Author's Note: Thanks in part to The Lion's Fall, I've had to go back to this fic and make some quality of life changes. Certain details demanded more clarity, so I was forced to look into them with more detail. I recommend rereading Chapter 15 specifically.
Book II: The Red Keep
Chapter 35
Daenerys II
Her heart was in her throat as she watched her brother stumble into the silk tent, clearly having drunk the merchant's wine he was so fond of. She had been growing ever concerned for him. News of the 'false' dragon across the seas 'stealing' their throne had caused the dragon in Viserys to waken more frequently. After the incident when the Bloodriders had whipped him for raising a hand to her, he hadn't dared take his anger out on her. It hadn't taken long to find a new target: the slaves.
He beat them with the flat of his sword until they couldn't stand and since they were slaves, they were not allowed to ride the carts. If they were still unconscious by the time the Khal decided to move, they were left behind. The few times Viserys' victim had been in view, she kept her eyes on the poor soul until they fell out of sight.
She remembered turning to the Khal and saying, "It would please me to claim these slaves Viserys beats. I would have them put on the cart."
He had given her a curious look like he had little idea of what mercy was and said in the Dothraki tongue, "They're slaves. Of little consequence. They cannot walk, they cannot serve."
It had overwhelmed her with guilt to keep her horse with Drogo's and she could never quite banish their broken bodies from her mind.
Since Ser Jorah had delivered the news about the false dragon, they had only traveled deeper into the Dothraki Sea and the civilization Dany was used to evaporated in the hot haze of the horizon. At first, Dany had hoped that Viserys' distance from the news would ease him, but he only seemed to grow more agitated as they traveled further eastward, away from the Narrow Sea by Westeros.
More than once he had accosted Drogo. His bloodriders swirled around him like hornets ready to defend but Drogo always waved them off.
"My army! I need my army! The false dragon is taking my throne. You promised me," Viserys would scream.
Drogo would always say something to quieten him. Dany was never close enough to hear, but it seemed to put Viserys' mind at ease and he would stalk off once more.
Being in the heart of Vaes Dothrak seemed to give him a new kind of courage, a foolish one at that. In this peculiar city, blades were not to be bared, blood not to be shed. After seeing the brutality of everyday life, most notably at her own wedding, it struck her as odd, but not unwelcoming.
Now, however, her blood shivered in her veins as she watched Viserys lock eyes with her and begin to walk over. He still had his sword at his waist. It was death to carry a weapon within the city. She placed a hand on Jorah, "Ser, please escort my brother out of the tent. Try to talk some sense into him."
"Yes, Khaleesi," Jorah rumbled quietly and was striding over to her brother. When he reached her brother, he seemed to be whispering fiercely at him and was trying to corral her brother without placing his hands on him. The last person to touch him had lost all the digits on the offending hand.
But Viserys was undeterred and proclaimed loudly, in a drunken slur, "You dare to command your king! I should kill you for this! I will take those dragon eggs as I please. I am the king, the real dragon!"
His gaze fell on Khal Drogo sitting on the high bench with the other Khals. "Khal Drogo, I shall join you."
The Khal's eyes glittered with malice and glee and he barked in the Dothraki tongue, pointing to a far corner.
"He says you have no place here. You belong over there," Ser Jorah translated for Viserys, pointing into the dark corner as well. It as a place of outcasts, full of boys, the old, the weak, and the maimed.
"That's not fit for a king," Viserys cried as he tottered on his feet, his face beginning to purple as his anger grew.
"Only place for Sorefoot King, Khal Rhaggat," Khal Drogo taunted in his broken tongue. He and the other Khals around him laughed.
Dany's eyes grew wide as she watched his hands clench and his face flush an even deeper red. "Ser Jorah, please. I'm concerned with what he'll do! Tell him he can have the dragon eggs, but he must leave now," she whispered urgently.
