The Eyrie, the white castle atop the mountain peaks.
It was like a long spear carved from a giant's bone, piercing arrogantly into the sky.
This was the most impregnable fortress in Westeros.
Clouds were its walls, gale winds its war horns.
Since the Age of Heroes, no army had been able to capture it from the front.
However, at this moment, inside this impregnable castle, a madness more piercing than the cold wind on the mountaintop permeated the air.
In the main hall towering into the clouds, the bannermen and nobles of the Vale gathered.
They wore their respective family armors, looking solemn.
Lysa Arryn.
The current mistress of the Vale, her once somewhat pretty face was twisted by long-term paranoia and grief.
Her eye sockets were sunken, lips chapped, and a head of brown hair was messy like withered grass.
In her arms, she tightly held a boy who looked seven or eight years old but was as frail as a three or four-year-old child.
Robert Arryn.
The future Lord of the Vale.
At this moment, this future master of the Vale was like a nestling waiting to be fed, greedily sucking on that shriveled...
"Mother, a little more..."
The boy's sharp and sickly murmur drilled into everyone's ears like a sticky, disgusting maggot.
"My sweet baby, of course, drink as much as you want."
A creepy, loving smile appeared on Lysa Arryn's face.
She adjusted her posture to let her son feed more comfortably.
Inside the hall, deathly silence.
The bannermen and nobles of the Vale, those knights who prided themselves on honor and ancient bloodlines, all lowered their heads now, looking at the exquisite leather boots on their toes.
No one dared to look up.
No one dared to look at that disgusting scene high on the throne.
"Enough, Lysa!"
A low roar suppressing anger finally broke this suffocating silence.
Yohn Royce, the "Bronze Yohn."
Lord of Runestone.
A tall, grey-haired old man with a face carved with years and honor.
Notably, Bronze Yohn's third son was a ranger of the Night's Watch, unfortunately killed by White Walkers.
Speaking of which, he was also a fellow sufferer with Lynn.
Only he died, while "Lynn" survived because he ran fast.
Bronze Yohn looked up abruptly, his grey eyes burning with undisguised anger and disgust.
"Let your son put on his breeches and sit back in his own seat!"
"He is eight years old!"
"Not a babe waiting to be fed!"
"He is the heir of House Arryn, the future Warden of the East! Not a pet in your arms!"
The old lord's voice echoed in the hall like a roar.
Several young knights instinctively gripped the hilts of their swords at their waists, watching this scene nervously.
Lysa Arryn slowly raised her head.
Those eyes, somewhat cloudy due to grief and paranoia, stared at Yohn Royce.
She didn't get angry; instead, a smile appeared on her face.
"Lord Royce, are you teaching me how to discipline my son?"
"Or do you think you are more qualified to sit on this chair than me?"
"You!"
Lord Royce's face turned red instantly.
"I never had such thoughts!"
"I just..."
"You just think I'm mad, don't you?"
Lysa interrupted him, her voice rising sharply.
"Think I'm dragging the entire Vale to war with that Northern upstart who has a dragon just for a lowly Petyr Baelish!"
"Think I'm joking with the foundation of House Arryn and all your lives!"
Her words hit the nail on the head regarding the thoughts of all the nobles present.
The hall fell into silence again.
Indeed, that was what they thought.
Ever since Lysa Arryn issued a summoning order to the entire Vale in Jon Arryn's name, declaring Lynn a traitor and wanting to avenge Petyr Baelish, they thought this woman was mad!
Who the fuck was Petyr Baelish?
Just a Littlefinger who climbed to a high position through conspiracies and tricks.
The matter was already clear as day.
His death wasn't worth a drop of Vale blood.
And who was Lynn?
He was the Earl of the Gift personally titled by King Robert Baratheon, a bannerman of Lord Ned of Winterfell.
Once war started, Ned would inevitably send troops to aid.
That wouldn't be a war between the Vale and the Gift, but becoming an enemy of both beyond the Wall and within the North simultaneously!
More importantly, Lynn had a dragon!
The nightmare left over from the Targaryen dynasty, that magical creature that burned Harrenhal into glass!
Making an enemy of him?
What was the difference between that and suicide?
"My Lady, we are not questioning your decision."
Lady Waynwood, with thinning hair and a bloated figure, spoke carefully.
"It's just... dragon... that is a dragon after all."
"Dragons have disappeared for more than a hundred years; our understanding of them is limited to records in books."
"We don't know how to fight such a monster."
"Monster?"
Lysa let out a short sneer.
She finally pushed her son away from her arms, letting him cry sharply in dissatisfaction.
