A/N: Hello. 'Tis Monday, so here's the newest chapter for you. As you could see by the title, it is not from the POV of one of the main characters, although Vanyrra will be playing a larger part as this story moves forward. Still, it's a different POV, so just be aware. And with that, you have my blessing to continue on down and get to reading. As always, many thanks to my beta reader (and sister) GrowlingPeanut. Reviews are appreciated.

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Bethesda Softworks and George R. R. Martin, except for Vanyrra. She is mine.

Rating: M for some violence and sex and death.

Once, Madanach had been a true king. In the time that the Forsworn had controlled the Reach, he was worshipped by his warriors. They built him a throne from the bones of their enemies and called him Father, Conqueror, King.

After 25 years in the bowels of Cidhna Mine, that man was dead. Madanach had become the King in Rags, old and soft, leathers and furs exchanged for burlap and roughspun wool. The Forsworn no longer worshiped him, nor feared him.

In that time, however, another had risen: stronger, forged from the black arts to rule, and to destroy. She had been meant as nothing more than a twisted experiment, but when she rose from the stone table, briar heart beating in her chest, and slaughtered those who had made her, she became a legend.

Vanyrra watched the outsiders silently from the pool nearby, the water turning crimson around her. Though she washed in the water often, she was never clean, cursed by her nature to carry the blood of her victims upon her skin until her death.

They were a strange kind of folk, the outsiders. They dressed in clothing of many colors, from head to toe, as if afraid to show the skin in which they had been born. They ate from the gardens with enjoyment, as though they had never tasted the richness of flesh against their tongues. They spoke words she did not know: Khal, and...Khaleesi.

One of you, the dark one had said. A Breton. A Reachman. A queen.

Abandoning her armor on the shore, she walked through the cavern, to its peak where the throne of bone remained, a seat unfit for the man who claimed it.

"They come from the far beyond," she said, looking down on them once more. "They speak a strange tongue, but their words have power." Khal...Khaleesi.

"Do they?" Madanach replied, arching a brow. She could see the lust in his gaze as he took in her form, and though she wanted to hate him for it, she felt nothing. She knew what was expected of her. He believed she would bear him a Prince in Rags, for he was a man past his prime, and the Forsworn would need an heir. He would come to her soon, and then each night after, though he would be proven a fool in the end when she showed no signs of bearing a child. There was no life within her and never could be. The ritual had seen to that.

"The one the Khajiit calls 'Khal' is a weak man, one of words and not action."

"He speaks of his wife," Vanyrra said, the word strange in her mouth, for there was no such concept within the Forsworn. She had heard Madanach speak it of her to the dark-skinned foreigner; further proof of how weak and civilized he had become. Within the Forsworn, the men and women took freely of each other's bodies, moving from one to the next as they pleased, and killing the last if they had proved a displeasure.

"Yes, his...'Khaleesi'..." He spoke the word with disdain and for a moment, the briar heart in her chest beat faster. "She is not here though, and his claims are surely those of a lovesick fool. Women are weak and unfit to rule. Torygg's woman is proof enough of that."

When Vanyrra fixed her gaze to his, he stood and took her chin in his hand, smiling softly. "You are not like the others of your kind. Though you have a woman's figure, this makes you strong." He tapped the heart beating in her gaping chest and then watched the blood that pooled at his fingertip. "It makes you powerful."

Though his words were true, she knew what it did in truth. It made her feared. The other warriors hated her, it was plain in their eyes, and in their weak hearts of flesh. They had hated her from the moment her thorny heart had begun its beating, and they feared her because she was not like them. She was not like anyone.

After a moment, Madanach returned to his throne and spoke again, following her eyes to the two strangers below. "Perhaps the Khajiit can be spared. He proved his loyalty in Cidhna Mine and killed without question. In truth, he is one of us now, though he does not think of himself as such. This Khal, however..." He turned his gaze back to the Briarheart and smiled. "I trust that you will take care of him when the time comes."

She was silent for a long time, her dark eyes unreadable. Finally, she spoke. "I will do what must be done."

Out beside the river, Vanyrra watched the moons rise in the sky. Masser was round and red above her, with Secunda full at its side. It was the night that Madanach had promised an answer, and so it was the night that she must kill.

Silently, she traced the stars with a finger, following their paths. She remembered their names from a time long past, before the Forsworn, when she had been only a girl. Her memories came in flashes as she slept, bits and pieces of knowledge that the Forsworn did not care to learn or understand.

The lord, the lady, the steed, the ritual. She knew their names but not their meanings. Where others saw arbitrary groupings of light in the sky, she saw her past, and yet it remained unattainable, too high for her to reach. She was Vanyrra now, a warrior like no other, and the woman she once was had gone.

The winter wind grew cold and she returned to the cavern, her footsteps silent against the earth. She was near its peak when she heard Madanach speak, and she stilled.

"The moons are at their peak, and they will be expecting my answer."

"And what answer will you give them, my king?" It was Borkul who spoke, one of the few who still called him king. Even he had softened in the mine; his loyalty was proof enough of that.

"The one that they deserve," Madanach replied. "They think that they can control the Forsworn, that their woman has the right to High Rock over our people. We will show them that the Forsworn already have their ruler, and that we will not be used by outsiders again. The Nords fell under our axes many years ago, and these men will do the same. Once their heads decorate the stakes beside my throne, we will hunt down Daenerys Targaryen, and end her life as well."

"As you command, my king."

The heart she had been given beat strongly in her chest, and her veins surged with power. It was only a few minutes later that the two men parted, and as Borkul the Beast passed the shadows where she stood, her blade flashed, and he was hidden in the darkness before the gash across his throat had even begun to bleed.

Slowly, the Briarheart made her way to Madanach's tent, for she knew that he would call for her. He would use her as he had many other women and she would endure it as she had with others before, those who believed that they could conquer her.

She removed the leathers and furs from her body and then took the bloodied knife at her hip and concealed it beneath the straw bedroll. She had been made for killing, and knew nothing else.

It took only moments for Madanach to come, and his expression grew smug at the sight of her, eyes dark and legs spread.

"I have to admit, I did not think that I would find you willing," he said, pulling at the leather straps that held his armor. "But your loyalty pleases me. You will make a good queen."

"They tore my heart from my chest, still beating, and gave me one that knows only of death," she replied, her gaze empty. "But I was born with a woman's body and must bear what it is built to bear." Though she wanted to spit in his face and tell him that she could never give him the child he so desired, she continued to lie, for he had no suspicions of her true intent.

"Our child will be the most powerful man on Nirn," Madanach murmured, his eyes shining with the animal instincts of lust and power. Bards wrote that the eyes were the windows to the soul, and hers were black as night.

"And he will bring us to glory once more."

Vanyrra felt little but the pounding of her heart as he took her, though she responded as she knew he wished, her body arching and curling about his in feigned pleasure. His body spasmed with sensations that she would never understand and when he spoke, it was in a breathy whisper.

"Say my name," he ordered as he spilled into the rotten cavern of her womb. "Call me your king and you shall be my queen."

As soon as the words left his lips, her hand was at his throat, and his eyes bulged from his head in idiotic panic and confusion. Her grip was iron as she squeezed the fragile flesh and bone and she leaned forward as he struggled ineffectually.

"There will be no king," she whispered fiercely, eyes black and glassy as Madanach gurgled weakly in her grasp. He died with features frozen in terror as she hissed against his cold, gaping mouth. "We will have...Khaleesi."