Divide and Conquer, Chapter 34: The Disciplining of the Daughters

Second Moon, 124 AD (23 AC)

Elaena

Lys was truly a lovely city, Elaena thought. A city of trade and luxuries clinging to a sunny fertile paradise island with palm and fruit trees, soft white sands, and deep blue-green coastal waters teeming with fish. The streets were well kept and clean, with properly built and sealed sewers. A pleasant floral scent emanated across the entire city from its many pleasure gardens full of beautiful flowers.

The people were lovely to behold as well, almost all of them having the fair complexions, silver-gold hair, and blue-purple eyes that her kin were known for. Nowhere else in the world did the blood of Old Valyria flow so true. Even the smallfolk were Valyrian, and in large numbers, and the nobility were as pure as the Volantene Old Blood, scions of lesser dragonless cadet branches of the Forty Families themselves.

Yet all of this beauty and loveliness veiled a dark truth. For all of this wealth and fairness had been built upon the backs of slaves, the trade of flesh, and the tears of maidens despoiled. Lys had a great many things to trade, but its chief and foremost trade was in slaves to stock its pleasure houses. Many a comely young girl and boy had been taken from their homelands to serve strange patrons in the brothels of Lys, for the Lyseni had a keen eye for beauty and bred it as if their slaves were but cattle.

Even the slaves looked Valyrian in Lys, for Valyrian looks were prized and in the days of old the dragonlords had taken their pleasures and sown their seed all over Lys and the Lyseni slave masters had enslaved their bastard children and bred them for their beauty until near all their stock resembled them.

Slaves outnumbered freeborn three to one in Lys, and those with the blood and beauty of Old Valyria, slave and freeborn alike, outnumbered those without nine to one.

But the days of slavery for Lys and all the other Free Cities was now to come to an end.

After their Conquest of Dorne and their time of rest in Summerhall, Elaena and the rest of her family had returned to the war effort. Eleven fully-fledged dragonriders in the prime of their lives had set off with vast armadas from ports in the Stormlands and Dorne.

They had conquered their way through the Stepstones, rooting out the Braavosi, Pentoshi, and Tyroshi forts along with any pirates in the region before occupying the islands with their own men. And then they had joined the fullness of their might together to break the walls of Tyrosh.

The black walls of Tyrosh that the armies and fleets of Volantis had broken against for over a century had been no match for the fullness of might brought to bear by the Last of the Forty. Dragonstone walls may be immune to dragonfire, but their gates were not, and neither were the buildings they shielded for no matter how high one built their walls, dragons would soar above them all.

After the fall of Tyrosh, their army and the dragonriders had split in three. One force had sailed north for Myr, another had landed to secure the Disputed Lands, and Elaena had been among those who had accompanied her mother’s fleet to conquer the lovely isle of Lys.

All three Free Cities and their maximum claims within the Disputed Lands and the rest of Essos were to be annexed into her family’s domains. Tyrosh, its hinterlands on the Essosi mainland, the Stepstones islands, and the Broken Arm in Dorne, were all to become a single Crown Province while the remainder of the Disputed Lands would be split between Myr and Lys which would be made their own Crown Provinces.

Slavery was abolished and many of the slaves were being given new opportunities, lands, and freedom in the formerly Disputed Lands and the depopulated regions of Westeros such as the North, Dorne, and parts of the Reach and Stormlands. Their Essosi and Valyrian culture, blood, language, customs, and religions would make those regions more diverse and cosmopolitan, diminishing the previous cultures and peoples that had so defied Elaena’s family and making those regions as a whole more loyal to and more influenced by House Targaryen’s culture in the long-term.

Effectively, they were colonizing Westeros with large hosts of Essosi and Valyrians. The enormous culturally and ethnically Valyrian populace of Lys and the other Free Cities would be a huge boon in their efforts to culturally attune the continent to their house and dilute the influence of the surviving local populations that would intermingle and assimilate with the newcomers.

The newcomers would also rejuvenate the stagnant economies of depopulated parts of Westeros with their labor, especially skilled workers and artisans such as the Myrish glassmakers which were being moved in large numbers to Summerhall and the rest of the Heartlands as the latest phase in a decades-long project her family had run to recruit as many of these talented individuals as possible. Meanwhile the Tyroshi dye guilds and any other lucrative industries of Lys and Myr were monopolized by the Targaryens.

