Johann's final memory of his old world was the dark horizon over the vast ocean—storm clouds rolling like a black wall, swallowing sky and sea.
Alone in his small boat, he fought to keep it afloat as monstrous waves slammed the hull, tossing him like a ragdoll. Salt stung his eyes and lungs. Each desperate stroke seemed useless against the churning, violent sea.
The boat capsized. He was thrown into the icy water, dragged under by the merciless waves. The ocean pulled him down, crushing him from all sides. Strength gave way. He slipped. He faded.
At the edge of oblivion—when consciousness began to fracture—a voice reached him.
Deep, ancient, cold as the sea's own bones:
"What is dead may never die…"
"But rises again…"
"Harder… and stronger…"
The darkness swallowed him.
At that same moment, across the Narrow Sea, the screams of wind and crashing waves battered the cliffs of Pyke. Beneath the stone walls of House Greyjoy's fortress, a small gathering stood before a natural rock basin filled with freezing seawater.
The Iron Islands were used to storms—but this one felt different.
Lord Quellon Greyjoy, head of the house in 256 AC, stood at the center. Tall, salt-weathered, and carved by a lifetime of sea storms, his face was lined with tension. This was the day his fourth-born son would undergo the baptism of the Drowned God.
Beside him stood his third-born son—Balon Greyjoy, slender, sharp-featured, and trying to appear as unshakable as his father. His fists were clenched, his breath uneven. His brother was being born today. And today, he would be drowned.
Only a handful of witnesses gathered: two priests of the Drowned God, and Eirik, Quellon's trusted ship-captain's aide. Farther up the cliff, Maester Tymor waited in the cold wind, prepared to render aid—should the Drowned God permit a life to return.
The elder priest, soaked to the bone, stood waist-deep in the natural stone basin. In his hands—wrapped in rough, kelp-dyed cloth—was the newborn child.
Euron Greyjoy.
"Drowned God," the priest cried, his voice raw, "look upon this child of salt and stone! Grant him the strength of the Ironborn. Let him taste death, and rise again—harder, stronger!"
He plunged the infant beneath the freezing water.
A soft, wet bubble escaped the baby's lips. Then nothing.
One second.
Two.
Three.
The sea wind howled. Quellon's jaw tightened. Balon's eyes widened, his spine rigid with terror. Eirik's hand hovered near his dagger. The younger priest swallowed, face pale.
The baby's small body slackened. The priest felt the warmth fade from its skin.
Despair crept over his features.
In the abyss between worlds, Johann felt his soul dissolve—until something pulled him. Something vast. Something ancient. An unseen force clamped around his spirit and wrenched him upward.
A violent, soundless impact shook him to the core.
He was forced into a tiny, failing body—cold, fragile, drowning. A violent rejection surged through him, like a thousand burning needles. A faint scrap of the infant's dying consciousness clawed at him in instinctual panic.
Then—
"—gurgle…"
The priest's arms jerked.
The small, purple body convulsed.
"Pfft—cough—WAH—!"
A spray of seawater burst from the infant's mouth and nose, splattering across the priest's face. The baby's cry—raw, piercing, furious—ripped through the storm.
The shore erupted in stunned silence.
Quellon staggered, breath catching. Balon flinched as if struck, the shock stripping away all pretense of adulthood. Eirik whispered a prayer. The younger priest went rigid with awe.
The old priest's despair transformed into religious frenzy. Trembling, he lifted the child high above his head.
"Behold!" he bellowed. "A miracle! The Drowned God has returned him from death!"
Cold seawater streamed down the baby's chest as he gasped for breath. Then his eyes opened.
And the world seemed to lurch.
One eye was a depthless black—absorbing light like a bottomless sea trench.
The other was a sharp, storm-blue—clear as rising tide under a darkening sky.
The old priest fell to his knees.
"The Drowned God has chosen him! This child is reborn! Born from death! A true son of the sea!"
"What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger!" the priests chanted.
Lord Quellon stepped forward and carefully lifted the crying infant from the priest's shaking hands. His eyes met the child's strange, unsettling gaze. Not tenderness—something heavier. A calculation. A burden newly born.
He raised the infant high, the storm howling around him.
"This is my son," he declared. "An Ironborn of House Greyjoy. Euron Greyjoy."
The others echoed the name in a chorus carried off by the wind.
Quellon then placed the infant in Balon's arms.
"Take your brother to the castle," he commanded. "Wrap him in a seal-fur cloak. Bring him to your mother."
Balon stared down at his newborn brother—at those mismatched eyes filled with something ancient and unplaceable. A cold feeling, sharp as a winter tide, crept into the boy's chest.