Rahallo woke from darkness with a splitting headache.
Memories that did not belong to him crashed into his mind like a flood.
The neighing of warhorses and the roars of warriors filled his ears.
A faint metallic scent of blood hung in the air.
He opened his eyes.
Through the gaps in the tent fabric he saw a vast, windswept plain stretching to the horizon.
This was the Dothraki Sea beyond the walls of Pentos—land of the horse lords, east of the Narrow Sea, deep in the heart of Essos.
The body he now inhabited belonged to the son of Khal Drolo and a Lhazareen slave woman.
In the Dothraki tongue, “khal” meant chieftain, like a khan.
Rahallo had been Drolo’s khalakka, his heir.
Khal Drolo had once ruled the greatest khalasar on the grass sea.
That dream of coasting to power had died the day Khal Drogo killed Drolo in single combat.
Rahallo had taken a blow to the head and blacked out.
While he lay senseless, Drogo swallowed their entire khalasar whole.
Only Dothraki custom had kept him alive.
Killing a man who could not fight back brought shame.
“You’re finally awake, Rahallo.
My brew worked after all.” A woman stepped inside—wild-haired, filthy, wrapped in a ragged wool cloak.
She was Lhazareen, one of the people the Dothraki called sheep men.
Her name was Mirri Maz Duur.
In this strange new world she was the closest thing he had to a countryman.
“You should thank the gods Drogo is getting married and chose to spare you.
He is the strongest warrior on the grass sea.
His arakh has split a hrakkar’s skull.
His horse has crushed a hundred enemies beneath its hooves.
Run while you still can—run somewhere Drogo will never find you.” As khalakka, Rahallo was a living threat to Drogo’s claim.
Every man in the khalasar expected him to die soon.
In his last life he had been nothing but another office slave, grinding through 996 days for a mortgage until his heart gave out at his desk.
Now he clenched his fist and heard the knuckles pop.
Power surged through every muscle—strength he had never felt before.
His pulse hammered.
Old fire woke in his chest.
This body, this second chance, and the knowledge he carried from another world… he would not waste them on a patch of grass.
One burning thought took shape.
The Iron Throne.
Drogo was the first stone on the path.
The title of khalakka gave him the right to rule.
Kill Drogo and the khalasar could be his.
Rahallo met Mirri’s eyes and spoke each word like a blade.
“The name Rahallo means son of iron and blood.
I will take back everything that was stolen from me.
I will make the entire Dothraki Sea kneel.” He stepped out into the blazing summer sun.
Thousands of tents spread across the plain like a second sea.
Warhorses grazed and wandered.
The air smelled of leather, sweat, and open sky.
“Daenerys is in the manse across the way.” Mirri had followed him again.
She stared at the top of his head with open mockery.
“When the seventh sun rises she becomes Drogo’s khaleesi.
If you are still here, he will cut your braid himself and feed it to his horse.” Rahallo’s eye twitched.
His hand rose to his scalp.
Both sides were shaved; only a single knot remained at the back.
In Dothraki law the braid was a warrior’s honor.
Lose it and you lost everything.
For him the question was simpler: whether he kept his head at all.
He needed to know what this new body could do.
If he could not kill Drogo, running was the only sane choice.
He could always take the khalasar later.
He climbed a low rise nearby, a double-curved bow in his hands.
The weapon was built of layered wood and horn, strong enough to punch through mail.
“You mean to ambush Drogo?
You really are a fool.” Mirri would not leave him be.
Lives were on the line, so Rahallo ignored her.
He drew the string.
The bow bent farther than it was ever meant to go, wood and horn groaning in protest.
“Stop!” Mirri shouted.
“You’ll break it—” The bow snapped with a sharp crack.
Both halves flew from his grip.
Mirri choked on her own spit and doubled over coughing.
A stunned silence fell over the nearest warriors.
Then the cheering began—loud, raw, disbelieving.
No man had ever broken a Dothraki war bow with raw strength alone.
Rahallo allowed himself a small, satisfied smile.
The power was not the original body’s.
It had come with his soul, a gift from whatever force had dragged him here.
His strength now sat at roughly three times what it should have been.
He tossed the broken bow aside and drew the arakh at his hip.
His gaze settled on a sandstone boulder taller than a man.
Inside the manse across the camp, Daenerys Targaryen heard the sudden roar of voices.
Curious, she told her handmaiden Irri to open the window.
She walked barefoot across the soft Qohorik wool carpet and looked out.
On the low hill a tall young man stood out against the sky.
“Who is he?” she asked quietly.
“Rahallo,” Irri said.
“Khal Drolo’s Lhazareen son.
Drolo killed Khal Drogo’s father, Balbo.
Then Drogo killed Drolo.
In a few days Drogo will kill Rahallo too.” She sighed.
“He is handsome.
What a waste.” Daenerys said nothing.
Her violet eyes stayed on the figure on the hill.
Rahallo planted his feet, raised the heavy arakh, and brought it down with everything he had.
The blade struck with a thunderous crack.
Stone shattered.
Chips flew.
The arakh bit deep, nearly splitting the boulder in two.
Irri’s mouth fell open.
After a moment she sighed again, louder this time.
“What a pity.” Daenerys held her breath.
Something tight and electric moved through her chest.
Rahallo felt eyes on him.
He turned.
Black eyes met violet across the distance.
Daenerys did not look away.
She held his gaze for a long heartbeat, then turned and walked back to the bed.
“Sheep?” She tasted the Dothraki word.
She did not like the way Irri had said it.
A sheep could never choose its own fate.
Her brother Viserys was sending her across the grass sea to be sold to a savage.
She was the coin that would buy him an army and restore House Targaryen.
Her future husband was a brutal man who stank of blood and death.
Viserys’s words still burned in her ears: As long as I get that army, I do not care if you have to spread your legs for him and every man in his khalasar.
The words were a knife in her ribs.
She had no answer for them.
She was a piece on the board.
A political offering.
Surrounded by servants and false smiles, she had never once been free.
She was the sheep who could not control her own life.
Yet in the young man on the hill she had seen something none of the other Dothraki possessed.
A spark.
A promise of freedom she had never tasted.
Rahallo pulled the arakh free from the cracked stone and examined the edge.
The blade was already ruined.
Dothraki steel was poor—sponge iron, softer than good bronze.
The arakh itself was a foot soldier’s weapon, far too heavy for true horse warriors.
The blade was finished.
It did not matter.
He carried knowledge no one in this world possessed.
He would forge a true Damascus steel arakh, sharp enough to cut through anything.
At the wedding feast he would bury it in Drogo’s skull, take the khalasar, and claim Daenerys Targaryen for his own.