Reborn

Chapter 2

Daenerys clutched at her breast, the searing pain of Jon's dagger entering her heart still fresh in her mind. He killed me. Her hand went to her mouth as tears filled her eyes and she began to sob like a child. She could not contain herself. Jon had looked her in the eyes, kissed her as passionately as ever and then plunged his dagger into her heart. The taste of blood was still fresh in her mouth and she leaned over the side of the table as her body began to convulse, vomiting onto the floor.

Eventually Daenerys' heaves were pointless and there was nothing more but bile for her to bring up. She tried to steady herself enough to sit up straight but her body slumped in defeat, too tired to try and look presentable. Presentable had gone right out the window. Here she was, naked, vulnerable, and afraid, the same girl she had been all those years ago who had died in the pyre when she turned three stone eggs into living dragons. Perhaps that young girl had never truly died. Daenerys had shown the same naivety in trusting Jon Snow as she had all those years ago when her brother Viserys sold her to Khal Drogo. She had trusted her brother once. She had trusted Jon too.

A woman approached her, wrapping a towel around her body and wiping the sick from her face with a damp cloth. Daenerys looked up at her face, only recognising who she was through her attire. A flowing red dress and a necklace with a glowing red gem in the centre. A Red Priestess.

"Daenerys Stormborn," the woman spoke in a thick Volantene accent. "I am Kinvara, High Priestess of the Red Temple of Volantis. You had been brought here by your last surviving child, to be reborn and serve as you were meant to through the Lord of Light as the Prince Who Was Promised."

Daenerys looked at Kinvara, stunned. She had died. She could remember the way the dagger pierced her heart, the throb it caused in her chest with every desperate gasp for breath. She could still feel the blood trickling from her mouth down her cheek, her nose bleeding as the world around her turned black. The last thing she could remember seeing was Jon's face, his eyes filled with tears. Then there had been nothing.

"I should be dead," Daenerys whispered, looking down at her body. "I was dead."

Kinvara nodded. "You were, but your time to visit the darkness for good has not yet come my Queen. There is much more for you to do before the life leaves your eyes for one last time."

As if it had been non-existent up until this moment, Daenerys finally felt the cold seeping into her bones, the towel around her shoulders nowhere near enough to keep her warm.

"Let us get you bathed and dressed." Kinvara put one arm around Daenerys' shoulders and offered her free hand for Daenerys to take but Daenerys did not move. Her mind still reeled with what had happened, her thoughts all a painful reminder of how everything she had fought for and how everything she had lost, had been for nothing.

Kinvara's warm fingers met her chin and tilted her head up so that she was looking into her eyes as she spoke.

"If I look back I am lost."

Shivers shot up Daenerys' spine. She had not heard those words in so long, words she used to live by. Looking down at her hands she thought of all the times she'd needed those words to remind her that she was one step closer to her goal. So many had died for her to reach the Iron Throne. Ser Barristan. Viserion. Ser Jorah. Rhaegal. Missandei. They had all died believing in her, she could not let them down now even though she should be resting alongside them. She had been brought back and they had not. There was a purpose as to why she was the one who could draw breath once more.

Finally, she took hold of Kinvara's hand and slowly began to ease her legs over the side of the table. She ached from head to toe, her limbs feeling so restricted in their movements as if for a thousand years she'd never moved a muscle. Placing her feet on the ground she tried to stand, letting her feet hold her down as the weight of her body pushed down on them but she could not do it alone. Her knees shook and they buckled, her body falling to the ground. Kinvara steadied her and called out to someone but Daenerys could not hear what she was saying. She felt so old and fragile, her head heavy and the room spinning around her.