The Great Keep of Pyke was full of Ironborn lords. None of their soldiers or families were present, having been shunted to the other keeps of Pyke for the ceremony. They were waiting in other rooms, in other halls, for us to finish.

A few men who didn't bear the characteristic appearance of Ironborn were also in attendance. By their dress, and the sigils of their houses, I figured that they were outlander lords from the mainland. It was peculiar to see them coming, but I supposed that this was an important moment. Perhaps it was a diplomatic envoy from the neighbours.

Although these greenland lords stood with a boy, nearly a man, who scowled his way through the ritual. His face was tight with fury, and more than once I saw his escort place a restraining hand on him to stop him from coming forth and interrupting. He had pale grey eyes and a sharp edge to his jaw, just like Asha did. I suspected that this was the estranged brother Theon, which in turn would make his escort - who, exactly? Surely not Lord Stark, who was king of the Northern kingdom in all but name, from what I understood.

"Lord Harlaw, come forth," demanded Damphair, and banged his cudgel against the floor.

Drawing his sword, Rodrik the Reader sank to one knee before the Lady Reaper of Pyke, holding the weapon upright by the blade. Axes, daggers, and all manner of bladed instruments had been used by the other men before him.

He took a deep breath, and then began to speak.

"I, Rodrik the Harlaw, swear by the drowning of our Lord God," he proclaimed loudly. "And by the holy iron that I hold, to give you fealty and pledge my loyalty to the house of the name Greyjoy. If ever my hand shall be raised against you in rebellion, I ask that this holy iron shall pierce my heart."

The oath taker then lowered the sword, kissing it at the juncture of haft and blade before sheathing it. Still kneeling, he raised up both hands, clasped together to offer them to Lady Greyjoy. She took the clasped hands between her own and lifted them to her own lips in acceptance.

Her lips brushed his skin briefly, and then she knelt to raise the man to his feet. She then lifted a ceremonial cup, a shallow bowl of beaten metal with a handle on either side, and took a small sip from it.

She handed it to the oath swearing man who drank in turn, his face wrinkling at the taste, and returned the cup. Giving a final bow to Asha, the oath taker then stepped to the side. He walked to the edge of the hall, then retreated to a place on the benches with the lords above him in local precedence, who had sworn first.

"What's in the cup?" I whispered to the man nearest me. We were lined up in single file like schoolchildren, waiting our turn to come to the front and swear an oath. I was almost at the very back, before the greenlanders but behind every one of the Ironborn but Theon, who stood at the end of the room with his escort.

"It would be spirits or wine in the North," he said. He stood tall, his shoulders back with a severe expression on his face behind a beard that was speckled with grey. He looked at me impassively, then the mask broke and I caught the barest hint of a smile. "I was quite drunk by the end when this was my day."

"Your day?" I asked, confused. I looked him up and down, looking for a clue as to who this man was. He wore wool, not silk, but it was finely woven and dyed. For all that the colours were muted, it was patterned with skill. It was not an inexpensive item of clothing, and I took him for a lord of some importance. A silver pin in the shape of a wolf's head sat on his breast, and a heavy two-handed greatsword was slung on his back.

It looked out of place against his finery, but every man in the room was armed. It made sense to carry steel for the ceremony. I wondered if he would be swearing fealty to Asha as well. Did the Ironborn have any colonies or catchments on the mainland?

"Eddard Stark, at your service," he said, inclining his head slightly. Behind him, Theon Greyjoy scoffed and tried to speak, but was hushed by the rangy looking man who stood between him and Stark.

"Huh," I said. "I admit I don't really know how things work in Westeros, but I'm surprised to see a lord paramount visiting these humble Iron Islands of ours." I remembered my manners at the last moment, and awkwardly offered my hand for him to shake. "I mean, Percy Jackson, at yours."

Stark clasped my hand, and nodded at Theon.

"I thought my ward might like to visit his home, given the circumstances. He's as good as one of my own sons, but it's tragic to lose a father at his age. We weren't able to travel in time to make the funeral, but family should be together at a time like this."

