JORAH
Even from afar, the land under the Shadow made its presence grimly felt. Maesters and mages alike had written countless manuscripts speculating on what precisely had befallen it in the early days of the world, whether it was something akin to the Doom of Valyria or if it was merely how the gods intended for it to be wrought. The city of Asshai itself had scratched out a foothold in the only habitable part of the coast, surrounded with treacherous black sands, rumbling volcanoes, and boiling sulfur geysers. There were rumors of dread creatures that lived in those dark mountains as well: spiders the size of horses, lava snakes with eyes of flame, all manner of demons and specters and seemings. It was Jorah's skeptical opinion that such tales were put about by the shadowbinders themselves, to discourage anyone who might have a mind to pay them unwelcome visits, but to be sure, he had no desire to go looking.
From his perch on Drogon's back, Jorah estimated that it was least another fifty miles, as the dragon flew, to their destination. Fifty miles too far. They'd managed less travel today than yesterday, and yesterday less than the day before that. Only coming down to earth when they absolutely had to, they had remained airborne for the better part of two weeks, and it was taking a brutal toll on all of them. Drogon's wounded wing had started to show angry red streaks where the hrakkar had torn it, the claw marks on Dany's back were turning rancid as well, and apart from his own injuries dealt by the beast, Jorah's arse and thighs were burned to a raw, pustulated crisp from the endless days of riding a dragon bareback. Blood and pus crusted his breeches, the pain when he shifted position was almost unbearable, and the cooling poultices that Dany made for him, of mud and weed and wet rags, wore through almost at once. Then the gods only knew how long it would be before they dared to land and make another one.
That was assuming they could even find water. They had been forced to fly across the southeastern expanse of the Red Waste, which was even more inhospitable than Jorah remembered, and their lips were cracked and bleeding with dryness and thirst. Jorah dozed sporadically, when the pain relented enough to let him slip under, but he was afraid that Dany might not be able to pull him back up if he started to fall. There was nothing to tie him in place with, so his eyes were as gritty as sand and his wits wandering, muzzy.
Dany slept more than he did. In the weeks since she had fled Meereen, living in the wild with Drogon, she had become half-animal herself – and then during her captivity with the khalasar, she'd had little other way of whiling past the hours. Yet Jorah did not mind. Nor did he grudge her the rest which so eluded him. For when Dany was sleeping, it was the only time – the enforced rough intimacies of their situation aside – when she willingly permitted him to touch her. He'd hold her tight with both arms, balancing her weight as well as his own, and sometimes she'd sink against him, or bury herself in his chest. In these all-too-brief moments, Jorah was taken back to the days when she had looked to him for comfort and counsel, a scared fourteen-year-old already wed and already widowed. He would never want to trap her back in that box – she had been born to be a queen, to ride dragons and rule kingdoms. But the bittersweetness of it cut him to the heart, especially in contrast with the guarded, polite coolness Dany continued to treat him with in the waking hours.
He supposed that he should be grateful that she was no longer shouting at him, that she had by choice or by necessity entrusted him with her life, and he was. But his fear of losing her again caused him to walk on eggshells with every word, every deed, every gesture, and so he had not yet told her that he could not fathom why they were risking themselves like this at all. He would have seen her safe to Braavos, to Pentos, to Westeros – anywhere she cared to go, anywhere far away from that devil's mire of Meereen, where they could mend their hurts in peace and comfort. But she had obstinately insisted on Asshai, and her maladroit handling of diplomacy with Qarth meant that they had to give a very wide berth to the only known safe city in the Waste.
Jorah was in no haste to renew acquaintances with Xaro Xhoan Daxos, he of the jewel-encrusted nose, copious tears, and dancing boys in silk, but Qarth had saved them from the desert once before, and Daxos had even been willing to purvey ships to sail them home. It was much too easy to say that negotiations would have been far better handled if he was still at Dany's side, but observing both the shambles of Meereen and their own suffering out here had finally stripped away the gloss of romantic idealism in which Jorah had always clothed her. She truly meant well, had often chosen to do what was right instead of merely what was easy, but in some ways she was still that naïve, stubborn child.
