Volantis knew no night.
The decrepit city-state had gorged itself on mortal flesh through a century of blood and fire.
It had spent as much gold as it had seized, and the blood of its enemies and its own dead could have stained the entire Mother Rhoyne red.
The tattoo-less nobles lit lamps that blazed across the whole city the moment dusk fell.
From the slums along the Rhoyne to the crumbling, weed-choked ruins, from the Long Bridge built by Triarch Vaherros to the Black Walls where four-horse chariots could race at full gallop, everywhere glowed with flame.
And endless revelry.
The long Black Walls sealed the common outer city away from the noble inner city, and sealed away the suffering of a century of war from its plenty.
Within the walls, the nobles played on without pause.
Beyond them, the common folk bore endless extortion.
Not even the inner city stood united.
The Tiger faction, drunk on a hundred years of militarism, had seized the entire Senate and monopolized the Triarchs.
Of Volantis’s three ruling Triarchs, the Tigers held two seats.
The Elephant faction, which championed trade and opposed war, had spent the past century crushed underfoot.
Their lone Triarch, Borrik, was a man past eighty, long since retreated to his manse, taking no part in governance.
The revelry belonged to the Tigers.
The silence, to the Elephants.
The Triarchs’ palace blazed bright as day.
A stream of serving girls carried spice-laden delicacies into the feasting hall.
The golden-haired Tiger Triarch tore open a servant’s dress and pressed his face hard against the girl’s chest, breathing deep.
A lithe boy gasped and licked at his body beneath his knee.
Such scenes repeated everywhere.
Until a voice cried out in terror from beyond the doors.
“Triarchs!
A report from the front!”
“Get out!” The other Triarch, a far steadier man with silver hair, rose with his wine cup in hand.
“This is no hour for statecraft.
Out!”
“No.
No, my Triarch, it cannot wait.” The senator who burst in wore the grief of a man who had lost both parents.
“Defeated.
We have been defeated!”
“Impossible.
Absolutely impossible!” The golden-haired Triarch kicked the boy aside and jabbed a trembling finger at the senator.
Whether from interrupted pleasure or sheer rage, the man’s body shook.
“Our lines were impenetrable.
Braavos’s main fleet was already crushed by the Narrow Sea Fleet, and we reinforced it with fifty more warships.
How could we be defeated?
Unsullied!
Weeping Guard!
Drag this wretch out!”
The senator, near weeping, shouted over them.
“It is true, Triarch.
Our riders killed six horses and loosed messenger hawks to bring this word.
Hear me!”
Two eunuch guards seized the senator by his tokar, ready to haul him away.
The senator bellowed in desperation.
“Vasarro!
Wake up!
If you don’t wake, we are finished!
Vasarro!
You man-fucking bastard!
Demon loathed by the Lord of Light!
Worthless fool!
Lord Karatos made a mistake seating you as First Triarch!
Volantis’s great cause dies in your hands!”
“Silence!” Vasarro, face twisted with fury, snatched up a half-eaten pork bone and hurled it.
It struck only the senator’s pristine white robes.
“My lords, pay him no mind.
Continue the music.
Continue the dance!”
“Vasarro, let him speak.” The silver-haired Triarch, Karatos, had furrowed his brow.
“Karatos, will you oppose me as well?”
“Lord Karatos.” The palace eunuch warriors answered to all three Triarchs.
When the Triarchs themselves stood at odds, the eunuch warriors had no choice but to halt.
This gave the senator his opening. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
“We are defeated.
The vile Braavosi, Norvosi, and Qohorik have allied with the savage Dothraki.
Seven of our legions were annihilated at the Dagger Lake.
The fleet is gone too.
Dothraki riders have breached the northern defenses and are burning our villages and towns.
Every village along the Selhoru is lost.
The bastards are salting the earth.”
Triarch Karatos’s wine cup clattered to the floor.
Cold sweat soaked through his robes in an instant.
The raging Vasarro snapped sober all at once, his bare chest slick with sweat.
“The Narrow Sea Fleet is gone too.
Dragons.
It was dragons.” The senator’s voice suddenly trembled.
“Dragons?
What dragons?” Vasarro finally managed to speak clearly.
“House Targaryen has entered the war?” Triarch Karatos waved for the two eunuch guards to release the senator.
The man’s legs gave out and he collapsed to the floor.
“A gold dragon.
And a black dragon.
They set our ships alight one by one.
We had no chance to answer.” The senator’s voice edged toward a sob.
“We did not even understand what was happening.
One night.
In a single night, more than a hundred ships of the Narrow Sea Fleet were gone.
And then.
And then…”
“And then what?” The swaggering Triarch Vasarro’s legs had gone weak as well.
The entire palace fell silent.
No one dared speak.
Every Tiger senator forgot his wine, staring fixedly at the man on the floor.
Why?
Why had House Targaryen joined the war?
