The cowhide curtain of the yurt was pulled aside. A pregnant woman stepped out, supported on either side by two young Dothraki girls. A cloying sweetness wafted out with her—an almost suffocating perfume, sharp with bayberry, clashing with the sour tang of urine.
Daenerys stilled at once.
The woman did not wear the dyed leathers of the Dothraki. Instead, she was clothed in pale lace from Myr, a gown of soft yellow that brightened her skin until it seemed nearly translucent. Silver hair spilled to her shoulders, and when she lifted her eyes, they were the same faint, misted violet that Daenerys knew so well.
For a heartbeat Daenerys might have believed she faced another Targaryen.
Her brother Viserys had once repeated the words that haunted King Robert's Hand: "The seed is strong." The Baratheons bred black of hair, the Tullys red, the Lannisters gold, and her own House near-white, silver-haired and purple-eyed. They were Valyrian traits, scattered after the Doom of Valyria four centuries past, when fire and stone devoured the dragonlords. Silver hair and purple eyes had taken root across Essos since then.
So it was not wholly strange that such a woman stood here, in Drogo's khalasar. Yet Daenerys could not shake the prickle that ran across her skin.
"Come closer, Khaleesi."
The woman's voice was warm, almost inviting. But Daenerys saw more than warmth. This one was large-boned and broad, with heavy breasts and a square jaw—everything Daenerys was not. Older, too, by thirty years at least.
Mockery lived in her gaze, but so too did pity, jealousy, triumph, and malice. Daenerys's stomach knotted.
"Are you Lilis?" she asked warily. "Jia Ke's lady?"
Lilis grinned, lifting her chin. "Perhaps not for long. Soon enough, I may be Khaleesi as well."
The words landed like a stone.
Every khal died in the end. When he did, his khalasar chose another, and with him came a new khaleesi. Daenerys knew what became of the old ones: most were sent to Vaes Dothrak to join the crones of the Dosh Khaleen. There they lived out their days, dozens—perhaps hundreds—of widowed khaleesi, waiting in dim temples for visions and death.
Drogo had himself dispatched two widowed women of Khal Ogo's khalasar only days before, sending them east beneath heavy guard. A reminder that a khaleesi's worth could vanish overnight.
Daenerys's khas—the men sworn to her protection—stood silent at her back, not sharp enough to catch the venom hidden in Lilis's tone. She had spoken in Valyrian, a tongue the Dothraki did not understand. That ignorance spared her. Had they grasped her meaning, one of them would have lashed her across the face with a whip, or put an arrow through her belly.
But Ser Jorah heard. The knight's dark eyes hardened. "Strange," he said coldly, "I never heard that Jia Ke had taken a wife. Even Khal Drogo has bedded many, but only Princess Daenerys is his Khaleesi."
He drew out princess, as if to hammer the truth into Lilis's skull.
The woman's lips trembled with fury, clamping into a cruel line.
After a long silence she shifted into halting Dothraki, spitting the words toward Daenerys: "Khaleesi, will you once more defile the sacred customs of the Horse Lords, stealing spoils of war from rightful warriors?"
Daenerys felt the sting of the barb. She remembered well the women she had snatched from brutal hands, the girls she had claimed as her own when she could not bear to watch them beaten. She had thought herself merciful. To the warriors, she had been a thief.
She straightened her back. "It is only a goose," she said. Her fingers unclasped the silver medal at her waist. She dropped it to the dirt with a soft chime. "You cannot refuse a khaleesi's gift. And in return—"
On the ground lay a great white goose, pierced clean through the neck. Quelo's arrow had pinned it so deep the shaft jutted upright from the earth. Blood streaked the bird's feathers, once pure, now matted red. It gave a pitiful snore, wings twitching weakly.
"That goose is mine now," Daenerys said, pointing.
Among the Horse Lords there was no coin, no minted silver or copper. They did not count wealth in gold, nor did they keep books of trade. All their lives turned on gift and plunder. When a khalasar ringed a city with a hundred thousand riders, no city dared withhold its "gifts."
Metals they did have—shaped into medallions of gold, silver, or copper, strung together in belts at their waists. With these they bargained in their own rough way. One gift answered another. That was how Daenerys herself had been given: a gift from her brother Viserys, sold like a trinket to Khal Drogo by Illyrio of Pentos.
In exchange Drogo was to give Viserys a gift in kind: ten thousand screamers, or the conquest of Westeros.
But the Dothraki gave when they wished, and how they wished. Drogo had given nothing.
Viserys had grown desperate. Each month Daenerys swelled with child, each month Drogo gave no sign of war. Her brother became crueler, harsher, a beggar prince gnawing his sister's bones. He railed at Drogo, cursed him in the Common Tongue no rider understood. He struck Daenerys when Drogo's back was turned, raged like a debt collector denied his due.
He had even stolen at her dragon eggs, planning to sell them. Daenerys, in her tenderness, would have given them freely.
But then, drunk on his own fury, Viserys had stormed into Drogo's hall, sword in hand. He pressed the blade against her belly, her unborn child beneath the steel, and demanded his crown.
Drogo had given it. A crown of molten gold.
The Dothraki way of gift and trade was cruel, but final. And so Lilis could not refuse Daenerys's token, however small. By right, the goose was hers.
Before leaving Jia Ke's camp, Daenerys drew rein on her silver mare. She set her hand to her hip and turned in the saddle, meeting Lilis's glare with quiet fire.
"You have been among Drogo's riders long enough to know this," she said. "The Dothraki have no khaleesi who cannot ride. Not even when she carries a child."
With that she pressed her heels, and the mare moved off, hooves drumming against the earth.
Every Dothraki rode. To walk was shame. Chariots existed, but only for the weak—the maimed, the very old, the children, the women swollen with child. Even then, the greater one's station, the less he dismounted. Drogo himself, half-maddened by fever, still rode each day, swaying in the saddle, too proud to fall.
When Daenerys had first crossed the Dothraki Sea, she had been moved by the endless grasses that rolled like waves beneath the sun. She had commanded her khas to halt, if only to breathe it in. Viserys had taken offense—his sister, commanding men, while his name still stank of beggary.
He had tried to strike her, as he always had. But her khas had blocked his hand. From that moment he was stripped of his horse. The riders had laughed at him as he limped through camp, and called him Khal Rhoymar—King Sourlegs.
Later he took a carriage, foolishly thinking Drogo had shown him honor. The laughter only grew. He was crowned again, this time Khal Rhaeghar, the Carriage King.
Among the Horse Lords, to be horseless was to be nothing.
Now, swollen ten months with child, Daenerys still rode. She had become one of them, as much as any queen might.
Behind her, Lilis's thick lips drew tight. Blood welled where she bit them. Her eyes darted between the silver medallion in the mud and the departing khaleesi on her bright mare.
"Tomorrow," she hissed at her slaves, "before the khalasar rides, bring me a horse. A silver mare, like that bitch's. Do you hear? The very same."
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