The ancestral estates of the Myrish and Lyseni elites who had fled to Westeros after the Volantene conquests were returned to them while the estates of those elites who had collaborated with the Volantenes or those in Tyrosh that had remained independent were seized in their entirety and the remaining scions of those families had been taken as hostages and courtiers for the court in Summerhall, their pure Valyrian blood and education making them valuable enough to spare and potentially intermarry into their noble class to further strengthen their Valyrian bloodlines and culture.

Perhaps in time, the male-line descendants of these houses might serve admirably enough to be restored to some level of prominence in their own right, with their prestigious names and storied lineages thus being revived in full.

The entirety of the Verdant Heel of Essos and the quarrelsome daughters of Valyria that had ceaselessly bickered over it for decades was now under the rule of Elaena’s family. Her father had already added ‘King of the Three Daughters’ to his collection of royal titles for the little time left that he would remain a mere king. The hour was drawing near now when those kingly titles would be put aside, their domains formally unified and forged into one empire.

But before that could happen, they had to subdue the rest of the Free Cities. With their conquest of Tyrosh and the Stepstones, they had alienated the Braavosi-led coalition while they had directly fought against Volantis by seizing Lys, Myr, and the Disputed Lands. Effectively, they had declared war on both sides of the ongoing Century of Blood, a fool’s gambit for anyone else, especially since both sides were already sending armies and fleets to crush them and reclaim the Heel.

They were not anyone else. They were House Targaryen, the Last of the Forty Families, with dragons, magic, and the full might of Westeros behind them. And it was time to rebuke the errant Daughters of Old Valyria and inform them that their Mother had been restored in a new form.

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Sixth Moon, 124 AD (23 AC)

Daena

“Dracarys!” Daena screamed and her dragon answered, golden-red flames spewing out of Vermithor’s maw and obliterating the Volantene soldiers below. Elephants, horses, chariots, men, and more. All were equal beneath the dragon’s flames. All burned.

In the distance, her siblings, Aegor and Rhaena cut off the retreat of the Volantene army with their dragons, Aegarax and Quicksilver, while her father scoured the bulk of their forces atop the Black Dread.

Hundreds of miles to the north, her mother and a few of her other siblings were doing the same to a Braavosi-Pentoshi fleet and army that had tried in vain to conquer Myr.

There was a reason the Free Cities had been all too happy to effectively bribe her family to stay out of their wars for decades. They had no answers for dragons, no way to challenge their might on the battlefield. And their only other recourse, magic or assassins, had been removed. The Faceless Men had been obliterated in advance before the war, and House Targaryen had long since reclaimed its true heritage as the Last of the Forty, there would be none who knew more magic than they in this world now.

Ever since they had conquered the Quarrelsome Daughters in the Heel and proclaimed an end to slavery in the Free Cities, unrest and rebellion among the slaves had begun to boil over, especially in Volantis where they outnumbered the freeborn five to one. The work of years by their Eyes and other agents to undermine and destabilize the Free Cities was now bearing fruit. With the utter annihilation of their armies and fleets in battle, the time was ripe for Braavos, Pentos, Volantis and all to be brought to heel.

To that end, they had been preparing to continue their campaign for the past few months. The fleets and armies with which they had taken Tyrosh, Lys, Myr, and the Disputed Lands had been reorganized into two armadas, one going north, and the other going east.

Her aunt Rhaenys, her sister Elaena, and her beloved Aenar would be remaining behind to continue overseeing the consolidation of their house’s rule over the three cities and their transition away from slavery, keeping violence and economic disruption to a minimum and facilitating the movement of settlers, freed slaves, and wealth back to Westeros as per their family’s plans.

Daena would accompany her mother Visenya and her older siblings, Valaena and Aegor, in the leading the northern armada up to sack Pentos, Braavos, and Lorath. They would humble each city in turn, abolishing slavery if there was any to be abolished, and taking hostages, wealth, tribute, and knowledge back to Westeros.

Just as they were doing in Tyrosh, Lys, and Myr, many Pentoshi freed slaves and artisans would be moved back to Westeros to settle and any Braavosi and Lorathi that had worthwhile skills would be similarly recruited. Their home cities meanwhile would be looted of a great deal of their wealth and all of their unique and exclusive knowledge, wealth, and industries would be seized. They would remain independent in name alone, becoming self-ruling tributaries of House Targaryen’s Empire the same way they had been for Old Valyria and while their industries, banks, and trades would remain intact to continue producing tribute, everything that had made them unique would now be replicated in Westeros if possible.

