Night had claimed the sky completely, stars hidden behind clouds like secrets behind smiles.
Upon the glowing screen that flickered before him, the Kingslayer and Ser Kevan Lannister argued with the heat of men whose blood ran hot despite the cold night air. Littlefinger watched in silence, his restored features bearing no expression save the faintest curl of amusement at the corner of his mouth.
"The enemy sleeps like babes in their mothers' arms," declared Ser Symon Templeton, his image sharp and clear upon the magical display. "What opportunity could be greater? Let the cannons speak, then follow with steel. We'll sweep them from the field like chaff before the wind."
The knight of Ninestars bore the same cold demeanor in projection as in flesh—pale eyes like winter ice, nose sharp as a blade, and a beard darker and more precisely trimmed than Littlefinger's own. He looked every inch the bird of prey, patient and deadly.
The Vale held no mysteries for Petyr Baelish. Though Riverrun had claimed the lion's share of his sweetest dreams and bitterest nightmares, he knew he had never truly belonged beside the Trident's flowing waters.
He was Petyr Baelish of the Fingers, born to the smallest and poorest of those rocky peninsulas that thrust like gnarled fingers into the narrow sea. There, among the storm-lashed stones and hardy mountain goats, he had spent his earliest years in blissful ignorance of the world beyond.
Desolate shores where the wind howled like a living thing. Jagged boulders where only the hardiest creatures could find purchase. Scattered goatherds who eked out their meager existence from the unforgiving land.
This had been his entire universe when first he drew breath.
How small and pathetic it seemed now. Before leaving those barren rocks, he had possessed the touching naivety to believe the whole world resembled his harsh homeland. He had even imagined his father to be a man of consequence, a lord among lords.
With all the arrogance and ignorance that childhood could muster, he had grown accustomed to that harsh realm of stone and storm, accepting it as the natural order of things. The howling gales, the salt spray, the endless gray of sea and sky—this was his birthright, and he should be grateful for it.
After all, what more could be expected from a house whose founder had been nothing more than a sellsword from Braavos? His great-grandfather had served House Corbray faithfully until his dying day, never rising above his station as a common man-at-arms.
Only in the next generation—when Petyr's grandfather drew breath—had the family finally earned a knight's spurs, though they came without lands or title to match.
The mockingbird that adorned their arms had been chosen then, though Petyr had always despised the crest. The Titan's head would have been more honest—a reminder of their foreign blood and humble origins, marks that branded them as outsiders in the eyes of true-born Valemen.
Then had come the change that transformed everything.
Perhaps the gods had finally taken pity on House Baelish, for when Petyr's father came of age, fortune smiled upon their house at last. During the War of the Ninepenny Kings, the elder Baelish had proven his valor and earned both this meager fief and something far more precious—the friendship of Lord Hoster Tully of Riverrun, forged in the crucible of battle.
It was that friendship which had opened the door to Petyr's fostering at Riverrun—the first chapter in a tale that would reshape the Seven Kingdoms themselves.
Even now, decades later, Petyr could recall with perfect clarity the moment Lord Hoster's acceptance had arrived. The joy that had blazed across his father's weathered features had been impossible to hide, every word he spoke afterward ringing with hope and anticipation for his son's bright future.
Young Petyr had not understood his father's reaction then. He had possessed only a boy's natural curiosity about the wider world beyond their rocky shores.
Yet his father's eagerness had exceeded even his own.
When word came of storms raging across the Narrow Sea—of ships lost and voyages canceled—the elder Baelish had made his choice without hesitation. They would travel overland to Riverrun, departing at once while the roads remained passable.
His father had escorted him personally on that fateful journey westward.
The boy had been filled with such bright expectations.
But the harsh realities encountered along the way had shattered every naive assumption he possessed, rebuilding his understanding of the world into something far more complex and cruel.
Their first stop had been Longbow Hall, seat of House Hunter.
There, young Petyr had tasted malice for the first time—pure, undiluted contempt served up like poison wine.
Lord Eon Hunter and his sons had spoken with voices like honey poured over broken glass. Even a child could read the disdain written across their faces like words carved in stone.
The evening meal had proven worst of all.
The Hunters' table had groaned beneath the weight of their feast—roasted meats still sizzling from the spit, thick porridge rich with cream, hearty soups that filled the hall with savory aromas, pies and cakes and sweetmeats that sparkled like jewels in the torchlight.
Before Petyr and his father lay only hard black bread and cheese so pungent it might have been cut from a corpse.
