Copper Gate stood as the grim gateway to the Stormlands, guarding the King's Road just south of the Kingswood. Though the morning sun shimmered off its golden-hued stones, the air was thick with the stagnant tension of a siege that refused to start. From the battlements, the horizon was a jagged line of Vale tents, their banners drooping in the listless air. Thousands of spears glinted in the distance, yet not a single ladder had been raised, and no drums had called for an assault.
Ralph Buckler wiped sweat from his brow despite the autumn chill, his hands gripping the stone crenellations until his knuckles turned white. His history with loyalty was a fractured thing; he had once pledged his sword to Joffrey, only to see his gates breached by Stannis Baratheon's relentless fury. He was a man holding a title but no power, a passenger in his own ancestral home. All authority had been transferred to his cousin, Ser Bruce Buckler, a man of sharper edges and colder blood.
"Bruce," Ralph finally asked, his voice thin with anxiety, "those Vale lords... they don't attack. They don't build towers. They don't even send envoys to demand our surrender. Are they simply waiting for our granaries to empty and our spirit to break?"
"They are waiting for the wind to shift, Ralph," Bruce replied, his eyes full of undisguised contempt for his cousin's lack of foresight. He leaned back against a moss-covered stone, watching a group of bored archers gamble with knuckle-bones in the courtyard below. "These lords are playing a double game. They are waiting for news from Storm's End. If Tywin Lannister breaks the King, they'll claim they were loyalists who held the pass. If Stannis prevails, they'll say they 'restrained' us from attacking the capital. They are holding their breath, waiting to see which side of the coin lands face-up."
Bruce pulled out a bronze telescope, the lens catching the sun. "Tywin is a shrewd old man, so smart his hair is almost gone. He knows he cannot force the Vale to bleed for a cause they do not believe in, yet he keeps them here to pin us down. It is a stalemate of vanities. Ah... look. The dynamic is changing."
A small team of cavalry in gold-and-red, draped in heavy black travel cloaks, rode into the heart of the Vale camp. The dust kicked up by their frantic pace signaled that the Great Recall had finally begun.
Outside the high walls of King's Landing, Eddard Karstark looked upon the capital and let out a long, heavy sigh that felt like the coming winter. It was a true city, a sprawling, stinking monument to three hundred years of Targaryen rule. From Aegon's High Hill to the muddy shacks of Flea Bottom, the city was a hive of half a million souls, all currently trapped behind stone and iron.
"My Lord, the conscription of the surrounding villages is complete. We have five thousand laborers for the earthworks," Dita Calandre reported, her armor dusty from the morning's sweep. "Our scouts were fast enough that the Lannister outriders had no time to clear the manors or burn the stores. We took them while they were still counting their coin."
The grasslands outside the city were rich with livestock, and the orchards were heavy with the last of the autumn fruit, crimson apples and pears the color of gold. In the distance, the farmers' vegetable gardens were still lush with berries. Unlike Tywin Lannister, who would have left the land a blackened scar, Eddard forbade plundering and rape. He needed the grain to sustain the Northmen and the Riverlords through a siege, but he had no desire to inherit a graveyard.
"Have the men fell the nearby forests," Eddard commanded, his gaze fixed on the Red Keep's distant towers. "I want the wood for the palisades and the pyres. We have much to prepare before the moon reaches its zenith. If we cannot take the city by the gate, we will take it by the spirit."
Inside the city, the night wind howled through the narrow alleys, making the torches on the ramparts flicker like dying stars. Bronze Yohn Royce stood behind a stone parapet, a silent, imposing statue in his ancient bronze plate. The runes etched into his armor seemed to pulse with a dull, predatory light in the dark. In the far distance, the Karstark sunburst and the Stark wolf fluttered in the glow of a thousand campfires, a sight that made his stomach churn with a agonizing conflict of blood and oath.
Tywin had taken no chances. By keeping the high nobles of the Vale within the Red Keep, he had effectively placed them under house arrest. It was a hostage situation masquerading as noble hospitality, and Royce felt the golden leash tightening with every passing hour.
"Lord Royce," Ser Addam Marbrand asked, leaning against a merlon with a confident, easy smile. "How many do you estimate the boy-wizard has brought to our door?"
"Thirty thousand, counting the smallfolk and the camp followers," Royce grunted, his voice like grinding stones.
"I counted the same," Addam replied, seemingly unbothered. "Seventeen thousand defenders against thirty thousand attackers is a fool's gamble. We have the walls, the stores, and the height. Those wolf pups will break their heads against these stones long before they see the Iron Throne."
Royce offered a forced, stiff nod. His heart was heavy with a grief he could not voice. He had loved Ned Stark like a brother; his own house was now bound to the Karstarks by the marriage of his heir. To be forced into a slaughter against his own kin-by-law was a bitter draught brewed by the cunning of Petyr Baelish.
Later that night, in a private manse near Silk Street, Royce sat alone in the dim light of a single tallow candle. He had dismissed his personal guard and shed his heavy armor, staring out at the crescent moon with a cup of sour Arbor red.
Caw! Caw!
The sound of leather-winged flapping echoed against the stone, and a pitch-black raven fluttered through the open window, landing heavily on the oaken table. Its feathers were as dark as a moonless night, and its eyes held a frightening, crystalline intelligence.
"Lord Royce, it is a pleasure to meet you at such a late hour," the bird said. Its voice was a raspy, gravelly mimicry of a human tongue, yet the cadence was undeniably noble. The bird extended a claw, dropping a small, wax-sealed parchment scroll. "I am Eddard Karstark. This letter and the seal of the Crossing should attest to my identity. My mind is with the bird, but my purpose is with the North."
Royce stared in mute disbelief, his hand instinctively reaching for the dagger he had left on the side table. "Lord Eddard... you come in this monstrous form to speak with me? Is there no end to your Northern sorcery?"
"A proposal for a man of honor," the raven said, tilting its head to taste the wine Royce had poured. "The Lannisters are a house built on sand and shadow. Open the Old Gate and the Gods Gate tonight. My Northmen will rout the Red Cloaks in an hour, and the city will be spared a massacre. I guarantee the safety of your people and your name."
"No," Royce said, shaking his head firmly. "I will not betray my station. I will not sweep the honor of Runestone into the gutters of Flea Bottom for the sake of a rebel's convenience."
"The Throne you defend is a lie, Lord Royce," the raven countered, its voice dropping to a chilling whisper. "Tommen is not a Baratheon. He is the product of Jaime and Cersei's incest, a golden-haired stain on the realm. Jon Arryn knew it. He spent his final days looking through the genealogies and found the truth: the Baratheon seed is strong, always black of hair, never gold. He died for that realization."
Royce's hand began to tremble, the wine sloshing against the rim of his cup. "Then... the Lannisters poisoned him? Cersei killed the Hand?"
"No," the raven replied, its smoky eyes unblinking and ancient. "Varys has the records of the apothecary. Pycelle has the memories of the dying man. It wasn't the Lannisters who delivered the final blow to Jon Arryn. It was Petyr Baelish and Lysa Tully, working in the shadows of the Eyrie. They killed your Lord to start a war that would make them Kings of the Vale."
"WHAT?!" Royce exclaimed, his mind erupting into a tempest of white-hot fury and sudden, sickening realization. The foundations of his world, built on decades of service to the Arryns, had just turned to sand.
"My Lord? Is something wrong?" a guard called from outside the door, his hand on the latch.
"Nothing!" Royce shouted back, his gaze fixed on the bird. He realized then that the "Winter Wizard" hadn't come to conquer his city, but to burn down the lies that had built it.
Plz Drop Some Power Stones.
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