Chapter 5: Pilgrims on the Road to Fire
The call of Daenerys Targaryen echoed far beyond Meereen's plaza. It traveled on the lips of merchants, the whispers of escaped slaves, the songs of wandering minstrels who had heard the tale of the Messiah's silent death and radiant return. "God wills it," they said, and the words lodged in hearts like arrows. For the common people of Essos—those who had nothing left to lose and everything to gain—the First Crusade was not an army's march. It was a pilgrimage. Men, women, and even children left their homes, their chains, their graves of despair, and walked toward the silver-haired queen who promised vengeance and a new world.
Lhara, the Former Slave of Astapor
Lhara was forty-two summers old, though the whip scars on her back made her feel ancient. She had been born in chains, sold three times, and watched her daughter taken to the fighting pits when the girl was barely twelve. When the news of Viserys's crucifixion reached the undercity, Lhara had burned her last ration of bread as an offering and wept for the first time in years—not for her own pain, but for a man she had never met who had bled for strangers.
She left Astapor at night, carrying only a waterskin, a torn page of the bible sewn into her hem, and the small wooden dragon she had carved from a broken crate. The road north was dangerous—bandits, slaver patrols, wild dogs—but Lhara walked with others now. A dozen at first, then twenty, then more. They shared stories around small fires. "He didn't cry," one man said, voice thick. "Ten days, and he spoke only of us." Lhara nodded. "If the Dragon God sent His son to suffer like we do, then He knows our names."
They reached Meereen after three weeks, feet blistered, clothes ragged. When they crested the last dune and saw the Great Pyramid lit by thousands of torches, Lhara fell to her knees. The chant rolled over them like a wave: "God wills it!" She joined it, her cracked voice rising until it felt whole. Daenerys stood high above, blood dripping from her hand, eyes fierce and grieving. Lhara felt something crack open inside her chest—hope, sharp as a blade. She would fight. Not for a throne, but for the daughter she had lost, for every child still in chains. When the call came to take the red banner, Lhara tied a strip of her old tunic around her arm. It was red enough with old blood.
Torren, the Disgraced Braavosi Sellsword
Torren had fought for coin since he was sixteen. He had killed men in Braavos's canals, in Lys's pleasure houses, in Myr's fighting pits. Honor was a word for fools; survival was the only creed. Yet when a tavern bard sang of the Messiah who died without a scream, Torren laughed—then stopped laughing when the bard described the reappearance. "He came back," the bard said, "and spoke of revenge."
Torren had seen many things: ghosts in fog, men rise from the dead in fever dreams. But something in the story stuck. He sold his last good blade for passage to Volantis, then walked the rest. Along the way he met others—widows, orphans, broken soldiers. They spoke little, but their eyes were the same: tired of living for nothing.
In Meereen, Torren stood at the edge of the plaza, arms crossed. He watched Daenerys cut her palm and let the blood fall. When she spoke of vengeance, of burning the usurpers, of freeing the oppressed, Torren felt an unfamiliar pull. Not faith—not yet—but recognition. She was no soft noble; she was a woman who had lost everything and still stood tall. He had lost everything too, long ago.
When the chant began, Torren did not join at first. Then a boy no older than ten beside him started shouting, "God wills it!" in a cracking voice. Torren looked down, saw the child's thin arms raised, and something broke. He raised his fist. "God wills it," he muttered, then louder, until the words tore from his throat. He would fight again—not for gold, but for the chance that maybe, just maybe, the world could be different.
Mirael, the Volantene Widow
Mirael's husband had been a scribe in Volantis's black-walled district, quiet and kind. When the Sons of the Harpy rose against the new faith, they dragged him from their home and slit his throat for hiding bibles. Mirael survived by pretending to be mad, rocking in the corner while they ransacked her shelves. After they left, she gathered the torn pages, sewed them together, and began to read aloud to herself at night.
She left Volantis with her two young sons, carrying the patched bible and a small iron pot. The road was long; they begged rides on carts, slept under stars, ate what strangers shared. Her boys asked why they were going. "Because the Dragon God sent His son to die for people like us," she told them. "And His sister calls us to make it right."
When they reached Meereen, Mirael's feet were raw, her sons exhausted. Yet as they pushed through the crowd, she saw Daenerys on the pyramid—silver hair whipping, voice steady—and felt a calm settle over her. The queen spoke of suffering, of justice, of an eternal family that would never abandon its own. Mirael clutched her sons close. When Daenerys raised her bleeding hand and cried, "God wills it!" Mirael answered with tears streaming. "God wills it," she whispered, then shouted it until her throat burned.
She would not fight with a sword. She would cook for the warriors, mend their clothes, tend their wounds, teach her sons the bible. But she would be part of it. For her husband. For every widow left behind.
Kael, the Orphan Boy of Myr
Kael was eleven, small for his age, quick with his fingers. He had stolen bread to live since his mother died of fever. When a street preacher spoke of the Messiah's death and return, Kael listened from the shadows. "He came back," the preacher said. Kael's heart thudded. His mother had never come back.
He followed the preacher for days, then joined a group heading east. They fed him scraps, taught him prayers. In Meereen he slipped through legs to the front of the plaza. He saw Daenerys—beautiful, terrible, bleeding for them all—and felt something fierce bloom inside him.
When the chant rose, Kael screamed it louder than anyone. "God wills it!" He had no sword, no armor, but he had anger and hope. He would carry water, run messages, steal supplies if needed. He would see the usurpers burn. For his mother. For the man who died like a god so boys like him could dream of more than scraps.
In the Spiritual Space, Alex watched them all—Lhara tying her red band, Torren raising his fist, Mirael clutching her sons, Kael shouting with everything he had. Thousands more streamed in from every direction, drawn by the same fragile, burning thing: belief that suffering could mean something, that vengeance could be holy, that family—eternal family—could rise from ashes.
Daenerys looked out over them, her eyes wet but unyielding. The First Crusade was no longer just an army. It was a people on the move.