to calm her, although she was vaguely relieved at the lack of pretenses. Pyat Pree was not her friend—she had known it from when she first met him. The warlock had an ominous, menacing presence, and she shuddered to be near him. It was worse when he had touched her, though—much worse. Like some dead thing pulling at a dying thing, killing her, suffocating her.
"What do you want with me?"
He looked at her with something torn between a kind smile and predatory smirk. He gestured a hand down a hall to her left, previously unseen.
"I want to show you the truths that have been, and those that might be. I want to give you the wisdom to hatch your dragons, Princess."
"Why?" she asked, but heard no answer. The fear was rapidly falling away from her, and she welcomed the change. Whether it was in her or the House, she didn't know or care. Dany forced her voice to be calm. "What do you mean, Pyat Pree?"
He smiled in something close to approval as she stepped toward him, away from the cowering of the wall.
"Drink," he said and handed her a tall, slender glass. It had not been in his hand a moment ago, but its presence in the room was a fact.
Daenerys accepted it. But she didn't drink it, only stared at it.
"What is this?"
The glass was heavier than it might have been, and the black liquid inside swirled ominously with streaks of white. Like a night sky, she thought, if shaken and shook.
It was unnatural, whatever it was. She wanted to throw it far away. If she was braver, she might have done it.
"It is called shade of the evening, Princess. It will help you to hear and see truths as they are laid out before you in what is to come."
"What is to come, Pyat?" Dany asked, her voice cold.
She drew strength from herself, from deep within her. There was a warmth on her stomach, and on either side. It was where her dragon's eggs were as she slept, she knew. Her children guided her and gave her strength.
He smiled and beckoned to the glass in her hand.
Staring unflinchingly at the warlock, Daenerys drank the entire glass. When she was finished, she was breathing hard, and felt altered in some way she could not explain.
"It will turn your lips blue for a few hours, Princess," Pyat Pree told her, idly. "And you may feel dizzy. Do not be concerned, this is just the shade working. Its effects will last only a few hours."
Daenerys was not concerned. She felt emboldened. She felt triumphant, and above all, she felt powerful. She made for the door and stopped at Pyat Pree's side. Inches away from brushing his arm and shoulder, she could feel the ice radiating off him like heat from her dragon's eggs. Coldly, she turned her head sharply and studied him.
"Will you accompany me?"
"No, Princess. You must walk alone." There was an edge to his voice.
"Tell me what I must know, Pyat Pree, and be gone from here," Dany commanded, not knowing quite where her knowledge of what to speak or courage to speak it came from.
"There will be many doors, Princess," the warlock said. "You must enter none of them, but only look, if you dare. Follow each staircase until you are once more in this chamber. There you will meet the Undying Ones and hear of their wisdom for you."
"What is in the rooms?"
"That is not for me to say. Nor you either, should you see them. Treasure the knowledge you receive tonight, Princess, for it will guide you the rest of your life."
"Very well," said Dany and stalked past him. I am in the presence of sorcery, she thought sourly, and hoped he could hear.
He snorted behind her, and she turned as he spoke.
"Heed my words, my princess. The House of the Undying Ones was not made for mortal men. If you value your soul, take care and do just as I tell you."
Dany wasn't sure if she would, but nodded nonetheless.
"What will I see?" she couldn't help but ask the warlock.
"Visions of loveliness and visions of horror, wonder and terrors, Princess," Pyat Pree said, dark eyes flashing at her. "Sights and sounds of days gone by and days to come and days that never were. You will see all, and you will see nothing."
Then Pyat Pree was gone, and she was alone in this place of Undead warlocks and cold men. There would be much distraction interspersed with any wisdom she might find. She wished to be gone from this place; she did not want their wisdom.
Except this must have been a lie.
At her thought, a door appeared where they had entered. She could leave, she thought, and wake up in her bed and be perfectly safe. Lips blued, perhaps, but she could leave.
Daenerys turned and walked down the hall. She did not look back. She heard the door vanish once more at her back, and didn't regret her choice.
The first door she came to was golden and embellished. It had two doors to its side. The middle door was deeply red, and her heart ached to see it. The last door was dark black.
She opened the red door first, thinking of Ser Willem and her home in that house with its lemon tree.
It was barely open a second before she slammed it shut and staggered away.
He had been there.
He had been there alive.
Ser Willem, the knight of her father's Seven who protected her until his death. He was there, looking at her as he had when she was just a child. Dany's hands trembled as she drew them up to her face and looked at the closed door.
"Princess," he'd just barely said, holding a hand out to her when she slammed the door. His voice was as she remembered. She forced herself to look away.
Temptation would have been too much otherwise, and she would not have been able to leave him, that knight who had loved her and protected her.
Daenerys looked to the first door, the golden gleaming one.
She opened it, startled to hear it creak. Inside was a beautiful pavilion, overflowing with flowers and fruit. Birds danced in the trees, and she could hear them singing. But it was the figure standing in the center of the shaded patio that drew her eyes.
