A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

weak and frightened as a girl. But no longer. That man is drowned, and the god has made me strong.
The cold salt sea surrounded him, embraced him, reached down through his weak man’s flesh and touched his bones.
Bones,
he thought.
The bones of the soul. Balon’s bones, and Urri’s. The truth is in our bones, for flesh decays and bone endures. And on the hill of Nagga, the bones of the Grey King’s Hall . . .
    And gaunt and pale and shivering, Aeron Damphair struggled back to the shore, a wiser man than he had been when he stepped into the sea. For he had found the answer in his bones, and the way was plain before him. The night was so cold that his body seemed to steam as he stalked back toward his shelter, but there was a fire burning in his heart, and sleep came easily for once, unbroken by the scream of iron hinges.
    When he woke the day was bright and windy. Aeron broke his fast on a broth of clams and seaweed cooked above a driftwood fire. No sooner had he finished than the Merlyn descended from his towerhouse with half a dozen guards to seek him out. “The king is dead,” the Damphair told him.
    â€œAye. I had a bird. And now another.” The Merlyn was a bald round fleshy man who styled himself “Lord” in the manner of the green lands, and dressed in furs and velvets. “One raven summons me to Pyke, another to Ten Towers. You krakens have too many arms, you pull a man to pieces. What say you, priest? Where should I send my longships?”
    Aeron scowled. “Ten Towers, do you say? What kraken calls you there?” Ten Towers was the seat of the Lord of Harlaw.
    â€œThe Princess Asha. She has set her sails for home. The Reader sends out ravens, summoning all her friends to Harlaw. He says that Balon meant for her to sit the Seastone Chair.”
    â€œThe Drowned God shall decide who sits the Seastone Chair,” the priest said. “Kneel, that I might bless you.” Lord Merlyn sank to his knees, and Aeron uncorked his skin and poured a stream of seawater on his bald pate. “Lord God who drowned for us, let Meldred your servant be born again from the sea. Bless him with salt, bless him with stone, bless him with steel.” Water ran down Merlyn’s fat cheeks to soak his beard and fox-fur mantle. “What is dead may never die,” Aeron finished, “but rises again, harder and stronger.” But when Merlyn rose, he told him, “Stay and listen, that you may spread god’s word.”
    Three feet from the water’s edge the waves broke around a rounded granite boulder. It was there that Aeron Damphair stood, so all his school might see him, and hear the words he had to say.
    â€œWe were born from the sea, and to the sea we all return,” he began, as he had a hundred times before. “The Storm God in his wrath plucked Balon from his castle and cast him down, and now he feasts beneath the waves.” He raised his hands. “
The iron king is dead!
Yet a king will come again! For what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger!”
    â€œA king shall rise!”
the drowned men cried.
    â€œHe shall. He must. But who?” The Damphair listened a moment, but only the waves gave answer.
“Who shall be our king?”
    The drowned men began to slam their driftwood cudgels one against the other.
“Damphair!”
they cried.
“Damphair King! Aeron King! Give us Damphair!”
    Aeron shook his head. “If a father has two sons and gives to one an axe and to the other a net, which does he intend should be the warrior?”
    â€œThe axe is for the warrior,” Rus shouted back, “the net for a fisher of the seas.”
    â€œAye,” said Aeron. “The god took me deep beneath the waves and drowned the worthless thing I was. When he cast me forth again he gave me eyes to see, ears to hear, and a voice to spread his word, that I might be his prophet and teach his truth to those who have forgotten. I was not made to sit upon the Seastone Chair . . . no more than Euron Crow’s Eye. For I have heard the god, who says,
No godless man may sit my Seastone Chair!
”
    The Merlyn crossed his arms against his chest. “Is it Asha, then? Or Victarion? Tell us, priest!”
    â€œThe Drowned God will tell you, but not here.” Aeron pointed at the Merlyn’s fat white face. “Look not to me, nor to the laws of men, but to the sea. Raise your sails and unship your