Asha
She tasted salt on her lips, felt it crusting onto her skin. The ocean churned and rocked under her and she grabbed onto a rope, clinging to it despite the fact that even with her gloves her palms had been torn to shreds by the wildly thrashing hemp hours before. The only piece of clothing she wore that wasn't completely soaked was the tarp that she'd fashioned into a crude long coat using bits of string and lacing from a pair of boats and even that felt heavier. Or perhaps it was just her body wanting to lie down and give in, begging her for a moment of reprieve. Her men were certainly feeling it; she could see it in their eyes, the unspoken request to just accept death and allow themselves to slid down into the comforting embrace of the Drowned God.
But the daughter of Balon Greyjoy refused to allow them, or herself, such tenderness. If the Drowned God wanted her at his table he would have to claim her as every other man who had ever desired her: fight her.
"Tie off that rigging!" Asha roared as she moved across the water-logged deck of The Black Wind. She snatched a piece of broken wood, from what she honestly couldn't say, and smacked one Reaver who was a bit too slow in her opinion in the side. "I am not dying in these waters, you hear me? And none of you are either! You saw what happened to Blue Hollis, how he went over the rail? Well I am going to tell his children that he was a fucking coward with a tiny prick and that he died shitting himself in the North because he ate a bad pinecone! I'll make sure every single person that ever knew him thinks he was weaker than the fucking Greenlanders! His family will curse his name and his neighbors will mock his spirit! And I'll do the same fucking thing to each and every one of you if you even think of giving up!"
The men began to work a bit harder after that but she had to hide her concern at how her rants and threats were buying less and less time. The first time it had motivated them for nearly an hour. But now, after nearly a full day of fighting the storm, she was having to scream over the pounding waves and explosive winds every 15 minutes. It was making her throat ache and her voice crack and she couldn't even take a moment herself to get a bit of unsalted water as that would be seen as weakness.
'Storm God is so cruel he won't even give us a touch of rain,' she thought, looking up at the dark sky. Asha wasn't entirely sure what time it was but she was reasonably sure that it wasn't night. No, it was just a black storm that refused to let the downpour come and at the first that had been a blessing but now all she wanted to do was open her mouth and let the icy rain water flow down her throat and soothe the burning pain. 'Cursed. This entire voyage is cursed!'
Everything had gone to hell the moment that damned portal had opened up and unleashed the Northern Demons upon them. Asha herself had seen little of it, emerging from the crypts after she had been struck by the strange orange carriage to find the battle already lost and made a hasty retreat through the village that lay within Winterfell's walls, passing by supplies and plunder in her mad rush to escape capture. When she'd finally made it to the woods she'd lingered only long enough to regroup with a few of her men that had also fled and the sentries she'd left hidden in the Wolfwoods in case the Northerners tried to spring a trap. She knew there had to be more that were hiding, that had to have escaped, but she couldn't wait for them, not with the Starks unleashing their hunting hounds to track them down. And the howls of the direwolves… Asha didn't know how big those damn things were but she didn't want to find out.
The tales from the men that had managed to escape their failed capture of Winterfell would have caused Asha only a day earlier to believe they had drunk sea water and lost their minds. Yet the weapons given to them by that shit-stain Renly, the Green Woman that had attacked her at the Baratheon camp, the horseless carriage and its portal… it gave more credence to their tales. Of the walking hearttree that had turned Iron Born into weirwoods. The talking beast that could launch lead from its hands. The two green warriors that had spoken in gibberish that drove men mad if they stared at them too long. The Stark Lord who was at once Ned Stark returned to his prime or his father reborn from the fires or Bran the Builder come again to defend the castle he had crafted. Whatever the truth of it was Winterfell had ended in disaster for the Iron Born and their only chance had been to run.
