To be a squire was to be a servant. To be a squire to Ser Lyn Corbray was to be a slave to vanity and violence.
For the first six months, Rhea did not touch a practice sword during her time with him. She was stripped of her status as the formidable daughter of Bronze Yohn Royce. In Lyn's eyes, she was simply the hands that kept his life pristine.
She woke before the sun, hauling freezing water from the wells to wash his fine linen tunics. She spent hours in the armory, not at the forge where she was the undisputed master, but sitting on a low wooden stool with a pot of sand, oil, and a rag, polishing his silver-chased plate armor until it gleamed like a winter moon. Lyn was a man who believed that looking dangerous was half the battle, and he accepted nothing short of absolute perfection.
But her greatest, most terrifying duty was the care of Lady Forlorn.
Every evening, after Lyn had finished his drills, he would sit in his heavy oak chair by the fire, drink a cup of strong Dornish wine, and lay the Valyrian steel blade across Rhea's lap.
The first time she cleaned the ancient sword, her hands had trembled. The dark, rippling steel felt warm to the touch, thrumming with an ancient, restless energy. Her crafter's sight allowed her to see the microscopic perfection of the edge—an edge that never dulled, never chipped, and drank the oil she applied to it like a thirsty hound. She learned the exact weight of it, the center of its balance, and the deadly, singing hiss it made when it was drawn from the scabbard.
Lyn watched her work, his dark eyes critical. He was waiting for her to complain. He was waiting for the proud Royce girl to throw down the polishing rag and demand to be taught how to fight.
Rhea never did. She maintained her silence, breathing in slow, measured rhythms, doing the grueling, menial labor with the exact same flawless dedication she applied to hammering hot iron. She understood the lesson he was teaching her: before you can wield a weapon of legend, you must understand the burden of carrying it.
When the snows of 297 AC finally began to thaw, leaving the mountain passes choked with mud, Lyn finally tossed her a blunted tourney sword.
"You fight like a stone wall, girl," Lyn sneered, circling her in the muddy yard of the Gates of the Moon. "Your father taught you to stand your ground, to take the blow and strike back. That is fine for a man who weighs two hundred pounds and wears an inch of bronze on his chest. You weigh less than my armor. If you stand your ground against a warhammer, your bones will turn to powder."
He didn't hold back. Lyn Corbray was a relentless, cruel instructor. He stripped away the honorable, rigid stances of the First Men that Andar had taught her.
"Honor is a comforting lie dead men tell themselves," Lyn told her, sweeping her legs out from under her for the fifth time in a single morning. Rhea hit the mud hard, the breath knocked from her lungs. "If you are fighting fair, you have already made a mistake. Throw dirt. Kick the knee. If they wear heavy plate, do not try to pierce the steel—find the gaps at the armpit, the groin, the back of the knee. Let them exhaust themselves swinging at shadows, and then bleed them like a stuck pig."
Rhea learned. She adapted.
She stopped trying to block his strikes and focused entirely on evasion. She used her Pulse breathing not to generate crushing power, but to grant herself split-second bursts of terrifying agility. She learned to read the subtle shifts in Lyn's hips, the tightening of his jaw, the infinitesimal changes in his grip that signaled an attack.
By her thirteenth name-day, they were no longer confined to the training yard.
The Vale was restless. With Lady Lysa sealed in the Eyrie, the mountain clans grew bolder, raiding the lower foothills and ambushing merchant caravans. Lyn Corbray, bored and itching for blood, took it upon himself to clear the passes, and he dragged his squire with him.
It was in a narrow, rocky gorge near the Snakewood that Rhea killed her first man.
They had been tracking a raiding party of Burned Men. The ambush came from above—a dozen ragged, desperate men wielding crude iron axes and rusted spears, dropping from the treacherous cliff sides.
Lyn drew Lady Forlorn with a sound like tearing silk. He moved into the mob like a dancer, the smoky Valyrian steel severing limbs and shattering iron with terrifying ease. He laughed as he fought, a cold, joyous sound that echoed off the canyon walls.
Rhea drew the sword she had forged for herself—a perfectly balanced, dark-tempered blade etched with the quiet Runes of the Mountain.
A clansman, his face horribly scarred by ritual burns, charged her with a roaring battle cry, bringing a heavy iron club down toward her skull.
Rhea didn't think. The grueling months of Lyn's brutal training took over. She drew a sharp Pulse of air, her blood turning to liquid fire. She sidestepped the heavy, clumsy swing, stepping inside the man's guard. With a fluid, ruthless motion, she drove the point of her sword upward, sliding it cleanly beneath the man's leather jerkin and into his heart.
The clansman gasped, his eyes going wide, the club dropping from his hands.
Rhea twisted the blade, breaking the suction, and pulled it free. The man fell into the mud, dead before his face hit the stones.
She stood there for a fraction of a second, the hot blood splattered across her pale cheek. There was no glory in it. It wasn't like the songs her mother's maids used to sing. It was messy, it smelled of copper and voided bowels, and the weight of the life she had just extinguished felt heavy in the damp air.
