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Daenerys

Wings shadowed her fever dreaon, do you?"

She alking down a long hall beneath high stone arches She could not look behind her, must not look behind her There was a door ahead of her, tiny with distance, but even from afar, she saw that it was painted red She walked faster, and her bare feet left bloody footprints on the stone

"You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?"

She saw sunlight on the Dothraki sea, the living plain, rich with the srasses, and they rippled like water Drogo held her in strong arms, and his hand stroked her sex and opened her and woke that setness that was his alone, and the stars sht sky "Home," she whispered as he entered her and filled her with his seed, but suddenly the stars were gone, and across the blue sky swept the great wings, and the world took flaon, do you?"

Ser Jorah’s face was drawn and sorrowful "Rhaegar was the last dragon," he told her He wars smouldered red as coals One , his flesh colorless, less substantial than the wind "The last dragon," he whispered, thin as a wisp, and was gone She felt the dark behind her, and the red door seemed farther away than ever

"don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?"

Viserys stood before her, screa, slut You do not coon, and I will be crowned" Thedeep channels in his flesh "I aers snapped like snakes, biting at her nipples, pinching, twisting, even as his eyes burst and ran like jelly down seared and blackened cheeks

"don’t want to wake the dragon"

The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her If it caught her she would die a death that wasforever alone in the darkness She began to run

"don’t want to wake the dragon"

She could feel the heat inside her, a terrible burning in her woo’s copper skin and her own silver-gold hair, violet eyes shaped like alan to lift his hand toward hers, but when he opened his h his chest, and in an instant he was gone, consumed like a moth by a candle, turned to ash She wept for her child, the promise of a sweet mouth on her breast, but her tears turned to steam as they touched her skin

"want to wake the dragon"

Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded rais In their hands were swords of pale fire They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade "Faster," they cried, "faster, faster" She raced, her feet hosts cried as one, and she screareat knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and ss And Daenerys Targaryen flew

"wake the dragon"

The door loomed before her, the red door, so close, so close, the hall was a blur around her, the cold receding behind And now the stone was gone and she flew across the Dothraki sea, high and higher, the green rippling beneath, and all that lived and breathed fled in terror fros She could sreen fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there She threw open the door

"the dragon"

And saw her brother Rhaegar, lih the narrow eye slit of his helon," Ser Jorah’s voice whispered faintly "The last, the last" Dany lifted his polished black visor The face within was her own

After that, for a long time, there was only the pain, the fire within her, and the whisperings of stars

She woke to the taste of ashes

"No," she moaned, "no, please"

"Khaleesi?" Jhiqui hovered over her, a frightened doe

The tent was drenched in shadow, still and close Flakes of ash drifted upward froh the ss, I was flying But it was only a drea me" Her voice was raw as a wound, and she could not think what she wanted Why did she hurt so much? It was as if her body had been torn to pieces and remade from the scraps "I want"

"Yes, Khaleesi" Quick as that Jhiqui was gone, bolting frosomeonewhat? It was i in the world that ot an elbow under her, fighting the blanket tangled about her legs It was so hard to move The world swam dizzily I have to

They found her on the carpet, crawling toward her dragon eggs Ser Jorah Mormont lifted her in his argled feebly against hio with his little wisp of mustache, and the flat broad face of Mirri Maz Duur "I must," she tried to tell them, "I have to"

"sleep, Princess," Ser Jorah said

"No," Dany said "Please Please"

"Yes" He covered her with silk, though she was burning "Sleep and grow strong again, Khaleesi Coi, tipping a cup against her lips She tasted sourthick and bitter Warrew diain This time she did not dream She floated, serene and at peace, on a black sea that knew no shore

After a tiain The tent was dark, its silken walls flapping like wings when the wind gusted outside This time Dany did not attempt to rise "Irri," she called, "Jhiqui Doreah" They were there at once "My throat is dry," she said, "so dry," and they brought her water It arerly, and sent Jhiqui for more Irri dampened a soft cloth and stroked her brow "I have been sick," Dany said The Dothraki girl nodded "How long?" The cloth was soothing, but Irri see," she whispered When Jhiqui returned with more water, Mirri Maz Duur ca Dany’s head to the cup once more, but this time it was only wine Sweet, sine Dany drank, and lay back, listening to the soft sound of her own breathing She could feel the heaviness in her liI want to hold"

"Yes?" the i asked "What is it you wish, Khaleesi?"

"Bringplease" Her lashes turned to lead, and she was too weary to hold theolden sunlight was pouring through the son’s egg It was the pale one, its scales the color of butter creaold and bronze, and Dany could feel the heat of it Beneath her bedsilks, a fine sheen of perspiration covered her bare skin Dragondew, she thought Her fingers trailed lightly across the surface of the shell, tracing the wisps of gold, and deep in the stone she felt sohten her All her fear was gone, burned away

Dany touched her brow Under the filone She made herself sit There was a hs Yet she felt strong Herat the sound of her voice "Water," she told theon of water, cold as you can find it And fruit, I think Dates"

"As you say, Khaleesi"

"I want Ser Jorah," she said, standing Jhiqui brought a sandsilk robe and draped it over her shoulders "And a warm bath, and Mirri Maz Duur, and" Memory cao," she forced herself to say, watching their faces with dread "Is he&mdash?"

"The khal lives," Irri answered quietlyyet Dany saw a darkness in her eyes when she said the words, and no sooner had she spoken than she rushed away to fetch water

She turned to Doreah "TellSer Jorah," the Lysene girl said, bowing her head and fleeing the tent

Jhiqui would have run as well, but Dany caught her by the wrist and held her captive "What is it? I oand my child" Why had she not reowhere is he? I want him"

Her handmaid lowered her eyes "The boyhe did not live, Khaleesi" Her voice was a frightened whisper

Dany released her wrist My son is dead, she thought as Jhiqui left the tent She had known somehow She had known since she woke the first time to Jhiqui’s tears No, she had known before she woke Her dream came back to her, sudden and vivid, and she reold braid, bursting into flame

She should weep, she knew, yet her eyes were dry as ash She had wept in her drearief has been burned out of me, she told herself She felt sad, and yetshe could feel Rhaego receding from her, as if he had never been

Ser Jorah and Mirri Maz Duur entered a few on’s eggs, the two still in their chest It seemed to her that they felt as hot as the one she had slept with, which was passing strange "Ser Jorah, come here," she said She took his hand and placed it on the black egg with the scarlet swirls "What do you feel?"

"Shell, hard as rock" The knight ary "Scales"

"Heat?"

"No Cold stone" He took his hand away "Princess, are you well? Should you be up, weak as you are?"

"Weak? I a, Jorah" To please him, she reclined on a pile of cushions "Tell me how my child died"

"He never lived, my princess The wo loose on him, and the way he limped when he moved