Gemini ha detto
The descent from the Eyrie was not a retreat, though to Bronze Yohn Royce, it certainly tasted like one.
As the autumn winds turned to the biting, howling gales of early winter, Lady Lysa Arryn's paranoia finally consumed her entirely. She barred the heavy weirwood doors of the High Hall, refusing all audiences, hoarding her sickly son in her chambers, and leaving the Lords of the Vale to freeze in the guest wings. Disgusted and unable to govern a realm from a castle that refused to open its doors, Yohn Royce ordered his family and his men to pack their wheelhouses. They would ride down the Giant's Lance and take up residence at the Gates of the Moon, the formidable fortress at the base of the mountain. It was a place of deep stone, roaring hearths, and, most importantly, sanity.
For Rhea, the journey down the mountain was a profound physical relief.
As the procession wound its way down the treacherous, snow-dusted goat paths, passing the waycastles of Sky, Snow, and Stone, the air grew thick and heavy again. It filled her lungs with a rich, intoxicating vitality. The thin, starving atmosphere of the high peaks was replaced by the dense, earthy breath of the lower valleys.
She did not immediately return to her deep, continuous breathing. She had learned a valuable lesson in the clouds. Instead, she spent the carriage ride down mastering the balance between the two. She kept her breath low and steady, husbanding her strength, but keeping the Pulse—that violent, explosive intake of air—ready to ignite her blood at a moment's notice.
When they finally passed through the iron portcullis of the Gates of the Moon, Rhea looked up at the towering, impenetrable walls of the Eyrie, lost in the swirling clouds far above. She knew the madness festering up there. But down here, with her boots firmly on the solid earth and the heavy air filling her lungs, the fear of the future was entirely replaced by a cold, burning purpose.
She had two years to prepare before the realm truly began to bleed. And she was not going to waste a single day of it.
The next two years were a crucible of ash, sweat, and bruised flesh.
From her tenth name-day to her twelfth, Rhea Royce transformed herself. She was no longer the strange, pale child who hammered iron in the dark. She grew taller, her limbs losing the softness of childhood, replaced by the dense, tightly coiled muscle of a forged blade.
Her life at the Gates of the Moon was divided with a ruthless, unyielding discipline.
The mornings belonged to the fire. Bronze Yohn had commanded the castellan of the Gates to surrender a portion of the lower armory to his daughter. It became her sanctuary. Here, she did not just forge swords for the vanguard; she experimented. She took the rich, raw iron of the mountain mines and folded it with charcoal and bone, singing the ancient Runes of the First Men into the glowing metal.
She forged a new breastplate for her father, etching it with the Rune of the Mountain. When he wore it, the bronze seemed to drink the light, and blows that should have shattered his ribs merely glanced off, leaving the metal unmarked.
She did not forget the political seeds she had planted, either. Six months after their descent, a heavy wooden crate arrived at the gates of Ironoaks, bearing the seal of House Royce. Inside was a magnificent riding sword, balanced so perfectly it felt as light as a willow branch, with a hilt wrapped in dark leather and pommel shaped like a Waynwood oak leaf. It was a gift for Harrold Hardyng, forged by the "Smith of Runestone."
Lady Anya Waynwood's reply had been swift, gracious, and heavy with unspoken promise. The trade routes between Runestone and Ironoaks grew thicker, the alliance solidifying without a single marriage contract ever being drafted. Rhea was weaving her web across the Vale, thread by invisible thread.
But it was the afternoons in the training yard that truly shaped her.
She sparred with Andar until her brother's arms shook from exhaustion. Because she could not rely on the sheer, crushing weight of a man's strength, she relied on the gifts the old gods of her previous life had given her.
She mastered the Pulse. She learned to trigger the hyper-oxygenation of her blood in the exact heartbeat before a strike landed, allowing her to parry blows that should have broken her wooden practice swords.
She wove her hidden silk into her fighting style until it became an extension of her own body. She stopped using the web-shooters merely to trip her brother. She learned to fire a thin, nearly invisible thread at the crossguard of Andar's sword, yanking his blade out of alignment just as he swung. She learned to anchor a thread to the wooden posts of the yard, using the tension to launch herself over his heavy, sweeping strikes, landing lightly behind him like a falling leaf.
And then, there was the time.
The Father Time gift was the most dangerous, terrifying power she possessed. She practiced it in the dead of night, standing in the courtyard while the snow fell. She would close her eyes, feel the cold wind, and reach for the hourglass in her mind.
