A Clash of Kings — Daenerys II

Qarth receives the Mother of Dragons: Xaro's hospitality with strings, Pyat Pree's blue lips, and the shadow-woman Quaithe's riddled warning.

The chapter retold

Daenerys’s khalasar, reduced to a starving remnant, finally reaches Qarth, and the greatest city that ever was receives the Mother of Dragons with the elaborate, self-interested hospitality of people who have heard about the dragons and want a closer look. Xaro Xhoan Daxos, merchant prince, offers his palace and his patronage with strings that Daenerys can feel even through the silk. Pyat Pree, a warlock with lips stained permanently blue, extends a stranger invitation from the House of the Undying.

Threaded through the welcome is Quaithe, a shadowbinder in a red lacquer mask who speaks only in riddles and warnings — the trumpets of dawn are silent, and the boy is dead — that Daenerys can’t parse but won’t forget. The chapter is Qarth’s overture: gorgeous, cordial, and thick with people who each want something specific and unstated from the three dragons currently the most valuable creatures in the world.

This movement: Kings in Every Corner

• Stannis besieges Storm's End; the brothers parley with a peach between them and part as dead men.
• Catelyn watches a shadow with Stannis's face open Renly's throat inside his own pavilion.
• Tyrion trades princess Myrcella's hand to Dorne and ships Cersei's spies to the black cells.
• At Winterfell, Bran dreams with wolf's teeth; the Reeds of Greywater come to teach him what it means.