The sky was dark and overcast, cold rain falling in a mournful drizzle.
Five dragons circled above King's Landing, thick smoke billowing, fires raging everywhere.
Their flames had nearly melted the Red Keep.
Cersei, clutching a weeping Tommen, cowered on the Iron Throne, crying out for the mercy of the Mother.
Below King's Landing, a great battle was underway, dyeing the waters of the Blackwater red.
Tyrion stood in the heart of the battlefield, wielding a massive axe taller than himself. He fought side by side with the fearless Barristan and Jorah Mormont, clad in white enamel armor.
This Tyrion had two heads. Neither had a nose. One head, wearing a true dragon-shaped helm, howled in ecstasy and shouted "Kill, kill, kill!" nonstop; the other, wearing a golden lion helm, kept its eyes closed, drooping as if in deep sleep.
Duke Tywin led the enemy forces, riding a tall warhorse out of formation, flanked by Jaime and Ser Kevan. Behind them were Aunt Genna, Cousin Lancel, and a host of fully armored Lannisters.
Then came wave after wave of golden-armored lion-helmed soldiers.
At that moment, the Unsullied and the Dothraki horsemen surged forward like a tide toward the golden-armored troops.
"Hear me roar!" Duke Tywin pointed his sword at the enemy and shouted, "Kill the false dragons!"
"Burn King's Landing to the ground. Leave no Lannister alive!" came the cold reply from the queen atop her dragon.
Tyrion was unstoppable. Charging forward, he reached Tywin and with a single swing of his axe, cleaved both man and horse in two.
"Hahaha!" Tyrion cackled wildly, lifting his bloodied axe.
"Beast!" roared Jaime, clad in golden armor with a golden greatsword, charging in fury.
Tyrion showed no fear. Jaime, missing his right hand, was no match for him.
With his axe, Tyrion caved in Jaime's iron armor and smashed his face into a bloody pulp, laughing with each blow.
Next came Aunt Genna, then his cousins and uncles...
When the battle finally ended, Tyrion turned around—and saw his other head sobbing uncontrollably.
"Hahahaha, kill kill kill!"
"Wuuuuu..."
Warm morning sunlight streamed through the skylight, casting a golden beam into the royal bedchamber. On a feather-stuffed bed, Tyrion muttered drowsily, turning away from the direct sunlight.
Bang bang bang!
"Tyrion! Little Imp, get up already!"
The knocking and shouting at the door sounded as distant as mountain songs echoing from the other side of the range. Tyrion didn't react at all.
Until...
The severed head of Duke Tywin—split in two and lying on the ground—turned coldly toward him and said, "Tyrion, wake up."
"Yes, Father!" Tyrion sat bolt upright by reflex.
Rubbing his sore and swollen eyes, the dwarf gradually came to his senses.
Looking around, he saw he was in a lavishly decorated palace. The heat of the sunlight felt far too real.
"Damn it, what a way to ruin a good dream," he cursed, then shouted toward the door, "Quit yelling, Duck—I'm up!"
He propped himself on a pillow, then suddenly froze. Glancing back, he saw a wet stain on the white down pillow.
"Old man, looks like you can only scare me in my dreams now!" Tyrion forced a grim smile—worse than a grimace—then threw off the covers to get out of bed.
But as soon as he moved, his body stiffened again. He looked down and saw that his little member was standing tall, his underpants soaked and sticky.
"Sigh... It's been months now. Only Penny by my side…"
At the thought of the lovely dwarf woman, his little member immediately nodded in eager agreement. But Tyrion's misshapen large head wore a conflicted expression and gave a slow shake.
"Guess it's time to enjoy a bit of Slaver's Bay's exotic charm."
When it came to women, the Imp still had principles.
He'd lusted after Sansa's body for so long, yet managed to keep himself from laying a finger on her—only for her to end up in the arms of Littlefinger. A huge loss.
As for Penny, he felt genuine affection for her.
She had silently invited him several times, but he had always restrained himself.
"What's the big rush, anyway?" he asked groggily as he walked out of the bedroom, yawning.
Only Ser Duck—Ser Duckfield—was left in the receiving room.
"Look at the sun! It's nearly noon!" Duck pointed to the window, exasperated.
"So?" Tyrion asked casually. He glanced around and, not seeing even a shadow of Penny, asked with some confusion, "Where is everyone? Where are His Highness the little prince and Ser Clinton?"
"Downstairs—oh, in the lower levels of the pyramid. The queen's holding court, trying the case of Lord Breakchains. Want to go watch?"
Tyrion was startled. "The trial's already started? Why didn't you wake me sooner?"
"Didn't I?" Duck replied irritably.
Tyrion didn't even have time to enjoy the hearty breakfast the maids had brought. He grabbed a "roujiamo"—a meat-filled bun—and began munching as he headed downstairs.
Nobles enjoy privileges. Otherwise, why would anyone fight so hard to climb the ladder?
Even though he was late, Tyrion easily found a good spot to spectate.
The initial hearing wasn't open to the public.
Only nobles were allowed. The second-floor courtroom was nearly empty.
The shackles had been removed from Cleon's wrists, and his prison garb replaced with a comfortable dark woolen sweater.
