DAENERYS
The child kicked in her belly, perhaps reflecting her current displeasure. Her meeting with the boy Edric Storm had not gone well. No sooner had they brought him into Highgarden's audience chamber than he opened with, "I heard what you did at Brightwater Keep."
She wondered how he knew, but kept that to herself. "I gave mercy to the Tarlys and the Hightowers in spite of their defiance."
"And Lady Olenna? What about her defiance?"
"Lady Olenna took her own life," said Dany coolly.
"I don't believe that," Edric said, sticking his upper lip out at her. "You killed her, like you killed Strickland and anyone who defies you."
"You defy me often. And yet here you sit."
"Only because you need me," answered the boy, full of spite. His eyes were devoid of their usual sea fire – so the days he had spent in prison had had some effect on him – but his voice was still hot with indignation. "You need someone to rule Storm's End for you, because you've killed everyone else."
"That is wrong. I have Lord Selwyn Tarth on Dragonstone, even now. If you continue to refuse my offers, I have him."
"Fine. Then make him lord of Storm's End and do to me as you did to Strickland." When she did not answer, he snorted. "But you can't, can you? You've angered them so much that nothing less than a Baratheon will suit."
Dany said coolly, "Ser Barristan would not have been pleased with your defiance."
"Whereas he would have been so pleased with you," said the boy. "He was worried, you know. He never told me outright, but I could see in his eyes that he knew you would turn out like this."
He was lying, of course. Lying to hurt her, as if that would do her any good. Edric Storm's lies about Ser Barristan meant nothing to her. Nothing he said or did would convince her that her old brave knight had been anything but loyal.
And now he is gone.
"See," said the boy. "You know it's true."
She decided she was done with Edric Storm after that. Let him think whatever he likes. If he wants to see me as a tyrant, fair enough. A darkened cell would suit for him, and he would not be surprised by it, either.
By the time she made it back upstairs to the council chambers it was twilight. All her council were present and waiting – all, that was, save for Ser Jorah Mormont. When the queen asked where he had gone not even Benerro had an answer. "But we can begin without him, Your Grace," the red priest pointed out.
She would sooner Jorah was here – or would she? Of late, Mormont had proved nothing but a stumbling-block to her intentions, grown as cautious and whiny as an old woman. He opposed her conquest of Dorne for some reason he never managed to express. Dany wished he would either admit his misgivings, or hold his peace. But no matter. Jorah Mormont would not hold her back from bringing justice upon the Martells. And especially not in his absence.
There was surprisingly little to prepare. Kasporio the Cunning and Denzo D'han both told her that their men were ready to march come the morrow. "I will fly overhead," Dany told them, "and scout the marches for a Dornish host. But we are unlikely to find one, I admit."
"Whereas they will be unlucky to find us," said Kasporio.
Dany nodded. "And from the Marches, on to Sunspear." It was a plan without complications, and in winter, she need not even make preparations against the Dornish heat.
Denzo D'han noted as much. "I have heard tell that by the time we reach Sunspear, it will be snowing."
"Mayhaps so." Dany turned to Maester Lomys's, Highgarden's quivering man of the Citadel. "Have you heard anything from Lord Yronwood yet?"
"Nothing yet, Your Grace." Lomys shivered. "But it is, as you say, cold. The ravens may be d-delayed, Your Grace."
Dany's opinion of Maester Lomys was no fonder than her opinion of Grand Maester Gormon, who remained on Dragonstone. With the exception of Marwyn the Mage, no maester had ever done good for her. If an alliance with the Hightowers were not desirable, I might burn Oldtown too.
She turned to the other men at the table: Horas Redwyne, and Orton Merryweather, the lord of Longtable. Merryweather had been by Mace Tyrell's side for an age, and later by the side of his son, but he was dismally weak-willed. Dany had chosen him to be seneschal of Highgarden in her absence; he could hardly prove a worse choice than Garth the Gross, who had been Lord Willas's choice. And Merryweather was so weak-willed that he would never mount a defense against her wishes, nor when the time came to move him aside. He had the air of a man who was grateful to even be alive.
"Lord Merryweather," the queen began. "I trust your men are ready for the coming battles, too?"
"They are, Your Grace," said Merryweather tremulously. "It may be… time… Mathis Rowan, for one, has proved slow in responding, but—"
"You should have time enough to do what needs to be done," Dany replied. "And once Ser Horas sees to his part…"
"I am already exchanging letters with my father, Your Grace. He has his doubts, I will not lie, but our fleet – what we have of it – is ready to sail to the Shields at your command, and from there, north towards Casterly Rock."
