Platinum Sand

That Mario, the sleeper agent Euron planned to plant in the Free Cities, was left to Daggmo to handle from then on.

Daggmo had been assigned by King Kolen as Euron's bodyguard. His role was not merely to protect Euron; Kolen also wanted to give Euron free rein to do what he pleased, and Daggmo's skills and connections could help him. After more than twenty days at sea aboard the Hao Yin, they had practically lived and died together. Euron had gotten to know Daggmo fairly well. He seemed crude, impulsive, and dim-witted, but in truth he was sharp and capable, with a shrewdness beneath his rough exterior.

Euron had many plans in mind, but he could only prioritize them by importance and difficulty. For now, the only one with low investment and testing costs, a high chance of success, and an enormous payoff was—salt!

The deepest cellar beneath Pyke was damp as the Drowned God's womb. Salt crust that seeped from the rock walls glimmered a ghostly white in the wavering torchlight. Every breath carried a cold, briny tang; every drop of water struck the silence with a hollow echo. Here, far from the salt-field slaves' wails and the sea's eternal roar, only the silence of stone remained—and the silence of something revolutionary being brought to life.

Euron Greyjoy stood in the center of the cellar, his dark gray cloak almost blending into the shadows. Beneath his hood, his mismatched eyes burned with a focus and control far beyond his years. He was no longer a bystander, but the heart of this secret rite, the source and helmsman of a torrent of knowledge. Daggmo had found him this quiet place and prepared everything he needed. Lysa had shed her deep-sea stillness and become a precise instrument, an extension of his hands. Her green eyes followed every subtle instruction Euron gave, like a believer gazing up at a god's Ark Maxim. The Greyjoy priest who had performed Euron's drowning ceremony on his uncle's orders had been summoned from the Drowned God's temple to bear witness. He silently watched Euron's every move.

On the rough wooden table lay the Iron Islands' most common crude vessels: heavy clay crocks, polished wooden barrels, thick iron cauldrons, finely woven wicker strainers, and smooth whale-bone rods. Beside them sat a pile of coarse salt just delivered from the salt fields, mottled gray, yellow, and brown, and reeking of seaweed, rust, and bitterness.

"First step: dissolve." Euron's clear child's voice rang through the cellar, a command that brooked no argument and cut precisely through the silence. He pointed his slender finger at the barrel of fresh rainwater, then at the pile of filthy coarse salt. "Take the desired amount and pour it into the water. Let it stand, like a reef sinking into the ocean depths. Let the mud, gravel, shells... all the impurities from the earth settle to the bottom on their own."

Lysa did as instructed, moving with mechanical precision. The grains of coarse salt fell into the water with a dying hiss. She stood still beside it, her gaze fixed on the surface like a hawk's. The murk gradually separated into layers, and the liquid above turned a sickly pale yellow. Euron gave a slight nod. "Filter it! Keep only the clear liquid on top. The sediment at the bottom is useless. Throw it away like refuse." The wicker strainer swept across the surface, filtering the relatively clear brine into another clean crock. The filthy residue was abandoned in a waste barrel in the corner, a symbol of the past cast aside.

"Second step: devour." Euron turned his gaze to a sealed clay urn in the corner. He walked over and lifted the lid himself, revealing chunks of charcoal, black as inkstone and brittle in texture. It was sea oak he had ordered to be slow-burned in a specially made kiln. "Crush it to a powder." Lysa immediately took the charcoal and ground it carefully in a stone mortar until it was as fine as inkstone-colored ash. Euron pinched up a little charcoal powder and inspected its texture in the firelight, then nodded with satisfaction. "Sprinkle it into the brine. Stir." He picked up a whale-bone rod and demonstrated a slow, forceful circular motion. "Let these charcoal bones devour! Devour the 'spirits of bitterness' dissolved in the water, the 'souls of iron' that bring the rusty tang, and every impurity that brings shame upon the salt!" His words sounded like an incantation, though in truth it was simply activated-carbon adsorption. He had only given it a mysterious name, since nearly everyone in this world believed in gods.

Lysa took the bone rod and began to stir. In the whirl of charcoal powder, the murky brine miraculously lost its yellow tint and grew clearer and clearer! Euron watched from the side, his mismatched eyes like precision instruments, observing every subtle change in color. "That's enough." He raised a hand to signal her to stop. "When the water is as clear as fresh snow on a cold pool, the impurities are gone. Filter it again! This time, remove the charcoal powder and the filthy spirits it has devoured, too!"

The wicker strainer went to work once more. The filtered brine was nearly colorless, pure as snowmelt from a mountain peak. The black charcoal residue, along with the bitter souls it had trapped, was removed completely.

