August 302

Warning: This chapter deals with infertility issues at length. Please be advised.

Dany flopped back against her pillows, her skin slick with sweat. A cool breeze danced through the open archway that led to her terrace; she sighed gratefully as it ran cool fingers up her bare thighs and raised gooseprickles on her flat belly, the scent of rain and growing things filling her nose. A good omen.

"Hand me a pillow," she panted, raising her hips into the air.

"Why?" Her husband groaned. Aegor lay on the other side of the bed, fanning himself with one hand as the other pushed away the silver hair sticking to his face.

"It will help the seed quicken." So said Irri and Jhiqui, and her ladies' advice had not yet led her astray.

With a beleaguered grunt Aegor seized one of the pillows and slid it under Dany's loins. Then, after pressing a kiss to her temple, he rose from their bed, not even bothering to slip into a robe before making his way to the terrace pool.

Alone with her pillows and her thoughts, Dany allowed herself a triumphant smile. Her husband had tried to elude her, bringing her to her peak with hands and tongue, but she was no blushing maid, to take her pleasure and forget her purpose. She knew tricks of her own, the ones Doreah taught her long ago; it was child's play to excite him until he could not help but ride her.

Still, her victory had been incomplete. No matter how she teased or begged, Aegor refused to take her roughly, as he often had before she lost their first child. Instead he stroked her and caressed her tenderly, carefully, as though she was made of glass. Sometimes that woke a fire in Dany's chest, and she would mount him and ride him with all the strength in her slim frame, his hands resting softly at her waist. But other times... She had not wept when Euron made her scream in ecstasy, or when Drogo plowed her so relentlessly she could barely walk or ride for the soreness between her legs. The blood of the dragon did not weep, so why did gentle touches and soft glances make her want to cry?

Dany scrubbed a hand across her stinging eyes. Tears were pointless, useless, the last resort of those who had nothing else. What would Aegor think, if he saw her like this? He never wept, and he was only a prince consort, not a queen. But then, he did not share her burdens. It was not his womb that refused to cooperate.

Rhaego's death was the work of the foul maegi, but the other two... Mirri Maz Duur said her womb would never quicken again, yet Dany proved the witch a liar. It was the fifth moon of the last year, and she was six months gone when her second child washed away in a river of blood. If the maegi was wrong about her womb quickening, she must be wrong when she claimed Dany would not bear a living child. Determined, she lay with her husband again and again, and again his seed took root. Her moonblood was absent for two moons before Haldon Halfmaester agreed she was pregnant with her third child, but after another two moons she lost the babe, along with her appetite and her ability to sleep.

Part of her wanted to hide in her chambers, to take long baths and mope and read sad tales of the Seven Kingdoms. But a queen belonged to her people, and her people must never think her weak. So before she held court or council or rode through the city, she sought the help of her ladies. Irri concealed the khaleesi's shrinking limbs beneath luxurious stozars; Jhiqui dabbed creams and powders on her face to hide her pallor and the hollows beneath her eyes.

Aegor was less helpful. He hovered over Dany like a fretful old woman, plying her with food, kneading her feet, slipping her dreamwine when he thought she had gone too long without rest. Worse, he refused to give his seed to his queen until she gained weight and slept more than five hours a night, and no amount of argument would change his mind. Even when she commanded Aegor to lie with her he would not yield, instead retreating to the rarely used chamber beside her own. Obstinate, insubordinate, infuriating man. A pile of pillows could not hold her as her husband did; it was hard not to cry bitter tears into her cold bed.

Well, a queen was not so easily daunted. Daenerys played along with his impertinent demands, forcing herself to take large bites of food at each meal, rather than nibble as was her wont, letting Missandei sing her the lullabies of the Peaceful People when she retired each evening. At the beginning of sixth moon he grudgingly admitted that she had met his demands, yet his affections still came reluctantly, to her vast frustration. What sort of man had to be cajoled into sowing his seed?

By the time Dany felt she had lain still long enough for the seed to take root, Irri and Jhiqui had arrived, resplendent in dēls of damask, cobalt blue patterned with rich green vines and leaves. While Jhiqui draped a robe over Dany's slim, shivering frame, Irri hung a kettle over the fire. A skin of fermented mare's milk, a great dollop of honey, and a generous pinch of cinnamon went into the kettle, filling the room with sweetness as the potion brewed.

A basin of steaming water and a washcloth served to cleanse the sweat from her body, Jhiqui taking great care not to splash either her queen or her own finery. Dothraki maids from among the small khalasar that crossed the red waste could be trusted to serve Irri and Jhiqui, but Daenerys allowed no one but her ladies to tend her most intimate needs.

Irri brought the potion when it was ready, then fetched fresh smallcothes, a dēl of crimson damask, and close-fitted pants of ebony silk. When she was dressed Dany sat, watching the morning rain drizzle on her terrace as she sipped at the spiced honey potion, though she closed her eyes when Jhiqui slowly drew a brush through Dany's hair. She opened them when the heavy crown once more sat upon her head, the three dragons roaring their defiance to the world.