"Yes, Khaleesi," Jorah said. This time he didn't hesitate to grab Viserys by the shoulders and try to drag him away, but he was violently shrugged off and Viserys drew his sword. Jorah only just managed to leap away as he swung the sword wide. A hush fell on everyone in the tent. The Khals were no longer laughing and they followed Viserys' every moment like a hungry pack of wolves.
Dany froze. Was it possible to still save her brother? No one who draws steel in the city shall live, she thought and trembled. She had to save her brother, somehow, though she wasn't sure she could convince Drogo to forgive and forget this offense in the Dothraki holy city.
She stepped up and said, "Viserys, please! You have to leave! Now! Take the eggs!"
It was enough to draw his attention and his anger cooled. She thought for a moment that she had finally gotten through to him and he saw sense, but then a cold smile stretched across his pale face. She tried to step away, but he crossed the remaining distance and wrapped an arm around her neck, bringing her close.
"Oh, sweet sister, you little whore. You did well please the Khal, I'll give you that. Too well. Now it seems he thinks he can have you and not fulfill our agreement. I can't have that. The false dragon is gathering his army. I need one of my own, as he promised," he hissed at her gleefully and she struggled to get away. Her struggle stilled as the sword point came to rest on her protruding belly. There was gasp at the implied threat and all movement save for the dancing flames stilled.
Dany struggled to control her fear as she had learned to do in the face of the waking dragon, but still she trembled. Jorah was tense, his eyes flickering from Viserys to her. Drogo appeared as immovable as ever, but she could see the tension in his jaw and the anger in his dark eyes. Her handmaid Jhiqui was sobbing in the back; her mouth was moving and Dany was certain that if she were near enough, a stream of unbroken prayers would be heard.
The point of the sword dug into Dany's rounded belly and she felt a drop of blood pool at the tip.
"Now, tell Khal Drogo that I want my gold crown and my army, as he promised, or I'll rip his foal out of her and hand it to him as is," Viserys snarled at the Westerosi knight.
Jorah dutifully relayed the demand to Drogo. The fire danced dangerously in Drogo's eyes and his reply was clipped, "You shall have your gold crown."
Viserys' smile was cold and vicious as he nodded at Drogo. "That's all I wanted. But you made me wait so long." He raised his sword and slammed the flat of it into her abdomen.
She screamed and doubled over, the pain radiating through her body. At the same time, the world dissolved into chaos around her. There was a rush of bodies and she could just barely hear the incoherent screaming of her brother. What they were doing to him, she couldn't say. There was a confusion of noise and chaos, bodies crowded around her. A firm pair of hands gripped her arms and Jorah was whispering soothing words, "Khaleesi, we need to get you out of here! You need a healer!"
Dany tried to take a step, but pain ripped through her again, freezing her in place as she desperately held her belly. Tears spilled down her face as she finally was able to meet Jorah's desperate eyes.
"Khaleesi, I need to carry you. We have to get you to a midwife."
"Rhaego," she whispered.
"We may be able to save him. Do I have your permission?"
"Yes, do it. Do whatever you can," she managed to utter in between more ripples of pain that washed over her like an ocean wave.
He hoisted her up and rushed out of the tent. Amidst the pain and nausea was a blur of bodies and faces as Jorah raced through the streets, shouting at the top of his lungs. Another wave of cramps ran through her and she doubled up in his arms.
She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he eventually stopped to lay her down and she recognized the tent as her own. His presence disappeared briefly and she reached after him, but he was gone. She tried to sit up, but it only seemed to induce more cramps. All the same, she looked down to find her clothes molded to her thighs stained a deep red. The sight caused her to tremble before a blanket was placed over.
"Khaleesi, you're in childbed," Jorah said to her. "This is no place for a man."
"No, please, don't go," she whispered.
"I-I can't. It would not be appropriate," Jorah muttered. He gave her hand a last comforting squeeze and departed. Maids and an older woman swarmed around her, but that singular moment of clarity dissolved as pain wracked her and she screamed again.
Dany wasn't clear how much time passed. Her world narrowed to the pain, the fear, and the women's voices that whispered what she supposed were soothing words and another voice that declared instruction in Dothraki. Her throat became raw from screaming and she thrashed, though gentle hands tried to hold in her place.
