The Breaker of the Oceans, Chapter 30

“Say that again, little man,” Hela whispered.

Her voice was low, rough with sea-wind and smoke. She grinned as she lifted the warrior off the ground with one hand, his thick neck clenched in her grip like rope pulled taut. His boots scraped at the floor, steel toes catching nothing but dust. His armor clinked dully as she slammed him back against the stone, hard enough to crack mortar. He thrashed, gasped. Her hand tightened.

The torchlight caught his face—bruised, spitting, red from the pressure. His fingers clawed at her wrist, nails scratching at leather. She loosened her grip. Just a little. Enough for him to speak.

He didn’t.

Instead, he roared. A sound more rage than breath. He swung a fist the size of a mallet. She caught it with her elbow, a sharp clack of bone on bone. Then, in the same motion, she summoned a necroblade into her free hand—thin, black, alive with a dull shimmer—and drove it clean through his palm.

The steel bit into the wall behind him. Pinned him there like a banner nailed to wood.

The scream echoed. Metal and blood. His body arched. She stepped in close. Her grip shifted, fingers digging deeper into his throat.

“I told you to say it again.”

He wheezed. A wet sound. His good hand twitched toward his belt, toward a blade he’d never draw. She eased up, just enough. He coughed, spat blood, and locked eyes with her.

“Your father,” he rasped, “is a coward who’s forgotten the old ways. He counts coin more than he reaves. More merchant than man.”

Hela stared at him. The grin returned.

“I was hoping,” she said, “you’d actually repeat it.”

Then she clenched.

The sound that followed was not a crack but a rupture—like fruit burst underfoot, like bone shoved through wet cloth. His head came apart in her grip. Blood sprayed across the stone, dark and thick, painting her arm from elbow to knuckle. The corpse sagged, nailed by the hand to the wall, twitching once before going still.

She dropped what was left of him.

Behind her, the Einherjar stood in perfect silence. Twelve of them, still as statues, cloaked in midnight and bearing blades longer than most men were tall. No one moved. No one spoke.

Hela turned her head slightly. Her grin was gone now. Her voice, when she spoke again, was flat and cold.

“No one insults my father and gets to live.”

She stepped over the pooling blood, boots trailing crimson. The torchlight behind her flickered once and died. Her Einherjar followed her as she marched forth.

It had been two days since the Doom anchored in the port of Pyke. Two days since black sails cut through the morning mist and settled beneath the shadow of the cliffs. Two days since the gangplank thudded down and she stepped onto her father’s island once more. Valon had met her at the docks himself, arms open, cloak fluttering in the wind, his men standing behind him in silent ranks.

Two days since she embraced him in full view of the harbor, blood still caked on her boots from Asshai. Since they walked side by side through the growing city, past towers of stone and gardens in the sky. Past crowds who bowed their heads or looked away, depending on what they remembered.

Two days since she’d hidden Fenrir.

The hatchling, still small enough to curl beneath her cloak, had been sealed in a chamber of carved stone beneath the castle, fed with raw meat and silence. No Targaryen would see it. Not yet. Not until the green fire in his breath could level keeps. Until his wings could blot the sky.

The royals were coming. The dragons were coming. And for now, Fenrir would remain a secret.

In those two days, Hela learned something else. Something quieter. Something crawling beneath the stone of her home.

The Ironborn had begun to forget.

Not the veterans. Not the old men with salt-cracked hands and eyes that had watched her drag enemies screaming into the tide. Not the priests who still whispered her name at high tide, carving her likeness into driftwood and slate, or the ones who carved great stone blocks in her image and likeness. Not the mothers who pressed their sons to kneel when she passed, lips moving in prayers older than the Faith.

But the young.

The ones who had grown with dreams of conquest, like the Ironborn of old. Who thought to raid, pillage, and plunder like their ancestors. Who’d grown restless, perhaps, in the peace of the golden age her father had brought about. Who had never seen her tear a man’s arms from his shoulders. Who thought her legend was just that—a tale, stretched long in the telling. They saw gold flowing in from every corner of Pyke and mistook it for weakness. They saw peace and thought it meant safety. They saw fewer and fewer ships leaving the Iron Islands to delight in the old ways. 

One of them had insulted her father.

She had handled it. Quickly. Visibly. Messily.

But he was not the first.

The wedding was a week and a half away. Already she had dealt with five others. Five who had spoken too loudly in taverns. Who had mocked her father’s reforms, his character, or questioned the worth of the kraken banner. One had tried to draw steel on her. One had fled. The rest simply stood their ground, convinced their strength or their youth or their numbers would save them.

None had lived past the hour.

She made examples of them. One strung up on the docks with his entrails caught in the tide. Another drowned and hung in chains from the harbor walls. A third torn apart by her Einherjar in a circle of salt, his limbs cast to the waves. The fourth and the fifth demanded duels. They were braver than the others. Hela would grant them that much. But she tore them apart all the same, and then cast their broken remains upon the rocks for all to see.

Now, when she passed, the crowds were quieter. The stares shorter. The kneeling more frequent. Even the young Ironborn, the same ilk as those she’d slaughtered, now bent the knee to her. 

They were beginning to remember. That was good, because she really did not want to spend most of her time putting down the idiots who thought they could challenge her. She also didn’t want to allow these miscreants to embarrass her father when the royal family inevitably came. 

