Chapter Text
"I know you’d tell me I have a right to all seven kingdoms, and I do, but it’s better this way. It bought their alliance, and that’s what I need here if I want to rule, isn’t it? It won’t work the way we did it in Essos, not in the long run.”
She gets no answer; Ser Jorah lies still and lifeless, his calloused hand hot in Dany’s, sweat running down his face in large, glistening beads. Dany talked to Grey Worm after meeting with the Starks, and he reported that only nine out of nearly a hundred injured Unsullied died last night, all the others – at least those who survived the battle – are out of danger. Ser Jorah is not out of danger; he survived the night, much to Maester Wolken’s surprise as he told her first thing in the morning, but the blood loss has weakened him greatly, and the fever might be too much still.
“I need allies like them,” she tells him, “but more than them, I need you. You can’t leave me.”
She can’t know if he hears her, but if he does, she knows he will fight, like he always does. For her.
On the bedside table, there is a bowl with water and some clean rags; Dany wets one of them and carefully washes his face. He sighs as the cool cloth touches his forehead – which is a good sign, isn’t it? – and she takes her time, mapping his face: his wrinkled brow, the cheeks and chin rough with stubble, the folds of his neck, which must have been smooth once, when he was her age.
He has been taking care of her for so long, now it’s her turn to give something back to him, however little it may help. If only there were something more she could do! Dany has never been very patient; she knows it’s one of her weaknesses.
There’s a sound from across the room, then another, and Dany turns to see Theon Greyjoy toss and turn under his furs, moaning – whether from pain or from nightmares, she can’t tell. Dany gets up and walks over to him; he, too, is burning with fever, face red and drenched in sweat. He’s mouthing words, but Dany doesn’t hear anything; it’s only when she brings her ear close to his face that she understands them.
“Bran,” he murmurs, “San…Sansa…” He keeps repeating their names in between quick, shallow breaths, and Dany means to hear “safe”, too, and “sorry”.
“They’re all right,” she tells him as she touches his shoulder. “Bran and Sansa, and Jon and Arya, too. They’re all safe, the battle is over.”
She’s got to repeat it several times before he falls silent; like with Ser Jorah, she isn’t sure whether he heard her at all. But he’s still restless, and he, too, has a bowl of water standing at his bedside. Just when Dany presses the wet cloth to his forehead the door opens behind her.
It’s Lady Sansa, and Dany cedes her place, offering the cloth to her. She accepts it with a grateful nod and goes on washing Lord Theon’s face with the same slow, gentle touches as Dany had used on Ser Jorah.
“He’ll live,” she says quietly when she is almost finished and Lord Theon has calmed again, and it takes Dany a moment to understand that the words were addressed to her. “They survived the night, now they’ll both live, they have to.”
It's wishful thinking, but it’s no different from Dany’s own hope.
“Do you keep the Seven, Your Grace?”
“Not really,” Dany says. “I wasn’t taught much about them, or about any other gods.” The servants who had raised her in the beginning had spoken of the Seven, but there were no Septs in Essos, and she had never quite believed their tales. Viserys had told her that they needed no gods – they were Targaryens and would take what was theirs with fire and blood. Neither the Seven nor the gods of Old Valyria or those of Essos had featured into his plans, none had ever helped them. And everything Dany has accomplished so far, she has done by her own strength.
“You still keep the old gods in the North, do you not?” She knows nothing about them, only that they are prayed to under trees.
“I used to favour the Seven. They were my mother’s gods,” Lady Sansa explains as she puts away the damp rag and rises from Lord Theon’s bedside. “My father built her a sept here at Winterfell. But these days, I find myself praying to the old gods instead. Going South has never brought my family luck, and the Seven never seemed to answer.”
Dany doubts that the old gods are any different but knows better than to say it out loud.
“Will you come with me to the godswood, Your Grace? I would like to go and pray for Theon, and I thought maybe you’d like to pray for Ser Jorah as well.”
Dany doesn’t believe it will make any difference, but she hates feeling this helpless, and it’s the only thing she can do for him now. And they’re his gods as well, aren’t they, so it would make more sense for her to come to them with this than the Seven. They’ve never spoken about faith but once, late at night as they’d sat together in front of her tent in the sands of Essos. He had told her of Bear Island, then, and how he missed the godswood where he would pray.
