Sorrows

The Sorrows is the haunted, fog-choked ruin of Chroyane, the festival city of the Rhoynar, located on the Upper Rhoyne between the ruins of Ar Noy and the Volantene-controlled waters below. It is a place where the river itself seems bewitched: the fog is thick and unnatural, stinking of sorcery, and the currents can carry a boat in circles, making navigation treacherous. The city's once-beautiful palaces, domes, and marble stairs now lie half-submerged, shattered, and overgrown with grey moss and black vines, a desolate monument to the dragonlords of Valyria who destroyed it centuries ago.

The Stone Men and the Shrouded Lord

The Sorrows are infamous for the stone men, the living victims of greyscale who have been exiled to this place. These creatures are clumsy, lumbering, and witless in the early stages, but near the end they go mad and become dangerous. Their touch can transmit the disease, which begins with a tingling in the extremities and progresses to numbness, calcification, and a grey, stony appearance of the flesh. The only sure cures are amputation of the afflicted parts, though even that does not always stop the spread. The legendary Shrouded Lord is said to rule these mists, a figure of myth who may be Garin, the ancient Rhoynar prince who called down the waters to drown the Valyrian conquerors, or a corsair from the Basilisk Islands, or a statue brought to life by a grey woman's kiss. The stone men are said to hate the warm and quick, and they seek to drag more souls into their damned company.

The Bridge of Dream and the Palace of Sorrow

The Bridge of Dream is a broken stone span that crosses the river near the Palace of Sorrow, the former Palace of Love. The bridge is lined with lamps that still glow, and stone men shuffle aimlessly around them. The Shy Maid passes beneath this bridge, and the crew must fend off stone men who leap onto the boat. The Palace of Sorrow itself is a colossal ruin, ten times the size of the Red Keep, with rotted wooden keeps, slender spires, roofless towers, and graceful buttresses, all covered in grey moss and black vines. It is a place of profound sadness, where once there was laughter and love.

The Warping of Space and Time

The Sorrows are a place where the natural order breaks down. After passing the Bridge of Dream, the Shy Maid finds itself approaching it again, despite the river only running one way. Yandry, the boat's master, says, "Mother Rhoyne runs how she will," suggesting the river itself is enchanted. This disorientation creates a sense of inescapable doom, as if the Sorrows are a trap from which there is no exit. The fog and the strange currents make it impossible to navigate by normal means, and the crew is at the mercy of the river's whims.

Tyrion's Ordeal and Transformation

For Tyrion Lannister, the Sorrows become a site of near-death and rebirth. After a stone man grabs him and drags him into the river, he nearly drowns. He is rescued by Griff, but the experience leaves him haunted by dreams of the Shrouded Lord and his father, Tywin, merging into a single figure. The fear of greyscale forces him to prick his toes and fingers daily to check for numbness, a constant reminder of his vulnerability. The Sorrows strip away his last vestiges of control, leaving him a slave in chains, a fate that mirrors the stone men's own imprisonment. The place becomes a symbol of his own internal decay and the inescapable consequences of his past actions.