TRUE DRAGON

The heart was steaming in the cool evening air when Hela set it before her, raw and bloody. Her arms were red to the elbow. Behind her, her blood riders knelt on the sand beside the corpse of the wild stallion, stone knives in their hands. The stallion's blood looked black in the flickering orange glare of the torches that ringed the high chalk walls of the pit.

Dany touched the soft swell of her belly. Sweat beaded her skin and trickled down her brow.

"Are you sure about this," Hela asks her in high valerian.

Dany smiles at her not surprised, "You and Astrid already told me that I don't have to prove anything to you and I'm grateful for that but I'm not doing this to know if our child is a boy or a girl because, boy or girl I know they'll be a warrior just like you," Hela smiles at that, "I need to proof to myself that I'm strong enough to be their mother just like you two are,"

Hela sighs and nods, "Okay, but if you feel like you can't hold it in don't be afraid to throw it up,"

She nodded before taking a deep breath. I am the blood of the dragon, she told herself as she took the stallion's heart in both hands, lifted it to her mouth, and plunged her teeth into the tough, stringy flesh.

Warm blood filled her mouth and ran down over her chin. The taste threatened to gag her, but she made herself chew and swallow. The heart of a stallion would make her son strong and swift and fearless, or so the Dothraki believed, but only if the mother could eat it all. If she choked on the blood or retched up the flesh, the omens were less favorable; the child might be stillborn, or come forth weak, deformed, or female.

Her handmaids had helped her ready herself for the ceremony. Despite the tender mother's stomach that had afflicted her these past two moons and Her wives trying to discourage her from doing it, Dany had dined on bowls of half-clotted blood to accustom herself to the taste, and Irrimade her chew strips of dried horseflesh until her jaws were aching. She had starved herself for a day and a night before the ceremony in the hopes that hunger would help her keep down the raw meat.

The wild stallion's heart was all muscle, and Dany had to warry it with her teeth and chew each mouthful a long time. No steel was permitted within the sacred confines of Vaes Dothrak, beneath the shadow of the Mother of Mountains; she had to rip the heart apart with teeth and nails. Her stomach roiled and heaved, yet she kept on, her face smeared with the hearts blood that sometimes seemed to explode against her lips

She looked at Hela, who stood over her, whenever she felt her strength failing; looked at her, and chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed. Toward the end, Dany sees a glimpse of fierce pride in her blue, eyes. Hela was proud of her for finishing it even though she found the whole thing ridiculous and Astrid agreed which is why she didn't join.

Finally, it was done. Her cheeks and fingers were sticky as she forced down the last of it. Only then did she turn her eyes back to the old women, the crones of the dosh khaleen.

"Khalakka dothrae mranha!" she proclaimed in her best Dothraki. A prince rides inside me! She had practiced the phrase for days with her handmaid Jhiqui.

The oldest of the crones, a bent and shriveled stick of a woman with a single black eye, raised her arms high. "Khalakka dothrae!" she shrieked. The prince is riding!

"He is riding!" the other women answered. "Rakh! Rakh! Rakh haj!" they proclaimed. A boy, a boy, a strong boy.

Bells rang, a sudden clangor of bronze birds. A deep-throated warhorn sounded its long low note. The old women began to chant. Underneath their painted leather vests, their withered dugs swayed back and forth, shiny with oil and sweat. The eunuchs who served them threw bundles of dried grasses into a great bronze brazier, and clouds of fragrant smoke rose toward the moon and the stars. The Dothrakibelieved the stars were horses made of fire, a great herd that galloped across the sky by night.

As the smoke ascended, the chanting died away and the ancient crone closed her single eye, the better to peer into the future. The silence that fell was complete. Dany could hear the distant call of night birds, the hiss and crackle of the torches, the gentle lapping of water from the lake. The Dothraki stared at her with eyes of night, waiting.

Finally, the crone opened her eyes and lifted her arms. "I have seen his face, and heard the thunder of his hooves," she proclaimed in a thin, wavery voice.

"The thunder of his hooves!" the others chorused.

