The waves struck the hull with a violence that made the planks shudder like bones rattling in freezing cold. The ship sang a wailing song that gave fear to many men on board, fearing the cold and creatures that lay in the Shivering Sea.
Caggo Corpsekiller made his way down from the deck. A thin sheet of ice forming on them and cracking with each step of his under the weight. The wind felt cold and biting even in the narrow corridors of the ship, carrying a distant and nervous mutter of frightened men and, when he reached the commander's chambers, a different sound entirely. The sound of wet moans with whimpers of a woman along with the sharp sound of skin meeting skin.
He whacks twice with his knuckles, the sound sounding dull against the thick wood. Soon a woman's voice, filled with irritation and heavy breath, snaps at him from inside, "Who is it?"
Caggo waits a heartbeat long enough to hear, shuffling of clothes inside before answering. "Its me Caggo."
The door opens and a woman just past her thirty slips out, naked as the day her mother birthed her into the world. Her skin looked like a map of the commander's passion, red welts and blooming purple marks across her thighs, the soft swell on her her breasts and even the pale skin of her throat. Her hair lustrous and heavy in golden-brown, reminded Caggo of her past. A magister's wife, whom she'd left weeping in Pentos for her love of Commander, the magister's money in her and commander's purse now.
She meets his eye seductively, looking down at his crotch before she walks by him, almost touching her naked chest by his own, a faint scent of almond oil and sweat trailing around her, entering into a cabin ahead. The door shuts softly, a click that seemed loud in the silence.
"Come in, Caggo," the commander calls out from inside the cabin, on which he had knocked and he obey. Inside, the perfumed oils had been knocked from a low table by the bed side, dripping like sweet tears onto the planks. The silks on the bed were a damp sodden mess. The Tattered Prince lounged in a carved chair, his linen robe open at the chest. His ragged cloak lay discarded over a chest of coin, its coloured tatters, a trophy from the surcoats of men he has slain, fluttering gently in the cold soft breeze that seeped through the cracks.
"Do you want a taste of her?" the Tattered Prince asks mildly, pouring deep red Dornish wine into shiny golden cup. "You've never been shy about your lusts, Corpsekiller."
Caggo stiffens, a flicker of unease, jealousy and anger in his chest. He preferred his pleasure untouched from other's hand but continued otherwise. "I don't want her, Commander. I just yearn for coins and priceless jewels."
The Tattered Prince studies him for a long moment, his eyes sharp and unforgiving and not the usual sad eyes. Then he nods in a slow movement. "Why have you come?"
"Our veteran men fear these waters, Commander" Caggo starts, a trace of concern entering into his tone. "None of us have sailed this far north on the Shivering Sea. They whisper to the young ones of beasts and creatures that can drag a ship to the bottom on a whim. They would have us turn back to warmer shores."
The commander pushes to his feet, lanternlight catching his eyes as he picks up his cloak. He moves toward the narrow window overlooking the ink-dark sea. The Tattered Prince knew their fears were not out of reason. "And where is Denzo?"
"Keeping an eye on them, making certain that none speak a word that sounds like mutiny and none try something foolish."
"Good." The Tattered Prince taps on the window frame, in a thoughtful gesture. "The men are not wrong, Caggo. These waters do hold mysteries. Creatures that might steal a man's sleep for the rest of his days," He smiles, though his face looked devoid of mirth. ", should they survive them of course. It is time we dealt with our guest."
Caggo's grin stretch wide with a predator's mask hearing that. He could already hear the sound of golden dragons clinking. "His brother gave us enough coin to live two years idle."
"Not only his brother," the commander murmurs, his voice turning soft and oily with greed and lust. "His mother, too."
Caggo laughs, a sharp loud in the small cabin, but it dies quickly seeing the commander's expression darken, haunted by something. "For all the evil in that woman," the Tattered Prince whispers, his gaze fixed on something outside, "she truly loves her silver king."
Caggo blinks. "Commander?"
The Tattered Prince's jaw tightens, the muscles visible in his cheek. "I offered that woman a place at my side, to be the queen of Pentos and all the jewels and gold she wished. She refused, a sellsword, a prince of rags, a man like me she would not dishonour herself with. Yet she will pay handsomely for the death of her own son. Death of her own child, Caggo, she honours her thin, harp-playing king more than her own blood." His teeth grounds together.
"Is that why we've kept the boy like that for a moon?" Caggo asks slowly. "In revenge for her denial?"
The Tattered Prince did not bother to answer. Instead, he tugs his famous cloak back into place. "Summon every man to the bow, it is time."
Caggo bows his head and walks out. As he turns to walk up to the deck, his eyes drifts to the door of the woman's cabin in front of commander. Then he walks ahead, getting swallowed in the narrow hall.
The Tattered Prince descends the ladder, the golden cup of wine dangling from his hand like a worthless prize. Two guards stood beside a cabin door. One of them, a dark-skinned Summer Islander with shoulders as round and solid as a iron, steps forward seeing the commander coming.
