[150] The Eastern Tide
Chapter 150: The Eastern Tide
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“Haagh!” The Myrish soldier's eyes bulged with disbelief as Yara's axe found the gap between his breastplate and helm. Blood sprayed across the limestone walls of the port fortress, painting them in shades of conquest. She wrenched the blade free with a grunt, spinning to catch his companion's sword on her shield.
"That the best you got?" She laughed, driving her knee into the second man's groin before opening his throat with a casual backhand swing.
A third defender rushed from her blind spot, spear leveled at her exposed back. The soft sound of air against steel made her grin. Without looking, she triggered the gift Viserys had bestowed. Dark wings erupted from her shoulders, catching the morning light as she backflipped over the thrust. The soldier's momentum carried him forward into empty air.
She landed behind him with predatory grace. "Should've stayed in bed."
Her axe took his head before he could turn.
The wings folded back into nothingness as quickly as they'd appeared, leaving only the memory of shadow and the corpses at her feet. Around her, the sounds of battle faded to sporadic clashes and the moans of the dying. The port was theirs.
"Captain Yara!" Qarl the Maid jogged toward her, a scar splitting his grin. Blood—not his own—decorated his leather jerkin like badges of honor. "The harbor's secure. Lost maybe twenty men, killed five times that."
"And prisoners?"
"Plenty. These Myrish fight like they fuck—all show, no stamina." He spat into the blood-soaked sand. "What's your command?"
Yara wiped her axe clean on a dead man's silk tunic, her intense grey eyes already moving beyond the carnage to the city proper. Myr sprawled before them like a whore in colored silks, her towers and domes gleaming with wealth that begged to be taken. The morning sun painted everything in shades of gold and blood.
"Secure the walls. I want archers on every tower and our ships blocking the harbor mouth." She sheathed her weapon with practiced ease. "No one enters or leaves without my word."
The thrill of command sang through her veins sweeter than any wine.
…..
Hours later, Yara stood on the balcony of what had been Magister Orthys's villa, until her men had dragged him out by his perfumed beard. The Black Wind rode at anchor in the bay below, her black sails furled like a sleeping kraken. Eighty-six more ships crowded the harbor, an iron forest that had sprouted overnight.
The villa reeked of incense and fear-sweat, its marble floors now tracked with bootprints and blood. She'd claimed the magister's own chambers, though she had no intention of sleeping in his silk-sheeted bed. Ironborn didn't grow soft on foreign luxuries.
"Qarl." She didn't turn from the view as her captain entered. "Report."
"Seven hundred prisoners, give or take. Mostly household guards and dock workers. The magisters' families are locked in the lower vaults." He paused, clearing his throat. "About that other matter..."
"Speak plainly."
"The... special prisoners. As His Grace commanded." Even Qarl, who'd split skulls from here to Hardhome, sounded uncomfortable. "Hundred virgins, untouched as spring snow. Fifty boys, fifty girls. Kept separate from the rest, as ordered."
Yara's jaw tightened.
Of all the strange commands Viserys had given before her departure, this one sat like a stone in her gut. She understood conquest, understood the taking of gold and ships and lives. But this? This stank of sorcery, of the kind of magic that made even Ironborn sailors clutch their lucky bones.
"They're unharmed?"
"Aye. Fed and watered, though they're scared as rabbits. The youngest can't be more than four-and-ten namedays."
What game are you playing, Dragon King?
"Double their guard. Any man who touches them loses his cock, then his head." She finally turned to face him, her expression carved from stone. "The King's orders were specific. We follow them to the letter."
Qarl nodded, though she could see the questions in his weathered face. Questions she couldn't answer because she didn't understand them herself. All she knew was that Viserys had pulled her from the mud of the Iron Islands and made her a queen. That earned him her blade, her fleet, and her trust… even when his commands made her skin crawl.
"The city itself?"
"Ripe for the taking, but..." He gestured toward the massive walls visible through the balcony doors. "Those fortifications have stood for a thousand years. We can starve them, raid their coastal holdings, but breaking those walls? That's dragon work."
Yara's lips curved in a smile sharp as her axe. "Then it's good we have dragons coming."
She moved back to the balcony, her hands gripping the marble railing as she studied the city that would soon burn or bow. The Iron Fleet could make Myr bleed, but only dragonfire could make it kneel. Every hour that passed without Viserys felt like a year.
"Hurry up, Targaryen," she muttered to the wind. "The fun is about to begin."
The Dragonpit loomed around us in the pre-dawn darkness, a cathedral of shadow and ancient stone. Torches flickered in iron sconces, casting dancing shadows across the faces of my two wives.
