Loading the dragonglass had taken longer than Tywin had anticipated — three days of sweat-drenched effort beneath the burning gaze of Dragonstone's citadel. Now, however, the ships rode low in the water, their cargoes of dragonglass and half-made dragonglass-tipped spears secure in their holds. As he stood by the rail, the Manderly seamen calling out commands through the salty spray, Tywin thought, North once more. And when that is done, the true battle will begin.
Lyanna drifted up next to him, at Tywin's favored spot at the prow of the vessel. Tywin was a riddle that intrigued her now — his patience, the fact that he didn't get seasick, the way his mind seemed to race ahead against everything. She gave his arm a little jostle with her elbow. If anyone else had done that to him, they'd have had a knife in their ribs for it.
"Do you want me to tell you a bedtime story?" Tywin said to her without leaving the rail.
"Not unless it has an end to it," Lyanna replied, a hint of amusement dancing in her voice. "No southern riddles." A gust of wind drew a strand of dark hair loose, across her cheek. She pushed it back.
Tywin snorted, almost laughing. "There is no such thing as an ending. Only the next chapter." The water lapped at the ship to agree with him. He didn't have to look to know Lyanna was making a face; he could feel her eyes squinting against him. "You suck at this," she concluded, but it wasn't an accusation.
Tywin hmphed. Clever as she was, she had much to learn about the world. "I have taught you more in a few weeks than your father has in years. You would do well to be grateful."
The smile fell from Lyanna's face. She would have liked to have protested. To have retorted something. Yet Tywin had. He'd taught her how to fight foul. How to recognize deceit before it even left a man's mouth. How to make the common man adore you, yet still keep the fear of retribution in them. "Gratitude is a debt," she said instead.
The Lion just grunted. The boat swayed. "Debts are what make the world go round," he told her.
Bored, he humored her. Tywin released the rail, his cloak fluttering in the wind. Behind him lay the sea, black and infinite. It seemed appropriate. "You want a story with an ending?" He didn't raise his voice, but let it be lost in the wind. Lyanna still strained to hear him. "Then here is the only one that matters."
He raised a hand, pointing out to sea where the dark shape of Dragonstone still rode the rising tide of dusk. "Do you know why I'm feared? Why I am the most feared man in the world?"
The smile fell away from Lyanna's face. She would say something, some witty remark about gold or men…but before she could speak, Tywin silenced her with a look. "It is not the gold. Not the lions. Not even the bodies I bury." His hand clenched into a fist. "It is competence."
He allowed the word to settle, the banality of it stinging her like a blow to the face. "Competence," Tywin said again, observing Lyanna's incredulous expression. "Men fear what they do not understand—but they obey what they cannot match. Every lord in Westeros has swords. Every fool has gold. But only me and the Queen know how to wield them." The wind pulled his words away, but Lyanna leaned in, wanting to hear every bit.
Then he stepped towards her, his big body shielding her from the strongest of the gusts. "To be competent," he told her, "you must give up the things that all men hold dear. Pride. Honour. The belief that all men are equal." His thumb stroked the blade of his dagger, a habitual gesture. "Consider your Starks. They are noble. They are strong. They are of the North. Yet—" he smiled, just a little. "They are not the kings of the Seven Kingdoms." He paused afterwards, allowing Lyanna to work out for herself why.
"And… why would you hold onto those ideals? It's stupid to die for them when you could be wrong." Tywin smiled at last. Not cruel, not warm, just a small, lip twisting smile that was fake.
The ship creaked and swayed, its wooden hull undulating with the swell of the sea. Lyanna clenched her fist against the railing as the chill of Tywin's words sank into her marrow. Competence. How quaint. How…tasteful. How very much a euphemism for the ghastly reality of it all. She began to say something, she wasn't quite sure what—to protest, perhaps, or make a joke of it—but the dangerous glint in Tywin's eye stayed her tongue.
