POV: Lord Renn Salt
Location: Sisterton, the Sisters
Year: Early 285 AC
🌫️ I
Lord Renn Salt sat in his hall, staring at the flickering whale-oil lanterns that lined the salt-stained walls. The storm outside battered the shutters in a rhythm he knew too well, a rhythm older than kings.
Forty thousand dragons.
He whispered it again in the quiet.
Forty thousand dragons owed to the Iron Bank of Braavos. Gold that bought his ships, his mercenaries, his fleeting power. Gold that now weighed on his lungs with every breath.
The hall smelled of wet wool and rotting fish. A reek of poverty barely masked by driftwood smoke. His men gathered at the trestle tables, gnawing on boiled dogshark and drinking Sister's Wine, their laughter harsh and hollow.
Across from him, near the hearth, Lady Vyana Blackhollow reclined on a carved oaken chair draped in emerald silk. Her hair, dark as midnight kelp, fell over one shoulder. She sipped spiced wine and watched him with those tide-pool eyes.
"You know my offer, Renn," she purred.
He didn't respond. He kept staring at the candle flame before him. Watching it shiver. Feeling the cold in his bones.
"Gold enough to keep Braavos from your door," she continued softly. "Your debts paid. Your fleets restored. And all it costs is… knowledge. Driftspire's ship designs. Their cement recipe. Their trade routes to the Shivering Sea."
He clenched his fist until his nails bit skin. He thought of Driftspire once a petty tower no one noticed. Now, a town of twenty thousand souls. Piers that could house galleys. Ships built fast enough to outrun his corsairs.
They are not my enemy, he told himself. But I need the gold.
She rose, walked to him, and placed her hand on his shoulder. Her voice was velvet over broken glass.
"You don't have to like it, Renn. You just have to do it."
🌊 II
The next dawn, the hall was filled with his men corsairs in rough leather, Sisterman pirates bearing shark-tooth charms and salt etched blades. Renn stood before them on the stone dais.
He felt hollow inside. Dead in the heart. But his voice rose strong and unyielding, like a storm tide slamming the shoals.
"Driftspire grows fat on trades that were once ours," he declared. "They build ships that will chase us from these waters. They dig secrets from the old earth that should remain buried. Better to bleed the root than let it strangle the tree."
The men roared in approval, banging cups against the benches. They needed to believe it was justice, not desperation.
He paced, eyes shadowed and cold. "We strike their timber convoys. Their cement caravans. We capture a shipwright or two. Quietly. Quickly. Before the Vale notices, before Runestone wakes."
One corsair spat on the rushes. "They've grown too bold, m'lord. Roads paved like Gulltown streets. A town like that belongs to nobles, not fishers."
Renn smiled thinly. "And nobles must be reminded who rules the salt and fog."
🕯️ III
That night, in his private chamber, he sat before his ledgers. The candle burned low. The numbers did not change.
Forty thousand dragons.
He rubbed his eyes. Outside, the sea moaned like a dying woman. The Sisters were dying too slowly choked by overfishing, by pirates turned to wreckage, by debts they could never repay.
He knew what he was doing was wrong. He knew.
But what choice was left? Without the Iron Bank's forbearance, his sons would be hunted through the alleys of Sisterton. His daughters sold to Tyroshi slavers. His wives past and present begging strangers for bread.
He closed the ledger.
"Forgive me, gods of salt and stone," he whispered. "But there is no honor in starvation."
âš“ IV
At dawn, his fleet set sail.
Twelve swift longships bearing no banners. Silent as the tides that birthed them. Each carried orders to harry Driftspire's life blood: the cedar and pine convoys, the iron sand barges, the cement kilns on the coast. And two ships held cages for prisoners shipwrights and stone mixers, anyone who could reveal Driftspire's secrets.
Watching them vanish into the grey horizon, Renn felt his chest tighten. A phantom pain of guilt and dread.
Beside him, Lady Vyana smiled, her teeth white against her dark lips.
"You've chosen wisely," she murmured.
He didn't reply. He only prayed that Driftspire would survive the wound he was about to inflict.
Because if Alester Longlight fell too soon… there would be no more gold to bleed.