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In the Eyrie's soaring hall, the fighting spirit Lysa Arryn had just whipped up flickered like a bonfire on a mountain peak, guttering in the cold wind, ready to die at any moment.
Excitement and unease warred on the faces of the noble knights.
The glory of slaying a dragon was tempting enough. But making enemies of the entire North and the royal family? That was no small thing.
For now, the conservatives and the capitulationists made up the vast majority. Some of the shrewder men had already begun working out how to feign agreement, put in no real effort, then plead for leniency when the reckoning came.
Their armies were strong. Lynn's wildlings were weak. But never forget, if they wanted to attack the Gift, they could never bypass Winterfell.
The North was no pushover.
The moment the Vale dared to march, Ned would hit them hard enough to see stars.
Lysa took all of this in.
Hatred and temptation alone weren't enough. She needed to give these wavering fence-sitters something real to hold onto. Only then could she convince everyone to walk the tightrope with her. Only then could she survive Robert's wrath.
"I know what you're worried about."
Her voice rang out again. This time, she'd set aside the madness and put on the air of a woman with a plan.
"Do you think I have no reliable allies?"
She swept her gaze across the hall, the corner of her mouth curling into a mysterious smile.
"You forget — besides Arryn, my name is also Tully."
"Riverrun is my home. Lord Hoster Tully is my father."
"The banners of House Tully will always fly for their own blood!"
"The Riverlands will be our first shield, and our most reliable ally!"
The atmosphere in the hall loosened slightly.
The Riverlands were easy to attack and hard to defend, true enough. But House Tully's prestige and fighting strength were not to be underestimated. If they could join, the entire picture changed.
"And there is my sister. Catelyn Stark."
Lysa pressed further, her voice taking on a warm, almost boastful intimacy.
"She is the Lady of Winterfell."
"Ned Stark, that stubborn fool, may well stand with Lynn for the sake of his precious honor and oaths."
"But my sister, she is, first and foremost, a daughter of House Tully."
"House Tully always puts family first. She would never stand by and watch her own sister fall into ruin!"
"Trust me. The North is nothing to fear."
The nobles began murmuring among themselves. The doubt on their faces melted away, most of it, at least.
Lady Lysa made a compelling argument. This no longer looked like the Vale against the whole world. It looked like an internal struggle between great houses.
War is never a small matter. It pulls at many threads.
If it truly came down to the Vale attacking the Gift alone, that would be an egg smashing itself against a rock. They'd get bogged down in a grinding fight with the Starks before they even reached the Gift.
Watching the mood shift, Lysa threw down her final card. The most dangerous one.
"Of course," she said, "I still have one trump card."
She paused, letting her eyes travel over these men, terrified of war, faces tight with doubt.
"I have already reached an agreement with Balon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands."
The hall erupted.
The Iron Islands.
Those sea wolves who lived by the creed of "We Do Not Sow", men who knew nothing but reaving and slaughter?
Balon Greyjoy. A man fanatically devoted to restoring the ancient traditions of the ironborn, the Old Way. Survival and glory through salt and iron.
His first rebellion against the Iron Throne had burned the harbor at Lannisport before Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark crushed him flat. He'd lost 2 sons. His youngest, Theon, was shipped to Winterfell as a ward.
If Lynn were present, he'd know exactly what was coming. After the War of the Five Kings, Balon would refuse Robb Stark's offer of alliance, crown himself king again, and drive straight into the North. With the northern armies gone south, the ironborn, led by Asha, Theon, and others, swept through Deepwood Motte, Torrhen's Square, and even Winterfell itself.
The man was a notorious monster.
A monster commanding ironborn of ferocious temperament and devastating naval power.
And even without Theon as a ward, Balon wouldn't have felt a shred of goodwill toward the wolves or the stag. The fact that Theon had effectively become another man's son only made it worse. Ned could have treated him as his own flesh and blood, loved him ten thousand times over, it wouldn't have mattered.
