A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

black gloves, the silk decorated with a delicate scrollwork tracery in golden thread.
    Theon returned to the Great Keep through a covered stone walkway, the echoes of his footsteps mingling with the ceaseless rumble of the sea below. To get to the Sea Tower on its crooked pillar, he must needs cross three further bridges, each narrower than the one before. The last was made of rope and wood, and the wet salt wind made it sway underfoot like a living thing. Theon’s heart was in his mouth by the time he was halfway across. A long way below, the waves threw up tall plumes of spray as they crashed against the rock. As a boy, he used to
run
across this bridge, even in the black of night.
Boys believe nothing can hurt them
, his doubt whispered.
Grown men know better
.
    The door was narrow, made of grey wood studded with iron, and Theon found it barred from the inside. He hammered on it with a fist, and cursed when a splinter snagged the fine silk of his glove. The wood was damp and moldy, the iron studs rusted.
    After a moment the door was opened from within by a guard in a black iron breastplate and pothelm. “You are the son?”
    â€œOut of my way, or you’ll learn who I am, to your sorrow.” The man stood aside. Theon climbed the twisting steps to the solar. He found his father seated beside a brazier, beneath a robe of musty sealskins that covered him foot to chin. At the sound of boots on stone, the Lord of the Iron Islands lifted his eyes to behold his last living son. He was smaller than Theon remembered him. And so gaunt. BalonGreyjoy had always been thin, but now he looked as though the gods had put him in a cauldron and boiled every spare ounce of flesh from his bones, until nothing remained but hair and skin. Bone thin and bone hard he was, with a face that might have been chipped from flint. His eyes were flinty too, black and sharp, but the years and the salt winds had turned his hair the grey of a winter sea, flecked with white-caps. Unbound, it hung past the small of the back.
    â€œNine years, is it?” Lord Balon said at last.
    â€œTen,” Theon answered, pulling off his torn gloves.
    â€œA boy they took,” his father said. “What are you now?”
    â€œA man,” Theon answered. “Your blood and your heir.”
    Lord Balon grunted. “We shall see.”
    â€œYou shall,” Theon promised.
    â€œTen years, you say. Stark had you as long as I. And now you come as his envoy.”
    â€œNot his,” Theon said. “Lord Eddard is dead, beheaded by the Lannister queen.”
    â€œThey are both dead,” Lord Balon said. “Stark, and that Robert who took broke my walls with his stones. Once I vowed I’d live to see them both in their graves, and now I have.” He grimaced. “Yet the cold and the damp still make my joints ache, as when they were alive. So what does it serve?”
    â€œIt serves.” Theon moved closer. “I bring a letter—”
    â€œDid Ned Stark dress you like that?” his father interrupted, squinting up from beneath his robe. “Was it his pleasure to garb you in velvets and silks and make you his own sweet daughter?”
    Theon felt the blood rising to his face. “I am no man’s daughter. If you mislike my garb, I will change it.”
    â€œYou will,” Lord Balon agreed brusquely. Throwing off the fur robe, he pushed himself to his feet. He was not so tall as Theon remembered. “That bauble around your neck—did you buy it with gold or iron?”
    Theon touched the gold chain, at a loss for words. He had forgotten.
It has been so long
 … In the Old Way, only women decorated themselves with ornaments bought with coin. A warrior wore only the jewelry he took off the corpses of enemies slain by his own hand.
Paying the iron price
, it was called.
    â€œYou blush red as a maid, Theon,” his father said. “A question was asked. Is it the gold price you paid, or the iron?”
    â€œThe gold,” Theon admitted.
    His father slid his fingers under the necklace and gave it ayank so hard it was like to take Theon’s head off, had the chain not snapped first. “My daughter has taken an axe for a lover,” Lord Balon said. “I will not have my son bedeck himself like a whore.” He dropped the broken chain onto the brazier, where it slid down among the coals. “It is as I feared. The green lands have made you soft, and the