Word had already spread through the ship by the time Alric reached his cabin door, one hand fisted in the rope binding the woman’s wrists, dragging her along behind him without ceremony.
She did not struggle, though he could feel the tension coiled through her arm, the way a drawn bowstring holds its shape right up until the moment it doesn’t.
Ironborn pride, he supposed.
She wouldn’t give his men the satisfaction of watching her fight and lose twice in one day.
He shoved the door open and pulled her inside, kicking it shut behind them.
“Sit,” he said, nodding toward the chair near his desk.
She didn’t move.
He hadn’t expected her to.
Alric drew the knife from his belt, and for the first time since she’d been dragged from the deck, something flickered across her face that wasn’t quite defiance.
“Careful wild gal,” he said, almost lazily.
“I’ve already killed enough today. I don’t need to add to the count. I don’t like killing woman but I don’t have any problem with it also.”
He cut the ropes at her wrists—only to retie them a moment later around the wooden support pole near the cabin’s center, higher this time, pulling her arms up and back until she stood forced against the wood, unable to reach for anything, unable to run.
Then he cut her tunic away, piece by piece, the knife moving with the same detached efficiency he’d used all morning gutting men on his own deck.
She said nothing.
Her jaw tightened.
Her eyes never left his face, refusing to give him the reaction he might have wanted.
When he was done, he stepped back and looked at her curves , enjoyed —not with lust entirely, not with cruelty exactly, but with the cold satisfaction of ownership.
“There,” he said.
“Now we can talk without you pretending you still hold something back from me.”
She said nothing and spit at him in resistance or atleast tried to but he dodged quite easily at that.
He pulled the chair around, sat, and poured himself a cup of wine he didn’t drink.
“Your rudeness aside,Let’s begin with your name,” he said.
“Since your are one of the few in commanding position must be some Lords daughter. You must be someone important.”
She held his gaze, chin lifted despite everything.
“Yara Greyjoy.” She said with Fierce resistance in her eyes.
Alric went still for half a heartbeat, then let out a slow breath that was almost a laugh.
“Of course you bloody are.” He set the cup down.
” I am quite lucky huh, Balon Greyjoy’s daughter, commanding a raiding party into my ships.
Looks like your fate is quite cruel that it has sent you my way.”
“Fuck you Baratheon,” Yara yelled in frustration.
“Now , Now I think you need to learn but more respect” Alric leaned back.
“You speak too much for a fucking raider and a pirate.”
She flinched at that—the first real reaction he’d gotten from her—but recovered fast enough that he almost respected it.
“You think yourself clever,” she said.
“Cutting men apart, humiliating the dead. A soft boy trying to be a man. It’s pathetic , is it you trying to hide your weakness , that you are a soft Southern boy”
Alric laughed, genuine this time.
“You are calling me Pathetic. That’s a strange coming from ironborn.”
“You know nothing of us, Mainlander.”
“Oh I ought to disagree, I know exactly what you are. You are raiders and looters. You are a place for some weak men to gather.” He stood, circling her slowly, voice hardening with every word.
“You call it the old way. The paying of the iron price. You dress up thievery and rape in old words so it sounds like something noble instead of what it actually is—weak men who couldn’t build anything of their own, so they take what better men built instead.”
“Better men,” Yara spat.
“Soft Mainlanders who’ve never held a blade that wasn’t given to them by birth.”
“I held a warhammer this morning that made your commander scream like a gelded pig,” Alric said quietly.
“Was that soft to you?”
She said nothing.
“You raid some villages that can’t fight back,” he continued.
“You take women who have no choice in the matter and call them salt wives, as if a different name makes it something other than what it is. You enslave men who never wronged you, and you call it iron price, as if paying for something with someone else’s blood makes it earned.” He stopped in front of her.
“It isn’t strength, Yara. It’s men who feel powerless everywhere else in their miserable lives finding the one place where they can feel like conquerors—by putting a chain on someone weaker than them.”
“You know nothing of our ways.”
“I know enough you stupid fool, I lost my father when your Pathetic Father tried to something foolish and got punish for it.” His voice was filled with rage, hatred and pain deep inside him.
Yara’s eyes burned, but she had no answer for that, not one that didn’t sound hollow even to her own ears.
At Last she spoke ” I also lost all my brothers in it and One even a hostage In North.
You aren’t the only one who lost you Pathetic bastard.” She yelled at him.
Alric scoffs.” You started a dumb rebellion, attacked first and is now crying.
What did you think You will attack and raid our lands and nothing will happen.”
For a long moment, neither spoke.
The ship creaked around them, waves slapping against the hull, distant voices of his crew still cleaning blood from the decks above.
“So what now,” Yara finally said, low and controlled, though Alric could hear the effort it cost her to keep her voice steady.
“What am I to you, Baratheon? Your prisoner? Your prize? Some thing you’ll parade in front of your men to prove what a great conqueror you are?”
Alric scoffs at that,”That’s an interesting,” he said.
“Does it sting you but isn’t that what your people do, Aren’t youPaying a Iron Price now. This is your culture isn’t it.If I kept you claimed you as spoils of war—what word would the ironborn use? Slave? Salt wife? Property?”
“Does it matter what word you use?” Her voice was bitter.
“The result is the same either way.”
“Frustrated from your own Culture, didn’t like to be on the other end do you?. Well It matters to me,” Alric said.
“Because I want you to understand exactly what I’m choosing not to do. And what your People do.”
He crossed the cabin, picked up the knife again, and this time he used it only to cut the ropes at her wrists, freeing her from the pole entirely.
He tossed a spare cloak from his sea chest toward her—not gently, but not cruelly either.
Yara caught it, staring at him with open suspicion, as if the mercy were a trap she hadn’t found the shape of yet.
“You are free to go.”
“Why let me go? You could ransom me. My Father would pay for my return. You could use me as a hostage against him.” She narrowed her eyes.
“Or is this some southern game—mercy today so I owe you a debt tomorrow?”
“You know it better than me that He won’t and I can see in your eyes that you aren’t convinced about your Culture as talk about it. You have your own doubts, So I am giving you a chance to explore and Maybe , maybe Your people could get a better leader. ” Alric said to her with his rare sensibility and seriousness.
He walked to the door and opened it, gesturing toward the deck beyond.”And yes you owe me , Your life Yara Greyjoy.
You owe me so prepare to when I ask for repayment ” Alric said with ruthlessly and his eyes filled with authority
Yara Greyjoy saw that confidant face of his , She got a little red on her face.
Seeing a Handsome men dealing with her so much authority.
So she is getting red in her face and a little wet down.
” So yeah Get off my ship, Yara Greyjoy.
And don’t forget to Tell your father Stannis Baratheon’s son sends his regards, and that the next time ironborn ships enter these waters, I won’t be nearly so generous.” Alric said with Authority and aura that Yara couldn’t deny and refuse him.
She paused at the threshold, looking back at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read—something between hatred and grudging, unwilling curiosity.
“This isn’t finished, Baratheon.”
“No,” Alric agreed, meeting her eyes without flinching.
“I don’t imagine it is after all you do owe me your life.”
At that She left without another word, and Alric stood alone in his cabin for a long moment after, staring at the empty pole where she’d stood, wondering—not for the first time that day—exactly what kind of man he was becoming.