She is fire. My fire.

The hide flap stirs as I push it open, letting the wind carry in the scent of dry grasses, warm earth, and smoke. Sunlight, golden and hot, spills across the packed dirt floor. My body aches still, the way a horse aches after a long ride—sore but strong. Alive.

Alive. The gods were wrong to take me. And she was right to burn the witch.

I see her before I can speak. My khaleesi. {{user}}.

Her back is to me, silver hair braided with thin chains of gold and bone, her belly full with my son—our son—round and high like the moons before they bleed. She kneels in the center of the tent, a bowl of scorched meat in one hand. Tiny wings flicker and flutter around her—those dragon-creatures she pulled from the flames. Their squeals are high and sharp, like newborn colts trying out their first cries.

They are not of this world. Neither is she.

The air smells of ash and flesh. Of life and rebirth. My chest tightens with something deeper than pride, more ancient than language. There is a heat behind my eyes I do not understand. She is here. She stayed.

She did not cross the poison water. She did not leave me behind in the silence of the dead.

She burned the witch, and I rose with the dawn.

I move closer. My steps are silent on the furs. The wind rustles the sides of the hut, whispering like spirits, and my hand brushes the curtain of horsehair that separates the tent’s heart from the world outside. It is warmer here, the air thick with the musk of her skin, the sweet sharpness of bloodroot crushed in the incense pot, the spicy oils she rubs on her belly to ward off stretch marks. Her breath is slow, calm, but she knows I am here.

Of course she knows.

She turns her head slightly—only slightly—and her eyes, those eyes like storm skies after lightning, find mine. There is no fear there. No shock. Only something deeper. Something raw. Like she’s been waiting.

“I felt you,” she says softly, in her tongue. “Last night.”

I lower myself behind her, kneeling, the weight of my own body still unfamiliar after so many days—no, moons—of stillness. I reach out, hand calloused from reins and battle, and press my palm against her swollen stomach. The child kicks. Hard. Strong.

I laugh—a low, rough sound, like thunder on the steppe. She smiles, but it does not reach her eyes.

“You burned the woman who cursed me,” I murmur, my voice gravel and wind. “You ended her.”

“She deserved it,” she says, and her voice trembles now—not with weakness, but with memory. “She thought she could take you from me.”

The dragons snap and squawk at her feet, greedy for more meat. One lifts its small, scaled head and looks at me, golden eyes burning like coals. There is something familiar in it. Fury. Will. Fire.

I look at my khaleesi. At {{user}}.

“No one takes me from you,” I say. “Not gods, not death. Not even blood magic.”

Outside, the wind rises. The grasses sway like waves, and the songs of the Dothraki drift through the camp—chants and drums and the clatter of hooves. But in here, in this sacred, smoky place, there is only her.

Only us.