"As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth, men without number, witharakhs shining in their hands like blades of razor grass. Fierce as a storm this prince will be. His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief. The bells in his hair will sing his coming, and the milkmen in the stone tents will fear his name." The old woman trembled and looked at Dany almost as if she were afraid. "The prince is riding, and he shall be the stallion who mounts the world."

"The stallion who mounts the world!" the onlookers cried in echo until the night rang to the sound of their voices.

The one-eyed crone peered at Dany. "What shall he be called, the stallion who mounts the world?"

She stood to answer. "He shall be called Rhaelar," she said, using the words that Jhiqui had taught her. Her hands touched the swell beneath her breasts protectively as a roar went up from the Dothraki."Rhaelar, " they screamed. "Rhaelar, Rhaelar, Rhaelar!"

Hela picked her up as the name still rang in her ears. Astrid joined them in the celebration as well smiling at the sight.

Viserys looked around as the Dothraki cheered and celebrated before turning to his sister. He sees how happy she looks and he suddenly starts to feel jealous, "They love her," He says before leaving with a frown on his face.

~~~

The sounds of drums and horns swirled up into the night. Half-clothed women spun and danced on the low tables, amid joints of meat and platters piled high with plums and dates and pomegranates. Many of the men were drunk on clotted mare's milk, yet Dany knew no arakhs would clash tonight, not here in the sacred city, where blades and bloodshed were forbidden.

Hela sat in her place on the high bench. Khal Jommo and Khal Ogo, who had been in Vaes Dothrak with their khalasars when they arrived, were given seats of high honor to Hela's right and left. The blood riders of the three khals sat below them, and farther down Khal Jommo's four wives.

Dany and Astrid sat a little above the other wives. Dany started searching for her brother in the crowd. Even across the length of the crowded hall, Viserys should have been conspicuous with his pale skin, silvery hair, and beggar's rags, but she did not see him anywhere.

"What are you looking for?" Astrid asked.

"My brother. I haven't seen him since the ritual," Dany tells her.

"He's probably puking his guts out somewhere," Astrid says unbothered, "He'll be here soon,"

Dany nodded but her glance still roamed the crowded tables near the walls, where men whose braids were even shorter than their manhoods sat on frayed rugs and flat cushions around the low tables, but all the faces she saw had black eyes and copper skin. She spied Ser Jorah Mormont near the center of the hall, close to the middle firepit. It was a place of respect, if not high honor; the Dothraki esteemed the knight's prowess with a sword. Dany sent Jhiqui to bring him to her table. Mormont came at once and went to one knee before her. "Khaleesi, " he said, "I am yours to command."

She patted the stuffed horsehide cushion beside her. "Sit and talk with me."

"You honor me." The knight seated himself cross-legged on the cushion. A slave knelt before him, offering a wooden platter full of ripe figs. Ser Jorah took one and bit it in half.

"Where is my brother?" Dany asked. "He ought to have come by now, for the feast."

"I saw His Grace this morning," he told her. "He told me he was going to the Western Market, in search of wine."

"Wine?" Dany said doubtfully. Viserys could not abide the taste of the fermented mare's milk the Dothraki drank, she knew that, and he was oft at the bazaars these days, drinking with the traders who came in the great caravans from east and west. He seemed to find their company more congenial than hers.

"Wine," Ser Jorah confirmed, "and he has some thought to recruit men for his army from the sellswords who guard the caravans." A serving girl laid a blood pie in front of him, and he attacked it with both hands.

"What is he going to pay them with? he has no gold," Astrid says.

Dany nods agreeing with her. "What if he's betrayed?" Caravan guards were seldom troubled much by thoughts of honor, and the Usurper in King's Landing would pay well for her brother's head. "You ought to have gone with him, to keep him safe. You are his sworn sword."

"We are in Vaes Dothrak," he reminded her. "No one may carry a blade here or shed a man's blood."

Astrid scoffs at that, "You don't need a blade to kill a man, Ser Jorah,"

"Jhogo told me. Some of the traders have eunuchs with them, huge men who strangle thieves with wisps of silk. That way no blood is shed and the gods are not angered." Dany says worried.

