Chapter 662

Westeros remained the domain of House Targaryen, but the great beast, now emaciated, had become easier to lead by the nose than before the Dance of the Dragons. Braavos, though largely a spectator throughout the civil war, quietly reaped the rewards—reweaving its vast web of influence and, at the decisive moment, backing the victorious side. In the end, it emerged not only as a peripheral victor but also as a mediator, a supporter of post-war reconstruction, and—most crucially—as a power with greater influence and leverage than ever before.

Time had passed. Those who had once fiercely criticized Gordon were gone, their voices long faded. Of the men gathered in this room today, few had ever debated policy with him at the same table. Most knew of him only from the accounts of their elders—he was brilliant, but even more so, he was arrogant. He had once saved the Iron Bank from decline, but nearly turned Braavos into his personal fiefdom in the process.

To understand this, one had to look back, to a time before the Rogare Bank had reached its peak—before it had provoked the full wrath of the Iron Bank. But let it be clear: the downfall of the Rogare Bank was not simply a matter of assassinating its two leaders. No, Braavos had done far more than that.

For several long seconds, the gathered men remained silent, staring in realization. This old man had no intention of guiding them further. He had pointed them in the right direction—then withdrawn to the shadows, leaving them to devise the means.

"How do we bring down the Mother of Dragons’ reign?" The current President of the Keepers’ Council broke the silence. The sheer force of Gordon’s tirade had been overwhelming, and the younger man found himself yearning to emulate him. If he wanted to become a political titan like Gordon, what better way to start than by leading this war?

"Braavos has outlasted and crushed countless rivals over its long history. We have no shortage of successful precedents to follow, so what is there to worry about? Take, for instance, the Rogare Bank, which Master Gallonier just mentioned. Is that not a weaker prototype of the Westerosi Bank we now face? The way we dismantled that institution was a masterpiece of multi-department coordination, a textbook case of eliminating an enemy by any means necessary. Why reinvent the wheel when we already have the perfect model?"

The men in the room slowly nodded, their eyes bright with understanding. They began to recall, piece by piece, how the Iron Bank had crushed the Rogare Bank underfoot.

Braavos needed a catalyst—something to bring Westeros, that wild beast on the verge of breaking free, back under its control.

Not because Braavos had grown lax in its foreign affairs—on the contrary, its efforts remained relentless. But after the war between House Targaryen and House Martell had settled into a temporary peace, something unexpected had happened. Under their leadership, the Seven Kingdoms—or rather, six plus one—had flourished. The unprecedented prosperity had led to the rise of a new class of nobles and lords—figures who had never before dealt with Braavos, who were not part of the Iron Bank’s existing networks. These men, newly rich and influential, began demanding a voice of their own.

Braavos’ grip on Westeros did not weaken, per se. But like ink diluted in an expanding pool of water, its once-dense network of connections had been stretched thin. The Iron Bank’s once-formidable influence over the realm had, for the first time, begun to fade.

Yet among the common folk, the legend persisted: "Whoever sits the Iron Throne is decided by the Iron Bank."

And if there was one true victor of the war, it was Braavos.

During the regency of Aegon III, the then-head of House Rogare—the great Lysandro Rogare—had, by sheer luck, married his daughter, Lara Rogare, to Prince Viserys Targaryen, the future Viserys II. At the same time, he had maneuvered his brother, Drazenko Rogare, into marrying Queen Aliandra Martell of Dorne.

Thus, the Rogare Bank gained not only Westeros as an ally but also its most lucrative client.

It grew richer than even the Iron Bank—so powerful that it threatened the very foundations of Braavos’ financial supremacy. But just as quickly as it rose, it fell. When Lysandro and Drazenko—the twin pillars of House Rogare’s dominance—both died on the same day, their family’s fortune crumbled. In a cascade of disasters and scandals, the Rogare Bank was reduced to dust, swept away by history.

A war with no winners—that was the consensus among historians.

But no winners did not mean there were no beneficiaries.

Braavos, it had to be said, did not orchestrate the war. Not even the Iron Bank could claim such omnipotence. The civil war had begun with the death of King Viserys I, escalated when Queen Alicent Hightower and her faction defied the king’s will to crown Prince Aegon, and officially erupted when Prince Lucerys Velaryon and Prince Aemond Targaryen—both dragonriders—faced off in the infamous "Dance Over Shipbreaker Bay." What followed was a spiral of vengeance and bloodshed, a conflict fueled by hatred, ambition, and the unchecked destruction of dragons.

Throughout this war, Braavos and the Iron Bank remained in the background. But their invisible strings manipulated events in subtle yet profound ways, ensuring that the conflict became bloodier, its consequences graver. In the end, the black and green factions exhausted each other, leaving Westeros weaker—its overall power reduced by an entire magnitude.

Braavos had tamed the beast before.

How complete was its control?

For years after the war, every new Hand of the King seemed to owe their position, in one way or another, to Braavos. From Cregan Stark—who served only a single day but signed nearly two dozen death sentences—to the infamous "Hooded Hand" Tyland Lannister, to the arrogant, all-powerful Orwyle Peake, and even the young and inexperienced Thaddeus Rowan—each of them was either an old friend of Braavos, a recipient of its generosity, or an unwitting servant of its interests. And those who weren’t? They found themselves quickly replaced for a myriad of unfortunate reasons.

The regency council and the Small Council were packed with foreign agents and proxies. It was only when Aegon III finally placed his absolute trust in his own brother—Viserys Targaryen, who later became king himself—that this trend was brought under control.

This was the moment when the Black and Green factions began to blur into something new.

The year 129 AC had seen the outbreak of the Dance of the Dragons, a civil war that ravaged Westeros. Its details were recorded in countless histories, making further elaboration unnecessary. The war—alternatively known as "The Princess and the Queen," "The Black and the Green," or "A Play of Two Women"—ended in ruin for both sides. The leaders of both factions perished, the Targaryen dynasty entered its decline, and the dragons—their greatest weapon—were rendered extinct.

And just when Braavos believed it had fully ensnared Westeros, when it thought its position as the world’s financial capital was unshakable, a new threat emerged from the ashes of war.

The Rogare family.

They, too, had crawled out of the wreckage, seeking to claim the spoils.

Gordon Gallonier was a controversial figure—a man of both infamy and legend. But at this moment, as the war faction in the room watched him recline in his chair, sipping leisurely from a flask as he observed their reactions, a single thought flickered through their minds.

Democracy was all well and good, but in times like these, it was nice to have a decisive leader to take charge.

Braavos and the Iron Bank had played little overt role in the war. But through unseen machinations, they had pushed its destruction to even greater heights. And when the dust settled, Westeros was weakened, its economy devastated.

And Braavos?

Braavos was ready to tighten its grip once more.