Her father, Aerion, Rhaena, and Aemon would lead the eastern armada to the mouth of the Rhoyne. From there they would sail up the Rhoyne, humbling and vassalizing Volantis, Norvos, and Qohor, freeing all their slaves and recruiting many of the freedmen and skilled artisans and looting all knowledge, especially the magic and lore of Old Valyria possessed by Volantis and Qohor.

Of particular interest to her family were treasures such as Valyrian steel, glass candles, dragonbone items, grimoires and tomes on magic, and other artifacts that were heirlooms of their lost homeland.

When the dust had settled, everything of true value in the Free Cities would have been taken for House Targaryen, for the Empire, and what remained would be subjugated, made to serve and pay tribute. Westeros would be increasingly assimilated into Valyrian and Essosi culture, knowledge, technology, and wealth, while Essos itself would serve Westeros as its vassal.

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Ninth Moon, 124 AD (23 AC)

The Triarch

Maraphos Maegyr could only lament bitterly. For many long years he had been the leader of the Tiger Faction in Volantis, a militant party of old landed nobles that believed earnestly in Volantis’ right to carry Old Valyria’s legacy and rule all of its sisters. For over a century they had waged an endless war to make that dream a reality, to bring glory to their beloved Volantis and make it Queen of Essos as it deserved (and enriching themselves in the process from the vast estates they could have acquired of course).

In his long tenure as Triarch, returned over twenty times in yearly elections, Maraphos had overseen the brokerage of peace and neutrality with the last dragonlords and the glorious reconquests of Lys and Myr. For a time, the tired Volantene people had allowed themselves to believe that their hour had finally come, that the other Free Cities would soon fall under their rule and New Valyria would be ascendant.

It was not to be. Just as it had decades earlier, Tyrosh would prove to be their undoing. Though they had seized all of its hinterlands, the fortress city had never fallen, and their fleets and armies had broken endlessly upon its black walls before being beset by the armadas of Braavos and Pentos.

And while Volantis had been bleeding itself dry, the Targaryens had waxed to their greatest heights yet. Subduing all of Westeros and reclaiming in full their heritage as the Last of the Forty.

Before Maraphos knew it, the Targaryens had conquered Tyrosh which they had failed to for so long, seized Lys and Myr from them, destroyed their armies, and freed all the slaves in their new territories. That had in turn triggered a slave revolt at home in Volantis and that more than anything had paralyzed Maraphos and his fellow nobles in the Old Blood.

Slaves outnumbered freeborn five to one in Volantis. They grew their food, cleaned their streets, taught their young. They guarded their walls, rowed their galleys, and fought their battles. Maraphos and his fellow Old Blood had slept poorly in the night, listening to kitchen slaves sharpening long knives while a revolt had spread beyond the Black Wall.

Many a family had been butchered in their homes by their slaves in the night, and Maraphos had spared no expense in safeguarding his own family with paid mercenaries from the slaves but it had been costly to their coffers and almost as worrying to trust their safety to mercenaries.

It had almost been a relief when the Targaryens had finally come.

Maraphos still remembered the day. Their grand armada had sailed into the harbor of Volantis, so large and numerous that it had filled the harbor up to the brim like Volantis’ own armadas had not done in many long years, depopulated from decades of bloodshed.

Above their armada, Balerion the Black Dread had roared, and all of Volantis had cowered before the largest living dragon in the world. Though overshadowed by their mighty sire, Caraxes, Quicksilver, and Telarion had been impressive in their own right, and for the first time in over a century, Volantis had played host to a cadre of dragonlords.

The terms… had been humiliating. Volantis’ ambitions were dead in the water. They had been forced to recognize that they had never been Valyria’s true heirs, that such lofty legacies were reserved only for the last dragonlords. Lys and Myr were lost forever, annexed by the Targaryens along with all their hinterlands. Slavery was abolished, and Volantis was itself ransacked by the forces of the Targaryen aramada, with the Old Blood forced to open their vaults and manses for the Targaryens’ army to march in and seize priceless treasures of gold, silver, gems, artifacts, heirlooms of Old Valyria, Valyrian steel, dragonbone, scrolls of lore, tomes of knowledge, grimoires of magic, and so much more.

The children of the Old Blood and other prominent Valyrian families were to serve as guests in the Targaryen court of Summerhall, hostages in all but name, and an annual tribute would be levied that they had no choice but to pay under pain of dragonfire.

