Princess of the Ashes

Daenerys choked in a sob as Ser Jorah helped her climb down her silver. Her legs were sore and her back felt like molten gold had been poured down it, as it had almost been poured on Viserys' head. The crones in Vaes Dothrak had proclaimed her son to be the Stallion who Mounts the World. It did not seem to concern them that her belly was too large to bear a single child.

"Why have we stopped, Ser Jorah?"

"It is the Khal, Khaleesi. He fell from his horse," the exiled knight explained. He must rise again. If he falls, his khalasar will abandon us.

"Tell my bloodriders to set up the camp here. We will rest here till the Khal is well again." Her bloodriders only followed her out of respect for Drogo and she did not know if they would listen to her now. But she had to try, for the children growing in her womb.

Ser Jorah gave the commands, though he looked unconvinced. "If the Khal does not recover..."

"No, he can't die, he mustn't; it was only a cut." The Princess of House Targaryen put a protective hand over her belly. Drogo was more than her key to saving her mother; he was the shield that guarded her and her children. "I will not let him die…"

Ser Jorah gave a bitter laugh. "Khaleesi or princess, that command is beyond your power. I know what it is to see a beloved die from disease. Save your tears, child. Weep for him tomorrow, or a year from now. We will have to flee if he dies."

Am I still a princess? She had called herself the Princess of Dragonstone while Viserys lived, but now she only the princess of the ashes that were her birthright. The exile could feel Quaithe's eyes on her back as she ignored Ser Jorah in favour of going to her tent. The shadowbinder had joined them in Vaes Dothrak, staying within her eyesight but never speaking. Khal Drogo had called her one of the bloodflies that sucked blood from man and horse alike, and laid their eggs in the dead and dying. Daenerys found her unsettling whenever she saw the Asshaii staring at her and her eggs. Dany found it even more unsettling when she felt her staring and could not see her.

That night, wings shadowed her in her dreams.

"You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

She was walking forward, towards the red door of her nursery and her home in Braavos. She walked faster, then ran, but she never seemed to get closer to it. Its taste was like a sorcerer's trick in her mouth, but kinder. A last mercy.

"...don't want to wake the dragon..."

There were bloody footprints on the floor but they were going backwards, just as she was going backwards, into the maw of a great, terrible beast. She looked back and saw an ethereal face, amethyst eyes, and bloody lips.

"...wake the dragon..."

A raven flew out from within its mouth, leading a pantheon of beasts. She saw a shadowcat, an auroch, a mammoth, a firewyrm, a horse with black-white stripes, a falcon, a tiger with a cub in its pouch, a lizard-lion, a leviathan, and a manticore, all rushing out like a stream flowing down cliffs. Bear, basilisk, wolf, deer, unicorn, beaver, phantom tortoise, bluejay, cat, skylark, dog, harpy, pig, cockatrice, narwhale, goat, bonesnapper, sphinx, cow, treecat, kraken, elkhound. They rushed towards her, a tide of fur, claws, and teeth, and instead of overrunning her, they flew through her, her body putting as substantial an obstacle as the wind.

"...the dragons..."

Dany looked down and saw her limbs elongate, stretching out to become the pale branches of a tree. Her hair flew up like her mother was pinning it to her head, but instead of a Valyrian hairstyle, it was a crown of leaves that rested on her brow.

"The prince that was promised..."

"...must have three heads."

"One to conquer, one to heal, and one to rule..."

"...born amidst salt and smoke, to wake dragons from stone..."

"Fire for a pyre, fire for the living, fire for the dead..."

"...fierce as a storm this princess shall be..."

"The shadows he must master and the fires he must light..."

"...unite the bickering children of Mother Rhoyne and sing the song to bring back the day."

"...avenge the betrayal of blood. Shatter the steel..."

"To bring life, death, treason, and mercy from her womb, two false as gold, two black as coal..."

"Three mounts fit to ride...one to flee and free, one to love and lose, one to dread and death, one to fall and rise."

The voices were soft and harsh, whispers and shouts, spoken yesterday and tomorrow. They joined together into a scream and song of ecstasy and ruin. Blood started weeping out from her eyes and Dany looked to see her whole body had grown into a tree. A weirwood, she remembered from the paintings she had seen of her home.

She saw Viserys then, as wild as he had looked the day he was foolish enough to command Khal Drogo to hurry up and cross the Narrow Sea. His servant's urging for a crown for him only earned the poor slave a pot of molten gold. Her brother had gone on his knees then, when before he had always expected others to kneel before him. He pleaded that he only wished to go across the sea and save their mother from the Usurper's dogs and take back their kingdom. Khal Drogo had only told him to lead the way to Westeros and that he and his khal would follow. Viserys walked into the sea again, though this time he seemed to be doing it as a bewitched thrall. "You will join me soon, sweet sister. Your khal may have done your bidding but death answers to no man." Then Viserys walked into the sea that had been his death and his dream.