"Then let us hope your brother will be wise enough not to steal anything." Ser Jorah wiped the grease off his mouth with the back of his hand and leaned close over the table. "He had planned to take your dragon eggs until I warned him that I'd cut off his hand if he so much as touched them."

"What?" Astrid exclaims.

Dany was so shocked she had no words. "My eggs ... but they're mine, Magister Illyriogave them to me, a bride gift, why would Viserys want . . . they're only stones . . ."

"The same could be said of rubies and diamonds and fire opals, Princess . . . and dragon eggs are rarer by far. Those traders he's been drinking with would sell their own manhoods for even one of thosestones, and with all three Viserys could buy as many sellswords as he might need."

Dany had not known, had not even suspected. "Then . . . he should have them. He does not need to steal them. He had only to ask. He is my brother,"

"NO," Astrid denies, "Those dragon eggs are a lot more useful with us than him,"

"I do not understand," She says.

"They only need a dragon's flame to hatch,"

"I don't know if you know this, Khaleesi but there are no more dragons in the world," said Ser Jorah.

Astrid gives them a knowing smile, "Don't be so sure. This is a big world,"

Ser Jorah frowns not understanding what she means. He holds out his cup and a slave fills it with fermented mare's milk,sour-smelling and thick with clots.

Dany and Astrid wave her away. Even the smell of it made them feel ill, and Dany did not want to take a chance of bringing up the horse heart she had forced herself to eat. "What does it mean?" She asked, "What is this Stallion? Everyone was shouting it at me, but I didn't understand"

"Oh," Dany said in a small voice. Her hand smoothed her robe down over the swell of her stomach. "I named him Rhaelar."

"A name to make the Usurper's blood run cold." He turns to Astrid, "What about you?"

She smiles and gently caresses the soft swell of her belly, "If it's a girl, Dawn after my sister, and if it's a boy I'll name him Tyr after the god of war,"

Suddenly Doreah was tugging at Dany's elbow. "My lady, " the handmaid whispered urgently, "your brother. . ."

Dany looked down the length of the long, roofless hall and there he was, striding toward her. From the lurch in his step, she could tell at once that Viserys had found his wine . . . and something that passed for courage.

He was wearing his scarlet silks, soiled and travel-stained. His cloak and gloves were black velvet, faded from the sun. His boots were dry and cracked, his silver-blond hair matted and tangled. Alongsword swung from his belt in a leather scabbard. The Dothraki eyed the sword as he passed; Dany heard curses and threats and angry muttering rising all around her, like a tide. The music died away in a nervous stammering of drums.

A sense of dread closed around her heart. "Go to him," she commanded Ser Jorah. "Stop him. Bring him here. Tell him he can have the dragon's eggs if that is what he wants." The knight rose swiftly to his feet.

"Where is my sister?" Viserys shouted, his voice thick with wine. "I've come for her feast. How dare you presume to eat without me? No one eats before the king. Where is she? The whore can't hide from the dragon."

He stopped beside the largest of the three firepits, peering around at the faces of the Dothraki. There were five thousand men in the hall, but only a handful who knew the Common Tongue. Yet even if his words were incomprehensible, you had only to look at him to know that he was drunk.

Ser Jorah went to him swiftly, whispered something in his ear, and took him by the arm, but Viseryswrenched free. "Keep your hands off me! No one touches the dragon without license."

Dany glanced anxiously up at the high bench. Khal Jommo was saying something to Hela and Khal Ogo beside him. She chuckles, and Khal Ogo begins to guffaw loudly.

The sound of laughter made Viserys lift his eyes. "Khal Hela," he said thickly, his voice almost polite."I'm here for the feast." He staggered away from Ser Jorah, making to join the three khals on the high bench.

Hela rose, spat out a dozen words in Dothraki, faster than Dany could understand, and pointed."Khal Hela says your place is not on the high bench," Ser Jorah translated for her brother. "Khal Hela says your place is there."

Viserys glanced where she was pointing. At the back of the long hall, in a corner by the wall, deep in shadow so better men would not need to look on them, sat the lowest of the low; raw unbloodedboys, old men with clouded eyes and stiff joints, the dim-witted and the maimed. Far from the meat, and farther from honor. "That is no place for a king," her brother declared.

