"I've demanded a meeting with the Thirteen," Xaro spoke quickly, his breaths coming in pants as he struggled to keep up with Daenerys' quicker strides. His life of luxury had left him ill-suited to chase after hot tempered young women. "One of them did this or know who did."

"You are one of the Thirteen," Dany bit out, boots echoing off the stone ground. She still pulled slightly to her right to compensate for the loose heal that Irri had fixed. The thought left her eyes watering with unshed tears. She fought back the sensation, letting it fan the fire inside her instead. Anger she could use…sorrow she could not.

"If I wanted your dragons, I would have taken them. They mean nothing to me on their own." Xaro's words had her turning to the bottom of the stairs, gaze hard at the very notion of the thought.

"Nothing?" Her words were bitter with disbelief and grief. The absence of her dragons had left a hollow hole in her heart where Drogo had once dwelled. "Their more valuable than anything in the world." Dany was not just speaking of a monetary value. To her, nothing could ever replace her children. The joy they had brought her, even in the in the devastating loss of her husband and the hardships of the red waste, she would change nothing if it meant she would her dragons.

"Shall we open my vault and see what your selling your dragons could buy that I could not buy already?" Xaro asked her, hand cradling the key to his treasures as he took two steps up the staircase towards her.

Her gaze was drawn to the green stones in the gold casing. The setting sun catching the emeralds and shining off the gems the same way that they had off Rhaegal's scales just that morning. She fought to retain her anger, but for just a moment, the grief won out and her face twisted in sorrow. "We will get them back," Xaro insisted, his hand, gripped around his necklace, moved with each word as if to enunciate his point and just as suddenly her anger had returned.

Daenerys strode down the five steps separating them until she stood only a head taller. "There is no we!" She spat, hand gripping the railing to ground her as much as to keep her from launching herself at Xaro in her rage. "So why would you help me get them back?"

Xaro leaned forward, his fingers only inches from hers on the stone railing. "I took you under my protection in front of the rulers of my city," his voice was soft and eyes sincere. Daenerys caught herself leaning towards him despite her anger. "A man is what others say he is and no more. If they say that Xaro Xhoan Daxos is a liar, my word is worth nothing. I cannot let this thing happen to you under my roof."

Dany retreated a step higher, turning from him briefly as she fought to keep the tears at bay. "But it did happen under your roof."

"Khaleesi," Xaro implored, rumbling the title in soothing tones as if to calm a beast. "Many times, in my life I have been-"

"I don't care where you've been!" Dany cut him off, panting heavily as she bit back more words of rage. She had little in the way of friends in Qarth, she could not afford to alienate the one that was still willing to help her. Daenerys turned from him, to hide her rage or her grief she did not know, but her feet carried her swiftly up the steps in a way that felt too much like a retreat.

Kovarro, the last of her bloodriders, moved aside to let her pass once she reached the landing. She paused there, gaze sweeping back to Xaro for just a moment as she took in his softened expression at the bottom of the stairs. He pitied her, she realized, and that infuriated her more than his words. She forced herself to keep moving, her feet carrying her within the borrowed manse as Kovarro returned to block the passage. It did not matter that the property on which she resided belonged to the very man who had promised her the return of her dragons, the young warrior would keep Xaro from ever entering for as long as she wished, even if it meant his death. The thought did little to comfort her.

She stood in the opened bedroom gazing at the empty cages for hours. Her cheeks were wet with tears that would not stop, but she had grown weary from wiping them away. They were tender from the friction of her hands and she let them fall freely instead. If she closed her eyes and concentrated she could feel them. They felt…cold.

Kovarro remained at the top of the stairs, his gaze never wavering from the point of entry no matter how loud her sobs became. Daenerys took comfort in his silent presence, and in his quiet absence.

The sound of booted feet on the steps drew her from her thoughts, and she turned when they continued onto the landing and into her room. The faint sound of metal scraping from a sword jostling in its scabbard drowned out the birdsong from the half-curtained windows. There was only one person Kovarro would have let pass while armed, and Daenerys felt her heart lift in relief as she turned and found herself gazing at the worn face of her old bear.

"You came back," the words were choked, and she fought to compose herself. Her face felt tacky, but she refused to draw attention to her drying tears by wiping them away.