Aegor's squires had done their work well. Her husband was as regal as a dragonlord in a doublet made of the same damask as her dēl, his breeches and hose the same ebony as her pants. She wished he would not wear the silver circlet with the onyx dragon, but he steadfastly refused to accept a new one.

"I have had enough of lies," he said. "Do not ask me to claim the red dragon; it is yours, not mine." Perhaps when she bore a child, in whose veins flowed the blood of the red dragon and the black... perhaps then he would see reason. She did not want to fight with her lord husband, the only man she trusted well enough to serve as her Lord Hand, to help drag Meereen up out of the dust of centuries.

Meereen's busy streets bore little resemblance to her memories of life in the early months after her conquest. Though many freedmen bore slave tattoos, not a single slave collar remained in her city, or in the hinterlands beyond. Bronze or gold, copper or silver, all had been struck off, collected by her Unsullied and taken to the mints of Meereen, where they were melted down to make new coins. No longer would men be bought and sold with honors bearing the harpy of Ghis; no, her people would be paid for their labor with golden dragons, silver queens, and copper flames.

Thousands of scribes carried out her orders, toiling away in their halls of learning, no longer slaves but free men. The queen paid them well to administer her laws and taxes under the watchful eyes of Missandei, Ossalen, and their council of scribes. Minting new coins had been Missandei's notion; how wise she was, for a girl of thirteen, who could still gasp with surprise when Dany presented her with rare goods from Naath. That had been when Aegor was still avoiding her bed; the girl's warm hug had been a much-needed solace for her loneliness.

Daenerys was not the only one who needed solace. Too many children wandered the city, their bellies swollen from hunger. She had not realized how many slaves were children, taken from their parents months or years before she arrived in Meereen. In the months after she struck off their chains many mothers and fathers had wandered the streets, crying out for their lost children, but for every child who ran weeping into her mother's arms, two more were left alone, their kin dead or sold far away.

Unable to bear the sight of their suffering, she called upon all the temples in the city to open their doors to foundlings and orphans who shared their faith. When the temples were full to bursting she commanded the guild halls to do the same, taking those old enough to be of use. Then only the youngest were left, the toddlers and foundlings; for them she found wet nurses, placing them in a small pyramid that once served as a nursery where the few children of the Great Masters might play together on neutral ground.

The stench of charred meat assailed her nose; it was all Dany could do not to gag. They had reached the plaze of the Red Temple, and while she had not needed Moqorro to execute any treasonous freeborn for many months, the red priests still offered daily burnt sacrifices of grain, fruit, and livestock. Even now Moqorro stood atop the temple's balcony, speaking to a small crowd who listened, rapt.

"Blessed are those who repent of their false gods and give themselves to the Lord of Light," the priest boomed, raising his iron staff. "The Threefold Path is the only road to salvation. Do you know the path?"

"Good thoughts," the crowd chanted in unison. "Good words, good deeds."

Moqorro resumed his speech; by now Dany could almost recite it by heart, so often did he oversee the purification of new believers. Next he would speak of charity, of how the Lord of Light required his followers to spread happiness through aiding the less fortunate. Usually the red temples followed this teaching by buying slaves. As most slave cities prohibited freeing slaves, the red temples raised them as novices, acolytes, and eventually priests, a practice only barely tolerated by slavers.

She had paused for too long before the temple plaza; the streets were growing more and more crowded as freedmen flocked to see their queen. Almost all of them were afoot, though a few of the most prosperous rode donkeys or horses. Only the most recalcitrant of the freeborn still favored heavy palanquins, litters, and sedan chairs carried by former slaves. No, the merchants and new nobility of her city were eagerly buying steeds and learning how to ride so they might imitate their beloved queen.

Today Dany rode her silver, the filly Drogo gave her when they wed. No other horse could compare to the silver, who she loved so well and missed so desperately these past few moons.

It had been Rakharo's idea to breed the peerless mare. If a khaleesi's mount bore a healthy foal, it brought good fortune to the khaleesi. Only a few weeks after her first miscarriage the mare went into heat, practically chasing down the proud stallion brought to mount her. Aggo and Jhogo swore they never saw a mare carry a foal so easily; the silver happily bore Dany until a scant few weeks before she foaled.

That night all the Dothraki gathered for the foaling, not just her ladies and her bloodriders. Over a hundred children, women, and elders packed the stables, her first khalasar, the survivors of the red waste. In the yard stood almost a thousand Dothraki freedmen, those who followed her from Astapor and Yunkai or came to her from among the slaves of Meeren. All of them bore witness as the mare paced her stall, lay down, rolled, then stood again. At last a gush of liquid burst from her womb, soon followed by first one foal, then a second. Twins, male and female, as silver as their mother. The greatest and rarest of blessings, an omen of prosperity and fertility— if they had not been stillborn.

Dany pushed away the memory of a thousand pairs of dark eyes turning to her as one, their sorrow as deep as it was unwelcome. Some enemy was to blame, the stablehands had admitted that her silver acted strangely in the days before the foaling. Perhaps some freeborn had killed her foals, just as Mirri Maz Duur had slain Rhaego. She would bear children, she knew it, Moqorro had seen them in his flames.

