Born in the year 284, Daenerys Targaryen, nicknamed Daenerys of the Typhoon (or Daenerys Typhoon-Born), is the only daughter of King Aerys II Targaryen and Queen Rhaella Targaryen.
She is a beautiful girl with a light complexion, shy and slender, with amethyst eyes and the characteristic gold and silver hair of the Targaryens.
Since the fall of the Targaryen dynasty, Daenerys and her brother Viserys remain in exile in the free cities across the strait. Daenerys lives in the shadow of her brother, who dreams only of regaining the Iron Throne of their forefathers.
Having never known the Seven Crowns, she only dreams of a quiet life similar to the one she spent as a child in Braavos under the protection of the good Ser Willem Darry who cherished her.
Her life, made of successive escapes, which forced her and her brother to ask for hospitality to the powerful of the free cities, has made her cautious and lucid about human nature.
She is far more aware than her elder brother of the expectations of those who supposedly support the last heirs of the House of Targaryen.
Daenerys was born nine months after the last Targaryens fled to Peyredragon following the fall of King's Landing. Her mother died giving birth to her during a terrible storm, earning her the nickname "Typhoon-Born," by which she is known throughout the Seven Crowns.
The Peyredragon garrison is ready to sell her and her brother Viserys to the Usurper, Robert Baratheon, but Ser Willem Darry saves their lives by taking them to Braavos.
There, the two royal orphans live a few peaceful years, in the house "with the red door", until the death of Ser Willem. Daenerys is very attached to this house where she has her own room with a window overlooking a lemon tree.
The death of Ser Darry and the theft of their meagre possessions by the household condemned them to be evicted. They then live in poverty, travelling through the free cities (in Myr, Tyrosh, Qohor, Volantis and Lys) trying to escape the killers sent after them by King Robert.
From these multiple journeys, some of them by boat, Daenerys takes a taste for the sea, so much so that she declares one day to her brother that she wants to become a sailor, which makes him furious.
Indeed, Viserys can be extremely violent towards his sister, especially when he considers that she is unworthy of her "dragon blood" status, and he does not hesitate to brutalize her. But he can also be protective and tender, telling her stories of his future accession to the Iron Throne.
These years are rough. The exiles are first welcomed by the notables and the powerful, but, as Robert Baratheon's power seems to be solidly established, the doors close little by little to the exiles, who then often experience cold, hunger, and even fear (but never disease, which Viserys blames on their ancestry, which would make them immune). They are finally welcomed by master Illyrio Mopatis, a rich magistrate of Pentos.
Thirteen-year-old Daenerys must, according to the wishes of her brother Viserys III Targaryen, marry Khal Drogo, a powerful Dothraki warlord who has never lost a battle.
Viserys' goal is to exchange his sister for ten thousand warriors in order to regain the Iron Throne. The wedding ceremony is organized by the wealthy Illyrio Mopatis, who, according to Viserys, helps them for the gratitude he will get in return when the legitimate king gets back his throne. Daenerys is not convinced but does not share her doubts.
Many notables attend her presentation to the khal, the mere sight of which frightens the young girl: Dothraki chiefs (including Khal Moro and his son Rhogoro), the brother of the Archon of Tyrosh as well as a knight of Westeros, ser Jorah Mormont, who has fled his land where he was condemned for slave trade. She then has an even more terrifying dream, where she sees a dragon.
Her wedding takes place in front of the walls of Pentos, in the middle of the entire Khalasar. Terrified, Daenerys witnesses a day of feasting, drinking, copulation and duels to the death.
Finally, the evening comes, the time of the gifts comes: her brother gives her three maids, Irri, Jhiqui, and Doreah (in reality bought by master Illyrio), who must teach her respectively riding, the Dothraki language, and the arcane of eroticism; ser Jorah (who put his sword at his brother's service) puts at her feet old books of history and poetry of the Seven Crowns; Illyrio gives her three fossilized dragon eggs; the three blood-bearers of her husband give her three ritual weapons (Haggo a big leather whip with a silver handle, Cohollo a magnificent arakh inlaid with gold and Qotho a bow made of dragon bone higher than her) which, according to the custom, she refuses and gives to her husband; the Dothraki compete with the most diverse gifts (clothes, jewels, perfumes, ... ). Finally, Drogo offers her an exceptional silver-gray filly.
She leaves with him for a long ride, before they consummate their wedding under the stars. Daenerys is then surprised and seduced by the delicacy and gentleness of her husband.
After the wedding, the khaleesi must be presented to the dosh khaleen of Vaes Dothrak. The khalasar thus leaves Pentos and enters the Dothrak sea, the immense grassy plain of the great eastern continent.
In addition to the handmaidens that were given to her at her wedding, Daenerys' khas includes warriors in charge of watching over her: Quaro, Rakharo, Aggo and Jhogo.
The fatigue and pain of the journey and the nights with Drogo are at first difficult to endure, but one night she dreams that she is being purified in the fire of a dragon, and the next day the pain diminishes somewhat.
Thanks to the qualities of her filly, Daenerys learns the pleasure of riding, and she can marvel at the beauty of the Dothrak Sea. Her dragon eggs sometimes seem lukewarm, but she thinks she is the victim of an illusion.