"I came as soon as I heard," Jorah replied, breathless. He was covered in perspiration and panting harshly, the faint smell of stale sweat and salt reached her nose. Daenerys realized that he must have run all the way from the docks. Nearly two miles on foot through crowded streets. "Do you know anything?"

She shook her head softly as she approached. "Irri is dead," the words caught in her throat as her gaze darted to the bloodstain on the floor. Xaro had offered her a maid servant to wash away the evidence, but Daenerys had refused. She was not sure if it was because she did not want to be in the presence of an unknown person, or if Irri's blood being removed would make it seem like it had never happened.

The older woman had been her friend, one of her best friends. She had taught the khaleesi how to speak to her husband, washed her hands when she had broken the skin with her nails when being claimed too roughly, eased her aches from a long day's ride, brushed her hair, and fixed her…fixed her shoes. Daenerys took another step, and her heel held solidly from the repair. More tears rushed to her aching eyes, and though she tried hard to fight them, several spilled over and she swiped hurriedly at them as if to keep Jorah from seeing.

The old bear turned from her, gaze darting to the empty cages upon the table as she composed herself. "I know," he said softly, hand still on the hilt of his blade as if to draw it to defend her from her own grief. "She was a good-"

"She's dead," Daenerys cut him off, unable to bear his platitudes. "She died alone," more tears trailed down her cheeks, dripping off her chin and down her neck. Jorah's gaze returned to her and Daenerys found herself looking away, eyes fixed on the gold embroidered curtains fluttering gently in the breeze. His expression of sorrow was more painful than his words of comfort and she could not bear to see it. "She died for me and I could not protect her." Daenerys seemed to hiccup over the word 'protect', as if her throat was trying to suffocate her for her failings.

"Doreah?" Jorah questioned after a long moment of silence.

Daenerys' gaze dropped to the copper stain once more, her head shaking in despair. "We can't find her," She admitted, striding over the weaved rug and carefully stepping around the blood to stand before the window. "She must be dead, too…" the thought pained her, but she knew that there was no other explanation for Doreah's absence. She adored the girl, even after the incident with her dragons. She placed a hand on the balcony where she and Doreah had fed her children just that morning.

"They killed Aggo as well," she continued, tone bitter. "They just dumped his body at the bottom of the stairs like trash…" Dany took a deep breath to calm herself. Fisting her hands on the ledge as she gazed out into nothing. "I led my people out of the red waste and into the slaughter house."

"I should have been here," Jorah turned towards her, shifting his weight in his unease.

"You went to find me a ship," she consoled as he approached her, towering over her in that way of his that comforted her instead of putting her on edge. Drogo had done much the same before - she cut the thought off. There was no need to add upon her sorrow, and her heart had no more room for her grief.

"My place is by your side," Jorah shook his head, swaying in his indecision to give Daenerys more room as his queen, or to comfort her as a woman. He steadied himself and did neither. "I shouldn't have left you alone with these people." He was trying to draw away her guilt and focus her anger upon someone else. Jorah knew that the Qarthian were to blame, but if Daenerys wanted to lay any upon him than he would gladly take it if only to lessen her own.

"These people?" She questioned bitterly.

He wanted to move away from her, but dare not retreat. "They are not to be trusted," he whispered, fighting his own reaction to yield to her anger and he instead met her gaze.

"And who is to be trusted?" Daenerys questioned, turning to him fully. He took a breath to steady himself against her fury and yet still did not yield any ground to her. "Who are my people? The Targaryen's? I only knew one…my brother," she admitted, voice twisting in as rage and anguish fought for dominance in her heart. "He would have let a thousand men rape me if it would have got him the crown." Jorah winced at her couth words, but his gaze held hers as the bitterness and anger leaked from her.

"The dothraki?" She continued, her eyes sliding to Kovarro beyond the warrior's shoulder. "Most of them turned on me the day Khal Drogo fell from his horse," the words were steady, but her tone wavered over her husband's name. Her eyes slid to the trees and her face went slack as she remembered that day only two months ago.

"Your people are in Westeros," Jorah tried to ground her and draw her from the painful memory.

