Chapter Text
“Ugh, my head hurts. Where am I?” The thought is a dull throb, a painful echo in the confines of her skull. The smell of salt and sea and brine is everywhere. It is wrong. All wrong. This is not the familiar, earthy smell of the Dothraki sea—of dry grass, horse sweat, and the smoky air of her camp. The world is moving. Not with the gentle sway of her silks in the desert wind, but a constant, rhythmic rocking that makes her stomach lurch.
Daenerys’s eyes flutter open. The ceiling above her is low and made of dark, rough-hewn planks. She is not in the silken splendour of the tent she shared with her sun-and-stars. She is in a box. A small, cramped cabin, the air thick and close. A wave of dizziness washes over her, and she presses a hand to her forehead, feeling the dull, persistent ache behind her temples.
A dream, she thinks, her mind grasping for a reason. This is a fever dream, brought on by worry. Drogo. The image of him lying on his pallet, his powerful body still, his breath shallow, flashes in her mind. The wound, festering and black. Mirri Maz Duur’s chanting. Her own desperate pleas.
The last thing she remembered clearly was Jorah’s face, tight with a fear she had never seen in him before. He had been begging her to leave. “They will turn on you, Khaleesi,” he had warned, his voice a low, urgent whisper. “When the Khal dies, his strength is gone. They will fight over you like dogs over meat.” She had refused, her voice shaking with a fury born of love and despair. She would not abandon Drogo. She would not.
She remembered arguing, her voice rising until it was almost a shriek. And then… nothing. A void.
The gentle but relentless sway of the cabin is no dream. It is too real, too insistent. Panic, cold and sharp, begins to prickle at the edges of her consciousness. This is not the Red Waste. This is not her khalasar.
With a surge of effort, she pushes herself up from the narrow cot. The room tilts violently, and she has to brace herself against the wall to keep from falling. Her body feels heavy, her limbs clumsy. She reaches for the door, a simple wooden slab with an iron latch. Her heart hammers against her ribs, expecting it to be locked, to be a prisoner. But the latch lifts easily under her trembling fingers.
The door swings inward, and she stumbles out into a light so bright it is blinding. She throws a hand up to shield her eyes, blinking against the painful glare. The air that hits her is cool and damp, carrying the same salty tang from the cabin, but stronger now, whipped by a steady wind that tangled her silver-gold hair across her face.
When her vision clears, her breath catches in her throat.
There is no land. No red sand, no endless plains of pale grass. In every direction, there is only water. A vast, heaving expanse of deep blue-green, stretching to a horizon that seems a thousand leagues away. The sky above is a brilliant, cloudless blue. She is on a ship, its sails billowing in the wind, cutting a lonely path through the endless sea.
Her fear, which had been a cold knot in her stomach, erupted into a hot, searing rage. She saw him then, standing at the ship’s rail not ten paces from her, his back to her. He was a solid, familiar shape against the terrifying emptiness of the ocean. Ser Jorah Mormont.
“Jorah!” Her voice is a raw croak.
He turns slowly. There is no surprise on his face, only a deep, weary sadness in his eyes. He looks older than she remembered, the lines on his face carved deeper by the sun and by something else. Guilt.
She stalks towards him, her bare feet unsteady on the rolling deck. “Where is my husband?” she demands, her voice gaining strength with every step. “Where is my khalasar? What have you done?”
He remains silent, his gaze unwavering.
“You will answer me,” she hisses, stopping just before him, her small frame trembling with fury. “You will tell me why you have stolen me from my people.”
“There was nothing to steal, Khaleesi,” he says, his voice low and rough, almost carried away by the wind.
The words strike her like a physical blow. “Liar,” she whispers, the word laced with venom. She remembers the argument, his desperate plea, and the blankness that followed. A horrifying realisation dawns. “You drugged me.” It is not a question. “You drugged your Khaleesi and carried me away like a sack of grain.”