Now, however, none of that mattered. They'd gambled everything on reaching Asshai, whatever uncertain sanctuary it offered. Jorah – ignoring the sand in his throat, the ever-present agony of his broken blood blisters, and the fact that he was so hungry that it felt as if his belly was devouring itself – expelled a long, weary sigh and nudged Drogon back into motion.
"How much further?" his queen asked, when they had been flying for a few hours. Her voice was cracked and rasping; they'd had no fresh water for two days. Once they started to drink seawater, the end was nigh, but they'd been able to scavenge enough brackish gulps from tidepools that that was not yet so.
"Not far." Jorah tried to sound encouraging. "There, see – that's Asshai itself, just there on the horizon." He pointed into the hazy heat, praying that his rude calculations were accurate, that they'd gone far enough north and east, and that it wasn't Qarth instead. No, it couldn't be; those black sandy mountains could only betoken one thing. "We'll be there by nightfall, at the latest."
Dany glanced at him, her violet eyes dark with concern. "Do you think Drogon can make it?"
They could both see how the black dragon was laboring, how his wings convulsively beat at the broiling air, and how erratic gusts of smoke spiraled from his nostrils as he fought to stay aloft. Jorah did not need to be the one intricately entwined with the beast's mind to know that the outlook was grim. "Any mount rides faster when he smells hearth and home."
She smiled faintly and put her hand on Drogon's neck, closing her eyes as she silently urged him on. There seemed to be something more to it, something beyond the bond that she had had with Drogon and his brothers since she'd birthed them in the flames of her husband's funeral pyre, but Jorah was not surprised. He only hoped that they found enough dragonlore in Asshai, and whatever else it was she wanted – though he suspected he could guess – to make it worth what they'd sacrificed. Yet this was part of the lesson he must learn: to let her go, to not leap in front of her and gainsay her and shelter her.
And betray her. That thorn would never come out of his own heart. Aye, she'd lost her grip on Meereen and made enemies of Qarth and Astapor and Yunkai and all the rest, but to think that he alone could have changed it was monstrously futile. He'd proposed marriage to her once, and would still wed her tomorrow if she'd ever allow it, but he would only be asking the queen, not the woman. There were times when Jorah wished that she would let go of her dream of reclaiming the Iron Throne, that she would find even for a day the childhood and the peace she had been so brutally deprived of, but he had to let go of that as well. A lesson he had always been unable to learn; he was too proud, knew who he was too well, a sin he shared with her. What I want her to be or to do or to become is not important. He must have realized that in some nascent way, when he refrained from killing Daario. He loathed the man she'd chosen that was not him, especially such a noxious peacock as that. He loathed everything that had come of Dany's decisions since she exiled him, in fact, but he no longer had the right to judge her. He loathed everything that had come of his own decisions, as well. Mayhaps Asshai was likewise his only chance at redemption.
At that moment, Jorah was jolted unceremoniously from his ruminations as Drogon shuddered, swerved, and began to lose altitude, fast. They were two or three hundred feet up, which did not leave a great deal of margin for error, and to make matters worse, they were approaching the bay at speed. Jorah could see the ships riding at anchor – Asshai was an important trading port on the Jade Sea route, for those merchants who dared to do business here – and the city itself on the bluffs above, an elegant labyrinth of towers that brought to mind Oldtown.
The comparison seemed strangely fitting, but Asshai was multitudes more exotic than even that. Many colors, indeed every color that existed, not at all the foreboding universal black that he'd imagined. Hanging gardens and menageries, bells and arches and filigrees, the red monolith on its high hill that could only be the seat of the faith of R'hllor. Palm trees lined the cobbled wynds, and tangles of dark moss thatched the ancient ringwall that defended the city. It looked to be built merely of weathered stone, but Jorah knew the stories of spellsingers and aeromancers and warlocks – not to mention the shadowbinders themselves. He briefly and devoutly prayed that the whole unnatural lot didn't interpret a bloody big-arse dragon flying directly toward them as a clear and present threat.