"Behind you!" Lyn's voice cracked like a whip.
Rhea ducked instinctively as a spear thrust grazed the shoulder of her leather armor. She spun, dropping her center of gravity, and severed the spearman's leading leg at the knee before burying her dagger in his throat.
When the skirmish was over, ten clansmen lay dead in the gorge. Lyn stood amidst the carnage, casually flicking the blood from Lady Forlorn. He looked over at Rhea, who was wiping her own blade clean with a scrap of cloth, her breath coming in slow, tightly controlled sips.
Lyn's dark eyes narrowed, searching her face for the tears or the shock that usually accompanied a squire's first kill. He found neither. Her gray eyes were clear, assessing the dead men merely as neutralized threats.
"You did not hesitate," Lyn observed, his voice devoid of its usual mockery.
"If I had hesitated, I would be the one bleeding in the mud, Ser Lyn," Rhea answered, sheathing her sword.
Lyn Corbray nodded slowly, a twisted smile forming on his lips. "Good. You have the stomach for the butchery. Now we can truly begin."
The year turned to 298 AC, and the world outside the Vale began to tear itself apart.
The ravens arrived at the Gates of the Moon with a rapid, terrifying frequency. The news they carried was like a series of hammer blows to the anvil of the Seven Kingdoms.
King Robert Baratheon is dead, killed by a boar in the Kingswood. Lord Eddard Stark, the Hand of the King, has been imprisoned for treason. Joffrey Baratheon sits the Iron Throne.
The Lords of the Vale gathered in the great halls of the lower castles, their voices raised in a cacophony of outrage and demands for action. Bronze Yohn Royce slammed his massive fists against the tables, demanding that Lysa Arryn open the Bloody Gate and summon the banners to march on King's Landing to demand justice for Ned Stark, a man Yohn had known and respected.
But the gate remained shut. The Eyrie remained silent.
And then, the ultimate insult arrived.
Lady Catelyn Stark dragged Tyrion Lannister up the high road, seeking refuge and justice from her sister. Rhea watched from the ramparts of the Gates of the Moon as the exhausted, battered party passed through the portcullis. She saw the Imp of Casterly Rock, bruised and bound, his mismatched eyes scanning the hostile faces of the Vale knights.
Rhea knew exactly what was about to happen. Her knowledge of the canon timeline burned in her mind.
When Lysa Arryn finally demanded a trial by combat in the High Hall of the Eyrie, the entire court of the Vale was summoned. Rhea stood in the shadows behind Lyn Corbray, her eyes fixed on the moon door—a terrifying hole carved directly into the floor, opening to a sheer drop of thousands of feet.
Lyn had volunteered to act as Lysa's champion. He had stood before the weirwood throne, his hand resting on Lady Forlorn, practically begging to cut the Imp's champion to pieces.
Instead, the mad, paranoid Lady of the Eyrie chose Ser Vardis Egen. A loyal man, a brave man, but an older knight burdened by heavy plate and a ridiculous, ceremonial silver sword.
Rhea watched Bronn, the ruthless sellsword, step forward for the dwarf.
"He's going to lose," Rhea whispered to Lyn, her voice barely audible over the murmurs of the court.
Lyn Corbray scowled, his arms crossed over his chest. "Vardis is slow, but he is armored. The sellsword has no shield."
"The sellsword doesn't need a shield. He has the room," Rhea analyzed, her crafter's sight taking in every detail. "Ser Vardis is wearing tournament plate. It's too heavy for a real fight that lasts more than five minutes. The sellsword is wearing boiled leather. He is going to let Ser Vardis exhaust himself, and then he is going to bleed him."
Lyn looked down at his squire, his eyes narrowing. He didn't argue.
For the next twenty minutes, Rhea's prediction played out with grim, brutal accuracy. Bronn danced around the aging captain of the guard, using the statues and the pillars of the High Hall to tire him out. When Vardis finally slowed, his chest heaving, his silver sword heavy, Bronn moved in. The sellsword found the gaps in the armor, just as Lyn had taught Rhea to do.
With a sickening crunch, Bronn drove his blade home, and pushed Ser Vardis Egen out the moon door.
The silence in the High Hall was absolute. Tyrion Lannister smirked, demanding his horse.
As the court dispersed in a state of shock and muted outrage, Lyn Corbray turned away, his face a mask of furious disgust.
"She is a fool," Lyn hissed, striding quickly through the marble corridors, Rhea keeping pace effortlessly beside him. "She had Valyrian steel offering to fight for her, and she chose a lapdog in a silver suit. She has shamed the Vale."
"She is afraid, Ser Lyn," Rhea said quietly. "Fear makes people build walls. But walls only trap the people inside them."
Lyn stopped suddenly, turning to look at her. The fourteen-year-old girl standing before him was no longer a child. She wore dark leather, a sword at her hip, and a look of cold, ancient wisdom in her gray eyes that made him deeply uneasy.
"And what would you do, my brilliant little squire?" Lyn challenged. "If you sat the weirwood throne?"
