A true dragon: mouse traps

“Good morning, Mister Pirate."

Jacob's voice cut through the silence of the chamber like a blade through silk, deliberate and unhurried. He sat upon what could only be described as a throne, though perhaps that was too generous a word for it. The chair was massive, carved from dark wood that had weathered countless storms, its armrests adorned with brass fittings that had tarnished to a greenish patina. The high back rose behind him like the mast of a ship, decorated with crude carvings of krakens and sea serpents that twisted around each other in an eternal dance of predator and prey. It was the seat of someone who fancied himself a king, or at least a prince of these lawless waters.

The room itself spoke of wealth accumulated through violence and theft. Tapestries hung on the stone walls, their once-vibrant colors faded by salt air and time, depicting scenes of naval battles and conquered cities. In one corner stood a cabinet with glass doors, barely visible in the dim light, displaying an array of stolen treasures: golden goblets, jeweled daggers, ornate boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Maps were scattered across a heavy wooden table to the left, their edges held down by daggers driven into the wood. Candles of varying heights clustered on every available surface, their flames casting dancing shadows that made the room feel alive, breathing with malevolent intent.

The floor was covered with carpets that had once graced the halls of wealthy merchants or minor nobles, now they bore the stains of spilled wine, blood, and saltwater. A ship's wheel hung on one wall, its wood polished smooth by countless hands. Beside it, a collection of weapons: cutlasses, boarding axes, and cruel-looking hooks designed for pulling men from their ships to their deaths. The air was thick with the smell of candle wax, old wood, brine, and something else, the unmistakable scent of arrogance and cruelty that seemed to seep from the very stones.

And there, in the center of this den of maritime tyranny, sat another chair. Far less grand than Jacob's throne, it was a simple wooden seat, sturdy but unremarkable. What made it noteworthy was its occupant: a man bound with rope so thoroughly that he resembled a fly caught in a spider's web. His wrists were lashed to the armrests, his ankles to the chair legs, and more rope wrapped around his torso, securing him to the back of the chair. The knots were professional, tight enough to restrict but not quite tight enough to cut off circulation. Not yet, anyway.

The pirate captain, for that was surely what he had been, perhaps still was in his own mind, stirred at Jacob's greeting. Incomprehension swam in his eyes like fish in murky water, confusion clouding his features as consciousness dragged him up from the depths of unconscious sleep. His head lolled forward, then snapped back. He blinked once, twice, three times. The fog that had wrapped itself around his thoughts began to dissipate, burned away by the harsh reality of his situation.

Jacob watched with detached interest as awareness bloomed across the pirate's face. It was almost beautiful in its way, that moment when a man realizes that the world he knew had been replaced by something far more dangerous. The pirate's eyes widened. His breath came faster. He looked down at the ropes binding him, then up at Jacob, then around the room, his own room, Jacob knew, though the pirate seemed to have difficulty recognizing it from this new, diminished perspective.

The pirate's body tensed. Muscles strained beneath his stained linen shirt as he tested his bonds, pulling against the ropes with increasing desperation. His face reddened with effort. The chair creaked but held firm, and the ropes, expertly tied, gave not even a fraction of an inch. He tried again, throwing his weight forward, attempting to tip the chair, to do anything that might free him or at least change his circumstances.

Nothing. The chair didn't budge. It had been secured to the floor, Jacob had made certain of that.

Frustration and fear warred on the pirate's features. Then came anger, that old friend of desperate men. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl, and he spat at Jacob, the glob of saliva falling far short of its target and landing on the carpet between them.

"Release me!" The words came out as half-scream, half-roar, raw and ragged. "Release me, you whoreson! Do you know who I am? Do you know what you've done?"

Jacob lifted an eyebrow, the gesture languid and unhurried. He leaned back in his throne, one hand resting on the armrest, fingers drumming a slow, deliberate rhythm against the tarnished brass.

"Do you really think it would be that easy?"

The pirate's face contorted with rage. He opened his mouth again, drawing breath to shout, to call for help, to summon the guards and crew that he believed would come rushing to his aid.