"Third step: boil the bones in fierce fire and temper their true form." Euron pointed to the heavy, black cast-iron cauldron. "Pour it in." The filtered brine was poured into the cauldron. He went to the hearth himself and lit the fuel, a mixture of dried seaweed and whale fat. Blue flames rose like living creatures, licking at the cold bottom of the cauldron. "Fire is the will that tempers. At first, it must be fierce, to drive off the inertia of the water." The liquid was calm at first. Then fine bubbles rose from the bottom, growing from sparse to dense as they popped and steamed, filling the air with a clean, salty smell. "Once it boils like a raging sea, the fire must be gentle." Euron's voice sounded like he was reciting an ancient alchemical formula. As steam rose and the liquid level fell by about a third, he took a long-handled wooden spoon, dipped it into the concentrated liquid, and dripped a drop onto a cold slab of obsidian. The droplet quickly solidified into a tiny, colorless crystal. "Look, the essence of salt is awakening!" A sharp glint flashed in his eyes. "Now the fire must be like a warm bed, never fierce. Let the water recede at its leisure, like the tide, so the salt's true form can slowly crystallize and grow in the mother liquor. Those 'evil spirits' that bring bitterness and dampness"—magnesium chloride and the like—"are more attached to water's embrace. Let them remain in it!" That was the essence of evaporative crystallization: controlling the heat to separate the pure from the impure. Lysa focused intently, adjusting the fire with precision in response to every glance and subtle gesture from Euron, maintaining a gentle boil. Fine white crystals, delicate as frost, quietly grew along the cauldron walls and around the edge of the liquid, like sacred ice flowers.

"Fourth step: drain the blood and sever its poisonous root!" When a layer of snowy-white crystals covered the bottom of the cauldron, and the remaining mother liquor had grown thick and scant, its color an unsettling yellow-brown, Euron gave the order without hesitation. "Put out the fire!" He pointed to a shallow wicker basket lined with several layers of fine linen. "Scoop it out! The snow-white crystals are the essence; the thick yellow-brown liquid is the 'bitter blood'—the brine. The cloth is a filter. Let the essence remain on top and the 'bitter blood' drain below! This blood contains poison. If it touches the salt, it will defile its soul. Its root must be severed!" At that moment, separating the solid from the liquid took on the grim significance of cutting off the chains of fate. Lysa used a special wooden shovel to carefully scoop the hot mixture into the basket. The scalding, viscous brine hissed as it passed through the linen and ran into the crock below, giving off a bitter smell that made one wrinkle their nose. What remained on the cloth was the wet, yet gleamingly pure, first form of refined salt. Euron watched the brine drain away as if he were watching the head of a venomous snake being cut off.

"Fifth step: crystallize and seal the soul of purity." The damp refined salt was spread evenly across several wide, shallow clay trays. Euron led Lysa to a nearby dry stone chamber with good ventilation. Inside was only a small basin of smokeless charcoal, giving off dry heat. "Wind and gentle warmth are the final polish. Turn it over as if combing feathers, making sure every grain is dry, light, and separate!" He demonstrated how to turn the salt with a smooth piece of whale bone, moving gently and evenly. Lysa took the bone and turned the salt at regular intervals. Time passed in the dry, warm air as the moisture was stripped away bit by bit. The grains grew loose and dry, glimmering with a cold, snowy whiteness. This final step of drying was like clothing a pure soul in an everlasting robe. When Lysa pinched up a little salt and felt only pure saltiness on her fingertips, with no hint of other flavors or stickiness, she looked to Euron. He held out his small hand and pinched up a little himself, then put it in his mouth. The utterly pure saltiness burst across his tongue, like the perfect concentration of the sea's essence. He closed his eyes, as if tasting power itself. When he opened them again, the light in his mismatched eyes could pierce the thickest darkness.

"Sixth step: seal it in a stone tomb and imprison its power." Lysa carefully scooped the fully dried, cold refined salt into thick-walled little clay jars with a special bone spoon. Euron stood beside her, personally supervising every movement. The mouths of the jars were covered with soft sheepskin soaked in beeswax, then tightly sealed with melted black wax, the color of House Greyjoy. Every sealed jar was like a miniature tomb, imprisoning snowy purity and revolutionary power.

Lysa brought the first sealed jar before Euron and knelt on one knee, as if offering up a sacred relic.

"From this moment on, it's worth its weight in Gold Dragons! From now on, we'll call it Platinum Sand!" Euron took the cold jar, his small fingers caressing its smooth surface and hard seal. He felt the power it contained, a power capable of changing the fate of the Iron Islands.

Naturally, he had made the process so solemn and elaborate to give Platinum Sand an air of mystery. After all, most people in this world had faith in the gods, and the more mysterious something seemed, the easier it was to make people believe that a god had taken possession of it. After all that, Euron felt that Lysa and Daggmo looked at him with utter admiration. If he could check trust levels in the system, Lysa's would have reached at least 80, while Daggmo's would have gone straight to a perfect 100.

This wasn't salt. It was a scepter! A chain! The foundation of House Greyjoy's rule! Mass production of Platinum Sand would only be the beginning.