Chapter 182

The curtains were fully drawn, and it was the time before dawn. Ji Qi lay sleeping nearby, emitting a soft snore; the queen, weary, crawled out of bed, poured a cup of cold water at the desk, and greedily drank it.

She dreamed of Moermeng again. He appeared, not merely as a voice.

She saw his face tattooed with a slave's mark—a blue demon symbolizing a violent, dangerous, insolent slave… his whole body was covered in whip scars etched into thick muscle and thriving hair. He looked far fiercer than when he had left.

Does he hate me?

In the dream he was like a kind father and elder brother, saying, "I will always be behind you, Your Highness," but in reality he never addressed her that way; Kalixi was his usual form of address, "Be brave—no one can defeat you, you must fight like a true dragon." His voice seemed still to ring in her ears.

She did not know how to be a true dragon, asking, "How should I do it?" She waited for the long silence, and as he faded he left a trailing sound: "Crush them, destroy them—only with blood and fire does one become a true dragon, just as you once did."

Blood and fire—thinking of those words, she felt a strange taste in her mouth, salty and bloody, with a lingering burnt aftertaste.

She lifted the dark curtain and left the bedroom, once again standing on the railing of the great pyramid before dawn. The east lay dark and gloomy, but the sky over the distant Skahazadan River was a deep crimson, like congealed blood, reminding her of the blood‑soaked streets of Milin after a slaughter.

Tiliang said, Moermeng's main camp is stationed by the river; have they already kicked up a bloody storm?

"Danilisi," she heard a voice call her—no one inside Milin addressed her that way.

"Kuixi?" she saw Kuixi standing beside a pillar on the platform, wearing a strange forehead mask and headscarf, watching her.

"How did you get past my guards and come here?"

"I thought we no longer needed to discuss such matters."

"Why have you come here?"

"I have come to guide you; there is much about you that I must tell you—you are stepping into danger……"

"Enough!" she almost shouted, "You keep giving me vague, unfathomable 'prophecies'; I hate guessing at every word of yours. If you truly want to tell me, you had better speak in words I can understand!"

"I would like to do that, but I cannot; I can only tell you what I have read."

"Read? Then you're useless! Go away, and don't come back."

"Danilisi! You are facing danger……"

"I have never been safe! Such words mean nothing to me except to bother me and make me anxious; they serve no purpose. Leave at once, or I will have the guards drive you away."

"If you summon them, they will only see you talking to the pillar."

"Stop putting on airs, stop threatening and annoying me with nonsense about the 'three‑headed' or eastern‑western ghosts! I am the Dragon Queen; I need no one to warn me of danger! Even if danger exists, I can rely on my soldiers and my dragons to deal with it. Leave now, and never appear again!"

A long sigh echoed down the corridor, cold light glinting on the chilly pillars; everything was empty, and what had just happened felt like another dream.

Kuixi's appearance made her feel a chill.

"Roar——" a dragon's cry; she followed the sound and saw a gray shadow land on the top of the neighboring pyramid—Leige, it seemed to have returned from feeding. Another dragon cry rang out; a dark shape sliced the sky, circling and surrounding her before darting off toward another pyramid.

Dragons love high ground; they are not fond of hiding in canyons like easily startled worms, nor are they limited to lurking in alleys like the offspring of harpies, or hiding behind walls like cowardly kings.

They have grown large enough.

"Boom!" she heard a deep, muffled blast; "Boom!" came an even louder one.

Debris flew through the air, and she seemed already to smell the dust.

"Kalixi!" Ji Qi burst out of the room in a startled cry.

She gestured for her to be quiet.

This was a dragon, the commotion caused by Zheyong. She pulled up her thin nightgown, went around the column, and followed the pyramid's winding path upward, where she saw the Unsullied holding spears in a defensive stance.

It was a black dragon, her dragon, looking so mighty that she wondered whether this was still a dream: one forefoot pressed on a burned enemy soldier, its talons covering the man's head and digging into his brain, as if it were a cat clutching an ordinary mouse.

"Roar——" it bellowed at Danilisi and the Unsullied.