I glanced at Theon, who was staring at his sister with an expression I couldn't read. The lean man between us was watching him carefully, and I suddenly felt the tension in the air magnify tenfold.

Oh. And I was the one who'd killed his father.

Realisation of that sank in just as heavily as when Asha had confronted me afterwards.

"There's something my father taught me that I tell my own children," continued Stark. "The lone wolf dies while the pack survives." He glanced back at Theon, and the younger man met his gaze. Theon's expression was cold and angry, but then tiredness passed over his face like a cloud in front of the sun, and he nodded back.

"Krakens don't live in packs," I said, thinking of the distance between the Greyjoys. They had worked closely together, but there was little warmth there. Theirs was a more pragmatic sort of love. Balon had scarcely had room for love at all, save for a little paternal pride in Asha. I remembered how he had ordered Damphair's death at the barest suspicion of insurrection, and how he had slapped Asha for daring to plead for her uncle's life.

But then I looked up at Asha, standing on the dais. She looked small and alone against the vast blankness of the keep's wall, a long line of men all larger than her crowding around. Even with her footing on the raised platform, they were of a height with her or more. She looked uncertain, lost. But then Damphair touched her elbow gently, and she schooled her face back into a bolder smile, gesturing for the next lord to step forwards.

"But even if they don't have packs, I suppose they do sail in crews," I mused, and Stark nodded along with me.

"These Ironborn are a harder people than even we of the North, but no man is an island, even if he lives on one."

The man standing in front of me turned around and shushed us loudly. His disgusted noise of impatience was louder than our words had ever been, and caused a few people to turn around to stare.

I turned back to face the front of the line. Stark chuckled and fell back in line himself.

The Ironborn in front of me was at the very end of the queue, just in front of me and the other outlanders. Figures. The least of the Ironborn is the most fussy about a petty display of respect, and enforces it in an abjectly disrespectful manner. He had a brooch pinned to his clothing, a little like Stark's. Only his was made out of a silver-coloured metal, not silver itself. I figured it for tin or pewter, hewn out of the ground in one of the local mines.

I couldn't even tell what it was. Oh, it was a fish of some kind, and I know all a man could ever wish to about fish. But the thing was so shoddily made I couldn't tell if it was a trout or a tuna.

The line moved forwards slowly. Far too slowly. I groaned, tried to stuff my hands in my pockets, and realised that the scratchy fabric I'd been given by Helwren didn't even have any pockets sewn into it. Of all the modern conveniences to miss, you'd think it would be electricity and indoor plumbing above all. Nope. Not for me, used to life camping in the wilds and blessed with power over water in all kinds of hygienic ways.

I missed pockets.

Not that I really owned much worth carrying around with me. I'd learned the trick of discorporating my sword into the ether entirely a few years ago, with no need to cart around a shiny bronze biro. Almost everything else I owned was back on Earth. People kept trying to give me gifts around these parts, sure, but I couldn't carry swords and axes and crates of food around with me, and I delegated the carrying of coin to my minions.

They had been a little perturbed by that at first. It had started with Andrik. I figured he was already pretty wealthy, so he had no motive to steal things. And then I got annoyed with having to tie a little bag of coins to my belt and having the metal clink and bounce against my hip as I walked, so I tore the damn thing off and shoved it in Baerag's face.

He thought it was a great gesture of trust. Not so. I was just getting irritating. And bruised. Gold is heavy.

After what felt like an eternity, I was at the front of the line. Asha looked unsteady on her feet, and I wondered again what was in that little cup.

From my vantage point at the front I peered forwards to peek inside. Oh, nothing? It was empty. But then Asha tipped a bottle of some clear spirit into it, and even from a few feet away I caught the smell of strong liquor. Damphair unstoppered his trademark waterskin and topped it up.

That's just great.

I could get behind the idea of watering down your spirits so that you could last a heavy drinking session. It was just good sense in this setting, where you couldn't exactly duck behind a table to vomit when it got too much. Using salt-water to water it down, though? That wasn't such a great idea. I didn't like to think how much seawater Asha had drunk today. It wasn't good for you, not if you were mortal.

