298 AC — Meereen
Anakin laid awake beneath sheets that breathed with the desert wind.
The Great Pyramid never truly slept. Even here, high above the city, the stone held echoes—distant footsteps in corridors, the low chant of the Graces far below, the hush and scrape of spears as Unsullied changed watch outside his doors. Meereen's life pressed up through the walls like heat.
Beside him, Missandei slept on her side, one knee tucked up, hair spilled across the pillow in dark curls. Her hand rested on his ribs as if to make certain he remained real.
He watched the slow rise and fall of her chest and tried, for once, to let his mind be empty. It did not obey.
If he was honest—and in the privacy of his own mind he sometimes was—Anakin had wanted this from the moment he first saw her in Astapor. Wanted her long before he could have named the wanting. He had held that desire at bay for almost two years, smothered beneath duty, under Griff's disapproving eye, under his own fear of what being with her would mean.
In the end, he had given in—though not without cause, and not without counsel.
The Red Priestess had played no small part in it. Kinvara had spoken to him of a future vast and terrible in its promise, a vision so bright it burned behind his eyes long after her words had faded. She had shown him greatness not as a dream, but as something waiting to be seized.
And in him it had kindled something dangerous. A hunger. A need to reach for more.
Missandei was that. She was warm and human and stubborn. She did not whisper about destiny. She asked whether the freedmen had bread. Whether the harbor tolls would provoke riots. Whether the Unsullied had clothes that fit.
He slid his fingers along the line of her spine, feather-light. He thought she slept until her lashes fluttered and her eyes opened.
"You're thinking too loudly," she murmured against his chest.
He huffed a quiet laugh. "Sorry. I forgot you could read minds."
"Not minds," she said, smiling as she shifted closer, "just you."
He rested his face in her hair. The scent of it—salt and citrus oil—was absurdly comforting.
After a time, Missandei spoke again without lifting her head. "What were you thinking?"
Anakin was silent long enough that her breathing slowed again. The wind sighed against the shutters. Somewhere below, a dog barked and was answered by another.
"My uncle and my aunt," he said at last.
Her head rose slightly. "The Targaryens from Pentos."
"Viserys and Daenerys." The names felt strange in his mouth. Too old for people he had never known. "They'll be here by midday if the winds were kind."
Missandei studied his face. "Are you nervous?"
Anakin's mouth twitched. "I'm not afraid of them."
"That is not what I asked," she replied softly.
He stared at the canopy and let out a slow breath. He could lie to her, he supposed, but she had a way of making lies feel childish.
"I asked Griff once what they were like," Anakin said. "He told me Viserys was sour-tempered even in the cradle. Ser Myles used to say he was vain to the point of madness." His lip curled faintly. "That's my father's brother for you. A comfort…"
"And Daenerys?" Missandei asked.
"I don't know." He shrugged, and she shifted with the movement. "She'd be twelve—thirteen by now. What are girls like at that age?" he asked, and it came out more concerned than curious.
Missandei chuckled once, quiet. "That depends on the girl."
"It shouldn't matter," Anakin said, though he did not sound convinced. "Griff says blood is duty. If that's true, bringing them here would be the first service I've done for my House." He paused. "And perhaps the last, if they prove as troublesome as he fears."
Missandei considered his words. Masters had taught her tongues, figures, the use of silence. No one had taught her how to choose. Until him.
"If they are not safe with you," she said, lifting her head to meet his gaze, "I do not know where they would be."
He looked at her then—truly looked. He brushed his thumb across her cheek. Missandei's lips parted. He kissed her, slow, lingering, and for a moment there was nothing else.
"Thank you," he said as he drew back.
Anakin loved the way Missandei stood behind him, unflinching and steadfast. To him, that was love as he understood it—unyielding loyalty, given without question or doubt.
Outside, the city was waking. Sounds came faint and muted this high—distant shouts from the harbor, the clatter of carts, the first calls of hawkers in the lower markets. Meereen was alive. It was his. It needed ruling, and often he found that task more exhausting than war.
"Go back to sleep," he said, kissing her head. "I'm going to get dressed before Griff comes barging in looking for me."
"You will be fine," she murmured, settling once more. "You always are."
Anakin lay still a moment longer, listening to her breathing, and wondered if she understood what a curse that could be.
(Later That Day…)
By the time the sun cleared the horizon, Meereen's harbor lay bright beneath its glare.
The docks were a forest of masts and rigging. Sails of a hundred hues snapped in the morning wind. The smell of tar and salt clung to the air, mingled with fish and furnace smoke and the sharp tang of river mud where the Skahazadhan met the bay.
A Pentoshi galley announced itself long before it moored. Its sail was purple, its hull gleaming with fresh paint. The banner from its mast bore a forked tower—Illyrio Mopatis's sigil.
