Chapter Text
The Eyrie was colder than usual that morning, the rain falling like a funeral dirge. A small flicker of light filtered through the high windows of the throne room, spilling across stone, catching on the bright sigils of assembled houses. The young falcon was forced to be a silent observer. He stood near a pillar at the edge of the room, half in shadow, his expression dull, watching as lords and ladies clustered like crows, their silks rustling like wings. The raven brought news from King's Landing in the dead of night.
Lord Jon Arryn was dead. And the Vale was ripe for the taking.
The boy on the throne—snot-nosed Robin Arryn—clung to his mother's breast like a sickly cub. His face was blotchy with tears, sobbing openly, tugging at his mother's curls with a child's disregard. Harrold's jaw tightened. His mother would have made a better ruler, obviously. The Lady of the Vale, though grieving, shifted her gaze around the hall with twitchy vigilance.
"Widowed now", he mused. A better station than orphaned. Cleaner, too, than the truth: powerless. There was a list of certain implications that came after that word, and a list of opportunities.
The hall buzzed with whispered schemes, some of them included him... or so he's heard. Harrold shifted his weight, boots moving on the cold stone to remind himself he stood on the same ground as the lords beneath their bright banners. They had grown up beside him: the sons of Waynwood, Templeton, Redfort. They'd traded blows with him in the training yard, slapped his back after a well-landed strike, shared cups and jokes, sometimes even girls. But when the squires were knighted, when the first daughters were promised to them, Harrold remained a fosterling. His name was noble too, but what was it to houses like these? Like house Arryn? A tolerated cousin. As if being the son of a dead knight and a once-pretty Arryn girl made him noble in theory, but not in practice. He had often wondered if he would have been more of an Arryn had his mother married someone not beneath her.
Now? The Vale had no heir but a weeping boy... and him.
The Lady Lysa's gaze swept the hall, lingering a bit too long on Harrold. Does she suspect? He forced his face into grief, but his fingers twitched. Let her watch. He'd learned long ago how to play the dutiful ward. He would carve a place for himself, even if the court continued treating him like a distant shadow. Shadows, he knew, could grow long, given the right light. And if the gods could kill a man like Jon Arryn, then perhaps they'd amuse themselves by raising up a man like Harrold Hardying.
He exhaled through his nose and shifted his weight, noting how a small cluster of highborn girls giggled behind gloved hands when he glanced their way, but their eyes slid past him like he was a painted shield. A knight from songs of brave heroes and noble ladies. Not the real Harrold, whose knuckles still stung raw from splitting a squire's lip the night before. All because the fool had smirked and muttered something about a certain dark-haired bastard who Harrold visited far too often. He'd drawn blood before the lad had finished his sentence, but not quickly enough to prevent the ripple of laughter from the others—the brief humiliation he had to endure for such dishonorable affections.
Still, shame was a familiar ache, and he had long since fucked away any illusions of honor, hearing too many sweet whispers from noble ladies who claimed to cherish it. And then there was Aleyna... She was worse than them, in some ways. Robert Baratheon's half-wild daughter. Stone. Not a name that fit neatly into his polite conversations, yet she always hovered at the edges of his mind, like a nasty itch he couldn't reach. He wanted to leave. There was only one person who needed to hear this news, and every instinct screamed to ride for her immediately. Harrold muttered farewells to the gathered lords and turned toward the door only to freeze when maester Coleman's bony fingers caught his shoulder.
"A raven brought more today," he murmured. "I meant to give this to Ser Waynwood, but he's gone off. It's addressed to Aleyna. See that it finds her hand."
He held out a folded parchment; fine paper, thick with wax, bearing the seal of the capital. Harrold noticed the man giving him a certain look.
Aleyna.
He didn't need to hear her name. He could feel it on his lips before it was spoken, like muscle memory. "I need to return now". That single thought pushed everything else aside. Harrold muttered thanks, tucked the letter inside his cloak, and left before the next breath could be drawn. He rode hard through rain and rock, wind slicing at his cheeks. The storm followed him, or perhaps it had started inside him.
Relief. Dread. Desire. They churned together in his chest, pulling him forward, mile after mile. By the time he arrived, it was still early morning. Rain was now falling in slow, drops, darkening the soil beneath his boots. "Strange weather for this time of year", he thought. Harrold dismounted just beyond the bend in the road, where the path split toward Ironoaks. The cottage still stood there, tucked behind a rotting fence and a patch of cabbages. It belonged to a merchant's widow — a sharp-tongued woman who used to peddle trinkets and lace to the ladies of Ironoaks, always uninvited, always overstaying. Harrold had never managed more than a handful of words to her without being rude.