"Never forget," Tywin Lannister replied, sounding impervious to the chill, "that any man who says, 'I will do this if you do that' is a man you'll never have to do anything for. The toughest man in the Seven Kingdoms can be brought low by sickness or a spear in the dark. And the noblest can fall just as fast as any other, if his squire doesn't see fit to tighten the strap on his helm." He shook his sleeve. "When dealing with a king, you want his enemy's head on a spike, not his own."
Lyanna's grip on the railing turned white as she recalled that was the first thing Tywin had taught her. The ship lurched again, but Tywin's feet did not shift from the deck. "That—"
"was your first lesson." Tywin cut in. "Yes." He looked thoughtful. "We are human. We are not unlike wolves, vying for power instead of tearing with teeth." He snapped back to the present. "Still we have created ideas such as 'honor' and 'right' to blind ourselves to this fact… or perhaps for the more powerful to chain the less so. The only thing that exists in this age is your name. Perhaps in the next age something else, I don't know."
Nothing was said for some time, until Tywin finally retreated to his captain quarters. On the door, he added, "Hopefully you will learn to ask the right questions… or be… another Stark." He closed the door behind him, leaving Lyanna alone.
Lyanna stayed by the rail for a very long time. The wind pinched at her face and the stiff salt fabric of her sleeves rubbed against her wrists, but she didn't feel it. Tywin's phrases stuck to her mind like burrs—hard to pick free. Competence. She tasted the word, toying with its meaning. It was not a great thing. Not a noble thing. Yet somehow it felt like a fact she'd always understood, though had never called by its name.
###
They smelled White Harbor before they saw it; the salt and the fish and the pitch from the torches on the docks. They saw the merman sigils of House Manderly snapping in the wind as the ships creaked against the docking. Tywin was the first to dismount, his boots thumping against the worn wood, Strider chuffing like a great animal to be on dry land. The Starks dismounted next; Brandon rolled his shoulders, Ned checked his sword-belt, and Lyanna brooded on Tywin's parting speech.
Lord Wyman Manderly came waddling down to the dock to meet them, his waist as thick as the trunk of an old tree, his legs short and stumpy beneath his baggy breeches and quilted tunic. At his breast, a large silver pike was pinned to a tunic of white and blue wool. His hair had gone to grey, but his eyes still twinkled with amusement whenever he laughed. And laugh he did, as he grasped the salt-stained cloak of Lord Lannister in a thick-fingered hand, and pulled himself up on to the dock.
"Lord Lannister!" he roared, in a voice like thunder. "My ships come back to me, and they bring gifts! Though I must say, you look in better shape than when you went. It seems my food has been feeding you well." He turned to the Starks, his eyes staying for a moment too long on the girl, before he bowed his head. "And the young wolves. Welcome, my dears. Welcome to White Harbour."
"A small gesture." Tywin inclined his head. "Your ships proved useful. My thanks." He did not wait for a response, but turned to the next man on the bench. Manderly smiled broadly at the thanks from the lips of Tywin Lannister, but the lord of White Harbor felt as if he lost some expected offer for he paused a moment, slapping his hands together.
"Then let us drink to fair winds and full coffers!" Manderly exclaimed, as he led them from the docks to the New Castle. His serving men followed behind, along with the dockworkers unloading the dragonglass. The Lannister soldiers watched the proceedings with distrustful eyes.
Brandon jabbed an elbow into Ned's ribs as they walked. "Fat man's got a tongue like a honeyed melody," he whispered derisively. Ned frowned at him, but Lyanna saw the smile he was trying to hide.
In the New Castle the smell of roasted fish and wet wool occupied the air as the long tables creaked beneath Manderly's generosity. At the high table Tywin had carved a slice of smoked eel to lace with his fingers, then ate it with such slow, precise small bites that he seemed to be savoring the taste, though he never drank a swallow of his wine. Lord Wyman spoke at length of a meandering tale about a smuggler's unfortunate encounter with a kraken. Lyanna watched Tywin from the corner of her eye, seated as she was between her brothers Ned and Brandon.