Perhaps some distant ancestor of the Greyjoys had a touch of something inhuman about them. I had considered whether they were cousins by blood as well as by culture. Perhaps this local cult of Poseidon had formed around one of my half-brothers millennia ago. It would explain a lot.

Asha gave me a wicked grin, and I felt a sudden sense of unease in the pit of my stomach. I saw Damphair whisper something urgently in her ear, and she shook her head.

"Percy Jackson," Damphair proclaimed hurriedly.

Asha held up a hand in front of him, and he closed his mouth before he could finish calling me up.

"Perseus Lodos," she said. "Come forth."

Poseidon sink her ship, she knew exactly what she was doing. The light flickered like I was taking a day trip to an epileptic rave. The room was hushed, a cutting silence through the mutters and murmurs which had been in the crowd thus far.

Lodos settled on me like a funeral shroud.

He looked through my eyes. He opened my hands and stepped onto the dais. I felt dazed and distant, tired to the point of exhaustion yet continuing to move on autopilot, like a marathon runner in the final stretch. It was hard to think. I felt drunk. Not giddy or energetic, but the drunkenness at the end of a night where your mind stills even as your body continues to go through the motions.

I strode onto the dais, crossing the cold flagstone of the hall. My footsteps echoed oddly on the stones, as if floor and boot were both made from sheets of bronze.

"Hail Asha Greyjoy, Lady Reaper of Pyke," I declared. I halted, and looked down at her. She was a few inches shorter than me, but that distance felt infinite. She looked small. Not just in stature, but something deeper. She was wispy and insubstantial in some peculiar way I couldn't quantify. To my eyes, it was as if she was just a dim spectre, not a real person.

I reached out a hand and took the two-handed cup from Asha. She stared up at me, frozen in place and unresisting as I took the drinking vessel from her.

I stared down at her imperiously. She opened her mouth to speak, to continue with the rite she had repeated a hundred times already today. I held up my hand, and it was like a coffin lid slamming shut. Her lips flapped soundlessly.

"Kneel," I demanded.

Asha struggled against an unseen force. Her shoulders slumped and her knees bowed. The urge to obey, to kneel, was visible in her, but she resisted. Her eyes were flecks of grey ice, as stubborn and defiant as any sailor facing the storm which he knows will throw him overboard. Her jaw was clenched tight. Her body shook.

How dare a mortal defy me? She would learn her place or be taught the harder lesson her father had needed.

"Kneel!" I roared, and Asha fell to the ground as if driven by a blow across her back. There was a great noise from elsewhere in the hall, the rumble and thunder of things hitting the floor, but I didn't so much as turn to look. It didn't matter. Nothing else mattered, only this rite, only this moment. My focus was needle-sharp and furious.

Asha picked herself up, shivering like a leaf as she forced herself up onto her knees. She moved slowly, her limbs seeming heavy, as if she was dragging her body through water or quicksand.

"Give the oath, girl!" hissed Damphair. She whipped her head around to look at him in surprise, betrayal written clear across her face. He was standing, though stooped and leaning on his club like it was a staff. His eyes flickered across the crowd behind me, and then back to Asha.

"This ceremony is for me to accept oaths, not swear them!" she spat out. A wind picked up, howling through the hall and rattling the cups where they lay. Glass shattered in the windows, and Ironborn lords cried out as they were dusted with broken crystals.

"By whose right do you rule?" asked Damphair, his voice low and urgent. He didn't look at me, didn't dare meet my gaze. He showed the proper respect. This pleased me. A voice in the back of my head cried out in horror, but it was as small as a mortal so I ignored it.

He dropped to one knee, placing a hand on the small of his niece's back and whispering in her ear. "By whose name have these oaths been sworn? Whose will binds the fealty of these men to your line? Asha, think! You cannot spurn God in front of all his people."

Asha stared at the floor in silence. At long last, she lifted her head to glare at me.

"I, Asha the Greyjoy, Lady Reaper of Pyke, swear by the drowning of your father our Lord God," she began, and then hesitated.

I held my hand in the air between them. Asha looked at it, and then flinched as I turned my palm and curled the fingers closed. The air shifted. Light came from between the closed digits for a heartbeat, and then I was holding Anaklusmos, golden and resplendent with an inner fire. I pointed the length of deadly metal at the ground, and then stabbed it downwards. The sword bit six inches deep into the dais before I let it go.

