A Feast for Dragons

answered him. “Dorne is fifty thousand spears
and swords, pledged to our queen’s service.”
    “Fifty thousand?” mocked Daario. “I count three.”
    “Enough,”
Daenerys said. “Prince Quentyn has
crossed half the world to offer me his gift, I will not have him treated with
discourtesy.” She turned to the Dornishmen. “Would that you had come a year
ago. I am pledged to wed the noble Hizdahr zo Loraq.”
    Ser Gerris said, “It is not too late—”
    “I will be the judge of that,” Daenerys said. “Reznak, see
that the prince and his companions are given quarters suitable to their high
birth, and that their wants are attended to.”
    “As you wish, Your Radiance.”
    The queen rose. “Then we are done for now.”
    Daario and Ser Barristan followed her up the steps to her
apartments. “This changes everything,” the old knight said.
    “This changes nothing,” Dany said, as Irri removed her
crown. “What good are three men?”
    “Three knights,” said Selmy.
    “Three liars,” Daario said darkly. “They deceived me.”
    “And bought you too, I do not doubt.” He did not trouble to
deny it. Dany unrolled the parchment and examined it again.
Braavos.
This was done in Braavos, while we were living in the house with the red door
.
Why did that make her feel so strange?
    She found herself remembering her nightmare.
Sometimes
there is truth in dreams
. Could Hizdahr zo Loraq be working for the
warlocks, was that what the dream had meant? Could the dream have been a
sending? Were the gods telling her to put Hizdahr aside and wed this Dornish
prince instead? Something tickled at her memory. “Ser Barristan, what are the
arms of House Martell?”
    “A sun in splendor, transfixed by a spear.”
    The sun’s son
. A shiver went through her.
“Shadows and whispers.” What else had Quaithe said?
The pale mare and
the sun’s son. There was a lion in it too, and a dragon. Or am I the dragon?
“Beware the perfumed seneschal.” That she remembered. “Dreams and prophecies.
Why must they always be in riddles? I hate this. Oh, leave me, ser. Tomorrow is
my wedding day.”
    That night Daario had her every way a man can have a woman,
and she gave herself to him willingly. The last time, as the sun was coming up,
she used her mouth to make him hard again, as Doreah had taught her long ago,
then rode him so wildly that his wound began to bleed again, and for one sweet
heartbeat she could not tell whether he was inside of her, or her inside of
him.
    But when the sun rose upon her wedding day so did Daario
Naharis, donning his clothes and buckling on his sword belt with its gleaming
golden wantons. “Where are you going?” Dany asked him. “I forbid you to make a
sortie today.”
    “My queen is cruel,” her captain said. “If I cannot slay
your foes, how shall I amuse myself whilst you are being wed?”
    “By nightfall I shall have no foes.”
    “It is only dawn, sweet queen. The day is long. Time enough
for one last sortie. I will bring you back the head of Brown Ben Plumm for a
wedding gift.”
    “No heads,” Dany insisted. “Once you brought me flowers.”
    “Let Hizdahr bring you flowers. He is not one to stoop and
pluck a dandelion, true, but he has servants who will be pleased to do it for
him. Do I have your leave to go?”
    “No.” She wanted him to stay and hold her.
One day he
will go and not return
, she thought.
One day some archer will
put an arrow through his chest, or ten men will fall on him with spears and
swords and axes, ten would-be heroes
. Five of them would die, but that
would not make her grief easier to bear.
One day I will lose him, as I
lost my sun-and-stars. But please gods, not today
. “Come back to bed
and kiss me.” No one had ever kissed her like Daario Naharis. “I am your queen,
and I command you to fuck me.”
    She had meant it playfully, but Daario’s eyes hardened at
her words. “Fucking queens is king’s work. Your noble Hizdahr can attend to
that, once you’re wed. And if he proves to be too highborn for such sweaty
work, he has servants who will be pleased to do that for him as well. Or
perhaps you can call the Dornish boy into your bed, and his pretty friend as
well, why not?” He strode from the bedchamber.
    He is going to make a sortie
, Dany realized,
and if he takes Ben Plumm’s head, he’ll walk into the wedding feast and
throw it at my feet. Seven save me. Why couldn’t he be better born?
    When he was gone, Missandei brought the