When Daenerys saw Euron again, she was shocked to find that the burns on his face had already scabbed over.
As a medical student herself, she knew all too well how difficult severe burns were to heal—the suppuration, the infection, the fever, the inflammation.
If she had seen a frail patient with their head wrapped in white gauze, the fabric soaked through with reddish-brown pus and blood, she would have found it perfectly normal.
Yet Euron strode toward her with a swagger, dragging his heavy chains with ease.
"How did your injuries heal so quickly?" she asked, bewildered.
Euron's bright blue right eye swept over Daenerys's fair, smooth cheek. He grinned. "Aren't you healing even faster than I am? Enough of this nonsense. The ship has docked. When will you let me go?"
"I had planned to release you as soon as you recovered," Daenerys said, gesturing to the horsemen guarding Euron. "Unlock Sir Euron's chains. He is no longer a prisoner."
The horsemen glanced at Jorah, Whitebeard, Bevos, and Ago standing behind her. Satisfied that the Khaleesi's safety was not at risk, they stepped forward without a word and deftly unlocked the iron shackles on Euron's wrists and ankles.
"Ji Qi, bring the new clothes we bought today for Sir Euron to change into," Daenerys instructed her horsewoman.
Euron tilted his head, stretching his limbs. He looked at Daenerys with a puzzled expression. "What do you want me to do?"
She rubbed her nose and waved for Duoliya to bring Euron a small stool. Only after Euron sat down with a skeptical gaze did she speak. "It's nothing major. I plan to purchase a batch of Unsullied in Apostta, but I'm short on funds—"
"What?" Euron roared in fury. "You're going to sell me? Slave trading is strictly forbidden in the Seven Kingdoms!"
*If you were worth as much as a dragon egg, I really would sell you.*
"Calm down, calm down," Daenerys said, her right hand pressing down in a soothing gesture. "Don't worry, you're not worth much—"
This comment seemed to strike a nerve in the Crow's Eye's fragile ego. He interrupted her for the second time, his voice laced with rage. "Over a dozen nations across the Jade Sea have placed massive bounties on my head! And you say I'm not worth much?"
Daenerys shrugged. "At most, a few tens of thousands of gold dragons. A mere pittance. Or perhaps, for you, a few tens of thousands of gold dragons is a fortune?"
"Haha, yes, it's nothing to you, after all, you robbed me of a whole ship's worth of treasure!" Euron sneered continuously.
"To be honest, your ship's treasure was only worth a bit over 500,000 gold dragons. That's not much at all," Daenerys said coolly. "Robert Baratheon's debts exceeded six million. As the rightful Queen, I should at least maintain a more impressive image than he did, shouldn't I?"
"What image does a king without a kingdom have?" Euron sneered. "I've heard the common folk in the Free Cities call your brother the 'Beggar King.' As for you—" He clicked his tongue, leaving the rest unsaid.
The "Barefoot Princess" was Daenerys's street name.
Because they were poor, and because the climate in Tyrosh and Myr was so hot, Viserys never had the money to buy his sister shoes. Little Daenerys often walked barefoot through the streets and alleys of the trading cities.
"Your Highness, it is the duty of the Kingsguard to uphold your dignity," Jorah said, his hand resting on his sword, his cold eyes fixed on Euron. "Even if you pardon the Crow's Eye for his regicide, please allow me to fight him in a trial by combat!"
"Give me back my armor, and I'll fight you with one hand tied behind my back," Euron retorted, rolling his eyes.
"Sigh, this was supposed to be a simple conversation, but you've all interrupted and started arguing," Daenerys said, rubbing her temples. She got straight to the point: "I've sold the dragon egg you found in the Valyrian Ruins, as well as the sea chart through the Smoke Sea."
"Tomorrow morning, you'll come with me to the slave owner's place and retell the story of your exploration of Valyria. After the deal is completed the day after, I'll let you and your pirate crew go immediately."
"Any problems?" she asked.
"Yes," Euron nodded, looking puzzled. "The dragon egg wasn't found in Valyria. I seized it from a ship in the Jade Sea."
"So you lied to me?" Dany lowered her eyes, chewing on a large persimmon. Her voice was muffled. "A dragon egg from the Jade Sea isn't unique. But an egg from the Valyrian Dragon King's own hoard is one of a kind. There's no doubt the latter is worth far more."
"Last time, you explicitly said you found the armor and the dragon egg together in the governor's castle in Tria. Now you're trying to take it back?"
"If you lied to me then, our agreement is off. Don't blame me for breaking my word—you broke yours first."
"I misremembered," Euron immediately confessed, nodding in agreement. "The dragon egg was found in Tria. There might have even been more than one. I left in a hurry and was short-handed, so I never fully excavated that castle. If the Good Lords had been better prepared, they might have found the dragon's nest and the Valyrian steel armory!"
"Hmm, in that case, I've been cheated out of a fortune!" Dany wiped the juice from the corner of her mouth and sighed.
"Indeed, the Good Lords are making a killing!" Euron sighed, feigning sympathy for his Queen.
"Here," Daenerys said, handing him a large persimmon. "It's very sweet."
Whitebeard and Jorah watched the two munching on persimmons, their expressions wooden.