The blade of celestial bronze stood upright between me and Asha, and her eyes shone bright with the reflection of firelight on the sword's planed surface. She looked to Damphair, her face pale. He squeezed her hand, and muttered in her ear. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and then leaned forwards to kiss the sword at the juncture of haft and tang.

She opened her eyes again, and when she continued speaking her voice was strong. She left one hand on Anaklusmos, her touch light and fearful. She rested her fingers on the sword's hilt but didn't curl them around to grasp it.

"And by the holy bronze that I hold, to give you piety and pledge my faith to the house of the Drowned God. If ever my hand shall be raised against you in rebellion, I ask that this holy bronze shall pierce my heart."

I smiled, then, and lifted the cup to my lips. It was mostly empty, but a waterspout rose from the base of the vessel and it refilled itself. I tipped it back, and a cool, sweet liquid poured into my mouth. And then I reached down to Asha, and lifted her back to her feet. She flinched at my touch, and then steeled herself. My lips moved. Her eyes widened.

I could not hear my words.

Then I brought the cup to Asha's mouth, and she drank. The tension of her stance vanished, limbs easing and facial muscles going slack. She exhaled, and all the turmoil left her in that one long breath.

I touched my fingers to the centre of Asha's forehead, and then stepped to one side.

When my feet left the dais I was myself again.

It took all of my concentration to stop myself from staggering as my mind grew back into existence. Clarity appeared as suddenly as it had gone. I recalled what had happened, how right that imperious and powerful presence had felt, but that wasn't who I was. That wasn't how I felt, or acted.

A cold dread rose in the pit of my stomach. I made my way to the nearest bench, intending to flop down on it, but it had been knocked onto its side. I picked it up and took my seat.

I wanted to vomit. The hall seemed too small, too crowded. I fought off the urge to bury my head in my hands. I forced myself not to collapse in a heap on the bench, to roll off it and hide beneath a table. How could I hide? Lodos was inside me.

Only then did I look around and saw the hall was in disarray, tables upturned and men fallen. Glass lay in piles everywhere there had been windows, now gaping wounds in the walls. The earth had been shaking, I realised. I had been shaking the keep almost to dust, and had never noticed - all for no more reason than the local leader's unwillingness to kneel to me. Why should Asha kneel? I had set things in motion, but she ruled here, not me.

Some part of me disagreed and felt I belonged at the top of the food chain, beyond the strictures of mortal laws and hierarchies.

I shuddered.

That buried part of instinct and power had acted through me today. Something alien and familiar, all at once. I felt a hundred pairs of eyes burning through me, but then Damphair whacked his cudgel against the floor for attention and bellowed for Eddard the Stark to come up.

There was a murmuration of conversation through the hall, and Damphair shouted again before the ceremony moved on. Reluctantly the Ironborn slid back into the rhythms of their ritual, but I saw dozens of them turning heads to sneak glances at me.

Theon's gaze was especially furious.

As the men shuffled forwards, and they haltingly repeated their oaths, I tried to understand what had just happened to me.

I'd seen the image of Lodos suspended in the future which lay before me, but it was always an intangible, misty thing. I had taken it for a warning, for a little piece of foresight a hundred steps below true prophecy. Fortune-telling was the province of a haruspex or an oracle, after all, not a demigod like me.

For the first time, I tried to focus on it. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine that shadowy form.

Cold tendrils of shadow clung around me. My breath caught. Icy fingers touched the back of my neck. I heard waves crash in the distance, and felt the great weight of the earth in my hands.

I remembered the time I had taken the burden of the sky from the titan Atlas. I had held the colossal weight of the heavens in my own hands. It had been an impossible task. The weight had nearly crushed me. Every moment was an agony, the pressure some unknowable intensity from the other side of infinity.

The shadow of Lodos was heavier.

I bowed my head, screwing my eyes even tighter closed like a child wishing away a monster. I clenched my hands, trying not to shake under the terrible pressure.

"Dad," I whispered. "Please."

