text
stringlengths 0
116
|
---|
greasy. Dany's lips parted and she found herself holding her breath. Part of her wanted to go to him as |
Ser Jorah had feared, to rush into the flames to beg for his forgiveness and take him inside her one last |
time, the fire melting the flesh from their bones until they were as one, forever. |
She could smell the odor of burning flesh, no different than horseflesh roasting in a firepit. The pyre |
roared in the deepening dusk like some great beast, drowning out the fainter sound of Mirri Maz Duur's |
screaming and sending up long tongues of flame to lick at the belly of the night. As the smoke grew |
thicker, the Dothraki backed away, coughing. Huge orange gouts of fire unfurled their banners in that |
hellish wind, the logs hissing and cracking, glowing cinders rising on the smoke to float away into the dark |
like so many newborn fireflies. The heat beat at the air with great red wings, driving the Dothraki back, |
driving off even Mormont, but Dany stood her ground. She was the blood of the dragon, and the fire was |
in her. |
She had sensed the truth of it long ago, Dany thought as she took a step closer to the conflagration, but |
the brazier had not been hot |
enough. The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and |
singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, |
alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. This is a wedding, too, she |
thought. Mirri Maz Duur had fallen silent. The godswife thought her a child, but children grow, and |
children learn. |
Another step, and Dany could feel the heat of the sand on the soles of her feet, even through her sandals. |
Sweat ran down her thighs and between her breasts and in rivulets over her cheeks, where tears had |
once run. Ser Jorah was shouting behind her, but he did not matter anymore, only the fire mattered. The |
flames were so beautiful, the loveliest things she had ever seen, each one a sorcerer robed in yellow and |
orange and scarlet, swirling long smoky cloaks. She saw crimson firelions and great yellow serpents and |
unicorns made of pale blue flame; she saw fish and foxes and monsters, wolves and bright birds and |
flowering trees, each more beautiful than the last. She saw a horse, a great grey stallion limned in smoke, |
its flowing mane a nimbus of blue flame. Yes, my love, my sun-and-stars, yes, mount now, tide now. |
Her vest had begun to smolder, so Dany shrugged it off and let it fall to the ground. The painted leather |
burst into sudden flame as she skipped closer to the fire, her breasts bare to the blaze, streams of milk |
flowing from her red and swollen nipples. Now, she thought, now, and for an instant she glimpsed Khal |
Drogo before her, mounted on his smoky stallion, a flaming lash in his hand. He smiled, and the whip |
Page 569 |
snaked down at the pyre, hissing. |
She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to |
shift and collapse in upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash |
and cinders. And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk |
of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly |
through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder. |
Only death can pay for life. |
And there came a second crack, loud and sharp as thunder, and the smoke stirred and whirled around |
her and the pyre shifted, the logs exploding as the fire touched their secret hearts. She heard the screams |
of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah |
calling her name and cursing. No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear.for me. |
The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of |
dragons, mother of dragons, don't you see? Don't you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that |
reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her. Unafraid, Dany stepped |
forward into the firestorm, calling to her children. |
The third crack was as loud and sharp as the breaking of the world. |
When the fire died at last and the ground became cool enough to walk upon, Ser Jorah Mormont found |
her amidst the ashes, surrounded by blackened logs and bits of glowing ember and the burnt bones of |
man and woman and stallion. She was naked, covered with soot, her clothes turned to ash, her beautiful |
hair all crisped away . . . yet she was unhurt. |
The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at the right. Her arms |
cradled them close. The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck |
coiled under her chin. When it saw Jorah, it raised its head and looked at him with eyes as red as coals. |
Page 570 |
Wordless, the knight fell to his knees. The men of her khas came up behind him. Jhogo was the first to |
lay his arakh at her feet. "Blood of my blood," he murmured, pushing his face to the smoking earth. |
"Blood of my blood," she heard Aggo echo. "Blood of my blood," Rakharo shouted. |
And after them came her handmaids, and then the others, all the Dothraki, men and women and children, |
and Dany had only to look at their eyes to know that they were hers now, today and tomorrow and |
forever, hers as they had never been Drogo's. |
As Daenerys Targaryen rose to her feet, her black hissed, pale smoke venting from its mouth and |
nostrils. The other two pulled away from her breasts and added their voices to the call, translucent wings |
unfolding and stirring the air, and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the |
music of dragons. |
Page 571 |