Daenerys stood.
“Viserys,” she said, her voice tight.
“Please put away your sword.
Weapons are not permitted here.”
Viserys turned to look at her.
He raised the blade and walked toward her.
“So the little whore was here all along.”
Daenerys’s face went pale.
She stepped back half a pace, then held her ground.
“Come sit with me,” she said, gesturing toward the bubbling pot.
“This is hot pot — lamb.
You’ll like it.”
Viserys glanced at the pot.
Then at the two thin wooden sticks beside it.
“I am a king.
I will not eat like a savage.”
From his vantage above, Drogo smiled to himself, though there was no warmth in it.
The Dothraki thought Daenerys had taught him to use chopsticks.
Viserys thought he had taught her to eat hot pot.
Neither of them knew that hot pot and chopsticks came from a place they had never even heard of.
Viserys crossed the room to where Daenerys stood.
Wine makes a coward brave.
All those cups he had poured down his throat had surfaced now as the flush on his face and the madness behind his eyes.
Add to that months of waiting and still no army, that rage had been smoldering in his chest a long time.
Now every bit of it came down on her.
The sword’s tip pressed against Daenerys’s chest.
A light downward stroke.
Her clothes split open, the pale skin beneath exposed.
The blade slid lower and stopped at her swollen belly.
“He bought you,” Viserys said through his teeth, “but he hasn’t paid.”
She had been looking at that face for over ten years.
Furious, contemptuous, occasionally soft, she had thought she knew every version of it.
“Tell him to honor the agreement.
Or I take you back.
And the dragon eggs.”
The sword’s tip pressed lightly against her belly.
“He can keep his seed.” Viserys smiled, and the smile was so twisted it barely looked human.
“I’ll cut the bastard out and hand it to him myself.”
Daenerys looked down at the sword.
At the tip pressed against her belly.
The blade was cold.
She could feel it.
She had tolerated him her whole life.
Hitting her, cursing her, using her to vent his rage, selling her to a stranger, she had endured all of it.
He was her brother.
Her only family.
But now she looked at that blade touching her child.
She raised her head and looked at the man in front of her.
That face still wore a smile.
Smug.
Untouchable.
Sure of itself.
Something became clear to her, completely, finally clear.
The person standing before her was not her brother.
He never had been.
This person was beyond saving.
This was the moment Drogo had been waiting for.
The moment Daenerys stopped hoping.
He knew Viserys didn’t have the nerve to actually use that blade.
Bullying his little sister was the greatest achievement of the man’s entire life.
Daenerys was his only leverage, his last bargaining chip, pushed onto the table to force Drogo’s hand.
But watching that sword pressed against Daenerys’s belly, Drogo’s heart still climbed into his throat.
What if some fool bumped into Viserys by accident?
What if his hand slipped?
What if something went wrong, and the madman actually drove the blade in?
He spoke in the Common Tongue.
His voice was steady, as though nothing had happened.
“I will give you a crown.” He stepped forward, bloodriders moving behind him.
“A crown so exquisite that any who lay eyes on it will tremble.”
Viserys turned his head.
The madness was still there, but a smile spread slowly across his face.
“That is what I want.”
He sheathed his sword.
Daenerys stepped back, her hand covering her belly, her face ashen.
Qotho and Haggo moved the instant the blade came down.
Viserys didn’t have time to react before they had him pinned to the ground.
Cohollo stomped on his sword hand and twisted.
A CRACK, and the wrist snapped.
Viserys screamed.
Three men held him hard against the earth, his face pressed into the dirt, unable to move.
Drogo unfastened the golden belt at his waist, walked to the fire pit, and dropped it into the pot.
Even Viserys was not too stupid to understand what was happening now.
“Daenerys,” He craned his neck, twisting his face desperately toward her.
“Stop him.
I’m your only family.”
Daenerys looked down at the man on the ground.
His face was contorted, tears and snot smeared together, mouth gaping wide, calling her name again and again.
She said nothing.
The gold in the pot slowly softened.
Viserys kept shouting through all of it.
Begging, wailing, cursing, then lurching into the kind of pleading that made skin crawl.
Back and forth, over and over.
Drogo stood by the fire pit and watched the gold collapse and melt.
His mind was somewhere else.
He remembered the first time he had seen Viserys.
Still in Pentos, riding tall on his horse, swaggering about how he was the blood of the dragon.
Even then, Drogo had thought: this man will die sooner or later.
Now the blade was at his throat, and he looked at this man sobbing and howling on the ground, collapsed into nothing.
And suddenly felt that his brother-in-law didn’t necessarily have to die.
Spare him.
Let him watch Daenerys take the Iron Throne with his own eyes.
Let him know that the little sister he spent ten years tormenting is the true dragon.
Let him watch her become someone he can never touch again.
Let that break him, and let him spend the rest of his life living with it.
That would be more satisfying than killing him.
But then,
He had endured this man for so long.
Let him court death again and again.
Let him put his hands on Daenerys, over and over.
Wasn’t it all leading to this moment?
Jorah Mormont would carry word of his death to Varys.
When Robert Baratheon learned Viserys was dead, he would redirect the assassination to Daenerys.
That assassination attempt, that was the spark.
That was what made the Horse Lord decide to go to war.
What made the entire khalasar willing to cross the sea.
If Viserys didn’t die, would it derail everything?
The molten gold bubbled in the pot, throwing off a rich golden light.
Drogo stared at it for a long time.
Then he spoke.
“Strip his trousers off.
Hold his legs open.”
Viserys lay with his face pressed into the dirt.
He twisted his neck as far as it would go, eyes searching for Daenerys.
His eyes were full of tears.
His lips trembled.
He wanted to say something, but there was nothing left.
He had used everything in the time before, the most wretched words he had ever spoken, the weakest he had ever been.
He had laid all of it bare.
Daenerys stood watching him.
Her face was empty.
There was a child in her belly.
That sword had been pressed against it minutes ago.
Viserys had underestimated a mother’s will to protect her child.
Drogo lifted the pot.
“No!” The scream finally tore out of Viserys, his voice cracked and ruined.
“Daenerys — Daenerys —”
The pot tilted.
The molten gold poured down.
His shriek drove everyone around him back a step.
Then his eyes rolled white, and he was gone.
Daenerys’s hand, which had been pressed against her belly this whole time, slowly came down.
“He is no true dragon,” she said.
“A true dragon does not fear fire.”
Qotho pried the cooled lump of gold free.
Its shape was grotesque, something twisted, barely recognizable.
Drogo set the pot down and waved his hand.
Several eunuchs hurried forward and dragged Viserys away.
“Dress his wounds,” Drogo said.
“Don’t let him die.”
From this day on, Viserys had a new title.
The Unsullied.
Drogo turned to Jorah Mormont.
“Do you think he can still be a threat?”
Jorah looked at the unconscious man on the ground.
He was quiet for a moment.
“He is already a broken man, Khal.”
➤ Next: Testing the Waters
WEEKLY POWER GOALS: 30→1ch | 50→2ch | 80→5 ch | 100→8 ch | 150→12 ch
Happy reading, everyone!