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Essos, Yunkai
2nd Moon of 58 AC
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Image of Sara.
The heat inside one of Yunkai's pyramids did not relent, even as night stretched over the red lands of the south. The air inside the main hall at the peak was thick, steeped in the cloying scent of jasmine oil, myrrh, and the sour stench of ripe palm wine that servants tirelessly poured into golden goblets. Yet, despite the incense braziers and the fine silk robes worn by the men gathered around the marble table, a dry, bone-chilling cold seemed to have taken root in the room.
There were twelve of them. Twelve Wise Masters, the rulers of the Yellow City, men who for generations had weighed human life on copper scales and traded freedom as if it were wool or wheat. But tonight, none of them carried the arrogance of prosperous years. Their elaborate headdresses of braided hair, oiled with pig fat, were disheveled; their faces, usually pale and dusted with bark powder, were slick with sweat and shadowed by deep dark circles.
"It is madness to pretend the bay is still ours," Grazdan mo Eraz said, running his trembling fingers through his beard, which was split into three saffron-dyed points. "Meereen did not merely fall. It was completely dismantled. Dragonfire turned the walls into liquid glass in less than an hour. An hour! My spies in the north say the streets still smell of charred human fat."
"Meereen fell because its Masters were arrogant fools who relied on resentful slaves and hired swords who run at the first roar," interjected Snotah mo Graz, a stout man whose double chin quivered with every emphatic word. "We have double walls. We have dry moats and enough supplies to endure a three-year siege if necessary."
"And with what are you going to defend those double walls, Snotah?" interrupted an older master bitterly, withered like a sun-dried raisin as he rested both fists on the parchment map spread across the table. "With domestic eunuchs? With the mercenaries of the Iron Shield or the Windblown, who demand three times their weight in silver just not to flee at the first blast of fire? Or do you expect your bed-dancers to stop the Dothraki with tambourines?"
A heavy, deathly silence fell over the room. Every man present knew precisely where Yunkai's true tragedy lay.
Months ago, when the first rumors regarding the King of Xandar began crossing the sea, the Wise Masters had dispatched emissaries to Astapor with the immediate intention of purchasing blocks of Unsullied. They aimed to raise an impenetrable wall of iron pikes to halt the barbarian tide. But the response from Astapor was not a caravan of slaves, but a resounding humiliation: Xandar had beaten them to it. King Caspian had not only bought every last legion of eunuch soldiers available in the Red City, but had paid more than triple for each man. Yunkai had been stripped of an army before the war had even begun.
"Astapor will stand by us," a young master near the back muttered, though his voice lacked any real conviction. "We are sister cities. The blood of Ghis flows through the veins of the Good Masters. They will not allow the banner of the Harpy to be trampled."
Grazdan mo Eraz let out a bitter laugh, dry as the snap of a broken twig. He reached toward a black lacquered leather tube resting beside his goblet and pulled out a sheet of parchment sealed with red wax.
"It arrived this evening at sunset," Grazdan said, tapping the parchment against the table. "A messenger sent directly from the central pyramid of Astapor. It contains no good news. Nor promises of aid."
The remaining eleven men leaned forward, their eyes fixed on the paper as if it were a venomous viper.
"What do the Good Masters say?" Snotah asked, swallowing hard.
"They say Ghis can wait," Grazdan replied in a frostbitten tone. "They say King Caspian sent them a formal offer of vassalage and compensation. He guarantees them control of Astapor, ownership over their lands, and a direct percentage of the new trade routes Xandar will open to the west. In exchange, the Good Masters have laid the city at the king's feet. They have surrendered the ports, dismantled their naval defenses, and sworn not to lift a single finger or send a single coin to succor Yunkai."
"Traitors! Cowardly dogs!" Snotah bellowed, slamming his fist onto the marble table so hard a wine goblet overturned, staining the parchment map in a deep purple pool. "They sold their own blood for a handful of coins and the promise of not being burned alive!"
