GOT: I Plunder Skills — Chapter 407 - Theon's Choice — Tears Unshed

The Ironborn stared at the corpse on the ground , chest burned through in the shape of a crow. Fear swallowed every scrap of greed and wildness in their hearts.

Crow-Eye Euron.

This madman they had forgotten for years had announced his return in the most direct, most terrifying way imaginable.

Theon Greyjoy stood hidden in the crowd, his body shaking beyond his control.

Euron hoisted the wicked horn onto his shoulder and swept his gaze across the captains and chieftains on the hill , men who were already scared half out of their minds. The mad grin on his face only spread wider.

"The Old Gods are dead. The Drowned God rots."

"I will be your new god."

"I will lead you to plant the Ironborn banner across the entire world!"

No one dared to argue.

Yara's face had gone pale, the hand gripping her battle-axe trembling slightly.

Even Victarion , whose face had always been carved from courage , showed awe for the first time.

Euron's gaze moved over the crowd like a hawk circling prey.

Then it stopped on Theon.

His nephew in name. The "weakling" who had grown up in the North.

Euron smiled.

He started walking, slow and unhurried, moving straight toward Theon.

The crowd parted for him without a word.

Every Ironborn he passed instinctively dropped their eyes, unwilling to meet his.

Theon felt his heart trying to crawl up through his throat.

Euron stopped in front of him.

"My dear nephew."

Euron reached out. His gloved hand came down hard on Theon's shoulder.

Hard enough to rock him on his feet.

"Your father's death. I regret it."

His voice held not a trace of regret. Only something that tasted like amusement.

"He was a great Ironborn. Pity his vision could never see past these few barren rocks."

Theon ground his teeth and said nothing.

"I hear you grew up in Winterfell."

Euron leaned closer. That single eye fixed on Theon like a shard of black obsidian, cold and gleaming.

"A... hostage."

Hostage.

The word drove itself into Theon's chest like a blade.

"Tell me, Theon."

Euron's voice dropped low.

"That great and honorable Ned Stark , did he ever let you forget what you were?"

"Did he treat you like a son?"

"Or were you just a dog he kept at his heel, to make sure your father , my dear brother , behaved himself back in Pyke?"

Theon's breathing went ragged.

Euron had found it. The deepest wound. The one that never fully closed.

Yes.

He was a hostage.

No matter how well Ned Stark treated him. No matter how much Robb called him brother. In the end, he was nothing but a bargaining chip , something to be traded when the moment came.

All these years he had studied Northern customs with desperate attention, had worked to carry himself like a true Stark.

He used arrogance and debauchery to paper over the anxiety underneath.

But in the dead hours of the night, he always came back to the same place , the cold sea wind off Pyke, and the memory of his real home.

He was a stranger everywhere. A man with no roots.

And yet...

Just as Euron's voice was seeping into every corner of his mind, images he had deliberately buried came rising up, unbidden.

A snowy afternoon. The training yard.

A boy , himself, younger , face burning red from failing to draw a bow built for a Northman, while Robb and Jon snickered on the side.

He had felt like a fool.

He had been about to throw the bow down and walk away when Ned Stark came over.

That man who almost never smiled. Who almost never softened. He didn't mock. He didn't scold.

He simply stepped behind Theon, wrapped his large calloused hands around Theon's, and steadied them.

"Back straight. Shoulders level."

His voice was calm and sure.

"Feel the bowstring. Don't fight it — guide it."

He walked Theon through it again and again, patient as stone.

Until Theon finally loosed an arrow that flew true.

It buried itself in the target with a solid thud.

Robb and Jon cheered.

Ned just patted his shoulder once and said, in a tone Theon had never heard from him before, quiet, almost gentle ,

"Your father would be proud of you."

Something in Theon's chest had cracked open at that. Just a corner. Just enough.

There was another time.

He and Robb had snuck out of Winterfell to hunt in the Wolfswood and gotten themselves thoroughly lost, not found until the guards had been searching half the night.

He had expected real punishment. A beating, maybe.

When he got back to the castle, Lady Catelyn was standing at the gate, face tight with worry. Ned stood beside her, fury plain on his face.

Ned took them both to his study and tore into them.

From start to finish, he did not treat Theon differently from Robb. Every hard word Robb got, Theon got the same. The week's confinement , shared, without exception.

To the boy Theon had been then, that equal treatment meant more than any reward ever could.

Because it meant that inside these walls, he wasn't something apart.

He wasn't a hostage.

He was just a boy who had done something stupid and needed his father to set him straight.

"Fond memories, it seems."

Euron's voice pulled him back.

He was watching Theon's expression, and his smile had only grown.

"They gave you a warm bed. Fine clothes. Taught you to read and write."

