Asha?

  "A storm is like to be the death of us if we sail in this condition," Qarl mentioned, toying with a lock of sandy hair.

  "Storm," Solomon's uncanny gull repeated. It had somehow learned to speak.

  The wealth of a score merchant ships filled her Black Wind, and the gold price had seen her hoard swell further still. Grandfather had been right. The iron price was not without its uses, but to forsake the gold was folly.

  How much richer could the isles be if they leveraged all their thousand ships in trade as much as reaving?

  "What else do we have a sorcerer for?" she asked.

  As if the very mention had summoned him, she spied his yellow figure stalking through the sun-bleached harbor.

  The snake had chosen to stay in her mother's company for a time, whereas her princely father had gone shortly after the queerest wedding she had ever seen. Supposedly to seek out the sellsword company he founded in his years cavorting across the Free Cities.

  Qarl had turned sour as a lemon as he followed her eyes.

  It wasn't only her that Volantis had been kind to. Her sorcerer had come to it a walking corpse. Now the horror had all but fled him, leaving only the nauseating yellow smothering him. There was even a skip in his step as he approached them.

  A handsome smile graced his lips, half-hidden by a wild torrent of blackest hair. "I think I have kept you long enough."

  The three of them would soon watch as Volantis was slowly swallowed up by the horizon. When it had almost gone, he spoke again in dulcet tones.

  "A ship left Volantis this morn for Lys."

  Her eyes trailed up to meet his dark eyes, sun-kissed skin unblemished. A nagging thought tore at her for it. How could she trust her eyes after all she'd seen?

  "Any more riches and we might sink with them," she said instead. They were not words she had ever imagined herself speaking.

  "It is not its cargo I would give you," he whispered lowly. "Your father waits for you, and its crew will give you fair winds to speed you on your way to him."

  It tugged her thoughts to when she had watched him put a sword through a bear's heart, filling her black sails with an uncanny wind. Asha much liked the idea.

  "Chart a course to Lys!" she shouted. They could have three days on her and still not outrun her Black Wind.

  She returned her eyes to his with a sly smile. "I would have you teach me. A cut throat to put some wind in my sails…"

  Her heart quickened as he pressed against her, caressing her cheek. "You would have me make a sorceress of you also?"

  "I would," she husked back. The ironborn had never seen a queen. Mayhaps she would be easier to swallow if she wasn't only a woman.

  Her eyes glanced at Qarl, his pretty eyes angry. The sight only tickled her humors further.

  She was surprised when Solomon drew her eyes back to him and claimed her lips. He tasted like saffron and blood.

  Retreating, he surprised her again by turning his attentions upon her hissing kitten, hanging over him like a vulture in yellow. "I wonder if I shouldn't teach you also."

  His tongue seemed more tied than when it worked at her quim. "I have no need for a sorcerer's tricks," he finally grumped. "My sword serves me just as well."

  "A pity, with how much blood has stained it."

  It all amused her terribly. "He might be more amenable if you kissed him also."

  He looked at her betrayed, as if it was the first time she had teased him.

  "Even a cat has claws," Solomon said instead.

  Her painted black nails stuck out amidst all the yellow as she pulled him back to her. This time it was her that claimed his lips, ignoring the part of her that still wondered if she was kissing a horror.

  Qarl looked sour for it even when she kissed him also. A queen could have as many paramours as she liked.

  She tugged both of them back to her cabin. The parchment kingdom had thankfully remained in Volantis.

  Asha sprawled across her bed as she waited for a sorcerer to teach her sorcery. It couldn't be any worse than a maester's lessons.

  Solomon first painted them a picture with his words. A warrior, a priest, and a merchant might all know something of sorcery, but it was unlikely they would wield it the same way.

  A price was paid, and what it bought only you could say.

  Her kitten might have hissed and fussed yet now he was just as enthralled as her.

  A dagger had found Solomon's hands. She saw it for what it was. Valyrian steel.

  His skin parted as easy as parchment where the edge passed, his blood not red but yellow.

