Harald lay on his back, staring at the ornate ceiling of his bedchamber, his breathing still slightly elevated. Beside him, Elsa had already risen from the bed, her naked form moving with unselfconscious grace as she crossed to the table where servants had left wine and food earlier.
She poured herself a cup, took a long drink, then turned to look at him. The moonlight streaming through the windows caught the red in her hair, making it gleam like copper.
"You're brooding," she observed, setting down the cup and reaching for a piece of bread.
"I'm thinking," Harald corrected, sitting up and running a hand through his hair.
"Same thing with you." Elsa moved to the chair where her clothes lay draped and began pulling on her smallclothes. "Let me guess. The Storm Queen?"
Harald was quiet for a moment, then nodded. "Among other things."
He did have many things on his mind. The further development of the Heartlands and the infrastructure projects that would take years to complete. The growing Covenant and Leobald's increasingly zealous desire to spread it beyond their borders. The upcoming meeting of kings, with Torrhen and Loren both coming here, each with their own agendas and expectations. The threat of the Daedric Princes, three of them confirmed in this world so far, possibly a fourth. The maesters and their secret order working against him from within the shadows. The missing piece of Mehrunes' Razor.
He was being pulled in many directions at once, each demanding his attention, each requiring careful consideration and planning.
Elsa pulled her shift over her head, then sat at the vanity and began working a comb through her tangled hair. She met his eyes in the mirror. "You turned her down."
"I refused to invade the Stormlands for her, yes."
"Why?" Elsa's tone was genuinely curious, not judgmental. "It's a perfect opportunity, Harald. The Stormlands are weak, divided, tearing themselves apart. You could march in, crush her cousins in a fortnight, put her on the throne, and have the entire kingdom in your debt."
Harald stood, covering himself as he reached for his own smallclothes. "At what cost?" he said, pulling them on. "How many thousands would die? The moment I invade, her cousins will unite against the foreign heretic, the malevolent sorcerer king trying to conquer their homeland."
"You would still win easily," Elsa said, working through a particularly stubborn knot in her hair.
"Yes. I would win." Harald pulled on his trousers. "And the Stormlands would hate both me and Argella for it. Her rule would be seen as illegitimate, imposed by foreign help. It would have been manageable if it was Loren or Mern helping. But it would be me, the heretic who corrupted the Faith. The High Septon's slander would become truth in the eyes of her people and lords."
Elsa set down the comb and turned to face him directly. "Thousands would die anyway in the civil war, Harald. You know that."
"Yes, they would," Harald admitted quietly.
"Then your intervention could save lives rather than take them," Elsa pressed. "Think about it. A quick, decisive campaign. You crush the opposition before the war can drag on for months or years. You prevent the prolonged bleeding, the famine that comes with armies stripping the countryside, the breakdown of order that breeds bandits and violence. More people might survive with your intervention than without it."
Harald pulled on his tunic, not meeting her eyes. "It's not that simple."
"It never is with you," Elsa said, standing and moving closer. "You have far more important matters to attend to, yes, I can see that." She studied his face. "But this is something no monarch would simply give up on. A chance to expand their influence, to gain leverage over an entire kingdom, to have its monarch in their debt."
She stepped closer to him, her voice softening. "You didn't hesitate when you killed scores of Ironborn and Stormlanders. You used your magic to strike thousands down without a second thought."
"Well, I was more a liberator then, wasn't I?" Harald said, a slight edge creeping into his voice.
Elsa moved away and poured wine for both of them, handing him a cup. "You're a king, Harald. You have to think like one. And thinking like a king means recognizing opportunities when they present themselves."
Harald took the cup, swirling the wine absently. "Well then, Elsa, the master politician, what would you do if you were in my place?"
Elsa rolled her eyes. "Nothing you haven't thought of."
"Ask anyway," Harald said, taking a sip. "Maybe I haven't."
"Oh, you have." Elsa sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes fixed on him with that sharp, calculating gaze she got when discussing politics. "The Stormlands are weak. Their king is dead. A civil war has begun. The legitimate queen is here, literally begging you for help." She leaned forward slightly. "I would use the opportunity to slowly absorb the Stormlands into the Heartlands. Not through conquest, through, let's just say, peaceful integration."
