The fleet didn't linger at Blood Sail Point. Euron left behind two longships and enough hands to mop up the battlefield and deal with the prisoners. The remaining warships hoisted their black sails once more, riding the brightening morning light into the vast ocean. Wind filled the canvas, prows cut the grey-green water, leaving a long, churning wake. On deck, warriors wiped their blades and adjusted their armor, a silence hanging over them thick with the hunger for the next conquest.
Their destination was Serpent's Tooth Island.
When the fleet arrived, the island was ominously silent. No warning horns, no enemy ships sailing out to meet them, not even a sentry patrolling the coast. Jagged black cliffs jutted from the sea like the teeth of a silent beast. A stagnant stillness suffocated the island, as if even the sound of waves crashing against the reefs had been swallowed by some invisible force.
Amidst this unsettling quiet, they spotted a solitary figure on the shore.
It was a woman with a graceful silhouette, her dark robes clinging to her curves as they fluttered in the breeze.
Most striking was her face—a mask woven from countless tiny metal plates covered the upper half, revealing only a defined jawline and deep eyes that seemed capable of piercing the soul. Sunlight occasionally broke through the clouds, glinting cold and eerie off the metal.
She was Evelyn, the mysterious Shadowbinder under Euron's command. She stood alone on the desolate dock, as if she had been waiting for an eternity, silently welcoming her master and his Iron Fleet.
---
The ruler of Serpent's Tooth Island was named Dag the Split-Throat, though the pirates called him "The Cackle."
The nickname came from the horrific wound spanning his throat—a gash deep enough to show bone, looking like a dark abyss. His vocal cords were shattered; he spoke no human words, only emitting raspy, broken, yet incredibly manic laughter that sounded especially bone-chilling during slaughter. His face was a roadmap of crisscrossing claw marks, adding to his hideousness.
He indulged in two things: beheading enemies amidst his mad laughter, and unchecked lust. His fortress was stuffed with women looted from all over, and he often spent heavy gold to summon skilled whores from the Silent Bay of the Stepstones for days of debauchery.
His end had already been written by Euron's own hand.
Long before the Iron Fleet arrived, the Shadowbinder Evelyn had infiltrated Serpent's Tooth Island like a phantom. She carried a secret poison developed with painstaking effort by Maester Qyburn—a toxin similar to "The Strangler," but with a sinister modification: it was delayed, waiting a full half-hour before taking effect.
Evelyn blended into a group of women arriving from Silent Bay. Dressed in silks as thin as cicada wings, her metal mask hidden in the shadows of her hood, she used her allure to walk unopposed into Dag Split-Throat's noisy, filthy hall.
The air reeked of ale, sweat, and lust. Dag sat high on his seat, that uncomfortable cackling leaking from his ruined throat. He was paranoid, even in pleasure. Every wine and dish had to be tasted by servants or pirates first. Only after a moment passed without incident would he partake.
Tonight was no different.
The women poured cups of mead with coy smiles, serving the pirates. Evelyn personally handed a cup to a burly man, watching him drain it. Another cup was tasted tremblingly by a female slave. Dag watched with his cloudy eyes, waiting. Moments passed, and the tasters showed no symptoms; if anything, they looked more excited. Reassured, he took the goblet and downed it in one gulp, a satisfied, terrifying gurgle rising from his torn throat.
He didn't know the fuse was already lit; the hourglass of death had quietly been turned.
---
For the next half hour, the revelry hit its peak. Then, Dag Split-Throat suddenly stopped his signature laughing. He clutched his belly, the scars on his face twisting in shock and agony. He tried to roar, but only a strangulated wheeze escaped. Almost simultaneously, every pirate and woman in the hall who had drunk the wine screamed and collapsed, bodies convulsing violently as black blood oozed from their mouths and noses.
The raucous fortress was instantly replaced by deathly silence, save for the echoes of suffocating gasps bouncing off the stone walls.
Evelyn stood quietly amidst the mess of corpses, her dark robes unstained by a single drop of blood. She looked coldly over the silent hell she had created, her eyes behind the metal mask rippling with nothing.
Prince Oberyn Martell stood at the gunwale, looking past the approaching docks to the solitary Shadowbinder. Evelyn's figure remained motionless in the salty wind, her mask reflecting the cold light of the sky. A complex emotion flickered in Oberyn's amorous eyes, turning into a barely audible sigh.
"Three whole years," Oberyn muttered, his voice almost drowned by the waves. "We traveled the Smoking Sea together, explored the shadows of Valyria... three years side by side..." His fingers absently tapped the carved railing, his tone holding a rare, almost regretful realization. "Back then, I never thought that the real treasure I should have brought back from those ruins wasn't ancient Valyrian steel, but a talent... like that."
He could imagine the use of such a Shadowbinder—more lethal than any poison, more intangible than any scheme.
The Ironborn warships docked slowly. The expected resistance never came.
No horns, no clash of steel, only a suffocating silence.
The landing became an eerie parade.
Soldiers with axes and swords swarmed silently into the fortress depths for the grisly "cleanup."
They dragged trembling survivors from cellars, pantries, and from under heavy oak beds—cooks, servants, and the few pirates lucky enough to miss the poisoned wine. Their begging and wailing were quickly cut short by sharp iron.
Inside the hall and corridors, even the corpses didn't escape.
Whether a pirate lord or a beautiful whore from Silent Bay, all were beheaded without exception. It was cold, bloody work. The Ironborn executed their orders mechanically—axe up, head down—the dull thuds echoing across the empty island.
All the heads—terrified, stiff, vacant—were gathered in the clearing before the fortress. They were roughly stacked, a bloody, grotesque pyramid of varied shapes. Hollow sockets stared out at the distant sea in unison, silently proclaiming the cruelty and absolute power of the conquerors.
This newborn "Crown of Sea Skulls," reeking of thick blood, became the only and most terrifying decoration on Serpent's Tooth Island, marking that Greyjoy rule had taken root.