At any rate, Jorah's observations both of the city's beauty and its potential to blast them clean out of the sky were irrelevant. They were now slewing and plunging barely fifty feet above the waves, and it was clear that they were not going to make it across. He could hear distant shouting, supposed that they'd been spotted and that there was nothing for it, and madly unbuckled his longsword, tore away his cloak and kicked off his boots. He'd already left the rest of his scanty possessions and armor in the Red Waste, so as not to burden Drogon with the extra weight, and felt oddly at peace. In nothing but the clothes on his back, he would go into the water and be reborn, or drown.
"Look out!" Dany screamed, as the harbor loomed up straight in front of them. Possibly Drogon's momentum would carry him to a landing on the docks – hopefully a dry one, as dragons were for obvious reasons deeply antithetical to water – but the impact would be much worse for the two of them on the stone. There was nothing for it.
Jorah grabbed Dany around the waist and jumped.
For a moment they seemed to hang in freefall. He'd tried to wait until they were as low as possible, but hadn't dared to wait too long; otherwise they'd plow into a ship. It was, therefore, a good twenty feet down, and Jorah sucked in a desperate breath as the emerald-green sea raced up to catch them. In the last moments, Dany twisted around, pressing her face to his neck and aligning her body against his, so they would go in together.
They were lucky that it was moderately feet-first. Still, Jorah felt it crash up his legs like a blow, and then they were underwater. He'd deliberately kept his eyes open, but all he could make out was white froth and the shattered shards of sunlight piercing the murky depths. They stung excruciatingly, but that was nothing compared to the pain that ripped through him when the sea lapped at his open wounds. Rubbing salt in it was a phrase which Jorah had never known the truth of until now. It was all he could do not to scream – if he did, he would start to drown.
He could feel Dany clawing and kicking desperately for the surface, and joined his efforts to hers. It was further than he thought; their dramatic entrance must have plunged them several fathoms down. His chest strained, his wounds burned. Then his head breasted a wave, he began to tread water furiously, and sucked in breath after grateful breath of hot palm-scented air. The ocean was pleasantly cool, though the agony itself remained acute.
Dany surfaced beside him, gasping, her soaking silver hair darkened to a dun grey and pasted to her shoulders in a way that made Jorah think of a mermaid. He rolled over, still spitting. "Here, my queen," he panted. "We'll have to swim for it."
He saw fear in her eyes, and realized that of course, Daenerys Targaryen did not know how to swim, daughter of air and fire that she was. He wondered if he could make it for both of them, but there was no choice. "Here. Grab onto me. The sea's salty, we'll float."
Dany took two fistfuls of the thick black hair on his back, which made him wince further, but he didn't suppose there were many other options. Thinking of frosty mornings where he had stripped buck naked and charged into the waves of Bear Island with his cousins, Jorah shifted her into a better position and broke into a laborious crawl stroke. Between this and the sinking of the Selaesori Qhoran, he'd had utterly bloody enough of the ocean for a good long while.
Up ahead, he could see a splintered, smoking ruin that had plainly very recently been a ship. The reason for its demise was equally plain: Drogon was tangled in the rigging, wings still outstretched, the vessel half-capsized under his weight as the shouts and screams of trapped sailors gurgled out from underneath. The black dragon was screaming as well, a high ululation of primal pain and fear, and seawater hissed to steam wherever it doused his hide. The noise made Dany moan in empathetic distress, all the more so since Jorah doubted there was anything she could do to help him.
Broken spars and debris bobbed in the water around them, and the shore looked impossibly far away. Jorah could feel his muscles beginning to cramp, tried fervently not to think about that. The pain from his lacerated, salted wounds was making him lightheaded, and he pulled one stroke and then another, his burly arms clenched and quivering. Each breath checked him in the sternum like a fist. It was dawning on him horribly that he could not make it after all. Someone might come for Dany, but then she would be alone, at the mercy of not just the red priests but the whole of Asshai. And he would not – not –
"Mother of Dragons!"
