Rick was standing in a massive warehouse with his eyes fixed on the heap of Dragon Steel before him.
More than twenty soldiers always remained on guard surrounding the warehouse, protecting this precious steel. Not that anyone would dare to steal something that belonged to Rhaenys Targaryen.
A very peculiar but brilliant method had been used by Her Grace to forge the Dragon Steel. She had commissioned ten caskets made of earthen clay, each big enough to hold one hundred kilos of steel. She then had placed the steel she had received from him in those caskets, and then, most probably, one of her dragons had breathed its hot flames upon them. And voila! You had your Dragon Steel.
Rick had tried to understand the principle behind the forging of the Dragon Steel. He had thought that Her Grace might not be very willing to share her secret. But she had shared the secret with her.
In fact, she had not hesitated in the slightest. And he understood the reason. There was no way someone else could replicate that process. Even so, he was grateful to her for the explanation.
What more could a blacksmith demand than to understand the secrets of metals? It was as if in his past few days all his goals of being a blacksmith were being fulfilled.
According to Her Grace, dragon flame was not strictly essential for the forging of the metal. It just needed to reach that very high temperature to purify all the impurities from the steel and make it flawless.
But the problem was, there was no humanly possible way to heat a metal to the temperature that could be achieved by a dragon flame. So, even though dragon flame was not technically necessary to forge Dragon Steel, it was virtually impossible to do so without it.
But that had not been the end. Apart from the Dragon Steel, Her Grace had also granted him a small lump of Valyrian Steel. Pure Valyrian Steel. Around twenty kilograms. He still remembered that day when after showcasing the lump of the Dragon Steel, Her Grace had brought him before the lump of Valyrian Steel. The shock he had felt at that time had been unimaginable.
But the more shocking part came later. That Valyrian Steel had been forged by Her Grace herself. Rick had hardly been able to control his shock when he learned this. Valyrian Steel? This had been very very shocking.
Valyrian steel had been reproduced in the world after centuries. He had enquired about the secret of Valyrian Steel and had been disappointed. No, not because Her Grace had refused to give him an explanation, but because, unlike Dragon Steel, Her Grace could not control the production of Valyrian Steel at her own free will. The production was destined to remain very limited.
According to Her Grace, there was only one difference between Dragon Steel and Valyrian Steel. Every aspect of both metals was the same, except that Valyrian Steel had magic inscribed within it.
Her Grace had made a guess and he agreed with it that the Valyrian Lords might have been using their dragons to heat the metal and then some kind of ritual, blood magic, or another form of magic to imbue the steel with power.
Then how did Her Grace get the steel? Did she also perform some blood ritual? No.
As per her explanation, the dragons themselves were magical creatures, and over a period of time, they were able to accumulate a bit of magic within their bodies. And then this accumulated magic could be used to produce magical flames, flames imbued with magic, and thus, you had your Valyrian Steel.
But the dragons needed a lot of time to accumulate that magic. The twenty kilos he had been granted was all that the five dragons had been able to forge after months of magic accumulation. Even despite all this, to have a source of Valyrian Steel in itself was a great thing. Though limited, it was going to be a massive advantage. If sold, people were going to get frantic over it.
Though Rick had wondered why the other Targaryens had not been able to produce the Dragon Steel. Maybe Her Grace was really the one chosen to rewrite the fate of this world. Maybe she was meant to bring about a civilization even greater than Valyria.
.
.
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While Rhaenys was busy selling the steel that was going to change the course of Essos, Westeros, and the entire world, a different scene was playing out in Meereen.
Almost the entire city of Meereen was in a shutdown today. Every shop, every establishment, every trade, every business and even every government department was on holiday.
And despite this shutdown, every last resident of the city had come out onto the streets. The crowd was so massive that a special exception had been made, allowing them to climb the walls of the city. It was getting harder and harder for Asmund and his men to control the crowd. They were almost getting frantic. And the reason for such chaos and storm? Lord Aeos was leaving Meereen. And everyone wanted to get one glimpse of their king. Many had already dared to take risks to get close enough to him.
Jon's plan had been to leave the town silently without creating any fuss, but Melisandre and a few of his advisors suggested otherwise. They said that no one knew how long it would be before Jon returned to Meereen, and the residents of the city deserved a proper chance to bid farewell to their savior, to their monarch, and to the man they almost worshipped like a god.
If Jon simply vanished, it might leave a sour taste in their mouths. And thus, the announcement had been made that Jon was about to depart to join the campaign against the Free Cities. Every resident had come to the streets to see him off.
He was riding a horse in the middle of the main Meereen street, a flood of humans surrounding him from all sides. Thousands and thousands of eyes were settled on him.
Melisandre was on another horse next to him, and his Supreme Shadows, led by Grey Worm, were maintaining a small perimeter, preventing the populace from approaching too close to him.
Lord Aeos raised his palm, and a wave of silence spread through the crowd. This was the last time, probably in years, that they were going to hear directly from their monarch.
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