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Chapter 12: Lady Silver
🕑 Added 2025-09-05 11:20:30 +0000 UTCDrogo's tent had been a palace of its kind. The walls were woven from thick rushes, but the roof and facade were layered with fine silks, enough to fill ten carts if ever taken down. The furs that had adorned its interior—golden mink, thick bison pelts, and the priceless hides of Hrakkar, the white lions of the Dothraki Sea—were almost beyond value. The greatest Khal deserved the greatest tent.
"Khal," Mago said to Jhogo, gesturing at the darkening sky. "It is late. We should make camp here for the night."
Jhogo considered this, then raised his voice, halting Dany's people in the middle of tearing down the tent. "Leave it," he commanded. "Leave the palace to me. Tonight, I will feast the warriors of my new khalasar here." He then fixed his gaze on Dany. "I also know that Drogo had ten chests of gold medals and fifty of silver. Hand them over. They are mine now."
Gold and silver were the hard currency of the world, and even the Dothraki needed them to trade with the walled Free Cities. The Khals wore their wealth, belts of linked medallions forged from their plunder, given as rewards to loyal men. And Drogo, the most powerful Khal, had possessed the most wealth.
"You are late," Daenerys said, her voice laced with a cool contempt. "You are not the only one of Drogo's captains who desired his riches."
"It is not captain," Jhogo interrupted rudely, his chest puffing out. "It is Khal Jhogo."
Daenerys ignored him. "To prevent looters from storming our camp in the chaos, I had my people throw the chests out. Anyone could have taken them. Besides," she added with a dismissive shrug, "the dosh khaleen have the wealth of Vaes Dothrak to support them. I have no need of gold and silver."
"Is that so?" Jhogo snarled, clearly annoyed and wanting not to believe her.
"We carried out sixty chests ourselves. Everyone knows," Ser Jorah said, his voice a flat, iron baritone.
"Everyone knows," Aggo echoed.
"Everyone knows," the rest of her small khas chanted, a ragged but unified chorus.
"Damn you! Leave, now!" Jhogo roared, cracking his whip in frustration.
They moved to a small, twenty-square-meter linen tent. The dozen chests they carried with them were Dany's own dowry. A tradition even a new Khal would not violate. Mago watched them with greedy eyes as they were moved inside.
With no room for a firepit, they simply opened the tent flaps to a blazing fire lit just outside the entrance. The flickering light cast long, dancing shadows within. In one corner, Qotho sat in grim silence, watching over Drogo's dying body, waiting for the moment his 'blood of my blood' would ride into the night lands. In another, Haggo lay drunk, his dull eyes staring blankly at the tent's ceiling.
"The child should have been kept with him," he slurred, "to wait for the last moment together. Cohollo should never have listened to her."
Daenerys sat at the entrance, ignoring him. A strange calm had settled over her. With methodical motions, she stuffed cotton into a doll she had sewn from pale yellow silk. The doll was headless. Jhogo said the dogs ate his body, she thought, a cold, detached part of her mind noting the detail.
The oppressive silence of the camp was broken only by the crackle and pop of the fire. For a band of two hundred, they were unnervingly quiet.
Ser Jorah, still encased in his armor, looked at his princess with a heart full of pity. He opened his mouth to say something, but his throat felt thick with unshed grief. What words of comfort were there for this? No words could possibly soothe the horror she had endured.
His mind, unbidden, flashed back fifteen years, to the Sack of King's Landing. He had followed Lord Eddard Stark into the Red Keep and had seen a sight much like this one: a three-year-old princess, butchered, and a baby prince, less than a year old, reduced to a smear of blood and brains against a wall. The same senseless, brutal finality.
The distant sound of hooves pulled him from the grim memory. Quilo rode out to check, returning a moment later. "Khaleesi," he reported, "It is the new Khaleesi, the lady Lyra. She says she has come to thank you in person."
Dany sat cross-legged on the ground. Before her was a bundle wrapped in a wool blanket. She stared down at what was inside for a long moment before answering, her voice hoarse. "Let her approach."
"I am already here," a female voice called from the darkness. A moment later, a ring of torch-bearing riders pushed into their small camp, surrounding them.
