Author's Note: This one's for my little unamed guest reviewer. 3


THE SEA OF SOULS – ASSHAI

"Do you really though – understand?" Quaithe asked carefully, looming above the pale child in a wave of red and gold.

Heir to the throne of Westeros, child of the Mad King, the girl knelt amid the ash beside her cold knight. Tears cut tracks over her cheeks while she cupped Jorah's face. There was no breath left in him. Every moment that passed stole colour from his skin. Soon, the fires would descend from the peaks and drag his corpse into the heart of the world. They were all children of fire, forged from the boiling sea.

Fire shifted under their feet – beneath the waves – beneath the fields and deserts – the forests of pine and drifts of snow that moved wordlessly across the North. At Asshai its heat welled into gaping scars, brimming in the throats of the great mountains which flanked the city. Fire dribbled from their black cusps, tumbling in mangled, half-cooled threads. Viewed from the waters of the Jade Sea, the ranges wore crowns of gold – residing like kings over the city man forgot.

Daenerys brushed away fresh flecks of ash that collected on Jorah face. He had never been so peaceful. There was always something of him that was awake – watching over either her or the world approaching them. To see him completely still unsettled her deeply. If he wasn't keeping guard, every danger imaginable was surely on its way. "I understand magic," she insisted. "I am made of magic."

"The dragon is made of fire," Quaithe corrected.

"Fire and blood – that is all we are." Her words were absent. He was half buried already, sinking into the hungry earth. She lifted him out again, digging around his corpse.

"Ash – dust..." Quaithe agreed. "These are the things that make us, so it has been said since the dawn."

Now it was Quaithe who settled on her knees. Her mask, made of metal pieces, rustled as she undid the scraps of tunic covering Jorah's body.

"What are you doing?" Daenerys asked, as Quaithe undressed him.

"As you asked, young queen."

"Here?" Daenerys eyed the erupting mountains warily. Surely at any moment they'd be consumed by a flying rock or lost in an avalanche?

"Your knight will not survive the journey to the city," she replied. "He is already flirting with the darkness. To linger in that half world is to risk losing parts of oneself. Necromancy is not among my gifts. It is forbidden. For good reason. Some say the gods latch onto the living if they pass beneath the shadow."

They worked together, tearing away what remained like crows picking clean a corpse. There he lay, naked in the smoking drifts of rubble. Everything trembled. The ground. The air. Another plume of churning fire clawed into the air, blocking the remaining light until their world was lit solely by the flames.

Quaithe reached behind her veil and unlatched the tiny gold clasps that held her mask in place. It fell into her hands, revealing a terrible expanse of melted skin.

Daenerys raised a hand to her mouth.

"Fire," Quaithe whispered. "For those of us that cannot stand within the flames. For you it is a temple. It was my hell."

"It was – only – I always thought... Are you not a Targaryen?"

Quaithe dipped her head in reply. "Was your brother not proof enough? Or of course, the burning limbs of-"

"Summerhall..." Daenerys whispered. "You were there."

"I saw it burn," she replied, laying the mask on her knees. Set behind each panel was a pearl-sized black stone which she removed and placed on the ground around the knight's body – entombing him like a ring of stars. "Wildfire is a terrible thing." Quaithe remembered how it held Summerhall enraptured, clasped within its green anger that licked across the walls and rolled over the surrounding hills. It did not stop until the skies split. "Have you ever seen it?"

Daenerys crawled backwards, standing with her back to the mountain as she watched. The scars on Quaithe's face were horrific. Her nose was flat with slits for nostrils and sunken cheeks – almost like the face of a pale dragon. Wisps of silver hair grew in patches from her skull, falling in waves that might be the murmur of once beautiful hair. "No," she breathed.

"It is a bastardisation of flame. I am not convinced that your magic protects you from the crafts of the maesters. They make it in their lairs, deep in the caverns of Old Town. Its shipped secretly across the land. Your father emptied his coffers for it. If you see the fires burn green, do what we do – run." Quaithe pressed the rubies out of her mask and placed them in a line down Jorah's chest.

"Is this magic of R'hllor?"

