Chapter 120 117

Elena Snow.

"I venture to say I am not the dullest man alive, and I have had a great deal of... specific experience. It has allowed me to surpass others in most things." There was something deliberate in the way Axel Arryn emphasized the word "experience." "No mortal man has ever gotten the better of me on this earth."

"I am not a man," she said. She was tired of being afraid. Elena met his eye steadily.

"HA-HAHAHA!" The Falcon's Eye laughed as though seized by a fit.

Snow felt profoundly out of her depth. She was already rattled from everything the day had put her through, she had been on the verge of attacking him and accepting her death, and here was Arryn laughing like a madman at some joke that existed only for him.

"'I am not a man,'" he repeated, still catching his breath. "How precisely you have put it." The outburst had been violent but brief. "All right. Let us speak seriously."

"Are we not doing that already?" she said, unable to help herself.

"First things first: no one is going to kill you, not tonight, so take your hand off that knife. It would not help you anyway." She obeyed. There was no point lying to him. "Now then. What is the largest number of animals you can control at the same time?"

"What?"

"Answer the question. I need to know what you are capable of."

"Seventeen."

"Do you see the world through your own eyes or theirs?"

"My own."

Elena was no fool who would lay out all her secrets before someone who might yet decide to kill her, and she was not enough of an actress to deceive Lord Arryn outright. So she settled on reducing every figure she gave him by roughly four.

The Falcon's Eye spent another half hour asking about every aspect of warging. He seemed to want to know everything, and his questions often stopped her short, not because she was evading them but because she had simply never thought about her abilities in those terms, or had never noticed what was, in hindsight, obvious. As the questioning went on, Arryn occasionally made notes, and he wrote down considerably more than she actually said.

When his questions were finally exhausted, he sent her back to her rooms without ceremony. Elena was hollowed out by exhaustion, and propriety be damned, she was asleep the moment she lay down.

But neither the next day, nor the day after, nor even a week later did anyone come for her, as though Axel Arryn had forgotten the conversation entirely. That, more than anything, set her nerves on edge.

...

A week passed, and Elena found herself at another feast. As best she could tell, there had already been a feast for the Dornish, though only those lords who had arrived in time had been present. This time, at their lord's summons, the full brilliance of the Vale had assembled. Royces, Redforts, Templetons, Melcolms, Corbrays, and a dozen other great houses had all come and filled the castle's great hall.

Elena, though she was Lord Stark's daughter, was nevertheless a bastard, and in keeping with that status sat well away from the high table. Sansa and Bran, by contrast, occupied seats of honor at the Falcon's Eye's left hand, as befitting distinguished guests. The same was true of Myrcella. The little princess had, since arriving at the Eyrie, made every effort to spend as much time as possible with Lord Arryn. Whether this was love or simply the need for a familiar face in unfamiliar company, Elena could not say. What held her attention more was the Prince of Dorne, who was diligently cultivating relationships with the lords of the Vale and doing so, to her evident displeasure, with considerable success.

Wine was flowing freely, but the representatives of the greater houses were in no rush to drink themselves senseless. They had all been gathered here for some significant announcement, and they knew it. Elena understood what was coming: Axel Arryn would wait until the mood was warm and festive, then declare the alliance with the Martells and the Targaryens, and the lords, pleasantly full of wine, would cheer his decision. A clean, elegant plan. She might have wanted to try disrupting it, but the thought of warging frightened her. The conversation with Axel Arryn had brought her back down to earth and shown her plainly that she was not all-powerful. So she simply sat and watched.

Robar Royce came lurching toward his cousin with a cup in hand, clearly intent on getting him drunk. Lord Arryn waved him off, but the middle Royce was not deterred. There was something genuinely funny about watching the fearsome Falcon's Eye mounting a desperate defense against his own thoroughly drunk kinsman. Axel Arryn was saying something and pointing to his own cup, at which Robar the Red made an expressive face, waved his arms with great feeling, and pointed vigorously at his own. The spectacle was absurd enough that a smile found its way onto her face without her permission.

But there are no truly impregnable fortresses, and in the end Lord Arryn surrendered. They exchanged cups and, to the cheering of the hall, drained them in one go. Both men's expressions turned sour, each finding the other's taste in wine deeply questionable. They looked at each other, then burst out laughing and returned the cups to their rightful owners. Serving girls filled them again at once, and the whole thing might have started over, except that just as Robar raised his cup, he was seized by a sudden fit of coughing. Arryn, still grinning, began thumping him on the back, but it did not help. The coughing only worsened.

The atmosphere in the hall shifted sharply when Royce collapsed to the floor and clutched at his own throat. He coughed without pause, and when his lungs had no air left, all that came out was a thin, rattling wheeze. The life was draining slowly from his eyes.

That would have been the end of it, but Arryn forced his fingers into his cousin's throat and triggered the gag reflex. And while the hall stood frozen in shock at what was unfolding, Arryn's gaze moved across the room with something predatory in it. It lingered especially on the Dornish table.