Chapter 706

“Right thumbprint!”

A single command from Aegor cut through the tense silence.

An Unsullied soldier and Myrcella bolted toward the carriage where Aegor kept his inkpad.

Meanwhile, Harry Strickland, sensing imminent disaster, began frantically shouting out the names of the nine men who had accompanied him to the secret meeting, calling on them like drowning men grasping for driftwood.

Aegor made no move to stop him.

Only after he was certain that Daenerys had seen the discrepancy between the two thumbprints did he hand the “pardon” back to the Unsullied soldier who had retrieved it.

“Return this to Captain Strickland—no, better yet, pass it around. Every single member of the Golden Company should see it.

“Lord Tyrell as well.

“I insist—let all of you, from top to bottom, take a good long look at how the captain of Essos’s most prestigious mercenary company has been played for a fool.”

Was this necessary?

Perhaps not.

But now, she wanted him dead.

Daenerys barked a new order, her voice cold and sharp as steel.

“Bring that thing here.”

Her face was dark with rage, her fingers curling into fists as she glared at Strickland.

Not only had he conspired to murder the last of her blood, but he had done so in a way that would frame her for kinslaying.

Such hatred—such malice—would not be repaid with exile or mere imprisonment.

Only fire and blood could wash this sin away.

The mercenaries knew it too.

Panic spread like wildfire through their ranks.

The Golden Company officers—men who had spent their lives calculating risk and reward—began to edge away, abandoning their captain without hesitation.

Only Harry was left standing alone, facing down the approaching Unsullied warriors.

He had one final, desperate reaction.

With a furious snarl, he tore the forged pardon in half, whirled around, and bolted toward the main Golden Company force in the distance.

The momentary shock was broken by Daenerys’s sharp command:

“Are you all planning to ask me to ‘reconsider’ as well?”

Her voice cut through the confusion like a whip.

She was certain—absolutely certain—that Aegor had spent the entirety of yesterday either in her company or asleep.

And yet Strickland had claimed that Aegor had personally handed him the pardon before sunset.

A wave of nausea passed over her as a terrible realization set in.

The one who had forged this decree—the one who had impersonated her Hand—was likely the same person responsible for the poisoning attempt at Winterfell.

Daenerys clenched her fists even tighter.

Enough.

She spat the only word that could satisfy the fire in her veins.

“Seize him.”

Aegor wasted no time. He rolled up his sleeve, dipped his right thumb into the ink, and pressed it firmly onto the bottom of the so-called “pardon,” right beside the existing print.

Dracarys responded immediately. The great black dragon circled above the gathering, sensing his rider’s shifting mood. He dipped lower, gliding over the assembled mercenaries, his massive form blotting out the midday sun.

The Golden Company shuddered.

Few things in the world could break the will of hardened mercenaries, but the shadow of a dragon was one of them.

“Still pretending?”

Harry was being dragged forward by his own men, his arms flailing as he pointed an accusing finger at Aegor.

“You! You handed it to me yourself yesterday, before sunset! Even if the pardon is fake, the bottom print—”

He turned to Daenerys, near hysterical.

“Your Grace, if you doubt me, have him place his thumbprint again—right now!”

Daenerys didn’t even need to look at the details of the decree to know it was false.

The formatting was wrong.

The ink seals were wrong.

Hell, the document’s very shape was wrong.

House Targaryen had never issued official pardons in this format.

Still, she forced herself to scan through the whole thing.

By the time she reached the bottom, the final proof hit her like a hammer to the gut.

Two thumbprints.

One fresh.

One old.

And they were nothing alike.

Harry Strickland’s world spun.

This wasn’t just a mistake.

It wasn’t a minor flaw.

It was proof—undeniable, crushing proof—that he had been set up from the very beginning.

His mouth moved, but no sound came out.

He had been played.

“Who,” Aegor asked, his voice dangerously low, “gave you this?”

Harry hesitated for only a second—then his survival instincts kicked in.

“Black Bartch! It was you!”

A hush fell over the Golden Company.

A moment later, the archer captain paled, cursed, and shoved the document into the hands of the nearest Unsullied, as if it were burning his fingers.

Harry saw this as his last chance.

He turned on the rest of his men, waving the torn scroll in the air.

“See this?!” he roared, voice breaking.

“This is the Queen’s official decree! She pardoned me yesterday—how can she arrest me today? Does the royal word last less than a single day?!”

For half a heartbeat, the officers hesitated.

Some turned their gazes downward, unwilling to acknowledge the reality of their situation.

But no one spoke in his defense.

The moment stretched.

Then Daenerys, who had been standing deathly still, exhaled slowly.

The breath of a dragon, moments before it unleashed fire.

“Take him.”

It was over.

The Golden Company officers had been tense, gripping their weapons out of sheer muscle memory. But as Strickland was seized, they exhaled in relief and let their swords clatter to the ground.

The Queen was not wiping them out.

She only wanted their captain.

The idiot.

The fool who had dragged them all into this disaster.

“You worthless coward!” one of his lieutenants spat.

Harry thrashed as the Unsullied closed in, his voice cracking with desperation.

“This was all arranged with your Hand!”

His eyes darted wildly to Aegor, searching for the smallest trace of mercy, of recognition—anything.

But Aegor’s expression was unreadable.

Daenerys, however, was another story.

The rage in her eyes was incandescent.

Harry had known her fury would be swift and terrible, but even now, at the very end, he could not understand—

Why?

Why had it come to this?

He had accepted a deal.

He had played his part.

He had been careful.

How had everything gone so horribly, horribly wrong?

There was no answer.

There was only the roar of a dragon above, the cold steel of Unsullied spears at his back—

And a Queen who had finally decided he needed to die.