"Guards!"
The Magistrate of Myr's shout echoed through the empty garden, striking the stained-glass dome and shattering into a weak resonance.
There were no footsteps, no clatter of armor, and no steady response from the Captain of the Guard he knew so well.
Only the endless gurgling of the fountain remained, making his voice sound increasingly lonely, comical, and chilling.
Upon the Governor's throne, Aegon finally raised his head.
Starlight and sparse candlelight fell upon his face, outlining a sharp and cold-hardened profile.
Those violet eyes now entered the Magistrate of Myr's vision with absolute clarity.
They were like two bottomless pools of freezing water—surface calm and waveless, yet in their depths, ice from antiquity seemed to have congealed, and dark flames appeared to burn silently.
"I am sitting here at my leisure..."
Aegon spoke. His voice was not loud, yet it was like cold iron pincers, choking off the Magistrate's second cry for help before it could be uttered.
"You should understand what this means."
His gaze swept over the quiet corners of the garden, as if admiring the precious flowers and plants, or perhaps confirming something.
"Those who could hear the movements on this top floor..."
Aegon tilted his ear slightly, as if listening, then added indifferently: "...no longer exist."
He raised a hand clad in a pitch-black gauntlet, his fingertips fluttering ever so slightly before the tip of his nose—a gesture that was elegant yet carried a hair-raising implication.
"Do you smell that? Hidden beneath the fragrance of the flowers... a hint of metallic sweetness."
Aegon looked at the Magistrate's suddenly constricted pupils, his tone as flat as if he were discussing the weather:
"That is the scent of blood. It is still very fresh."
"So, stop wasting your efforts, Lord Magistrate. Save your strength; we still need to talk."
The Magistrate of Myr was shaking all over.
He had smelled it, of course.
From the moment he pushed open the door and realized the garden was unnaturally silent, that faint, metallic scent of rust and blood had been like a cold snake, slithering into his nostrils and coiling around his heart.
He simply hadn't dared to think about it, unwilling to admit it.
Now, with the other party pointing it out in such a calm tone, the scent seemed to intensify tenfold instantly, flooding his senses and making his stomach churn.
He stared fixedly at the figure on the throne—an individual who was excessively young, yet radiated a pressure as heavy as a mountain.
He looked at that face, which in the dim light was as beautiful as a god's finest masterpiece yet as hard as carved stone, and at that hair which flowed with a faint silver glow even in the darkness.
A title that had kept him awake these past nights and appeared repeatedly in his nightmares trembled out of his throat:
"You... you are... that Targaryen... Dragonlord?"
His voice was hoarse and distorted, filled with unbelievable horror:
"How could you... be here? How is it possible for you to be here?! What do you want?!"
Aegon did not answer his first question.
"I came here," he said, his violet eyes calmly watching the Magistrate, every word crystal clear, "to accept your surrender."
"What?"
The Magistrate of Myr looked as if he had heard the most absurd joke. The muscles in his face twitched violently; he wanted to laugh, but only managed a wheezing gasp.
"Surrender?"
He repeated the word, his voice rising and twisting due to the extreme sense of absurdity and fear.
"Are you mad?! This is my Governors Mansion! My city! Outside, there are catapults loaded with Wildfire aimed right at your Fleet!"
"There are three hundred and seventy-four Heavy Scorpions! Tens of thousands of defenders! You sit here alone and expect me to surrender?! You—"
"Your family—they are all within this tower."
Aegon's voice interrupted his agitated, incoherent low roar. It inserted itself calmly, yet like a cold dagger pressed against the Magistrate of Myr's throat.
"Right beneath your feet."
His gaze seemed capable of penetrating the ornate floor tiles and layers of floorboards to see the lives protected behind the stone walls.
"Do you wish to see them, along with this symbol your family has managed for four generations..."
Aegon tilted his head slightly, his tone as casual as if discussing a dinner menu, yet the content made the Magistrate of Myr's blood freeze instantly.
"...melt first in true Thunder, just like this stained glass, and then turn into a cloud of blue smoke that leaves nothing behind?"
"You... you are..."
The Magistrate of Myr's voice was so weak he couldn't even convince himself.
He wanted to shout, to denounce this as a shameless threat, but the word "Thunder" was like a poisoned thorn, instantly dragging out the deepest fear in his heart.
The terrifying rumors of Tyrosh's Black Wall vaporizing and disappearing in golden Thunder.
No... that's impossible! That must be... "This is Myr! This is the very center of the city!"
He rasped, using all his strength to try and dispel the chill that had seeped into his marrow, but his voice shook uncontrollably. "Your dragon is out at sea! With your Fleet! How could it possibly appear here silently! How could it—"
He refused to believe.
He had to refuse to believe.
If it were true... if those rumors were true... then all of Myr's walls, scorpions, and preparations... everything... Aegon did not speak.
He simply relaxed his body completely, leaning back into the ivory throne's backrest, his posture even appearing somewhat languid.