"Viserys?" she asked. He had his back to her, but his hair was the same, silvery blonde and curling slightly. She looked at him and could not see the dragon headed sword he had worn, given to him by Illyrio all those years ago. He had worn it always, even to the moment of his death. It unsettled her that she could not see it.
He seemed not to hear her.
"Viserys," she asked again, a tremble to her voice. He was dead, she could feel it. Any second now he would turn and she would see the crown her husband had given him… the great ruin of his face and his head.
He turned and Dany staggered back… then stilled.
"Daenerys," her brother greeted her, spreading his hands wide and smiling gently at her.
He was older than she had ever seen him, older than he had ever been. The smile on his face was one she had never before received from her brother…this was Viserys as he should have been, Daenerys realized.
"I've missed you, sweet sister," he said and stepped down from the patio to greet her. He didn't leave the room, and Dany didn't enter it. He couldn't embrace her as he clearly wanted, and the smile fell from his face for only a second.
"Viserys. What— why are you like this?"
"Dany, I don't know what you mean," Viserys said. His face looked to the side. "Ah, look. Here comes Mother, and Aegon with her. Rhaenys and her son must be with Elia—have you seen him? Elia won't leave his side, and Rhaegar is right with her. A grandchild, and in the first year of Rhaenys's marriage. Surely a sign the gods smile on our family."
"I haven't seen him," Daenerys whispered.
"You'll have to see him, then. He's beautiful, Dany, he had the look of a true dragon. You'll love him as I love you, sister."
Her mother came then, arm in arm with a man who was surely as old as his father, Rhaegar, had lived to be—except Viserys had said he was alive in this world she was not a part of. Dany stared at what had never been and felt a tear trickle down her face.
Daenerys's mother was as beautiful as she had always imagined. The man could have been her brother, Dany thought, for all their similarities. Their hair and eyes and face… everything of Aegon's was her brother's first. And Rhaegar had been said to have all the same features as Dany did now.
Daenerys tore her gaze away, and it fell to her mother.
Everything she knew of Queen Rhaella was second hand—Dany was too young to remember her mother in any real way. Seeing her now was surreal, and was wrong in a way. Like some horrible perversion of reality, sent only to tempt and torment her. But it was also a gift—the worst gift she had ever received.
As Viserys had, Rhaella raised her hands to embrace her and came to the threshold that divided them.
"Daenerys," she whispered, her eyes brimming with tears. "My daughter, my beautiful daughter, how I have missed you."
So this is what was different in Viserys. She could see it now: this was her brother if he was not the Beggar King. If he was not made to slink away with her to the Free Cities, constantly on the run. This was Viserys as he should have been—if not for all those burdens he shouldered and the love he missed out on.
"Mother," Dany whispered.
Gently, lovingly, she stepped backwards from her family's welcoming embrace. Her gaze was on her mother's face when she shut the door. When she turned away, she didn't look back, and she ignored the tears that dripped down her face and the outcry of her heart.
She forced Viserys's ruined, dying face and screams to her mind. The moment he'd sold their mother's crown was there as well, to remind her of their deaths.
There was nothing for her here but death—what wisdom was here for her? Anger rose up, and she stood sharply to the black door.
It was not simply black as she had first expected. Instead, it was decorated in glittering, inset red rubies.
And so she knew it would be Rhaegar when she opened the door. Rhaegar, the brother she had never met.
She reached for the handle, startled to watch in sprout and grow a blue, glittering rose to meet her hand. Delicately, she took it in her hand, startled to find it cold to the touch, and opened the door.
Daenerys had expected to see Rhaegar's fall on the Trident, or perhaps some moment with Lyanna Stark or their family. But instead, the scene that faced her was still and silent. Rhaegar was no where to be seen, and she peered closer into the room.
It was a courtyard, and a great fire rose up in the center, amidst the grass and a distant river. In the back there was a castle, but she could make out no detail beyond that.
Dany jumped when the screaming began, her heart in her throat.
She looked in horror at the three writhing masses in the center of the flames—people, she realized in horrified captivation. As if from nowhere, the fire burned away and the screaming was quieted… or rather, it was transformed, she realized, when a different screech took to the night.
Dragons, she realized.
The fire left then, leaving emptiness its wake. Her dragons appeared in its absence, if only for a moment. Three of them, large as houses were before her and she beamed to see them, feeling in her heart that this was the most tempting vision that had appeared before her yet.
But then the dragons were gone, and she was left alone peering into darkness.
She took a step forward, her toes teetering on the threshold of the room's border.
A figure appeared in the center of the courtyard, his back to her as Viserys's had been.
"Hello?" she called. "Rhaegar?"
The man didn't move.
She saw quickly she'd been wrong in assuming this was Rhaegar. His hair was dark and curly where her brother's was like hers. He wore black armor with a swirling three headed dragon on his back in scarlet. It was as Rhaegar's had been when he died.