Her father was busy. He always was. Valon Greyjoy was not a man who rested easily, and less so now, hunched over tables piled with ledgers, fingers stained with ink. Accountants hovered nearby, parchment unfurled, quills scratching quietly, their low murmurs rising and falling in a rhythm she recognized from childhood. The East Essos Trading Company demanded his hours as fiercely as any warlord’s sword. 

The wedding preparations were his only concession to distraction, and even then he delegated that duty elsewhere. Designers from Lys and Pentos moved briskly through the halls, hands waving directions, pointing to bare walls and empty corridors. Decorators measured halls and archways, scribbling numbers into notebooks. Tapestries were hung, taken down, rehung in new patterns. Flowers arrived daily on ships from the Reach, bundled and dripping with dew, their petals bruised by the sea winds.

Down in the vast kitchens beneath Pyke’s newly raised halls, cooks shouted over steaming pots, knives flashing fast as swords in battle. Braavosi chefs in tall white hats clashed with Dornish spice merchants, each waving fingers or spoons dripping sauces, their faces flushed red with argument. Bakers from King’s Landing lined ovens with trays of dough, working elbow-to-elbow with Summer Islanders who chopped strange fruit into bowls bright with color. Meat smoked on spits taller than a man, dripping fat sizzling against iron. Servants scurried underfoot, carrying trays piled with all manner of ingredients. The air was thick and rich with smells, savory and sweet, smoke and spice tangled together until they became a single overwhelming scent.

Her father had said it would be simple. Quiet. Just family and close friends. But he had invited the Royal Family—dragons and all—and now simplicity was drowning beneath pageantry and politics. Pyke groaned under the weight of preparations. Even from here she could hear hammers ringing, workers calling out orders as scaffolding rose higher around the towers. Ironborn and thralls sweated side by side, lifting beams and hauling stone. 

And then there were the dragons.

The beasts had to go somewhere. Her father had thought about that too. A pit had been carved deep into the stoney hills near Pyke, broad enough to swallow ten dragons whole, lined with thick iron chains and great rings bolted into the rock. She had walked its edge once already, feeling the heat still radiating from the stones laid fresh into the pit’s base, the sweat running down the faces of men who labored with shovels and picks to finish it in time.

It had never been tested. No dragons had yet stretched their wings in its darkness, or felt the cold metal of its chains. The architects whispered nervously behind their hands, glancing upward at empty skies as if imagining shapes already looming above.

“Hela, my beloved daughter,” Valon said, rising from behind his desk as she stepped into his solar. His hands opened wide in greeting, palms up, rings glinting in the light from the high windows. “What brings you here today? Have you run out of idiots to hunt? Or are you hungry?”

She huffed. Just once. A small sound, dry in her throat. Her mouth twitched at the corner. Odin never spoke like that. Never fussed. He had watched her bleed in training yards and said nothing. Had weighed every effort, measured every wound, and handed out praise like coin to beggars. Maybe that was why she always fought to earn so little from him. Why his silence haunted louder than war drums.

Her new father was different.

She stepped into the room. The doors closed behind her, the heavy wood catching softly. She shook her head. “I’ve thought of an event,” she said. “Something to add to the wedding.”

Valon tilted his head. His fingers laced behind his back. “Oh? Do tell. One can never have too much spectacle. And I imagine your definition of celebration includes some form of violence.”

She gave him a look. Then a shrug. “Do you remember that tournament in Yi Ti?”

His smile crept back. “Of course I do. A glorious affair. Though, if I recall, the outcome was certain the moment you stepped onto the sands. I believe the final match was over before the herald finished announcing it.”

Hela gave a small nod. “I don’t plan to join this one. Spoils the fun. I want it to be a proper melee, split into three brackets.”

She moved to the map table at the center of the solar, trailing fingers along its edge. Pyke sat near the center, carved in black stone. She tapped it once.

“The first bracket,” she said, “is for the thralls and smallfolk. No weapons. No armor. Just fists and grit. Whoever wins, wins.”

“The second,” she continued, “will be for the soldiers, the trained fighters. They’ll fight with wooden weapons. No armor. Just enough pain to make it entertaining.”

“The third bracket will be for the nobles. Steel dulled but still heavy. Full armor. Helmets. Let them knock each other around until someone earns their applause.”

“A melee tournament but with commoners involved.” Valon raised a brow, watching her carefully. He reached for a glass of dark wine, took a small sip, and said nothing for a moment. “And what shall we give the winners?”

She shrugged again. “That part I leave to you. Maybe a chest of coin. Maybe land. Or a favor from the East Essos Trading Company. Doesn’t matter to me. The honor, pride, blood and the bruises will be enough for most.”

Valon turned to the window. He sipped again, his face unreadable for a long moment.

Then he laughed. Quiet at first, then louder.

“Oh, Hela,” he said, shaking his head. “You want to host a wedding and a battle all in one breath. Prince Daemon, I believe, would be very interested in something of this sort. It’ll be fun to see him quarrel with Ser Criston Cole again. And I have heard rumors of Ser Harwin Strong’s prowess, which I would very much enjoy seeing.” 

A day later, Caraxes was spotted flying over the horizon.