True, their fare at home had been little better than this mockery.
But even a boy could see the calculated insult in such treatment—the deliberate message that screamed their unworthiness with every stale crumb.
Petyr had felt the hot sting of tears behind his eyes, the bitter taste of injustice upon his tongue.
What had shocked and wounded him far more than the Hunters' cruelty was his father's response—or rather, his lack thereof. Instead of righteous anger, instead of the dignity befitting their blood, the elder Baelish had simply... smiled.
Petyr knew that smile. He had seen it upon the faces of common folk who came begging favors at their own modest hall—the desperate, groveling expression of those who dared not offend their betters.
Why was his father wearing such a face?
The boy's pale cheeks had flushed crimson with shame and rage. He had been ready to leap to his feet, to shout down these arrogant lordlings who dared treat his father like a dog begging scraps.
But his father's iron grip had closed around his wrist beneath the table, fingers like steel bands that spoke of strength earned through years of sword work.
The pain had been sharp enough to drive all thoughts of protest from his mind.
Ser Jewood Hunter, the lord's eldest son and heir, had chosen that moment to provide entertainment for the hall. Even then, in his early twenties, he had possessed all the wit and charm of a drunken pig. The song he began was tuneless and crude, its lyrics weaving together the Baelish family's foreign origins and his father's submission into a tapestry of mockery.
The meaning had been clear to anyone with ears to hear and wits to understand.
Still, his father had endured it all without a word of protest.
Petyr had wanted nothing more than to sink through the floor and disappear forever. He dared not meet any eyes, terrified of seeing his own humiliation reflected in their mocking gazes.
Every servant in that hall had seemed to pierce him with looks sharp as daggers.
Something had died in him that night—the innocent boy who had dreamed of knights and honor, of justice and righteousness. That child had been strangled as surely as if hands had closed around his throat.
The journey had continued, though something fundamental had changed.
His father had tried to explain as they camped beneath the stars that their family's position was precarious, that survival sometimes demanded swallowing one's pride when faced with greater lords.
He had grown increasingly silent as they pressed onward toward Riverrun.
Only later had Petyr learned the truth—that their "Littlefinger" had once belonged to House Hunter, claimed as spoils of war when his father's valor had exceeded theirs upon the battlefield.
He had come to understand that his father's choice had not been born of cowardice but of necessity.
But understanding had not come easily to a boy whose world had been turned upside down in a single evening. The remainder of their journey had passed in a haze of confusion and growing bitterness.
When at last they had reached the towering white spires of the Eyrie, when he had gazed upon the endless peaks and valleys of the Vale, when he had seen the great river of commerce that flowed along the kingsroad—none of it had brought the wonder he had once imagined. Self-doubt and worry had consumed the simple joy he had carried from home.
Until Riverrun.
Catelyn, Lysa, and young Edmure Tully had become his companions, his siblings in all but blood. Growing together, sharing laughter and tears, they had slowly drawn him from the shadows of that first bitter lesson.
He had loved Catelyn with all the fierce passion of youth.
Damn Brandon Stark! Damn old Hoster Tully and his schemes!
His Cat was to be sent to the frozen wastes of Winterfell, wed to that arrogant northern fool like a prize mare sold at market.
When he had finally found the courage to challenge fate itself, all he had earned was a scar that would mark him forever and exile from the only place he had ever called home.
Lysa too had been bartered away, wed to decrepit Jon Arryn like a sacrifice upon the altar of political necessity.
Petyr's future had seemed sealed then—a small lord ruling over smaller holdings, destined to live and die in obscurity, nursing old wounds and older grudges until the Seven claimed him.
He had sworn never to accept such a fate.
From his position as customs officer in Gulltown—the humblest rung on power's ladder—he had clawed his way back into the game. Step by careful step, year by patient year, he had climbed until lords and kings themselves sought his counsel.
But even that triumph had proven fleeting. Now he found himself cast down once more, stripped of office and title, forced to begin again from nothing.
How to reclaim his rightful place with greatest speed?
Littlefinger watched the familiar faces that flickered upon the magical screen before him, each one a piece upon the board he intended to master.
The Vale held no secrets from him. Every family, every alliance, every ancient grudge—all were weapons he might wield if given the chance.
"Precisely so," agreed Ser Donnel Waynwood, second son of Ironoaks, his voice carrying the easy confidence of a man born to privilege. "Like a forest hunt—pleasant sport with rich rewards for the taking."
In the darkness, Littlefinger's smile grew wider.