There were many children in the crowds who now lined the streets to watch her pass, their eyes bright in the first rays of sunlight peeking from behind the clouds. They cheered and screamed in a dozen tongues, their voices sweet and high above the roar of their elders. The silver whickered as Dany reigned up; there was nowhere to go, with so many bodies desperate to be near their queen. Ser Barristan Selmy and Strong Belwas drew closer, watching the crowd uneasily; Ser Tumco Lho, Ser Larraq the Lash, and Ser Avram the Red Lamb rode ahead, making a path through the press of bodies with the help of Grey Worm and her escort of Unsullied.

Her bloodriders and ladies were not bothered by the delay. Jhiqui waved and smiled, rolling her eyes at some comment Irri made while Rakharo and Aggo laughed. Jhogo did not, but then, she had not seen him laugh since Khal Rhogoro's khalasar made camp outside the city walls. Still, his stern face was far better than the grumbling of the Shavepate and other members of her council who waited impatiently behind him.

They could not appreciate her people's love, not as she did. It was Daenerys who had wrested the city from the harpy's claws and made it the dragon's city; it was she who smashed their walls and crucified their Great Masters, she who outwitted the Harpy and her sons, she who flung the Ghiscari legions back into the sea. She belonged to her people, just as they belonged to her, a bond that could not be broken.

Her heart swelled at the sight of each smiling face. Giddy, Dany laughed as she cried out blessings, first in High Valyrian, then Dothraki, Ghiscari, Naathi, in Lhazarene and in the Summer Tongue, blessing after blessing until her voice grew hoarse and she had to stop. Only then did she realize that she had not bothered with the Common Tongue. And why would I? She thought as she watched her knights try to clear the way. After all, none of her people spoke it.

Well, none except for the Westerosi. They rode in the tail of her retinue, faces veiled. Although Illyrio Mopatis had sworn on the grave of his wife and the life of his son that Varys would conceal any rumors of the Westerosi's presence, the Dornish did not trust either the cheesemonger or his eunuch friend to keep such promises. Daenerys could not blame them; she had only allowed Illyrio to depart in peace for the sake of the three dragon eggs and two husbands he had given her.

And so, ever cautious, her nephew and his lady wife wore veils, along with silks of brilliant violet in place of Martell scarlet and orange or Stark white and grey. The rest of the Dornish followed their example, though garbed in subtler shades, pale lilac and lavender, deep plum and deeper aubergine. A tribute to the queen's lovely eyes, Lady Sansa claimed.

Pretty lies to cover an ugly truth. They should have donned Targaryen red and black, but Aegon Targaryen scorned the colors of their house, just as he scorned his true name, the name of the conqueror. His wife, his bastard sister, and all the rest of his people called him Ser Olyvar; even Daenerys was forced to use the drab name, after realizing that calling Aegon across a table or room utterly failed to get her nephew's attention.

At the moment her nephew was holding the reins of a riderless horse, Ser Deziel Dalt having leapt from the saddle to inspect some flower sprouting from a crack in a nearby wall. Quickly, carefully, he dug it from the crumbling bricks, cradling the plant in his hands as he carried it back to his horse. Only then did he realize he had nowhere to put it. Dany watched, amused, as Brienne of Tarth dismounted, filled one of her gauntlets with soil, and offered it up to Ser Deziel, who accepted it with a gallant bow.

Finally there was enough room to ride again, and Dany kicked her silver into a trot. Much as she loved her people, there would be time to linger with them when she returned in the evening. She must not disrespect the khal by arriving late to the wedding.

Rhogoro, khal of Vaes Vishaferat, once known as Yunkai, awaited her on a mighty earthen ramp outside Meereen. First built for her Dothraki wedding to Aegor, and recently expanded so it might hold all of the high nobles who would attend today's ceremony, the ramp boasted four levels, each set with low tables and stools gorgeously painted in the Dothraki style. A small platform rose above the top of the ramp, and it was there that the Khalinavva Morriqui awaited her groom, her plump cheeks dimpling as Ko Jhogo climbed to sit beside her.

The khal sat below the bridal couple on the first level of the platform, the place of highest honor. Rhogoro was a copper-skinned man of middling height, no more than four and twenty, with bushy eyebrows, a bushier mustache, and a thick dark braid hung with a golden bell. Daenerys smiled when she reached him, made the appropriate greeting, then stepped aside so Aegor could do the same. The khal spoke only Dothraki, but thankfully her husband had an ear for tongues, and after two years of practice spoke Dothraki as well as she did.

Beside the khal sat his khaleesi, Sarnai. Though richly dressed in a silk dēl heavy with embroidery, her face was plain and broad, with a flat nose and strands of hair already greying at her temples. Unlike Rhogoro his wife greeted Dany in High Valyrian, though her confidence did not make up for her dreadful accent.

Once all the worthies were seated on the earthen ramp, a wizened Dothraki holy man, the highest priest of Rhogoro's khalasar, immediately began the ceremony. Dany did her best to pay attention as the holy man rambled about the joys and duties of marriage, about the strength of men and the wisdom of women, but after a while she could not keep her eyes from wandering.