His attempt yielded success as she turned back to face him so quickly, her hair fluttered around her shoulders. "The people," she bit the word out as if it was something distasteful, "in Westeros don't even know that I'm alive."

"They will soon enough," he reassured her.

"Then what," she questioned in disbelief. "They'll pray for my return, wave dragon banners and shout my name?" Daenerys turned from him, striding towards the empty cages once more. "That's what my brother believed, and he was a fool."

"You are not you brother," Jorah sighed at her back, more sure of that one fact than he had been of anything ever in his life. "Trust me, Khaleesi."

The words gave her pause, and she stopped her retreat. Her hand came up to twist the ring on her index finger, twirling the pearl until the metal had made several rotations around the digit. "There it is," her words were soft, hands coming up to cradle her arms beneath her breasts. She stroked her upper arm in a comforting gesture, head tilted towards the man behind her. "Trust me," Daenerys parroted back. "And it's you, I should trust, Ser Jorah? Only you?" She finally turned her head enough to see him out of the corner of her eye.

Jorah had no words. He stood there mutely, hand still upon his pommel as he fought to find the right anything to say to her to take away the mocking bitterness that colored her tone. After a long moment of silence, she turned from him. Her angry gaze returned to the empty cages and the words she spoke were heated. "I don't need trust any longer," he approached her slowly as she spoke the dark words. "I don't want it and I don't have room for it."

He reached for her with his bandaged hand, his fingers grazing her shoulder. "You are too young to be so-"

Daenerys whirled on him before he could make full contact. "And you are too familiar."

His hand raised itself from its barely there contact, fisting tightly when his queen turned her back once more. Jorah retreated several steps as he apologized softly. "Forgive me, Khaleesi," he waited for her to say or do something, anything…but she stood there like a painted doll, doing nothing but staring at the empty cages. "No one can survive this world without help. No one…let me help you." Still she did not speak nor move. "Please," he begged. "Tell me how."

Finally, she turned to him. "Find my dragons," Daenerys commanded, and Jorah nodded once, retreated two steps, and then strode quickly from the room.

~ Page Break ~

The Thirteen had been arguing for three hours, twelve men seated around the horseshoe table with plates of gold nearly empty of food. They had sat there and eaten while Daenerys begged for their help, and the sat there now, arguing uselessly with the thirteenth member, Xaro. The older man was seated next to her, not behind the table with the others. As he was defending her and pleading her case, his position was by her side. But as a member of the Thirteen, he -unlike her- was permitted to sit.

Dany's feet ached and her lower back throbbed from the discomfort. She had tried to discreetly shift to relieve the pressure, but fought that impulse now as she had caught several of the men eyeing her subtle movements with knowing eyes. It was a test, she realized, they were trying to see how dedicated she was to her argument by testing her physical resolve. Well, they could test that as much as they liked, she would stand her for days if that was what it took to get her children back.

The only thing they were succeeding in testing was her patience.

Even now she could feel them…her children. They were so very scared. Daenerys felt a weight upon her throat and chills swept up her arms, suddenly cold even though the room in which she stood was almost unbearably warm. She blinked, and the sensation was gone.

"Please, I am begging you," she pleaded for their deaf ears to hear her. "They are my children." Even as she spoke, voice cracking in the way that only a mother's could, she watched as two more men continued to eat and another drank from a goblet of wine. They were indifferent to her plight.

"You're begging us?" A man near the center questioned with a mocking tone. "It wasn't very long ago you were threatening us."

Daenerys changed her argument when she realized that not one man was swayed by her grief. Instead she tried to argue their against their logic with her own. The one who took her dragons had intended to keep them. They were no use dead.

"Without me, the dragons will die," she fought to keep her voice from rising. The domed ceiling made even the faintest yell echo obscenely loud. No doubt another test.

"It will be for the best," the spice merchant commented off handedly, as if he were discussing the weather. "Your dragons will bring the world nothing but death and misery, my dear." He shook his head at her as a servant refilled his wine, pausing long enough to take a sip before he continued. "If I knew where they were, I would not tell you," a jeweled hand waved at her dismissively.

Daenerys fought the words that wanted to bubble up from her anger. Never before had she felt such a hatred for a single person. Not even her brother's madness could insight her anger as much as the indifference of the spice merchant.

