"What did you say?"
The moment Corleone finished speaking, a low, angry growl rumbled through the dimly lit tent. A cold blade flashed in the firelight and pressed hard against his throat, the icy metal biting into his skin. The scimitar's curve gleamed like the fangs of a desert wolf ready to strike.
Yigo stepped forward with tense aggression, his towering frame dwarfing the room. One calloused hand gripped the hilt of his scimitar, while the other seized Vargo's jaw, turning his head to expose the wound behind his ear.
There—where Corleone had cut and cleaned hours earlier—gray decay had begun to creep outward like spreading rot. Yellowish-green pus oozed sluggishly, thick and foul, carrying a sickening smell that hung in the air like a curse.
The Dothraki had witnessed countless wounds in their lives. They had seen blades carve through flesh, arrows splinter bone, and fevers boil men alive. Yigo needed no healer to tell him what he was looking at.
Death.
"You promised!"
His voice cracked with rage and disbelief. The scimitar pushed harder against Corleone's skin as he roared again:
"You promised you'd cure him! You lying dog!"
Yigo felt like a fool—like a warrior deceived by a soft-handed foreigner who talked too confidently for his own good. His breath seethed through clenched teeth. His muscles trembled with the instinct to kill.
Yet Corleone did not flinch.
The cold metal against his throat, the scent of rot in the air, the dangerous tremor of Yigo's rage—he sensed it all clearly. Insight Lv1 sharpened every detail, letting him see the twitch in Yigo's eyelids, the tightening corners of his mouth, the hesitation buried under anger.
He could see that Yigo wanted—needed—someone to blame.
But Corleone remained perfectly calm, speaking with steady conviction.
"I am a doctor, Yigo. A professional doctor."
His voice did not shake. He did not swallow nervously. He merely held Yigo's gaze as though the blade were nothing more than a cool breeze.
"I removed every piece of necrotic flesh from his wound. I did everything that could be done. But even the most skilled doctor cannot save a man who is determined to die."
Corleone leaned slightly forward, deliberately pressing himself into the scimitar rather than away from it.
"He pressed his rotten organs against his own wound, and then he drank himself stupid during surgery like a pig waiting for slaughter."
His tone hardened, each word striking like a hammer.
"This is not the failure of my medicine. This is the gods taking his life—and his own stupidity ringing the bell that summons death."
Yigo's eyes wavered. His breath came heavy and uneven, but the fury in his gaze faltered for the first time.
Corleone saw it.
The hesitation. The fear. The dawning understanding.
He stepped forward, ignoring the blade completely, and began re-bandaging Vargo's wound with steady, practiced movements.
"Face the truth, Yigo."
He tied the cloth firmly, his voice low but merciless.
"The fever will rise again. The stench will worsen. In three days at most, he will be a corpse—and it will be a slow, agonizing death."
The tent fell silent except for the sound of cloth being wrapped and tightened. Corleone's calmness in the face of death—his own included—was unnerving.
Insight revealed everything to him: the tremor in Yigo's fingers, the flickering of his pupils, the instinctive panic of a warrior who suddenly realized the foundation beneath him was crumbling.
The Dothraki did not follow men.
They followed power.
A Khal who lost strength was no Khal at all. A leader who could not command fear and authority was already dead—even before his body failed.
Yigo did not serve Vargo the man.
He served Vargo the position.
And that position was disappearing like sand through fingers.
Finally, Yigo pulled back his scimitar and took a step away, though his expression remained cold.
"Why tell me this?" he asked, voice low. "You could have pretended. You could have dragged this out longer."
His eyes narrowed sharply.
"What is your purpose?"
Though he came from a nomadic people with little formal knowledge, that did not make him ignorant. Yigo had survived in Westeros for more than a decade—something few Dothraki could claim. That alone proved his cunning.
Corleone smiled—not arrogantly, but knowingly—and leaned in, lowering his voice.
"Uswik asked me to sabotage the surgery and kill Vargo Hoat."
Yigo's eyes widened with shock. His hand twitched, reaching instinctively for his weapon again.
But before he could move, Corleone stepped closer and spoke firmly, each word heavy with meaning.
"The Dothraki follow only the strongest horse on the plains, Yigo."
"When a Khal loses his authority, the wisest choice is to find someone new to follow—someone with potential, someone with vision."
"You want me to follow Uswik?" Yigo spat, lips twisting into a cruel smirk. His grip tightened around the scimitar hilt again.
To him, Uswik was weak—a schemer with poison for a tongue but mud for a spine.
To pledge loyalty to such a man was an insult.
Insight revealed the movement even before it happened, but Corleone did not flinch. Instead, he slowly lifted a hand and tapped his temple.
"Power doesn't only live in the sword, my friend."
"It lives here. In the mind that sees the truth through the mist. In the eyes that read the hearts of men. In the will that shapes destiny itself."
He continued, voice smooth and deliberate:
"A man who sees the truth in a heartbeat will always rule over the one who spends a lifetime blind to it."
"Uswik will never understand power. And when he gets it, it will devour him."
Yigo's voice grew tense.
"What are you trying to say?"
Corleone straightened. His expression became solemn, almost ceremonial.
"I, Vito Corleone… offer you a choice."
His words fell like a stone into still water.
"You can pledge your allegiance—to me."
For a moment, there was only silence.
Then Yigo burst into laughter, sharp and mocking.
"You? A farmer? Can you even lift a sword?"
But Corleone did not lose his composure. Instead, a strange confidence illuminated his features.
"Tell me, Yigo—how many years has it been since Lord Tywin Lannister personally rode into battle with a sword in hand?"
"Ten years? Twenty?"
"But with a single judgment—he can decide the fate of tens of thousands."
His tone carried the weight of a king, the certainty of a ruler. Even Yigo paused, stunned by the sheer conviction.
"But you are not Tywin," he shot back. "You were hanging from a tree, ready to die. If we hadn't passed by, you would already be bones."
"How can a man who couldn't save his own life speak of power?"
Corleone's eyes drifted, as though peering through time. He saw the apple tree. The rope. The suffocating darkness.
"Hanging on a tree?" he murmured, then laughed softly.
"That Corleone died that day—cowardly, ignorant, helpless."
He spread his arms wide, as if embracing an unseen destiny.
"I was reborn on that tree. The gods granted me sight beyond the veil—eyes that see truth, and hands that can mold fate."
Then, slowly, under Yigo's watchful stare, Corleone drew a gold coin from his pocket. Its polished surface shimmered in the firelight, faintly humming like something alive.
He held it between them, the golden glow dancing across both faces.
"You don't believe me?"
His smile sharpened.
"Good. The Dothraki speak with strength, don't they?"
He flicked the coin upward. It spun through the air, reflecting firelight with every rotation, illuminating the tension between them.
"Let's make a bet."
He caught the coin in his palm and rai
sed his chin.
"Draw your scimitar, Dothraki."
He grinned, eyes gleaming with daring, madness, and certainty.
"The wager is simple—"
"Can your blade cut off my head?"