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Bronze Yohn Royce.
The loyal guardian of the Vale. The old lord of Runestone.
This man, renowned for his iron will and unbreakable honor, had eyes that burned with the fury of a volcano on the edge of eruption.
His hand was already on his sword.
"Lady Lysa Arryn."
Yohn Royce's voice came out like something forced through a frozen canyon.
Every word cut to the bone.
"Why are you here?"
"Why are you here with Petyr?"
His gaze didn't waver. It was nailed to Lysa's face.
"Lord Royce."
"Lord Waynwood."
"Ser Templeton."
Lysa's eyes swept across the room , across the Vale lords who had once bowed and scraped before her, and who now stared back with open hostility.
She didn't answer Yohn Royce's question.
She just held her son. Little Robert was still trembling against her.
Slowly, she eased him away from her and placed him in Petyr's waiting arms.
"Watch over him."
Her voice was soft. Weightless. Like a snowflake drifting down before it lands.
Then she rose, turning to face the knights who had surrounded them with drawn steel.
There was no fear on her face. No madness. No despair.
Only a dead, absolute stillness.
As if something inside her had already died, and what stood here now was only the shell that remained.
"I know what you want to ask."
"My husband, Jon Arryn, was killed by me."
One sentence. The air in the room went solid.
Everyone thought they had misheard.
Yohn Royce's pupils snapped tight.
Behind him, the Vale lords drew a single sharp breath, all at once.
"You... what did you say?"
A young knight stammered the words out.
Lysa didn't look at him. She kept those empty eyes fixed on Yohn Royce.
"I poured a vial of Tears of Lys into his wine cup myself."
"I watched him drink it. I watched him die in agony in his bed."
Everyone in the room had already heard this from Lynn. But hearing it was different from believing it. Doubt had lingered.
Now the truth came from the mouth of the one who had done it, and that last shred of doubt dissolved completely.
"My eldest son — you killed him too!"
Yohn Royce's voice tore out of him, barely leashed.
His eldest son had died on the road to Riverrun, executed by Lysa on charges of treason while escorting her. And Yohn himself had been thrown into the dungeons. If Lynn hadn't come when he did, he would still be rotting in there, waiting for Lysa to return to the Eyrie and finish the job herself.
His son had been a man of honor. Treason was impossible. Yohn had always suspected the truth of how he died. He'd never been able to prove it.
Now he would hear it from her own lips.
"Yes."
Lysa said it the way you'd confirm something trivial. Something that had nothing to do with her.
"He had a knight's honor. He refused to follow my orders. I had no choice but to silence him permanently."
The sound that came out of Yohn Royce wasn't quite a word.
He ripped his greatsword from its scabbard. The tip leveled at Lysa's throat.
"You poisonous woman!"
"You demon who has forsaken the gods!"
"Shall we act, my sweet Lysa?"
The voice came low, close to her ear. A whisper with a hook in it.
Petyr.
He had Robert against his chest with one arm, his other hand resting on the dagger at his hip. He leaned in until his lips nearly touched her ear.
"Just nod."
"I'll kill them. Every last one of them."
"Then I take you and Robert out of here. Essos. Pentos. That manor by the sea."
"Endless sunshine. Just our family. Together, forever."
His voice was a devil's murmur. Every word a temptation.
This was everything she had ever wanted. The only thing that had kept her going.
Three days ago she would have nodded without thinking. Even half an hour ago.
But now.
Lysa turned her head slowly and looked at Petyr. At those grey-green eyes, still as deep and unreadable as they had always been.
A desolate smile crossed her face.
"A family?"
She reached up and touched his cheek. Gentle. Almost tender.
"Petyr. Did you hear him?"
"Robert misses Jon Arryn."
"In his heart, the old man I poisoned — that man is his father."
"And me , his mother, who killed his father for you — what am I to him?"
Something shifted in Petyr's expression. For the first time.
A flicker of complexity. And beneath it, something that looked almost like relief.
Lysa had understood.
Since she had, Lynn was willing to give her a relatively dignified end.
"Petyr" said nothing more.
"Where... where would we even go?"
Lysa's voice carried a grief that had seen through everything.
"I killed my husband. I killed Lord Royce's son." A pause. "I smothered my own father with my own hands. I tried to kill my own brother."
"I betrayed the Arryns. I betrayed the Tullys. I betrayed everyone who ever loved me."
"My hands are soaked in the blood of my own kin."
She stared at Petyr.
"Tell me. Does someone like me deserve to stand in that endless sunshine?"
"Does someone like me deserve to be happy?"
She didn't wait for his answer.
She turned back to face the Vale lords, who stood frozen, horror written across every face.
Lysa smoothed her skirts. Slowly. Carefully. The fabric was hopelessly disheveled, but her hands moved through the motions anyway.
Then, in the silence of a held breath, she gathered the hem and dropped into a perfect curtsy before Yohn Royce.
Elegant. Unhurried.
As if she were still the great Lady of the Vale, before the old lord's death had changed everything.
