A Feast for Dragons

lairs of monsters, their masters homeless
beggars. My people have lost all hope and turned against the gods themselves,
giving over their nights to drunkenness and fornication.”
    “And murder. The Sons of the Harpy slew thirty in the
night.”
    “I grieve to hear this. All the more reason to free the
noble Hizdahr zo Loraq, who stopped such killings once.”
    And how did he accomplish that, unless he is himself
the Harpy?
“Her Grace gave her hand to Hizdahr zo Loraq, made him her
king and consort, restored the mortal art as he beseeched her. In return he
gave her poisoned locusts.”
    “In return he gave her peace. Do not cast it away, ser, I
beg you. Peace is the pearl beyond price. Hizdahr is of Loraq. Never would he
soil his hands with poison. He is innocent.”
    “How can you be certain?”
Unless you know the
poisoner
.
    “The gods of Ghis have told me.”
    “My gods are the Seven, and the Seven have been silent on
this matter. Your Wisdom, did you present my offer?”
    “To all the lords and captains of Yunkai, as you commanded
me … yet I fear you will not like their answer.”
    “They refused?”
    “They did. No amount of gold will buy your people back, I
was told. Only the blood of dragons may set them free again.”
    It was the answer Ser Barristan had expected, if not the one
that he had hoped for. His mouth tightened.
    “I know these were not the words you wished to hear,” said
Galazza Galare. “Yet for myself, I understand. These dragons are fell beasts.
Yunkai fears them … and with good cause, you cannot deny. Our
histories speak of the dragonlords of dread Valyria and the devastation that
they wrought upon the peoples of Old Ghis. Even your own young queen, fair
Daenerys who called herself the Mother of Dragons … we saw her
burning, that day in the pit … even she was not safe from the
dragon’s wroth.”
    “Her Grace is not … she …”
    “… is dead. May the gods grant her sweet sleep.” Tears
glistened behind her veils. “Let her dragons die as well.”
    Selmy was groping for an answer when he heard the sound of
heavy footsteps. The door burst inward, and Skahaz mo Kandaq stormed in with
four Brazen Beasts behind him. When Grazhar tried to block his path, he slammed
the boy aside.
    Ser Barristan was on his feet at once. “What is it?”
    “The trebuchets,” the Shavepate growled. “All six.”
    Galazza Galare rose. “Thus does Yunkai make reply to your
offers, ser. I warned you that you would not like their answer.”
    They choose war, then. So be it
. Ser
Barristan felt oddly relieved. War he understood. “If they think they will
break Meereen by throwing stones—”
    “Not stones.” The old woman’s voice was full of grief, of
fear. “Corpses.”
    ----

    DAENERYS
    The hill was a stony island in a sea of green.
    It took Dany half the morning to climb down. By the time she
reached the bottom she was winded. Her muscles ached, and she felt as if she
had the beginnings of a fever. The rocks had scraped her hands raw.
They
are better than they were, though
, she decided as she picked at a
broken blister. Her skin was pink and tender, and a pale milky fluid was
leaking from her cracked palms, but her burns were healing.
    The hill loomed larger down here. Dany had taken to calling
it Dragonstone, after the ancient citadel where she’d been born. She had no
memories of that Dragonstone, but she would not soon forget this one. Scrub
grass and thorny bushes covered its lower slopes; higher up a jagged tangle of
bare rock thrust steep and sudden into the sky. There, amidst broken boulders,
razor-sharp ridges, and needle spires, Drogon made his lair inside a shallow
cave. He had dwelt there for some time, Dany had realized when she first saw
the hill. The air smelled of ash, every rock and tree in sight was scorched and
blackened, the ground strewn with burned and broken bones, yet it had been home
to him.
    Dany knew the lure of home.
    Two days ago, climbing on a spire of rock, she had spied
water to the south, a slender thread that glittered briefly as the sun was
going down.
A stream
, Dany decided. Small, but it would lead
her to a larger stream, and that stream would flow into some little river, and
all the rivers in this part of the world were vassals of the Skahazadhan. Once
she found the Skahazadhan she need only follow it downstream to Slaver’s Bay.
    She would sooner have returned to Meereen on dragon’s wings,
to be sure. But that was a desire