On the quay, a small court had gathered.
Jon Connington stood at their head, clean-shaven for once, red hair tied back. Dark rings shadowed his eyes. He'd slept even less than Anakin. Ser Jorah Mormont loomed beside him. Grey-Worm stood with a half-dozen Unsullied, spearpoints fixed like a row of teeth.
The gangplank thudded down.
Illyrio Mopatis descended in a flurry of brocade and perfume, smiling as if arriving to a wedding rather than a city he had helped set on fire with schemes.
"Lord Connington!" he boomed, spreading his arms wide as if to embrace the whole harbor. "What a joy to see you yet again. The years have not dulled your edge—nor, alas, your scowl."
"Magister," Griff said, and if his greeting was shallow, Illyrio pretended not to notice.
The magister turned, silks rustling. "Permit me the honor," he intoned, "of presenting Viserys and Daenerys, of House Targaryen."
Viserys came first, as if he would not have it otherwise.
Tall and thin, his face all sharp angles and pale skin, silver-gold hair falling in unkempt waves around his shoulders. He wore rich Pentoshi silk embroidered with dragons, too bright for daylight. His eyes—deep, hard violet—slid over Jon and Jorah.
Behind him, Daenerys approached with more care.
She was small, not yet grown into herself. Her hair was braided back with simple ties. Her pale gown was modest, as unadorned as she was. Her eyes were the same violet as her brother's—but hers were wide, watching everything.
"Prince Viserys. Princess Daenerys," Griff said, inclining his head. "Welcome to Meereen."
Jorah and Grey-Worm bowed as well.
"It's you," Viserys said, ignoring the greetings. His lip curled. "Jon Connington. My father's failure of a Hand."
Griff's jaw tightened. "I served him as I could," he said evenly. "As I serve his grandson now."
"Do you?" Viserys's gaze flicked around. "Where is he by the way? I don't see our king. Only an exile."
Griff's face did not change, but his eyes darkened. Behind him, Jorah knew the prince's words were not meant for him. Yet they might have been. The truth of them sat all the same.
Then, from the prow of a neighboring galley, came a shout. "Illyrio Mopatis!"
Heads turned.
Along the next pier, under the shadow of a mast that bore black-and-red, a man strode down a gangplank—boots thudding on wood.
Anakin wore no crown. No gilded armor. Only a sleeveless white tunic and black trousers tucked into worn boots, a belt at his waist, and Blackfyre at his hip. His silver hair was tied back at the nape, neck bare to the sunlight. From a distance he might have been mistaken for some common dockman—until one saw his eyes.
Missandei walked slightly behind his shoulder, robed in black and red silk that mirrored Targaryen colors.
Anakin reached Illyrio first and pulled the magister into a hug that was half-embrace, half mockery. "You've grown fat," he said, stepping back. "Well… fatter. Gods, how long has it been?"
Though Griff did not trust the magister, Anakin's memories of Illyrio were warmer. In his boyhood, the Pentoshi had sat with him over the cyvasse board, teaching him the names of the pieces and the patience of the game. Illyrio was no man to be trusted—Anakin knew that well enough—but he had ever been free with his gold and his comforts, and generosity, even when bought, leaves its own kind of mark.
Illyrio's laugh rolled across the water. "Too long indeed, Your Grace. Still full of life as ever, I see. And grown. Immensely."
Anakin's gaze shifted then to the strangers he had known his whole life.
Viserys looked back with an expression that flickered between surprise and calculation. The likeness to Rhaegar was almost cruel, as if the gods had set the same face in a different clay.
"You must be my uncle," Anakin said, extending a hand, "Viserys. My father's brother."
Viserys stared at the offered hand a heartbeat too long, then clasped it quickly. "I am. Nephew," he said. The word had more edge than warmth.
Anakin's gaze slid past him and softened when it found the girl. "And whose this… angel," he said, voice dropping. "Daenerys, I presume."
She dipped her head, suddenly shy. Color rose in her cheeks. "Y–Yes… Your Grace."
Daenerys's attention, surprisingly, wasn't on Anakin but the woman next to him.
Her robes were like ones she had dreamed of as a little girl in Braavos—fine and graceful, fit for a princess in some bright tale. In those days such things had lived only in her imaginings. They had been too poor to buy them, and too hunted for her to wear them openly even if they could. Yet here it was before her now, as real as silk beneath her fingers.
"Oh please," Anakin said, and there was a gentleness there that made her look up again, "you can drop the titles around me. We're family afterall."
Beside them, Viserys's mouth twitched into something that wanted to be a smile and nearly succeeded. "That we are," he said.
Daenerys's eyes flitted from one to the other—her brother in bright Pentoshi finery, chin lifted like a dagger; her nephew in plain cloth with the sword of kings at his hip, laughing like a man who owned the air around him. Both dragons. They did not burn the same.