Danilisi's nightgown was ripped open by the wind from the roar; she had no time to retie it, only wanting to get a good look at the fierce beast she herself had borne.

Fear and pride rose together in her chest.

It was growing so fast! She could not help wanting to stroke it, but when she reached out, she could not reach it.

She gazed into Zheyong's eyes—a pool of gold‑red molten lava, breathing fire; amazingly, she noticed her own reflection shimmering within. Oh, it was also gazing back at her.

"We are in danger……" she thought of Kuixi and that larger red dragon, then spoke to the dragon before her in Valyrian: "We will defeat our enemies," my enemies, as Moermeng said, "crush them, destroy them!"

The dragon turned, its talons slicing soldiers' heads to pieces, gripping the pyramid's rock with agility as chunks of shattered stone rolled down from above.

The queen watched it spread its vast black wings in the gloom, the bone‑wing nearly slicing past her face; she shuddered back a step.

It turned its head again, roared loudly at her, then beat its wings and vanished into the dark night, followed by Leige and Weisalis.

"Clang clang clang……" a clear warning rang out from the pyramid.

"What's happening?" the urgent clatter of the bell made her tense—was the danger Kuixi had warned of arriving?

"Your Majesty, are you all right?" Baron Baristans appeared beside her in a simple robe, while the burly guard Beowos, assigned as her protector for the day, stood behind him.

"Your Majesty, since you have awakened, this news must be relayed: Tiliang sent back a messenger who said that the Tiger Cloak Army is willing to rise in revolt this evening and hopes we will dispatch troops to respond."

"How did he manage that?" Perhaps the little demon is merely deceiving her, leading her army into a trap.

"The messenger said, Tiliang disguised himself as a red‑robed monk of Rahalo, won over dissatisfied followers within the Tiger Cloak Army; coincidentally, at least one battalion of those believers could be fully controlled by the faithful, and once rioting began they believed they could throw the whole army into chaos—if at that moment the Milin great army could respond from the flank, we could utterly defeat the Westerosi land army of Valantis in one blow." He sighed, "Moreover, you still have Moermeng's picnic band."

"The picnic band now numbers just over a hundred cavalry, plus the newly absorbed mercenaries, at most two hundred total," Gelacided, whom she had left staying at the great pyramid and who could therefore hurry over, said, "I've inquired thoroughly—that little demon is deceiving you!"

"But they are indeed a mercenary company organized as three hundred cavalry," the old baron said, "although they cannot compare to the Stormcrows, nor even to the Windblown's two thousand or the Cat's three thousand, and they fall short of the Sons and the Spears—though I do not like Moermeng, I consider him far more reliable than the Prince of Rags or Ben Plumm."

"Is it really that simple?" the queen asked.

"What?" the old baron asked in surprise.

"The little demon said the Tiger Cloak Army will revolt this evening." She felt a bit embarrassed, having just been lost in thought, "He pretends to be a red‑robed monk and succeeds—that's far too easy." I don't believe it.

"This, I don't know what method he used; perhaps later we can summon him to explain. In any case, he is indeed the smartest person in Westeros."

"There is still time until this evening; send word to him to delay the uprising by three days."

"Three days? Why?"

Because I don't trust him, because Kuixi said I am stepping into danger.

"Our enemies are the Yunkai; their army lies to the east, they are the core of the coalition—if we do not defeat them, we shall never know peace, for even if we beat the Valyrian coalition, they will not collapse. The Valyrian forces to the west, however, are different: their officers face Milin's deep ditches and thick walls, I have seen no siege engines with them, nor any timber outside for building catapults or trebuchets, and I find it hard to believe they would send slaves to attack their own liberators."

Those around listened to her speak at length, secretly feeling a bit pleased—this was merely an off‑the‑cuff thought of hers, yet she also worried whether it was a tyrant's trait warned of by the ancients: wisdom sufficient to reject counsel, and eloquence sufficient to disguise fault.

"What do you mean?"

My point is already clear. I will first defeat Yuan Kai's slave masters and send them to meet their gods! Hope the new advisor doesn't mind, "We are growing desperate, time is also short, everyone, please invite all the officers for me to devise an attack strategy." Crush them, destroy them, with blood and fire.