But he wasn't here for her.
There was someone else waiting inside.
* * *
Harrold stepped inside, rainwater pooling at his boots. Through the kitchen's low archway, he saw Aleyna, elbow-deep in a rabbit's guts, her sleeves rolled to the elbow, fingers slick with gore.
"You're early," she said, not looking up. The knife in her hand flashed, parting flesh from bone. "If Lady Waynwood finds out you came here-"
"Jon Arryn's dead."
A pause. She didn't speak right away. Her fingers curled tighter around the rabbit's leg, holding it still, though her knuckles had gone pale. When she finally looked at him, he didn't see what he wanted in it, just a dull blink, like a thought hitting slowly.
"...How?" she echoed.
He nodded once and smiled ever so slightly. "A raven came last night from King's Landing. I just got back from the Eyrie. A man of his age... The Stranger takes us all in his time."
She stared at the rabbit for a moment, as if she'd forgotten what it was. Then she wiped her hands on her apron and leaned against the counter, shoulders tense. She stood like that for a while, her breathing uneven but quiet. Harrold didn't like the quiet. He glanced at the narrow hearth in the corner, the few blackened pots hanging from iron hooks. It was a poor house. Worse than he remembered. She had always kept it neat, but nothing could hide the draft through the stones or the stink of wet furs hanging by the door.
His gaze slid back to her.
Her hands were slightly red, almost pink, to the wrist; the curve of her back was bent slightly from work, shoulders tense under the thin fabric of her tunic — a man's cut, one he vaguely remembered her wearing before, but looser now. It hung on her differently. She had always been wiry, built more like a stableboy than a lady: strong arms, square shoulders, solid legs, but now even that seemed dulled. Her hips looked narrower, arms a touch hollower. Nothing dramatic, just enough to remind him that she was thinning out like everything else in this godforsaken place. The whole house sagged, and so did she. Starving, maybe. Rotting in this hole.
"You're thinner," he said finally, his tone flat.
She gave a short humorless laugh, like she appreciated the change of subject. "Winter's coming. It's hard to keep meat in the house."
He let his eyes linger on the knife, the rabbit, her hands. They weren't the soft, useless ones of highborn girls. They were rough and capable... hunter's hands. They had held his face once, bruised his chest, pushed him away. Every morning she'd disappear into the woods with a bow or a trap, and would return dragging something bleeding behind her. Birds, hares, even a stag once. A big and proud thing. The sigil of her father.
"You know she won't like you here," she added after a while. "Remember how she said she'll kick you out herself If she'll see you here again? You should-"
"I know. Your mistress has made herself very clear. Old hag never liked my looks. Still calls me 'little lady Hardying,' I imagine."
"Still fits," she muttered, glancing his way. "You look like a lady. Though you're not so little anymore."
"And you're just as ungrateful as you were. I came all this way through the rain. Nearly broke my leg crossing a stream."
"And no doubt expecting a warm welcome."
He didn't know what he expected. A warmer welcome, maybe. Some flicker of recognition, or gratitude for riding all this way through dirt and mud to deliver that stupid letter to her. But she seemed more irritated than anything else, like he was a stray dog that had wandered in again, dripping and muddy and unwelcome.
He sighed. "You probably were a terrible prostitute, you know that? No charm."
"Probably."
Harrold watched her work for a long moment, the way her hands moved was... competent. The silence between them thickened, but the anger had gone from it, leaving something older and calmer in its place. It was a silence he remembered from years gone by, before they had grown so complicated. On an impulse, he fumbled inside his damp cloak, getting out a small, linen-wrapped package onto the table beside the rabbit.
"Honeycakes," he said, his tone overly casual. He looked away toward the fireplace, feigning a sudden interest in it.
She did not look up from the table, but the steady thump-thump-thump of her cleaver stopped and she smiled, not looking up at him. "Trying to sweeten me, milord?"
The smile was faint, a fleeting moment, but it was there. He took it as a small win, but refused to show it.
"It's just cakes," he muttered. "They're a bit crushed from the ride. No use to me now, was going to toss them to the dogs."
Aleyna finally set her knife down. She wiped her hands, once, twice, on her apron, then picked up the parcel. She unwrapped the linen carefully. Inside, the little cakes were small and perfect, golden-brown, glistening with a fine sheen of honey and studded with nuts. They had been carefully packed, protected from the journey. She broke one in two, the soft crumb yielding easily, and held a half out to him.
