Fic: A Year from Now (26/?)
Title: A Year from Now (26/?)
Author: MrsTater
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire
Characters & Pairings: Daenerys Targaryen/Jorah Mormont, Tyrion Lannister, Barristan Selmy, Jhogo
Ratings & Warnings: R, none in this chapter
Format & Word Count: WIP, 2768 words in this chapter
Summary: "Save your tears, child. Weep for him tomorrow, or a year from now. We do not have time for grief. We must go, and quickly, before he dies.” Dany takes Ser Jorah's advice, setting her unborn child, her unhatched dragons, her quest for the Iron Throne, and her relationship with her faithful knight on a very different, but no less adventurous path.
Chapter Summary: Dany's demons drive her to the brink of hell, and Jorah cannot stop her from answering the fire's call.
Author's Note: This was by far the most difficult chapter in this fic to date, so extra thanks go out to my fabulous beta just_a_dram for having faith that I could write it. And to my readers, I really appreciate all your thoughtful reviews and comments for the past couple chapters. You have inspired me as the plot thickens. Please, keep being inspiring. ;)
If you're looking for an appropriately moody soundtrack while you read, I suggest playing Florence + the Machine's Seven Devils on repeat. There's actually a Dany fanvid set to this song on YouTube, so I know I'm not the only one who thinks it suits her!
Previous Chapters |
26. Fire and Blood
Blood.
The sheets and Dany's thighs were stained and sticky with it when she awoke from a nightmare scene from her childhood of Viserys beating her, and realized that the throb in the small of her back was real and her gut felt like her arm had in the dream when Viserys' fingers clawed into it and wrenched. At the sight of the blood, clotted and glistening and blackish in the uncertain light of the candle that had burned down to a stub on her bedside table, her heartbeat quickened in alarm. Then, her cry for help making no sound in her parched throat, the haze of sleep cleared.
Her moon's blood had returned.
It had been so long since she'd bled--not counting her issue after giving birth; she'd scarcely been wed a twomonth to Khal Drogo before conceiving his child, and she'd carried Rhaego for nine, and suckled him for over a year-- that she'd nearly forgotten such was the way of women.
With a whimper, she slipped out of bed, clutching the soiled sheet between her legs as she padded gingerly over the Myrish rugs to the wash stand. While she sponged her pale skin clean, she stared blearily at the bed she'd unwillingly left, thinking how much she'd looked forward to sleeping in it after weeks aboard The Bear and the Maiden Fair crowded into her narrow bunk with Rhaego, who had neither slept nor suckled throughout what seemed like the entire voyage from Pentos to Valyria. And Dany's milk had dried up, and her moon's blood came upon her, signaling the return of her fertility as she slept alone in the vast cold bed that still bore the imprint not only of her body, but of the one that had used to sleep curled around her, warming her and loving her through the lengthening autumn nights but unable to give her the child she longed for; Jorah's absence was the very reason Rhaego had become so distraught that he would no longer suckle from the breasts from which she had tried in vain to wean him.
The irony wound in so many circles that by the time Dany finished wrapping a strip of linen about herself to catch her flow and donned a shift she felt dizzy. She staggered back to her bed, but the candle guttered out, and in her disoriented stater she wandered out of her bedchamber and into the corridor that led to the center of the manse, from which the three wings of the dwelling broke off like spokes from the hub of a wheel--or, more accurately, the three heads of the dragon of House Targaryen. Rather than turn back, she continued on, groping her way along the smooth plastered walls, not caring much for the idea of returning to her bed and the memories it held, which were now as bittersweet to her as the memory of the house with the red door where she had lived with Willem Darry as a very little girl. Would they drive her from this house, too--the only other home she'd ever known? Would it now haunt her dreams in the Braavosi house's stead?
As Dany's bare feet scuffed over the cold mosaic tiles of the hall, the red door, illuminated by the glowing coals in the hearth, drew her gaze. It was said that after the Asshai'i priest who had lived there before her and perished in the Doom, the remaining inhabitants of Valyria had painted the door that color to keep the demons that haunted the place bound within. Dany remembered how Jorah had scoffed at the superstition, as the manse had been in a sorry state of broken windows and crumbling walls when she had bought it, incapable of keeping so much as a stray cat within.
