Page 23 (1/2)

Daenerys

The Dothraki sea," Ser Jorah Mormont said as he reined to a halt beside her on the top of the ridge beneath them, the plain stretched out immense and empty, a vast flat expanse that reached to the distant horizon and beyond It was a sea, Dany thought Past here, there were no hills, no rasses, the tall blades rippling like waves when the winds blew "It’s so green," she said

"Here and now," Ser Jorah agreed "You ought to see it when it blooms, all dark red flowers from horizon to horizon, like a sea of blood Come the dry season, and the world turns the color of old bronze And this is only hranna, child There are a hundred kinds of grass out there, grasses as yellow as lerasses and grasses like rainbows Down in the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there are oceans of ghost grass, taller than a lass It lows in the dark with the spirits of the darass will cover the entire world, and then all life will end"

That thought gave Dany the shivers "I don’t want to talk about that now," she said "It’s so beautiful here, I don’t want to think about everything dying"

"As you will, Khaleesi," Ser Jorah said respectfully

She heard the sound of voices and turned to look behind her She and Mormont had outdistanced the rest of their party, and now the others were cli archers of her khas were fluid as centaurs, but Viserys still struggled with the short stirrups and the flat saddle Her brother was ister Illyrio had urged him to wait in Pentos, had offered him the hospitality of his manse, but Viserys would have none of it He would stay with Drogo until the debt had been paid, until he had the crown he had been promised "And if he tries to cheat on," Viserys had vowed, laying a hand on his borroord Illyrio had blinked at that and wished hiood fortune

Dany realized that she did not want to listen to any of her brother’s coht now The day was too perfect The sky was a deep blue, and high above thehed with each breath of wind, the air arm on her face, and Dany felt at peace She would not let Viserys spoil it

"Wait here," Dany told Ser Jorah "Tell theht smiled Ser Jorah was not a handsome man He had a neck and shoulders like a bull, and coarse black hair covered his arms and chest so thickly that there was none left for his head Yet his s to talk like a queen, Daenerys"

"Not a queen," said Dany "A khaleesi" She wheeled her horse about and galloped down the ridge alone

The descent was steep and rocky, but Dany rode fearlessly, and the joy and the danger of it were a song in her heart All her life Viserys had told her she was a princess, but not until she rode her silver had Daenerys Targaryen ever felt like one

At first it had not co after her wedding,east toward Vaes Dothrak, and by the third day Dany thought she was going to die Saddle sores opened on her bottohs were chafed raw, her hands blistered fros and back so wracked with pain that she could scarcely sit By the time dusk fell, her handmaids would need to help her down froht no relief Khal Drogo ignored her when they rode, even as he had ignored her during their wedding, and spent his evenings drinking with his warriors and bloodriders, racing his prize horses, watching women dance and men die Dany had no place in these parts of his life She was left to sup alone, or with Ser Jorah and her brother, and afterward to cry herself to sleep Yet every night, soo would come to her tent and wake her in the dark, to ride her as relentlessly as he rode his stallion He always took her frorateful; that way her lord husband could not see the tears that wet her face, and she could use her pillow to muffle her cries of pain When he was done, he would close his eyes and begin to snore softly and Dany would lie beside hi too ht followed night, until Dany knew she could not endure a o on, she decided one night

Yet when she slept that night, she dreaain Viserys was not in it this tion Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood Her blood, Dany sensed Its eyes were pools ofout in a hot jet She could hear it singing to her, She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it s her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to stea and new and fierce

And the next day, strangely, she did not seeods had heard her and taken pity Even her hande "Khaleesi," Jhiqui said, "what is wrong? Are you sick?"

"I was," she answered, standing over the dragon’s eggs that Illyrio had given her when she wed She touched one, the largest of the three, running her hand lightly over the shelf Black-and-scarlet, she thought, like the dragon in ersor was she still drea? She pulled her hand back nervously

From that hour onward, each day was easier than the one before it Her legs grew stronger; her blisters burst and her hands grew callused; her soft thighs toughened, supple as leather

The khal had commanded the handmaid Irri to teach Dany to ride in the Dothraki fashion, but it was the filly as her real teacher The horse seeleday, Dany felt surer in her seat The Dothraki were a hard and unsentimental people, and it was not their custoht of her only as the silver She had never loved anything sobecaan to notice the beauties of the land around her She rode at the head of the khalasar with Drogo and his bloodriders, so she careat horde ht tear the earth anddust, but the fields ahead of thereen and verdant

