[ Dany looks down at her breast. How strange it still seems to feel nothing there. She must ensure that the first naked shard she sees isn't her own. ]

Then someone, or many someones, has a great hoard of shards at their disposal. [ Her tone is more clipped. Has there ever before been a group of people with so many potential enemy factions in one place?

There's an exhale to release some of her lingering tension, and a pat upon his arm. He is already holding far, far more threads than she is. She won't pluck at a tapestry when the weaver is already so weighed down by his spools. ]

There were three ruins before them. I can see them still. [ The portions that revealed themselves to her had been clear--too clear. ] The steel dragons trampled a village, felled a spire, and plucked apart an immense fortress. It was well-built, better walled than any I have seen, but for one city that ensconced itself within three, [ she tells him, recalling the immense outside of Qarth's great defensive stronghold. She's seen some cities in her time, and this was built too strongly to be deconstructed with force alone. ]