Edric sat underneath the angry face of Harrenhal's weirwood, its carved eyes glaring down like a judge from the Seven Hells, blood-red leaves rustling in the chill wind that seemed to whisper curses. The tree's bark was gnarled and black, fitting for a place soaked in death and madness, where ghosts were said to walk the melted towers and screams echoed from the stones. The Eyrie lacked fertile soil for such ancient sentinels, so Edric rarely felt the pull of the old gods, but here he craved to test his gifts.
Warging was like possession, a tether to Storm's sharp eyes and beating wings, but astral projection was freer—a soul unbound, drifting like smoke from a pyre. He leaned back against the trunk, closed his eyes, and willed himself out, the world tilting as his spirit slipped free. For what felt like an eternity—or perhaps only a minute—he hovered, looking down at his own body slumped against the tree, then floated upward, weightless, the godswood shrinking below.
He drifted through Harrenhal's cursed halls, checking sentries and supplies, but the air grew thick, visions flickering like lightning in a storm. Flashes of fire burst before him—screams piercing the ether, agony raw and unending.
The world shifted, and suddenly Harrenhal vanished; in its place rose a skeletal fortress under construction, slaves in rags hauling black stone from quarries, their backs lashed raw by overseers with whips of knotted leather. The air reeked of sweat and despair, chains clinking like funeral bells, the ground churned to mud by thousands of feet.
A massive wall loomed half-built, mortar troughs steaming in the heat—and there, a line of captives knelt, throats bared. An ironborn priest in salt-crusted robes chanted dark words to the Drowned God, knife flashing as he slit the first man's throat, blood gushing hot and coppery into the mortar mix, the crimson swirl binding stone with life essence, screams gurgling into silence as bodies slumped. "For strength eternal," the priest intoned, and the workers stirred the bloody slurry, faces numb with horror, the ritual feeding the castle's hunger before its towers even touched the sky.
Edric recoiled in his spirit form, the vision fading like smoke, but the screams lingered, echoing the castle's dark heart.
Edric felt a sudden tug yanking him free of the vision. The world blurred, the bloody mortar and screaming slaves dissolving into wind and sky. He was flying again, but this time inside Storm.
The falcon's eyes were sharper than any man's. The landscape unrolled below in vivid detail: the God's Eye lake a dark mirror, Harrenhal's melted towers stark against the horizon. And there—on the kingsroad south west of the castle—a column of wagons and men, sky-blue cloaks snapping in the wind. Davos at the fore, his grizzled face set hard, urging the prisoners and wounded onward. Two hours away, maybe less.
Good. He succeeded.
Storm banked lower, wings cutting the air, and Edric saw the pursuit: a rearguard of riders thundering behind Davos's force, dust clouds rising like smoke. Not a full host—perhaps a thousand—but enough to threaten. Their banners caught the light: a black manticore on purple, and beside it The goat of Qohor.
Storm pushed further east, wings cutting the high thermals, the world below a patchwork of green and brown scarred by roads and rivers.
There came Tywin Lannister.
The red and gold of House Lannister fluttered proud in the wind—crimson banners snapping beside golden lions on scarlet fields. A host of at least twenty thousand men marched beneath them: heavy horse in gleaming plate, ranks of pikemen with spears like a steel forest, archers and crossbowmen in disciplined columns.
The vanguard—swift riders and sellswords with Qohorik goats and Morlys manticores—was already snapping at Davos's heels, but the main body followed close, a relentless tide of Lannister might.
They were not far behind now—perhaps a day, no more.
Edric's blood ran cold even in the falcon's body. Half of Casterly Rock's power—Tywin Lannister himself, leading the chase with foreign sellswords at his side.
The vision snapped.
Edric gasped awake beneath the weirwood, heart pounding against his ribs, the angry carved face glaring down as if it knew what he had seen. The godswood was silent save for the wind in the red leaves.
He rose swiftly, cloak swirling, and strode from the tree's shadow into the courtyard. His voice rang out, sharp as a war horn.
"Tom!"
The giant appeared never far away from Edric, rubbing sleep from his eyes, massive frame filling the arch. "My lord?"
