Chapter 205: Nobody Knows Dragons Like I Do
"What do you mean, Your Grace?"
"All of this." Daenerys glanced down at Pride's Plaza below them.
"The Earl of Grafton told me about it in considerable detail — he sailed these waters years ago." That was Ian's standard cover story; anything he knew about distant places he attributed to Daren. "It's why I came here specifically to find an army."
"He told you about the Good Masters as well?" Daenerys said the words Good Masters like she was spitting something out. "What they do to the slaves?"
Daenerys had spent years in exile with Viserys and was no stranger to slavery — but almost everything she'd witnessed had been household servants. She'd seen people mistreated. She had never heard anything like what Fehmar had just described.
"No. He only told me the Unsullied were the finest soldiers in the world. I just confirmed that for myself."
"And you still intend to buy them? Knowing everything you know now?"
"Yes." Ian held her gaze, his tone measured but direct. "Because there's no real alternative. Or rather — does Your Grace have a different plan?"
They're not even men anymore, Daenerys thought, the words burning in her chest. They're eunuchs made of stone. No different from the rest of this city — killing infants, strangling puppies, all for a spiked helmet.
But she didn't say it out loud. Not here. Not in front of Kraznys and his people.
The frustration that followed was harder to contain. I'm his queen. I should be the one making this call. She didn't know exactly who she was angry at — Ian, who had gone somewhere cold and unfamiliar in the last few minutes, or herself, for not being able to say the words she knew she should be saying. Or maybe it was just Astapor itself, pressing in on all sides with its dead heat and the smell of sweat baked into crumbling brick.
Ian read her silence correctly. Two months of careful, deliberate work — positioning himself as her teacher, her most trusted advisor — had built something solid. She wouldn't openly defy him. Not yet, not here.
Time to ease off.
"I'll make the purchase, Your Grace." His tone shifted back to something warmer, more familiar. "I'll explain my reasoning once we're back on the ship. For now, I only need you to trust me — the same as always."
Daenerys held out for a moment longer, then gave a small nod.
"Then I'll need your help with something," Ian murmured close to her ear.
They turned and walked back to where Kraznys and the others were waiting.
"Ask her already," Kraznys said sharply to Missandei, impatient. "Ask the barbarian queen what she decided."
"Lord Kraznys wishes to know if you've reached a decision regarding the Unsullied," Missandei relayed smoothly.
"I don't like how they're trained," Daenerys said. "And I don't much like what they've become."
Missandei turned to Kraznys. "The queen says she disapproves of the training methods and has reservations about the soldiers — but she hasn't refused outright. She may be angling toward a lower price."
"But Lord Dragoncaller persuaded me." Daenerys shifted course cleanly. "He's my senior military commander, and he understands warfare far better than I do. I trust his judgment. Our decision is to buy."
"She changed her mind," Missandei told Kraznys quickly. "She says she'll purchase. Her Hand convinced her."
"Did she try to negotiate the price?"
"No. She said she deferred to Lord Dragoncaller's recommendation."
Kraznys squinted and looked around the group. "Dragoncaller. Which one is that?"
"The lord who serves the queen. The herald announced the title at the beginning."
Kraznys looked Ian up and down slowly. "What does that even mean — Dragoncaller?"
"I only know what they told me, Master. I translated it directly."
"Of course you don't know, you useless girl!" Kraznys snapped, flicking his whip across Missandei's shoulder. "I told you to ask them!"
"Yes, Master." Missandei composed herself immediately and turned to Ian. "My master is curious about your title, my lord. He wishes to know its origin."
The truth was that Ian had given himself the title specifically because he didn't want Daenerys believing the dragons' existence was entirely her own achievement. But he'd had Daenerys bring it up deliberately just now — he wanted Kraznys's attention on it.
"I came here to buy Unsullied," Ian said, letting a note of impatience into his voice. "Not to sell dragons. And even if I were, you couldn't afford them. I'd rather not waste time on things that aren't relevant to today's business."
As Ian finished speaking, Ion launched himself off the platform railing where he'd been perched, circled once, and landed squarely on Ian's shoulder.
"What did he say?" Kraznys asked immediately, his eyes fixed on the dragon.
"The Andal says he only wants to complete the Unsullied purchase and move on. He also said we couldn't afford his dragon."
"Couldn't afford it?" Kraznys's expression shifted. "He's saying it's for sale?"
"Why wouldn't it be, if someone met the price?" Ian looked at Kraznys with the patient expression of a man explaining something obvious to someone slow. Kraznys didn't follow the words, but he caught the tone well enough.
"Lord Kraznys asks — are the dragons truly for sale?"
"There's no reason they couldn't be, at the right price." Ian shrugged. "A dragon takes decades to reach full size. Right now I need an army capable of taking Westeros by force. If someone could give me that, I'd consider parting with not just the dragons themselves but the knowledge of how to bond with them — everything needed to become a true dragonlord in your own right."
Missandei translated. Then: "Lord Kraznys says that bonding with dragons requires Valyrian blood. Beyond that, only the Dragon Horn is said to work. These are not secrets. He asks if you've somehow obtained that artifact."
"I'm not talking about the Dragon Horn," Ian said flatly. "I don't need it. I have my own method."
Missandei translated. Kraznys's face reddened.
"Ridiculous! Does he think I'm an uneducated fool?"
"He says you're one of the wisest men in Slaver's Bay," Missandei translated carefully, "but that you're not applying that wisdom right now."
"Ask him what he means by that."
"My master asks you to explain yourself."
"Isn't it obvious?" Ian raised his hand gently — and Ion stepped off his shoulder, glided down, and settled at Ian's feet with his head lowered. "Tell your master to look carefully. Do I appear to have Valyrian blood? Am I holding a horn of any kind? Neither. And yet the dragon defers to me."
Kraznys stared.
"Sometimes the world is stranger than the old stories make it sound," Ian continued. "Dragons have been gone for nearly two centuries. I am the first person in two hundred years to actually have one. Not study them. Not theorize about them. Have one. The maesters of Westeros have their scrolls.
The warlocks of Qarth have their rituals. The shadowbinders of Asshai have their mysteries. Not one of them has laid eyes on a living dragon in living memory. I have. I work with one every day. Whatever they claim to know, I have something none of them have — actual experience. And that counts for more than all their theories put together."
Kraznys had no immediate answer for that.
(End of Chapter)
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