A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

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 had to 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 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
fabric 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.” 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. Balon Greyjoy 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 whitecaps. 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, Stark and that Robert who broke my walls with his stones.
I vowed I’d live to see them both in their graves, and 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.” Throwing off the furs, Lord Balon pushed himself to his feet. He
was not so tall as Theon remembered. “That bauble around your neck—was
it bought with gold or iron?”
    Theon touched the gold chain. He had forgotten.
It has been so
long . . .
In the Old Way, women might decorate themselves
with ornaments bought with coin, but 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. 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 a yank 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 Starks have made you theirs.”
    â€œYou’re wrong. Ned Stark was my gaoler, but my blood is still salt and
iron.”
    Lord Balon turned away to warm his bony hands over the brazier. “Yet the Stark
pup sends you to me like a