The King of Winters

Chapter-121

Theon

The wind was blowing from the north as the Great Kraken came round the point and entered the Redwyne Strait.

Theon looked glumly at the distant sky from her prow. Ahead the unfavourable Summer sea loomed as it parted away from the bright blue waters of the Sunset sea that had been a home to him. He knew the coast was somewhere to his left, from where the lush grassy plains of House Cuy would rise up from the shore and somewhere to his right lay the Arbor, rising up out from the sea like a great golden island.

The seat of House Redwyne. Theon knew what it actually meant. House Redwyne had never been a friend to the ironborn and he didn't think they would be now that his uncle had named himself a king and preyed upon the ships and lands surrounding the straits.

It was why he had forgone the sail displaying the kraken of Greyjoy and instead preferred a plain black one, dark as midnight. It had served it's purpose well, he thought as he remembered the night he had fled away from his uncle with the few men who were still loyal to Balon Greyjoy. Under the cover of darkness no one had seen him leave his home with a black sail and muffled oars.

Euron and his followers had long been busy rounding up the ironborn lords and their champions for the Kingsmoot prepared for his father. And that had given him the perfect opportunity to slip away, knowing that he would never be safe as the last living son of Balon Greyjoy.

That much was said to him by the few captains and lords who had still remained loyal to Balon Greyjoy, when he had prepared himself to claim the Seastone Chair.

"Go," his uncle Rodrik had urged, as the captains were preparing to hand over the crown of his father to his uncle Euron down in Nagga's hill.

"My place is here," Theon remembered telling him. "This is my home."

"Balon is dead," the Reader had said, "and you brothers are likely dead as well. You are the last son of your father and his rightful successor to Pyke and the Seastone Chair and the Driftwood throne that he aspired. So long as Euron knows this you are in danger. What good to get yourself ready for the Kingsmoot if you are not even going to live that long. The Crow's Eye has been too long away. It is no coincidence that your father is dead on the day he returned."

Euron Greyjoy, King of the Isles. The thought woke an untold rage in his heart, but still . . . Theon had hardly loved his father and his brothers but he was not sure to forget or forgive his uncle for murdering them in cold blood.

"And that only gives me a good reason to go up against my uncle," Theon had told them.

"Do you have it in you to fight against the Crow's Eye?" Rodrik Harlaw asked. "He has turned all of your father's men towards him. And in the absence of your brothers no one is like to oppose him."

"I am still my father's son," Theon said. "Balon Greyjoy's blood runs through my veins as much as it did with Rodrik's and Maron's."

"And that is why the Crow's Eye will kill you before you can raise your voice," the Reader reasoned."Don't be a fool. Euron shows the world his smiling eye tonight, but come the morrow ... Theon, you are Balon's last surviving son, and your claim is stronger than his own. So long as you draw breath you remain a danger to him. If you stay, you will be killed like a sheep. Go. You will not have another chance." And that had put an end to all discussions but not before Theon made his uncle promise he'd take his mother back to the Ten Towers with him.