The High Hall of the Eyrie was quiet except for the wind.
Edric had flung the great moon-door wide open. Sunlight poured in, bright and cold, the kind of light that only exists ten thousand feet above the world. A steady breeze snapped the sky-blue banners and tugged at the parchment on his writing table.
He had written more letters this moon than most lords wrote in a year: to Pentos, to Braavos, to the Citadel, to Highgarden, even one carefully sealed in summer-sky wax now riding across the Narrow Sea in Wyl's breastplate.
The Citadel had bent, grudgingly. Six maesters were already on the road, with more to follow. They would teach in the Higher Sept, but the curriculum remained his. In exchange he had sent south the complete plans of the printing press and a working model packed in straw and hope. Grey rats, he thought, but clever ones. They had known the moment ten thousand primers appeared in smallfolk hands that something had changed forever.
A fresh letter lay open before him, sealed in green wax with the golden rose.
My lord of Arryn,
House Tyrell is deeply honoured by your proposal for our beloved Margaery. She is yet young, and such weighty matters deserve thoughtful consideration. We would be overjoyed to welcome you to Highgarden at your earliest convenience, that you might see the Reach in its fullest glory and come to know our rose better.
With warmest regards and open gates, Mace Tyrell Lord of Highgarden, Warden of the South
Edric's mouth curved, small and sharp.
The Queen of Thorns, in every careful line. Delay. Flatter. Keep the door cracked just enough to slip a dagger through later.
He had weighed Margaery Tyrell for moons. Clever, beautiful, ambitious. A match that would bind the second-richest realm to the fastest-rising one. But the Tyrells wanted a crown, and crowns were brittle things.
"So tragic," he murmured to the wind. "They wagered their rose on a dying dynasty when they should have known: in the end only the falcon or the dragon will sit the sky. The rest will just be bones beneath our wings."
He turned the possibilities over like coins.
A Stark bride (Sansa or Arya) would lock the old alliance in blood twice over. Ned was Hand now, but not for long. War was coming, swift as winter. Robb had stumbled often in another life (Roose, Theon, the Freys), but this time the young wolf would not walk alone. With the Vale at his side, with falcons guarding the Eastern Front, perhaps together they could rewrite fate.
Myrcella Lannister would bring gold, lions, the Westerlands. Tywin's granddaughter on the Eyrie's high seat—an alliance of steel and coin. Except Tywin never bent, and Joffrey on the throne was poison for the realm and for Edric's ambitions.
Daenerys Targaryen remained the highest match imaginable. Dragons. Valyrian blood. Three living weapons that could burn every army in Westeros to cinders. Yet madness ran in that silver hair as surely as fire.
A sharp rap at the door.
Davos stepped in, hair longer now and curling at the collar, green eyes bright against sun-browned skin. At eighteen he could almost pass for Lannister—if Lannisters ever smiled.
"News from the Bloody Gate," he said, grin crooked. "Your aunt Catelyn just rode in with a Ragtag group of riverland men and Rough looking sell swords … and she's brought Tyrion Lannister in chains."
Edric set the quill down.
"Interesting timing," he said softly.
The wind through the moon-door suddenly felt colder.
Wyl POV
Wyl had known from the first day that Edric Arryn was not like other boys.
Not even like other lords' sons.
Where other children played at knights or chased servant girls, Edric trained. Dawn till dusk, winter and summer: running the mule path in mail, drawing a war bow no grown man could bend, reading scrolls by candlelight until the wax pooled like blood. The household called him prodigy. Wyl knew better. Prodigies were born. Edric had forged himself, stroke by stroke, the way a smith forges a sword.
When Edric had leaned close on the deck of that black-sailed ship and whispered the order (quiet, calm, terrible) to drown Lysa and Sweetrobin in the Narrow Sea, Wyl's stomach had lurched harder than any storm wave.
Kinslayer. The word tasted of iron and damnation.
Yet he had done it. Because if any man in the world could stare down the gods and make them blink, it was Edric Arryn.
Now, three moons later, Wyl stood on the sweltering docks of Meereen, sky-blue cloak plastered to his back with sweat, and felt the weight of that choice settle like a second breastplate.
Three galleys rode low behind him, falcons stamped on every prow. One hundred and fifty Steel Falcons (knights in all but name) watched the city with wary awe. Their holds had been heavy when they left the Vale: Arbor gold sealed in green wax, black Dornish reds, Tyroshi pear-brandy, dyes bright enough to blind, pale Volantene glass, rolls of sky-blue silk, and cold mountain steel by the crate.
They had sold everything in four days.
In return the holds now groaned with gold marks, rubies the size of quail eggs, onyx carvings, saffron, pepper, and strange spices that made men weep. Wyl had bought remounts (sleek sand horses with vicious eyes) and a fourth galley to carry the fortune home.
The Ghiscari dockmaster had greeted them in guttural tongue, then switched to thickly accented Valyrian.
"What brings Westerosi to the greatest city in the world?"
"Trade," Wyl answered. "Arbor gold, Dornish reds, Tyroshi brandy, silk, steel."
The man's eyes had gleamed. "Meereen has the finest bed-slaves in all Essos. Bring enough gold and you leave richer still."
Some of the lads took the bait. Wyl saw them stagger back at dawn, eyes red, purses light, grinning like fools.
Tom would have been first in line, Wyl thought. Tom had never met a serving girl he didn't try to tumble, Vale or Free Cities. But Tom was safe at home, probably chasing kitchen maids in the new city below the Eyrie.
Davos had not gone. Neither had the Blackfish on the one voyage he had sailed with them. Neither had Edric, ever.
Honor, they called it. Wyl had learned the lesson young: a Steel Falcon did not pay cave to such weaknesses of the flesh. Still, in the reeking heat of Meereen's pleasure houses drifting on the wind, he felt the old doubt stir. Was it truly honor… or just another chain?
He pushed the thought down and walked the bazaar beneath the great stepped pyramids, hand never far from his sword.
Every tongue spoke of the silver queen.
Daenerys Stormborn, the whispers said, had been great with child when Drogo's khalasar rode east from Pentos. Some claimed she still sat in Vaes Dothrak, waiting to birth the stallion who mounts the world. Others swore the khalasar had left the grass sea and now raided the Lhazareen near the bones of old Sarnor.
No one had seen dragons. No one had seen her since the Dothraki swallowed her up.
Wyl listened, bought wine for loose tongues, and waited.
Inside his breastplate, pressed against his heart, lay a letter sealed in summer-sky wax.
When the time came, he would find her.
And the world would burn or bow.