Ah, Harald thought. He knew where she was going with this.
"The marriage option," Harald said flatly.
"Yes." Elsa's voice took on that practical, matter of fact tone she used when laying out political realities. "You could marry Argella. Absorb the Kingdom of the Storm into the Heartlands through your children. Unite the kingdoms through blood." She paused, her gaze softening slightly. "You really do need a wife, Harald. You can't put it off forever. The lords are already getting restless about succession. They want the royal line secure. They do not want another Justman or Teague disaster."
Harald was quiet for a long moment, then decided to humor her. "Let's say I marry her and do all this. Unite the kingdoms, secure the succession, expand my realm by half again." He moved to lean against the bedpost, his wine cup dangling from his fingers. "Yes, any king would do it if he were in my position. It's the obvious move, the smart play."
He looked at her directly. "But I don't like it. Argella seems to be a nice person, from what little I've seen of her. And I would rather have a wife I could actually get along with, someone I could perhaps even care for, than someone who would hate me for the rest of her life for using her like a pawn on a game board."
The thought of it made him uncomfortable in ways that had nothing to do with politics or strategy. He had seen enough marriages in Tamriel, even here, that were purely transactional, where husband and wife existed in states of barely concealed contempt or cold indifference. Powerful people bound together by duty and ambition, producing heirs like it was another administrative task.
He didn't want that. Life would be too long, too empty, if he spent it with someone who looked at him with resentment every day.
"You won't," Elsa said simply.
Harald raised an eyebrow. "Won't what?"
"Have a wife who hates you." Elsa stood and moved closer. "I think the queen would come around to the idea. Think about it, Harald. She has no chance of regaining the throne without you. None."
She began ticking off points on her fingers. "Mern and Loren won't be of help. They're too busy with their own war, and neither has any reason to involve themselves in Stormlander affairs. Dorne? They'd rather take some bits of the Stormlands for themselves than help restore the Durrandons. The Vale and the North are too far away to care."
Elsa stepped even closer. "And like you said, she's now in the court of the heretic king. The slander thrown at her, the accusations of falling to the Covenant? They'll be seen as truth now. Every moment she spends here strengthens that narrative in the minds of her enemies."
She placed a hand on his chest, her blue eyes searching his face. "She won't really have a choice, Harald. Not if she wants her throne back. Not if she wants any future at all besides exile and irrelevance."
Harald nodded slowly, acknowledging the logic even as part of him recoiled from it.
Elsa's voice softened further, becoming almost gentle. "You told me once that having the soul of a dragon is both blessing and curse. Dragons want to dominate. It's their nature, their very essence. To conquer, to subjugate, to rule absolutely."
Harald nodded again. They had been discussing his nature as Dragonborn, what it meant to have the soul of a dragon bound to mortal flesh.
"So what does the dragon want?" Elsa asked quietly.
Harald laughed, a short, bitter sound. "What do you think?" He shook his head. "A part of me won't be satisfied even with the entire world in my hands, Elsa. That's the curse of it."
A curse, in his opinion, anyway. Alessia had led a slave revolt that freed the Nedes and exterminated the Ayleids. Reman not only stopped the Akaviri invasion but used them to create an empire for himself. Then there was Miraak the First of them all, who also wished for dominion over all, just like Alduin and the rest of the dragons. And of course the most famous of all, Tiber Septim, one of whose titles was Stormcrown, which he was given by the Greybeards. Tiber stopped only after taking all of Tamriel, uniting the entire continent under one banner. And if he could have, he would have gone further, conquering realms beyond. There were even lesser Dragonborn, those of dragonblood, descendants of Tiber who were affected in the same way. One emperor even invaded Akavir itself, though it had not gone well.
He looked at his reflection in the nearby mirror, and for a moment he saw something else there. Not his face, but scales and fire and an endless hunger.
Elsa moved behind him, her presence warm at his back. "Then why fight it?" Her voice was soft but insistent. "Why deny what you are? The dragon wants to expand, to grow, to dominate. And here is an opportunity handed to you on a silver platter."
She placed her hands on his shoulders, her breath warm against his ear. "Seduce her, Harald. You could make the Storm Queen love you. She is beautiful, is she not?"