They crossed the rolling hills of Norvos, past terraced fares where the townsfolk watched anxiously from atop white stucco walls They forded three wide placid rivers and a fourth that ift and narrow and treacherous, cah blue waterfall, skirted the tuhosts were said toblackened marble columns They raced down Valyrian roads a thousand years old and straight as a Dothraki arrow For half a h the Forest of Qohor, where the leaves h above theates There were great elk in that wood, and spotted tigers, and lee purple eyes, but all fled before the approach of the khalasar and Dany got no gli , yet so she caer to knoonders waited for her in the lands ahead She began to find pleasure even in her nights, and if she still cried out when Drogo took her, it was not always in pain

At the bottorasses rose around her, tall and supple Dany slowed to a trot and rode out onto the plain, losing herself in the green, blessedly alone In the khalasar she was never alone Khal Drogo came to her only after the sun went down, but her handmaids fed her and bathed her and slept by the door of her tent, Drogo’s bloodriders and the men of her khas were never far, and her brother was an unwelcoht Dany could hear hier as he shouted at Ser Jorah She rode on, subreen sed her up The air was rich with the scents of earth and grass, mixed with the smell of horseflesh and Dany’s sweat and the oil in her hair Dothraki s here Dany breathed it all in, laughing She had a sudden urge to feel the ground beneath her, to curl her toes in that thick black soil Swinging down froraze while she pulled off her high boots

Viserys ca beneath him as he reined up too hard "You dare!" he screaive co as he landed His face was flushed as he struggled back to his feet He grabbed her, shook her "Have you forgotten who you are? Look at you Look at you!"

Dany did not need to look She was barefoot, with oiled hair, wearing Dothraki riding leathers and a painted vest given her as a bride gift She looked as though she belonged here Viserys was soiled and stained in city silks and ring "You do not coon Do you understand? I adoms, I will not hear orders from some horselord’s slut, do you hearpainfully into her breast "Do you hear me?"

Dany shoved him away, hard

Viserys stared at her, his lilac eyes incredulous She had never defied hie twisted his features He would hurt her now, and badly, she knew that

Crack

The whip made a sound like thunder The coil took Viserys around the throat and yanked hirass, stunned and choking The Dothraki riders hooted at hiled to free hio, rasped a question Dany did not understand his words, but by then Irri was there, and Ser Jorah, and the rest of her khas "Jhogo asks if you would have him dead, Khaleesi, " Irri said

"No," Dany replied "No"

Jhogo understood that One of the others barked out a cohed Irri told her, "Quaro thinks you should take an ear to teach him respect"

Her brother was on his knees, his fingers digging under the leather coils, crying incoherently, struggling for breath The as tight around his windpipe

"Tell them I do not wish him harmed," Dany said

Irri repeated her words in Dothraki Jhogo gave a pull on the whip, yanking Viserys around like a puppet on a string He went sprawling again, freed from the leather embrace, a thin line of blood under his chin where the whip had cut deep

"I warned him ould happen, my lady," Ser Jorah More, as you com Viserys He lay on the ground, sucking in air noisily, red-faced and sobbing He was a pitiful thing He had always been a pitiful thing Why had she never seen that before? There was a hollow place inside her where her fear had been

"Take his horse," Dany coaped at her He could not believe what he was hearing; nor could Dany quite believe what she was saying Yet the words came "Letthe Dothraki, the man who does not ride was no man at all, the lowest of the loithout honor or pride "Let everyone see him as he is"

"No!" Viserys screaue ords the horsemen would not understand "Hit her, Mors and teach her"

The exile knight looked from Dany to her brother; she barefoot, with dirt between her toes and oil in her hair, he with his silks and steel Dany could see the decision on his face "He shall walk, Khaleesi," he said He took her brother’s horse in hand while Dany reaped at him, and sat down in the dirt He kept his silence, but he would not move, and his eyes were full of poison as they rode away Soon he was lost in the tall grass When they could not see hirew afraid "Will he find his way back?" she asked Ser Jorah as they rode

"Even a man as blind as your brother should be able to follow our trail," he replied

"He is proud He hed "Where else should he go? If he cannot find the khalasar, the khalasar will most surely find him It is hard to drown in the Dothraki sea, child"

Dany saw the truth of that The khalasar was like a city on the ed far ahead of the auarded their flanks They , not here, in this land, the place where they had come from These plains were a part of themand of her, now

"I hit him," she said, wonder in her voice Now that it was over, it seee dream that she had dreary when he gets backShe shivered "I woke the dragon, didn’t I?"