On the journey, Viserys nags her, complains, and threatens her continuously. One day, exhausting her patience, she hits him and deprives him of his mount, forcing him to walk in front of the whole khalasar, the ultimate humiliation among the Dothraki.
Viserys then asks Ser Jorah Mormont to hit her, but the knight prefers to obey the young woman who realizes that her brother is a vile and weak man and that he will never be king of the Seven Crowns.
Ser Jorah thinks that this is for the best, as he would make one of the worst monarchs of the Targaryen dynasty. That night, she makes love with Drogo outside the tent, face to face. On her fourteenth birthday, she realizes that she is pregnant.
The khalasar finally arrives at Vaes Dothrak, under the Mother of Mountains, through the colossal Horse Gate. Daenerys walks along the road and discovers the countless statues of deities, fruits of the Dothraki plundering.
She discusses with ser Jorah Mormont her brother's ability to wield power and the knight does not hide his skepticism, even his concern about the prince's inability to understand the Dothraki logic.
Indeed, Viserys thinks he has "bought" an army by "selling" his sister but the Dothraki are not merchants: Daenerys' marriage to Drogo is a gift that the khal must compensate by a counter-gift, but when the time comes.
They then exchange on the military value of the Dothraki compared to the warriors of Westeros. Khal Drogo's forty thousand warriors are the equivalent of Prince Rhaegar's army at the Trident, but they do not conceive of war in the same way as the people of Westeros, and while they have a large advantage on the plains, they would not have the patience or the engines to lay siege to the castles of the lords of the Seven Crowns, and would probably lose a war of attrition. As Drogo leaves for the night to sacrifice to the Dothraki gods on the Mother of Mountains, Daenerys invites her brother to dine in her tent to make up with him. But he loses his temper again, and Daenerys has to hit him before chasing him away.
As is customary, as khaleesi, Daenerys meets with the diviners of the Khaleen dosh and must eat a stallion's heart to give strength and vitality to her unborn son.
She passes this test, and the diviners predict greatness for her unborn child. He will be the stallion that will rule the world and Daenerys decides to name him Rhaego, in memory of her brother Rhaegar.
She then purifies herself in the Navel of the World, where Drogo takes her in front of all the Khalasar. During the banquet that follows, she asks Ser Jorah to sit by her side.
He tells her that her child will be the Khal of the Khals, destined to unite all the Dothraki clans and conquer the world. Then Viserys appears, drunk and more aggressive than ever.
Drawing his sword (although it is sacrilegious to spill blood in Vaes Dothrak), he threatens his sister with it and demands the price agreed upon for her marriage to the khal.
Drogo promises her a golden crown whose magnificence will make whoever contemplates it shudder, then melts his solid gold belt in a pot and pours the content on the head of a screaming Viserys.
Daenerys, calmly watching her brother's death, thinks that fire cannot kill a dragon: her brother was not one.
After the festivities, Drogo decides to go east and not west, much to Daenerys' displeasure, because this route takes him away from Westeros. But the khal is reluctant to make his khalasar cross the sea.
While he is away hunting, she visits a merchant caravan coming from Pentos, accompanied by Ser Jorah. The latter quickly slips away to ask the leader of the caravan if he has any letters for him.
This caravan reminds Daenerys of her childhood in Braavos. A wine merchant offers her to taste a glass, then offers her a barrel of La Treille. But Ser Jorah, who has returned in the meantime, demands that the merchant drink his wine first.
The merchant becomes frightened and flees, but Jhogo catches up with him. Ser Jorah explains to Daenerys that he has received a letter informing him that King Robert Baratheon, the Usurper, has put a price on his head and that of his unborn son. When Drogo hears the news, he vows to conquer the Seven Crowns for his khaleesi.
While traveling west, the Drogo clan came across the Khalasar of Khal Ogo, who was besieging a city of the Lhazareans, a peaceful shepherd people. A battle ensues and the Khalasar of Khal Drogo is victorious.
He makes ten thousand slaves that he hopes to sell in the slave cities of the Bay of Serfs to pay for the crossing of the Strait. Daenerys cannot stand the rape scenes that follow, and, despite the incomprehension of ser Jorah and his khas, takes the captives, that Drogo concedes to her, under her protection. But the khal is wounded and Mirri Maz Duur, a healer of the Lhazareans saved by Daenerys, offers her services to heal him.
Drogo's warriors do not agree and call her a Maegi, a soulless witch. Daenerys trusts her, however, and Mirri Maz Duur takes Drogo inside the temple of the Supreme Shepherd, removes the arrow and coats his wounds with balms and ointments. The young woman then asks for his help during her upcoming birth.
A few days later, Drogo, burned by Mirri Maz Duur's bandages, tears them off. The wound becomes infected and the khal falls from his horse, sign of his near end.
Daenerys has trouble getting her husband's warriors to obey her when she orders them to send for Mirri Maz Duur. Ser Jorah then tells her the sad truth: Drogo is already dead and she must leave with her khas to the east, for the khal's successors will want to remove his heir. As for the destiny of a widowed khaleesi, it is to end up in the dosh khaleen.
