A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

are, my ironborn. I would bring them dragons, and they shout out for grapes.”
    â€œGrapes are real. A man can gorge himself on grapes. Their juice is sweet, and they make wine. What do dragons make?”
    â€œWoe.” The Crow’s Eye sipped from his silver cup. “I once held a dragon’s egg in this hand, brother. This Myrish wizard swore he could hatch it if I gave him a year and all the gold that he required. When I grew bored with his excuses, I slew him. As he watched his entrails sliding through his fingers he said, ‘
But it has not been a year.’
” He laughed. “Cragorn’s died, you know.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe man who blew my dragon horn. When the maester cut him open, his lungs were charred as black as soot.”
    Victarion shuddered. “Show me this dragon’s egg.”
    â€œI threw it in the sea during one of my dark moods.” Euron gave a shrug. “It comes to me that the Reader was not wrong. Too large a fleet could never hold together over such a distance. The voyage is too long, too perilous. Only our finest ships and crews could hope to sail to Slaver’s Bay and back. The Iron Fleet.”
    The Iron Fleet is mine,
Victarion thought. He said nothing.
    The Crow’s Eye filled two cups with a strange black wine that flowed as thick as honey. “Drink with me, brother. Have a taste of this.” He offered one of the cups to Victarion.
    The captain took the cup Euron had not offered, sniffed at its contents suspiciously. Seen up close, it looked more blue than black. It was thick and oily, with a smell like rotted flesh. He tried a small swallow, and spit it out at once. “Foul stuff. Do you mean to poison me?”
    â€œI mean to open your eyes.” Euron drank deep from his own cup, and smiled. “
Shade-of-the-evening,
the wine of the warlocks. I came upon a cask of it when I captured a certain galleas out of Qarth, along with some cloves and nutmeg, forty bolts of green silk, and four warlocks who told a curious tale. One presumed to threaten me, so I killed him and fed him to the other three. They refused to eat of their friend’s flesh at first, but when they grew hungry enough they had a change of heart. Men are meat.”
    Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and Euron is maddest of them all.
Victarion was turning to go when the Crow’s Eye said, “A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. Brother, I have need of you. Will you go to Slaver’s Bay and bring my love to me?”
    I had a love once too.
Victarion’s hands coiled into fists, and a drop of blood fell to patter on the floor.
I should beat you raw and red and feed you to the crabs, the same as I did her.
“You have sons,” he told his brother.
    â€œBaseborn mongrels, born of whores and weepers.”
    â€œThey are of your body.”
    â€œSo are the contents of my chamber pot. None is fit to sit the Seastone Chair, much less the Iron Throne. No, to make an heir that’s worthy of him, I need a different woman. When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware.”
    â€œWhat dragon?” said Victarion, frowning.
    â€œThe last of her line. They say she is the fairest woman in the world. Her hair is silver-gold, and her eyes are amethysts . . . but you need not take my word for it, brother. Go to Slaver’s Bay, behold her beauty, and bring her back to me.”
    â€œWhy should I?” Victarion demanded.
    â€œFor love. For duty. Because your king commands it.” Euron chuckled. “And for the Seastone Chair. It is yours, once I claim the Iron Throne. You shall follow me as I followed Balon . . . and your own trueborn sons shall one day follow you.”
    My own sons.
But to have a trueborn son a man must first have a wife. Victarion had no luck with wives.
Euron’s gifts are poisoned,
he reminded himself,
but still . . .
    â€œThe choice is yours, brother. Live a thrall or die a king. Do you dare to fly? Unless you take the leap, you’ll never know.”
    Euron’s smiling eye was bright with mockery. “Or do I ask too much of you? It is a fearsome thing to sail beyond Valyria.”
    â€œI could sail the Iron Fleet to hell if need be.” When Victarion opened his hand, his palm was red with blood. “I’ll go to Slaver’s Bay, aye. I’ll find this dragon woman, and I’ll bring her back.”
But not for you. You stole my wife and