Then, he raised his right hand. First, he pointed upward toward the exquisite stained-glass dome above the Magistrate of Myr's head, which depicted the stars, moon, and flowers.
Next, his finger moved slowly, pointing steadily behind himself toward that massive arched window facing the Port and the city walls.
This simple movement, this pointing, caused a terrifying realization to suddenly become clear in the Magistrate of Myr's mind, like a bolt of lightning splitting through the chaos of his fear.
Stiffly, inch by inch, he raised his neck and looked up at the dome above him.
At first, he saw nothing but the sparse, dim starlight filtering through the colored glass.
But soon, he noticed something wrong.
Above the dome, where the night sky should have been reflected, it was covered by a deeper, more solid... shadow.
Pale gold, incredibly massive... it was perched upon the dome of the Governors Mansion tower.
So close.
Yet it was as light as a feather, as if hovering in the air, not fully pressing down its own terrifying weight.
Otherwise, given the mass suggested by that silhouette, this exquisite glass dome—and even the entire sturdy tower—would likely have been crushed to powder long ago.
The Magistrate of Myr's breathing stopped completely.
Blood rushed to his head, then froze in an instant.
He felt like a weathering stone statue, going numb and rigid starting from his fingertips.
No... impossible... a voice in his heart screamed in denial, but his body, out of control, followed Aegon's second gesture from moments ago.
With a slowness and difficulty that nearly snapped his vertebrae, he stiffly turned his neck to look at the arched window behind him.
His gaze, passing through the colored glass depicting ocean waves, cast out into the deep night outside.
At first, he saw nothing.
Only the distant wall torches, like tiny glowing insects, and the further deep darkness of the sea that swallowed everything.
Then, he noticed it.
The darkness outside the window was wrong.
It was thicker and heavier than elsewhere, and... it was moving.
Moving, contracting, and condensing with extreme slowness.
It was as if something so massive it exceeded the limits of imagination was silently, inch by inch, pressing against this window, against this fragile glass, against... him.
His pupils dilated to their limit, and his eyeballs bulged slightly from extreme horror, bloodshot veins spreading across them.
Behind the pattern of deep blue waves on the stained-glass window—the symbol of Myr's pride... was an eye.
A massive, cold vertical pupil, like molten gold.
It filled the entire arched window, which was nearly ten feet high and several feet wide.
The wave patterns on the glass became insignificant decorative motifs before it.
In the depths of the pupil, it was not merely the golden color of an inanimate object.
There, it seemed as if molten, viscous, liquid fire was slowly swirling and flowing, emitting an ancient, primal luster that made the soul tremble.
It reflected the sparse starlight in the garden and the candles about to burn out; even more clearly and massively, it reflected his own face standing inside the window—tiny as a speck of dust, twisted to the extreme with terror.
That eye did not blink once.
There was no predatory cruelty of a beast, no fluctuation of emotion.
There was only a kind of absolute indifference that transcended mortal comprehension, god-like and looking down upon ants and dust, along with a supreme, marrow-freezing pressure brought about by pure 'existence' itself.
It was watching.
Watching the inside.
Watching Miloto.
Assessing his insignificance, scrutinizing his fear, and waiting for a result.
Time seemed to freeze completely at this moment.
The Magistrate of Myr felt his heart stop beating, his blood stop flowing, and his mind go blank.
Extreme fear, like the coldest tide, submerged and froze him from head to toe.
A surge of heat gushed uncontrollably toward his lower body, and a dark, shameful wet stain quickly spread across the hem of his expensive silk robe.
His mouth hung wide open, his throat muscles spasmed, but he couldn't make a sound, only a 'hissing' air leak like a broken bellows.
"Now..."
Aegon's voice came from behind, calm as ever, without even a hint of fluctuation due to the terrifying sight outside the window, yet it was like the hammer of final judgment, shattering all of the Magistrate of Myr's remaining luck and doubt.
"Do you still think I am bluffing, Lord Magistrate?"
Outside the window, that molten gold vertical pupil, which occupied the entire frame, shifted ever so slightly.
The focus of the pupil seemed to move from the completely broken Magistrate of Myr to Aegon on the throne behind him, and after a moment, it moved back.
It was like a silent communication and confirmation beyond language.
Then, that suffocatingly large vertical pupil began to retreat slowly and silently.
The abyss-like heavy shadow covering the entire window gradually faded and shrank, finally merging completely into the deep night outside and disappearing.
It was as if the soul-shattering scene just now was merely an all-too-realistic collective hallucination.
But the invisible pressure remaining in the air, the wet heat and stickiness between his legs, the heart about to burst in his chest, and the faint, large pale gold shadow slowly cruising in the night sky outside were all screaming the truth.
It was real.
The dragon was here.
Outside the window, overhead, circling in the sky above the heart of this city.
And its master was sitting on his, the Magistrate of Myr's... throne.
The Magistrate of Myr collapsed completely, sliding to the floor like a pile of mud.