She learned to step out of the river of time, if only for a fraction of a second. She didn't freeze the world; she merely thickened the air around her, turning the falling snow into slow-drifting feathers. It drained her immensely, leaving her gasping and shivering, but it was the ultimate shield. If a blade came too fast, if a strike was too deadly, she could simply command the moment to wait for her to move.
By her twelfth name-day, the whispers in the barracks had changed. They no longer spoke of the little girl playing in the soot. The sworn swords of House Royce watched her move in the yard with a wary, superstitious reverence. They called her the Bronze Maiden. They said she fought as if she knew where a man's sword would fall before he even drew it.
But Rhea knew she was not perfect. She was fighting men who swung with honest, heavy blows. She was fighting knights who believed in shields and chivalry.
She had not forgotten the dark, smoky blur of Valyrian steel. She had not forgotten the man who moved like water and wind.
The year was 296 AC. The winter snows lay thick over the Vale, turning the Gates of the Moon into an isolated fortress of roaring fires and frosted glass.
Rhea was in the main training yard, the biting cold barely registering against the heat of her rhythmic breathing. She was sparring with Ser Kaelen, the grizzled master-at-arms of Runestone who had accompanied them down the mountain.
Ser Kaelen was a brute of a man, scarred and seasoned by decades of fighting mountain clansmen. He was using a heavy, blunted broadsword, pressing Rhea hard, trying to use his massive size to trap her against the stone walls of the armory.
"You're too light, My Lady!" Kaelen barked, his breath pluming in the freezing air as he drove a heavy overhead strike toward her shoulder. "You dance well, but if you can't hold the ground, the enemy will push you into the mud!"
Rhea didn't retreat.
She drew a short, violent Pulse of air into her lungs. The world snapped into terrifying focus. As Kaelen's heavy blade came crashing down, Rhea didn't block it. She stepped directly into his guard, inside the arc of his weapon.
With a flick of her left wrist, a short, incredibly taut thread of silk shot out, sticking to the heavy iron crossguard of Kaelen's descending sword. Rhea twisted her body, using her supernatural, oxygen-fueled strength to pull the thread hard to the left, violently redirecting the master-at-arms' massive swing into the dirt.
Before Kaelen could recover his balance, Rhea spun. She brought the pommel of her wooden training dagger up, stopping it a hair's breadth from the underside of his bearded jaw.
Kaelen froze, his eyes wide, his heavy sword embedded in the frozen mud.
"The mud only matters if you intend to stand in it, Ser Kaelen," Rhea said, her voice calm, her breathing barely elevated.
A slow, rhythmic clapping echoed across the yard.
Rhea released her unseen silk, letting it dissolve into the winter air, and turned.
Standing beneath the archway of the main gate, wrapped in a magnificent cloak of dark purple wool lined with silver fox fur, was Ser Lyn Corbray.
He looked exactly as he had two years ago—dangerously handsome, his dark hair swept back, his eyes carrying that familiar, arrogant sneer. But as he looked at Rhea, the sneer faded, replaced by a sharp, calculating hunger. Hanging from his hip, resting in a scabbard of black leather and silver, was the legendary blade, Lady Forlorn.
The yard went utterly silent. Ser Kaelen stepped back, his hand instinctively dropping to the hilt of his live steel. Lyn Corbray was not a man who visited fortresses simply to pass the time; he was a man who brought violence with him like a shadow.
"A neat trick," Lyn Corbray called out, his boots crunching loudly on the frosted stones as he walked slowly into the center of the yard. "You pull the old bear's fangs without even crossing blades. You've grown, little bird."
"Ser Lyn," Rhea said, offering a stiff, formal bow, her gray eyes locked on his hands. "What brings the heir of Heart's Home to the Gates of the Moon?"
"Boredom," Lyn answered smoothly, stopping a few paces away. "And a desire to see if my eyes deceived me two years ago."
Lyn unclasped his heavy fur cloak, tossing it carelessly to a startled stableboy. He drew a blunted tourney sword from a rack near the wall, testing its weight with a disappointed sigh.
"I took your advice, you know," Lyn said, his eyes never leaving hers. He raised his right hand, showing her the hilt of the tourney blade. The leather was stripped, replaced with rough, tightly bound wire. "I stripped the leather from my grip. I bound it with wire. It tears the callouses from my palms, but my wrist... my wrist does not slip anymore. I am faster."
