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Daenerys
The heart was steao set it before her, raw and bloody His arms were red to the elbow Behind him, his bloodriders knelt on the sand beside the corpse of the wild stallion, stone knives in their hands The stallion’s blood looked black in the flickering orange glare of the torches that ringed the high chalk walls of the pit
Dany touched the soft swell of her belly Sweat beaded her skin and trickled down her brow She could feel the old wo her, the ancient crones of Vaes Dothrak, with eyes that shone dark as polished flint in their wrinkled faces She on, she told herself as she took the stallion’s heart in both hands, lifted it to her y flesh
Warm blood filled herher, but she made herself chew and s The heart of a stallion wouldand swift and fearless, or so the Dothraki believed, but only if the mother could eat it all If she choked on the blood or retched up the flesh, the oht be stillborn, or come forth weak, deformed, or female
Her handmaids had helped her ready herself for the ceremony Despite the tender mother’s stomach that had afflicted her these past two moons, Dany had dined on bowls of half-clotted blood to accustom herself to the taste, and Irri made her chew strips of dried horseflesh until her jaere aching She had starved herself for a day and a night before the cereer would help her keep down the raw meat
The wild stallion’s heart was all muscle, and Dany had to worry it with her teeth and chew eachtime No steel was permitted within the sacred confines of Vaes Dothrak, beneath the shadow of the Mother of Mountains; she had to rip the heart apart with teeth and nails Her stomach roiled and heaved, yet she kept on, her face smeared with the heartsblood that soainst her lips
Khal Drogo stood over her as she ate, his face as hard as a bronze shield His long black braid was shiny with oil He wore gold rings in his old medallions around his waist, but his chest was bare She looked at hi; looked at him, and chewed and sed, chewed and sed, chewed and sed Toward the end, Dany thought she glimpsed a fierce pride in his dark, almond-shaped eyes, but she could not be sure The khal’s face did not often betray the thoughts within
And finally it was done Her cheeks and fingers were sticky as she forced down the last of it Only then did she turn her eyes back to the old women, the crones of the dosh khaleen
"Khalakka dothrae mr’anha!" she proclaimed in her best Dothraki A prince rides inside me! She had practiced the phrase for days with her handmaid Jhiqui
The oldest of the crones, a bent and shriveled stick of a woh "Khalakka dothrae!" she shrieked The prince is riding!
"He is riding!" the other women answered "Rakh! Rakh! Rakh haj!" they proclai, a sudden clangor of bronze birds A deep-throated warhorn sounded its long low note The old woan to chant Underneath their painted leather vests, their withered dugs swayed back and forth, shiny with oil and sweat The eunuchs who served thereat bronze brazier, and clouds of fragrant smoke rose up toward the moon and the stars The Dothraki believed the stars were horses ht
As the s died away and the ancient crone closed her single eye, the better to peer into the future The silence that fell was coht birds, the hiss and crackle of the torches, the gentle lapping of water froht, waiting
Khal Drogo laid his hand on Dany’s arers Even a khal as o could know fear when the dosh khaleen peered into smoke of the future At her back, her handmaids fluttered anxiously
Finally the crone opened her eye and lifted her arms "I have seen his face, and heard the thunder of his hooves," she proclaimed in a thin, wavery voice
"The thunder of his hooves!" the others chorused
"As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth,in their hands like blades of razor grass Fierce as a storm this prince will be His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives eep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief The bells in his hair will sing his co, and the milk men in the stone tents will fear his name" The old woman trembled and looked at Dany al, and he shall be the stallion who mounts the world"
"The stallion who ht rang to the sound of their voices
The one-eyed crone peered at Dany "What shall he be called, the stallion who mounts the world?"
She stood to answer "He shall be called Rhaego," she said, using the words that Jhiqui had taught her Her hands touched the swell beneath her breasts protectively as a roar went up froo, Rhaego!"