The sword he carried had a carved white pommel and gleamed in a way no ordinary steel did.
"Hello!" she called again, then gasped as a second figure appeared.
It was a man whose head was obscured by clouds. He swung a sword at the man in Targaryen armor, who raised his sword to meet him. The faceless man was familiar to her in a way she found to be indescribable, but she feared for both of them irrationally as they fought. Tears fell down her face.
"Enough!" she heard a voice from within the room shout. With a start, she realized it was her voice. "I withdraw my claim! Enough!"
But the two figures didn't stop… only dissolved as they fought against each other. Time was nothing here… and suddenly the two men fighting were gone, an unexplained flash of golden metal in their wake.
A small, weeping girl was suddenly before her, kneeling in despair and facing her.
"What's wrong?" Dany called but received no answer.
The girl pulled her hands from her face and looked at her so suddenly Daenerys took a step back.
It was her own face, she realized. The girl was Dany when she was a young child.
"What is this?" Daenerys said aloud, a chill creeping up her back. Unease broke out over her, and she fought the urge to retreat and shut the door.
The self before her didn't appear to hear. She continued to stare at Daenerys.
"Why?" her younger self croaked, suddenly. "Why, Daenerys, why? I loved you, why did you have to do this?"
There was blood on her hands. She wept, and the tears that ran down her face were gleaming ruby, as Rhaegar and the mystery Targaryen had worn.
Dany stepped back in horror, staring at her younger self. Nothing here drew her interest anymore, not even her dragons. She slammed the door shut and proceeded beyond the three she'd opened.
The next three doors were upon her quickly.
One was made of intertwined red and gold threads, making a handsome door. Another was gleaming blue, small silver roses patterned softly. The last was pale grey.
She opened the first, startled to see she was looking into a long hall. Dead men lay over the tables, and at the front of the room there was a crowned man sitting in the center chair. He was a king, she supposed, and tried to recognize him. Was she seeing the past? A present that could never be? A future?
She didn't know, and felt the most fear she did since she had come to this place. This was not a vision she wanted, and she longed to shut the door.
His hair was curly and brown, falling to his shoulders. He was bare chested, and she flinched at the sight of the healed or healing wounds across them. The grisliest sight was across his left chest, over his heart: skin had been torn away and she could see bloody muscle, gleaming in the candle light.
As she watched, the king staggered to his feet and reached out desperately to her.
"Daenerys!" he cried, and left his hand horribly stretched to her in the air as he looked around her room. There were no features discernable on his face, and he was enveloped in a horrible mist that blurred her vision.
"Robb? Daenerys!" he asked, something terrible in his voice. "Please, don't hurt her—"
Dany shut the door now and staggered away. Breathing hard, she forced herself to move on to the next door.
The blue door she opened for only a moment. When she saw the green flames and felt their overwhelming heat, she slammed it.
There was nothing for her here, it seemed. Nothing she wanted, anyway.
The pale grey door finally showed her something of interest; something she didn't shudder to see.
Before her was the Iron Throne, as she had never envisioned it. To think of a thousand swords, she had never been able to call the image to mind. But if she had, it would not have compared to what she saw now. The throne of Aegon the Conqueror was grand, and it towered above the throne room and her as she beheld it.
The throne room was coated thickly in snow.
Dany kept out of the room only barely, placing a hand on the wall of the door to keep her from entering it. The Throne drew her eyes as nothing yet had, and she felt her heart in her throat.
Was this her future? Yes, she thought, emboldened. She had seen what might have been, what could never be, her past and now her future.
It would be her future, she promised herself as she gently shut the door and turned her back to it. She would have the throne. She would.
But when she came to a third row of three doors and opened her seventh door, she saw something that would make her abandon the Iron Throne in a heartbeat.
"Mother!"
Dany turned to see two small children.
Her children.
The girl was a few inches taller than her brother. Both had her purple eyes, but only her son had her hair. The girl's hair fell to her shoulders and was dark in loose ringlets.
"Hello," Daenerys whispered the greeting, entranced at the sight of her children before her.
"Rhaensa, Jhaedon, is your mother with you?" a voice called from the distance behind her.
Daenerys turned to look but saw only the ruined building of the House of the Undead. She looked back through the door, tears beading in her eyes at what she did not yet have and the culmination of what she wanted so close to her now.
"Yes, Father," the girl, Rhaensa, called to her father. Her brother, Jhaedon, said something into her ear, and both children giggled.
Her daughter set her eyes on a place to Dany's left, where her father must have been. Dany turned but saw only a fleeting shadow. The sight didn't alarm her, though, and she knew the knowledge would be revealed to her in another door.
"Daenerys?" the man who had fathered her children said from her side.
She stared into the place where his eyes were, wanting desperately to see the face of the man she instinctually knew she loved.
"Yes?" she asked, her voice breaking. She was crying still, she realized without much surprise.