"Help! HELP! GUA..."

The word was cut short by the sharp crack of wood against flesh. A rod, thick as a man's thumb and hard as iron, struck the pirate across the face with such force that his head snapped to the side. The impact was devastating, brutal in its efficiency. The pirate's cry transformed into a strangled choking sound as the blow caught him across the cheek and jaw. His mouth filled with blood. He gagged, coughed, and spat, and along with the crimson spray came a tooth, white and whole, bouncing once on his lap before falling to the floor with a soft click.

The side of his face where the rod had connected began to swell immediately. The skin split along his cheekbone, a thin line of deeper red appearing against the rising bruise. His eye on that side watered uncontrollably, and when he tried to work his jaw, testing if it was broken, a sound emerged from his throat that was pure animal pain, a low, keening moan that spoke of hurt so profound that thought became secondary to mere sensation.

Blood ran from his split cheek, dripping down to stain his shirt. More blood oozed from his gums where the tooth had been violently extracted. His tongue probed the new gap automatically, and he winced at the sharp pain the movement caused. The entire right side of his face felt like it was on fire, a throbbing, pulsing agony that radiated from his jaw up through his skull. His vision blurred with tears he couldn't control, and beneath the physical pain was the deeper hurt of shock, the primal understanding that his body had been violated, that he was no longer in control of what happened to it.

As the pirate moaned and shuddered, the source of the blow stepped forward into the candlelight. Another pirate, younger than the one bound to the chair, with a face marked by  uncertainty. This was the one Jacob had spared during his boat assault. Now he stood holding the rod, his knuckles white around it, his eyes fixed on the bound captain with an expression that mixed fear, shame, and something that might have been satisfaction.

Jacob's temporary servant. A man whose life had been purchased with mercy and who now understood the price of that mercy was obedience.

"I told him," Jacob said, his voice carrying the same casual tone one might use when discussing the weather or the quality of wine, "to hit you each time you try to scream. Or each time I don't find one of your answers satisfactory." He paused, letting that sink in. "He's quite motivated to follow my instructions. Aren't you?"

The younger pirate nodded jerkily, not taking his eyes off the captain.

The bound man worked his jaw again, wincing. When he spoke, his words were slurred by the swelling and missing tooth, but the defiance remained, clinging to him like the last remnant of his former power.

"You know who I am? Who I know? You're going to pay for this! You're goi..."

"Crush his pinky toe."

Jacob's interruption was delivered in the same mild tone, as if he were asking someone to pass the salt rather than ordering the infliction of pain. He didn't look at his servant when he said it, keeping his eyes fixed on the captain's face instead, watching for the reaction.

It came immediately. The defiance drained from the pirate's features, replaced by naked fear.

"If he tries fighting you," Jacob continued, examining his fingernails with apparent disinterest, "crush all the toes."

"Wait, wait, wait!" The words tumbled from the pirate's mouth in a panicked rush. "Don't! I can give you gold! I can make you rich! Wai..."

Jacob reached to the table beside his throne and picked up a piece of cloth, canvas, actually, probably cut from an old sail, folded and rolled into a cylinder. He stood, crossed the space between them in three unhurried strides, and before the pirate could turn his pleas into screams, Jacob shoved the canvas gag into his mouth and tied it securely behind his head. The pirate's eyes went wide above the gag, and muffled sounds of protest emerged from behind it, but they were barely louder than whispers.

Jacob returned to his throne and nodded to his servant.

The younger pirate knelt at the bound man's feet. For a moment he hesitated, looking up at Jacob as if hoping for a reprieve, a sign that this was some sort of bluff. Jacob's expression didn't change. With a visible swallow, the servant raised the rod, positioned it carefully over the captain's right pinky toe, bare, as Jacob had removed the man's boots earlier, and brought it down.

The howl that came from behind the gag was inhuman. It was the sound of something fundamental breaking, of a body being forced to confront its own fragility in the most direct way possible. The pirate's entire body convulsed against the ropes, his back arching, his fingers clawing at the armrests, every muscle straining as if he could somehow escape his own flesh. His eyes bulged, veins standing out on his forehead and neck as he thrashed.

