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Essos, Vaes Dothrak
The Palace Dungeons
1st Moon of 58 AC
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The dungeon beneath the Palace did not figure on the official blueprints Caspian distributed to his aides during the reconstruction of Vaes Dothrak. It was a subterranean chamber excavated directly into the living rock of the Mother of Mountains, where the winter chill clung to the damp walls and the only sound was the steady, rhythmic dripping of condensation. Here, it was intended that the power of the Great Khal would manifest not through an arakh or the bells in his braid, but through heavy iron chains suspended from the vaulted ceiling.
The false Amanda hung by her arms, the tips of her toes barely brushing the damp stone floor. Her severed limb had been crudely cauterized with molten iron by one of the witches—halting the hemorrhage but leaving a blackened, knotted scar that sent constant spasms of agony through her body. The effect of the glamour had dissolved entirely; the woman hanging from the chains no longer possessed the soft, delicate features of the palace servant, but rather the angular, pale, and weathered face of a woman born in the back alleys of Qarth or the Free Cities of the east.
Valka stood directly in front of her. She had cast aside her everyday robes, now wearing a dark leather doublet that allowed her to move with absolute freedom. In her hands, she held no whip, but a selection of small glass vials containing liquids of bizarre hues, distilled from the strange flora and fauna that grew in Ischyros.
Behind her, two witches from her inner circle held torches aloft, casting a flickering light that made the shadows of the room appear to dance in a macabre rhythm.
"The Sorrowful Men are famous for their patience, their silence, and their capacity to endure physical pain," Valka said, her voice soft—scarcely a whisper that sliced through the damp dungeon air. "You believe that death is a sweet release, and that the torment of the flesh is merely a trial before you join your deity of shadows. But your faith does not account for the magic that flows through my veins. It does not account for a pain that does not destroy the flesh, but rather consumes the soul itself."
The prisoner lifted her head, spitting a string of bloody saliva toward Valka's boots. Her eyes, dulled by exhaustion, still held a lingering spark of defiance.
"I... I will say nothing," the woman rasped. "The apology has already been spoken in my mind. My death is yours... but your end is already written in the sands of the Great Red Waste."
Valka remained unbothered by the provocation. With a terrifying calm, she picked up one of the glass vials, which contained a phosphorescent green liquid distilled from the spores of fungi harvested from the caves of the Nether—one of the most heavily restricted assets at the witches' disposal.
"This will not kill your body, assassin," Valka explained, bringing the vial close to the prisoner's face. "But every single drop that touches your skin will ignite your nerves, mimicking the sensation of being burned alive from the inside out. All the while, your mind will remain perfectly lucid, unable to faint or seek the refuge of unconsciousness. Your brain will feel your flesh melting away, even as your skin remains entirely untouched."
Valka uncorked the flask. Using the tip of a glass rod, she drew a single drop of the green liquid and let it fall onto the prisoner's bare shoulder.
The reaction was immediate and horrific.
The woman's eyes bulged, her pupils contracting into tiny pinpricks as a screech that sounded entirely unhuman tore from her throat. Her whole body tensed with such violence that the links of the iron chains rattled and groaned against the ceiling hooks. There were no physical wounds, no real fire, but the magical stimulation of her pain receptors was so total that the assassin began to shudder uncontrollably, foam bubbling at her lips as she desperately tried to bite her own tongue to force an end to the suffering.
"Who funded the glamour?" Valka asked, her tone flat and unaltered as she held the glass rod inches from the woman's eyes. "Who gave you the identities of Amanda and Onno? Who allowed you to bypass the vigilance of my order?"
"Ahhhh! Mercy! Kill me! Kill me, by the gods, just kill me!" the woman howled, tears cutting through the grime on her face.
"Valar Morghulis, but how fortunate that you are no man," Valka replied coldly. "Tell me the names, or the next drop goes directly into your eyes."
The torture stretched on for hours in the dark of the dungeons. Valka showed neither haste nor hesitation. She applied the glass rod with surgical precision, targeting the most sensitive nerve clusters on the prisoner's body, seamlessly alternating between the agonizing burning sensation and health potions to keep the woman's heart beating strong, ensuring she could not escape through a sudden cardiac arrest. The leader of the witches demonstrated that, to protect her husband and secure the stability of the kingdom they were building together, she was willing to descend into the darkest abysses of human depravity without a single flinch.
Finally, when the mind of the Sorrowful Men's assassin cracked under the unbearable weight of the slow, cruel torment, the truth spilled out like a torrent from a broken dam.
