Chapter 18: The Kneeling
The voice in their heads faded, but the silence it left behind was a crushing, physical presence. In the Small Council chamber of the Red Keep, the five most powerful people of the Green faction stared at each other, their faces slack with a terror so profound it had gone past fear and into a state of pure, system-shocked awe. The illusion of their power, the entire framework of their world, had not just been shattered; it had been declared null and void by the universe itself.
Otto Hightower was the first to regain some semblance of function. The pragmatist in him, the man who had played the game of thrones his entire life, was the first to realize that the game itself had been flipped over and its pieces scattered by a bored god.
"We kneel," he rasped, his voice a dry whisper. "There is no other move. We kneel, and we live."
"Kneel?" Queen Alicent's voice was sharp with disbelief, her piety clashing violently with the blasphemous reality perched on the hill outside her window. "Kneel to that? A monster? A demon given voice? The Seven have abandoned us!"
"The Seven have no power here, daughter," Otto said, his gaze fixed on the unnatural twilight visible through the high windows. "Did you not hear it? Did you not feel it? That was not a beast. That was… finality. We have no armies, no dragons, no hope. All we have left is the breath in our bodies, and it has just offered to let us keep it."
"It is a trick," she insisted, her voice rising. "A sorcery of Daemon's, some final, damnable…"
"Daemon is at the bottom of a lake," Larys Strong interjected, his own voice unnervingly calm, as if he were discussing crop yields. The Clubfoot seemed less terrified and more… intellectually stimulated. "And I do not believe this was ever his to command. This is the power we have been fearing all along. Not Daemon's tool, but the force that used Daemon as a tool." He steepled his fingers. "The Hand is correct. We kneel. It did not ask for our fealty, Your Grace. It did not ask for our love or our loyalty. It asked for submission. There is a difference. One can kneel and still think. One cannot think if one has been erased."
A cry came from down the hall—a terrified, petulant shriek. "I will not! I am the KING! I will not bend my knee to a talking lizard!"
Grand Maester Orwyle sighed. "The King is… awake."
They found Aegon II in his chambers, hurling golden goblets at the walls, his face a blotchy purple mask of terror and impotent rage. He had been woken from his drunken slumber by the voice of God in his head, and the experience had left him a gibbering, furious child.
"Did you hear it?" he screamed at his mother as she entered. "It spoke in my head! Get it out! Tell the Kingsguard to kill it! Shoot it with the scorpions!"
"The scorpions are destroyed, my son," Otto said wearily, stepping into the room. "As is the Dragonpit it now sits upon. There is nothing to shoot it with."
"I am the KING!" Aegon roared, pointing a trembling finger at his grandfather. "Aegon the Conqueror faced dragons! I will face this one! I will not kneel!"
Before Otto could reply, a new thought bloomed in all their minds simultaneously, a cold, private whisper from the being on the hill. It was directed at them, the rulers in the castle, a clarification of its earlier command.
"Your king's title is a pleasing fiction. His throne is a chair of melted swords. A symbol. Symbols… can be reshaped."
As the thought faded, a low, resonant hum vibrated through the stone of the Red Keep. Deep within the castle, in the center of the vast throne room, the Iron Throne began to glow. A faint cherry-red at first, then a brighter orange, then a shimmering, liquid white. The thousand twisted, sharp blades that had defined the Targaryen dynasty for over a century began to soften, to lose their edges, to droop and weep molten steel onto the dais. In the span of a minute, without a lick of visible flame, the Iron Throne, the most potent symbol of power in all of Westeros, melted into a misshapen, incandescent puddle of slag. The hum ceased. The puddle cooled, hardening into a scarred, ugly lump of useless metal.
In his chambers, Aegon fell silent, his mouth agape, the psychic shock of seeing his throne's destruction in his mind's eye shattering the last of his drunken bravado. He sank to the floor, weeping.
Otto Hightower closed his eyes. The demonstration was undeniable. Its precision was as terrifying as its power. "It is settled," he said, his voice now devoid of all emotion. "We make our submission. Formally." He looked at his daughter, at the weeping king on the floor, at the calculating Clubfoot. "We will show this… god… that we understand its command."
He turned and strode from the room, his back straight. He was no longer the Hand of the King. He was the designated survivor, chosen to negotiate the surrender of his entire species. He gathered what was left of the Kingsguard, commanded the great gates of the Red Keep to be unbarred, and walked out into the unnatural twilight, followed by a pale Alicent and a thoughtful Larys Strong. The great gates of the city itself were thrown open, a gesture of absolute surrender.
The streets were a strange tableau of silent terror. The riots had ceased. The panic had frozen into a city-wide state of shock. A million people were either on their knees, heads bowed to the cobbles, or standing like statues, their faces turned up towards the impossible creature that dominated the sky.
