JEYNE POOLE
Ros had kept her word, shielding her from the rooms—for a time. The older northern lady made sure she wouldn't be sent to the men. But the day had come. Tonight, she would be sent to a customer.
Last week, they made sure she learned how to pleasure a man. She wept nearly every night afterward, wracked with shame she didn't know how to name.
She missed her mother. Her sisters. The way they braided each other's hair before sleep. Her father, who she was certain was dead after Lord Stark was beheaded. There was war, and not many frequented the brothels anymore. That was why, when a customer finally came, the madam grew eager—eager to accommodate whatever they asked.
She heard one of the older women calling her, telling her to prepare herself. She freshened up and made herself look pretty in the way they taught her to. Before, she and Sansa would choose their finest dresses for a feast and make sure they looked beautiful. She couldn't help but pity herself now. She was afraid—afraid that tonight might be the night they took her maidenhead. She barely heard the second call. It meant: stop crying. Fix your face. Don't look pathetic. You're being paid for.
One night. Whoever the wretched man was who would claim her. She could only pray he wouldn't beat her too. She had seen what happened to the other girls. Ros had explained that some men had cruel tendencies. Preferences.
"Offer wine," Ros had said. "Smile. Pray he's old or tired. Fewer times means less pain." She had told her most men could do it three times at most. Older men maybe once or twice.
She looked at the mirror. Her dress clung like mist—sheer and humiliating. She stared at her reflection, as if this was the last time she'd see the girl she used to be.
—
On their way to the inn, she wondered if anyone still remembered her. Had they already thought her dead? That only made it worse. If she was already dead to them, then whatever sliver of hope she still clung to was gone. Would they even welcome her, if one day she returned? She doubted it. She had resigned herself to her fate—she would be a whore for the rest of her life. Tainted. There was no going back. Maybe, one day, she could visit. From a distance. Just once.
She picked at her cuticles as she waited in the room after Mariah left for the night. This was it. She felt dread building in her chest. She wanted to cry, but Ros had warned her—men didn't like crying. Only the cruel ones did. So no, she held it in.
But the man had asked for a maiden.
Worse—he had asked for a child.
She felt sick to her stomach and poured herself a cup of the wine sitting on the table.
A tall, slender man came in. He looked foreign. Pentoshi, maybe. She recited her lessons in her head and did as she was trained to do. She kept her cape on. Ros had told her to only move at the customer's instruction. She greeted the man quietly, and he only regarded her. He looked uninterested. That made her more nervous as he studied her.
He asked her name, and she answered, nervous but controlled.
She gave him a false one. But then the man warned her not to lie, told her he would know if she did. She repeated the lie anyway, her eyes darting toward the corners of the room.
"Tell me who you are. Your fate depends on your answer," he said, voice dangerous as he unsheathed his dagger.
She told herself not to cry, but the fear broke through, and the tears started to fall.
"Jeyne… just Jeyne, ser," she said quietly.
"Well, go on then. Tell me who you are, that I may take pity on you," he said.
She answered all his questions. She didn't know why he asked so much. Was he planning to hurt her? To use her as revenge against House Stark? Was she the last one they could torture?
Then he asked for proof of who she was. She showed him the burn scar on her left ankle.
He didn't ask anything else and poured her a goblet of wine. Told her to drink.
Then he gave her another. And one more after that.
By the third, the room had started to tilt.
And then she blacked out.
She woke to the sway of wood. Light, soft and warm, was coming through a round window. Not torchlight—sunlight. The sheets were real. The air smelled clean. Salt. Rope. Wood. No wine. No sweat. No men. She didn't move. She stared at the ceiling, heart pounding. Then it hit her—she was on a ship.
Her breath caught. She still had her cape on. She sat up fast and checked herself. There were no aches. Her arms. Her legs. Then, nervously, between her thighs. There was no pain. No blood. No soreness. Her fingers trembled. Did they clean me? Why would they clean a whore? She didn't understand. Was she still dreaming?
She got to her feet, slowly. Nothing hurt. She walked to the pitcher of water on the table and drank. Then she saw it. A dress. Folded on the trunk. Blue. High-necked. Long-sleeved. A proper dress. She stared at it like it might disappear. She changed into it anyway. Even if the dress was just packaging, it was better than the other thing.
She moved to the porthole and looked out. Sea. Nothing but sea and sky. Her stomach flipped. Was she being taken east? Sold to someone worse? But she was already a whore. She remembered that in Essos they owned slaves. That meant even the hope of seeing her family from a distance was gone. She could never escape slavery. At least, even if she was a whore and she got older, she might be sent to a sept. Maybe there was something worse than being a whore in a brothel.
Then—three knocks.
She jumped. The door opened. The man from before stepped inside. The same Pentoshi. His coat was the same.
"You're awake," he said.
She didn't answer. Her fingers curled around the edge of the table.
"Where am I?" Her voice was hoarse.
"A trading ship. Northbound."
"Did you... buy me?" She swallowed.
He didn't blink. "No."
"Then what am I?"
"You're not mine. You belong to yourself."
She didn't believe him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
"I am Maereth," he said. "I serve the Grand Princess Ruyan."
