Chapter 180: Dragon Egg
"Hm?" Rolle raised an eyebrow. "The lord has not yet risen. Yesterday's events have left him quite tired. Of course," he added, his tone deliberate, "if Your Majesty requires his presence, I will wake him at once."
"No!" Daenerys blurted out, then immediately recognized her gaffe. She offered an awkward smile before composing herself. "I am in no hurry. If Lord Ian is weary, then let him rest well. When he wakes, please ask him to come to me."
"As you wish, Your Majesty," Rolle replied, and then went to fetch her some food.
Breakfast was a simple affair of fine bread and a thin fish soup, prepared especially for her. Compared to the lavish banquets in Illyrio's manse, it was practically unpalatable, but Daenerys was not one to be picky. She ate slowly, finishing every last bite.
She lingered in the small dining cabin for as long as she could, but by the time she finished, there was still no sign of Ian.
Resigned, she made her way back to the deck, hoping the sea breeze might clear her head. But as she reached the top of the stairs, she saw Ian and Celia walking down the companionway together.
"Lord Ian," Daenerys greeted them first. "Lady Celia."
"Your Majesty," Ian said, bowing his head in salute.
"Your Majesty," Celia echoed, offering a respectful curtsy.
"What were you doing?" Daenerys asked.
"I merely encountered Lady Celia in the corridor and was asking her a few questions about High Valyrian," Ian explained with a pleasant smile. "I plan to begin learning the language from her in more detail."
"I can teach you, as well," Daenerys said, the words escaping before she could stop them.
"Your Majesty?" Ian feigned a look of confusion, though inwardly he was cursing. *No, you can't. Learning from you would be a disaster.*
"No," Dany said, embarrassed again. She lowered her head. "I only meant to say that I am also proficient in High Valyrian. If you have any questions, Lord Darry, you may ask me."
"Be that as it may," Ian said, keen to steer the conversation away from language lessons, "I found something among Illyrio's gifts that I believe you might like."
"What is it?" Daenerys's attention was instantly captured.
"Come with me." Ian beckoned, and the three of them descended the stairs. They soon arrived at a small cabin in the ship's hold, guarded by two of his knights.
At Ian's approach, the guards unbarred the door. The storeroom had no windows, so one of the men stepped inside with a torch, lit the oil lamp hanging from a beam, and then withdrew.
Ian entered, a faint, musty smell filling his nose. He ignored it and walked to a stack of chests against the far wall, retrieving a particular one made of cedar. Earlier, he had taken the dragon eggs from his system's inventory and placed them inside this very box.
The other ten chests were filled with gold and jewels worth more than seventy thousand gold dragons—the spoils from Rolle's swift raid of a single treasure vault and a few other rooms in Illyrio's manse. And that was without taking any of the larger, more cumbersome items.
*If I'd given them another half a day,* Ian mused, *or if we hadn't worried about being stopped, I might have completed the master thief achievement right then and there.*
But now was not the time for such thoughts. Ian pushed the fantasy aside, placed the box on the floor before Daenerys, and lifted the lid.
"Oh!" Daenerys gasped. The huge, petrified eggs were the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
"Dragon eggs," Ian said, relaying the description Illyrio had once given. "From the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai. They have been turned to stone by the ages, but they are still magnificent."
It was widely believed these were the three eggs stolen by Elissa Farman from Rhaena Targaryen in 54 AC, later sold to the Sealord of Braavos. But Ian had his doubts. Two hundred years hardly seemed long enough for a dragon's egg to fossilize. Of course, it was possible they turned to stone quickly once deprived of some essential magic, but that was a theory for another time.
"You are of the blood of the dragon," he continued. "I thought you would appreciate them."
Dany did not answer. She was utterly mesmerized.
One egg was a deep, forest green, speckled with flecks of burnished bronze. Another was a pale, creamy white, streaked with veins of pure gold. The last was black as a midnight sea, shot through with living ripples and whorls of scarlet. They were so rich in color and texture that for a moment, she thought they were covered in bright gems.
She lifted one into her hands. It felt like fine ceramic, or enamel, or blown glass, but it was far heavier, solid as a rock. The surface was covered in a network of tiny scales. As she turned it over in her palms, the lamplight caught in the polished shell, making it gleam.
Suddenly, a tremor ran through her heart. She looked up and saw that the egg in her hands was gone. Panicked, she scanned the room, but Ian had vanished, too.
Darkness pressed in from all sides, leaving only a small circle of faint light around her. She heard it then—the sound of roaring flames. Her head snapped up toward the source of the noise. A pillar of fire erupted into the sky, and for a timeless moment, she was lost in its incandescent fury.
Then the fire vanished. The light went with it. The very last thing she saw before the darkness consumed everything was a colossal black shadow looming over her, looking down.
*A dragon,* she knew.
"Your Majesty? Your Majesty? Dany?"
Ian's voice pulled her from the vision. She found herself staring blankly at the torch he now held, beads of sweat glistening on her brow.
"What just happened?" he asked, dabbing her forehead with his handkerchief. "Is it too hot in here? You're suddenly covered in sweat."
"Yes, I… I am a little warm," she said, seizing the excuse. Only then did she become aware of his hand, of the gentle, familiar way he was caring for her.
*This is an overstep!* a voice screamed in her mind. *I am your queen! You should not treat me like a child!*
But how, then, should he treat her? With the cloying, fearful reverence Viserys had always demanded? No, never. The thought of that made her stomach churn. It was too awful to contemplate.
Ian finished and drew his hand away, and still Dany was torn, wrestling with whether she should have stopped him.
"Your Majesty," Celia's voice cut through her thoughts. "Did you see something just now? A dragon?"
"How did you know?" the young queen asked, startled.
*Because I arranged for you to see it.* "Because I saw it, too," Celia said with a knowing smile. "It was a revelation from the Lord of Light. He has shown me that you will use these eggs to bring dragons back into the world."
Dany's gaze flew back to the eggs. For an instant, a thousand blood-red sparks danced before her eyes. She blinked, and they were gone.
"Stones," she whispered. "They are just stones."
The dragons were gone. Viserys had told her so a thousand times. When the Doom came to Valyria and the Lands of the Long Summer, magic had died in the west. The enchanted swords, the weather-singers, the dragons—all of them had vanished, never to return.
The Targaryens alone, the last of the dragonlords, had escaped the cataclysm. With their dragons, they had conquered Westeros. But the last of their creatures had died a century and a half ago, during the reign of Aegon III, the king forever known as the Dragonbane.
"They are only stones," Daenerys repeated, but she could not stop herself from reaching out to them. Something within the petrified shells was calling to her.
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