The rod had come down with precision, concentrating all its force on those tiny bones. The sound of the impact had been surprisingly soft, a wet crunch, like stepping on a snail, but the result was anything but soft. The toe bent at an unnatural angle, already beginning to purple and swell. Blood oozed from where the skin had split. The pirate's foot tried instinctively to pull away, but the ropes held it in place, forcing him to feel every excruciating pulse of his shattered toe.

Tears streamed down his face. His chest heaved as he tried to breathe through the pain, through the gag, through the overwhelming sensory assault of his own nervous system screaming that something was catastrophically wrong. After the initial howl came the sobbing, deep, shuddering sobs that shook his entire frame. It was the crying of a man who had been reduced to his most basic self, stripped of pride and pretense and forced to confront the simple, terrible fact of suffering.

Jacob waited. He let the pirate cry, let the pain work its way through him, let the reality of his situation settle like rocks to the bottom of a disturbed pool. When the sobs had diminished to ragged breathing and the occasional whimper, Jacob leaned forward in his throne.

"Are you going to listen, or are we going to continue this impromptu torture session?"

The pirate's head bobbed up and down frantically, nodding his agreement, his eyes pleading above the gag.

"Good. Because I want you to understand something." Jacob settled back, his voice taking on the tone of a teacher addressing a not-particularly-bright student. "There are a lot of ways to hurt someone while making sure they would not die. Many, many ways. Would you like to hear about some of them?"

He didn't wait for an answer. His servant shifted uncomfortably, and the bound pirate's eyes went even wider, if that was possible, but Jacob continued as if discussing the most mundane of subjects.

"There's a method called 'the boats,' or scaphism. They would strip a man naked and trap him between two boats or hollowed-out tree trunks, with only his head, hands, and feet protruding. Then they would feed him milk and honey, force it down his throat until he developed the most severe diarrhea you can imagine. They'd pour more honey on his exposed parts, and leave him floating on a stagnant pond. The insects would come, flies first, laying their eggs in the accumulating filth. The eggs would hatch. The larvae would burrow into the skin, eating the man alive from the outside in, while his own waste poisoned him from within. It could take days. Sometimes weeks. The victim would be delirious with pain, covered in vermin, rotting while still breathing."

Jacob's voice remained level, conversational, as if he were describing a recipe rather than one of history's most grotesque execution methods.

"Crucifixion is well known in other parts. There are other methods too. There was the Brazen Bull, a hollow bronze statue in the shape of a bull, with a door in the side. They'd lock a person inside and light a fire beneath it. As the metal heated, the person inside would roast slowly. The bull was designed with a series of tubes that converted the victim's screams into sounds that resembled the bellowing of a bull. Practical and entertaining, from the torturer's perspective."

The pirate was no longer sobbing, but he had gone very pale, and a different kind of wetness had appeared on his pants. Jacob noted it without comment and continued.

"Lingchi, or 'death by a thousand cuts,' was reserved for the worst criminals. The executioner would make precise cuts all over the body, removing small pieces of flesh methodically, carefully, making sure to avoid any major blood vessels. The process could take hours or even days. By the end, there might be little left but a torso and head, but the victim would be conscious through most of it, feeling every single cut. They would sometimes give the victim opium, not as mercy, but to ensure they stayed alive longer."

Jacob shifted slightly in his seat, his eyes never leaving the pirate's face, watching as each description landed like a physical blow.

"Rats are remarkably useful for torture, you know. They would place a cage or pot containing rats against a person's stomach or back, then heat the container. The rats, desperate to escape the heat, would do the only thing they could, they would burrow. Through flesh, through muscle, through organs. It's said the victim could sometimes see the movement under their skin as the rats tunneled through them, searching for an exit that didn't exist."

The servant had gone pale as well, Jacob noticed peripherally. Good. Fear was useful, and the lesson was for both of them.