She blinked. Sansa's goodsister had sent for her?
"My orders are to find you," he said, "and bring you home."
Her lips parted, but no words came. She stared at him. The world felt tilted. She didn't know what to feel.
"Please, ser," she whispered, voice cracking, "I beg of you not to make me dare hope."
She heard the man sigh. "You will believe it more once we dock in White Harbor. You are free to go outside to check for yourself. I've told them you're my daughter." Then he left.
She didn't believe it fully. She went outside to check. And when she saw the endless sea and felt the fresh wind on her face, she dared to hope.
DACEY MORMONT
Pain. That was the first thing Dacey felt—not the clean ache of a sparring bruise, but something raw and molten that seemed to pulse with every heartbeat. Fire bloomed across her chest and shoulder as consciousness dragged her up from the black depths of nothing. Her eyes cracked open to unfamiliar stonework above—too smooth, too pale for Bear Island or Winterfell.
The wrongness of it sent alarm racing through her veins. She lurched upright with a growl that scraped her throat raw, ignoring the way the movement sent lightning through her torso. Bandages bit into her skin—tight, clean wrappings that smelled of foreign herbs rather than Northern honey and pine.
Where was she?
Then memory crashed back like a tide of ice water. The ambush. Pyke's wind-lashed shores. Theon Greyjoy's face—that squid-blooded bastard.
The door creaked open with the soft whisper of well-oiled hinges. Dacey's hand shot out instinctively, fingers closing around the ceramic water pitcher on the bedside table. Not much of a weapon, but she'd cave a skull with it if needed.
The girl who entered—barely more than a child, with mouse-brown hair and Glover colors on her simple dress—gasped and stumbled backward. "Lady Dacey! You're awake!"
The relief in the girl's voice made Dacey's grip loosen slightly. "Who—?"
"Gillane Glover, my lady. Lord Glover's youngest." The words tumbled out in a nervous rush. "Mother said to fetch the maester the moment you stirred."
"Water," she croaked.
Gillane hurried forward with a cup, hands shaking slightly as she helped Dacey drink. The water was cool and sweet, washing away the staleness of unconsciousness. With each swallow, more memories surfaced—the whistle of arrows through salt air, the wet sound of steel finding flesh, her own voice screaming orders as her men fell around her.
The maester arrived moments later, an elderly man whose gentle hands prodded at her bandages with professional detachment. "Multiple arrow wounds," he explained in his reedy voice. "One pierced clean through your shoulder, another grazed your ribs. You lost considerable blood. The YiTish healers on the ship performed the initial surgery—quite skillfully, I must say. Without them…"
He didn't need to finish. Dacey had seen enough battlefield wounds to know when death had passed close enough to taste.
Lady Glover came next, her weathered face grave as winter stone. She explained how the YiTish captain had sent their messenger pigeons racing up the coast even as they fought off Ironborn longships at the harbor mouth. Some had gotten through—enough to raid fishing villages and burn granaries—but the warning had saved lives.
"The others?" Dacey asked, though she dreaded the answer.
"Three dead. Two wounded, but they'll live." Lady Glover's jaw tightened. "The YiTish pulled you all from the water. Said you were barely breathing when they hauled you aboard."
Dacey closed her eyes, feeling the weight of those deaths settle into her bones. Good men.
"Send word to Winterfell," she said, her voice steady despite the rage building in her chest. "Tell them the ironborn made their move."
Gillane hesitated by the doorway, then said softly, "We sent word days ago, my lady. But there's been no answer from Winterfell.
If the princess had sent her to Pyke, she wouldn't leave Winterfell exposed. Princess Ruyan didn't gamble lives without laying traps of her own.
But even as the words left her lips, doubt gnawed at her like a hunger that wouldn't be fed. She hadn't seen Theon during the attack—not commanding, not fighting, not even fleeing. Just arrows falling like deadly rain and voices shouting in that harsh Ironborn tongue. Voices that could have belonged to anyone.
If he hadn't betrayed them, where was he? Why hadn't he warned them? Why had he vanished?
And if he had...
She knew the Iron Islands, knew their ways. They didn't follow blood or birthright—they followed strength. Salt kings earned their crowns with steel and fire, not pretty words or family names. If Theon wanted to claim his heritage, he'd have to prove himself worthy.
And there was only one way a prodigal son could do that. With Northern blood on his hands. With the lives of men who'd called him brother. With her life, offered up like tribute to buy back a crown he'd never learned to wear.
She hadn't seen him give the order. But his absence spoke louder than any battle cry.
Dacey's fingers curled into the rough wool blanket, knuckles white with the force of her grip. She imagined it was a mace handle, imagined the satisfying crack of bone beneath iron. The rage was good—it burned away the weakness, the doubt, the lingering ache of betrayal.
Let her bones mend. Let her strength return. Let Theon Greyjoy think himself safe on his salt-soaked throne.
When she was ready, she'd remind the Iron Islands what it meant to betray the North. She'd show them what Bear Island fury looked like when it came calling.
And she'd make sure Theon Greyjoy remembered—right before she caved his skull in—that the wolves had raised him, but the bears would be the ones to put him down.