Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun.
Book 2
Chapter One-Hundred and Twenty-Three
A chilly gust of wind woke Irri up from her slumber, she was alone in the bed and in that moment, she knew that something was wrong. She sometimes woke up alone in bed when the sun was high in the sky, when the Khalessi started off the day in a good mood, she sometimes allowed her to stay abed a bit longer but never when the sky was still dark.
Dread settled heavily into her stomach as Irri pushed the covers of the bed off of her and she climbed out of it, the stone of the floor of the room was cold against the bottom of her feet and made her shiver and she hurried to pull a pair of soft slippers over her feet.
The door to the garden on the balcony was open, the moonlight cutting through the room like a dagger. Irri walked outside and looked up at the sky, the stars were burning in the vast darkness, it was a beautiful sight to see but it offered Irri little comfort.
She walked through the garden towards the edge of the balcony, the Khalessi was standing there, naked and her hair glowing in the moonlight she wasn't wearing her false arm and her one flesh hand was pressed against the stone of the balcony with her gaze tilted downward.
For some reason Irri's mouth felt dry and she needed a moment to gather her courage before she spoke. "Khalessi? Are you alright, you must be cold."
"I'm the blood of the dragon, I am never cold." Her queen replied, not turning to look at her. "What will you betray me for?"
"What?" Irri asked, shocked.
Her Khalessi turned to face her; her eyes so bright in the moonlight that they looked like violet flames and her mouth was pressed into a firm line. "What will you betray me for?" She repeated, stepping closer.
Irri couldn't help herself, she took a step backward. "Khalessi, I would never betray you. I love you more than anyone in this world, I've followed you through the great red waste and across the poisoned water, I would cut the tongues of any who would dare to turn against you."
The Khalessi's eyes did not soften but she did not come any closer to her and Irri was ready to take that for a victory but then the Queen held out a hand toward her and Irri knew she could not refuse it; she took the Khalessi's soft hand in hers and held back a gasp as the smaller woman pulled her closer, the smaller woman was stronger than she seemed, Irri had always known that, but now, even with only one arm, she had the strength of madness in her.
"I know, you love me dearly, don't you sweetling?" The Queen asked as she leaned in to kiss her neck, Irri gasped when she felt the Khalessi's teeth running over her skin, pressing down in such a way that Irri was certain it would leave a mark, she had loved that once. Not it was just another way for the Khalessi to remind her that Irri belonged to her.
The Khalessi spun them around then and pressed Irri against the balcony, the stone digging into her back. "Turn around and look down."
Irri had been at her Khalessi's side long enough to know when something was a request, and when something was an order. And so, she obeyed, turning around and placing her hands on the stone of the balcony and looked down.
For a moment she wasn't sure what she was meant to be looking at, it was dark after all with only the moon and some distant touches on the ground to see by but after a moment her eyes adjusted to the dimness and Irri saw shapes in the darkness, three of the shapes could only be the Khalessi's dragons and they were tearing into something that laid between them.
There was a flash of fire on the ground from one of the dragons, cooking the meat and Irri saw enough of the shape to know that it was a body. It was too far down and far too dark and far too burned and broken to make out any of the features of the body, there was no way to truly know who the body was but, in her heart, she knew, and grief filled every inch of her.
"Jhiqui."
She had never woken up alone in the middle of the night, Jhiqui should have been with her.
"Yes," The Khalessi's breath was as hot as dragon flame on the back of her neck, her arm circling around her middle as tight as a noose. "I woke her up and asked her to attend me out here while you rested, poor thing had no idea what I had planned. You've known her far, far longer than you ever knew me. Did you love her enough to take vengeance, is this what you'll betray me for?"
"I don't understand!"
"Of course, you don't!" The Queen snarled and Irri had to shut her eyes, the Dothraki did not raise cowards, but the horror was too great that she could not bear to witness it any longer, "How could you? Even I don't understand it, any of it! But this is what the Undying told me, three treasons I would know, once for blood and once for gold and once for love!"
The memory came to Irri then, along with all the horror of understanding. Irri and Jhiqui had both begged the Khalessi not to go into that warlock's house, nothing good could come from consorting with those who were consumed with magic, and they had nearly lost her to the darkness with in, Irri was certain that she had loved her for the first time when she had stumbled out into the light, smoke bellowing out from where Daenerys's sons had slain the demons.
She had braided a bell into the Khalessi's hair the day after that.
"Three treason, three knives. I do not know who will wield them against me, I would rather know it now." There was coolness against her neck now and Irri realised that the other woman was crying, shaking against her. "I killed her Irri, Jhiqui followed me just as long as you did. She trusted me, and I killed her because I have to know, will you betray me? Do you love her enough to turn against me?"
And now Irri was crying as well, shaking from the enormity of everything. The only witness to her sorrow was the moon and the stars, and the goddess offered her no comfort and the riders continued their endless ride in ignorance. "No, I will not betray you even now."
The Khalessi screamed then, sounding more like a wounded animal than a woman and her sons answered her and within moments they were on the balcony with them, Viserion and Rhaegal landing behind her and Drogon landing in front of her on the balcony, just barely having room to fit as he leered down at her with eyes as red as blood.
