- 24 AC -
A year had passed since the engagement between Prince Maegor Targaryen and Lady Ceryse Hightower had been announced. The name day of the young Prince, who didn't look like a child at all, was approaching in the coming months, and the deadline his father Aegon had given him was with it.
At the end of the previous year, King Aegon I Targaryen and Prince Aenys Targaryen attended a feast at Sunspear to celebrate the tenth anniversary of peace between Dorne and the Iron Throne, flying to the southern capital upon their dragons, Balerion and Quicksilver, for the occasion.
To understand the weight of this feast, one had to look back to the Year 13 After the Conquest. In the Westerosi calendar, this was the thirteenth year after Aegon's crowning in Oldtown, a date that maesters and educated people use as a reference point, for it marked the end of a bloody and exhausting era.
The First Dornish War had been a gruelling, brutal conflict lasting nine long years. Unlike the Kings of the Reach or the Rock, the Dornish had refused to meet Aegon in open battle, and while they had been battered and burned for two whole years by the two dragons, they hadn't given up. They employed guerrilla warfare against the overwhelming might of the dragons, abandoning their castles, burning their own crops, and poisoning their wells.
The devastation only ceased in 13 AC when the incredibly old, blind and defiant Princess Meria Martell finally passed away. Her son and heir, Prince Nymor Martell, an old man of sixty years and already failing in health, inherited the Dornish throne.
Understanding the position of Dorne better than anyone and seeking an end to the endless fire and blood, Nymor sent his daughter, Princess Deria Martell, to King's Landing as an envoy of peace. She carried a sealed letter meant only for King Aegon.
The contents of that letter remain unknown to this day. But whatever words Prince Nymor had written, they were deeply upsetting. Upon reading it, Aegon had gripped the Iron Throne so hard his hands bled. He flew to Dragonstone, returned the next day, and signed a peace agreement, officially ending the First Dornish War.
And last year was the tenth anniversary of that agreement. Ten years had passed since that dark chapter closed, leaving the realm in a fragile state of peace with Dorne.
.
But none of that interested Maegor much. In his youthful arrogance, he was convinced that he wouldn't have lost that war, or ended it in a 'stalemate'. It was clear that dragon superiority wasn't working out, so why continue to do so?
Nevertheless, Maegor had grown.
Contrary to what normal human development was taught at the Citadel, Maegor was as tall as a man grown and built stronger still. He was still relatively lean, but already showing increasing muscular bulk. His figure screamed power and masculinity, and for those who were warriors with experience in life-or-death fights, he also felt dangerous.
Right now, Maegor and his mother had climbed the Queen of Dragons' back and had taken off.
The sulfurous winds of Dragonstone were left behind as the green mass of Vhagar broke through the clouds above the Narrow Sea. Maegor had seen his twelfth name day a few months ago.
To the rest of Westeros, the young prince was still bound by King Aegon's decree to wed Lady Ceryse of House Hightower, the two-and-twenty-year-old niece of the High Septon. But Visenya and Maegor had no intention of letting his development stagnate on Dragonstone, where he had already defeated everyone, while they waited for the grand tourney.
To truly test his unnatural reflexes and perfect synergy of soul, mind and body, and to gain more fighting experience, Maegor needed opponents unburdened by the chivalry of Westerosi knights and the title he carried. They needed men who fought for blood, had nothing to lose, and were willing to kill him.
Therefore, they flew east, toward Slaver's Bay. What better way to bloody a warrior than to have him take part in the Fighting Pits?
Far below them, trailing days behind, sailed a small escort of Targaryen ships. As this was the Queen of Westeros and the Prince, it was natural for guards to accompany them. The question was when they would reach Slaver's Bay, because Visenya hadn't been interested in waiting.
So despite having gotten a head start, the Targaryen ships would arrive a few days after the two royals.
But beneath the surface of loyalty, the political venom of the small council and the rest of the noble houses of the realm was already at work. Under the cover of a coastal storm, one of the swiftest galleys silently broke away from the main fleet, turning their prows northeast.
.
(Great Master Grazdan mo Ullhor POV)
Meereen was the jewel of Slaver's Bay, a sprawling city built of multi-colored bricks that shimmered under our unforgiving Essosi sun. I stood upon the shaded balcony of my pyramid, adjusting the heavy fringe of my purple tokar, with a glass of expensive wine in my hand that was far better than the inferior pale yellow we produced.
Below me, my city thrived on its two greatest exports: human suffering and copper.
The Skahazadhan river was like a life-giving blood vessel for our magnificent slave trade, flowing into the saltwater bay where massive galleys unloaded their cargo of captured and defeated Dothraki, Lhazareen, and Naathi.
The economy of Meereen was a beautiful, perfectly balanced machine, far superior to the barbaric and insufficient lands across the Narrow Sea. Our slaves mined the copper in the nearby hills, maintained the lush brick terraces where our night-blooming flowers and lemon trees grew, and died gloriously in the fighting pits to entertain us—the Great Masters of the ancient houses, whose wealth rivalled the dragonslords of old.
Above it all loomed the Great Pyramid, eight hundred feet of stepped, coloured brick crowned with the proud, massive bronze Harpy of Meereen, its claws clutching a heavy chain. Scores of lesser pyramids dotted the skyline, displaying the proud colours of our noble bloodlines—the pink-and-white of House Pahl, the green-and-black of House Naqqan, and the yellow-and-green of House Rhazdar...
It is truly a sight to see, and I love observing it and taking it all in after a night of pleasure.
We are a sly and stubborn people, we Meereenese, the true heirs to the glory of the Old Empire of Ghis. While lesser men walk or ride, I preferred to be carried through our wide brick streets and twisty alleys in a sedate palanquin by four strapping slaves, my hair teased high into elaborate horns and spikes with wax and irons, as befitted a man of my station.
