Daenerys?

  Lady Tyene's breath tickled her ear, but the words escaped her. Some moons ago she dreamed of a wolf with a snake coiling around its throat. She hadn't thought much of it, for she also dreamed of stranger things. A dragon white as snow. A flayed man with a bloody smile. A rose with a face. A star black as night.

  None of it had made a thimble of sense to her until she watched the grim northern lord claw at his throat as the strangler stole the breath from him. If not for the lady brushing out the curls from her hair, the poison would have surely completed its wicked work.

  Or perhaps it had only been delayed, for he had yet to wake, and the maester said he never might, having lost blood enough to fell a man.

  Dany wondered if she should feel a sense of vindication. Viserys, for all Solomon's words often passed his lips, had smiled at the sight. Some part of her brother still burned at what befell them.

  For her part, she had not found the cruel lord Viserys had always painted for her. Instead she remembered his eyes turning haunted as soon as she asked him of the brother she had never met.

  Before she had found herself in Dorne, all she knew of Rhaegar was how he was beloved by the realm, how he died for the woman he loved, slain by the Usurper in the waters of the Trident run red with blood. But Dorne did not love Rhaegar. Dorne loathed the very memory of him, Prince Oberyn most of all, for he had said that Rhaegar cursed Elia Martell when he stole away with Lyanna Stark, dooming the realm to a war that saw all their deaths.

  She only stirred from her thoughts when she felt the brush pull away from her hair. Tyene's knowing eyes met her own as she took her hands in hers.

  "If your thoughts were any farther, they might fall out."

  "I dreamed of it," Dany admitted softly. "There was a wolf, brown and grey, and around his neck was a snake the color of wine."

  "It seems to me your dreams tell you just enough to haunt you, princess. Would be that they also told you where and when and by whose hand."

  The words mirrored her own frustrations.

  "Is there anyone you suspect?" she questioned curiously.

  A tinkling laugh left Tyene's lips for it. "It would be easier to tell you who I do not suspect. There are few who don't stand to benefit from such a ploy."

  A sigh left her own lips. The Seven Kingdoms were still half a mystery to her… "What will happen now?"

  "We can expect Renly to turn this to his advantage whether or not he or the flowers had any hand in it. Prince Doran shall find it harder to delay. Past that…" The lady shrugged her shoulders. "…it is harder to say. Much depends on whether our lord of Stark will wake at all."

  While Viserys had often spoken about the Usurper and the brother that had driven them from Dragonstone, he had never so much as mentioned the youngest brother.

  The night she found herself immersed in dreams again, dreams that seared into her very soul.

  There was a rose with a face again, petals bright as the sun. Until a dragon black as night brought fiery ruin, the heat scouring the world.

  A red sword rose high to meet the sunrise next, in the hands of a man who cast no shadow. He stood upon a wall of ice higher than Sunspear, with breadth enough for an elephant to walk upon it.

  Within it rested as dragon white as the snow that fell from a lightless sky. Its eyes were red as blood one moment, grey as a storm the next, then blue as forget-me-nots. It curled in on itself as a queer sound broke the quiet.

  She reached out her hand, only to touch a puff of smoke instead. No, a cloud. She was flying.

  Beneath her wings a giant strode the land, the shadow of a crown upon his head. His furious eyes met hers, and the next she knew she had sprung from her bed, slick with sweat.

  Her dreams did not come for her again, leaving her to stir from her sheets. She walked past a score doors before her bare feet touched the balcony, and there she stared out across the sea, as black as pitch beneath a new moon.

  The breeze was pleasant as it danced across her skin, though her head still felt hot, like a fever sticking to her thoughts.

  "I see sleep eludes you also, princess."

  Her eyes met Lady Ellaria, a sad cast to her.

  "I had been the last to speak with him. Lord Stark. Now my words almost seem a mockery." A tired sigh left her lips, her dark eyes appearing even darker in the gloom of starlight. "Dorne seemed like the last place he wanted to be, and now he might breathe his last here. A singer with straw between his ears is like to make a song of it."

