A Dream of Snow [ON HOLD]

6 | The Kiss of Dead Men

~ 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.