A Dance With Dragons

let me rule in peace?
    Daario’s announcement had sparked an uproar. Reznak was wailing, the Shavepate was muttering darkly, her bloodriders were swearing vengeance. Strong Belwas thumped his scarred belly with his fist and swore to eat Brown Ben’s heart with plums and onions. “Please,” Dany said, but only Missandei seemed to hear. The queen got to her feet. “ Be quiet! I have heard enough.”
    “Your Grace.” Ser Barristan went to one knee. “We are yours to command. What would you have us do?”
    “Continue as we planned. Gather food, as much as you can.” If I look back I am lost. “We must close the gates and put every fighting man upon the walls. No one enters, no one leaves.”
    The hall was quiet for a moment. The men looked at one another. Then Reznak said, “What of the Astapori?”
    She wanted to scream, to gnash her teeth and tear her clothes and beat upon the floor. Instead she said, “ Close the gates. Will you make me say it thrice?” They were her children, but she could not help them now. “Leave me. Daario, remain. That cut should be washed, and I have more questions for you.”
    The others bowed and went. Dany took Daario Naharis up the steps to her bedchamber, where Irri washed his cut with vinegar and Jhiqui wrapped it in white linen. When that was done she sent her handmaids off as well. “Your clothes are stained with blood,” she told Daario. “Take them off.”
    “Only if you do the same.” He kissed her.
    His hair smelled of blood and smoke and horse, and his mouth was hard and hot on hers. Dany trembled in his arms. When they broke apart, she said, “I thought you would be the one to betray me. Once for blood and once for gold and once for love, the warlocks said. I thought … I never thought Brown Ben. Even my dragons seemed to trust him.” She clutched her captain by the shoulders. “Promise me that you will never turn against me. I could not bear that. Promise me.”
    “Never, my love.”
    She believed him. “I swore that I should wed Hizdahr zo Loraq if he gave me ninety days of peace, but now … I wanted you from the first time that I saw you, but you were a sellsword, fickle, treacherous. You boasted that you’d had a hundred women.”
    “A hundred?” Daario chuckled through his purple beard. “I lied, sweet queen. It was a thousand. But never once a dragon.”
    She raised her lips to his. “What are you waiting for?”

THE PRINCE OF WINTERFELL
     
     
    T he hearth was caked with cold black ash, the room unheated but for candles. Every time a door opened their flames would sway and shiver. The bride was shivering too. They had dressed her in white lambs-wool trimmed with lace. Her sleeves and bodice were sewn with freshwater pearls, and on her feet were white doeskin slippers—pretty, but not warm. Her face was pale, bloodless.
    A face carved of ice, Theon Greyjoy thought as he draped a fur-trimmed cloak about her shoulders. A corpse buried in the snow. “My lady. It is time.” Beyond the door, the music called them, lute and pipes and drum.
    The bride raised her eyes. Brown eyes, shining in the candlelight. “I will be a good wife to him, and t-true. I … I will please him and give him sons. I will be a better wife than the real Arya could have been, he’ll see.”
    Talk like that will get you killed, or worse. That lesson he had learned as Reek. “You are the real Arya, my lady. Arya of House Stark, Lord Eddard’s daughter, heir to Winterfell.” Her name, she had to know her name. “Arya Underfoot. Your sister used to call you Arya Horseface.”
    “It was me made up that name. Her face was long and horsey. Mine isn’t. I was pretty.” Tears spilled from her eyes at last. “I was never beautiful like Sansa, but they all said I was pretty. Does Lord Ramsay think I am pretty?”
    “Yes,” he lied. “He’s told me so.”
    “He knows who I am, though. Who I really am. I see it when he looks at me. He looks so angry, even when he smiles, but it’s not my fault. They say he likes to hurt people.”
    “My lady should not listen to such … lies.”
    “They say that he hurt you. Your hands, and …”
    His mouth was dry. “I … I deserved it. I made him angry. You must not make him angry. Lord Ramsay is a … a sweet man, and kindly. Please him, and he will be good to you. Be a good wife.”
    “Help me.” She clutched at him. “Please. I used to watch you in the yard, playing with your swords. You were so handsome.” She