Daenerys Targaryen marries Hizdahr zo Loraq

Daenerys Targaryen's marriage to Hizdahr zo Loraq was the central political act of her reign in Meereen, a calculated union intended to end the nightly slaughter by the Sons of the Harpy and secure a fragile peace with the surrounding slaver cities. The wedding, performed in the Temple of the Graces according to Ghiscari rites, transformed a foreign conqueror into a Meereenese queen and elevated a wealthy nobleman into a king, but it came at the cost of her personal desires and her bond with Daario Naharis.

The Decision to Wed

Daenerys had resisted Hizdahr's suit six times before finally accepting. The Green Grace, Galazza Galare, pressed the match relentlessly, arguing that a king of pure Ghiscari blood could reconcile the city to Dany's rule and end the shadow war. "Oftimes I have heard you say that you are only a young girl," the priestess told her. "You need a king beside you to help you bear these burdens." Hizdahr himself promised to stop the killings, and Daenerys set him a test: ninety days and ninety nights without a murder. When the killings ceased, she felt bound by her word. "Marriage or carnage, those are my choices," she told Ser Barristan Selmy. "A wedding or a war." The old knight urged her to return to Westeros instead, but Daenerys insisted she could not abandon Meereen. "A queen belongs not to herself, but to the realm," she said.

The Wedding Ceremony

The marriage was performed in the Temple of the Graces before thousands of onlookers. Hizdahr knelt before Daenerys, unlaced her sandals, and washed her feet in a golden bowl while fifty eunuchs sang—a Ghiscari tradition signifying that the bride would be her husband's handmaid. Daenerys wore a white silk tokar fringed with baby pearls, symbolizing fertility. After four hours of rites, they emerged as man and wife, bound together wrist and ankle with chains of yellow gold. The ceremony was followed by the reopening of the fighting pits, a concession Daenerys had long resisted. "After the wedding Hizdahr will be king," she told her council. "Let him reopen the fighting pits if he wishes. I want no part of it."

The Price of Peace

The marriage bought Meereen a temporary respite from war but did not bring Daenerys happiness. She found Hizdahr's kisses tepid and his touch unexciting. On the night before the wedding, she spent her last hours with Daario Naharis, her lover and captain of the Stormcrows. "Marry me instead," he urged, but she knew she could not. After the ceremony, she sent Daario away as a hostage to the Yunkai'i, partly to keep him safe from his own violent impulses. "My captain was not made for peace," she reflected. The marriage also alienated the Shavepate, Skahaz mo Kandaq, who was removed from command of the Brazen Beasts and replaced by Hizdahr's cousin. Daenerys found herself isolated, surrounded by advisors she did not trust, bound to a man she did not love, ruling a city that still saw her as a foreign conqueror. The peace she had sacrificed so much to achieve proved hollow; within days, the Yunkai'i sent her the severed head of Admiral Groleo, and the pale mare began to ravage the siege camps.