Chapter Text
305 AC, King’s Landing
Daenerys
So, this was the third treason then, the one for love. Who loved whom? Daenerys wondered if there was even love?
Love was Jorah, Missandei, Viserion, Rhaegal, her Dothraki and her Unsullied, people who left the only home they’ve known to follow her so she could reclaim her home that she’d never known. And they were gone now, so was love. Her fire and blood were gone too.
Dead.
Last thing she saw, her lover-nephew-murderer’s sorrowful face and the last thing she heard, her son’s sorrowful cry.
***
305 AC, Somewhere above the jade sea
Drogon
So tired. He was so tired all he wanted to do was stop and close his eyes. He’d been hungry a long time ago and thirsty too and angry. Yes, so much anger and pain at the loss of his brothers but now there was nothing. He couldn’t feel mother anymore so he couldn’t feel anything.
He was going to take mother away where nobody could ever hurt her. Mother will wake up once she knows she’s safe.
He doesn’t know where he is flying to, never taken to these skies before. He hears them though, not like green and gold brother but something similar, calling him and mother.
So, he gathers his remaining strength and flies to them.
***
305 AC, Volantis
Kinvara
“Zyhys perzys stepagon Aeksio Oño jorepi, se morghultas lys qelitsos sikagon”
She has never been afraid to get close to the flames. To see the truth, one must burn. But tonight, the flames are unbearably hot, she’s not even close to the hearth and she feels them searing.
“…āeksio ōños mīsagon īlva, āeksio ōños mīsagon kivio dārilaros…”
Her fellow servants of the lord continue their chanting but it’s amplified, more enthused than any other day. Of course it is, the priests and priestesses of the temple of R’hllor have been waiting for a long time for this moment.
It is bittersweet, to pray for the lord’s champion but not be able to see his will delivered before her eyes. But Kinvara is the first servant to her lord, a mere desire to satiate her eyes won’t stray her from the path she has walked on for so long.
So, her lips chant and she move towards the fire, she’ll burn if the lord wills or she’ll see the truth amongst the dancing flames, either way it will be her salvation.
“…āeksio hen ōños jehikagon aōha ōños…
They move then, not like flames would, but like waves. Aggressive, angry waves during a storm. They crash at a huge structure, something so black it appears to be devouring the waves instead.
Then she sees her, atop the structure, unfazed by the storm and the darkness, watching the sky as if the sun will shine any minute now, dispelling the darkness.
Kinvara would have thought it to be an illusion if she were anyone else, because the sky does light up. A single burst of flame so bright it casts light upon the shadows.
It descends then, moving with a purpose, right at the top of the inky black stone, but she doesn’t try to run or flinch even. She smiles. The dragon, because of course who else could it be if not fire made flesh, lands and breaths as much of fire he could muster right beside her.
She moves towards him gently, as if placating a scared child and he roars although pitifully. He is protecting something in his claws.
Or someone.
She whispers to him, offering him a hand to sniff. He hesitates, then cautiously presses his snout against it. He rumbles and whines, finally revealing what or whom he guards with his life.
“Oh!” Her knees buckle and she is on the ground, scattered ambers from the hearth burning her fingers and the hem of her robes, but it is nothing compared to the burning she feels in her chest, hadn’t thought it physically possible after so long.
A slave child’s panicked attempts to prevent her robe from catching fire is what brings her out of the trance. The child is tugging at her fingers now.
“Abrȳrys! Ivestragī issa mōr aōha sûl!” She smiles then.
“No child! This doesn’t hurt.”
She saw what her lord wanted her to see. She knows what part she must play. She looked back at the fire as if expecting it will call to her again but knowing it won’t, not yet.
“This doesn’t hurt at all.”
***
305 AC, Asshai
The shadowbinder
She’s here.
Fire made flesh, mother of dragons, the unburnt. Not unkillable though, not defensible against betrayal either. But not alone anymore.
She’d been waiting in the shadows after their first-last meeting. Contemplating, plotting…regretting. She’d existed for so long that emotions have always seemed like a distant phenomenon to her but this…inaction, it had roiled her unfeeling visage until she had almost decided to leave the shadows once again. But it wasn’t time yet then, she’d needed to wait right here.
The wait was over now.
She gestured the shadowbinders waiting behind her to carry the queen inside the tower. They moved, one with the shadow, but Drogon, his mother’s dutiful son although weakened let loose a fearsome roar in warning. The shadowbinders paused, not out of fear but respect.
She moved to him, his maw close to her, eyes level with hers. Gently she soothed him, he was a predator sure but one who was burdened with loss and grief, so alone without the bond to his brothers and mother.
“Drogon, aōha muñnykeā iksos ȳgha sir. Ao kostagon dēmas. Nyke'll gūrogon aorō hen zȳhon.”
