"It was a grand wedding. Khal Drogo, leader of the Dothraki, took the last daughter of House Targaryen—Daenerys Targaryen—to wife."
"It is said the magisters of Pentos themselves arranged it."
Since Kal Stone already knew something about the Dothraki, Lady Anya followed through with a more detailed explanation.
Kal tilted his head slightly, waiting for her to continue.
"But even before the wedding concluded, news of what had happened in the North had already spread."
"And for reasons unknown, the magisters of Pentos persuaded Khal Drogo to linger for a time. So to this very day, a khalasar tens of thousands strong remains encamped in Pentos, just across the Narrow Sea."
"Together with the strange movements of the mercenary companies—Staford Lannister's son, Daven Lannister, has been scattering gold by the chestful to hire them. I've even heard he borrowed heavily from the Iron Bank to pay for it."
At this terse revelation, Kal's brows knit tighter still.
He had not expected that beyond the war raging in Westeros, the situation across the sea would be even more turbulent.
Robert Baratheon had yet to fight a proper battle against Tywin Lannister, and already the wider world was growing ever more perilous.
What in the Seven Hells was this?
"They intend to invade Westeros?"
The story had already shifted from its original course, and Kal dared not leap to conclusions. His face darkened as he studied those before him.
The Vale lords glanced uneasily at one another.
At last, Lord Yohn Royce spoke grimly: "No one can say for certain. But neither can we promise they won't strike while the realm is in chaos."
"That is why our armies are gathered at Runestone and Gulltown."
The gravity of the situation only deepened Kal's confusion.
"Very well, even if the Vale has mustered, why, after such matters arose, did you not explain the truth to the king? And why have we never received word of this?"
At that, Lord Eon Hunter of Longbow Hall furrowed his brow.
He glanced around at the others, then finally could not hold his tongue.
"But we did send warning—to King's Landing, and to the North."
Kal froze for a moment, then his eyes sharpened as though he had caught on to something.
"Wait—you're saying you truly sent warnings? Where were you when you did so, and from where exactly were those messages sent?"
Kal's brow locked tight as he fired off one pointed question after another.
"The Eyrie—"
The one who answered was Lord Triston Sunderland of the Three Sisters, a lord not usually prominent among the Vale lords.
Hearing this, Kal finally understood why he had felt something was amiss all along.
So, the question had circled back to its root.
And yet, another, far more troubling doubt was born in his mind.
"Then why are you all gathered here, instead of leading your armies within your own lands?" Kal pressed, unease flickering within him.
It was clear they could no longer fool Kal Stone, nor bury the Vale's disgrace beneath silence.
Lord Yohn Royce, who from the start had tried to ease the tension, could no longer hide the truth.
As the first among them, the earliest to approach Lysa Tully at the outbreak of war, he was the one who understood these recent changes better than anyone else.
Seeing there was no point in evasion, he lifted his hand with a weary sigh.
"In truth, it was Lady Lysa Tully who summoned us, in the name of Lord Robert Arryn. And from that, all this followed."
Behind closed doors, with no chance of concealing the Vale's shame, the lords present at last put aside their pride and began to speak.
At once, the heart of the matter came to the surface.
"So this is the root of your hostility—toward me, or rather, toward the Iron Throne?"
"Misled by Lysa Tully, you believed the Iron Throne had shamed the Vale, insulted the late Jon Arryn?"
"You even imagined that King Robert harbored some hidden intent against the Vale?"
"And then, coupled with the turmoil across the Narrow Sea, you used all this as pretext to delay your call to arms?"
Kal narrowed his eyes, his tone hardening on that one word—delay.
By now, he had pieced together the truth of the matter. He could even guess, in broad strokes, what had led from one step to the next.
Needless to say, some unseen hand had been plucking the strings. On her own, Lysa Tully lacked the wit to weave such knots.
Yet Kal could not expose it outright.
For by this point, it was no longer a matter of evidence.
The situation had already taken on the shape of a carefully wrapped "misunderstanding."
Well—perhaps not quite.