If only he could know what demons those very walls and windows they had restored now contained, she thought, one corner of her mouth twisting upward as she turned from the door to the window opposite. A stained glass which she had especially commissioned by a local glassworker, depicting the sigil of their joined Houses: the three heads of the dragon writhing from the shaggy body of a bear. A fantastical sigil, Jorah had called it--though he had not, naturally, discouraged her from adopting it. Well, that was appropriate, was it not, for a House that had been built upon a fantastical union? For he had pledged himself to her in treachery and bound her to him with a lie.
She would not have realized that the roar which echoed through the hall was her own except that her throat burned from the sound being torn from it. With a fury she had never felt before she flung herself forward, toppling the gilt wooden altar that had once been erected for R'hollor, the lone god of Asshai. The Lord of Light, they called him. Only his likeness did not reside here any longer, and his altar now lay broken upon the red and black mosaic tiles. Dany bent to pick up one of the broken beams , then hurled it up at the damnable window which blotted out the moonlight.
Once she had been the moon--the moon of Khal Drogo's life--and he had taken her beneath the moon when in the shadow of the Mother of Mountains beside the Womb of the World the night the dosh khaleen proclaimed that the Stallion Who Mounts the World rode within her womb. But Rhaego, like R'hollor, was helpless. His screams that shattered the silence of the house when she had shattered the window were not the screams of a khal leading his horde, but of a starving babe who would not, could not, help himself because he was broken, like the altar, like the window…like the dream of a Targaryen dynasty restored.
And she had broken them.
A glint from the ground caught her eye, and she looked down at the shards of stained glass and gilt wood at her feet and saw the egg. Her eyes welled at the beauty of it as she crouched down amid the debris and felt the familiar weight of it in her hands, drawing strength from its hardness, its unbreakability.
But it had been broken, hadn't it? Formerly one of three, and now severed from its brothers, as she had been. She had broken them asunder to save the life of the child whose cries echoed from another part of the house as she held this silent one, sold them to save Jorah who had only ever been in her service because he, too, had dealt in the business of living flesh. With the monies Xaro Xhoan Daxos had given her as recompense, she had bought this house.
Blood money.
Moon's blood.
Fire and blood…
Blood red, fire red, red dragon with three heads, swooping across a field of darkness.
Cradling her dragon's egg in one arm, Dany wrapped the fingers of her other hand around the splintered end of what had been one of the intricately carved legs of the altar to R'hollor. The ragged edge dug into her palm, and she felt the warm ooze of blood over her palm, saw it drip onto her shift as she rose unsteadily to her feet, onto the red and black mosaic as she dragged the beam toward the fire, murmuring her family's words.
She stood before the hearth, staring for a moment into the embers of the dying fire that glowed red at the hearts of the black coal. Then she plunged the shaft into the fire, holding it there until the gilt had melted off as the molten gold had poured over Viserys' head, crowning him and killing him, until the wooden end burst into flame.
A dragon could not burn, Dany thought as she carried the torch back to the pile of broken wood and set it ablaze. A dragon made fire.
Clutching her egg to her breast, she stepped into the flames.
Time to find out whether she was a dragon…
…or just another mad fool of House Targaryen.
~*~
Fire.
The Summer Hill had flickered suddenly with it, looming like a giant's torch over the dark shuttered houses of Valryia as Jorah and his small company rode through the city--Tyrion Lannister had asked whether it was a beacon, Khal Jhogo, if it was the bleeding star heralding the place where the Stallion Who Mounts the World dwelled--and by the time they reached the top of the slope, the house with the red door had been completely consumed by flame.
"DAENERYS!" Jorah bellowed, leaping from his saddle as the horse reared and screamed in terror of the fire.
His feet hit the ground at a full sprint toward the burning manse, not seeing the silhouetted figure of a man rushing from it in his direction until he had barreled into him. Somehow they both kept on their feet, though Jorah practically hoisted the other man, whom he instantly recognized as the house's steward, up by the front of his tunic.