  It smeared across the wood as he proffered his hands to her. "Your Grace."

  Asha raised a brow as she stood, placing her hands into his own, some of the weeping yellow smearing on her skin. Her lips parted in surprise as a queer sensation passed across her, and she stared as her nails lengthened into something like claws, still black as sin.

  "If you harbor even a shadow of a doubt, the sorcery is like to take the reins from you," he continued as she marveled at them. "You might not be too happy with where it takes you."

  There was a hint of something self-deprecating there. But she had grown bored of words anyway.

  The nauseating yellow that smothered him didn't tear under her new claws as she hoped. Instead they smeared more yellow across her hands as his dark eyes stared down at her amused.

  "It would cast me in a poor light if I hadn't brought gifts for both of you." She watched as he swept away, the best of her warriors staring back at him not unlike a doe. "Your sword, if you would."

  The words stirred a jest from her. "Which sword? He's two."

  He sent her another unhappy look for it. "The steel. I'll leave the other to your queen."

  Stirring himself to it after a breath, the sunlight streaming into her cabin danced across its length. "Care that you don't give me reason to see your blood stain it also, sorcerer," he warned. Her kitten had found his claws again.

  Solomon only smiled. "That's the idea."

  Qarl flinched at the sudden movement, yet it was already done, yellow crawling down the blade from where her sorcerer had cut himself on it. A few whispered words saw the sword drinking it in.

  It reminded her of a mirror silver as a Valyrian.

  "It isn't Valyrian steel. Not yet. The more blood that stains it…"

  A pout found her lips as he continued in that low whisper.

  Her kitten meanwhile stared at him in something between thankfulness and suspicion. "A fine gift…" he finally murmured.

  Asha stirred herself to them, draping herself over Solomon. "I'll want my axes changed into this sorcerer's steel also," she husked into his ear.

  "The Faith counts greed a sin," he seemed to tease.

  She didn't care for it. "The greenlanders say many fool things."

  "I'll see if I can't oblige you once we catch our quarry."

  Tsk. She was not made to wait. "Then you can entertain your queen by fucking for her amusement." Yet neither stirred themselves, even when she pinned her kitten with a glare. "I'll throw your new sword to the Drowned God if you deny me again."

  Still they denied her. The gall!

  "Where was this mutiny in Lys, hmm?" she sweetly asked instead.

  His pink cheeks turned pinker. "That wasn't the same."

  Solomon slipped away not unlike a snake to kiss her cheek. "Jealousy is unbecoming, Your Grace."

  Annoyed, she pushed them both out of her cabin. "You can sleep out in the rain tonight. Ungrateful whoresons."

  She shut the door behind them. A nap would do her well, she supposed.

  The morning had found their quarry, a sleek ship the color of oats and honey on the horizon. She breathed in the salt-stained air with a smile, her Black Wind's new sails splendorous under the sun. A fine day for blood to be spilled.

  Adjusting their course, she eyed the sorcerer that joined her, his eyes closed.

  Not a word passed his lips as they gained on their quarry, Hagon's warhorn crying long and low. This close, she could see that a panic had taken them.

  The slaughter began in earnest.

  It did not take long for her to hear a surrender. The sight of her ironborn in pitch-black plate and chain did much to cool hot tempers.

  Its captain reminded her of Saan with half the stones as she wiped her axes on his garish ensemble. "We've no plunder," he pleaded with her. "Only—"

  "Slaves," Solomon finished. "I know."

  The captain trembled at the sight of him, all the yellow that trailed after him drinking in the bloodstained deck.

  "I would warn you against speaking so freely," he continued, "but what would be the point? Your story ends here, Laemo Pepaeon, and I'm not convinced it isn't a mercy with a name as that."

  The colorful creature stared at him aghast, going as pale as his silver hair. Likely he had failed to imagine not being ransomed.

  "Mercy," the bedamned gull repeated, pecking at a dead man's eyes.

