The road to the Eyrie was narrow, winding, and treacherous—more so in the clawing cold of early spring. Snow clung stubbornly to the sides of the mountain path, and gusts of icy wind howled like wolves through the Vale's granite teeth. Gorran Umber, a distant cousin of the Greatjon, trudged along on his sturdy black courser, the blade at his back still cold through the furs across his shoulders.
He had grown tired of the sellsword's life. Too many broken oaths, too little coin, and far too many noble bastards who thought a Northern man's honor was something that could be bought and tossed aside. Lord Jon Arryn had a reputation—fair, measured, strong. Gorran needed that. A name to serve. A purpose.
But fate, as always, wasn't inclined to let a Northerner rest easy.
The ambush began with a whistle—a bone flute's call from the hills—and then came the arrows. One struck his horse through the throat. The beast screamed and toppled, throwing Gorran to the frozen dirt. He rolled with the fall, instinct guiding him more than thought, and drew the blade the boy-smith had reforged for him—still gleaming faint blue, even in the shade of the cliffs.
Mountain clansmen emerged from the crags and ridges like cockroaches from a rotting larder. Rags for armor, rusted iron for weapons, but numbers in their favor. Ten. No, twelve. Maybe more.
"Well," Gorran growled to himself, rising from the snow and spitting blood. "Guess we'll see what this bloody frost blade's really worth."
They rushed him all at once, yelling curses in the Old Tongue and Vale dialects. The first came in swinging a cleaver, teeth rotted black, eyes wild.
Gorran didn't block. He moved with the frost, sidestepped, and carved. The greatsword sliced through the man's arm like it was half-cooked venison. The bandit fell screaming, clutching a stump that hissed and smoked—frostbite. The blade's bite left flesh black and brittle on contact.
Another came, and Gorran met him head-on. A clash of blades—but the Frostbound weapon didn't so much clash as it shredded the rusty sword in half, like a butcher breaking old bone. He surged forward, ramming the flat of the blade into the man's gut, then followed with a backhand slash that opened a deep, blue-rimmed wound across the chest.
Arrows thudded into the snow around him. One scraped his shoulder. Another grazed his thigh. Pain lanced through him—but he stayed on his feet.
He moved like a glacier with purpose—slow, heavy, unstoppable.
The next attacker swung a mace. Gorran ducked low and drove his sword upward, cleaving through groin, spine, and out the shoulder. The body split with a sickening crack as blood and frost spilled together on the stones.
"Fall back! Gods, fall back!" one clansman screamed as three more dropped around Gorran in a dance of steel and blood. One had both legs severed below the knee and was trying to crawl away, leaving steaming trails behind.
Two more men turned to run—but Gorran, breathing heavy, raised the blade with both hands and let it fly.
It whistled through the air like a banshee—and one retreating man was cut clean in half at the waist.
Silence fell.
Gorran stood surrounded by corpses, his breath heavy, his arms trembling with the aftershock of battle. Frost clung to the blade's edge like snow on a tombstone, and even the blood on it froze in sheets.
The last of the clansmen—four of them—fled back into the woods, vanishing into the Vale's shadows like cowards chased by winter's wrath.
Gorran retrieved the sword, wiped its edge on the rags of the dead, and limped to the wreck of his fallen horse. He found a satchel with dried meat and bandages and collapsed beside it.
"Boy... you weren't lying," he murmured to the wind. "This thing is a monster."
He sat there a long time, listening to the howling wind echo through the cliffs like laughter from the Old Gods themselves.
The snow had started again, light flakes drifting down like ash over the dead. Gorran Umber sat against the blood-soaked carcass of his horse, binding the arrow graze on his thigh with a strip of leather torn from a bandit's cloak. The air was quiet now—eerily so—except for the distant sound of hooves on stone.
He looked up as a small column of Vale cavalry crested the ridge. Twelve riders in the silver-and-blue of House Arryn, the falcon-and-moon sigil rippling on their cloaks. They advanced cautiously, eyes scanning the mutilated bodies strewn across the narrow path.
Their captain—a lean man with a pointed beard and sharp grey eyes—signaled for the column to halt. He dismounted with practiced grace and approached Gorran.
"You there!" the man barked. "What happened here? Who are you?"
Gorran stood slowly, favoring his wounded leg, and rested the tip of his sword in the snow beside him. "Name's Gorran Umber," he said. "Of the North. Distant cousin to the Greatjon. Was headin' to the Eyrie to offer my sword to Lord Jon Arryn... when the mountain folk tried to carve me up for the trouble."
The captain's brow arched. He scanned the carnage around them—at least eight bodies, some in pieces, others frozen with twisted expressions of agony. "Seven hells… this was your work?"
Gorran nodded once, tired but not boasting.
The captain stepped closer, still stunned. "One man… fought off ten mountain clansmen? Alone? They fight like beasts—mad, wild, no sense of fear or pain. And they had the high ground." He looked Gorran over with new eyes. "You must be a demon with the blade."
