"Must it be a king's blood? Perhaps during the conquest of the Vale, we could capture quite a few rebels," Stannis said hoarsely.
Mel's red eyes gleamed. "It must be a king's blood. Quantity cannot replace quality."
"That ragged prince claims to be the Prince of Pentos, and even a descendant of Valyria. Does he have any king's blood in him?" Stannis ground out.
The brightness in Mel's crimson eyes dimmed. She nodded and sighed. "He does have king's blood, but the amount in him is far too thin, not enough to hatch stone eggs."
"Aegon's true dragon bloodline is very thin as well."
"He is somewhat distant from the main Targaryen line, but that does not mean his true dragon blood is thin. Moreover, he was once formally crowned as King of the Seven Kingdoms."
As if worried Stannis might not understand, she put it more bluntly. "The amount of king's blood in Aegon is ten times that of Edric!"
"Ten times?!" Stannis stared at Mel, grinding his teeth hard.
A Targaryen bastard's collateral branch, a false king who reigned for only a few months, actually had more royal destiny than the son of the Baratheon progenitor. Ten times more.
How much king's blood had he, Stannis, drawn back then?
More than Edric's, yes, but nowhere near ten times.
Mel understood that her blunt honesty had wounded the king's steel-clad yet tender heart. She sighed inwardly and said, "Perhaps Aegon's bloodline mutated, or perhaps he took some of his destiny from Daenerys."
Hearing this, Stannis's expression eased somewhat. He stopped grinding his teeth and asked curiously, "Can acting as that woman's fake nephew also grant royal destiny?"
"It should be possible," Mel replied, her tone uncertain. "Tommen was not Robert's son, but Robert treated him as his son.
"When Joffrey became king, Prince Tommen also had king's blood in him, richer than Edric's."
Stannis shifted his gaze aside and asked awkwardly, "Strictly speaking, Daenerys and I are cousins. Could I take some destiny from her as well?"
Daenerys's grandfather and Stannis's grandmother were full siblings. Their blood relationship was indeed far closer than that between Aegon and Daenerys.
He had no interest in that kinship, but if he could gain some extra destiny for free, why not?
"I'm just asking out of curiosity. I don't mean anything else," he added quickly, turning back to explain.
Mel said flatly, "Perhaps a little, but it would be negligible, almost not worth mentioning. Two opposing kings cannot share destiny."
"Then Aegon…"
"Though Aegon's blood ties are distant, the relationship is close. He calls her aunt."
If I also called her Aunt Dany, could I… no, that would be wrong. I should call her Cousin Dany. Could I pull the relationship closer and borrow some destiny from her? From the looks of it, she seems destined to become an empress of the world. Her destiny must be abundant. She rules the world, I rule the Seven Kingdoms. No contradiction, no conflict.
These absurd thoughts flashed through Stannis's mind for only an instant before being driven away by his stubbornness and pride.
I am the sole legitimate heir to the Iron Throne. I do not need to borrow anyone's destiny. It already belongs to me.
Stannis pressed his thin lips together and said, "Let us go see the Tattered Prince. Compared to uncertain dragons, searching for another twenty wyverns is more practical. We can also ask him about hatching dragons. The whole world knows the Allied Forces are hatching dragons."
…
"Despicable and shameless, faithless and without honor. I should have understood long ago. You would kill even your own brothers for the Iron Throne. What honor could you possibly have left?"
At the top of the Snakewood City tower, in a bright and clean small guest room, the Tattered Prince, stripped of his armor and wearing shackles, did not curse loudly. Instead, with a mocking curl at the corner of his mouth, he spoke softly and slowly in ridicule.
The old man's tall, sturdy body was held straight, utterly unbroken by this defeat.
Stannis sat opposite him. Thin sunlight filtered through the window, falling on the gaunt, skin-and-bone face that showed not the slightest hint of shame.
The treatment of the prisoner was fairly decent, but the atmosphere when the two met again was far from pleasant.
"Who do you think caused the situation we are in now?" Stannis's gaze was icy, neither flinching nor yielding as it met the sharp, mocking eyes opposite him.
"Conspirators without credibility and an evil witch orchestrated all of this!"
The Tattered Prince's heavy eye bags lifted as he widened his eyes, as if he wanted to pour all the fury in his heart onto the two people before him through the windows of his soul.
"Do you remember our first negotiation?" Stannis sneered as he reminded him. "At that time, I refused you sternly. From beginning to end, I showed you no discourtesy.
"Even though I did not prepare salt and bread for you, I still treated you as a guest, even after my refusal, when you hinted at threats against me."
The Tattered Prince's aggressive momentum suddenly faltered, and the anger in his eyes gradually faded.
Stannis continued, "At that time, you were completely unguarded and on my ship. If I truly intended to break faith, I could have taken you easily.
"But I did not. I let you leave, and never once did the thought of killing you for gain cross my mind.
"And how did you treat me afterward?"
The Tattered Prince rubbed his nose and said, "At the time, I didn't have the horn with me, nor did I bring the wyvern flock along."
"I had never seen the horn. How was I to know how large it was, or whether it was on you at all?"
"If, after my refusal, you had simply taken the dragons and left, how would today's situation ever have come to pass?"
Stannis fired off his questions in succession.
The Tattered Prince sighed. "I told you then that the Allied Forces were determined to get Aegon…
"At this point, I won't hide it from you anymore. The Allied Forces arrived beneath Meereen's walls long ago. Every day we suffer dragon-borne bombardment by the Dragon Queen, losing dozens or even hundreds of men daily. It is not only a loss of strength, but a severe blow to morale.