"You—" Dany started to say, but stopped. The torchlight illuminated Lyra's face, a mask of pride and raw sarcasm. This was no visit of gratitude.
While calmly sewing the cleaned head of the infant boy onto the doll's neck, Dany said in a low, muffled voice, "I saved you."
"Look at me. I am riding a horse, too," Lyra said, awkwardly pulling the reins and making her mount circle. It was a white mare, not a true silver one like Dany's. Lyra herself had traded her Myrish silks for a Dothraki painted leather vest. She was still weak from childbirth, her limbs unsteady, and she needed two of her own Dothraki handmaidens to help her dismount.
She hobbled over to Dany and, imitating her, sat cross-legged on the carpet. She leaned in close, covering her mouth with her hand as she whispered in Dany's ear, "I hate you."
"Obviously," Dany replied, nodding seriously, not looking up from her work.
Lyra giggled, a high, brittle sound. She leaned back, her hands propped behind her, and looked up at the jewel-like stars. "But look at me now," she sighed dramatically. "I am a Khaleesi. I have my own little horse, and my own khas. And more importantly, I have a son. A son as strong as a dragon."
As she spoke, she lunged forward, ripping the blanket away from the bundle in front of Daenerys.
"Tsk, tsk," she clicked her tongue, her voice dripping with mock pity. "What a poor little thing. Not even half the size of my Jhoqo. And you've sewn his head on with cloth? Right. I heard the dogs ate his body."
An immense, crushing weight lifted from Daenerys's shoulders. The guilt that had been suffocating her, a secret she could share with no one, vanished in that single, cruel statement.
"Thank you," she said, and the words were utterly sincere.
Lyra stared at her, stunned. "Thank you? What are you talking about? Are you mad?"
Dany looked up, a thin, vicious smile touching her lips. "Although you are a disgusting bitch, you still thought to come and visit me. That is far more than I ever expected of you."
It took Lyra a moment to parse the insult. Her face twisted in a mask of fury. "I—"
Before she could erupt, Dany warned, her voice suddenly cold as ice, "A Dothraki must not harm one who is to become dosh khaleen. The Horse God would curse them. Everyone knows." She shifted her gaze to Lyra's maids.
The Dothraki women nodded immediately. "Everyone knows."
"Everyone knows," Irri and Jhiqui echoed, their voices firm.
Lyra glared at Dany, then suddenly let out a laugh. "Fine. I am a slut. But you are not much better."
"I saved your life," Dany reminded her for the third time.
"And I am grateful," Lyra sneered, "but that is all." She glanced around the camp and spotted Mirri Maz Duur watching them. "You saved her too," she pointed, "and she killed your Khal and your child."
"I did not!" the witch cried out, waving her hands frantically. "Lady Silver, it was the Song of the Moon that helped you give birth!"
Lyra ignored her, her lavender eyes, so much like Dany's, boring into her. "Drogo was your man. You knew his scars better than anyone. Many were far worse than a scratch on the chest, yet he was still the strongest Khal on the Great Grass Sea."
"I trust her," Dany said simply. Then she asked, "Why do you hate me so much? It cannot just be jealousy. Khaleesi is hardly an enviable title."
Lyra's hand went to a silver locket on her chest. She stared at Dany, her teeth gritted. "Because I hate being a substitute!"
"What do you mean?"
"I was Illyrio's," she hissed, her voice a low, venomous whisper. "He bought me from a pleasure house in Lys. He wanted you, but he couldn't touch the bride of a Khal. So he used me instead." She leaned closer. "That fat pig would shout your name while he was on top of me."
"Is that all?" Dany raised an eyebrow, genuinely unconcerned. In her old life, what beautiful woman hadn't been the object of some man's fantasy?
Her lack of reaction seemed to infuriate Lyra more. "My status was low," she spat. "Illyrio used me to entertain his guests. The night before you were wed, your 'Beggar King' brother tried to sneak into your chambers. It was Illyrio who stopped him, who warned him not to anger Drogo, or they would both be killed. Then… then Illyrio gave me to your brother. And he fucked me, and he called out your name, too."