Dany awoke, covered in cold sweat, to Seqea's gentle hand on her shoulder. Her handmaiden had given birth only weeks ago and had healed quickly enough to return to her service. Daenerys only hoped she recovered as swiftly she had. "Khaleesi, the khal's state has worsened..."

It took her a moment to get up and ready herself, and though she told herself to hurry for the sake of her mother and children's lives, she could not bring herself to rush to save the man she had been sold to. There was no worry for him in her heart, like there had been for her family during the Usurper's war.

"Where is Mirri Maz Duur? The godswife must try her best to heal him." Dany had scarcely reached the tent when she saw the plump figure of the maegi, restrained by her bloodriders.

"Bind her to the stake and set her afire, I say. Let the fires lick her fingers until she screams for what she has done—"

Dany walked to the limp, once-strong figure of Drogo, but there was no recognition in his eyes. "I told you to heal him. When will he be as he was?"

The maegi walked forward, aware of every eye upon her, like a cluster of ants converging on a sweet. "When winter stops returning after a summer, when the proud do not grow angry at their defeat. The seas will turn to skies and mountains will fall from trees before he shall return as he was."

"I gave you my blood as you asked. I gave you Seqea—my friend's—son. You must fulfil your end of the bargain."

The godswife laughed. "You bargained with me, princess. Death never gave his word."

Daenerys' blood turned cold then, and as her children began kicking in her womb, she knew what she would do.

The flatlands near Pentos were rush and covered with amble trees. The men of her khalasar were obedient and efficient, for once working without complaints of taking orders from a girl born in the Sunset Kingdoms. In the centre of the square, Aggo fed the khal's horse a withered apple and dropped him in an instant with an axe blow between the eyes. Over the carcass of the horse, they built a platform of hewn logs; trunks of smaller trees and limbs from the greater, and the thickest straightest branches they could find. They laid the wood east to west, from sunrise to sunset. On the platform, they piled Khal Drogo's treasures: his great tent, his painted vests, his saddles and harness, the whip his father had given him when he came to manhood, the arakh he had used to slay Khal Ogo and his son, a mighty dragonbone bow.

"I understand that you loved him," Ser Jorah told her, his words full of comprehension. "I loved my lady wife, yet I did not die with her. Live for your unborn children. Do not do this."

Daenerys ignored him, seeing the pyre arranged and her husband brought forth, cleaned and dressed, the bells clinking softly as they moved his body to the platform. She had her eggs brought climbed the pyre herself to place them around him. The blue-black one beside his head. The bright red one beside his heart, underneath his arm. The white one down on the other side, near his stomach.

"You are mad," the maegi said, black eyes unquiet.

"Rakharro, bind her to the pyre," she told the man. Daenerys poured the oil down Mirri Maz Durr's head herself. "Only death can pay for life, wasn't it? The lessons you have taught me will help me, godswife." The contempt was gone from the maegi's flat black eyes; in its place was something that might have been fear. Then there was nothing to be done but watch the sun and look for the first star.

At her command, Jhogo took the torch and thrust it between the logs. The oil helped spread it at once and the flames took to the wood and leaves like ducks to water. The wood cracked louder and louder and pieces of it fell deeper into the inferno. Mirri Maz Durr began to sing in a tongue she did not know and Daenerys saw Quaithe, speaking out the words. The shadowbinder cut through the crowd of people like a knife through cheese and stood the closest to the flames.

The fires swept over the godswife and her song grew shriller until it was no more than a scream. The flames whirled overhead like red wings and all but Quaithe stepped back. The princess held her ground and took a step closer after a moment. Daenerys heard a crack, and only then realised she had walked into the blaze. She could hear her handmaiden screaming, asking her to save herself and her children. They did not understand. My children are eager to come out amidst the fire. They will be the blood of the dragon and the fire will be within them.

The sound of shattering stone filled her ears, as she felt her waters break. She crouched on all fours on the ground, sobbing in pain, begging for anyone to make it stop. Father, mother, Viserys, Rhaegar. But they were all gone and she was alone with the agony. Dany did not know how long she pushed before her first babe was born through the haze of pain. A second crack was heard, sharp and loud as thunder, as her insides seemed to be ripped open. Daenerys screamed and did not know if or when she stopped. The third crack was as loud and sharp as the breaking of the world. Daenerys could only see red and if there was any pain, she did not feel it. She could see Viserys standing for her, stretching out his hand patiently. Kind and caring as he had been before mother was taken from them. An older man stood beside him with his hand on her brother's shoulder, and Dany could almost see her father's features on his face. Rhaegar stood beside him, as tall and strong as he had been the day he rode out to defeat the rebels. Perhaps Rhaegar won, she thought fruitlessly. It was a lie but a sweet one. Perhaps he defeated the Usurper and returned to Viserys, me, and his children. As he should have.

As Daenerys closed her eyes for the last time, she heard the shrill cries of her children. Three other voices joined their call and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.