Chapter 33.1- The Seadragon's Roar

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I looked at the piece of parchment that had been circulating about the castle. The new tax policy from the King. It was interesting for a whole bunch of reasons. For one, in that I felt it was somewhat bold to mess with us while our dragons were within your city. But then again, this was when we were at our technical weakest. If there was open war, or even the possibility of it, all it would take would be locking down the dragon pit, and locking down the castle for us to be essentially cut off at the head.

A possibility I had considered, but not one I was altogether all that afraid of. Because who the hell would start a war in Westeros over taxes. Especially when the taxes were so specific, and dare I say it, mercantile in nature.

“Have you seen this?” Her voice said a bare second after she practically tore the door to my room down.

“Just as surely as you haven’t seen the latest treatise on the importance of knocking, sister” I said.

“This is serious, Laenor” She said.

“Not as serious as the latest treatise on the importance of knocking” I replied with a chuckle, only to see her face still straight. Fine.

“I assume that Father showed you around the family holdings while I was away. Made sure you knew and understood all of it” I said.

“Yes. So I know how bad this can be for us”

“Indeed. This is most definitely an attempt to if not cripple us financially then to significantly hinder us in the short term, but it won’t matter.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“If you wanted to hurt House Targaryen, where would you go, Dragonstone or King’s Landing?”

“Laenor” She hissed, looking around. “That’s treason” Oh, that was a good point. Probably not a good idea to make hypotheticals about harming the royal family. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of reason for a head to fly for that.

“No, I meant hypothetically. Obviously, we’d never dream of hurting the royal family” I said, projecting my voice to make sure anyone in the secret passage that I still hadn’t managed to find but was sure existed could hear me clearly.

“Why are you talking like that?” She asked, looking about the room.

“Can you just answer my question?” I asked instead.

“King’s Landing, I suppose” She said somewhat hesitantly.

“Good. Much in the same way that in some decades, to hurt us would be to brave the Stepstones. If we move these parts of the family’s holdings outside of the seven kingdoms then we should be fine” I said.

“Wouldn’t the Stepstones count as part of the Seven Kingdoms regardless?”