That was another thing. Aegon the Conqueror had not settled for half of Westeros, and neither would she. The Lannisters were next on her list, after the Dornish. She would ride up to their gates at Tywin Lannister had ridden to the gates of King's Landing. Only this time she would play the part of the lord of Casterly Rock. And perhaps, if my suspicions are correct, I might find Tyrion Lannister somewhere in the vicinity. They had heard reports of dragons in the Vale, dragons in the Riverlands, dragons in the Stepstones, and she could not say how many of them were true, but she knew that Lord Tyrion must return home soon enough, with or without Viserion. Home, as she had.
When the council was done she heard petitioners in the Great Hall of Highgarden, but they had nothing to say. Lady Oakheart made some polite requests for comforts in her tower prison, by way of a guard. Dany granted them, though she was wary that Lady Tarly and her daughters might soon ask the same. A merchant banker who had been owed by the Tyrells made some remonstrations on the party of his Lysene masters; she sent him on his way. After that she tired quickly, so she went back up to her chambers, and the roof terrace where she spent her nights. When she asked her maids if they had seen Jorah Mormont, she was surprised to hear that he had been up here recently. They reckoned he would soon return. So she sat with a cup of hippocras and waited.
When Ser Jorah finally returned to her, he had changed out of his armour, and looked rather placid. "Your Grace," he said, though he did not meet her eyes. "I have – there is – a petitioner for you."
Dany looked round. "I will hear no more petitions tonight."
"I know, Your Grace. I beg your pardon. But she has been waiting since this morning. So I am told. It might not be wise—"
She silenced his protestations with a wave of her hand: a tired wave. Right now she wanted nothing more to sleep. But perhaps she owed something to Ser Jorah. "Send her in," she said, not quite knowing why.
Ser Jorah stepped back and the girl entered the garden. It might have been more appropriate to call her a young woman, but she had a childish nervousness about her, even if it did not seem quite genuine. She stepped up to Dany and made a strange, ugly curtsey. "My…" Then, hesitating: "Your Grace." She looked awkwardly about the garden; anywhere save for at the queen's face.
"Do you have a name?" Dany asked.
The girl sucked in a breath. "I… Gilly, Your Grace. Named for the gillyflower."
"The gillyflower? I must confess I have never seen one."
"They… grow mostly in the North. Your Grace."
"Ah. Then that resolves that question. I have never—"
"The far North, Your Grace," the girl blurted suddenly. "I am… I am what you might call a wildling. From beyond the Wall."
She was not sure how to respond to that. Wildlings, in Viserys's stories, had always been tall and fearsome; the menfolk wore the bones of their conquered foes as crowns and the womenfolk were all witches. This Gilly was none of those. And yet for some reason, she felt some bold need to declare her faraway foreignness, something that would have turned nine of every ten Westerosi against her immediately. But not Daenerys Targaryen. Instead she grew curious. "Would I be right in assuming, then, that whatever you intend to tell me relates to the North? To beyond the Wall? And to…?"
"The white walkers," said Gilly. Her eyes became wide, and all her naïve youth hardened like iron. "The Others. They're marching on the Wall. They might be at Castle Black already. And…" The eyes widened yet more. "If they are, then that is the end."
"The end of what?" Dany asked.
Gilly stared hard at her. "Of everything." She summoned her resolve. "Your Grace, you must go North. The Others are things of ice. And your dragons… I was with Lady Tarly when I saw them first—"
"With Lady Tarly?" The queen became imperious. This is surely some plot. "The Tarlys are traitors, Gilly. And not just to me. You must be aware that your closeness to them does little to convince me of your story."
"It's not a story!" Gilly exploded into anger. "I saw them! I saw them, I saw the white walkers! They would have killed me, if not for Sam!"
"Sam?"
"Sam. Samwell Tarly. A brother of the Night's Watch. My… my… husband, for all intents and purposes." Dany was about to ask how a Sworn Brother could have a wife, but Gilly spoke over her. And thus she began her story, a tale of her father's keep and a Great Ranging led by Lord Commander Mormont and the battle at the Wall and the arrival of Stannis Baratheon and their sailing down to Braavos and then to Oldtown and everything that came after. "That's why I was with the Tarly women," she finished. "Because they are a family. My family, no matter what Lord Randyll did."
Dany paused. "You mentioned Jon Snow, she said. Lord Snow."