After one last tremendous push, there was an unpleasant gushing that coated her thighs and a larger presence leaving her. She felt the ache of loneliness immensely and groaned mournfully, tears tracking down her face. Her son. Rhaego. He was gone. Her exhaustion caught up with her and she felt herself sink into blackness in despair.
She dreamed of the Red Keep in King's Landing or so she thought. A man she thought was her brother Viserys turned to reveal a different face, but his hair was silver and his eyes were violet, just like all Targaryens. Rhaegar, she whispered. In his eyes was a kindness she'd never seen on Viserys' face, but there was a sadness as well. In his arms, he held a babe of dark hair and darker skin. It gurgled and fussed and she could see his motions to shush it.
Rhaego, she whispered and struggled to approach.
You're not alone sister, the words came to her, but his mouth never opened. There remains yet one more dragon.
The moment she reached them, he and Rhaego dissolved into smoke and ash and she cried out in anger. The smoke billowed and fumed and she saw a figure appear, striding through the smoke towards her, though he remained faceless. The other dragon, she thought and as soon as she did he reached a hand out to her. This time when she connected with his hand, it held for a moment, and then it was consumed by a white light.
She cracked her eyes open and winced as the sunlight spilled into their tent. She flinched and groaned. When she shifted, she felt every pain and cried out.
"Easy, Khaleesi. You are healing," her handmaid Jhiqui whispered to her and then she felt a cool cloth applied to her forehead
The exhaustion seemed to lay over her like a blanket and she stared listlessly at her handmaiden. Her thoughts were like fireflies blinking in and out and she had to catch them to string something cohesive together.
"What happened?" She whispered, but at the same instant she remembered Rhaegar holding her son in her dream and she felt tears slip down her cheeks.
"You birthed the child, Khaleesi," Jhiqui responded, tears in her own eyes and her lips trembled. "The babe perished. I'm sorry."
"No," Dany cried. She tried to sit up but the answering twinge of pain near paralyzed her and she fell back.
"No, no, Khaleesi. You must not rise. You need your rest."
"My brother. What happened to him?"
Jhiqui's mouth worked soundlessly and then she said, "Your brother received his gold crown. Khal Drogo melted down his belt of gold and poured it on your brother. No blood was shed."
Dany gasped, but it was her own physical pain that had caused it more than hearing that. For the first time in her life, a boiling anger threatened to manifest in frustrated screams, but she was still too tired and too painful. Never had she hated her brother so. He takes everything from me! I could never be happy with him around, she ruminated. She only wished she had been there to see her brother's agony that may have come close to reflecting her own.
"Drogo?"
"He has seen to the passing of the babe, Khaleesi," Jhiqui whispered.
Dany looked sharply at her and ignored the pain this caused. "He didn't wait for me?"
"We were not sure when you'd awaken, Khaleesi. It has been three days."
"My child is gone? And I didn't even get to hold him?"
"He was never here, Khaleesi," Jhiqui said, but there was sorrow in her response, like she was parroting the words that had been told to her.
Her Stallion that Mounts the World was gone. Never to be. The crones of the dosh khaleen had been wrong. Had they ever been wrong before? Had they ever been right?
Her anger continued to simmer and being forced to stay abed, she could only clench her fists, but all the same she internally lashed out at Khal Drogo. Why did he send my child off without me? He should have waited! She deserved to hold him, his tiny broken body. She had needed it, but that had been ripped from her just as Viserys had ripped the possibility of her living child from her.
And with that the anger leaked away like water from a drinking skin and her pain and sorrow consumed her. She rolled over, sobbing in part to the ripping pain that still shot through her at any movement, and also for the loss of her son, Rhaego. She finally cried herself to sleep and the last dragon of smoke and ash appeared before her again. This time she heard her own name echo from his lips: "Daenerys." His voice was a soothing balm in a maelstrom of smoke and chaos.
