House Volmark

A house of Harlaw with a claim, through the female line, to the blood of the old Hoare kings ÔÇö a claim they have never entirely let go of.

The fuller tale

The Volmarks hold land on the island of Harlaw beneath the great house of the same island, and they carry something few ironborn houses can boast: descent, through a daughter, from the extinct royal Hoares. A dozen generations on, the boldest Volmarks still mutter that the black blood of the old kings runs truer in their veins than in the Greyjoys'.

It is the kind of quiet, ancient claim that means nothing until the day it means everything ÔÇö the sort of thread a clever man like Euron Greyjoy keeps track of, in case a rival ever needs undermining or a marriage ever needs making.