  Viserys had hated singers since hearing one sing a song about the "Beggar King" in Lys.

  Her tongue tied as what to say, but it didn't seem that the Lady Ellaria much minded.

  "I hope Elia hasn't given you too much trouble…"

  She suddenly remembered all the girl's boasts and taunts. "She's very… spirited, my lady."

  A fond smile took Lady Ellaria. "Yes. Nothing like her namesake, that one. Princess Elia was a gentle soul much like yourself." Dany returned an awkward smile for the compliment as the Dornishwoman touched her hand. "And I thank you for the courtesy."

  Her sun-kissed silks trailed after her as she left.

  Dany only watched the pitch-black waters a few breaths more before she followed. But not back to her rooms.

  The guard at the door was one she recognized, his armor a smoky blue-grey color but otherwise unadorned. He had deep shadows under his eyes.

  "I thought to say a few prayers, ser. To repay him for answering a girl's fool questions."

  "I'm no ser." He squinted at her. "Aye, I remember you."

  "Laeka of Lys, if it pleases you."

  Her heart still missed the girl by that name that she had seen spirited away from Illyrio Mopatis. She had asked for leave to take a ship to far Lhazar, to find her kin if they still lived.

  Dany had agreed, but only if she took a Dornish knight with her.

  "They keep the Seven in Lys?" the northerner asked doubtfully.

  "My mother did," she answered truthfully.

  He gave a noisy sigh. "As you say. Though I can't say why you southerners are so keen on it. Lord Stark only kept the old gods."

  Inside she found more a ghost than a man, the only color she saw being the blood-soaked linen wrapping around his throat. She still clasped her hands and whispered a few prayers as Ser Willem Darry had once showed her.

  Sleep seemed to find her more easily after.

  The days that followed had not seen any assassin caught. A raven had come from King's Landing, though she did not know its contents. Another had reached them proclaiming that Balon Greyjoy had taken up a crown again. She supposed that made the Lady Asha Greyjoy a princess now.

  It was near the turn of the seventh moon that a Santagar knight interrupted the noonday feast to report on a strange sight nearing Sunspear, a crewless galley in the Lyseni style drifting on the wind alone.

  Dany joined the small procession to the docks. Some part of her already knew.

  The ship that crawled into the shadow city's harbor was sleek, the color of honey bleached by the sun. While there was not a hint of another soul, the sorcerer that stood upon its pale white figurehead was hard to miss. The yellow of his silks drank in the sun more than she remembered, and stretched so long it near touched the water.

  Her brother next to her had a smile on his lips as hungry as it was excited.

  When Solomon touched the docks, she was surprised to see him changed again, his skin not pale as milk, but sun-kissed, his steps graceful. His black hair had a shine like dragonglass, tumbling low as he inclined his head to Prince Doran and her brother.

  "Volantis has served me well, Your Grace." His voice touched her ears like cream and honey as his dark eyes caught hers. "Princess."

  She smothered her relief as she returned a smile. She would not have him to see her as a girl that only cared if he was handsome.

  "I cannot help but notice that my brother isn't with you," Prince Doran spoke.

  "He mentioned something of wanting to find the companions of his youth, my prince."

  A sigh left the Dornish prince's lips where Lady Obara snorted.

  "But that does not mean I have come alone." At his words a sea of faces had come to stare down at them, many of them Valyrian in coloring. "Once slaves bound for the pillow houses of Lys, but no more. Their presence should only make it easier to hide your sister and yourself from wandering eyes, Your Grace."

  Prince Doran motioned to two of his knights after a moment. "They will be found rooms in Sunspear."

  Solomon returned a fair smile. "I assume our lord of Stark has yet to stir?"

  Not a soul there seemed surprised that he already knew. "Maester Caleotte is doubtful he will wake at all, but admits it isn't impossible," Prince Doran voiced.

  "We shall see," Solomon whispered, though those words seemed to stir something in her brother.

  "Lord Renly's new-made hound can wake at his leisure. This new usurper would not dare march an army through the Red Mountains, and soon all the realm will see its true heirs have returned."

