Daenerys returned to her tent, and the moment she stepped inside, her heart sank. The hairless healers who had been tending to Khal Drogo had not yet departed. Several hideous women, with faces resembling shriveled chickens, stood hunched together, their dry, root-like legs spread awkwardly beneath them. Their tangled, striped hair swayed as they moved in a strange, ritualistic dance.
Their mouths, toothless and gaping wide, spewed out eerie chants in the ancient tongue of the Dothraki. The sharp, piercing notes stabbed into Daenerys's ears like needles, making her temples throb.
They circled around the naked figure of Drogo, who lay motionless on the fur-covered bed. Nearby, a bonfire crackled. The flames leapt and twisted as though responding to the rhythm of the witches' songs—sometimes shooting upward six feet in a sudden flare of orange and gold, then just as quickly collapsing into a pitiful shimmer, leaving only the dim glow of coals.
Daenerys froze at the entrance. Her head tingled as if pricked by hundreds of pins, and her legs felt like iron pillars rooted deep into the earth. She could not move forward.
It's just the dance of Dothraki witch doctors, she told herself, her lips trembling as she whispered under her breath. It's nothing. You are the Dragon Mother. You must not fear. It's just a flame fluttering… maybe just the wind.
But her words did little to steady her heart.
"ROAR—!"
Suddenly, Drogo erupted with an inhuman howl. His voice split the air, a raw sound filled with only one emotion—unbearable, excruciating pain.
Daenerys flinched. Her mind flashed back to her training in medicine—the years she had studied and the countless patients she had seen. Wounds far worse than Drogo's had never provoked such a terrible scream. Even if the flesh were stripped from the chest of a man like Zhang Fei, it should not have brought about such agony. Infection might fester, yes, but advanced inflammation dulled the nerves; it did not sharpen them into fiery needles of torment.
She remembered Mirri Maz Duur's nightly "treatments," how Drogo had thrashed in bed, fists flailing, legs kicking at the air, tearing through sheepskin blankets as though fighting invisible demons.
The truth struck her with the cold clarity of steel. This was no treatment. This was deliberate. The witch had done this on purpose.
The thought twisted her stomach. Mirri wanted Drogo to suffer, wanted him to writhe in endless torment until death claimed him. And worse—Daenerys's hand instinctively covered her swollen belly—the witch wanted to take her unborn son as well. To offer him to her demons. To let Daenerys live on, not as a mother, not as a wife, but as a broken, grieving shell of a woman.
Day after day, Drogo was left dazed in the sunlight, and night after night, he writhed in pain. Tonight, he had been forced down by several of the hairless healers and made to drink bowl after bowl of thick, white liquid.
Milk of the poppy.
The milky-white substance was famed across Westeros for its power to numb pain and drown the senses. In the Nine Free Cities, it was the healer's most trusted anesthetic. But here, in this far land, the Ma People were crude imitators. They had none of the skill of Westerosi maesters who purified the extract. Instead, they steeped poppy flowers in wine, crude and imprecise, to create something that only half resembled the medicine.
Daenerys's lip curled. These people were no more than quacks. They had no training, no true knowledge. Infertile outcasts, they "moonlighted" as healers when they were not cooking, tending fires, or herding sheep. Their sorcery was weak, their hands clumsy, and their ignorance vast. They could neither treat a true wound nor dispel the dark magic poisoning Drogo's body. They had not even realized he was under an enchantment.
At last, after bowing low to her, the hairless women shuffled out. Only then did Daenerys, supported by her handmaidens, dare to approach the bed.
"Jhiqui," she said quietly, her voice trembling but firm, "find me a dagger. A sharp one."
When Daenerys had first wed Khal Drogo, she had received many gifts—among them, three handmaidens given by her brother Viserys: the Dothraki girls Jhiqui and Irri, and the blonde, blue-eyed Doreah of Lys.
Jhiqui and Irri had been only fourteen, the same age as Daenerys, when Drogo's khalasar had destroyed their father's tribe. They had been taken as slaves. Doreah, older and hardened, had once been the prized courtesan of a famous brothel in Lys. Each girl had her purpose: Irri taught her horsemanship, Jhiqui instructed her in tongues both Common and High Valyrian, while Doreah… had schooled the innocent Daenerys in the arts of love.
Jhiqui did not hesitate. She hurried to a chest carved from purple wood and banded with copper, rummaged within, and produced a dagger nearly a foot long.
"This is Khal Drogo's dragonbone dagger, Khaleesi," she said, placing it into Daenerys's hands.
The handle was fashioned from yellowish-brown bone, smooth and sturdy, while the sheath of calfskin curved elegantly like a Dothraki arakh. Daenerys drew the blade. It sang with a soft ring, tracing a white gleam beneath the dim red glow of the torchlight. The edge was flawless, thin as a cicada's wing. For a fleeting moment, pride glinted in her violet eyes.
She turned to the bed, where Doreah bent low, holding a candle aloft, preparing to cut away the filthy wrappings around Drogo's chest. Ser Jorah stepped forward at once.
"Khaleesi," he said softly, concern etched on his face, "you are not well. Let me."
Not well? The thought flared within her. Do you think my master's degree is fake, Ser Jorah?