Balon Greyjoy would never pass up a chance to strike at the Starks.
That was simply the kind of people the ironborn were.
"My lady! Have you lost your mind?!"
"Bronze" Yohn Royce roared in disbelief.
"You would ally with those dregs who have never known a shred of honor?"
"They are pirates! Brigands!"
"Honor?"
Lysa let out a cold laugh.
"Can honor block dragonfire, Lord Royce?"
"When the enemy already has a blade at your throat, do you really care whether the one handing you a weapon is a knight or a butcher?"
She walked to the center of the hall, her voice flowing like something poured from a cup.
"The Iron Fleet is the most powerful naval force in the Seven Kingdoms. They hunger for war. They thirst for wealth."
"I have already promised them, in exchange for cutting off Lynn's sea supply lines to the Gift and raiding the North's western coast, all the wealth along the western shore of the North after the war, Bear Island included, will be theirs. They will hold the west coast in all but name."
"The Iron Fleet will split in two. One force drives straight from Sea Dragon Point to Bear Island, let those weak she-bears of House Mormont learn what ironborn are made of. That keeps pressure on the west."
"The other force seals shut the eastern sea passage into the Gift."
"Lynn's army — those wildlings of his — what do they eat? What do they drink? No supplies. No reinforcements. They freeze and starve in the ice and snow."
"And we, the knights of the Vale, need not attack at all. We build our defensive line in the south. We set up heavy crossbows to hold back the dragon and their forces. We rest while they exhaust themselves, and we simply wait for them to die in the cold."
Lysa's plan was vicious.
It was also brutally effective.
Facing her own annihilation, Lysa, a woman with near-zero political ability, had erupted with a startling cold intelligence.
Counting on the North to feed itself through farming? That was a fool's dream.
The room went quiet. Heads lowered.
Whatever Lysa was hiding, whatever the truth was about those rumors surrounding Petyr, the moment they brought in the Iron Islands, the justice drained right out of their cause.
They had no righteous banner to march under.
Lysa watched their faces, and something cold passed through her eyes.
She had laid it all out for them, and these old diehards still wouldn't commit.
If they refused, she was finished.
They had to agree.
Words alone wouldn't do it.
Sometimes blood is more persuasive than anything.
Then let the capitulationists be the first lesson.
Her gaze drifted, subtly, to "Bronze" Yohn Royce, the man who had been opposing her from the start.
---
Riverrun.
2 rivers met here, the smaller rushing into the Trident, both flowing without end. The great triangular castle sat between them like an unsinkable stone ship, parting the current.
But the man who held that castle was burning out like a candle in a gale.
In Lord Hoster Tully's bedchamber, a sickly fog hung in the air, something the heavy scent of medicinal herbs couldn't touch, let alone clear. The man who had once been the iron-willed Warden of the Riverlands, who had bent kingdoms to his word, now lay in bed with barely enough flesh left on his bones to cast a shadow.
Edmure Tully, his son and the future Lord of Riverrun, paced anxiously beside him.
He had his father's red hair and blue eyes. He had not inherited his father's steadiness, nor his sharpness.
"Father, Lysa's letter..."
He looked at the old man, his face full of hesitation.
"Read it."
Lord Hoster's voice came thick with phlegm.
Edmure cleared his throat and read the letter aloud, word by word, line by line, that document crammed full of mad ambitions.
With every sentence, the coldness in Lord Hoster's clouded eyes deepened.
When Edmure reached the part about Lysa's alliance with the Iron Islands, the old man's withered frame shuddered violently. A fit of coughing seized him.
"Cough — cough, cough — Madwoman! That madwoman!"
"What does she think she's doing?"
"All she had to do was admit her mistake. With the bonds we share, I could have talked Robert into sparing her life!"
"What does she think she's doing!"
The Riverlands weren't the isolated Vale. Hoster had long since heard about Petyr, and he understood that Lysa wanted revenge. What he had never imagined, not in his worst nightmares, was that she would drag the Riverlands into the fire with her.