"The... the Pureborn," the woman sobbed, her head hanging limp against her chest, drool and tears dripping onto the stone floor. "The Warlocks of Qarth... they wove the veil. The coin... the coin came from the Spice Fleet... they wanted the Khal dead before Xandar reached the borders of Ghis..."
Valka tucked the glass rod back into her leather case, her dark eyes gleaming with cold, dangerous satisfaction.
"Who else is involved here in Vaes Dothrak?" Valka demanded one last time.
"No one... no one else," the prisoner whimpered. "Just us... the glamour required too much magic to maintain more than two... please... death... give me death..."
Valka stared at the broken form of the woman for a long, silent moment. She turned to one of the witches holding a torch.
"Deal with her," Valka instructed indifferently. "Submerge her in lava up to her waist, and administer regeneration potions every five minutes for five days. Let her not depart before she truly knows hell."
Without waiting for the order to be executed, Valka wiped her hands with a damp linen cloth and left the dungeon, ascending the stone steps toward the royal chambers where Caspian awaited.
Caspian sat in front of the main brazier in his room, watching the red embers slowly dissolve into gray ash. He had changed out of his blood-stained tunic into one of dark wool, but showed no signs of having slept. The golden ring on his neck where the impostor's arakh had decapitated him had vanished completely under the influence of the totem, leaving behind only smooth, renewed skin that contrasted sharply with the hardness of his gaze.
The sound of the door creaking open announced Valka's arrival. The leader of the witches walked into the room with firm, measured steps, bringing with her the damp smell of the dungeons and the biting chill of the winter night outside. She approached Caspian and placed her hand on his shoulder, feeling the iron tension coiled in his muscles.
"It is done, Caspian," Valka said, her voice carrying the physical toll of the hours spent interrogating, yet steady in its resolve. "The killer spoke before her mind collapsed entirely."
Caspian did not look up from the dying embers, but his jaw clenched tight.
"Who was it, Valka?" Caspian asked, his voice low, carrying a deceptive stillness—though Valka knew well that he was consumed by a quiet fury.
"The warlocks of Qarth wove the glamour that hid the infiltrators," Valka explained, sitting beside him. "The gold that paid the Sorrowful Men came directly from the merchants of the Spice Fleet in Qarth. They fear our eastward expansion. They know that if our influence consolidates the trade routes of Essos, their markets in Slaver's Bay and the Jade Sea will be ruined forever."
Caspian nodded slowly. The logic behind the attack was flawless and aligned perfectly with the aggressive geopolitics of the Free Cities that viewed Xandar as a dangerous anomaly to be violently excised by its roots.
"They found the real Amanda," Valka continued, her tone softening with a tinge of sorrow. "They kept her prisoner in her own cabin. She was tortured brutally to extract every single detail of your routine. She is alive, but her mind and body will require a great deal of time to heal. The witches are tending to her with potions and salves at this moment. As for Onno... the real Onno died defending his post weeks ago. The man the Endermen tore apart was merely an impostor under the veil of the glamour."
Caspian stood up, walking toward the grand window that overlooked the southern sector of the city, where the silhouette of the colossal temple under construction was carved against the starry winter sky. The wind howled fiercely, rustling the heavy red silk curtains of the chamber.
"They believed they could kill the snake by cutting off its head, murdering me in my own domain," Caspian said, his hands gripping the stone windowsill with such force that the masonry began to crack. "They believed Xandar would collapse if its king fell. They do not understand the nature of what I am trying to create, Valka. They do not comprehend that the machinery of Xandar is such that it can sustain the fight even without me at the fore."
He turned back to face his wife, his eyes completely devoid of fear or hesitation. There was only the absolute, unyielding resolve of a man who knew that the only acceptable response to an attack was the total destruction of his enemies.
"Qarth has signed its own death warrant," Caspian declared, his voice cold. "They wanted to halt our commercial expansion, and now they will feel our hatred. I will not send envoys with formal complaints, nor will I wait for hollow replies."
Caspian walked back to the table where the maps of Essos lay, tracing his index finger from the edges of Slaver's Bay across the wastes to the massive peninsula where the city of Qarth stood, protected by its three walls of carved stone.
"Prepare the witches, Valka. Order Essino to mobilize the Khalasar—let them be the wall so that no one may flee," he commanded. "Send a message to Vaes Yeraan as well; order the Hordes to advance toward Slaver's Bay. I will leave no nest where the rats can hide."
"They should know whom to blame when the sky falls down upon them".