~ Dany ~
If there had been any measure of insincerity on his face, I might have smiled.
But there is not.
His dark eyes hold mine in a grim snare, the faintest hint of fear flickering in the corners. It sends a shiver from the base of my spine upward, a spidery chill stretching over my scalp, piercing through flesh, pinching bone.
'The dead?' I repeat.
He nods, slowly. 'I know how it must sound to you — how I must sound to you — like a madman, no doubt. But it's the truth. The army of the dead are our enemy now and they are coming. Not tonight, not tomorrow, maybe not for many nights. But they're real and if we don't stop them, nothing else we do will matter, I promise you.'
Alive with passion and conviction his voice is stirring, affecting. Believe me, his eyes say, Please, believe me.
Yet his words are those of a madman, surely? Or a fool. For only a madman could think such a thing, and only a fool would come to me in the middle of the night to offer me such a lie.
Except... I am certain he is neither.
'I do not think you a madman,' I tell him quietly and some relief seeps into his eyes. 'But you will require to explain to me how dead men are my enemy. For normally when my enemy is dead, I need no longer fear them. If this is some tale you tell each other in the north then you will forgive me for not--.'
'It is no tale,' he flares hotly, slicing off my words with this own. I narrow my eyes on him, nostrils flaring at his impudence. When he speaks again his voice is cooler, more controlled. 'I mean no disrespect, your grace, but this is no northern tale. You do not understand for you have not seen what I have seen.'
'Then help me understand,' I say.
The look in his eye changes, sharpening. Gone are the traces of fear and desperation, and in them now comes a steely kind of determination. I see his jaw tighten as he considers how to continue. How to make me understand.
'Imagine an army as fierce as your Dothraki and as loyal as your Unsullied,' he begins. 'imagine each soldier is as strong and as brutal as any mercenary in the seven kingdoms or beyond. Imagine that any enemy this army killed did not die, not truly. Now imagine that this was your army - imagine that when any soldier fell before you, enemy or not, you could simply will them to rise again. To fight again. That is the threat we face. That is what's coming for us.'
A chill blows through the tent as his words settle in the cold air between us. Then I feel their touch upon my neck like a dead man's kiss.
'How is such a thing possible...?' I ask, weakly.
'Old magic, new magic,' he shrugs. 'I don't know. But it is real, they're real. I've seen them. I've fought them.'
Trembling, I drain the last of my cup and rise to refill it, the prick of his stare pressed into me as I do. When I sit across from him once more I feel steadier, more able to think beyond its impossibility.
'If they cannot be killed, if they simply... rise again... how do you propose to defeat them? Surely it cannot be done?'
'There are ways to kill them,' he says. 'And ways to stop them rising again.'
'You've seen it done?'
'I've done it.' There is no pride in his voice, none at all.
'What are these ways?'
'Dragonglass does it. Valyrian steel too,' he reaches to his swordbelt, reflexively, but of course he is unarmed. 'And fire.'
'Dragonglass is almost as rare as Valyrian Steel. How do you propose to weaponise something there is not nearly enough of?'
He nods, as though he has considered this at length. 'I've a friend, a brother from the Nightswatch, gone to The Citadel — to become a maester — he plans to scour the breadth of it for any word of Dragonglass, for any clue to where we might find more of it. And I've given the order for every maester in the north to search their own books and papers for any mention of it — I've told them it's more valuable to us now than gold. You could order the rest do the same,' he urges.
'Zīrtys perzys,' I whisper. It causes Jon to cast me a look of bemusement. 'Dragonglass. In High Valyrian it means frozen fire. Very well,' I refocus my gaze upon him. 'I will charge every maester in the seven kingdoms do as you require. If there is more Dragonglass to be found in this realm, we shall find it.'
'You have my gratitude, your grace.'
I nod. 'I assume these dead men are not able to scale a seven hundred foot wall of ice?'
'I know only that they have not yet tried,' he says bleakly. 'But the Nights Watch's numbers are dwindled, have ever been dwindling. If they do try to scale it, there's not nearly enough men left to hold it. I've sent all I can, but it needs more.'
'How many more?'
He shrugs, a little hopelessly I think. 'Two hundred, maybe three. And the supplies to feed them.'
This is why he's here, meeting you without your advisors or your hand, because he thinks you weak. You are weak. It is your army he wants, not you.
The voice in my head is Viserys', bitter and thin from hate.
I take a deep breath as I study Jon carefully. I do not believe he thinks me weak. What cause has he to think me weak? Strength comes from action not inaction. He will see strength when he looks at me, I will make sure of it.
'Then it will be done,' I say. 'I will send the men you need to the wall to defend it.'
Jon's gaze softens, grateful. 'Thank you, your grace,' he says. When his eyes skirt from mine, pensive, I know he wants to ask for something else but is reluctant to draw my displeasure.
'You have spoken of an army of dead men yet this you are afraid to say aloud?' I ask. When he lifts his head he looks surprised, and a little unsettled perhaps.
