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“Welcome aboard, nephew.”
Theon turned at the sound of the voice, but of course he couldn’t see anything. The bag over his head was damp and smelled of salt and fish. He remembered another sack, another hood, the way the rough material had clung to his mouth as he breathed. Panic rose up in his throat. Or maybe that was bile.
“You’re trembling. I hope my men weren’t too rough with you.”
Just because he couldn’t see didn’t mean he didn’t know that voice. It had given him night terrors as a child.
Now another voice gave him night terrors.
The bag was pulled from his head to reveal just more darkness. He knew where he was though.
“I told them to bring you and your sister to me unharmed.” Euron’s hand caressed his face. “You don’t know how disappointed I was when I heard Yara would not be joining us. I had planned on passing her around to my men before killing her, just to let her know what happens to upstarts on the Iron Islands. You, though…” The pads of his fingers were rough as they brushed across Theon’s cheek. “You already know what happens to upstarts, don’t you? The Bastard of Bolton taught you, didn’t he?”
Theon didn’t respond, didn’t know how to respond.
“What would you say if I told you I made an alliance with the Bastard? He agreed to give me the manpower you and your bitch sister stole from me, and all I have to do in return is give you back? Hmm?”
Theon looked at the ground. His eyes were adjusting to the low light, and he thought he could make out the grain of the floorboard.
“You know, we’re not too far from the Deadfort. We could probably have you there within the week.”
There was a particularly warped knot right under his left foot. He stared at it intently, until Euron grabbed his face and forced his head up.
“You’re as mute as my men,” his uncle said in disgust. “The Bastard didn’t cute your tongue off as well. I heard you flapping it. ‘She is your queen.’” He sneered and released Theon, who stumbled backwards into the two men who’d led him here.
Here. The hull of the Silence.
The men grabbed his arms. Theon tried to lash out of them, but it wasn’t his instinct anymore. Reek whimpered in his mind, No, don’t fight, don’t fight, you’ll only make it worse. Without a word from his uncle, they got him down on his knees, and Reek said, This is good, this is familiar, we can do this.
Euron’s boots clicked on the wooden floor. Theon opened his mouth.
Euron laughed. “He trained you well.”
A hand snagged in his hair and pulled his head back. He was expecting a cock, but was surprised by the cold lip of a cup. He sputtered, but the hand in his hair grew tighter. The contents of the cup were poured down his throat, thick, sickly sweet and bitter at the same time. So cold it burned all the way down to his stomach.
“There you go,” Euron said. “Good boy. Take it all.”
Theon’s throat spasmed. He began to choke. And still the drink poured down his gullet, until the substance caught in his nose. Then Euron took a step back, laughing again. The men released Theon as he hacked and choked. What he vomited over the floorboards was dark, practically black. He wiped away the liquid seeping out of his nose. It was dark and sticky on his fingers. In the dim light, it looked like blood.
“Something to help you relax.”
No, not something to help him relax. He knew the smell of it. Had smelled it on his uncle’s breath, seen it stained on his lips. Shade of the evening.
His hands began to shake.
A firm hand clamped on his shoulder. “I’ll leave you to get settled,” Euron said. His voice sounded impossibly close, like it was coming from inside his head. “I’m going to try to get in touch with your dear sister. See if she’d be willing to grace us with her presence.”
Theon shook his head. “No.”
“Oh? You do speak?”
“Please.” What did he tell us about using that word? “Yara…she’s no threat to you. I—”
Euron pinned him with his eyes. “More a threat than you ever were, even when you had a cock.”
“Please.” Theon grabbed for his uncle’s coat, beseeching.
Euron’s boot smashed his chest, and he went rolling to the floor, much to his uncle’s mirth. His laughter rang in Theon’s ears. Echoed. Sped up. Slowed down. He could feel the shade of the evening freezing in his veins.
He tried to get up, but the floor was moving under him. Undulating, like waves. He couldn’t get his footing. The Silence wouldn’t let him.
“Ah, you’re relaxing already,” a voice from somewhere above said.
Theon gasped like a landed fish. Not so far off—much closer than the muffled laughter and the disembodied voice—the knothole in the floorboards loomed. It gaped. And right before Theon’s eyes, its mouth stretched open and the floor began to recede into the yawning maw.
Theon shrieked and tried to crawl away. “Help me!” he cried. “Yara, I can’t—” Too slow. The ground sagged, then gave way. He plummeted into the darkness of the knothole. He reached out for anything to grab onto. His fingers found nothing. The laughter followed him down, grew louder as he screamed for his sister, for Sansa. For Robb.
Then everything was black.
No, he wasn’t unconscious. That would have been a relief. Rather, there was nothing to see, because he was falling through an endless darkness. Or sinking. Or perhaps merely suspended. There was no way of knowing. No sounds but the labored beating of his heart.