Jorah's head snapped up. He looked madly in one direction and then another, and then he saw it: a longboat rowed by four ebon-skinned Summer Islanders, coming fast from one of their swan ships. It was too far distant to read the full name lettered on the prow, but Jorah thought it was Cinnamon-something. And he could not believe it – a memory, Quhuru Mo, the captain who had brought Dany news of Robert Baratheon's death, who had said to her in Qarth that he was leaving to sail the trading routes of the Jade Sea – yes, he had been the captain of the Cinnamon Wind out of Tall Trees Town –
Dany recognized it as well. Jorah felt her stiffen, and then she hauled herself upright and began to scream to them. They screamed back, and after a further few moments that felt like the longest of even Jorah Mormont's eventful life, the longboat rode over the crest of the nearest wave and surged to a halt beside them. One of the rowers extended an oar and Jorah, with the very last of his strength, grabbed hold of it. There was a hard jerk, and then he was lying prone in the bottom of the boat without remembering how he'd gotten there, hacking up seawater and teetering on the very edge of blacking out.
Due to this, Jorah missed almost all of the following interlude, in which they were presumably conveyed to the Cinnamon Wind and taken on board. When he opened his eyes again, he was lying in some narrow ship's bunk, late afternoon sunlight was lacing golden across the gently rocking floor, and Dany was nowhere in sight.
Grimacing, Jorah pushed himself into a sitting position, remembering just in time to duck to avoid cracking his head on the low ceiling; after the day he'd had, he didn't need any more punishment. Blood rushed in front of his eyes, but when it faded, he felt able to hazard standing up. Someone had taken the rags of his old clothes, and flung one of the brightly patterned caftans favored by the islanders over the bunk instead. Jorah shrugged it on, unused to the sensation of swinging in the breeze, and bumbled his way to the door. His wounds had been bandaged, and there was some unfamiliar slick shine on his skin; an unguent of sorts, apparently. He was as thirsty as a thousand deserts, but he needed to see what was going on. On hands and knees, he clambered up to the deck.
The first thing he looked for was Dany, and he saw her almost at once, standing by the stern in the company of a tall, slender, dark-skinned girl. Deciding that this was as logical a place to start as any, he stumped over to join them.
"Good bear." It was the girl – the captain's daughter, he thought – who turned to catch him, putting one strong hand under his elbow. "You should not be up."
"There will be time to rest later." Jorah steadied himself on the deck rail and glanced around. They were a mile or two offshore from Asshai; the city sparkled alluringly in the gathering twilight, and even from here they could see the glow and smell the smoke of the massive nightfire that burned before the temple of R'hllor. Likely the appearance of a real live dragon had sent them into transports of religious furor, and Jorah supposed that at least they'd be spared the need to make introductions. He should find out about the dragon itself, so he opened his mouth, looked down – and shut it.
Drogon was moored behind the Cinnamon Wind, in an impromptu sailcloth sling that at least kept him mostly out of the water. Some wizard with knots had expertly strung it up to alleviate the drag on the keel, and the black dragon was curled up in the fashion of a sulking child, glaring at them balefully from one cracked red eye. Threads of smoke emerged from his nostrils, but his normally gleaming scales were dull and matte, and the injured wing was held at such an awkward angle that it was apparent that he had almost no use of it. It really was a miracle that he'd borne them so fast and so far.
"Thank you," Jorah murmured to the beast, who snorted a cascade of disdainful sparks, then turned to its mistress. "How in the blazes did you get him free?"
"Literally in the blazes." Dany's mouth quirked. Nodding to the tall girl, she went on, "It was Kojja's idea. The – the ship was sinking, and he was still trapped, so she had her crew set it afire."
Aye, Jorah thought, that would do the trick. But he could see the tears in Dany's eyes, the way her chin quivered, and knew that she had hated condemning the innocent sailors of the doomed vessel to die on her behalf. Her paradoxes always caught him off guard – that she had, without a hint of hesitation, commanded Drogon to set Khal Jhaqo on fire, yet mourned the lives it had cost to rescue him, lives of men she didn't even know. The times when she could be so. . . so Targaryen, and the others when she was still that deeply compassionate young woman, born and raised in hardship yet never defined by it. The compassion which had cost her Meereen, it could be argued, but Jorah did not want to. He turned to Dany, trying to show her that he would comfort her if she allowed it, but she remained distant. So he fought his disappointment and turned instead to Kojja. "We owe you and the crew our lives. Thank you."