"They sold their pride to save their necks, which is quite different," the old master corrected. "If Astapor is not coming, if Meereen no longer exists, and if the Unsullied march beneath the outsider's banner... we are alone. Yunkai is nothing more than a ripe fruit waiting to be plucked by the wind."
"We can negotiate," another suggested, biting his left fingernails. "We can offer him tribute. Gold, silk, eastern gems... Whatever he demands, so long as his monsters do not cross the river."
"Negotiate with a man who burns cities from the sky?" Grazdan spat back with disdain. "A man who travels with Asshai'i witches and monsters that move through the shadows? This Caspian does not seek tribute. He seeks absolute subjugation. He wants us down in the dirt, eating the dust his horses tread upon."
"Then we fight," Snotah said, clenching his teeth. "We will make every step they take toward Yunkai cost them in blood. We will die as men of Great Ghis, not as serfs to a foreigner."
"Brave words for a man hiding behind forty feet of stone," a voice chimed in.
It was not loud. Nor did it originate from the main entrance or the side corridors guarded by scimitar-wielding men. It was a woman's voice—soft, silky, modulated with a strange cadence that seemed to echo directly within the skull of every man present.
The twelve Wise Masters jumped simultaneously. Several let out stifled gasps of terror; two stumbled backward, knocking their heavy chairs over onto the polished flagstones. Terrified hands reached in vain for the ornamental daggers at their belts.
In the far right corner of the hall, standing right beside the massive bronze brazier where glowing embers crackled, stood a woman.
She had not crossed the threshold. No rustle of fabric had been heard, nor the lightest sound of footsteps upon the carpets. She was simply there, materializing as though the night shadows had condensed to give her form, or as if she had been standing in that very corner throughout the entire meeting, concealed from human sight by an invisible veil.
Her beauty was cold enough to freeze blood. Her skin was so extraordinarily fair it appeared carved from cold marble; her hair—a straight, thick mane of raven black—fell freely over her bare shoulders. She wore a simple gown of dark green silk, cinched at the waist with a silver cord, and her large, almond-shaped eyes gleamed with a deep brown hue that seemed to capture and reflect the candlelight with unnatural intensity.
Sara—one of the witches Caspian had dispatched to the Yellow City days ago to observe the rot of its rulers from within the depths of the bazaar.
"Who... who are you?" Snotah stammered, backing up until his spine hit the tapestry on the wall. "Guards! To me, guards!"
"Your door guards are asleep, you pompous fat fool," Sara said, taking a slow step forward. The sound of her bare feet upon the stone made no noise whatsoever. "Or perhaps they are dreaming of the families they stand to lose if their master insists on playing warrior from this banquet hall."
Grazdan mo Eraz, though visibly trembling, managed to take a step forward to face her.
"You are an intruder..." he said, his voice raw with fear. "A spy for the savage."
"I am the voice of a mercy you do not deserve," Sara replied, stopping halfway between the marble table and the brazier. She looked at the old master, then at Snotah, and finally at Grazdan. Her full lips curved into a calm, unhurried smile. "I have walked your markets for days, listening to your cowardly speeches in the plazas and watching you prepare the scum for a war you cannot win. My king, Caspian, Lord of Xandar, gave me very precise instructions before sending his armies south."
"Your king is a usurper," Snotah spat, attempting to gather a shred of dignity, though sweat trickled down his forehead. "A barbarian hiding behind sorcery and hellish creatures."
Sara did not so much as blink at the insult. Instead of answering, she turned slowly toward the bronze brazier. The coals inside glowed with an intense orange radiance, throwing off a wave of heat that made the surrounding air quiver.
Before the horrified eyes of the twelve men, the woman extended her right hand.
Without a second's hesitation, without a single flinch of pain or a change in her calm breathing, she thrust her entire hand into the heart of the burning coals. She plunged her fingers into the embers crackling at over a thousand degrees, closed her fist around a piece of glowing white coal, and slowly drew it out, holding it upon her open palm as if it were a fresh apple.
