𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍'𝐒 𝐃𝐀𝐖𝐍ㅤㅤㅤ❪ hotd¹ ❫

002. marriage is duty

The Sea Snake was not pleased when word of Viserys' decision to wed Naerys Targaryen reached Driftmark. House Velaryon had been passed over once again, his daughter, Laena, scorned just as his son, Laenor, had been scorned by the Great Council, and his wife by the Old King back in 92 AC. Only Lady Laena herself seemed untroubled.

"Her ladyship shows far more interest in flying than in boys," The maester at High Tide wrote to the Citadel.

When King Viserys took Naerys Targaryen to wife in 106 AC, House Velaryon was notable for its absence. Laughter and love ruled the Red Keep that night, whilst across Blackwater Bay, Lord Corlys, the Sea Snake, welcomed the King's brother, Prince Daemon, to a war council. The Prince had suffered all he could stand of the Vale of Arryn, Runestone, and his lady wife.

"Dark Sister was made for nobler tasks than slaughtering sheep," He told the Lord of the Tides.

"She has a thirst for blood." But it was
not rebellion that the Prince had in mind; he saw another path to power.

The Stepstones, the chain of rocky islands between Dorne and the Disputed Lands of Essos, had long been a haunt of outlaws, exiles, wreckers, and pirates. Of themselves the isles were of little worth, but placed as they were, they controlled the sea lanes to and from the Narrow Sea, and merchant ships passing through those waters were often preyed on by their inhabitants. Still, for centuries such depredations had remained no more than a nuisance.

Ten years earlier, however, the Free Cities of Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh had put aside their ancient enmities to make common cause in a war against Volantis. After defeating the Volantenes in the Battle of the Borderland, the three victorious cities had entered into an "eternal alliance," and formed a strong new power: the Triarchy, better known in Westeros as the Kingdom of the Three Daughters, as each of the Free Cities considered itself a daughter of Valyria of old, or, more rudely, the Kingdom of the Three Whores - though this "kingdom" was without a King, being governed by a council of thirty-three magisters.

Once Volantis sued for peace and withdrew from the Disputed Lands, the Three Daughters had turned their gaze westward, sweeping over the Stepstones with their combined armies and fleets under the command of the Myrish admiral, Craghas Drahar, who earned the sobriquet Craghas "Crabfeeder" when he staked out hundreds of captured pirates on the wet sands, to drown beneath the rising tide.

The conquest and annexation of the Stepstones by the Kingdom of the Three Daughters at first met with only approval from the lords of Westeros. Order had replaced chaos, and if the Three Daughters demanded a toll of any ship passing through their waters, that seemed a small price to pay to be rid of the pirates. The avarice of Craghas Crabfeeder and his partners in conquest soon turned feelings against them, however; the toll was raised again, and yet again, soon becoming so ruinous that merchants who had once paid gladly now sought to slip past the galleys of the Triarchy as once they had the pirates.

Drahar and his Lysene and Tyroshi co-admirals seemed to be vying with each other to see who was the greediest, men complained. The Lyseni became especially loathed, for they claimed more than coin from passing ships, taking off women, girls, and comely young boys to serve in their pleasure gardens and pillow houses. Amongst those thus enslaved was Lady Johanna Swann, a fifteen-year-old niece of the Lord of Stonehelm. When her infamously niggardly uncle refused to pay the ransom, she was sold to a pillow house, where she rose to become the celebrated courtesan known as the Black Swan, and ruler of Lys in all but name.

Of all the lords of Westeros, none suffered so much from the practices as Corlys Velaryon, whose fleets had made him as wealthy and powerful as any man in the Seven Kingdoms. The Sea Snake was determined to put an end to the Triarchy's rule over the Stepstones, and in Daemon Targaryen he found a willing partner, eager for the gold and glory that victory in war would bring him. Shunning the King's wedding, they laid their plans in High Tide on the isle Driftmark. Lord Velaryon would command the fleet, Prince Daemon the army. They would be greatly outnumbered by the forces of the Three Daughters, but the Prince would also bring to battle the fires of his dragon, Caraxes, the Blood Wyrm.