It hadn't been an easy journey. There was a reason why Asha had never told her father about the plan, for he would have scoffed at the idea of trying to take Winterfell. "The Iron Born belong on a long ship with the waves close at hand, not deep in the green lands of the weak men of Westeros where the only water came from wells!". The Reavers were used to sailing to a coastal village, sometimes a town if they had strong enough numbers and the element of surprise, and attacking quickly, taking plunder and thralls with them before rushing back to their ships. Many times a raid would only last a few hours, a day at most and only if the village were isolated enough. The Greenlanders had visions of the sailors of the Iron Islands sitting in the burned ruins of a fishing village drinking their fill and raping anyone that had survived their blades. And it was true that some did that… the dumb ones. The ones that lived short and quick. The smart Reavers grabbed all they could and saved the celebration for when they were safely back at sea.
All of this meant that Asha and her men were used to only short escapes, their boats always within sight. Winterfell had been different, meant to take revenge on the North while taking advantage of the Greenlanders and their war. Stay a few days to gather up what they could before donning the garments of Stark loyalists and heading back to the coast, avoiding suspicion. Instead they'd been forced on the run, with hunting parties constantly getting too close for Asha's comfort and having to take long, meandering paths in order to avoid altering their pursuers where they were head. It had taken far longer than Asha would have preferred and they'd lost a few men but in the end they had managed to make it back to The Black Wind and set sail.
And that was when the Storm God had decided to make his presence known.
It had been a half a day since they'd finally left the accursed shores of the North when the clouds had rolled in. There had been no moon so they didn't realized until it was far too late that dawn should have broken already and it wasn't the night that bathed them in darkness but deep thick ebony clouds. The watchers stationed to keep the ship going while the rest of the crew slept had all ended up falling asleep at their posts, having lost complete track of time, and when they had awoken it was to find terrible gusts driving The Black Wind off course. Asha had raged at that and demanded the oarsmen man to their stations but that was when the sea had decided to attack them again, sending up great waves and violent currents that made the oars buck in the men's hands. One had gotten his face caved in when his oar suddenly slammed back, as if gripped by some giant hand. The boat had lurched and swayed and more than once the crew had cried out that they were going to capsize but her men were skilled and with the right motivation they had managed to stave off disaster after disaster.
During a small lull (and calling it that was a mockery for the ship still trembled and heaved like a drunkard trying to dance on top of a bucking stallion) Asha made her way towards her current second, an old seadog named Froncs, and grabbed his shirt and dragged him to the side where no other ears were present.
"We need to figure out where the fuck we are!" she hissed, looking about the black horizon. All she saw was featureless black sky and heaving ocean.
"We're too far north," Froncs said, looking about. "The air is too cold… I think we are sailing into the Winter Waters."
"Fuck," Asha cursed. The last thing she wanted was to be there. The Winter Waters were a place no sailor, even the most skilled and/or deranged, wanted to find themselves in unless they were prepared. The ice would build up on the ocean and tear holes right through hulls and that was if you didn't get locked up in an ice drift when all that freezing white swarmed up and came together. A ship needed a cutting ram to get through that along with a lot of luck and right now Asha didn't have either of those. Then there were the icebergs, as tall as castles and harder than keep-stone; great islands of ice and snow that offered nothing but crushed ships.
'And that is assuming we even get near them,' she thought as she looked around. She'd heard tales of how sailors got too close to the Winter Waters and the water vapor would freeze onto the rigging, making pulleys grind to a halt, rope turn to lead, and turn everything on a ship into ballast that would drag the ship under. She thought MAYBE the few swords they had left from Renly and Ivan's deal would be able to cut through that ice but she wasn't for sure; normally one needed a hammer to break through, a good solid one designed from crushing. They had spears and swords and axes… things that would bite but wouldn't shatter the ice.
Her mind briefly flashed to Ivan and she hoped, not for the first time, that his part of their plan had gone well and he was now making his way North, to where they were supposed to meet. If she was delayed he would come and find her and at the moment that might be their only chance-
Cries began to go up on the boat and Asha groaned. "What now?" she asked. But even as she walked towards the crew she could tell that these weren't the panicked screams she'd heard earlier in the day. No, there was good cheer in them but she wasn't going to get her hopes up until she knew exactly what they had spotted. Only a foolish captain thought they were free of danger purely because of the mad rantings of a desperate sailor. "What do you see?" she called out.