Her hands moved down his arms. "Show her the security, stability, and prosperity your rule has brought to us all. Show her how her kingdom too could be with you, and her."
Elsa moved around to face him, her expression intense. "She would be a fine queen. She's young, healthy, beautiful, and by all accounts intelligent and capable. Your children would have the blood of both your houses, uniting two kingdoms. And in the future..." She let the implication hang.
"In the future, the Stormlands become part of the Heartlands entirely," Harald finished quietly.
"Yes." Elsa's voice held no apology. "Through your son or daughter. Peacefully. Legitimately. No conquest, no bloodshed, just the natural progression of dynasty and inheritance. The lords of both kingdoms would accept it because it would be legal, proper, and by then you would have changed the Stormlands for the better."
She was right. It would solve the issue of his marriage and children, and in the end the Heartlands would grow twofold.
Harald walked to the balcony, stepping out into the cool night air.
Elsa followed him, standing at his side and looking out over Cyrodiil.
Harald turned to her with a grin, trying to lighten the conversation. "This is just so the Riverlanders can take revenge for the Storm Kings conquering you all those centuries ago, isn't it?"
Elsa's lips curved into a smile, and she played along. "Yes. Long have we waited for this moment. The Riverlands shall have their vengeance at last." Her tone was mockingly dramatic. "The historians will write songs of how House Tully engineered the downfall of House Durrandon through cunning political maneuvering and sexual persuasion."
Harald laughed.
The moment of levity passed, and they stood in comfortable silence for a while, both looking out over the city that was growing around the castle.
"I'll think about it," Harald said finally. He paused. "I plan to try to have Argella recognized as the legitimate queen by the other kings. Torrhen and Loren, both. If I can get them to publicly acknowledge her claim, it strengthens her position considerably, with or without my direct intervention."
Elsa nodded approvingly. "That's smart. Political recognition from other monarchs would undermine her cousins' claims significantly. Especially if it comes from Loren and Torrhen, who have no reason to favor you."
"Now come," Elsa said, moving back toward the bedchamber. "You have to sup with the lords. They'll be expecting you soon."
Harald nodded and walked back inside, his mind already turning to the evening ahead and the many conversations that would need to be had.
The game was becoming more complex, the stakes higher, the players more numerous.
And he was right in the center of it all, trying to navigate the currents.
.
.
.
The Great Palace of Pentos was a monument to excess, a sprawling complex of white marble and golden domes that dominated the city's heart. Its halls were decorated with mosaics depicting the city's merchant princes in all their glory, its gardens filled with exotic flowers from across the known world, its vaults overflowing with the wealth of generations of trade.
But today, the grandeur felt hollow, almost mocking.
Prince Blicho Qezzarro sat at the head of the long table in the Hall of Magisters, his fingers drumming nervously on the polished wood. He was a man in his fifties, his once dark hair now heavily streaked with grey, his beard carefully oiled and perfumed in the Pentoshi fashion. His robes were cloth of gold trimmed with ermine, but the finery could not disguise the worry etched into his face.
Around the table sat the most powerful magisters of Pentos, the true rulers of the city despite Blicho's nominal title as Prince. They were merchants, bankers, and slavers, men who had built fortunes on trade and human misery, and now those fortunes were under threat.
In the center of the table lay a letter, its wax seal already broken, the Targaryen three headed dragon stamped in black.
"Read it again," commanded Magister Tycho Prestayn, a massive man whose wealth came from the slave markets. His jowls quivered with indignation. "I want to hear every word of this... this insult."
Blicho's secretary, a nervous Pentoshi clerk named Pallo, cleared his throat and picked up the letter with trembling hands.
"To Prince Blicho Qezzarro and the Magisters of Pentos," he began, his voice thin and reedy in the vast chamber. "I write to inform you of crimes committed by your subjects. Pentoshi slavers, sailing under your flag and with your tacit approval, have raided coastal villages along the Narrow Sea. They took free men, women, and children, and sold them in your markets."
Pallo paused, swallowing hard.
"These acts are an abomination before the one true god. Slavery itself is an offense against divine will, a corruption that must be cleansed from this world." The clerk's voice wavered. "I, Aegon of House Targaryen, Lord of Dragonstone and the Narrow Sea, do hereby demand the following:"
He took a shaky breath before continuing.