"They took this little kraken and made him into a tame snow dog."

"But, Theon." Euron's tone went cold, sudden as a door slamming shut. "When real danger comes — when they're forced to choose — do you think they choose you? Or do they choose their own blood?"

"Don't be a fool, nephew."

"You will never belong there."

"To them, you will always be an outsider. Something to be laughed at."

"Your blood is salty. Your soul belongs to the sea."

Euron straightened up and spread his arms wide, as if to take in the whole world.

"Forget the Starks. Forget their ridiculous honor and their precious duty."

"The world is being reshuffled."

"That new king in the North , this fellow they call Lynn , he has dragons, he has his army of the dead, he thinks he can rule everything."

Euron's single eye blazed with something unhinged.

"He's wrong."

"Because I have this." He slapped the horn resting on his shoulder. "His dragons will become our mounts. His dead will become our slaves."

"And you, Theon Greyjoy."

Euron dropped his gaze back to Theon.

"You know Winterfell better than anyone alive. You know the North better than anyone alive."

"You will be my sharpest spear — the one that drives through their heart."

"I won't treat you like a hostage."

A smile crossed Euron's face. A smile that sent a cold wave straight through Theon's bones.

"I will make you a prince."

"The entire North will be your domain."

"You will ride a dragon back to that place where you spent your years under another man's roof, and you will show them exactly who the master is."

"You will show Ned Stark that what he raised was not a dog ,"

His voice dropped to something almost tender.

", but a kraken that will crush his throat."

Silence fell over the entire hill.

Every Ironborn stared at Theon with eyes full of envy and hunger and wild-eyed longing.

A Prince of the North. On dragonback.

What a promise.

Theon felt his blood catch fire.

He could almost see it , himself in black armor, astride a dragon, gazing down over that frozen land.

He could almost see Robb Stark's face. The shock on it.

The whole North trembling at his feet.

No longer a hostage.

A conqueror.

But...

Ned Stark's face drifted back into his mind. Stern, as always. And underneath the sternness, something quiet and almost warm.

Your father would be proud of you.

The words rang in his ears like a bell that wouldn't stop.

On one side: the family whose blood ran in his veins. Glory. The chance to reclaim what the Greyjoys had lost and make it mean something.

On the other side: the man who had raised him. Taught him. Stood at his back and steadied his hands when no one else would.

What was the right choice?

"The Starks gave you a gilded cage, nephew."

Euron's voice came down like a verdict.

"And I will give you the whole world."

His gloved hand settled on Theon's shoulder once more.

"Tell me your answer."

Euron's face, that mad grin fixed on it, passed like a stormcloud over the last thin ray of sun.

Not a dog. A kraken that will crush his throat.

Yes.

A kraken.

His blood was salty. His soul belonged to the sea.

He was a kraken that had been penned up on the ice, and no matter how hard he'd worked to learn the wolf's howl, he would never grow their thick warm fur.

When the true winter came, he'd be the first one cast aside.

The last of the conflict drained out of Theon's eyes.

What took its place was resolve. Cold as the deep ocean.

He met Euron's single gleaming eye, and slowly , deliberately , went down on one knee.

The hill erupted.

"I, Theon Greyjoy, "

His voice came out raw and hoarse and loud enough to reach every corner of the hill.

"Hereby swear."

"The Starks are not my family. The North is not my home."

He lifted his head and met every set of eyes watching him, and said it word by word.

"I will burn Winterfell to ash with my own hands!"

"I will take the heads of Ned and Robb to honor my dead father , and to wash away the shame of House Greyjoy's defeat!"

"I will take back everything that is mine with fire and steel!"

"Burn Winterfell! Kill the Starks!"

The Ironborn went mad. Weapons raised, voices tearing loose in raw animal howls.

Theon's oath had lit the most primal fire in every one of them.

Yara stood at the edge of the crowd and watched her brother kneeling before Euron, someone wholly transformed, someone she barely recognized. Her face was unreadable.

She had always despised his softness. The Northman smell on him she could never quite wash off.

But now that he had become this , cold and pitiless, every inch an Ironborn , she felt no satisfaction. Only a quiet, sourceless dread rising in her chest.

Was this still her brother?

Or had Euron simply built a monster wearing his face?

"Ha , hahahaha!"

Euron's laughter broke over everything, louder than the roar of the crowd.

He gripped Theon by the arm and hauled him to his feet, slapping him hard on the back.

"Good! Very good!"

"This is Balon's son! This is my nephew!"

Euron's single eye burned with cold light.

"The wolf pup finally remembered his claws , no. His tentacles."

He turned to face the sea of howling Ironborn and raised the Dragon Horn high above his head.

"My nephew has shown you the way!"

➤ Next: Preparing to Attack Bear Island