For two days, Drogo's khalasar had remained stagnant in the desolate, red-earthed wasteland, and a single truth, whispered until it became a roar, circulated through the tribe: the Khal is dying.
It was no longer gossip. It was a fact, plain for all to see. Khal Drogo was too sick to mount his horse, and a khalasar without a Khal to lead it is a body without a head. It cannot move.
That night, Mirri Maz Duur announced, her face ashen in the firelight, "The Khal's wound has rotted to the bone. There is no healing that can save him. All that is left is to guide him down the dark path, so he may ride without pain into the night lands."
Daenerys, playing her part, gave a cry of despair and begged the witch to save her 'sun and stars.'
Mirri Maz Duur looked at Dany, at the taut swell of her belly, and her black eyes were like pits of night. Her voice was surprisingly quiet, almost a conspiratorial whisper. "There is a way. A magic. But the spell is dark, and difficult to perform. For some, death is a mercy. I learned it in Asshai, and the price I paid for the knowledge was… considerable." She let the words hang in the air. "My teacher was a Shadowbinder."
"Blood witch," Dany breathed the words, and for the first time, Mirri did not deny it.
A strange power seemed to emanate from the woman's quiet voice. As she spoke, Dany, who had bathed in fire, felt an icy, wet tentacle wrap around her throat. She couldn't breathe. Her brain, starved of oxygen, began to fog. Through the haze, she heard her own voice, distant and strange, pleading, "Do it… Save him…"
Then, a sudden, sharp pulse of heat, like a spurt of magma, flared from her lower abdomen where the dragon egg was hidden against her skin. The jolt of protective fire shocked her back to her senses.
She suppressed the terror that clawed at her throat and forced herself to hesitate. "The Khal's bloodriders… they will never agree. Is there no other way?"
The witch seemed startled by her resistance. She shook her head. "No."
Dany pressed her lips together, looking directly into the woman's dark eyes. "You admit you are a witch."
A confident, knowing smile touched Mirri's lips. "Lady of Silver, only a witch can save your warrior now. And you must be prepared to pay the price."
Dany glanced at Drogo's still form. "What do you want? Gold? Horses?"
"Not gold, not horses," the witch interrupted, her tone almost gentle. "This is bloodmagic, my lady. Only death may pay for life."
"Death? You want my life?"
"Not your death, Khaleesi," the witch assured her, but her eyes kept darting to Dany's belly with a dark, malicious hunger.
Dany decided to cut through the games. "Whose death, then? Whose life can buy back my sun and stars? Surely not his horse?"
"You are very brave, Lady of Silver, to face the truth so directly," Mirri purred, the smile never leaving her face. "You have already guessed. The law of bloodmagic is equivalent exchange. To bring back the life of a great Khal…" She pointed a finger at Dany's womb. "…one must offer the life of another."
The witch's voice was a demon's whisper. "Khal Drogo is more than your sun and stars; he is your shield. If he lives, you may have many more children. Perhaps even twins, a sun and a star, just like the other silver lady."
A violent rage, hot as dragonfire, erupted in Dany's chest. With a snarl, she snatched the clay teapot from beside her and hurled it at the witch's head. It struck her forehead with a wet thud, and a mixture of blood and milky mare's milk streamed down her shocked face.
"Aggo! Rakharo!" Dany shrieked to the guards outside. "Drag this witch out of here! Gag her and bind her!"
Two more days and nights passed. Drogo's khalasar was on the verge of collapse. Every night, Dany could hear the muffled sobs of Irri, Jhiqui, and her other handmaidens. This morning, she had seen bruises blooming across Dorea's chest, abdomen, and thighs.
The work of Qotho and Haggo.
A Khal's bloodriders could share all he owned, except for his mount. Drogo, in his strength, had forbidden them from touching Dany, but her handmaidens had always been fair game. They had never been so brazen before, but now…
"Everyone knows the Khal is dying," Ser Jorah told her, his voice rough with exhaustion. "By Dothraki custom, his bloodriders must follow him into death. Qotho and the others… they are frantic, knowing their time is short. The dead have nothing to fear."
Jorah himself had worked the hardest. He hadn't removed his heavy armor since she'd commanded him to wear it, standing guard outside her tent all day and sleeping in a chair at the entrance all night, his gleaming longsword laid across his lap.
"And there is more," he said, rubbing his tired, bloodshot eyes. "This place is barren. The creek is nearly dry. There is no pasture. The horses are beginning to fail. The Dothraki will never watch their mounts starve. They will act soon. If not tonight, then tomorrow."
