Seeing Myr again, Gendry felt all the more that Sunspear in Dorne, which he had visited earlier, amounted to little more than a disorderly town.
Myr was built of white marble, while Sunspear was built of bricks made from brown earth and straw.
Sunspear stood at the easternmost tip of a small peninsula of sand and stone, surrounded by sea on three sides. To the west, beneath the shadow of Sunspear's enormous walls, mud-brick shops and windowless hovels clung to the castle like barnacles to a ship's hull.
Stables, inns, taverns, and brothels sprang up farther west, many with walls of their own, and farther still stood more shabby little dwellings.
"It comes down to different hinterlands." Dorne, which lay within Sunspear's sphere of influence, was an intensely hot, barren land, whereas Myr, a city of crafts and trade, was wealthier and very livable.
Gendry wore a gold tunic with black sleeves, covered in Four-Part Sigils.
He also wore breeches, boots, and a finely crafted sword belt, with a golden cloak draped down his back. They made the king look all the more incomparably handsome.
Daenerys wore a silver dress that matched her silver-gold hair, the mark of the ancient blood of House Targaryen.
Gendry's gaze swept across the hall. Gold Cloaks guarded the entrances, standing as straight as spears.
Violence was one of the foundations of ruling a country or a city-state.
Through war and purges, Gendry had shaped a new order in the Twin Cities, relying on his earliest followers and those who had earned merit in his service.
The Wolf Pack Company, the Unsullied, escaped slaves, exiles, the Second Sons, and the Long Spear Company were all unquestionably loyal to him. It flowed both ways.
Put plainly, it was still a question of which path to take.