Eroeh

Eroeh appears only twice in the narrative, yet her fate marks a decisive turning point in Daenerys Targaryen's moral and political education. She is a nameless victim of war whom Daenerys claims as her own, and her death becomes the first promise of vengeance Daenerys swears as a queen—a promise that defines the new ruler she intends to become.

Rescue and Claim

During the sack of a Lhazareen town by Khal Drogo's khalasar, Daenerys rides through the carnage and sees a girl no older than herself being raped over a pile of corpses. When her khas dismiss the girl as a "lamb" and a rider offers to bring Daenerys her tongue, Daenerys insists on claiming the girl as her slave, commanding her warriors to stop the rape. Ser Jorah Mormont wraps the trembling girl in his blood-spattered cloak and leads her to Daenerys, who tells Doreah to see to her hurts. The girl, Eroeh, is one of several women Daenerys saves that day, but she is the only one Daenerys names in the narrative.

Death and Aftermath

After Khal Drogo's wound festers and his khalasar dissolves, the Dothraki who remain loyal to Daenerys are too few to hold the khal's herds or slaves. Mago, now bloodrider to the new Khal Jhaqo, seizes Eroeh. He mounts her "high and low" and gives her to Jhaqo, who passes her to his other bloodriders. When the six men are done with her, they cut her throat. Jhogo reports the killing to Daenerys, adding that it was "her fate." Daenerys rejects that fatalism. She swears by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god, by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World, that before she is done, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh. The promise is the first public declaration of Daenerys's intent to rule, not merely survive, and it marks the moment she begins to forge her own identity as a queen who will hold her enemies accountable.