Amerlov 

Consciousness returned to
me in fits and starts, like an old film reel that jams one moment and spools
too quickly the next. First came the sound – the rhythmic, soothing
roar of the surf. Then the smell – salty, saturated with the
scent of tropical flowers and sun-baked sand. I opened my eyes, and the world
flared into existence in a blinding azure.

I was lying on my back,
arms spread wide, and above me stretched a sky of such purity as is never found
in cities. Not a single cloud, only the merciless sun at its zenith. I sat up,
spitting out grit, and looked around. The beach was picture-perfect, as if
lifted straight from a travel brochure: a snow-white strip of sand bordered by
dense jungle on one side and a boundless ocean on the other. But I was not
alone here.

Young women lay around me in various poses. Seven figures, scattered in a whimsical pattern of fate. My brain refused to believe what it was seeing, trying to write it all off as a hallucination or an incredibly realistic dream.

Closest to me, curled up in a fetal position, slept a girl with platinum hair fanned out across the sand like molten silver. Even in this helpless state, she radiated a certain regal bearing. Daenerys Targaryen. The Mother of Dragons herself, damn it, dressed in a light, almost sheer chiton, her boots discarded near her feet.