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Chapter 25: The White City
🕑 Added 2025-09-08 07:36:39 +0000 UTCDaenerys’s bond with her dragons was a strange and unpredictable magic. The original Daenerys, the girl whose life she now lived, had been more a vessel for this power than its master. She had loved her children, but she had also feared them, and in trying to be a good queen, she had neglected her instincts as a dragon’s mother, nearly severing the bond between them.
This Daenerys would not make that mistake. She embraced the magic, nurtured it, and explored its limits in her own way. Her connection to the black dragon was the strongest. It was far from the total control she’d read about in the old tales of skinchangers. She couldn't command him, couldn't possess his body like a second skin. It was more a sharing of senses, a brief, dizzying glimpse through his eyes. But as her bond with the black one deepened, she found her connection to the other two fading, as if her soul had only room for one true counterpart. It was a choice she had made without realizing it.
"A dragon has only one master," Ser Jorah had told her, reciting the old Targaryen lore, "and a rider has only one dragon."
Today, that bond had borne fruit.
“Hey, what was that?” Dany whispered, her own eyes closed as she shared the vision of her soaring child. Just now, in the midst of the dream-like connection, she had caught a glimpse of something unusual.
The black dragon’s vision was astonishing. From a thousand meters in the air, he could see for dozens of kilometers. It wasn’t a clear view, more a dizzying impression of color and shape, but the red waste was a uniform, monotonous landscape. Through his eyes, she saw only the blue sky, the red smear of the comet, and the dark red plain below.
But just for a moment, as the dragon banked in the air, she had seen a flash of white.
Big Black, don’t play around, she urged silently in her mind. Help me find that white patch again. I think it was a city.
She had given them names, of course. She did not think of them as animals. They were something more. In the privacy of her own thoughts, they were her Dahei, Xiaobai, and Xiaolü—Big Black, Little White, and Little Green. Simple, childish nicknames. If anyone were to ask, she would tell them their names were Black Diamond, White Jade, and Jadeite—beautiful, harmless gemstones to mask the truth of what they were.
Hiss… The dragon seemed to hear her plea. The vision in her mind contracted, zooming in on the patch of white. It grew larger, clearer.
"It really is a city," she breathed, her heart beginning to pound with a wild, desperate hope. It was about thirty kilometers to the southwest, beyond the range of her own scouts. "We almost missed it."
The baby dragon, his strength spent, began to spiral downwards, falling back into the wicker basket on her back with a tired chirp. The connection snapped, and she was herself again.
She immediately went to Jorah.
"A city?" the knight said, his face a mask of shock and disbelief. He was stunned not only by the news, but by the fact that her dragon could see so far, and that she could share its sight. "Your Grace, I have never heard of any city in the Red Waste. It is a land even demons are said to despise."
"Perhaps it is a city lost to history," she countered, thinking of the dry riverbed they had been following. "The dragon could not see clearly, but it was large. This land might not be able to support a city now, but what if it was not always a wasteland?"
"An abandoned city," Jorah mused, stroking his beard. "Send the scouts. At the very least, its walls might offer shelter from this sun."
The thirty kilometers was a ride of less than two hours. Before noon, Aggo returned with two other warriors.
"Khaleesi, you were right," he reported, his face grim. "It is a city of stone, all of it white. But there are no people. The gates are broken, the houses have collapsed. There is nothing there but wind, sand, and flies. It is a dead city, Khaleesi. It has no name, and it feels as if the gods have long since abandoned it. We should avoid it."
"Why?" Dany asked, confused. "An empty city is a gift. We can take shelter there without having to fight. If it were inhabited, I would worry what they might do to a khalasar."
Her handmaiden, Jhiqui, began to tremble. "Khaleesi," she whispered, her voice full of ancient fear. "Once the gods leave a place, the evil spirits come out to hunt in the night. It is best to avoid such places. Everyone knows."
"Everyone knows," Irri echoed, her own face pale with dread.
