Iron and Blood: a Theon & Sansa Story

Chapter 64

Theon
Eventually, Sansa slept peacefully with Arya beside her. Theon sat with his back against the door, aching. There was still blood on his hands, but he had removed his stained doublet and thrown it from the rocks into the ocean.

They had come for Sansa. All of them. She was what they wanted, and Balon Greyjoy was prepared to hand her over. When the Ironborn men tried to hold Theon back from her, he had drawn his sword without thought, without feeling. They threw Sansa to the floor, where she trembled even in unconsciousness; that she had fainted mattered not to the Ironborn determined to bed her. It meant she could not fight them.

Theon twirled the kraken brooch between his thumb and forefinger. Allan Wester, dead. Karl Krag, dead. Men that Theon had respected, admired as a boy. Dead. So much death that Theon could have bathed in the blood of it; killing was not an act he relished, despite what his father may have expected of him. The Ironborn usually balked at death—but Krag and Wester were old houses. Their men had always been loyal to House Greyjoy, and Theon had cut them down.

If he was supposed to regret it, he did not.

When they had fallen, Theon picked Sansa up off the ground and fought his way through the crowd. As he went, he slashed the bellies of two more men, one of them younger than he was, when they tried to tear Sansa's dress from her body. Balon Greyjoy was shouting at his son to halt, but Theon hardly heard him. Arya was at the bottom of the castle, having heard the commotion out the window, and she hurried Theon inside.

"Seventy-three steps," she whispered to Theon as he passed through the door. "It's the only door in that passage."

He yelled for her to follow him, but she insisted on holding off the mob that had chased Theon from the hall. Asha cut her way through the men to join Arya at the entrance. "Go," she yelled at Theon, and he obeyed.

Theon did not know that Arya would ever return to the chamber, but she did. Only her expression was dark and sorrowful. The moment she set foot inside the room, she would not look Theon in the eye. Instead, she fell to her knees and sobbed, screaming that she was sorry—so, so sorry.

It took nearly an hour for Theon to calm her so that she could say what pained her—

Balon Greyjoy was dying or dead, and his blood was still wet on Arya's sword.

She worried that Theon was angry with her, no matter how many times he assured her that he wasn't. After all, his father had given men permission to tear Sansa apart, and Theon had no doubt that he only tried to gain entry to the tower so that he might incapacitate his son and let them have her. The baby was not the reward Balon Greyjoy truly wanted—it was Sansa's body for his men and then her life when they were finished with her.

Asha had sent Arya inside before the crowd could punish her for regicide.

Theon did not want to think about what came next. It was unlikely anyone that had witnessed Balon's death would allow Theon's ascension to the Salt Throne. Not that he wanted it. Asha would be a better fit, but when she came to check on Arya in the night, she was bloody and dejected. Aeron Damphair was not allowed a royal title in his priesthood, and Balon's only other living kin was a younger brother—Euron Greyjoy—who set sail on the Narrow Sea so many years ago that most assumed he was dead.

It was only right that Theon go to ask his father himself. If the old man was still alive, he would want someone to hear what he had to say. Asha was standing guard outside Theon's chamber door, though no one had troubled them: Theon had no doubt that Asha knew how to quell the old Houses who would demand retribution for their king's grievous injury.

When Theon reached his father's solar, it was too late. Balon Greyjoy was dead.

Maester Wendamyr sat beside his bed, small and weary-eyed. He glanced over his shoulder at Theon as he approached but said nothing. Theon understood. His father was a prickly, ill-tempered man, but Maester Wendamyr had grown up beside him, left for the Citadel on Balon Greyjoy's insistence, and had returned to serve as his most trusted advisor.

Theon stared down at his father's body. The body of a man he had not known. Ned Stark had been a truer father to Theon than the dead man before him.

Several minutes passed before Maester Wendamyr spoke up. "He would want Asha to take his place."

Theon nodded. "She is the right choice," he agreed. "But the Iron Islands have never had a queen before. Even if she is a Greyjoy." Theon pulled a chair to the Maester's side and asked, "Did my sister tell you what happened?"

"She did," Wendamyr replied in a quiet voice.

Theon was not fooled. "Did you know?" he snapped, but the old Maester did not look at him. Theon had been weak for too long. He grabbed a hold of Wendamyr's chain and whipped him around. "Did you know he gave them instruction to take my wife?" His words were so loud, he knew the girls would hear them, maybe Asha, too.

Maester Wendamyr made no effort to release himself from Theon's grasp. He whispered, "Your father was beyond my control."

"But you knew?" Theon screamed, shaking him violently. When the maester did not respond, Theon threw him back into his seat. "You will stay in this castle every day and every night," he muttered, rising. "If you step outside these walls, I'll remove your teeth and pack them down your throat."

Theon left him there.