Three feet from the water's edge the waves broke around a rounded granite boulder. It was there that Aeron Damphair stood, so all his school might see him, and hear the words he had to say. "We were born from the sea, and to the sea we all return," he began, as he had a hundred times before. "The Storm God in his wrath plucked Balon from his castle and cast him down, and now he feasts beneath the waves." He raised his hands. "The iron king is dead. Yet a king will come again! For what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger!"

"A king shall rise!"the drowned men cried.

"He shall. He must. But who?" The Damphair listened a moment, but only the waves gave answer. "Who shall be our king?"

The drowned men began to slam their driftwood cudgels one against the other. "Damphair!" They cried. "Damphair King! Aeron King! Give us Damphair!"

Aeron shook his head. "If a father has two sons and gives to one an axe and to the other a net, which does he intend should be the warrior?"

"The axe is for the warrior," Rus shouted back, "the net for a fisher of the seas."

"Aye," said Aeron. "The god took me deep beneath the waves and drowned the worthless thing I was. When he cast me forth again he gave me eyes to see, ears to hear, and a voice to spread his word, that I might be his prophet and teach his truth to those who have forgotten. I was not made to sit upon the Seastone Chair… no more than Euron Crow's Eye. For I have heard the god, who says, no godless man may sit my Seastone Chair!"

The Merlyn crossed his arms against his chest. "Is it Asha, then? Or Victarion? Tell us, priest!"