"No matter, good bear. But the Mother of Dragons tells me you would still go to Asshai. Why? From here, we make home to Tall Trees Town. My father has a hold full of ore and jewels and amber and dragonglass, will be a rich man when he sells it. Come with us. On the Summer Isles you will rest beneath palms and blue sky, on white sand beaches, and never know pain or cold again."
"I would if I could," Dany said softly. "But that is not what remains for me. It must be Asshai."
"As you say, Mother of Dragons. But the red priests will take you and your child, and they will change you. Do you not wonder how they have flourished here so long, here under the shadow?"
She gave the last three words a peculiar emphasis that caused a chill to crawl down Jorah's back. She is trying to warn us, he realized. "Tell me, Kojja. You must have been here often. What is the shadow, and why is Asshai under it?"
The tall Summer Islander hesitated. Then she said, "That is not a question I can answer, good bear. But the red priests are fire, utter fire, and it is fire that casts the darkest shadows."
Dany laughed. "If they think to burn me, they will learn more of fire than even they care to."
Still Kojja seemed reluctant. Then she said, "That would be so, but will you know how they say that all the world is two halves, constantly at war, constant opposites? And the opposite of fire is ice. The Great Other, they call it. . . but it is not so other as all that."
Something in the way she said it made Jorah think of frightening stories told by the hearthfire, as snow pelted down outside in one of the early winters of his boyhood. Made him think of his own father, the nine hundred and ninety-seventh Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and the rumors of what had attacked him and his men in their great ranging into the wilds beyond the Wall. He tried to dismiss them, but he had not lived so long by ignoring the faint bristle on the back of his neck, and that brought to mind something else. "In Volantis, there was one of them – Benetto, his name was, or Benerro – who preached that D. . . that Her Grace was Azor Ahai returned, the fulfillment of their ancient prophecy. He even tried to send a red priest to her. Moqorro, the man's name was. We were on the same ship, but he likely drowned in the wreck."
"Likely not. They don't die easily." Kojja considered them intently. Then she said to Dany, "We had your kinsman on board. When we were taking him, Fat Sam, and the wildling girl from Braavos to Oldtown. He thought the same of you."
Dany looked blank. "I have no living kinsman."
"Not now, you don't," Kojja agreed, "but he wasn't yet dead when we had him. Maester Aemon, the old man from the Wall. He had counted over a hundred name days. We celebrated his life and mourned his death. Few men are blessed with such a mortal span."
"Aemon. . . Targaryen?" Dany went pale. "The maester? But he was brother to Aegon the Unlikely, who was father to my grandfather Jaehaerys. Which would make him. . . my great-great uncle?"
"Something to that accord. He too thought you were Azor Ahai come again. He was determined to see you and your dragons before he died, yet the gods were not quite that kind." Kojja smiled sadly.
Dany flinched. Jorah could again see the grief in her eyes, that such a vital link to her family and House, the keeper of over a century of its tumultuous history, had been snatched away from her at the last instant after making it so long. "He will be remembered well when I come into my throne. But. . . Azor Ahai, you said? I am not familiar with the legend."
"Go to the red priests, and you will be. Again I tell you that you need not. The Summer Isles – "
"I have indeed heard much and more of their beauty," Dany said. "One day I may travel there on my dragon's back, when he is again hale and healthy. But not now. We will spend the night here on the Cinnamon Wind, and if there is anything that I may do or give to express our gratitude, you will have it. But come the dawn, you will put us ashore in Asshai."
Kojja's eyes flicked to Drogon. Jorah got the distinct impression that if it wasn't for the dragon, the captain's daughter would have refused. Yet at last she sighed and said, "As you will, Mother."
Supper was eaten on deck, beneath the brilliant stars. The crew were in good spirits, and laughed and sang in the liquid-gold tongue of the Summer Isles, but neither Jorah nor Dany could keep their eyes open for long. Before they could retire, they had their wounds inspected and the bandages changed by the ship's surgeon, and Jorah gratefully guzzled an entire waterskin when one was handed to him. But even when he was lying down below, no matter how wonderfully welcome it was, he could not quite bring himself to sleep. He half-thought that the Cinnamon Wind would weigh anchor in the night and sail away, be miles out to sea by the time they rose in the morning and discovered the deception. While the Summer Islanders were clearly pleased with the commerce they'd done, they were also evidently terrified of going back, or near the red priests. Why?