"—and thus the wretch lost not only his goods, but a hand!" Manderly concluded with a guffaw that sprayed his beard with ale. The knights and tradesmen laughed politely. Not Tywin. He merely wiped his mouth with a linen napkin and let it fall.
"An excellent tale," said Tywin Lannister, "but we do not have time for it now. We have work to do." He pushed back his chair and stood. "The dragonglass must be sent to Winterfell, with all haste. Lord Manderly, your carts will suffice?"
"Of course, my lord," the fat man said, bobbing his head. "They will be ready at dawn."
The line of carts moved slowly up the wolfswood path. Stacked behind each oxen team were the bulky crates, loaded heavy with dragonglass. The cart-drivers, all men-at-arms, were somber, knowing the destination of their wares and their purpose. Leading the procession was Tywin Lannister, riding Strider, his cloak making him look larger then life. Behind him the Stark children rode, Brandon fidgeting with impatience, Eddard as placid as ever, and Lyanna gnawing at her lip, as if desirous to ask a question.
The portcullis at Winterfell was raised in their honor, and the great grey direwolf on the banner that streamed above the portcullis seemed to glare down at them like an ill omen. Lord Rickard Stark, the Warden of the North, came forth to greet them, his beard frosted with hoarfrost. Behind him stood a dozen men-at-arms, with chests as deep and frigid as the stone of the castle walls. "Lannister," the lord called out, his breath already misting in the cold morning air. "You have made better time than I had hoped. Come, let us get you and your companions warm and fed."
Tywin swung down off Strider, and handed the reins to a gaping stableboy. "The roads north are…better than I had anticipated," he announced, which, coming from him, was a veritable blandishment. Rickard's lips quivered, but he chose not to take the bait. "And is that all you've brought?" he asked instead, his eyes moving past to the oxcarts.
"Enough to equip every man from Last Hearth to the Neck," said Tywin. He did not speak of the half-forged spearheads wrapped in oilcloth, or the rough chunks of dragonglass that remained to be sharpened.
***
It was a ravenous dragon, the fire pit in the forge, with flames that danced in its midst. Tywin Lannister stood with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows at the edge of the pit, observing as a blacksmith hammered two chunks of dragonglass into a spearhead. His fingers drummed impatiently on the stone rim of the pit; faster , he wanted to say. The Starks would need to get better at this, or they'd never be able to arm all of their troops for a long time but at least they persisted.
Brandon flipped a completed spear to Ned, who snatched it out of the air, and felt the balance. "Lighter than steel," Ned said, feeling the serrated edge with his thumb.
"Lighter than steel, deadlier than Valyrian steel," Tywin said, not looking up. He pulled a half-shaped arrowhead from the anvil, and held it up to the light. The dragonglass rippled, like it was liquid in the flames. "Aim for anywhere that looks vital.
Lyanna, seated on a keg to one side, turned a loose fragment over in her hands. "And if we run out?"
Tywin didn't look at Lyanna as he replied. He flipped the arrowhead into the quenching trough, where it spat like a snake that had been stepped on. "Then you adapt. A stone. A boot knife. Your teeth." The steam wreathed his face, but did nothing to blunt the lines of his features. "Simple."
A rustling sound swept through the yard of Winterfell as if the harvest had come to reap a ghastly crop of its own. Lannister men walked in neat, precise lines, each accepting a spear with a formal gesture. The northern men, less ordered but no less desperate, snatched the spears in large, calloused fists. Tywin, sitting on Strider, held the stallion's reins in a relaxed circle around his wrist. The warhorse snorted at him, perhaps protesting the cold of the north.
Lyanna came upon him as he stood there, her boots crunching on the frost-hardened gravel. "They're not giving me one," she said, a statement not a question.
Tywin did not turn. "No."
She drew breath, but Brandon said, "You're not coming, little wolf," before she could object. He was seated on the stone beside her, arms folded. Ned was standing just behind him, and his indifference was more telling than words.
