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Daenerys Targaryen ran forward without pause, obeying the voices that thundered through her mind.
They ordered her to stay on the path—always forward, never look back.
Even as her heart twisted with the desperate need to stop.
She wanted to pause in the lemon tree garden to catch her breath, slip into her brother's tent for a moment of safety, or lie on the massive rose-covered bed fit for a queen.
But her weary eyes saw straight through every tempting, deadly illusion.
The lemon tree leaves were black as ink, the trunk rotten to the core. Snakes coiled inside the sellsword captain's tent. The luxurious bed was stained crimson with blood from some unknown source.
She could only keep running, passing every phantom promise of false peace, grinding her teeth against the stabbing pain in her belly and the fresh blood trickling between her legs.
Benerro had warned her there would be countless visions trying to break her will.
A heavy oak door suddenly appeared, shaped exactly like the king's bedchamber from the songs and stories.
Heavy, threatening breathing came from behind—the thing chasing her was getting closer.
In desperation she grabbed the handle. The door swung open.
The fugitive rushed inside, desperate to escape the nightmare on her heels.
But deeper in the room waited an even deeper nightmare.
She saw a giant hound and a bloated scorpion mercilessly tearing apart a young dragon made of sunlight. She saw the sun itself swallowed in one bite by the evil dog.
In an instant all light vanished from the world, then blazed back just so she could witness the next horror.
The girl was certain she hadn't taken a single step, yet the surroundings were no longer the king's bedchamber but a temple.
Rivers of blood flowed through the hall. Bodies of men and beasts lay everywhere, all drained of color, gray and lifeless.
The sigils on the warriors' armor blurred and faded. The pelts of the beasts lost their luster. Neither she nor the gods above could tell who these unfortunates had fought for, or why they had died.
Only toward the altar did every color and light in the world gather—brilliant, dazzling, yet radiating arrogant pressure.
She witnessed a triumph without joy, a celebration without happiness, a victory without satisfaction.
A pride of lions advanced slowly toward the altar. The lead beast was massive and terrifying, a trout and a wolf pup clamped in its jaws.
It tossed its prey before the holy altar. Two lions crawled from the shadows—one magnificent and powerful, the other deformed and stunted.
The first sank its teeth into the fresh fish. The second approached the whimpering wolf pup.
She turned her eyes away in panic, frantically searching for an exit. Every temple had to have one. Since she could enter, she could leave.
But all she saw in the far distance was a skinless man bowing respectfully before a copper stag wearing a dull crown.
Beside them flashed a formless shape—cold, blue, and ethereal.
At that moment the ancient, enormous lion saw her.
Her whole body felt the weight of its contemptuous green eyes. She could smell its stale, rotten breath.
She gathered every ounce of courage and stared straight at the unstoppable monster.
Since there was nowhere left to run, she would face it head-on. She would not let it crush her like a helpless lamb.
Lions were terrifying and powerful, but to a dragon they were nothing but prey.
Even as the beast lunged at her, she felt no fear, no urge to retreat.
The killing blow never landed.
The lion vanished. The corpses, the desecrated temple, every beast—they all dissolved into nothing.
In their place stood an impossibly tall figure wrapped in scarlet cloth, chanting strange, distant incantations over and over.
The red-robed figure stood at the center of a circle drawn in blood. The girl herself stood inside that same circle.
In the distance she saw a vast opening, and through it, a magnificent city.
Dozens of great dragons wheeled around slender towers that stabbed the clouds—dragons of every size and age.
Gilded domes crowned enormous buildings, each large enough to hold an entire district of Volantis.
This was a kingdom of marble, gold, silver, white stone, and ancient wood, as if every imaginable wealth in the world had been gathered here.
A realization struck her like lightning. The girl froze, unable to tear her eyes from the glorious sight.
This was the heart of the Freehold—the great city of Valyria, the source of her family's power.
At that moment the red-robed figure raised its sleeves solemnly toward the sky, and all that splendor turned instantly to ash.
Flames, rocks, and rivers of molten lava erupted from distant mountains. Stones punched through dragon wings and shattered golden domes. Lava flooded the streets, swallowed buildings, and buried everything forever.
The great, invincible realm that had taken centuries to build was destroyed before the eyes of its last heir.
All around her was nothing but burning red. Everything scorched her, consumed her, tried to kill her.
It was no surprise. No living thing had ever survived the Doom of Valyria.
But the girl forced herself to remember who she was and where she truly stood.
She was Daenerys Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror. She and her ancestors had never set foot on this land buried by the Doom.
She would not die here!
She forced herself to step forward, even though she could no longer hear the saving hymns or see the path ahead.
She vaguely sensed that the exit was close.
They had told her not to stop—to go forward, forward, no matter what.
They had said that, hadn't they?
"I am Daenerys Targaryen!" she shouted, surprising even herself. Her voice pierced the void. "Daughter of Valyria, rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms! I will not die in these false ashes! I am moving forward! Forward!"
Only then did the girl realize she had actually been falling.
She had been falling for a long time, only now becoming aware of it.
Her heart pounded wildly. The pain in her belly felt like it was being torn apart by hell itself—
The fall stopped abruptly.
She stood once more on hard black stone, inside a vast, brilliantly lit hall larger than any castle.
It could have held an entire fortress. Golden vessels, massive altars, exquisite statues, and mosaic murals—all perfectly preserved, as if the Doom had never touched this place.
But Daenerys knew by instinct that no living soul had walked this beautiful, dead hall in centuries.