Her gaze caught briefly on the ship Anakin had come from. Its hull was pitch black, its lines lean. Built for speed, not ceremony.
"You like her?" Anakin asked, catching her look.
"It is… different from Pentoshi ships," Daenerys said carefully.
"I've been working on her," Anakin replied, "on and off for the better part of a year." His mouth twisted, half-wry. "There are better ships, sure. But this one is mine."
"You built it?" she asked, surprised.
Anakin shrugged. "It's a… pastime."
Viserys snorted. "A king shouldn't waste his time like a dockhand."
Anakin turned his head slowly. "A king does what he wants," he said mildly, unimpressed. Then, as if the matter were settled, he gestured toward the city where the Great Pyramid rose highest. "Come. You must all be weary from your travels. Let me get you settled before my council finds out where I've been all morning."
Viserys's nostrils flared, but he followed.
(That Evening…)
The feasting hall near the pyramid's summit had seen grander nights.
Pillars loomed along the walls, gilding flaking where Anakin's men had torn masters down. Braziers smoked in their stone cradles. Tapestries in Targaryen colors draped over old Meereenese patterns like a new skin stitched atop an old wound.
A long table was set with roasted fowl, spitted lamb, saffron rice, figs, honeyed dates, and pitchers of wine dark as blood—yet only a handful of people sat to eat.
Anakin at the head. Missandei at his right. To his left, Viserys and Daenerys. Illyrio at his ease near the far end, watching more than he ate. Griff and Jorah sat around the magister, as if refusing to pretend this was a simple family supper.
Viserys toyed with a fig as though expecting it to offend him.
"Meereen," he replied, rolling the name about his tongue. "Impressive, I must admit. Yet I wonder, nephew—why conquer it?"
"Because it needed conquering," Anakin said, tearing a leg from the bird.
Viserys's eyes narrowed. "That is not an answer."
"It's the truth," Anakin replied, chewing. "Astapor, Yunkai, this place… I could have sailed west and left it to rot, I suppose." His mouth tightened. "But then I'd have been as cowardly as the men who made it. I thought it could be better."
Viserys scoffed, "Better? Better than what? Surely you don't mean the Iron Throne."
Anakin's gaze drifted to the far tapestries as if he could see through stone to a distant hall of swords. "The Iron Throne…" he began, then let it die. He was wondering how long it was going to take to get to that subject.
In truth, Anakin could press his claim for the throne at once, and part of him wants to do so.
The silence that followed had weight.
Daenerys broke it. "Do you… remember Westeros at all?"
Anakin looked at her. "No," he admitted. "My earliest memories are in Pentos with our portly friend here," he gestured to Illyrio who raised his goblet with a smile. "Then various camps and inns. Dirt roads and such."
"I was born on Dragonstone," Daenerys added softly. "But I do not remember it. My brother says a storm raged all night. All I remember is a house with a red door in Braavos. A lemon tree outside. Sometimes I dream of it."
"A red door…" Anakin repeated, and something in his voice softened. "Sounds… safe." The word sat oddly on his tongue.
For a heartbeat, something passed between them. A shared absence. A home promised and never given.
Viserys drank, impatient with tenderness. "We speak of doors and trees when we should speak of our throne," he said. "The one the Usurper has stolen. His get foul the Crownlands. Our banners have not flown in Westeros in near twenty years."
"And when we get there," Anakin asked, his tone measured yet touched with honest curiosity, "What's your plan, exactly?"
Viserys blinked—as if no one had ever asked him that before. His mouth opened, then shut again. "That depends," he said stiffly.
"On?"
"On what Houses remain loyal," Viserys snapped, recovering. "On who remembers their oaths."
Anakin studied him. He heard Griff's voice in the answer. Duty. Legacy. Oaths. The language of men who had spent years talking about crowns instead of building anything with their hands.
And then Viserys saw it. Not the tension in Anakin's jaw, nor the way Griff watched like a hawk. Not even the sword at Anakin's hip. He saw the brief, unguarded warmth when Anakin's fingers brushed Missandei's under the table. Saw the glance passed between them—quick, familiar, private. Not lord and servant.
"This… Missandei, was it?" Viserys asked, "What exactly is she to you?"
Missandei's spine straightened. "I administer his grace's will, my prince." Her voice carried a new poise, a quiet confidence that had grown in the weeks since she and Anakin had become lovers.
When rumors of Anakin and the Red Priestess had swirled through the pyramid, Missandei couldn't deny the sting of envy. He always had a way of awakening feelings in her she'd long suppressed.
She was a servant; he was a king, and she was certain he saw her as a friend—perhaps his only one. She wanted to be worthy of that trust.