“The Gods can’t hear me here,” he’d said, and she had wondered if he was feeling as displaced as her, or even more.
“Thank you,” she tells Lady Sansa now, “I’ll gladly go with you.”
They leave Ser Jorah and Lord Theon with one of the servants who watch over them and head for the main entrance. It’s still uncomfortable between them, and Dany wishes she could spend more time with Missandei instead – with her, there is no awkward silence, no need to carefully choose every word in order to not cause offence. But Lady Sansa invited her, and it’s more than Dany would have hoped for just a short while ago. She can’t miss this chance.
Once they have donned furs and gloves against the cold and stepped outside into the yard, Lady Sansa offers her arm, and Dany takes it without hesitation. It’s a clever demonstration, she thinks as they slowly make their way towards the godswood, as most everything she has seen Lady Sansa do and say is clever. Their people are watching them, and Dany makes a point to look engaged, to nod and smile as they talk about supplies and the progress of the clean-up. It’s not hard to do, she finds, now that she no longer feels so unwelcome.
As they walk through the crumbled gate to the godswood, though, Dany isn’t so sure of that anymore. Despite the daylight it’s dark here, the trees looming over her like ancient giants, and the thick snow that has fallen since the battle seems to swallow all sound. She’s walked through old forests before, back in Essos, dangerous to be sure, with trees taller than these and wild beasts roaming, easy to get killed or lost in forever. There are no wild beasts here and the forest is small, walled in on all sides by the castle, and yet…
She chances a look at Lady Sansa – they’re still walking arm in arm – and finds her returning her gaze. Has she been watching Dany?
“When I went South to the capital with my father, before the war, I was eager to leave,” Lady Sansa says. “I wanted to experience something different, to go someplace where there would be more than the cold and the snow and my family. I expected gallant knights and beautiful ladies like in the songs, tourneys, and whatever else a sheltered, silly child might imagine finding at court.” Her lips purse, and she looks away from Dany at the path ahead. “What I found were lies and cruelty, a nest of vipers painted over with gold and false smiles. My father never truly wanted to go. I didn’t understand him at first, but I learnt my lesson soon enough. Since the day he was falsely arrested, all I wanted was to return home again.”
Dany wonders what she wants to tell her when they stop walking at the edge of a clearing. In the middle of it, there is a tree unlike any Dany has seen before. It’s taller than the others, with thick branches spreading from the trunk not far above the ground. Its leaves are the colour of blood, and its bark – if she didn’t know better, Dany would think the tree wasn’t made of living, growing wood, but of bone.
“When we first met,” Lady Sansa goes on, “and the only thing you could think to say to me was that I was beautiful…” She shakes her head, letting go of Dany’s arm as she turns to face her. “All I could see was Cersei. Another queen who came North, believing that Westeros and its people were hers to rule for no other reason than because she wished it so, and that shallow compliments could hide her true intentions. Another viper. Cersei fooled me at first, but I wouldn’t let you do the same. That day, I told you that Winterfell was yours, but it never would have been. Not in any sense that matters.”
Dany only has to think of how she had felt at the feast to know that the last bit is true. As for the rest, she wants to protest – this is not at all what she had intended! – but Lady Sansa doesn’t give her the time.
“I was wrong in my assessment of you, I have to admit it. You fought with us. And now you relinquished your claim to the North. I can’t help but think that it’s not only because Jon’s claim to the Iron Throne is better than yours and this is how to retain the other kingdoms, or is it?”
“It’s not.” Dany doesn’t relish the idea of discussing her motives, but there is something about the way Lady Sansa tries not to clench her hands by her sides, the way her searching eyes bore into Dany’s that makes her believe she’s sincere. Before the battle, all their interactions had been calmly polite - a mask, Dany realises, nothing more. If she reacts wrongly now...
