The Eyrie always saw the sun first.
Perched on the highest peak of the Mountains of the Moon, the white castle caught the dawn while the rest of the Vale still lay in darkness. Golden light touched the Moon Door tower first, then spilled downward, turning the ancient stone into something that looked almost holy.
Petyr Baelish stood on the high balcony with a cup of golden Arbor wine in his hand. He watched the clouds roll and shift below him like a living sea. Everything was moving exactly as he had planned.
Almost everything.
A small smile touched his lips. The Vale was the easiest kingdom to hold and the hardest to take. One man at the Bloody Gate could stop an army. And now he stood here—not as a guest, but as the husband of the Lady of the Eyrie.
Lysa Tully had been even easier to manage than he expected.
That obsession she had carried since they were children in Riverrun had only grown worse with time and miscarriages. It had curdled into something raw and possessive. When he married her on the Fingers two weeks ago, she had cried like a girl getting her first gift. The wedding had been pathetic— a crumbling tower, a toothless septon, a handful of frightened smallfolk. She had not cared. She would have married him in a barn if it meant becoming his wife that day.
The wedding night had been worse.
She was too eager, too clumsy, too desperate. Afterward she had talked for hours, dredging up every old memory from their youth while he lay there staring at the leaking ceiling. The next morning they rode for the Eyrie.
Since then he had barely spent a full day inside the castle. He had visited lord after lord—Runestone, Heart's Home, even the Sisters. He had been careful with each one. Respectful with the old, ambitious with the young, generous with the ones who owed money. Most of the Vale lords were simple men, easier to read than the Northerners. They were wary of him, but they were polite. Even Bronze Yohn Royce had been forced to swallow his objections for now.
One more year, Petyr thought. One year to place his people, learn every secret, and weave his web through every hall in the Vale. Then he could arrange for Lysa to have a tragic accident. A madwoman falling through the Moon Door would surprise no one. After that he would be regent for young Robert Arryn.
The boy might not live to see his majority either, depending on how useful he remained.
It was a perfect plan.
Almost perfect.
The only loose thread was Sansa Stark.
Petyr took another slow sip of wine. Before he left King's Landing he had given Dontos Hollard a thousand gold dragons and a ship to Braavos in exchange for spiriting Sansa out of the city during the chaos of Joffrey's wedding. The plan had been clean. Tyrion would take the blame for the king's death. Sansa's disappearance would look like flight with her accused husband. No one would waste much effort looking for the traitor's daughter.
The ship should have met his Braavosi contact. It never arrived. Dontos had sent no raven. Sansa had vanished into the wind. Every report Petyr received was contradictory. Some said a single-masted ship had been stopped in Blackwater Bay. Others claimed pirates, or the royal fleet, or some nameless lord's privateers. No ransom demand ever came. No one boasted of holding the heir to Winterfell.
That was the part that worried him.
Anyone who caught Sansa Stark would use her immediately—marriage, leverage, ransom. The fact that nothing had surfaced meant whoever took her had a longer game in mind. Or a bigger one.
Petyr frowned and finished the wine.
Behind him the bedroom door opened. Lysa Tully—Lysa Baelish now—stepped onto the balcony carrying a tray. She wore a pale blue silk robe because he had once said the color softened her eyes. She had worn nothing else since.
"I brought you breakfast, my love," she said in that sticky-sweet voice she used only for him.
She set the tray down and smiled at him like a nervous child. Petyr turned, already wearing the gentle expression she needed.
"You don't have to do this yourself," he said, taking the bowl from her. His fingers brushed the back of her hand. "The servants can—"
"I don't want them near you!" Lysa snapped. Her eyes flashed with sudden wildness. "Especially that girl Talla with the brown curls. I saw how she looked at you yesterday. I'm sending her to the Bloody Gate today. Let the Royces deal with her."
"Lysa." Petyr kept his voice soft but firm. He took her hand. "She's only a servant. You'll frighten the others if you keep doing this. They'll think you're unstable."
"I don't care what they think!" Her fingers dug into his arm. "I only care about you. You're mine. I waited twenty years. No one is taking you from me."
Tears welled in her eyes. Petyr pulled her into his arms and stroked her hair, murmuring the lies she wanted to hear.
"No one will take me. I'm your husband. Always."
She clung to him like a drowning woman. He held her and looked over her shoulder at the endless clouds. He still needed her. Her madness was a weapon he could aim at anyone who stood in his way. As for children… well. The maester had already told him another pregnancy was unlikely to survive. If she could not give him an heir, he would find another solution. Time was all that mattered.
Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs behind them—angry, deliberate footsteps.
Petyr turned as Nestor Royce appeared. The stocky, balding castellan of the Eyrie had served House Arryn for fourteen years. This morning his face was tight with barely controlled rage.
"Nestor," Petyr began pleasantly. "You're up early—"
"A raven from King's Landing," Nestor cut in. He held up a rolled parchment sealed with the Hand's sigil but did not offer it. "Tywin Lannister orders you to return immediately for questioning."
The words landed like stones.
Petyr's smile never wavered, but his mind moved fast. Questioning, not trial. Tywin suspected but had no proof. Still, going to King's Landing now would be walking into the lion's den. He could not risk it.
He did not have to.
Lysa's face had already gone red.
"He dares?" she shrieked. "He dares command my husband? I am Lady of the Eyrie! Tywin Lannister has no right!"
She grabbed Petyr's arm hard enough to bruise. "You're not going! Do you hear me? You're not going anywhere near that filthy city. They killed my first husband. They'll kill you too if they get the chance. I won't lose you. I won't!"
Her voice rose into a wail. Nestor shifted uncomfortably, clearly unsure how to handle a hysterical highborn woman.
Petyr kept his hand gentle on her cheek. "Lysa, calm down. We can discuss this."
"There's nothing to discuss!" she cried. "You stay here. With me. With Robin. We're safe here. The Bloody Gate, the Moon Door— no one can touch us. We don't go out. They don't come in. That's how we stay alive."
She buried her face against his chest and sobbed. "We're not going anywhere. Nowhere. Promise me."
Petyr looked at Nestor over her head. The old knight's expression was complicated—disgust, worry, and a weary kind of resignation.
Petyr sighed, the sound perfectly judged to sound reluctant and loving at the same time.
"She's frightened, Nestor. You can see that. And she's right to be. If I leave now, who knows what rumors will spread while I'm gone? Who might question her authority or little Robert's inheritance?"
He let the implication hang.
Nestor stared at the sealed raven for a long moment. Then he handed it over without a word.
Petyr took it, unrolled it, and read quickly. The order was clear and cold. He rolled it again and met Nestor's eyes.
"Send a reply," he said quietly. "Lord Baelish thanks the Hand for his concern but must decline for now. The Vale requires his attention, and Lady Lysa and young Robert need him here. Any questions may be sent by raven. He will answer truthfully."
Nestor's mouth tightened, but he nodded once. He turned and walked back down the stairs without another word.
When the footsteps faded, Petyr looked down at the woman still clinging to him.
"It's all right," he murmured. "We're staying. We're not going anywhere."
Lysa lifted her tear-streaked face. "You promise?"
"I promise."
She smiled through the tears, fragile and trusting. "I love you, Petyr."
"I love you too, Lysa."
He held her and watched the sun climb higher over the mountains. The clouds boiled beneath the Eyrie like a white ocean. Everything he needed was here—power, safety, time.
King's Landing could wait.
When he returned, he would return strong enough that no one, not even Tywin Lannister, could touch him.
For now, the Vale was his.
And he was not going anywhere.