That changed the night he first kissed her. She was too stunned to react, swept away by his conviction as his hands moved to remove her clothes, exploring her body without hesitation.
In the peace that followed, their lives found a new routine. Aside from planning Meereen's new architecture and designing its new fleet, Anakin spent nearly every night with her. Missandei urged for discretion, but he seemed to relish the risk, taking her whenever an opportunity arose. She wouldn't pretend the encounters weren't pleasurable, yet she couldn't fathom the source of his newfound boldness. Perhaps, the rumors of the Red Priestess were not so much rumors.
"She sits on my council," Anakin said, tone cooling. "If you must put her in a box, call her… Master of Laws."
At that, Missandei's brow arched ever so slightly, a flicker of amusement crossing her composed face at an official title.
Daenerys's breath caught. She had never heard a man speak so in defense of any woman. Not in Pentos. Not ever.
"Your Master of Laws?" Viserys barked a laugh. "And Connington is your Hand, I suppose."
"In all but name," Anakin replied with a faint shrug. "Old Griff doesn't seem to have ever forgiven himself for failing your father. He refused all my formal offers."
"As well he should," Viserys hissed, his own bitter memories of Jon clearly resurfacing as he glared at him from across the table.
Anakin leaned back slightly. "That being said," he adds, voice low as steel, "you will heed Griff's word as you would mine. And the same respect is due Missandei, and anyone else who sits on my council. Please do remember that, Viserys."
They stared at one another. Viserys looked away first. He inclined his head in something that tried to be assent.
Across the table Illyrio lifted his cup and drank as if this were all entertaining. He gave a silent apology, no doubt, for the prince's tirade.
Anakin found himself less concerned with his uncle's rants than with the peculiar lens through which he viewed the world.
Viserys's anger was a constant, low-burning ember beneath his skin, quick to flare, yet Anakin understood its source better than most would think. What it was like to live with the ghost of a crown, to carry the memory and legacy of a dead father.
He turned his gaze then to Daenerys. She sat small and still, rarely meeting his eyes, and her voice, when she spoke at all, was a murmur almost lost to the rustle of their silk and the clink of silverware. But beneath that fragile demeanor, he sensed something more.
'So this is it,' Anakin thought. 'This is my blood, my kin.' The great House Targaryen, reduced now to the few who yet bore its name.
(Two Weeks Later…)
Meereen settled into a rhythm of sorts
The freedmen worked the docks and markets. The Unsullied patrolled in silent ranks. The Great Pyramid's terrace gardens bloomed under careful waterings, green thrown against red brick.
Daenerys spent most of her days beneath a pale awning on the upper terrace with her handmaids nearby, learning Meereen's ways from Missandei. They spoke of numbers and grain, of customs and courtesies, of what a princess must look like even when she felt like a frightened girl wearing borrowed silk.
Viserys, by contrast, spent his days as if the city were a toy. He prowled through feasts, demanded wine as if it were tribute, spoke loudly of the Iron Throne and loudly enough that other men heard.
That was what worried Anakin most. Not that Viserys would offend someone. A man with a mouth like his would always offend. But that he would make promises, and men would listen.
The Golden Company's veterans watched him as they watched all things—assessing value. Most laughed. Some did not.
Harry Strickland had approached Anakin twice with tight-lipped civility. "Keep you uncle away from my men," he had said.
Anakin smiled as if amused and made no promises at all. Because Anakin had already decided the simplest solution was to keep Viserys occupied.
He had Griff take him.
An 'errand,' Anakin called it with a straight face, sending his uncle to inspect shipyards and supply depots under Connington's watch—work dull enough to numb the tongue and long enough to keep him from court.
Griff did not argue. He rarely did anymore when Anakin's mind was set.
(Presently…)
Daenerys sat beneath a pale awning of sun-bleached linen, where the shadow fell cool upon the skin. Above her the sky was an endless bowl of hard blue, and the wind off Slaver's Bay came and went in warm breaths, teasing loose strands of her silver-gold hair.
For a little while she could almost pretend she was elsewhere. Not in this great pyramid with its echoing corridors and foreign smells, not in a city that still tasted of smoke and blood, but back beside the canals of Braavos with a lemon-sour breeze on her cheek.
Irri, Doreah, and Jhiqui sat nearby, needles flashing as they knit and whispered in their quick Dothraki. Their laughter came soft and secret, like birds in a high garden.
Missandei sat with Daenerys on a bench of warm stone, speaking to her in the Common Tongue with that calm, gentle patience she seemed to keep for no one else. Missandei's voice made the world feel less sharp.
Daenerys had never known a sister, nor had she ever cared to wonder what such a thing might feel like. Yet if she had been granted one in some kinder world, she thought she might have been like Missandei—gentle of voice, steadfast of heart, ever at her side.