"I would have let you fight," Rhea answered without missing a beat. "And then I would have opened the Bloody Gate and marched our host to the Riverlands before the Lannisters could gather their strength."
Lyn Corbray stared at her, a slow, dark smile spreading across his handsome face. He reached out and ruffled her pale hair, a rare gesture of genuine, twisted affection. "You have too much iron in you for a woman, Rhea. It is a profound pity your father will likely marry you off to some fat lordling to breed."
Rhea didn't smile back. "My father will do no such thing. My hammer belongs to Runestone. My sword belongs to me."
The year 299 AC arrived with the news of Eddard Stark's execution.
The Seven Kingdoms erupted into total war. Robb Stark, the Young Wolf, marched south. The Riverlands burned under the boots of Gregor Clegane. Renly and Stannis Baratheon crowned themselves.
And still, the Vale did nothing.
The frustration within the Gates of the Moon reached a boiling point. The lords drank and argued, their honor screaming at them to join the fray, their oaths binding them to Lysa Arryn's cowardly neutrality.
It was during this suffocating tension that Rhea's squireship came to its bloody conclusion.
She was fifteen years old. She was tall, lean, and carried herself with the terrifying, silent grace of a shadowcat. The Total Concentration Breathing had permanently altered her physiology, granting her a resting heart rate that was eerily slow, and muscles that were dense as oak. Horus, her massive snow falcon, spent his days circling the high peaks, feeding her a constant, mental stream of the surrounding valleys.
Bronze Yohn Royce had finally had enough. He declared his intention to ride for Runestone, gather his personal levies, and fortify his own lands, refusing to sit idle in the shadow of the Eyrie any longer.
Before they departed, Rhea found Lyn Corbray in the lower armory. He was polishing Lady Forlorn, a task he had reclaimed for himself over the last year as Rhea's focus shifted entirely to combat.
"We are leaving on the morrow, Ser Lyn," Rhea said, standing in the doorway.
Lyn didn't look up from the dark, rippling steel. "I heard. Your father is going to sulk in his bronze castle while the world burns."
"My father is going to protect his people," Rhea corrected gently. She stepped fully into the room. "My time as your squire is done."
Lyn paused his polishing rag. He slowly sheathed the legendary sword and stood up. He walked over to her, his dark eyes searching her face. He had beaten her, mocked her, and dragged her through the mud and blood of the mountain passes for three years. He had tried to break the honorable Royce stone out of her, and in its place, he had forged a weapon that was terrifyingly pragmatic.
"You are not a knight," Lyn said softly. "The Faith will not let a woman take the vows. You cannot wear the white cloak. You cannot fight in the tourneys."
"I don't care about cloaks or tourneys," Rhea said. "I care about survival."
Lyn reached behind a heavy wooden weapon rack and retrieved a long, wrapped bundle of oiled leather. He held it out to her.
Rhea took it. The weight of it was substantial, but perfectly balanced. She pulled back the leather bindings.
It was a longsword, but it was unlike anything she had forged in her own fires. The steel was a brilliant, almost blinding silver, folded with an intricate, watery pattern that spoke of a master craftsman. The crossguard was shaped like two falcons diving, and the pommel was a single, flawless piece of polished onyx.
"I did not forge this," Lyn said, his voice laced with a strange, quiet pride. "I won it off a Bravoosi water dancer in Gulltown five years ago. The steel is folded over a hundred times. It is lighter than Westerosi iron, and sharper than anything outside of Valyria."
Rhea ran her calloused thumb over the flat of the blade. Her crafter's sight immediately recognized the brilliance of the metallurgy. It was a masterpiece of foreign forging, designed for the exact kind of agile, devastating combat Lyn had taught her.
"Why give this to me?" Rhea asked, looking up at him.
"Because a master swordsman does not wield a hammer, and you have outgrown the crude iron of the mountains," Lyn Corbray said, stepping back and crossing his arms. "You came to me wanting to learn how the greatest weapons are used. You have learned. Now, take that blade, go back to Runestone, and pray you never have to cross swords with me."
It was the closest thing to a blessing Lyn Corbray was capable of giving.
"Thank you, Ser Lyn," Rhea said, bowing her head.
"Go," Lyn commanded, turning his back on her. "Before I change my mind and make you polish my boots."
The ride back to Runestone was silent.
The Vale was holding its breath, waiting for the war to spill over the mountains. Rhea rode beside Andar, the Bravoosi blade strapped to her hip, her gray eyes scanning the tree lines, her Pulse breathing ticking away in her chest like a coiled spring.
High above, Horus shrieked, a sound of freezing, predatory joy.
She was fifteen. She was a master of the forge, a warrior shaped by the deadliest blade in the Vale, and she possessed magic that defied the laws of the gods.
Let the Starks have their honor. Let the Lannisters have their gold. Let Lysa Arryn have her high, impenetrable walls.
Rhea Royce was going home to Runestone. And when the War of the Five Kings finally reached her shores, she would be ready to break the world to protect it.