“I did,” he admits, and the lack of denial, the grim acceptance in his tone, is more infuriating than any lie would have been. His expression is not of a man ashamed, but of one who has made a terrible, necessary choice. “Drogo was gone, Daenerys. His spirit had already left his body. The maegi’s magic was a dark and empty thing. His bloodriders were watching you, their arakhs already thirsty. They would not have let you live to see the sunset. Their loyalty died with him.”
He takes a half-step closer, his eyes pleading for understanding. “I did it to save your life.”
“Save my life?” The words were a bitter taste in her mouth. “You have stolen it! My life was with my husband, with my khalasar. You have left me with nothing!” She shoves at his chest, a futile gesture against his solid frame. “Turn this ship around, Ser. Turn it around now! I command you!”
Her voice breaks on the last word, a sob catching in her throat. The rage, the grief for Drogo, the terror of the endless water—it all crests into a wave of pure, agonising despair. And then, another sensation joins it. A pain, sharp and low in her belly, so intense it steals her breath. She gasps, her hands flying to her swollen abdomen as the world seems to narrow to a single point of fire.
It cannot be. It is too soon.
Jorah’s expression shifts from grim resolve to alarm. “Khaleesi?”
Another wave of pain rips through her, harder this time, and she cries out, stumbling back. He catches her arm, his grip firm and steadying. “It is the babe,” she chokes out, panic flooding her. “The babe is coming.”
“I know,” Jorah says, his voice surprisingly calm. He raises his voice, calling out in a language she does not know towards the ship’s stern. “I was prepared for this. For you, and for the Khalakka.”
A moment later, a woman appears. She is older, with a kind, weathered face and hands that look both strong and gentle. She speaks to Jorah in that same foreign tongue before turning her steady gaze on Daenerys. There is no fear in the woman’s eyes, only a quiet competence that cuts through a sliver of Daenerys’s terror.
The hours that follow are a blur of pain, a storm contained within the rocking walls of the small cabin. Each contraction is a fresh wave of grief for Drogo, a reminder of the life they made together, now being brought into a world without him. The midwife is a constant, calming presence, her voice a low murmur, her hands gentle as she guides her through the ordeal. Jorah waits outside the door, a silent, anxious sentinel.
It is a harrowing, desperate fight, but from the depths of her sorrow, a new life emerges. A cry, loud and healthy, cuts through the air. The midwife cleans him and wraps him in clean linen before placing him in Daenerys’s arms.
He is perfect. He has Drogo’s dark hair and a strength in his tiny limbs that feels familiar and powerful. As she holds him, the storm inside her finally breaks. The pain recedes, the rage quiets, and all that is left is a profound, aching love. She looks down at her son, her Rhaego, and for the first time since waking on this ship, she feels a moment of peace. He is a tangible piece of her sun-and-stars, a living purpose in her empty hands.
Later, when she has rested, she sits propped up on the cot, Rhaego sleeping soundly against her chest. Jorah enters the cabin, his movements hesitant. He looks from her to the child, and a flicker of something soft crosses his face.
“He is the image of the Khal,” he says quietly.
Daenerys nods, her throat too tight to speak. She will not forgive Jorah, not yet, perhaps not ever. But she cannot deny that he saved her son.
He kneels beside the cot. “There is more you must know, Khaleesi,” he begins, his voice gentle but firm. “News came before we left. It is why I had to act so quickly.”
She looks at him, her heart guarded.
“King Robert Baratheon is dead.”
The name hangs in the air. The Usurper. The man who sat on her father’s throne. The news should feel like a victory, but it is distant, a thing of stories.
“His son Joffrey sits the Iron Throne,” Jorah continues, “but his claim is challenged. Robert’s brothers both claim the throne for themselves. And in the North, the Starks have risen in rebellion over the arrest of their lord, Eddard Stark. The Seven Kingdoms are at war.”