Down below, Meereen sprawled beneath the morning sun, its terraces and pyramids and flat-roofed houses stacked like children's blocks. From this height the harbor looked almost peaceful, a forest of masts rocking gently in the bay. Freedmen's boats bobbed amongst merchant cogs. Dragon banners snapped in the wind. It was all so bright that sometimes Daenerys could forget what it had been.
Footsteps came across the stone behind her—measured, unhurried, as if the man who made them had never needed to hurry in his life.
Daenerys turned.
Anakin stood at the edge of the awning's shade, plain as any soldier. A black tunic, dark trousers, boots scuffed by travel. Only the sword at his hip spoke of what he was, and even that he wore as if it were no more than another limb. Blackfyre's pommel glinted when the sun caught it.
"Your grace," Daenerys said without thinking.
Anakin's mouth curved. "Still with that, are you? I thought we'd moved past such formalities."
"I suppose," she said, and she could not keep the small smile from escaping. It felt strange on her face, like a garment she had not worn in years.
Missandei rose at once, as if she had heard the air change. She always seemed to know when a moment demanded privacy. "Why don't we give their graces a moment," she murmured.
Irri, Doreah, and Jhiqui rose to follow her.
Grey-Worm appeared from behind Anakin, silent and rigid, and with him two Unsullied bearing a small ironbound chest between them. They set it down on a low plinth near the bench with a dull thud and withdrew behind the women.
Missandei dipped her head to Daenerys and to Anakin both, and then they were gone down the stairs, leaving only wind and sun and the faint sound of the city far below.
Anakin watched them file away. "Quite the retinue you keep," he observed.
"They are good friends," Daenerys said. "Magister Illyrio brought them to my service in Pentos. They've chosen to stay by my side… here… with you."
"Strange…" Anakin murmured, half to himself.
Daenerys tilted her head. "What is?"
"Griff—Lord Connington—never trusted Illyrio," he said. "Yet the magister's generosity never wavered. He aided us when I was a boy, stood by my claim, and saw you and your brother cared for when Robert's knives came hunting."
His gaze had drifted beyond her, toward the harbor and the banners and whatever thoughts lived behind his eyes.
He let the thought fall away as if it were nothing, but Daenerys felt the weight of it. 'Robert's knives.' The words made her stomach clench. Dany had lived beneath its shadow. Every knock at a door had been a threat. Every strange step in the street had made her heart race.
Anakin glanced back at her then, as if remembering she was there. His eyes softened a fraction, and for an instant he looked less like a king and more like the exiled dragons they were.
Since Daenerys's arrival, Missandei had done what Anakin himself did not have time for—taking her under her wing, guided her through Meereen's strange customs, through the pyramid's echoing halls, through the thin smiles of old noble families who bent the knee and hated the taste of it.
His uncle had kept him busy. Viserys…
Anakin had wanted to respect him. He could see the dragon in his uncle's boasts, the fire of a prince denied his birthright. But there was too much bitterness there, too much need. Viserys did not simply want a throne; he wanted the world to apologize for letting him go hungry.
Daenerys knew that hunger.
"Viserys…" she said suddenly as if she knew what he was thinking. "I'm sorry about my brother. He can be a little… paranoid. He thinks everyone is out to kill us."
"Well," Anakin said, dry as dust, "he's not entirely wrong."
Daenerys looked down at her hands clasped in her lap. She could feel it then—the silence inside her whenever her brother was spoken of, the thing she accepted because she had accepted it all her life. She did not know if Anakin could sense it too. Sometimes she thought he could sense everything.
"For years," Anakin continued, "Griff told me I was not to be seen. Not truly. 'You're safest in the shadows, Your Grace.' 'No banners yet.' 'No names yet.'" His mouth tightened. "Yet here we are. Banners on every mast. In plain sight."
"You do not hide," said Daenerys. She heard wonder in her own voice and did not know what to do with it. "They sing of you. Even in Pentos, in the markets… they called you Breaker of Chains." She hesitated, then added, "Some called you something else."
"Oh?" Anakin asked, amused. "Do I want to hear what?"
"An invader," Daenerys said quietly.
"Invader…" Anakin echoed, remembering Kinvara calling him that. That was what strangers called dragons when they came to take what they wished, and it was what men called saviors when they were not saved.
Anakin did not flinch. He only looked at her as if deciding whether she meant it as warning or accusation.
Then he turned to the chest he had the Unsullied bring. He knelt beside the low plinth with easy grace, fingers moving to the clasps. The iron gave with a soft click.
When he lifted the lid, velvet gleamed within like a pool of dark wine, and resting in it were three abnormally large eggs.
Daenerys's breath caught in her throat.
