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B E F O R E
MALAENA WATCHED AS HER mother's lifeless body was lowered into their crypt. Yara stood behind Malaena, every so often giving the youngest daughter's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Their father stood alone, distanced from his children by a couple feet; his eyes never once leaving his wife's casket.
Unlike her siblings, Malaena did not harbour any affection for her father; perhaps it was because the two were too different. But she could not deny the man had loved her mother.
Most things Balon Greyjoy did were in selfishness, routed in foolish pride. When it came to Alannys, he always put her first. Now, without her warmth, he was even colder than before, especially to Malaena who he viewed as useless to him. He had raised Yara to be strong, to be a warrior, to be an heir. Alannys had raised Malaena to be gentle and tentative, such traits had no meaning to Ironborn men who only valued physical power.
Malaena did not stay to watch the cement dry. She slipped out from her sisters grasp, heading for the stairs without turning back. She did not stop until she reached her chambers. She sat on the edge of her hard iron bed and glanced out the window, watching the waves flow back and forth mindlessly. As a child she had been most fascinated by the sea, now it seemed nothing Pyke or the Iron Islands offered could satisfy her. It all had become dull.
She wasn't certain how long she had watched the water crash upon the rocks below but it must have been hours. Malaena stayed in that same spot until the door to her room opened and the bed dipped beside her.
"I know you're still mourning," her sister said softly. "But you cannot lock yourself away from the world. You know mother would not want that for you."
Malaena nodded slowly, agreeing with her sisters words but not wanting to acknowledge them fully.
"I do not know how to move on for Pyke holds nothing for me, I am not like you, Yara," she sighed, leaning her head into the nook of her sisters shoulder. "But yet none of the Seven Kingdoms have anything to offer me, either."
For a moment the two Greyjoy sisters sat in silence; Malaena was comfortable in her sisters arms, to her, Yara was her protecter, a brother figure in a family that had lost all their sons. But it was not enough; Yara was sometimes gone for months at a time and Malaena would be left in this castle with a father who barely spoke a word to her.
"I have to tell you something, a secret father has kept from you," Yara sucked in a breath and Malaena tipped her head up to look at her elder sister. "You remember the end of the rebellion? All our brothers had been killed?"
"How could I forget?" Malaena said. It seemed their family had come to know only loss himself.
"Well, not all our siblings passed," her sister continued. "Theon survived. He is in Winterfell, a ward to the Stark's."
At first she felt disbelief; Theon had been the closest to her in age, that had been inseparable as children. His death had left her friendless and without a true companion. If he was alive, Malaena wanted to find him.
"What are you saying, Yara? That I should leave?" She shook her head. "Why was this kept from me?"
"I am not saying to leave Pyke but I am aware of how unhappy you are, maybe you can find happiness elsewhere," Yara stroked her sister's hair, a rare tender moment between them. Usually Yara only showed her affection through standing up for her younger sisters honour against dirty men or their brute father. "Father did not tell you because he believed it was what was best. I agreed... now I don't know."
"Winterfell... The Stark's are our enemies," Malaena frowned. "To go to them and make friends is not the Ironborn way. We do not sew."
"And I will not," Yara said. "But it is no secret you inherited mother's gentle heart. Do what pleases you, sister."
"Are you sure?"
Yara looked at her sternly. "What are we, Malaena?"
"We are ironborn."
Yara nodded. "And what do ironborn do?"
Malaena bit back a smile. "What we want."
"And what to you want, little sister?"
Malaena glanced out the window at the dull, grey sky. "To leave."
Shortly after, Malaena confronted her father about Theon's whereabouts and asked him for an escort to Winterfell. If Balon Greyjoy knew how to laugh, she was sure he would have laughed in her face at the request. He did, however, raise a hand to her—leaving her right cheek swollen and discoloured in a brutal violet shade.
Malaena could not sit idle in their tall castle though, not when knowing her brother was out there, far away, but alive. In the dead of the night, before the sun had even thought of rising, and with the aid of a few charmed guards, Malaena boarded a ship and traveled to the North.