"Aye. The Lord Commander."
"I know of him. He sent a letter asking for my help. As it is, I have a fleet near Crackclaw Point, ready to sail north. And I would have, until I received word of this defiance of Martells and Tyrells. My wars must come first."
"So that you can win the iron chair," said Gilly. "But when the dead come marching, that war won't matter any more." Her courtesy was gone, supplanted by insolence. "Because we will all die, too. You will have no one left to rule over. The dead—"
"—are coming. You have said it enough times now. You have all said it. You, Benerro, Marwyn, Jon Snow, all the rest. The Great War is coming, you say. But I have seen no sign of these dead men. For all I know, you could all be deluded, or maddened by superstition. What I know for certain is that my enemies still surround me, that they plot against me in their secret corners and their knives are sharp. Until they are finished, I cannot help you."
"Maester Aemon said you were our last hope. Our only hope. He said 'Daenerys must be told. She must be warned.' He said it with his dying breaths. I heard them for myself, on the voyage to Oldtown.
"Maester Aemon? Ser Jorah mentioned him once, in passing. A relative of mine. I…" I wish I could have met him. The sad thought entered her mind for an instant, and was gone in an instant.
"He was a hundred and two years old. And yet as he died, he wept for you. He wanted you to hear. He would have wanted you to—"
"Ser Jorah put you up to this, didn't he?" the queen cut in, icy cold. The reminiscence on Maester Aemon Targaryen had led her back to Jeor Mormont, who had been Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. And Ser Jorah's father. "Did he tell you to say all this?"
The girl's lip quivered. "He… I…" And then the eyes hardened again and she said, "yes. He did. But the words are mine, not his. My truth, not his. And I am asking you now, not him."
Dany felt very cold. Yet another friendship proves to be poisoned. "You may leave," she told Gilly, already turning her back. "But as you do, be sure to call Ser Jorah back in. He and I would have words."
The girl was not done. "Listen to me!"
"No. Leave me, before I name you any more responsible for this than you already are."
The shuffling of feet told her that Gilly was retreating. Dany turned and looked out over the parapet. It was starting to rain and the air outside was turning very cold.
Jorah's presence replaced the girl's. "You told her to come here," said Dany coldly. "You went behind my back."
For a long time Ser Jorah said nothing. She could hear him approaching, but she span about and glared at him, and he came no further. Then: "Daenerys—"
"Your Grace. I am the queen. You would do well to remember that, ser."
"And I am the Hand of the Queen, by your own decision. If you do not want my counsel, you may have my badge back."
"Are you defying me?"
"I am. Because someone has to, Daenerys. What you are doing… Harry Strickland, the Tyrells, the Martells, all of it, is dangerous."
"The Tyrells threaten the security of my kingdom, ser. Of my people."
"Do they? How? They have no castles, no armies, no—"
"I will not stand idly by and let traitors roam free," she seethed.
"If you do not show them mercy, traitors will be all around you. Willas Tyrell is powerless now, as are the Martells. They are the least of your worries. Leave Highgarden and the Dornish behind—"
"And do what? Hide? Flee to the North and cower at the Wall?"
Ser Jorah sighed. "I will never betray you again, Daenerys. I have accompanied you from Pentos to Vaes Dothrak to Qarth to Slaver's Bay. I have sinned, yes, I have proven forsworn, but I returned, because I had nothing left to live for other than you. I cannot pretend to know why you spared me, but if I had to guess… I think it was because you knew, too, that if I had risked death by coming back to you, I would not do so with the intent of betraying you. In my eyes, bringing the girl to convince in does not constitute betrayal. But allowing you dig your own grave certainly is. As your Kingsguard, your Hand and your… friend, I counsel you three times. You have to leave this behind. Else all that remains will be ashes, and among them for certain will be yours."
The queen did not reply. She did not have to.
As Ser Jorah went the heavens opened, and the sky wept. Dany sat there for a while, until she felt the child kicking more urgently inside her. It did not hurt; rather, it was quite a peaceful sensation. You may be all I have now, she thought. She was glad of it, gladdened by the insistent but gentle kicking. The child had been kicking more in recent days, and she could feel some sort of mother's sickness coming on. Soon she would have to tell them all the truth. But until then, it was just her and the child…
For a long time, while the child stilled, she sat there, staring through the rain. She thought, for the first time in a long time, of its father, of Daario Naharis. If he were here, he would tell me to fight them. More than that, he would say that she was destined for it. You are a conqueror, Daenerys Stormborn. You take what is yours.
