Chapter 31: The Pentoshi Dividend: New Eggs, Old Blood, and a Calculated Claim
The "integration" of Pentos into the BCR global network proceeded with the swift, unyielding efficiency King Robar Baratheon demanded. Stannis, now Governor-General of BCR's Essos Protectorate (a title Robar had bestowed with a grim irony Stannis likely missed), transformed the Free City into a model of Baratheon-Lannister-BCR corporate order. Magister Illyrio Mopatis, his earlier pomposity replaced by a sycophantic eagerness to please his new overlords, proved a surprisingly useful, if utterly amoral, asset. In a desperate bid to secure his own vast fortune and a favorable position within BCR's new Pentoshi administration, Illyrio revealed a secret he had guarded for years.
"Your Grace… King Robar," Illyrio had stammered, during a private "asset valuation" meeting in his opulent manse, now swarming with BCR auditors. "There is… another matter. A unique portfolio of assets I have held in trust, awaiting a… visionary investor such as yourself. Assets that might further enhance your… already unparalleled market position."
Robar's cold blue eyes narrowed. "Speak plainly, Magister. BCR has no patience for convoluted sales pitches."
"Dragon eggs, Your Grace," Illyrio whispered, his voice hoarse. "Three more. Acquired years ago from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, at immense cost and risk. I had hoped… well, my hopes are irrelevant now. They are yours, Great King, a humble token of my undying loyalty and my belief in your magnificent enterprise."
Robar's Haki subtly probed the Magister, tasting the fear, the greed, and the undeniable truth of his claim. Three more dragon eggs. The universe, it seemed, was determined to reward his ruthless pragmatism with dividends beyond even his most ambitious projections.
"Show them to me," Robar commanded.
The eggs were magnificent, larger even than the clutch from Dragonstone, their surfaces like polished gemstones: one of rippling sapphire blue veined with silver, another like molten gold infused with veins of obsidian, and a third the color of bleached bone, eerily smooth. Robar felt that same familiar thrumming resonance, the call of ancient power, amplified by the presence of his own now highly potent, dragon-attuned bloodline.
"Their acquisition is… noted favorably in your BCR loyalty ledger, Magister Illyrio," Robar said, his mind already racing. Six dragons. The implications were staggering. Absolute global military and economic dominance was no longer a strategic goal; it was an impending certainty. "You will also provide BCR's research division, under Grand Conservator Vaellyn, with all documentation and provenance related to these assets."
Illyrio, sweating with relief, readily agreed.
The decision for a second hatching was immediate. Robar saw no reason to delay the acquisition of three more unparalleled weapons systems. Maester Vaellyn, when informed, looked as if he might suffer an apoplexy, but quickly composed himself under Robar's icy gaze. His "Project Skyfire" (formerly Project Incubate) was about to receive a significant expansion.
While Vaellyn began preparations for another ritual, drawing on his refined notes from the first hatching, Robar turned his attention to another "asset" whose status required… recalibration: Daenerys Targaryen.
With the prospect of six dragons under his command, Daenerys's Valyrian blood, her Targaryen name, and her potential (however faint) as a rallying point for any lingering loyalists became a more pressing variable in Robar's risk management calculations. She was growing older, no longer a child, her violet eyes sometimes holding a spark of the fire that was her House's sigil. Left unmanaged, she could become a liability.
His internal monologue was cold, clinical. Asset: Daenerys Targaryen. Current Status: Ward of the Crown. Potential Risk Factors: Marriage to foreign power, rallying symbol for dissent, independent claim to draconic lineage. Mitigation Strategy: Direct personal control, integration into primary Baratheon bloodline nexus, elimination of independent agency.
The "solution" was as ruthless as it was pragmatic from his psychopathic perspective. He would bind her to him directly, irrevocably. Not through marriage – Queen Cersei already fulfilled that contractual obligation, and her Lannister alliance was too valuable to complicate with a polygamous arrangement that would create dynastic chaos. No, Daenerys would become his mistress. It was the most "efficient" method to neutralize her as an independent political entity, ensure any children she might bear (further diversifying his Valyrian bloodline portfolio) were unequivocally his, and explore whether a more… intimate bond might enhance his control over the draconic assets, both existing and new. The "troubles" she might cause by existing as a free Targaryen princess were simply too high a risk for BCR's long-term stability.
The act itself, when it occurred, was devoid of any passion or sentiment on Robar's part. He summoned Daenerys to his private chambers in Maegor's Holdfast. She arrived, pale and trembling, flanked by two of Cersei's stern-faced ladies-in-waiting, who discreetly withdrew. Robar regarded her as he might a particularly valuable but untamed filly he was about to break.
"Daenerys," he said, his voice flat, "your status within my household is about to be… redefined. For the security of the realm, and your own continued well-being, a closer association is required."
