The Red Waste did not forgive.
The days stretched long and blistering, the sun a rciless eye that never blinked. Sand scoured skin raw, and the wind carried no rcy, only heat. Yet the khalasar endured. Water skins sloshed lightly at their saddles now, and dried figs passed from hand to hand like treasure. They were not strong, but they were no longer dying.
Daenerys rode at the center of her people, speaking in low tones with Ser Jorah. The dragons clung to her shoulders, wings twitching restlessly in the glare.
Rhaego was carried behind her in Irri’s arms, swaddled against the worst of the sun.
The handmaiden sang as she walked, her voice soft and low, a lilting lody in the Dothraki tongue. The words flowed like wind over grass strange, rhythmic, full of long vowels and rolling consonants.
Within the small, fragile body, Rhaego listened.
The tune is beautiful... but I still cannot make sense of it.
Days Rhaego had listened. Days he had strained to catch patterns, to separate sound from aning. The Dothraki language slipped through his mind like water through open fingers.
Irri brushed a silver wisp of hair from Rhaego’s brow, smiling down at him. The babe’s eyes, deep violet, almost athyst in the sun regarded her with an intensity that did not belong to infancy.
In Dothraki, she murmured softly, voice filled with warmth:
"You will ride at the head of ten thousand horses, little khalakka. The wind itself will fear your hooves."
She touched his cheek with a gentle knuckle, pride shining in her gaze.
Rhaego blinked inwardly.
That sounded important... The cadence was reverent. Hopeful.
Stallion... I’ve heard that word before. Is she perhaps praising ? But the rest was lost to him.
Frustration pricked like sand beneath his skin.
Co on. Listen. Separate the sounds. There has to be repetition.
Around them, the khalasar moved in weary silence. Leather creaked. Hooves thudded against hardened earth. Sowhere ahead, Jorah’s voice carried faintly on the wind.
Irri continued her song and within Rhaego’s small body, Elena listened harder.
For days the horizon had been nothing but heat and sky. Then, one evening, the sand gave way to stone.
At first it seed another trick of the sun, pale shapes wavering in the distance, half-lost in shimr. More than one rider squinted and spat, muttering of mirages.
But the shapes did not fade.
They grew.
White walls rose from the earth itself, vast and gleaming, catching the dying light of the sun so that they shone like bone. Behind them, higher still, another wall lood. And beyond that a third, towering over all.
Three walls for one city.
A murmur rolled through the khalasar, low and disbelieving.
"The gates of Qarth," Ser Jorah said quietly.
Daenerys dust clinging to her sandals, sun darkening her skin. The dragons shifted upon her shoulders, restless at the sight of stone and color after endless sand.
She halted.
"Doreah," she called. The handmaiden hurried forward at once.
"Hide them," Daenerys commanded softly.
Doreah opened the woven basket she carried, lining it quickly with cloth. One by one, the dragons were coaxed inside. They resisted at first, small claws catching at Daenerys’ shoulder, but she whispered to them in Valyrian until they settled, coiling together in the dim enclosure. The lid was secured, shadow swallowing fla.
Next she turned to Irri. "Bring him."
Irri stepped forward, placing Rhaego carefully into Daenerys’ arms. For a mont, the noise of the khalasar faded.
"Not a speck of him must be seen," Daenerys said quietly. "Wrap him well."
Irri drew the cloth higher, veiling the babe from the sun and from watching eyes.
Daenerys looked down at her son.
Dust streaked his cheeks. His violet eyes, too knowing for one so small, blinked up at her from beneath the folds.
Her fingers brushed his brow.
"Be still now, my little fla," she murmured. "Let them see only what I choose to show."
She pressed a kiss to his forehead briefly, fierce as if sealing a promise.
Then she handed him back to Irri and straightened.
Ser Jorah moved to her side. Together, they began to walk toward the waiting figures before the gate. In the shelter of cloth and shadow, Rhaego shifted slightly.
Rhaego felt the air change as they descended the last slope.
The scent reached him first.
Salt.
Then he saw it.
The walls... They were enormous.
Not like the cities of her world, not concrete and glass, but sothing older, prouder. White stone rising in layered tiers, each wall taller than the last, painted and carved in colors that caught the sun like polished bone.
It’s... massive.
The thought ca without mockery now. No sarcasm. Only awe. From a distance on a television screen it had seed grand.
In truth, it was overwhelming.
The gates were tall enough to swallow armies. Between them and the city lay a stretch of barren ground scattered with pale shapes that did not move.
The Garden of Bones.
Rhaego’s small fingers curled beneath the wrapping cloth.
This is real. Not a set. Not a scene. Not a Chapter in a book.