I know, Dany thought. I chose this place deliberately. I watched Drogo lead us away from the river into this wasteland because I needed this. I needed the khalasar to break under the strain, for the kos to take their people and scatter to the winds. I cannot allow a war for his successor to be fought on my doorstep. My small khas would be swallowed whole.
The final moment had come. She looked at the haggard knight, at the dark circles under his eyes. "I believe I will give birth tonight," she said, her voice steady. "Go and bring me Mirri Maz Duur."
Pain flashed in Jorah's eyes. He wanted to tell her not to hope, that the child was another dream that would be torn from her. "Khaleesi," he said hoarsely, "you said she meant to sacrifice your child."
"She will not come near me," Dany reassured him. "She will only sing her birthing song from behind the screen."
The witch had been kept in a small tent nearby. When they brought her, her clothes and hair were disheveled, but her spirit was unbroken.
"I hear the whispers of the warriors," she said to Dany, her voice calm. "Your husband's tribe is about to shatter. Only his return from the darkness can save your fate, and the fate of your children."
"My stomach hurts. I am about to give birth," Dany gasped, lying on the blanket. She was covered in 'sweat,' looking as if she'd just bathed with her clothes on. "You will help me now."
"I will help you," Mirri said, taking a step toward the bed.
"Wait," Dany commanded, and Irri moved to block the witch's path. "It is a normal birth. You will sing your song from behind the screen." She then looked seriously at her maid. "Irri, you will stand guard. If she attempts anything, if she even moves from her spot, you will shoot her dead with that crossbow."
The witch's face hardened. "You do not trust me?"
"No," Dany said, glaring at her. "At least, not until my son is born safely. You should know why."
Mirri's face was a blank mask, but her mind was racing. Should I let her have the child? It matters not. The boy is doomed either way, whether he dies by the hand of a new Khal or is sacrificed to the shadows by me. Why has she not broken down? The hypnotic magic in my words failed… I am so unwilling to be denied my full revenge. But faced with a Dothraki maid holding a loaded crossbow, she had no choice. She began to sing.
The "delivery" was remarkably swift. Dany howled for half an hour, and then the soft cry of a newborn was heard from behind the screen.
"Do not move!" Irri warned as the witch took a step forward.
"Your Khaleesi needs me," Mirri said, her voice strained. "The work is not finished once the child is born." She was desperate to see what was happening, convinced the process felt deeply wrong.
"Stop," Irri repeated, her aim steady.
From within, Dany's weak voice called out. "Irri, let Jhiqui and Dorea come in. Mirri Maz Duur… she has proven her loyalty. Take her back to her tent. Do not bind her again. Give her meat and drink."
This is not normal, the witch thought, utterly certain. That silver-haired woman is playing a game. But what game, she could not fathom.
Jorah, the maids, and the guards outside all believed the same thing: Mirri Maz Duur's birthing song was truly magical. Just as she had saved Lyra from certain death and delivered healthy twins, she had now granted their Khaleesi a safe and easy birth.
When Cohollo, Qotho, and Haggo were finally brought into the tent, they took the sight for granted. They saw their Khaleesi, pale and tired, holding a skinny, swaddled baby with a tuft of thin, black hair. They saw the son of their Khal.
"My sun and stars is dying," Dany said casually, her head bowed as she stroked the baby's hair. "And his 'blood of my blood' are here."
"Woman, the Dothraki are not like the men of your Sunset Lands," Cohollo, the wisest of them, said with a sneer. He thought he saw her game—a foolish attempt to rule through an infant. "Since the first men rode from the Mother of Mountains, there has never been a baby Khal. Even a Khal's grown son cannot inherit if he is not the strongest." At this point, they no longer even called her Khaleesi.
"I accept my fate," Daenerys said, her voice calm and clear. "My place is with the dosh khaleen in Vaes Dothrak. But this child… this child is his continuation. He is your bloodline."
She looked at each of them in turn, her gaze steady. "I hope that one of you might take my Rhaego," she said, giving the child his name, "and flee with him this night. Take him north, to the holy city. Find the crone who prophesied that I would bear the Stallion Who Mounts the World. Ask her to take back her prophecy, and to accept Rhaego as a lifelong attendant in the temple."
She took a deep breath, preparing for the final, binding words. "If you do this, I, Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone, do swear on Rhaego's life: he will, for all eternity, give up any claim to the inheritance of his father, Khal Drogo."
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