The Lost Lord?

  They had never reached Qarth. A storm from the far reaches of the Summer Sea had found them instead as they passed Doomed Valyria, mooring them on the far reaches of Slaver's Bay. It had in the same breath put them on a more treacherous path through the deserts as the hot Ghiscari sun scorched them raw.

  It was only after some three moons in a sleepy Lhazareen village that they heard that the same storm had made an end of the Usurper.

  The knowing burned him even now…

  He could not make an end of the Usurper at the Stoney Sept, and his silver prince had paid the price for it. Now he could not even avenge him.

  He stirred himself back to the present. There would be time to lament his failures when they were not at the forefront of a Dothraki horde.

  "This is not your fight, my prince," he tried to reason with him again. "These are not your people."

  Those eyes so much like his father's found his stubbornly. "They'd given us food, shelter. What manner of honorless curs would we be if we abandoned them in their hour of need?"

  "We could take a few Dothraki," Duck argued after him. At least until he turned a humorless stare on him.

  "More will follow them. We cannot fight a thousand Dothraki screamers."

  "We needn't have to," the prince argued. "We can give them time to flee."

  A sigh left his lips for it, even as his heart swelled with pride. He reared his horse around—a gift from the eunuch. His hand tangled in the mane red as his beard as he stared down at the chaos that had taken the village.

  "You'll go with Duck down the leftward side." He met the lowborn knight's brown eyes, his orange hair almost seeming aflame under the sunlight. "You would be a Kingsguard? Then guard the prince with your life."

  The jester was solemn for once, thumping a mailed fist to his breastplate bearing a thousand scars.

  "Haldon, Septa Lemore, the hill will keep you out of sight. If you would see more Dothraki, you'll have my horn." He threw it to the scowling maester.

  He unsheathed his sword after, the steel shimmering faintly. The prince had done the same, his Valyrian eyes determined. With the silver showing under the blue for their running out of dye, he was almost the splitting image of Rhaegar.

  After a nod, he rode hard down the center. For all his protests, his blood sang at the bloodshed to come. The Usurper counted his lucky stars in the seven hells for never meeting him, for he would have cut him open as he had the Darling of the Vale, Denys Arryn.

  The first Dothraki he found pinning a girl to the grass. His sword cleaved through his neck like butter.

  Taking the reins tight, he rode down another as some dozen arrows broke against his armor. The sight of him seemed to have inspired the Lhazareen to fight, for they soon fell upon the Dothraki with pitchfork and hoe.

  He spurred himself onward as foreign tongues choked the air, intent on finding the head of the snake, a feat made easier for Dothraki custom. Sporting a braid of bells that tumbled past his shoulders and seated on the finest horseflesh, the horselord taunted those who had taken shelter in the village's temple in his savage tongue. On either side of him were two more of his ilk.

  They hadn't expected a stormlands knight on a destrier, and it showed. Their arakhs were made for naked throats and horseflesh, not plate, and they could find no purchase as his own blade pricked the horselord's heart, his dark eyes faintly surprised as he fell from his horse.

  He spurred his horse through the chaos, coming back around to stare down those two left. He raised his weeping sword in mockery as much as challenge.

  As he hoped, one of them thundered at him. At the last moment, the Dothraki went low, his arakh aimed at the exposed leg of his horse. He had expected it, his sword loping through the Dothraki's arm instead, and slitting his throat as their horses passed one another by.

  "Will your blood be the third to water this temple?" he asked of the last man in a shout.

  The cur returned some curse before taking flight.

  A smile curved across his lips. For the first time in years he felt like he was Jon Connington again. And with the Usurper dead and the Seven Kingdoms in chaos, perhaps it was time to put that ruse to an end.

  He took a moment to take the horselord's head, raising it high by his braid as he rode back into the thick of the fighting.

  It did not take long for the sight to make cravens of the Dothraki left, leaving them to thunder off into the plains from whence they came. The prince he spied near the glassy-eyed corpses of two Dothraki, Duck standing over him with a bloodied blade.

  Jon touched a hand to his shoulder. "The day is ours, my prince."

  "The day is yours and Duck's," he returned bitterly. "How will I convince the kingdoms to follow me if I cannot even find the resolve to slay my foes?"

  "It is your words that saved these people. Take heart in that."

  A familiar voice spoke after him in accented Common. "Your knight speaks truly. I suspect you will see a hundred battlefields in the years to come, sunset prince."

  Jon turned to find the dusky-skinned woman in robes the color of sheep's milk. A lesser man might have commented on how heavily her teats pressed against them.

  "Mirri Maz Duur," he greeted.

  The Lhazareen followed a queer god by name of the Great Shephard, and she was something like a septa to them.

  "I fear you have only delayed our fate," she continued.

  "There is still time for you to escape," he argued. "Make for Hesh."

  "Khal Ogo would ride us down before we ever saw its walls." Her eyes, much like the Dothraki that preyed on them, were shaped like almonds. "It is only through the khal's death that we might find succor."

  "I would challenge him," the prince boldly answered. Not that Jon would ever allow it. "I would tell him I am the blood of the dragon. He would not refuse me."