"No, child..." Next Quaithe removed an inkwell and quill from her robes. Instead of feather, the nib was formed of black glass. She held her bare arm over the body and stabbed it into her vein. Rubbery, it resisted for a moment before yielding to the black dagger. Thick, deep red blood flowed over the curve of her skin and dripped onto the rubies. It swelled around them until they were suspended like islands in the morbid stream which flowed all the way to his stomach then deviated, turning left along a line of muscle until it slipped over his side and into the ash.

Quaithe closed her eyes, lifted her hands and laid her head back. Her words were familiar – the ghost of High Valyrian – its parent perhaps. A few remained the same. Moon. Yes, Quaithe spoke of the silver orb that broke the night and hid the stars from view. Of its sister caught in a struggle with the sun. Falling into a trance, she recanted the story of the gods. Her hands lifted, blood ran down her arm into her sleeves. She fell into the world as a thousand flaming dragons – dying at the edges of the map, bringing shadow and death with the pieces of her corpse. Buried in snow and sand and wave...

Daenerys feared Quaithe's words were empty. That, like the preachers calling to the skies in the depths of Meereen or the unanswered chants of Dothraki horselords, there was no hope for her knight. He was slipping deeper into death – tangling with the arms of chaos where they threaded themselves around his corpse like a sea creature waiting the wrecks of ships.

The blood on Jorah's skin shifted colour – red to black. It lay in a chasm on his chest – eerily still. Quaithe opened her eyes and stretched out her hand to Daenerys. The dragon faltered. "Does Your Grace understand?" she asked again.

Not everything but she was beginning to see more clearly. This magic was far older than hers, borrowed from a god that slept away from the tide of time. A god of Asshai. "No," she answered honestly this time, causing a smile to crack over Quaithe's thin remnant of lip. No was the correct answer. Mortals were not meant to understand.

"I shall show you," Quaithe replied, as the queen submitted her hand.

Quaithe took the quill, already bloodied and pressed it into Daenerys' vein. She hissed – writhing like a serpent as the sharp edge of black glass dug deeper. Quaithe held the ink well beneath the queen's arm as she withdrew the quill and waited while the container filled one drop at a time.

"Will this remove the poison?"

"Nothing can remedy Tears of Lys," she explained. "It is a promise of death. All I can do is build a wall to hold it at bay." Drip. Drip. Drip. "Distract it with a glamour – a second life." Drip.

"Cheat death..."

"No one can cheat death," Quaithe assured her. "We borrow life like we borrow magic. Life and death belong to the gods, Your Grace."

"And what of these gods?" She asked, as the ink well brimmed. Drip. Drip. Drip. It was almost rhythmic as her life ebbed into the glass. Quaithe used one of Jorah's rags to wrap around the wound on the dragon's arm when they were done.

"These gods have no name. They are greedy, selfish and stir only to cause mischief."

Daenerys felt oddly cold despite the heat emanating from the ground around her. Could that be true? Ser Jorah honoured the old gods but what had that devotion brought? A frozen land besieged with murder lingering on the edge of annihilation. The Valyrians cared nothing for gods and ended in destruction all the same. It seemed not to matter either way. Faith and faithless died alike. Daenerys chose to believe in something else.

She cried out suddenly, grasping her shoulder as pain scraped through her skin. She looked down to see Quaithe drag the bloodied quill along the flesh of Jorah's shoulder, drawing ancient runes into his flesh. The blood she used to write belonged to the dragon queen. "What is this?" Daenerys demanded.

"Payment for a life," she replied, returning to her work. For every stroke she made with the quill, Daenerys groaned in agony. "Pain is good," she added, "it means there is hope. If he were dead you'd feel nothing at all."

Daenerys resolved herself to weather it. He comes closer with every stroke, she thought, dragged out of death. Soon, the pain became a cloud that enveloped her. She lay down, stretching out to watch the burning rocks fly over head, curving gracefully before landing on the slopes below them with gentle thuds.

Quaithe covered all of Jorah's body with her blood spell. As she worked, magic began to stir in the air around them. At first it was barely perceivable but it grew, lifting flakes of ash into the air around Jorah. Daenerys sat up, watching spirals of ash form, spinning like scented smoke trapped in a current of air. Magic. Real – tangible magic. The hairs on the back of her neck pricked up. Even the pool of blood on his stomach had ripples forming from its centre, lapping along the edges like a morbid tide.