For this so-called "misunderstanding" was, in essence, the wreckage created by a woman who, after losing her husband, had become half-mad, driven by her own suspicions, jealousies, and needless passions.
Thinking of this, Kal's gaze deepened as it swept across the assembled lords, whose faces were equally dark.
This woman bore the Arryn name, and she held young Robert Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, in her grasp.
Perhaps after settling affairs within their own lands, these lords had hurried back to the Eyrie—only for more to unfold here.
Yet even after tracing the problem to its root, Kal's doubts only grew heavier.
For what he could not understand was this: Lysa Tully seemed to have had no need to do any of this at all.
From the moment Kal himself had uncovered the sordid secret of Cersei Lannister and Jaime Lannister at Winterfell, it had been plain that the best course was to do nothing.
After all, with his own schemes and the unseen hand fanning the flames behind the scenes, House Lannister had been left utterly powerless in the face of this sudden storm.
For the truth was, the Lannisters had made no shortage of enemies across the Seven Kingdoms.
Even those who bore them no personal hatred would not be few in number if given the chance to see them fall and claim a share of the spoils.
If you could not best them in open battle, did you really need another reason? When a great house stumbled, when the wall collapsed, when the fat sheep lay before you—would men simply stand by and watch?
That made no sense at all.
So under such overwhelming pressure, with the weight of justice against them, Kal had at first believed Tywin Lannister had no means left to call upon.
And yet—this was precisely where the problem lay.
For when the war truly began, Tywin Lannister seemed instead to have become the one holding the advantage.
The whole struggle now looked as if it were being led about by his hand.
To know Tywin's nature, to see him not bow his head but choose war outright—this alone had already defied Kal's expectations.
And even now, from Kal's view, Tywin Lannister had no path forward. He was only dragging his house deeper into the mire, with no chance of reversal.
Unless Tywin could conjure dragons out of thin air.
It was for this very reason that Kal's doubts grew sharper.
For the man who drove the main thread of Westeros forward, climbing upward step by step upon chaos, should never have made such a costly, thankless move.
With his intelligence, Tywin could not have failed to see the truth of the situation. So why had he taken these needless steps?
What was he truly aiming at?
Did he wager that under certain pressures the Vale might ally with the Lannisters, breaking from the Seven Kingdoms, standing forth to deny the legitimacy of Robert Baratheon's rule and seek to crown their own king?
But on the back of Robert Arryn, that feeble child?
And besides, how could the Vale ever have such thoughts?
Littlefinger would never need to act in such a way, discarding outright the piece he had nurtured for years, the piece he had carefully arranged as his stepping-stone upward.
Impossible.
Could it really be that Lysa Tully had truly gone mad to such a degree, foolish enough to push forward with her own delusions?
The deeper Kal thought, the more he shook his head.
No—unless by sheer chance, Lysa Tully could never have acted with such seamless precision, leaving no flaw.
And without Littlefinger's approval, the moment she tried to move in such a manner, he would have stopped her.
So the question circled back again.
Why would Littlefinger do this?
What was his aim?
Even with the metaknowledge Kal carried from his past life, he could not make sense of it.
For even if the Lannisters suddenly erupted in strength—just as Tyrion had once maneuvered in the original work—
Even if Tywin Lannister awakened and, with consummate skill, allied politically with House Martell of Dorne, persuading them to set aside the blood feud he himself had sown at King's Landing and join him in toppling House Baratheon—
Even so, that seemed even more absurd, more impossible.
And given the Vale's loyalty, and the knightly honor flowing in their Andal blood, how could they ever do such a thing?
Under Robert Baratheon, the Seven Kingdoms were nothing like the days of the Mad Targaryen King, when fury and hatred filled the land. So why should the Vale commit to such a thankless endeavor?
Unless—
Unless the Iron Throne itself had begun to stir in them the same resentment!
At that thought, Kal started, cold sweat pricking down his back.
At once, his expression grew stern, and his eyes turned sharp as steel.
For suddenly he recalled those strange movements across the Narrow Sea. And they only deepened the suspicions forming in his heart.
If it were so—
If certain men truly held such confidence—
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