"Light, captain! On the starboard!" The sailor, Blinkin (due to his habit of fluttering his eyes due to an old injury), shouted, pointing at the horizon. Asha strained but didn't see anything. "It's dipping and rising with the waves! You need to give it a moment!"
Pulling out the spyglass Ivan had given her, one he'd taken from the cooling corpse of a Braavos sailor who had insulted his hygiene, Asha swept her gaze along the horizon, staring at the black on black world. It was like all the light in existence had been stuffed away, leaving only her and her crew. She wasn't superstition but she couldn't help but wonder if, as they'd all slept, some wicked force hadn't swept them away, shrinking their ship down and placing it in a deep well, forever searching for land that would never be found. Would she look out and see the great stone walls of the well suddenly appear before them, proving that-
A flicker of light, bright and steady, suddenly appearing in her glass. She ripped the spyglass away and saw it still there, smaller of course but there.
"Land!" someone shouted. "Land!"
"Turn hard and get us heading the right way! I won't have us lose it!" she shouted as she made her way to Froncs. "That's not land," she said quietly.
"You sure?"
"It's weaving too much. That's another ship."
"So we aren't alone in being doomed."
"No but they might know where we are. If they just left port they can guide us that way. At least get us proper bearings." She looked up at the crow's nest. "I need a better look." Froncs nodded, clearly grateful she wasn't making him be the one to climb the rigging.
But before she did that she put her fingers in her mouth and let lose a shrill whistle, getting everyone's attention. "Listen here!" she shouted. "I know that we are used to handling meeting another ship a certain way but this is different. There is no way the Northern bastards got a ship up here fast enough to hunt us and that certainly isn't a Lannister ship come for revenge over what we did to Iron Pointe! So that means it is either Iron Born or a merchant trying to find a way in this, same as us." She pulled out her knife and jabbed it in the crew's direction. "So if even one of you thinks about uttering the words "Iron Price" or "What Is Dead May Never Die" or anything else that might set them off I'll personally peel your cock like it was an apple and feed you the skin! I'm not going to fucking die because you couldn't use your fucking brains!" She paused. "We can kill them AFTER they help us!"
That got a cheer from the crew. Though she knew that her little speech most likely wasn't even needed. She could see it in their eyes… they were tired and just wanted to go home. If that meant playing nice with whoever else was out there then they'd do it. Honestly she expected more than a few of them would be willing to suck Ned Stark right off if he offered them a way out of the damn windstorm.
Hauling herself up the rigging and mast Asha blotted out any fear of falling. Her body had long grown used to having to scurry up into the roping of her ship when things weren't steady and smooth so the normal reactions one might have, the nausea and the dizziness, simply weren't there for her anymore. No, all she had to deal with was the standard buzzing fear of a tumble and that was dealt with by focusing on what she needed to do to ensure that didn't happen. Which rope to grab, where to put her feet, so on. Not going laboriously slow, as that was a danger as well, but rather just making her way up into the black sky. It was rather like how she imagined a Lord would plan a trip to visit a neighboring castle. Each hand-hold was a keep she would visit for the night, each rope a road she could take that would make for the easiest journey. Up, up, up.
The boat lurches and swayed and there were several moments were she felt as if she just reached out a bit she'd be able to actually touch the water with her fingertips. Foolishness, of course, because if that was happening they were dead and no way would her crew be quiet during that. Still, the darkness wasn't helping at all… not even a bolt of lightning to illuminate the sky. Just the black clouds, the inky sea, and the ebony sail. Darkness. Climbing through darkness to more darkness.
