"King of the Narrow Sea?" Gendry rolled the title over his tongue, testing its weight. While others might have found the name intoxicating, Gendry's eyes were fixed on a much larger prize: a unified realm encompassing the Disputed Lands, the Stepstones, and the fractured alliance of the Three Daughters.
"The title isn't new, Your Grace," Qyburn noted, his voice a dry rasp. "Many have claimed to rule the rocks and the spray of the Narrow Sea, from Daemon Targaryen to the pirate kings of old. But a crown is only as heavy as the metal it's forged from. To be a true king, you must first swallow the Sisters."
Gendry looked at the sea of kneeling pirates on the shores of Bloodstone. They were a rabble of exiles from Westeros, Tyrosh, and Lys, but in their desperation, he saw a tool.
"Tell Harris to split the fleet," Gendry ordered. "One half stays here to hold Bloodstone and Grey Gallows and watch for the Lysene. The rest follow me to Myr. I've given the Magisters enough time to count their coins. Now, they will count their sins."
Gendry had no intention of turning Myr into a funeral pyre. He wanted the city's looms, its glass-blowers, and its wealth. Excessive violence would only unite the other Free Cities against him. He needed a surgical strike—a fall that felt like an inevitability rather than a slaughter.
"You will be my vanguard," Gendry said to the captured pirates. "You know the harbor better than my Northmen. Do not fail me, and you will have a share of the port's wealth. Fail me, and the Ironman's fate on the prow will be a mercy compared to yours."
Myr, the city of white marble and intricate lace, was a hive of terror.
The Magisters and slave-lords had retreated behind the walls of the Inner City, abandoning the common districts and the docks. They no longer trusted the city's own inhabitants, and for good reason—the scent of revolution was stronger than the perfume of the pleasure houses. The city watch was paralyzed, caught between the looming threat outside and the rising tide of slave revolts within.
"Bloodbeard is dead! Mero is dead!" the cries echoed through the marble halls.
The news of the Company of the Cat's annihilation had broken the Magisters' spirit. They looked toward the eastern horizon and saw the silhouettes of the "Wolf's Three Whores"—the three massive trebuchets Gendry had turned against their creators. Positioned on the ancient Valyrian Road that stretched from the city gates, the engines began to fire.
But they did not throw stones. They threw thousands of parchment leaflets that fluttered into the streets like snow. Join the Liberator. Break your chains. The Wolf is at the gate.
"The city is surrounded on three sides," the officers reported to the Conclave. "The Wolf Pack holds the estates, the Free Army holds the roads, and the harbor... God help us, the harbor is lost."
A fleet of black-sailed ships emerged from the morning mist, flying the grey-and-white wolf and the broken shackle.
The Myrish navy, manned largely by slaves who had no desire to die for their masters, crumbled. Those galleys that didn't immediately surrender were swarmed by Gendry's pirate vanguard. Gendry's own ship sailed into the calm waters of the Myrish Bay, passing the hulks of burning warships.
"A fine fleet," Gendry noted, looking at the captured Myrish galleys. "Much better than the river-boats we started with. Now we have a navy fit for a king."
As the harbor fell, the internal revolt reached its boiling point. Slaves armed with butcher knives and cobblestones surged against the city watch, opening the outer gates to the sound of trumpeting war-horns. The Wolf Pack infantry, led by Iron Fist and Grey Wolf, poured into the streets.
But the final blow came from within the Inner City itself.
"The Conclave gates are open!"
"The Second Sons! They've turned cloak again!"
Brown Ben Plumm had played his part perfectly. Under the cover of the chaos, his mercenaries had seized the inner gatehouse and thrown the bolts. The "inner response" Gendry had planned with Ben in the mud of the Disputed Lands had succeeded.
The Second Sons stood aside as Gendry, clad in his black scale mail and iron mask, rode through the gilded gates of the Inner City. The fall of Myr was complete. The "City of Artisans" was his, and the Three Daughters were now two.