Yet it could have been so much worse. If the Targaryens hadn’t intervened, perhaps the slave revolt might have succeeded and they would all be dead.

Begrudgingly, Maraphos would admit he held some respect for the Targaryens. They had proven themselves true dragonlords like the Valyrians of old. They had humbled and destroyed all their enemies with fire, blood, and magic.

Even though they had queer notions about the abolition of slavery, they had still valued Valyrian blood and shown it when they had crushed the slave revolt for their crimes against those with the blood of Old Valyria and shielded the Old Blood, confirming them to remain as rulers of Volantis with their lands intact even if their estates were lessened by abolition and the loss of many treasures.

Maraphos couldn’t help but wonder after the revolt if the Targaryens had the right of it, that slavery, as much as it had enriched them, was too dangerous to remain forever, and even now as the Targaryens continued their looting of his city and spreading their power along the rest of the Rhoyne, Maraphos and his fellow Triarchs worked to aid the Targaryens in shipping as many former slaves to Westeros as they could, well aware that the Targaryens were the only thing currently protecting them from the vengeful freedmen and wanting as little of them as possible to deal with once the Targaryens inevitably moved on.

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First Moon, 125 AD (24 AC)

The Sealord

The Targaryens had deceived them all, thought Syrio Antaryon, Sealord of Braavos.

For years he and his brethren had swallowed their pride and bent over for the Targaryens, giving them everything they could ever want to stay out of the wars in Essos, for they had known that if House Targaryen and Volantis ever joined forces, the dream of a world free of slavery and Valyrian tyranny would be forever lost.

While they had been distracted however, the Targaryens had swelled in power, conquering all of Westeros and subduing mages and relearning all of their lost magic. Their true intentions for Essos had become very apparent a few years earlier when they had destroyed the House of Black and White and apparently all the Faceless Men with it before they had conquered Dorne.

Syrio and many others had clamored for war against Westeros then, for such a blatant provocation could not go unanswered, but the former Sealord, his predecessor, had denied them. They were already embroiled in a long war with Volantis and the Volantenes had been unwilling to back down and ally against the Targaryens without concessions they hadn’t been willing to give.

And so, their pointless conflict had continued while the Targaryens had wrapped up their conquest of Dorne and turned their attentions to them at long last, as Syrio had known they would.

The three cities in the Heel had fallen first, and Pentos shortly after. Visenya the Witch-Queen had fallen upon Pentos with an entire armada and four dragons and forced an absolutely humiliating treaty upon Pentos, making them abolish slavery, give up hostages, wealth in riches, gold, silver, Valyrian steel, and more, knowledge, ancestral artifacts, and become a permanent tributary.

Syrio was dreading Visenya Targaryen’s arrival in Braavos, knowing it was only a matter of time, and fearing what terms the infamous dragon queen would have for the Bastard Daughter of Valyria.

When she finally arrived at the city, she and her fellow dragonriders destroyed the ancient Titan of Braavos as a show of force and Syrio could only weep at the desecration done to an ancient landmark, one of the wonders of the world.

The Targaryens gave Braavos only one option. Submit or die.

It broke his heart and tore at his soul, but Syrio’s knees bent. He knelt before Visenya Targaryen, surrendering wealth and hostages, submitting his city to a ransacking as the Targaryen armada looted it for their own gain. From now onwards, the Iron Bank and Braavos as a whole would be subject to Targaryen whims, a tributary forced to pay taxes simply for the right to exist, shackled by the dragonlords their ancestors had endured so much to escape.

Yet without any slavery to abolish, their economy would recover faster from the humiliation unlike most of the other Free Cities. Braavos would survive, its coffers a little lighter and its pride hurt, and perhaps one day it might even thrive in the new order House Targaryen had created.

It didn’t make the humiliation any easier for Syrio to stomach, however.

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Third-Ninth Moon, 125 AD (24 AC)

Aegon POV

It was a strange yet inspiring sight, Aegon thought. Definitely not something many of his ancestors could have ever imagined, and yet he had made it happen.

Before his eyes, Orphans of the Greenblood sang in ancient Rhoynish beside his children who drew out their Rhoynish blood and mingled it with their own in a ritual while they chanted spells in High Valyrian.

All around them, Aegon could feel it in the air, and sense it in the water. He could see as the fogs that had shrouded the Sorrows for centuries slowly receded for good. Garin’s Curse upon Chroyane which had weakened ever so slightly over the centuries was now being broken in full.