"You are cruel, my friend," Pyat Pree's voice cut off whatever unpleasant thing that was surely to spill from her mouth, and for that she was grateful. She turned her gaze to the purple clad warlock, hoping that her anger would simmer if she did not have to look at the other man. "The mother of dragons is in the right," Daenerys fought to keep the surprise from her face as the other man defended her. Hours they had been there, and no one but Xaro had spoken a word in her favor. That Pyat Pree would speak now both relieved her and caused her unease.

"She must be reunited with her babies," the warlock turned to her, sitting so incredibly straight and proper that Daenerys found herself drawing her own shoulders back despite the pain to her aching muscles. "I will help you, Khaleesi."

Her gaze darted to the floor, around to the men who were all looking at Pyat strangely, and then back to the warlock himself. "How?" She asked hesitantly. She had not won over all the Thirteen, but perhaps just one more was enough.

"I will take you to the House of the Undying," he leaned forward as if confessing something secret. "Where I have put them."

Daenerys was not the only one who was shocked at the admission, she noticed. The spice merchant looked almost as pale as the warlock himself while the copper merchant suddenly looked ill and uncertain. Anger made her flush, she could feel the fire inside of her boiling beneath the surface.

"You have my dragons?!"

"When I learned that you were coming to our city," he continued in that same monotonous voice as if his confession meant nothing to him. "I made an arrangement with the king of Qarth." The others around them laughed and she saw the thin pale man sneer at their mirth. "He procured them for me."

Daenerys shook her head in confusion. "But there is no king of Qarth."

"There is now," a voice beside her spoke and Dany turned as Xaro stood to tower next to her. "That was the other half of the arrangement."

Xaro was still speaking, even as terror gripped her. She saw Kovarro unsheathe his arakh from the corner of her eye and slowly started to shift towards him. She was nearly by his side when the warlock stood, and she froze for half a heartbeat, terrified that he had noticed her retreat, but Pyat turned from them, striding instead to stand beside the man who had sworn a blood oath for her, a man that had opened his home and his kitchens to her people…a man that had stolen her children.

Daenerys felt Kovarro grip her upper arm in his calloused hand, drawing her further back as the others began to speak. She allowed him the imposition upon her person and followed his careful steps as the passed the threshold of the two large and ornate gates that divided the room.

"The mother of dragons will be with her babies," the words made her freeze in terror as the warlock turned to look at her briefly. "She will give them her love, and they will thrive by her side." Panic was clawing at her throat, the idea of what the two men had planned for her taking root within her mind. They wanted to make a slave out of her…again, just as her brother had. The mere thought of it would have paralyzed her had Kovarro not continued to gently pull her away, angling himself so he stood between her and the rest of the room. "Forever!" Pyat's words made her look up and she saw a dozen of them.

Twelve warlocks with the same face stared back at her as eleven of them slit the throats of the remaining rulers of Qarth. The men gargled on the blood, the crimson liquid decorating their golden plates and filling their wine goblets as one after the other they thudded lifelessly onto the table. Daenerys barely had the chance to gasp in horror before Kovarro was shoving out of the room and down the hall.

She ran, more terrified than she had ever been. Her only comfort was Kovarro's steady presence beside her as she ascended the steps to the foyer. At first, she mistook the person blocking her passage as her faithful bear, but the sight of the purple robes made her freeze in horror. Somehow, the warlock now stood before her.

Kovarro threw himself in front of her, his hair too short to even sway as he took a defensive stance, and Daenerys was suddenly reminded of how young he was. Her bloodrider had not proven himself in battle, and yet here he was, prepared to face down a man who could become twelve in a blink of an eye…for her.

Daenerys need not have worried for him, for a moment later a blade pierced Pyat Pree's chest from his back and Jorah stood behind the purple clad man, hand upon the warlock's shoulder to steady his thrust. The smile that she felt curling her lips dropped as she watched Pyat gaze down at the sword puncturing his torso and then gazing back up at her as if he could not even feel it.

"A mother should be with her children," he grinned with his blue lips and Dany stumbled away in horror as the warlock's clothes dropped with no person within them. She approached slowly, staring down at the robes that looked as if they had just been discarded, not having been worn only a moment before.