His expensive silk robe was stained with dust and urine, but he was oblivious, only panting heavily, each breath carrying the tearing pain of his lungs and the metallic taste of blood deep in his throat.
"The reason I appeared here,"
Aegon's voice rang out again, no longer needing threats, just stating a simple fact: "is because I do not wish to take over a ruin completely destroyed by war and panic."
"I need those workshops intact, I need the minds and hands of those craftsmen to continue working, and I need the shipyards to continue producing vessels."
"Otherwise, Myr would have already been plunged into a sea of fire, turned into scorched earth and rubble."
"Now,"
"My ancestor, Visenya Targaryen, once flew her dragon to a king's castle, ending a war that could have bled for a thousand days with a single conversation before sunset."
"I hope that today, in this place, it can be the same."
"Swear fealty to me. In your capacity as the Magistrate of Myr, sign the announcement of surrender, hand over the city defenses, and make a public oath."
"You yourself may retain the titular position of Magistrate; your family's lives and most of your wealth will be preserved."
"You may still participate in some civil administration to maintain the surface stability of Myr, but military power, financial power, diplomacy, and all core powers shall belong to me."
Myr slumped on the ground, his lips twitching like a fish out of water. After a long time, he made a hoarse, broken sound: "Wh... what if I... refuse?"
Aegon looked at him silently for a few seconds.
Then, in an almost coldly objective tone, he described:
"If you refuse, the defenders on the walls will still fight loyally until the walls are pierced by Thunder."
"The workshops and shipyards you are most proud of will be burned and collapsed in chaos and flames."
"Your family, and the families of all core members of the pro-war faction, will be turned to ash in the final purge, amidst desperate resistance or chaotic flight."
"And then..."
Aegon's voice had no ripple, as if he were narrating a history that had nothing to do with him: "I will still walk into Myr."
"Stepping over ruins and corpses, amidst the mess and the bone-deep hatred of survivors, I will spend ten times, a hundred times the effort and a long time to begin reconstruction."
He leaned forward slightly, his purple eyes like cold ice, reflecting the Magistrate's ashen face:
"What do you think?" He asked one last time, his voice devoid of any urging or coercion, simply placing two starkly different futures before the other man.
"Which choice is better for Myr, this City of Craftsmen; for your family name, which has been passed down for four generations; for the people and things in your memory that should be protected, not destroyed?"
"Which ending is more worthy of being written, rather than being forgotten in the ashes of history?"
The Magistrate of Myr collapsed completely, his forehead resting weakly on the cold, dirty floor tiles, letting out a long, hoarse whimper mixed with despair, unwillingness, fear, and finally, a sense of relief.
It was over.
All the struggle, all the luck, all the pride.
In the face of that indifferent dragon eye outside the window and the pair of calm purple eyes before him, it was all shattered clean.
"A pen..." he said hoarsely, his voice hollow, as if coming from far away, "Give me... a pen and paper."
Aegon said no more. From beneath an inconspicuous small gilded table beside the throne, he took out a roll of the finest quality Myr paper, a silver bottle containing pitch-black ink, and a quill with exquisitely trimmed feathers.
Clearly, he had never considered that the other party would choose the other path.
Myr trembled, using all his strength to prop up his body and crawl to the small table.
His hand, shaking like a leaf in the wind, barely gripped the pen. Under Aegon's clear, slow, and unquestionable dictation, he wrote the announcement of surrender word by word, as if carving his own epitaph.
With every word he wrote, it felt like he was peeling away a part of the soul known as the Magistrate of Myr, peeling away the heavy responsibility and illusory pride that had lasted for four generations.
Signature.
With fingers that wouldn't stop shaking and were covered in cold sweat, he took out the seal of the Magistrate from a hidden pocket against his chest—a seal that had been passed down for four generations and symbolized the highest power in Myr—and pressed it heavily onto the bright red sealing wax, as if using the last of his life's strength.
*Snap.*
A light sound.
But it was like stamping the mark of termination on an era.
The moment it was finished, he lost all strength, collapsing onto the cold floor like a skin with all its bones removed, leaving only hollow, wide-open eyes and weak, intermittent gasps.
Aegon picked up the announcement of surrender and scanned it quickly. His gaze lingered slightly on the seal, then he nodded, rolled it up, and held it in his hand.
He stood up, his black armor shimmering with a matte dark glow in the dim light of the room, his dark red cloak falling down.
He did not look again at the slumped 'former Magistrate of Myr' on the floor, but turned toward the closed oak door of the garden, as if he could see the world outside through the door panels.
"Now..." he spoke, giving orders calmly.
"Go invite them."
"Invite those lords who are still loyally holding the front line of the city defenses, invite those councilor lords who are the most firm and brave in their pro-war stance, to the Governors Mansion."
He paused slightly, turned his head, and his gaze finally fell once more on the gasping Miloto on the floor. That gaze was calm and rippleless, yet it made Miloto feel a burst of icy chill.
"Remember," Aegon's voice was clear and unmistakable, "invite every single one of them, without exception."
"I will be right here, waiting for them."
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