The intervention of dragonlords dealt Volantis a blow that could only be called annihilating.
Volantis had waged this war under the banner of “restoring Valyria’s glory.” Had the Targaryens stood with Volantis, the matter needed no elaboration.
Volantis would instantly have gained boundless military strength and towering legitimacy.
They could have used the terror and awe of dragons, paired with Volantis’s armies, to forcibly reclaim the former Valyrian colonies.
And those city-states that had slain dragonlords would lose all legitimacy in turn.
Volantis had killed dragonlords and dragons too, true.
But the Tigers could easily pin that guilt on the Elephants.
Dragonlord, we are the loyal ones.
They are the traitors.
But the Targaryens had sided with the anti-Volantis coalition.
Battle strength aside, the simple fact that Valyrian dragonlords opposed Volantis’s strategic goal was enough to shatter the war’s very foundation.
To shatter the Tigers’ foundation.
To say nothing of the catastrophic defeat itself.
“All is lost.
Ricar Lacron has fallen.
We had every confidence of crushing the Storm King’s army.
No one foresaw dragons.
We did not even have time to ready scorpions capable of contesting them.
Five legions.
All gone.
All gone, my lords.” The senator’s cry was raw despair.
“The Disputed Lands are lost.
Thirty ships remain of the Summer Sea Fleet.
We cannot hold against the Braavosi.
The coalition can march to our gates whenever they choose.
Done.
It is all done.”
“Shut your mouth.
Shut it.” Vasarro’s composure cracked wide open.
“We have not yet lost, and you stand here barking like a dog!”
“Vasarro.” Triarch Karatos sensed something wrong and raised a hand to silence his fellow. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
“When did this news arrive?”
“Before dawn today.
The battle was six days ago.” The senator too realized something was off.
“It reached us before dawn.
But everyone was resting.
I was resting too.”
A sudden clamor rose outside the Triarchs’ palace.
The whole city was boiling over.
Everywhere, armed men.
Everywhere, torches.
Everywhere, blood.
A Tiger Cloak drenched in gore stumbled into the feast hall.
The gravely wounded man caught his foot on a silk tapestry and pitched headlong to the floor.
“My lords!
Treason!
It’s treason!”
The manse of Elephant Triarch Borrik.
This thousand-year-old mansion held its own feast, though nothing like the orgiastic revelry of the Triarchs’ palace.
It was a small, private affair.
The ancient Triarch, drifting toward sleep, sat cross-legged on a cushion and gazed kindly at the woman before him.
Before them lay the customary Volantene fare: sliced bread spread with an array of fruit preserves, sweetened condensed milk set to the side, a spicy fish stew simmered in a small iron pot alongside plump grubs stewed in sour broth, and cubed turtle meat cooked with a dizzying number of spices.
More than anything else, fruit dominated the table, along with a chilled beet soup that had been stewed and then left to cool.
“Terralana.
You have done well.” The old man lifted his beet soup and sipped in small, careful drafts.
His cook was skilled, rendering the soup perfectly suited to a man of Borrik’s age.
“I will not ask how you learned of the news in advance.
I only wish to confirm one thing: how do you intend to deal with the Tigers.”
“The Tigers must surrender power, Lord Borrik.
I am prepared to spare the lives of some Tiger senators.
This is what I told the senators as well.”
The woman nodded in agreement.
“Tomorrow you shall go to the Senate and swear your oath of office.” The old man smiled.
“Vasarro’s seat.
It should pass to you.”
Later generations of Volantenes would call this night the Night of Bloodshed, and also the Beginning of Peace.
Driven by fear of defeat and the Elephants’ long agitation, the people of Volantis rose in revolt.
With the aid of the Black Wall garrison and Elephant nobles, they threw open the gates.
Mobs and noble household troops alike fell upon the unprepared Tiger senators in a slaughter.
The arrogant, tyrannical Triarch Vasarro was gelded and then beheaded.
Only the more moderate Triarch Karatos survived to see the dawn.
Volantis.
The sky had changed.
The bloodshed in Volantis did not touch the shadow beneath the city.
That pale temple of stone.
The empty hall held no one.
Not a single lamp.
Only the holes in the dome, scattered like stars, allowed sun and moon to shine within.
Everywhere stood pale stone statues.
Beautiful young men.
Seductive young women.
Laughing children.
And mortals and monsters frozen in postures of grotesque, agonized death.
Whispered voices passed among the statues.
“The dragons have appeared.”
“The dragonlords have entered the war.
These wretches despised by higher powers dare show themselves again?”
“Kill them.
It is the will of the greater powers.”
“Kill them.” “Kill them.” “Kill them.”
“Who shall go?”
Silence.
Tyrosh.
“What?” Raegon stared at Rhaegar Velaryon with undisguised disgust.
“I’d imagined my first time taking someone up on dragonback would be a pretty girl.”
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