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"Move! Move! Follow the ravens! Stay on them!"
Aeron Greyjoy ran point, eyes locked on the black birds circling above. They hadn't made it far—just down the mountain path, the sea still visible in the distance. Pale light shimmered on the water. Dawn was coming fast, but Aeron prayed the night would stretch a little longer. Just enough to get away.
Euron's voice echoed in his head. That brother who'd raped him as a boy, the one Aeron had buried deep and never spoken of. Now Euron was offering himself up as sacrifice. Aeron had hated him for decades. Still did. But in this moment he whispered a prayer anyway. Drowned God, let him live.
They reached a sheltered hollow. The ravens had led them here. Balon was breathing hard, too old for this kind of run. Aeron glanced at his brother. Balon gave a single nod, but his eyes held something close to pity. Aeron didn't notice.
A low chant rose around them—familiar, wrong. Aeron spun, searching for the source. Then he saw them. Dozens of mute thralls. Euron's puppets. They ringed the hollow like wolves.
Before Aeron could shout, a hand shoved him forward. Cold steel punched through his back and out his chest. The blade scraped bone as it pulled free. Hot blood flooded his lungs.
He looked up. The face staring back was one he knew too well.
"You... you were supposed to—"
The words died with him.
Wind exploded across the mountain. It screamed like a thousand widows, tearing at clothes and banners. The pursuers staggered, blinded by dust and fury. By the time the gale died, the survivors were gone.
The battle was over. Thirty thousand Ironborn had marched onto Harlaw. Fewer than ten thousand limped away. The thralls Jon had armed weren't real soldiers, but they had done enough. Rodrik Harlaw lay dead in the mud with half his house. The rest scattered toward Ten Towers.
Euron didn't wait. He loaded the survivors onto the fleet and abandoned the island. Harlaw was lost. Jon watched the sails vanish and knew exactly what had happened. Euron had sacrificed another brother—Aeron this time. The last of Balon's blood on the island.
Jon felt no triumph. Only cold certainty. Euron had to die. A man who used his own family as fuel for blood magic wasn't human anymore. He was something worse. And Jon needed to know what had twisted him. The same power that had touched Bran? The Green Seer? If the Three-Eyed Crow was pulling strings here too, then friend or enemy didn't matter. They were playing a game Jon didn't understand yet.
The next morning Jon took Ten Towers without a fight. The white sickle banners came down. In their place flew the black wolf of Stark, the rose of Tyrell, and half a dozen other houses. The castle rang with victory shouts. Casualties had been light—under a thousand for the whole campaign. The new way of war Jon had shown them worked.
Every lord wanted a piece of the next target: Great Wyk. They saw an easy repeat. Arm the thralls, burn the mines, starve the Ironborn out. Leo, the Citadel man everyone once called lazy, stood up in council.
"My lord, Great Wyk is already ripe. We don't need to bleed for it. Send one squadron to cut it off from Pyke and leave it to rot. The real prize is Pyke itself. End Euron and the islands fall."
The lords argued. They wanted glory. Jon listened, then shook his head.
"Euron won't make the same mistake twice. The moment we land on Great Wyk he'll hit us with everything he has. We go straight for Pyke. That's where he is. That's where we finish this."
Leo spread a map. "One problem. Pyke's only deep harbor is Lordsport. To take it we need most of the fleet in one place. And if we mass the ships, Euron drops another storm and we lose everything."
Silence fell. They had turned the tables on Euron once. Now the same trap waited for them.
Loras Tyrell broke it with a laugh. "Then build a ship big enough to ride out any storm. Something so massive you could hold a tourney on deck and it wouldn't even rock. That'd show the bastard."
The others chuckled. Jon didn't. He looked at Loras, then at the map, and smiled like a man who had just found the answer.
"You're right. We stop playing his game. We build something he can't break."