"Where is Queen Daenerys?" he roared, spittle flying from between his teeth into the steward's face, gleaming in the firelight. "Why has this fire been allowed to spread unchecked?"
"Her Grace…would not let us put it out, my lord."
Jorah blinked, unsure whether the steward was being deliberately vague, or if he himself was too stunned for comprehension.
"Let you?" His clutch on the tunic tightened as he pulled the steward so that they were forehead to sweaty soot covered forehead. "How did it begin? And WHERE. IS. MY WIFE?"
"Her Grace started the blaze," sobbed the steward. "She…the men who tried to get her out…" His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, and his dark eyes gleamed as they darted sidelong, to the burning house. "Were burned."
"They were her servants," Jorah growled. "They should have been burned to death if that's what was required to save her."
"She burned them, my lord," blurted out the steward. "The queen refused to be saved."
"What do you mean?" Jorah shook the man, but the steward's head drooped onto his chest in shame, speech impossible for him as his shoulders quaked with his sobs.
"When you said you feared the fire of Daenerys' fury," drawled Tyrion Lannister at his side, "I had no idea you were speaking literally."
The sobbing steward slumped to the ground as Jorah's fingers uncurled from around the tunic, only to ball again into the fist which he slammed into the Imp's face.
"Ser Jorah! Is that truly helpful at the moment?" asked Ser Barristan Selmy, who had ridden with them on behalf of the boy claiming to be Aegon Targaryen.
"It certainly won't hurt anything," Jorah flung back, giving the fallen dwarf a kick to the gut. He'd had enough of the Imp's insolence, and of Selmy's obvious disdain despite Jorah's having convinced the Dothraki to free him from among the captives who'd violated the dosh khaleen in their foolhardy attempt to rescue Dany. "What say you, Imp? Shall I take you to the queen now?"
But as Ser Barristan had pointed out, Jorah's burst of violent rage accomplished naught but sapping him of his strength. Rather than haul the Imp up from the ground and fling him into the flames, Jorah sank to his knees before the burning manse. The house with the red door, which had haunted Dany's dreams since her childhood. She'd dreamt of it on their wedding night, and had not rested until she found the place, and when she did, had made it their home where she lived with him as man and wife, as queen and consort.
Jorah's eyes swam with the heat and smoke and the memory of how she'd smiled up at him as he carried her over the threshold when they took up residence of the place, and said, as he'd shouldered through the red door, that she'd never thought her dream would be fulfilled in that way. Had she ever imagined it would be fulfilled in this way? Jorah thought bitterly, his eyes on the place where the flames flicked their forked tongues where the front door had been.
The red door. Painted that color by the suspicious Valyrians to keep the demons that they believed haunted the place trapped within. Jorah had scoffed at the notion then. No longer. Not now that he stood upon the brink of the hell Dany had created for her own demons, many of whom he knew by name.
He prayed one did not bear his name--but the gods had not been known to answer the prayers of Jorah Mormont.
"DAENERYS!"
Her name ripped from his throat so painfully that it seemed the mere utterance of it had set fire to his vocal chords. Yet he somehow managed to produce a wail--a quiet one, sounding from a long way off, he thought, until he realized the sound had not come from him at all. Nor from the spooked horses, or Irri, Khal Jhogo's queen, or from the two handmaids who had accompanied her to see their former beloved mistress, who stood looking on stoically as the Dothraki did, nor the menservants or maids who had managed to escape the house and now lay gasping for fresh air or coughing on the acrid ash and smoke. The shifting light of the fire in the midst of the utter darkness of the valley in which the city lay made it difficult to make out their faces clearly, but on first scan Jorah couldn't find the nursemaid. But the shrill wail persisted, which could only be long to--
"Rhaego," he rasped. His eyes found the steward again. "Is he…with his mother?"