The third meeting with the Good Lords was to be held at Punishment Plaza. If Pride Plaza was where the wares were displayed, Punishment Plaza was where the slaves were trained.
Located behind Astapor's main city gate, it served as the city's "Meridian Gate" plaza, where rebellious and disobedient slaves were punished or executed.
The harbor district where the fleet was docked lay in the northwest corner of Astapor. To reach Punishment Plaza, they had to traverse nearly a quarter of the city. As they made their way, Daenerys saw the true face of this slave city.
Over a dozen towering, magnificent pyramids occupied nearly half the city's land. The rest of the buildings were low, dilapidated, and crumbling. In the cramped alleys, sewage flowed freely, and the passing caravan stirred up swarms of buzzing green-headed flies.
A young girl, her back sunburned and peeling, crouched naked by an overflowing red-brick drainage ditch, taking a dump. The sound of hooves and wheels grinding over the uneven road startled her. She stared with wide brown eyes, blankly watching Daenerys's party pass by, then lowered her head and continued.
They passed through a narrow alley with low eaves, then walked along a red-brick street running close to the ancient city wall.
As they passed the wall, Daenerys saw a crumbling section covered in cracks. She worried it might collapse onto them.
Punishment Plaza had no statue of a bronze sphinx. Instead, a massive wooden platform stood at its center.
Like a gallows in the West or a guillotine in the East, this wooden stage was where rebellious slaves were tortured, flayed, strangled, and finally displayed.
This platform was the first thing new slaves saw upon entering the city.
Clearly, the Good Lords were experts at training obedient slaves.
The oxcart stopped on the main road at the edge of the plaza. As Daenerys stepped down, she saw a little black girl in a gray linen dress waiting for them.
The girl, with a flat, round face, hurried forward and performed a full prostration. "Greetings, Your Majesty," she said. "The Lord Benefactor has assigned me to serve you for the rest of your journey. If the deal is completed, I will be given to Your Majesty as a bonus to help teach the Unsullied the Westerosi language."
"Rise, child," Daenerys said, stepping forward to help her up. She smiled and asked, "What is your name? How old are you?"
"My name is Missandei, and I am ten years old," the little Black girl replied softly.
Daenerys froze. Missandei was a crucial and brilliant supporting character in *Game of Thrones*, almost like Daenerys's own "Shangguan Wan'er." But the Missandei she knew was a grown woman.
Initially, she felt a pang of disappointment, thinking she'd arrived at the wrong time and missed her chance to meet the Black scribe. But then it struck her—the plot had changed so drastically that Missandei was now a child!
Daenerys gently stroked Missandei's short-cropped hair and smiled. "I am Daenerys Targaryen. Do you know who I am?"
"I do, Your Grace."
As she approached the wooden platform, Daenerys's first glance led her to believe the slave upon it belonged to a unique race, with skin like a zebra's stripes. But as she drew closer and looked more carefully, she realized it wasn't skin at all.
The slave had no skin.
Like a peeled apple, the disobedient slave's skin had been stripped away in long strips, curling up like apple peel. This created a gruesome, multicolored "zebra" pattern of raw flesh and remaining skin.
And the slave was still alive.
"What did he do?" Daenerys asked, her face pale as she pointed to the Skinchanger.
"He was whipped for resisting," Missandei explained. "When the Lord Benefactor asked if he had learned his place, the slave, bound to the cross, spat a mouthful of bloody phlegm at his feet."
Daenerys pointed to another slave. His arm, from fingertips to elbow, was a writhing mass of black flies. The rest of his body remained untouched, yet he had ceased to breathe.
"And this one? What did he do?"
"He was a new slave," Missandei said. "When the Master lashed him, he raised that hand in defiance. The Master then coated the arm in thick honey and poured a box of long-horned ants over him."
At this, Missandei's dark face paled. "The slave screamed for three days and three nights before he died. No other new slave has dared to resist since."
"Monster!" Whitebeard roared, his eyes blazing. He pounded his staff repeatedly against the stone ground. *Thump. Thump. Thump.*
"Come," Daenerys said. "Take me to the Lord Benefactors."
Beyond the Punishment Plaza rose a pyramid a hundred meters tall, the highest and largest building in Astapor.
As they climbed the stairs, Missandei explained to Daenerys that the pyramid belonged to Glazdan Mo Naagh. It had thirty-three levels in total. The ground floor contained the dungeons, slave quarters, warehouses, and servants' quarters, as well as the Good Lords' treasuries, studies, and audience chambers.
Eight Good Lords were waiting to see Daenerys. They were the most powerful figures in Astapor, with Glazdan as their leader. Krazny, who had previously negotiated with Daenerys, was far beneath him in rank.
Missandei also warned Daenerys that of the eight Good Lords awaiting her in the top-floor conference room, five were named Glazdan and two were named Krazny. She advised Daenerys to address them by their full names.
Daenerys was completely bewildered. To her, all Ghiscari—with their black-red vertical hair and amber skin—looked virtually identical, much like how people from the Celestial Empire might perceive Black people. She couldn't tell them apart at all.
Now that their names were also the same, what was she supposed to do?
(P.S. In "A Song of Ice and Fire," Missandei is only a ten-year-old child. She truly cannot have a Platonic romance with Grey Worm.)
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