Chapter Text
Amid sand and oil Euron finds him: a pretty Stark now a slave. His arms are bound at his back but he stands straight and angry upon the dais, a contrast to the hollow-eyed misery of the other myriad unfortunates for sale. The look is unmistakable, even from this distance. Euron has parleyed with the cursed Wolves before, battled against them when words failed. If his eye is true, if he's really found a Stark so far from Winterfell, then Euron knows why the ocean called him away from the Seastone Chair. Some named him foolish, leaving while Westeros warred. It was lunacy, they said, much like his talk of liquid fire and prophecy and dragons. Cowards and liars all, and no one spoke such treachery for long. Now he would return triumphant again, a King with full coffers and a hated enemy at his feet.
His men hover at the periphery of the marketplace, some almost beyond the edge of his vision, but being half-sighted has its advantages. He’s acutely attuned in other ways, to the waves and the wind and the smell of drowned flesh. And right now, he knows his men are sharp axes waiting to fall; it’s been days since they razed the last village, and Euron can feel the bloodlust singing in their veins. The Storm God, too, is hungry, lurking. He wants pain and death and the screams of the unworthy.
Soon, Euron whispers to him, soon, and as he starts to push through the crowd he thinks he hears the sea breeze sighing in response.
“A cast-off from the Night's Watch,” a fat auctioneer tells him when Euron asks. His bare belly is covered with spiralling red tattoos. They remind Euron of a blood-washed tide. “They normally behead their traitors, but in this economy…”
They walk past the other slaves on offer – men, women, children, starved and scared – and finally stop at the end of the line where the object of Euron’s interest stands. At his signal a guard grabs a fistful of the young man’s hair and shoves him to the ground. Euron smiles, because even from his knees, the boy manages to look haughty, staring straight ahead through a tumble of black curls. Though his chest is hairless, he has a short, well-groomed beard, no doubt trimmed for his presentation today. He's not of an age to the Starks who killed Euron’s kin, but he's also not a child by any measure. He's battle-lean and proud, the furious set to his jaw recalling that of his elders.
He will serve.
“He’d be a good worker,” the auctioneer advises him. “Strong back and arms. Whatever those wounds are on his chest and belly, they seem to have healed. Judging by the amount of fight in him, they certainly haven't affected his strength.”
Euron reaches out to trail a hand over a pale shoulder. The boy is polished to a silverfish-gleam, an oily glamour applied to all the slaves on sale today. It's false and unnecessary. Nothing a bit of salt won’t get rid of.
The auctioneer smiles slyly, thinking he knows Euron’s mind. As if any man could.
“Ah, yes. He’s a good looking lad. Someone’s had a go at his face there, but even those scratches and scars are pretty, yes? No doubt a discerning buyer could find other uses for him. I’ve kept him safe from my men, but my wife and her maids can attest to his skill with his tongue.” He spreads his fat hands with a shrug. “I wanted to keep him rested for the sale, but what can I say? I cannot refuse my woman anything.”
Weak. Craven. Women are for fucking and whelping, nothing more. Euron grits his teeth but allows the man to lean in to whisper conspiratorially.
“And he was more than willing, given the proper motivation. Pain doesn’t work so well with the black brothers. Their nerves are ruined by frost.”
That’s untrue, Euron knows it to be. He’s made all manner of men scream and beg.
“No, no, you have to be creative with slaves like this,” the fat man continues. He’s on Euron’s blind side, and he senses the man turn, doubtless checking no one is nearby to overhear.
“They can’t forget their vows to protect, you see. With this one, I threatened to kill my wife’s little serving girl if he didn’t obey. My wife will forgive me eventually, I think. I can buy her dozens of slave boys for what he’ll fetch. He’s noble-born, you understand,” the man says. “The way he speaks and moves - the black brothers wouldn’t tell me the truth of it, but I have an eye for this sort of thing. Besides, he came with a fancy sword. Those stingy bastards weren’t going to give it up, but I paid good coin for it.” He grins through gold teeth and pats the blade on his left hip.
Euron starts at the sight. It’s a Valyrian sword; he can smell it. The pommel is a white wolf.
Euron’s blood roars. They don’t know what they have in their hands, these slavers. If he wasn’t quite sure before, the wolf sigil confirms it. Euron reaches for the young man, gripping his throat lightly and tipping his chin back with his thumb. There's recognition in the dark eyes that lift to lock with Euron's, an anger that is ice-wrought and burning.
“Stark,” Euron says softly. "Are you ready to pay your family’s debt to my kin? Are you ready to be sacrificed to my God?”
“Greyjoy,” is the hissed response, “You’ll pay yours as well.” Then the youth spits, aiming square and true at Euron’s only eye. The auctioneer squeaks in horror, but Euron only wipes his eye and laughs.
“I see you know me boy, though we've never met. Has your father told you tales?" He tightens his grip on the youth's throat. "They're all true."
The lad closes his eyes at that and his throat convulses under Euron’s fingers. Euron releases him, and turns back to the auctioneer.
“He’s mine,” Euron says.
“Well, that is…that would be highly irregular. He must go to auction, those are the rules," the man demurs. “Unless you were to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
Euron allows himself a wide grin. “Ah, that I will, my fat friend. That I will. Only the highest price will be paid. I insist.”
“Yes? And what price would that be?”
“The iron one, of course,” Euron purrs.
The elderly, the obese, the frightened – their blood always pulses harder and faster than other men when the great vessels are split. This one is no exception, and Euron has the Valyrian blade buried deep in the man’s vast belly before he would have even noticed the weight lifted from his hip. It gushes out when he withdraws the sword, a hot, familiar baptism. The man drops, mouth opening and closing like a fish on a salty deck.
The audience is very quiet. Euron gazes at them, these waiting sacrifices, and slowly wipes his thumb down his own cheek. He turns back to his new acquisition, still kneeling, pale and silent as the crowd. He gently draws the blood dipped thumb across the young man’s soft mouth, already red but now obscenely so. The boy cries out and wrenches his head away in disgust, and the act shocks the crowd into action as well: they suddenly surge and wail. It's far too late to escape now though. His men are waiting with arrow and blade. They take to their task with silent glee, too long without release. It is a massacre, pure and simple. Not evil, or madness, though some would call it so out of fear of the truth. No, this fervent red mass of pain is what lies in the depths of the soul of every man.
Euron just chooses to unleash it.
A sharp blow with the pommel of the wolf-sword is enough to subdue his charge, and Euron slings the unconscious weight easily over his shoulder. He side-steps a fleeing woman, almost dropping his burden, only to roar with laugher as she is speared from behind. Blood streaks the cobblestones already, and the screams are high pitched and wonderful, like music. His ship Silence looms on the horizon, tall and lovely, and smoke billows across his path as he walks towards her, towards the sea.
The empty eyes of the black Iron Maiden welcome Euron home.