The 92nd year After the Conquest
“Come on!
Push, Jaenara!
Push!”
The dim chamber reeked of sweat and the faint coppery tang of blood, the mingled odors so thick they seemed to weigh upon the chest.
The wooden bed creaked and groaned.
Upon it lay a woman curled in agony, her disheveled silver hair drenched in cold sweat and plastered to cheeks as pale as parchment.
She seemed to drift back into the past.
Yes.
She had once known a happy childhood.
How long ago had that been?
In the blurred haze of memory, Jaenara recalled living with her mother in a little house filled with flowers.
They had still been in Pentos then.
Mother would lift her high into the air, kiss her cheeks, and speak of things Jaenara had scarcely understood—family, hope, restoration.
She would tell stories of their ancestors, dragonlords who had mounted great beasts and soared through the skies.
Mother, you were wrong…
If our ancestors truly were dragonlords…
A savage bolt of pain tore Jaenara back into the waking world.
Now the agony of her obstructed labor held her firmly in the Stranger’s grasp.
Or perhaps it was the Many-Faced God.
Or some other damned god among the countless gods of the world who claimed dominion over death.
Broken moans slipped endlessly between her teeth, feeble as a candle guttering in the wind.
Whenever another wave of pain seized her, those weak sounds rose abruptly into shrill, wretched screams.
Then burn me with dragonflame and set me free…
That was all she could think.
The midwife knelt beside the bed, the hem of her coarse-spun skirts covered in stains.
Years spent dealing with birth and death had carved weariness and indifference into the lines of her face.
Her hands were rough and heavily callused, wet with warm water and blood.
One pressed hard against Jaenara’s convulsing belly and waist while the old woman berated her in the Common Tongue, seasoning every other sentence with the foul curses of King’s Landing’s streets.
“Push!
You fool, push harder!
What’s wrong with that body of yours?
Can’t you even squeeze out one babe?”
Her voice was hoarse and grating, utterly devoid of pity.
Her fingers dug cruelly into Jaenara’s side, forcing her to summon what little strength remained.
Her other hand repeatedly reached between the girl’s legs to examine the progress of the birth.
All the while, her brow remained tightly furrowed and curses muttered beneath her breath, as though she could not decide whether Jaenara’s uselessness or the troublesome work itself offended her more.
“Please, Willow, be gentle with the sweet girl.”
Another woman sat beside Jaenara, clutching her hand tightly.
“Push.
Be brave, my little sweetling.
You can do it…”
Several scantily clad girls crowded into one corner of the chamber.
They were Jaenara’s companions in the brothel, women and girls who earned their bread by selling their bodies.
There was some concern in the looks they gave her, but most of their faces showed a tangled mixture of numbness, fear, and furtive relief at another’s misfortune.
They whispered among themselves in voices kept deliberately low.
Yet Jaenara heard every word.
A tall, thin woman drew her splendid shawl more tightly around her shoulders and sighed.
“Seven save us.
How many years can it even be since her first moon’s blood?
That lord truly…”
Another young girl gripped the hem of her dress so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.
Terror filled her eyes, and her body trembled faintly.
The gruesome scene had plainly frightened her half to death.
“No…
not like this…” she murmured.
“I don’t want this…
I don’t want this…”
She dared not look too long at the figure writhing upon the bed.
In Jaenara, she seemed to see herself years—or perhaps moons—from now, suffering the same terrible fate.
Yet she could not stop herself from stealing another glance.
Deep within her frightened eyes lurked a tiny, shameful spark of relief.
Relief that it was not her lying upon that bloodstained bed.
The thought horrified her the instant she recognized it.
She shook her head fiercely, squeezed her eyes shut, and clasped her hands together, praying for her poor sister.
Willow’s harsh commands, Jaenara’s cries, and the whispers of the brothel girls mingled with the clamor drifting through the window—the cries of street hawkers, the pounding of footsteps, the rumble of carriage wheels over the road.
Gradually, Jaenara’s screams weakened.
Her breathing grew shallower.
Her face became so pale that her skin seemed almost translucent.
Only the faint rise and fall of her chest offered proof that life had not yet abandoned her.
Even the midwife’s scolding slowly faded.
Willow’s frown deepened, though the pressure of her fingers did not lessen in the slightest.
The girls in the corner stopped whispering.
Every eye turned toward Jaenara.
An oppressive mixture of dread and despair thickened within the chamber, growing heavier by the moment, as though some unseen maw had opened around the room and meant to swallow it whole, along with every soul inside.
“We cannot wait any longer…” Willow muttered.
“It has gone on too long…”
For the first time, genuine worry appeared in the old midwife’s eyes.
She raised her head and looked across the bed at the woman opposite her—the brothel’s madam.
“If this continues, both the girl and the babe in her belly will die.”
Jaenara heard her.
She heard every word with terrible clarity.
Fear appeared on her face, only to be swept away an instant later when an even more vicious pain ripped through her womb.
No…
no.
You damned, useless old hag…
Yet even as Jaenara cursed the woman in her thoughts, hesitation gnawed at her heart.
She had never told the lord who came to her that night that it had been her first time.
She had been a girl only a few years past her first moon’s blood…
This was her child.
Her first child.
From the moment he had begun taking shape within her womb, she had felt him growing stronger day by day.
He had to be a mischievous little boy.
He was always kicking at her belly, forever refusing to let his mother rest.
At times, she had even imagined she could feel his steady breathing inside her womb.
Daeron.
That was the name she had chosen for him.
If the babe proved to be a girl, she would call her Diana.
Jaenara had sewn a little cloth dragon for her child.
It was the first time she had ever attempted such work.
The sewing needle had left dozens of tiny wounds upon her fingers, but she had delighted in every moment of it.
“Terrax.”
That was what she had named the little dragon.
In Mother’s stories, Terrax had been the great dragon ridden by one of the dragonlords of their blood.
Jaenara had sewn the toy with blue thread.
She loved blue.
She loved the blue roses that had grown in the courtyard of their little house in Pentos.
With painstaking care, she had added touches of green thread as decoration.
The moment her child was born, she intended to place the cloth dragon beside him.
Her first gift to her baby.
Jaenara wanted to give this child a happy childhood, no matter how hard she had to work for it.
Perhaps the lord would take pity upon them.
Perhaps he would bring her and the child to his castle…
She would give everything she had to ensure her child never suffered what she herself had suffered.
She would become a washerwoman if she must.
A kitchen drudge.
Anything.
So long as she could watch him grow with her own eyes.
Solanna—the woman clutching Jaenara’s hand—had also heard the midwife’s words clearly.
Jaenara slowly turned her head toward her.
Her beautiful face was bloodless and twisted by pain.
Yet now helpless pleading filled her expression as she stared desperately into Solanna’s eyes.
Save me.
Save my child.
Solanna looked down at Jaenara.
Then she leaned closer and gently kissed the girl’s forehead.
A faint smile touched the corner of her lips.
Jaenara understood that smile.
Her violet pupils suddenly widened.
Terror crawled across her face.
Her once delicate, lovely features twisted beneath a hideous mixture of agony and fear.
“No…”
She tried to scream.
“No!
Don’t!”
With every scrap of strength left in her body, Jaenara cried out.
Let the babe go to the Many-Faced God!
Let the Stranger take him!
Let the Others carry him away!
She wanted to live.
She wanted to return to her mother.
She wanted to go home to that little house filled with flowers.
“Mother!”
Jaenara screamed.
“Save me!
Mother, save me!”
Willow had seen Solanna’s smile as well.
The old midwife merely sighed.
Then she reached for the knife lying nearby.