  The priestess spoke before he could. "Your words are wind to the Dothraki, sunset prince." Her dark eyes touched his own again. "It must be you, ser. You served him a humiliation when you took the head of his ko as a trophy. He would accept your challenge if you asked for it. To do otherwise would be to invite a challenge from every warrior in his khalasar."

  He still did not much like the thought. "Even if I were to succeed, what is to stop his horde from descending on us after?"

  "A khal would first have to be found among them. This will take many moons."

  He met the prince's uncertain eyes as much as the eyes of the Lhazareen that surrounded them. Could he consign them all to a slaver's lash?

  "So be it," he whispered in answer.

  They ate with her in the temple that night, treated to a meal of charred lamb and rich cheeses. Haldon had not much approved of what he planned, where Septa Lemore touched his hand with a smile.

  The prince had found himself deep in conversation with the priestess in the meantime.

  "It was one of your maesters that had taught me the Common Tongue. This during my time in Asshai-by-the-Shadow. I believe he is an archmaester at your Citadel these days."

  All Jon knew of Asshai was its reputation as a haunt of sorcerers and shadowbinders, and yet the priestess spoke of learning birthing songs and herb lore.

  In the night, he pulled Duck aside, the knight's cheeks red from drink. "In the event that I do not return, make for Meereen. It will not take the eunuch long to find you."

  A nod, though not without a pithy quip to accompany it. "I worry more for the savage."

  A sept's clanging bells haunted his dreams again that night as much as his silver prince's smiles.

  In the morn, Mirri Maz Duur and him rode out alone to seek out the khalasar. They were met with jeers and mockery.

  Khal Ogo was a tall, thin man of copper skin, his black-and-grey braid reaching down past his leathers. It shined under the sun from the oils and bells clinging to it.

  Jon threw the rotting head of the nameless ko at his feet.

  The khal's black eyes turned on it for only a moment before he spoke in a tongue he didn't know.

  The priestess helpfully translated for him. "The khal asks why you have brought the head of a worthless wretch to him."

  "Tell him that I would see if he is any more warrior. All I have seen of the Dothraki has only served me with disappointment."

  A sneer met him quickly. "The khal wonders if he shouldn't lather you in honey and feed you to the ants."

  "Are they to fight all his battles?"

  Whisper spread through khalasar until its khal barked a laugh. It never reached his angry eyes.

  "He claims he will bury your corpse in sheep shit after he has slain you," the priestess mentioned after.

  His lips quirked into another smile. "He is welcome to try."

  He mounted his horse again as the horselord went to his own, black as night except for its snowy mane. The grass beneath them stretched across the horizon in every direction, the clouds above them painting a blue sky.

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  If this were to be his end, he would at least meet his silver prince in the next life with some fair words.

  Yet the horselord did not ride to meet him, instead circling around and loosing an arrow that thumped into the grass. He spied a second arrow and a golden bow with a scowl.

  It was after the third that it struck him that the craven savage wasn't aiming for him, but his mount. He was not likely to outspeed him either. All he could do was try and avoid the storm until the craven had run dry of arrows.

  He might have succeeded if the thirteenth hadn't struck true. The next he saw was the sky again, his head pounding like the thunderstorms that oft struck his home of Griffin's Roost.

  He forced himself to stand, only to be struck across his helm. The taste of blood filled his mouth as he felt a tooth loosen.

  The horselord held the curved edge of his arakh with a gloved hand, having struck him with its heavier hilt. Jon spat out some blood on the grass as the thunder of hooves sounded again. This time he turned the blow away with his sword.

  It continued for seven bouts more, his arms leaden. Every blow felt like a blow from an elephant. And yet the day was already his. The khal was slowing sooner than him, even as he grew more arrogant.

  In the end, his sword snuck past his foe's guard like a viper, opening his belly.

  The horselord had not even seen it until he was a ways away, his entrails decorating the grass as he fell from his horse.

  If only it had been the Usurper instead…

  Daenerys?

  Walking the length of the Water Gardens to her brother, she fought the urge to tug at her sleeves, her hand held by a sorcerer that would soon be her husband. In lieu of a septon, it was Viserys that would speak the words to see it done.

  The yellow that clung to Solomon trailed further behind him than even her own gown in Targaryen colors, his hair as black as hers was silver and gold, adorned with rubies. Her handmaids also trailed behind them with mischievous smiles, all of them girls once bound for the pillow houses.

  Above their procession the stars cast their light down upon them all, as was custom in Old Valyria.

  As they stopped and turned to face one another, her eyes found the crowd that had gathered. Prince Doran stood with his children, leaning lightly on a pale cane. Princess Arianne smiled beautifully, her orange silks laced with gemstones. Next to her was not only a sour Prince Trystane, but the older of her brothers, recently returned from Yronwood.

  She did not yet know what to make of him, save that of the three, he looked most like his father.

  Lady Ellaria stood not far away next to her noble father and uncle, the Lord Harmen Uller and Ser Ulwyck Uller, and also her children. She spied Elia crossing her arms as if it were a dull affair.