He took it. The honey was sweet and familiar on his tongue. They ate in silence. The moment was brief. She finished her half, brushed the crumbs from her fingers and placed the rest on a high shelf, away from the blood and grime, a small, strange treasure in the poor house.
"Thank you," she said, her voice flat once more, all trace of the smile gone.
The silence returned, but it was different now. Heavy with all the things the honeycake could not sweeten. His small victory felt hollow, the gesture foolish, a boy's attempt to mend a man's rift. The failure of it irritated him, he stepped forward to her in a quick motion.
"You should've come with me when I asked... I would've kept you fed. You could've had something better than this. You could've done something decent with your life, not live as a lackey to a peasant."
And maybe that was the truth of it. Maybe what needled him most was the idea that she chose this over him. Over what he offered.
"And who would I serve there? You?"
"Nothing's wrong with that. You seemed to like it enough." She ignored the jab, so he sighed again and turned back to her. "You're not going to ask why I came?"
"I figured you'd tell me when you were ready."
He pulled the letter from inside his cloak: damp at the edges, the wax seal broken and flaking. Aleyna's eyes narrowed and went from the letter to his face, her attention finally fully on him, though her expression was more weary than curious.
"Didn't waste much time, did you?"
"You can't read it anyway."
Her lips pressed into a thin line and for a second, she looked embarrassed. Harrold hesitated, then gave a half-shrug.
"I thought it might be important. And it was, important enough I rode in the fucking rain to bring it."
"Well?" she asked.
He cleared his throat, unfolded the parchment as if to make a show of reading it. "It's from King's Landing."
"Robert?"
"Doubt it. Signed by one of his councilors, but it might as well be his words. Now that Lord Arryn is gone, your safety is at risk and your charming royal blood seems to have resurfaced in its importance. Time to find you something more suitable to do."
"Suitable," she echoed. "A decent life, is it?"
What a mockery she made of his earlier words. He meant a decent life with him, or near him, not in King's Landing. A hot, sour resentment bloomed in his chest, acrid and familiar. It wasn't directed solely at her, but at the entire fucking situation. At Jon Arryn for dying and leaving this power vacuum. At Robert Baratheon for opening his piggy eyes for the first time in years. At himself for riding to her like a lovesick fool, only to deliver the very thing that would take her away. He'd made peace with that, hadn't he? Years ago, when he first realized that liking her didn't mean keeping her. That she'd never be the kind of girl a man like him married. He needed a Royce, a Moore, a Corbray—a wife with a name and land. Of course, he would keep Aleyna as his comfort. He assumed she would always be there, in this place or his castle, a constant he could return to. A reminder of what he'd come from and what he'd overcome. Always his.
Now, she was being taken far away. Handed off to some fat merchant to breed more Baratheon bastards. It felt like a rejection of the future he imagined for them both, and it left him feeling foolish and exposed, standing in her kitchen, dripping and unwanted.
"That's how it's worded," Harrold said. "Your father thinks it's best to bring you South".
She frowned and leaned her weight against the table, arms crossed. "I was never going to stay tucked away out here forever. But... South? What does that-?"
"It means you'll be handed off to someone with a castle and not much else. Or someone with influence and no name. Or someone who wants a pretty bastard girl with a royal connection and strong hips to bear babes. If you want my opinion," He paused. "I think it means you'll be wed before the next winter."
"It would make sense. He always said he'd see me provided for. Maybe this is what he meant."
She didn't react the way he expected. No flinching, no typical nervous touch of her nails on her fingers. Just that same even tone. No matter what he said to her, how he mocked her, she managed to stay quiet. It was a talent he'd both admired and despised in her since they were young.
He first met her years back, a skinny brat hanging around the stables. She was fifteen then, a girl on the bridge of being woman, while he still was a boy of thirteen, knight's squire. His old master was the one to bring her from the Eyrie to the Ironoaks. He didn't explain much to him, just that the girl was taken care of by Lord Arryn and the boys should go easy on her. Back then she barely talked, but never stood still: climbing fences, chasing stray dogs, throwing pebbles at the geese until someone shouted. Harrold hadn't liked her. No one really did. She looked bigger and older than she was supposed to, refused to take care of herself proper, bore her teeth and thrown herself at any adult that tried to care for her. He'd thought she was half-witted. Odd. A little disgusting. And yet, for reasons he still didn't understand, he kept watching her. As a young boy, all he'd wanted was to be the one to crack her. He'd bring her stolen sweets, play with her, teach her how to hold a sword, even landed her his when he wasn't supposed to. He'd wanted to be the one to make that feral thing smile, to prove he could tame what everyone else found wild.
"You don't have to go," he said, too quickly. "Fuck".
