The villa lay in silence, heavy with loss. The Dothraki who had once stood like bronze statues outside the walls were gone slain, their blood seeping into the marble and soil. The garden bore the shadow of violence; the wicker basket of hatchlings remained, empty, shrieking in absent echo.
But the heaviest absence was hers: her child, her dragon prince, stolen. And Irri… her handmaiden, her guardian, no more.
Daenerys moved through the villa, fury and grief intertwined, every step carrying the weight of failure. Her violet eyes, red-rimmed and still glistening from tears, searched the walls, the floors, the garden beyond.
She reached the stone balcony at the edge of the chamber and leaned against it, knuckles white. She could feel the absence like a physical wound her people gone, her dragons gone, her son… gone.
An hour had passed, time measured in breathless tension and mounting dread, before news reached Ser Jorah.
When he finally arrived, running as though the earth itself would not hold him, he found her in the chamber, leaning against the edge of the bed, eyes fixed on nothing and everything all at once.
"You came back," she said, her voice raw, the faintest hint of relief threading through the anguish.
"As soon as I heard," he panted, chest rising and falling with urgency.
"Do you know anything?" he asked, voice tight with dread.
Dany shook her head, she stood from the bedside and then stepped closer, her gaze falling to the bloodless garden below.
"Irri is dead," she whispered.
"I know," Ser Jorah said, his throat tight, voice rough. "She was a good—"
"She's Dead," Dany cut him off sharply. Her voice, though quiet, was as hard as steel. "She died for me, and I could not protect her." Her eyes, glimmering with sorrow, lifted to meet his. The world around them seemed to vanish.
A pause hung between them, heavy as stone. Then Jorah spoke again, tentative. "Doreah?"
Dany's gaze hardened, haunted. "We can't find her. She must be dead too." Her fingers clutched the stone railing beside Ser Jorah. She looked outward, over the villa and the garden, to the horizon beyond.
"I led my people out of the Red Waste," she said, voice low and bitter, "and into the slaughterhouse."
"I should have been here," Jorah said, anger and guilt mingling in his tone, rising with every word.
"You went to find a ship," Dany replied, eyes cold yet steady, measuring him, reminding him that the fault was not his alone.
Jorah stepped closer, dropping his gaze to hers, voice quieter now but heavy with remorse. "My place is by your side. I should never have left you alone… with these people."
"These people?" Daenerys repeated, echoing the words, sharp and incredulous.
"They are not to be trusted," Ser Jorah continued, voice low, deliberate.
"And who is to be trusted?" her voice rose, trembling, grief and fury coiling in each word.
"Who are my people? The Targaryens? I only knew one, my brother and he would have let a thousand men rape me if it had gotten him the crown."
She paused, eyes hardening, then added in a quieter, almost broken whisper. "The only one I have… the only blood I have left… is my son. My flesh and blood."
Ser Jorah's gaze softened, full of understanding and grief, but he did not interrupt.
She let the weight of the words hang, then spoke once again, "The Dothraki… most of them turned on me the day Khal Drogo fell from his horse." Her eyes hardened as she looked past him, voice dropping to a quiet, fierce edge.
Ser Jorah's expression softened, the grief and pain in his eyes reflecting hers. He swallowed, then said, carefully, "Khaleesi… your people are in Westeros."
"The people in Westeros don't even know I am alive," she countered, her voice low, sharp.
"They will soon enough," Ser Jorah said, voice steady.
"And then what?" she laughed, a brittle, humorless sound. "They'll pray for my return? Wave dragon banners and shout my name?"
Her shoulders stiffened; the words fell into a whisper now, cold and bitter. "That's what my brother believed. And he was a fool."
She turned, walking away from him, frustration rolling off her in waves.
Ser Jorah's voice followed, softer but firm. "You are not your brother." Her steps faltered.
She did not turn, but the words he spoke behind her made her pause.
"Trust me, Khaleesi," he said, calm, unwavering.
Daenerys crossed her arms, a sharp edge to her violet gaze. "There it is," she said, voice tight, almost a whisper. "Trust me."
"And it's you I should trust, Ser Jorah?" Her tone sharpened, disbelief cutting through the words. "Only you?"
"I don't need trust any longer," she said, her voice firm, edged with fire. "I don't want it. And I have no room for it." She shook her head, as if to cast the notion away.
Ser Jorah stepped closer, slow and deliberate, his hands reaching for her shoulders in a gesture meant to steady, to comfort. "You are too young to be so—"
"And you are too familiar," she cut him off sharply, spinning to face him. Her violet eyes burned, unyielding, a storm behind their calm surface.
Jorah paused, the faintest shadow of surprise flickering in his gray eyes. Slowly, he lowered his gaze and stepped back, the weight of his own failings pressing down on him.
"Forgive me, Khaleesi," he said, voice low, almost a whisper.
"No one can survive in this world alone," he added, the words heavy with truth, each syllable measured. "No one."
He took another step, careful, deliberate, as if closing the distance might make the world less cruel. "Let me help you," he said, and though the plea was soft, it carried the weight of a lifetime of loyalty, of battles fought and losses endured.
