It took Daenerys three to four hours to remove the shackles from tens of thousands of people. By the time the sun had dipped below the horizon and the sky had turned indigo, with hundreds of torches blazing across the square, she reluctantly summoned a hundred Unsullied to help remove the slaves' collars.
Even so, the stream of slaves who heard that the Mother of Dragons was freeing people in Punishment Square only grew larger. In the end, Daenerys had no choice but to announce:
"It's too late today. You can't clearly see my face, and I can't clearly see the sincerity and joy on yours. Let's continue first thing tomorrow morning!"
The slaves thought about it and agreed. A once-in-a-lifetime chance to behold the Mother of Dragons shouldn't be wasted. They could remove their own handcuffs and leg irons tonight, then come back tomorrow to have their slave collars taken off.
Daenerys had yet to fully understand the situation of the Ghiscari within the city, so she did not immediately "redistribute the wealth and the land." The newly freed people were told either to spend the night in tents set up in the squares and streets or return to their former masters' homes—but they were strictly forbidden from harming the homeowners.
During this time, Jorah repeatedly sent messengers to report his progress.
Together with the Knight of Broken Chains, he had taken one pyramid after another.
Jorah led the Unsullied in surrounding each pyramid, intimidating the enemy while preventing anyone from escaping. The Knight of Broken Chains was responsible for calling on the slaves inside to rise up, personally joining the assault whenever necessary.
By midnight, they had already captured five pyramids. Every one of them had fallen because the slaves inside had revolted, while Cleon coordinated with them from within.
Those pyramids felt like festering boils growing from Astapor's body. As each one burst open, Daenerys found herself overwhelmed by an inexplicable sense of relief and release.
The final task of the night was to hold a grand funeral for the slaves who had died in the uprising.
Two thousand bodies were gathered together and piled high with firewood and lamp oil around the wooden platform at the center of the square, the corpses stacked so densely that they nearly formed a hill.
Bathed in firelight, Daenerys held up a metal speaking trumpet and delivered a eulogy.
"Some of them died in battle. Others died at the hands of the Unsullied because they transformed from victims into perpetrators. I have given you freedom, but freedom has limits. One person's freedom must never come at the expense of another's—not even if those people were once the wives and daughters of slave masters."
She had worked herself to exhaustion throughout the day. Her body was utterly drained, yet her spirit had never been more exhilarated.
She had accomplished something that would have been impossible in the modern world.
And it had profound meaning.
It was for humanity's freedom!
For the first time, she no longer missed her former life. She had been utterly alone there, without parents or family. Better to throw herself wholeheartedly into this different world and accomplish something truly worthwhile.
"Yet despite their crimes, they also rendered great service. They made extraordinary contributions to the cause of freeing the slaves. Therefore, I will personally bid them farewell, sending them to the realm of the gods as free men. And I promise that they, together with the countless rebels still living, will forever be remembered by the world."
She stepped back, then, beneath the gaze of tens of thousands, raised a hand toward the sky.
"Skree—"
"Skree—"
"Skree—"
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three true dragons descended from the heavens, streams of dragonfire pouring from their mouths to ignite the enormous funeral pyre.
Whoosh!
Crimson flames surged into the sky.
The scorching tongues of fire licked at everyone's skin. Waves of blistering heat created such overwhelming pressure that everyone instinctively retreated—
Everyone except Daenerys.
The blazing windstorm, carrying tiny crimson sparks, stirred the hair beside her temples. Firelight painted her lovely face a brilliant red, like glowing iron fresh from the forge.
She stood unmoving at the very front of the inferno.
She even seemed to be enjoying it.
Well... if not for the rich aroma of roasting human flesh drifting over, she really would have enjoyed it.
Crack... Boom!
The wooden execution platform that had once displayed countless crucified slaves let out one final groan before collapsing into the flames.
It died unwillingly—
Like its master, who had struggled within Drogon's black dragonfire.
Like the decaying institution of the ancient city itself—
Slavery.
"From blood and fire, a new world will be born," Daenerys murmured.
"Your Little Majesty, something's happened!" the burly Belwas hurried over and whispered in her ear.
The eunuch gladiator had always called her "Little Queen" and treated her like an underage girl.
Which, in fairness, she was—only fifteen, still a year away from adulthood in this world.
But after the dramatic upheavals of the past few days, Belwas had begun treating her with considerably more respect.
"What happened?" Daenerys asked.
Tonight, she and the Unsullied would be moving into Grazdan's Great Pyramid.
Before entering, she had sent the eunuch gladiator, accompanied by the scholar Ethan and a contingent of Unsullied, to search every room in the pyramid and bring out Grazdan's family.
If a few assassins had remained behind and sneaked into her bedroom in the middle of the night, that would have been a truly unjust death.
"The slave master's family has been slaughtered," Belwas said gravely. "Not even the children were spared."
"What?"
Daenerys's face changed dramatically.
"Cleon deserves to die!"
In truth, however, her heart remained as cold as ice. Most of her fury was merely an act.
Ever since Ethan had revealed that he represented the slaves in negotiating with her, Daenerys had already guessed the fate of Grazdan's family.
Would someone ruthless enough to bargain with the Mother of Dragons spare the slave master who had oppressed him for decades?
Still, she had never intended to hold Cleon responsible. That was precisely why she had deliberately delayed sending anyone to clear out the Great Pyramid.