Otto and his small procession walked through the silent crowds to the foot of the Hill of Rhaenys. They stopped at the edge of the crater Krosis-Krif's landing had created. They were ants at the base of a mountain. Otto had to crane his neck to an almost painful degree to see the great, cosmic head high above.
"Great power!" Otto's voice was thin and reedy in the vast, open space, but he projected it with all the strength he had left. "We have heard your command! The city of King's Landing, its people, and… and King Aegon the Second, submit to your will! We kneel!" He and the others with him dropped to their knees on the hard-packed earth.
For a long moment, there was no response but the whisper of the wind over the silent city. Then, the voice returned to their minds, though it felt focused on Otto alone.
"Submission is not a word uttered by a servant. It is a state of being, understood by a master. I am that master. You are… less."
A tendril of thought, a probe of pure mental energy, touched Otto's mind. It was not violent. It was inquisitive, like a scholar flipping through the pages of a book. Krosis-Krif sifted through the Hand's memories, his plans, his fears, his understanding of the world. He tasted the man's ambition, now curdled into a thin gruel of terror. It was… adequate.
"You will continue to 'govern' this city," the voice commanded. "You will keep the peace. You will distribute the food. Order is more efficient than chaos for a… stable pasture. Your king will remain in his castle. A symbol of the old way. A reminder of the fragility of crowns."
The presence in Otto's mind withdrew. He was left kneeling in the dirt, trembling from the mental violation. He had been scanned, judged, and given his new role: zookeeper for the human herd of King's Landing. He had saved their lives, but he had surrendered their future.
On Dragonstone, the psychic detonation of the Iron Throne's destruction followed by the collective submission of a million minds was a shockwave that rattled the senses of every Targaryen in the castle.
"What was that?" Jacaerys gasped, his hand going to his head. He had felt a wave of… finality. A great door slamming shut across the water.
Before the council could debate it, a dragonrider, one of the scouts they had posted to watch the capital from a safe distance, landed in the courtyard, his face white as snow. He burst into the chamber, foregoing all protocol.
"Your Grace!" he panted, falling to his knees before Rhaenyra. "King's Landing… the Dragonpit… a dragon…"
"What dragon?" Rhaenyra demanded, her heart seizing. "Did Sunfyre..?"
"No, Your Grace," the scout stammered, his eyes wild. "Not Sunfyre. A new one. Or… or it is not a dragon. It is the night sky come to life. A mountain… it sits where the Dragonpit was. The city… the entire city is on its knees. Silent."
The council stared at the man, his words painting an impossible picture. Lord Corlys looked at Rhaenyra, his face grim, his earlier premonition now solidifying into a horrific reality. "The void," he whispered. "It has been filled."
As if in answer, a new voice entered their minds. It was the same voice that had silenced King's Landing, but it was addressed to them, a clear, targeted message that crossed the bay in an instant.
"TO THE QUEEN ON DRAGONSTONE."
Rhaenyra gasped, her hands flying to her temples. Jace cried out. Corlys gripped the edge of the Painted Table, his knuckles white. They all heard it.
"YOUR WAR IS OVER. I HAVE CLAIMED THE PRIZE. YOUR VENGEANCE FOR YOUR SON IS COMPLETE. YOUR RIVAL IS BROKEN, HIS THRONE A PUDDLE OF SLAG. THE SCALES ARE… OBLITERATED."
The voice was a physical weight, pressing down on them, an undeniable declaration of a new reality. Their war, their claims, their entire lives' purpose—it had all been a noisy prelude to this creature's arrival.
"YOU WILL CEASE YOUR BLOCKADE. YOU WILL ALLOW THE CITY TO BE FED. AS I SAID, ORDER IS EFFICIENT."
The voice paused, letting the commands sink in. Then came the final, chilling summons.
"I HAVE MATTERS TO DISCUSS REGARDING THE NEW MANAGEMENT OF THIS LAND. SEND A DELEGATION. YOUR HEIR, JACAERYS VELARYON, AND YOUR HAND, LORD CORLYS VELARYON, WILL SUFFICE. COME TO THE HILL OF RHAENYS. DO NOT BRING YOUR DRAGONS. THEY ARE… unnecessary."
The voice paused one last time, delivering the final, terrifying punctuation.
"DO NOT BE LATE."
And then, it was gone. The Queen, the Prince, the Sea Snake, and the rest of the Black Council were left in a ringing silence, staring at one another. They had just won the Game of Thrones. Their enemies were utterly defeated. And their prize had been snatched away at the moment of victory by a power that had just summoned them to the capital not as conquerors, but as subjects, to discuss the terms of their own surrender. The war was over. A new, far more terrifying reign had just begun.