nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:Daenerys Targaryen and her khalasar enter Vaes Tolorro, by Jonathan Burto

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:Daenerys Targaryen and her khalasar enter Vaes Tolorro, by Jonathan Burton, for The Folio Society’s illustrated collector’s edition of A Clash of KingsDany looked at the horizon with despair. They had lost a third of their number, and still the waste stretched before them, bleak and red and endless. The comet mocks my hopes, she thought, lifting her eyes to where it scored the sky. Have I crossed half the world and seen the birth of dragons only to die with them in this hard hot desert? She would not believe it.The next day, dawn broke as they were crossing a cracked and fissured plain of hard red earth. Dany was about to command them to make camp when her outriders came racing back at a gallop. “A city, Khaleesi,” they cried. “A city pale as the moon and lovely as a maid. An hour’s ride, no more.”“Show me,” she said.When the city appeared before her, its walls and towers shimmering white behind a veil of heat, it looked so beautiful that Dany was certain it must be a mirage. “Do you know what place this might be?” she asked Ser Jorah.The exile knight gave a weary shake of the head. “No, my queen. I have never traveled this far east.”The distant white walls promised rest and safety, a chance to heal and grow strong, and Dany wanted nothing so much as to rush toward them. Instead she turned to her bloodriders. “Blood of my blood, go ahead of us and learn the name of this city, and what manner of welcome we should expect.”“Ai, Khaleesi,” said Aggo.Her riders were not long in returning. Rakharo swung down from his saddle. From his medallion belt hung the great curving arakh that Dany had bestowed on him when she named him bloodrider. “This city is dead, Khaleesi. Nameless and godless we found it, the gates broken, only wind and flies moving through the streets.”Jhiqui shuddered. “When the gods are gone, the evil ghosts feast by night. Such places are best shunned. It is known.”“It is known,” Irri agreed.“Not to me.” Dany put her heels into her horse and showed them the way, trotting beneath the shattered arch of an ancient gate and down a silent street. Ser Jorah and her bloodriders followed, and then, more slowly, the rest of the Dothraki.–A Clash of Kings, Daenerys I -- source link

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