"Rouse the men. Davos approaches with prisoners and wounded—two hours out. And Tywin Lannister rides hard behind him, with Qohorik sellswords at his back."
Tom's eyes widened, but he wasted no time. "At once, my lord!"
Horns blasted through Harrenhal's ruins moments later, men spilling from tents and barracks in a storm of steel—sky-blue cloaks thrown on, swords belted, bows strung.
Edric climbed the nearest tower, wind whipping his hair, eyes fixed south west.
The leaping Trout POV
Edmure Tully stood on the battlements of Riverrun, the Trident's three forks churning below like angry serpents, the summer wind carrying the faint stink of smoke from distant burned villages. He had roused the riverlords swiftly—Blackwood, Mallister, Bracken, Piper, Vance—all answering the call when word came of Gregor Clegane's atrocities. Smallfolk put to the sword, crops torched, women and children dragged screaming from their homes. The Riverlands bled, and Edmure's blood boiled with it.
He had sent Ser Raymun Darry to King's Landing, asking the king for aid against this affront to the king's peace. Catelyn's rash seizure of the Imp had lit the fuse—Edmure didn't know why she'd done it, only that the Lannisters answered with fire. "Not a single inch of Tully land will go undefended," he had proclaimed to his bannermen, voice ringing across the great hall. And he meant it.
But the losses came fast.
Raiders struck hard—burning granaries, slaughtering patrols, vanishing into the woods before retribution could catch them. Edmure's levies dwindled. too few and too spread out. There was no time to replace them, no time to train green boys before the next blow landed.
Then the word came: Jaime Lannister himself marched on Riverrun with fifteen thousand men.
Edmure stood in his father's solar, the old man propped in bed, frail and fading, eyes milky with sickness. "Goodbye, Father," Edmure said, voice thick. "I'll Stop the lannisters at the Red ford."
Hoster Tully grasped his hand weakly, trying to speak—advice, perhaps, or orders—but the words veered, rambling about Tansy, some long-ago love or regret. "If only he was strong enough," Edmure thought, heart twisting. The great Lord Hoster, reduced to whispers.
He turned to Tytos Blackwood in the yard below, the tall, thin lord with his raven-feather cloak and grim face. "We hold here," Edmure said firmly. "The river at our backs—no flank for the Lannisters. They'll have to cross water to reach us. We may lack numbers, but the Trident fights with us."
Blackwood nodded, voice low. "Aye, my lord. We'll bleed them for every inch."
They planned through the night scouts watching every approach. No sign of the golden lion yet. Edmure retired to his tent in the outer camp, exhaustion pulling him under like the river's current.
He awoke to screams.
The night exploded into chaos—men shouting, steel clashing, horses whinnying in terror. Edmure bolted upright, heart pounding, fumbling for breeches and tunic. Armor? No time—the tent flap burst open, a Lannister soldier lunging with a spear.
Edmure snatched his sword from beside the cot, parrying the thrust bare-chested, blade ringing as he drove the man back. He slashed wildly, opening the soldier's thigh in a spray of blood, but more poured in—three, four, Crimson cloaks gleaming in torchlight. Without armor he was a sitting duck; a mace caught him on the shoulder, pain exploding white-hot, another blow to the knee dropping him to the mud.
Boots pinned him down, fists raining blows until the world spun. Blood filled his mouth, vision blurring as they dragged him through the camp—tents burning, his men dying or surrendering in the chaos.
They threw him at the feet of Jaime Lannister.
The Kingslayer sat his destrier like a golden god, white cloak blowing in the wind, his face handsome and cruel in the firelight. "You look comfortable in your smallclothes, Edmure," Jaime said, smiling that cat's smile. "Didn't you know we were at war?"
Edmure lunged—or tried to—rage surging, but a boot to the ribs folded him, gasping. "Ser Jaime," a captain reported, "the Blackwoods have slipped away—made it back into Riverrun with some men."
At least that, Edmure thought through the pain. Tytos escaped. The castle holds.
He lay face-down in the mud, tasting blood and earth, the screams fading as Lannister horns blasted victory.
Waiting for whatever came next.