Compared to the brutal siege of the Golden Tooth, Jon's capture of Sarsfield was practically a walk in the park.
After his army of over ten thousand took the castle, they set up camp to rest. The forced march had been exhausting, and they needed to wait for the infantry and heavy siege trains to catch up.
Inside the Great Hall of Sarsfield, the green banner with the white arrow still hung from the rafters. The situation here mirrored that of House Lefford at the Golden Tooth: the men had gone to war, leaving the women to hold the castle.
Lord Melwyn Sarsfield had already fallen in battle. Only his widow, Lady Cyrelle, remained.
She was brought before Jon for questioning. Cyrelle was Melwyn's second wife, barely nineteen years old. She had brown hair, a medium build, and eyes like a frightened deer. She held onto her four-year-old daughter tightly.
If this girl were to marry into another house, the Sarsfield name would be extinguished. Given the situation, it was likely Cyrelle herself would be forced to remarry.
"Lady Sarsfield, you need not tremble," Jon said calmly. "We are merely using your castle as a temporary garrison. I will not harm your family. As you have seen, my soldiers have not shed a drop of blood since the gates were opened, correct?"
Cyrelle nodded nervously, her hands wringing together, unsure of where to look.
"Good. Now, what I need to know is this: What orders has Tywin Lannister sent you recently?"
"Lord Tywin... he..." Cyrelle stammered, her voice shaking.
Until recently, she had been a sheltered noblewoman. Now she stood before the man who was rumored to have killed The Mountain, slain King Joffrey, and breached the Golden Tooth with dark sorcery. Even though Jon's tone was gentle, she was terrified.
After she managed to stutter out her answers, Jon dismissed her, ordering guards to ensure the safety of the mother and child.
From Cyrelle's account, Jon realized Tywin was going "all in." He was draining the Westerlands of every last drop of manpower, prepared to burn it all down if it meant taking his enemies with him.
Wait, Jon thought, this feels familiar.
He suddenly pictured the Mad King, Aerys, burying caches of wildfire beneath King's Landing. It turned out Tywin and Aerys were cut from the same cloth after all.
However, Jon wasn't concerned about Tywin's hastily conscripted peasant army.
He planned to break them in a few decisive skirmishes, scattering them rather than slaughtering them. Tywin might not care about human life, but Jon did. Whether it was for rebuilding the West, fighting off the Ironborn, or facing the Long Night and the White Walkers, people were the most valuable resource.
The Westerlands had been ravaged by war, but in Jon's eyes, this was a land of opportunity—a blank slate.
Most of the Western lords had died in the Riverlands or at King's Landing. The old feudal power structures were shattered. Combined with Tywin's decades of suppressing his own bannermen to centralize power at Casterly Rock, the region was ripe for change.
Jon could build a new class of loyalists here.
He envisioned a system similar to military households—soldier families, artisan families, and farming families. It might become rigid in the distant future, but for the next few decades, it would allow him to maximize his military strength and combat readiness at a minimal cost.
He also planned to migrate the tens of thousands of Mountain Clansmen from the Vale to the lands surrounding Casterly Rock, replacing the Lannister loyalists.
The Mountain Clans would be his iron fist. They would provide his squires, his household guard, and his most trusted enforcers. Just as loyalty, not skill, was the first requirement of the Kingsguard, these clansmen—who viewed Jon as a god for scaling the "Fire-Hiding Peak"—were fanatically devoted to him.
As Jon contemplated the future of the West, Robert Frey entered with a letter. It was from King's Landing.
It did not bear Stannis's flaming heart seal. It was from Varys. The parchment even carried the Spider's distinct, powdery perfume.
Jon was curious. Why would Varys write to him now?
He broke the seal and read. Slowly, his expression darkened.
Of course, he thought. Betrayal always comes on the eve of victory.
Varys informed him that Stannis's court was currently debating whether to halt Jon's advance.
The "Queen's Men"—the Florents and their ilk—argued that Jon and the Lannisters should simply split the Westerlands.
