The heart was steaming in the cool evening air when Khal Drogo set it before her, raw and bloody.

His arms were red to the elbow. Behind him, his bloodriders knelt on the sand beside the corpse of thewild stallion, stone knives in their hands. The stallion’s blood looked black in the flickering orangeglare of the torches that ringed the high chalk walls of the pit.

Dany touched the soft swell of her belly. Sweat beaded her skin and trickled down her brow. Shecould feel the old women watching her, the ancient crones of Vaes Dothrak, with eyes that shone darkas polished flint in their wrinkled faces. She must not flinch or look afraid. I am the blood of thedragon, she told herself as she took the stallion’s heart in both hands, lifted it to her mouth, andplunged her teeth into the tough, stringy flesh.

Warm blood filled her mouth and ran down over her chin. The taste threatened to gag her, but shemade herself chew and swallow. The heart of a stallion would make her son strong and swift andfearless, or so the Dothraki believed, but only if the mother could eat it all. If she choked on the bloodor retched up the flesh, the omens were less favorable; the child might be stillborn, or come forthweak, deformed, or female.

Her handmaids had helped her ready herself for the ceremony. Despite the tender mother’s stomachthat had afflicted her these past two moons, Dany had dined on bowls of half-clotted blood toaccustom herself to the taste, and Irri made her chew strips of dried horseflesh until her jaws wereaching. She had starved herself for a day and a night before the ceremony in the hopes that hungerwould help her keep down the raw meat.

The wild stallion’s heart was all muscle, and Dany had to worry it with her teeth and chew eachmouthful a long time. No steel was permitted within the sacred confines of Vaes Dothrak, beneath theshadow of the Mother of Mountains; she had to rip the heart apart with teeth and nails. Her stomachroiled and heaved, yet she kept on, her face smeared with the heartsblood that sometimes seemed toexplode against her lips.

Khal Drogo stood over her as she ate, his face as hard as a bronze shield. His long black braid wasshiny with oil. He wore gold rings in his mustache, gold bells in his braid, and a heavy belt of solidgold medallions around his waist, but his chest was bare. She looked at him whenever she felt herstrength failing; looked at him, and chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed, chewed andswallowed. Toward the end, Dany thought she glimpsed a fierce pride in his dark, almond-shapedeyes, but she could not be sure. The khal’s face did not often betray the thoughts within.

And finally it was done. Her cheeks and fingers were sticky as she forced down the last of it. Onlythen did she turn her eyes back to the old women, the crones of the dosh khaleen.

“Khalakka dothrae mr’anha!” she proclaimed in her best Dothraki. A prince rides inside me! Shehad practiced the phrase for days with her handmaid Jhiqui.

The oldest of the crones, a bent and shriveled stick of a woman with a single black eye, raised herarms on high. “Khalakka dothrae!” she shrieked. The prince is riding!

“He is riding!” the other women answered. “Rakh! Rakh! Rakh haj!” they proclaimed. A boy, aboy, a strong boy.

Bells rang, a sudden clangor of bronze birds. A deep-throated warhorn sounded its long low note.

The old women began to chant. Underneath their painted leather vests, their withered dugs swayedback and forth, shiny with oil and sweat. The eunuchs who served them threw bundles of driedgrasses into a great bronze brazier, and clouds of fragrant smoke rose up toward the moon and thestars. The Dothraki believed the stars were horses made of fire, a great herd that galloped across thesky by night.

As the smoke ascended, the chanting died away and the ancient crone closed her single eye, thebetter to peer into the future. The silence that fell was complete. Dany could hear the distant call ofnight birds, the hiss and crackle of the torches, the gentle lapping of water from the lake. TheDothraki stared at her with eyes of night, waiting.

Khal Drogo laid his hand on Dany’s arm. She could feel the tension in his fingers. Even a khal asmighty as Drogo could know fear when the dosh khaleen peered into smoke of the future. At herback, her handmaids fluttered anxiously.

Finally the crone opened her eye and lifted her arms. “I have seen his face, and heard the thunder ofhis hooves,” she proclaimed in a thin, wavery voice.

“The thunder of his hooves!” the others chorused.

“As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth, men withoutnumber, with arakhs shining in their hands like blades of razor grass. Fierce as a storm this princewill be. His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend theirflesh in grief. The bells in his hair will sing his coming, and the milk men in the stone tents will fearhis name.” The old woman trembled and looked at Dany almost as if she were afraid. “The prince isriding, and he shall be the stallion who mounts the world.”

“The stallion who mounts the world!” the onlookers cried in echo, until the night rang to thesound of their voices.

The one-eyed crone peered at Dany. “What shall he be called, the stallion who mounts the world?”

She stood to answer. “He shall be called Rhaego,” she said, using the words that Jhiqui had taughther. Her hands touched the swell beneath her breasts protectively as a roar went up from the Dothraki.

“Rhaego,” they screamed. “Rhaego, Rhaego, Rhaego!”

The name was still ringing in her ears as Khal Drogo led her from the pit. His bloodriders fell inbehind them. A procession followed them out onto the godsway, the broad grassy road that ranthrough the heart of Vaes Dothrak, from the horse gate to the Mother of Mountains. The crones of thedosh khaleen came first, with their eunuchs and slaves. Some supported themselves with tall carvedstaffs as they struggled along on ancient, shaking legs, while others walked as proud as any horselord.

Each of the old women had been a khaleesi once. When their lord husbands died and a new khal tookhis place at the front of his riders, with a new khaleesi mounted beside him, they were sent here, toreign over the vast Dothraki nation. Even the mightiest of khals bowed to the wisdom and authority ofthe dosh khaleen. Still, it gave Dany the shivers to think that one day she might be sent to join them,whether she willed it or no.