  "Yes. In six turns of the moon the sky will bleed red, the world hearing a dragon's roar again for the first time in a hundred years." Viserys drank in the words like a fine wine, his pale lilac eyes shining like gemstones in the sunlight. "But if you are to rule the north in time…"

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Something sour crossed her brother for all he soon nodded. "A king must carry his subjects in his heart if he expects them to carry him in theirs," he repeated what Solomon had once said to him.

  Solomon touched a hand to his. "I have not returned from Volantis empty-handed."

  His eyes burned in curiosity as they returned to Sunspear, where a sword had somehow found the sorcerer's hand. A Valyran steel sword that he proffered to her brother.

  "It is not Blackfyre or even Dark Sister, but I hope you will accept it all the same."

  Its hilt was black steel, its pommel an amethyst more pink than purple as it caught on the sunlight from the high windows.

  "A kingly gift," her brother whispered as he held it aloft, the Valyrian steel drinking in the light.

  "It pleases me to hear it."

  Viserys returned it to its scabbard with a smile she knew as true. "You will take my sister's hand, yes?" he asked hopefully. "With you returned to us."

  Her heart fluttered for the question.

  "If she wishes me to," Solomon softly whispered after a breath, his dark eyes touching hers.

  "I do," she boldly said.

  Her brother took both their hands and brought them together as Prince Doran and what trusted members of his court watched. His hand was warm, she thought.

  "We can see you wed as soon as the next moon," Viserys mentioned next, his eyes far away.

  So soon? Her belly squirmed for the thought.

  It wasn't hard to understand her brother's mind. All the archons and magisters that had ever hosted them had whispered sweet words in their ears also. He would see Solomon bound to them not by words but by fire and blood.

  Dany gathered her courage again with a quirk of her lips. "Time enough to find handmaidens."

  Their betrothal made it easier to speak to him alone, yet he already knew her words before she spoke them. "I should warn you that prophecy is not without its pitfalls. You might not like what you find delving into it so deeply."

  Her heart was already set on it, and he seemed to know that also.

  "Then let us play that game of fates." He produced what seemed like cards, though not with any faces she knew. "Which dreams have occupied your thoughts most? You need only paint me a picture of them."

  Dany could only stare at how easily the cards moved in his hands, threading, spinning, sliding, his fingers as nimble as anything she'd ever seen.

  Stirring herself, she tried to capture them in her mind, and only then did her lips part to speak…

  The Warrior?

  His muscles ached worse than after a watch aboard that bedamned galley. Freedom was sweeter than any wine, but hard kept, for it seemed as if the whole world had come to the Disputed Lands with him. It had only been a sennight since he had smashed the head of some fool from buggering Qarth.

  His lady love drew another grunt from him as she cradled his tired member in her hand. A hard day's work was hard enough, but she had always made sure that his nights weren't any easier.

  Heh. As much trouble it was, he couldn't say he hadn't grown fond of her.

  "You'll be the death of me, woman," he groused anyway.

  "I find that unlikely when you've broken any man that's tried you." Her legs rubbed against his as she coaxed him back to life.

  Soon she had him between them again. She was nothing like the woman that haunted his dreams, dusky where she was pale, plump where she was skin and bones. She even squealed into his ear happily, where the harpy in his dreams only scowled at him.

  The only thing alike were their curls, though hers were more copper than gold. He tangled his meaty fingers in them as he spilled inside her again.

  He fell back when he was finished, his muscles protesting every way they could protest.

  She chuckled for the tired sigh he gave as she tangled a nail in his chest hairs black as coals. "You'll get your well-earned rest after you seed my womb with another son or daughter."

  He snorted like the boar his boys named him. "You'll have it coming out of your ears if you persist."

  "It would do Ollo well, don't you think? He already looks up to you. Now he dreams of becoming one of your knights from the Sunset Kingdoms."

  He snorted again. What did he know of knighthood beyond some half-remembered vows? He did not even know what he was a knight of. Some piss creek with a harpy for a wife, he imagined.