"Impalement deserves special mention. The key is in the preparation of the stake, it must be oiled and rounded, not sharp. A sharp stake would cause too much damage, would kill too quickly. A rounded stake, inserted carefully, could be worked through the body, entering from below and emerging from the shoulder or mouth, while managing to avoid vital organs for quite some time. Victims of proper impalement could live for days, suspended above the ground on their stakes, slowly sliding down as gravity and their own weight worked against them."

Jacob continued, his voice a relentless drone of horrors.

"Flaying is another classic. The removal of skin while keeping the victim alive requires skill, but it's certainly possible. Starting from the extremities, fingers and toes first, and working inward. The pain is extraordinary because you're exposing every nerve ending, removing the body's protective barrier. Salt water, even just air, becomes agony on raw flesh. Some would force the victim to watch as their own skin was removed, piece by piece."

"There was a pyramid-shaped seat upon which a person would be lowered, the point entering the anus or vagina. Their own weight would impale them slowly, and they could be raised and lowered repeatedly. Death could take days. Similar was a metal device inserted into bodily orifices and then expanded using a screw mechanism, tearing flesh and breaking bones from the inside."

"Foot roasting was common in many dungeons. They would place the victim's feet in stocks, cover them with lard or oil, and hold them over flames. The burning was slow and controlled. As the flesh charred, they would sometimes scrape away the burned layers to expose fresh flesh beneath, then burn that too. The victim would watch their own feet being destroyed, knowing they would never walk again even if they somehow survived."

"Pressing involved placing a board on the victim's chest and gradually adding stones or weights. The pressure would increase slowly, over hours or days. Ribs would crack. Breathing would become impossible. But death would be slow, and the torture could be paused at any point to ask questions or make demands before resuming the crushing weight."

"Breaking on the wheel was public entertainment in some places. The victim would be tied to a large wooden wheel, and the executioner would use an iron bar to systematically break every major bone in their body, arms, legs, ribs, spine, careful to strike in places that would shatter bone but not kill. Then the wheel would be mounted on a pole and left standing, the victim still alive, their broken body woven through the spokes, displayed as a warning to others."

"Bamboo torture is elegant in its simplicity. Bamboo can grow remarkably fast, some species as much as three feet in a day. If you secure a person over a bed of young bamboo shoots, the growing plants will pierce through skin and tissue, growing up through the body. It's slow. It's inevitable. And there's nothing the victim can do but feel the plants advancing through their flesh, millimeter by millimeter."

"There are devices lined with spikes. The spikes would be positioned carefully, long enough to pierce and cause agony, but short enough and positioned precisely enough to avoid major organs and arteries. A person could be sealed inside for extended periods, unable to move without impaling themselves further on the spikes surrounding them."

"Water torture comes in many forms. Drops of water falling on the same spot on the forehead for hours or days, causing psychological breakdown and eventually physical damage. Making the victim feel as if they're drowning repeatedly. Forcing water into the stomach through a funnel until it distends painfully, sometimes until the stomach ruptures. Or simply holding someone's head underwater and releasing them just before death, over and over, letting them breathe just enough to keep them alive for the next round."

"There's a simple but effective method. The victim's hands are tied behind their back, and they're suspended by those hands from a rope. The weight of the body pulls the shoulders from their sockets. Sometimes weights are added to the legs to increase the effect. Sometimes they're hoisted up and dropped suddenly, the jerk dislocating or tearing every joint in the arms. They can be left hanging for hours."

"Vise-like devices can be tightened around joints, crushing them slowly. The knee is popular, but similar devices existed for other parts of the body: the head, the thumbs, the breasts. Each designed to maximize pain while minimizing the risk of death, because a dead person can't give you what you want."

Jacob paused, tilting his head slightly as he regarded the pirate with cold calculation.

"I could go on. There are hundreds more examples throughout history. Covering a person with honey near an insect nest. Suspending someone over water with crocodiles and slowly lowering them. Hanging a person upside down, to keep the blood in the head, you see, so they remain conscious longer, and sawing them in half starting from the groin. Some victims remained alive until the saw reached the abdomen."

He leaned forward again, resting his elbows on his knees, his voice still carrying that same unnervingly casual tone.

