"Can a trial bring comfort to the victims?" Euron laughed, glancing at the victims on either side of him. "Do you feel any comfort now?"
Aeron and Falia wore expressions of misery and despair.
Euron grew even more smug. "By your standards, I'm a bad man. But when a man is no longer afraid to do evil, can death still frighten him?
What a joke!
Death only scares good people and weak lambs. To me, death has been a companion and friend throughout my life."
"I do not fear death. How can you punish me with it?" he shouted mockingly at the Dragon Queen.
Daenerys showed neither anger nor frustration. Her expression remained calm, tinged with something strange.
"You are something, I'll give you that!" she said with a smile, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "But have you forgotten who you are?"
Euron did not expect her to remain so composed, nor did he expect such a question. He froze for a moment before replying, "What am I? Will you spare me because I am King of the Seven Kingdoms? Will you imprison me in the Great Sept to repent, like you did with Cersei?"
"That's a good idea!" the nobles said excitedly, almost applauding.
"In your dreams." The Dragon Queen wrinkled her delicate nose and waved her hand in front of her mouth in disgust. "I cannot bear to share the same sky or breathe the same air as you any longer. You stink!"
King Euron's face darkened. He sneered. "All you can do is run your mouth."
"You are a warlock, a priest of the gods," the Dragon Queen reminded him, then sighed. "Justice that arrives late is never justice.
For villains who have already reached the end of their lives, a trial is not punishment. It is merely a final chance to flaunt their deeds and glory.
But all of that only applies in a 'real world' without gods. In Westeros, where gods watch from above, death is merely the beginning of another long journey."
Euron's expression began to stiffen, and fear slowly appeared in his eyes.
"You think stretching your neck and taking a blade ends everything?" The Dragon Queen looked at him with a trace of pity. "Your road ahead is still very long.
Even after a hundred trillion years, those pirates who look up to you will still hear your confessions and cries of despair from the deepest part of the seven hells."
"A hundred trillion years?" The listeners around them shuddered. The warm hall, heated by three roaring fireplaces, suddenly felt much colder.
"Do you know what lies within the seven hells?" The Dragon Queen seemed oblivious to the eerie atmosphere. "Let me start with the least terrifying, the first level—also called the Prison of Punishment. As the name suggests, it is where criminals like you are punished with various tortures.
The first level has eighteen districts, like a round meat pie cut into eighteen slices."
As she spoke, she gestured vividly with her hands. In the minds of Euron and the surrounding lords, ladies, and knights, an image of a pie-like hell immediately formed.
Strangely… it almost seemed a bit cute.
The Dragon Queen continued, "The first district is the Tongue-Ripping Hell. Those who, in life, sow discord, slander others, speak with deceitful tongues, twist words cleverly, and lie to cheat others will be sent there after death.
Demons will pry open your mouth, clamp your tongue with iron tongs, and slowly pull it out, stretching and dragging it."
"Gulp!" The noble lords and ladies, who often lied without hesitation, swallowed nervously, instinctively feeling pain in their tongues.
"Go fool the White Walkers. I'm not buying your nonsense!" Euron shouted.
"Stubborn to the end. I have no interest in wasting more words on you. Let the Stranger teach you instead." The Dragon Queen shook her head and pronounced judgment. "Everyone knows that heaven descends to welcome saints. In truth, hell can also rise from the ninefold abyss. The Stranger's soul-reapers will take away the souls of the wicked.
After forty-nine days, once the people of the Seven Kingdoms know of Euron's crimes, I will personally summon hell and have the Stranger take his soul."
"My fate is mine, not yours. Don't think you can toy with my soul!" Euron sneered and suddenly bit down hard.
"Pfft—" Half of his tongue fell out with a spray of blood. His airway quickly clogged with thick blood, and dark red foam began to spill from his mouth and nostrils.
"Ah! Euron has bitten off his tongue to kill himself!" After a moment of shock, the hall erupted into panicked cries.
The ladies and young women seated at the back screamed at the top of their lungs like women in labor.
"Quick, fetch a thin bamboo tube," Count Mathis calmly ordered. "Do not panic. It's very difficult to die from biting off one's tongue. Insert the tube into the throat to clear the airway."
"That's right. Even cutting off the tongue won't kill you, let alone biting it," the hunchbacked maester added.
"Let him die," Daenerys said calmly from her seat.
"What?" The crowd fell silent for a moment, then turned to look at her in confusion.
"Didn't you say you would summon hell after forty-nine days?" Mathis's expression changed. "Are you going to start now, here in the hall?"
The nobles' faces turned pale as they hurried away from Euron.
Summoning heaven meant getting closer, but hell was something to avoid at all costs.
Daenerys looked coldly at Euron, whose face and neck were covered in blood. "When the Stranger calls for your life at the fifth watch, who can enter hell at the third?"
No one understood. They simply stood there, watching blankly as Euron's face turned purple and his body writhed like a worm, swallowing his last mouthful of blood.
