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The mountain road from the Vale into the Riverlands was rough going, all jagged stone and switchbacks.
Lysa Arryn's procession wound through it like a long gray snake crawling between the rocks.
She hadn't taken a carriage. She rode.
The bitter mountain wind tore at her hair. It couldn't touch the madness in her eyes.
The raven's letter had been impossible to believe.
She refused to believe it.
When she stood before her father in the flesh , alive, with her son at her side, with the future of House Arryn standing right there in front of him , he wouldn't be able to say those cold, cutting words to her face. He wouldn't dare.
He was old. He was confused.
Catelyn had married a Stark and let the North freeze her heart solid. She'd forgotten they were sisters.
None of them understood.
None of them understood what Petyr meant to her.
And none of them had the faintest idea how desperate her situation truly was.
Robert's axe was already raised.
She could almost smell the steel.
There was nowhere left to run.
"Mother..."
A small, frightened voice drifted from behind her.
Robert Arryn , that reed-thin boy , was bundled tight in his fur cloak, shaking on horseback. He'd grown up with the Eyrie's cold winds his whole life, but the chill on this mountain pass was different. It reached into his bones.
"Why... why are we coming here? I want to go back to the Eyrie..."
Lysa yanked her reins and turned to look at him.
Those bloodshot eyes held nothing maternal. Only the hot, ugly irritation of someone who'd been defied.
"Shut up!"
Her voice cracked like a whip.
"We are going to see your grandfather. To let him look at you. The blood of House Arryn. He will protect us."
Little Robert flinched and went quiet, though his small body shook harder than before.
Lysa didn't spare him another glance. She drove her spurs into her horse's flanks and galloped toward Riverrun.
She left the entire Vale behind her , handed it to the vassals she'd already stirred up, every one of them with their own agenda.
That was intentional.
Someone had to be made an example of. That was how you cleared the road for war.
---
When Lysa's road-worn procession appeared beneath the walls of Riverrun, the whole castle took notice.
Edmure Tully stood on the battlements and looked down at the blue-and-white Moon-and-Falcon banner.
His expression was unreadable.
He hadn't actually believed his headstrong sister would do something this reckless.
The gates ground open.
Lysa didn't wait for a welcome.
She swung off her horse and tossed the reins at a gaping servant without looking at him. Then she grabbed her still-trembling son by the arm, hauled him off his horse, and marched toward the main keep.
"Where is Father?!"
Her voice rang off the courtyard walls, sharp as a hawk's cry.
Edmure hurried to intercept her, discomfort written across his face.
"Father... he's not well. The maester says he needs rest. You shouldn't disturb him right now."
"Rest?"
Lysa laughed, a short cold sound, and shoved her brother aside.
"By the time he's rested enough, his daughter and grandson will already have their heads on spikes , courtesy of that drunkard Robert!"
She swept through the door like a storm and into the bedroom beyond, thick with the smell of herbs and something older and heavier underneath.
Lord Hoster Tully.
Once the Warden of the Riverlands. Now just a skeleton in a bed.
His breathing was shallow and fast, every rise and fall of his chest a battle.
The noise at the door made him pry open his clouded eyes.
When he recognized Lysa, something blazed up in them , anger and disappointment twisted together into something almost frightening.
"You... what are you doing here?"
Each word cost him breath.
"What am I doing here?"
Lysa pushed little Robert to the bedside.
"Father. Look at him. Your grandson."
"The only blood of House Arryn left."
"Do you want him to die?"
"Do you want Robert to crush him like a chick in his fist?!"
"Madwoman..."
Lord Hoster erupted into a coughing fit, his frail chest heaving.
"You madwoman! For that — cough — that lowborn Baelish, you'd destroy all of us!"
"Petyr is not lowborn!"
Lysa's voice tore up into a scream, her face , already haggard from days of hard riding , twisting into something ugly.
"He is the best man in this world!"
"You did this! All of you drove him to his death!"
"And now you want to drive me to mine!"
"Father! I am your daughter! Will you just lie there and watch me die?!"
She threw herself at the bedside and seized his hand , that skeletal, skin-over-bone hand , and the tears came in a flood.
Not grief. Rage. Grievance. Years of it, pouring out.
"Get out..."
Lord Hoster strained to pull his hand back.
"I have... I have no daughter like you..."
"The words of House Tully are 'Family. Duty. Honor.'"
"You murdered your husband. That is without honor. You invited ruin through your own gates. That is without loyalty. You have dragged this family down into the muck. That is without filial piety."
"You have shamed House Tully."
Every word landed like a blow.