Movement from the window drew her attention and she gazed up in dazed terror as Pyat strode towards her in the same purple robes that lay at her feet. "Where will you run too, Daenerys Stormborn?" He questioned genially. "Your dragons wait for you in the House of the Undying…come see them."

Jorah's bare hand grabbed her arm and dragged her to the doors that led outside. Daenerys stumbled down the three steps, the knights painful grip the only thing that kept her upright as they ran from the dark mansion and into the dazzling sunlight.

~ Page Break ~

She did not know how long they had fled, darting down packed streets and narrow alleyways until they ended up in a forgotten courtyard garden. It had been overgrown, the tree roots bursting from beneath to crack the cobbled ground. The branches above wove together and created a canopy so thick barely any light made it through. Kovarro had rested himself on broken steps before a collapsed archway as she pleaded with her bear.

'Go,' she had told him, turning from the old knight as she said the words. 'Go to Astapor then, where you will be safe.' Even as she spoke, the words felt hollow. But she could not ask him to stay, what she planned would surely mean her death if she failed, or eternal enslavement…but the thought of forsaking her children somehow seemed the worse fate of all.

'You know I would die for you,' he had replied, 'I would never abandon you.'

And yet still she had begged, and he had pleaded…and somehow, as she had stoked his cheek and spoke of her children, he had acquiesced even though the thought of her doing exactly as the warlock wished, pained him to his very soul.

Even as Daenerys pulled a torch from the holster on the wall, ignoring her bear's roars from outside and descended into the darkness alone, she knew that she had made the right decision. 'They are my children,' she had told Jorah, 'the only children I will ever have.'

The torch flickered as she walked further into the black. "Your trying to frighten me with magic tricks!" Daenerys yelled, letting her anger eat away at her fear. It was the only way to stay focused in such an oppressing darkness. The stone was cold though the day outside was still scorching hot…even the air felt dead.

"You want me? Here I am, are you afraid of a little girl?!" She continued to shout as her torch stuttered but the flame held. Daenerys would have continued yelling, her voice strong and giving her a confidence she did not feel, even as the unease from the lack of an echo settled in her mind.

Why was there no echo? Was everything within this house dead?

A cry gave her pause and she turned suddenly to follow it. Her children were crying, their tiny shrieks guiding her through the darkness. The relief of hearing their voices shattering the last of her fear.

Daenerys descended two flights of stairs and ascended seven more before she reached the open room with seven doors. An empty pedestal stood in the middle, and the cries of her children died away. She looked down the grate in the floor, fearing she had gone too far, when a stuttered kyeer pulled her back to the pedestal. There was nothing there, but she could hear them.

Slowly, she rotated around the room, approaching one door and then another. After a moments indecision, she threw the nearest one open and forced her way through…only to stumble in the snow. Her torch guttered out and died as she ascended further into the snow-covered courtroom, spiked fire grates surrounding each pillar, snow falling from the broken and melted ceiling, silence thick and heavy like a blanket.

Daenerys dropped the torch, turning around in confusion as her gaze took in the stained-glass window of the seven-pointed star, before it settled upon a metal throne made from swords. She approached it slowly, fingers hovering over the snow-covered monstrosity that her brother had pined for her entire life. She lowered her hand before another kyeer pulled her back. Still her children called, and Daenerys forced herself away from the throne, following the echoing wails through the door she had entered…except now it was a gate large enough for three men a-horse to ride through.

The heavy metal drew up into the snow tunnel with a grinding noise as she approached it. Daenerys glanced briefly behind her -back into the throne room- but only saw more of the same tunnel with another gate at the end. She stood there uncertain for a long while, before she continued through the open gate and into the white land beyond.

She was walking through a blizzard, a wall of ice behind her so high she could not see the top. Tucking her arms around her, Daenerys noticed abstractly that she was reacting to the thought of the cold, but she did not actually feel it herself.

A tent was before her, thick with hides and swaying softly in the harsh winds. She pulled the flap back, entering the tent that was so familiar but not. The blizzard outside was gone, and the tent was in the dothraki sea, the inside pleasantly cool compared to the heat she knew to be outside.