"How is he?" the Tattered Prince asks.
"The same, Commander," the guard answers, his eyes avoiding the door. "Merris works on him all day with everything she has nails, knives, hammer. At night she has us lash him where his skin's scab over a wound." The man looks away briefly, unsettled by the memory. "But this past week… he has made no sound, only soft whimpers."
"Open it."
The door groans as it swing inward and the smell hits him first of iron, sourness, sweat, and blood. It smelt like a butcher's hut, and not a cabin of a ship.
Jon Targaryen sat where he had a moon ago, bolted to the iron chair, wrists and chest strapped so tightly that the skin had grown dark beneath the manacles. His body looked filled with sharp cuts, blunt punctures, and deep marks of purple bruises. The boy prince's fat had turned into a bluish pallor result of heavy blood loss over a long period of time and most of his hair gone either result of blood loss or torn out by hands of his company's resident torturer, he didn't care enough to ask. What he did know was that the boy has suffered as was the ask from prince Aegon in the contract.
The boy's chin rested on his chest, breath faint and shallow. The Tattered Prince kneels, gripping the boy's remaining hair what little was left of that dark bunch. lifting his head and he recoils seeing the eyes of his prisoner.
The boy's eyes once grey, he remembers looked almost white now, drained of everything they had in them, it reminded him of eyes of a drowned man when pulled from the sea days after death. Merris slips in behind him, wiping her hands on a cloth stained with the boy's dried blood.
"He's been silent for a week," she starts, her voice flat with no emotions. "You can try crunching his neck and I'd wager all my gold dragons that he will not thrash, forget about even screaming."
"That is what a moon of torment does to a trained man and this one was just a silver-spoon boy," the Tattered Prince replies, standing. He looked at the boy, and sees only a broken thing. The work seem finished now. "Carry him, we finish him tonight."
They drag the boy to the bow, the iron chair scraping against the planks, an ugly sound echoing all around. The night was moonless with clouds covering the stars, the sea below looking like an endless pit. The wind flowing silently.
The men of the Windblown gathered by the bow, their face filled with nervousness, when their commander the Tattered Prince stepped forward. "I know you do not like these waters," he speaks loudly, his voice cutting through the wind. "Nor do I. We will turn back soon, where the sun shines brightly and the waves are warm."
Hope ripples through the crowd starting a whisper talk. "But first… our guest." Laughter followed soon in a, cruel and eager sound. The men needed a spectacle to forget the cold. At the signal of the commander, two of the strongest lifted the iron chair. Jon sways sideways from the harsh movements, his head dangling down and the sight of his torn arms and legs stark in the lanternlight of the ship. They swung the chair toward the railing when Jon's eyes snap open, white as milk looking empty and terrifying, overlooking each and everyone of them at least once.
Everyone, even the man from King's Landing sent by Prince Aegon to witness his suffering and death flinches and takes a step back. "THROW HIM!" the Tattered Prince barks, seeing the effect the eyes had on everyone, from the moment that set on them.
The iron chair is then thrown overboard sending Jon, tied in chains, into darkness and the freezing killing ice. He expected to meet his end then and there, but words suddenly pulse before him in black
[A Shadow watches you, he had witnessed your suffering. He offers you a chance to prove your worth.
Pass his tests, and you will walk a path few have ever walked. Pass, and all chains will break.]
Jon tries to speak on instinct, but the sea steals the breath from his lungs. He could only manage a weak nod.
[The price is your ancestry, the blood that binds you to houses native to Planetos. Do you agree to lose them?]
His ancestry meant nothing to him after all that has happened. His kin had sold him for gold, spite and all things he care not. He nods again, the bobbing of head coming as frenzied jerk from his body due to lack of air.
[The pact is sealed. A new heritage is granted, you now carry the lineage of ********. He hopes you survive.]
The message flickers and then fades as if it never existed. Jon continues to sink deeper before he vanishes from there.
In crownlands, a thunderous crack, loud and heavy as any battle cry breaks the silence of the night. Rhaegar Targaryen jolts upright in the silken sheets of his bed, Elia and Lyanna clinging to either side of him. The chamber still smelled of sweat and sweet smell from their lovemaking, the sheets tangled around their legs like heavy ropes.
"Rhaegar!" Elia shouts, her voice heavy in awe and wonder and her finger pointing with a trembling hand toward the foot of the bed. The black-crimson dragon egg of his, the one thought barren centuries and warm for a moon breaks, as a leathery wing comes out of the shell.
In the north, a guard runs through the courtyard, half-blinded by heavy snow in the summer, his cloak sodden as he pounds at the lord's door frantically. Brandon Stark opens the door, coming out with his hair tousled and face tight with irritation at being woken at late hours. "What is it, Jory?"
"My lord…" The guard swallows, the snow covering his facial hair. "A pair of she-direwolves is in the yard, there are pups with them… and they seems standing there."
All across Planetos, same things happened for a curse was broken and magic of old returned.