Let the Westerosi nobles and their freakish, stuck-up children bring their gold and their arrogance to our gates. In Meereen, wealth is measured in copper, slaves and blood, and both flowed endlessly in my favour.
Today, however, our Harpy seemed rather small.
A shadow had fallen over Daznak's Pit, the largest and most prestigious of our gladiatorial arenas. A real dragon had landed in Meereen for the first time since the Doom.
I descended to my private box overlooking the blood-soaked sands of the pit, my heart hammering in my chest greedily and feverishly. While we all hated dragons and those who rode them with a burning passion, it wasn't often that you got to see one so close and so far from home.
Escorted by my phalanx of Unsullied, the silver-haired Queen of Westeros, Visenya Targaryen, eventually stood before me.
She was a terrifying and magnificent creature, just like her beast. Her silver hair whipped in the dry wind, and her narrowing violet eyes assessed my Unsullied and me as if she were trying to find ways to flay us.
She did not wear the elegant, fringed tokar of a civilised Meereenese noblewoman, nor were her nails painted. Instead, she stood tall in riding leathers and dark armour, the hilt of a Valyrian steel sword resting at her hip. It was barbaric and so utterly Valyrian nobility...
And yet, by the Harpy, it stirred a wicked, consuming heat in my blood and loins.
I took a slow sip of my pale yellow wine, allowing my gaze to drag over her. She possessed a harsh beauty, sharp and unyielding, entirely unlike the soft, compliant Red Graces who waited every night in the pleasure gardens to be chosen by men like me.
The proud and arrogant tilt of her chin, the sheer presence radiating from her frame—it made my mouth go dry. I imagined taking this savage warrior queen and breaking her pride so utterly and completely...
I pictured her stripped of her heavy Westerosi armour, her pale Valyrian skin washed in scented oils. How exquisite she would look entirely naked, subjected to the examinations of my female slaves, before being bound at the wrists and ankles with chains of yellow gold. I envisioned her draped only in a tokar of white silk, forced to kneel and wash my feet from a golden bowl in the ancient Ghiscari wedding traditions of our people.
The thought of taming a dragon and turning her into my handmaid was more intoxicating than any spice wine.
Her voice pulled me back to reality.
"A wager," Visenya said in High Valyrian, which I found terribly accented.
"A wager?" I asked.
She gestured to the heavy iron chests that the tall and powerfully built young man dropped just before my feet. I jumped back in fright, thinking that he had hit me. My guards moved forward, but I stopped then, when I saw the smirk on the young man's face.
Visenya didn't care and continued.
"100,000 Gold Dragons, if your pit fighters can draw blood from my son. If you can kill him, 1,000,000 Gold Dragons. If he slaughters your champions, you match the sum. You may choose your best warriors, your strongest and most diverse fighters. You may choose how many to fight at once. But each day, the wager stays the same."
"..."
"..."
I could not stop the greed in my eyes from showing as the chests were opened, the sunlight catching the Westerosi gold. I looked at the young man again. Did she say son? Wasn't he... supposed to be a child?
The child was tall, yes, his muscles thick and completely unnatural... but Daznak's Pit housed the most lethal killers in the known world. I had men from Sothoryos, seasoned pit fighters wielding nets, bastard swords, poisons and tridents, and even Dothraki riders who had known nothing but fighting and death since birth.
He would be cut to pieces and made to suffer within minutes. The sheer, blinding arrogance of these dragonlords was about to make me the richest man in all of Slaver's Bay.
"The Harpy welcomes the blood of the dragon," I said smoothly. "Let the boy enter. But know this, Queen of the Western Kingdoms, we do not stop the fights simply because a child cries. They end in death, and sometimes that takes a long time. I don't want to see you go back on your word or use your beast."
"Good," the young man said.
"That won't be a problem," Visenya said, and with what had to be a mental command, her dragon flapped his massive wings and took flight.
The young man did not draw a sword. He walked toward the iron gates.
I smiled behind my cup of sweet wine as the gates groaned open. I signalled my horn blowers to get ready for an announcement. Let the slaughter commence.
.
.
Thousands of miles to the northeast, a cloaked figure stepped off a small boat at a shadowed dock. Above them, sitting upon a rocky hill of dark grey stone, loomed a windowless temple beneath a black tile roof.
The figure climbed the grey steps to reach the entrance: two massive, twelve-foot-high carved wooden doors. The left door is weirwood, the right ebony. In the centre of the doors is a carved moon face, ebony on weirwood, weirwood on ebony.
The House of Black and White.
Inside, the air smelled of incense, still water, and death. There were no services or songs of worship here, only a heavy silence. The figure walked across the room, passing rows of long stone benches and stone beds.
Looming in the shadows along the walls were tall statues of thirty different gods. The Black Goat of Qohor, the Lion of Night, the Stranger, the Weeping Woman, and others from across the known world.
The cloaked figure knelt in the centre of the room before a ten-foot-wide black pool of poisoned water, its dark surface lit only by the glow of dim candles, waiting until a priest in grey robes, a so-called Faceless Man, stepped silently from the shadows and appeared before him without him even realising.
"You seek the gift of the Many-Faced God," the Faceless Man stated.
"I seek the end of two lives," the cloaked figure replied. "To ensure the safety and strength of the true line of succession."
The Faceless Man reached out, and the figure handed him two small pieces of parchment. On each of them, there was a name written.
'Prince Maegor Targaryen'
"The price of a royal name is high," the Faceless Man said without emotion.
"The gold is already here," the figure said, pointing towards the doors, indicating that he had brought it with him, should the task be accepted.
"A man accepts. And the second name?"