He struggled to sit up. A spasm of pain flattened him back against the pillows.
"Father!"
Edmure lurched forward to steady him.
"Get away!"
Hoster shoved his son aside, those sunken eyes blazing with sudden fury.
"Don't tell me you think her plan is good?"
"...What?"
"You want to go mad along with her?"
"I, I only thought that Lysa is still our family. I should support her. After all, House Tully always puts family first, doesn't it, Father?"
Edmure's voice shrank smaller and smaller.
"Family."
Lord Hoster let out a bleak, hollow laugh.
"For that lowborn wretch Baelish, she plotted the murder of her own husband. And now she wants to drag the entire Riverlands into the grave with him."
"She doesn't see us as family. She sees House Tully as her funeral offering."
The old man's chest heaved. Every breath was a labor.
"The Riverlands. Four roads meeting with no natural defenses to speak of. How has House Tully stood for hundreds of years? What has kept us standing?"
"Marriage alliances. Reading the times. Not following a woman who has lost her mind straight into the ground."
"Who is Lynn? He is the king's son-in-law. He has a dragon. He has the entire North at his back. Ned Stark — that pig-headed man who has never bent a principle in his life — he will never stand aside while his own bannermen are attacked."
"Fight them? With what? Your face?"
"If real war comes of this, the alliance between our 3 houses is finished. And you think the great lords of the south won't jump at an opening like that?"
The tirade left Edmure's face cycling between red and white.
If he was honest, he'd been tempted. If he helped his sister carve out an independent kingdom, his own standing as her brother would rise considerably. He'd even quietly calculated that some northern land might come his way after the war. And of course, there was Lysa's Vale to consider...
"I had hopes you'd take a Lannister girl as a wife one day. Get us a foothold in the Westerlands." Lord Hoster's voice cracked with exhaustion and something rawer underneath. "And instead you're already thinking about how to kick over a hornet's nest."
"How did I ever..."
He couldn't finish the thought. It dissolved into a long, ragged sigh.
"Write back."
The energy was gone from his voice now. What remained was pure fatigue.
"Tell her, the words of House Tully are Family, Duty, Honor. She has not honored a single one of the three."
"Riverrun will not shed one drop of blood for her madness. Not one life."
"Tell her to let go of this."
"And show loyalty to Robert. Make sure it's done."
---
Almost at the same moment, another raven crossed the Neck and came down at Winterfell.
Catelyn Tully unfolded the letter.
She recognized her sister's handwriting immediately. Those blue eyes showed worry first, then disappointment settled in, deep and heavy, followed by sorrow.
She knew her sister better than anyone alive.
Paranoid. Selfish. Too easily swept away by her own feelings.
That near-pathological obsession with Petyr Baelish, Catelyn had watched it take root since they were girls.
And now it had finally consumed Lysa completely. Taken the entire Vale down with her.
Catelyn didn't hesitate.
She was not Lysa. She was not a fool.
Her love for the Starks was no less than her love for House Tully, not a fraction less.
She had treated Petyr like a younger brother her whole life. His death had grieved her too.
But she would not pretend that Lysa's madness was anything other than what it was.
Petyr plotted the murder of Lord Arryn. He lost the trial by combat. The Seven Gods did not stand for him. He had brought his death on himself.
Catelyn walked to the writing desk and dipped her quill.
Her reply was shorter than her father's. And colder.
Lysa. Put away your madness.
Ned is my husband. Stark is my house.
Winterfell stands with Lynn. It always will.
If you insist on making an enemy of the North, then the next time we meet, it will be on a battlefield.
When that day comes, I will remember nothing of the bond between us.
She didn't read it back. She sealed it, handed it to Maester Luwin waiting at her side, and watched from the window as the black raven shrank to a dark speck and vanished into the grey horizon.
The strength left her all at once.
She braced herself against the window frame, eyes fixed on the vast white snowfields below, and felt her eyes burn and fill.