  He was well rid of it.

  Her heavy teats pressed into his side as she pulled his beard to look at her. "You've been brooding more lately."

  "I'm not brooding, woman. Only thinking."

  "You'll need your rest for tomorrow. It's almost time for a harvest."

  He knew bugger-all about farming, but he nodded his head anyway. Would that the Others buggered his dreams also, for they haunted him again that night.

  The morning found his manhood smothered in the fleshy cheeks of his lady love. A fine way to wake, to be sure.

  He filled his belly with rabbit and a hunk of fire-charred bread 'fore he walked the short journey to a clearing near the village. It wasn't the first village they had found after they abandoned the galley to rot in the sun, but it was the first that had accepted them. Talk of turning bandit had died as soon as he bloodied the nose of the first fool to suggest it.

  He might not remember what he was a knight of, but he remembered the part where he was charged to defend the innocent. That was enough for him.

  He waited until they all arrived. A handful were even boys from the village, green as grass.

  "Aren't you a sorry sight," he boomed. "If those Myrish cunts hadn't piss for stones, half of you would have already been gutted."

  None of them complained. Small blessings.

  "You'll be practicing until you can spear a man through his throat in your buggering sleep."

  He did not say how they were all dead men as soon as something more than a score stragglers thought the village made for fun prey. He would take as many of the whoresons with him as he could, and that would be the end of it.

  He knew that moment had come when one of their hunters warned them of a company moving their way. Lyseni, by the looks of it.

  They would be here by nightfall tomorrow.

  His resolve to meet some glorious end haunted him now. Not for himself but for the woman who might carry his son or daughter in her belly.

  Yet there was nowhere safe to send them. This war would only get more ugly.

  It was when he looked up at the sky that it struck him. There was a storm coming, and it would turn the ground to mud. Sixteen men against a hundred… gods, even if it rained hard and wide, it might not be enough.

  But there was a chance. That was all he needed.

  The rains fell through the night and continued through the day. It was the best they could hope for.

  They departed around noon. They'd need to surprise them where the mud was worst to have even the whisper of a chance.

  The sun had near to set when they had found it. A muddy creek that stank of rot and mildew that the Lyseni would have to cross lest they brave worse.

  He hid behind a great old willow, its leaves shielding him from the rains. In his hand was a misshapen monster of a hammer. It felt more right than any dandy's sword.

  The sound of marching songs and complaining touched his ears first, the wet, slippery sounds of hooves and boots tracking through mud following shortly. This might be where he died. Some nameless piss creek surrounded by a bunch of Lyseni cunts.

  Heh. Where better?

  He waited for the crack of thunder to strike, and the heavens answered.

  The first Lyseni he found choked on his own teeth. The second had his head cracked open down the center. The third drowned in his own blood with a collapsed throat. The fourth, the fifth and the sixth died much the same. The seventh screamed something about a demon.

  That one made him laugh. Under the rain and thunder, maybe it did sound as a demon's.

  The mud hardly bothered him, but the Lyseni hadn't the same luck. He fought without a shred of honor for he could not afford its price. Each cunt that so much as stumbled soon found a hammer where their head was.

  Then he caught sight of a dandy on a filly. Silver hair and silver armor. The silver cunt had some skill, opening the throat of one of his boys as he carved through the ranks, but soon he was upon him.

  Any knight worth his salt would not have caught his hammer on his shield, and the folly saw the cunt take flight for all of a breath. He caught a flash of angry purple eyes when thunder cracked again, that fancy armor all caked in mud now. He laughed with the storm.

  Another heavy blow cracked his shield. A third broke his arm outright. The cunt could only stare at him in horror when his hammer found his chest.

  The Lyseni routed as soon as it had, and none too soon. He had come here with sixteen men, and only six now stood. It was as sweet as it was sour.

  His eyes trailed to the silver corpse at his feet again, purple eyes dead and lifeless. It stirred in him a name that choked his thoughts in loathing.

  A name he could have spat. Rhaegar.