The Narrow Sea does not seem so narrow when one is in the middle of it. The Cinnamon Wind bobs up and down over the cresting early morning waves, its huge, billowing white sails freshly furled to catch the wind like a massive gull awaking from slumber. The sun already burns brightly from its perch low on the eastern horizon, without a cloud in the sky to mar the great blue expanse above, stretching out in every direction until it meets the dark green water just past the farthest the eye can see.
To a painter it would be a gorgeous sight. But to young Edward Stark, his arms dangling over the edge of the swanship's bow, it is only a reminder of how utterly alone he has become. He scratches at the strands of his tangled brown hair plastered to his forehead by the ocean spray. The salt irritates his scar, making it burn in a way it only used to when he was afraid. But he is afraid now, he knows. Afraid he will never see his family again. Afraid he may never see his home again. And most of all, afraid that if he does one day return to Winterfell, that there will be no family left alive to see.
The knights that came for me must have come for Arya and Sansa, too. And they would not have dared to seize us if Father was alive. The nightmare had come true. Of that much he is sure. He tries to remember Father's voice, calmly handing down wisdom between the hearttree. He rubs the ruby pendant around his neck in its weirwood casing, and he can almost hear it.
When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.
Where is his pack now? Edward feels a wet sniff at his hand. He looks down at Tessarion, returned from prowling the deck, staring up at him with his mismatched eyes, orange and blue. The direwolf is distrustful of their new home, growling suspiciously at each creak of wood. He seems to trust the crew, however, their smooth island tongue soothing his worries. And so Edward supposes that he can trust them, too.
"Hey, wolf boy!" A fish drops to the deck with a sickening wet slap. Edward barely has time to register it before Tessarion has snapped it up with one swift bite. The wolf looks up at his master, silver-finned tail sticking out of his mouth as if offering to share the meal. Edward, confident in preferring his fish cooked, shakes his head, and soon the tail has disappeared down the wolf's gullet as well.
"Do not worry. We have food for you as well."
Edward looks up to see the speaker – A boy that cannot be much older than he, but nearly a head taller; slender but strong, that much can be clearly seen, his slight but well-worn ebony muscles glistening underneath the too-large scarlet vest he wears. A dozen bright green feathers hang from the violet cord around his neck.
"I'm Izarro. Or Iz."
"I'm Edward. This is Tessarion."
"Does it speak?"
"What?"
"Xhondo says that the Northmen of Westeros speak with wolves."
"Xhondo?"
"He's our mate," the boy answers. "He knows all about Westerners. He's traveled all over the world, even more than Captain Quhuru!"
He can't know THAT much if he thinks I can talk to wolves, Edward thinks. He looks over at Tessarion. I suppose I can, in a way, though. I wonder if this Xondo knows about that. "I think I'd like to meet him."
"Oh, you will!" Iz turns to the wolf. "Xhondo wants to see you speak to your wolf. The others didn't want to take it on. They think it's bad luck. Because of the eyes."
"His eyes?"
"On the islands they say it is bad luck to be born with unmatched eyes." Iz slowly reaches a hand our towards Tessarion. The wolfs big, wet nose sniffs loudly as the small hand approaches, but does not pull away as it wraps behind his head and begins to scratch. "I think they're foolish. Sailors say many foolish things. When I'm a captain, I'll put an end to that. Like Xhondo."
Edward tries to remember everything that Prince Jalabar and the maesters had taught him about the Summer Isles. "What island are you from?"
"Oh, I'm buc'clinto," Iz looks back at him, his tongue clicking with the word of his native tongue. "It means… um… salt… child, I think. That is how you would say. I was born at sea."
Edward looks into the boy's eyes – dark blue, almost grey, as if there was still a little bit of the ocean left in them. He wonders what that would feel like – to live always at sea. To not have a home. At least he will always have Winterfell. "Are your parents here now?"
"No," Iz looks out over the railing, out to where the morning sun sparkles on the soft waves. "My father is captain of Greyback Tail. My mother is with him. On swanships, when boy is old enough to work for own name, he leaves his parents, so he will not be favored."
"Do you miss them?"
"I think yes. But it is meant to be so."
"I miss mine, too." Tessarrion draws close to Edward's side, nuzzling his cold nose up against him with a soft, assuring groan.
"That is the way of the sea." Iz quickly snaps back from his brief moment of melancholy. "Old Jezra should have the paste hot by now. Come, wolfboy, let's eat."
The morning meal was a steaming hot paste of corn meal, blended with hard nuts and bright red spices that swirled in the bowl, served by Jezra, a stout Islander with a heavily scarred face and only half the fingers on his left hand. The two boys take their piping wooden bowls to a dusty corner on the floor of the small mess cabin. The handful of tables bolted to the floorboards were reserved for the men and women of the crew. The heat of the spice makes Ed's eyes water, but the flavors came alive on his tongue. He quickly eats the whole serving, blinking away the precocious tears before Iz can see them, fearful the other boy would think him too weak to handle spices, much less whatever work the crew of this ship had in mind for him.
