"Gentlemen," Rhaenys said, snapping them out of their daze as their gazes returned to her.
The magisters tore their attention from the dragons to the lady on the horse. A smirk, of confidence, of a hint of arrogance, was plastered on her face. Her silver hair flowed with the breeze.
Moments earlier, her silver hair had appeared nothing extraordinary. People of Valyrian descent having silver hair were all too common in Essos. But not with five dragons sitting behind her. With them, that silver hair was anything but common.
"L.. Lady Tar… Targaryen," one of them stammered out of pure fright.
"Ah!" she chuckled. "Now you believe that I am a Targaryen. I never thought that people's thoughts could be swayed so easily."
With five dragons at her back, even if she claimed to be Rhaenys or Visenya, the sister-wives of Aegon the Conqueror himself, they would still agree. If she called herself something else entirely, they would agree to that too. Whether they believed her or not no longer mattered. In front of overwhelming power, belief simply bent.
They all remained quiet.
"Now," she continued, unfazed by their silence, "I think I have already stated my purpose. I am here to take over this city, to conquer Qohor."
"I was also honest when I said that I do not want to begin my rule on ruins, death, and destruction. I do not want to be forced to burn you all to capture this city. I want a peaceful settlement."
"Thus," she said, her gaze sweeping over the pale faced magisters, "I urge you all to surrender."
The magisters remained silent. They did not know what to say. They had known this was coming, and they were truly frightened by the presence of her dragons. But to give up their city? The same city they had ruled for years? Could they really bend the knee? Or was fighting, and dying better? Was resistance to the inevitable better? It was an impossibly hard decision to make, at least for few.
Rhaenys smiled once again.
"I know it is a hard decision to make," she said. "I will give you some time. You have this entire day and the entire night."
"Tomorrow morning, with the first light, you will either surrender," she said, her voice echoing in the empty surrounding, "or I will burn you all."
With these parting words, she did not wait for any reaction from the magisters. She pulled lightly on the reins of her horse, turned, and galloped back towards her army.
As they watched her depart, they also saw the dragons in the background. Massive beasts, their enormous eyes seeming to remember each of their faces. The magisters gulped in fear before they hurried back inside the gates.
The wooden gates were shut tight, but they all knew the truth. In front of those creatures, these gates were useless. Whether they remained closed or open hardly mattered. One burst of dragonfire, and they would come crashing down.
The torn and then mangled body of their colleague with the blood dying the ground red was still fresh in their mind.
.
.
.
After the magisters stepped inside the city, they dispersed towards their homes and manors. They had too many things on their minds, things they needed to discuss, but first they needed time to process, digest, and accept what they had just witnessed.
Dragons. They needed time to calm their anxiety and steady their nerves.
And since the Targaryen Lady had granted them enough time, they better use it. A meeting was thus scheduled for the afternoon.
Meanwhile, while the magisters were clutching their heads, the news of the dragons had spread like wildfire throughout the city. The combined screech of the five dragons had thrown the entire city into chaos. The vibrations had been felt deep within the walls, and curiosity and fear had gripped every household. Few people who had been coincidentally able to witness the entire event brought the news and it did not take long before people pieced together what was happening.
On the magisters' orders, all the gates of the city had been shut tight, and no one was allowed to leave or enter the city. The common people had also been prohibited from climbing the walls. They did not want chaos to erupt in the name of witnessing the dragons.
Even so, the truth about the dragons outside their city walls had been confirmed. The news of the death of the chief priest had also spread, and the entire city had plunged into fear and turmoil.
The common folk had no authority to decide whether they should surrender or fight. Those decisions belonged solely to the magisters. But whatever the magisters chose, the consequences would fall on every single person living in Qohor.
There was, however, a portion of the population who wished to fight.
For some, it was pride. Surrendering, even to dragons, felt like an unbearable insult. Better die with pride than to live with subjugation at the hands of some outsider. These people were few.
But there was another group whose numbers were far greater. The devout followers of the Black Goat.
For them, the chief priest had been an immensely important figure. His death was a grievous loss, and now they hungered for revenge, even if it meant dying in the attempt. But the majority of the common people wanted a surrender. They did not want to die needlessly, and even they knew that the city's army would have no hope against the dragons. What if, out of anger, the lady began burning the innocent? What if she let her dragons loose impulsively on the city? They would be the ones to suffer.
And many of the magisters too had similar thoughts. They knew they could not win. Even if they had a larger army, it was useless unless they had some method to bring a dragon down. And they had no such method.
One of the magisters thinking along these lines was Rick. He had not taken even a moment to conclude that surrendering to her was the best choice. And he had many reasons for it, which he was surely going to present in the meeting.
He was sitting idly in his garden, waiting for the scheduled time, when a loud roar shook the entire city. His head automatically craned up, and there he witnessed it again.
The largest of them, the black-scaled dragon, was flying over the city. Its shadow loomed below, and Rick could imagine the scene in the streets right now.
It was clear that the lady was putting on a show of her strength.
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