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The blood smell of The Twins had soaked into the stone crevices, stubborn as sin. Three days of river water hadn't touched it.
At night it was worst. The dampness drew it out, that faint copper-rot smell drifting into your nose whether you wanted it to or not, a quiet reminder of what had happened here.
Lynn's room had the fire burning high.
He hated the damp.
Somewhere out there, "Petyr" was being careful , dodging the "pursuit," keeping Lysa unsuspecting, taking the long way around to avoid attention. It had taken them far longer than it should have to reach the Eyrie's borderlands. Lynn nudged him through the warg link. Move faster.
Roslin Frey knelt on the carpet beside the fireplace.
She held a small silver poker and was tending the logs with quiet, deliberate care, as if there were nothing more important in the world. The flames jumped. Orange light moved across her face, delicate and pale, her long lashes throwing small shadows beneath her eyes.
She'd changed into a maid's dress that fit her properly , dark blue fabric that made her skin look even fairer. Her hair was combed and pulled back with a simple band.
Three days now, she'd been doing this. A real maid's work. Making the bed, preparing meals, mixing ink. She was clumsy at most of it, but she never stopped trying.
The castle's other inhabitants treated her with a careful, unspoken distance. Northmen soldiers. Tully servants. They all looked at her the same way , a mix of wariness and something that might have been pity. She was a Frey daughter, yes. But she was also Lord Lynn's personal maid. His spoils of war.
No one dared provoke her. No one dared get close.
Roslin felt every one of those looks.
She didn't care about any of them.
Her attention was on the man at the desk.
Lynn sat by the window, working through the reports that had been arriving from across the Riverlands. Letters of allegiance from Tully bannermen, sent in secret. Inventories from local lords , grain stores, weapons, troop counts. One dispatch noted that Winter had gotten into a Tully livestock pen and done considerable damage.
The Riverlands. Four-way crossroads of the continent, bled dry and reshuffled. Under Lynn's hand, it was being pulled together with an efficiency no one here had ever seen before.
"My lord."
Roslin's voice was soft as a feather passing through air.
She held a silver tray , warm milk, a few honey cakes. "You've been reading all evening. Please eat something and rest."
She set the tray at the corner of the desk without a sound, careful not to disturb him.
Lynn didn't look up. He made a low sound of acknowledgment, eyes still on the parchment.
Roslin didn't leave. She stood quietly to the side, head down, hands folded in front of her, ready the moment he needed anything.
The room settled into its sounds: the snap and pop of the fire, the soft rustle of turning pages.
After a long while, Lynn finally set the reports down and pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose.
He picked up the milk and drank.
The warmth moved down his throat and took some of the tiredness with it.
Tangled, he thought. Layered. The Riverlands were more interesting than he'd expected.
Not that it was a problem. Not for someone who was playing the game with a cheat code already running.
He looked up at Roslin, still standing where he'd left her.
"Are you afraid of me?"
The question came out of nowhere.
Roslin's body gave a small, almost invisible flinch. Her head dropped lower.
"N-no... I dare not."
"Dare not," Lynn said. "Not unafraid."
He set the cup down and leaned back in his chair, watching her with unhurried ease.
"Every day you're in front of me, you look like a rabbit that's heard a wolf. When I ask you to pour wine, your hand shakes enough to spill half of it." He paused. "You're somewhere else entirely."
Roslin's face went white. Her lips moved but nothing came out.
She'd thought she was hiding it better than that.
"Why do you keep staring at me when you think I'm not looking?"
The question came from nowhere, completely unconnected to anything.
Roslin's head snapped up.
In the candlelight, Lynn's face was almost unsettling in its beauty , the kind of face that didn't quite belong here, sharp and still as a carved god. Those dark eyes that seemed to pull you in. The black hair, the features too precise, the complexion that set him apart from every Westerosi face she'd ever seen.
"My lord, you're..." She fumbled. "You're the most beautiful person I've ever seen. Any woman would look twice." Her cheeks burned before she finished the sentence.
"Have I treated you badly?" he asked.
She shook her head hard.
"No. No, my lord, you've been — you saved my life. You gave me a place. You've been very good to me."
"Then what are you afraid of?"
He let the question sit for a moment.
"Afraid I'll hand you off to someone else like your father did? Like you're cargo?" Another pause. "Or afraid I'll lose my temper and reach for a sword, like Edmure?"