The flesh of her hand did not burn. Her skin remained untouched, pure white, smooth, without a single blister or the slightest trace of soot. The burning coal continued to shower sparks and smoke over her open palm without causing her the slightest harm.
A collective groan of sheer panic swept across the table.
"Do you truly believe the walls of Yunkai can stop a man who commands forces your mind, rotted by complacency, cannot begin to comprehend?" Sara asked, her voice soft yet suddenly carrying the resonance of iron striking stone. She squeezed her hand, and the burning lump of coal crumbled in her fist, turning into gray dust that fell to the floor like dead ash. "My king does not wish to build an empire upon ashes if he can avoid it. Qarth was a lesson for those who believed Xandar's weapons were parlor tricks, and it was reduced to glass and rubble because its rulers chose pride over reason."
Grazdan mo Eraz swallowed what little pride he had left and raised his trembling hands in a futile gesture.
"What does your lord want from us?" he asked, his voice cracking. "Does he demand the keys to the city? Our gold? The slaves?"
Sara looked him dead in the eye. Her brown orbs seemed to blaze with a frozen fire in the dim light.
"My king asks not for your gold, for the riches of Xandar make your treasures look like clay trinkets," the witch said, advancing another step toward the table. "Nor does he want your slaves, for in the Khal's realm, no man wears chains around his neck. What the king demands is the unconditional surrender of the city of Yunkai. The immediate opening of the gates when the vanguard of the legions appears on the horizon, the absolute dismantling of the laws of the Harpy, and the surrender of all indentured contracts."
"That is the ruin of our houses!" Snotah shrieked in desperation. "Without servitude, Yunkai is nothing! You ask us to become beggars!"
Sara turned toward him with terrifying slowness.
"If you choose to fight, you will not find a battle, you fat fool," the witch said, her voice dropping its sweetness for the first time, turning dry, direct, and lethal. "What you will find is a slaughter. There will be no honor in your resistance. There will be no songs sung to remember your valor. The king's dragons will not distinguish between the Pyramid and the mud hovels of the common folk. The troops of Xandar will march through the breaches of your burned walls and sweep every corner of this city until not a single man bearing the headdress of the Harpy draws breath upon the stone."
Silence reclaimed the high chamber once more. Not even the night wind dared blow through the open arches of the hall. The twelve men stared at the woman as though gazing upon Death itself clad in green silk.
Sara walked slowly toward the hall's widest window, the one opening directly over the two-hundred-foot drop that separated the apex of the Yellow Pyramid from the lower courtyards. The city lights flickered below like a swarm of frightened fireflies in the vast darkness of the night.
She paused at the edge of the polished marble sill. The night breeze billowed her black hair and the skirt of her green gown, yet she showed no sign of instability or fear before the dizzying drop.
She turned her head over her shoulder one last time, looking at the twelve Wise Masters who watched her paralyzed, unable to utter a single sound.
"The king's orders are set," Sara concluded, her voice drifting through the warm air of the room like an irrevocable sentence. "The tide of men, iron, and fire has already set out from the north. When the banner of Xandar appears over the red hills and you see the shadow of wings against the sun... make the right choice. For there will be no second warning."
Without awaiting a response, without a moment's hesitation, the witch stepped out into the void.
Snotah gasped, while Grazdan and the old master rushed to the window, pressing their hands against the stone ledge to peer into the depths of the abyss, expecting to see the woman's broken body shattered against the flagstones of the courtyard below.
But there was nothing below; the night air was completely clear. There was no impact, no sound of flesh breaking upon stone, nor a single stain upon the torchlit slabs of the courtyards. Sara had simply dissipated into the wind, evaporating into the twilight exactly as she had arrived.
At the peak of the Great Yellow Pyramid, the twelve Wise Masters were left alone with the smell of cheap incense, the overturned wine goblet on the table, and the terrifying certainty that their world was about to burn to ashes.