89: Chapter 89 The Complete Plan

Daenerys finally spoke.

Her voice was not loud, but the room immediately fell silent. Even the nightfire in the copper basin dampened—the blue-green tongues of flame shrinking by half an inch. Her purple eyes looked directly into Melisandre's red eyes.

"Finish what you were saying. Assuming I agree to let Drogon go to King's Landing—how will he survive between the Enforcement Squad and the Gold Cloaks? The Gold Cloaks will attack any dragon. The Enforcement Squad's Chronos Dragon will hunt him directly. What is he supposed to do between two lines of fire?"

Melisandre's answer was only one word.

"Hide."

She reached her fingers back into the flames. A miniature illusion of King's Landing emerged within the fire—every city gate, every main street, and every ruin was clearly marked.

The Red Keep, Flea Bottom, the Dragonpit ruins, the ruins of the Great Sept of Baelor, and the Tyrell Mansion. Five locations were marked with blue light.

A dashed line extended from Flea Bottom toward the Dragon Gate, and another from beneath the Red Keep toward the Blackwater River ferry.

"Lord Drogon can hide all dragon traits for up to seventy-two hours in his full human form. In King's Landing, he only needs to choose a moment on the day the Enforcement Squad arrives to briefly restore his dragon traits somewhere in the city—even if it's just releasing Dragon Breath once, or unfurling his wings just once."

The Dragon Enforcement Squad's Bloodline Tracking System will lock onto his coordinates at that moment. Then, he immediately returns to his full human form and disappears into the crowd.

The Enforcement Squad will pursue him to the skies above King's Landing, only to find their target missing—and what the Gold Cloaks will see are five dragons of unknown origin circling above King's Landing. Cersei will think they are our dragons. She will order them to open fire."

Jorah's brow remained furrowed. He reached out to touch his reversed sword belt, his fingers pausing for a moment on the buckle.

"But the Enforcement Squad aren't fools. They'll know they're being used. Once they see through it—"

"By the time they see through it, it will be too late," Melisandre's tone sounded as if she were stating a historical fact that had already occurred.

"The Gold Cloaks' Scorpions will have already hit their dragons. Even if they wanted to explain, would Cersei listen?

Cersei is the kind of person who would rather kill a thousand innocents than let one go—when she blew up the Great Sept of Baelor, her own uncle was inside. Once the first bolt hits a Dragonborn Knight, there is no turning back. When blood is spilled in the light, dragons do not apologize."

White Mane's amber eyes narrowed slightly. She took a step forward from the wall, her voice cold, but the way she posed her question was precise, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.

"A loophole. If Drogon is being chased by the Enforcement Squad in full human form, he must survive until the Enforcement Squad and the Gold Cloaks start fighting. If he is forced to revert to his dragon form for self-preservation during that time—the fire from both sides will turn on him.

The Gold Cloaks will shoot him because he is also a dragon. The Enforcement Squad will hunt him because he is the target."

"That is why he needs a reliable hiding place within King's Landing.

Lady Margaery of House Tyrell can provide that hiding place.

She has servants within the Red Keep—at least twenty, scattered across the kitchens, stables, and underground storage rooms.

There are also strongholds in the Tyrell Mansion in King's Landing, which is on the edge of Flea Bottom. If she hides Drogon in the Tyrell Mansion's wine cellar—the Gold Cloaks do not search Tyrell properties.

The Enforcement Squad can track bloodline signals, but the stronger the signal, the easier it is to lock on.

If Lord Drogon maintains his full human form, his bloodline signal is suppressed to less than one-tenth of his dragon-man form—the Enforcement Squad's bloodline tracking can only lock him to a general neighborhood, not a specific building.

They would have to search door-to-door. King's Landing has five hundred thousand people."

Drogon had remained silent. His tail slowly uncoiled from the chair leg, the tip sliding off the crossbeam. His vertical pupils gleamed coldly in the dimness. When he spoke, his voice was not high, but everyone turned toward him.

"You missed the most important point."

He stood up and walked to the copper basin of nightfire. His vertical pupils shimmered with an eerie light reflected from the blue-green flames.

He pointed his finger at the location beneath the Red Keep in the illusion—the Dragonpit ruins. The secret chambers. Fifty-six jars. Those jars were only the size of beans in the illusion, but each one was marked with a small green cross.

"wildfire. Fifty-six jars, all buried beneath the Red Keep in the Dragonpit ruins and surrounding secret passages. Last time I absorbed the relics in the secret chamber, I resealed the runes before leaving—writing three locking runes in Old Valyria.

But seals only stop people, they don't stop Dragon Breath. If a Chronos Dragon breathes fire onto the foundations of the Red Keep—never mind fifty-six jars of wildfire, if even one jar is detonated, the entire Red Keep will become a volcanic crater.

Stone will melt, and the Iron Throne will turn into molten iron. When the Red Keep explodes, Flea Bottom, the Street of Steel, and even the ruins of the Great Sept of Baelor will be swallowed by green flames."

His tail lashed slowly behind him, each movement carrying the heavy, dull force unique to dragons—the sound of the tip cutting through the air was like a whip in slow motion.

"Your plan says civilians can be evacuated—evacuated where? Half of King's Landing is within the blast radius of that wildfire."

Melisandre's red eyes narrowed slightly.

In the visions she saw in the flames, there were indeed green explosions—the image of green flames swallowing the Red Keep was still etched on her retina—but she hadn't identified it as wildfire. It wasn't a failure of the prophecy, but a limitation of it.

The flames only showed her what her existing knowledge could interpret; they didn't come with the label 'wildfire.' She was silent for a moment. Her fingers tightened around the Dragonglass Pendant in her sleeve.

"The fuses for the wildfire—can they be dismantled in advance?"

"Yes. But it takes time." Drogon tapped the edge of the copper basin lightly with the tip of his tail. Ting. A crisp sound, like a copper coin falling onto a stone slab.

"The last time I entered the Red Keep's secret passages, I only explored the Dragonpit level. The deeper passages were sealed off by rubble—the Gold Cloaks did that after The Mad King died. To dismantle the fuses for all fifty-six jars would take at least two to three weeks of continuous work.

And we must have someone inside the Red Keep—House Tyrell's servants can enter the Red Keep, but they can't get into the sealed secret passages. Unless Margaery can find fragments of the secret passage blueprints from The Mad King's era.

That thing might be in The Citadel, it might be in the ruins of the Red Keep's library, or it might have been burned by The Mad King himself."

Daenerys sat at the head of the long table. Her fingertips tapped lightly on the surface. She looked at the green points of light in the illusion, her eyes reflecting a calmness honed during her court sessions in Meereen. Her tone didn't betray any preference; she was simply pushing forward with the feasibility study.

"Then we dismantle part of it before the plan starts. Dismantle as much as we can. For the rest—if there's time, dismantle it all before starting. If the Enforcement Squad arrives early, we start the plan first and pray the wildfire doesn't explode."