House of the Undying

Among trees with black bark and blue-stained leaves — the same sap that becomes the shade-of-the-evening the people of Qarth drink — stands a building coiled on itself like a stone serpent. No other structure stands near it. The roof of black tiles has been falling apart for years, and the mortar between the stones crumbles at a touch.

Anyone seeking an audience with the Undying must drink that blue draught more than once, until it stains the lips, so as to see and hear whatever is shown inside. They must go in alone, with no company, and follow one rule the whole way: always the first door on the right, always the stairs going up. The rooms passed along the way hold visions of every kind, and none of them is to be entered before reaching the chamber where the Undying wait.

On her way to the audience chamber, Daenerys passes rooms that swing open in front of her. In one, a woman is being forced by four of the dwarfs who serve the house. In another, a feast of corpses surrounds a dead man wearing a wolf's head, seated on a makeshift throne: an iron crown circles his brow and a leg of lamb serves him as a scepter, an image that will later take on a grim meaning tied to the Red Wedding.

She also sees herself as a girl in Braavos, with Ser Willem trying to talk her into staying there. Further on, a hall lined with dragon skulls calls to mind a Targaryen king seated on the Iron Throne. In another room, a silver-haired man names his newborn son and then plays a harp. A group of sorcerers claiming to be the true Undying Ones offers, in honeyed tones, to teach her the secret of dragons. She stops at none of them, and walks on toward the audience chamber, just as she was told to.

The audience chamber is dark. Above a long stone table floats a swollen, blue-tinged heart that beats with a low sound and flares indigo with every pulse; dwarfs dressed in purple act as servants. Daenerys can barely speak above a whisper, and a voice claiming to speak for the Undying calls her 'mother of dragons' and lays out betrayals still ahead of her: one born of love, another of blood, and a third of gold.

The Undying rush at her, and that is when Drogon — who has followed her inside — burns them. Daenerys runs from the chamber, already burning behind her, and loses herself in a long dark corridor where the floor seems to shift underfoot and no door is in sight. When one finally appears, it is shaped like an open mouth; crossing it, she sees daylight again.

Outside, Pyat Pree screams curses in a tongue no one recognizes and draws a knife on her, but Jhogo and Rakharo stop him. Looking back, Daenerys sees thin threads of smoke starting to seep out of the cracks in the House of the Undying, as though the building itself were coming apart from within.

Years later, Xaro Xhoan Daxos speaks of all the Undying as dead. Nothing else in the record says what became of the house after the fire — just that one line, dropped in passing, closes out its story.