Mirri Maz Duur confirms Drogo's desperate condition, but Daenerys refuses to give up and asks her to bring him back to life, whatever it takes. According to the healer, there is a way to save him: an incantation she learned from her master, a blood-mage from the Shadowlands, in Asshai.
But only death can buy life... The maegi then proceeds to a bloody ritual, slitting the throat of Drogo's red stallion over his master's body.
Then she evacuates the tent, because no one must attend the ritual: the dead will dance, and no living person must see them. Her screams and the disturbing shadows which soon appear on the canvas revolt the blood-runners, who want to interrupt her.
Daenerys orders her khas to intervene, and soon blood flows. She then feels her water break, and ser Jorah, wounded, carries her to the tent to ask for Mirri Maz Duur's assistance.
Terrorized, Daenerys faints. In her delirium, she flees, pursued by something terrifying, towards the red door of her childhood home. She has visions of her grown son Rhaego, and her brothers Rhaegar and Viserys.
When she wakes up, she understands from the faces of her maids that her son is dead. The dragon eggs throb under her fingers and are no longer cold. Calling for Ser Jorah, Daenerys finds that he is marked by remorse, for he thinks he unknowingly killed his child by taking him to the maegi in the middle of a summoning.
Mirri Maz Duur tells her that her son was monstrous, and that he seemed to be dead for years. Still weak, she gets help to find Drogo and there asks Mirri Maz Duur if this is what she has paid with the lives of so many people: Drogo lies inert, blind and without any will. His khalasar has broken up into several rival clans, and only a few hundred old men, women, children, slaves, and his khas remain with the khaleesi.
The maegi then reveals to him that she acted to avenge the destruction of her city and her temple by the Dothraki. After having her tied up, Daenerys makes her "khal" carry her out of the tent. All night long, she talks to him, kisses him and caresses him, trying to bring him back to consciousness.
In the morning, realizing that his condition is not improving, she fetches a silk pillow and, after having tenderly kissed his forehead, applies it to his face.
Gathering the few hundred remaining people of the khalasar, Daenerys frees the slaves and gives everyone the choice to abandon her or follow her.
She then builds a funeral pyre where a stallion is sacrificed. Khal Drogo's treasures are piled up on top of it. She names Jhogo, Aggo and Rakharo ko as her running-bloods, but they reject this breach of custom: only a khal can have running-bloods.
On the other hand, Ser Jorah swears to serve her, to obey her and to die for her if necessary. She asks him to call her queen from now on, and makes him the first member of her Queen's Guard.
The body of the khal is then placed on the pyre with the dragon eggs and Mirri Maz Duur, still tied. As the fire is set, the first star to appear in the sky is a glowing comet, blood red, fire red, with a dragon's tail.
The flames rise, burning the maegi, the treasures and Drogo's body. Daenerys, spellbound, approaches the pyre despite Ser Jorah's cries. She sees in the flames animals (lions, snakes, fish, foxes, wolves, horses), monsters (unicorns, shining birds), trees in bloom...
It seems to him to see Drogo rising. Three violent explosions resound. She disappears in the flames and, when the heat finally subsides, her followers discover her naked, curled up in the ashes, a cream and gold dragonet suckling on her left breast, a green and bronze one on her right breast and a scarlet and black one curled up around her shoulders.
Subjugated, the knight and the Dothraki prostrate themselves, now devoted body and soul as they have never been for any khal.
Daenerys of the Typhoon, khaleesi of Khal Drogo, is now Daenerys the Burnt, the Mother of Dragons. Following the advice of Ser Jorah Mormont, she decides to take her meager khalasar, which numbers only a hundred or so members (mostly children, women, and old men), southeastward, to avoid the other khalasars of Drogo's former ko, who will be in no hurry to eliminate her and capture her dragons.
This is also the path that the red comet points to. But this route requires him to cross the desert of the red lands, a hostile land where water, game and fodder are scarce. Many people do not have the strength to continue and die.
When Doreah, sick in her turn, must stop riding, Daenerys immobilizes her khalasar during her agony, and only resumes riding after her death.
Fortunately, the dragons, which Daenerys feeds with roasted horse meat, grow and prosper. She names the green one Rhaegal (after her brother Rhaegar), the cream and gold one Viserion (after Viserys) and the black one Drogon (after Khal Drogo).
Finally, the khalasar arrives at a city, deserted and in ruins, but where they find water and food. In the evening, Ser Jorah tells him the story of his love for his second wife, Lynce Hightower, and the downfall to which it led him. He admits to Daenrys that she resembles Lynce, and she understands that Ser Jorah feels more than loyalty for her.
The next day, Daenerys orders her runners to scout in three different directions, so that they will no longer go blindly. The khalasar dresses his wounds in Vaes Tolorro (name given to the deserted city) and regains strength while waiting for the return of the three warriors. Rakharo, who was the first to return to the camp, reports that to the south of the city there is only a sandy desert up to the dunes that border the ocean.
Aggo then affirms that the southwest is "sterile and burned" and that he has only seen two cities similar to Vaes Tolorro, and the skeleton of a large dragon. Jhogo finally returns from the southeast, accompanied by three notables from the city of Qarth: Pyat Pree, the great conjuror, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, a merchant prince, and Quaithe of the Shadow, a masked woman. All three declare that they have come to contemplate the dragons.