"First, the immediate abolition of slavery within Pentos and all territories under your control. All slaves are to be freed, with no compensation to their former owners. Second, the trial and public execution of those responsible for the raids on my lands, along with any magisters who profited from the sale of these stolen souls. Third, the cession of the Velvet Hills and the lands east of the Rhoyne to my direct rule, to ensure such raids never occur again. Fourth, an annual tribute of one hundred thousand gold honors for the next twenty years, as reparation for the suffering caused. Fifth, Pentos will acknowledge my sovereignty and accept a Targaryen representative to oversee the implementation of these demands."
The clerk's voice grew even quieter. "You have one moon to comply. Failure to meet any of these demands will result in fire and blood."
Silence fell over the chamber, broken only by the distant sounds of the city beyond the palace walls.
Then Magister Kyros Vanios exploded. "One moon? Surrender?!" He was a lean man with a pointed beard, his fortune built on banking and money lending. "The arrogance. The sheer, unmitigated gall of this... this dragonspawn!"
"Abolish slavery?" Magister Illio Andarro's voice was strangled. "Our entire economy is built on it! Half the wealth in this room comes from the trade! He's asking us to bankrupt ourselves!"
"The Velvet Hills?" Magister Pryxo sputtered. "Those are our richest agricultural lands! And the territories east of the Rhoyne control half our trade routes!"
"One hundred thousand gold honors a year?" Tycho's face had gone purple. "For twenty years? That's two million gold! The city's treasury doesn't hold a tenth of that!"
"He doesn't want compliance," Blicho said quietly, his voice cutting through the outrage. "He wants an excuse."
All eyes turned to the Prince.
"Look at these demands," Blicho continued, gesturing to the letter. "Each one is designed to be unacceptable. Abolishing slavery destroys our economy. The territorial cessions take our most valuable lands. The tribute bankrupts our treasury. The executions target half the men in this room." He looked around the table. "And accepting his so called representative makes us a vassal state in all but name."
"Then why not simply demand our surrender outright?" Kyros asked, confusion evident in his voice.
"Because this way, when he invades, he can claim moral justification," Blicho replied. "We are not victims of conquest. We are slavers, criminals, people who refused to abolish an abomination before his god and face justice for our crimes. He becomes the liberator, not the conqueror."
"His god?" Magister Tycho frowned, his anger momentarily replaced by confusion. "What god? The letter speaks of the one true god, but..." He paused. "Surely he doesn't mean the Seven? Yes, the Faith has always considered slavery an abomination but..."
"Perhaps he's become a zealot for the Seven," Illio suggested uncertainly.
"No," Kyros said. "He mentioned one god. It could be R'hllor."
"Bah, R'hllor," Tycho scoffed. "The same R'hllor whose followers live in the heart of Volantis."
"Then what god?" Pryxo asked.
"It doesn't matter what god he worships," Blicho said finally. "What matters is that these demands are designed to be rejected. He knows we cannot possibly accept them. He's giving us an impossible choice so that when we refuse, he can claim we brought fire and blood upon ourselves."
"He's gone mad," Magister Illio said. "This is the same man who allied with us against Volantis only two years ago! We fought together. We bled together against the Tiger Cloaks. And now he turns on us like a rabid dog?"
"He was never our ally," Blicho said quietly, his voice cutting through the outrage. "He used us to weaken Volantis, I believe…Yes that was his plan..." He gestured to the letter. "Now he's ready to begin his true conquest."
All eyes turned to the Prince.
"Pentos is the first," Blicho continued, standing slowly. "But we won't be the last. Mark my words, magisters. If we fall, he'll move on to the Three Daughters. Myr, Lys, Tyrosh. All of them will bend the knee or burn. And after that, Volantis itself. Perhaps even Braavos after. Then he will reunite the entire Valyrian Empire like old Aurion wanted all those years ago."
"Then we fight," said Magister Pryxo.
"Nothing can stand against dragons," Blicho interrupted flatly.
The chamber fell silent again.
Magister Tycho Prestayn slammed his meaty fist on the table. "I refuse to believe the age of dragonlords has returned. The Doom took them all. Valyria is gone, destroyed by their own hubris and dark sorceries. The Targaryens, the most lesser of the Forty, now wish to conquer all? The gall of these dregs!"
