Queen of Ashes [ASOIAF]

―the executioner.

          𝔅lood welled up on the man's skin as Jalani drew a line from chest to shoulder with her blade. To his credit, the fair skinned Volantene did not so much as flinch. He was a slave trader, his skin tattooed with markings that catalogued his exploits. The Loshak had discovered the man plotting to smuggle Adakhakileki children from the city at the behest of their families.

          For Jalani's brother, the leader of their people, it was a betrayal of the worst kind and a violation of his newest law. No Adakhakileki born man or woman could leave the city without Lajo's express permission. It fell to Jalani to discover the names of each family who had paid the Volantene to take their children away.

          Some assignments Lajo gave Jalani made her stomach turn; this was not one of them. She knew the way of the Volantene slave traders. They would take the money of the poor, desperate Adakhakileki with promises of freedom and a new life for their sons and daughters. But, as soon as they left the city's walls, the children would be tattooed and enslaved. Jalani had to admit it was smart; a man could be paid twice over if he kept his mouth shut. Unfortunately for this man, he had not.

          "Have you made progress, shiro?" Lajo asked from behind her. Jalani turned toward her brother. He leaned casually against the doorframe, but when his eyes drifted toward the Volantene a hint of disgust pulled at his lips. The sneer made him look like their father for a moment, all bitterness and contempt. "Never mind that now. Walk with me, sister."

          Jalani followed her brother out of the cell and down the hall; they stepped outside onto a terrace overlooking the city. From here, she could see near as far as Slaver's Bay to the west at the end of the Stone Road, and to the east the Bone Mountains towered over the Poison Sea and Adakhakileki, the cannibal city. Below them their city stretched out into the horizon, markets and homes and taverns built inside the ruins of the civilization that had claimed this land before them.

          When Khal Zorro and his Lhazareen love had broken from the lives they had once known, the Poison Sea had welcomed them with open arms. No Dothraki khalasar would ride into the ghost city, or venture near a lake that their horses could not drink from. It was there the Adakhakileki had made their home, welcoming anyone who would join them, and killing those who dared threaten their freedom.

          The stone curtain walls that guarded the city now–or imprisoned it, depending who you asked–had not been walls at all then, but rows of heads on spikes. It was that ruthlessness and the willingness to accept anyone from any walk of life that had earned them the name Adakhakileki, and the Cannibals had embraced it, as they had everything else.

          "There is news from the west," Lajo said quietly, shifting from the mongrel Dothraki-Lhazareen tongue of their people to the Valyrian of the Free Cities. The Loshak who stood near the door, guarding them with spears and swords, pretended not to notice. Not that they would know the language, it had been banned for a generation along with every other foreign tongue. Only the highly educated or the elderly still spoke Valyrian, and even then, only in secret. Lajo's most trusted were allowed to learn the language, if only to add another layer of protection between their leader and his people.

          Jalani looked away from the city and toward the western horizon, instinctively. "Of the dragon queen?" Stories of Daenerys Stormborn had spread far and wide, making their way into the city from Qarth and Pentos and Vaes Dothrak. Not even the language barriers could keep the merchants from speaking of the girl and her dragons in whispered voices.

          Lajo nodded once. "She has taken Slaver's Bay, the cities have fallen, and the slaves have been freed."

          "You sound almost giddy, gaezo."

          "Daenerys makes her court in Meereen, as if she can hold three cities with a few Unsullied and a handful of Dothraki savages." Jalani did not point out that a few generations before their ancestors had been Dothraki savages, even if her brother looked like any Khal in finer clothing.

          "In Westeros they hold half a hundred cities from one throne," she pointed out instead. "Daenerys Stormborn only means to hold three."

          Lajo waved the thought away. "The sons of the harpy will not bow as easily as the soft men of Westeros. Daenerys will need help, soldiers and tacticians. Men who have conquered lands from the Bone Mountains to the Great Grass Sea."

          "It appears to me that Daenerys is doing well conquering on her own. As for our warriors, don't they have enough to worry about without going to war for a queen they do not know? There was rioting in the southern quarter yesterday and that Volantene is not the only trader making money off our people's desperation. Father is gone, and he may never come back. You have to lead; you have to fix things."

          "I am fixing things, inavva." Lajo grabbed Jalani by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. "We are building an empire just like Nahajo wanted, and his mother before him. We are doing it without slaves, with freemen. We hold half the Great Grass Sea and the Red Waste, the foothills of the Bone Mountains and the headwaters of the Skahazdan."

          "And still our people starve and curse your name," Jalani said, knowing her biting tone would only make Lajo more defensive. But no matter how much they argued he would never see, never understand that he was doing the same thing Nahajo had done, he was choking the life out of their people. "Open the gates, give our people the opportunity to choose."

          "Don't you see, when we make Daenerys Stormborn our ally, she will help us take back the land that is ours by right. Khal Zorro was exiled from Vaes Dothrak and for decades after our people had to fight back Dothraki savages from our lands. Thirli allowed them to trade within our walls, made peace with them so she could focus on expanding to the south and the east. But we need the lands to the north, we need the river so our people can farm the land instead of relying on scraps from foreign traders."

          "Daenerys Stormborn married Khal Drogo, she leads the remnants of his khalasar. What makes you think she would allow our people to take their land?"

          "When Khal Drogo died, she should have joined the Dosh Khaleen, she did not. Perhaps she resents the Dothraki as much as you and I."

          "Leave me out of your plans, gaezo."

          "How can I? You are right, our people need a leader. I cannot go to Meereen to meet Daenerys Stormborn or lead an army into battle." Jalani knew Lajo could hardly command his own Loshak, let alone an army, but once again she kept her mouth shut. "But who else can I trust with the task but my shiro?" Her childhood nickname, scorpion, which had become all too literal in the years since Nahajo had vanished.

          Sometimes it was easy to love Lajo, he was her brother. He could be charming and funny, and he loved his sister. But he had turned her into something dangerous, something she hated. Jalani could not walk the streets of the city without hiding her face. She was hated by the people for the things Lajo made her do. The torturing, the killing. She was nothing but Lajo's executioner, Lajo's shiro. Sometimes it was easy to hate Lajo as well.

          "You are right, gaezo. I am the only one who can make Daenerys Stormborn our ally. I will need men, a hundred, no more. I will choose them, a small team I trust is a thousand times more dangerous than a legion." Lajo's face lit up as she spoke, he nodded along enthusiastically. He was already dreaming of the Mother of Mountains and all the lands beneath it. If he wants a scorpion, that's exactly what I'll give him.