Something in Roslin's chest gave way all at once.
Afraid?
Of course she was afraid. She was like a pet that had never learned its master's moods , every day spent reading the air, waiting for the thing she couldn't predict.
Her knees hit the floor. The tears came without warning, falling fast and hard against the stone.
"I just... I don't know what to do." Her voice broke. "I don't know what you want from me, my lord. I can do anything — anything — if you would just..."
She couldn't finish it.
What she'd meant to say was: as long as you let me live.
But the words felt too small. Too pathetic. Her life , this small, humble thing , felt like it barely registered in front of a man like him.
Lynn looked at her for a moment. Kneeling on the floor. Shaking.
He stood, crossed to her, and crouched down.
He didn't help her up. He just reached out and brushed the tears from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. A light touch. Careful.
The warmth of it made her shake harder.
"Roslin."
She looked up. Her eyes were soaked.
"What I want is simple."
He held her gaze, unhurried.
"A maid who handles the small things so I can focus on the things that matter. Someone sharp, attentive, and loyal without question." He let that land. "You're already doing well. You're still clumsy, but that passes."
"The things you're afraid of — they won't happen."
"I told you. Your life is mine." His voice didn't waver. "That means no one touches you. Not Edmure. Not anyone."
"You're not cargo. You're not a Frey remnant to be disposed of. You're my maid. Someone I hired. And as long as you do your job well, you'll have everything you're owed — the pay, the respect. More, even."
Roslin stared at him.
She'd been certain she knew what she was to him. A pretty enough trophy. Proof of victory. Something to be used and set aside.
But he was talking to her about respect.
"I... I don't want that."
The words came out before she could stop them.
The moment they did, she froze.
Then the fear hit her like cold water.
Was she out of her mind? How had she just said that?
Lynn's brow lifted slightly. Something in his expression shifted , genuine curiosity, for the first time.
"Oh? Then what do you want?"
Roslin's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
What did she want?
She wanted him to look at her the way he just had. That quiet attention, that almost-gentle focus.
She wanted the warmth of his thumb against her cheek.
She wanted to matter to him. Not as something useful. Not as something warm in a bed. Not as a maid who stripped and lay still and waited while her master took whatever he wanted from her body , the way Walder Frey had taken from her mother, over and over, until there was nothing left.
Her mother had told her, near the end: This is what we are. This is what women are. It was never going to be any different. Walder Frey. Every lord after him. Every lord in Westeros, in Essos, in the whole world. All the same.
Roslin had believed her. She'd had no reason not to.
But this man had pulled her out of that world. He'd let her feel, for the first time, what it was like when someone looked at her like she was a person.
And she wanted to be someone he actually thought about.
Not just useful. Not just convenient.
She couldn't say any of it.
Between her and Lynn there was a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. There was the entire distance between what she was and what he was. She had no right to want what she wanted.
All the courage she'd gathered dissolved.
"Nothing." She dropped her head. Her voice was barely a sound. "I'm sorry. I misspoke."
Lynn looked at her , folded back into herself, smaller again , and didn't push.
Some seeds only needed to be planted.
Time and light would do the rest.
For now, Roslin was just a girl who'd been ground down for too long. She didn't have the courage yet to be anything else. Pushing her wouldn't help. Some things had to be found from the inside, not handed over by someone else's lecture.
He stood and walked back to the window.
"Get up. The floor's cold."
His gaze moved toward the Eyrie.
"By my count, it's about time."
---
The Vale. The Mountains of the Moon.
The road to the Eyrie was brutal and long, and with Winter closing in, the mountain wind came off the peaks like a blade.
Lysa Arryn pulled her cloak tighter and still felt the cold in her bones.
But her heart was burning.
Petyr was beside her.
He held her hand as they picked their way along the rocky path, moving carefully through terrain that would have turned most travelers back. For days they'd slept rough, eaten what they could find, traveled only the paths no one else used.
Petyr seemed to know every stone. Every tree. He found shelter without searching for it, brought down game without effort, and produced half a wheel of hard cheese or a small bottle of sweet wine from somewhere inside his coat as if by magic.
He was like something out of a story. A man who could do anything.
Lysa had never been more certain of him. Every doubt she'd felt back in the High Hall felt distant and foolish now. He was her hero. The gods had sent him to her.
