He came back at dawn and found Daenerys curled up on the bed, asleep, the green dragon egg clutched to her chest.
She had drawn herself into a small, tight ball around it.
He tried to move quietly.
He still woke her.
Daenerys opened her eyes, saw him, and slowly pushed herself upright.
Her hair was a tangled mess.
Sleep-marks creased her cheek.
Drogo asked a question he already knew the answer to, as though confirming it.
“Moon of my life — the gift you gave Viserys.
He didn’t like it?”
“No.
He scorned the Dothraki garments.
And I said something that displeased him.”
She was lifting the dragon egg back into the chest as she spoke.
Drogo walked over and sat beside her.
He reached out and touched the bruises on her shoulder, gently, carefully.
“I told him he hasn’t won a battle yet,” she said.
“That he has no right to wear bells in his braid.”
Drogo pulled her into his arms.
“So he hit you?”
Daenerys didn’t answer.
She just leaned against his chest.
Looking at her, the small, bruised, sorry sight of her, he felt something knot tight inside him.
But he could only endure it.
For now.
He clenched his fist out of her sight and turned that name over silently in his mind.
Viserys.
You won’t be strutting around much longer.
Daenerys stayed in his arms for a while, then raised her head.
“You said Viserys can’t defeat the armies of the Seven Kingdoms.
What about you?
If you led the army yourself — could you conquer them?”
Drogo thought about it seriously.
“Hard.”
He laid it out for her, point by point.
“First: the Seven Kingdoms are full of strong castles.
Dothraki riders aren’t built for siege warfare.”
“Second: every soldier in Westeros wears iron armor.
Our riders bare their chests.
Unarmored cavalry against heavy infantry or archers will break.”
“Third: getting the khalasar willing to fight across an ocean requires the right reason.
Seizing the Iron Throne for your brother isn’t enough to convince everyone.”
Daenerys listened to all of it with a blank look on her face.
Then something shifted behind her eyes, understanding, slow and unwelcome.
She had never thought about any of this.
In Viserys’s stories, the enemy crumbled.
You just had to lead the Dothraki across the Narrow Sea, and the knights of Westeros would surrender at first sight.
The people of the Seven Kingdoms had waited day and night for the return of the true dragon.
The moment her brother raised the Targaryen banner, lords from every corner of the realm would come flocking.
She knew that every word Drogo had just spoken was the truth.
Real problems.
Solid, stubborn, laid out right in front of them.
She looked at him, and something struck her, how large he was.
He was sitting down, and he still seemed like a mountain.
“We need to wait for an opportunity.”
“What kind of opportunity?” she asked.
Drogo looked at her.
A moment passed.
“I don’t know.”
In truth, he knew exactly.
Varys would send assassins.
Poison.
An attempt to wipe out the last Targaryen heirs.
But she was also the Khaleesi of this khalasar, and the child she carried was its heir.
When that moment came, the entire tribe would rage.
Every man in it would be willing to cross that water.
That was the moment to declare war.
But he couldn’t tell her that.
He just held her a little tighter.
“Then my brother will never reclaim the Seven Kingdoms,” she said quietly.
“He’ll never be able to take me home.”
Drogo lowered his head and kissed her forehead.
“This is your home.”
After a long silence, Daenerys asked again.
“What if all the Dothraki warriors wore iron armor?”
“Then we’d have a fighting chance.
But you know as well as I do — the tribesmen think wearing armor is cowardly.”
“You have the ability to change their thinking.
Don’t you?”
“I’ve been trying.
Haven’t you noticed?
Since the Thousand-Leader system was put in place, the tribesmen have started wanting to learn, because they want to lead.
But that kind of thinking wasn’t built in a day, and it won’t change overnight.
I need to give them a setback first.
Let them learn what armor means when they’re the ones without it.”
Daenerys thought about that.
“Viserys can’t wait that long.”
“Even if they accepted armor tomorrow, forging tens of thousands of suits would take a year.
Maybe two.”
He reached out and brushed the stray hair back from her forehead.
“Viserys is not a true dragon.
You are.
You don’t need to carry his feelings for him.”
A long time passed.
Daenerys said softly, “Mm.”
On the road to pay respects to the Dosh Khaleen, Drogo spotted a familiar face from a distance.
Ogo.
He was riding out front, three men trailing behind him, newly recruited bloodriders, by the look of them.
All four were heading straight toward them.
Daenerys followed his gaze.
“Who is he?”
“The one who attacked our khalasar right after we left Pentos.” Drogo’s voice went flat and cold.
As they drew closer, Drogo got a clear look at the man’s face.
His beard was gone.
His braid was cut.
There was no heavier humiliation on the plains than that.
Ogo pulled his horse to a stop five or six paces in front of Drogo, pressed his right hand to his chest, and bowed slightly.
“Mighty Khal Drogo.
I apologize for what I did to your khalasar.
I hope to earn your forgiveness.”
Drogo looked at him.
Let the silence stretch.
“You run fast,” he finally said.
“If you hadn’t, you’d have been a very different kind of old acquaintance.”
The flesh on Ogo’s face twitched.
“I’ve been waiting for you in the sacred city.
I’ve prepared many gifts.
Please, accept them.”
“Waiting for me?” Drogo’s voice was unhurried.
“How long have you been hiding here?”
Out on the plains, the tribes could fight to the last man.
But Vaes Dothrak was the sacred city.
Inside these walls, all men were brothers.
No blood could be spilled.
No blade drawn.
He had come to face Drogo counting on exactly that.
“I returned the day after the incident,” Ogo said.
Daenerys watched him.
She had seen the Dothraki’s ferocity, their arrogance, their contempt for anyone who wasn’t them.
But she had never seen a khal like this, bent at the waist, head down, voice soft as a man begging for his life.
Drogo laughed.
His bloodriders joined in, and then the nine Thousand-Leaders he had chosen, until all of them were roaring.
Ogo stood there and took it.
His face went dark with blood.
Drogo laughed until he was done, then urged his horse forward.
“Well,” he said, passing Ogo without so much as a glance, “are you blocking my path?”
Ogo moved aside.
When the horse had gone far enough, Drogo called back without turning his head:
“Vilgo.
Go collect those gifts.
Then come find me and tell me what they are.”
A Thousand-Leader answered and rode out from the group.
He was lean and hard, somewhere in his early thirties, built like packed stone, and the sharpest mind of the nine.
“Yes, Khal!”
Vilgo turned his horse and headed back toward Ogo.
Drogo rode on, Daenerys at his side.
➤ Next: His Name Is Rhaego
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