Greyscale as a disease would never be gone, but the cursed site of its origins had finally been cleansed after seven hundred years.

It shouldn’t have even been possible. The ancient Valyrians had tried and failed and their failure had forced them to give up on their plans to settle most of the Rhoyne basin, which Aegon assumed had been Garin’s whole idea.

There was a certain kind of power that came from the Orphans working alongside his family in this ritual. A symbolism that peace had been brought about between the heirs of Old Valyria and the Rhoynar, that their ancient feud had finally been laid to rest.

Aegon didn’t know if there really was a spirit or goddess of any kind in the Rhoyne River, if Mother Rhoyne truly existed, but if there was, it seemed that it was sated by their offering and declaration of peace at long last.

The Orphans of the Greenblood were thriving under his rule in Dorne like they never had under the Martells and though most of them had been too wary of Volantis and the other Valyrian colonies to return home to the Rhoyne, Aegon had secured a place for those few that had wished to return in the terms he had extracted from Volantis.

Valysar, Volon Therys, and Selhorys had all been as involved in the ancient wars against the Rhoynar as Volantis had been and he had extracted the same terms from them as he had from their overlord in addition to similarly abolishing slavery and ransacking them for their lore and wealth.

With the Sorrows cleansed, the way was finally open for ships and trade to safely travel along the Rhoyne River as they had in ancient times, and Aegon ordered his armada onwards through the cleared ruins of Chroyane that were fogless for the first time in over seven centuries.

The mighty River Rhoyne was vast enough for his armada of oceangoing ships to sail very far upstream. More than deep enough for the keels of his ships to sail without scraping the bottom and wide beyond belief. At some parts, they could sail in the middle of the river and be unable to see either bank, as if they were sailing on the sea, the river was that enormous.

Over the following moons, they sailed all the way up the river, fighting and clearing out pirates at Dagger Lake before they finally sacked and vassalized both Norvos and Qohor, putting an end to their horrid slavery practices, which had been extreme even by the standards of the Free Cities.

In Norvos cruel masters had forced slaves to fuck wolves for their own amusement while in Qohor they had been sacrificed in rituals to the Black Goat and for spells of smithing and craftsmanship. Aegon ended all those practices and abolished slavery in both cities.

The slave populaces were much lesser in both Norvos and Qohor compared to the other Free Cities (logical due to absolute cruelties) and so near the entirety of the freed slave populace were to be resettled in Westeros and could fit on their fleet.

Aegon also made sure to take every single piece of Valyrian lore, knowledge, and magic that both cities had, especially the smiths and scrolls of Qohor which could reforge Valyrian steel, shipping them all back to Westeros where they would serve him and the new guilds being created to put all the knowledge in Maegon’s vault to use.

As he and his family had done for all the other Free Cities, Norvos and Qohor were both made official tributaries and forced to recognize House Targaryen and its realm as their suzerain, paying tribute and giving up hostages to its court.

By the time Aegon finished with both Norvos and Qohor, Visenya and the others had long since forced Pentos, Braavos, and Lorath to all submit as well.

When he realized that, Aegon almost hadn’t been able to believe it. It had taken almost twenty-eight years, yet finally, at long last, his dream had been realized. The Conquest was complete. All of Westeros from Dorne to the Wall hailed him as King. The Stepstones, Tyrosh, Lys, and Myr had all been annexed and the remaining Free Cities had been humbled and vassalized, forced to pay tribute, give up hostages, and recognize them and only them as the true heirs of Valyria.

The swords of his defeated and broken enemies from both Westeros and Essos had been collected and accumulating to the brim in trophy rooms and vaults back in Summerhall. The time had finally come to make from them the symbol of his reign and proclaim his Empire at long last.

It was time to forge the Iron Throne.

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Author’s Note: Well, that’s a wrap on the Wars of Conquest! Finally! At long last! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Up next, the Forging of the Empire!

Note, the outline ideas for 34 and 35 were joined into this single Chapter 34 due to length and pacing so this will be the last update for the year. Happy New Year in advance! I’ll see y’all next year with the last three chapters before Divide and Conquer is complete and I hope to still see you all when I start the Star Wars fic!

Please let me know your thoughts, suggestions, and questions in the comments below or over on Discord!

Thanks to Jordan Redstark for the attached maps as usual!