The questions chasing their tails in Jorah's head finally pushed him under into an uneasy doze, despite all his resolve. He panicked when he woke in the cool predawn, but a peek out the porthole revealed Asshai still off to starboard. Kojja Mo had kept her word.
Groggy and drained, Jorah swung out of his bunk. Someone had left Westerosi clothing for him, tunic and breeches and boots, apparently guessing (correctly) that he would soon grow tired of swanning about in something that resembled an elderly lady's bedgown. They were a bit too short in the leg and a deal too tight in the shoulder, but he donned them without complaint and went up on deck.
Once again, Dany had preceded him. She was clad in a lovely delicate dress of seafoam green, with twining ivory bracelets on both arms and a gilted choker around her neck. Catching Jorah staring, she colored slightly and cast her eyes down. "They only thought that I should not appear before the red priests as a beggar."
"You look no beggar," he said. "You never have."
Dany gave him a thin smile. "You are a sweet liar, ser. But then, you always were."
The implied rebuke felt like a slap, and Jorah turned away, smarting. Neither of them spoke a word as the Cinnamon Wind began to move, gliding through the morning mists toward the harbor. He did wonder how they proposed to get Drogon out of his sling and up to the temple; the idea of walking him through the streets like a dog was patently ludicrous, and he was in no shape to fly. But that was another bridge to cross when they came to it.
Before long, the Cinnamon Wind bumped up against one of the deepwater quays. Jorah helped the mate – Xhondo, he thought his name was – muscle the gangplank into place, no matter how much his abused body complained, and then stiffly offered his hand to Dany. She took it just as stiffly, and they disembarked side by side, not looking at each other.
"We'll wait here with the dragon," Kojja said. "The red priests will have a way to bring him."
This utterance, casual as it was, nonetheless made Dany glance warningly over her shoulder at them. But she said nothing, merely inclined her head. Then she took Jorah's arm, and they set off through the maze of swaying piers to shore.
Jorah did not think it was his imagination that everyone was staring at them as they passed. Nothing had exploded in their faces, thankfully, and yet as they gained the harbor gates and climbed into the steep streets beyond, something did feel different. There were the same scholars, clerics, shopkeepers, merchants, soldiers, nobles, serfs, beggars, thieves, and murderers as in any city, the same twisting side alleys and leaded red-glass lamps that heralded brothels – even dread sorcerers liked to fuck, it seemed – but with every step, the sensation of drawing near to a great Something grew stronger.
If he could feel it, surely Dany could as well, and her grip on his arm grew tighter. He found himself wishing that he still had the longsword he had ditched in the sea. Not that he thought anyone was going to openly attack them, not that he thought it would be much use if they did, but he was a knight. Wearing and wielding a sword came as naturally to him as breathing, and he felt naked without it. He thought of Drogon, wounded and left behind. We both go unarmed.
The great temple of R'hllor was a wonder of forests of stone like frozen lace, serene statues, flying buttresses and vaulted ribs. Torches burned all around it, pale in the daylight. But the great archway was cool and dark, leading through to the portico, the cloisters, and the way in.
Dany let out a shuddering breath. She stood still for several moments, merely gazing at it, then plucked up her courage. "Are you with me, Ser Jorah?"
He looked down into her eyes, and felt a bit of his heart break. "Now and always, Khaleesi."
She smiled, truly. Set her shoulders, took his hand, and sounded the great bronze bell.
It pealed out through the quiet morning air, resounding in the courtyard beyond. The echoes lingered so long, in fact, that Jorah briefly thought there would be no answer. But then the carved sandalwood doors cracked down the middle, and opened onto a long corridor of perfect darkness.
Dany was shaking, and Jorah did not feel all that steady himself. He smelled something like quicksilver and earth and fallen stars, red heat. Red. Red. Red. And then, at his queen's side as he belonged, their fingers knotted tight as a protection from whatever lay within, they stepped across the threshold and entered the very heart of shadow.