The wind blasted her face and ruffled her short hair as she finally made it to the crow's nest and hauled herself inside. Taking a moment to catch her breath she pulled out her spyglass and pointed it directly ahead, scanning for the light. For a few brief moments she felt hope only for the cold tendrils of fear to begin dripping down her spine when she couldn't spot it. The light was gone. She began making a desperate full circle in case her men had gotten twisted about by a wave during her climb and thus hadn't been able to get the ship in the right direction. But nothing, there was nothing-
Then she caught a flicker in the corner of her eye and realized she'd been looking too far out. The ship was now closer, much closer.
Too close.
'How long was I climbing?' she wondered, lowering the spyglass. The ship was still far out but now she could tell at the very least that it was a decent-sized vessel. But it was too close… had she lost track of time? She thought she'd been making a good showing climbing to the nest but perhaps that hadn't been the case. Maybe she'd paused for a few seconds longer than she thought… 'No. It would have taken them 30 minutes with good winds and a calm sea to cover that distance. I didn't blank for that long.' She went to scan the waters again only to catch the very top of the ship in her spyglass; it was now even closer and Asha felt a familiar prickling on her shoulder blades, something she always felt just before things went to tits. She'd felt it in Winterfell just before that damn carriage had appeared and she felt it now. 'It can't move that fast. That's not possible.' She lowered her spyglass more and saw the ship was cutting through the water, eating away at the distance like a starving Reaver who had stumbled upon a free feast. She could see more details now of the ship… the build was Iron Born but it was larger than The Black Wind. Much larger. The hull was a deep red like dried blood and even with its long size it was a lean ship. And upon the sail was the kraken sigil of House Greyjoy only one eye had a scar-
"Fuck," she whispered to herself. "Fuck." Asha leaned down over the crows nest and roared, "IT'S THE SILENCE!"
The Silence. The ship even sane Iron Born feared. Not just because of its great speed and power that had ensured that it had never lost a battle. Not just because its crew weren't Iron Born but scoundrels and monsters and slaves from all over the world, each of them never saying a word because their tongues had been removed. No, it was the captain that truly made the Silence the monster of the seas.
Euron Greyjoy.
"Fuck," Asha said again.
She only had vague memories of her Nuncle Euron from before his banishment and none of them were the kind that instilled the warm fuzzies. She had not been a child that was easily scared, for no youth would survive living in the home of Balon Greyjoy if they weren't strong and fierce from the moment they were born. She hadn't jumped at shadows or believed that monsters lived under her bed. She hadn't played with dolls but instead had climbed walls and pestered the sailors with questions when they came in to port. Yet whenever she had seen her Nuncle Euron he had always given her a sensation that something was… wrong. Damphair was just annoying and Victarion good for an interesting tale but there was something wrong with Euron. It was as if he had been born in the wrong world and all of existence knew it and wanted him gone, so that even the air around him wanted to flee, leaving a void about him. Worst, he knew it and reveled in the feelings he fostered upon others. He walked about the world with his eyepatch and his rich yet worn clothing and his dramatic flair and dared someone to actually maintain eye contact with him for a few minutes.
Few did.
After his banishment she had met him only three times; once on her own when she'd been sailing around Dorne's coast and twice with Ivan when they'd made two trips to Essos to meet with some cultists that were associates of Renly. None of those visits had left her feeling family love for the man. Ivan had, thankfully, had kept his cool around the man, as Asha had known that if the two did fight it would lead to Euron's death… and her father WOULD find out. And that had been a special breed of chaos she didn't want to deal with at the time.
Had it been any other Ironborn captain she would have felt relief but now Asha felt a worm of worry burrowing in her stomach. Euron giving her aid… she was pretty sure she could count on that but with him it was impossible to tell. It all depended on his damaged brain, that rotting thing in his skull, and what it told him to do. He could give her half his supplies or he could toss a water bottle at her filled with piss and laugh that she should be used to drinking that down. No matter what there would be mocking, for her Nuncle wouldn't be able to help himself. She could already hear his taunts at how she'd gotten lost, where was the rest of her crew, did she get a bad compass? And how long he wanted to torment her would be a matter of debate. If he were busy with something he might only wait an hour or so before letting her go. But if he was in no rush he could very easily want to hold a feast (even in this horrific weather) or decide to tail her as an 'escort' back to the Iron Islands.
