Mira

Chapter 7 - The Desert's Oath

The desert began where mercy ended.

By the time they left the Greenblood behind, the land had turned to stone and glare. The air wavered, bright enough to sting; heat pressed down like a hand trying to still a struggling thing. Sand crept into boots, into wounds, into food, into thoughts. Every breath tasted of dust and something tired.

Three days after Skyreach fell, they reached Vaith.

The stronghold crouched low to the earth, its pale walls blistered by fire. Black scars licked up from arrow slits and broken windows. Smoke had stopped rising, but the smell of char and lime clung to every stone. The banner that had flown there now lay in the dirt, trampled into colorless threads.

The lord of Vaith knelt before Daeron at the gate, bareheaded, throat working as he forced the words.

"I yield," he said. "I swear my house to the Iron Throne."

Daeron listened with solemn attention, as though the words were iron in themselves. When the oath was done, he raised the man up and said, "Serve faithfully, and your sons will know peace."

Mira watched from the shadow of a collapsed wall. She saw the lord's hands tremble, the way his jaw clenched on replies. She saw his lady stand behind him with her face empty and her eyes aflame. She saw children peering through cracked shutters, their gazes sharp and hard, following every movement of red and gold.

The walls had yielded. The people had not.

She stepped aside as soldiers passed, driving a line of gaunt prisoners toward the makeshift pens. One spat at a dragon banner. He was cuffed for it. He laughed, a small ragged bark that held no surrender.

Dorne was not beaten. It had only slipped into the hollows.

By evening they had moved beyond Vaith, the host spilling out along the open desert. Tents bloomed like pale sores under the lowering sun. The dragon banners hung limp, their colors dulled by dust.

Mira rode now with the royal escort, close enough to hear when Daeron lowered his voice, far enough that she could pretend it didn't matter.

"The Dragon's Healer," one soldier murmured as she passed, half in jest, halfway kneeling without bending his knees.

"Bewitched, he is," another muttered. "Ever since that border witch took him in hand."

"She stitched him up," a third said. "You'd rather he bled?"

"I'd rather his counsel came from knights, not some camp woman who stinks of Dornish herbs."

She kept her eyes on the horizon. Sand. Sky. Thin scrub showing where some stubborn root refused to die.

The higher you walk beside the dragon, she thought, the nearer your skin comes to the flame.

***

Maester Weren came to her while the light was bleeding out of the day.

She knelt by a folding table, counting bundles-willowbark, moldy bread for poultices, clean strips of linen rolled tight. Sweat glued her dress to her spine. Her hands moved automatically. Numbers steadied her.

"An impressive store," Weren said, his shadow stretching long.

"Barely enough," she answered.

He picked up a twist of dried leaves, brought it to his nose. "And this?"

"Feverfew," she said. "For the headaches your sermons cause."

He did not smile. "It does not grow in these parts."