The steward raised his tear-streaked sooty face and, Jorah saw the man's lips move in response, but as if in a nightmare, he found himself unable to hear anything above the roar of the fire as he contemplated rushing in to find Rhaego. But the mad moment passed with the high-pitched blast that came from the tawny skinned child that was produced from somewhere and placed in his arms; as soon as they had done so, Rhaego's lips pursed into a contented pout and peered up at Jorah with violet eyes beneath drooping lids.
"She was right," said the steward in a pinched voice, with emotion or from the smoke that choked the air, Jorah could not say, though his own throat tickled, and he coughed as he asked, "Who?"
"The nurse--they pulled the prince out of her burnt black arms--but she said the prince started crying when you left the queen in Pentos, and never stopped."
Behind them, Ser Barristan hmphed, and Tyrion, who still lay curled up like a wounded creature on the ground muttered, "Till now."
Jorah heard that, but didn't comprehend. He blinked down at the drowsing boy. "The nurse was burned, but not the child?"
Fire cannot kill a dragon, Dany's voice whispered to him from long ago.
Holding Rhaego curled against his shoulder--through his tunic feeling the old familiar moisture of the child's tears and snot and drool--Jorah slowly rose to his feet and shuffled as near to the burning house as he could stand. He called out her name again--the child did not stir--and again. Once he thought he heard one of the tongues of fire utter his name, but no, he must be mistaken, that was a fool's hope. If he heard anything, it was only some demon from the seven hells to which he was no doubt damned for his sins. He must be there already, this life, with all its cruel tricks, his punishment…
The flames shifted, blazing yellow to orange to green to--Jorah blinked--black.
Black against a banner of red, in the shape of a woman. Squatting. As Dany had when she birthed the babe Jorah now held in his arms. He watched as the silhouette of her hand, fingers splayed, reached down and from between her legs drew out…a winged creature, which screeched and then flapped up, tucking its wings around its body as it nestled into her arms to suckle at her breast.
He'd seen this before. In the House of the Undying.
Undying.
"JORAH!"
He gazed into the flames for another moment, but the black shape had vanished.
This was not the House of the Undying. It was the house with the red door.
Red for fire…
…and red for the blood of Daenerys Targaryen.
Read Chapter 27
Author: MrsTater
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire
Characters & Pairings: Daenerys Targaryen/Jorah Mormont, Tyrion Lannister, Barristan Selmy, Jhogo
Ratings & Warnings: R, none in this chapter
Format & Word Count: WIP, 2768 words in this chapter
Summary: "Save your tears, child. Weep for him tomorrow, or a year from now. We do not have time for grief. We must go, and quickly, before he dies.” Dany takes Ser Jorah's advice, setting her unborn child, her unhatched dragons, her quest for the Iron Throne, and her relationship with her faithful knight on a very different, but no less adventurous path.
Chapter Summary: Dany's demons drive her to the brink of hell, and Jorah cannot stop her from answering the fire's call.
Author's Note: This was by far the most difficult chapter in this fic to date, so extra thanks go out to my fabulous beta just_a_dram for having faith that I could write it. And to my readers, I really appreciate all your thoughtful reviews and comments for the past couple chapters. You have inspired me as the plot thickens. Please, keep being inspiring. ;)
If you're looking for an appropriately moody soundtrack while you read, I suggest playing Florence + the Machine's Seven Devils on repeat. There's actually a Dany fanvid set to this song on YouTube, so I know I'm not the only one who thinks it suits her!
Previous Chapters |
26. Fire and Blood
Blood.
The sheets and Dany's thighs were stained and sticky with it when she awoke from a nightmare scene from her childhood of Viserys beating her, and realized that the throb in the small of her back was real and her gut felt like her arm had in the dream when Viserys' fingers clawed into it and wrenched. At the sight of the blood, clotted and glistening and blackish in the uncertain light of the candle that had burned down to a stub on her bedside table, her heartbeat quickened in alarm. Then, her cry for help making no sound in her parched throat, the haze of sleep cleared.
Her moon's blood had returned.
It had been so long since she'd bled--not counting her issue after giving birth; she'd scarcely been wed a twomonth to Khal Drogo before conceiving his child, and she'd carried Rhaego for nine, and suckled him for over a year-- that she'd nearly forgotten such was the way of women.
