A Dance with Dragons — Barristan I

With the queen gone on dragonback, Ser Barristan stands between Meereen and its king's mercies; the old knight polishes his armor and his suspicions together.

The chapter retold

With the queen vanished on dragonback and the city reeling, Ser Barristan Selmy steps into the vacuum as the only steady authority left in Meereen, standing between a frightened populace and a king, Hizdahr, whose mercies now look considerably more suspicious than they did on his wedding day. The Yunkai’i coalition uses Daenerys’s absence to tighten the screws immediately: Groleo, the loyal old sea captain who carried her across the world, is beheaded by the besiegers as punishment for a dragon’s crimes he had nothing to do with.

The chapter installs Barristan as the book’s new anchor of conscience inside Meereen, an old knight polishing armor and suspicions with the same unhurried discipline, unwilling to trust Hizdahr’s grief as genuine and unable, yet, to prove it isn’t. Groleo’s execution is a small, brutal reminder that Daenerys’s flight didn’t end the war she left behind — it just removed the one person capable of ending it on her own terms, and left everyone else to absorb the consequences of her absence.

This movement: The Harpy's Bargain

• Dany weds Hizdahr zo Loraq to still the knives; the fighting pits reopen with a queen presiding.
• In Daznak's Pit the locusts are poisoned and the crowd screams — for Drogon, descended on the sand. Dany mounts him and is gone.
• Quentyn Martell tries to steal a dragon with a whip and burns for the family words.
• Barristan Selmy takes the city in hand, arrests Hizdahr, and readies Meereen for the Yunkish war outside the walls.

The fallen — spoilers

• Groleo — The old captain who brought Daenerys across the world, beheaded by the Yunkai'i for a dragon's crimes.