The Salt Wife Ceremony

Kolen's words—"Starting tomorrow, you'll come with me to the council chamber"—landed like a boulder dropped into a stagnant pool, sending a thousand ripples through Yulon's heart. The sudden decision shattered the brief silence in the study. The air seemed to freeze, and even the flames dancing in the hearth appeared to hold their breath.

Yulon jerked his head up. For the first time, his mismatched eyes—his left like an abyss that swallowed light, his right like ice congealing on the eve of a storm—showed nothing but a child's astonishment in front of his father. Five years old? The council chamber? Even Baron, his fifteen-year-old brother and the heir who could already weather the waves aboard a longship, had only recently been allowed to sit in on meetings now and then! Had his father gone mad? Or did he... take Yulon's childish talk about reefs and tides so seriously?

Kolen took in his youngest son's shock. The weary, astonished smile on his face deepened, now touched with a distinctly Ironborn expectation, almost cruel in its intensity. "What is it? Are you afraid?" He rose, his tall figure stretching long in the wavering firelight, his shadow almost swallowing Yulon whole. His authority was as unyielding as a reef. "Where's that grand confidence you had when you were holding forth about reefs and tides, my little sea monster?" He stepped closer, his voice low, each word hammering home. "Didn't you want to help me? Didn't you hate seeing me driven mad every day by those salt-cured old stones? Then come! See for yourself just how hard the 'reefs' of the Iron Islands are! Hear for yourself how many poisoned daggers are hidden in the voices of those who 'fear change'! Studying the maps in the study and pondering the rise and fall of the tides won't be enough!"

This wasn't a discussion. It was an order—a trial for the heir, given by the King of the Sea Stones of the Iron Islands, though this "heir" was only the second son, a five-year-old child. Kolen's eyes were as sharp as Valyrian steel, as if he meant to cut through Yulon's childish skin and dig out the extraordinary intelligence in his soul, along with every disguise, to see what sort of monster or miracle lay beneath.

Yulon opened his mouth, but his throat felt blocked with sea salt, too dry to make a sound. He could feel the heavy weight behind his father's words: trust, a test, and an invisible force dragging him straight into the freezing heart of the whirlpool of power. The council chamber wasn't a training ground covered in white sea salt. There were no bright clacks of wooden swords there. Silent blades, poisoned words, and cold calculations could tear a person apart. He clenched his little fists by reflex, his nails digging deep into his soft palms. The sharp sting was enough to help him maintain the thin-ice calm on his face.

"Yes, Father." He heard his own voice, clear but taut as a drawn bowstring, with a faint tremor he couldn't quite hide. "I'll... watch and listen carefully."

Kolen nodded with satisfaction, as if he had just completed a vital strategic maneuver. "Good. Now go get ready. Tomorrow"—he stressed the word, like a nail driven into a ship's hull—"don't be late." He waved a hand, carrying the salty tang of the sea breeze, and turned back to the window, facing the restless sea churning like waves of ink in the dusk. To him, this earth-shattering decision seemed as ordinary as ordering a longship to set sail.

Yulon all but floated out of the study, heavy with tobacco smoke and pressure. The cold stone wall of the corridor brushed his hot cheek, bringing his tumultuous thoughts back down to earth. Lysa was waiting silently in the shadows, though he hadn't noticed when she arrived. She seemed as much a part of the ancient stone fortress as its walls. Her green eyes were calm in the dim light, reflecting the faint glow of the sconces, as though she had foreseen the storm all along.

"My lord?" Her voice was still as soft as a sea breeze passing over a reef.

"He... told me to go to the council chamber tomorrow." Yulon's voice was low, touched by a bewilderment he hadn't quite sorted out, and... a secret thrill at being pulled into the heart of the storm?

A flicker of understanding crossed Lysa's eyes, then gave way to a deeper calm, like the stillness of an ancient well. "The tide rushes toward the reef, and the reef must reveal its rugged face in the end," she murmured, as if stating an eternal law of nature. "Are you ready? To watch, to listen, to... be silent?"

"Silent?" Yulon furrowed his little brow, puzzled.

"The heart of a storm is often the quietest place." Lysa bowed slightly, humble in her posture yet strangely perceptive. "Before you learn to raise a raging tide capable of destroying everything, first learn how to steady your little boat amid the towering waves. Watch more, listen more, think more. Words are sometimes the most useless of oars. They might even draw the sharks' attention, especially among people accustomed to using battle-axes instead of tongues."

