Dust choked the air in the slave pens of the Dothraki camp, the sun baking the chained figures huddled under tattered awnings. Aleksander squinted through the haze, his wrists raw from iron manacles.
He wasn't from this world—not originally. Reborn here after dying in his old life, he'd started ordinary, just another kid in a desert tribe. Then the horse-lords raided, killed his family, looted everything. Now he knelt in the dirt, waiting to be sold like livestock.
A realization hit him mid-chains: the arakhs, the braids, the endless steppe of Essos. Game of Thrones. He had no clue on the timeline until they shoved him into "Lot Seven" with a skinny girl named Melony. The name clicked—Melisandre, the future Red Priestess. That put them about a century before Aegon's Conquest. He'd read how they'd ripped her from her mother young, sold her to the Red Temple.
She eyed him like a cornered animal when he slid half his bread ration her way. He tore off a chunk, chewed it slow, and swallowed. "See? Not poisoned."
Melisandre took a hesitant bite, crumbs dusting her chin. She continued to eat, her eyes never leaving him.
Aleksander scanned the surroundings. The scale was modest, no larger than a typical market town, but by night, barely one building in ten showed a light. The structures, streets, and walls were all hewn from a heavy black stone—slick and greasy to the touch. It seemed to swallow the dim light, deepening the gloom of the city.
"Definitely in Asshai," he muttered under his breath.
Aleksander looked back at Melisandre now, Melony. He knew her fate: she was sold soon to some Red Priestess. But about his own escape? No idea. Until two days later on his fifteenth birthday. A grimoire materialized in his lap, leather-bound and heavy, pages crammed with every spell from the multiverse.
Aleksander's fingers flipped through the pages under the flickering torchlight that night. Time was running out—auction in two weeks. He zeroed in on the useful spells: shadows to slip chains, illusions to blur faces. Melony stuck close after that, her small hand gripping his arm like a lifeline.
He glanced down at her in the dim glow. "Instead of Melony of Lot Seven, do you want another name?"
She looked up at him and muttered, "You can choose any name."
"Melisandre," he said.
It felt right.
Melony tested the name, her voice low."Melisandre."
She let the sound of it linger for a moment before turning her gaze to Aleksander, a slow, knowing smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.
Twice a day, they got bread and brackish water. Aleksander barely noticed anymore; Essos had hardened him. He stared at one grimoire page, the word Resurrection glowing faint in the dark. He whispered to it, eyes hard: "Don't worry. I'll bring back everyone."
Beside Aleksander sat a boy with deep brown skin and a serious, thoughtful gaze. His hair was intricately styled into neat cornrows that flowed back toward the nape of his neck, and a faint, youthful mustache traced his upper lip.
Aleksander broke the silence. "What's your name? And where do you come from?"
The boy didn't look away. "N'Jadaka. My parents, Balthazar and Isis, are leaders of the Wartribe. I was taken when the Dothraki overran us. I don't even know if they're still alive."
Aleksander exhaled slowly. "I'm sorry."
"I just hope they're okay," N'Jadaka whispered, his shoulders dropping slightly.
"Listen," Aleksander said, lowering his voice further. "If you had the chance to leave right now, would you take it? We're in Asshai. It won't be long before we're sold, and this place is crawling with sorcerers. If we stay, we're nothing but test subjects for their experiments."
N'Jadaka studied him, searching for any sign of hesitation. "I'll follow you," he decided. "I'm not going to sit here and wait for death."
As they spoke, Aleksander pieced together the timeline. It was the Century of Blood. Khal Mengo was still a shadow over the world, and his son, Khal Moro, had recently razed Sathar. According to the histories Aleksander recalled from his past life, the Sarnori cities of Kasath and Gornath were currently at each other's throats over the ruins. Kasath would be destroyed within the year.
That meant time was up.
The following night, Aleksander looked toward Melisandre and N'Jadaka. He gave them a sharp nod, and they braced themselves.
"Stay close," Aleksander whispered. He began the incantation for a Sound Bubble, erecting an invisible, immobile barrier. While someone from the outside could still see in, not a single vibration of sound would escape the cell's perimeter.
The two guards standing watch just outside the bars noticed nothing. They continued their idle chatter, unaware that the air around them had gone unnaturally still.
Aleksander focused. He needed to be swift. He chanted under his breath, "Me ne de qual suurentaa."
With a sickening, simultaneous crack, the guards' necks snapped. They collapsed like puppets with their strings cut. Aleksander followed up with a Chain-Breaking Spell, and the iron shackles binding the group fell away with a heavy clatter that only those inside the bubble could hear.
"If you're brave enough, follow me," Aleksander told the shivering group of captives. "If not, stay here."
Most shrank back into the shadows, paralyzed by fear. Only N'Jadaka and Melisandre stepped forward.
As they stepped out of the cell, Aleksander held out his hand toward the stone floor. The rock liquefied into a gelatinous, rubbery pool, swallowing the two corpses whole before hardening back into seamless stone. No bodies, no evidence.
They moved quietly through the corridor, but the sound of rhythmic footsteps echoed ahead. More guards were approaching.
Aleksander didn't panic. As the first guard rounded the corner, Aleksander flicked his fingers toward the lit braziers lining the wall. The flames roared, and the iron stands themselves coiled like snakes around the guard's arms, pinning him to the wall.
"Help! Get this off me!" the man screamed.
Two other guards rushed forward to assist, weapons drawn. Aleksander didn't give them the chance. With a sharp twist of his wrist, he repeated the neck-snapping curse. The guards' heads lolled uselessly to the side, and their bodies hit the floor before they could even draw a breath to scream.
Aleksander could feel the strain in his chest; his mana was bottoming out, and the heavy thrum of boots against stone suggested the guard presence was only thickening.
"Do you have anything else?" N'Jadaka asked, his voice low but urgent. "Any other spells to get us out of here?"
Aleksander wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. "Let me think."
"Think fast, then," N'Jadaka muttered, glancing at the flickering shadows of soldiers on the walls. "We're being surrounded."
Aleksander looked toward a narrow window. In the distance, the main gate stood as a formidable barrier, flanked by massive twin towers and bristling with defensive mechanisms. It was the most obvious exit, and therefore the most heavily guarded.
"I have an idea," Aleksander said.
He extended his hand, focusing the last of his reserves into an Illusion Spell. He needed something more than a mere trick of the light; he needed a physical manifestation that could hold their attention."Phantamogriphia Decorum."
The air shimmered and warped near the main gate. Suddenly, three figures—perfect likenesses of themselves—sprinted out from the shadows, bolted toward the grand entrance, and began a desperate, loud attempt to force the heavy locks.
The effect was instantaneous.
"There! By the gate!" a sentry bellowed.
The alarm bells began to toll, a frantic bronze clanging that echoed through the Asshai'i night. Guards who had been closing in on their actual position pivoted in unison, racing toward the diversion at the main gate.
"Now," Aleksander whispered. He turned his focus inward, casting a secondary veil over the three of them. Their forms blurred and faded until they were nothing more than heat haze against the dark stone.
"Keep quiet and stay close," he breathed.
They pressed themselves against the cold wall as a platoon of armored men charged past, their iron boots missing N'Jadaka's toes by inches.
Once the corridor cleared, Aleksander didn't head for the chaos at the main entrance. Instead, he led them toward the smaller, neglected postern gate on the opposite side of the compound.