And she knew that she had done the right thing.
That night she had a fitful sleep. It was not a complicated dream. She was standing by her bed, and thunder cracked in the distance, and lightning turned the window-panes bright white. And when they glowed, she saw in them the reflection of a second figure beside her. She did not have to look to know who it was, because it spoke and its voice belonged to only one person. "Wake the dragon," whispered her brother Viserys. "You have to wake the dragon, wake the dragon, wake the dragon, WAKE THE DRAGON!" And then his screaming became incomprehensible and he was shaking her, shaking her so hard, not the child, not the child, and everything around her was flooded in bright white light.
And then her eyes opened, and it was morning, and it was time.
Things went by quickly. She remembered rising, she remembered finding Drogon on the balcony outside her chambers and climbing up among his spires, she remembered flying away and watching Highgarden disappear below her. She did not remember if Benerro or Ser Jorah had watched her go, or where she had gotten the armour – it was the same one she had worn to Brightwater Keep, she thought.
The hours it took to reach the Dornish marches went by like seconds. Dany felt light-headed, more so than usual, as they soared over the fields of grey grass giving way to burnt rock. She knew she would have to be watchful now. A Dornish army might materialize at any moment.
And then, like that, it did. The soldiers formed themselves out of the rocks far below, and they numbered in their hundreds, maybe a thousand. She watched from above as Drogon's shadow passed over them, turning their world dark. She knelt close to the dragon's black scales and willed him to descend.
They fell, rather than glided. Then Drogon spread his great wings over the Dornish army as they gazed helplessly upwards, and the queen said "Dracarys". Bright black flame burst from his lips, tinged with Targaryen red, and it swallowed the army in an instant, tearing through their ranks, and all around was the smell of blistering flesh and burning blood. She more than smelled it; she almost felt it.
And then, abruptly, as they rose above the army, there came a terrible piercing pain that cut her all the way to the heart. It plunged clean through her like the sharpest dagger, and the pain was such that she could not hold on anymore; she was thrown from Drogon's back, down and down and down, and the sandy Dornish winds entombed her as she fell. Above her the dragon was wailing, dying, and above her she saw his flesh turn to pures igneous fire, and he burned and smouldered and fell too, in blazing ash and flame, to earth.
Daenerys kept falling. She was falling impossibly far; she ought to have hit the ground by now, but she kept falling. And as she fell, she heard the voice of Mirri Maz Duur whispering across to her, uncoiling like serpents in her ear, only the words they spoke belonged to Olenna Tyrell instead: you will, she said. Oh, I promise you, you will. And then, on the skirling, keening wind, Viserys screaming "WAKE THE DRAGON!"
She woke all at once, choking out great breaths in the Highgarden bedchamber, while rain came hissing down from the dark sky. Her skin was pale, her bedclothes had tangled her legs same as the serpents in her dreams, and her hair clung silver and unkempt, from her head down to between her legs.
Down between her legs, where it was damp with blood. And she thought, when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When my womb quickens again, and I bear a living child. Then you will return, my sun-and-stars, and not before.
She must have screamed then, because how else did her maids know to come and find her? They burst into the room, and they stood round her in shock for a while and then set upon her with towels and desperate hands, and she sat there in her bed, and half of her was crying, and half of her was laughing. When Ser Jorah told her, at long last, that it was ending, that it was over, that he was sorry and there was nothing they could do for the child, she looked at him and said calmly, "Child, Jorah? Child? What child?"
Author's Note:
A few of you have suggested that Dany's child might not make it to the stage of being born. But it was Tommyginger (over on AO3) who mentioned Mary I of England, albeit in a different context, and it's possible to draw a few similarities between her (at least the popular perception of her) and Dany, though the latter has a much greater potential for destruction.
Dany is not dead, of course. But a plotline that has resulted in descriptions of her as "The Mad Queen" becoming slowly more and more appropriate has culminated in her first outbreak of true, recognisable madness. There are a dozen different things she can mean by "Child? What child?" As with Mary I, don't even know necessarily that there was a pregnancy at all.
I would also like to draw attention to reviewer aeb's (also on AO3) poison ink theory, re: Dany and Olenna. Whether you put stock in that idea - whether you believe there are external causes of Dany's miscarriage/phantom pregnancy at all - is up to you. I have my answer, but as with an irritatingly high number of TCOS's more ambiguous points, I'm going to let you make up your own minds with this one.
