A Feast for Dragons

queen’s silver mare, to the back of the stables.
An ass nickered as he went by, and a few of the horses stirred at the light of
his lantern. Elsewise all was dark and silent.
    Then a shadow detached itself from inside an empty stall and
became another Brazen Beast, clad in pleated black skirt, greaves, and muscled
breastplate. “A cat?” said Barristan Selmy when he saw the brass beneath the
hood. When the Shavepate had commanded the Brazen Beasts, he had favored a
serpent’s-head mask, imperious and frightening.
    “Cats go everywhere,” replied the familiar voice of Skahaz
mo Kandaq. “No one ever looks at them.”
    “If Hizdahr should learn that you are here …”
    “Who will tell him? Marghaz? Marghaz knows what I want him
to know. The Beasts are still mine. Do not forget it.” The Shavepate’s voice
was muffled by his mask, but Selmy could hear the anger in it. “I have the
poisoner.”
    “Who?”
    “Hizdahr’s confectioner. His name would mean nothing to you.
The man was just a catspaw. The Sons of the Harpy took his daughter and swore
she would be returned unharmed once the queen was dead. Belwas and the dragon saved
Daenerys. No one saved the girl. She was returned to her father in the black of
night, in nine pieces. One for every year she lived.”
    “Why?” Doubts gnawed at him. “The Sons had stopped their
killing. Hizdahr’s peace—”
    “—is a sham. Not at first, no. The Yunkai’i were afraid of
our queen, of her Unsullied, of her dragons. This land has known dragons
before. Yurkhaz zo Yunzak had read his histories, he knew. Hizdahr as well. Why
not a peace? Daenerys wanted it, they could see that. Wanted it too much. She
should have marched to Astapor.” Skahaz moved closer. “That was before. The pit
changed all. Daenerys gone, Yurkhaz dead. In place of one old lion, a pack of
jackals. Bloodbeard … that one has no taste for peace. And there is
more. Worse. Volantis has launched its fleet against us.”
    “Volantis.” Selmy’s sword hand tingled.
We made a
peace with Yunkai. Not with Volantis
. “You are certain?”
    “Certain. The Wise Masters know. So do their friends. The
Harpy, Reznak, Hizdahr. This king will open the city gates to the Volantenes
when they arrive. All those Daenerys freed will be enslaved again. Even some
who were never slaves will be fitted for chains. You may end your days in a
fighting pit, old man. Khrazz will eat your heart.”
    His head was pounding. “Daenerys must be told.”
    “Find her first.” Skahaz grasped his forearm. His fingers
felt like iron. “We cannot wait for her. I have spoken with the Free Brothers,
the Mother’s Men, the Stalwart Shields. They have no trust in Loraq. We must
break the Yunkai’i. But we need the Unsullied. Grey Worm will listen to you.
Speak to him.”
    “To what end?”
He is speaking treason. Conspiracy
.
    “Life.” The Shavepate’s eyes were black pools behind the
brazen cat mask. “We must strike before the Volantenes arrive. Break the siege,
kill the slaver lords, turn their sellswords. The Yunkai’i do not expect an
attack. I have spies in their camps. There’s sickness, they say, worse every
day. Discipline has gone to rot. The lords are drunk more oft than not, gorging
themselves at feasts, telling each other of the riches they’ll divide when
Meereen falls, squabbling over primacy. Bloodbeard and the Tattered Prince
despise each other. No one expects a fight. Not now. Hizdahr’s peace has lulled
us to sleep, they believe.”
    “Daenerys signed that peace,” Ser Barristan said. “It is not
for us to break it without her leave.”
    “And if she is dead?” demanded Skahaz. “What then, ser? I
say she would want us to protect her city. Her children.”
    Her children were the freedmen.
Mhysa, they called
her, all those whose chains she broke. “Mother.”
The Shavepate was not
wrong. Daenerys would want her children protected. “What of Hizdahr? He is
still her consort. Her king. Her husband.”
    “Her poisoner.”
    Is he?
“Where is your proof?”
    “The crown he wears is proof enough. The throne he sits.
Open your eyes, old man. That is all he needed from Daenerys, all he ever
wanted. Once he had it, why share the rule?”
    Why indeed?
It had been so hot down in the
pit. He could still see the air shimmering above the scarlet sands, smell the
blood spilling from the men who’d died for their amusement. And he could still
hear Hizdahr, urging his queen to try the honeyed