Lyanna clenched fists beside herself, feeling the cold in her knuckles, as she gazed up at Tywin. "Why?" she insisted, her tone had became very hard.
Tywin puffed out his breath, and for an instant the fog seemed to take on a life of its own, a dragon's breath that swirled and danced before him in the dark cold air. "War is not a song, girl. No, not a tourney, where you ride in and win glory with a pretty ribbon tied to your lance. And your brothers…your brothers for all their bluster at least understand that much." He glanced over to Brandon.
Brandon moved, becoming harsh with Lyanna. "You'd be a liability." It was worse with Ned, as he would usually be the peacemaker here. He said nothing at all.
It stung. Liability. It left a bad taste in her mouth. She wanted to protest, wanted to shout that she was just as capable of taking up arms as any of them, that she had practiced longer and harder than many of the men who trained in the yard at Winterfell… but the memory of Tywin's words twisted in her belly like a snake. Competence. Did she truly have it? Or was she just another prideful Stark?
Tywin turned to face her now, his cloak following him in the proccess in dramatic fashion. "You will stay," he told her in a neutral tone, but with an air of dismissal. "And you will ponder." His eyes shifted to Brandon and Ned. "Your brothers are not reflective men. That is their failing. That is your power."
Brandon snorted. He shrugged his shoulders, as if to shake something off. "Thinking won't keep the wights from your door," he said, though there was a lack of conviction in his tone. It was the irritated voice of a man who did not want to be inactive. Ned made no reply. He clenched his jaw.
The Lannister army deployed with chilling efficiency, their red cloaks looking like a splash of color in a white world as they took their positions. Dragonglass shone like a thousand tiny mirrors in the pale sun, mounted on belts, hanging on shoulders, stuffed into boots. Tywin viewed it all from the walls, drumming his fingers against Strider's reins. The warhorse snorted, feeling his restlessness.
Lyanna continued. "What if I do think?" she said, defying him. "What if I do?"
A twitch in Tywin's face—not a smile, never a smile. "Then you will comprehend why I did not take you with me." He gestured toward the forge below, where the last of the dragonglass was being wrapped up in oilcloth. "And you will hate me for it."
The gates creaked open, sounding like a scream of tortured wood. The column moved slowly, oxen and men together, with a clanging of bells and a stomping of boots and a great creaking and groaning of the siege engines and wagons. Lyanna stood by the battlements, watching as Tywin disappeared from view.
Ned coughed behind her. "He's not wrong," he said softly.
Brandon snorted. "About what? That she'll hate him? Or that she's a—"
"Brandon," Ned said, like a blade.
Lyanna did not turn. The wind lashed her hair into her face, its icy fingers stinging her cheeks. Far below, the last of the carts was rumbling under the portcullis, the dragonglass hidden beneath its tarpaulin like a shameful secret. Competence. That word rankled.
She didn't budge until the gates slammed shut with a final, resounding thud. Then she whirled on her foot and marched by her brothers in silence.
The forge was empty now, the fires banked, the anvil cold. Lyanna held a finger along the edge of a discarded dragonglass shard, its surface unnaturally smooth. Deadlier than Valyrian steel, Tywin had said. She wondered if he'd meant it as a warning.
A shadow fell across the workbench. Benjen, as quiet as a cat, stood in the doorway. "They forgot about you," he said, too young to hide his excitement.
Lyanna's smile grew thinner. "Are you here to annoy me?"
"I am," Benjen shrugged, admitting the truth. "But I'm also here to help." He threw a practice sword at her—wooden, but weighted the same as regular steel. "You are going to pout, you might as well do it usefully."
Lyanna hadn't laughed since the day Tywin rode out. It wasn't a very good laugh, but it left an empty space inside her that she was used to. She snatched the sword from the air. The weight of it felt comfortable in her hand.
"Fine," she replied, tossing it once. "But don't whine when I knock you into the snow."
Benjen smiled, with a wolfish gleam in his eye. "I wouldn't dare."