"A dragon is just a beast with wings!"
Lysa stood up from the throne, pacing back and forth in the hall.
"It can fly, breathe fire, but it can also bleed and die!"
"Three hundred years ago, Aegon the Conqueror's sister, Rhaenys Targaryen, descended on Dorne riding her dragon Meraxes."
"And the result?"
"On the battlements of Hellholt, an iron bolt shot from a scorpion pierced that dragon's eye precisely!"
"The dragon fell from the sky, shattered to pieces!"
"Taking its rider with it, turning into a puddle of meat paste!"
Fanaticism flashed in Lysa's eyes.
"A beast is a lowly beast after all!"
"As long as it's a beast, a hunter can kill it!"
"Our Vale possesses the best knights, the sturdiest castles, the most dangerous terrain in the Seven Kingdoms!"
"We just need to build enough scorpions, prepare enough iron bolts!"
"When that beast flies into our valley, we will shoot it down from the sky with a thousand, ten thousand iron bolts!"
"Nail it to the ground in front of the Bloody Gate!"
Lysa's words were full of incitement, causing flames of excitement to ignite involuntarily in the eyes of some young knights.
Killing a dragon!
What glory!
Enough to make their names sung by bards for a thousand years!
"Absurd!"
Yohn Royce shouted angrily again, interrupting Lysa's demagoguery.
"What do you take war for?"
"A hunting game?"
"Even if we luckily kill that dragon, what then?"
"Do you think the King will turn a blind eye to this?"
"Lynn is his son-in-law after all! Have you thought about his reaction if Lynn dies?"
"Our Vale shall not participate in disputes; this is Lord Arryn's admonition!"
"And you are dragging us all into the abyss!"
The old lord's words were resounding.
This also instantly calmed down those young knights who were just incited.
Yes, what after killing the dragon?
They would face the wrath of the entire kingdom.
"Disputes?"
Lysa stopped pacing.
"My dear Lord Royce, do you think we still have a choice now?"
She walked step by step toward Yohn Royce, those crazy eyes staring fixedly at him.
"Think about it, my husband, Jon Arryn whom you once swore loyalty to unto death, how did he die?"
"He died in King's Landing! Died in a conspiracy!"
"And what did that drunkard Robert Baratheon do?"
"He did nothing!"
"He even wanted to send my son to Casterly Rock as a ward of Tywin Lannister before my husband's bones were cold!"
"He wanted to send the last blood of our House Arryn to the hands of the Lannisters, our enemies!"
"You call this not participating in disputes?"
Lysa's voice became increasingly shrill.
"You not participating in disputes doesn't mean disputes won't come knocking on your door!"
"I fled back to the Eyrie with little Robert; I thought it was safe here!"
"But that Lynn appeared! That Northern bastard!"
"He killed my most trusted Petyr!"
"The only man willing to help me, willing to seek justice for my husband!"
"Why did he kill Petyr? Because Petyr knew too many secrets!"
"Because Petyr knew Jon Arryn's death had everything to do with the Lannisters!"
A lie through and through.
Everyone present wasn't stupid; they knew the reliability of this matter was extremely low.
But none of them could refute it on the spot.
Because they knew nothing.
They only knew the Vale's connection with the outside world had been cut off by Lysa Arryn for too long.
The entire Vale had almost become Lysa's one-woman show.
"Now, the King's raven has flown to my desk."
Lysa pulled a scroll of parchment from her sleeve and threw it fiercely on the ground.
"That fool Robert actually personally titled Lynn the Earl of the Gift and married Princess Myrcella to him!"
"He handed a dragon to a Stark lackey!"
"Don't you understand yet?"
Lysa looked around at the crowd, eyes full of despair.
"We are surrounded!"
"To the north is that madman with a dragon, to the south is that King who wants to snatch my son!"
"We have long been in the center of the vortex, with nowhere to run!"
"I declared war on Lynn, not to avenge Petyr!"
"I did it for ourselves!"
"For the entire Vale!"
Lysa's voice became hoarse from being high-pitched.
"Robert is mad! He suspects us, guards against us!"
"With Jon Arryn dead, he could find an excuse anytime to take everything back from us!"
"Our only way out is to attack first!"
"Lynn's foundation is unstable; his Gift is vast but sparsely populated!"
"His army is all wildlings who haven't seen the world!"
"Cavalry against those barbarians is a one-sided slaughter; I am one hundred percent sure of victory!"
"We must take his Gift in one fell swoop while his foothold is unsteady!"
"It's far from the disputes of King's Landing, enough for us to establish a new kingdom!"