"I love you," the man said, his arms taking on form through the mist. He reached out to touch her, and it was an effort to pull away. The man was undeterred. "Daenerys, I'll always love you. Please don't—"
Something changed in his voice, and it became from another time and another place. He was pleading before, but now he was desperate. Their children watched, scared, as he said horribly, "Are you set on this path, Daenerys, truly? It doesn't have to be like this, it doesn't. I love you, you're my queen—"
She shut the door, careful to dodge his grasping hands. The last thing she saw were her children's faces—and she wanted more than anything to see them again.
It was only the heat of her dragon's eggs and the promise she kept in her heart of finding her family that kept her going.
The door of her children and the man she loved was a soft pink. It matched a few of the flowers she had seen there, and it was deceptively lovely. Her children were as she had longed for—but something in their father's voice haunted her.
The two doors in front of her were equally unassuming. One was a blank white, while the other was a midnight black. As she looked closer at the black one, she saw it was speckled with glittering stars.
She opened the white door first.
Daenerys saw a beach. The sound of waves crashing violently into rock was in her ears, and before her a castle towered over the beach. An island, she thought.
"Dragonstone," she whispered and knew it to be true. Her voice was not audible to her own ears over the sound of the waves, but the waves did not stop the scream from echoing in her ears.
Dany looked around wildly for the source of the scream. To her side was a rowboat, mostly on land, and farther out at sea a boat she recognized as her Balerion. There were foot prints coming from the row boat in the sand—she couldn't see how many— and spots of blood entangled with them.
It was her boat, Dany thought. Her boat. Of course she would go to Dragonstone someday. Dragonstone was her home; it was the island she had been born on. The only part of Westeros she yet felt kinship to.
She looked back to the castle with dread, knowing who she would see.
But it was an effort to muffle a scream when she saw her own face only inches from her own. Still, expecting to see herself, she couldn't help but stumble back. The cold stone of the House of the Undying scraped her feet and Daenerys was grateful for the distance between herself and her other self.
"Daenerys?" Dany said aloud. It was odd to say her own name aloud, and to expect a response.
The Daenerys before her was bloody. Dany couldn't seed where the blood was coming from, but it ran down her legs. She saw with a start she was pregnant, heavily pregnant.
The pregnant Daenerys screamed again, a single long wail. She dropped to her knees and keened into the sand.
Dany looked and waited. But no one came to help her vision self.
"Alone," Dany said as her other self screamed in agony. "I'm all alone."
She didn't understand. She was pregnant then, surely, with Rhaensa. She had met the man who would father both her children—how had it happened that she was alone on Dragonstone?
But the vision offered no answers, only screams.
Dany stepped back and shut the door, staring still. The last thing she saw of the beach and her other self was a flash of blue and gold. Dany smiled after a moment and thought perhaps that she was not so alone in the world. The blue and gold was someone—she was certain. She was being helped. Someone cared about her. There was still hope as long as that was true, Dany thought.
It was relief in her then that she turned to the black door. Black with glittering stars, she thought and opened the door.
It was her room in Pentos before Illyria. A room she'd had for only a few weeks before they had moved to safety of Magister Illyrio's manse. It was
The room would live in her mind forever. It was the room she'd killed the assassin that had crept in to kill her.
"I don't wish to see the past," she said as a scream, as before, rang through the room.
Daenerys recognized the scream. It was her own scream as she had woken to find a knife about to be plunged into her throat by an assassin. Daenerys had killed him while screaming, and continued to scream until Viserys came running.
"Not today," Daenerys said and shut the door firmly. She stared at the door before her and realized it had lost its stars. What message was there in that? Had she lost something when she slay the assassin?
If she had, well, better to lose it than her life.
But still, the implication of the now starless door made her scowl, and she whirled from the three doors with finality and looked for the next.
But the last set of doors has been her last. Nine visions before her, promises and tauntings of hopeless wanting. She hated to think which was which and thought she might weep.
The hallways was winding, and Daenerys came out, at last, into a large circular room, the same room she'd stood in hours ago with Pyat Pree.
But where it had been empty then it was full to bursting now. Walking corpses, thin and with blue lips, mulled dully around the room.
The Undead, she thought to herself. It was their House she walked in, and their visions she had seen.
Dany gathered herself for only a moment and strode to the center of the room. She was no longer mournful or longing; she was furious.
"Pyat Pree!" she yelled as she walked. The dead moved aside for her, parting like a sea. She turned in a circle, wondering if her own lips were as deeply blue as theirs's were.
"Is this how the Undying Ones meet me?" she demanded. "You yanked me here in my dreams, show me nothing but shadows and mysteries, and none of you will so much as meet my gaze?"
There was no answer.
"Pyat Pree!" she demanded again. "Will you not meet me? You would hide before me, now?"
Silence heralded her words.
"I name the Undying Ones as cowards and as weak as shadows in the light as day! You are as babes before me! Your wisdom is as slight as a lizard is to a dragon! Answer me! Tell me whatever message you have or let me leave! Pyat Pree do not ignore me!"