Through the pain – or the smoke – or the magic, the world started to shift before her. She's not dreaming but she's also not quite awake. Like her time in the House of the Undying, reality has folded over itself and now, instead of a black forest of forgotten buildings, Daenerys saw a puddle of gold at the foot of the mountains and a warm, emerald sea caressing the shore. Asshai. Beautiful jewel, flourishing with life. Its pale stone buildings reached up into the mountains which were green and thick with forests. Trails of commerce meandered from every side while hundreds of white-sailed ships lined up to enter the harbour. Buildings, akin to monsters in their impossible forms, were draped in jewel and precious metal which glimmered eerily with the rising sun. It was a pantheon of the gods – the soul of all religions that followed with dragons crowning libraries and monsters from the ocean floor cast into stone.

Daenerys took a step forward toward the splendour but her vision changed. Still in Asshai, she stood in the shade of the Weirwood. Its towering limbs held a crown of violent foliage. A moment later, flames caught them and everything burned.

Above, the sky came alive with falling stars. With searing tails dragged out behind, thousands – more than she could count. They hit the ground. West. North. East. Finally, one came toward her. This one was cold and black, larger than the others is cast a shadow over Asshai as it descended toward the Southern land. She turned, watching it sink. Deeper. Behind the mountains. Then darkness. A while later, the mournful cry of a dragon.

Startled, Daenerys tried to turn back to Quaithe and Jorah but she found herself alone on the volcanic range. Ash became snow as it fell and beneath her, bones littered the mountain flanks as far as she could see. Between the peaks were impossible walls of ice, cutting off the city from the East with blue gates. The snow thickened and with it, a terrible cold. One that reached into her chest and wrapped its bones around her heart. She screamed then gasped for breath. He body burned from within. The world shifted and now there was only snow.

Jorah stood before her. He wore full plate armour, his Mormont seal and a dragon print. A cape, such a deep shade or red it was near-black, billowed out behind him. He looked past her to something in the distance. Blue eyes searching. Clasped in his right hand was a greatsword with a rising sun on its handle and thick blood drenched all the way to the hilt. It dripped onto the snow. Drip. Drip. The sound stuck her mind. For a moment she saw Quaithe from the corner of her eye, dipping the quill into she turned back, Jorah had gone leaving only a stain in the snow.

A lion roared.

A wolf howled.

They were both distant – unfathomably far from where she stood. Ice dragged against snow as the song of winter stirred in the pines until even they faded back to ash. For a moment she thought she heard him whisper her name in such dreadful anguish.

Jorah gasped, arching out of the ash. Blood gushed from the pool on his chest. Rubies tumbled off and the embers held aloft by magic fell out of the air. Quaithe rocked backwards, using both hands to press him back down and hold him steady as he fitted.

"What's happening?" Daenerys asked in panic, helping Quaithe to stop his limbs flailing wildly.

"He has found his way back," she replied, surprised by her own power. Finally he stilled – his eyes open staring into nowhere. He was awake but not conscious. "Do not fear," she assured her, collecting the rubies and black stones, "this is not a false life. Soon he will recover. I am no witch of the sands."

Daenerys brushed Jorah's pale hair from his forehead. There was colour in him again and hope. She felt something too – a lingering of the runes in her own skin. "What happens if he dies?" Quaithe's gaze fell meaningfully on Daenerys and she now she understood. "And if I die?"

"What's dead may never die..."

When she looked up, Daenerys saw stars between the break in the smoke.

Neither awake or asleep, Jorah was dragged into a standing position, propped up between Quaithe and Daenerys. He was able to walk but his progress was mindless as they descended the treacherous mountains. They dressed him back in his rags while Dany draped a hood over her silver hair. The city reeked of toxic fumes, lifting from a river which dragged its putrid waters all the way to the sea.

The Temple of the Pale Lion reared out from the rest of the buildings. Ominous, it dominated this side of the city. They entered at its base, navigating the passages in perfect pitch, feeling their way down the oily corridors with their hands until they emerged in a dimly lit hallway. Footsteps echoed all around but each source too distant to see. Quaithe led them deeper until they came along a section with rooms down each side and Weirwood doors to which Quaithe had a key. They let Jorah sit once they were inside but his blank expression continued.

"It will be some time before he recovers," Quaithe said, deciding that it was safer if Jorah lay on the slab or rock to their left. "Stay here with him."