“I hadn’t understood how much the North means to Jon, to all of you. I’ve never known what it means to have a home like this.” The words taste bitter in her mouth; it’s only Missandei who has ever heard her say them before, and even then, they had been hard to force out. “Growing up, my brother and I were only ever guests in other people’s homes, and Dragonstone and the Red Keep have never been more than tales to me. But this…” She looks around them, gesturing at the snow-covered trees looming above them. “I’ve never been here, and I barely know you, yet I can feel that this is where you belong – and I never will.”
Lady Sansa, and Jon, and the other Northerners Dany has met – they connect with this place, they live and breathe it; the snows and the cold, the spirit and murmurs of age-old trees, the warmth of a fire as the winds howl around Winterfell.
“I envy you.” It slips before Dany can think better of it. “For your home, and your family.” Almost, she feels her voice cracking, and she hates admitting yet one more weakness. Is this truly the way, making herself so vulnerable, when only being strong and keeping her own counsel has ever helped her before?
Then Lady Sansa steps forward and grasps Dany’s hands in hers. “I did mean what I said earlier today: you can never have enough family.” Her fingers tighten around Dany’s as she speaks. “You’re Jon’s family, and he is mine. If we both want it, if we try... I believe we could be family someday.”
Mutely, Dany nods her acceptance – she’d expected anything but this, and she doesn’t know what to say. Her eyes are burning, and she looks down at their clasped hands for a while as heat rushes through her blood, warming her despite the icy winter chill. Thankfully, Lady Sansa gives her the time she needs to compose herself.
“There’s more, though,” she finally says, when she no longer feels as if she might cry once she opens her mouth. “Tell me, what would you be willing to give away if your gods gave you Lord Theon’s life in return?” Looking up into Lady Sansa’s eyes, which are dark with pain at her words, Dany has no doubt that she understands.
“I see. One of seven kingdoms doesn’t seem like too high of a price,” Lady Sansa agrees. Slowly, she steps back, letting go of Dany. “Let us go and pray, then. I hope the gods accept your offer.”
Still, Dany doubts that any gods who could consider it even exist, but she follows Lady Sansa as she approaches the red-and-white tree. When they are close, she sees that there is something carved into its bark, a face contorted in what looks like pain, red tree-sap trickling down from the cuts like blood.
“Is it fresh?” Did they maybe cut it before the battle, in some Northern ritual to ask the old gods for their favour?
“No. The children of the forest cut the faces into the Weirwood trees during the Age of Dawn,” Lady Sansa explains. “Before Bran the Builder built Winterfell eight thousand years ago, this tree was already here, as was its face.” She reaches out, trailing her fingers over the pale bark.
Dany shivers. Blood and bone of the North, she can’t help but think. “How do I pray? What are their names, how do I address them?”
“The old gods have no shapes or names.” Lady Sansa smiles as she looks up into the red canopy. “It used to bother my mother. How can you pray to someone you don’t even know by name?, that’s what she once asked my father. He told her he didn’t need names. That his gods were in the earth, in the winds, the animals, in the snows, and he knew all those as he knew himself. As he knew the North.”
Slowly, Dany thinks she begins to understand. “So, am I right to assume there is no book like the Seven-Pointed Star, and no rituals, either?”
“You’re right. There are no songs or rituals, nothing like with the Seven. Just stand here, or sit, or kneel, and pray in silence. The Gods watch through the faces. Bran says that sometimes, he can hear it in the leaves when they answer.”
She won’t kneel, Dany thinks as she watches Lady Sansa close her eyes and clasp her hands in front of her stomach. Not for men, and not for gods either. Once she sits the Iron Throne, she’ll have to participate in the rituals of the Seven; she hasn’t really thought about it much, but she has realised that if she wants her people to trust her instead of ruling over them with fear, she’ll have to take part in their customs. For now, though, she’s glad that this entails nothing more than thinking her wishes – her prayers – under a tree.
She observes Lady Sansa, who stands still as a statue, a frown on her face as she pleads with her gods for the man she loves, then Dany sits on a large boulder and closes her eyes as well. Not knowing how to begin, all she does is listen to the sounds of the godswood for a long while. It’s silent here, despite the bustle of the castle being so close; all that she hears is her own breathing. It feels natural, peaceful - maybe this silence, too, is part of how Northerners pray?
