The shadow of the Titan of Braavos loomed over the city's sea gate.
The giant stood more than a thousand feet tall at the natural narrows, its left foot crushing the wreckage of enemy ships, the longsword in its raised right hand pointing toward the sky.
Whenever a ship passed between its legs, the sentries in the watchtowers rang the alarm bells, and beacon fires blazed in the Titan's hollow eye sockets.
It was a rule Braavos had kept unchanged for a thousand years: every visitor must bow their head.
Then a pale golden shadow swept in from the southern sea. At first, it was only a small, strange cloud on the horizon, but it rapidly grew, blotting out the afternoon sun.
When the lookouts at the harbor of Braavos finally made out its true form, terrified horn blasts resounded throughout the city.
A dragon.
Three heads, pale gold, with a wingspan wide enough to cover half a canal.
It was no legend, no drunkard's rambling, no sailor's exaggerated tale brought back from distant seas.
It simply flew, brazen and unchallenged, over Braavos's proudest guardian and into the heart of the city-state.
The gusts from its wings churned up great waves in the strait, sending them crashing against the giant's base.
Masts crowded the docks like a forest. Thousands of people stopped their work and looked up at the vast shadow that blotted out the afternoon sunlight.
Cries, prayers, and the clatter of falling objects erupted in a fragmented chorus.
When Aegon stepped onto the white-stone square before the Sealord's Palace, steeped in a thousand years of sea winds and power...
The Sealord of Braavos came out to greet him in person.
The old man, who had ruled Braavos for forty years, had a face as resolute as sea-worn rock,