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The high hall of Riverrun had gone silent. No minstrel's music. No laughter.
Only blood.
It ran down the steps of the high seat dais in thin, winding streams, pooling on the stone below. The stench of it hung thick in the air, tangled with the smell of food and wine until the whole hall reeked of something wrong, something that turned the stomach.
Edmure Tully stood motionless, staring at it all.
He still had his sword in hand. He hadn't swung it once.
There had been no need.
The Frey soldiers who'd been grinning minutes ago, certain they were about to wipe out every last Tully, were now being sent to hell one by one by Lynn's White Walkers.
The Blackfish stood at Edmure's side. Brynden Tully's weathered face held an expression too complicated to name.
"Lord Lynn..."
He forced the words out.
"These... Freys..."
He gestured toward the men who had already dropped their weapons, kneeling on the stone floor, weeping and wailing, piss and shit soaking through their breeches. Among them were over a dozen of Walder Frey's sons and dozens of his grandsons, Black Walder included.
And the Frey daughters, too.
Lynn's gaze moved across the kneeling survivors, slow and unhurried. He saw the terror in their eyes. The despair. And beneath it, buried deep, the venom.
He smiled.
"Ser," he said, "what do you think should be done with traitors?"
Brynden said nothing.
By Westerosi tradition, violating guest right was a crime without equal. The principal offenders had to die. The family would be stripped of lands and titles, condemned to obscurity for all time. And betraying one's liege lord carried the same sentence.
Both were capital offenses.
But wiping out an entire bloodline...
That was the kind of thing people talked about. Not favorably.
"Walder deserved to die ten thousand deaths." Brynden finally squeezed the words through his teeth. "But... is this approach entirely... proper?"
Lynn looked at him the way a man looks at a joke that isn't very funny.
"Ser, this is very proper."
Every Frey male deserved exactly what was coming. The daughters, those poor women who had spent their lives under Walder's thumb, were another matter. But the men? Not one of them was worth sparing.
Letting even a single one walk away was a risk he would not take.
Lynn crossed the hall and stopped in front of one of the kneeling men. Black Walder. The same one who had been screaming about avenging his father not long ago.
"Black Walder," Lynn said. "That's you, isn't it?"
Black Walder flinched like he'd been struck. He didn't look up.
"You had some courage earlier."
Lynn's voice was almost warm. Almost amused.
He reached out and patted Black Walder's cheek, a slow, deliberate touch.
Black Walder shook like a man in a fever.
"Tell me," Lynn said. "If today had gone the other way. If you had won." He let the silence stretch. "What would you have done with the Tullys?"
Black Walder's mouth opened. Nothing came out.
This wasn't a question he could answer. Lynn wasn't asking because he wanted to know. He was asking because he wanted Black Walder to know.
What would he have done?
He would have killed Edmure. Killed Brynden. Killed every Tully man breathing. Then he would have given Catelyn and the other Tully women to his soldiers, let them do whatever they liked. And when he was finished, he would have burned Riverrun to ash and scraped every trace of House Tully from the earth.
The same thing the Lannisters did to House Reyne.
"I see you already have your answer."
Lynn withdrew his hand. The smile didn't leave his face, but the warmth drained out of it completely.
He turned to face the hall.
"My lords." His voice carried to every corner of the room. "Listen well."
"I am not a man who takes pleasure in killing."
"But I am not a soft-hearted fool, either."
"If I spare a single one of them today, I am failing you. Failing the Riverlands. Failing the future of the North."
He let his gaze move across every face in the hall.
"House Frey will be erased from the map of Westeros. Starting today."
"Their castles. Their lands. Their wealth."
He paused.
"Will be divided among all of you. Every lord here who has stayed loyal to the North, loyal to House Tully. It belongs to you."
"But you'll have to earn it."
"I don't give away something for nothing."
The words hit the room like a stone dropped into still water.
Every Tully bannerman in the hall went rigid. Then the breath came back into them all at once, and with it something wild and disbelieving in their eyes.
The wealth of House Frey.
Centuries entrenched at the Twins. Centuries of tolls collected from every man, woman, and cart that needed to cross that damned bridge. How much had they accumulated? Enough to make every noble in the Riverlands sick with envy just thinking about it.
And Lynn was saying it was theirs.
"Lord Lynn is wise!"
"House Frey got what they deserved!"
"This is the fate of traitors!"
The lords who had been quietly uneasy about wiping out an entire bloodline found their unease had vanished entirely. Remarkable how quickly it went.
Chivalry? Mercy?
In front of real, tangible wealth, those things weren't worth a copper coin.
They looked at the kneeling Frey men with new eyes. Not a trace of pity left. Just hunger, bright and green and undisguised.
Not men. Not anymore.
Moving vaults of gold.
Lynn watched it all with quiet satisfaction.
This was exactly what he wanted.
Feed the hungry wolves of the Riverlands with Frey blood. Bind them to him through interest so tight that the knot could never be undone. When he prospered, they prospered. When he needed them, they would come.
Simple as that.
From this day forward, Lynn's wellbeing was their wellbeing.
Which meant no lord in the Riverlands would stand aside if someone came for him. Whoever moved against Lynn moved against all of them.
"Proceed," he said, turning to the White Walkers at his back.
"Don't make it quick."
The ice swords rose again.
This time, there was no resistance to meet them. Only desperate screaming. Only sobbing, broken pleas for mercy that no one in the hall was inclined to grant.
Lynn didn't watch.
He walked to where Edmure and Brynden stood.
"Lord Edmure. Ser Blackfish." His tone was calm, businesslike. "Riverrun is yours to manage. I need you to consolidate every Tully force you have, immediately."
"Three days from now, I want to see your banners beneath the walls of the Twins."
Brynden blinked. "The Twins?"
"Most of the Frey men are dead here. What are we going to the Twins for?"
"To finish what needs finishing."
Cold killing intent moved through Lynn's eyes like a shadow.
"Walder Frey has bastards scattered across every corner of the Riverlands. Countless of them."
"I want you to find every last one."
"Males. No exceptions. No matter the age."
"I want the name Frey to become a memory."
Brynden and Edmure both went still.
Too ruthless.
This was worse than Tywin Lannister. This was root and branch and soil, nothing left, nothing spared.
"What?" Lynn looked between them, catching the hesitation on their faces. His tone shifted, almost playful. "Can't do it?"
"If you'd rather not dirty your hands, I don't mind sending my guards instead."
"No." Edmure's voice came out raw. Almost a shout. "We can do it."
His eyes were red. Bloodshot all the way through.
He thought of his father. The way he had died. He thought of how close House Tully had come to being wiped from the world entirely.
There was nothing left in him but hatred.
Mercy? For the Freys?
They didn't deserve the word.
"Good." Lynn put a hand on Edmure's shoulder. "Remember this: mercy toward your enemy is cruelty toward yourself."
"Robb's army is already on the march. When he arrives, combine your forces and hit the Twins like a hammer."
"Burn their castle to the ground."
"Hang their bodies from the walls."
"I want every lord in Westeros to know what happens to those who betray."
➤ Next: Roslin