As Daenerys leads her khalasar into Qarth and discovers its magnificence, Pyat Pree the Conjurer and Xaro Xhoan Daxos the merchant engage in a battle of words to win her favor.
She still remembers the treachery of Mirri Maz Duur and is therefore suspicious of the Conjurer. She decides instead to settle in the merchant's palace. Quaithe says almost nothing and simply warns her: her dragons are coveted, and she must not trust anyone.
Lost in her reflections, Daenerys realizes that her three dragons will not be enough to reconquer the Seven Crowns, especially since she does not want to rule over a burnt-out kingdom. She sends Ser Jorah Mormont to the harbor to get word from Westeros.
He returns with Quhuru Mo, a captain from the Summer Isles, who tells him of the death of the Usurper, the alleged felony and imprisonment of Lord Eddard Stark, and the desire of the late king's brothers to challenge the crown of the young Joffrey Baratheon. This news fills him with hope.
With the advice of Xaro Xhoan Daxos, Daenerys manages to make great profits from the enormous curiosity about dragons. She keeps only one of the many gifts the visitors leave her: a magnificent tiara in the shape of a three-headed dragon, ringed with yellow gold, winged with silver and with a head of jade, ivory and chiseled onyx, offered by the Tourmaline Brotherhood, which she decides to make her crown.
All the others are invested in the sums necessary to obtain an audience with the Impollus, descendants of the ancient kings and queens of Qarth, who command the guard and the galleys. But they refuse to help him.
As for Xaro, he also avoids Daenerys' demands, proposing marriage instead, with the idea of getting a dragon as a wedding present. Distraught, she finally considers going to the Conjurors. In the street, she sees a pyrologist doing amazing tricks with fire.
Quaithe appears and tells her that she is the one who caused the return of magic, as the Mother of Dragons. She tells him to go to Shadow-Ashai to find out the truth, which she won't find in Qarth ("To go north, go south. To go west, go east. To go forward, go backward, and to reach the light, go under the shadow").
When she returned to the palace, Ser Jorah also advised her to leave the city and head east, but without a clear plan. But Daenerys, convinced that the Red Comet did not lead her to Qarth for nothing, decides to go to the Conjurors.
The House of the Undying is only a gray antiquity. Her warriors, Ser Jorah Mormont and Xaro Xhoan Daxos advise Daenerys against entering but she enters with Drogon, Pyat Pree refusing to let her be accompanied.
He gives her advice on how to avoid the traps in the hotel: always take the first door on the right and always go up the stairs. If doors open, never enter them. He makes her drink the wine of the Conjurers, the shadow of the night, so that she sees and hears the truth, before letting her enter the hotel.
The rooms Daenerys walks through are all different, and the sheer size of the building's interior reveals itself to be out of all proportion to its exterior.
Through some of the open doors, she cannot help but contemplate strange scenes, but she always manages not to enter. After hours of wandering, she finally finds herself in a dark room with a stone table in the middle.
A putrescent heart pulsing with indigo light lies in the center. Blue shadows surround the table: the Undying are now only corpses, but they can read her mind, and they speak to her and deliver cryptic prophecies.
Lost and confused, and feeling a strange torpor invading her, Daenerys asks them for more help, and then receives from them even more enigmatic visions.
She suddenly becomes aware that the Undying are surrounding her, touching her, licking her and starting to bite her. Drogon then attacks the heart and destroys it with fire, causing the Undying to be cremated and their hotel to burn.
Daenerys and Drogon manage to escape and find themselves outside, where Pyat Pree tries to stab her. But he is stopped by Jhogo and Rakharo, and Ser Jorah comes to support his failing queen.
Daenerys considers the destruction of the House of the Undying as a victory, and, as a result, wears a bell in her hair, following the Dothraki custom.
The destruction of the Undying and their hotel provokes the hostility of the city and its organizations towards Daenerys, especially since, paradoxically, the powers of the Conjurers seem to have gained in power.
If the Tourmaline Brotherhood demands the expulsion of the heiress of the Targaryens, and the Grocers' Guild her death, the Thirteen refrain from taking a side only because of the influence of Xaro Xhoan Daxos.
But, when Daenerys refuses a new matrimonial proposal from him, the rich merchant changes his speech and demands in his turn her departure from his palace and the city.
She then tries to negotiate with him the purchase of ships, but the only price he accepts is the exchange with one of his dragons, which she cannot resolve.
So she had to flee again; accompanied by Ser Jorah Mormont and two of his runners, she went to the port, but no ship agreed to take her on board for an acceptable price.
As they leave one of the ships, Ser Jorah spots two individuals following them: a huge swarthy eunuch with a scarred body, and an old man with white hair who seems to come from Westeros.
It is then that a stranger offers to the "mother of dragons" a magnificent wooden box containing a manticore (the man having slipped in her ear before disappearing: "so sorry...").
She is barely saved by the old man, who knocks the box out of her hands with a stick and crushes the insect. After the confusion, the two strangers introduce themselves: the eunuch is Belwas the Strong, a veteran of the fighting arenas of Meereen, and the old man is called Arstan, known as "Whitebeard", his squire.