Behind the wise women came the others; Khal Ogo and his son, the khalakka Fogo, Khal Jommoand his wives, the chief men of Drogo’s khalasar, Dany’s handmaids, the khal’s servants and slaves,and more. Bells rang and drums beat a stately cadence as they marched along the godsway. Stolenheroes and the gods of dead peoples brooded in the darkness beyond the road. Alongside theprocession, slaves ran lightly through the grass with torches in their hands, and the flickering flamesmade the great monuments seem almost alive.

“What is meaning, name Rhaego?” Khal Drogo asked as they walked, using the Common Tongueof the Seven Kingdoms. She had been teaching him a few words when she could. Drogo was quick tolearn when he put his mind to it, though his accent was so thick and barbarous that neither Ser Jorahnor Viserys could understand a word he said.

“My brother Rhaegar was a fierce warrior, my sun-and-stars,” she told him. “He died before I wasborn. Ser Jorah says that he was the last of the dragons.”

Khal Drogo looked down at her. His face was a copper mask, yet under the long black mustache,drooping beneath the weight of its gold rings, she thought she glimpsed the shadow of a smile. “Isgood name, Dan Ares wife, moon of my life,” he said.

They rode to the lake the Dothraki called the Womb of the World, surrounded by a fringe of reeds,its water still and calm. A thousand thousand years ago, Jhiqui told her, the first man had emergedfrom its depths, riding upon the back of the first horse.

The procession waited on the grassy shore as Dany stripped and let her soiled clothing fall to theground. Naked, she stepped gingerly into the water. Irri said the lake had no bottom, but Dany feltsoft mud squishing between her toes as she pushed through the tall reeds. The moon floated on thestill black waters, shattering and re-forming as her ripples washed over it. Goose pimples rose on herpale skin as the coldness crept up her thighs and kissed her lower lips. The stallion’s blood had driedon her hands and around her mouth. Dany cupped her fingers and lifted the sacred waters over herhead, cleansing herself and the child inside her while the khal and the others looked on. She heard theold women of the dosh khaleen muttering to each other as they watched, and wondered what theywere saying.

rpale skin as the coldness crept up her thighs and kissed her lower lips. The stallion’s blood had driedon her hands and around her mouth. Dany cupped her fingers and lifted the sacred waters over herhead, cleansing herself and the child inside her while the khal and the others looked on. She heard theold women of the dosh khaleen muttering to each other as they watched, and wondered what theywere saying.

When she emerged from the lake, shivering and dripping, her handmaid Doreah hurried to her witha robe of painted sandsilk, but Khal Drogo waved her away. He was looking on her swollen breastsand the curve of her belly with approval, and Dany could see the shape of his manhood pressingthrough his horsehide trousers, below the heavy gold medallions of his belt. She went to him andhelped him unlace. Then her huge khal took her by the hips and lifted her into the air, as he might lifta child. The bells in his hair rang softly.

Dany wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her face against his neck as he thrusthimself inside her. Three quick strokes and it was done. “The stallion who mounts the world,” Drogowhispered hoarsely. His hands still smelled of horse blood. He bit at her throat, hard, in the momentof his pleasure, and when he lifted her off, his seed filled her and trickled down the inside of herthighs. Only then was Doreah permitted to drape her in the scented sandsilk, and Irri to fit softslippers to her feet.

Khal Drogo laced himself up and spoke a command, and horses were brought to the lakeshore.

Cohollo had the honor of helping the khaleesi onto her silver. Drogo spurred his stallion, and set offdown the godsway beneath the moon and stars. On her silver, Dany easily kept pace.

The silk tenting that roofed Khal Drogo’s hall had been rolled up tonight, and the moon followedthem inside. Flames leapt ten feet in the air from three huge stone-lined firepits. The air was thickwith the smells of roasting meat and curdled, fermented mare’s milk. The hall was crowded and noisywhen they entered, the cushions packed with those whose rank and name were not sufficient to allowthem at the ceremony. As Dany rode beneath the arched entry and up the center aisle, every eye wason her. The Dothraki screamed out comments on her belly and her breasts, hailing the life within her.

She could not understand all they shouted, but one phrase came clear. “The stallion that mounts theworld,” she heard, bellowed in a thousand voices.

The sounds of drums and horns swirled up into the night. Half-clothed women spun and danced onthe low tables, amid joints of meat and platters piled high with plums and dates and pomegranates.

Many of the men were drunk on clotted mare’s milk, yet Dany knew no arakhs would clash tonight,not here in the sacred city, where blades and bloodshed were forbidden.

Khal Drogo dismounted and took his place on the high bench. Khal Jommo and Khal Ogo, who hadbeen in Vaes Dothrak with their khalasars when they arrived, were given seats of high honor toDrogo’s right and left. The bloodriders of the three khals sat below them, and farther down KhalJommo’s four wives.

Dany climbed off her silver and gave the reins to one of the slaves. As Doreah and Irri arranged hercushions, she searched for her brother. Even across the length of the crowded hall, Viserys shouldhave been conspicuous with his pale skin, silvery hair, and beggar’s rags, but she did not see himanywhere.

Her glance roamed the crowded tables near the walls, where men whose braids were even shorterthan their manhoods sat on frayed rugs and flat cushions around the low tables, but all the faces shesaw had black eyes and copper skin. She spied Ser Jorah Mormont near the center of the hall, close tothe middle firepit. It was a place of respect, if not high honor; the Dothraki esteemed the knight’sprowess with a sword. Dany sent Jhiqui to bring him to her table. Mormont came at ............