Margaery stood with perfect poise despite the early hour, her traveling cloak doing nothing to hide the calculated elegance beneath. Sansa fidgeted with her sleeves, still uncomfortable with farewells that might last moons.
Or forever, if the game went poorly.
"The realm is yours to hold," I told Margaery, letting my voice carry the weight of command. "The treasury, the lords, the everyday machinery of power. All of it rests in your hands. Let no one mistake my absence for weakness. Any who try to exploit it..."
"Will learn why roses have thorns." Her smile could have cut glass. "The realm will be waiting for your return, Your Grace. Intact and profitable."
Always thinking in ledgers and alliances. It's what makes her useful.
I turned to Sansa, and my tone softened despite myself. "The city's heart beats in your hands now. Every orphan fed, every widow aided, all commonfolk satisfied. These are the stones upon which dynasties are built. Not just the fear of dragons, but the love of the people."
"I understand, Your Grace." Her chin lifted with that Stark stubbornness I'd come to appreciate. "King's Landing will know its king cares for more than conquest."
"Good." I stepped back, taking in both of them. "You each have your wars to fight. Win them."
The contrast between them had never been starker. Margaery the poisoned rose, beautiful and deadly; Sansa the winter wolf, learning to hunt with kindness instead of claws. Both necessary. Both mine.
Arianne's laugh echoed off the ancient stones. "If you're quite finished with the tender farewells, some of us are eager to see the world burn."
She stood beside Rhaegal like a figure from Dornish legend, her traveling silks the color of flame and shadow. The jade dragon lowered his great head, allowing her to stroke his scales with casual familiarity. Power recognized power, and my dragons had accepted her as surely as they'd accepted me.
Kinvara waited beside Viserion with the patience of stone, her red robes unmarred by the morning dew. The ruby at her throat pulsed with its own inner fire, and her dark eyes held that unsettling certainty of those who'd seen their god's plan.
"The Lord of Light illuminates our path east," she murmured as I approached. "Fire and blood shall remake the world."
Religious fanatics. Useful, but exhausting.
I helped Arianne mount Rhaegal first, her hands finding the riding straps with practiced ease. The way she moved, all liquid grace and barely contained excitement, reminded me why I'd brought her. Diplomacy in Essos required a different touch than Westerosi politics. Less honor, more passion. Of course, that’s not the main reason…
"Try not to fall off," I called up to her.
"Try to keep up," she shot back, grinning like a child given her nameday wish.
Kinvara settled in front of me on Viserion with surprising grace for someone who'd never flown before. Her body pressed back against mine as I took the reins, and I caught the scent of smoke and cinnamon that always clung to her.
"Ready to bring your god's light to the heathens?"
"His light burns within you, Your Grace. I merely tend the flame."
Viserion's muscles bunched beneath us. With a roar that shook dust from the Dragonpit's ancient rafters, she launched skyward. Rhaegal followed, his cry harmonizing with his sister's until the sound became a promise of apocalypse.
King's Landing fell away beneath us, shrinking from a sprawling city… to a map… and then to a memory. The Blackwater Rush gleamed like spilled silver in the dawn light, and then we were over open water, the Narrow Sea stretching endlessly before us.
The wind tore at my hair, ice-cold and liberating.
This was what the Targaryens of old had felt. Not the weight of crowns and kingdoms, but the pure freedom of flight. Behind me on Rhaegal, Arianne's whoops of joy carried on the wind, while Kinvara remained silent as prayer against my chest.
Aegon flew to conquer seven kingdoms. I fly to claim the known world.
Hours dissolved into the rhythm of wingbeats and wind. The Stepstones passed beneath us like scattered bones, then the Disputed Lands, brown and blood-soaked from centuries of war. As the sun began its descent, painting the sky in shades of conquest, Myr appeared on the horizon.
The city was more beautiful than I'd imagined, with white stone and colored glass, gardens and fountains, all wrapped in walls that had never known a dragon's kiss. The harbor told a different story. Black sails filled the port like an iron infection, and smoke rose from several waterfront buildings.
Yara had been busy.
We landed on the broad plaza before the harbor master's palace, our dragons' impact cracking the ornate tilework.
Ironborn scrambled to form ranks, their awe at the dragons warring with experienced discipline. At their head, Yara Greyjoy strode forward with that particular swagger of someone who'd just won a significant victory.
"Your Grace." Her bow was perfunctory, her grin anything but. "Welcome to Myr. Or at least, the parts of it that matter."
"I see you've been making friends."
"The kind that bleed gold when you squeeze them right." She gestured to the conquered port. "Your orders have been followed. All of them."
The emphasis on 'all' didn't escape me. Good. The ritual components were as important as the conquest itself.
"Show me."
It was time I raised a Maiden.
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