The envoys from Meereen and Yunkai fled Astapor in disgrace.
But their threat lingered like storm clouds over the newborn free city.
The blockade began.
Just as Jorah Mormont feared, Slaver's Bay fell silent. Dead silent. In less than half a day.
No more merchant ships flying colorful flags sailed into port with grain, cloth, iron. The traders who'd lived off Astapor's commerce—faced with Meereenese and Yunkish blades—chose retreat.
The city's mood shifted in days. From liberation's euphoria to gnawing dread.
"My lord, the grain will last one month. Maybe." Jorah's voice was heavy in the hall. He spread a scroll covered in numbers before Lynn, weathered face lined with worry.
"Three hundred thousand mouths. Even rationing, the daily consumption is astronomical. The stores we seized from the Great Masters? A drop in the ocean."
"And rumors are spreading." Missandei added, young face shadowed with concern beyond her years. "People are saying the dragon lord traded one fire for another. That when the food runs out, they'll starve. Or be fed to the dragons."
"I suspect the other slave cities are planting these lies."
The poison whispers festered in dark corners, eating away at fragile hope.
Daenerys sat nearby, heart tight. She watched Lynn. He remained calm in the high seat, using a small knife to whittle... a green stick?
It looked ordinary. Like something a farm boy would snap off a tree.
"So they want to starve us into submission." Lynn finally spoke. Didn't even look up.
"Yes, my lord." Jorah nodded. "It's the most effective method. And the cruelest. In a siege, morale always breaks first."
Lynn tossed aside the green peel, revealing white, fibrous flesh beneath. He put a piece in his mouth. Chewed. Sweet juice exploded on his tongue.
"Dany, try this."
He handed her a peeled section.
Daenerys hesitated. Took it. Bit down carefully.
Her violet eyes lit up.
"It's sweet!"
Pure sweetness. Richer than honey wine. Fresher than summer fruit.
"What is it?"
"Sugarcane." Lynn stood. "I've checked. It's a common weed across Essos. The Great Masters fed it to livestock. Let their slaves chew it for entertainment. But they never knew: this little weed holds power to overturn the world."
Jorah and Daenerys exchanged confused looks.
"Come. I'll show you real magic."
Lynn led them to the city's outskirts, to a plantation that once belonged to a Great Master. Vast fields of sugarcane swayed in the hot wind like a green ocean.
Lynn had ordered the Unsullied to secure this place immediately after taking the city. This was why he'd dared defy Meereen and Yunkai.
He'd summoned every stonemason and carpenter in the city.
When Daenerys and Jorah arrived, the place had transformed. Following Lynn's hand-drawn blueprints, craftsmen had built a bizarre contraption at breakneck speed.
A crushing mill: two massive circular stone wheels, powered by a draft horse. The horse turned. The stones ground slowly.
Bundles of sugarcane fed between the wheels. CRUNCH. Pale green juice flowed through carved stone channels into huge clay vats.
The air filled with intoxicating sweetness.
"What... what is this?" Jorah stared at the juice, flecked with grass and dirt.
Lynn didn't answer.
He directed workers to carry the vats to a row of massive iron cauldrons. Fires roared beneath. The juice boiled, throwing white steam.
"Add that." Lynn pointed to a pile of white powder made from burned shells. Lime.
As the lime powder hit the liquid, something miraculous happened.
The cloudy juice cleared. Grass and impurities reacted with the lime, congealing into scum that floated to the surface. Workers skimmed it off with long-handled ladles.
The liquid transformed from pale green to thick amber syrup. The sweet smell nearly drowned the entire plantation.
"My lord, is this... some new kind of honey wine?" Jorah couldn't help asking.
"No. It'll be worth ten thousand times more than honey wine."
Lynn had them pour the boiling syrup into cone-shaped clay molds with holes at the bottom. As it cooled, the syrup crystallized.
Hours later, workers cracked open the molds. What emerged were rough, yellowish-brown solids.
Raw sugar.
Daenerys broke off a piece. Tasted it. Sweet, with a burnt note and some roughness.