Stone. Wind. Death.
And beyond those walls waited n with blue lips and smiles too smooth to trust. Ahead, Daenerys Targaryen walked forward without hesitation.
And Qarth waited.
They had almost reached the gates when the horn sounded.
It was deep and long, echoing across the barren ground before the city walls. The khalasar halted as one, the sound rolling over them like a warning.
From within the gatehouse, soldiers erged. One by one at first, then in disciplined ranks.
Their shields glead gold beneath the sun, spears upright, armor lacquered and immaculate. They moved with precision, forming a shining wall between the city and the dust-choked khalasar.
Daenerys stopped.
A flicker of confusion crossed her face, though she did not step back.
"I thought we were welco,"she said quietly to Ser Jorah.
"If you heard a Dothraki horde was approaching your city," Jorah replied in a low voice, "you might do the sa khaleesi."
Daenerys’ gaze swept over her people. Thin horses. Thinner riders. Sunken cheeks. Fewer than she had once commanded.
"Horde?" she said softly, almost bitterly.
As the formation of the soldiers had settled in a group when the gate erged a procession of n in flowing silks, their garnts bright as jewels.
At their head waddled a bald, heavyset man draped in embroidered silk. Rings glead on every finger. He advanced with careful dignity until only a short distance separated him from Daenerys.
She stepped forward. There was a pause; it was brief and asured.
"My na is Daenerys—"
"Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen," the man interrupted smoothly, smiling as though greeting an old acquaintance.
Daenerys stilled.
"You know , my lord?"
"Only by reputation, Khaleesi," he replied with a courteous incline of his head. "And I am no lord. rely a humble rchant."
His smile widened slightly.
"They call you the Mother of Dragons."
"And what should I call you?" she asked.
"My na is quite long," he said lightly, spreading jeweled hands, "and quite impossible for foreigners to pronounce. It is enough that I am a trader of spices."
He gestured behind him to the richly dressed n who stood watching.
"We are the Thirteen, charged with the governance and protection of Qarth the greatest city that ever was or will be."
The words hung in the hot air, Daenerys held his gaze.
"The beauty of Quarth is legendary—"
"Qarth," the rchant corrected gently, though the interruption was deliberate.
A silence followed.
"...Qarth," Daenerys repeated, correcting herself without lowering her gaze.
The rchant’s smile lingered.
"Might we see the dragons?" he asked lightly, though his eyes sharpened with interest.
Daenerys glanced back toward the basket where fla lay hidden beneath woven reed and cloth. Then she faced him once more.
"My friend," she said evenly, "we have traveled very far. We have no food. No water. Once i see my people fed i would be honored—"
"Forgive , Mother of Dragons," the man interrupted smoothly, his tone courteous but unyielding. "But no man alive has seen a living dragon. So of my more skeptical friends refuse to believe your children even exist."
A murmur stirred among the silken figures behind him.
"All we ask," he continued, "is the chance to see for ourselves."
The heat pressed in around them. Daenerys felt the weight of it.. the sun, the eyes, the waiting soldiers.
"I am not a liar," she said, her voice tightening.
"Oh, I do not think you are," the rchant replied pleasantly. "But as I have never t you before, my opinion on the matter is of limited value."
A faint smile touched Daenerys’ lips not amusent, but frustration.
"Where I co from," she said, "guests are treated with respect, not insulted at the gates."
"Then perhaps," he said gently, "you should return to where you co from. We wish you well."
He turned as though the matter were finished. Daenerys stepped forward sharply.
"What are you doing?" she demanded. "You promised to receive ."
The rchant paused and looked back at her, brows lifting slightly.
"We have received you," he said calmly. "Here we are. And here you are."
"If you do not let us in," she said, her voice rising despite herself, "all of us will die."
"Which we shall deeply regret," he answered. "But Qarth did not beco the greatest city that ever was or will be by letting Dothraki savages through its gates."
The word hung in the air.
Savages.
Behind Daenerys, the khalasar shifted. Leather creaked. A hand tightened around an arakh.
Within the folds of cloth, Rhaego stirred.
Elena felt the insult like a spark to dry tinder.
Daenerys watched as the rchant conferred in low tones with the other silk-clad n. Their laughter drifted faint and dry across the heat-shimring air. One by one, they turned from her.
Silk whispered. Sand shifted beneath soft slippers.
They began to walk toward the towering gates of Qarth as though she were already forgotten.
The line of Qartheen soldiers did not break. Shields bright as hamred suns caught the light; spearpoints glimred like a field of frozen stars.
For a mont, Daenerys Targaryen stood very still.
The Red Waste had taken much from her.
She would not beg.
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