Chapter 268 - True Dragons Do Not Fear the Fire’s Trial

"You are not my king," Daenerys said. "My king is Drogo, and my son will inherit the Iron Throne. You are nothing but a gelded cripple. A madman."

Viserys's face twitched. A laugh escaped him, short and shrill.

"Then you're a whore raised by a madman. The two of you deceived me."

He strained against the ropes. "The Iron Throne is mine. It's you two who should burn, not me."

"I am a true dragon. I don't fear fire. I've already proven it. I walked out of a pyre carrying three dragons."

When those words reached Viserys, a brief blankness passed over his face.

Then his mouth opened, and the words squeezed out between his lips: "I... I don't fear fire either!"

The moment he said it, he froze. The words seemed to have slipped out from somewhere deep in his chest, hitting the air before his mind could catch them.

But once they landed, he noticed something strange. In his own ears, those words carried weight. A queer, settling kind of weight.

"You're no better than me."

"Targaryen blood runs in our veins. The same blood. Dragon blood."

"If you can walk into fire, so can I."

He could almost see it already. The flames dying down. The ashes settling. Only him standing in the middle of it all, cradling a purple-scaled hatchling in his hands while everyone fell to their knees.

That dragon would devour Dany and the Dothraki savage on the spot.

"Light it, whore." The terror and despair that had gripped Viserys were gone.

The smile at the corner of his mouth kept spreading, slow and steady. His gaze fixed on the purple dragon egg, as if the two of them already shared a secret no one else knew.

"I am the true dragon. True dragons don't fear fire. You cannot burn me."

Daenerys bent down and brought the torch toward the base of the woodpile.

The flame was just about to lick the oil-soaked pine branches when the High Septon's voice came down from atop the pyre.

"People say your father was the Mad King. That he liked to burn people. I thought it was slander House Baratheon invented to blacken his name." A pause. "Then I saw you."

"Burn me, and you will make a grave mistake."

"The faithful will not let this go. The Seven will not let this go. Divine punishment will come down on you."

Joanna had a massive iron hammer resting on her shoulder, the heavy head sunk into the socket of her collarbone. Her scar-twisted face showed a flicker of impatience.

"False gods. Kill them and be done with it." She lowered the haft, letting the hammer head drag on the ground. "Let me have a little fun first. Let me smash his balls."

Drogo ignored her.

His gaze settled on the High Septon's gaunt face. "I've told the outside world that Tywin burned you."

"Everyone in the throne room that day saw you slap me. They all know I'm still alive."

"Yes," Drogo said. "Which is why I've already killed everyone who was in that throne room."

The High Septon's mouth opened. The head that had sat so steadily on his neck tilted forward half an inch, as if pressed down by the weight of those words.

A moment passed before he spoke again. "Without the support of the Seven, there is no legitimacy among the people..."

"Enough." Drogo cut him off. "Same speech every time. No other last words?"

"Fool. I came to Westeros to conquer it. Not to chase your so-called legitimacy from the people."

"Then why have you bound me here in secret? Do you dare let the smallfolk of King's Landing watch you desecrate their gods?"

"They are lining up to receive the grain I'm distributing," Drogo said. "It's not about daring. I simply don't want to slaughter everyone in King's Landing."

He paused. He looked at the High Septon, and his tone stayed flat as he finished the thought. "By Dothraki tradition, every last person in King's Landing is already my slave."

The High Septon's gaze went still on Drogo's face.

All those sacred words that had been queuing up in his throat, the wrath of the Seven, the loyalty of the faithful, the hour and place where divine judgment would fall, jammed there and wouldn't move.

He had never encountered a Dothraki before.

He had read accounts of them in the sept at Oldtown. He had seen brief descriptions of their customs on maester's parchments. But he did not understand them. Not truly.

The High Septon said nothing more.

He looked into Drogo's eyes and found nothing there that words could pry loose. No hesitation. No doubt. No concern about consequences.

He closed his eyes. His lips began to move. Whether he was reciting a prayer or saying his final farewell to the Seven was impossible to tell.

Or perhaps he was cursing Drogo.

"Light it," Drogo said to Daenerys. "What are you waiting for?"

Daenerys didn't hesitate.

She bent down and held the torch to the oil-soaked pine branches at the base of the pyre.

Fire surged from the bottom in an instant. Within a few breaths it had swallowed the whole woodpile, pulling the figures of Viserys and the High Septon into a roiling wall of heat.

Viserys flinched back when the flames shot up, but the ropes held him. There was nowhere to go.

Fire licked at his ankles. He looked down at it, and his expression broke apart, the brittle, counterfeit calm he'd been holding for so long giving way all at once to raw, undisguised agony.

"No! No no! No no no!" His voice climbed higher and higher.

He thrashed against the stake. His legs convulsed in the flames.

He looked toward the purple dragon egg. He needed it to crack open now. Needed something to rise from the ashes and save him.

"I am a true dragon... I'm not afraid... I'm not..."

He kept repeating it until the words fell apart into nothing. His knees buckled. His whole body sagged down against the ropes, and the bindings at his shoulders and wrists caught him.

The High Septon, who looked half-starved, lasted longer in the fire than Viserys did.

"The Seven will see — ah — everything you have done —! The Seven will see! You will all go to the seventh hell."

The flames reached his lips, and still he spoke. Breath forced itself out through a burned-through throat.

"You burn the gods' voice in the mortal world, you will face retribution! By the Seven, I curse you to die without descendants. I curse your dragons to perish, every last one!"

The pyre began to collapse.

The pine logs at the bottom burned through and snapped. The whole structure tilted and crashed sideways, carrying the bodies of Viserys and the High Septon with it into the heart of the fire, sending up a burst of sparks.

The voices of Melisandre and Joanna rose to their peak at the same moment, layering over each other, one urgent, one low and resonant.

"R'hllor!"

"May the flames purify all that is unclean. May the ashes give birth to all that is new."

"From blood we come, into fire we go. From fire we come, into light we go."

"R'hllor, grant us life."

Then a sound came from within the flames. Drogo recognized it immediately. Not the crack of splitting wood.

The sound of an eggshell breaking.

Then a cry. Continuous. Faint.

Daenerys's shoulder moved.

Her gaze swept across the center of the pyre and came to rest among the still-glowing coals.

The purple egg had cracked.

The fracture started at the top and ran downward.

Fragments broke away from the surface and fell into the ash, and the fire turned them white.

➤ Next: The Growth-Bond