She sank slowly to her knees. Covered her face.
And wept.
---
The Eyrie.
When the 2 letters of refusal were placed in Lysa Arryn's hands, both coldly worded, both final, the confidence and composure on her face collapsed completely.
"No... that's impossible..."
She read them again and again, those 2 thin sheets of paper, as if the words might change.
Her father's finality. Her sister's rejection. They landed like 2 open-handed slaps across the face, and every illusion she'd been nursing shattered.
How dare they.
How dare they refuse me!
I am his daughter. Her sister!
Betrayal flooded through her and drowned her reason whole.
"Ah,!"
A shrill scream tore out of her. She swept everything from the table in one wild arc. Golden goblets and silver plates crashed and rolled across the floor, filling the room with a harsh, clattering DIN.
"Traitors! All of you, traitors!"
She raged through the room like a cornered animal.
"You old wretch, you think you're still the master of Riverrun? You should have died years ago! Why won't you just die?!"
"If you won't help me, your daughter is dead! Robert will tear me apart!"
She spun.
"And you, Catelyn!"
"For a Stark, for an outsider, you'd actually draw steel against your own sister?"
"Fine. Fine!"
The noise carried. The guards outside heard it. So did the Vale nobles who had only just sworn their oaths.
They stood in the corridor, listening to the mad raving beyond the door, and looked at each other. The blood was draining from their faces.
They had, it seemed, climbed aboard a ship that was already sinking.
"Bronze" Yohn Royce had already decided. He would go to Robert. He had no reason to die alongside this woman.
The storm inside raged for a full quarter-hour before it finally spent itself.
Lysa stood in the middle of the wreckage, chest heaving. What remained on that ravaged face was something past anger, a madness that looked almost like ruin.
Before the war had even started, she had already lost the battle that mattered most.
No Riverlands. No inside agent in the North. All she had left were the Iron Islands, jackals who might turn on her the moment it suited them.
What could she do?
Admit her failure to the nobles? Wait for them to mutiny, strip her from the throne, and hand her to Robert like a gift?
No.
Never.
She wasn't ready to die.
She hadn't avenged Petyr.
This war was going to happen. Whatever the pressure. Whoever stood against her. She would fight until there was no one left to resist.
A cold, hard glint moved through Lysa Arryn's eyes.
She straightened slowly. Wiped her face. Smoothed her hair. Arranged her robes.
When she opened the door, the smile was already back, confident, haughty, unbothered.
As though the last quarter-hour had never existed.
"My lords."
She looked over the assembled nobles, their faces carefully unreadable.
"My father and sister have agreed to my plan. They only need a little time to muster their forces."
A flat-out lie.
Everyone within earshot knew perfectly well that the screaming and crashing had meant exactly one thing: she'd been refused, and badly. But no one opened their mouth. Speak up, and you'd find yourself through the Moon Door before the words were finished, falling until you weren't.
Openly, they had no choice but to comply. In private, Lysa no longer had full control of anything.
Her gaze swept the room.
"Lady Waynwood, you are responsible for provisions. I want enough food and supply to sustain twenty thousand men for 3 months. I want it in a month."
She continued down the list, one command after another, steady and methodical, as though she held all the threads.
The nobles received their orders. They filed out.
The hall emptied.
Only Lysa remained, and her son, slumped in the corner, still sucking his fingers with a vacant, dreamy look on his face.
Lysa walked back to the high seat and lowered herself onto it.
She looked out the window at the bottomless ocean of cloud far below. Her eyes had gone still and flat. The madness hadn't left them. It had just turned cold.
Father. Sister.
You chose not to help me.
Then don't blame me for what comes next.
She leaned down, close to her son's ear, and let her voice drop to something soft and crooning, sweet the way poison is sweet.
"Little Robert, my darling boy... would you like to go see Grandfather?"
"Grandfather has lots of delicious fish..."
➤ Next: Cersei's Humiliation — Tears Unshed
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