With a whimper, she slipped out of bed, clutching the soiled sheet between her legs as she padded gingerly over the Myrish rugs to the wash stand. While she sponged her pale skin clean, she stared blearily at the bed she'd unwillingly left, thinking how much she'd looked forward to sleeping in it after weeks aboard The Bear and the Maiden Fair crowded into her narrow bunk with Rhaego, who had neither slept nor suckled throughout what seemed like the entire voyage from Pentos to Valyria. And Dany's milk had dried up, and her moon's blood came upon her, signaling the return of her fertility as she slept alone in the vast cold bed that still bore the imprint not only of her body, but of the one that had used to sleep curled around her, warming her and loving her through the lengthening autumn nights but unable to give her the child she longed for; Jorah's absence was the very reason Rhaego had become so distraught that he would no longer suckle from the breasts from which she had tried in vain to wean him.
The irony wound in so many circles that by the time Dany finished wrapping a strip of linen about herself to catch her flow and donned a shift she felt dizzy. She staggered back to her bed, but the candle guttered out, and in her disoriented stater she wandered out of her bedchamber and into the corridor that led to the center of the manse, from which the three wings of the dwelling broke off like spokes from the hub of a wheel--or, more accurately, the three heads of the dragon of House Targaryen. Rather than turn back, she continued on, groping her way along the smooth plastered walls, not caring much for the idea of returning to her bed and the memories it held, which were now as bittersweet to her as the memory of the house with the red door where she had lived with Willem Darry as a very little girl. Would they drive her from this house, too--the only other home she'd ever known? Would it now haunt her dreams in the Braavosi house's stead?
As Dany's bare feet scuffed over the cold mosaic tiles of the hall, the red door, illuminated by the glowing coals in the hearth, drew her gaze. It was said that after the Asshai'i priest who had lived there before her and perished in the Doom, the remaining inhabitants of Valyria had painted the door that color to keep the demons that haunted the place bound within. Dany remembered how Jorah had scoffed at the superstition, as the manse had been in a sorry state of broken windows and crumbling walls when she had bought it, incapable of keeping so much as a stray cat within.
If only he could know what demons those very walls and windows they had restored now contained, she thought, one corner of her mouth twisting upward as she turned from the door to the window opposite. A stained glass which she had especially commissioned by a local glassworker, depicting the sigil of their joined Houses: the three heads of the dragon writhing from the shaggy body of a bear. A fantastical sigil, Jorah had called it--though he had not, naturally, discouraged her from adopting it. Well, that was appropriate, was it not, for a House that had been built upon a fantastical union? For he had pledged himself to her in treachery and bound her to him with a lie.
She would not have realized that the roar which echoed through the hall was her own except that her throat burned from the sound being torn from it. With a fury she had never felt before she flung herself forward, toppling the gilt wooden altar that had once been erected for R'hollor, the lone god of Asshai. The Lord of Light, they called him. Only his likeness did not reside here any longer, and his altar now lay broken upon the red and black mosaic tiles. Dany bent to pick up one of the broken beams , then hurled it up at the damnable window which blotted out the moonlight.
Once she had been the moon--the moon of Khal Drogo's life--and he had taken her beneath the moon when in the shadow of the Mother of Mountains beside the Womb of the World the night the dosh khaleen proclaimed that the Stallion Who Mounts the World rode within her womb. But Rhaego, like R'hollor, was helpless. His screams that shattered the silence of the house when she had shattered the window were not the screams of a khal leading his horde, but of a starving babe who would not, could not, help himself because he was broken, like the altar, like the window…like the dream of a Targaryen dynasty restored.
And she had broken them.
A glint from the ground caught her eye, and she looked down at the shards of stained glass and gilt wood at her feet and saw the egg. Her eyes welled at the beauty of it as she crouched down amid the debris and felt the familiar weight of it in her hands, drawing strength from its hardness, its unbreakability.
