~ π WEEKLY POWER GOALS ππ₯ 60β1ch | 100β2ch | 200β5ch β° Resets Monday! Thanks!
Eight frost swords materialized out of thin air, gleaming like the fangs of death, radiating a cold that could freeze the soul.
That chill bored into every Vale man's nostrils and dropped through them like ice water, head to toe.
But it wasn't the nine black-robed figures drifting like ghosts through the garden that broke them.
It was the man.
The one who had been sitting in that chair, watching all of this like it was a boring play.
Lynn.
When he stood up.
When two greatswords , nearly as wide as door planks , condensed out of nothing in his hands, everyone understood at once.
This was the real monster.
The nine behind him were just his claws.
He was the true thing. The abyss beast that looked down on all living things from above.
Dual-wielding two-handed greatswords?
And actually swinging them?
Is this man even human?!
One exchange. That's all it would take. One exchange and those blades would cave a man's skull in before he could blink.
What the hell is there left to fight about?!
Ser Gerold Grafton's greatsword hit the ground with a hollow clang.
Every last drop of color drained from his old, wrinkled face. What remained was ashen. Dead. The grey of a man who had already accepted what was coming.
The clever ones had already started remembering. Old stories. Ancient legends. Mysterious figures from the Dawn Age, wielding weapons of ice.
So the legends were real.
They had come here today to make an enemy of a living legend.
"Still... still fighting?"
Ser Marq Arryn's voice shook so badly the words barely held together.
His eyes swept over the knights sprawled across the ground, still and silent, and came to rest on Bronze Yohn.
Bronze Yohn didn't answer.
The hand around his throat was an iceberg. Immovable. It didn't matter how he fought against it , it didn't shift an inch. He could feel his life draining out of him with every heartbeat, pulled away by that bone-deep cold.
He watched Lynn walk toward him. Watched those two frost greatswords trailing their terrible aura. And for the first time in his life, those sharp, hawk-like eyes showed something they had never shown before.
Fear.
He understood. If Lynn wanted, all it would take was a single thought. A hundred warriors β the Vale's finest, by their own reckoning , would become a hundred frozen corpses.
"We..." Bronze Yohn forced the words out through his teeth. "...have lost."
Lynn stopped in front of him. That easy, unhurried smile hadn't moved from his face.
He waved a hand. The black-robed man let go.
Bronze Yohn dropped to his knees with a heavy thud, hauling in great ragged gulps of air. A ring of deep purple-blue finger marks circled his throat, dusted over with a thin layer of white frost.
"I told you," Lynn said. "This duel was over before it started."
He crouched down, picked up the candle from the ground, barely a stub of it had burned, and blew it out.
"Now. Honor our wager."
The Moon Gate garden was dead silent.
No one argued. No one made a sound.
In the face of power this absolute, words were worthless.
And no one dared to wriggle out of it, either. When strength is this overwhelming, people don't look for a fight , they look for a conversation. Lynn knew that. He'd always known that.
This was Westeros. Strength commanded respect. That was simply how things worked.
Ser Marq Arryn stepped forward on unsteady legs.
He bowed low to Lynn.
Not submission. Awe.
Awe for a power they could not comprehend and could not resist.
"Lord Lynn."
"The Vale is willing to offer you its loyalty."
"We only ask..." His voice wavered. "...that you treat Robert well. He is the last blood of House Arryn."
"Treat him well?" Lynn laughed softly.
He looked around at the Vale nobles, their heads low, their shoulders sagging, and spoke without hurry.
"My lords. Have you forgotten?"
"Ned Stark , my father-in-law, the current Warden of the North β was himself a ward of Lord Jon Arryn."
"In every meaningful sense, he has more right than any man standing in this garden to raise Robert Arryn."
The words detonated inside every Vale noble's skull.
Yes.
How had they forgotten that?
Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon had both grown up in the Eyrie. Jon Arryn had been their foster father, their teacher, the man who shaped them.
Ned Stark was Lord Arryn's son in spirit.
Robert Arryn was his son in blood.
And now the spiritual son was coming to teach the blood son.
Wasn't that... wasn't that the most natural thing in the world?
What had they even been afraid of? That Ned Stark would mistreat the boy?
What a joke.
Ned Stark's honor was famous across all of Westeros. He would raise Robert Arryn as his own trueborn son. He'd probably treat the boy better than his own children.
"So you can set your minds at ease," Lynn said. His voice carried a quiet certainty that left no room for doubt.
"Robert Arryn is not going to Winterfell as a hostage. He's going to school."
"To learn what it means to be a true Warden. To learn how to be a lord worthy of the words 'As High as Honor.'"
"Not to be what he is now β a giant infant who only knows how to nurse, raised that way by a mother who lost her mind."
Every Vale noble in the garden went red.
All of it , every stand they had taken, every worry they had nursed , collapsed into something that looked, in hindsight, like a complete and utter joke.
Lynn had beaten them with force. Then he had beaten them with reason and with law. He had left them with nothing to hold onto, no ground to stand on, no argument to make.
They hadn't just lost. They had lost willingly. Some of them were already thinking it: Lord Lynn is right.
"I... we understand."
Ser Marq Arryn bowed again, deep and slow.
This time there was something different in it. Not just awe. Something closer to genuine conviction.
He knew. From this day forward, the sky over the Vale had changed.
"Good."
Lynn nodded, satisfied.
This was exactly what he'd wanted.
The supreme art of war: to subdue the enemy without fighting. He had used one ridiculous-seeming duel to take the entire Vale without drawing a drop of blood. He had let them keep their dignity, and he had gotten everything he came for.
He turned and looked at the nine black-robed men behind him, still as statues, exactly as they had been from the start.
A thought. That was all it took.
The nine frost swords dissolved into pinpoints of blue light and vanished into the air.
Under the tangled stares of the crowd, the nine black-robed men slipped silently back into the shadows, as though they were being swallowed by them. If not for the bodies still lying across the garden, cold reminders of what had just happened, it would have been easy to believe they had never been there at all.
Lynn walked to the edge of the castle and looked out over the mountains below, vast and ancient, half-swallowed by a rolling sea of clouds.
"Pass my orders."
His voice was quiet. It reached every ear in the garden anyway.
"Recall all forces in the field. Stand down all alerts. Link up with Robb and drive into the Riverlands from north and south."
"Open every pass in the Vale. Our allies from beyond the Wall are to be welcomed through."
He paused. A slow smile crossed his face.
"Send a rider to Riverrun. Give Lady Lysa Arryn a message."
"Tell her her son misses her."
"Tell her to get back to the Eyrie and see me. Now. Immediately."
β€ Next: The Situation Is Settled