The Disputed Lands had become a graveyard.

The Triarchy had assembled one final grand host to halt the advance of Khal Losa Tyroshi sellswords stood beside Lyseni spearmen. Myrish crossbowmen fought alongside companies of hardened mercenaries from distant shores. Among them rode hedge knights and younger sons from Westeros, drawn east by promises of gold and glory.

None of it had been enough.

As the sun sank beyond the Rhoyne, the battlefield belonged to the Dothraki.

Horses wandered riderless through fields of broken spears. The wounded cried out in the smoke. Crows already circled overhead.

Losa walked through the carnage with blood drying upon her arakh, her immense braid heavy with bells that chimed softly with each step. Ahead of her, a wounded knight from the Sunset Kingdoms dragged himself through the mud, one leg useless beneath him. Hearing the bells behind him, he looked back in terror.

She followed at an unhurried pace, like a lioness watching a wounded stag. When she finally spoke, it was in the rolling cadence of Dothraki, her voice carrying easily over the dying sounds of battle.

“Look at you.”

“You crossed the sea for coin and found a khal instead.”

The knight understood none of the words, but her smile needed no translation.

“They said rivers would stop us. They said walls would stop us. They said cities would stop us.”

She rested the curve of her bloodied arakh upon her shoulder.

“I crossed the Rhoyne. I broke the Free Cities’ armies. I shattered their hired blades.”

“I am the hoofbeat in the dark before dawn. I am the fire at the edge of the grass.”

The wounded man continued to crawl. He understood nothing—except that she was speaking to him.

“Essos will kneel. The Free Cities will burn. Their walls will fall stone by stone until every road leads to my khalasar.”

Her expression hardened as she gazed westward beyond the distant horizon.

“And when there is nothing left to conquer…”

“I will cross the poison water.”

She drove her sword into the ground beside him—a taunting threat.

“No sea is wide enough to save your homeland. I will burn its castles. Destroy its cities.”

“The world was promised a stallion. Instead… it was given me.”