"And yet we have stayed there all this time, waiting for Aegon!"
"Unable to win on the battlefield head-on, you used Aegon to design a trap and frame her?" Stannis said coldly."As expected, that suits the way your trade city-states conduct their affairs."
Even if you are accustomed to shamelessness and the absence of integrity, what does that have to do with me?" Second Stag said, his gaze filled with contempt as he mocked them lightly.
The Ragged Prince was enraged by his attitude and said coldly, "Using strategy rather than virtue is a normal way of war.
"No matter what came before, the fact that you broke your word in the second negotiation is an indelible truth."
"From the moment you brought wyverns to burn my fifteen ships, we became enemies. As you yourself said, the way of war does not shy away from any means.
"If I had not deceived you into coming down, how could I deal with the ceaseless bombardment of thirty wyverns?" Second Stag growled.
The Ragged Prince sighed and said, "You Westerosi are truly shameless. I attacked you, so we became enemies. That is true.
"But when you sought the Braavosi as mediators, when you sent ravens to invite me to negotiations, it meant that the hostile relationship between both sides was temporarily put on hold.
"Could it be that when you Westerosi negotiate, you are allowed to imprison the enemy sitting at the negotiating table?"
"Your Majesty, I must remind you that the Long Night has arrived. The King of the Others is about to attack, and we have very little time left!" Mel Aunt made no effort to hide the irritation and boredom on her face.
Both of them had clearly done shameless things, yet neither truly wanted to be shameless. So they desperately tried to prove the other's shamelessness in order to cover up their own. Was that not shamelessness itself?
Hearing that the Long Night had arrived, the Ragged Prince froze for a moment. However, he did not care in the slightest about the Others who "belonged to Westeros." With some unease, he asked, "Is Aegon really a fake? The news has not spread yet, has it? If we are fast enough…"
Second Stag waved his hand and coldly cut off his last shred of hope. "He is Illyrio's son, without a doubt!
"It was announced publicly, with such a huge stir. There was no way to hide it. Daenerys definitely knows as well."
"Sigh!" The Ragged Prince's once-straight back suddenly hunched over. "That damned fat man really screwed us over!"
Westeros, this damned cesspit, was full of human treachery and corrupted land, traps everywhere, everyone fallen.
No wonder before leaving, High Priestess Jenny had repeatedly warned him to be careful, again and again.
But he had already been careful enough.
Second Stag asked, "The Dragon Horn cracked. Was that your doing?"
"Do you know what is sealed inside the Dragon Horn?" the Ragged Prince asked with a faint smile.
"A dragon soul, a demigod-level dragon soul. One of Valyria's three progenitor dragons, Vhagar," said Second Stag.
The tall old man's pupils contracted, and he exclaimed in shock, "You know it that clearly? Has the dragon soul escaped?"
"It almost got away," Melisandre said with a bewitching smile. "That day, I was truly deceived as well. Fortunately, I was the one who blew the horn."
"You can even stop a dragon spirit?" the Ragged Prince asked in disbelief.
"Even?" A glint flashed in Melisandre's eyes as she guessed, "Daenerys, right?"
Just by looking at the expression of the old mercenary opposite her, Mel Aunt knew she had guessed correctly.
"I didn't expect she would really receive the Wall's gift. She is clearly a foreign Targaryen and does not even worship the Old Gods," she said with a complicated expression.
"You failed to stop it?"
Just as a hint of relief appeared on the Ragged Prince's face, the red-robed woman shook her head.
"I cannot stop a dragon spirit, but I never gave it the chance to return to Vhagar," she said.
Just like the Dragonslayer's Horn, if the magical runes inside the Binder of Dragons are annihilated, the demigod dragon soul sealed within the horn will gain freedom and can instantly merge with its master dragon spirit.
A single demigod dragon soul is far too valuable.
Jenny desperately needed Aunt Dany's grand-nephew, but she was unwilling to give her own treasure for nothing to an "ant" whose identity, status, and ability she did not value at all.
So she used a small trick. The horn could be blown multiple times, but once the ability to control wyverns was used, the runes inside the horn would automatically be destroyed.
Then the dragon soul would break free of its bindings and merge into the soul of Lamb-Egg Little Brother's horned self, Vhagar, in the form of a dragon spirit. In truth, it was still Lamb-Egg; the three brothers had long since fused into one.
"Aren't you afraid of offending your allies?" the Ragged Prince said grimly.
"The allies are strong, but you probably will not make it past Daenerys," Mel Aunt said with a smile.
"You cannot possibly imagine how profound Valyria's legacy truly is," the Ragged Prince said proudly.
Second Stag sneered. "If you could win with sheer strength, why pay such a huge price to bind her fake nephew?"
"You don't understand—"
"I don't need to understand. Now tell me, where are the other twenty wyverns?" Second Stag interrupted.
The Ragged Prince closed his eyes and said calmly, "I am not Aegon. Do not think you can use the methods meant for him to pluck my peaches.
"I am the Prince of Pentos. Give me the treatment due to a princely prisoner of war.
"Then let us drag this out and see whether you can outlast the allies!"
From The Secret Manual of Peach Picking: "Greed Must Have Limits." Never think you can pluck all of someone else's peaches.
So Second Stag did not press further. He stood up and looked meaningfully at the tall old man, saying, "Rest assured, I will receive you as a king should."
(End of chapter)
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