Stark, Lannister, Baratheon. The names from Viserys’s bitter lessons, whispered like curses. It all feels like a dream, a history that has nothing to do with her. But then she looks down at the sleeping infant in her arms. At Rhaego. The Stallion Who Will Mount the World. Suddenly, the news from Westeros is no longer a distant story. It is the blood-soaked ground of her and her son’s inheritance. He will have his birthright. I will have my birthright...
The names echo in the small cabin, a litany of ghosts from a land she has never seen. Stark, Lannister, Baratheon. A war for the throne, my throne. For a moment, it is all a meaningless noise against the steady rhythm of her own breathing and the soft sighs of the babe in her arms.
She looks up from Rhaego’s sleeping face, her gaze locking with Jorah’s. “Where are you taking us, Ser?” she asks, her voice quiet but hard, all traces of her earlier hysteria gone. “Not to Pentos, to Illyrio. He would sell my son as he sold me.”
“No, Khaleesi. Not Pentos.”
“King’s Landing, then? To throw ourselves upon the mercy of the Usurper’s whelp?” A bitter laugh escapes her. “I would rather sail into the Smoking Sea.”
“Neither,” Jorah says, his voice low and steady. “We sail for Dorne. For Sunspear, the seat of House Martell.”
Dorne. The name is a surprise. A land of deserts and strange customs, the last kingdom to bow to the dragons. “Why?”
“Because of vengeance,” Jorah says, his eyes burning with a conviction she has not seen before. “The Martells have no love for the Lannisters or the Baratheons. They despise them. When Tywin Lannister’s mad dogs sacked King’s Landing, they murdered your brother’s wife, the Princess Elia Martell, after… after they had finished with her. Then they dashed her children’s heads against a wall.”
The brutal words hang in the air. Elia. Rhaegar’s wife. A woman of her own blood. Daenerys had heard the story from Viserys, of course, but he had always told it with a triumphant cruelty, as if the Dornish princess’s fate was a just payment for Rhaegar choosing her over the glory of House Targaryen. Hearing it now, from Jorah, it is not a story. It is a horror. An injustice that cries out from the grave.
“The Dornish have long memories, Khaleesi,” Jorah continues, leaning forward. “They have been waiting for a dragon to return. They thirst for vengeance as much as you do. This is not a conquest. It is an alliance, forged in shared blood and shared hatred.”
And there it is. The shift. The tumblers of fate clicking into place. The name ‘Elia Martell’ resonates in her soul, a bell tolling for a family she never knew. Her grief for Drogo is still a raw, open wound, but now, a new feeling pours into it, something cold and hard and ancient. It is the fire of the dragon, the call of blood to blood. The abstract dream of a crown, Viserys’s obsession, solidifies into a concrete mission. This is no longer about a throne. It is about retribution. For Rhaegar. For Elia. For the babes murdered in their cribs. For her son, whose birthright was stolen.
She realizes with a startling clarity that Jorah has taken every choice from her. He has stolen her from her home, allowed her husband to die, and forced her onto this ship. But in doing so, he has given her something she did not have. A direction. A purpose beyond her grief. He has taken her rage, a wild and aimless storm, and pointed it like a sword at the heart of her enemies.
Later, she stands on the prow of the ship, the setting sun painting the sky in hues of orange and violet. The wind is cold against her face, whipping her silver hair around her. She holds Rhaego tightly against her chest, his warmth a small anchor in the vast, lonely world. She is no longer the timid girl who was sold to a Khal. She is no longer a Khaleesi of the Dothraki. She feels the loss of her sun-and-stars like a missing part of her own body, but for the first time, she feels another power stirring within her. It is old and fierce and it does not mourn. It burns.
She looks west, towards the home she has never seen, the land that owes her a throne. She is going home, not as a beggar, but as an avenger.
They took my father, my brother, my mother and my people, she thinks, her hand resting protectively on Rhaego’s head. Let them see what it is to lose everything.