He offered no further explanation, no pretense of affection. This was not seduction; it was an assertion of ownership, a calculated step in his grand strategy. Daenerys, her eyes wide with terror and a dawning, horrified understanding, could only submit. The encounter was brief, clinical, a mere transaction in Robar's view. He had "mitigated a risk" and "maximized asset utility." For Daenerys, it was the final, brutal extinguishing of any hope for freedom or agency, a descent into a new, more personal hell under the Dragon King's shadow. The narrative focused on her silent tears and Robar's utterly detached internal monologue cataloging her reactions for future behavioral management.
With Daenerys "secured," Robar turned his full attention to the second hatching. He chose Dragonstone once more for the ritual, its volcanic energies and isolation ideal. Maester Vaellyn, armed with more refined theories, oversaw the construction of an even larger pyre within the Stone Drum. For sacrifices, Robar selected a group of recently captured Essosi pirates who had foolishly attempted to raid a BCR-flagged merchant convoy near the Stepstones (now also under BCR "pacification"). Their "negative contribution to free trade" would be rectified by their contribution to his draconic arsenal. Illyrio Mopatis was also "invited" to attend, a pointed reminder of his new station and the source of Robar's power.
The ritual mirrored the first, yet was amplified in its intensity. Robar, his Haki now a palpable force, his blood singing with activated Valyrian power, fed the new eggs. The pirates' screams, as they met their fiery end, were drowned out by the roar of the flames and the unnatural thrumming of the ancient stones.
And then, they hatched.
The sapphire egg cracked to reveal a magnificent beast of deepest blue, its scales like overlapping shields, its eyes the color of winter ice. Robar named it Glacies.
The molten gold egg yielded a dragon of burnished gold, its horns like polished obsidian, its eyes burning with the light of a forge. Ignis, Robar decided.
The bone-white egg, last to hatch, produced a dragon that was almost spectral, its scales the color of old ivory, its eyes a pale, ghostly silver. A shiver, something even Robar almost recognized as unease, passed through him as he looked at it. This one felt… different. He named it Letum, for death.
Six dragons. Six living engines of destruction, all bound to his will, their power echoing his own. Mammon, Viridian, Aurum, and now Glacies, Ignis, and Letum. Their combined roars shook Dragonstone to its core.
Maester Vaellyn, near collapse from the strain and sheer terror, began babbling about Valyrian prophecies, about the return of the Dragonlords on a scale unseen even in the Freehold's heyday. Robar silenced him with a look. Prophecies were for fools and poets. This was about strategic dominance and market share.
News of more dragons under Robar's command, when he allowed it to be subtly "leaked" by BCR's propaganda division, sent fresh waves of terror and awe across Westeros and Essos. The Magisters of Myr, Tyrosh, and Lys, who had been attempting to negotiate more favorable "partnership" terms, immediately dispatched envoys to King's Landing offering unconditional surrender and preemptive "integration fees." Volantis, which had been posturing with its ancient Valyrian legacy, fell silent, its merchant princes suddenly very interested in BCR's "fair trade" shipping licenses. Even Braavos, the Titan of the North, while still defiant, began to reinforce its naval defenses with a new urgency.
In Westeros, the impact was equally profound. Queen Cersei, her pregnancy now nearing its term, felt a fresh wave of fear and ambition. Six dragons. Her son would inherit an empire defended by a legion of fire-made-flesh. She redoubled her efforts to ensure her position, her every action calculated to please her terrifying Dragon King husband.
Daenerys Targaryen, now Robar's unwilling mistress, confined within the Red Keep, heard the distant, amplified roars. Each one was a nail in the coffin of her hopes. Yet, sometimes, when she was alone, she would feel a strange answering thrum in her own blood, a whisper of a connection to the beasts her family had once commanded, a connection that now seemed perverted and enslaved by the man who had taken everything from her.
Lord Eddard Stark and Lord Jon Arryn, already deeply troubled by Robar's tyranny, received the news of six dragons with a despair that bordered on hopelessness. What hope was there for honor, for justice, for the ancient rights of men, in a world ruled by a king who commanded such apocalyptic power? Their secret correspondence grew more frequent, more desperate, though they knew Robar's spies were everywhere. The seeds of a desperate, perhaps suicidal, resistance were being sown in the barren ground of their honor.
Robar, however, was already looking beyond. Six dragons. It was a good start. "Project Skyfire" would need a new, expanded headquarters, perhaps a series of volcanic island chains BCR could "acquire" and develop. Dragonstone was becoming too small. He summoned his Small Council.
"Lord Hand," he addressed Tywin Lannister, "begin drafting proposals for the full economic and political integration of the Free Cities of Myr, Tyrosh, and Lys into the BCR Essos Protectorate. Stannis will provide military oversight for the transition. Maester Vaellyn," he turned to the trembling Grand Conservator, "accelerate your research into draconic logistics – long-range flight capabilities, sustained operational endurance, and coordinated squadron tactics. BCR is about to launch a major global market expansion. Our new… air fleet… will be instrumental."
The Dragon King smiled, his eyes reflecting the fiery glow of his ambition. The world was his ledger, and he was just beginning to tally the profits.
Word Count: Approx. 3200 words