Both are sent from Pentos by Master Illyrio with three ships to bring back Daenerys and her khalasar. Indeed, the Seven Crowns are torn apart by the War of the Five Kings and Master Illyrio wishes to see the dragons.
In order to let the world know that the dragons have returned, she decides to rename the three ships after the three illustrious dragons who participated in the conquest of Aegon I Targaryen: Vhagar, Meraxes and Balerion.
Daenerys sets sail for Pentos on the Balerion with her retinue. During the long, quiet days, she enjoys watching her dragons grow and now fly far into the sky. One more year and she feels she can ride Drogon.
Ser Jorah Mormont, and then Arstan, evoke memories of the ancient dragons. Talking with the old squire, Daenerys learns that he knew King Aerys, her father, and Prince Rhaegar, her brother.
He recognizes the latter's many qualities, but remains evasive about his real fighting skills, whereas Viserys had always portrayed him as an exceptional warrior.
Ser Jorah is suspicious of the old man and does not hide it. One night, he joins her in her cabin and confides in her his doubts about Belwas and Arstan, but also about the ships and their crews belonging to Master Illyrio Mopatis, whose devotion to the Targaryen cause seems uncertain.
He proposes to his queen to put him to the test by diverting his fleet to Astapor, and using the wealth in the holds to acquire an army of slaves, the Unsullied.
Daenerys will then be able to resume her route to Pentos by land, and arrive there not as a beggar, but as the leader of a dedicated army. Daenerys is at first irritated by her faithful friend's obstinacy in seeing traitors everywhere, and by the harshness of his admonitions to trust strangers too much.
But she is finally convinced by his eloquence, and ser Jorah, intoxicated by his speech and the intimacy of the moment, embraces and kisses her as a lover. Disturbed in spite of herself, she does not push him away immediately, but refuses to go any further and demands from him the respect that is due to him.
This brief embrace revives feelings in her that they thought had disappeared since Drogo's death, but she knows that ser Jorah is not the one who will be able to fill them, and she makes sure that she is not alone with him anymore. Irri offers her the comfort of his caresses one night, but that doesn't satisfy her either.
When she arrives in Astapor, she leaves Ser Jorah on board and goes to negotiate the purchase of Unsullied with the slave trader Kraznys mo Nakloz in company of Arstan.
She pretends to the slave trader that she does not understand High Valyrian and lets her slave interpreter, Missandei, translate. Through her, Kraznys praises the value of her eunuchs, but Daenerys is disgusted by the cruelty of their training and their inhumanity.
As they return to the ships, Arstan advises her against using slaves to regain her throne, as he believes that it goes against the whole code of honor of the Seven Crowns, and that no noble house will ever agree to fight alongside them.
Instead, he advocates the use of mercenaries. Back on board, Daenerys publicly slaps Ser Jorah for advising her to do so, then locks herself in with her dragons.
In the evening, she goes out, and ser Jorah manages to convince her to use this armed force, by reminding her that, as honorable and brave as he was, her brother Rhaegar died at the Trident: the Iron Throne will not be won without men.
Daenerys decides to buy the entire Unsullied (eight thousand six hundred men) as well as the novices (two thousand) and even the young ones who are starting to train.
But her three ships and their cargo only allow her to buy two thousand, so she ends up offering a dragon to Their Lordships, who choose Drogon, and offer her the translator, Missandei, as a bonus.
The next night, Daenerys first dreams of the battle of the Trident, then wakes up in her cabin on the Balerion and feels a presence: she hears Quaithe's voice repeating what she told him in Qarth to encourage him to go to Ashai.
But, when she makes light, she finds nobody near her. In the morning, she goes with her retinue to the largest square in the city, the Plaza of Punishment, where all her Unsullied await her.
There she gives the chain tying Drogon in exchange for Kraznys' whip. While the slavers try in vain to make the dragon obey her, she is recognized by the Unsullied as their new mistress, then orders Drogon to burn Kraznys.
In the confusion, she unleashes her dragons on the city, then on the Unsullied, whom she orders to kill all the slavers and free the slaves.
Daenerys leaves Astapor in the hands of the slaves she has freed, but tens of thousands decide to follow her. Although freed, the Unsullied also remain in her service and she abolishes the rule of daily name changes.
She also asks them to choose officers for themselves and they appoint Grey Worm as their commander. Daenerys entrusts her training to Ser Jorah Mormont, to whom she also gives the leadership of her army.
She places her warriors at the head of her Dothraki cavalry (which numbers only about 30 men) and entrusts her close protection to Arstan and Belwas.
She then moves towards Yunkai, who has reinforced her army of four thousand slaves with two companies of mercenaries, the Pupils and the Tornado Ravens. She proposes separate talks to the mercenary captains and the slavers.
She first receives the three leaders of the Tornado Ravens, Prendahl na Ghezn, a Ghiscari, Sollir the Bald, a Qarthian, and Daario Naharis, a Tyroshi, and asks them to join her and turn against the Yunkai, but Prendal refuses.
The leader of the Pupils, Mero, the Titan Bastard, is vulgar and insulting, but agrees to think it over until the next day in exchange for barrels of wine. The slavers of Yunkai, for their part, try to bribe Daenerys with fifty thousand gold marcs so that she leaves, but she gives them three days to free their slaves and open the city gates.
