The salt winds cut like knives as Aegon Targaryen rode Balerion down upon Great Wyk.
Below, the ironborn fought and bled amidst the blackened stones of their shattered holds. War had churned the Isles for two years, as captains and priests and raiders clawed at each other for the Seastone Chair. Smoke wreathed the shoreline, and the tide ran red with blood. The men of the sea had always loved their wars, but this war had broken them—left them a nest of squabbling crabs ripe for the dragon's fire.
With a roar that shook the cliffs, Balerion descended. The ironborn scattered, small as ants before the shadow of the Black Dread.
Aegon dismounted amidst the wreckage of Volmark's great hall, the Valyrian steel of Blackfyre gleaming darkly in his gauntleted hand. His crown caught the morning sun, rubies winking like blood-red stars.
"Qhorin Volmark!" he bellowed, voice carrying over the clash of steel and the roar of surf. "Come forth!"
Qhorin came. A brute of a man, clad in rusted mail, his beard braided with shells and bits of bone. His axe was black with blood, his eyes wild with a madness born of too many battles lost and won.
"You think to unmake us, Targaryen?" Volmark spat. "We are the sons of the sea! You will drown in salt and iron—"
Aegon answered with Blackfyre.
The duel was brief. Volmark charged like a boar, and Aegon met him with the calm of a winter storm. Their weapons rang once, twice—and then Aegon turned Volmark's charge aside with a twist of his body, bringing Blackfyre down in a vicious arc that split helm and skull alike. Qhorin Volmark crumpled to the ground, blood pooling in the cracked stones.
The Ironborn broke.
Some fled toward the ships, only to be driven back by the war fleets Orys Baratheon had arrayed around the isle. Others threw down their axes and swords and knelt where they stood.
Yet not all bowed.
At the strand of Nagga's Bones, where the grey ribs of the earth reared from the soil, the priest-king Lodos awaited. His followers—a ragged host of zealots—stood barefoot in the surf, chanting in tongues older than the Seven Kingdoms.
"The Drowned God will rise," Lodos cried, arms uplifted to the stormy skies. "You cannot burn the sea, dragonlord!"
Aegon, atop Balerion, said nothing.
With a mad laugh, Lodos waded into the waves, the waters rising to his knees, his waist, his chest. His disciples followed, singing as the tide claimed them one by one. Some struggled and thrashed as the sea filled their lungs. Others went limp, surrendering. At last, Lodos himself vanished beneath the waves, carried down into the cold embrace of his god.
By nightfall, the Iron Isles were Aegon's.
A council of captains and priests was summoned to Harlaw, where the great lords and lesser salt-kings came in humble supplication. Some urged Aegon to set the Isles aflame—to scour them with Balerion's breath and be done with their raiding forever. Others counseled placing the ironborn under the rule of Riverrun or Casterly Rock, to break their spirit and bind them to the green lands they despised.
Aegon heard them all. He stood in the broken hall of Harrenhal—burned and blackened, but still mighty—and weighed the voices.
At last he spoke.
"The Ironborn are of the sea," he said. "And the sea submits to no lord but its own. Let them name their leader, and let him bend the knee."
The captains muttered among themselves. Some called for blood, others for pride. But at last the name rose up, first a whisper, then a chant:
"Vickon Greyjoy."
A younger son of a lesser house, Vickon had proven his strength in the wars, gaining the respect of both reavers and thralls. No craven, but no fool either, Vickon Greyjoy knelt before Aegon and swore fealty, salt and sword alike.
Thus was the realm of the Iron Islands joined to the Seven Kingdoms—not by fire, but by salt, blood, and choice.
Aegon returned to Balerion's saddle as the first snows of winter kissed the sea, and the black wings of the dragon beat once, twice, thrice, lifting him high above the shattered shore.
One more crown bent.One more step toward a realm unbroken.
But even as he turned his gaze to the southern sands, the fires of defiance yet smoldered where no dragon had yet flown.
Dorne awaited.