The breath of life had long vanished. For hundreds of years it had stood empty.
Yet this silent, cold, magnificent temple was not completely deserted.
From a far corner of the hall crawled a colossal shape, nearly as large as the hall itself—a three-headed dragon of unimaginable size.
The beast looked as though it had been scorched by fire, covered in wounds and holes, too weak to fly. It could only drag itself forward.
But this mountain of black and red advanced relentlessly, inescapably.
Three pairs of pale violet eyes fixed on her, filled with pure malice and hatred.
"Traitor! Whore of the kingslayer! Rebellious sister!"
All three heads roared in inhuman, earth-shattering voices, vicious as blades. "You are no daughter of Valyria—you are the spawn of the Unspeakable! Sinner! Traitor!"
"Who?" was all she could manage, utterly bewildered.
The Unspeakable—that was the oldest, most exalted name the ancient blood gave to R'hllor.
"Why do you say that? I am a Targaryen—I am a dragon—"
"You are unworthy! Kingslayer's whore! You have betrayed the heritage and the pact!"
The heads continued roaring as the massive body advanced like a battering ram. "The pact and the heritage! You threw Aelion's legacy into the fire of the Unspeakable! You spat on and burned the pact between your people and the gods!"
Suddenly a sharp pain pierced the girl's heart. Shame and embarrassment flooded her.
She felt as though she had truly done something terrible, something that desecrated the divine. As if her very existence polluted this temple, and every movement poisoned the hall.
She barely managed to push the thoughts away.
"I came to wake the dragons!"
The monster kept advancing. She had to grasp at the final straw.
"You have defiled the gods' gift! Betrayed the bloodline! Kneeled before the kingslayer!"
One head hissed, one roared like thunder, one simply screamed. "We curse you! We hate you! We will have revenge!"
She could already feel the breath from all three heads.
Daenerys used every ounce of inhuman will to stare them down, challenging the unknown creature with silence.
She understood that if she looked away, if she turned to run, if she begged for mercy, those massive jaws would tear her apart without hesitation.
She could only stand, stare, deny their authority, deny their power, deny their might.
The monster had clearly not expected this reaction.
For some reason, to Daenerys this terrifying dragon felt far more real than any of the temple's earlier illusions or the shattered glories of the Freehold.
Though it too existed in the hazy realm of visions, it stood there alive—truly cruel, truly terrifying.
The three-headed dragon's roars gradually faded into the void. The bone-deep malice didn't disappear; it transformed into finer, colder threads that wormed into her blood.
Daenerys remained standing, legs trembling. The stabbing pain in her belly grew sharper, as if something inside her was tearing, awakening, struggling to break free.
She wasn't running. She wasn't hiding. She was falling.
Falling deeper into the visions, into the ashes of Valyria's Doom, into the judgment that had slept in her blood for a thousand years.
The faint chanting of the red priests reached her from faraway reality, thin as a thread yet anchoring her so she wouldn't be completely lost in the maze of light and shadow.
Benerro's warning echoed in her mind: the illusions would shake you, the lies would devour you. Only blood and name could keep you steady.
But her name, her bloodline, her pride—all trembled now beneath the three-headed dragon's curse.
She was no traitor.
She was no spawn.
She was Targaryen. She was dragon. She was Valyria's last daughter.
The moment her resolve hardened again, the darkness beneath her feet cracked open. An irresistible force dragged her violently into another dreamscape.
There was no pain, no howling—only sudden blinding light that made her squeeze her eyes shut.
When her vision cleared, she stood on a vast golden plain.
In response to her defiance, the great dragon silently spread its scarred, hole-riddled wings.
A gale slammed into her. Daenerys raised her hands to shield her face and closed her eyes tightly.
When she opened them again she was in another world—a boundless wilderness far from any trace of civilization.
Warriors in chainmail and heavy plate surrounded her, armed with swords, longbows, and spears.
The weapons and the warriors themselves were cast of pure gold, gleaming so brightly in the sunlight they hurt the eyes.
She quickly looked away and finally found something less blinding: before the army lay an enormous black dragon, its face twisted with eternal hatred and insatiable hunger.
On the dragon's back sat a youth in spotless white, with beautiful silver hair, gripping a long, sharp holy sword.
"The pride of Aelion's descendants burns so strongly in you," the swordsman on the dragon said slowly. "Perhaps you could have been a true daughter of Valyria."
"But we will crush you! All traitors must die!" the black dragon beneath him roared.
"All traitors must die!" the golden warriors echoed like thunder, shaking the plain.
Daenerys stared in disbelief as a deep chasm suddenly split the ground between the army and the dragon.
It was the only thing that looked like an exit.
With the last of her strength she sprinted toward the pit.
Countless golden hands tried to seize her shoulders. She twisted like an eel to slip free.
Swords slashed at her. She leaped like a doe, dodging the lethal golden light.
Again and again and again—
The voices of the curse never stopped.
"The pact must be paid in blood!"
"The Doom must be paid in blood!"
"The Unspeakable must perish!"
She dodged the final golden blade and leaped into the chasm.
All the voices—and their owners—vanished instantly.
In their place came boundless darkness. She wasn't even falling anymore.
Exhaustion and pain finally overwhelmed her. Daenerys collapsed onto something formless and slick, letting out a weak breath.
She tried to look around but saw nothing.
No monsters. No companions.
No beasts. No humans.
No landscapes. No visions.
There was only herself—cold, in pain, alone.
Utterly alone.