The process lasted nearly ten minutes.
A thick stench of blood mixed with excrement filled the hall.
After all, when Euron died, his sphincter relaxed, and he lost control of his bowels.
A glint flashed in the Dragon Queen's eyes. A green ribbon of light flew out from her left eye and circled around her, creating a gust that pushed the stench away.
Just as everyone covered their noses in confusion, a thick beam of milky white holy light descended from above, landing directly on Euron's corpse.
Within the light was a dazed figure. It was none other than Euron.
The light vanished in an instant, and the soul reentered the body.
"Cough, cough, cough—" Euron came back to life. His purplish face still lacked the vitality of the living, but his mouth convulsed as he coughed up large clots of black blood.
"Ah! The Mother has resurrected Euron!" Green Apple Jon shouted in disbelief.
"The Mother…" The surrounding nobles wanted to shout, as usual, "The Mother is merciful," but their voices faltered halfway.
Deep down, even subconsciously, they wanted to shout things like "The Mother is terrifying," or worse.
But they dared not blaspheme.
The Mother would not even allow a man to die properly. This was far too frightening.
Only now did they fully understand the Dragon Queen's earlier words. When the Stranger decrees death at the fifth watch, no one can descend to hell at the third.
The Seven Gods were overbearing, terrifying, and awe-inspiring.
Seated high above, the Dragon Queen suddenly noticed that the threads of faith connecting the nobles had thickened significantly.
This meant their devotion to the Seven Gods had greatly increased.
"Uwaaah—!" Euron glared at the Dragon Queen with fear and hatred, opening his blood-filled mouth, but only incoherent sounds came out.
"Oh dear, I forgot to put his tongue back," Daenerys said, clapping her hands as if just realizing. She looked around, but the smooth green marble floor was empty aside from scattered footprints and bloodstains.
"Where is Crow's Eye's tongue? Has anyone seen it?"
The people in the hall began searching. Soon, a lord noticed something uneven under his boot. When he lifted his foot, he found a bloody lump stuck to the sole like dog filth.
Embarrassed and disgusted, he said, "Your Grace, I have it. I was about to use a bamboo tube to save him and accidentally stepped on it."
"Sigh, pass me the bamboo tube," he said, gesturing to his squire. "Your Grace, please wait while I scrape it off."
"Oh no, I went to the stables this morning and stepped in horse dung. This tongue is too dirty. It needs to be washed."
Euron's face twisted in fury.
"Ghh—ghh—!" He glared at the lord with hatred.
"Forget it." Daenerys waved her hand in disgust. "No tongue, then no tongue. Since he likes silence, let him remain silent forever."
Euron's flagship was called Silence, and all its crew had their tongues removed.
Now he had received his retribution.
Holding the filthy piece of flesh, the noble asked worriedly, "But without a tongue, how will the demons pull it out in the Tongue-Ripping Hell?"
"They will pull the tongue of the soul. The pain of the flesh can grow numb, but the pain of the soul becomes clearer the more it hurts. It can be stacked endlessly, infinitely painful," Daenerys said.
The noble turned pale with fright. His hand trembled, and the piece of flesh fell back to the ground.
The surrounding nobles and commoners shuddered as well, unable to hide their fear.
"Why didn't he go to the Storm God's cloud palace? Why could the Mother revive him?" Aeron asked in disbelief.
"The glory of the Seven Gods is boundless," the Dragon Queen said solemnly.
She had even dared to seize followers from the Lord of Light. Why would she fear a Storm God?
Though, strictly speaking, the Storm God might be a true god, while the Lord of Light had already fallen.
Still, the Storm God was restrained by her mastery of the Song of Wind. If He dared come for Euron's soul, Daenerys would be delighted.
"The Seven Gods created the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon, the mountains and rivers. They created all things in the world. They are the one true gods," Green Apple Jon recited devoutly from the Seven-Pointed Star.
That was the old version. In the Dragon Queen's revised scripture, this passage had been significantly altered.
"The one true god" had been changed to "the foremost god of justice in the multiverse," and while the claim that they created all things remained, it had been softened to "the Seven Gods can create all things."
With that single word, it turned exaggeration into something that could one day be true.
At least, it was a beautiful possibility.
Daenerys then looked at the other two human stumps and asked, "Are you satisfied with Euron's judgment? Do you feel justice has been served?"
"What more could we ask for?" Falia said calmly, closing her eyes with a sigh. "My wish has been fulfilled. Your Grace, please send me on my way."
Daenerys struck the warlock's soul, knocking him unconscious, then casually summoned a ball of holy flame, setting both him and the box beneath him ablaze.
The smoke did not spread through the hall but was drawn into a nearby fireplace through an invisible passage.
A few minutes later, only a pile of ashes remained on the floor. Falia's soul returned… or rather, was transformed into spiritual essence.
Daenerys then turned her gaze to the stunned Aeron. "You once led the ironborn in raiding northern towns. Your sins are not small either."
(End of Chapter)
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