Asha shut her eyes. This was going to be painful.
The Silence was near them far quicker than she would have expected… or liked. Her crew had clearly heard her and realized what was coming their way as they had fallen as quiet as the ship her Nuncle captained. Letting out a groan as she saw the ropes coming over to hold the ships together Asha began to task of climbing down the rigging. Euron would expect a warm welcome from her and she didn't want him any moodier than he might already be. No, she would need to greet him like he was a loving Nuncle who had come to bring her a present and she was the adoring niece who wanted him to tell her stories and give her candies. He would be all boastful and most likely smile as he insulted her and she'd explain what had happened and he'd make a few more japes and then give her the information she needed, perhaps some supplies.
Boots thumping down on the deck she looked to see her crew standing at attention, watching as the mutes that Euron loved to create and keep pulled the ship closer. The cold wind sliced through her clothing and made her skin prickle and she tugged at the tarp coat she was wearing to try and keep some of the blasted gusts away.
'At least the sea has settled down,' she thought as she walked over to Froncs who was looking towards the Silence. 'Was a far easier time getting down than it was getting up there.' Out loud she said softly, "Good, you got the crew to be quiet. Nuncle Euron loves respect like that. And maybe it will keep him from deciding to take some of them on and make them quiet permanently." She smacked Froncs on the shoulder and was about to comment on how cold his clothing was when she hear a crack and watched with dull horror as the man's shoulder shattered, sending his right arm crashing to the ground, the limb exploding into a thousand shards. "….FUCK!" she finally screamed, leaping back and slamming into another man. She turned as he teetered and Asha moved to grab him but it was too late and he fell over, exploding upon the deck so that all that remain was millions of tiny crystallized bits. She looked around wildly, the winds picking up even as the ship remained still and that's when she realized that the ocean wasn't just calm… it had completely frozen over, holding the ship in place.
The crew of the Silence began to come over, shuffling and shambling, their legs hardly leaving the planks. Asha looked at them, truly looked at them, and saw that what had first appeared to be living men were instead corpses crusted with ice and snow. The winter mix packed in the parts of them that were missing, the chunks of their sides and chests. Skin had flaked away, blackened from blood and exposure, revealing ice that had replaced bits of bone. Their limbs were twisted at wrong angles, with dislocated shoulders and sideways ankles that made their movements jerky and off. But as she backed away from the frozen cadavers that had once been the crew of the Silence (and she supposed, in a part of her mind that giggled and taunted her to just embrace the madness that threatened to take her) she knew that if they wanted to they could move VERY fast. Asha didn't know how she knew this, she just did… the same instincts that had saved her during a hundred different journey now told her to flee and do it soon because if they got closer it wouldn't matter how fast she ran they would catch her.
Asha's eyes darted for the starboard side and she realized that the ice that had trapped her ship might be her salvation. She could run across it, hope that it stretched far enough to land. A voice in her head told her that she was being foolish but she slammed that down; better a chance than none at all.
"Don't," a voice called out just as she had begun to tense. "I mean it, dear niece. Don't even think of going over that railing." She found herself turning towards the deck of the Silence, fighting the urge and failing. "I won't like it if I have to chase you, Asha. Why don't you be a good girl and come say hello to your Nuncle Euron?"
He looked exactly and yet nothing like she remembered.
It was as if he had sought to create a mockery of who he had once been. He was still in all black but his long coat had been replaced by ancient looking armor, made of leather from animals long gone from the world that gave him a warrior-priest look. Added to that was the strange hood-like headpiece he wore, which covered his scalp and connected to the shoulder pieces and chest guard he was wearing. In his hands he held an odd war hammer, blunt and flat on one side while the other jutted out to create an unusual edge. It shouldn't have looked strange and yet when Asha saw it she felt as if she were seeing a weapon from another age.
It was a testament to all else he had done to himself though that she only paid the weapon and armor a few moments of her time. It was his face that held her attention.
