Chapter 8: repercussion at Valyria(Omniscient's POV)

Meanwhile, at the valyrian freehold things were nearly the same as they usually were dragon riders flying in their dragons in the sky, slaves dying sad deaths in the mines without anyone to cry for them, traders from all over the world coming to visit the nations of nations, filing the market valyrian market of besides the local dragon glass, glass ornaments, sophisticated jewelry, refined fabrics; with the silk of Naath, the wood bows and ornaments from the summer islands, the saffron and spices from Yi Ti, whale oil from the Ibbens, and the slaves that came through the slave bay, from the Dothraki sea. This was Valyria in its darkness and splendor...

With Valyria's road connecting the whole of this powerful empire news traveled there quite fast. Tales of the warrior that defeated a dragon with only a spear and his bare hands spread as far as Valyria. Most of the dragon lords dismissed the story, saying Zeys' family dragon was killed by a ballista, though the more cautious one sent spies to investigate what happened.

Karna became known by several names some call him the ultimate warrior, the dragon slayer, and so on. But there were some shameful ones like the balls of steel and the swordsman that came after the story of how Karna resisted a nameless dragon lord's sneak attack.

The swordsman was part of a sort of myth that the prince of Sar Mell, was born with an iron sword between his legs instead of a p*n*s. On Valyria, Karna was not viewed as a hero, for obvious reasons, so there were tales of the Rhoyne demon that killed a dragon lord and its dragon. Mothers there even started to tell tales of how the Rhoyne demon hunts down disobedient kids.

The Zeys a middle-rank family in Valyria were waiting for the return of their family's prodigal son. The negotiations were hard, to the point that some more short-tempered ones wanted to simply fly on their dragons to ask for better terms, but remembering the tales of how Balerion died they son back down.

Later, thinking more of the matter they see clearly that it would be stupid for the Zeys house to start a war on their own to take a relative that they hated back, and they also remembered that they were angry because they considered the ransom of Raegel Zeys to hight. In fact, only his parents wanted to pay his ransom.

None of his brothers, sisters, or cousin wanted to pay for it. They always emphasize that this ransom would hurt their house's coffers quite a lot. When someone looks at the forty of Valyria one might think that endless wealth is hidden in their coffers, but the truth was far from it. At this time, they are rich indeed.

Some monopolize the silk trade with Naath, others got great wealth from the slave trade, some make great riches with the sea trade in general, others have great manufacturers, whose products are highly evaluated as far as Yi Ti, and even the poorest of them have at least a mine filled with silver, gold, diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and so on.

But there is something that people usually forget they have to both live showing enough wealth to have their social standing recognized by their equals and sustain their enormous dragons, which are much bigger than the ones from Targaryen Dynasty.

The low-ranking families barely make it to keep themselves afloat by feeding their dragons, wearing the finest silk, and having oil portraits painted by the best of valyrian artists in honor of their house. In this context, the middle-ranking families were fine and the true rich were the top fourteen. The normal merchants and dragonless families do not even bother to drown themselves in these ego competitions.

Now returning to the main subject, why does nearly no one want to pay for Rhaegel's ransom? Because Rhaegel was an *ssh*l* even with his family and everybody hated him, simple as that.

So Rhaegel returned, with his eyes blindfolded. He was not taken back hear by a rhoynar, he was given to a middleman merchant of trust of the Zeys family, that took him back. In the beginning, they thought the rhoynars have blinded him, but that was not the case, his body was fine. Exactly his body, not his mind. The first time he saw a woman, he pissed himself.

Why this happened, one may ask. Well, the idea of guest rights is much meager in Essos, where the slave trade is rampaged, then, filled with serfdom, Westeros. Guest rights in Essos are more of a diplomatic politeness than anything. Rhaegel Zeys, as the idiot that he was, tried to r*p* one of the Mell family's maids, which he failed to do, and was imprisoned.

As his ransom was already paid, Karna did not want to go back on the deal that emphasized that no physical permanent damage should be made to the 'good', so Karna uses his sadistic creativity to make sure that Rhaegel would forever be too scared to get even close to a woman.

Only Rhaegel's father knows that even when his son was not even a grown man, he already tried to poison his older brothers and sisters that were at his front in the succession line, but the Zeys's lord never had the heart to kill his son for this and know he also does not have the heart to avenge him either.