The chains chafed against her wrists as she knelt before the Great Masters of Meereen.

  The council chamber was thick with the stench of perfume, wine, and oil-burning lamps, a mockery of the place it had once been—a throne room meant to usher in a new world, her world. Now, it had become her prison.

  Her dragons, sedated and forced into slumber. Her Unsullied, controlled by some unknown sorcery. Her strength, stripped away link by link, until all that remained of Daenerys Stormborn was a collar of gold around her neck, and a room of smirking men who spoke of her as if she weren’t even there.

  “Flaying is traditional,” said Reznak mo Reznak, rubbing his thin hands together. “A slow death, a statement to the people. Let them see how their Mhysa screams.”

  “Mere theatrics,” Hizdahr zo Loraq countered. He had once courted her, played the part of a civilized noble, but now the mask was gone. “Crucify her along the Street of Chains. Let her rot beneath the same sun where she burned our kin.”

  “We should sell her,” another master sneered. “A Queen, reduced to a pleasure slave, paraded through the Free Cities. Let her feel what she has forced upon us.”

  Laughter rippled through the chamber.

  Daenerys said nothing.

  She kept her head down, but not in submission. Beneath the weight of her golden collar, beneath the mockery, the helplessness, something seethed.

  They thought her conquered. That was their mistake.

  A dragon does not beg. A dragon waits.

  It began with a tremor.

  One of the Great Masters frowned, looking down at his goblet as the wine inside rippled.

  Then the doors exploded.

  The entire front of the chamber, stone, iron, and flesh alike, vanished in a deafening crash, as if the hand of a god had swept through the palace. Dust and screams filled the air. Daenerys shielded her eyes as the very world seemed to break.

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  And through the ruin, they came.

  A woman, floating, dark hair billowing like a storm. A man of light, descending from the heavens, beams of energy cutting through slavers like parchment.

  And behind them—monsters.

  Towering, chimeric beings of impossible shapes and brutal efficiency. Some were armored, some burned with unnatural flame, others tore apart men as easily as one might pluck a flower from a garden.

  The Great Masters fled, but there was nowhere to run.

  Daenerys watched, still chained, as the rulers of Meereen—her captors, her tormentors—were slaughtered.

  A flicker of movement—she turned to see a woman with a strange hat, standing amidst the carnage, untouched, moving a stone here a few feet away, then throwing some sand at another spot. The woman met her gaze, tilted her head as if measuring something unseen, then vanished before Daenerys could utter a word.

  A golden whip cracked in the air—one of the masters’ weapons, an artifact meant to command the Unsullied. A towering, bronze harpy loomed over the battle, glowing with unnatural power.

  Then it shattered.

  From above, A hooded figure reached out a hand, and unmade it.

  A pulse of unseen force rippled through the Unsullied, and Daenerys felt it in her bones—the compulsion upon them snapping like dried twigs.

  Grey Worm gasped, his body his own again.

  Across the battlefield, the Unsullied turned on their captors. The tide had turned, not by the hand of a queen, but by something even greater.

  By gods of war.

  That night, as the fires smoldered and the city was quiet save for the lingering scent of blood, Daenerys stood upon the steps of her ruined palace.

  The armoured woman she knew now as Alexandria landed beside her with barely a sound.

  "You should leave," the woman said, her voice firm, unyielding. "Your war is over."

  Daenerys turned her head sharply. "My war?"

  Alexandria’s gaze was unreadable behind her visor. “We destroyed the slavers. Your enemies here are dead. You have what you wanted. And now, you need to go.”

  Daenerys bristled. “I will not abandon my people.”

  “They are not your people.” Alexandria folded her arms. “They were your captors yesterday. Do you think they will kneel to you out of love?”

  Daenerys opened her mouth to retort, but the words caught in her throat.

  Alexandria stepped closer. “This city is broken. We shattered it so you wouldn’t have to. You can either build something new… or leave before the pieces cut you open.”

  The Queen of Meereen held the woman’s gaze, defiant.

  And yet, in the darkness, with the city still burning, she felt it—the weight of the collar that had once been around her throat.

  Slowly, reluctantly, Daenerys gave a single nod.

  A promise.