The arena was reopened.

The reopening of Meereen's fighting pits was the price Daenerys Targaryen paid for a peace she desperately needed. After months of shadow war with the Sons of the Harpy, a blockade by Qartheen and Yunkish fleets, and the slow starvation of her freedmen, the queen yielded to the relentless pressure of her Ghiscari husband, Hizdahr zo Loraq, and the city's ancient nobility. The pits, which she had closed upon taking Meereen as a repudiation of slavery, were to be revived as a wedding gift to Hizdahr and a sign that she had embraced the "ancient ways and customs" of the city. The decision was not made lightly; Dany had refused Hizdahr's petition six times before finally relenting on the eve of their marriage, telling him, "After the wedding Hizdahr will be king. Let him reopen the fighting pits if he wishes. I want no part of it." She sought to wash her hands of the blood, but the blood would be on hers all the same.

The Wedding and the Concession

Daenerys's marriage to Hizdahr zo Loraq was itself a political necessity, urged by the Green Grace, Galazza Galare, who argued that only a king of pure Ghiscari blood could reconcile the city to the dragon queen's rule. The wedding was performed in the Temple of the Graces according to Ghiscari rites, with Dany wrapped in a white tokar fringed with baby pearls, her feet washed by Hizdahr in a traditional ceremony. The reopening of the pits was the final condition of the peace treaty with Yunkai, a concession that Dany accepted with deep misgiving. "A bride price paid in blood," she called it. Yet she told herself that peace was worth the price, that the fighting pits would allow the freedmen who had been champions to earn glory and gold, and that the bloodshed would be contained within the arena's scarlet sands. She was wrong.

The Day of the Games

The grand reopening of Daznak's Pit was staged as a celebration of the new peace and the royal marriage. Dany attended in a yellow silk tokar and long red veils, seated in the royal box beside Hizdahr, surrounded by the Great Masters of Meereen and the envoys from Yunkai. The crowd roared "Mhysa!"—Mother—as she appeared, but she knew they cheered the mortal art, not her. The matches were brutal: Khrazz cut the heart from a Summer Islander and ate it; the Spotted Cat hamstrung a giant and opened his throat; Barsena Blackhair faced a boar and was disemboweled before the queen's eyes. Dany turned away, sickened, but the worst was yet to come. A folly was planned in which dwarfs would fight lions with wooden swords, a spectacle Dany forbade at the last moment, earning the displeasure of the crowd. The day's final match was to pit Goghor the Giant against Belaquo Bonebreaker, but it never took place.

The Dragon's Arrival and the Queen's Flight

As Barsena's corpse was being dragged from the sand, a shadow rippled across the pit. Drogon, the largest and wildest of Dany's three dragons, descended from the sky, drawn by the scent of blood and the roar of the crowd. He landed on the carcass of the boar and began to feed, then turned on the spearmen who tried to drive him away, killing several with flame and claw. In the chaos, a hero—a spearman named Harghaz—leapt onto Drogon's back and drove a spear into his neck. The dragon screamed, and Dany screamed with him. She vaulted from the royal box, ran across the sand, and climbed onto Drogon's back, seizing the spear and ripping it out. With a crack of her whip and a cry of "No!" she mastered the beast, and Drogon launched himself into the sky, carrying her away over the walls of Meereen and north across the Skahazadhan into the Dothraki sea.

Aftermath and Consequences

The reopening of the fighting pits thus ended not in celebration but in catastrophe. Drogon's rampage killed over two hundred people and wounded three times as many. Daenerys vanished, believed by many to be dead. The fragile peace with Yunkai shattered; the Yunkishmen sent the head of Admiral Groleo to Hizdahr's court as a declaration of war. Hizdahr himself was arrested by Ser Barristan Selmy and the Shavepate on suspicion of poisoning the honeyed locusts meant for Dany. The dragons Rhaegal and Viserion, left behind in the pit beneath the Great Pyramid, broke their chains and escaped into the city, wreaking further havoc. The pale mare, the bloody flux, swept through the besieging armies and into Meereen itself. The city that Dany had tried to save by reopening the pits descended into chaos, war, and plague. The fighting pits remained open, but the queen who had reluctantly sanctioned them was gone, and the peace she had bought with blood had turned to ash.