Without a word, Daenerys swept the blade through the outer flame of the candle, sterilizing it, then leaned forward. Her hands were steady, precise, as she sliced through the stiff, filthy gauze that clung to Drogo's skin. Beneath it lay layers of dark mud and rotting fig leaves, plastered onto his chest in foul heaps.
The so-called "sacred medicine."
Quacks. Worse than quacks. Even calling them that insulted true healers.
Jorah's eyes widened. He stared at her hands—so deft, so sure. Could this really be the young Khaleesi, untrained with blades, heavily pregnant, yet cutting and peeling with the skill of a surgeon?
Layer by layer, the wrappings came off. The upper mud was damp, but beneath, the old layers crumbled dry and brittle, breaking apart like the cracked mud walls of the Ma People's hovels. One by one, the blackened fig leaves peeled away. A stench, sickly sweet and rotten, rose up at once, curling through the tent like poison smoke.
Doreah gagged, covering her mouth. Her cheeks swelled as if she might vomit, and though she held the candle high, her hand shook. Jorah reached out, took the candle from her, and with a muffled cry, Doreah fled the tent, throwing aside the curtain to retch in the night air.
Irri, pale and trembling, held out a tray to catch the soiled wrappings. The mess within was grotesque: lumps of mud, fig leaves, pus, clots of blood, and bits of rotting flesh.
At last, the wound was revealed in full.
Daenerys's breath caught in her throat. Drogo's left breast was entirely blackened, the flesh rotted away. The wound glistened wetly under the candlelight, oozing with foul pus. His chest heaved as he labored for breath, three streams of purplish-black liquid trickling down to stain the clean lambskin beneath him. The stench was overwhelming, making even the hardened Jorah grimace.
"Khaleesi…" Jorah's voice was low, almost pleading. He looked from the wound to her pale face, to Irri and Jhiqui, who turned their noses away. "Khaleesi, he… he is dying."
Daenerys closed her eyes. I know.
Even without magic, she knew. His chest cavity was filled with pus, his heart poisoned with black blood. No healer in Westeros, not even in her world of modern medicine, could save him. By all rights, he was already dead. Only the witch's sorcery clung to him, stretching his life into cruel mockery.
"What do you want to say, Ser?" she whispered, her eyes fixed on Drogo's ruined chest.
"Leave," Jorah urged. His hand tightened on her arm. "We must go. Now. Before he breathes his last."
"Go? Where?" she asked, blank, her voice numb.
"To Asshai," Jorah said urgently. "To the Shadow Lands. It lies at the southernmost tip of the world. A great port. From there, we can sail back to Pentos. We could escape—" He faltered. "Just the two of us, perhaps. If your khas could be trusted…"
Daenerys gave a bitter, hollow laugh. "You overthink, Ser. We cannot. Too few people, and we will be defenseless. Too many, and we will be noticed. Do you believe forty thousand riders are blind?"
Escape was no more than a cruel dream. She, a fourteen-year-old girl heavy with child, could not hope to slip free of a khalasar.
Jorah's gaze fell to her swollen belly. His frown deepened. "Princess… if not for yourself, then for the child. You must escape. The Dothraki follow Drogo's strength, nothing more. They will not follow a helpless infant. When Drogo dies, his kos will turn on one another. The khalasar will break into chaos until one emerges. And when that happens—"
"And then?" she asked, her face a mask, though her heart quaked.
"Then," Jorah said hoarsely, "the victor will not allow rivals to live. Your child will be taken from you, Khaleesi. Taken and fed to the dogs—just as Drogo once did to Ogo and his son."
The words cut like a knife. Still, she did not weep.
"If… if I can last until my due date," she said softly, "perhaps they will spare me. A widow is sacred. At most… they will send me back to Vaes Dothrak. I will live as one of the Dosh Khaleen."
Jorah's eyes widened. "You would choose that? To grow old in the crone's temple?" He shook his head. "It is no use. Have you not seen? None of the Dosh Khaleen have children. No Khaleesi survives as you are now, carrying life when her Khal dies. Do you not understand? They will never allow it."
Daenerys's hand flew to her belly. "It's just a baby… just a helpless baby…" Fear flickered in her violet eyes.
"Do you remember your brother, Prince Rhaegar?" Jorah asked gently.
Her heart twisted. How could she forget?
On the eve of her birth, her eldest brother had been slain at the Trident, cut down by the Usurper's warhammer. That same day, her father, King Aerys, had been murdered on the Iron Throne by his own sworn protector. Her brother's children—her niece and nephew—had been butchered. Little Rhaenys, only three, torn apart. Infant Aegon, ripped from his mother's breast, his skull dashed against the wall like a melon.
Only she and Viserys had lived. Now, Viserys was gone too. She alone remained.
Murong Fu had at least four retainers. She had none.
"Even Westeros," Jorah said, voice bitter, "where honor is prized, could not spare your kin. Do you think the wild Dothraki will spare you? Beneath the Mother of Mountains, the Dosh Khaleen themselves prophesied that your child would be the Stallion Who Mounts the World, a khal to unite all tribes, feared by every enemy. Do you think they will allow him to be born?"
Daenerys trembled. The weight of prophecy pressed down on her. They would not even give her a chance. Not a chance to bring her son into the world.
Not even a chance to give birth to Murong Fu.
---