So slow. It felt years passed between each beat.
He thought about Yara. And how she wouldn’t come for him. Not this time. She was ashamed of the empty little man he’d become. He was a burden to her, and she certainly didn’t need his help. It was laughable that he’d ever thought he had any help to offer her.
And Sansa…he had no right to ask her for help, to even say her name, let alone her brother’s. In the years he waited for his heart to beat again, he wondered what had happened to her after he’d left. Had she gotten to the Wall? Had she found Jon Snow? Was she well? Did she also have night terrors?
Another year passed. And another. His heart beat again.
Was he still falling/suspended? Oh, no. He was lying on a cold stone floor, flat on his back, limbs strewn out. He wanted to roll over and curl in on himself, just to get a little warmth, but his body was so heavy. He couldn’t lift his head, even when he heard footsteps. And a voice call out, “Reek.”
He whimpered. It was all he could do.
There was a Presence. Something circling around him, like a shark. “Reek, you’ve been very naughty.”
It felt like his heart should be kicking frantically against his chest. But it wasn’t. It was as heavy and listless as the rest of him.
The Presence knelt before him, and a hand colder than the stone caressed his face. “Do you really have nothing to say for yourself, Reek?”
“’M sorry.” His fingers twitched. “’M sorry, Master.”
Somewhere, someone burst into laughter.
Ramsay’s cold hands moved down to his chest, his stomach. “I think you need to be punished. Do you agree?”
Theon tried to shake his head. Reek nodded.
“Good.” Ramsay had a knife. Theon couldn’t see it—couldn’t see anything really—but he could feel it as it came to rest against his stomach. “But first, I need to know that you know why I’m punishing you. So, go on. Tell me why I’m punishing you.”
“I…misbehaved.”
The blade cut into his belly, right below his navel.
He gasped, more in shock than pain, and Ramsay said, “Go on.”
“I…ran away.”
The knife slid upwards. One fluid movement.
Reek screamed at the coldness of the blade, the way it cut through his insides until it reached his chest. There it struck a bone it couldn’t cut. Ramsay pulled the blade out—it squelched and left him gaping open. His insides slipped out, but Reek couldn’t see which ones. He could only lie there like a butchered pig.
“I didn’t tell you to stop!” Ramsay barked.
“I ran away!” Reek repeated. He squeezed his eyes closed, and a bright light erupted behind his eyelids. “I stole your bride! I killed your mistress!”
He felt his insides moving, trying to squirm away from him. He grabbed for them, tried to push them back. No, don’t leave me hollow. Don’t leave me empty. His movements were slow, labored, but he drew back with a jerk quickly when he felt a writhing mass slide between his fingers. His eyes snapped open.
Maggots. Grave worms. Hundreds, thousands of them. He gave a terrified sob as they spewed from the cut Ramsay had made in him. They had been living there, in his guts? How long had been carrying these vermin inside of him?
Ramsay heard his thoughts and laughed. “These are your sins, Reek.” Hands reached into his stomach, churned amidst all the worms. “My, you have a lot. And you’ve only named three of them.”
The blade was back. Ghosting between his legs, over the mass of scars there. His emptiness made manifest.
“This…rot, you’ve been carrying it your whole life. Long before I ever got my hands on you.” Ramsay breathed in deeply. “You’ve always been stinking meat.”
The knife was cold, and sharp, as it slid over the empty space and came to rest at the other empty space. His opening. The hole flinched, and Reek gasped. “No, not there, please.”
“I’m going to help you. I’m going to cut every last sin out of this stinking meat.”
“No, no, please. Please don’t.” He tried to pull away but couldn’t. Ramsay wasn’t holding him, wasn’t pinning him. He just…couldn’t pull away.
Ramsay smiled and increased the pressure on the blade. It bit into his intimate flesh, hardly a nip, and yet Reek screamed. “Say please once more time and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
I told you, Reek screamed. I told you, I told you! Why are you trying to fight back?
Because it hurt. Blood seeped down his thighs. A familiar sensation. He whimpered through gritted his teeth.
Ramsay’s eyes were on him. “Continue, Reek. Why are you being punished?”
The knife slid inside. His body clenched around it but could offer little resistance. Reek shrieked as it went. Twisted into his passage. Slicing cleanly and leaving shredded meat in its wake.
“Why are you being punished?”
“I tried to be Theon Greyjoy!” he screamed, arms flailing and yet still, somehow, unable to move.
The knife kept going, up to the hilt, past the hilt. Past his passage, right into his churning guts. Deeper, deeper. Cutting him in two, right down the middle.
“I acted above my station! I thought I knew better!”
