Chapter 26

Fine wine brings intoxication. Drink too much and it slowly strips everything away, leading into a dreamless state. Kraznys mo Nakloz, a man sunk in decadence, might’ve had the chance to discover that the blood-marked white lion cub he’d just obtained could climb pillars—if only he had kept a sleepless concubine or one of his many wives with him tonight.

The great master slept without dreams. But this night, Drogo dreamed—and his dream was vivid and dangerous. It began in Kraznys’s bedroom, then focused on a pillar, then an oak beam, then another pillar leading to a colorful corridor.

The dream wandered down hallways, where sleepy guards and silent handmaidens became focal points. Avoiding their gazes, the dream passed through lavishly adorned corridors, then opened into a wide view: red-brick plazas, crimson towers, domed buildings painted in scarlet.