She breathed raggedly. When there was, again, no answer, it was the only sound in the room and it echoed back to her colored like loneliness.
But then, as Daenerys looked around once more in fury, a voice finally answered her.
"Three more doors you must see, Princess, before you are ready to hear of our wisdom."
It was Pyat Pree. After a long moment, Daenerys found him in the back of the room. When her eyes found his, the other Undying swiftly cleared a path between them. When he started briskly to her, she raised her chin, ready to meet him and defiant in her anger.
"I saw no more doors," she said, sure. "Only nine. Nine I have seen, and none I have entered. I would hear of your wisdom now, Pyat Pree, for I have done as you bid me."
He was inches away, and as before she could feel the cold radiating from him.
"You have done as I bid you," he agreed, face shadowed. "Yet you defy me now. You have done everything faithfully except my command to you in this moment."
"I did not act in faith," she said, defiantly.
He smiled. "Then why, Princess? You chose to stay and hear our wisdom. Why, if not faith?"
"It was not faith in you," Daenerys said, flustered unpleasantly at his questions.
"Then why?"
"Faith in myself," she pronounced and knew it to be true. "For faith in fire and blood. For faith in my kin. For faith in dragons."
Pyat Pree rewarded her with a smile that was not particularly assuring.
Daenerys continued, "Speak to me what you would and let me be gone to do as you say, warlock, I tire of this."
"Princess, you are already asleep. There are three doors waiting for you beyond this room. Three doors you must see of, and these you are permitted to enter."
"Will I be allowed to leave them once I have?"
He laughed sharply. "So suspicious, Daenerys. You fear trickery? From me? From us?"
There was something in his voice now she could not name. It made her step lightly away as she said, cautiously, "I… do not mean to offend you, Pyat."
Pyat Pree laughed again. "Nor have you. I just find it amusing that now is the moment you choose suspicion. Your trial here is almost complete, and you have nothing to fear from us. Yes, you can leave the rooms."
Daenerys studied his face and nodded once. "Very well. Where are these three doors?"
He held a hand behind him, gesturing to the farthest part of the room she was yet to walk to, the opposite of where she had come in from.
"We have a message before you hear it, then you must see the three doors."
"And then?"
"Then you shall be free to leave, free to hatch your dragons, Princess. Once you leave here, your fate will be yours once more."
"Is my fate not mine own now?" she demanded, disturbed by his words.
"No one belongs to themselves, Princess, you more than any should know that. Did you not see who you were beholden to in the doors behind you? The illusions of a family, the illusions of trust as you saw them. Would you say your fate is your own?"
"I… would say it is not yours, Pyat Pree. Tell me what you would and let me be gone."
He smiled and the wisdom was forthcoming. But it was not Pyat Pree who spoke… or at least not him alone.
"Three fires you must light," the Undead around her intoned in one voice, "one for life and one for death and one to love. Three mounts must you ride, one to bed and one to dread and one to love. Step forward, Daenerys Targaryen, and see three fates. We offer you your moment of greatest triumph as you set to make it, your moment of greatest defeat as you set to make it, and your moment of greatest love as you make it. Will you accept our wisdom?"
"I shall."
The Undying, once walking aimlessly around her, turned sharply all at once to face her. Daenerys clenched her fists and wondered if it was hatred or malice in their gazes. She didn't dare look away from Pyat Pree, who was still smiling as his voice mingled with that of his fellows'.
In unison, they stepped for her.
"Then we offer you a gift as well, Daenerys Targaryen." Their voices faded to a single voice as Pyat Pree said, "Close your eyes, Daenerys Targaryen, and see the love of the House of the Undying."
She closed her eyes. Two hands like ice gripped her forearms and Daenerys felt herself spinning away.
It was the same three fires she had seen before, with the castle in the background. It was the fire she drew dragons forth from.
It was blackness around her, the castle gone. Only the fires burned, and she could see the moving mass of mingled human body and dragon hatchling in the center. Like salamanders, they rolled together as six became three before her eyes, united by life and death as one in a single moment.
Daenerys stepped to the fire, her feet bare.
Pyat Pree's voice was in her ears, his blue lips surely close to her. His hands were on her shoulders, but she could no longer feel their coldness.
"Only life can pay for death, Daenerys the Queen."
"Yes," Daenerys murmured, unable to look away from her children in the flames. Three shadows, long and sharp, rose before her eyes and when she looked back she couldn't see if they were thrones or chairs.
The scene lingered for a moment, then transformed. The single call of a dragon split the air as it did, and Daenerys knew it was a much older dragon that made the sound, and it was a sound of pain and anguish. Her hands became fists.
The scene became a large river, roaring and foaming. The sound of it was deafening.
The Trident, Dany knew. Where her brother had fallen.