He'd coated every inch of his skin with a blue paint or dye. It was as if he had wanted to hide the last traces of his humanity, so that he truly became the monster so many saw him as. His beard he had trimmed short but it too he had painted but in ebony rather than blue, with decorative lines that ran up his cheeks. Around his eyes the same gritty black paint had been applied, making his one good eye stand out all the more while the other socket was not empty but instead shone with an unnatural and unholy purple light.
"I have heard strange stories about you, dear niece," Euron said as he stepped onto the deck of the Black Wind, his 'crew' shifting and bowing their heads in his presence. "They say you left the sea and tried to make war against Winterfell itself." He shook his head. "And they say I am crazy." He stopped a few feet before her and smiled, revealing even his teeth were stained a bluish-black. "Tell me… how did it go?"
He said it so politely, like a friend might ask how one had done in a casual game of dice. That made it all the worst.
"We took the castle," Asha said firmly, refusing to be cowed by her uncle and his crew of nightmares. She would not give him the pleasure of hearing her stammer and shudder before him. "I sent Robb Stark himself rushing into the crypts like the coward he is! I did what no other Greyjoy has ever done before!"
"Hmmm," Euron said. "That is true. But if that is the case… why are you here, so far north there isn't even a true name for the coasts that border this sea?" He began to walk around her frozen crew. "Could it be that you found taking a castle and holding it are two different things?" She grit her teeth at his mocking tone. "Did Robb Stark chase you away?"
"No," she said firmly.
"No?"
"Not Stark," she growled.
He considered that for a moment, ready to call her a liar, before he suddenly nodded his head in agreement. "Well then. There is that. But… why did you go to Winterfell? Why defy your father's orders? I know he told you to leave the North alone, that he was making plans of his own. And yet you attacked Winterfell? Why? What reason could you have?"
"The blood of Old Wyk, of Pyke, of Lash."
"Revenge?" Euron asked, turning away. "Now THAT is a tasty morsel. One I can fully get behind. Of course how one gets revenge changes the dish so. Spices it so wonderfully. Aeron dreams of turning all the North to the Drowned God and leading a grand rebellion against all other faiths, so that the Lords and Kings of Westeros have no choice but to be born again in the salt. Then he will command them to march into the sea, to join with the Drowned God. Appealing… but it will never happen. Your father is like a dreamer… or a creamer; churning with all his thoughts of vengeance against the Starks and the Baratheons and the Lannisters. You've seen him, you know it is true. He will sit in that high room of his and stare out at the sea and dream of them all dead. But it is just that… a dream. Victarion is a simple man with simple tastes, be it with food, wives, or revenge. He'll eat whatever he can find, he'll marry any whore that winks at him, and he wants to tear my head from my shoulders. His palette for revenge is a simple and boring one.
"Of course they are not the only ones that dream of revenge, dear niece. The Old Lion of the Rock is already plotting to smash us to bits the moment the rest of Westeros comes to heel. He longs for another Rains of Castamere that can be sung. Probably some silly play on the words Grey and Joy, if I had to guess. Stannis Baratheon wants revenge too, though only because his pride is wounded that he did not get more glory after all he did to us. His revenge isn't even revenge but a sad man chase love and respect. And then there is Ned Stark-"
"He already had his revenge on his," Asha spat, unable to stop herself. Her uncle turned to her, actually curious and surprised by her tone, and she didn't mind telling him what she knew because no matter what he did she wanted someone else in the family to know so they could make right the wrong. "He's turned Theon into a Greenlander. I saw him, in the Reach, but he didn't recognize me. He just cursed my name purely because I killed some soft Southern Lord and swore off his name and heritage. Theon of Winterfell he called himself."
Euron titled his head at that, a bemused little smile crossing his lips before he merely shrugged. "So he had made a choice. Good."
