Solomon ended it.
He drew the sword free. A flick of the wrist sent the blood from the blade scattering across the gravel.
Ser Corben's throat made a low, rattling sound — a bellows with a hole in it. He fell forward onto his own attendant and was still.
Around them, the silence was absolute. Only the wind moving through the mountain pass.
The Muir soldiers gripped their weapons and did not know what to do with them. Not one dared take a step forward.
The refugees who had been prostrating in the road a moment ago had forgotten to breathe. They stared at the man who had decided their fate, their expressions emptied of everything except a kind of hollow, disbelieving awe.
Solomon's gaze moved across the faces around him — terror, bewilderment, reverence — and came to rest on the refugees.
His voice was not loud. But it reached every person there.
"The Seven have rendered their judgment."
"You are innocent. You may go."
The silence broke with a single smothered sob.
Then, like a dam giving way, the sounds of people who had survived the unsurvivable tore through the mountain air — weeping and broken laughter and ragged voices calling out his name, all of it tangled together. A hundred ragged, hollow-faced people dropped to the ground and kowtowed toward him with everything they had left, words tumbling out of their mouths in no particular order, just his name, over and over.
Solomon watched.
He looked at the still-warm body in the road. He looked at the people who were alive because of a rule older than any of them.
Something had crystallized in his mind, sharp and clean.
Trial by combat.
The nobility revered it as sacred. Common people feared it as the hand of heaven. It was a tradition rooted in faith and honor — a method of judgment that no one in Westeros could openly refuse. For lords who valued honor above life, for lords who genuinely believed the Seven watched every action, there was no declining a challenge issued in the name of divine will.
And within the rules. Always within the rules.
As long as you could win — and Solomon could win — you could resolve the largest problems at the smallest possible cost. No armies. No sieges. No prolonged political maneuvering.
In Westeros, being genuinely dangerous with a sword is a real and transferable form of power.
Solomon sheathed the blade and walked toward Septon Meribald, who had not fully returned from wherever the shock had taken him. The old man's lips were still trembling slightly.
Solomon's manner was entirely gentle — a different person from the cold executor of a moment ago.
"Septon. Thank you for bearing witness."
In his private accounting, these refugees and this barefoot wandering septon would carry his name further than any herald.
Meribald nodded slowly, his mouth opening and closing on words that couldn't find their shape.
Solomon let a pause settle, then spoke with deliberate gravity.
"You are welcome to tell your fellow servants of the Seven."
"Any Barefoot Brother passing through my lands will receive free food and shelter."
Meribald's head came up sharply.
"I will also provide them a purse for the road — to support the hardships of their ministry."
He was not finished. His gaze moved past the septon to the refugees, still prostrating behind him.
"And when you travel the Riverlands — if you encounter any child without family, without home, without anyone to care for them, you may send them to my domain."
"I, Solomon, will take responsibility for raising them to adulthood."
At that, even the Blackfish — who had been watching all of this with folded arms and an expression of studied inscrutability — let something odd move across his face.
He studied Solomon for a moment.
In Westeros, some men seek a reputation for justice. Others for mercy. Others for honor. This young man is no different — he is cultivating goodwill, building a following. The difference is that the following he is building consists entirely of common people.
Meribald's eyes filled.
He seized Solomon's hand with both of his own, his voice breaking.
"The Seven will watch over you, Lord Solomon. What you did today — standing for the smallfolk, and your kindness to the servants of the gods — word of it will travel to every corner of the Riverlands."
The refugees' weeping deepened, and this time it was not the weeping of relief but of something more fundamental — the gratitude of people who had been treated as though their lives mattered.
In their hearts, the man standing before them had become indistinguishable from a savior.
Brynden Tully watched all of it without speaking. He said nothing at all. He simply swung up onto his horse and observed as Solomon gave the order — his soldiers reached into their own belts, into the coin they had won from Willowbrook, and distributed it among the refugees, handful by handful.
The castle rose before them, its towers dark against the mountain sky. The banner of House Muir snapped in the wind.
Lord Hoern Muir came out to the castle gate himself to receive them. He was a man of moderate stoutness, with the warm, expansive expression of someone who had already decided this was going to be a profitable day.
The moment he saw Brynden, he opened his arms and folded him into a bear's embrace.
"Ser Brynden!!"
"My old friend, what a genuine pleasure to have you as a guest in my hall!!"
