A Dance With Dragons

yellow ones were too small to provide much in the way of nourishment, but there were red ants in the grass, and those were bigger. “I am lost at sea,” she said as she limped along beside her meandering rivulet, “so perhaps I’ll find some crabs, or a nice fat fish.” Her whip slapped softly against her thigh, wap wap wap . One step at a time, and the stream would see her home.
    Just past midday she came upon a bush growing by the stream, its twisted limbs covered with hard green berries. Dany squinted at them suspiciously, then plucked one from a branch and nibbled at it. Its flesh was tart and chewy, with a bitter aftertaste that seemed familiar to her. “In the khalasar , they used berries like these to flavor roasts,” she decided. Saying it aloud made her more certain of it. Her belly rumbled, and Dany found herself picking berries with both hands and tossing them into her mouth.
    An hour later, her stomach began to cramp so badly that she could not go on. She spent the rest of that day retching up green slime. If I stay here, I will die. I may be dying now. Would the horse god of the Dothraki part the grass and claim her for his starry khalasar , so she might ride the night-lands with Khal Drogo? In Westeros the dead of House Targaryen were given to the flames, but who would light her pyre here? My flesh will feed the wolves and carrion crows , she thought sadly, and worms will burrow through my womb . Her eyes went back to Dragonstone. It looked smaller. She could see smoke rising from its wind-carved summit, miles away. Drogon has returned from hunting.
    Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was shitting brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she grew, and her thirst sent her crawling to the stream to suck up more water. When she closed her eyes at last, Dany did not know whether she would be strong enough to open them again.
    She dreamt of her dead brother.
    Viserys looked just as he had the last time she’d seen him. His mouth was twisted in anguish, his hair was burnt, and his face was black and smoking where the molten gold had run down across his brow and cheeks and into his eyes.
    “You are dead,” Dany said.
    Murdered. Though his lips never moved, somehow she could hear his voice, whispering in her ear. You never mourned me, sister. It is hard to die unmourned.
    “I loved you once.”
    Once , he said, so bitterly it made her shudder. You were supposed to be my wife, to bear me children with silver hair and purple eyes, to keep the blood of the dragon pure. I took care of you. I taught you who you were. I fed you. I sold our mother’s crown to keep you fed.
    “You hurt me. You frightened me.”
    Only when you woke the dragon. I loved you. “You sold me. You betrayed me.”
    No. You were the betrayer. You turned against me, against your own blood. They cheated me. Your horsey husband and his stinking savages. They were cheats and liars. They promised me a golden crown and gave me this. He touched the molten gold that was creeping down his face, and smoke rose from his finger.
    “You could have had your crown,” Dany told him. “My sun-and-stars would have won it for you if only you had waited.”
    I waited long enough. I waited my whole life. I was their king, their rightful king. They laughed at me.
    “You should have stayed in Pentos with Magister Illyrio. Khal Drogo had to present me to the dosh khaleen , but you did not have to ride with us. That was your choice. Your mistake.”
    Do you want to wake the dragon, you stupid little whore? Drogo’s khalasar was mine. I bought them from him, a hundred thousand screamers. I paid for them with your maidenhead.
    “You never understood. Dothraki do not buy and sell. They give gifts and receive them. If you had waited …”
    I did wait. For my crown, for my throne, for you. All those years, and all I ever got was a pot of molten gold. Why did they give the dragon’s eggs to you? They should have been mine. If I’d had a dragon, I would have taught the world the meaning of our words. Viserys began to laugh, until his jaw fell away from his face, smoking, and blood and molten gold ran from his mouth.
    When she woke, gasping, her thighs were slick with blood.
    For a moment she did not realize what it was. The world had just begun to lighten, and the tall grass rustled softly in