Chapter Text
If I look back, I am lost.
This old mantra comes back to her mind as she looks at her army. They cheer her - the mother of dragons, the conqueror, the breaker of chains.
The Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.
They are all chanting her name by the time she finishes her speech. A better world, a world without slaves, a free world - that's her future.
She's Daenerys Stormborn, and she's won.
She chases the ashes out of her hair and enters the ravaged Red Keep.
(Where her future awaits.)
.
The Throne Room. She's seen it before, she's been here before. She closes her eyes and remembers the House of the Undying, the darkness, the fear, the snow.
(It was never snow.)
The Throne is there, right in front of her. The bells, the fire, the ashes - it all led her here. To her destiny.
Daenerys Targaryen touches what is hers. The blade of the sword is cold against her palm. Some ashes cling to her skin.
(The screams, the terror, the tears - it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.)
"Your Grace?"
She turns over. Jorah stands by the doors of the hall, hesitating. She gestures for him to come closer.
"We’ve won, Jorah," she says.
Her future unfolds before her. She sees the Seven Kingdoms finally united under her reign, the reign of a fair queen. Their savior, the one who delivered them from the mother of madness.
"We've won," she repeats.
She looks into his eyes. They are the color of the sky on a summer day.
(She doesn't think of the grey sky outside, the sky of ashes.)
Jorah looks around. The room is half destroyed. He hesitates, his eyes darken.
"We will rebuild the Red Keep," she says. "We will rebuild the city. We will rebuild this world."
A world as she always imagined it. Daenerys the Breaker of Chains - this is how history will remember her. She grabs Jorah's arm.
"I can't do it alone, Jorah. I need your help. I need you to be by my side, like you've been all these years... together, we'll free this world from all tyrants. Together, we'll break the wheel. Will you serve me, Jorah?"
She doesn't see the doubt in his eyes, she doesn't - she doesn't look. Jorah nods.
"Yes, Your Grace. Of course. Always."
She's smiling. Jorah is blood of her blood. She knows he'll follow her everywhere, to the end of the world if he has to - a world that will soon be free. She kisses his raspy cheek.
"Thank you, Jorah."
She takes one look at the Iron Throne. She doesn't sit on it, not yet. She has time for that. She's the Queen.
She leaves the room with her head high.
Daenerys no longer sees the ashes. Soon, the ashes will be scattered by the wind. Soon, the ashes will be a forgotten memory.
.
If I look back I am lost.
.
She wanders the halls of the Keep. The home of her ancestors. Her new home.
(Gone are the days she spent wandering, running away. Gone are the days of dashed hopes, broken promises. She's finally home.)
Daenerys is exhausted. Tomorrow she will begin the reconstruction. Tomorrow she will set out to conquer the world. Tomorrow.
(She has time, years, decades, eternity. Her dynasty will last a thousand years.)
Eventually she finds what she’s been looking for: the bedchamber of the mother of madness, the fallen Queen, the destroyed lioness - Cersei Lannister. She feels a special joy at the thought of violating her enemy's lair.
The room has been spared by the fire. Daenerys comes close to the bed and sits slowly on it. Cersei thought she was weak. She thought she wouldn't have the courage to take back what was hers. She thought she could defeat her.
Cersei is dead now, and will soon be forgotten. The lions will no longer roar in Westeros. The time of the dragons has come.
Her eyelids are heavy. Sleep is an enemy she cannot defeat.
Daenerys falls into unconsciousness.
.
She walks through the burned streets of King's Landing. She sees explosions of wildfire here and there.
(Wildfire - Cersei Lannister.)
No one cheers for her. The streets are empty.
"Can anyone hear me?"
Silence, loneliness - it's terrible. It's not what she wants. She doesn't want to reign over ashes. Anguish overwhelms her heart.
Daenerys screams.
When she no longer has the strength to scream, when she collapses to her knees, terrified by the deafening silence, when she feels like she's losing her mind, that's when they come. The ghosts. She no longer tells apart those from the present, those from the past and those that never existed.
Dothraki invade the streets, led by Drogo on his dark horse. Jorah stabs Mirri Maz Duur in the heart while Jon carries Rhaego on his shoulders. Sansa comes out of a house with a red door and plucks a lemon tree before the helpless eyes of Barristan Selmy. Tyrion speaks with an old man who tells him that a Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing. Jaime Lannister holds two blond children by the hand. Cersei calls for Rhaegar but he runs to Lyanna Stark.