Green streaked with bronze. White shot through with gold. Black as midnight with red fissures like cracks in cooling lava. They looked like stone and yet… not. There was a wrongness to their stillness, a sense of something sleeping too deeply to wake.
"Are those…?" Her voice came out a whisper.
"Dragon eggs," Anakin answered simply. "Illyrio claims they came from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai. I remember seeing them in his vaults when I was younger." He smiled faintly, as if at a memory he did not share. "He gave them to me before he left this morning. A gift of remembrance, he said. One egg for each of the last dragons."
Daenerys leaned forward, eyes wide. "They're beautiful."
"Lucky for you," Anakin said, wry, "I'm letting our little lady have the first pick."
"Really?"
"Well, considering it is between you and Viserys the choice is… not that difficult."
Her hand trembled as she reached for the green egg. It was heavier than she expected, and warmer than stone had any right to be. The scales rasped faintly beneath her fingers, a soft dry sound, like old parchment.
"This one…" she whispered. The egg seemed to pulse under her palm, or perhaps it was only in her head. "I think I'll name him Rhaegal."
The name shivered in the air. Rhaegar. Always Rhaegar. For a heartbeat Anakin's face changed. Annoyance flashed there, sharp and sudden as a drawn knife—then vanished as quickly as it came.
"Rather optimistic, aren't we?" he said lightly. "You do know the eggs are stone, right? Petrified."
Daenerys held the egg tighter, as if he might take it away. Something fierce unfurled in her chest, hot and strange. Not anger, not quite. A certainty she had never dared before.
"I will hatch them," she said.
Anakin's brow lifted. "Will you now?"
"Yes," she said again, and this time she heard her own voice as if it belonged to someone older. Someone who did not flinch.
He studied her for a moment. Then his mouth quirked. "Tell you what," he said, "if you hatch that egg, I'll personally hand you the Iron Throne myself."
Daenerys felt her lips curve. "I shall hold you to that, nephew."
"Then may they wake for you." Anakin reached out and, with an ease that startled her, patted the top of her head as if she were a child. His fingers ruffled her braid. "And may they know their mother's voice when she calls."
Daenerys straightened, chin lifting. The wind tugged at her hair, and she clutched the egg to her like a promise.
"I've seen them, you know," she said softly. "In my dreams. There is one for you, one for me, one for Viserys and…" Her voice faltered.
"And?" Anakin pressed, and the amusement had faded from him. Something intent lived in his eyes now.
"There is a fourth," Daenerys murmured, eyes gone distant. "Wandering. Flying further. Higher away. I can never see it clearly."
Anakin stared at her, and for a moment his stillness felt like the pause before thunder. Dany saw something flicker behind his gaze, like a man hearing his own secret spoken by someone else's mouth.
"You really are… something," he said.
She tore her eyes from the eggs to look at him. Her violet gaze searched his face, as if trying to find the boy beneath the king.
"You do, don't you?" she asked quietly. "You have another."
Anakin said nothing at all. Then the faintest smile touched his lips—small, private, and sharp as a blade turned sideways.
And Daenerys wondered, with a sudden chill beneath the sun, what dreams could make a man look like that.
(Elsewhere…)
Viserys was drunk in a winesink by the harbor when Griff found him.
Harry Strickland stood at the entrance, face puckered sour. He saw the way his men's discipline loosened under the wine, felt it in the slower salutes in the yard, heard it in the rougher jests.
"Get him out of there," Harry grunted when Griff approached him, wasting no time.
"He's your prince," Griff said, "if you take him at his word."
"He's 'your' responsibility," Strickland shot back. "My men serve the dragon on the throne, not the one on the wine cask. Your boy—our boy—earned that. This one?" He jerked his chin inside the winesink.
Jon entered.
The place smelled of sweat, sour wine, and roasted meat. Golden Company men filled the benches, laughing louder than necessary. A girl sat on Viserys's lap. Another fed him grapes one by one as if he were king.
Viserys lifted his cup high. "To Westeros," he proclaimed, "where the dragon's banner will fly again!"
Some cheered. Some smirked. Some watched Griff enter with narrowed eyes.
He stopped at the edge of the canopy where Viserys reclined in borrowed comfort.
"My prince," Jon said. "His Grace has sent for you. He expects you at supper."
Viserys squinted up at him. "Connington," he said. "Gods, you look more miserable by the day." He took another drink and smirked. "Will you drink with us? Or does it sour your vows to think of what a real man does with what's between his legs?"
The laughter that followed was thin—men laughing not because it was funny, but because it was safer to laugh than to choose.
Griff stared down at him. He should have turned away. He should have remembered Rhaegar's eyes and his own failures and swallowed it.
Instead his fist moved. It cracked against Viserys's jaw with a sound like stone striking bone. Viserys toppled backward into cushions. Wine spilled across silk. The girl shrieked and scrambled away. The room froze.