Immediately below her sat a dozen Dothraki, her own bloodriders and ladies and those of Khal Rhogoro and his khaleesi. Rakharo listened intently to the holy man, a thoughtful look on his face, while Irri and Jhiqui wiped misty eyes. Only Aggo seemed unmoved; he was always vigilant of his khaleesi's safety, watchful, ready to act should some calamity occur. Rhogoro's bloodriders were older men, their lined faces blunt and brutal compared to the smooth young faces of the four khalinavvas, the maiden sisters of the khal. Beside each of them sat one of the khaleesi's ladies, older women, all of them at least thirty years of age. Several of the ladies held small children, two boys and a girl who shared Sarnai's flat nose and Rhogoro's bushy brows.

The next level down held Rhogoro's uncles and aunts and cousins on one side with Dany's counselors crammed elbow to elbow on the other. Her faithful old knight Ser Barristan the Bold and her loyal captain Grey Worm listened politely, as did Ossalen her chief scribe and little Missandei. Admiral Groleo and the captains of her free companies all seemed bored, and the Shavepate exuded disapproval. Like his ancestors, Skahaz mo Kandaq shared the Ghiscari contempt for Dothraki. At least he graced the wedding with his presence; Moqorro flatly refused to attend, stating that welcoming new believers to the Red Temple outweighed witnessing a festival conducted by the priests of false gods.

The fourth and final level of the earthen ramp held the least of Khal Rhogoro's kin, the wrinkled elders, the crippled and infirm. Her Dornishmen eyed them from their end of the table with some confusion; none of them spoke more than a few words of Dothraki. When the holy man bade the audience rise to bless the newly wedded couple the Dornish leapt to their feet several seconds after everyone else, awkwardly trying to repeat the blessing with their clumsy tongues.

As soon as the ceremony ended music filled the air, the birdsong of long tsuur flutes rising over the clear rough strains of horsehead fiddles and the steady rhythm of tuur drums. Irri played them sometimes, her hand tapping out patterns like the gaits of a horse's hooves, from a steady walk to a wild gallop, while Jhiqui played the horsehead fiddle, drawing a bow across the horsehair strings. Skilled as they were, the khal's musicians outshone them as the sun outshines the moon.

"Such fine musicians you have," Aegor said to the khal as they waited for servers to bring the first platters of food. "Truly, I have never heard their equal."

"My father's legacy, not mine," said Rhogoro. "Our storytellers are even more talented; you shall hear them tonight."

"With pleasure," Dany agreed. "The khalasar of Khal Drogo boasted few storytellers, or so I recall."

A grim look passed over Rhogoro's face, like a shadow over the sun. "Drogo was a mighty warrior, it is known. My father respected his strength at arms, but lamented his... indifference to the other traditions of our people."

"Some men walk through the grass and see nothing but fodder for horses and fuel for the fires." Sarnai placed a hand on Rhogoro's shoulder. "They do not see how beautifully it waves in the wind, nor how sweetly it smells, nor how lushly it grows."

"Well said, my lady." Aegor smiled, raising his cup of fermented mare's milk in a toast, an honor which the khaleesi did not acknowledge.

"The prowess of our musicians and storytellers are the work of many long years." The khal fixed his gaze on Dany, dark eyes shrewd. "Less than five years since we met in Pentos, and yet it seems a lifetime. Jhogo told me much, but I would hear of your victories from your own lips."

Carefully she regaled him with an account of her travels, pausing only to eat. Taking bites of steamed dumplings filled with minced mutton and seasoned with fennel and garlic provided Dany time to think. How much should she share? Would admitting her moments of weakness and doubt make her triumphs appear greater, or make the khal see her as a mere girl, frail and feeble? The Dothraki followed strength above all else; better to say too little than too much.

She spoke only briefly of the first two years after she left Pentos. Jhogo had ably recounted her time with Drogo's khalasar, the journey to Vaes Dothrak, the prophecy of the stallion who mounts the world, the wounding of Drogo, the betrayal of Mirri Maz Duur and the birth of the dragons. Khal Rhogoro already knew of the long trek through the red waste, the months wasted in Qarth and the weeks upon the poison water until at last they reached Astapor.

"You promised the Good Masters a dragon?" Aegor interrupted, frowning.

"I told them they might have a dragon," she smiled, remembering the slavers' terror when Drogon spread his wings and roared. "The Good Masters asked for the largest, the healthiest, and I swore I would place his leash into their hands. Blinded by their arrogance and greed, they did not stop to consider whether a dragon would submit to being enslaved."

It was Khal Rhogoro's turn to frown when she spoke of the Green Grace, the Harpy whose sons plagued her for so long. He did not see the point in prolonging the woman's death, nor in setting the former masters to demolishing their pyramids. "Better to slaughter them all that very day, and make a new pyramid of their skulls," he said. "Swift vengeance discourages any thought of future defiance. The last of the Yunkai'i do not dare dream of rebellion, so great is their terror of my wrath."