Her love sat before her, a baby of two months cradled in his massive arms. Rhaego looked like him, she noticed through the tears that pooled into her eyes. What cruel monster would show her this?

Daenerys spoke to Drogo, or the image of Drogo, in his mother tongue, kneeling before him as she cried silently. Perhaps she had failed, and was already dead. Was it so bad that she wanted to stay?

A pale hand caressed that baby's cheek as her husband pressed his forehead to hers and still she wept.

"You are the moon of my life," he said to her, voice soft and breaking over the words. "That is all I know…and all I need to know."

It was all she knew as well. Drogo was her sun and stars…and Drogo was dead. She clutched his hand as she turned to look at their child, Rhaego, who had never lived. Daenerys felt his fingers on her chin and allowed her face to be tilted back, pressing her own forehead hard against his and allowing their noses to brush. Even still, the witch's words echoed in her mind as it had every day since they were uttered.

"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east…" she whispered to him as she pulled away. "When the rivers run dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves." Daenerys cradled his face, touching the child, and then turning from him. She could not look back, even though the temptation was strong.

Brushing aside the tent flap, she stuttered to a halt as she returned to the central room with seven doors as opposed to the winter waste land she had been in before. On the pedestal that had been empty last time she was in the room, cried her dragons. She approached them cautiously, eyes darting to every hidden shadow before she allowed herself to look at them.

Viserion hopped and fluttered his wings, pulling the chain taught and jerking back as it forced him to land awkwardly. Rhaegal and Drogon stayed firmly on the stone, as far towards the edge as they could get without discomfort, kyeering and squeaking in distress. She reached for them and they settled, clicking in contentment as she stood before them. A voice interrupted her before she could touch their warm hides.

"They miss their mother," Pyat spoke from behind her and she whirled around to keep herself between him and her children. "They want to be with you," the warlock spoke softly. "Do you want to be with them?" His voice did not echo but the words came from behind her.

Pyat Pree stood there as well, before and behind her…Daenerys heart raced, and she tried to keep both insight. The one before her moved to her left, the other matching his pace on her right and she could not watch both at the same time. She heard the chains rustle and felt Drogon assuredly in her mind, and Daenerys settled her gaze on the first Pyat, trusting her children to keep theirs on the second.

"When your dragons were born, our magic was born again," the warlock continued, but she was not longer listening.

Another Pyat stood before her as the other two settled on either side. "You will be with them," the warlock assured her. "Through winter, and summer, and winter again. A thousand, thousand seasons you will be with them."

Chains rattled, thicker and heavier than the ones binding her children and she felt her arms being pulled towards the walls. Manacles hung from her wrists, the Pyats on either side pulling the chains until her arms were yanked taught away from her. The dragons behind her screeched in outrage, and she could feel their fear on top of her own.

"Welcome home, Daenerys Stormborn," the warlock smiled at her as he approached, voice smug and Dany felt such a rage inside of her that she was surprised her very skin did not alight in fire.

"This is not my home," her voice drowned out the sounds of her distressed children, and she noticed that the other two Pyats were gone. "My home is across the sea where my people are waiting for me."

"They will be waiting a long time."

She sneered at him before turning to look at her children. They quieted instantly, gazes immediately shifting towards hers. Daenerys saw Pyat move to peer under her arm, but she held her gaze until they turned their attention to the warlock.

Turning back slowly, she nearly whispered the command to the tiny dragons. "Dracarys," she felt understanding flood her perception, and Drogon coughed a tiny puff of smoke as Pyat tilted his head inquisitively before he frowned and moved away from her. Daenerys smiled at his sudden worry and pressed the command to her children as Drogon had the thought of cooked meat to her, just a month ago.

A tiny ball of flame soared beneath her outstretched arm and Pyat's robe caught on fire. She smiled as he tried to bat the flames out, frowning at his arm as if the concept of him burning alluded him. She pressed the command again, and three flames burst from behind her and engulfed the warlock and he screamed.

~ Page Break ~

Daenerys thought she should have felt surprise as she stood over the sleeping Xaro…or perhaps anger at least. Instead she just felt tired. He slept on his back, bare but for the blanket covering his waist and the emerald key around his neck. Doreah lay next to him.