"It is a place for a sorefoot king," She mocks, "A place for Khal Rhaggat,"

Five thousand Dothraki began to laugh and shout. Ser Jorah was standing beside Viserys, screaming in his ear, but the roar in the hall was so thunderous that Dany could not hear what he was saying. Her brother shouted back and the two men grappled until Mormont knocked Viserys bodily to the floor.

Viserys drew his sword.

The bared steel shone a fearful red in the glare from the firepits. "Keep away from me!" Viserys hissed. Ser Jorah backed off a step, and her brother climbed unsteadily to his feet. He waved the sword over his head, the borrowed blade that Magister Illyrio had given him to make him seem more kingly. Dothrakiwere shrieking at him from all sides, screaming vile curses.

Dany gave a wordless cry of terror, and Astrid grabbed her hand and brought her closer instinctively. Dany knew what a drawn sword meant here, even if her brother did not.

Her voice made Viserys turn his head, and he saw her for the first time. "There she is," he said, smiling. He stalked toward her, slashing at the air as if to cut a path through a wall of enemies, though no one tried to bar his way.

"The blade . . . you must not," she begged him. "Please, Viserys. It is forbidden. Put down the sword and come share my cushions. There's drink, food . . . is it the dragon's eggs you want? You can have them, only throw away the sword."

"Do as she tells you, fool," Ser Jorah shouted, "before you get us all killed."

Viserys laughed. "They can't kill us. They can't shed blood here in the sacred city . . . but I can." He laid the point of his sword between Daenerys's breasts and slid it downward, over the curve of her belly. "I want what I came for," he told her. "I want the crown she promised me. She bought you, but she never paid for you. Tell her I want what I bargained for, or I'm taking you back. You and the eggs both. She can keep her bloody foal. I'll cut the bastard out and leave it for her." The sword point pushed through her silks and pricked at her navel. Viserys was weeping, she saw; weeping and laughing, both at the same time, this man who had once been her brother.

Suddenly Astrid grabs the blade with her bare hand surprising him. He tugs at it but she doesn't budge and the blade starts to bend in the shape of her hand.

When Hela reached them, Dany slid an arm around her waist and Astrid let go of the sword before joining them. She said a word, and her blood riders leaped forward. Qotho seized Viserys by the arms. Haggo shattered his wrist with a single, sharp twist of his huge hands. Cohollo pulls the sword from his limp fingers and Drogo brings him to his knees. Even now Viserys did not understand. "No," he shouted, "you cannot touch me, I am the dragon, the dragon, and I will be crowned!"

Hela kisses Dany on the crown of her head before moving to stand in front of Viserys, "I have tolerated your behavior towards my wife because of you being her brother but you dare to threaten her and my child?"

"The dragon does what he wants," Viserys hissed.

Hela chuckles, "You like to call yourself a dragon don't you?" She looks at Drogo and signals for him to take him outside. He grabs him by the collar and drags him out screaming. Hela goes after them and everyone follows them.

"Have you ever seen what those magnificent beings look like?" She asked as he was being dragged. They come to a stop "There's nothing like the magical feeling of seeing a true Dragon for the first time,"

"You speak like you've seen them, you whore," He spits.

She glances back at Astrid who giggles at the amused look on her face, Let's see if you are as every bit as the dragon you say you are,"

Hela is engulfed in green flames surprising and scaring everyone except Astrid. Once the flames die down in her place stands a massive black dragon Ser Jorah pushes Dany, who stares at the Dragon in shock and a bit of familiarity, back as he goes for his sword only to realize it is missing.

Viserys screams in terror as he looks at the red eyes of the dragon. He starts backing away as she opens her mouth.

"Turn away, my princess, I beg you," Ser Jorah says.

"No." She folded her arms across the swell of her belly, protectively.

A stream of green flames jets out of her mouth and engulfs him instantly turning him to ash.

He was no dragon, Dany thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon.

______________________________________

END OF CHAPTER

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