Bile rose in Dany's throat as a memory fluttered before her eyes. Drogo, tall and strong, seated before the temple of the Lamb Men, an arrow through his arm, his muscled chest splattered with blood, a pile of Lhazareen heads beside him. How he smiled at her fierceness when she claimed the lamb women, saving them from the cruel hard hands of their rapers. How he reached for her, only to wince in pain at his wounds. She had not known Drogo's days were numbered, had not imagined the price she would pay to save the empty shell that was once her husband. Even when she pressed the cushion down across his face, he barely struggled... It was a mercy, she told herself, if I look back I am lost.

"My wrath is feared," Dany told Rhogoro. "Once proud Tolos and Elyria pay me tribute, lest they suffer the fate that befell New Ghis."

It was a year and a half since Moqorro's disciples set fire to the harbor, the blaze consuming almost every ship. Her own fleet was quite small, being the remnants captured from slavers, but they were enough to cower Tolos and Elyria into submission. New Ghis would not be so easily daunted, but as matters stood they had no way to send their legions against her.

Not unless they make common cause with Braavos. When her envoys at last returned from Braavos, they had nothing to show for their efforts but a lengthy accounting of the sums the masters of Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen owed to the Iron Bank before she slew them, losses for which the Iron Bank demanded compensation. Every child in Braavos knew the Iron Bank would have its due; now she must send new envoys, and pray they were better able to argue down the amount owed, lest she wake to find Braavosi ships in her harbor bearing a cargo of iron legions.

"By the time New Ghis rebuilds their fleet," she told the khal, "I shall have my own to oppose the Ghiscari." It had taken the promise of exhorbitant pay and the blessings of a dozen priests, but freedmen were finally harvesting timber from the forests of twisted trees on the Isle of Cedars. The work progressed slowly, hindered by the vicious monkeys and ferocious boars who dwelt there. Admiral Groleo was much happier with his part of the work, remaining in Meereen to expand the shipyards, hiring carpenters and joiners and the like.

"Does Vaes Vishaferat require ships?" She asked. The khal affirmed that they did not, having claimed all the ships in the harbor before assaulting the city itself. Much as the Dothraki hated the poison water, the city still needed to be able to trade for the goods she could not produce herself. Besides, according to her treaty with Khal Rhogoro, the Yellow City was under her protection.

Capable as they were, the warriors of Rhogoro's khalasar were too few to defend his city from outside threats. Ten thousand followed Khal Moro when he took Yunkai, but that was before the khal died of the bloody flux. Four out of every ten of his men followed him to his grave, leaving only six thousand to hold the city. The khalasars formed by Drogo's kos after his death were far mightier; Khal Pono had menaced Volantis with over thirty thousand warriors, and twenty thousand followed Khal Jhaqo across the Dothraki Sea.

Daenerys might not have a khalasar of forty thousand men as Drogo once did, but the dragon's host was enough to make any khal tremble. Ten thousand Unsullied, another ten thousand knights and squires under the golden banners of the Golden Company, two thousand Windblown who joined her when they saw the iron legions break beneath the walls of Meereen, five hundred Seconds Sons and five hundred Stormcrows, and, least experienced but most numerous, sixteen thousand freedmen divided into eight companies, all thirsting to shed the blood of slavers.

Unfortunately, she informed Rhogoro, they currently lacked any slavers to fight. Rhogoro had freed his khalasar's slaves as a condition of their alliance; though their jobs remained the same, they now received coin for their labor. Nor were there slavers to fight in Astapor; she'd slain them all before she left, and now Astapor followed Yehosu'a, a Lhazareen healer who had taken charge of rebuilding the shattered city. The Astapori sent her more than enough tribute to pay for the cost of having the Second Sons and the Stormcrows defend Astapor's walls, though both Daario Naharis and Brown Ben Plumm were growing bored with the tedium of running off bandits.

"What of the Free Cities?" Sarnai asked, with eyes that stared right through Dany's skin. "The red priests cry your name from every temple; the sailors who reach Astapor claim soon dragons shall fly over the black walls of the Black Goat, bathing the masters of Qohor in cleansing fire and striking the shackles off every slave."

Dany had just taken a bite of tender pheasant; it turned to ashes in her mouth as she forced herself to chew and swallow. The Free Cities were far beyond her grasp; it would take long weeks of sailing to reach the idle masters who reclined on couches in beautiful Lys, colorful Tyrosh, and fragrant Myr, or hid behind the fused dragonstone walls of Old Volantis. Norvos and Qohor were thousands of leagues away, long months of hard marching through the plains of the Dothraki sea and the Forest of Qohor.

"Qohor is not my concern," she said, forcing herself to shrug.

In truth she wanted to scream, and might have, were she not surrounded by her nobles and thousands of wedding guests. When word came of the sack of Astapor, the masters of Qohor had taken quick, decisive action, sacrificing a hundred cattle to the Black Goat and cracking down on any sign of protest from their slaves, no matter how small or insignificant. A slave named Verho entertained his master and his fellows by breathing fire from his mouth and telling fortunes. When he made a prophecy about a dragon burning a black city while slaves cheered in the streets, the masters sent a squad of Unsullied to seize Verho.