"A fast strike is only useful if the blade finds its mark," Rhea replied evenly.
Lyn smiled. It was not a warm expression; it was the smile of a hound that had finally cornered a fox.
"Let us see if you can find the mark, then," Lyn challenged, raising the blunted sword. "Show me the magic of the forge, Lady Rhea."
Rhea did not hesitate. She dropped her wooden dagger and picked up a blunted longsword of her own. She could feel the eyes of the entire garrison on them. On the balcony overlooking the yard, the heavy oak doors of the solar opened, and Bronze Yohn Royce stepped out, his face like thunder at the sight of the deadly Corbray knight threatening his daughter.
"Begin," Lyn whispered.
He didn't lunge like Kaelen. He didn't telegraph his strike like Andar. Lyn Corbray simply vanished from his standing position, closing the distance between them in a terrifying blur of motion.
Rhea drew a Pulse. Her heart hammered a frantic, supercharged rhythm against her ribs.
Lyn's sword came in a horizontal sweep, aiming for her ribs. It was impossibly fast, the air whistling sharply. Rhea leaned backward, letting the blade pass over her chest by an inch, and instantly brought her own sword up in a tight, rising parry to catch his backhand.
CLACK.
The sound of the blunted steel meeting echoed like a gunshot. The force of Lyn's blow sent a shockwave up Rhea's arms, threatening to numb her fingers. He was not just fast; his technique was so flawless that he generated immense power without needing raw bulk.
He didn't stop. He unleashed a flurry of strikes—thrusts, slashes, and sweeping arcs that flowed together like a continuous river of steel.
Rhea gave ground, her boots sliding on the frost. She could not match his sheer, practiced mastery of Andal swordplay. But she had something he did not. She had the sight.
She watched his shoulders, his hips, the subtle shifts of his wire-bound grip. She anticipated the angle of his blade a fraction of a second before he swung.
Lyn brought the sword down in a crushing overhead blow. Rhea didn't try to block it. She reached deep into the cold, silent place in her mind.
Father Time.
The world thickened. The falling snow slowed to a crawl. Lyn Corbray's terrifying speed was reduced to a slow, deliberate march.
Rhea sidestepped the heavy blow, feeling the air drag against her skin like molasses. As Lyn's sword crashed harmlessly into the frozen mud, Rhea released the temporal hold.
Time snapped back into place.
Before Lyn could recover his balance from the missed strike, Rhea brought the flat of her blade hard against the back of his knee. Lyn grunted, his leg buckling slightly, but his reflexes were monstrous. He spun, dropping to one knee, and swept his blade around to take her legs out from under her.
Rhea leaped, firing a twin burst of unseen silk from both wrists, anchoring them to the wooden rafters of the gallery above. She used the tension to pull herself entirely over his sweeping blade, flipping gracefully in the air.
As she landed softly behind him, she brought the edge of her blunted sword to the back of his neck.
Lyn Corbray froze.
He was kneeling in the dirt, the cold steel of a twelve-year-old girl resting against his spine. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving, his dark eyes wide with the same superstitious awe he had shown two years ago.
He had gone all out. He had used the footwork that had killed a Prince of Dorne. And she had danced through it like a ghost.
Silence reigned over the courtyard.
Lyn Corbray let out a low, breathless laugh. He dropped his practice sword into the dirt and slowly rose to his feet, turning to face her. He didn't look angry. He looked absolutely, utterly fascinated.
"You are a witch," Lyn murmured, his voice laced with dark amusement. "Or a demon. I haven't decided which."
"I told you, Ser Lyn. I am a student of the blade," Rhea replied, lowering her sword, her own breath coming in shallow, controlled sips as the Pulse faded from her blood.
Lyn Corbray turned away from her and looked up at the balcony, where Bronze Yohn Royce stood gripping the wooden railing so hard the timber was groaning under his massive hands.
"Lord Royce!" Lyn called out, his voice echoing across the yard.
Yohn Royce glared down at the knight. "You have a strange way of greeting your hosts, Corbray. Drawing steel on my daughter in my own yard."
"She didn't seem to mind," Lyn shouted back, an arrogant smirk returning to his face. "And I did not come here for your hospitality, Bronze Yohn. I came here for her."
Yohn's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "Speak plainly, Lyn, before I have Kaelen throw you out the gates."
Lyn Corbray rested his hand on the silver pommel of Lady Forlorn. He looked at Rhea, then looked back up at her father.
