"Then let it be done," Lysandro said, the final embers of his conscience flickering out.
Drazhar was right. In the game of magisters and kings, mercy was a luxury the wealthy could ill afford. At a precipice, there was no room for womanly kindness—only the cold iron of survival. With sharp nods, his brother and son departed to set the gears of their exodus in motion.
Left alone in the hollow silence of his study, Lysandro collapsed into his heavy leather chair. His eyes drifted to the ceiling, but he saw only the sky—a sky choked by the rhythmic beat of leathern wings and the terrifying radiance of dragon-gold and cobalt-blue.
"Father?"
A small, pale face peeked through the heavy oak doors. Johanna, his youngest, trotted into the room and climbed into his lap. Lysandro sighed, his fingers tracing the silk of her silver-gold hair.
The blood of Old Valyria ran as pure in their veins as it did in the Targaryens'. They shared the same glimmering tresses, the same eyes that shifted between lilac and deep violet. Deep beneath the manse, in a crypt where the air tasted of ancient dust, rested a dragon's skull—a relic of a legacy lost to time. Lysandro had always nurtured the secret belief that the Rogares were more than mere bankers; that they were the scions of dragon-lords who had traded their fires for coins.
"Alas," he whispered into the girl's hair.
If they had but one dragon, they would not be scurrying into the shadows like rats beneath a kitchen maid's broom. But reality was a cruel master, and a bank vault, no matter how deep, could not hatch an egg.
Lysandro had seen the world. He had watched the Triarchy's fleets broken against the shores of the Bloodstone by dragonfire. He knew that to stay in Lys and gamble against the Targaryens was to invite ruin. Better to vanish into the shifting sands of the Disputed Lands, to hide their gold and wait for the dragons to grow bored or dead.
Moreover, the math of the attack was clear: four dragons had appeared, yet only the smallest had spat fire. It was a warning—a flick of a cat's claw to see if the mouse would squeal. He had to act before the cat decided it was hungry.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Enter," Lysandro commanded, setting Johanna aside.
A maid bowed low. "My lord, Governor Mills and Governor Banbaro have sent their envoys. They request your presence at the High Council immediately."
Lysandro's violet eyes sharpened. "Tell Governor Mills I shall attend. Tell him I merely required a moment to compose my thoughts."
As the maid scurried away, Lysandro smoothed the silk of his doublet. He felt a sudden, cold spark of ambition. The coming war for the Stepstones—the Third, by the maesters' count—was not just a threat. It was an opening.
Banbaro Bazaan had been a thorn in the Rogares' side since the day he took the Governor's seal. The man was a glutton for power and a beast in his dealings. The Rogares were rich enough to buy a kingdom and held Mills in their pocket, but "not fearing" Banbaro was not the same as being rid of him.
A stray dog and a dragon, Lysandro thought, a slow smile spreading across his face. Perhaps I can use one to slay the other, and feast on the carcass of both.
When Lysandro arrived at the Governor's Hall, he was the last to take his seat at the obsidian table. Despite the tension that hung in the air like a storm front, he wore a mask of easy grace.
"Mister Rogare," Banbaro Bazaan boomed, his voice dripping with mock warmth. "Even with the dragon's fire singeing your eyebrows, you still find time to smile. Such nerves are... commendable."
Beside the Governor sat a woman whose breath came in shallow, practiced gasps—Johanna, the mistress of Governor Uller.
"And where is Uller?" Lysandro asked, ignoring the bait. "Not 'indisposed' again, I hope?"
Johanna cast a flirtatious, heavy-lidded glance his way. "The winds have been harsh on his chest, my lord. He coughs like a dying gale. He sent me to speak with his voice."
Lysandro's expression curdled into one of pure disdain. He turned his back on the woman and sat beside Mills, who offered a weary smile to keep the peace.
"We are gathered to decide our response," Mills began, leaning over a map of the Narrow Sea. "Four dragons appeared over our walls. Only the cobalt whelp struck the North Gate. It was a display of power, nothing more. A threat meant to cow us into submission."
Johanna leaned forward, her serious tone clashing with her disheveled appearance. "I have word from the whispers across the water. The man the Iron Throne has named Duke of the Stepstones is Aegon Targaryen—the firstborn of King Viserys."
She paused, a smirk playing on her lips. "But he is no prince. Sources say he was cast out, defeated in some petty court intrigue at King's Landing. His father has sent him to these rocks to rot, far from the succession."
Banbaro let out a bark of laughter that echoed off the vaulted ceiling.
"A stray dog!" the Governor mocked, slamming a fist onto the table. "An exile driven from his own father's hearth. I thought we were facing a conqueror, and it turns out to be a pup with a few borrowed beasts. He is not even the shadow of Daemon Targaryen."
Lysandro narrowed his eyes, watching Banbaro's bravado. He kept his silence, but a cold chill settled in his marrow.
A stray dog? he mused.
If a mere exile could command four dragons, then House Targaryen was not a family—it was a force of nature. Aegon the Conqueror had taken an entire continent with only three. To underestimate a man who brought four to a border dispute was not just arrogance. It was a death sentence. And Lysandro Rogare did not intend to be buried in the same grave as Banbaro Bazaan.