A seagull called out, somewhere in the sky over the keep. My eyes opened on reflex at the noise, my head turning to glance out one of the high windows just in time to spot a white winged shape flit past.

The pressure was gone.

I sighed.

"Tonight," I said, making a promise to myself and to Poseidon. "I'm going to come find you tonight, Dad."

I forced myself to look back over to Asha. I felt bad for undermining her authority in front of all her bannermen like this. I hadn't intended to do it. I hadn't meant to do any of that. I doubt she'd accept the excuse that Lodos did it and not me, though.

I'd been able to ignore it to some extent so far, but whatever was going on with Lodos was getting to be a problem. Losing control in battle was one thing. It was even fairly normal for my extended family. Berserker rages and bloodlust were standard operating procedure, even for some of the demigods who weren't descended from Ares. Well, maybe not quite that far, but it wasn't unheard of. Same with inexplicable dizzy spells. Hello, low blood pressure? We've all had to skip lunch sometimes.

Having an Ironborn mirror of yourself reach across the firmament of your soul and work you like a puppet was a bit more than I was willing to accept.

I really hoped that this was normal. Hopefully Dad would have an explanation for all of this.

Demigod puberty was bad enough the first time.

Eddard Stark and his companion swore oaths of friendship. They were similar in wording to the oaths sworn by the Ironborn, but made no promises of fealty or obedience. That made sense for Stark, and I suspected the other man was one of his own bannermen. Stark wouldn't have come here without guards to accompany him, but only lords were allowed in the hall for the ceremony.

Bringing a loyal lord along to watch his back would have been a very wise move if Balon had been the one presiding over the oath-taking ceremony. Less necessary with Asha at the helm, but probably still a prudent caution to take when surrounded by Ironborn.

The crowd was half-watching me as much as the ceremony for those two men, but as soon as Theon was called up, I was no longer the most interesting thing in the room. I felt a peculiar mix of relief and worry.

Any conflict which ensued here was of my making. I was the one who had killed Balon. I was the one who had named Asha as Lady Reaper, bringing her ahead of Theon in local precedence. I stood by my actions, but they could cause trouble.

Baerag had filled my ears with tales of bastard rebellions and Blackfyres in the quiet of evenings when my crew and I sat together. He was the only one who had much energy left for speaking after our training. I was pushing them hard, harder than the other captains around here would ever push their men to train. I'd only half paid attention to him, so I couldn't recite the stories in any particular detail, but I'd caught the gist. People died when thrones went to the wrong heir.

Olympus wasn't hung up on which kid was born first. Gods and titans tended to obsess a bit more closely over which generation you belonged to. Kronos swallowed his children to prevent any of them from inheriting his rule, and I wondered if Balon would have been the same if he'd been immortal.

Once his oath was sworn, Stark took a seat on the same bench as me. He gave me an unreadable look, and then turned his face away to watch his bannerman swear the same words he had just spoken.

The bannerman joined us, and leaned close to Stark to whisper to him. Stark nodded gravely, but held his tongue. His full attention was on his young ward, on Theon Greyjoy.

The prodigal Greyjoy climbed up onto the dais when it was his turn, not waiting for his uncle Damphair to call out his name.

Theon stared at Asha. Asha stared back. There was a sneer on his face, but he knelt. I heard Stark let out an audible breath, and his man swore in surprise.

"Gods be praised," his bannerman said. "Looks like he actually listened to you, my lord."

"The old gods and the new," agreed Stark.

"I, Theon Greyjoy, swear by the drowning of our Lord God and the holy iron that I hold, to give you fealty and pledge my loyalty to our house of the name Greyjoy," shouted Theon. The boy was obviously not used to public speaking. He managed to pitch it loudly enough, but was going for a dramatic intonation and ended up just bellowing like a sailor trying to be heard over a howling gale.

I could see by the grimace on his face that he realised his mistake, but he steamed on ahead regardless, determined not to give way from his course.

"If ever my hand shall be raised against you in rebellion," he continued, kissing the blade of a fine longsword marked with a carven wolf's head for its pommel. "I ask that this holy iron shall pierce my heart."