Count Shattered Chains sat in the center, surrounded by a ring-shaped tribunal of twenty-seven judges.
Nine were nobles, nine were government officials.
The remaining nine were Ghiscari judges—renowned scholars selected from the three cities of Slaver's Bay.
Yes, they had to be scholars, or at least professionals with scholarly abilities.
Only scholars could understand the Codex and Cleon's case files.
"Where's the Queen?" Tyrion walked over to Clinton and asked in a low voice.
"She left after the trial was formally announced."
Seeing Tyrion's confusion, Clinton pointed to the judges flipping through the files and explained, "A noble's trial is divided into three phases: a closed preliminary review, a public hearing, and a final closed deliberation.
Right now is the preliminary review, where they compare the case to the Codex and identify each of Cleon's violations.
During the hearing, Cleon can defend himself or invite a legal scholar to argue on his behalf."
While these bystanders whispered among themselves, the atmosphere in the chamber was tense and charged.
The judges continuously picked out flaws and infractions Cleon had committed in the case of "The Sons of the Harpy," while the Butcher Count loudly refuted each point.
If the judges accepted Cleon's defense, the accusation would be dropped, and they would move on to the next charge and debate.
But if even one judge disagreed with Cleon's explanation, or if Cleon failed to provide one, that accusation would be officially filed and recorded, to be submitted to the High Justice for public trial.
With nine highly respected Ghiscari scholars among the judges, it was difficult for any major legal violation to be overlooked during this phase.
"Seems pretty fair," Tyrion murmured after listening for a while.
Then, he thought of his own involvement in the "Purple Wedding."
If judged by the Queen's Codex... well, odds were he wouldn't have fared much better, given how many witnesses had testified against him.
"Let's go. We've been listening long enough to understand how the Slaver's Bay legal system works," Clinton whispered as noon approached.
Tyrion, still intrigued, shook his head. "You go ahead. I want to listen a bit longer."
"You don't find it boring?" Young Aegon asked, surprised.
"Boring? Not at all. It's fascinating," Tyrion replied, suppressing a laugh. "Haven't you noticed? The 'Noble Chapter' of the Queen's Codex doesn't seem to target nobles—it seems tailored to Targaryen-style mad kings."
"You're insane, saying something like that in front of me!" Aegon fumed.
"Your Highness, when it comes to temperament, you could learn a thing or two from your aunt," the Imp said, shaking his head.
"It's only natural the Queen learned something from her father's mistakes," Clinton muttered, frowning.
"Through the Codex and the trial process, you can glimpse the Queen's thoughts and personality. Anyway, if you're not interested, go on without me!" Tyrion waved them off.
Clinton, thoughtful, turned to the dark-haired woman. "Sister Lemore, why don't you go see the Queen by yourself?"
"Huh? Where's Penny?" Catching sight of the curvy woman's silhouette, Tyrion—starved of female company for days—felt his heart stir, only for the image of the dwarf woman to flash into his mind.
That's when he realized Penny wasn't in the courtroom.
"Where did Penny go?" he asked, worried.
"She went to the docks—to perform her comedy skit. The pig and the big dog are on the Orange Wine, too," Aegon replied.
Tyrion let out a sigh of relief, though he still grumbled, "She's all alone in a foreign land. It's dangerous. We should've sent Duck with her."
"She's accompanied by Unsullied. Besides, if you hadn't been sleeping in, you could've gone with her yourself. The Queen thinks she's your wife, you know. Hahaha," Maester Saye chuckled.
The Dragon Queen was no longer in the Great Pyramid. After breakfast that morning, she had formally announced Cleon's trial in the second-floor hall, then left the city on horseback, escorted by her Bloodriders.
Her khalasar had been nomadic between Meereen and Astapor, and had recently camped near the Worm River.
The Queen had gone to reunite with her people and organize a few new thousand-strong units of Roaring Warriors.
When Lemore learned from a Dothraki maid that the Queen wouldn't return until evening, her curiosity about how the Queen commanded the Dothraki got the better of her. Rather than wait at the pyramid, she asked a twelve-year-old Unsullied boy to guide her out of the city.
To everyone's surprise, the sister's riding skills were excellent. She galloped northeast along the dusty road for over ten kilometers in just half an hour.
The young Unsullied nearly couldn't keep up.
At last, across the prairie, the mature woman—with flushed cheeks from the ride—spotted not the Queen, but the khalasar of the Khaleesi.
Countless yurts dotted the landscape, vast in number yet arranged with remarkable order.
A man-dug trench separated the horsefolk's living quarters from the grazing lands. Dothraki women busied themselves among the tents, while children ran and played.
On the other side of the trench, elderly horsemen rode leisurely among herds of cattle and sheep grazing across the boundless plain.
The livestock were so spread out it was hard to see where the land ended.
In another area—where the grass had already been grazed down—thousands of riders thundered across the field, shouting words she couldn't understand. The earth itself trembled beneath their charge.
At the front rode a woman on a white horse—tall and striking.
Her silver hair was braided, each braid adorned with bells. She wore a Dothraki vest, dressed entirely in the fashion of a khaleesi warlord.
(End of Chapter)
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