A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

pale as the moon and lovely as a maid. An hour’s ride, no more.”
    â€œShow me,” she said.
    When the city appeared before her, its walls and towers shimmering white behind
a veil of heat, it looked so beautiful that Dany was certain it must be a
mirage. “Do you know what place this might be?” she asked Ser
Jorah.
    The exile knight gave a weary shake of the head. “No, my queen. I have never
traveled this far east.”
    The distant white walls promised rest and safety, a chance to heal and grow
strong, and Dany wanted nothing so much as to rush toward them. Instead she
turned to her bloodriders. “Blood of my blood, go ahead of us and learn the
name of this city, and what manner of welcome we should expect.”
    â€œAi, Khaleesi,”
said Aggo.
    Her riders were not long in returning. Rakharo swung down from his saddle. From
his medallion belt hung the great curving
arakh
that Dany had
bestowed on him when she named him bloodrider. “This city is dead,
Khaleesi.
Nameless and godless we found it, the gates broken, only
wind and flies moving through the streets.”
    Jhiqui shuddered. “When the gods are gone, the evil ghosts feast by night.
Such places are best shunned. It is known.”
    â€œIt is known,” Irri agreed.
    â€œNot to me.” Dany put her heels into her horse and showed them the way,
trotting beneath the shattered arch of an ancient gate and down a silent
street. Ser Jorah and her bloodriders followed, and then, more slowly, the rest
of the Dothraki.
    How long the city had been deserted she could not know, but

the white walls, so beautiful from afar, were cracked and crumbling when seen
up close. Inside was a maze of narrow crooked alleys. The buildings pressed
close, their facades blank, chalky, windowless. Everything was white, as if the
people who lived here had known nothing of color. They rode past heaps of
sun-washed rubble where houses had fallen in, and elsewhere saw the faded scars
of fire. At a place where six alleys came together, Dany passed an empty marble
plinth. Dothraki had visited this place before, it would seem. Perhaps even now
the missing statue stood among the other stolen gods in Vaes Dothrak. She might
have ridden past it a hundred times, never knowing. On her shoulder, Viserion
hissed.
    They made camp before the remnants of a gutted palace, on a windswept plaza
where devilgrass grew between the paving stones. Dany sent out men to search
the ruins. Some went reluctantly, yet they went . . . and one
scarred old man returned a brief time later, hopping and grinning, his hands
overflowing with figs. They were small, withered things, yet her people grabbed
for them greedily, jostling and pushing at each other, stuffing the fruit into
their cheeks and chewing blissfully.
    Other searchers returned with tales of other fruit trees, hidden behind closed
doors in secret gardens. Aggo showed her a courtyard overgrown with twisting
vines and tiny green grapes, and Jhogo discovered a well where the water was
pure and cold. Yet they found bones too, the skulls of the unburied dead,
bleached and broken. “Ghosts,” Irri muttered. “Terrible ghosts. We must

not stay here,
Khaleesi,
this is their place.”
    â€œI fear no ghosts. Dragons are more powerful than ghosts.”
And figs are
more important.
“Go with Jhiqui and find me some clean sand for a bath,
and trouble me no more with silly talk.”
    In the coolness of her tent, Dany blackened horsemeat over a brazier and
reflected on her choices. There was food and water here to sustain them, and
enough grass for the horses to regain their strength. How pleasant it would be
to wake every day in the same place, to linger among shady gardens, eat figs,
and drink cool water, as much as she might desire.
    When Irri and Jhiqui returned with pots of white sand, Dany stripped and let
them scrub her clean. “Your hair is coming back,
Khaleesi,
” Jhiqui
said as she scraped sand off her back. Dany ran a hand over the top of her
head, feeling the new growth. Dothraki men wore their hair in long oiled
braids, and cut them only when defeated.
Perhaps I should do the
same,
she thought,
to remind them that Drogo’s strength lives within
me now.
Khal Drogo had died with his hair uncut, a boast few men could
make.
    Across the tent, Rhaegal unfolded green wings to flap and flutter a half foot
before thumping to the