But it had been broken, hadn't it? Formerly one of three, and now severed from its brothers, as she had been. She had broken them asunder to save the life of the child whose cries echoed from another part of the house as she held this silent one, sold them to save Jorah who had only ever been in her service because he, too, had dealt in the business of living flesh. With the monies Xaro Xhoan Daxos had given her as recompense, she had bought this house.
Blood money.
Moon's blood.
Fire and blood…
Blood red, fire red, red dragon with three heads, swooping across a field of darkness.
Cradling her dragon's egg in one arm, Dany wrapped the fingers of her other hand around the splintered end of what had been one of the intricately carved legs of the altar to R'hollor. The ragged edge dug into her palm, and she felt the warm ooze of blood over her palm, saw it drip onto her shift as she rose unsteadily to her feet, onto the red and black mosaic as she dragged the beam toward the fire, murmuring her family's words.
She stood before the hearth, staring for a moment into the embers of the dying fire that glowed red at the hearts of the black coal. Then she plunged the shaft into the fire, holding it there until the gilt had melted off as the molten gold had poured over Viserys' head, crowning him and killing him, until the wooden end burst into flame.
A dragon could not burn, Dany thought as she carried the torch back to the pile of broken wood and set it ablaze. A dragon made fire.
Clutching her egg to her breast, she stepped into the flames.
Time to find out whether she was a dragon…
…or just another mad fool of House Targaryen.
~*~
Fire.
The Summer Hill had flickered suddenly with it, looming like a giant's torch over the dark shuttered houses of Valryia as Jorah and his small company rode through the city--Tyrion Lannister had asked whether it was a beacon, Khal Jhogo, if it was the bleeding star heralding the place where the Stallion Who Mounts the World dwelled--and by the time they reached the top of the slope, the house with the red door had been completely consumed by flame.
"DAENERYS!" Jorah bellowed, leaping from his saddle as the horse reared and screamed in terror of the fire.
His feet hit the ground at a full sprint toward the burning manse, not seeing the silhouetted figure of a man rushing from it in his direction until he had barreled into him. Somehow they both kept on their feet, though Jorah practically hoisted the other man, whom he instantly recognized as the house's steward, up by the front of his tunic.
"Where is Queen Daenerys?" he roared, spittle flying from between his teeth into the steward's face, gleaming in the firelight. "Why has this fire been allowed to spread unchecked?"
"Her Grace…would not let us put it out, my lord."
Jorah blinked, unsure whether the steward was being deliberately vague, or if he himself was too stunned for comprehension.
"Let you?" His clutch on the tunic tightened as he pulled the steward so that they were forehead to sweaty soot covered forehead. "How did it begin? And WHERE. IS. MY WIFE?"
"Her Grace started the blaze," sobbed the steward. "She…the men who tried to get her out…" His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, and his dark eyes gleamed as they darted sidelong, to the burning house. "Were burned."
"They were her servants," Jorah growled. "They should have been burned to death if that's what was required to save her."
"She burned them, my lord," blurted out the steward. "The queen refused to be saved."
"What do you mean?" Jorah shook the man, but the steward's head drooped onto his chest in shame, speech impossible for him as his shoulders quaked with his sobs.
"When you said you feared the fire of Daenerys' fury," drawled Tyrion Lannister at his side, "I had no idea you were speaking literally."
The sobbing steward slumped to the ground as Jorah's fingers uncurled from around the tunic, only to ball again into the fist which he slammed into the Imp's face.
"Ser Jorah! Is that truly helpful at the moment?" asked Ser Barristan Selmy, who had ridden with them on behalf of the boy claiming to be Aegon Targaryen.
"It certainly won't hurt anything," Jorah flung back, giving the fallen dwarf a kick to the gut. He'd had enough of the Imp's insolence, and of Selmy's obvious disdain despite Jorah's having convinced the Dothraki to free him from among the captives who'd violated the dosh khaleen in their foolhardy attempt to rescue Dany. "What say you, Imp? Shall I take you to the queen now?"
