Chapter 269 - The Growth-Bond
When Daenerys Targaryen stepped into the pyre, the flames caught her hem and climbed the fabric, turning the deep blue robe into a burning shell.
She bent down and pushed the smoldering logs aside with her bare hands.
Her hair caught. The silver strands curled and brightened in the flames.
She kept digging, lifting the crisscrossed timbers one by one and hurling them to either side.
The hatchling was at the bottom, tumbling and thrashing through the blazing coals, clawing and biting its way outward through the inner wall of fire.
Daenerys Targaryen's hand found its back. Her fingers closed around it and she pulled it free.
She rose and walked out of the pyre with the hatchling cradled against her chest, bare feet crossing the still-burning coals.
Her hair and eyebrows were gone. Her bare scalp glowed faintly red in the firelight, scoured by the heat. Ash had settled along the curves of her shoulders and neck and ribs, and the last traces of smoke still drifted from her skin as the wind caught them and pulled them away, like gossamer dissolving into nothing.
Melisandre and Joanna had stopped their chanting. Everyone present watched her walk out of the fire with the dragon in her arms. One by one, they dropped to their knees.
Khal Drogo stepped forward.
He reached out and took the hatchling from her.
The moment its body settled fully against his palm, a familiar chime rang through his mind.
Crisp and brief, identical to the ones he'd heard 2 years ago:
[Purple Dragon — Growth-Bond. All dragons under the host's bond will accelerate their growth, quickening as the Purple Dragon grows.]
[The stronger the Purple Dragon becomes, the more its master shall fear no flame.]
He held the hatchling, turning those two lines over in his head.
The hatchling trembled faintly against his palm. Its head nudged toward his thumb.
Its scales were pale purple, catching the firelight with a soft, dreamlike gleam.
"Growth-Bond," he murmured. Low enough that only he could hear it.
The Purple Dragon struggled once. Its wings cracked open, then folded shut.
Its body was still shorter than his forearm. Its claws rested against the side of his thumb, the nails not yet fully hardened, barely more than a tickle against his skin.
He thought of the other three — Drogon, Rhaegal, Viserion. Already 2 years old, and still decades from true adulthood.
He'd been twenty-eight when he first met Dany. Three years had passed. He was thirty-one now.
By the time the dragons were grown, he might already be dead.
He wanted to see how far the Battle-Bond could push his speed and strength. Wanted to see how many times the Bond of Vitality could drag him back from the edge of death after grievous wounds. Wanted to know whether the Perception-Bond would let him read an enemy's strike before it even launched.
He had been waiting for them to grow up this whole time.
Belwas, the largest of the Iron Guard, got to his feet, unfastened the white cloak from his back, and stepped forward to drape it over Daenerys Targaryen's shoulders.
She gathered the edges at her chest and glanced down at the hatchling in Khal Drogo's arms.
The Purple Dragon squirmed free of his hold. Its head burrowed toward Daenerys Targaryen's chest, found a familiar place by instinct, and latched onto her nipple.
Her hand settled on its back. Her fingers traced slowly along its spine. She didn't stop it.
It suckled, a thin, contented sound rising from its throat.
The bloodriders and the Iron Guard closed in around them and they descended the stone steps along the side of the Dragonpit together, the ruins' broken walls funneling the wind, lifting the white cloak from Daenerys Targaryen's shoulders and letting it fall.
They boarded a carriage and passed through the streets. The common folk by the roadside didn't recognize them. A few glanced longer than the rest, but no one stopped. At the street corners, lines still stretched for grain rations, eyes moving back and forth between the carts dispensing wheat porridge and the clay bowls in people's hands.
Back at the Red Keep, Khal Drogo followed Daenerys Targaryen through the corridors and into the spacious chamber in the castle's east wing.
A brazier burned in the corner. A low bed sat against one wall. By the window was Rhaego's cradle.
Daenerys Targaryen placed the hatchling on the blanket beside it, next to the two-year-old boy.
Irri, Jhiqui, and Doreah were gathered around Rhaego, all three of them watching the child. Irri was wiping the drool from his chin with a damp cloth. Jhiqui was sorting through scattered toys. Doreah held a small bowl of warm goat's milk, the spoon hovering above the rim, waiting for Rhaego to wear himself out and open his mouth.
Rhaego sat on the thick blanket with his chubby legs stretched in front of him, a cloth dragon doll clutched in both hands.
Dany crouched and gently set the purple hatchling down beside him.
The little boy looked at the purple thing next to him for a moment, then wrapped both arms around it.
The Purple Dragon stretched its neck, let out a hiss, and peered curiously around at the room and the people in it.
Daenerys Targaryen turned and went into the adjacent bathroom.
The news traveled fast.
Scarlett came in from the far end of the corridor carrying Joanna Drogo in her arms. She stood by the cradle and looked down at the hatchling for a long time, then reached out and touched its back once before drawing her hand away.
Missandei followed behind her, stepping quietly, stopping a little farther back, her gaze settled on the hatchling.
Sansa and Margaery came too, standing at the doorway, watching from a few paces off.
"So small," Sansa said.
Margaery glanced at her. "Hard to imagine it'll be the largest creature in the world, isn't it."
About the time it takes to finish a meal, the bathroom door opened.
Daenerys Targaryen walked out in a clean robe, the white lionskin Khal Drogo had given her draped back over her shoulders. The lion-head hood was pulled up to cover her bare scalp. Her face had been washed clean, but the skin around her eyes was still a shade darker than the rest, stained by heat and smoke.
She walked to the cradle, bent down, and lifted the hatchling.
It was awake. It shifted in her palm, wings cracking open before folding shut again, head tilting toward her thumb — as if it had already memorized her scent.
She cradled it in her fingers and looked down at it for a moment.
Then she looked toward Khal Drogo, sitting in the chair by the window.
"Have you thought of a name for it?"
He looked at the small pale-purple thing rising and falling gently in Dany's arms, like a thought he'd been turning over for days had finally surfaced.
"Ao Bing."
Daenerys Targaryen's fingers traced lightly over its back. The pale purple scales caught the firelight and glinted soft.
"Ao Bing." She sounded it out carefully. "Does it mean something?"
Scarlett coughed softly. "It doesn't sound like a Westerosi word."
"Burdened by fate," Khal Drogo said. "But brave enough to defy it."
The Purple Dragon cried out once, thin and short, as if it agreed.
Wind pushed through the window and stirred the flames in the brazier.
Beyond the walls of the Red Keep, King's Landing had gone quiet. Only the occasional tramp of patrol boots crossed the cobblestones somewhere below.
The streets and houses were still broken. Some roofs hadn't been repaired. The scorch marks from the wildfire still clung to the corners of the walls.
He leaned back in his chair and watched the new dragon in Daenerys Targaryen's arms.
It was watching him back.
➤ Next: Drogo Weighs the Dragons