"The point, Mister Pirate, is that humans have had thousands of years to perfect the art of causing pain without causing death. We're remarkably creative when it comes to making each other suffer. And I have access to a lot of that accumulated knowledge." He smiled, but there was nothing warm in it. "So you see, we could be here for a very, very long time if I chose to explore these options."

The pirate was trembling now, great shudders running through his entire frame. Above the gag, his eyes were wild with terror. When he looked at Jacob, he wasn't seeing a man anymore, it was as he was seeing a monster, a demon wearing human skin, something that could recite such horrors with all the emotion of someone discussing the weather.

Which, Jacob reflected, was exactly the point.

In the pirate's place, most people would react much the same way. The human mind has limits to what it can process, what it can withstand. The detailed description of torture methods was, in many ways, more effective than immediate physical pain. It allowed the imagination to run wild, to anticipate horrors that might never actually come. Fear of pain could be more crippling than pain itself.

And this pirate, he was breaking. Jacob could see it in the way his resistance had crumbled, in the way hope had drained from his eyes. The fight had gone out of him, replaced by desperate, animal fear.

Behind the gag, muffled sounds emerged, pleading, begging, the universal wordless language of surrender. Tears streamed freely down the pirate's face, mixing with the blood from his split cheek. His injured toe had swollen to nearly twice its normal size, the color of a week-old bruise, but the pain from it seemed almost forgotten in the face of the threatened horrors Jacob had described.

Jacob nodded to his servant, who reached forward with shaking hands to remove the gag. The pirate gasped, sucking in air, and the words tumbled out in a desperate rush.

"I'll do anything! Anything! Whatever you want to know, I'll tell you! Please, please, no more, I'll tell you everything!"

"To be frank," Jacob said, settling back in his throne, "if I wanted you to tell me something, I would not have chosen this method."

The pirate blinked, confusion momentarily overriding his terror. Jacob could see him trying to process that statement, trying to understand what it meant if this wasn't about extracting information.

And indeed, it wasn't. Unlike what popular belief might suggest, and unlike what seemed to be true in this medieval world where torture was commonly used for interrogation, torture was a shit tool when it came to getting accurate information. Jacob knew this from his knowledge of his previous world, from studies that had been conducted, from the simple logic of it.

When you're being tormented, when you're in pain so severe that thought becomes difficult, what comes out of your mouth is most often something designed to make the torment stop rather than what is actually true, Jacob thought. You'll say whatever you think your torturer wants to hear. You'll confess to crimes you didn't commit, betray people you've never met, invent conspiracies that don't exist, anything to make the pain end.

Truth was rarely found at the end of a torturer's implements. Fear, compliance, broken spirits, those were the real products of torture.

Jacob looked at the pirate before him and felt... not nothing, but close to it. A muted sort of acknowledgment that this was unpleasant but necessary.

Maybe I would have felt more guilt, would have chosen a different path, if the man before me had been innocent, he thought. But this is a pirate. A man who has almost certainly murdered innocent merchants and fishermen, whose ship probably contained chains in the hold, chains for slaves, for human cargo to be sold in the markets of Essos. A man who has probably participated in or at least permitted the rape of captives, who has built his wealth on the suffering of others.

Does that make this right? Jacob wasn't sure. But it makes it easier to do what needs to be done without losing sleep over it.

He continued speaking, his eyes locked on the pirate's, watching every micro-expression, every flicker of emotion.

"If anything, I want you to do something for me, Captain."

The pirate nodded frantically, desperately. "Yes, yes, anything, I'll do anything."

The pirate worked his jaw, wincing as the movement pulled at his split cheek and swollen face.

"I'll do anything," he repeated, his voice hoarse and rough. "Just tell me what you want. Gold? Ships? Information about other pirates? I can give you all of it. Just... just no more of that. Please."

I can see the hope in his eyes, Jacob thought. The hope that compliance would bring safety, that this nightmare might end if he just gives me what I want.