"Lord Royce."
Her voice had found a thread of clarity.
"Lord Jon Arryn was poisoned and killed by myself and Petyr Baelish, acting together."
"My father, Lord Hoster Tully, was smothered to death by my own hands."
"The Red Wedding at Riverrun was a massacre I planned."
"I, Lysa Arryn, am guilty beyond all forgiveness."
Her words landed on every person in the room like stones.
No one spoke.
The silence was total.
Only the faint, thin sound of Robert Arryn crying.
Lysa's gaze found her son.
For the first time, something came into those hollow eyes. A mother's tenderness. A mother's grief at letting go.
"Lord Royce."
"Robert. My son. He is innocent."
"He is a good boy. Only weak in body, and timid by nature."
"After I am gone — I beg you. I beg you to look after him."
"Teach him to ride. Teach him the sword. Teach him to be a true Arryn, a true knight of the Vale."
"The way... the way Jon would have wanted."
She finished, and bowed deeply to Yohn Royce.
Yohn Royce looked at her. His weathered, lined face held an expression beyond naming.
He hated her.
He wanted to tear her apart with his bare hands.
But watching her now. Watching her make this last plea for her son.
That towering, volcanic hatred had nowhere to go.
"You..."
His mouth opened.
In the end, only one word came out, pressed through clenched teeth.
"Done."
Lysa smiled when she heard it.
A smile unlike any she had ever worn in her life. Something real rising from somewhere deep, the pure relief of a burden finally set down.
She straightened. She took one last look at her son.
Then she turned to the man who had stood silent throughout all of it, holding her boy.
"Petyr."
She said his name softly.
"The real Petyr Baelish. He died a long time ago, didn't he?"
"He was already dead in King's Landing. Wasn't he?"
Every eye in the room snapped to "Petyr."
"Petyr" didn't answer.
He only looked at Lysa. Quietly.
The grey-green eyes held nothing now. No warmth, feigned or otherwise. Only a flat, cold indifference.
He gave a slow nod.
The confirmation made her smile brighter.
"I knew it."
She murmured to herself.
"I knew Lynn wouldn't let me go that easily."
"That's all right."
"It's all right."
"He's the one who made me see clearly what I am. What kind of monster I became."
"I should... thank him."
She turned back to her former bannermen one last time.
"I give one final command in the name of House Arryn."
"After my death, you will serve young Robert faithfully until he comes of age, and you will cooperate fully with Lynn's consolidation of the Vale."
"Lynn is a man who repays both debts and kindness. Cooperate with him, and he will not move against you."
"Is that understood?"
She watched them nod, every one of them. Then she stopped looking at any of them.
She turned, and walked , one step, then another , toward the Moon Door.
The most famous door in the world.
Beyond it: a bottomless drop, and the howling cold of open sky.
"Mother!"
Robert Arryn screamed. A child's shriek, raw and desperate.
"Stop her!"
Yohn Royce lunged forward, roaring.
Too late.
Lysa Arryn stood at the threshold of the Moon Door with her arms spread wide. She had turned to face the room, the abyss at her back.
She looked at little Robert one last time.
"Don't grieve for me. This is what I deserve. I don't want to live in this pain anymore."
She leaned back.
And fell into the endless blue.
---
They say a person facing death speaks only truth.
Lysa had found her way back to herself at the end. Lynn could give her that much , a small mercy.
At the very least, she wouldn't die in fear.
"Petyr" closed his eyes.
His mind reached downward, fast, and latched onto the falling figure below.
Wind screamed past Lysa's ears.
It caught her hair. It caught her skirts.
She was falling fast.
Below her, the abyss was swallowed in mist and cloud.
The drop from the Moon Door to the ground took a long time. Long enough for everything to come back to her.
Just as the fear began to rise, as she braced herself for the end ,
Images.
Childhood. The gardens of Riverrun. Chasing butterflies with Catelyn through the summer light.
By the river, riding with Edmure, laughing at something she couldn't remember anymore.
The tourney at Harrenhal, when she was still a girl. A thin, stubborn boy stepping forward to challenge Brandon Stark to a duel , all for her sister's honor. Petyr. Young and foolish and brave.
Her wedding night. An old man, clumsy and careful, draping a blanket over her while she pretended to sleep.
Her father's face in his last moments. Disbelief in his eyes. And, somehow, pity.
Her son.
The first time he spoke. That small, milky voice calling her Mama.
All of it. Every piece of it. One long, absurd, sorrowful dream.
"Petyr" let out a quiet breath, and the images shifted.
In the last one, Lysa saw herself in Lys. She was with little Robert and Petyr, looking at a house by the sea. Ships moved across the water in the distance, coming and going. The light was warm. Everything was real and calm and good.
And at the very end, Petyr was running toward her with a rose in his hand.
No hatred.
No regret.
Only release.
Complete, final release.
Pfft.
A soft sound.
Like a single drop of water falling into the sea.
Then nothing.
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