In reality, she plans to attack the same night by surprise. Daario Naharis returns just before the attack, bringing her the heads of the other two chiefs and the allegiance of the Tornado Ravens.
Daenerys is not insensitive to his flamboyant charm, and, when Ser Jorah advises him to be wary, she enters into a violent anger and tells him that she will never love him as he wishes, before sending him to fight.
She then asks Arstan to tell her about Rhaegar, his exploits in tournaments (especially Harrenhal), and his melancholic character. In the morning, the victory is complete: the Tornado Ravens have attacked the Yunkai and the Titan Bastard has fled. On the third day, the city gates open and a line of slaves come out, cheering her as their mother.
Daenerys then leaves for Meereen, the largest slave city in the Bay of Serfs. Its rulers, the Great Masters, have devastated the surrounding countryside and retreated to the safety of their walls, but not without nailing a disembowelled slave boy to each of the one hundred and sixty-three markers between Yunkai and Meereen.
Daenerys demands to see each corpse to remember it when the city is taken. Her army arrives in front of the city; a hero, Oznak zo Pahl, comes out to challenge her. Daenerys sends Belwas the Strong against him, who quickly triumphs.
But the city will not be so easy to take: its walls are in good condition, and its food supplies are abundant. Daenerys has neither the siege engines to take it by storm, nor the supplies and fleet necessary to blockade it.
The only solution, suggested by Brun Ben Prünh, could be to go through the sewers. To think about it, Daenerys goes out to inspect the camp of her troops, escorted by Arstan.
She is then attacked by Mero, but Arstan interferes and kills him easily. Daenerys then wants to knight him, but this victory arouses the suspicions of ser Jorah about the identity of the old man who then confesses to be ser Barristan Selmy, and reveals to Daenerys the role of spy that Mormont has long played with her on behalf of Varys.
Daenerys, torn between the rage that the lies of the two men provoke in her, and the gratitude that their other actions towards her inspire, wonders what to do with them when she is seized with an illumination.
She sends them to lead the small group in charge of infiltrating the city through the sewers. They reach an arena where they free the arena fighters, then open the gates of the city, which is under attack at the same time by Daenerys' army.
The city quickly falls and is sacked by the freedmen and the revolting slaves. Daenerys has one hundred and sixty-three nobles executed in the same way they put to death one hundred and sixty-three slaves.
She receives news that in Astapor, a former butcher named Cleon has seized power and proclaimed himself king. Yunkai seems to be recruiting a new army and wants to form an alliance with New Ghis and Volantis. Daenerys delivers justice: she accepts Ser Barristan's request for a pardon and keeps him at her side. Ser Jorah, on the other hand, refuses to admit his wrongdoing, and she banishes him, regretting it almost immediately. She finally decides to stay in Meereen and learn her job as queen.
The rumor of Daenerys's rise in the east is gaining enough momentum to spread throughout Westeros. Sailors in the port of Villevieille talk about the rebirth of dragons in Asshai, Qarth, Meereen or the Dothraki, depending on the version. The existence of a particularly beautiful young queen and the liberation of the immaculate slaves are also reported.
In the free city of Braavos, Sam and Maester Aemon learn of the existence of dragons through the gossip of local sailors. The Maester then sends Sam on a quest for more accurate information.
A sailor from the Summer Isles named Xhondo tells them the story of Daenerys. After his conversation with Xhondo, Maester Aemon comes to believe that the prophecy of the prince who was promised is not about Rhaegar or his son, but about the young Daenerys.
Feeling dead, he asks Samwell to warn the archmasters of the Citadel that she is the chosen one who must defeat the Others and that she must be counseled and guided for this fight.
When Samwell arrives in Villevieille, he encounters the Citadel's bureaucracy. Advised by Alleras, he tells his story to Archmaester Marwyn; the only one of his order to still believe in magic, he leaves immediately to join Queen Daenerys.
Euron Greyjoy, recently crowned king of the Iron Islands, possesses a dragon's horn that can control these creatures. Having learned of Daenerys and her dragons, he entrusts his horn to his brother Victarion and asks him to bring it back to her in order to marry her and conquer the Iron Throne. Victarion accepts, but intends to take Daenerys for himself, not to bring her back to his brother.
As queen of Meereen, Daenerys takes up residence in the Great Pyramid and first proclaims an amnesty for all that happened during the sacking of the city.
She then sends her Dothraki to pacify the surrounding area and to send them south to counter the incursions of Yunkai. The yellow city re-established slavery as soon as its army left.
Cleon, the butcher-king of Astapor, offers to join forces with him against Yunkai, but he does not trust him. As for Daario Naharis and his Tornado Ravens, she entrusts them with the delicate mission of forging a commercial alliance with Lhazar.
She also sends ambassadors to Tolos and Mantarys. She orders Ver Gris to take charge of the military training of the freedmen. Finally, she appoints Ser Barristan Selmy as Lord Commander of her Reginald Guard, and asks him to train some sons of noble families to become future knights.
In the city itself, most of the families of the ex-Great Masters have accepted, apparently, her reign. Some of the nobles have even shown themselves to be devoted supporters, such as Reznak mo Reznak, who has become seneschal of the Great Pyramid (but who does not inspire his confidence), and Skahaz mo Kandaq, who has shaved off his hair as a sign of allegiance, thus becoming the "Skull and Crossbones".