  Asha followed her sorcerer into the bowels of the Maiden Piper, taking care to not step into the yellow trailing after him. It was there she saw its cargo, the sickeningly sweet scents of a half dozen perfumes assaulting her senses.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Two score girls and boys bedecked in silks, satin, and Myrish lace stared back at her, none older than three-and-ten. It was not a sight she hadn't seen, for she knew Lys best of all the Free Cities.

  They all had the good sense to see a sorcerer for what he was, all of them as silent as a lichyard.

  Though she could not say she expected his next words.

  "It seems I'll have to find my own way to Dorne."

  Eddard?

  The last time he had been to Dorne, he had only come as far as Starfall. If not for how red it was, it would have reminded him of the Vale. Stony Dornishmen were after all the closest of the Dornish to the First Men.

  If Sunspear reminded him of anything, it was the north in winter, when the snows fell high enough that the land vanished under an endless expanse of white.

  Its prince had met him with every courtesy, and then invited him to see the Water Gardens.

  They were as beautiful as he had heard, under a sunset especially. Though even then Prince Doran did not seem in any rush to speak.

  "It is good to see you in good health," Ned ventured. He expected a sickly man.

  The elderly prince smiled softly. "Sometimes I envy you northerners. Asking a man to abstain from wine in Dorne is not unlike asking a lecher to abstain from whores in a whorehouse. But I cannot argue with the results."

  "I cannot say we don't have our own vices."

  "Yet not you. A lesser man would have lost himself to drink after a moon in King's Landing."

  "That is kind of you to say," he murmured quietly.

  Prince Doran returned to quiet contemplation for a time. "What terms has Renly Baratheon offered us?"

  "Trade and tax concessions." He passed over the accounting Lord Selwyn had given him, the Dornish prince's dark eyes raking across the parchment. "As well as a promise to marry his heir to a Dornish princess."

  "A promise to marry an heir he doesn't have to a Dornish princess that would be half a crone when they are wed. Or does he intend to wait for Dorne to provide another?"

  "His Grace intended to leave the matter to your purview."

  "How generous. Though I find myself surprised that such generosity does not extend to Gregor Clegane's head. Even the most miserly of my nieces expected that much."

  "He was… hesitant to offer heads he cannot yet give you."

  The Dornish prince had no doubt noticed the contradiction, though he did not seem inclined to press it. "It is hard to believe the marcher lords that he's so indulged will be content with a Dornish queen." He had none to say to that. "Allow me to think on it. You will have Dorne's answer within a fortnight."

  It might be years before a son was born to Renly. Until then, his only heir was the brother he spurned, for the Dance had seen brothers put above daughters in the succession.

  That assuming Renly intended to stick to the succession. Folly was a word that could be used to describe any such assumptions…

  "I find it harder still to believe that this was all he sent his Hand for."

  "I have asked myself that same question," Ned admitted quietly.

  The more his thoughts had dwelled on the intrigues that surrounded him, the less sense any of it made.

  They returned to Sunspear soon after the sun had set.

  The days that followed saw him speaking to princes and princesses and bastard daughters, even a Dornish lord and a sandy, salt-stained knight. It was near his rooms that a girl approached him, near an age to Robb.

  "Is the Wall truly as high as they say? Have you looked upon it yourself?"

  He saw no reason not to indulge her curiosity. "Aye, I have. It stands a score times as high as a castle's walls, and stretches east and west for a hundred leagues."

  "And there are these… wild men that dwell beyond it?"

  "Aye. The men of the Night's Watch do what they can, but the wildlings that dwell beyond the Wall outnumber them a hundred to one."

  Once the Night's Watch numbered over ten thousand men. Now that black brotherhood numbered less than a thousand, hard-pressed to man even three of the nineteen castles along the Wall.

  He had thought to speak to Robert of it one day…

  Her silver brows had scrunched together. "I am but a girl, but it seems a queer thing to build a wall so high to guard against men."

  "It's said the giants helped Brandon the Builder raise the Wall. Not to guard against men, but against a winter that would never end." His next words were uncertain, for he had once wondered the same. "It has been thousands of years since. Who can say how much of the truth survived?"