What he doesn't understand, what I can read clearly in his eyes, in the set of his jaw despite the pain, in the way his mind is already working, is that he's already planning. Planning for later, for when he's free. Planning revenge. Planning to rally his men, to find me when I'm vulnerable, to repay this humiliation with blood and screaming and everything he's just been threatened with and worse.

It's natural, really. Expected. The pirate is a man who has spent his life taking what he wants, inflicting his will on others. He isn't truly broken, not yet, just scared enough to pretend compliance while his mind scurries around looking for an angle, a way out, a path to turning this situation around.

The problem is that he still thinks there would be no real consequences. Pain has been inflicted, yes, and more has been threatened, but there's still a part of him that believes he can navigate this, can survive it and come out the other side ready to strike back. He's probably faced threats before, has probably talked his way out of dangerous situations or fought his way free. This, he thinks, would be the same.

He isn't scared enough.

Not yet.

That's what needs to change. The goal isn't just to make him compliant now, in this moment, with me standing over him and a servant ready to break more of his bones. The goal is to make him so thoroughly, deeply terrified that the very thought of betrayal would be impossible. To make him understand that there are consequences so far beyond his comprehension that defiance isn't even an option worth considering.

"Then you won't be against me making sure you respect your promise, Mister Pirate."

Jacob stood from his throne with fluid grace. He began moving around the room, searching, examining various objects scattered about, the detritus of a pirate lord's life of plunder. He picked up a jeweled dagger, tested its weight, set it down. Too ornate. Too curved. He needed something simple, something that would serve the purpose without unnecessary flash.

As he searched, he spoke over his shoulder, his tone conversational.

"What do you know of magic?"

The pirate watched him warily, confusion evident despite his fear. "Magic? I... there are stories. Warlocks in Qarth, the Red Priests of R'hllor, the shadowbinders of Asshai. Maegi in the grass seas. But they're... I've never seen..." He trailed off, uncertain what answer was expected of him.

Jacob's hand closed around what he'd been looking for, a simple, straight blade, sharp enough to cut cleanly but not so large as to cause excessive damage. It had probably been a sailor's knife once, practical and unpretentious. Perfect.

He returned to his throne and sat, placing the blade across his knees as he regarded the pirate with an expression of mild interest.

"Magic can do many things," Jacob said, his voice taking on the cadence of someone imparting important wisdom. "It can do horrors, and it can do wonders. There is nothing magic can't do, as long as you're ready to pay the price. And magic almost always deals with blood, shadow, and death."

As he spoke, Jacob opened his palm, held it out before him, and concentrated. Fire bloomed above his skin but simply appearing from nothing. An orb of flame, orange and red and dancing with its own internal light, floating inches above his palm. It cast his face in sharp relief, painting shadows under his eyes and cheekbones that made him look almost monstrous.

The effect on the pirate was immediate and profound. Whatever color had returned to his face drained away instantly. His eyes went so wide the whites showed all around the iris. His mouth opened and closed, working soundlessly as his mind struggled to process what he was seeing.

"Maegi," the pirate breathed, his voice barely a whisper, filled with a terror that went beyond physical fear into something more primal. "You're a maegi."

In this world, in Westeros and Essos, that word carried weight. Maegi were feared and hated, mysterious figures who dealt with dark forces beyond human comprehension. They could curse you, could steal your soul, could do things that made torture and death seem preferable. Every child grew up hearing stories about maegi and the terrible prices their magic exacted.

"I guess you can call me that," Jacob said with a slight smile. He let the fire orb dance across his knuckles before closing his fist, extinguishing it as easily as it had appeared.

Then, in a motion so sudden the pirate flinched violently, Jacob reached out with the knife and drew it across the pirate's forearm. Not deep, just enough to part the skin, to let blood well up in the cut. The pirate gasped at the unexpected pain, watching as red droplets began to form, swelling until they grew heavy enough to fall.

Drop.

Drop.

Drop.

Three droplets of blood hit the floor between them, each landing with a soft pat that seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet room.

Jacob snapped his fingers.

The droplets ignited. Three tiny points of flame sprang up from where the blood had fallen, burning with an intense, almost white light. They didn't spread, didn't consume anything else, just burned there, three perfect points of impossible fire fueled by blood and nothing else.