It wasn't because she secretly wished for every slave-owning family to end up on a funeral pyre.
Reality simply wouldn't allow her to set such a precedent.
There were still more than a dozen pyramids waiting for her.
Clearly, each one could contain one or several "Cleons." They might not share Cleon's ambitions, but the desire for revenge against their masters and the need to vent years of hatred were all but inevitable.
If she executed Cleon...
Would she have to storm every pyramid as though it were an enemy fortress?
Killing murderous rebel slaves in the streets and killing bandit-like slaves entrenched inside pyramids were two entirely different matters.
Out in the streets, the Unsullied had eliminated nearly seven hundred violent criminals and rebels who had massacred entire slave-owning families—all without losing a single soldier.
But pyramids were different.
Not to mention the vast quantities of supplies and wealth that would be destroyed...
How many Unsullied would die fighting through those labyrinthine interiors?
Were the lives of the eunuch soldiers worth so little?
Sorry.
On the scales in Daenerys's heart, not even ten slave masters' infants outweighed a single adult Unsullied.
"It wasn't Cleon," the eunuch said instead.
"...Huh."
The expression on Daenerys's face must have become rather twisted.
I'd put my heart and soul into that performance...
And now you're telling me it was all a misunderstanding?
After a long pause, she calmed herself and asked curiously,
"Did they commit suicide?"
During the fall of dynasties, there had been no shortage of ruthless men who killed their own wives and children.
"No. More than thirty children under the age of fifteen had their throats slit by a single person."
Daenerys sucked in a sharp breath.
"There's someone even more ruthless than Cleon? I never noticed."
"She never came out. Neither Cleon nor I dared provoke her."
"She?"
"That little girl who killed the bear in the fighting pit the day before yesterday."
"The little bitch," Belwas said, his tone strangely complicated.
Grazdan himself did not have thirty children.
Most of the victims were his relatives, all of whom had lived luxurious lives inside the pyramid while receiving the finest education.
Because Cleon had learned the contents of Daenerys's pamphlet from the scholar, although he had brutally murdered more than a dozen relatives of the slave trader, he had merely locked the children inside the spacious library.
Now, climbing the hundred-meter-tall pyramid, Daenerys once again met the little girl everyone called "Little Bitch" on the platform before the palace entrance at its summit.
The girl sat on the stone steps.
Her right hand was wrapped in bandages.
With her left hand, she idly twirled a short dagger, looking perfectly relaxed and thoroughly content.
Behind her, through the open doors, dozens of corpses lay strewn across the broad stone floor.
Blackened blood had even flowed out of the room, leaving dark crimson streaks down the hundreds of steps.
More than ten hours had passed.
In such oppressive heat, the entire palace reeked of decay.
The little girl glanced at Whitebeard, whose solemn face blocked Daenerys's path, and said in a crisp voice,
"I won't harm the Mother of Dragons."
Daenerys believed she was telling the truth.
She gently pushed Whitebeard aside, stepped forward, and asked,
"Why did you kill those children? Many of them were younger than you."
The little girl studied Daenerys with curiosity for a moment before replying,
"I'm younger than lots of people, but I still had to fight a bear in the arena. Weren't you there too?"
Daenerys smiled bitterly.
"I can't argue with that."
"If you were an adult, I would execute you to uphold humanity's last moral boundary—that innocent children must never be harmed."
"But you're only a child."
"I can't find a reason to punish you."
"They weren't human."
The little girl straightened her face and spoke earnestly.
"Pigs give birth to pigs. Dogs give birth to dogs. Slave masters are demons, and demons can only give birth to little demons."
Daenerys exchanged a glance with Whitebeard.
Both saw the same surprise in each other's eyes.
"Slave masters are indeed devils. But they were once human beings before they slowly degenerated into man-eating monsters."
"Even if their children are little demons, if they're raised to be good people, they can become human again."
Daenerys herself scarcely believed those polished words as she spoke them.
Yet the little girl actually looked half convinced.
What a simple child.
Daenerys sighed inwardly.
"What's your name? Do you remember your parents or your hometown? I can send you home."
"My name is Little Bitch."
"I don't remember where home is."
"I don't even know whether I have parents."
Her voice remained calm.
"You aren't called Little Bitch," Daenerys blurted out.
"Then what's my name?"
The little girl looked up at her, a faint longing hidden in her eyes.
"Hmm..."
Daenerys rubbed her smooth chin thoughtfully.
"Across the Sunset Sea, there was once a legendary heroine named Nymeria. I hope that one day you'll become a great hero admired by everyone."
"I don't want to be called Nymeria."
She stubbornly shook her head, blinking a pair of eyes that were neither pretty nor especially bright.
"From now on, my name is Daenerys."
"...Uh."
Daenerys froze.
Whitebeard and Belwas burst into laughter.
"We can't have the same name," Daenerys said, both embarrassed and secretly pleased.
The little girl had chosen her own name.
Didn't that mean that, in the child's heart, she was even more legendary than the heroine Nymeria?
"'Daenerys' evolved from 'Daenys.' Four hundred years ago, the maiden Daenys of House Targaryen nearly changed the fate of the world."
At least, she had changed the fate of Westeros.
And now...
Daenerys herself was beginning to change the fate of Slaver's Bay.
"So why don't you call yourself Daenys instead?"
-----------------------
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(End of Chapter)