  "It is hard to imagine," she seemed to agree. "The Doom had struck Valyria only some four hundred years ago. It was a scant hundred years later that saw Aegon and his sisters carve the Seven Kingdoms out of Westeros."

  "It was not until Daeron the Second that Dorne had truly joined the realm," he gently corrected.

  Her silver curls tumbled with a nod. "Lyanna Stark was your sister, my lord? The stories had reached us even in the Free Cities."

  The sudden question tangled his thoughts. "Aye, she was…"

  "Some of the stories say that Prince Rhaegar kidnapped Lyanna Stark, yet others swear she went with him for love. I always wondered which was true."

  The mention of her had brought with it Lyanna's last words to him, whispered to him from a birthing bed soaked in blood. Promise me, Ned.

  "My lord." Jory's voice brought him back from his memories. "The ravens brought a few letters from King's Landing."

  "That was thoughtless of me to say…"

  "We can't always help our curiosity," he softly returned.

  He read Sansa's first when he retreated to his rooms, the stones seeming almost pink when the sunlight struck them, and then he read Cat's. He was glad that she had safely returned to Winterfell, but the rest… Roose Bolton's only son almost slain by a crossbow? What fresh madness was this?

  The last they needed now was trouble with the Dreadfort.

  A tired sigh soon left his lips. He had weakened Winterfell's guard when he had taken so many men south with him.

  He would have to trust Robb and his lady wife to handle it now. Though he did have some words of advice…

  The morning found him restless. Sunspear had no godswood, the soil too thin to support it. He ventured into the yard instead, sparring with some of his guard. Jory's sword arm had only improved since leaving Winterfell, something his father would have been proud to see.

  At the feast that night to celebrate Princess Arianne's nameday, he found his thoughts drawn back to the Tower of Joy. It haunted him more and more with every night he spent in Dorne, and he was eager to leave.

  The fare was not much to his liking either, too sour or too sweet. Some of it was even liable to burn the tongue if he wasn't careful, those dishes that were smothered in the dragon peppers the Dornishmen loved. It was not hard to understand why they were so named.

  "My lord." He found his eyes drawn to a woman, her black hair shimmering in the torchlight as it tumbled to her shoulders. Ellaria Sand, he knew. "Indulge me in a dance?"

  He swallowed his confusion as to why Prince Oberyn's paramour would ask as he dutifully stood. "After you, my lady."

  She was a much more graceful dancer than he, but it did not seem to bother her. "You miss your lady wife, my lord."

  He saw no reason to deny it. "Aye. It feels as if we are a world apart."

  "Doesn't it? I begged Oberyn not to follow the sorcerer to Volantis, but he is not a man to shy away from such."

  Their new mistress of whisperers had said the same before he sailed for Dorne.

  "All I have heard of him reminds me of my brother," he whispered as the musicians strung their instruments. "The wolf blood had touched him strongly, leaving him as wild as one. But he was kind also, in his own way."

  She gave him a melancholy smile. "The gods would have us watch as those we love run to their doom."

  He stared at her a breath, but she soon only thanked him for indulging her, retreating to who he assumed were her daughters.

  He returned to his seat and sat with a sigh. It wasn't only Cat he missed…

  Taking a sip of wine to wet his throat, he felt it tickle it strangely. Spiced, mayhaps. The Dornish did love their spices.

  Then it tightened, his next breath thin and rasping. Gods, it felt as if someone had wrapped their hands around his throat and…

  "My lord?" Jory asked, worried.

  Poison, he tried to say, but he couldn't breathe. He stood drunkenly, clutching at his throat.

  The music died as Jory shouted the same. It was hard to see now, darkness crawling in at the edges.

  Jory caught him before he could fall, the world turning mad with shouts and screams on every side of him. "The maester… my lord…"

  The last he saw was not the maester, but deep blue eyes staring into his own and a blade opening his throat.

  killed Roger Rabbit poisoned Ned Stark?