"Good?" Asha demanded. "He swore off his family, his ancestors, his culture, everything-"
"Family is overrated, ancestors don't give a fuck because they are dead, and culture is just a word created by small minded people to beat down the creative and hold them in their place. Theon has decided to be his own man…" He let out a biting laugh. "I always wondered if there would be anyone in this family that was like me; I never expected Theon." He cast a sideways glance her way. "I thought he was like you. Just another nebulous thing that changed depending on the tide or the wind or who was close by. The daughter of Balon Greyjoy that could be used to barter for better trade agreements with the North. Did you know he wanted to marry you off to the Manderlys before he decided to rebel? Talked about it all the time. 'She'll influence them and get them to see things our way! Imagine it… a Northern fleet with the Kraken and the Wolf sailing into the Westerlands and taking whatever we want!'.
"But then your brothers died and Theon was taken to Winterfell and you changed. You don't even probably remember how you once where, the girl that was actually a girl and not one that dreamed of having a cock so she could be her father's true heir. You suddenly were wanting to sail and to fight and to do all sorts of things a Lord's daughter shouldn't do. And you'd never marry. Never." He paused. "Until you found a man with deplorable hygiene and decided that you did want to remain faithful to one. A man that would convince you to do the stupid thing of attacking Winterfell with just some Reavers. Ivan Vanko… now that is a steep fall from the Manderlys."
"Say his name a few more times," Asha snapped, taking a step forward. "You might just summon him and then you'd get to see what kind of man he truly is."
"Another time then," Euron said, trailing his finger along the rail. "Now don't get me wrong, change can be good." Asha rolled her eyes as he went back to the original subject. "I've changed too. I always thought that I would be a free soul. That I would be the only one in all this world to never bend in any way, shape, or form. That my soul would remain tall and strong while all the rest of you found some pathetic king or lord to scrape to.
"But things… have changed. I have found someone that understands… me. That understands what it is like to be me. And most importantly of all… who understands not only WHAT I want… but why!" His grin was wider, more demented, and her earlier anger evaporated as she suddenly remembered that this was her mad uncle who had somehow frozen her crew solid and led a battalion of the dead and that it might not be wise to trade verbal blows with him. "A king I don't merely bow to but do so with pride in my heart. Because he is going to balance this world in ways you can't yet imagine."
She could imagine. With her Nuncle nothing was ever nice or sweet. If this new 'king' he served wanted to balance the world then she knew it would involve pain and death.
"Oh… look at what you did to Fronc," Euron said with mock sadness. "Now I'll have to take his tongue before I play with him." She stared at him and suddenly he was leaping forward, grabbing her by the back of the head and forcing her face close to her frozen Second Mate's head. "You didn't notice, did you? So focused on me, like so many others. That is a mistake, Asha, a mistake so many make. You need to open your eyes and actually pay attention." He squeezed her head and she gasped in pain. "Pay attention and look!"
Asha did. She stared at Fronc's face, which had been frozen so quickly he hadn't even had a chance to scream. Instead he sat there, face neutral, looking with eyes that darted about wildly, his body still and cold-
His eyes.
He was still alive.
He was still FUCKING alive!
She couldn't stop herself from looking at where she had broken off his arm, Froncs' eyes darting to the stump even as her Nuncle cackled in delight. She then remembered the crew member that shattered and she felt her stomach heave.
And then he twisted her around and slammed her against the door that led to her cabin, his fingers cold and hard around her throat. She could feel his breath on her face and behind him she saw the corpses that were his crew lifting up her frozen men and moving them to the Silence. But then Euron grabbed her chin with his fingers and forced her to look at him.
"Do you know why I take the tongues of those I capture, sweet niece? Because I believe that screaming is a gift that should only be given to a select few. First to those that die by my sword because they chose the unknown that is death other than the unknown that is me and I must give Death his due. The second are those I care for, those I hold… love for." He leaned in close. "And I do love you, my dear Asha. You are my blood. And as such, I will grant you two gifts. I will remake you to serve my king…" he reached behind his back with his free hand and pulled out a dagger that seemed to be made of shimmering ice, "and I will let you scream the entire time."
He began to run the blade against her scalp.
Euron had been right.
Asha did scream.
