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"The Rains of Castamere."
That once-cheerful melody had been twisted into something else entirely, chosen by Walder Frey for this moment.
The tune was low and oppressive, each note a cold drop of rain hammering against the hearts of everyone in the hall.
Edmure Tully watched the wrinkles deepen on Walder Frey's old face , excitement carving them deeper , and caught the flash of something perverse in those murky eyes. Something that vanished almost before it appeared.
His stomach turned. Like he'd swallowed something rotten.
He knew what this song meant.
It was the Lannister elegy for the annihilation of House Reyne.
A warning. A bloody declaration.
By choosing to play it now, Walder Frey was sending the most direct, most vicious provocation possible , to House Tully, to every Northern guest in this hall.
"Walder! What in the hells is the meaning of this?!"
A rough voice shattered the silence.
The Blackfish.
Brynden Tully stood, his eyes wide and blazing, fury radiating off him like heat from a forge. He shoved the attendant beside him out of the way, crossed the hall in long furious strides, and slammed both hands on Walder Frey's table hard enough to rattle the cups.
"What do you take this place for?!"
"Your brothel? Where you can do whatever you please?!"
He jabbed a finger at Walder's nose, his voice rolling through the hall like thunder.
He didn't spare a glance for Lysa Arryn's dark expression. Didn't look at Ned or Catelyn. His fury had one target, and one target only.
He'd already heard about the Bloody Gate. As the man primarily responsible for its defense, his mood had been foul before any of this started.
"This is Riverrun! The seat of House Tully! It is not some place your Freys can trample whenever it suits you!"
Walder Frey flinched. His body actually shrank back.
Then he caught himself, and that smug, self-satisfied look crept back onto his face. He chuckled.
"Ser Blackfish, you're not getting any younger. Yet that temper of yours hasn't cooled one degree."
He let his murky gaze drift from Brynden to Ned, to Catelyn, and finally settled on Lysa Arryn.
"But I'm in a fine mood today. I'll let it pass."
"You're in a fine mood?!"
Brynden was shaking. He swept his gaze around the hall , all those Frey faces with their various expressions , then looked at Lysa Arryn.
"What exactly are you so pleased about?!"
"Pleased to be colluding with this poisonous woman? Pleased to drag the entire Riverlands into war?!"
"Everyone in this hall knows what Lysa Arryn has done!"
His voice rang off the stone walls.
"Lysa poisoned her husband!"
"She framed the Lannisters and tried to start the War of the Five Kings!"
"She betrayed the honor of House Arryn, betrayed the honor of House Tully, betrayed all of Westeros!"
"And now she wants to drag us , drag our House Tully, drag our Riverlands — into her filthy schemes!"
"Don't think I don't know exactly what you're after!"
"You think siding with her against the North ends well for you?!"
The Tully bannermen's faces had gone heavy. These were not the isolated nobles of the Vale, cut off from the world behind their mountain passes. They sat at the heart of Westeros, where news moved fast. They had all heard things about Lysa Arryn , some more, some less. They had already been uneasy about her presence here.
Now Brynden had ripped the curtain away entirely, and the indignation that had been simmering beneath the surface came boiling up.
"The knight speaks true!"
A Tully bannerman surged to his feet, face flushed with anger.
"House Tully will never stand beside a woman like this!"
"We will not be made enemies of the North!"
Another bannerman rose beside him.
"The honor of House Tully will not be stained by her!"
The hall erupted. Tully men and their bannermen stood one after another, voices layering over each other in a wave of fury and disgust.
They could accept Duke Edmure's marriage into the Frey family. That was a political necessity, a price paid for the Riverlands' stability. But they would never accept being dragged into war against the North , against Ned Stark , for the sake of this woman.
That would be a shame House Tully could never wash clean.
Lysa Arryn's face had gone the color of ash.
She hadn't expected Brynden to expose her so bluntly. She hadn't expected the bannermen to turn on her this hard. She looked to Walder Frey, her eyes urgent.
Walder's smile had frozen on his face.
He had thought he could use Lysa's madness, the Tully family's weakness, and his control over Edmure to lock the Riverlands in his grip. But these stubborn old fools of House Tully were proving far less pliable than he'd imagined.
His original plan had been simple enough. Let the Eyrie tie Lynn up for a while. By the time he'd fully consolidated the Riverlands, Lysa and Lynn would have ground each other down. Then he would rise , reclaim his strength, wash away the humiliation of being called "the Late Walder Frey."
He had never dreamed.
Not in his worst nightmares.
That in just a few days, Lynn would take the Eyrie.
But what was done was done. He had conspired with Lysa to kidnap and manipulate Duke Edmure , that was fact. Lysa had failed, and Edmure himself would testify to it. Even if the madwoman didn't drag him down with her, there was no path that didn't end in his death.
There was nothing left but to stand with Lysa.
Go down swinging. One final, complete act of madness.
"Enough! Enough!"
Walder slapped the table, trying to push back against the noise.
The wave of anger swallowed his voice whole.
"Late Walder Frey, you miserable bastard, crawl back to your castle!"
"Back to your castle!"
Then ,
Catelyn Tully spoke.
Her voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It cut through the clamor like a blade through silk, and the hall went quiet.
"Lysa."
Her eyes were locked on Lysa Arryn. Cold. Flat. Not a flicker of feeling.
"Do you see this?"
"This is what everything you've done has brought you."
Lysa's body gave a small, involuntary tremor.
She stared into Catelyn's cold blue eyes and saw something there , a ghost of who she herself had once been. The girl she'd buried long ago.
Then the panic in her eyes curdled into something darker. Deeper. Venomous.