Griff stood over him, hand aching, breath steady. "Fuck," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. He looked at the sellswords watching. "This is not your king," he said, voice flat as iron. "Mind yourselves."
Then he turned, had his men carry the prince back to the Great Pyramid, and left without waiting for anything at all.
(Meanwhile…)
Anakin trained in the courtyard of the Great Pyramid.
Daario Naharis circled him like a bright knife—laughing, feinting, arakh flashing. Grey-Worm advanced in silence, spearpoint steady and patient. Together they pressed Anakin from two sides. Curved blade and straight steel. Wild and drilled. Color and shadow.
Yet Anakin did not fight so much as… drift. His sword hung loose, low and relaxed. His feet moved a half-beat before the attack came, as if the air itself warned him.
Daario swore when Blackfyre kissed his arakh aside without effort. "No man moves like that."
"Strike true," Anakin said mildly, "and I'll die like any man."
Grey-Worm lunged without warning, spear darting like a snake. Daario followed at once, trying to trap Anakin between them. For a heartbeat it looked like they had him.
Then the air broke. An unseen force surged outward, sudden and irresistible. Grey-Worm and Daario were hurled back across the tiles, sprawling hard, breath knocked from their bodies as if the world had slapped them aside.
Anakin lowered his outstretched hand. His breathing remained calm.
"Still," he said, stepping forward and offering each a hand, "it's a useful trick."
Daario accepted the hand with a grunt. "Useful," he spat. "That's an understatement."
Grey-Worm rose and studied Anakin's face. "It is like you know where I move," he said. "Before I move."
"Maybe I do," replied Anakin.
He could feel it now, humming around everything. In the shift of Grey-Worm's shoulders before he struck. In the grit beneath boot. In the arc of the sun above.
The Force, he'd named it—because no maester or septon had given him a better word, and because the name sat clean in his mouth.
It had killed men. It had toppled harpies. It had lifted Khal Drogo into the air like a doll and snapped his neck in front of a thousand riders who believed only in what their hands could touch. It had given him a kingdom.
From the balcony above, Daenerys Targaryen watched. She had come to find Anakin, to thank him again for the eggs—but when she reached the balustrade, she stopped.
Below, in the training yard, her nephew moved between Daario and Grey-Worm like water between stones. His sword barely seemed to move, yet the arakh and spear found only air.
Then he raised his hand. The air itself seemed to buckle. Both men flew backward, sprawling on the stones. Anakin lowered his hand as if he had done nothing more than wave.
Daenerys's breath caught. She had heard the stories—the death of Kraznys, the breaking of Meereen's gate, Drogo. She had not believed them. Not really. Now she did.
Anakin looked up then, as if he had felt her watching. Their eyes met across the distance. He smiled.
Daenerys clutched the egg closer to her chest. 'Are you really a dragon?' she wondered, looking down at them. 'Or something else.'
"Your Grace!" Rolly Duckfield appeared under the archway, sweating. "Lysono's called a council. Says it's urgent."
Anakin wiped a streak of sweat from his brow. "When does he ever say it isn't?"
They walked through the pyramid's cool belly. The sounds of the yard faded behind them, replaced by echoes and the drip of some unseen cistern.
"Any idea what this meeting is about?" Anakin asked, his tone casual.
Duck shrugged, his armor clinking softly. "Not much word. Dick and Will Cole have taken Astapor without a fight. Marq Mandrake holds Yunkai in your name. The Bay is yours, Your Grace."
"Hmm," Anakin hummed.
As they neared the bronze doors of the council chamber, Anakin slowed. Something beyond the door felt… wrong. Not danger exactly. More like deceit—a sweetness rotting under silk.
He frowned, then pushed it away.
(Afterwards…)
Viserys woke with pain in his head and the taste of blood in his mouth. Light speared through the shutters. Dust motes swam in the beams. He sat up too fast. The world tilted. His jaw screamed.
"You're awake," a voice said.
Viserys blinked. Jon Connington stood by the window, arms folded, red cloak falling in still lines.
"Y–You struck me," Viserys croaked.
"I did," Griff said flatly.
Viserys pushed to his feet, rage burning through ache. "I am your prince!"
"But not my king," Griff replied. "And my king has made it very clear how I am allowed to deal with you. In case you haven't noticed, you didn't make the best impression on him."
"You stole him," Viserys hissed. "My father commanded you to bring him to my mother. On Dragonstone. He was meant to be raised with us. Instead you hid him. Kept him for yourself."
"I saved him," Griff said. "Robert would have killed you both. Like he killed your brother. Like he killed Elia and her daughter. Did you want the same for your nephew?"