The Blackfish patted him on the back, his manner slightly stiff — for reasons that would, shortly, become extremely relevant.
"Lord Hoern."
Hoern's gaze shifted to the party behind the Blackfish, and his smile widened into the expression of a merchant who can smell a deal.
He asked, with carefully performed casualness, "Everything smooth on the road, Ser Brynden?"
"Did you happen to cross paths with my cousin, Ser Corben Muir?"
"He went off to deal with some business involving escaped serfs. By my count, he should have been back by now."
"I was planning to introduce him to you all — a fine and honorable knight, personally knighted by me."
The air in the courtyard went very still.
The Blackfish's lips moved.
No sound came out.
Solomon's face registered nothing. Brin and the other riders found somewhere else to look.
Hoern Muir's smile began its slow disappearance. Something was wrong. He wasn't a fool — he could feel it. But he didn't yet know what.
The great hall's hearth burned high and warm. It could not touch the chill between the people sitting around it.
Brynden cleared his throat and stepped into the silence before it became unbearable.
"Lord Hoern. The purpose of our visit is to negotiate a resolution to the border dispute between yourself and..." — he indicated Solomon — "...him."
The word negotiate worked on Hoern like a key in a lock. His expression immediately warmed.
"Of course!! Ser!! Negotiation is always the best path to a solution!!"
He rose from his seat and turned to look Solomon over with the frank appraisal of a man assessing merchandise.
"I hear the Black Lion took Willowbrook and came away with considerable spoils. I imagine that makes you rather a wealthy lord at present!!"
The implication could not have been plainer: Show me enough gold dragons and the land question resolves itself.
Solomon paid no attention to the implication. He picked up his cup and turned the barley beer gently inside it.
Then the door of the great hall burst open.
A Muir soldier stumbled in — armor still streaked with mud and blood, the look of a man who had run hard and thought harder. It was one of Ser Corben's attendants from the trial.
He looked at the Blackfish. He looked at Solomon. Then he crossed the hall directly to Hoern Muir's side and leaned in close, whispering urgently.
Every eye in the hall found them.
Brynden Tully watched as the color left Hoern Muir's face in real time. The warm, delighted red of a man in a good mood moved through the pale grey of shock, and settled finally into the iron-dark blue of barely-contained fury.
Hoern Muir's fist came down on the table.
Both hands went flat on the oak, knuckles rising white against the back of his hands. The entire table shuddered. The cups jumped and rang.
He looked at Solomon with the gaze of a man deciding what to do with a fire. Then he looked at Brynden. Then back.
The words came out one at a time, through his teeth.
"What. Do. You. Want. To. Negotiate."
The temperature in the great hall dropped to something below the mountain air outside.
The Blackfish closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. He had seen this coming and had hoped, somehow, to avoid it. He turned to Solomon with a look that communicated plainly: say something conciliatory, even if it's a complete performance, anything at all.
Ser Corben had died in a lawful trial by combat. For Vale knights, who took chivalric principle seriously, this was not technically a disgrace. It would drive the price of negotiation up considerably, but it was workable. Workable, if Solomon said something now that gave Hoern somewhere to put his anger other than across a table.
The Blackfish drew a breath and prepared to speak first, to give everyone a handhold.
Solomon's voice came.
Quiet. Entirely without affect.
"Lord Hoern Muir."
Brynden felt his chest loosen slightly. Good. He's going to make a concession.
"I hereby challenge you to trial by combat."
A long pause.
"To settle the boundary dispute between our two houses."
The great hall went so quiet you could have heard a pin bounce off the flagstones.
Hoern Muir stared. The fury on his face had been replaced by something it was not used to hosting — total, bewildered incomprehension.
A second impact on the table.
This time it was not Hoern Muir.
Brynden Tully was on his feet.
He had moved without deciding to, driven upright by something that had finally exceeded his capacity to absorb. The chair behind him toppled and struck the floor with a heavy, hollow crack.
He stood there for a moment. He looked at Solomon — whose expression had not changed by a single line. He looked at Hoern Muir — whose face was a portrait of thunderstruck disbelief.
Then Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, the most battle-seasoned knight in the Riverlands, said nothing at all.
He turned. He walked toward the castle gate in long, deliberate strides.
He did not look back.
He left the hall as though he had made some kind of decision.
Behind him, the room full of anger and astonishment and shock remained exactly where it was.