The dosh khaleen were waiting inside a round wooden hut.
(Note: The dosh khaleen are all former khaleesi — the wives of khals long dead.)
The hut was large and bare, with nothing inside but a few fire basins.
Flames danced in the bowls, stretching the shadows tall and then snapping them short.
Soon the space was packed with people.
Daenerys stood on the central platform, her silver hair gleaming in the firelight.
Cohollo led in a horse.
The animal stood perfectly still, its eyes dark and bright.
Drogo took the stone short blade.
Black.
Ground thin and sharp.
He turned it over, frowning.
Dragonglass?
No, obsidian.
The edge caught the firelight with a cold gleam.
He weighed it in his palm.
It would do.
No iron was permitted in the sacred city.
Only this.
He tightened his grip on the hilt, lined up his angle, and drove the blade into the horse’s neck.
Blood surged out, hot against his hand.
The horse screamed and thrashed, all four legs kicking wildly.
The bloodriders threw themselves onto it, forcing its head down to the ground.
It cried out a few more times, each cry weaker than the last.
Then it buckled to its knees and stayed there.
Drogo went to work, cutting through skin and muscle, severing the vessels, pulling the heart free.
The stone blade scraped and dragged through flesh.
Nothing like iron.
Every stroke demanded force.
By the time he was done, his arm had gone numb.
Both hands were soaked in blood.
Sweat dripped from his forehead to the ground.
He held out the horse’s heart to Daenerys.
Still steaming.
He couldn’t imagine how she was going to manage this, eating an entire raw horse heart, dripping with blood.
But she had to.
The Dothraki believed a pregnant woman who ate a raw horse heart would give her son a strong body, quick limbs, and no fear of anything.
“If you can’t finish it,” he said, “tell me.
Don’t force yourself.”
Daenerys took the heart.
When her fingers touched it, she flinched, just for a moment.
But she didn’t pull away.
She held it in both hands and raised it to her mouth.
She bit down.
One bite.
Two.
Three.
Tearing and gnawing.
She couldn’t chew through it.
The muscle was too dense.
Her teeth couldn’t cut into it, so she could only force it down.
She stiffened her neck and swallowed, her eyes going red from the strain, tears brimming at the edges.
The smell of blood hit her hard.
She nearly retched.
Her stomach seized.
She pressed it down, held it, and took another bite.
Below the platform, Drogo watched.
His eyes never left her, pushing her on in silence.
His scalp prickled, but not from disgust or fear.
It was something else.
It ached.
His hands curled into fists.
Nails bit into his palms.
He wanted to stride up there and rip the heart out of her hands, throw the thing aside, tell those old women “enough.”
The corners of his mouth dragged down.
The muscles of his face went rigid, his whole expression turning iron-gray.
Daenerys saw his face change and thought he was angry.
She was afraid she was disappointing him, afraid he’d think her useless.
She bit faster.
Tore harder.
When she couldn’t chew, she swallowed raw.
When it stuck in her throat, she stuffed in more.
Blood ran from the corners of her mouth and dripped onto her chest.
She had no time to wipe it.
The crones of the dosh khaleen arranged themselves in a half-circle and began to chant:
“The prince rides a fine stallion—”
The crowd joined in, voices rising:
“It is a boy, it is a boy — a strong boy!”
The shouting set the wooden walls humming.
Drogo glanced toward the doorway.
Viserys and Jorah Mormont stood there, talking.
Viserys wore that look he never seemed to take off, the bored, impatient one.
Drogo looked once, then pulled his gaze away.
A long time passed.
Daenerys finally swallowed the last piece.
She stood on the platform, blood on her mouth, blood across her chest, nothing left in her palms but a wet red smear.
She looked at him, eyes still red, breathing hard.
The iron-gray slowly drained from Drogo’s face.
The corner of his mouth tugged into a faint smile.
The ceremony continued.
The crones moved on to divination.
Bundle after bundle of dry grass was thrown into a large bronze brazier.
The grass was packed too tight.
No air could get in.
It didn’t catch flame, just smoldered, thick white smoke billowing upward in rolling columns.
Gray-white smoke twisted as it climbed toward the hole in the roof.
It looked like signal smoke.
The military kind, lit to warn of approaching enemies.
Except here it was for old women reading the future.
The eldest crone stepped to the edge of the brazier, gazing into the churning smoke, her face set with grave concentration, as if the future were right there to be read between the curls.
Watching her look so serious, Drogo had to fight back a laugh.