The knife sliced right through his heart. He choked and coughed up blood, but continued as best he could.
“I was born!” he screamed out before Ramsay’s knife finally made its way into his throat. Silenced him.
His pleas muted, he could only quiver his lips as the blade came in under his chin. Dug upwards behind his eyes and into his brain.
And then it was done.
Ramsay finished with a delighted cry, and Reek lay there, in two halves. The half that was Theon rolled to its side with a defeated whimper. Ramsay stood and kicked that half away. It collapsed into a scrap of leather, hardly enough material to make a single glove, let alone anything useful.
The half that was Reek jerked and twitched, and when Ramsay approached, it crawled to him. Or tried to. It was so difficult with so much of itself missing.
“There,” Ramsay said, watching it. Watching its hands with missing fingers scrape along the floor. “Though there’s not much of you left with all the ugliness cut away, is there, Reek?”
“’M sorry…Master…Please don’t…”
Ramsay chuckled and knelt down. “Don’t what, pet?”
“Don’t…” Reek reached out, grabbed at Ramsay’s pant leg, begging. “Don’t leave me.”
Ramsay laughed. It didn’t sound like Ramsay’s laugh, though. It sounded like…it hurt to think who it sounded like. “You really miss your Master, don’t you?”
It hung its head in shame and nodded. “Take me back,” it whispered. “I don’t...deserve…”
“Don’t deserve what?” Ramsay prodded when it took too long to finish its thought.
“Anything,” it finished lamely.
Ramsay was silent for a moment. Then came forward. The floorboards creaked under his heavy boots. The entire room was rocking gently, and with its ear pressed to the ground, Reek could hear the roaring of the ocean.
A gentle hand brushed through its hair. “That’s right. You don’t deserve anything. Not a single thing.” He picked up what was left of Reek, cradled it in his arms. He was warm and big. Had he always been this big? It shuddered and buried its face in his chest, felt the rumbling laughter. “They say I’m insane, but your bitch sister is the insane one if she thinks she can bring you back. Almost as insane as you, eh, little Theon?”
It shook its head in fierce denial. Clutched at the shirt in a desperate plea. “No, Reek.”
Ramsay’s heartbeat was steady and rhythmic. Split-seconds between beats, not years. Reek drifted into sleep as it kept time.
***
The next thing he knew, he was on something soft. A cot. A bed. He was bleeding, leaving blood everywhere. Time was speeding up again. His heart beat faster and faster. Everything hurt. But that was familiar. And familiar was good. It meant his body was filled with pain and not…nothing.
There was a foul taste on his tongue. Like bile. He had thrown up during the night; his pillow was covered in shade of the evening. In the light of day, with the sun streaming through the cabin’s windows, it was startlingly blue.
Theon wiped at his mouth. The fog of sleep faded as the cabin door opened and Euron came in, grinning. “Slept well, did you, nephew?” He came closer, and Theon flinched from him, which only made the grin wider. “I should hope so. I gave up my bed, my cabin…no comfort was spared for my dear nephew.”
He placed an ice cold hand against Theon’s cheek. Theon didn’t jerk away—from fear of lack of will, he didn’t know, but he burned with shame just the same.
“I first took shade of the evening when I was about your age,” Euron went on, completely aware of Theon’s discomfort and reveling in it. “In Essos, where the magicians in the House of the Undying take it to, er, ‘commune with the gods.’ Many say it works, and I’ve seen men of every faith commune with their gods this way. The Seven, the Drowned God, the Red God…funny, it always seems to be the god they worship who appears. Which is why I find it so interesting…” He shifted slightly, cupping Theon’s face and lifting his gaze from the red-and-blue-stained sheets. “That you appeared to be speaking with the Bastard of Bolton.”
Theon did try to pull away then, but Euron held tight.
“I lied, by the way.” His dull nails dugs into Theon’s cheek, the soft flesh under his jaw. Almost choking. “I didn’t make any deal with the Bastard to have you returned. The Bastard is dead. Captured during battle and fed to his own dogs.”
Theon stared into his uncle’s eyes, but there was too much madness to discern whether he was telling the truth of not. It had been the same with Ramsay. Never knowing which was the lie.
Abruptly, Euron released him and stood. “I was able to contact your sister. She says to keep you, as she can’t put her ships in danger for the sake of one useless eunuch. She’s not coming for you. The Bastard isn’t coming for you either. No one is coming.”
Theon swallowed and put his hand to his throat. He could still feel his uncle’s grasp, like a ghost strangling him.
“Looks like nobody wants you.”
Theon nodded. He knew that. He was familiar with that.
“So I guess that makes you mine by default.” Euron spread his arms wide. “Welcome aboard the Silence, nephew.”