Game of Thrones: I Created the Magic Web

Apologies, I thought it was just a common cold, but it's gotten worse these past few days, and I can't write much. Please bear with me, everyone. I'll make it up to you as soon as possible in the next few days. Thank you.

Daenerys touched her forehead. Beneath the sweat, her skin felt cool – the high fever had broken. She forced herself to sit up. Although she felt a brief dizziness and her inner thighs were still sore, she felt her strength returning. Her handmaidens, hearing her stir, rushed to her side. “I want water,” she told them. “Bring me a pitcher of water, the cooler the better. And some fruit. I want dates.”

“As you command, Khaleesi.”

“I want to see Ser Jorah.” As she spoke, she stood, and Jhiqui took a silk robe and draped it around her. “And a warm bath. Send for Mirri Maz Duur as well. And…” Memories suddenly flooded back. She couldn’t go on. “Drogo. Khal Drogo.” She forced herself to say it, watching their faces with dread. “Is he…?”

“The khal lives,” Irri answered quietly… but even as she spoke, Daenerys saw a shadow of something in her eyes. As soon as she’d spoken, she hurried away to fetch the water.

So she turned to Doreah. “Tell me what happened.”

“I… I will find Ser Jorah,” the Lysene girl said, bowing and fleeing the tent.

Jhiqui would have run as well, but Daenerys seized her wrist, holding her back. “What happened? I must know. Drogo… and my child.” Why had she only just now thought of the child? “My son… Rhaego… where is he? I want to see him.”

The handmaid lowered her eyes. “The child… did not live, Khaleesi.” Her voice was a frightened whisper.

Daenerys released her wrist, and Jhiqui fled the tent. My son is dead, she thought dully. Somehow she had known it already, before she had first opened her eyes and seen the tears on Jhiqui’s face… no, even before she had awakened. Dreams assailed her suddenly, vivid and sharp. She remembered the tall man with skin of copper and silver-gold braid, consumed in fire.

I should weep, she knew, but her eyes felt dry as ashes. For she had wept in the dream, and her tears had turned to steam upon her cheeks. All the grief has been burned out of me, she told herself. She was hurting, but… she only felt Rhaego receding from her, as though he had never been.

A moment later, when Ser Jorah and Mirri Maz Duur entered the tent, Daenerys went to examine the other two dragon’s eggs. They were still in the chest, but strangely, they felt as warm and solid as the one she had held in her arms as she slept. “Ser Jorah, take my hand.” She took his hand and placed it on the black egg with the scarlet swirls. “What do you feel?”

“The shell is hard as stone.” The knight looked wary. “And scaled.”

“Is it warm?”

“No. Cold stone.” He drew his hand away. “Princess, are you well? Is it wise to be up when you are still so weak?”

“Weak? Jorah, I am strong.” To reassure him, she sank back down on a pile of cushions. “Tell me how my son died.”

“Princess, he never lived. The women say…” He stopped. Only now did Daenerys realize how drawn he looked, how he limped as he moved.

“Tell me. Tell me what the women said.”

He looked away, and there was something like shame in his eyes. “They said the babe was…”

She waited patiently, but Ser Jorah could not bring himself to say it. His face was gray with grief and shame, and he looked like a dead man walking.

“A monster,” Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. The knight might be the better warrior, but Daenerys knew that the godswife was stronger now, and crueler, and more dangerous than he could ever imagine. “Twisted and malformed. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, the stump of a tail where his manhood should have been. One touch and the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of worms and corruption. He had been dead for years.”

That darkness, Daenerys thought. That terrible darkness that had followed her, wanting to devour her. If I look back, I am lost. “When Ser Jorah carried me into this tent, my son was strong and healthy,” she said. “I felt him kicking, eager to be born.”

“Perhaps,” Mirri Maz Duur replied, “but what came forth from your womb was as I have said. Khaleesi, this tent was full of death.”

“Shadows, no more,” Ser Jorah said hoarsely, but Daenerys could hear the doubt in his voice. “I saw the godswife. I saw you dancing with shadows here, alone.”

“Long are the shadows on the Iron King’s Grave,” Mirri said. “Long and dark, and no light can hold them back.”

Daenerys understood. Ser Jorah had killed her son. Out of love and loyalty, he had carried her into a place where no living man should go, and fed her babe to the darkness. He knew it himself; she could see it in his ashen face, his haunted eyes, the pain that made him limp. “You were betrayed by shadows as well, Ser Jorah,” she told him, but the knight said nothing. Daenerys turned back to the godswife. “You warned me: only death can pay for life. I thought you meant the horse.”

“No,” Mirri Maz Duur said. “That was the lie you told yourself. You knew the price.”

Did she? Had she truly known? If I look back, I am lost. “I have paid the price,” Daenerys said. “I paid for it with the stallion, with my son, with Quaro, Cohollo, Haggo, and so many more.” She rose abruptly from the cushions. “Where is Khal Drogo? Take me to him. I would see what my son bought me, be you godswife, godswitch, or bloodmage.”

“As you wish, Khaleesi,” the old woman said. “Come with me, and I will show him to you.”

Daenerys was weaker than she had thought. Ser Jorah put an arm around her to steady her. “Princess, there is time enough,” he said quietly.

“I would see him now, Ser Jorah.”

After the dimness of the tent, the world outside seemed blindingly bright. The sun was molten gold, burning the land, and the baked earth was cracked and hollow. Her handmaids waited nearby with water, wine, and melons. Jhogo came to assist Ser Jorah in supporting her, while Aggo and Rakharo stood behind. The glare off the sand made it hard to see until Daenerys raised a hand to shield her eyes. Then she saw the embers of a cookfire, and a few score horses moving listlessly about, seeking what little grass there was to be found. There were a few tents and bedrolls as well. A small knot of children had gathered to stare at her, and a few women went about their chores. Some hunched old men sat listlessly staring up at the blue sky with tired eyes, feebly swatting at the bloodflies. She counted them carefully. A hundred, perhaps. No more. Of the great khalasar of forty thousand warriors, this was all that remained, wind and dust.

“Drogo’s khalasar is gone,” she said.

“A khal who cannot ride is no khal,” Jhogo said.

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