They walked along the strand together just above the surf, far from the camps and the cookfires. "Tell me true, nuncle," Asha said, "why did Euron go away so suddenly"
"The Crow's Eye oft went reaving"
"Never for so long."
"He took the Silence east. A lengthy voyage."
"I asked why he went, not where." When he did not answer, Asha said, "I was away when Silence sailed. I had taken Black Wind around the Arbor tothe Stepstones, to steal a few trinkets from the Lyseni pirates. When I came home, Euron was gone and your new wife was dead."
"She was only a salt wife." He had not touched another woman since he gave her to the crabs. / will need to take a wife when I am king. A true wife, to be my queen and bear me sons. A king must have an heir.
"My father refused to speak of her," said Asha.
"It does no good to speak of things no man can change." He was weary of the subject. "I saw the Reader's longship."
"It took all my charm to winkle him out of his Book Tower."
She has the Harlaws, then. Victarion's frown grew deeper. "You cannot hope to rule. You are a woman."
"Is that why I always lose the pissing contests?" Asha laughed. "Nuncle, it grieves me to admit it, but it may be that you are right. For four days and four nights, I have been talking with the captains and the kings, listening to what they say… and what they will not say. Mine own are with me, and many Harlaws. I have Tris Botley too, and some few others. Not enough." She kicked a rock, and sent it splashing into the water between two longships, "I am of a mind to shout my nuncle's name."
"Which uncle" he demanded. "You have three."
"Four," she said. "Nuncle, hear me out. No king can rule alone. Even when the dragons sat the Iron Throne, they had men to help them. They called them Hands. I will place the driftwood crown upon your brow myself… if you will name me your Hand."
No King of the Isles had ever had a Hand, much less one who was a woman. The notion made Victarion uncomfortable. Men would mock me in their cups, "Why would you wish this?"
"To end this war, before this war ends us. We have won all that we are like to win… and will lose all just as quick, unless we make a peace. I have shown Lady Bolton every courtesy, and she swears her lord will treat with me. If we yield Deepwood Motte, Torrhen's Square, and Moat Cailin, she says, the northmen will cede us Sea Dragon Point and all the Stony Shore between there and Flint's Finger. Those lands are thinly peopled, yet ten times larger than all the isles put together. An exchange of hostages to seal the pact, and each side agrees to make common cause with the other should the Iron Throne-"
Victarion chuckled. "This Lady Bolton plays you for a fool, niece. Sea Dragon Point and the Stony Shore are ours… as are Deepwood, Moat Cailin, and all the rest. Winterfell is burnt and broken, and the Young Wolf rots headless in the earth. We will have all the north, as your ford father dreamed."
"When longships learn to row through trees, we will. A fisherman may hook a grey leviathan, but if he does not cut it loose it will drag him down to death. The north is too large for us to hold, and too full of northmen."
"Go back to your dolls, niece. Leave the winning of wars to men." Victarion made two fists, and showed them to her. "I have two hands. No man needs three."
"I know a man who needs House Harlaw, though."
"Hotho Humpback has offered me his daughter for my queen. If I take her, I will have the Harlaws."
That seemed to take the girl aback. "Rodrik is Lord Harlaw. Hotho's liege lord."
"Rodrik has no daughters, only books. Hotho will be his heir, and I will be the king." Once he had said the words aloud, they sounded true. "The Crow's Eye has been too long away."
"Some men look larger at a distance," Asha warned. "Walk amongst the cook-fires if you dare, and listen. They are not telling tales of your strength, nor of my famous beauty. They talk only of the Crow's Eye… the far places he has seen, the women he has bedded and the men he's killed, the cities he has sacked, the way he burnt Lord Tywin's fleet at Lannisport…"
"I burnt the lion's fleet," Victarion insisted. "With mine own hands I flung the first torch onto his flagship."
"The Crow's Eye hatched the scheme." Asha put her hand upon his arm. "And killed your wife as well… did he not?"
Balon had commanded them not to speak of it, but Balon was dead. "He put a baby in her belly and made me do the killing. I would have killed him too, but Balon would have no kinslaying in his hall. He sent Euron into exile, never to return…"
"… so long as Balon lived." Asha frowned.
Victarion looked at his fists. "She gave me horns. I had no choice." Had it been known men would have laughed at me, as The Crow's Eye laughed when I confronted him. 'She came to me wet and willing, ' he boasted. 'It seems Victarion is big everywhere but where it matters.' But he could not fell her that.
"I am sorry for you," said Asha, "and sorrier for her… but you leave me small choice but to claim the Seastone Chair myself."
You cannot."Your breath is yours to waste, woman."
"It is," she said, and left him.
THE PRIEST
Only when his arms and legs were numb from the cold did Aeron Greyjoy struggle back to shore and don his robes again
He had run before the Crow's Eye as if he were still the weak thing he had been, but when the waves broke over his head they reminded once more that that man was dead. / was reborn From the sea, a harder man and stronger. No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could, nor the bones of his soul, the grey and grisly bones of his soul. The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted iron hinge.
The priest's robes crackled as he pulled them down, still stiff with saltfrom their last washing a fortnight past.
The wool clung to his wet chest, drinking the brine that ran down from his hair. He filled his waterskin and slung it over his shoulder.
As he strode across the strand, a drowned man returning from a call of nature stumbled into him in the darkness. "Damphair," he murmured. Aeron laid a hand upon his head, blessed him, and moved on. The ground rose beneath his feet, gently at first, then more steeply. When he felt scrub grass between his toes, he knew that he had left the strand behind. Slowly he climbed, listening to the waves. The sea is never weary. I must be tireless.
On the crown of the hill four-and-forty monstrous stone ribs rose from the earth like the trunks of great pale trees. The sight made Aeron's heart beat faster. Nagga had been the first sea dragon, the mightiest ever to rise from the waves. She fed on krakens and leviathans and drowned whole islands in her wrath, yet the Grey King had slain her and the Drowned God had changed her bones to stone so that men might never cease to wonder at the courage of the first of kings. Nagga's ribs became the beams and pillars of his longhall, just as her jaws became his throne. For a thousand years and seven he reigned here, Aeron recalled. Here he took his mermaid wife and planned his wars against the Storm God. From here he ruled both stone and salt, wearing robes of woven seaweed and a tall pale crown made from Nagga's teeth.
But that was in the dawn of days, when mighty men still dwelt on earth and sea. The hall had been warmed by Nagga's living fire, which the Grey King had made his thrall. On its walls hung tapestries woven from silver seaweed most pleasing to the eyes. The Grey King's warriors had feasted on the bounty of the sea at a table in the shape of a great starfish, whilst seated upon thrones carved from mother-of-pearl. Gone, all the glory gone. Men were smaller now. Their lives had grown short. The Storm God drownedNagga's fire after the Grey King's death, the chairs and tapestries had been stolen, the roof and walls had rotted away. Even the Grey King's great throne of fangs had been swallowed by the sea. Only Nagga's bones endured to remind the ironborn of all the wonder that had been.