She walked to the edge of the river and peered to its bottom. There, as she knew there would be, she saw sparkling brilliant rubies. Bile rose in her throat. Here was where Robert Baratheon had killed her brother and scattered the rubies of his armor to the bottom of the river.
"What is this?" she asked, voice hoarse. She did not wish to see the place her brother had died, nor his body, if that was their intention. "Why have you brought me here?"
"To see, Princess."
Pyat Pree didn't motion—he had no physical form that she could see, although she could feel his hands on her shoulders—but she felt where he wanted her to look.
Daenerys cast her eyes behind her shoulder and looked at the single green dragon she saw there.
She whirled fully to look as a single, small form descended from it. It was a man, and she thought immediately it was her brother Rhaegar.
His face was obscured to her. If his hair was like her's, and his eyes as well, she couldn't see it. He wore the armor her brother had when he fell, and as she drew closer, she could see where rubies were missing from the black armor.
She was grateful his face was blurry, like mist had descended thickly to cover it. She did not want to see him, dead and destroyed.
"Rhaegar!" she called to him, and he looked around as he got off the dragon.
"Daenerys?" he asked. His voice sounded like it was coming from underneath water.
"Rhaegar!" she called, but her voice was oddly echoed. Something else had been said, she thought, but she didn't know what.
Rhaegar looked around, his armor the only thing she could clearly see, and then turned to the river. He knelt by its side and stared deeply into its depths. She wondered if he was looking for his rubies.
"Jon!" a female voice called from behind her and Rhaegar looked up to see who it was. She couldn't see but felt he was smiling.
Daenerys turned to see and saw, for only a moment, a green dragon and a blur of a person atop it. Then the scene was changing again.
"No!" Daenerys shouted. "I want to see my brother! Show me Rhaegar! My brother had no dragons, so what am I meant to learn!"
Ser Jorah had said once that Rhaegar was the last dragon. But in her vision, she thought staring into darkness, there had been another. Her, she realized.
"I already know this!" she called into the abyss. "Do not waste my time, Pyat Pree!"
"Waste?" a voice echoed down on her from a great height. "We waste nothing, Daenerys Targaryen. See now, the fates before you. First your destruction, your triumph and finally your love."
Then she was standing before three doors.
The first—her destruction at the moment it was made—was the white of snow and of age. As she watched, a violent red stream ran down its center. Blood, she knew. It was joined by another trickle, and another, until the entire door was painted darkly in red.
Daenerys backed away.
The second door—her triumph at the moment she made it—was fire. It burned in a writhing mass, somehow taking on a solid form. As she watched the fire faded to become creeping ivy and blossoming flowers over glowing coals. Daenerys reached for it's blue rose door knob—the same as another door's, she thought—but her eyes were pulled, unbidden to the third door before she could reach it.
The third door would display to her her love. The door was simple, a mingled grey white.
She reached for it's golden handle but was pulled sharply back by cold hands.
"No," Pyat Pree and the House of the Undying shouted to her in a voice that was male and female, young and old, everything and nothing. "We all must start at the beginning, Daenerys, even queens."
So she opened the first door of white and red and stepped inside. Her destruction at the moment she created it fell around her and the scene was set.
Daenerys found herself in a hallway she had never been in before. Down the hall and to the left there was a light. She walked to it.
About halfways in the hall her eyes found the ground by a command that was not her own.
It was blood under her foot, she saw. Thick blood, all over the ground. She stepped over it, smelling iron as she did.
But she stumbled backwards a moment later when at once two bodies, entwined and naked, were before her.
Dany could not stop herself from crying out at the sight of the two men. Captive, she could not look away either.
The sight of them scared her and unleashed a feeling of deep foreboding within her that nothing yet had. Her death with them, she thought and wondered if she was right. Both men were bloody. Her blood, she thought, and felt it was true. Her fate was before her as they were.
One of the men was bent over the other, as though in grief. The bottom man's torso was cut to ribbons, she could see, and his eyes were dull. Of the man on top, she could see nothing of what killed him, only knew, instinctually, that he was dead.
But it was no longer the wounds that drew her eyes. Rather, the man on top was the one she studied.
His hair was the deeply blonde white of her family. She was seeing a Targaryen—but it was not her either of her brothers, nor her father. This was someone else. Someone now.
She had thought herself alone in the world and had recently discovered it was no longer. Reason fled her mind, and she called out to the only family she had left, believing him to be before her, dead.
"Jaeherys!" she shouted, forgetting she had decided he didn't have the Targaryen coloring. That he was dead before her terrified her—she had been so sure Jaeherys was for her to trust, for her to love. And now—only death remained of him.
The man stood at her shout.
Dany backed away, terrified.
Dead men should not walk.
"No," she whispered.
Dead men were not the kind she wanted. How could she seek relief from loneliness in the company of the dead? What could the know except loneliness?
The dead Targaryen turned to face her, and she could see his eyes were deeply violet. His torso was slashed open as the other man's was.