The Khalessi let her go and for an awful moment Irri had thought that she had been pushed, but she soon found her balanced and collapsed to the ground. Her body shaking from the cold and the fear, alone but for the monsters that her Khalessi had brought back into the world.
But once they realised that their mother had gone the dragons left as well, taking off into the sky and filling the night air with their song. Irri did not move.
She could not say how long she stayed there on the ground, her back against the stone balcony. All she knew was that the next time she looked up the sky had turned pink and yellow in places and the sun had replaced his wife, but Irri still felt cold.
Footsteps, too heavy to be the Khalessi, drew her out of her haze and she sobbed when she saw Rakharo standing there, concern in his amber eyes and Irri launched herself up and into his arms.
She told him the whole of it through her sobs, Rakharo said nothing and simply allowed her to speak her sorrows and her fears. The Khalessi had gone and there were no ears who could hear what was spoken, it felt like the weight that had been pressing down on her chest was lifted, at least a bit.
Once she had no more words in her Rakharo held her at arm's length before he brought up a hand to wipe away her tears, he had grown taller and stronger in following the Khalessi and often she had thought of taking him to bed with her and his gentle touch reminded her of better days. "She has suffered much," Rakharo spoke gently. "We are sworn to follow, but perhaps it would have been best for all if she had returned to Vaes Dothrak, to take her place among the crones. How much pain would she have avoided?"
It was a place of high honour, every Khal no matter how many battles he had won or how great his Khalasar had grown obeyed the words of the crone in all things. If she had gone then Daenerys would not have lost her arm, she would not have nearly died so many times that Irri had lost count of truly how many times it had been. She might have found peace there, with a place in the world.
But the Khalessi had not wanted it, she had wanted the great iron chair of her ancestors that she had never seen but her fool of a brother had told her thousands of stories about. To want something only because you had heard stories about it seemed foolish to Irri, but her Khalessi had never wavered from the belief that it was her duty and right to take back what had been stolen from her, the manticore sting had only deepened her desires it seemed.
"Perhaps it would, but that is not the world we live in. Only children concern themselves with what might have been, this is known." Irri said as she brushed away the rest of her tears and walked back inside the Khalessi's bed chamber, pulling on her trousers and her vest. "Is the Khalessi protected?"
"Aggo and Jhogo are with her," Rakharo answered her, a small frown on his face. "Will...will you be alright?"
Irri took in a deep breath and nodded. "I will, I must."
Rakharo had left by the time the Khalessi came back into the bedchamber, still naked and with a lost look on her face like she did not know where she had been "Dress me," she command and Irri followed it.
It took longer than it normally did, the bizarre dresses that the Meereenese wore were difficult to put on at the best of times but now that it was just her it took even longer, a memory of the first time that she and Jhiqui had tried to dress the Khalessi in one of these foul things came to her unbidden, they all laughed then. She and Jhiqui and the Khalessi.
It had been a good day.
Irri was crying when she finished by attaching the white gold false arm on her queen, but she knew to do it silently and she wiped them away before her Khalessi could turn to look at her. When she did turn to look at her, she just stared her, glancing down at what she wore and then back up at her face. "Wear a dress in the Westerosi style, you may choose the colour. I shall be awaiting you in the throne room."
And with that she was gone and Irri just stood there for a moment before she turned around and walked over to a trunk which held the clothes that her Khalessi liked her to dress in, dresses in the Meereenese style and the Westerosi style. She knew what her queen wanted and so she pulled out the dresses her Khalessi wished her to wear and laid them on the bed.
In her head she knew the safest decision was to wear the black and red dress, it was Daenerys's favourite after all but the sight of it made worms squirm in Irri's belly. Her gaze drifted over to another dress, this one was black as well, but it had no other colour to it. Irri remembered hearing once that black was the colour that the people of the seven kingdoms wore when they mourned someone that they loved.
And so that was the dress that she chose. She wore it for Jhiqui, for Daenerys and for herself.
She made her way to the throne room of the great temple of Meereen, the Khaleesi was sat on her throne with two silent Unsullied at either side of her and Irri went to stand by her. Daenerys said nothing about what she wore, and the younger woman had never shied to let Irri know when something she had done had not pleased her and so she took that as acceptance from her.
Irri wasn't sure how many petitioners there were that morning, she wasn't paying any attention in truth as she just kept starring ahead while the day dragged on and on and never seemed to end. They would all be from the freedmen now of course, none of the former slavers ever dared to present themselves to their new Queen anymore, they knew at best they would be sent away with nothing, and none wanted to see Daenerys at her worst.
It was only when the seneschal, stinking of dead flowers as he did every day, came to the Queen's side and told her of new guests to the city who had implored to see her with a strange claim that Irri allowed herself to come back from the hiding place that she had made within herself, she had been going to it more and more as of late.
The guests came in, two men and a woman. Their hair was shaved closer to their scalps, the man with brown stubble on his head had been baked by the sun but the woman with golden stubble and the man with silver stubble had both been burned horribly, Irri could see that their skin was peeling even from where she stood.
The silver stubbled man was the first to fall to his knees, his violet eyes shining and a soft gasped escaped Daenerys's mouth and for a moment she sounded like the hopeful woman that she had been, there were tears in her eyes when the young man spoke.
"Hello Auntie."
End of Chapter One-Hundred and Twenty-Three