Galazza Galare, the Green Grace, is also a valuable ally. Another influential Meereenian, Hizdahr zo Loraq, assaults her with courteous requests to restore traditional arena fights, as he has become the owner of most of the city's arenas, which the queen refuses with as much obstinacy as he puts into renewing his requests.
The other nobles remained cautiously neutral. Soon, nocturnal murders, signed by a bloody harpy, struck freedmen. Their perpetrators, the Sons of the Harpy, are emboldened to attack an Unsullied, Loyal Shield, whom Daenerys has buried with honors. But she has no one to effectively fight these shadowy enemies.
Busy with her kingdom, she has no time to take care of her dragons, which grow and devour many of the surrounding sheep, whose owners the queen compensates. Until the day when a peasant presents her with the charred bones of his daughter, the young Hazzéa...
Daenerys pays him a blood price equivalent to a hundred lambs, and promises to provide for his needs every year, if he keeps silent. She decides to chain her dragons in a great pit in the foundations of the Great Pyramid. But if Rhaegal and Viserion are captured, Drogon escapes and disappears to the north.
Meanwhile, the exactions of the Sons of the Harpy worsen, as the queen lacks the troops to fight them. She decides to form the Beasts of Brass, a watch composed of freedmen and skulls-ras (as her supporters are called among the native Meereenians), financed by a blood tax levied on the great families, of which she also takes two children hostage with her.
One night, while she is tormented by the latest murders (including that of Mossador, Missandei's brother) and by the absence of Daario Naharis, she sees Quaithe appear, who delivers her second prophecy, then makes her repeat the first one, and urges her to remember who she is, before disappearing as mysteriously as she appeared.
Perplexed and drowsy, Daenerys gives an audience to her people the next day, and must for the seventh time hear Hizdahr zo Loraq ask her to open the arenas. This time he is accompanied by seven veteran arena fighters, who fought alongside the queen's troops in the capture of Meereen, and who join their voices to hers. Disturbed, Daenerys promises to think about it and withdraws.
Queen Daenerys is visited by Xaro Xhoan Daxos, who urges her to re-establish slavery, the trade of which is the basis of all trade in the Bay of Serfs; he also advises her to take a husband and offers himself for this role.
Daenerys rejects both suggestions, but is troubled by Xaro's words: Meereen was prosperous and well-fed when she arrived, and now it is poor, hungry and its people live in fear.
She vows to make Meereen great again, but without restoring slavery. Xaro offers her as many ships from the Thirteen as necessary to conquer the Seven Crowns and leave Essos, rather than risk succumbing to the alliance forged by Yunkai (who is now laying siege to Astapor), or to the Sons of the Harpy or the Conjurers of Qarth.
After a day of reflection, and despite the objurgations of ser Barristan Selmy and admiral Groleo, she finally decides not to abandon her people and to refuse the offer of Qarth.
Xaro then threatens her with barely covered words, and she angrily dismisses him. The next morning, Xaro's ship left, leaving the thirteen other ships in the bay to blockade it. Her messenger presented a bloody glove on a cushion to the Mother of Dragons. "This means war," she deduced.
The following weeks see the situation worsen, both inside the city and outside: despite the Beasts of Steel and the hostages, the Sons of the Harpy continue to slaughter the freedmen, but Daenerys cannot bring herself to execute the young men she considers innocent, whatever Skahaz mo Kandaq may say.
Astapor, under siege by Yunkai, sinks into chaos, while the camp of Meereen's enemies continues to gain new members. The only good news that reaches him is the success of Daario Naharis' embassy, which brings back the alliance of Lhazar.
But the mercenary, whom she receives face to face as soon as he returns, is so sure of himself that he borders on insolence and is dismissed. He particularly disapproved of the project of marriage of his queen with the rich and powerful Hizdahr zo Loraq (like ser Barristan Selmy, but for other reasons), project on the other hand ardently defended by Galazza Galare.
Daenerys has agreed to consider it if her suitor manages to stop the exactions of the Sons of the Harpy for ninety days.
The news coming from outside is catastrophic: Astapor has fallen, and its inhabitants who escaped the massacre are fleeing to Meereen, carrying with them the deadly caquesangue, closely followed by the armies of Yunkai and his allies.
The queen allows them to settle in a camp half a mile from the city and sends them food and help, even paying for it herself. In spite of this, epidemics and famine ravage the city.
In Meereen, however, the murders of the Sons of the Harpy have stopped. Daenerys, who refuses to unleash her uncontrollable dragons against her enemies, is forced to agree to marry Hizdahr zo Loraq, in order to rally the great families of Meereen to her cause, even though she refuses to submit to the humiliating rites inflicted by Meereen customs on future brides (despite the insistence of Reznak and the Green Grace).
She leaves to her promised the responsibility of the reopening of the arenas and the resumption of the fights in the arenas. The latter was in addition charged to open peace talks with Yunkai, which answers it by requiring an allowance in gold and in in invaluable stones, and the resumption of the trade of the slaves in Yunkai and Astapor (which will be rebuilt); not trusting the queen, Yunkai, in pledge of its word, ask in addition that Hizdahr becomes her husband and thus reaches the royalty.
