The Red Waste did not forgive.
The days stretched long and blistering, the sun a merciless eye that never blinked. Sand scoured skin raw, and the wind carried no mercy, 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 melody 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, Elena listened.
The tune is beautiful… but I still cannot make sense of it.
Days she had listened. Days she had strained to catch patterns, to separate sound from meaning. The Dothraki language slipped through her 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 amethyst 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.
Elena blinked inwardly.
That sounded important… The cadence was reverent. Hopeful.
Stallion… I've heard that word before. Is she perhaps praising me? But the rest was lost to her.
Frustration pricked like sand beneath her skin.
Come 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. Somewhere 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 seemed another trick of the sun, pale shapes wavering in the distance, half-lost in shimmer. 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 loomed. 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 flame.
Next she turned to Irri. "Bring him."
Irri stepped forward, placing Rhaego carefully into Daenerys' arms. For a moment, 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 flame," 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.
Elena felt the air change as they descended the last slope.
The scent reached her first.
Salt.
Then she saw it.
The walls… They were enormous.
Not like the cities of her world, not concrete and glass, but something 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 came without mockery now. No sarcasm. Only awe. From a distance on a television screen it had seemed 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.
Elena'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 men 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 emerged. One by one at first, then in disciplined ranks.
Their shields gleamed 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 welcome,"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 same 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 emerged a procession of men in flowing silks, their garments bright as jewels.
At their head waddled a bald, heavyset man draped in embroidered silk. Rings gleamed 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 measured.
"My name is Daenerys—"
"Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen," the man interrupted smoothly, smiling as though greeting an old acquaintance.
Daenerys stilled.
"You know me, my lord?"
"Only by reputation, Khaleesi," he replied with a courteous incline of his head. "And I am no lord. Merely a humble merchant."
His smile widened slightly.
"They call you the Mother of Dragons."
"And what should I call you?" she asked.
"My name 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 men 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 merchant corrected gently, though the interruption was deliberate.
A silence followed.
"...Qarth," Daenerys repeated, correcting herself without lowering her gaze.
The merchant's smile lingered.
"Might we see the dragons?" he asked lightly, though his eyes sharpened with interest.
Daenerys glanced back toward the basket where flame 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 me, Mother of Dragons," the man interrupted smoothly, his tone courteous but unyielding. "But no man alive has seen a living dragon. Some 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 merchant replied pleasantly. "But as I have never met you before, my opinion on the matter is of limited value."
A faint smile touched Daenerys' lips not amusement, but frustration.
"Where I come from," she said, "guests are treated with respect, not insulted at the gates."
"Then perhaps," he said gently, "you should return to where you come 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 me."
The merchant 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 become 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 merchant conferred in low tones with the other silk-clad men. Their laughter drifted faint and dry across the heat-shimmering 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 hammered suns caught the light; spearpoints glimmered like a field of frozen stars.
For a moment, Daenerys Targaryen stood very still.
The Red Waste had taken much from her.
She would not beg.