"Where are you going?" she asked, as Quaithe moved to the door.

"Our arrival will have been noted. There are things I must do. No one can know who you are. The city is not safe for creatures of magic."

She left Daenerys and Jorah alone. Eventually, Jorah fell into sleep but this time it was peaceful. He is alive, she reminded herself. Do not think of Drogo... She could not stand to think of Jorah with the same emotionless facade – dead but alive. She'd been cheated by the gods once, never again.

Quaithe's runes were raw on his skin. Her blood had mixed with his in the open wounds but already those had started to close. Those around his hands even looked as if they might fade. There was one thing that Daenerys knew for certain – she could never tell him what happened here. He'd be furious for a start. Worse, she was sure the truth would hurt him more than these wounds ever could.

There was a knock at the door. Believing it to be Quaithe returned, Daenerys opened it. Hands grabbed at her through the gap. She shrieked, trying to push the door closed but they multiplied, grasping at her rags and hair, dragging her out of the room into the thick of their huddle. She found herself surrounded by necromancers. Near death themselves, they hid pale, sunken faces with heavy cloaks and wore opals cut into teardrops around their necks. Each had different flares of colour within. Caught between fascination, reverence and greed, they tried to steal her away.

Daenerys fought back, struggling out of their grip. She took flight down the corridor, racing into the unknown labyrinth of the temple. Behind, she heard them follow – cloaks brushing walls, torches wavering in the sudden gasp of wind but she was faster than them. Eventually, their footsteps joined the other ghostly echoes. Alone, Daenerys sank into a cavernous room, branching off the corridor. It burrowed deep into the bedrock of Asshai, almost as large as the cave she and Jorah had found in the mountain.

Taking one of the struggling torches from its iron clasp, Daenerys inched into the room. Her bare feet padded over the glass floor, feeling its unusual layers – as though it were a mountain stream frozen in an instant. Indeed, the whole room felt as though it had been snatched out of time.

She lit each torch she came across and slowly the room took shape. Oval, it was lined with a sculpture of tentacles standing twice the height of a man. Impossibly formed out of black glass, they originated from the centre of the room where a huge stone chair sat upon a pedestal. A throne.

Fascinated, Daenerys approached, holding her torch to the twisted mass of chaos. Her light played in the infinite surfaces until she realised that they were tails belonging to a cluster of wyvern carved into a nest behind the chair. Fireless dragons, their eyes were filled with black stones that shone red in their depths as though rubies had somehow sunk into their grasp. Bloodstones – found only in the mountains behind Asshai where dragons first laid their eggs.

She wanted to reach for the throne. To touch it with her bare hand or sit atop the towering platform and gaze over the room as if it were her realm. Fear held her back. It ebbed out of every surface. A thousand screams were trapped in the walls. Memories of fire and blood. Betrayal. Regicide. Forbidden worship and foreign magic – some of which the queen was certain had come from her veins. Mist gathered at her ankles. It rippled out from the holes in the floor – puffing up and sinking again as though some great dragon lived beneath them. Perhaps it was the foundations of the temple shifting.

Daenerys looked again at the throne. Of all the chairs men had made for themselves, this was for a god.

"You do not know who you are..." A voice curled out of the air behind her. Daenerys spun around, twisting in the mist but there was nothing.

"I am a Targaryen!" She replied to no one.

There was something else in the room. A pale witch – slender and tall, long white hair and eyes like the sea. The mist moved through her, breaking the fragile image. "And what are they but shadows..." The image of the woman replied, shifting in and out of focus. "Night after the dawn."

The vision paused beside the statue of the wyvern. Blind. Fireless. She thought of Viserys and his golden crown. When we die, we must give our magic back, Quaithe had said, power is an illusion.

Daenerys saw the room afresh. This was the future and the past, merged together. A dream that repeated with every curtain of darkness – their fall before the gods and the empty crowns of kings. Their bones littered the world like fragments of the moon.

The necromancers found her kneeling on the glass with her hands held to the sky. She dreamed of a woman, white like the snow, standing on an ocean of ice. Above, the stars shone so bright their flickering corpses reflected on the ground. Who is she? Amethysts rained onto the ice, tumbling from her robes. A frozen queen – watching her.