The nao led her from the pit His bloodriders fell in behind theodsway, the broad grassy road that ran through the heart of Vaes Dothrak, froate to the Mother of Mountains The crones of the dosh khaleen came first, with their eunuchs and slaves Soled along on ancient, shaking legs, while others walked as proud as any horselord Each of the old women had been a khaleesi once When their lord husbands died and a new khal took his place at the front of his riders, with a new khaleesi n over the vast Dothraki nation Even the htiest of khals bowed to the wisdoave Dany the shivers to think that one day she ht be sent to join them, whether she willed it or no
Behind the oo, Khal Joo’s khalasar, Dany’s handmaids, the khal’s servants and slaves, andand druodsway Stolen heroes and the gods of dead peoples brooded in the darkness beyond the road Alongside the procession, slaves ran lightly through the grass with torches in their hands, and the flickering flareat , na the Co hio was quick to learn when he put his h his accent was so thick and barbarous that neither Ser Jorah nor Viserys could understand a word he said
"My brother Rhaegar was a fierce warrior, my sun-and-stars," she told him "He died before I was born Ser Jorah says that he was the last of the dragons"
Khal Drogo looked down at her His face was a copperbeneath the weight of its gold rings, she thought she gliood name, Dan Ares wife, moon of my life," he said
They rode to the lake the Dothraki called the Woe of reeds, its water still and calo, Jhiqui told her, the firstupon the back of the first horse
The procession waited on the grassy shore as Dany stripped and let her soiled clothing fall to the ground Naked, she stepped gingerly into the water Irri said the lake had no botto between her toes as she pushed through the tall reeds Theand re-for as her ripples washed over it Goose pihs and kissed her lower lips The stallion’s blood had dried on her hands and around her ers and lifted the sacred waters over her head, cleansing herself and the child inside her while the khal and the others looked on She heard the old wo to each other as they watched, and wondered what they were saying
When she e, her handmaid Doreah hurried to her with a robe of painted sandsilk, but Khal Drogo waved her away He was looking on her swollen breasts and the curve of her belly with approval, and Dany could see the shape of his h his horsehide trousers, below the heavy gold medallions of his belt She went to hie khal took her by the hips and lifted her into the air, as hesoftly
Dany wrapped her arainst his neck as he thrust himself inside her Three quick strokes and it was done "The stallion who o whispered hoarsely His hands still smelled of horse blood He bit at her throat, hard, in the moment of his pleasure, and when he lifted her off, his seed filled her and trickled down the inside of her thighs Only then was Doreah permitted to drape her in the scented sandsilk, and Irri to fit soft slippers to her feet
Khal Drogo laced hiht to the lakeshore Cohollo had the honor of helping the khaleesi onto her silver Drogo spurred his stallion, and set off down the godsway beneath the moon and stars On her silver, Dany easily kept pace
The silk tenting that roofed Khal Drogo’s hall had been rolled up tonight, and the moon followed thee stone-lined firepits The air was thick with the s meat and curdled, fermented mare’s milk The hall was crowded and noisy when they entered, the cushions packed with those whose rank and name were not sufficient to allow them at the ceremony As Dany rode beneath the arched entry and up the center aisle, every eye was on her The Dothraki screa the life within her She could not understand all they shouted, but one phrase came clear "The stallion that mounts the world," she heard, bellowed in a thousand voices
The sounds of druht Half-clothed women spun and danced on the low tables, ah with pluranates Many of the men were drunk on clotted ht, not here in the sacred city, where blades and bloodshed were forbidden
Khal Drogo dish bench Khal Joo, who had been in Vaes Dothrak with their khalasars when they arrived, were given seats of high honor to Drogo’s right and left The bloodriders of the three khals sat below them, and farther down Khal Jommo’s four wives
Dany cliave the reins to one of the slaves As Doreah and Irri arranged her cushions, she searched for her brother Even across the length of the crowded hall, Viserys should have been conspicuous with his pale skin, silvery hair, and beggar’s rags, but she did not see hilance roamed the crowded tables near the walls, where men whose braids were even shorter than their s and flat cushions around the low tables, but all the faces she saw had black eyes and copper skin She spied Ser Jorah Mormont near the center of the hall, close to the h honor; the Dothraki esteeht’s proith a sword Dany sent Jhiqui to bring him to her table Mormont came at once, and went to one knee before her "Khaleesi," he said, "I am yours to command"
She patted the stuffed horsehide cushion beside her "Sit and talk with ht seated hied on the cushion A slave knelt before his Ser Jorah took one and bit it in half
"Where is ht to have come by now, for the feast"
"I saw His Grace thisto the Western Market, in search of wine"
"Wine?" Dany said doubtfully Viserys could not abide the taste of the fermented mare’s milk the Dothraki drank, she knew that, and he was oft at the bazaars these days, drinking with the traders who careat caravans froenial than hers
"Wine," Ser Jorah confirht to recruit uard the caravans" A serving girl laid a blood pie in front of him, and he attacked it with both hands
"Is that wise?" she asked "He has no gold to pay soldiers What if he’s betrayed?" Caravan guards were seldo’s Landing would pay well for her brother’s head "You ought to have gone with him, to keep him safe You are his sworn sword"