Instead, they joined him, freeing both Verho and every other slave nearby. The masters were slain, every one, except for the daughter of Verho's master, who once begged her father to better feed and clothe the poor wretches who harvested timber in their name. She was escorted safely to Qohor, spared from the axes which had beheaded every one of her kin. Those same axes made quick work of hundreds of other masters, the army of freedmen swelling by the thousands, riots spreading through the streets of Qohor as the red priests exhorted their followers to cast off their shackles and burn the Black Goat.

They had succeeded. Most of the masters fled the city, leaving it to the former slaves. It was over a year before they returned, at the head of a vast army of sellswords. Traitors among the Unsullied slew Verho and his slave generals, then opened the gates to the masters. The Unsullied were the only members of the slave army allowed to live; all the rest who dared take up arms were tortured to death on the altars of the Black Goat, their mutilated heads mounted on spikes in every street and plaza.

The slaves of Qohor were not her people, nor had they sought her aid. Even so, her stomach churned with guilt over their brutal fate. If she had not sacked Astapor, they would not have revolted. They would not have died, screaming, pleading for mercy that never came. How could the Unsullied of Qohor live with themselves?

Dany looked down, to where Grey Worm sat with his adopted son, a boy of six, cradled on his lap. Her own Unsullied were enraged when the news came of Qohor's fall. For three days and three nights they prayed to their Lady of Spears, calling down her wrath upon their faithless brothers, who showed their bellies to the masters rather than fight to keep their freedom.

If only her Unsullied were so unified in training new boys. Half believed the training should remain exactly as it was in Astapor, though rather than slaughter of an infant slave they proposed that the boys keep their puppies until the end of their training. The rest were outraged by the very idea, saying that killing their puppy had done nothing to make them better fighters. They said it was a test of obedience, so the masters might slay those who showed that they would heed their hearts rather than their orders. Much as Dany hated the thought of a single dead puppy, she could not deny the effectiveness of their training, and so could not decided whether to intervene and end the arguing.

While she was silent, somehow Aegor and Rhogoro had begun talking of Dothraki laws and how they varied between khalasars. At the sound of a shrill cry Sarnai rose from her seat, descending to the third level of the platform. One of the khal's sisters held up a year old babe, and Sarnai put him to her breast so he could nurse. Stricken, Dany looked away, at the Dornish who sat further down.

A year in Meereen, and still they felt like outsiders, interlopers, lost children who could barely tell a Dothraki from a Ghiscari. None of them had traveled outside Westeros before, but for Lady Toland, who had taken Princess Elia's babes to Braavos. How strange, that Olyvar and Dany both spent their earliest years in the Titan's city, her in a house with a red door close to the sealord's palace, he in his uncle's manse.

But then Olyvar had sailed back to Dorne, and soon after Dany and her brother fled to Myr. It was she who wandered through the wide paved streets, watching the glassblowers and carpetweavers and lacemakers. It was she who roamed the streets of Tyrosh, eating honeyfingers and wondering at the thousand shades of dye that were the source of her wealth. It was she who played with the children of merchant princes in Qohor, marveled at the dragonstone walls of Volantis, and drank in the sweet scents of perfume in Lys.

Oh, they had seen much of Westeros, that she would admit. Olyvar told her of the Old Palace and the Water Gardens, the Citadel and the Hightower, the thick wet forests of the Stormlands and the fields of the Crownlands, just as Sansa told her of the streams and pools of the Riverlands and vast snowy lands of the North. Yet no matter how she tried, she could not picture the places they described. Dany could picture the Iron Throne, for Viserys had told her of it a thousand times, but neither her nephew nor his wife liked to speak of the Red Keep.

Dany's eyes hardened as she glared at the back of their heads, at steel-grey waves and loose flame-red curls. No, they were too busy trying to waste her time. Millions of freedmen depended upon her to keep them safe, and yet the Westerosi bothered her with lineages and histories, pestering her to learn the endless names and sigils of lords and knights who might be dead by the time she crossed the Narrow Sea.

"I did not know any of the Great Masters before I took Meereen," she finally told Olyvar a few days past, frustrated by his persistence. "And yet I have managed to rule despite my ignorance as to their petty squabbles and personal tastes."

Olyvar went very still at that, bowed, and left her alone with Lady Sansa, still stitching away at an altar cloth for Aegor's little sept. Were all Westerosi ladies so mad for needlework? After the way Ser Jorah Mormont grumbled about his aunt and cousins who went about in chainmail, she had thought northern ladies were warriors. She imagined tall fierce women like Barsena Blackhair, who slew every woman to face her in the fighting pits and now commanded the Black Daggers, the only company with freedwomen as well as men.

Well, Sansa was tall, that was true enough, with a lovely face and masses of thick red hair that shone brightly against the violet silks she wore today. Dany noted that Lady Sansa had not worn her circlet, with its bronze direwolf surrounded by leaves. Much as her nephew confused her with his ambivalence as to which of them should sit the Iron Throne, his wife was even more perplexing.

Lady Sansa enjoyed all the dull, tedious skills expected of Westerosi ladies. When she was not sewing, she was singing, dancing, playing the high harp, reading poetry, or writing poetry, always surrounded by her ladies. What they saw in her, Dany could not say. The girl was sweet, thoughtful, occasionally witty, and always polite, but that hardly seemed adequate reason for the Dornish ladies to blossom at her presence like flowers opening to the sun.