Yulon silently turned Lysa's words over in his mind. "Silence..." he murmured. The ripples of shock in his mismatched eyes gradually settled, replaced by a focused calm, much like a hunter lying in wait. Lysa was right. The council chamber was a more dangerous arena than any battlefield. He was still too weak. If he recklessly swung the battle-axe of words, he would reveal his position too soon and become a target for every arrow. He needed to be like an octopus among the reefs: hidden, watching, learning the scheming etched into every lord's wrinkles, distinguishing the blades concealed in seemingly peaceful words, and reading the bargains behind every meaningful silence. As Lysa had said, he needed to become the quietest, clearest point in the heart of the storm's vortex.

But the deliberate "silence" he sought was never going to settle over Pyke that night, where the currents ran deep.

That night, deep into the hours.

The night was as dark as ink, thick enough to smother, and only the salty sea wind wailed among Pyke's cold stone walls. A small figure pressed against the rough wall in the shadows behind the armory window, crouched there like a gecko. Through the narrow crack, a scene on the reef below struck Yulon's eyes with perfect clarity—the Drowned God's altar.

His brother Baron stood bare-chested in knee-deep seawater, cold waves slapping against his taut calves. A freshly inked tattoo on his broad chest writhed grotesquely in the dim moonlight and flickering torchlight: a longship riding the waves, its sails billowing, its hull spewing ghostly green flames, its twisted mast built from a heap of bones! On either side of the altar stood two barefoot girls, the seawater washing over their delicate ankles. Their green silk dresses, surely once fine, were soaked through with brine and clung to their young bodies, outlining helpless curves like a second, pale skin.

The old priest's voice scraped over the reef like a rusty chain. "Where do you come from?"

"Suns... Sunspear." The taller girl's voice trembled uncontrollably. A few tiny grains of red Dornish sand glimmered faintly in her curls in the firelight, the last trace of her homeland.

"You have died!" The cold iron staff, wielded with unquestionable authority, struck the girl's smooth forehead. A faint hiss of burning flesh and a whiff of scorching left a bloody brand, the symbol of rebirth. "Now you are reborn, as a Wife of the Ironborn!"

As the heavy staff turned toward the second girl, smaller and more delicate, Yulon's gaze snapped to her slender neck. A fine silver chain caught the firelight, gleaming coldly. It was Lannister Port's famed Nightingale Collar, every intricate link engraved with a different name, like badges commemorating a past she would rather forget. The girl seemed to sense his gaze. Just as the staff was about to fall, she suddenly raised her head! Her amber eyes, a gift from the Summer Isles' sun, were now filled with fear and an almost animal wariness. More chilling still, her right eye was veiled by a cloudy white film, like a punctured fish's swim bladder, reflecting the dancing flames in lifeless silence.

"You have died!" The old priest repeated the words and branded her forehead. "Now you are reborn, as a Wife of the Ironborn!"

"Had enough?" Baron's voice exploded beside Yulon's ear like a cold iron anchor, without warning! Before he could even turn, a powerful hand, smelling of seawater and sweat, seized his collar and yanked him roughly out from behind the window. Then a fist filled with stormy fury slammed into the side of his face!

"Ugh!" Yulon grunted as his little body flew like a broken kite and crashed onto the sharp shingle below. His mouth instantly filled with the heavy taste of rust and briny seawater, and one cheek burned with pain.

They had been confined for a month, and this was the brothers' first time seeing each other again. That punch was Baron's revenge. He'd held back, but it still hurt like hell, damn him!

Baron's tall figure loomed over him, smelling of cold seawater. He roughly grabbed Yulon by the back of his dark collar and held him up like a stranded little fish, facing the altar. "Did Father give you permission to spy?" Baron's voice was very low, but rumbled like thunder across a reef, every word edged with ice. "King Kolen is busy counting the gold coins the Braavosi paid in compensation. He doesn't have time to wonder where his 'clever' little son is sneaking around! Brat, open your eyes and look carefully! Ironborn don't trade wool and gold for wives at the market! We take them! That's the salt and iron flowing in House Greyjoy's blood!"