"Why?" he croaked. His mouth was a bloody ruin. There was a handprint of blood on the left side of his face. "Daenerys. Why did you do this? I didn't want to see you. I didn't want the Throne. I didn't want you. Why? Why do you hate me so?"
"Ha-hate you?" Daenerys stuttered, stumbling backwards. The blood was burningly cold on her bare feet and she spared a glance at the tracks she was leaving. "Jaeherys, I, I don't understand— Please, you—I don't—"
He gave an anguished scream, and suddenly he had a sword in hand and was raising it to kill her. The dead man charged her, entrails hanging to his knees.
Daenerys shied away, a scream tearing her throat.
She found her feet and ran out of the hall. Mercifully, a door appeared before her. She took it in hand and wrenched it open, looking back only once.
Ser Jorah was before her, slashing his own sword to her attacker, to her only family. She heard Jaeherys scream as he was killed behind her. Killed for a second time, as he had already been dead when he attacked her. Her heart sang out for Jaeherys, and she wanted nothing more than to see him.
Daenerys did not look back. Her greatest defeat was being made behind her, and she could not bear it. Tears coursed down her face, and she wished only to understand better.
Ser Jorah had always been her protector—but she was not sure he was protecting her just then. It felt wrong, and she knew that Jaeherys had wanted her dead, but Ser Jorah had doomed her when he swung her sword.
He had doomed her.
Dany pulled her legs to her chest on the ground and began to sob.
"Stand," a foreign voice commanded her.
Daenerys saw a woman of the Undying before her now. She was as thin as Pyat Pree, and her head was just as hairless. Her lips were blue.
"Why?" Dany asked her, pulling herself to kneel before the woman in a parody of prayer. "Why would you show me this if not to prevent it? Please, please. Tell me how. How to save him—I cannot be alone in this world. I cannot. I need a family, I need Jaeherys. Please. I can't be alone. How?"
The woman reached out to cradle Daenerys's face in a cold hand.
"Sweet Princess," the woman murmured. Daenerys leaned gratefully into her touch, and in the same gentle tone the woman continued, "You close your eyes so willingly to the truth. Stupid Queen. You will not see what is before you. Open your eyes and see what you must, Daenerys, before it is to late."
The Undying woman pulled her hand away, but just as quickly returned it and slapped Daenerys across the face.
"Ah—!"
Dany was cut off when the woman struck her again, this time backhanding her. Daenerys jetted to her feet, despair gone.
"You dare—" she began in a fragmented, furious voice.
"You dare ignoreme? No, I say. Go, Daenerys Targaryen," the woman sneered, "And see what you must. Ignorance is no excuse. You are being taught all you need to know here and now. Do not ask for more than you are given. You have everything you need and lack only an excuse. Go! This is the price you must pay for hatching dragons into the world. Go!"
She raised her cold hand to slap her again and Daenerys went. The second door was before her, unnervingly close, as she turned around and Dany grasped the blue rose gratefully. It was warm in her hand.
Before her was the door, wrought now singularly in fire. But as she pushed it open, with a breath of cool, fresh air, it was calmed to become life of green plants and simmering coals.
Her greatest triumph.
The scene before her was a wall. It was the tallest, greatest thing she had ever seen in her life. A thousand feet it must have stretched, one foot for ever sword of Aegon's enemies. It was snow and ice—she wondered why the door had been fire.
But when a voice drifted to her, she knew he was the man she would marry, the man she could trust. The family she would make with him was her greatest triumph. Those children she had seen before—they were everything she needed.
The man was ice, she thought. Of the north. She was the fire. Together they would make life—that was what the door was telling her.
"Daenerys," the voice whispered.
He was in front of her, and suddenly she stood atop the Wall.
"Daenerys," he said again.
"I love you," Dany whispered, not knowing his name. "I love you."
"And I you," he said in a voice that somehow faded as it grew stronger. "Look, Daenerys, look."
She did. She saw her children, Rhaensa and Jhaedon standing before her as they had before.
"I love you," Dany whispered, kneeling to cup one of their faces in each of her hands.
"I love you," Rhaensa whispered back, her eyes large and true.
"Mother," her son whispered, eyes clouding with tears. "Mother."
"My son. My child," Daenerys said, tears of her own dripping down her face. The man she would love put his hand on her cheek as she cupped the children's, and she looked up to him. But he was gone and only sky remained.
She pulled away from the children, ready to make her triumph a reality. On this wall she would find the man who would give her these children. On this wall, she would make Rhaensa.
Daenerys walked back to the door.
At the last moment, her hand on its doorknob, she looked back.
A short cry of horror left her mouth when her eyes found her children's faces. They were smiling at her, but where she had cupped their faces was an imprint of her hand left in blood. The same that had been on Jaeherys's face when he tried to kill her, in the last room.
"No," she choked, as the door shut and she was once again, as ever, alone. "No."
Her horror was more singular and stunned than before. It was not a passionate despair, but one that shook her to the truest depths of her character. Dany was stunned; she could not think of a thing to say, to call out for to make this not so—no matter how much she dearly wished to.
