~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday! Thanks!
"Petyr Baelish?!"
The cry tore loose before anyone could stop it, and it ignited the Moon Door Garden like a spark hitting dry tinder.
"Impossible!"
"I saw his head with my own eyes!"
"It's a ghost! By the Seven, it's a wraith!"
Panic spread through the crowd like plague.
The Vale nobles and soldiers who had been trembling under the dragon's shadow moments ago now stared at "Littlefinger" with something worse than the fear Winter had put in them.
A dragon was legend. Distant. A creature of myth and terrible power.
But Petyr Baelish was someone they knew. Someone they had stood beside, argued with, broken bread with.
A dead man. Standing right in front of them.
No magic could have hit them harder. Nothing could have been more wrong.
Ser Marq Arryn's face, already pale, had gone the color of ash. He stared at that familiar face, at the faint amused smile playing on its lips, and felt his sanity coming apart at the seams.
Lynn ignored the chaos around him.
He walked over to the masked White Walker at an easy, unhurried pace and clapped a hand on its shoulder , the way you'd greet an old friend you hadn't seen in years.
"Petyr, my friend."
"It seems the lords of the Vale have nearly forgotten you."
"They've also forgotten how much you and Lady Lysa sacrificed for the 'glory' of House Arryn."
The White Walker , or rather, "Petyr Baelish" , turned slowly.
Those grey-green eyes swept across the horrified faces surrounding him. The corners of his mouth curved upward into a smile that was perfectly calibrated: warm enough to seem genuine, cold enough to raise every hair on the back of your neck.
"Forgotten? How could they?"
His voice was exactly right. That familiar rasp, that hint of velvet underneath.
"I've done so much for the Vale. For my dear Lysa. How could they possibly forget?"
"It was I—"
He raised one finger and pressed it lightly to his own chest. The gesture was elegant. Theatrical. Deeply, disturbingly pleased with itself.
", who suggested to Lysa that she add a little Tears of Lys to her husband's wine. To our esteemed former Hand, Jon Arryn."
"He was old. His health was failing. I only wanted to help him find peace a little sooner."
BOOM!
The words detonated in the minds of every Vale noble like a thunderclap.
Ser Marq Arryn lurched, nearly going down.
"You — what did you just say?!"
"The Hand — you killed him?!"
"Littlefinger's" expression was one of complete, untroubled matter-of-factness.
"What did you think? That the golden lions of House Lannister had the nerve to poison a Hand of the King right there in King's Landing?"
"And the letter—"
His gaze drifted, softening, as though he were sinking into some fond memory.
"The letter my dear Lysa wrote to Catelyn. Every single word. I taught her to write it."
"'The Lannisters did it.'" A low laugh. "Hahaha. Such a simple phrase. Such an effective one."
"One sentence. One lie. And suddenly everyone is tearing at each other's throats, and all of Westeros is burning."
"And my dear Lysa could claim the right to protect the Vale, gather every scrap of power into her own hands, and no one would question her for a moment."
"Littlefinger" spread his hands wide, his face arranged into an expression of nauseating innocence.
The Moon Door Garden went utterly silent.
Only Winter's breathing broke it , a low, rolling rumble from deep in his throat, like distant thunder.
Every Vale noble stood frozen, as if the ground beneath them had turned to stone.
Lysa's obsession with Littlefinger was hardly a secret. No one here was a fool. They all knew that if Lysa held power, she would clear the path for Petyr Baelish. The entire Vale would become his private garden.
Their minds were in chaos.
But beneath the chaos, every single one of them felt the same thing.
This was true.
This was the truth of the war.
They had believed they were answering Lady Lysa's call. Defending the Vale's independence. Upholding its honor.
And now this man , this man who had crawled back from the grave , told them in the most offhand voice imaginable:
It was all a lie. Every last bit of it.
A vicious, filthy conspiracy, cooked up by their most respected Lady Lysa and her lowborn lover.
Their war. Their sacrifices. Their sons, brothers, fathers , the ones already dead, the ones still dying.
All of it a joke.
"No — you're lying!"
A young knight broke. The words tore out of him in a raw, ragged shout.
"You devil! You crawled out of hell and now you're poisoning their minds!"
"Littlefinger's" smile only widened.
"I'm not lying."
He turned and bowed to Lynn, deep and respectful.
"My lord. You see , I've told them everything."
Lynn gave a satisfied nod.
That was exactly what he'd wanted.
He had come here to personally tear apart the legitimacy of Lysa Arryn's rule. To make the entire Vale see, with their own eyes, exactly what kind of woman they had been following. Mad. Foolish. A puppet who never even knew she was being played.
"Now."
Lynn's gaze settled on Ser Marq Arryn.
"I think there are no more misunderstandings between us."
"I came here for one thing."
His voice was calm. But there was no room in it for argument.
"I need to borrow your lord, Robert Arryn, for a time."
"Hand him over."
"I didn't come here to conquer. I didn't come here to kill."
"I only need to bring him back to Winterfell. Let him learn from Ned Stark. Let him grow into a true lord and protector , not a child spoiled rotten by his mother."
"Give him to me, and I leave immediately."
"The Eyrie, untouched."
This was Lynn's real goal.
Demonstrate overwhelming force. Win without fighting. He had marched an army here not to destroy the Vale, but to pin its forces in place , to make sure they stayed quiet during the coming war and didn't unleash themselves on the common folk of the North.