You’re not my gods, she thinks in the end, directing her thoughts at the Weirwood, and you don’t know me, but the one I pray for knows you, and you know him as well. He is Jorah Mormont of Bear Island – of the North. I don’t know if our names mean anything to you, but he has prayed to you under a Weirwood tree in the past, as I am doing now.
Before her mind’s eye, she tries to imagine a younger Ser Jorah, with a less wrinkled face and fuller hair, clad in a warm, furred cloak as he kneels under a Weirwood tree on a small glade. How many times has he talked to his gods like this, and will she ever get to see him in his family’s godswood on Bear Island? It’s something Dany hadn’t realised she wanted before; she’s only ever imagined him by her side in King’s Landing.
She is stirred from her thoughts by approaching footsteps crunching in the snow and looks up: a servant is whispering to Lady Sansa, who turns to leave with him after an apologetic nod to Dany. A ruler’s duties are never far away, Dany thinks, but she can take a bit longer. Again, she closes her eyes.
He’s wounded, she tells the old gods. He fought against the army of the undead, he defended me, and all of Westeros. He defended the North, too, your people. Now they’re not sure if he will live or die. But he can’t die on me. I need him. I . . . I love him. If I can be with any man again in my life, it’s him, and now that I realised it, it might be too late. I don’t know what I would do if I lost him.
Right now, she doesn’t even feel as if she could win this war and reign if it happened. She knows that somehow, she would make it through, like she did after Drogo’s death, but she doesn’t want to imagine the pain, and also, it’s not really the same. She was sold to Drogo like cattle, and it was only luck that she learnt to love him – and that she was able to make herself into someone he could love as well. Ser Jorah has only ever loved her for herself.
Return him to me. If you exist, and if you know him, return him to me. I need him by my side, and it’s where he wants to be.
There is no answer as she stills her thoughts, no breeze rustling the leaves – and had she truly expected it? Dany sighs, listening to the snow-thick silence. Is she a fool for hoping, for being desperate enough to beg for the help of strange gods who have no reason to grant her request?
I’m letting Jon Snow keep his crown. The people of the North will be free from the Iron Throne, as they used to be. What more could I give you?
Dany opens her eyes, looking up at the Weirwood leaves, which look like a sea of blood through the warm tears running down her cheeks – and it’s then that she remembers.
It had been when they’d been guests at Lady Galatea’s house in Essos, their host before Magister Illyrio, and Dany can’t have been older than ten or eleven. There had been a teacher, hired to teach her some of her people’s history. He’d been a kindly old man, and she’d cried when he had died after no more than five moons. He had mentioned the old gods – that they were prayed to under trees, as she’d remembered before they went to the godswood, but also that there used to be Weirwood trees all over Westeros, and that the Andals had cut all of them them down south of the Neck, when they conquered these lands, bringing with them the faith of the Seven.
Now, Dany knows what she can offer.
“If he lives, I’ll plant a Weirwood in the godswood at the Red Keep. I’ll have to keep the new gods, too, for my people, and I can’t make them believe in you, but I swear it to you: if Jorah lives, the old gods will be worshipped by the Iron Throne, and everyone in Westeros will know it.”
Again, all that follows is silence, and after a while, Dany smiles, shaking her head. The magic she’s witnessed, the eerie atmosphere of the godswood, her desperate wish for Ser Jorah’s survival – together they made her almost believe that it might be possible, that men could talk with gods – if they exist at all – and receive an answer. Well. She knows better now. All she can do is wait and hope. But she won’t renege on her promise: if Ser Jorah survives, she will plant a Weirwood tree and pray under it for all the world to see, no matter the existence of any gods, old or new.
It’s at that thought that a gust of icy wind hits her, freezing the last tears on her cheeks and making the leaves above her rustle. When it has passed, one large, blood-red leaf slowly floats down, settling on the snow just before her. It could be a sign – or it could be coincidence. Either way, Dany is glad she came here today. If she hadn’t, she would not have the new understanding with Lady Sansa, and the quiet here has helped her clear her mind. It’s not so hard to see the appeal of going to the woods for prayer.
She is still contemplating it when she hears footsteps and looks up to see Missandei approaching.
“Your Grace! It’s Ser Jorah – his fever broke. He’s awake and asking for you.”