Drogon

Mirri Maz Duur had said that only death pays for life. Daenerys took her at her word: she burned Drogo's body on a pyre, bound Mirri Maz Duur to it herself, and set among the flames the three stone eggs she had received as a wedding gift. Then she walked into the fire herself.

By morning, among the ashes, the three shells had cracked open. One of the newborns had scales black as coal, with horns and spinal plates the colour of dried blood and eyes like two burning pits — the largest and fiercest of the three. Daenerys named him after Drogo, in the way that felt right for a new life.

When Daenerys arrives in Qarth with Drogon on her shoulder, he and his two brothers become the wonder of the city; no one there has ever seen a living dragon. On hearing news of the Usurper Robert Baratheon's death, the black dragon hisses and a pale smoke rises before Daenerys's face like a veil.

When she enters the House of the Undying, she brings Drogon with her. Inside, the dragon shares the visions Daenerys sees, and when they reach the beating heart at the centre of the chamber, he attacks it. The attack opens her way out, though it leaves the building's structure damaged.

In Astapor, the masters of the Unsullied demand Drogon as part of the price for their army of slave soldiers. Daenerys agrees to the trade and hands over the dragon in exchange for the men.

But at the moment the deal closes, she turns it against them: she orders the Unsullied to turn on their former masters and has Drogon burn the slavers who, an instant before, believed they owned him.

In time, the three dragons start behaving badly, less and less willing to tell prey from person. When word spreads that Drogon has killed and eaten a little girl, Hazzea, outside Meereen, Daenerys has all three chained beneath the city.

Drogon, the only one still free, prefers to perch atop the Great Pyramid, where Meereen's bronze harpy once stood. They try to capture him there three times; on the third attempt, forty men risk their lives, most of them badly burned and four of them dead. The dragon takes flight to the north and vanishes.

When Meereen's fighting pits reopen, the noise and smell of blood draw Drogon back to the city. He drops into the pit and kills the pig waiting there; an animal handler named Harghaz attacks him with a long spear and nearly kills him. Daenerys, seeing him hurt, leaps into the ring and runs to him.

Mounting him is hard — she burns her hair again in the attempt — but she manages it, and together they fly out of the city.

Drogon carries her to his nest on the Dothraki Sea. There Daenerys tries to get him to fly her back to Meereen, but she can't control him and sets off on foot instead. Shortly after the dragon hunts, kills, and shares a horse with her, the two of them are found by Khal Jhaqo's khalasar.