POV: Elyra Longlight
Location: Runestone, Seat of House Royce
Lady Elyra Longlight hated feasts.
She hated the tight corsets, the hollow pleasantries, the nobles who dripped condescension with every word like wax from a tilted candle. But she especially hated the sense that behind every toast was a dagger—and half the room didn't bother hiding it.
Runestone was beautiful in its own brutal way: a castle of black-veined stone, open to sea winds and etched with runes that whispered of old blood and older gods. It was a fortress for men like Bronz Yohn Royce—solid, immovable, always watching.
Elyra entered the great hall with her brother Alester beside her, their mother Maevyn in stony silence behind them, flanked by Driftspire's retinue. The banners of House Royce hung above, brown and bronze. Other houses of the Vale had come—Redfort, Waynwood, Coldwater—even a few proud Graftons, though Petyr Baelish was notably absent, as ever.
Her brother looked like a lord now. Tall. Measured. Dressed not in velvet, but in dark wool lined with sea-grey silk, embroidered with the new sigil of House Longlight: a rising sun over breaking waves.
And yet, he said nothing. Let her read the room. Let her notice who turned their heads when they entered, and who did not rise at all.
They were seated low at the high table—still new blood, still untrusted. Elyra didn't mind. It gave her a better view.
To her left, Ser Mychel Redfort was loudly recounting some skirmish with clansmen. To her right, an aging Waynwood lady regarded her like a piece of wet cloth.
And across the table, Lady Vyana Blackhollow had arrived.
Not in armor, no—though she was known to wear it when she pleased—but in deep green silk, sea-glass around her throat, and a smile like sharpened coral.
"Lady Elyra," Vyana purred across the roasted boar. "Your brother's name is on many lips these days."
Elyra smiled sweetly. "Only the intelligent ones, I hope."
Vyana laughed, full and musical. "Quite. Ships that outrun gulls. Docks where there was nothing but rock. And now, I hear, a vault of secrets buried beneath the waves."
Elyra did not flinch. "Superstition travels faster than ravens, I'm told."
"Ah, but myths are rarely born from empty earth."
Their eyes met, and Elyra knew then that Vyana knew more than she should. That someone—somewhere—was leaking truth cloaked in rumor.
Later, as minstrels sang and the wine flowed, Lord Alester stood and made his rounds.
He spoke to Bronz Yohn, who eyed him with the guarded respect one gives to a clever dog. He exchanged words with a Coldwater knight who'd lost ships to Sisterman raiders. He laughed—rarely—with a young Redfort girl of marrying age.
And Elyra watched it all.
When the feast neared its end, and the nobles danced, Elyra moved beside her brother at the edges of the hall.
"You should choose someone to wed," she said softly. "Not out of love. Out of stability."
Alester didn't look at her. "Would you rather I took a Royce girl, to please the old guard? Or a Grafton, to bait Baelish's envy?"
"I'd rather you choose one who won't kill you in your sleep."
He gave a rare smirk. "Reasonable."
"And Vyana?"
"She's watching. Not ready to strike. Yet."
Elyra looked at him. "Then be ready when she is."
The stone walls of Runestone sweated cold, even with the fire roaring. Elyra Longlight sat on a fur-covered bench beneath the narrow window slit, unlacing her gown slowly, methodically.
Behind her, Rina, her servant and shadow, folded dresses into a travel chest.
"You didn't eat much, my lady," Rina said softly, her voice low and thick with the salt of the coast. She'd come with them from Driftspire—a quiet fisher's daughter, steady-eyed and clever.
"Feasts are for watching, not for eating," Elyra replied. She sipped wine from a silver goblet and let her gaze fall on the fire. "Did you hear anything useful while playing the silent handmaid?"
"A few things. A Grafton knight wants to bed you. A Waynwood squire fears your brother is mad. And someone in the kitchens said Lady Vyana brought a mapmaker with her."
Elyra turned. "A mapmaker?"
Rina nodded. "Hired from Essos. Paid well to chart coastlines—he asked strange questions about sea caves and currents along the Shivering Sea."
Elyra exhaled. "She's hunting it already."
"They don't know about the spear, though. Just the vault. Rhoynar relics. Murals. Glass. Old things that stir the superstitious."
"And what do you think, Rina?"
The girl looked at her for a moment. "I think your brother has his hands on something bigger than he knows. Or maybe he knows exactly what he has, and the rest of us are the ones walking blind."
Elyra stood, crossing to the window. "The wind changed this season. The moment that vault opened, the whispers began. Alester doesn't see it, but Driftspire… is becoming something else. Not just a port. Not just a holdfast. A symbol. That terrifies people more than swords ever could."
Rina spoke softly behind her. "Symbols draw fire."
Elyra didn't reply.
That night, as the sea howled beyond Runestone's cliffs, Elyra stood at her window and stared toward the northeast, where the Shivering Sea swallowed the coast beyond Driftspire.
Something had awakened in the earth. Not just relics. Not just stone.
Ambition.
And if her brother's mind was a forge, then the world around them would either become shaped steel—or it would burn.