Lynn had no intention of letting that same tragedy play out in this world.
His words landed like a reprieve. He could see it in the faces around him , the flicker of desperate hope returning to eyes that had gone dark with despair.
Just hand over Robert Arryn?
But Robert Arryn was the last blood of House Arryn. The future of the entire Vale.
The crowd stirred, expressions shifting, no one speaking.
"Never!"
The voice came from the back of the crowd. Old. Steady. Immovable.
An old knight pushed through to the front. Heavy armor. A grizzled beard. A massive two-handed greatsword planted in the ground before him like a walking staff. On his breastplate: the sea anchor of House Grafton.
Lord Gerold Grafton of Gulltown.
A man the Vale knew well , stubborn as stone, brave as a bull, and just as hard to put down.
"Lord Lynn."
The old knight looked at him without flinching. He held Lynn's gaze, then glanced once at the dragon looming behind him.
"You may be strong. Your dragon is unmatched. I won't pretend otherwise."
"But the glory of the Vale will not be tainted."
"You used that beast to crush our will."
"You cannot crush our honor."
He drove the greatsword into the earth with a sharp CLANG that rang across the garden.
"You want to take our lord? Fine."
"Then earn it. Earn it the way a knight earns anything."
His voice rang out like a bell, and every Vale knight felt it in his chest.
"I, Gerold Grafton, challenge you!"
"A fair duel!"
"No dragon. No magic."
"You and I. Sword and shield."
"Win, and Robert Arryn is yours."
"Lose, and you take your monster and leave the Eyrie. And you never set foot in the Vale again."
The words hit the crowd like a torch thrown into dry grass.
Yes.
They were knights. The proudest eagles in all of Westeros.
They couldn't fight the dragon. They knew that. But the dragon wasn't here right now , just a man. A man without his beast, without his sorcery.
What was Lynn without all that?
A wildling from beyond the Wall. Bigger than most, maybe. That was all.
"Duel! Duel!"
"Show him what Vale knights are made of!"
The crowd surged with it. All the humiliation, all the fear, all the helpless rage from the last hour , suddenly it had somewhere to go.
They needed this. A victory. Proof that they weren't just fools who'd been lied to and broken by a dragon. Proof that they still had teeth.
Lynn looked at them. At the fire suddenly blazing back in their eyes. At the way they'd gone from trembling to roaring in the space of a minute.
A slow smile spread across his face.
How interesting.
No dragon, they said. Why on earth would he agree to fight without his dragon? They were literally asking him to fight with one hand tied behind his back, and framing it as a matter of honor.
Shameless. Truly shameless.
But Lynn laughed anyway.
Loud and long.
"Hah , hahahaha!"
The laughter rolled through the garden and the shouting died away, knights staring at him in confused silence.
"A fair duel?"
Lynn let the laughter fade. He looked at the old knight the way you'd look at someone who'd just said something very stupid.
"Tell me , how exactly is that fair to me?"
"What?"
Ser Gerold blinked. He knew perfectly well it wasn't fair to Lynn. That was the point.
"Since you've all asked so nicely," Lynn said, "I'll make sure you lose without a single doubt in your minds."
"I accept."
"But me against one old man?" He shook his head slowly, his expression one of genuine reluctance. "Even if I win, there's no honor in it."
Every Vale knight in the garden stopped dead.
Was he serious?
He thought this was unfair to him? He thought he had too much of an advantage?
Did he have any idea who Gerold Grafton was?
"Here's what I'll do instead."
Lynn took a step forward.
"One duel proves nothing. It's too small."
"I have a better offer."
His gaze moved across the assembled knights. It was the look of a man browsing a market stall , appraising, unhurried, utterly without concern.
"Let's make it worth something."
"You pick your hundred best men. The strongest, the most skilled, the finest swordsmen the entire Vale has to offer."
"I'll give you three days. Send riders across the Vale. Call in whoever you want."
"If those hundred men can survive against ten of mine until a single candle burns down , I lose. I leave. And I swear by the Old Gods and the New: my armies will never enter the Vale again. Not one step."
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence.
Everyone was certain they'd misheard.
Ten against a hundred?
Their hundred , handpicked, the best the Vale could field?
And all they had to do was survive until a candle burned out?
This was a gift. This was victory handed to them for free.
Ser Gerold's lips were trembling.
He stared at Lynn, his eyes full of confusion and deep, gnawing suspicion.
Nothing in the world came this easy.
This was a trap.
Lynn added, almost as an afterthought, "if the Vale doesn't have enough talent, you're welcome to bring in outside help. Hire Lannisters. Hire Baratheons. Hire whoever you like. I don't mind."
Then his smile shifted , something sharper underneath it now, something that had been waiting.
"But."
He let the word sit.
"What if I win?"
Every heart in the garden climbed into every throat.
"If every last one of your hundred men goes down before that candle burns out, "
Lynn let the pause stretch.
Then he showed them his teeth.
"I don't just take Robert Arryn."
"The entire Vale of Arryn , from the Bloody Gate to Gulltown. Every castle. Every acre of land. Every lord and knight standing in this garden."
"All of it bends the knee to me. And every sword in the Vale marches with me into the Riverlands."
He looked around at them. Unhurried. Completely at ease.
"My lords , does that sound acceptable to you?"
➤ Next: You Call This Stretching Your Legs?