"Consequences?"
She laughed. A sharp, shrill, hysterical sound that scraped against the ears.
"Everything I did was for the glory of House Arryn! For the future of the Vale!"
"You short-sighted fools understand nothing!"
"You are wrong."
Ned Stark's voice was quiet and absolute.
He stepped forward to stand beside Catelyn, still as the mountains of the North.
"The future of the Vale is not in your hands."
"The glory of House Arryn is not built on methods like yours."
"Lynn has already taken the Eyrie. Without a single drop of blood."
Each word landed like a blow.
"Every noble in the Vale has sworn fealty to Robert Arryn."
"Your son. Robert Arryn. He is at the Eyrie right now, waiting for you to come home."
"You have no allies left, Lysa. Nothing left at all."
His gaze moved slowly across the hall, taking in every face.
"Your only choice is to surrender. Immediately. And beg Lynn's forgiveness."
"Otherwise, you will face the wrath of the entire North, the entire Vale, and every honorable lord in the Riverlands."
Lysa Arryn shook.
She looked at Ned's steady grey eyes. She looked at the Frey men around her, their expressions unreadable. She looked at the Tully bannermen who had already, completely, turned away from her.
She was cornered. She knew it.
Her plan had collapsed entirely. She had meant to use the Freys to hold the Northern army back from the Kingsroad, then use the Riverlands' forces to grind them down , starve those impoverished Northerners out, bleed them dry.
But the Bloody Gate was broken. The Vale was lost. Her son was in Lynn's hands. And even the Riverlands was slipping away.
She had nothing left to bargain with.
"Surrender?"
The smile that crossed her face was worse than weeping.
If she surrendered, she knew what waited for her. Humiliation. Then death.
But if she didn't surrender, these furious lords would tear her apart where she stood.
Her mind raced.
"Fine!"
She slammed her palm on the table, her voice cracking at the edges.
"I surrender! I will beg Lord Lynn's forgiveness!"
The hall went still.
"But!"
Her eyes snapped back to Ned and Catelyn. Something cold and barely hidden moved behind them.
"I have one condition."
"What condition?" Ned's brow tightened slightly.
"Everyone in this hall."
"The Starks. Edmure and Brynden. Every Tully. Every Frey. All of us , we drink together."
She gestured to the cups on the table, full of dark wine. A strange smile had settled on her face.
"As witness to our reconciliation."
She paused, her gaze moving to Edmure and Brynden.
"If you refuse to drink, then you're telling me you don't trust me. That you mean to have me killed."
"In that case, I would rather die than surrender."
"We fight to the last. And I promise you — even if I have to hire every cutthroat in Westeros — not one person in this hall will come out of it easily."
Edmure and Brynden exchanged a look. Both saw the same uncertainty in the other's eyes.
On its face, the demand was reasonable. A gesture of trust. A way to seal the peace and steady the room.
But neither of them believed this woman would fold so easily.
The corner of Ned's mouth twitched , just slightly.
He knew Lysa. This woman was calculating, always calculating. She never did anything without a reason.
Guest right was already in effect. They couldn't touch her. And if she was genuinely willing to surrender, and this was her only condition, there was no obvious reason to refuse.
But if Lysa was planning something ,
Then that would be the reason for her death.
"Fine."
Ned nodded.
He picked up a cup from the table and looked at Lysa steadily.
"I'll drink."
Catelyn took a cup. She looked at Lysa for a moment, something complicated moving through her expression, and drank.
Edmure and Brynden still had doubts. But Ned and Catelyn had both drunk. They had no grounds to refuse.
They raised their cups and drained them.
The Tully bannermen followed, one after another, lifting the wine that was meant to mean reconciliation, and drinking it down.
When the cups were set back on the table, the mood in the hall had visibly eased.
Lysa was a daughter of House Tully by blood. They would plead for her with Lynn , they were certain of that. And beyond that, Lysa was kin to Lynn's mother-in-law. On that basis alone, they were confident Lynn would not have her killed.
In their minds, the path was clear. Lysa would admit her wrongs, step away from politics for good, and she would live. That was the best outcome she could hope for. Robert Baratheon was dead , no one would hold a grudge over a Baelish much longer. They were relieved, all of them, that she had finally chosen to let go.
The wrinkles on Walder Frey's old face had rearranged themselves into something else entirely.
He watched Ned, Catelyn, and every Tully in the hall drink that wine. Something flickered in his eyes, perverse, and deeply wrong.
He raised his own cup. Took a small, careful sip. Then looked at Lysa Arryn.
Lysa looked back at him. A flicker of triumph, barely visible, moved across her face.
She raised her cup and took a small sip.
The melody of "The Rains of Castamere" filled the hall, lower now, more oppressive, pressing down on the air like a weight.
The prelude to a feast of blood.
The smile on Walder Frey's old face twisted further.
He raised his cup toward the room and let out a laugh, sharp, piercing, wrong in a way that made the skin crawl.
"Good! Now!"
His voice cut through the music, colder than the stone walls around them.
"Everyone has drunk! Now, we can —"
He paused. His gaze swept slowly over Ned, over Catelyn, over every Tully face in the hall. The smile stretched into something ferocious.
"— see our guests out."
The words had barely left his mouth when every Frey soldier in the hall ripped his sword from its scabbard.
Steel caught the firelight. Blades gleamed, hungry, bright, bloodthirsty.
The melody of "The Rains of Castamere" surged, frantic now, wild, as if the wailing of countless souls had been woven into the music itself.
Every Tully face went white.
They understood, all at once, what had happened.
That wine was not a token of reconciliation.
It was an invitation to death.
➤ Next: So It's You!