'It is only that...' he runs a pale hand over the hair of his face, smoothing the dark growth there. 'Well, I fear it will not be enough.'
'Not enough?' I raise an eyebrow.
'We'll need more than men and Dragonglass and steel if we are to win this war, trust me.'
'I rather think I have already placed a great deal of trust in you, my lord,' I point out.
'You have, and I am grateful for it...'
'But?'
He fixes me with a look so direct it steals my breath a moment. What power his eyes held. 'But if - when - the army of the dead attack, we'll need you, your grace. You and your dragons might be the only souls alive who can save us from what's coming.'
His words are wrought with so much conviction, his eyes too, that it almost suffocates me.
An image bleeds into my mind: of a world of dead men and me alone within it. A world of white stretching out below as I soar high above it upon Drogon's back, searching desperately for any soul left alive.
An awful weight of loneliness falls over me as the fear blazes bright and hot, like a fire roaring in the dark.
'And I will fight,' I say after some moments. 'If or when this army of dead men attack, I will defend this realm with all that I have. This is my home, and I will protect it from its enemies. We shall fight together.'
Relief softens the corners of his mouth, his eyes, the curve of his shoulders. When he lets out a breath, his gaze turns so warm that I feel the chill around us dissipate. Lowering his eyes almost absently to my lips, his mouth parts slightly and it sends a rush of heat coursing through me. Hot needlepricks against my low skin. Something new bleeds across the inky black then, something like desire.
Suspended there for moments, all trace of the world around us fading into the shadows of the tent, I feel almost as though I may be dreaming again. As though he and I are the only souls who exist here. In this other world. This dream world.
Then he blinks and I awake. The look of desire in his eyes disappears and he is once more the grim northern warrior.
Standing, he lowers his head to bow in that clumsy way he does.
'I will leave you to your rest, your grace. I have taken up enough of your time.'
When he moves toward the exit I realise that I don't yet want him to leave. I realise that even if it is to sit by the fire and talk of dead men, I would rather he remained than leave me here alone to the cold shadows that exist in my dreams.
'Tomorrow, you will meet with my advisors and my hand, and tell them all you know of this army,' I say, standing too. 'At dawn I shall have ravenscrolls sent to every maester in the seven kingdoms. You have a smith here, I assume? One who can forge weapons?'
He nods. 'Yes, but we could always use more.'
'Then I shall see the north are sent ten more.' A look crosses his eyes. 'Very well, twenty.'
A smile forms upon his elegant mouth and he nods his thanks. When he moves towards the entrance something weak and femine moves me after him.
'Why did you come?' I call out. He stops, frowning slightly as he turns to me. 'Why tell me of this now, tonight? You could have waited until dawn, surely?'
He considers this for some moments. 'I don't know,' he replies, quiet and careful.
'You came because you wanted to guarantee my support regardless of what answer you deliver me at dawn.'
He lets out a soft breath. 'Yes, I did.'
'And you feared I would leave you and the north to die should you refuse our alliance.' The notion is so preposterous that I cannot help the sharpness of my tone, nor the taint of derision that colours it.
To his credit he does not flinch. His gaze remains startlingly direct. How long had it been since a man dared look at me so? Why does it not offend me as it should? Why does it excite me as it should not?
When he takes a step closer my heart lifts, and the heat seems to leech from his body onto mine. A rush of thirst shocks my tongue as the scent of him floods into my lungs. He is warmth and leather, pine and snow, with the faintest trace of the saddle settled over him.
'Aye, I might have feared that, once,' he admits, his voice low.
'And now?' My breath feels short, my cheeks flushed from his closeness. 'Do you still fear it?'
'No,' he shakes his head. 'Now I fear something else...' His voice is unimaginably soft and so very distant, as though he speaks not to me but to some other, perhaps some spectre that hovers beside us.
I think he might kiss me then. His mouth opens with the promise of it, his eyes focussed upon mine with such intent that I'm certain I can feel the touch of him upon my lips. His control appears to be tethered by no more than a frayed piece of string and I long for it to break. To hear it snap free in the weighted silence between us. I can barely draw breath so forceful is my desire for him to close the distance and kiss me.
Had Tyrion known I would want him this way? Had he suspected there would be something in Jon Snow that would weaken me? Something which would speak to every feminine need I held within?
'If there is nothing more, my Lord...' I manage.
He blinks once, then again, and a curtain falls. He steps back away from me, awkward, embarrassed.
'There's nothing more, your grace,' he says.
Disappointment burns my cheeks and I swallow. 'Then you may leave me.'
I think I see a sliver of remorse slide into his eyes before he dips his head once more.
'You will bring me your answer at dawn, Jon Snow.'
He nods, wearily. 'I will.'
'It was a command, not a question.'
A challenge glints in the blacks of his eyes, before he lets out a tired breath. 'Goodnight, Daenerys,' he mutters softly before turning on his heel and striding from the tent.
I stare after him open-mouthed, my heart racing dangerously fast.