These conditions are hard, but the queen is ready to accept them to obtain peace. Daario Naharis and his Torn ravens return from their mission with bad news: not only do the armies of Yunkai and his allies continue to march towards Meereen, but they are growing daily with the arrival of reinforcements, including the Elders, who have betrayed the Queen's cause.
This news dismays her council, but even more so Daenerys, who was fond of Brun Ben Prünh. She then orders the complete closure of the city, then dismisses her council, keeping Daario with her. Distraught by the new betrayal of which she is victim, she responds to the advances of the mercenary captain.
For several weeks, the two lovers meet at night, Daario gets a growing arrogance, while the day of Daenerys' wedding with Hizdahr approaches.
The day before, she receives in audience some Westrians who have deserted the ranks of the Windward. After requesting the evacuation of the audience hall, three of them turn out to be two Dornian knights escorting Prince Quentyn Martell, who reveals to the sovereign an ancient secret pact made in Braavos between Ser Willem Darry, on behalf of the Targaryen heirs, and Prince Oberyn, by which Prince Viserys was to marry Princess Arianne Martell, in exchange for Dorne's help in overthrowing the Usurper and restoring the ancient dynasty. With Viserys dead, Prince Quentyn offers to marry the queen, and promises in exchange the support of the fifty thousand swords of Dorne.
But, for her, this offer comes too late (even if she recognizes in him the "son of the sun" of Quaithe's second prophecy); after a final passionate night with Daario, she puts on the tokar of the brides and meets Hizdahr at the Temple of Graces.
The peace talks come to an end, while Yunkai and his allies lay siege to Meereen. To conclude the talks, the queen invites the leaders of the besiegers to a banquet atop her Great Pyramid.
After the feast, as the guests admire the city from the terrace, she asks Ser Barristan Selmy if it is possible to discreetly convince the various mercenary companies to betray the enemy to her benefit.
The old knight is reluctant, because stratagems are foreign to him, and the queen orders him to free Meris, in order to make the Prince in Rags understand that she wishes to deal with him.
Then she invites Prince Quentyn Martell to come down with her to meet her dragons Viserion and Rhaegal, held in chains in the depths of the pyramid.
The next day, as she prepares to go to the Daznak arena, where the peace festivities are to continue, Ser Barristan reports that Meris has told her that the Prince in Rags is willing to join her, in exchange for Pentos. In memory of all the benefits she has received from Illyrio Mopatis, she refuses this offer.
She attends, with her new husband, the first fights in the arena of Daznak. While Barsena has just succumbed to a boar, Drogon appears from the sky and burns the beast and the woman's body before starting to devour them.
Hizdahr orders the guards to kill the dragon, but Daenerys jumps into the arena and, mastering her fear, manages to submit Drogon to her will, while her hair is on fire.
She jumps on his back and, after being shot at, Drogon fires back with his flames, they fly into the sky of Meereen. The queen's subjects then wonder about her survival, some having thought they saw her fall, others thinking she was devoured by the beast, but no trace of her is found.
Among the besiegers also, many believed her dead. As the days go by, this idea is imposed on most of them, and even Ser Barristan doubts more and more, but he also knows that the prospect of the queen's return is the last factor of cohesion in the city.
The queen has in fact been taken by the beast to its lair, a cave atop a steep, rocky hill in the Dothrak Sea. There, after several days of strange happiness, thanks to repeated flights on the dragon's back (which she can barely control), she decides to return to Meereen.
She sets out to walk back along a small stream that should lead her to the Skahazadhan. When evening came, she found shelter at the corner of a low wall in ruins.
Not being able to find sleep, she thinks of her companions, of her husband, Hizdahr, of the scene in the arena of Daznak, when he shouted to his men to kill the dragon, while Belwas, poisoned, vomited and convulsed.
She ends up dreaming of Quaithe, whose enigmatic words she hears, and who tells her to remember who she is. In the morning, she resumed her journey, but the lack of food began to be felt.
At noon, she finds a shrub covered with green berries, which she believes to be edible and devours. An hour later, she is taken of violent vomiting, then of abundant diarrhoeas, and spends the rest of the day prostrated.
At night, she dreams of her brother Viserys. When she wakes up, she discovers her thighs covered with his moon blood, which she cannot remember the previous manifestation.
Even more weakened by the loss of blood, she manages to resume her staggering walk, and begins to hear the voice of Jorah Mormont, who reproaches her for having lingered in Meereen, a city where she will never be at home, and who urges her in turn to remember who she is.
It is then that she sees a Dothraki rider, who watches Drogon flying in the distance, before disappearing into the tall grass. Determined to "go back to go forward", Daenerys calls her dragon to her, then, riding on his back, launches him after the rider.
They fly over a herd of horses guarded by other riders. Drogon pounces on a retarded beast and starts to devour it. Daenerys then sees fifty Dothraki rise from the smoke, with Khal Jhaqo at their head.
In King's Landing as in Villevieille, the existence of Queen Daenerys and her dragons is no longer in doubt by the leaders (Small Council and Conclave). Ser Kevan Lannister, regent, fears her possible alliance with the Targaryen pretender who landed on the Cape of Ire.