"It must not be so," she whispered and tried to open the door. It didn't budge. She pulled at it increasingly violently and her voice was barely audible over her efforts to open it. "Please— help me. It must not be so."
"It must be," a voice said behind her.
"My triumph," Daenerys said in a hoarse, failing voice to Pyat Pree. She did not surrender the door to look to him. "You showed me my triumph there. What triumph is to be found in dead children?"
The door faded and she was left with only a clenched fist. She turned to face the Undying man, grief carving her empty.
"Dead children?" Pyat echoed, arching a thin brow. "Daenerys, we showed you the moment you were put on a path to your greatest triumph. If your greatest triumph also holds a great grief… I would say that does not negate the promise of triumph, only lessens how long a moment of triumph it will be."
"Take me back. Let me see them again. Help me understand. Please."
"I can only guide you to the door. But you love those children and that man, do you not?"
"Yes. More than anything. More than anyone. Please—"
"Then I can give you what you ask for. In the last door you shall see what you love. If you love them as much as you say, and they are the greatest love of your life—are they?"
"Yes," she croaked. "The greatest. More than anything."
"Then if you know yourself as well as you profess to, it shall be them you see. The third door shows you your greatest love at the moment you love it the most. Go forth, Daenerys, and see the gift your dragons offer you and all that you shall reap in your life. Go forth and see, my queen."
Daenerys turned gratefully to the white and grey door. It was marble, she saw. The door handle was gilded, gleaming gold.
But inside was not as he promised. No children ran to meet her, no welcoming embrace was to be had.
There was no love for her here. Not now, not ever.
It was the Iron Throne as she had seen it before. The room it sat in was destroyed, and snow gently fell to rest around the room. Everything was still, save for the falling snow.
"No!" Daenerys screamed, wroth. "Pyat Pree! The Undying! This is not as I was promised!"
How could this be her greatest love? What was a throne compared to a lover's embrace? To a child in her arms?
"If this is what you see of my love you are wrong!" she screamed shrilly, willing it to be so.
"Wrong now, Princess," Pyat Pree said from no where. "But not later. Hold those children close when you have them, Daenerys, you won't have them long."
"No! NO!"
But it was to be so. The Iron Throne she despised more than anything in that moment was gone from her. When she opened her eyes she was in her chambers, a black egg grasped to her stomach and Ser Barristan and Missandei kneeling before her.
"Your Grace!" Ser Barristan asked. His hand was around her back, and his face close to her's. "Don't move, Your Grace, you're having a fit! Aggo went to fetch a healer—"
"I need no healer," she rasped as tears fell heavily down her face. She shook both her hands free of their's and stood up. She stood, and wavered slightly on her feet. "Leave me."
"Queen Daenerys," Missandei said, her eyes wide. "You were screaming and shaking. Blood poured from your nose and we could not wake you! Your lips turned blue and your skin cold to the touch! Please, my queen, sit down, you must surely collapse."
"Leave me, both of you. I am fine."
But it was as the former slave said. Her nose had bled in her sleep. It was all over her black dragon's egg, and her lion's pelt as well.
That was too much. It was all too much.
Daenerys collapsed into sobs, her mind spinning. She fell back into a sleep later, and it was Rhaensa and Jhaedon who occupied her mind.
Whatever came to pass when Ser Jorah slew Jaeherys Targaryen she would not allow to happen.
It would not pass, whatever it was.
"Ser Barristan," she said through her sobs, her knight close to her and holding her up partially.
"Daenerys?" he asked, calling her by her first name in his concern. She must truly be scaring him, she thought, and cried harder for it. "It will be okay, my queen. Aggo—"
"I care not of Aggo. It is Ser Jorah I need. Pay riders. Send them. A dozen of them. They are to go to every corner of the world and bring my knight back to me. Bring him back or kill him if he will not come. Do you hear me, Ser Barristan? Do it. Do it now."
"Your Grace," he said, and Dany was spinning away to a dream of her children—all five of them.
Dragons and giggles haunted her dreams the rest of the day and night, and when she woke next, she was told Ser Barristan had done as she commanded. Stopping to find a healer and send riders cost them a few days, but the would be in the Seven Kingdoms in just three weeks.
It was enough time to find Ser Jorah. He would be stopped. Whatever he did at that moment of her greatest defeat—he would not do it. She would learn and she would act. Dany would see her children, and she would hold them.
But this did nothing to comfort her.
How long would she hold them?
Forever, she told herself.
But Pyat Pree's voice came to her from Quarth: Never, Princess. Never, never, never.
When? she called out in her dreams. When would they die? When would they be born?
Soon, he promised. Soon.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed on the last chapter.
As I said before, this chapter took a lot of effort and time. I'm really looking forward to hearing what you all think of it, and yes, by the way, all the stuff Dany saw in her vision will make it into the story somehow. Please review!