"The dregs have three dragons," Kyros Vanios pointed out acidly.
"Dragons can be killed," Illio Andarro said, his voice hard. "They're beasts, nothing more. Flesh and blood. They can die."
"How?" Blicho asked. "Do enlighten us, Magister, since you seem to have knowledge the rest of us lack."
Illio's face flushed. "Scorpions. Ballistae. We have them in our armories, weapons designed specifically to bring down flying creatures. The old Valyrians used them against each other during all three of the great civil wars."
"The old Valyrians also had dragons of their own," Blicho countered. "And sorceries we cannot match."
"Then what would you have us do?" Tycho demanded. "Surrender? Bow to this upstart and his lizards?"
Blicho was quiet for a long moment, his fingers still drumming on the table.
"Like Pryxo said, we fight," he said finally.
They all looked to him.
"But," Blicho continued, raising a hand, "we cannot win a direct confrontation with dragons. That much is clear. But we can make conquest costly. We can bleed them. We can make Aegon Targaryen regret the day he decided Pentos would be his next prize."
"How?" Kyros asked, leaning forward.
Blicho began to pace, his mind working through possibilities. "We reach out for allies. Qohor and Norvos have no love for Targaryens. Neither does Volantis. We offer them trade concessions, military alliances, anything to bring them into this conflict."
He continued, his voice growing firmer. "We develop weapons specifically designed to kill dragons. Scorpions. Poisons. Anything and everything that might bring down those beasts."
Magister Pryxo spoke up, his voice uncertain. "And if all that fails?"
"Then we will not give the dragonlord peace," Blicho replied coldly. "He will bleed and bleed holding Pentos. He will not have peace."
"A grim strategy," Kyros observed.
"We live in grim times," Blicho replied.
Around the table, the magisters began to argue among themselves, voices rising as they debated the finer points of defense, the feasibility of alliances, and the cost of weapons that might or might not work against dragons.
Soon, they all felt more and more confident.
Magister Tycho stood and proclaimed loudly, "The age of dragonlords is over! Over! They are relics, fossils, the last gasps of a dead empire! We are the future! We will not be slaves to some inbred family who think their blood makes them gods!"
"Hear, hear!" several magisters chorused.
"We will show them that Pentos does not bow!" Tycho continued. "We will show them that dragons can die! We will—"
He stopped mid sentence, his face going pale.
From outside, from the city beyond the palace walls, came a sound. A low, growing murmur that quickly transformed into screams.
Panic.
Pure, primal panic was erupting in the streets of Pentos.
"What in the—" Kyros began, standing and turning toward the windows.
Then they all heard it.
A roar. Deep, resonant, so powerful it seemed to shake the very foundations of the palace. It came from above, from the sky itself.
As one, the magisters and the Prince rushed to the tall windows that overlooked the city.
Blicho's blood turned to ice.
Three shapes were descending from the clouds, growing larger with each passing second. Even from this distance, even with his aging eyes, he could see them clearly.
Dragons.
Balerion came first, and the sight of the Black Dread made Blicho's knees weak. The dragon was monstrous, far larger than he remembered from a year ago when he had seen it. It had grown. Gods, how it had grown. Its wingspan seemed to blot out the sun, its scales as black as midnight, its eyes burning like coals.
Vhagar came next, smaller than Balerion but still massive, her roar joining the Black Dread's in a terrible harmony.
And then Meraxes, the most beautiful and deadly, completing the trinity of terror.
All three circled the city, their roars drowning out the screams of the panicking populace below.
"Dear gods," Pryxo whispered, his face ashen. "Dear gods, preserve us."
Magister Tycho had fallen to his knees, all his bluster and bravado evaporating in an instant.
Kyros simply stared, his sharp merchant's mind trying and failing to calculate odds, to find some strategy, some way out of the trap that was closing around them.
Illio gripped the window frame so hard his knuckles turned white. "We can't... there's no way to..."
Blicho watched as Balerion descended lower, circling the palace itself now. He could see the rider on its back, a figure in dark armor, the three headed dragon of House Targaryen emblazoned on his breastplate.
Fire and blood had come to Pentos.
And there was nothing they could do to stop it.