"That's it?" Jorah sounded disappointed. Sweet, sure. But no more impressive than ordinary honey.
"Ser Jorah, patience. We've barely started."
Lynn smiled.
He had workers place the cone-shaped sugar blocks upside down on empty clay jars. Then he called for wet clay.
"Seal the clay on top of the sugar blocks."
Everyone stared.
Put mud on sweets?
What kind of insane—?
Even Daenerys looked baffled.
Lynn didn't explain. Just told them to wait.
Under their confused gazes, moisture from the clay began to seep down. Drop by drop. Water filtered through the sugar crystals' gaps, dissolving the yellowish-brown molasses coating them. Carrying it away.
Dark brown liquid dripped from the holes at the bottom into the jars below.
And the sugar block's color changed. Visibly. From the top down. From yellowish-brown to pale yellow to off-white...
The process was slow. Magical. Like a silent metamorphosis.
Everyone held their breath. Eyes locked on the fading sugar block. As if witnessing a miracle.
One day later.
When Lynn ordered the dried clay removed and the transformed sugar block lifted—
The entire plantation fell silent.
Jorah Mormont's eyes bulged. Mouth open wide enough to fit a fist.
Daenerys covered her mouth, violet eyes filled with disbelief.
Before them: a block white as snow, gleaming crystalline in the sunlight.
Lynn took the white sugar. Squeezed gently.
It shattered into countless diamond-dust crystals.
He pinched some. Held it to Daenerys's lips.
She touched her tongue to it.
BOOM.
Pure sweetness detonated in her mouth.
No impurities. No burnt bitterness. Only purity. Soul-shaking sweetness.
"Food... of the gods..." Jorah whispered.
He'd lived half a lifetime. Traveled all of Westeros and Essos. Never seen, never tasted anything like this.
He stared at Lynn in shock.
Was Lynn secretly a maester from the Citadel?
"This is its true form." Lynn tossed the white powder into the air. Crystalline sugar dust danced in the sunlight like falling snow.
"In Westeros, the great lords pay fortunes to buy a rare block sugar from Lys. They call it 'white gold.' A small piece costs a gold dragon. But that sugar? Low yield. And nowhere near this pure."
Lynn looked at their thunderstruck expressions. Satisfaction warmed him.
As a modern man, anything he brought out was a dimensional strike against this era.
This feeling? Incredible.
"Now tell me. What happens when something whiter than snow, sweeter than honey, appears at Westerosi court banquets?"
Jorah's mind roared.
He could see it. The Seven Kingdoms' nobles waving gold dragons, crushing each other to get a small bag of this white powder called "sugar." Spices? Silks? They'd pale before this ultimate taste temptation.
This was the sweetest thing he'd ever eaten.
"They'll go mad!" Jorah's voice trembled. "My lord, you've... you've created... a gold mine!"
Lynn's gaze turned west. Toward the continent beyond the Narrow Sea.
"Meereen and Yunkai can blockade Slaver's Bay. But can they blockade the entire world? They won't trade with us. But Westerosi lords will beg—crying—to trade ships full of grain and steel for our sugar."
Daenerys looked at Lynn's profile. Her violet eyes held something close to worship. Faced with a blockade that could kill a city, Lynn hadn't panicked. Instead, he'd casually produced a weapon to shatter every obstacle.
This transcended mortal wisdom.
"Send my orders!" Lynn's voice rang through the fervent plantation.
"Recruit from the loyal Unsullied. Expand sugarcane planting and white sugar production. I want Astapor's sugar piled into mountains."
"Also—" Lynn turned to Jorah, eyes glinting with cunning. "Send word to Pentos. Tell Magister Illyrio I have a deal that'll let him empty the Iron Bank. Tell him I want to charter every ship he has."
"Will he agree?" Jorah hesitated. "Illyrio's a merchant. He won't want to offend Meereen and Yunkai. His aid has been covert..."
"He will." Lynn cut him off. Pressed a small sample bag into his hand.
"No merchant can refuse three hundred percent profit. If he does, he's not a real merchant."
"Go, Jorah. Get those ships. Fast. We can't wait. And neither can Westeros's nobles."