They awoke as Kovarro stole the key, Xaro arising so suddenly she ended up seeing far more of him than she had ever wanted to. Even with him bared as he was, she approached. Jorah kept pace with her, and the last six of her blooded fighters flanked her from behind. Drogon shrieked from his perch on her shoulder as Doreah sat up. The lorathi's pretty face was scratched where the black dragon had dug his tiny claws into her skin.

"Khaleesi, please," her once friend begged. Daenerys felt nothing for her. She was not moved by her plea, she felt no pity for her plight, nor anger for her involvement in Irri's death…Daenerys felt nothing at all. "He said you would never leave Qarth alive," she justified, as if selling her had been the better option.

"Come," Dany cut her off before she could further explain. She did not want explanations…she wanted justice.

Drogon kyeered from her shoulder as she turned, Rhaegal and Viserion sitting primly in her palms as they gazed at around the room in disinterest. Her warriors parted for her, and she handed the two smaller dragons to the eldest dothraki woman that had survived their journey. When a younger woman, older than Dany by at least three name-days, tried to take Drogon, the tiny black snapped at her fingers and Daenerys gestured to her to leave him be.

Her children had become clingy after she had recovered them. Viserion crooning even now in pitiful tones as the women put him and the green in cages. Drogon, on the other hand, became aggressive to those who tried to separate them, even if it was Daenerys herself. He snapped and hissed, snarling little smoke trails and puffing himself up when she tried to put him in his own cage. In the end, she was too tired to fight with him, and let him remain on her shoulder.

It was hard, ignoring the sad crooning of her caged children as she left the room, but it had been a long day, and Daenerys had not the patience, nor inclination, to let them witness what was to happen next. She turned to look at the leather cages, and her mind pressed to theirs. Daenerys demanded obedience…and her children fell silent.

She could hear shouting behind her as Jorah and the other men forced Xaro and Doreah from the bed and allowed them to only grab a robe for decency…hers more than there's. They followed behind her, Jorah and the two prisoners with Kovarro and the six warriors -the children and the women stayed in the room with the now obedient Viserion and Rhaegal- as she descended the steps into the chamber that held Xaro's vault.

Kovarro unlocked the intricate and ornate door as Jorah and another warrior, Baro, came forward and hauled the massive valyrian steel open. She thought they would need a forth, before finally it swung on its bolted hinges and presented its contents to her. Even as she stepped forward, Daenerys knew what she would see.

"Nothing," she whispered as she stepped into the empty vault. Drogon clicked into the open space and she heard it echo off the stone walls, the sound of it a relief after the echoless House of the Undying. "Thank you, Xaro Xhoan Daxos," she said, turning to the two prisoners. "Thank you for teaching me this lesson," with a nod of her head, Baro shoved the king of Qarth forward.

Doreah started to wail as another forced her to follow. Daenerys moved passed them, Xaro's pleading falling on deaf ears as she came to stand beside her bear. Drogon puffed himself up, clicking and chirruping almost haughtily as the two were forced into the empty vault.

"Please, Khaleesi, I beg you," Doreah cried, falling to her knees before the door.

"Did Irri beg?" Daenerys questioned with a flat voice. She was not accusing, but also not curious. The question was not one she truly wanted an answer to…she had asked simply to ask.

"Khaleesi, don't do this! I can help you!"

Doreah's dothraki guard yanked her back up and dragged her into the dark hole. "Please! Please! Khaleesi, Ple-"

The door was closed on their cries and silence filled the corridor as the locks clicked in place. Jorah handed her the emerald key and Daenerys took it with a steady hand. The fiery rage had burnt out inside of her. Now she just felt tired. The others began to turn away, drawn back upstairs to the gold and jewels that Xaro's wealth had bought. She stood there for a long time, the key in her hand, gaze on the vault door. Jorah and Kovarro were silent behind her, present but removed. She let her grief free, her sorrow of Doreah's betrayal and Irris's murder, Aggo's sprawled body and the vision of her husband.

No tears came, her eyes were dry and her heart finally whole. Daenerys turned from the vault door and left the two betrayers to their dark fate. It was justice, she told herself as she ascended the stairs.

It was justice.