"I wanted my family," Viserys spat. "Do you have any idea what it is to be left with nothing? To carry a dead man's crown in your head while you sell your mother's jewels for food? He sat fat in Pentos while I—"
"He was a babe," Griff snapped. "He sat nowhere. Men sheltered him because I kept him moving. That is all."
Viserys's eyes burned. "And now he plays king in a slave city while the Usurper laughs from my father's throne."
Jon's face tightened. He looked older in this light, more tired. "You think you can shame him into Westeros," he said. "You cannot. He is not moved by shame the way you are."
Viserys flinched as if struck again.
Griff stepped closer. "Change," he said, tossing him a cloth. "When you go before him tonight, don't stink of wine and whore-sweat."
Viserys's voice shook. "Or what? You'll hit me again?"
Griff stared at him a moment. "No. But 'he' might."
He left without waiting for an answer.
Viserys sank back onto the bed, pressing fingers to his bruised jaw.
A king in Meereen. A king who did not kneel. A king his father named. His hands began to shake. He hated Anakin for it. He hated himself more. Because he knew his father was right.
(That Night…)
Anakin lay with his head in Missandei's lap, staring up at the canopy while her fingers combed through his hair. A single lamp burned beside the bed, its flame small and steady.
"Griff finally hit him," Anakin said, sounding somewhere between delighted and appalled. "Viserys came to me at dinner, clutching his jaw like a wronged wife. Said he'd been 'assaulted'."
Missandei's shoulders shook with stifled laughter. "And what did you do?"
"I laughed."
Missandei giggled properly then, and Anakin smiled into her thigh.
"Your uncle will not forgive that easily," she warned when she could breathe again.
"He's not a threat," Anakin said. He sounded as if he believed it. "Just… loud."
Missandei's hand paused in his hair. "Loud men make echoes," she said quietly.
Anakin looked up at her. Her gaze met his, steady. For a moment he felt something uncomfortable—like being seen too clearly. He softened his voice.
"Daenerys isn't like him," he said. "I can tell she's smarter than she lets on."
Missandei's fingers resumed. "And you?"
"I'm…" Anakin yawned, "sleepy."
A knock came at the door. "Your Grace?" Griff's voice, muffled. "May we speak?"
Anakin rolled his eyes and, before Missandei could move, pretended to strangle himself theatrically between her smooth thighs. She stifled a laugh, smacking his shoulder.
"Go," she whispered, "I'll get dressed."
When Anakin opened the door, Griff stepped in and looked past him once—just once—to where Missandei tied her hair back. She bowed her head in quiet farewell. His mouth pinched as it always did.
"You're not doing your aging face any favors with that expression," Anakin quipped.
Griff ignored it. He crossed to the table by the window where a decanter waited and poured himself a measure. He did not offer one. He knew Anakin didn't drink.
"Lysono called a council today," he said. "May I ask what that was about?"
"Ships," Anakin said. "Walls. Grain. Things of matter."
Griff's eyes flicked to a small wooden model on the table—one of the king's designs, a strange plow assembly meant to cut deeper earth.
Anakin followed his gaze and, unexpectedly, felt old resentment stir. Maesters had smiled thinly at his ideas when he was a boy. Griff was not smiling now, but the skepticism felt the same.
"The city's doubled," Anakin said, voice tightening. "Freedmen, Unsullied, sellswords, Dothraki. If we cannot feed them, we return to chaos."
Griff's jaw worked. "Anakin, I know well enough what the council was truly about. You need not dress it in models and measures. Just say it."
Anakin leaned back in his chair. "Qarth," he said. "The Pureborn wish to honor me. Feast, speeches, enough wine to drown my new khalasar. Why shouldn't I go?"
Griff closed his eyes briefly, as if in pain. "You did not think to consult with me."
"Why? It's not like you're my Hand," Anakin replied.
"They may try to kill you," Griff said.
"They can try."
Griff's hands clenched. "Why? You owe them nothing."
"I owe them a chance," Anakin said. "To show me why I shouldn't burn their world the way I burned this one."
"This is not a game," Griff said. "Volantis, King's Landing, they're all watching. Now you'd walk willingly into Qarth's clutches."
Anakin's smile sharpened. "Better to be close. I can't stop them plotting from across the sea. I can stop them in their own halls. Where I can see them… feel them."
"You think too much of yourself," Griff said quietly.
"And you think too little."
"You are not a god."
"I know." Anakin's voice went colder. "Gods are far crueler."
The words hung between them.
Griff stared at him a long time. When he spoke again, his voice had softened in a way that made it more dangerous, not less. "Your father once thought fate was on his side," he said. "Don't make his mistakes."
"No," Anakin said, standing, "I'll make my own. Twice as many. With twice the pride."
Griff's mouth tightened. He looked suddenly very old. "And double the fall," he murmured, so softly it might have been wind.