Perhaps Dany might have dismissed the girl entirely, thinking her a dutiful lady much like any other, were it not for the unsettling secrets concealed behind those innocent blue eyes.

It was in the eleventh moon of the part year that the girl's hidden depths first came to her attention. Olyvar asked that Viserion be released from beneath the pyramid so that he might spread his wings, and Daenerys was inclined to refuse, fearful of a second dragon preying upon the children of Meereen despite Olyvar's assurances that the white dragon would not follow the example of the black. Then Sansa raised her voice and spoke of the three terrible days she spent in the black cells beneath the Red Keep, a mere girl of thirteen imprisoned in the cramped chambers meant for the worst, most brutal criminals.

The conversation that followed that revelation was so lengthy and improbable that it made Dany's head spin. Soon after arriving in Meereen, Olyvar had told her about how the Lannisters accused Sansa of slaying the Kingslayer's bastard, how they put her on trial, how Olyvar served as her champion before wedding her to save her from a worse fate. It was a queer story, and Dany would have asked for more details, but some urgent matter had arisen and she had to leave to meet with her council. Busy with running her city, she never got around to asking for a longer version of the tale.

Her nephew had not mentioned that delicate, gentle, sweet-smelling Sansa had, in fact, accidentally slain the bastard Joffrey, though he was very vague about how such a thing happened. He had also not mentioned that she spent months hiding in a cave with outlaws. Nor had he mentioned that she only demanded a trial by combat after condemning Tywin Lannister as an oathbreaking, murdering craven before the entire court, an act of such sheer gall that Daenerys could not help laughing until her belly ached.

Sansa was the one laughing now, giggling at Olyvar over what was likely a terrible jape. Her pale cheeks were pink, and when her husband looked away to accept a flagon she stared at him for a moment before hurriedly turning the other way so she could speak to Lady Toland. Ser Olyvar might have sworn a vow not to lay a hand on his wife until she turned sixteen, but that day was only a few months hence. No doubt they would do their duty with the same unfailing courtesy as they did everything else; she wondered if they would call each other ser and my lady and beg the other's leave before daring so much as a single chaste kiss.

Her amusement dimmed as a dark shadow wheeled overhead, and she glimpsed cream wings and golden horns. The guests cried out, some in fear, some in wonder, and Dany forced herself to gasp and smile for the khal, as if the dragon's appearance was her doing and not by chance. Viserion grew more quickly, now that he spent his days flying, but he was still too small to carry Olyvar, who stood six feet and four inches. He might bear Dany's weight, but he was not hers. Her mount was Drogon, who roamed further and further with each passing day; sometimes weeks passed between sightings of the black dragon.

That night Dany could not sleep. Aegor's breaths rose and fell so steadily she could count them, her husband worn out by another round of lovemaking. For a while she tossed and turned, staring at her crown, which lay on the table beside the bed, the jade, ivory, and onyx dragons taunting her.

The dragon has three heads, sighed her brother's shade. Had Rhaegar thought to have a third child, a Visenya for his Rhaenys and Aegon? But that could not be. Lyanna died, and Dany lived, the last born of all her line. Had Rhaegar seen her in a dream, and thought he saw a daughter, rather than a sister?

She tried to imagine dragon banners flying over the Red Keep, dragon skulls once more hanging upon the walls of the throne room. The Iron Throne rose before her, a thousand points of silver, and for a moment she saw herself sitting there, a babe on her lap and Aegor by her side. She looked for Irri and Jhiqui, Grey Worm and Missandei, but the vision faded away to ashes, and when she tried to imagine Olyvar upon the throne she saw nothing, nothing but green flames.

I am weary, that is all, Dany told herself, rolling over so she could not see the crown. Just because her nephew lacked the will to claim the throne did not mean she should share his doubts. Olyvar had not crossed the red waste, had not slain the Undying and conquered cities with only his wits. No wonder he was soft, so soft he hid in his chambers for days after news came of the death of Prince Doran Martell, leaving only to light candles in the sept.

Yet if Mirri's curse was real, if she could not bear children... she had no one else she might name as her heir. Well, there was Olyvar's elder sister, but for all Dany knew she might be as unambitious as Olyvar. Although... for all his lack of ambition, Olyvar still refused to bend the knee. His hesitation was a constant itch beneath her skin, his eyes always watching her, judging her, the purple marred by the amber rings around his pupils. She would almost rather he declare his own claim; at least then she would know where she stood.

Clarity, that was the word. Daenerys did not dither about; she was made to take decisive action, as she did each day in council. Her counselors might advise her, Aegor might even change her mind on occasion, but it was her voice that mattered in the end, her will that was carried out. Olyvar did not understand why she must see to everything herself; in the Seven Kingdoms the members of the small council had much more authority than she permitted her counselors.

"The dragonlords of old Valyria did not share their rule with lesser men," she remembered telling him one evening. They were alone on her terrace, Aegor and Sansa still at the dinner table, talking of music.

"No," her nephew agreed. "They enslaved them."