Every hope she'd carried here. Every last illusion.
Gone.
"Fine..."
Lysa slowly let go of his hand and stood.
The tear tracks were still wet on her cheeks.
She straightened up.
And when she looked at him again, her blue eyes held nothing , no sorrow, no wounded pride. Only a burning, absolute madness.
She leaned down until her face was almost touching his withered cheek.
Her voice dropped. Not a scream now. Not a sob. Something quieter and far colder than the wind outside.
"You want to talk to me about honor, Father?"
"Have you forgotten who sold me like livestock to Jon Arryn , a man older than you , just so you could have a friend at court in King's Landing?"
"You want to talk to me about duty?"
"I am about to die, and you are lying in this bed waiting to follow me, without the courage to lift a finger. Is that your duty?"
"You want to talk to me about family?"
"Hypocrite."
"Being born a Tully was a curse."
She let out a short, contemptuous laugh. In the silence of that room, it sounded vicious.
"For the sake of the Tully name, you forced me to get rid of the child I had with Petyr."
"Where was your talk of family then?"
"You cared about your reputation. Your position. That was all."
"When did you ever truly care about me?"
Hoster Tully's failing heart had nothing left to absorb this with.
His clouded eyes flew wide. Horror. Disbelief. Something beyond both.
He wasn't looking at his daughter.
He was looking at something that had been his daughter once, before hatred had finished its work on her.
"You... you..."
He struggled. Tried to push himself upright, tried to find the breath to curse her, to throw her out of Riverrun.
His body wouldn't answer.
A rush of copper-sweet liquid surged up his throat.
"Hkk... hkk..."
His hands clawed at his own neck.
His face went dark, a terrible purplish-red. His eyes bulged.
He wanted to cry out. He wanted Edmure to come through that door and see what his sister truly was.
His throat produced only a thin, rasping wheeze.
Lysa reached out and pressed her hand over his mouth.
And watched.
She watched her father fight for air. Watched the life go out of him, bit by bit, right in front of her.
Her face was still.
No fear. No hesitation. Not even satisfaction.
Just the blank, detached calm of someone watching a stranger.
At last, the withered body went rigid , one sharp, final spasm , and then collapsed, slack and boneless.
The eyes that had been fixed on her went dull. Gray. Empty.
Hoster Tully, Lord of Riverrun, Warden of the Riverlands.
Dead.
Driven to it by his youngest daughter.
Silence reclaimed the room.
Lysa straightened up slowly.
She didn't look at the body. She turned toward the door.
Footsteps.
Edmure.
One second before his hand touched the door.
Every trace of that cold emptiness vanished from Lysa's face.
What replaced it was grief , raw, shattering, the kind that cracks open even a hard heart.
"Father—!"
The sound that tore out of her wasn't quite human. It rang through the stone halls of Riverrun.
She flung herself at the bedside and collapsed across Hoster's body.
"Father! Wake up! Look at me! It's Lysa!"
"How could you leave me , how could you just leave like this—"
This was what Edmure Tully walked in on.
His sister, folded over their father like a broken child, sobbing with her whole body.
And their father, utterly still.
"Father?!"
"Gods, "
The room went white inside Edmure's head.
He lurched to the bedside and reached out a shaking hand to check for breath.
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
"Maester! Now! Get the maester!"
He bellowed it at the open doorway.
The elderly maester arrived quickly, medicine chest in hand, out of breath. He checked Lord Hoster's pupils. Pressed an ear to his chest.
Then he stood, turned to Edmure, and shook his head.
"My lord... he is gone."
"No, !"
The sound that came out of Edmure was raw and broken. He hit the floor.
He couldn't make sense of it. His father had been weak, yes , but aware, present. Just moments ago.
And then Lysa arrived, and,
His eyes drifted to his sister, still weeping over the body.
A thought crossed his mind. Dark and formless. Gone almost before he could name it.
Then Lysa seemed to run out of tears all at once. She lifted her head slowly.
Her face was a wreck of tear-streaks, and the grief on it looked real , fragile, devastated, utterly convincing.
She looked at Edmure where he knelt on the floor, her eyes still glistening.
"Brother... Father... he went peacefully."
"He saw me and little Robert. He was glad."
"He held my hand. He said... he said he could finally rest easy."
She paused to sob, and pressed on.
"He said House Tully couldn't afford to stay weak any longer. He said he'd changed his mind. He agreed. He agreed to ally with the Vale."
"He said you... he said you must listen to me. Protect Riverrun. Protect our home."
Edmure stared at her.
Father had agreed?
On his deathbed, he had changed his mind?
How could that be?
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