"Almost there, my little Lysa."
He wore that smile , the one that had always made her feel safe.
"Cross that ridge and you'll see the Giant's Lance."
"Petyr..." She leaned into his shoulder, her voice soft with everything she felt. "When we get Robert back — let's leave. Really leave. Never come back."
"Of course," he said, drawing her close and pressing his lips gently to her forehead. "I promise you."
They reached the mountain's base just before dark.
The Giant's Lance rose above them into the fading sky, throwing its shadow across the earth below. Like a giant standing watch. Silent. Immovable.
Northmen soldiers stood at the entrance, direwolf sigils on their armor, alert and still.
Lysa's chest tightened. "How do we get in?"
"Follow me."
No hesitation. He pulled her sideways off the path and into a narrow crack in the rock, almost invisible behind a curtain of overgrown brush.
At the end of it: a door. Stone-faced, seamless to the eye. Petyr ran his fingers across the wall with practiced ease, and with a soft click, it swung inward.
Lysa's breath caught.
"This is... we used to..."
She knew this place.
This was the passage they'd used when she was young. The hidden way she and Petyr had taken to meet in secret, away from Jon Arryn's knowledge. She'd nearly forgotten it existed.
Petyr had never forgotten.
The last shadow of doubt left her entirely. She followed him into the dark with a full heart.
The passage branched in every direction, but Petyr moved through it like he was walking through his own rooms , no hesitation, no wrong turns. They descended stone steps, rounded fork after fork, moving deeper in silence.
Then, from somewhere above: footsteps. Voices. The Northern patrol, making its rounds.
Lysa's heart hammered. She placed each foot with agonizing care.
Petyr stopped at an unremarkable corner and pointed up at a plain stone slab set into the ceiling.
"Robert's room," he murmured against her ear.
Lysa's throat closed.
Her son. Her boy. Right above her.
Petyr pressed a finger to his lips, then eased the slab up, just enough , a thin sliver of light and sound.
Lysa pressed close and looked through.
The room was candlelit. Warm.
A small, thin figure sat on the edge of the bed, arms wrapped around a cloth doll.
Robert Arryn.
He was thinner. His color was off. But he was alive, and his eyes were open, and he was whispering something to the doll in his arms.
"Don't cry... don't cry... Mother's coming back for me soon..."
The words hit her like a blade through the chest.
Her tears came instantly, silently, flooding her eyes.
He was there. He was alive. He was waiting for her.
She was about to push forward when the door opened.
A soldier in Northern leather walked in carrying a tray.
"Lord Arryn. Time for your medicine."
Flat voice. No cruelty in it, just routine.
"I won't! It's disgusting!"
Robert flung the doll across the room.
"I want Mother! I want to see my mother!"
"Little Lord Arryn, please." The soldier's voice was tired. "Lord Lynn's orders. It's for your health."
"I don't care! I won't take it! You're all awful! You're keeping me prisoner!"
The boy threw himself across the bed, kicking and wailing, exactly as he always had.
Lysa pressed her hand over her mouth so hard it hurt.
She watched the soldier sigh. Set the tray on the table. Walk over and lower himself to one knee beside the bed, and begin , clumsily, earnestly , trying to coax the boy calm.
Below, Petyr watched Lysa's face. He touched her sleeve lightly and drew her back.
They retreated into the dark of the passage without a sound.
"You saw," Petyr said quietly. His voice carried a thread of controlled fury. "That's what that devil Lynn is doing to our son."
"My Robert..." Lysa was past words. "My sweet boy..."
"Don't." Petyr pulled her into his arms and held her, one hand moving in slow circles on her back. "We move tonight."
She pulled back and looked at him. "Tonight?"
"Tonight." His eyes were sharp and certain. "I've watched the pattern. After midnight, there's only one guard on his room. I'll handle him. Then we take Robert and we walk out of here through the passage." His voice was steady. Absolute. "No one will ever separate us again."
Lysa looked at him. This man who had planned every step, who had never once let her down.
Her love for him swelled past anything she could have named.
She nodded hard.
"Tonight. We do it tonight."
She was done waiting. She was going to get her son out of that devil's hands, and then they were going to disappear, and none of this would ever touch them again.
➤ Next: Lysa's Self-Interrogation — Heartbreak