"The Drowned God will tell you, but not here." Aeron pointed at The Merlyn's fat white face. "Look not to me, nor to the laws of men, but to the sea. Raise your sails and unship your oars, my lord, and take yourself to Old Wyk. You, and all the captains and the I kings. Go not to Pyke, to bow before the godless, nor to Harlaw to consort with scheming women. Point your prow toward Old Wyk, where stood the Grey King's hall. In the name of the Drowned God I summon you. / summon all of you! Leave your halls and hovels, your castles and your keeps, and return to Nagga's hill to make a kingsmoot!"

The Merlyn gaped at him. "A kingsmoot? There has not been a true kingsmoot in…"

"… too long a rime!" Aeron cried in anguish. "Yet in the dawn of days the ironborn chose their own kings, raising up the worthiest amongst them. It is time we returned to theOld Way, for only that shall make us great again. It was a kingsmoot that chose Urras Ironfoot for High King, and placed a driftwood crown upon his brows. Sylas Flatnose, Harrag Hoare, the Old Kraken, the kingsmool raised them all. And from this kingsmoot shall emerge a man to finish the work King Balon has begun, and win us back our freedoms. Go not to Pyke, nor to the Ten Towers of Harlaw, but to Old Wyk, I say again. Seek the hill of Nagga and the bones of the Grey King's hall, for ir that holy place when the moon has drowned and come again we shall make ourselves a worthy king, a godly king." He raised his bony hands on high again. "Listen! Listen to the waves! Listen to the god! He is speaking to us, and he says, We shall have no king but from the kingsmoot!"

A roar went up at that, and the drowned men beat their cudgels one against the other. "A kingsmoot!" They shouted. "A kingsmoot, a kingsmoot. No king but from the kingsmoot!" And the clamor that they made was so thunderous that surely the Crow's Eye heard the shouts on Pyke, and the vile Storm God in his cloudy hall. And Aeron Damphair knew he had done well.