"Here. Eat this too," Iz rolls an orange across the floor to him as he sets the bowl down. "We take fruit to hold off sickness." Edward smiles to see familiar food and eagerly snatches up the small citrus, digging into the peel with his dull fingernails and jaggedly tearing it off. He sighs a small sigh of relief when the cool, tart juice squirts the back of his throat as he takes a bite.
"What do you think of our spice, wolf boy?" Iz smirks, watching him.
"It's very good!" Ed insists, too quickly.
"Don't lie," the shipboy laughs, quick and melodic, like a bird. "There is nothing like that where you come from. Xondo says spice is as strange to a Northman as a thunderbird."
"I'm not lying. It was just… surprising, is all."
"You will learn to take heat in time, Lord Edward." Jalabar's voice punches into the conversation. Ed looks up at the towering prince. "Finish the orange and follow. We have much to talk of."
He knows where they're taking us, Edward thinks, nodding quickly. He shoves the rest of the orange into his mouth, wiping the juice off his face with the back of his sleeve and dropping the rind into his empty bowl. Iz takes the bowl away, motioning for him to go on.
"Thanks," Ed says, standing, as he follows Jalabar out of the cabin and up the narrow steps to the upper deck. He squints as they emerge into the bright daylight once again. Tessarrion quickly runs up to them, and Ed slips his final piece of orange into the wolf's grinning mouth.
"I spoke with captain this morning," Jalabar says, walking to the edge of the deck. The prince looks different in this light, Edward thinks, watching him as he follows. The sheen of his skin seems brighter, he stands taller, his voice rumbles stronger. Even the feathers of his cape, some damaged and torn from the fight on the dock, seem brighter here. He's back among his own pack now, Ed realizes. He was as much a stranger in the Red Keep as I am here. He remembers the prince talking fondly of the kingdom he had lost. Every wave that takes me further from home brings him closer to his.
"Quhuru Mo is a good man. He gifts me his mate's cabin. But I will leave that bed to you, Lord Edward. I swore to defend you, and you should receive comfort you deserve."
"Thank you, Jalabar," Edward joins him leaning against the railing, his head barely poking over the top of the bulwark. "Are they taking us to Oldtown?"
"Hightower rules Oldtown but Highgarden rules Hightower. You would not be safe from Tyrells there."
"I don't understand," Edward squints across the horizon as the memory of the western shore drifts further away. "The Tyrells are King Robert's friends. They're Father's friends. Why would they attack us?"
"I do not know. All of Westeros has knives in hand. We trust no one."
"Then where are we going?"
"Quhuru Mo will take us to Lys. I have friends at court there. We will be safe until we learn truth of threat against you."
"For how long?"
Jalabar silently stares up at a lonely albatross circling in the sky. But Edward already knows he has no answer.
The mate's cabin is small, but well furnished. An elegantly carved chair by a small table with a mounted, flickering lantern. A dresser of a very large man's clothes. A small shelf filled with books and charts. And a bed, the posts carved into tigers, with colorful patterned blankets and pillows covering a mattress nearly as soft as the one Edward had slept on in the Tower of the Hand.
With a weary sigh, Ed slips off his shoes and rolls back onto the bed, wishing Tessarion was with him, but the wolf still refuses to descend below the upper deck. He stares at the wooden planks above his head, lined by shadow. He stretches out his arms across the softness and feels the slow rock as his whole new world rises and crests with the waves. All day he has fought back the acidic urges of the porridge and spices creeping their way back up his throat. Now, his stomach begins to tighten into a knot.
With each rock, the ceiling seems closer, the walls nearer, the room smaller and smaller and, as it closes, so does his throat; his breaths growing sharper, shorter, more desperate. The scar on his face begins to burn. The shadows in the corners are rolling too, slinking together in dark, sinister shapes. Edward squeezes his eyes shut, but that only makes it worse. Now he is adrift, turned over and over in a sea of black. He cannot see the walls, the box shrinking around him, but he can feel them. And then, in the darkness of his mind's eye, a face – Father.
With a gasp he rolls over, dropping to the floor with a thud. Grabbing his shoes, he rushes back to the door, panting as he stumbles into the dark hall, trying to remember the way out. Somehow his feet find the path, his hands find the rungs of the ladder and a single blurred thought later he is violently sucking in cold, salty night air.
Stumbling to the rail, his resistance spent, he retches out into the inky water below. Coughing, he wipes his mouth and slides down the edge of the bulwark until he is curled into a ball on the deck. No one seems to have heard him. Except Tessarion. The wolf pads silently over to him out of the night, pressing his cold nose into Edward's neck. Slowly, his breathing begins to slow to match the pulse of the wolf. He looks up to the vast sky, an endless field of glistening stars, and finds the one he knows the best – the Eye of the Ice Dragon, pale and blue and oh, so far away.
"We're going to be alright, Tessarion," Edward whispers as he buries his face into the wolf's fur and lets sleep embrace him at last. In his dreams, he hopes, his pack will be waiting.
