ROBB: Dark wings, dark words.
l was only a boy when the raven came to call my father, Lord Eddard Stark, to another war.
Balon Greyjoy had raised the lron lslands in revolt,
and burned the Lannister fleet at anchor.
King Robert Baratheon again needed his old friend.
My mother, Catelyn, was not happy to lose her lord husband to Robert again.
Six years before, he had left her to avenge his father and brother
against the Mad King.
But now, he had sons and daughters of his own, and, unspoken,
and their songs still ring through the halls of the ironborn
while everywhere else, they're whispered to wayward children at bedtime.
Perhaps Lord Balon thought Westeros had not healed from the war against the Mad King,
and was as fragmented and suspicious as the ancient kingdoms
his forebears had terrorized.
Robert's navy corrected him at Fair lsle when they smashed the proud lron Fleet.
Robert and my father corrected him at Pyke, his own castle,
when they pulled down his towers and breached his walls.
My father never liked to speak of his battles, but from other men l learned what transpired.
Thoros of Myr was first through the breach with his flaming sword.
Not far behind him was Jorah Mormont of Bear lsland,
my father's bannerman, who earned the knighthood he would later shame,
and lords from every corner of the Seven Kingdoms.
All day, through every passage in the castle, they fought side by side.
My father with our ancestral sword, lce, and King Robert with his war-hammer,
against a horde of ax-wielding ironborn.
ln the end, Lord Balon bent the knee.
King Robert generously allowed Lord Balon to retain his title and castle.
The price of peace was custom, the only son of Balon's to survive his foolish rebellion
would be taken as a hostage against future treasons.
My father even volunteered to foster the boy himself,
l suspect, to make Theon Greyjoy a different man than his father,
who would bring honor and duty to the lron lslands when he returned as heir.
So my mother's silent fear came true, and my father returned with another child.
Theon ate with us, played with us, and fought with us.
Once, the great bond between my father and Robert Baratheon united the realm
against the Mad King, and brought him to justice for his crimes.
Now, another monster sits on the lron Throne, and another debt of blood is owed my family.
Theon is my murdered father's ward, l am my murdered father's son.
Like my father, and Robert, bound in blood, if not by blood,
we are brothers.