"Tell me how," he finally said, voice rough with urgency and restraint.
Daenerys turned to him, meeting his gaze with the full force of her violet eyes.
Determination burned in them, sharp and unyielding. "Find… my children," she said, each word deliberate, a command that brooked no argument.
Ser Jorah inclined his head, silent, obedient. Without another word, he stepped back, each movement measured, and then turned to leave the chamber. He would do as she commanded.
He will find them.
Left alone in her chambers, silence wrapped around Daenerys like a shroud. The empty air seemed to press against her, carrying the echoes of what had been stolen… her children, her dragons, the life she had built and nurtured.
Thoughts tumbled through her mind, harsh and unrelenting. Where could they be? What was happening to them now?
She could not imagine it, and yet the images came unbidden: small bodies in danger, wings stretched in fear, scales slick with sweat, tiny hands reaching for her and finding only emptiness.
Her chest tightened. The walls of the villa, once a sanctuary, now seemed like a cage, closing in with every heartbeat. She could not bear it. Not her dragons, not her son, her children, all taken from her, leaving only the hollow echo of their absence.
Away from grief, away from the thrum of the living world, something else stirred. It was dark. Endless. A void without shape, without sound, as if air itself had forgotten to exist.
And within it floated Elena the soul trapped inside the stallion who should never have lived.
"What… what happened?" Her thoughts trembled in the emptiness. "Did I die?" She reached, as though she could touch something solid, but found only the soft resistance of nothing.
Everything had gone quiet. Even herself. The powder… she remembered, the bitter sting of it filling her lungs. Perhaps she had passed out.
Her lips trembled, and she tried to brace herself, to act brave but the mask slipped.
Tears ran unbidden as she drifted in the dark. "I could've saved her… Irri… she took care of me. Of Rhaego… Even if I am… this… this monster, she was loyal. Loving."
Memories pressed sharp against her mind: Irri's gasp, the blade, the blood splashing across the floor.
I should have moved faster. I should have done something. Why couldn't I stop it? Her hands had reached, but they grasped nothing.
She had been nothing, a baby in a stolen body, powerless to stop it. "No… I am a baby. My body… this is not mine. I am helpless. How can I fight when I cannot even speak." She could not act fast enough. She could not undo the dying of someone who had been a big sister to her.
Even now, she wondered if anything she could do might ever change anything at all. And she, born of fire and blood, had done nothing.
Darkness settled over her like a frost. She floated in emptiness, the weight of failure pressing on her mind, a quiet agony that no scream could pierce.
She felt.. Helpless.
And she knew it.
A sound found her in the dark.
Soft. Thin. A hatchling's chirp.
It echoed strangely through the emptiness, fragile as a dying breath. Then came a spark, a faint glimmer of light flickering somewhere beyond the black. It trembled like an ember struggling against ash.
Elena felt herself drawn toward it.
That sound…
She reached, or thought she did, and the spark flared. Warmth rushed through her small body.
Rhaego's eyes opened.
Cold stone pressed against her side. The air was thick and stale, tasting of dust and sour incense. Dim light seeped through tall windows, pale and colorless as old bone.
She was not alone.
Curled beside her on the same stone altar were her three dragon siblings. Their small bodies writhed weakly against iron collars clasped tight about their necks.
Chains bound them together, links fastened to a ring set deep into the altar itself. The metal scraped against stone as they strained, their wings twitching, their tails lashing in agitation.
One of them gave another soft, distressed chirp.
The sound that had pulled her back. Elena lifted her head slowly.
What the… where am I?
Her small claws scraped against the altar as she pushed herself upright, unsteady but determined. The stone beneath them was carved with twisting sigils that seemed almost to writhe in the corner of her vision.
And then she saw him.
A robed figure stood at the edge of the chamber, still as a statue. Indigo cloth draped his narrow frame. His face was pale as milkglass, his lips stained a deep, unnatural blue.
One of the Thirteen.
Of course.
A faint scowl creased her infant features.
It's this one.
The warlock watched the four of them in silence, his head tilted ever so slightly, as though studying some rare and curious specimen laid upon a slab.
Beside her, one of the dragons snapped weakly at its chain.
The sound echoed.
The warlock moved at last.
Pyat Pree stepped closer, indigo robes whispering over stone. His movements were languid, deliberate, as though time itself bent differently around him. The faint light caught upon his pale face, upon lips stained blue as bruised fruit.
He did not look first to the chained dragons.
He looked at Rhaego.
Long fingers, thin as spider legs, lifted slightly… not touching, not yet just merely hovering above the small scaled brow as one might examine some rare and fragile relic.
His head tilted.
"How curious," he murmured, voice soft as dust falling upon stone. "The Mother of Dragons births more than dragons."
The chained hatchlings hissed beside Rhaego. Pyat Pree's gaze did not waver.
His smile deepened, thin as a knife's edge.
"The Undying showed us many dreams," he went on, voice lilting faintly. "A silver queen. Three heads of the dragon. Fire made flesh."
His gaze sharpened.
"But this… this is new."
He leaned closer.
"Are you a mistake?" he whispered. "Or a promise?"