Daenerys screams but no one answers her.
"Dany."
Viserys kneels down beside him.
"Wake the dragon, Dany. Wake the dragon. Father will be very pleased."
Aerys descends from the sky on Drogon's back. The dragon opens his mouth.
"Burn them all!"
It wasn't the Mad King who spoke. It wasn't Viserys.
It was her.
"Burn them all! Burn them all! Burn them all!"
.
Burn them all. Burn them all. Burn them all.
The words haunt her long after she wakes.
.
"What have you done, Dany?"
Jon Snow's voice is just a whisper.
(Dany - Viserys. Wake the dragon.)
"A whole city, Dany," he continues as she doesn’t reply. "Innocent people, women, children. Children. All burned, every last one of them."
His eyes are wet.
"By the Old Gods and the New, Dany... didn't you hear them scream?"
(Ring the bells! Ring the bells!)
Daenerys looks away. The screams, the shouts, the tears - it's all in the past. It's all in the past.
If I look back, I am lost.
"I set them free," she says. "They're free now, Jon. They're no longer under the rule of a tyrant. Cersei Lannister is dead. Nothing else matters. I've won. The Targaryens have won. We've won."
They're back in the Throne room.
"It's mine," she whispers. "I will break the wheel. I'm going to make this world a better place. I'm going to..."
She turns around. Only the walls and ashes hear her words.
Jon has left the room.
.
"Search the rubble," she says to Grey Worm. "And find Cersei Lannister’s body."
Grey Worm nods, bows, and passes on her orders to the other Unsullied. Daenerys closes her eyes. Her heart beats fast, too fast.
She's dead. She's dead.
"She's dead, isn't she, Jorah?"
Silent as a shadow, he stands by her side, as he always has - this is where he belongs.
"It's very unlikely that she survived," he replies.
"I didn't want to destroy the whole Keep," Daenerys says. "This is the home of my ancestors. The home of the Targaryen dynasty. My home. I was right, wasn’t I?"
"Yes, Your Grace."
Jorah seems to be lost in thought. Daenerys feels a lump in her throat. She needs him. If he doubts, if he lets her down, all this will have been for nothing.
(If he looks back, I am lost.)
She wraps her thin arms around his waist.
"I need you, Jorah. I need your support, I need your advice. There's so much ahead of us... so much to do..."
"I have sworn to serve you, Your Grace. I will."
"Do I have your word?"
"You have it. Now and until the end of time."
She smiles when he returns her embrace.
.
She thinks of the house with the red door and the lemon tree.
She has a new home now. She won't have to leave, her crown won't be stolen from her the way her childhood was.
.
"Where is Tyrion?" she asks.
She has summoned Jorah, Jon, Arya, Davos and Grey Worm to the Throne room. She stands in the middle of the room and doesn't like the way they look at her.
(This is not important. Soon they will understand. Soon they will admire her. Soon they will love her).
"He's gone," Jon says. "No one has seen him since... since..."
(The bells, the screams, the flames - it's not important.)
"Maybe he ran away, » Jorah says.
Tyrion. Tyrion, whom she chose to be her Hand. Tyrion, whom she trusted. Tyrion, whom she listened to over and over again.
Tyrion, who chose her brother and betrayed her.
"Impossible. He has nowhere to go. He has no one."
(I'm all he has. He didn't have a family any more, so I gave him one. I'm all he has - he betrayed me, betrayed me, betrayed me.)
"He can't have gone far. Find him, and bring him to me. Alive."
Arya whispers something in Jon's ear and Daenerys feels betrayed again. You're not a wolf, she wants to cry out to him. You have never been a wolf. You're a dragon. I'm a dragon. Dragons should be there for each other.
"What about Cersei Lannister's body?"
"Still not found, Your Grace," Grey Worm replies. "We keep searching."
She's dead. Cersei Lannister is dead. Cersei Lannister was a tyrant, a murderer, a madwoman. Cersei Lannister isn't hiding somewhere. Cersei Lannister won't come to get her throne and crown back, no lions will steal her future.
They leave the hall - only Jorah remains. Then Daenerys turns and climbs the steps to the Throne.
She sits down.
It's mine. Mine. I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms, and I will.
"Let's not look back, Jorah," she says. "It's useless. Let's look forward."
.
When she rises, one of the swords of the Throne cuts into the back of her hand.
A few drops of blood fall to the ground.