He stared, searching and contemplating, the shadowbinder met his gaze patiently, and he might’ve found what he was looking for because then he huffed and gently nudged his mother towards the other shadowbinders.
The queen was carried to a room in the tower. It was plain, sparsely furnished but it would do. She was placed on a hard bed, and with the exit of those who caried her came two masked women, one carrying a simple linen cloth, soap and a bucket, the other carrying a basket full of vials resembling tincture, gauze and other medicinal herbs.
They began to methodically strip her of her tunic, being extra careful while dislodging the dagger beneath her breast. The wound was clean, precise. They cleaned the blood surrounding the wound and her lips, unbraided her hair that was tangled in a mess. When they were done, the queen lay naked on the bed, she was pale, paler than her valyrian hair and cold, the fire made flesh was so cold. They left as they came, leaving behind a simple black cloak draped over the only chair in the room.
At last, the shadowbinder enters. She pauses at the door, silently taking in the queen who lies lifeless. She drags the chair beside her bed and sits on it. Once she'd known this queen, leading her meagre khalasar, lacking resources but so full of hope and determination to lead her people to a better place, so full of fire.
Now her fire is dead.
The shadowbinder reaches to smooth a curl on the queen’s head, momentarily her eyes carrying a softness no one, not even herself thought her capable of.
“Your dreams come true Daenerys Stormborn, but so do your nightmares.”
She gets up unhurriedly, eyes catching the glint of a dagger. No, not any dagger, the valyrian steel dagger that ended him and unfortunately her too. She picks it up; it has been cleaned of the queen’s blood revealing the engraving on it.
“Hen issa ānogar, māzigon kivio dārilaros se zȳhon jāhor sagon se vāedar hen suvion se perzys.”
Behind the shadowbinder’s mask there is a slight upward tick of her lips. With an abrupt motion she runs the dagger along her wrist and pours the blood in the queen’s heart through the open wound.
There is no pain just a certainty, she knows what needs to be done.
“To touch the light, you must pass beneath the shadow." She whispers.
She removes her hand, a few minutes pass, few more and her wrist is healed, scarless. She waits and waits, watches the queen. It would have gone unnoticed if she hadn’t been staring, unblinking. A slight tremble of a finger, subtle scrunch of the eyebrows. And then, a gasp.
The queen is overwhelmed by broken coughs, clutching her chest, there are various emotions swirling in her wide-open eyes, horror, pain, betrayal. She is reliving the last moment before her death.
The shadowbinder is beside her now, holding her hands firmly to prevent her from harming herself. She whispers to the queen then, gently as if soothing a cornered animal.
“Daenerys, look at me.” The queen is startled out of her state after hearing an unfamiliar voice. The queen stares at her then, still disoriented and no trace of recognition in her eyes, for now. She looks around the room then, her gaze is still vigilant, probably searching for any sign of threat. The shadowbinder then releases her hands, deeming it safe. The queen takes few moments to observe her then opens her mouth as if to speak with great difficulty.
“Whe…*coughs*…where ahm…*coughs*..I?” She manages to murmur in a hoarse voice.
The shadowbinder picks up a cup of water, drinks from it herself and then offers it to the queen. The queen watches with rapt attention and still hesitates to take the cup. But after a moment of contemplation, thirst wins and she is gulping the whole cup with abandon. When she is done, she looks at the shadowbinder and offers a hesitant ‘thank you’.
The shadowbinder speaks then, “Daenerys Stormborn, you are in Asshai.” That gets a reaction out of the queen, not the one she would have expected though.
“Do the mad Targaryens go to Asshai after death? Is my father here?”
The shadowbinder is momentarily stunned, then she finds her lips moving upwards on their own behind the mask, strange. She answers, “No. You are not dead.”
The queen sharply looks at her then and laughs, its hollow and lifeless, like her.
“I am dead. No one could survive that…that dagger to the heart.”
“Someone did. You know him.” Even the mention of him has her trembling, with fear or hatred or anger or all three. But then, the trembling stops, she has realized something.
“No...no.” She whispers brokenly. “You shouldn’t have…no no no...” The trembling returns and it is more violent than before. The shadowbinder calls upon the shadows then, the queen’s hands are bound by shadows and the shadowbinder holds her face, forcing her to look at her. The queen resists but still keeps her eyes on the shadowbinder.
“You are not dead, but you are not alive either. I am no priestess of R’hllor.” The queen stares at her, taking in all the details, her inky black robes blending with the shadows, the only color, her red mask. A flicker, a memory resurfaces of a time and place of past. Finally realizationdawns.
The shadowbinder releases her then, and so do the shadows.
“No, you are not a red priestess.” The shadowbinder smiles behind her mask.
“You are Quaithe."
***