Euron made a request to his father, King Quellon, that came as a surprise: He decided to move out of the main keep of Pyke. He would no longer live on the same island as his parents, but relocate to a remote, desolate islet about an hour's sail away.
The official reason was dignified enough: He needed a quieter space to study, think, and supervise the winemaking process and the newly established ironworks.
But very few knew the deeper reason: The Red Priestess and the Shadowbinder—whose face was always hidden—were practicing increasingly profound magic. Their rituals were accompanied by unpredictable whispers, strange lights, and eerie phenomena. If these sights occurred in the densely populated Pyke, they could easily trigger baseless panic and unrest among the superstitious Ironborn.
That lonely island would become their undisturbed land of shadows. Euron named it Ironwind Island!
This isolated rock, now belonging solely to Euron, jutted out of the freezing sea like a fang abandoned by the gods. It was surrounded by towering, jagged sea stacks—black monoliths that looked like the spines of lurking sea monsters, appearing and disappearing in the waves, ready to tear open the hull of any ship daring enough to approach.
Even more daunting was the weather. The area seemed cursed by eternal gales. Fierce winds howled year-round, whipping up monstrous waves that smashed against the reefs with thunderous roars, tossing any ship attempting to cross like a toy.
Even local fishermen who knew these waters best would steer clear, keeping a respectful distance from this labyrinth of death. They whispered terrible legends about the place, regarding it as a sailor's graveyard.
However, these treacherous currents and storms—a natural moat to ordinary men—were the perfect shield for Euron Greyjoy.
The blood of the Grey King flowing in his veins gave him a supernatural connection to the sea. To his ears, the gale wasn't just noise; it carried information about direction, speeding his ship along. To his senses, the undertow wasn't chaos; it was a clearly navigable path. The fog and storms that would send other captains to a watery grave could not lose him, nor trouble him.
This terrifying stretch of sea was, for him, nothing more than the familiar hallway to his home. It was his strongest, most private outer wall—a natural defense.
After moving into his new home, Euron Greyjoy's daily life fell into a strange, disciplined rhythm.
Every day at dawn, before the morning light could burn off the gray sea mist, Euron would step onto his silent skiff. His handmaiden, Lisa, would quietly follow. Together, they rowed skillfully toward the main keep of Pyke.
The cold seawater slapping against the hull served as the prelude to their daily agenda.
In the stone halls of Pyke, he would handle the complex affairs of the Iron Islands alongside his father, King Quellon, and his brother Balon—ranging from friction between island lords to the delicate diplomatic games with the Seven Kingdoms. He would break his fast with his mother, brothers, and nephews.
But when the political duties paused, that was when Euron truly lived for himself. He would head straight to the training grounds, where the Dothraki instructor, Vittorio Grey, was always waiting.
Years of relentless discipline and training had already pushed Euron's physical strength far beyond his peers. The agile water dancing techniques of Braavos, once his focus, now seemed too light for his growing power.
In contrast, the Dothraki fighting style taught by Vittorio—a blend of wild prairie agility, explosive, fire-like offense, and unpredictable rhythms—better suited Euron's brute strength and the wildness deep in his heart.
More importantly, Euron was determined to conquer another vital skill: horsemanship.
When it came to understanding and controlling these great creatures, no people surpassed the Dothraki. They were born in the saddle; man and horse were almost one. And Euron's mount, Falulu, needed a master who could truly achieve that unity. Thus, Vittorio Grey was not just his combat instructor, but his only bridge to mastering elite horsemanship. Amidst the salty wind and flying dust, Euron painstakingly learned to communicate with his warhorse, to channel its momentum into a killing blow, all to seize the initiative on the wider battlefields to come.
After lunch, when the glare on the water became harsh, Euron would walk alone to the shore and untie the mooring rope of his light skiff. Without a word needed, Lisa would follow. The oars cut through the calm water, carrying them away from the noise of Pyke, back to his lonely island of solitude.
The island rose from the sea like a jagged black tooth, and the desolate Ghost Tower standing at its center was the sharpest point of that fang.
