Chapter 365

Petyr Baelish never dreamed he would reunite with an "old friend" under such circumstances.
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Months earlier, in Slaver’s Bay, the Queen had stubbornly ignored all advice and used her dragons to assault the Yunkai'i fleet blockading the bay. Amid a hail of arrows and stone projectiles, the operation was fraught with danger, but in the end, it succeeded. The enemy had prepared some measures against dragons but hadn’t anticipated that Daenerys would return as a master dragonrider, launching an attack on the same day she arrived without rest. With the overwhelming presence of three massive flying beasts and the aid of dragonfire, Meereen’s remaining navy and the Unsullied launched a coordinated assault by sea and land, decisively defeating the second wave of the masters’ armies.

Half of the proud Yunkai'i fleet was sunk by dragonfire and the Ironborn ships’ rams, while the other half was captured nearly intact by the Meereenese navy, with only a few vessels escaping in the chaos. These nearly two hundred ocean-going ships, along with the captured slave sailors aboard them, immediately solved one of Daenerys Targaryen’s biggest logistical problems: now, with the addition of the small Ironborn fleet, she had enough vessels to transport her entire army back to Westeros.

After "liberating" the enslaved sailors and adding them to her forces, Daenerys pressed her advantage. Meereen, now victorious, used its armed strength to compel Yunkai and Qarth to pay reparations and sign a truce. The Queen then used her war spoils to purchase massive quantities of provisions and equipment. Riding her dragons, she deterred a few khalasars that attempted to intervene. Finally, with her internal affairs stabilized and both her military and political preparations complete, she embarked on her long-overdue campaign to reclaim Westeros.

Dragonstone’s fleet was well-trained but few in number, and under the combined assault of Meereen’s armada and three dragons, it quickly fell. After more than a decade in exile, Daenerys Targaryen, the Stormborn, finally returned to her birthplace, the starting point of her journey.

But before facing either the retaliation of her enemies or the eager adulation of her supporters, an unexpected figure appeared before her: "The Spider" Varys, the former Master of Whisperers under King Robert and later Stannis Baratheon. Varys had disappeared from public view for over a year, vanishing entirely after Stannis took the Iron Throne.

The eunuch, perfumed and powdered, was hardly a welcome sight. But when he presented evidence of his years of covert support for Daenerys and her brother, along with a generous gift—a map detailing the military deployments of the Crownlands—he was allowed to remain on Dragonstone. Soon after, the Unsullied, supported by Varys’s intelligence, secured several easy victories on the Crackclaw Peninsula. When scouts confirmed that King’s Landing had been equipped with a significant number of anti-dragon weapons, Varys gradually gained the Queen’s trust and became a regular presence in her war councils.

This, of course, made Petyr Baelish seethe with frustration.
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That day, another military meeting was underway in Dragonstone’s cavernous, slightly eerie council chamber.

With the Ironborn fleet and half of the Valyrian navy bolstered by her three dragons, Daenerys had established uncontested control over Blackwater Bay, trapping the other half of Stannis’s fleet within King’s Landing’s harbor under the cover of coastal defenses, trebuchets, and anti-dragon scorpions. Meanwhile, on land, the Unsullied and Free Folk army had secured the Crackclaw Peninsula and now aimed their spears at Duskendale, one of the Crownlands’ major strongholds.

There was little disagreement among the Queen’s advisors about the army’s capabilities. The Unsullied were nearly invincible on the battlefield, and everyone agreed on the general strategy: after capturing Duskendale, the army would advance to Rosby, then follow the Blackwater River downstream to rendezvous with the navy under the walls of King’s Landing, encircling the capital.

However, the specifics of what should happen next sparked a heated debate between Petyr Baelish and Varys.

"King’s Landing, including the Red Keep, is bristling with long-range anti-dragon weapons," Varys argued. "Without the support of the dragons, relying solely on the Unsullied, the Free Folk army, and the navy to assault the city would result in horrendous losses. Stannis is a brilliant strategist, and the defenses he’s prepared are nearly impregnable. Your Grace, your goal isn’t merely to retake the Iron Throne. You must unify the Seven Kingdoms. If you squander your elite forces on the first battlefield, the road to unification will become a never-ending march."

"Utterly absurd!" Baelish countered. "What are you suggesting? That we camp outside King’s Landing while the Seven Kingdoms leisurely prepare their responses to the Queen’s return?"

Baelish’s tone was sharp and direct. Back in King Robert’s court, as Master of Coin, his duties were straightforward—"counting coppers," as Robert put it—and he rarely spoke up during council meetings. But now, he was the Queen’s Hand, a senior advisor who had helped Daenerys overcome countless obstacles from Meereen to Westeros. Allowing a recently resurfaced Varys to influence her decisions so freely was unthinkable to him.

Though Baelish lacked deep military expertise, he couldn’t let Varys’s arguments go unchallenged. "Even if we could take King’s Landing without losing a single soldier, do you really think we could conquer all of Westeros with just twenty thousand men from Meereen? Your Grace, this is not the age of your ancestors’ conquest. A swift, decisive victory—seizing the political and economic heart of the Seven Kingdoms—will bring supporters flocking to your banner far faster than you can imagine!"

"Lord Baelish is correct," Varys interjected smoothly. "This is not the age of conquest. The Targaryens ruled for over two centuries on the backs of their dragons, and while dragons are still seen as symbols of legitimacy, everyone knows how to kill one now. Their symbolic value far outweighs their practical utility, Your Grace. To ride a dragon into battle should only ever be a last resort."

Baelish’s face darkened. That had been his own argument back in Meereen—how could he oppose something he himself had once advocated?

"Rather than squander our forces on a direct assault," Varys continued, "we should besiege King’s Landing and focus on defeating the lords who come to Stannis’s aid. His bannermen lack the anti-dragon weapons deployed in the capital, and the Unsullied excel in open-field battles. While our forces prepare siege equipment outside the city, I will secure support from the Reach and Dorne. Even your nephew, Aegon Targaryen, will likely seize the opportunity to join us with the Golden Company. When we’ve assembled a coalition army, we can then besiege King’s Landing in full strength. Any regions that refuse to submit after we take the capital can be declared traitors. Isn’t that a better path to victory?"
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Damn it, Petyr thought, momentarily at a loss. If Varys said he could rally the Reach and Dorne, then he probably could. And how could Baelish counter the idea of using dragons as a last resort when it was a position he had previously endorsed?

Varys held all the cards, exuding confidence, while Petyr felt his influence slipping away.

Having listened quietly for a while, Missandei finally spoke up, her voice tentative. "Your Grace, both of your advisors have valid points. But why follow conventional warfare at all? On a dark, stormy night, couldn’t you simply fly to the Red Keep and burn Stannis to ash? Wouldn’t that end the war at its source?"

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