The hemp rope bit deep into his wrists; every shove sent coarse fibres grinding across skin already flayed and bleeding, a burning sting.
Henry kept his head down, the guard behind jabbing the butt of a spear between his shoulder-blades, stumbling forward numb and hollow.
The ground underfoot was no longer smooth obsidian but jagged chunks of volcanic rock that stabbed the soles of his feet.
The air reeked, thick with sulphur, ancient dust… and something sweeter, fouler, clotted deep in the throat.
The farther they walked, the heavier the stench, cloying, gagging.
'Move!' The guard's bark rang like steel scraping steel.
They were herded up a slope, clearly cut by hands long crumbled, now broken and treacherous.
On either side lay toppled walls and the snapped ribs of colossal pillars carved with dragons, scattered like bones of a dead leviathan.
Light was scarce; only slivers from far above bled a corpse-belly pallor that sketched the ruins in ghost-lines.
At last they reached the summit: a flat shelf of black stone, the highest point of the wreckage.
At its edge a gaunt figure stood with his back to them, gazing down.
His once-rich velvet robe, now filthy and blotched with dark stains, looked obscene beneath that sickly light.
Footsteps echoed; he turned.
Corleone.
The wary tension he had worn before the Crows Eye was gone, replaced by a fevered, serene radiance that prickled the skin.
His sunken eyes blazed, twin cold flames dancing in their depths.
Slowly he raked his gaze over the battered, blood-crusted survivors herded up: Henry, Karl and the other Mercenaries bound together, and, apart, several Ironborn equally trussed and wary.
'Huh…' A dry, mirthless click of laughter slipped his throat, sharp upon the open height. 'So many still crawling, are there?'
'Remarkably tenacious.'
'The ruin's sieve, it seems, was not fine enough.' He spoke as if remarking on insects strayed into his garden.
Henry jerked his head up, bloodshot eyes locking on Corleone, a snarl rattling in his throat as he lunged—only to be slammed back by the guards.
Corleone ignored the outburst; with delicate grace he angled his thin frame and swept a bony hand toward the void beyond the platform.
'You still fail to grasp where you stand… and what you are about to witness.'
His voice rose, quivering like a chant: 'Behold, maggots! Behold Torregar's true legacy! The hour sanctified through centuries!'
As the words rang out, an answering glow kindled far below in the blackness beneath the platform.
Not fire, not sun, but a thick, clotted crimson radiance—as though blood itself had been set alight.
It seeped upward, faint at first, then stronger, dyeing stone and air a baleful red.
Henry and the rest, breaths caught in their chests, followed that pointing hand toward the source of the light.
In that instant speech died—even the fiercest Ironborn—leaving only shrinking pupils and the primal lurch of dread.
Where moments before there had been broken vaults and halls,
the earth now gaped as if some titan had torn it open, carving a chasm so vast its far side lay beyond sight, a wound plunging toward the world's heart.
At last they understood why the under-palace had given way.
Sheer cliffs honey-combed with tunnels and galleries dropped away into the glow, descending to an endless expanse of red that shimmered below.
No, not water.
Blood.
A sea of it—dark, viscous, gently heaving—reeking of sweet iron: a lake of blood.
A single glance at that infinite crimson immensity could unstring the bravest warrior, chill the most hardened killer.
What countless lives, what oceans of blood had it taken to fill it?
Yet worse horrors lined the towering walls that ringed the lake:
countless stone dragon-maws, vast and gaping, set one above another like obscene gargoyles.
From every carved throat a steady gush of thick red gouted, cataracts and rivulets of blood cascading down to feed the boundless lake.
Blood struck the surface of the lake, a ceaseless, low, sticky splashing that merged into a scalp-crawling chorus of death.
The 'strange, fleeing blood' from the earlier battle, the blood that had seeped into the cracks of the cage floor and vanished… it had all ended up here!
'H-how… how is this possible?' a surviving Mercenary stammered, voice so faint it was almost lost.
'The altar…' Carl's face was paper-white as he whispered, finally linking the murals, the cage's design, and this hellish scene. 'The murals… the sacrifices… their blood… it all flowed here.'
'Do you understand now, fortunate survivors?' Corleone's voice rang out behind them, dripping with patronizing condescension. 'You have been—no, you are honored to—receive Torregar's grace, standing here to witness this sublime moment: the awakening, after ages of slumber, of the Progenitor Dragon!'
His voice trembled with zeal, arms flung wide as though to embrace the monstrous lake below.
At that moment, a scar-faced Ironborn, bound off to the side, seemed to shake off his initial shock.
Perhaps accustomed to Corleone's former 'weakness' before the Crows Eye, or perhaps driven mad by despair, he jerked his head up and shrieked, 'Corleone, you treacherous bastard! When Lord Crows Eye rises from below, he'll flay you alive! He'll—'
His words snapped off.
Corleone had turned—slowly, excruciatingly slowly—and looked his way.
The fanatic's twisted face now wore a bizarre blend of surprise, dawning realization, and then a delight so acute it bordered on sickness.
'Crows Eye? Euron Greyjoy?' Corleone echoed softly, savoring the name, then giggled. The laughter swelled, wilder and wilder, echoing gratingly across the blood-lit chamber.
'Ah… I'd nearly forgotten you loyal 'sons' of the drowned god.' He wiped phantom tears, wheezing. 'Your precious Crows Eye, your captain… perhaps he has already nobly merged with this sacred lake, becoming the finest of nutrients to rouse our Progenitor.'
He savored the Ironborn's sudden, ashen disbelief, his smile turning crueler.
'Since you so long for your lord, so ache to follow in his footsteps…'
Corleone's voice snapped cold, sovereign and pitiless. 'Then, as his intimate partner, I should grant you that touching loyalty.'
He lifted a hand and flicked his wrist as though brushing away dust.
'Centuries of accumulation, plus today's… replenishment, have made the lake sufficient. Yet I don't mind adding a few fresh offerings to this glorious awakening.'
'Guards!' his voice rose to a shriek. 'Escort our esteemed guests of the Iron Islands to the stone pillars around the altar.'
'Let us send them, in the oldest, most sacred way, to reunite with their Crows Eye!'
'Yes, my lord!' the captain barked.
Guards lunged like wolves, dragging the struggling, cursing Ironborn toward the platform's edge.
There, near the Blood Abyss, stood ancient obsidian columns carved with writhing runes, their surfaces stained a permanent brown-black.
Exactly as the murals had shown.
The Ironborn were lashed tight like livestock awaiting slaughter.
Blades flashed.
'No—! The drowned god curse you, Corleone! Die screaming!'
Corleone ignored them, turning to the vast Blood Abyss, arms wide, eyes closed.
He inhaled the overpowering reek of blood, then began a chant in a twisted, inhuman tongue.
It was High Valyrian, yet steeped in blasphemy and madness.
Each syllable made the air shudder and the lake's waves surge.
As he sang, something colossal stirred in the deepest crimson heart of the lake.
The ancient rite, dust-laden for centuries, began anew upon this lake of blood and sin.
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