Legends claimed ancient wraiths haunted this place, but Euron treated them with disdain. In fact, he welcomed any ghosts; they would just be soul-food for the unspeakable power of the Soul-Soul Fruit deep within him. Besides, he was constantly accompanied by two figures: Gwendolyn, the Red Priestess of R'hllor in her crimson robes, whose very existence was like a burning fire; and Evelyn, the Shadowbinder shrouded in eternal darkness. If there were real ghosts here, they would likely flee in terror from these two.
The Ghost Tower had been thoroughly cleaned, stripped of years of dust and cobwebs, yet it retained a cold emptiness. The four-story tower was now home to only ten people, making every footstep echo lonely and clear against the stone walls.
These ten were: The master, Euron; his secretary, Lisa; the Red Priestess Gwendolyn; the Shadowbinder Evelyn; the loyal but terrifying-looking guard "Cleftjaw" Dagmer; Dagmer's son Lloyd, who was in his prime; Dagmer's silent, resilient Rock Wife; and his two Salt Wives. The last resident was the newly joined, perpetually pale Maester Qyburn.
Dagmer had moved his entire family to serve. His Rock Wife and Salt Wives handled all the chores in the tower—laundry, cooking, cleaning—maintaining a rough but orderly life in the cold stone structure. His son Lloyd took on all the heavy labor requiring strength: chopping wood, repairs, moving goods. Here, no one was redundant.
As for the new Maester, Qyburn... he had purely looked for trouble himself.
Deep within the Citadel, amidst the scent of ancient scrolls and a thousand herbs, Maester Qyburn's thirst for knowledge had quietly deviated into shadows no one else dared explore. He started with a pure obsession for healing, but driven by a compulsion to unlock the mysteries of life, his research unknowingly slipped into a dangerous abyss—a horrific field combining traditional medicine with forbidden blood magic and even older dark rituals. This research required fresh bodies, specifically "materials" hovering on the edge of life and death.
However, Qyburn was fundamentally a scholar with no combat ability. His remaining conscience prevented him from harming innocents, and he had no stomach for murder. All he could do was creep out in the dead of night like a scavenging vulture, tremblingly searching for unclaimed corpses. It was hard work, and the materials rarely met his experimental standards.
When news reached the Citadel that the Arbor was about to go to war with the Iron Islands, Qyburn agonized between fear and desire. In the end, his greedy hunger for knowledge won out. He gritted his teeth, braved immense risks, crossed the sea, and infiltrated the island destined for war, death, and sorrow.
On the night the war began, just as he was dragging a relatively "fresh" soldier's body into a sack, torchlight suddenly flared, illuminating his pale, terrified face. A patrol of Ironborn soldiers caught him red-handed, blades instantly pressing against his thin neck.
He was roughly dragged before Euron Greyjoy. To Qyburn's surprise, the Ironborn leader, famous for his ruthlessness, didn't execute him after a brief interrogation. Instead, Euron's eyes revealed a playful interest, as if he had found a rare treasure. Euron mused to himself: There aren't many Maesters whose names I know, but Qyburn is one of the most familiar. And fate delivered him right to my doorstep.
This is destiny! He is destined to be my slave—no, my Maester!
"A man who dares to dig for truth in a mountain of corpses... might be more useful than ten ordinary Maesters." Euron's voice betrayed no emotion, yet it decided Qyburn's fate. He spared Qyburn's life.
Of course, this "mercy" wasn't free. Qyburn quickly understood that his life no longer belonged to himself; it belonged entirely to Euron Greyjoy. He had to use his lifetime of learning, his forbidden research, and his everything to "repay" this debt of life. A bond stronger than chains now tied him tightly to the shadows of the Iron Islands. But when he saw the Red Priestess and the Shadowbinder, Qyburn felt that even being a slave to this man might not be so bad after all.
When night fell and the lonely island returned to silence, accompanied only by waves and wind, those unspeakable "experiments" quietly took place in the dim lighthouse or deep sea caves. Any ominous red light or twisted shadows that leaked out were swallowed by the boundless roar of the sea.
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