A Feast for Dragons

daughter, and other half wanted to
spread her legs, but either sort would die for her. And I for them, she
was thinking as she shouldered through the door at the bottom of the steps,
into the moonlit yard.
    “Asha?” A shadow stepped out from behind the well.
    Her hand went to her dirk at once . . . until the moonlight
transformed the dark shape into a man in a sealskin cloak. Another ghost. “Tris. I’d thought to find you in the hall.”
    “I wanted to see you.”
    “What part of me, I wonder?” She grinned. “Well, here I
stand, all grown up. Look all you like.”
    “A woman.” He moved closer. “And beautiful.”
    Tristifer Botley had filled out since last she’d seen him,
but he had the same unruly hair that she remembered, and eyes as large and
trusting as a seal’s. Sweet eyes, truly. That was the trouble with poor
Tristifer; he was too sweet for the
Iron
Islands
. His face has grown comely, she thought. As a boy Tris had been much
troubled by pimples. Asha had suffered the same affliction; perhaps that had
been what drew them together.
    “I was sorry to hear about your father,” she told him.
    “I grieve for yours.”
    Why? Asha almost asked. It was Balon who’d sent the
boy away from Pyke, to be a ward of Baelor Blacktyde’s. “Is it true you are
Lord Botley now?”
    “In name, at least. Harren died at Moat Cailin. One of the
bog devils shot him with a poisoned arrow. But I am the lord of nothing. When
my father denied his claim to the Seastone Chair, the Crow’s Eye drowned him
and made my uncles swear him fealty. Even after that he gave half my father’s
lands to Iron Holt. Lord Wynch was the first man to bend his knee and call him
king.”
    House Wynch was strong on Pyke, but Asha took care not to
let her dismay show. “Wynch never had your father’s courage.”
    “Your uncle bought him,” Tris said. “The Silence returned with holds full of treasure. Plate and pearls, emeralds and rubies,
sapphires big as eggs, bags of coin so heavy that no man can lift them . . .
the Crow’s Eye has been buying friends at every hand. My uncle Germund calls
himself Lord Botley now, and rules in Lordsport as your uncle’s man.”
    “You are the rightful Lord Botley,” she assured him. “Once I
hold the Seastone Chair, your father’s lands shall be restored.”
    “If you like. It’s nought to me. You look so lovely in the
moonlight, Asha. A woman grown now, but I remember when you were a skinny girl
with a face all full of pimples.”
    Why must they always mention the pimples? “I remember
that as well.” Though not as fondly as you do. Of the five boys her
mother had brought to Pyke to foster after Ned Stark had taken her last living
son as hostage, Tris had been closest to Asha in age. He had not been the first
boy she had ever kissed, but he was the first to undo the laces of her jerkin
and slip a sweaty hand beneath to feel her budding breasts.
    I would have let him feel more than that if he’d been bold
enough. Her first flowering had come upon her during the war and wakened her
desire, but even before that Asha had been curious. He was there, he was mine
own age, and he was willing, that was all it was . . . that, and the moon
blood. Even so, she’d called it love, till Tris began to go on about the
children she would bear him; a dozen sons at least, and oh, some daughters too.
“I don’t want to have a dozen sons,” she had told him, appalled. “I want to
have adventures.” Not long after, Maester Qalen found them at their play, and
young Tristifer Botley was sent away to Blacktyde.
    “I wrote you letters,” he said, “but Maester Joseran would
not send them. Once I gave a stag to an oarsman on a trader bound for
Lordsport, who promised to put my letter in your hands.”
    “Your oarsman winkled you and threw your letter in the sea.”
    “I feared as much. They never gave me your letters either.”
    I wrote none. In truth, she had been relieved when
Tris was sent away. By then his fumblings had begun to bore her. That was not
something he would care to hear, however. “Aeron Damphair has called a
kingsmoot. Will you come and speak for me?”
    “I will go anywhere with you, but . . . Lord Blacktyde says
this kingsmoot is a dangerous folly. He thinks your uncle will descend on them
and kill them all, as Urron did.”
    He’s mad enough. “He lacks the strength.”
    “You do not know his strength. He’s been gathering men on
Pyke. Orkwood of Orkmont brought him