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Chapter 1: PART ONE — The Broken King

Summary:

Chapter Text

1.

"The Broken King"

The Village

Maybe I am dead and I haven't realized yet.

These words echo in her mind as she closes her eyes for a moment, losing herself in a fading memory. It becomes little by little in something that no longer exists; just a hidden, faraway place that she is allowed to visit from time to time. The words and sounds of the past are mingled with the longing of the present, and she asks herself the same question repeatedly.

Did it really happen or was it just a dream?

"Mhysa! Mhysa! Mhysa!"

Eyes blink and scan her surroundings. The blue sky welcomed her back with the intense brilliance of a summer day. Her young stable boy, Ammer, is rushing toward her. 

Dany smiles, unaware of what is to come. 

"Mhysa," he calls her one last time, just a few steps from her. "A pigeon has arrived from Pentos. The seal is red."

Her smile dies.

Daenerys gets up, having sat under the lemon tree for a long time now that her muscles have gone rigid. Together with her young friend, they returned to the village and to her house. 

***

Dear Queen,

My apologies for having to disturb you.

King Brandon Stark of the Six Kingdoms has requested an audience with you. He is currently in Pentos, awaiting a response.

Yours always, Daario Naharis.

***

Something like a dagger to the heart again is what she feels in her chest.

A short message that raised many questions. She once instructed Daario never to call on her help unless it was a matter of immediacy. There are only three subjects that would make Daenerys abandon the peace of her little village. Slavery, treason, and war. Daario knows this and her chest fills with anger just imagining what extraordinary situation could motivate such a boldness.

The visit of this person with whom she shared a short span of a very distant past was bound to arouse in her the deepest suspicion. More than ten years have passed since they met paths. They never shared many words except for that time he spoke directly to her to tell her about her child Viserion's final fate.

Her beloved and innocent Viserion, she recalls.

For many years, for obvious reasons, she decided to ignore the existence of that condemned land in the West. Nothing tied her there anymore.

She focused instead, on those who remained, working toward the goal to reconcile guilt with the desire to mend the decaying legacy she has left back in Essos. In all that time, no one with the guts required would ever mention the name of that land close to her. Occasionally Daario.

If I look back I am lost.

***

Pentos

In each of the free cities, Dany was received with all the luxuries owed to a monarch. But never she stayed for too long, otherwise, it was seen as an ill-willed sign for those who still resented her and feared her.

"You look beautiful as always Daenerys," Daario greets her as she hops off Drogon, patting him to assure him that she is safe.

"You don't look bad either. I'm glad to find you alive, my friend," she responds with a sincere smile, closing the distance to give him a hug. The relationship with her former lover had remained clean of the initial distrust and judgment and more than ridden of any romantic implications. "Now tell me, why use the red seal? Once you swore to me next time you saw a Westerosi here in Essos looking for me, you would end her or him instantly."

Daario smiles.

"Even if I wanted to be true to my word," he pauses, looking down at the city towers. "It's not who I had in mind when I said that."

Daenerys looks away, swallowing the growing lump in her throat.

They never addressed as such the issue of her death but rumors reached far and sadly, they spoke for themselves. 

As they walk together to the meeting place, Daario keeps her abreast of the situation in Essos, without her having to ask. 

"Tell me again how it is that this crippled man ended up King," he asked out of a sudden. 

She frowns and purses her lips but answers his question notwithstanding 

"He is a magical being," she says, "Something like the memory of the world if my recollections don't betray me. He was elected by the lords of Westeros."

"He seems like a very unremarkable person."

Daenerys nods, having thought the same thing when she met him just a crippled, young man. But she knew even then that there was something else about the boy that had survived.

"There are rumors that certain men of power will send companies of mercenaries to their shores soon. That means war," he explains to her. 

Dany hums but internally she's dreading it. She is tired of war. Years of battling in Essos, Westeros, and back in Essos had taken their toll on her. Not just mentally but physically. It is not uncommon to find her lying in bed for days just because of the pain in her muscles and bones. 

Finally, they arrive at the manse of Magister Illyrio, where posts were taken by their own guards and those of his grace, the king of the Six Kingdoms.

***

Their second time meeting is not that different from their first. 

Brandon is no longer a young boy with the face of a child but a man with the face of a young boy. He wears a resemblance of a beard but Dany can still see under it that the skin is barely wrinkled or lined. 

She does her best to hide the shiver that ran through her body when his eyes hit a spot very close to home, opening the gates of the hideout in her mind, and inviting her to the memory of another pair of dark eyes that look exactly the same. 

Their conversation goes petty and trivial during supper. He asks her how it happened and she tells the tale with the familiarity of having recounted it for the thousandth time when in truth, he's barely the second person she has ever tell about it. 

While she's not interested in digging too hard about what's going on across the Narrow Sea, she also asks her own questions. At least those that can be answered without involving people from the past that she prefers not to bring back. Daenerys is surprised by how loquacious he'd become and yet evasive of his true intentions.

"You don't live here, or in Mereen. And you certainly are difficult to locate. Tyrion tried for years, even when he knew that you would never receive him."

She was aware of those messages, but every letter she received, Daenerys threw into the fire, uninterested in its contents. 

"Too smart of a man but prone to foolery sometimes, isn't he?" she comments, taking her goblet to her mouth and drinking from its sweet wine.

"He was," Brandon makes the correction. "Tyrion passed away a few years ago."

Although the news is surprising enough to almost making her choke, Daenerys couldn't say that it was impossible to believe. His habits were going to take him to the grave sooner or later. She frowns at the discontent that takes her by surprise as if a little part of her is mourning the death of someone she came to consider a friend in another lifetime.

She wipes her mouth with a napkin, and makes another question, "What did he die of?"

Brandon leans back in his chair, his face serious as ever.

"Pain. His heart was dying."

"From illness?" 

"If you consider that guilt is something you can ever heal from, it might have been so. That's why he wanted to reach to you so badly. He believed that if you two made peace, he could find redemption."

She holds back the urge to laugh. 

"I find it hard to believe in such a romantic depiction of Tyrion," Dany says.

"No one believed him. Many claimed that he was losing sense. "

"I think Tyrion lost all sense long before he had become my Hand." She takes another big sip of her wine and stands up. "Very well, King Bran. My ally Daario has explained to me what may be the reason that brought you to the shores of Essos. Your kingdom is broken like your name and your legs, and likewise the latter, it is beyond my power to remedy that. Normally, I do not allow situations like this to escape my control. Every man who pretends too much of what does not belong to him runs the risk of wanting more. And that's where I usually intervene, to remind everyone his due. However, intervening with the matters of your kingdom is something I promised myself to refrain from. You are a rational being. Surely you understand my reasons."

"Tyrion had a broken heart because he knew it was his fault. Everyone's fault. Not only yours. Not only his."

Daenerys sighs in frustration. She doesn't understand Brandon's desire to continue the conversation around that topic.

"And he also regretted not being on time," he insists.

"Be on time for what?"

"To save Jon."

She shudders at the blunt mention of her killer's name but tries as much to hide a very open reaction. 

"What do you mean?" she asks, in confusion. 

"My brother Jon is dead."