"Yes, I do."
"They can't force you," he insisted, a boy's argument, and he knew it. "You could stay. You could... I don't know, hide. Go to the mountains. They'd forget about you in a fortnight."
"They don't need to force me, Harrold. I want to go."
That stopped him cold. Want. He'd expected resistance, bargaining. Not this... eagerness to leave.
"You want to? And do what, exactly? They'll eat a girl like you alive."
"I'll see my father. And I will see what he offers. It can't be worse than here."
She turned away from him, picking up her knife again. She began wiping the blade clean on a rag, the motion efficient and dismissive.
"I'm going hunting."
He stared at her back, anger boiling in his gut. "It's pissing rain out there."
"Then I'll be wet." She slid the knife into a leather sheath at her belt and reached for a worn bow leaning in the corner.
"Fine. Get wet. Catch a cold. Go to King's Landing. See if I care."
She paused at the door, turning back to him. "I'll come to the castle after. To see my brother. Hopefully, you'll be there by then. Or Lady Waynwood will suspect something."
She left him alone in the dark.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ* * *
The rain had softened to a mist by the time Aleyna reached the woods. It was a wet, green silence that welcomed her, a world washed clean and quiet, away from the small house and Harrold's restless presence. Here, things were simple. You waited, you listened, you killed.
Her father had taught her that. The first time she'd seen him, the King had seemed a giant. He had looked at her, this skinny, dark-haired girl they said was his, with a sort of confused, but loving expression. He'd try, for a day or two, to play the father. Asked her questions she didn't know how to answer, bought her a doll she had no use for. He was gentle in a clumsy way and Aleyna felt a familiar fatherly love she came to know in her childhood. But after some time, she could see the discomfort in his eyes, the same look a man gets when a strange dog follows him home. He was bored by it quickly, as he was bored by most things that did not involve a warhammer or a whore and she was neither at the time.
So, he did what he knew best. He took her hunting. Amongst the lords and ladies in their fine velvets, he had put a bow in her hands. "Like this, girl," he'd grunted, his hands correcting her tight grip. He showed her how to track, how to read the broken twig and the disturbed earth. He taught her the quick, clean kill. When she was sixteen, she had plunged a blade into the throat of a boar already brought down by the hounds during one of the hunts. The lords had cheered. Robert clapped her on the back, a blow near sent her falling onward. It was loud, and messy, and left her feeling hollow. The true feeling, the one that came when you were alone in the woods, was different. It was a quiet, patient communion between hunter and prey.
"Funny", she thought, not smiling. "The first man I ever called a father taught me how to kill. And my..." Her actual first "father" was a name she did not speak, a face she could not recall, a lesson taught in a brothel's back room. He had taught her what came after the killing. The hollow that followed. The emptiness in the victor.
She loved the hunt, the way the forest held its breath with her, the sounds it made—the chatter of birds, the whistling of the wind, the rustling of grass. Out here, she was not a bastard, not a servant, not a whore. She was a natural predator, a part of life itself. She could wait for hours, still as stone, for the perfect shot. Then a sound: draw of the string, the thrum of the release. A life ended to sustain another. The arrow took the plump grey bird through the breast, a clean kill.
The killing was always easy; the silence after was hard. A peculiar feeling settled in her chest then, not pain or grief, for she felt no love for the bird, but a quiet, lingering sense of loss. The quiet confirmation that something that was, was no more. She had felt it first not with an animal, but as a child in a different life, in a room that stank of sweat and sour wine. She had learned then that to survive was to make others cease, one way or another.
Now, alone with the wind and the dead bird, she tried to find the same feeling for Jon Arryn. She had always held a fondness for death; it was plain and simple, an honest end to complicated things. But this death had taken the one person who had asked for nothing from her. He was the opposite of a hunter. He had been the builder; he did not take, he made. He had found her, a dirty, snarling creature in a brothel, and taken her from that horror. He had given her a clean bed, a purpose, a name—not a noble one, but a true one: Stone. And now he was gone. She held no love for him either, she barely knew the man, but the loss was a different kind, a deeper cut. This great, decent, boring old man was dead, and many men far worse than him still lived.
She bent down, her fingers brushing the soft, damp feathers of the bird. A small thing, but enough for a meal. She bound its feet with a piece of twine and hauled it over her saddle.
It was time to go. Time to say her goodbyes, not just to this place, but to the girl she had been here. That girl had no place in King's Landing. Jon Arryn's protection was gone. She would go south, and she would face what came, but she would not forget the lessons of the woods. The hunter knew when to wait, when to strike, and when to disappear.