Their concern wasn't that Jon would rebel. They were afraid of the Tyrells.
Jon's capture of the Golden Tooth had been too fast, and the cost too low. The court had expected him to be stuck at the Golden Tooth for six months, or to get bogged down in a bloody grinding match against Tywin at Cornfield, losing thousands of men before even entering the West.
But Jon had taken the Golden Tooth in a month with only a few hundred casualties. This ruined their plan to let the Reach forces bleed themselves dry.
Varys also revealed that while Stannis hadn't accepted Tywin's surrender yet, negotiations were secretly underway.
Stannis's demand was steep: Casterly Rock must forgive all royal debts and assume the Crown's debt to the Iron Bank of Braavos.
Totaled up, it was an astronomical sum of six million Gold Dragons. It wouldn't bankrupt the Westerlands entirely, but it would gut Casterly Rock.
Tywin was offering to forgive the three million dragons the Crown owed House Lannister, considering that punishment enough. He refused to budge further.
All of these negotiations were happening behind Jon's back.
"Great," Jon sneered, tossing the letter into a brazier. "They're all playing cyvasse while I'm fighting a war."
The only reason Tywin and Stannis hadn't reached a deal yet was that Jon hadn't made his next big move. Tywin still had tens of thousands of levies; if Jon crushed them, Stannis would raise his price. If Jon stalled, Tywin would talk tougher.
Both sides were dragging it out because they believed one thing: Jon could not take Casterly Rock.
But if he did take it, Jon becoming the Lord Paramount of the West would be undeniable. Stannis couldn't go back on his word then.
Varys's letter changed the equation. The difficulty of taking the Rock was no longer the main issue; now, there was a time limit.
If this dragged on, Stannis would sign a peace treaty with Tywin, and Jon would be left out in the cold.
And the Golden Tooth alone wasn't enough to satisfy Jon's appetite. As long as Casterly Rock remained in Lannister hands, he couldn't effectively rule the West.
Without the West, he couldn't build his power base. And without power, when the Night King marched south or Daenerys flew across the Narrow Sea with her dragons, everyone would burn or die.
If he couldn't prove he was a Targaryen with an army at his back, his ending would be grim.
Jon's plan was simple: before Winter truly set in, he needed a standing army of twenty thousand, forty thousand in reserves, a thriving population, overflowing granaries, and armories. And he still had to deal with the headache that was Euron Greyjoy.
He had to take Casterly Rock.
And the first step to taking the Rock was to cut the "network cable"—the line of communication—between Tywin and King's Landing.
Casterly Rock stood isolated on the coast. Jon couldn't just ambush ravens in the wild like he had before. He needed a way to monitor the castle 24/7.
He needed to upgrade his [Skinchanger] trait to the maximum level.
> [Skinchanger] (Gold)
> Remaining Upgrades: 1
Jon poured his last upgrade point into the trait. The gold text shimmered and turned a deep, blood red.
> [Soul Walker] (Red)
"Huh?" Jon blinked. "It doesn't just let me control more ravens?"
The change surprised him. While he could indeed control more birds, the Red trait offered something far more potent.
He realized he could now control animals indirectly through his primary bonded animal. He didn't need to feed them or bond with them over time.
It was like a relay. The animal he possessed became a "Skinchanger" itself.
The limitation was time and quantity, dependent on the host animal's capacity. For example, a raven he controlled could mentally enslave three to seven other ravens nearby.
This changed everything. He didn't need to personally warg into a dozen birds to set up an ambush. He just needed one infiltrator.
He could send a single raven to sneak into the rookery of Casterly Rock. Through that bird, he could hijack the ravens Tywin tried to send out, and intercept the ones arriving from King's Landing.
He could force them to fly directly to him.
Effectively, he was severing the connection between Casterly Rock and the Iron Throne.
Realizing the potential of this new power, Jon immediately dispatched three ravens. They flew into the night, headed straight for the rookery of Casterly Rock.