Lys

Lys takes up a whole island off the southern coast of Essos, between Tyrosh and Volantis, its rock the only shield against a sea that is rarely calm. Lysene hair is curled and scented, the eyes almost always blue, and many still carry old Valyria's pale skin and near-white hair. The city's women go about with their midriffs bare.

Its workshops turn out red and white wines and fine tapestries, and its oval coins are stamped with a naked woman. Lysene alchemists are feared for their poisons, among them the strangler and the tears of Lys, and the city holds hundreds of pleasure houses. Its gods share the same streets: a temple to R'hllor, the feline Pantera, the androgynous Yndros, the warrior Bakkalon, and Saagael, lord of pain — though above them all rules the Weeping Lady of Lys, served by priestesses who are almost always old women.

Lys fell at some point under Volantis, then in the middle of its expansion, and took a while to shake off that grip. It was freed by an alliance that had no business working: the Storm King, Tyrosh, and Dragonstone joined against the Volantenes, and Braavos handed a hundred ships to a Lysene exile to keep the cause going.

Free again, Lys joined the Triarchy, a pact with Myr and Tyrosh run by a High Council. That realm backed the Greens in Westeros's civil war and put ships and men into the Battle of the Gullet, where command of the Essosi fleet fell to the Lysene Sharako Lohar. By 130 AC the alliance between the three cities was already badly worn.

Daenerys Targaryen was given a young Lysene woman, Doreah, as a wedding gift, and the girl entered her service. Years later Tyrosh and Lys stood at the edge of war, and the tension finally broke: Lys took on both Myr and Tyrosh at once, amid rumors that the Tyroshi archon had set out terms to end the trade dispute.

Amid those wars, Lys also served as a hiding place: Edric Storm sheltered there, kept by his protectors, out of reach of whoever was hunting him in Westeros.