"My last squire was a clumsy fool who couldn't sharpen a blade without dulling the edge," Lyn declared loudly. "I need a new one. Someone who understands the steel. Someone who can actually keep up with me." He pointed a gloved finger at Rhea. "I will take the girl."
A collective gasp swept through the guardsmen in the yard. Ser Kaelen looked as though he had been struck by lightning.
Bronze Yohn Royce's face turned the color of old brick. He leaned over the balcony, his voice vibrating with absolute, lordly fury. "Have you lost your mind, Corbray? She is a daughter of House Royce! A highborn lady of the Vale! She is not a stableboy to polish your armor and fetch your water!"
"She is a warrior!" Lyn shot back, refusing to back down. "Look at her, Yohn! She just put a blade to the neck of the deadliest man in the Seven Kingdoms, and she didn't even break a sweat. You keep her locked in a forge, making armor for men who are half as dangerous as she is. It is a waste."
"It is out of the question!" Yohn roared. "She will not serve you!"
"Father."
The word was not shouted. It was spoken calmly, quietly, but it cut through the shouting of the two men like a sharp knife through stretched canvas.
Rhea looked up at the balcony. Her gray eyes were clear, cold, and utterly resolute.
"Rhea, go to your chambers," Yohn commanded, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"No, Father," Rhea said. She took a step forward, placing herself between Lyn Corbray and the balcony. "Ser Lyn is vain, cruel, and he lacks the honor of House Royce."
Lyn raised an eyebrow at the blunt insult, but remained silent, intrigued by her play.
"But he is right," Rhea continued, her voice carrying across the silent yard. "You put a hammer in my hand when I was a child. You told me to forge the salvation of this House. I have given you unbroken steel. I have given Andar a blade that will not shatter. But steel alone does not win a war. The man who wields it does."
She looked directly into her father's eyes, channeling all the unwavering, ancient stone of the Royce bloodline.
"I know the forge, Father. But I do not know the blood. I do not know the chaos of a true battle. If you want me to be the weapon that protects this family when the winter comes... I must learn how the greatest weapons are used."
Yohn Royce stared down at his daughter. He saw the soot permanently stained into the creases of her knuckles. He saw the cold, pragmatic logic in her eyes. He remembered the shattered blade of the master smith, and the perfect, ringing steel she had forged at three years old. He had asked the gods to awaken the ancestors in her, and they had answered. He could not put the fire back into the hearth just because it burned too brightly.
Yohn looked at Lyn Corbray. The hatred and distrust between the honorable Lord and the vicious knight was palpable.
"If she comes to harm," Yohn Royce said, his voice dropping to a low, terrifying rumble that promised absolute annihilation, "if she is mistreated, or insulted, or placed in danger beyond her training... I will not ask the King for justice, Corbray. I will bring Runestone down upon Heart's Home, and I will take your head myself."
Lyn Corbray smiled, a genuine, feral grin. "If she comes to harm, Lord Yohn, it will be because the Stranger himself came down to fight her."
Yohn Royce turned sharply and strode back into the solar, slamming the heavy oak doors behind him.
The yard exhaled a collective breath it didn't know it was holding.
Lyn Corbray turned back to Rhea. The arrogance was gone, replaced by the demanding, unyielding expectation of a master addressing his apprentice.
"You will clean my armor until I can see my own reflection in the steel," Lyn commanded, his voice sharp. "You will groom my horse, you will sharpen my daggers, and you will not speak unless I address you. In exchange, I will teach you how to kill men who do not play by the rules."
He unbuckled the heavy black leather scabbard from his hip and held it out to her.
Rhea stepped forward. She did not use her Pulse. She did not call upon Father Time. She reached out with her calloused, soot-stained hands and took the scabbard.
The moment her fingers brushed the hilt of Lady Forlorn, she felt the dark, humming power of the Valyrian steel vibrating against her skin. It was a terrifying, beautiful sensation.
"Yes, Ser Lyn," Rhea said, her voice steady, bowing her head in the ancient, formal acceptance of a squireship.
She was twelve years old. She possessed the magic of the multiverse, the mind of a builder, and the blood of the First Men. And now, she was the squire to the deadliest blade in the Vale.
The Game of Thrones was still years away from truly beginning, but as Rhea stood in the freezing courtyard with Valyrian steel in her hands, she knew one thing for certain.
When the wars finally came, she would not be hiding behind the walls of a castle. She would be the one breaking them down.