Well, Dany might share the golden blood of old Valyria, but she was no Valyrian. Her ancestors had fled Valyria before the Doom, bringing only their wealth and their dragons, the same dragons that Aegon and his sisters would one day ride to glory.

She was glad her father never had a dragon. After many upsetting talks with Olyvar, Ser Barristan, and the Kingslayer, she saw Aerys as he truly was, a cruel, selfish boy who became a cruel, selfish man, even before his imprisonment at Duskendale drove him mad. Ser Barristan was still haunted by the night he considered both his greatest triumph and greatest failure.

"Had I left Aerys to die, Rhaegar would have become king," he told her, his aged face heavy with regret. "He would have been the finest king I served, had I not—"

It was strange, how differently men spoke of Rhaegar. To Ser Barristan, who knew him almost from birth, he was the promising young prince, both martial and learned, wise in all matters but for love. To the Kingslayer, who saw Rhaegar less often, he was a distant figure, stern and solemn, weighed down by duty. And to Ser Olyvar, who could not muster even the vaguest memory of his father's face, he was a silver-tongued raper, a fool who put prophecy above all else.

Even in her languor, mind blurred by the dreamlike state between sleep and waking, she could not reconcile such disparate images. Surely it must be Olyvar who was wrong, led astray by his mother. Daenerys could not blame Princess Elia for casting Rhaegar in a villainous light; she might do the same, had Drogo abandoned her and their children for some younger, prettier girl. If anything it was a mark of great kindness and understanding that Elia blamed her husband rather than Lyanna. Still, to say the northern girl was but a helpless victim went too far. Had not Daenerys tamed Drogo and bent him to her will, though she was even younger than Lyanna? At thirteen she was a khaleesi, at fourteen the mother of dragons, at fifteen a queen and a conqueror.

"My brilliant little sister," the shade of Rhaegar whispered, his voice soft with pride. "All kneel for Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Empress of Dragon's Bay, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Shackles, and Mother of Dragons."

"Mother," a thousand voices answered. "Mother, mother, mother," they chanted, so loud she almost missed the high sharp sound of a child's plaintive wail.

"Stop sniveling," Viserys snarled. Dany was five again, her brother's hand clamped tight about her arm as he dragged her away from the house with the red door. "If crying were any use, I'd still have a mother instead of a weak, useless sister. The dragon does not weep."

And yet when Dany awoke the next morning, she could still taste the salt of her tears upon her lips.

As usual, I can't wait to hear what y'all think see you in the comments!

Writing Dany chapters is so much work I should have a much easier time with the next few chapters. Up next:

126: Cersei III

127: Bran III

128: Olyvar IV

129: Sansa IV

130: Jon V

NOTES

1) I used the idiom "child's play" for Dany thinking about seducing Aegor into penetrative sex because Doreah taught Dany "pillow tricks" back in early AGOT when Dany was 13. The idiom is creepy/inappropriate on purpose.

Also, Dany has a selective memory… She absolutely did cry, a lot, when Drogo was raping her every night. Rejecting the legacy of distant Valyria is much easier than rejecting the memory of her abusive husband…

2) There are a lot of very, very weird old wives' tales about how to conceive. I liked the notion of drinking honey and cinnamon, which has a weak basis; elevating the pelvis isn't necessary either.

3) In canon, R'hllorism is... not very nuanced. Lots of burning people alive in a medieval society where human sacrifice is no longer common (yes, the ironborn also sacrifice people to the Drowned God, please don't get me started on the world's stupidest vikings). As the duality of R'hllorism is shared with Zoroastrianism, on which it appears to be based, I'm bringing in the good parts of Zoroastrianism.

4) While medieval Mongols favored tables and stools which could be easily collapsed and transported, I can't tell whether the tradition of elaborately painted tables and stools go back to the medieval era. As the canon Dothraki have painted vests, fuck it, they also have painted tables.

Dothraki music is roughly based off Mongolian traditional instruments, including the tsuur, a type of flute, the morin khuur, or horsehead fiddle, and the tuur, a frame drum.

5) The pyramid of heads suggestion Rhogoro makes is based on what the Mongols did to Nishapur after an arrow slew Genghis Khan's favorite son-in-law. There's a *reason* many towns/cities immediately surrendered when they heard the Mongols were coming.

6) Dany says there are "thousands of leagues" between Meereen and the cities of Qohor and Norvos. Actually, they're a bit closer- a thousand leagues is 3,000 miles, but by my best estimate Qohor is around 1,500 miles from Meereen, and Norvos about 2,000 miles. For comparison, there are about 1,800 miles between New York City and San Antonio, Texas, and a similar distance between Paris, France and Athens, Greece.

The slave revolt in Qohor is roughly inspired by the First Servile War in ancient Rome. Dany is *wrong* when she assumes that if she had not sacked Astapor, the slaves of Qohor would not have revolted. While the masters cracked down in response to Dany freeing slaves, the situation was already a powder keg independent of Dany's actions. It's a staggering bit of ego for Dany to think thousands of slaves only dared revolt because of her. Yeah, there was a prophecy about dragons, but that was a tiny sideshow, not the main event. As a comparison, the Civil War didn't happen because of John Brown raiding Harper's Ferry; war was already inevitable at that point.