But as Ser Barristan had pointed out, Jorah's burst of violent rage accomplished naught but sapping him of his strength. Rather than haul the Imp up from the ground and fling him into the flames, Jorah sank to his knees before the burning manse. The house with the red door, which had haunted Dany's dreams since her childhood. She'd dreamt of it on their wedding night, and had not rested until she found the place, and when she did, had made it their home where she lived with him as man and wife, as queen and consort.
Jorah's eyes swam with the heat and smoke and the memory of how she'd smiled up at him as he carried her over the threshold when they took up residence of the place, and said, as he'd shouldered through the red door, that she'd never thought her dream would be fulfilled in that way. Had she ever imagined it would be fulfilled in this way? Jorah thought bitterly, his eyes on the place where the flames flicked their forked tongues where the front door had been.
The red door. Painted that color by the suspicious Valyrians to keep the demons that they believed haunted the place trapped within. Jorah had scoffed at the notion then. No longer. Not now that he stood upon the brink of the hell Dany had created for her own demons, many of whom he knew by name.
He prayed one did not bear his name--but the gods had not been known to answer the prayers of Jorah Mormont.
"DAENERYS!"
Her name ripped from his throat so painfully that it seemed the mere utterance of it had set fire to his vocal chords. Yet he somehow managed to produce a wail--a quiet one, sounding from a long way off, he thought, until he realized the sound had not come from him at all. Nor from the spooked horses, or Irri, Khal Jhogo's queen, or from the two handmaids who had accompanied her to see their former beloved mistress, who stood looking on stoically as the Dothraki did, nor the menservants or maids who had managed to escape the house and now lay gasping for fresh air or coughing on the acrid ash and smoke. The shifting light of the fire in the midst of the utter darkness of the valley in which the city lay made it difficult to make out their faces clearly, but on first scan Jorah couldn't find the nursemaid. But the shrill wail persisted, which could only be long to--
"Rhaego," he rasped. His eyes found the steward again. "Is he…with his mother?"
The steward raised his tear-streaked sooty face and, Jorah saw the man's lips move in response, but as if in a nightmare, he found himself unable to hear anything above the roar of the fire as he contemplated rushing in to find Rhaego. But the mad moment passed with the high-pitched blast that came from the tawny skinned child that was produced from somewhere and placed in his arms; as soon as they had done so, Rhaego's lips pursed into a contented pout and peered up at Jorah with violet eyes beneath drooping lids.
"She was right," said the steward in a pinched voice, with emotion or from the smoke that choked the air, Jorah could not say, though his own throat tickled, and he coughed as he asked, "Who?"
"The nurse--they pulled the prince out of her burnt black arms--but she said the prince started crying when you left the queen in Pentos, and never stopped."
Behind them, Ser Barristan hmphed, and Tyrion, who still lay curled up like a wounded creature on the ground muttered, "Till now."
Jorah heard that, but didn't comprehend. He blinked down at the drowsing boy. "The nurse was burned, but not the child?"
Fire cannot kill a dragon, Dany's voice whispered to him from long ago.
Holding Rhaego curled against his shoulder--through his tunic feeling the old familiar moisture of the child's tears and snot and drool--Jorah slowly rose to his feet and shuffled as near to the burning house as he could stand. He called out her name again--the child did not stir--and again. Once he thought he heard one of the tongues of fire utter his name, but no, he must be mistaken, that was a fool's hope. If he heard anything, it was only some demon from the seven hells to which he was no doubt damned for his sins. He must be there already, this life, with all its cruel tricks, his punishment…
The flames shifted, blazing yellow to orange to green to--Jorah blinked--black.
Black against a banner of red, in the shape of a woman. Squatting. As Dany had when she birthed the babe Jorah now held in his arms. He watched as the silhouette of her hand, fingers splayed, reached down and from between her legs drew out…a winged creature, which screeched and then flapped up, tucking its wings around its body as it nestled into her arms to suckle at her breast.
He'd seen this before. In the House of the Undying.
Undying.
"JORAH!"
He gazed into the flames for another moment, but the black shape had vanished.
This was not the House of the Undying. It was the house with the red door.
Red for fire…
…and red for the blood of Daenerys Targaryen.
Read Chapter 27