  Neither Prince Oberyn nor Lady Nymeria had yet returned to Dorne, but the daughter she had yet to meet had.

  The Lady Sarella Sand was taller than all her sisters save for Obara, her hair cut short and curly, and her skin the color of teak for her Summer Islander mother. Next to her was an archmaester of the Citadel that had pledged his services to her brother. He whispered something under his breath that drew a glance from Lady Sarella. He also bore a mask, ring, and rod of Valyrian steel that seemed more like toys in his massive hands.

  Tyene sent her a smile that reddened her cheeks when their eyes met. She spied some Dornish lords also, though she had only spoken to one of their number, the Lord Anders Yronwood, his hair like beaten gold.

  The touch of her brother's hand to her's and Solomon's brought her thoughts back on the vows she was to speak in High Valyrian.

  Solomon's dark eyes stared into her own as he spoke the same. Her skin felt hot and her heart raced as he leaned down to press a kiss to her lips. A kiss that tasted of saffron and honey.

  Her brother's fledgling Kingsguard stood silent as ghosts behind him as he smiled. He then took his new Valyrian steel sword and opened her and Solomon's pinky fingers. Though where she bled red, he bled yellow.

  Their blood further mingled strangely when their fingers intertwined.

  It is done. The past few moons seemed a lifetime ago now.

  A spate of murmurs from the crowd touched her ears, though it was only when she met her husband's eyes that she understood why. A great, red eye had opened between his eyes.

  "I would see to my bride," he still spoke in dulcet tones.

  "You have my leave, goodbrother." Viserys's hand retreated as Solomon took her past the whispers of the crowd, her heart beating uncertainly. It seemed he intended to forego the bedding ceremony, though not a soul cared to protest.

  They walked down the sands to the beach, the waters beyond it as black as the moonless sky. For a moment she remembered what she had seen in its depths once, her feet digging into the sand on instinct.

  "You needn't worry. We are alone."

  He sat on the white sands, and she joined him, though she found her tongue too tied to say anything. Her fingers had reached for the laces of her gown when he spoke again.

  "Would you like to see something of my home?"

  The words tugged at her curiosity like a noose. He never cared to speak much of himself. "I would."

  He raised her eyes to meet his three, and she tried not to shy away. Suddenly she felt herself falling back, though she never touched the sand. Instead she stood beneath a world of moving pictures, her eyes wide as saucers. None of what they showed was familiar to her.

  All around her were a thousand people dressed in strange garb that never even looked her way.

  The next breath found her standing on the precipice of something so high that her heart caught in her throat. All around her were towers of light that reached for a starless sky.

  "I have you." Solomon tugged her closer as the wind tugged at their hair. "What do you think?"

  She scarcely imagined there was anything like this in the world. "It's beautiful," she whispered. And frightening, she wanted to say.

  "It has a certain grandeur to it, I suppose."

  A roaring, screeching sound tugged her eyes to the starless sky again, a thing of metal and light cutting across it. A dragon?

  "Something like that." He gave a hum. "It only makes me wonder what Valyria was like before the Doom had taken her. I think I'm close to finding out."

  Another breath found her back under a familiar sky, his red eye weeping yellow. "How?" she whispered curiously.

  The Doom had made an end of it centuries ago.

  "The same way you dream of dragons and greenseers dream through trees." He brought her hand higher, pressing his lips to her knuckles softly. "I would share that sight with you also."

  Dany returned a smile at his words when he stood again, the yellow trailing behind him as he neared the waters.

  "I've seen only a crumb this world has to offer."

  …This world?

  "You won't find my home anywhere these waters touch," he continued as if he plucked the question from her thoughts. "You might perhaps find it among the stars."

  Her brows furrowed as she turned to those stars again, trying to imagine what he meant as her teeth toyed with her lip. She did not think she succeeded.

  "Don't take my idle words to heart too much. I can be sentimental sometimes."

  He turned around to meet her with a knowing smile.

  "You've asked your new handmaids for their stories, haven't you?"

  A frown touched her own lips. "They were cruel. I cannot understand what drives men to such wickedness."

  "I can," he admittedly simply. "Though it is but a pale shadow of Valyria, which saw the deaths of thousands of slaves each time the sun crawled across the sky."

  She did not know how to feel for his words.

  "There were those who fought against it, and those that wanted no part of it. You and your brother are the only dragonlords left for that wisdom," he whispered into the night. "Would be that your House did not fall to that same hubris only a century after Valyria's demise…"

  He sighed as he turned to stare into the waters again.

  "As much as the past haunts us, we cannot let it steal from us the future. You've even seen something of it, as Daenys the Dreamer had. Learn from her mistakes. Don't run from what is to come." He reached out for the sky. "Take it into your hands instead. Make it your own."

  The words pulled at her heart, though her doubts stubbornly remained. For all he had helped her make some sense of her dreams, it had only left her more uncertain.

  "I never said it would be easy." He returned to her and held out his hand. "Yet I would see you succeed anyway."

  Turning her back on her nagging doubts, Dany took his warm hand. Her heart burned with purpose as they stared out across the black waters.