Daenerys leaned close and murmured, “Aren’t you nervous?”
He tilted his head and kept his voice low.
“Relax.
Nothing to be afraid of.”
Her brows lifted slightly, a flicker of puzzlement crossing her face.
“They’re going to give a good prophecy,” he said.
“Trust me.
Even the most revered dosh khaleen have no interest in offending the most powerful khalasar in all the Dothraki Sea.”
They whispered back and forth like that.
Drogo knew it better than anyone.
Back in his old world, if a fortune-teller said something unlucky, there was a solid chance their whole stall got kicked over.
These old women weren’t stupid.
And sure enough.
When the last of the grass had burned to ash and the smoke thinned and cleared, the crone raised both arms.
Her voice was dry but it carried:
“His cry is like thunder, his horse swift as the wind, the prince shall be fierce as the storm—”
Daenerys listened, and couldn’t hide her smile.
“They were all khaleesi once,” she said softly, her eyes still on the crones.
“Their words carry weight.”
“Yes.
When a khal dies, they’re sent here.”
The smile on Daenerys’s face slowly faded.
A thought had found her: whether she wanted it or not, sooner or later she too would be sent here.
She would become one of these women.
One of the dosh khaleen.
Daenerys shivered.
“I don’t want to end up here.”
Drogo didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
“Don’t worry,” he said.
“I’m not dying.”
Daenerys realized only then that she’d misspoken.
She pressed her lips together and looked down.
Drogo leaned close to her ear.
“The truth is, they tell every khal it’s going to be a boy.
They always speak fine words.
Every single time.”
She blinked.
“So this whole ritual is just…
to find some comfort?”
Drogo didn’t reply.
As for what the future held, he knew far better than any of these women.
At the brazier, the eldest crone was still chanting.
The crowd echoed her, voices rising and falling in waves.
Viserys had already disappeared from the crowd.
Drogo knew exactly where the waste of a man had gone, to steal the dragon eggs.
He wasn’t worried.
Jorah Mormont would handle it.
The crone fell silent.
Her clouded eyes moved to Daenerys.
“What name shall the stallion who mounts the world carry?”
“Rhaego,” she said.
Soft.
Clear.
The name cut through the wooden hut and landed in every ear in the room.
The Dothraki crowd went still.
Then someone shouted the first cry:
“Rhaego!”
A second.
A third.
Then too many to count.
“Rhaego!
Rhaego!
Rhaego!”
Deafening.
Drogo carried Daenerys out of the hut.
They walked the Godsway to the shore of the sacred lake.
Reeds grew thick at the water’s edge.
The lake itself was clear enough to see the bottom.
Legend said the first Dothraki had walked out from this very place.
Every khaleesi had to enter it and receive the blessing of the sacred water.
The procession waited quietly on the shore.
Green grass stretched out around them, bending in the wind.
Daenerys stripped off her soiled clothes and laid them on the ground.
She stood bare.
The lake was still as glass, reflecting her back, silver hair loose around her shoulders, the slight curve of her belly, and those violet eyes staring at the surface.
She looked at the calm water for a moment and drew a slow breath.
Then she stepped in.
Cold.
So cold she gasped, her teeth clicking once.
The water rose past her ankles, past her knees, past her waist.
She stopped.
She cupped both hands, lifted a scoop of sacred water high above her head, and let it pour down.
It ran through her hair, over her face, down her neck.
Daenerys stood in the water with her lips gone white from the cold, her back held perfectly straight.
On the shore, tens of thousands of eyes watched.
This was the final part of the ceremony.
(Note: One of the core Dothraki beliefs is that the most important moments of a person’s life must happen beneath the open sky.
For the people to witness their khaleesi receive the sacred lake’s blessing is, in their eyes, a deeply holy act.
Just wanted to explain that here.)
It was proof, before the entire khalasar, that she was a true khaleesi, recognized by the gods and by her people.
The Dothraki honored strength above all.
This moment was a test.
The lake water was bone-cold, but the khal’s wife had to stand steady in it and finish the rite with composure, showing the whole khalasar exactly who she was.
Drogo stood at the front of the crowd, watching all of it, his feelings complicated.
He thought: the Dothraki really didn’t have much of a culture.
What they did have was a towering heap of strange traditions and rules.
…Fine.
“When in Rome.”
➤ Next: The True Protagonist of the Feast
WEEKLY POWER GOALS: 30→1ch | 50→2ch | 80→5 ch | 100→8 ch | 150→12 ch
Happy reading, everyone!