By the altar, the old priest gripped the Dornish girl's chin and forced a large bowl of murky, freezing salt water, reeking of death, down her unwillingly opened throat. Her futile struggle was drowned out by the waves. The sea wind cruelly tore apart her choking and sobbing.

"You punched me, so we're even for the time you got punished in my place. Now put me down. I need to tell you something." Yulon calmly patted Baron's hand. "Brother, Father wants me to... go to the council chamber tomorrow."

"The council chamber?!" Baron's grin froze on his face, his earlier boisterous laughter turning to ice. He lowered his head abruptly, his hawklike gaze fixed on Yulon's face. His voice dropped even lower, rumbling with dangerous disbelief like thunder building deep in the clouds before a storm. "Has Father... really gone mad?!" His fingers tightened unconsciously in Yulon's hair, bringing a sting of pain. "Brat, you can't even lift the lightest longsword. What can you possibly do there? Be a joke for those old Driftwood foxes? Let every captain in the Iron Islands see that House Greyjoy's second son is a babbling little baby?!"

Yulon spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva. Wincing at the pain in his face, he managed an unconcerned smile. "The council chamber isn't a dueling yard. Do I need a sword to hack people to pieces?"

"Bullshit!" Baron straightened abruptly, his black hair tossing like seaweed in a gale, his anger burning brighter. "That little bit of cleverness of yours might work on a three-year-old! But the council chamber? It's a den of wolves! A colder place than the Drowned God's altar! Those old bastards don't have blood in their veins. They have ice and poison! They'll chew you up, skin, bones, and all, and swallow you without spitting out a scrap! All just to laugh at Father and humiliate House Greyjoy!" Beneath his fury, his voice suddenly held a faint anxiety Yulon had never heard before. "What can a five-year-old know about politics? What can he discuss? Every word they say hides a blade! Can you even understand them?!"

"It'll be fine," Yulon said, trying to steady himself as he dangled in Baron's grip, his voice as even as he could make it. "I'm only sitting in. It's a chance to learn. Watch more, listen more, and sooner or later we'll be lords too. Learning to take part in council is part of that." He paused, his mismatched eyes meeting the fury in Baron's gaze, a hint of curiosity in them. "Are you worried about me?"

"I'm worried about House Greyjoy's reputation!" Baron immediately snapped back like a seal whose tail had been stepped on. His voice rose, but his grip on Yulon's hair unconsciously loosened a little. Irritably, he dropped Yulon onto the shingle, turned, and kicked an abandoned empty ale barrel. It rolled with a hollow crash. "Father's putting our dignity, the authority of the 'King of the Sea Stones,' on the chopping block for those bastards to pound on!" He turned his back to Yulon, shoulders heaving with anger. His voice gradually fell, weighed down by defeat. "I'm afraid you, you ignorant little brat... will be scared to tears by those old bastards' stares... Then every reef in the Iron Islands will laugh at us and say Kolen's son... is a weakling who wets himself at the sight of a storm!"

An image from three years ago flashed uncontrollably before his eyes: on the training ground coated in white salt, three-year-old Yulon had been knocked down again and again by a heavy wooden sword. His little body hit the hard stone with dull thuds, and purple bruises stood out starkly against his pale skin. Yet in those damn eyes, one black and one blue, a stubborn flame had burned all along—one that even pained Baron to look at. The brat might be annoying, might always say things no one could understand, but... he was never a weakling.

Yulon gave a little laugh, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and struggled to his feet. He looked up at Baron's tense profile. "That's why I came to you, dear brother. Are there any rules I need to watch out for in the council chamber? Which lords should I avoid even looking at? Which topics are absolutely off-limits? Teach me, will you?"

"What's it got to do with me!" Baron snapped, spinning around, his eyes so fierce he looked ready to eat Yulon alive. His chest rose and fell violently as he tried to suppress his surging anger. He glared at Yulon as if he meant to nail him to the reef behind him. A few breaths passed. Then, as though it took all his strength, he forced the order through clenched teeth, one word at a time, cold as iron at the bottom of the sea:

"Be quiet. Don't say anything stupid." He took a deep breath of the night air, tinged with blood and brine, then added in a firm, unquestionable voice, "No. Don't say anything at all! I want you to sew your mouth shut! Keep it closed!"

"And don't be late!"