The pirate made a sound that wasn't quite a word, wasn't quite a scream. It was the sound of a man's worldview shattering, of everything he thought he knew about reality being ripped away and replaced with nightmare. He tried to push himself back in the chair, tried to put distance between himself and those burning drops of his own blood, but the ropes held him in place. He could only stare, transfixed with a terror that went soul-deep.

Even Jacob's servant had gone pale, taking a half-step back, his eyes fixed on the blood-flames with a mix of awe and dread.

"With that," Jacob said, his voice cutting through the moment with deliberate calm, "your promise to do what I ask you is sealed. Sealed with blood, fire, and magic."

He let that hang in the air for a moment before continuing, his tone taking on a note of casual warning, the way one might caution a child about a hot stove.

"I really would not break that promise unless you want to lose your soul. And trust me, you really don't want that, because there are a lot of things in this world that are worse than death. I've seen them. Soulless shells that walk and breathe but are empty inside, aware of what they've lost but unable to reclaim it. Eternal hunger for something they can never consume again. That would be your fate, Mister Pirate, if you betray me after making this oath. The magic would find you. There's nowhere you could sail, no port you could hide in, no cave deep enough or island remote enough. The blood-bond would pull your soul right out of your body, and you'd be left as a living corpse, trapped in flesh that no longer belongs to you."

It's complete bullshit, of course, Jacob thought.

I'm fairly certain that a sufficiently skilled magic user in this universe could probably do something similar, I've read enough theories about the powers of the Faceless Men, the shadowbinders, the various sorcerers of Essos. Blood magic is definitely real; I've seen enough evidence of that. But what I just did? It isn't any sort of binding ritual. The fire is real, my ability to create and manipulate it is real, but there's no mystical connection forged, no cosmic consequence waiting to punish betrayal.

But that doesn't matter. What matters is belief. And the pirate believes. I can see it in every line of his body, in the way he holds himself rigid as if afraid to move, in the rapid, shallow breathing, in the eyes that can't stop darting between my face and the still-burning drops of blood on the floor.

Sometimes the most powerful magic is the kind that happens entirely in someone else's mind.

Even his temporary servant seemed to believe, Jacob noted with some satisfaction. The young pirate was staring at him with a new level of fear-tinged respect, his grip on the rod white-knuckled. Good. It would make him more obedient, less likely to try anything foolish.

The bound pirate finally found his voice, though it came out as a stammer, broken and weak.

"What... what do you want me to do?"

Jacob leaned back in his throne, steepling his fingers before him, the flames still burning merrily on the floor casting dancing shadows across his features.

"From what I was able to understand," he said slowly, deliberately, "you, Mister Pirate, are one of the rare pirate captains who can call a meeting that would assemble all the prominent pirates of the Stepstones. Your reputation, your connections, your standing among the Brotherhood of the Sea, it gives you certain privileges. One of which is the ability to call a gathering, to summon the other captains to parley under truce."

The pirate's eyes widened with understanding and fresh terror. "You want... you want me to call a meeting? Of all the captains? But they'll, they'll know something's wrong. They'll suspect a trap!"

Jacob's smile widened, taking on a savage quality that had nothing to do with humor and everything to do with anticipation.

"Still, I would dearly like you to do that."

The words hung in the air. The pirate stared at him, comprehension and horror warring on his features as the implications sank in. A meeting of all the major pirate captains, all in one place, summoned by this terrified man who was now bound by what he believed to be an unbreakable magical oath. It was a trap, obviously, but one they wouldn't see coming because the invitation would come from one of their own, someone they trusted, someone who operated by the same code they all followed as much pirates could have one.

Jacob could see the pirate's mind working, could almost hear the thoughts spinning through his head. Loyalty to his fellow pirates warring with terror of magical retribution. The desire to warn them fighting against the fear of losing his soul. And underneath it all, the growing, crushing understanding that he had no choice, that he'd been maneuvered into a position where there was only one possible path forward.

