Late at night, in Daenerys's bedroom.
As usual, the little girl fell asleep clutching the three cold, fossilized Dragon Eggs. But tonight, her dream was different.
She dreamed she stood on a stretch of scorched earth, with burned gravel and ash beneath her feet. The sky was a sickly dark red, as though stained with blood.
An enormous pitch-black Dragon circled overhead. Its scales were so black they seemed to swallow light, and only its dark red eyes burned like flames as they stared relentlessly at her.
Beside the Black Dragon were the phantom shapes of two more Dragons. One was a blend of creamy white and gold; the other was dark green with bronze markings. But strange ice-blue crystals were spreading across the white-and-gold apparition, as though it were being frozen by an extreme cold.
Soon, the pitch-black Dragon swooped down toward her. It opened its enormous jaws and spewed crimson dragonfire at her. The flames gave off no heat, yet they made her very soul tremble.
Daenerys cried out in her dream and jolted upright in bed. Cold sweat had soaked her thin nightdress, leaving it clinging to her skin and sending chills through her.
The sights in that dream had been so vivid-the dark red sky, the pitch-black Dragon, the spreading ice crystals. Every detail remained seared into her mind.
Instinctively, she hugged the Dragon Eggs tighter. Their cold touch helped clear her head a little. Then she realized that this might be one of the dragon dreams her brother had mentioned before: prophetic dreams involving Dragons that sometimes came to those of Targaryen blood.
Once that thought occurred to her, excitement mingled with her lingering fear, and she could no longer stay in her bedroom.
Ignoring the late hour, she jumped out of bed on her