"A free kingdom belonging solely to our Vale!"
"By then, with the Wall as a natural moat and new territory as a barrier, neither dragons nor the King in King's Landing can threaten us anymore!"
"Although the Gift is bitterly cold, it is our only way out!"
This was her true purpose.
She wanted to survive Robert's wrath, not hesitating to drag the entire Vale into war.
She wanted to use a crazy war to win a stable future for herself and her son.
The nobles looked at each other; they saw a trace of wavering in each other's eyes.
Lysa Arryn's plan sounded crazy, yet carried a fatal temptation.
The temptation of an independent kingdom.
Yohn Royce opened his mouth, wanting to refute, but found he couldn't say a word.
Because Lysa was right about one thing.
Things having reached this point, they indeed had no retreat.
From the moment Lysa declared war on Lynn in the name of the Vale, they were tied to the same war chariot.
Even if they surrendered, let alone whether they could escape Lysa's wrath, even if Lysa didn't act against them, Robert would still label them as accomplices.
Either go crazy with Lysa to strive for that slim chance of survival.
Or wait to be liquidated together by the King as rebels.
However, the Vale and the Riverlands of the North were a rebel alliance; they had been natural allies since Robert and Ned's rebellion.
Now, the rulers of the Riverlands were House Tully, also Lysa's "maiden home."
They were the most famous ruling family in the Riverlands.
During Aegon the Conqueror's time, they were titled rulers of the Riverlands for betraying Harren and assisting Aegon.
House Tully excelled at consolidating status through marriage.
Lord Hoster Tully married his eldest daughter Catelyn to Ned Stark of the North.
And youngest daughter Lysa to Jon Arryn of the Vale.
Thus forming an alliance between the Riverlands, the North, and the Vale.
The Vale was easy to say; after all, Lysa's identity wouldn't affect the friendship between the Vale and the Riverlands.
It was even possible they would help Lysa.
After all, with Jon Arryn dead, Lysa was the de facto ruler of the Vale.
But Stark was hard to say.
Their bond was largely the friendship of fighting together, and partly because of the relationship between Lysa and Catelyn.
And Lynn, as a part of the North, was Ned's bannerman; Ned couldn't sit idly by.
Being a bannerman referred to a subordinate relationship.
A bannerman swore allegiance to a more powerful lord, such as a monarch or overlord, in exchange for land and protection.
Lynn had sworn allegiance to Stark.
If Stark couldn't provide protection, they shouldn't hang around in the North anymore.
From morality, Stark's ancient honor, and Ned's personal particularity, Stark would inevitably protect Lynn!
So, once war started, the past friendship between the North and the Vale would come to naught.
If Stark sat idly by, it would be easier.
But who could persuade that old-fashioned Ned Stark?
Amidst this suffocating silence, Lysa walked slowly back to the throne and picked up the boy who was still crying.
She held him high, facing all the bannermen.
"Look at him!"
"The blood of House Arryn! Your future master!"
"Do you want him to be a puppet manipulated by others all his life in fear and suspicion!"
"Or do you want him to become the King of an independent kingdom?!"
"For Arryn! For the Vale!"
Lysa let out a final roar.
"War!!"
The young knights could no longer suppress their inner excitement.
They drew their longswords, raising them high, issuing a responsive roar.
"For the Vale!!"
The roar went from one to ten...
Finally converging into a torrent strong enough to shake the mountaintop.
Even Yohn Royce, after a moment of hesitation, slowly drew his ancient longsword symbolizing family honor.
He knew he had no choice.
Watching this group of bannermen successfully incited by herself, a satisfied smile finally appeared on Lysa Arryn's twisted face.
She cast her gaze to the corner of the hall, where a man in a grey robe with an unremarkable appearance stood.
He was the master armorer of the Eyrie.
"Tobho Mott."
Lysa's voice sounded amidst the clamor.
"I want you to immediately gather all the artisans in the Vale and build giant scorpions for me day and night."
"I want its iron bolts to be thicker than a human arm, longer than a knight's lance!"
"I want its force to be enough to pierce the hardest dragon scales!"
Hearing this, the artisan trembled, a look of difficulty appearing on his face.
"My Lady... this... this takes time, and... we don't have blueprints..."
"I don't care!"
Lysa screamed, interrupting him.
"One month! I give you only one month!"
"This month I will hoard provisions; as soon as preparations are over, I will launch the war immediately!"
"I want to erect a hundred such dragonslayer crossbows outside the Bloody Gate!"
"I want that Northern bastard and his dragon to never return!"
"If you don't finish by the deadline, just you wait and see!"