"You'll... you'll kill them all," the pirate whispered. "You'll kill everyone."

Jacob didn't answer directly. He didn't need to. Instead, he stood, moved to a table, and poured himself a cup of wine from a pitcher that sat there. He took a sip, savored it, then looked back at the pirate over the rim of the cup.

"You'll send the messages tomorrow. You'll be freed. You'll tell them..." He paused, considering. "Tell them you've discovered something important. A treasure fleet route from Westeros to Essos. A vulnerability in the Targaryen navy's patrol patterns. Whatever sounds believable and important enough to ensure they come. You know these men. You know what will make them respond."

The pirate nodded slowly, mechanically. "And if they ask questions? If they want proof?"

"Then you'll provide it. You're a clever man, you've risen to command in a world where weakness means death. Use that cleverness now." Jacob's eyes hardened. "But remember the flames, Captain. Remember what binds you. Remember what happens if you try to warn them, if you try to turn this against me. Your soul is already marked. The only question is whether you keep it or lose it."

He drained the wine and set the cup down with a soft clink.

"I'm going to have you untied now. You're going to return to your regular life, at least outwardly. But you belong to me now. You understand this, yes?"

"Yes," the pirate whispered. "I understand."

Jacob nodded to his servant, who moved forward reluctantly and began working at the knots. As the ropes fell away, the pirate slumped forward, his injured toe throbbing, his face still swollen and bloody, his arm bearing the cut that had sealed his fate. He made no move to attack, showed no sign of resistance. The fight had been thoroughly beaten out of him.

When he finally stood, shaky and pale, Jacob spoke once more.

"One week. Send the messages and have the meeting arranged within one week. I'll be watching, Captain. Through means you don't want to understand."

The pirate nodded and limped toward the door, favoring his crushed toe. At the threshold he paused, looked back at Jacob with something that might have been desperation or might have been hope for some reprieve that never came.

Jacob simply smiled that savage smile and waved him away.

When the door closed, leaving Jacob alone with his temporary servant and the still-burning drops of blood on the floor, he finally let himself relax slightly. He waved his hand and the blood-flames extinguished, leaving only the normal candles to light the room.

The servant was staring at him with undisguised awe and fear. Jacob ignored it, settling back into the throne and considering his next moves.

Why try to hunt when you can make all your possible targets come to you?

It was a question that answered itself. Hunting pirates across the Stepstones would be time-consuming, dangerous, and ultimately inefficient. He'd get some, certainly, but others would flee, scatter to different islands, hide in coves and harbors he'd never find. It would take months, maybe years, to track them all down individually.

But this? One meeting, one gathering of the Brotherhood's leadership, all of them in one place at one time because they trusted the man who called them there? It was perfect. It was elegant. And it would accomplish in a single stroke what might otherwise have taken an extended campaign.

Some might call it evil. Some might say he could have chosen a better method by why bother when it was a pirate?

Jacob found he didn't care much about pirates. These were men who had made their living through violence and theft, who had created misery wherever they sailed. Whatever honor they claimed was the honor of thieves, useful among themselves, perhaps, but meaningless when weighed against the lives they'd destroyed.

And besides, he was here to make changes in this world. Real, lasting changes. He had said the stepstones would be his and thus his they would be. When you wanted to change things, you didn’t do that by playing fair, by following rules that had been written to maintain the status quo. Sometimes you had to break things thoroughly before you could rebuild them into something better.

The Stepstones had been a nest of piracy and slavery for generations. Ship after ship had been taken, cargo stolen, crews killed or enslaved. Trade between Westeros and the Free Cities had been choked by the constant threat. And no one had been able to do more than temporarily suppress the problem because the pirates simply came back, reorganized, recruited new crews.

Well. Not anymore.

In one week, if his plan worked, the leadership of the Stepstones' pirate confederation would be gathered in one place. And Jacob would be waiting for them.

He smiled to himself in the candlelit room, surrounded by the stolen treasures of a pirate lord, and contemplated the upcoming week.

Why try to hunt when you can make all your possible targets come to you?

Indeed.