Torregar

A shrill, inhuman scream tore through the silence of the ruins.

The Ironborn with the missing ear watched helplessly as the hook dragged out his intestines, spilling warm from his belly.

He collapsed to the ground, twitched a few times, and lay still.

Euron casually tossed the blood-smeared boat hook beside the corpse, then wiped the blood spattered on his face with his blue-stained fingernails.

He swept his gaze over the deathly silent Ironborn. Everyone who met his eye instinctively lowered their heads, not daring to make a sound.

Just then, Corlyon Torregar hurried forward, pushing his way through from behind.

His face was pale, his eyes torn between disgust at the bloody scene and eagerness at nearing his goal. His voice rose shrilly with tension. "Crow's Eye! How much more time are you going to waste here? Don't forget why we came!"

Euron Greyjoy slowly turned his head, his lone eye fixing on Corlyon like a venomous snake. The madness in it had not yet fully faded.

He licked his lips, as though savoring his next victim's fear.

"Of course I haven't forgotten, bastard," he said softly, an oily quality in his voice that sent chills down their spines. "Once I find what I want... heh heh."

Then, as though nothing had happened, he stepped over the corpse at his feet and continued onward.

"What are you standing there for? Get moving." Venom flashed in Corlyon's eyes before he gritted his teeth and growled.

Crushed beneath overwhelming terror, the party continued in deathly silence.

Aegon's brow furrowed as he listened to the mercenaries behind him, their harsh breathing and chattering teeth impossible to suppress. The chill inside him ran deeper than that of these grim, silent ruins.

The party continued through the deathly silent ruins built of enormous black stones.

The mercenaries were still being driven ahead at swordpoint by the Ironborn, like lambs, every step landing upon an unknown terror.

Some had resisted, but the bodies left in the middle of the path and swiftly forgotten silently proclaimed the price of defiance-it only brought death sooner.

Aegon walked at the very front, his brow faintly furrowed as foul air laden with sulfur and decay flooded his lungs.

His gaze swept over the twisted rocks and deep fissures ahead while his mind raced.

I need to find a way to kill Crow's Eye. I'm no masochist who enjoys having someone ride roughshod over me and shit on my head.

From what he had observed over the past few days, Crow's Eye and Corlyon seemed to share a dangerous symbiotic relationship.

Crow's Eye relished the domination his overwhelming strength afforded him, like a snake toying with its prey. Corlyon, meanwhile, seemed to hold some secret about what Crow's Eye wanted, swallowing his anger to cooperate, restless as a caged beast.

Their interests had temporarily bound them together, yet their very natures made them loathe each other.

Cracks were forming beneath that fragile balance.

Provoke a fight? Get Euron and Corlyon at each other's throats, then seize my chance? That seems the most viable approach for now, but it will take perfect timing-an opening that lets me finish it in one strike.

When will that opening come? Or rather, how can I create it?

Just as Aegon was considering how to kill Crow's Eye,

a commotion broke out among the mercenaries at the front.

"What's this now?"

A huge stone stele, seemingly fallen from the heavens, blocked most of the path ahead.

Its surface had the texture of obsidian, covered in exquisite reliefs and densely packed inscriptions.

The party came to a halt.

Aegon stepped out of the crowd and approached to examine it.

He was not putting on an act. It had genuinely caught his interest.

These words... resonated powerfully with the knowledge in his mind, knowledge drawn from his blood and memories.

Tor... re... gar.

A name steeped in the ancient scent of blood sounded in his heart, one syllable at a time.

Following that feeling, Aegon traced each stroke on the broken stele.

What is this? A name? A person, or a family?

Aegon concentrated, following that resonance as he continued to "read" the inscription, his well-defined fingers passing over the carvings.

High Valyrian?

As he read further, more fragments of information poured into his mind.

Forty... families? The Dragonlord Council?!

The fragmented words gradually outlined the brief history of a family vast beyond imagination.

Is this one of the forty Dragonlord families of Valyria that got barely a passing mention in the books I read in my previous life?

Aegon continued reading. Judging by the format, these seemed to be the family's precepts.

...A crown of blood and flame, forged through strength!

While Aegon was carefully examining the words carved in High Valyrian,

Euron and Corlyon, seeing that the party had stopped, impatiently came forward from the rear.

At the sight of Aegon studying the stele intently, Corlyon found an outlet for the agitation that had gripped him as they drew nearer their goal.

"Get your filthy fingers off that!" Corlyon shouted angrily from a distance when he saw Aegon touching the stele.

*?*

Aegon turned back in confusion.

Corlyon's shrill shout sounded especially grating in the deathly silent ruins. He hurried forward, his pale face flushing with rage and a kind of panic at something sacred being defiled. Shoving aside a mercenary in his way, he rushed to the stele.

"Take your filthy hands off it, you lowborn bastard!" he rasped, his eyes full of contempt and an almost pathological anxiety. "These noble inscriptions, this sacred legacy-do you think a mercenary covered in mud and reeking of sweat has any right to touch them?!"

As he spoke, he actually lifted the hem of his reasonably fine clothes and vigorously wiped the spot Aegon's fingertips had just touched, as though it had been contaminated with deadly germs.

His movements were hurried and forceful, driven by a neurotic obsession.

Only after wiping it several times did his breathing settle slightly. He turned and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Aegon, especially his striking silver hair, his lips curling into an utterly derisive sneer. "What? With that silver hair you picked up in some Lysene whore's bed, you think you're nobility with a Dragonlord's blood in your veins? You dare pry into the true words of Valyria? What... revolting presumption!"

"As if you could understand this noble Valyrian tongue!" Even he had only managed to piece together a rough understanding from records in ancient books and the help of a few people who still spoke Valyrian.

Aegon quietly watched him finish his performance, the depths of his violet eyes as still as an icy lake. The more agitated Corlyon became, the more he harped on "noble" and "lowborn," the clearer the indifference born of Aegon's blood and knowledge became in his eyes.

An opening! I've found it.

Ideas quietly took shape in his mind, and he acted on them.

Only when Corlyon finished his tirade and stood glaring at him, panting, did Aegon give an almost imperceptible twitch of his lips.

It was not a smile, but a knowing expression of mockery.

He ignored Corlyon's insults and did not even look at him. His gaze returned to the stele, as though his frenzied employer were nothing more than a buzzing fly. In a clear, steady voice carrying an ancient cadence, he slowly began reciting the very precepts his fingertips had just traced:

"A crown of blood and flame, forged by strength alone."

"All shall bow, for this is our birthright."

"To those who will not yield, we shall mercifully grant eternal silence."

Pure, ancient High Valyrian echoed through the dark ruins like a chant, imbued with the majesty and bloodshed of a bygone age.

"These are the inscriptions on the stele, the precepts of a family called Torregar," Aegon explained calmly.

Every syllable struck the silent air and hammered mercilessly at Corlyon's heart.

Corlyon's sneer froze on his face. His pupils abruptly contracted, and he stumbled half a step backward as though he had been punched in the face. The finger he pointed at Aegon trembled slightly. "You... how can you...?!"

His voice echoed through the ruins and faded.

Aegon did not turn immediately. His gaze lingered on the inscription, as though he were considering something.

After a long while, Aegon finally turned his head and calmly met Corlyon's shocked, almost horrified eyes. There was no smugness in his gaze, no desire to show off, only the clarity of understanding.

"High Valyrian. I've studied it since childhood."