Gorran gave a half-smile, then shook his head. "No demon. I'm decent with a sword, sure—but this wasn't all me."
He lifted the blade slightly, letting the steel catch the pale light. The faint frost still clung to the fuller, and the snow hissed where it touched the edge. The captain blinked, then gasped.
"Gods… that's Valyrian steel, isn't it? No wonder!"
But Gorran grunted. "Nay. That's the thing. A day ago, this was just an ordinary Northern greatsword. Iron and some history. Nothing special."
The captain frowned. "Then how—?"
"I met a boy," Gorran said, looking toward the road he'd come from. "Couldn't have been older than one-and-seven name days. Working a forge like he was born to it. Took my broken blade and… reforged it. With what, I don't know. He said it was alchemy, not smithing. No fire I've seen burns like that. Metal went white-hot, but never melted. And when he was done… this."
He held the blade out slightly. The captain hesitated, then touched the flat of it with his glove. Even through the leather, he recoiled.
"Cold as death."
"Aye. Cuts cleaner than I've ever seen. Frost follows where it strikes. One of those bastards tried to parry me with a shield. It shattered like bone under a hammer."
The captain looked back at the battlefield, expression shifting from awe to unease.
"Some dark magic, this," he muttered. "The clans won't forget this slaughter anytime soon. You may have made yourself a legend before even reaching the Gates."
Gorran chuckled, though it turned into a cough. "I didn't ask for legend. Just steady coin and a lord worth following."
The captain straightened and nodded with respect. "Then come with us, Gorran Umber. We'll escort you to the Eyrie. Lord Jon will want to meet the Northman who froze a raiding party with one sword swing."
As the cavalry formed up around him, Gorran sheathed the blade. It slid into its scabbard with a soft whisper, like wind through snow-laden trees.
He mounted one of the spare horses and looked toward the towering white peaks in the distance. The Eyrie awaited.
The wind howled through the pine forest, cold and cruel. Snow drifted down in thick curtains, muffling the sounds of movement through the underbrush. In a clearing deep within the Vale's eastern slopes, a crude camp had been made—little more than a circle of stones, fire crackling in the middle, surrounded by wild-eyed men in patchwork furs and steel scavenged from better men.
Three clans had come together this night. The Red Fangs. The Stonecrows. And what remained of the Screaming Vultures—the ones who had fled the pass in terror.
The chieftain of the Red Fangs, a brutish man called Warg the Tuskless, stood by the fire, warming his hands and sneering as the survivors from the earlier skirmish finished their tale.
"You fled," Warg growled, disgust curling his lip. "Ten of you, and you let one man gut the lot like pigs."
The survivor—a wiry man with half his face slashed open, eyes still wild with disbelief—snapped, "It weren't no man! He fought like a bloody wight. That sword of his—it hissed like a winter storm and froze my brother where he stood!"
Another chimed in, nursing a shattered arm. "We tried to surround 'im, but the blade—by the Old Gods, I saw it cut through steel like it was twine."
Warg spat into the fire. "You're cowards. Frightened by tricks and toys. You should've died with the others."
But one of the other chieftains, Darra the Crone-Toothed of the Stonecrows, leaned forward with interest. Her beady eyes glittered. "If what they say is true, then he's not the prize. That sword is."
The murmurs around the fire grew louder. Men whispered of cursed steel, of sorcery, of relics from Valyria and blades that could cleave giants. Greed began to bloom behind the madness in their eyes.
Warg grinned. "Then we take it. But not by chasing ghosts in the woods. We strike the sheep."
"The village," Darra rasped. "That little pit at the edge of the pine. Where they send supplies to the Eyrie."
"Let them see what happens when they harbor steel-wielding spirits," Warg declared. "We take their food. Their women. Burn the rest."
The clans roared their approval. Axes were lifted, blades drawn, bloodthirst rising. Twenty warriors in all, armored in rust, bone, and stolen mail, began preparing for the raid—painting their faces with ash and dried blood, tightening belts, lighting torches.
But high above them, past the pines and snow, a hawk circled.
And in the quiet village down the hill—duskmere it was called—lamplight still glowed in the windows. A smith worked late in the forge, humming to himself, and in a small room above the inn, a cloaked traveler with frost-marked steel slept with one hand on his blade.
They had no idea yet that death was marching toward them.
(jinx pov)
I was just finishing the final polish on a sword—simple, serviceable, and utterly unremarkable. It was for one of the local guards, a man whose pockets were as thin as his chainmail. None of the folk around here could afford one of my finer blades, let alone a proper enchanted piece. Still, I took pride in every swing of the hammer and every flick of the whetstone.
The steel glinted dull gray in the fading lamplight, but before I could admire my work, the village emergency bell clanged—loud, sharp, and frantic.
I froze. My hand still rested on the hilt. For a breath, all I heard was the echo of that bell bouncing off the stone and wood of the village. Then, shouts. The thudding of boots. A blur of movement outside my forge window.
I rushed to the door and threw it open. Guards—what few we had—were already sprinting toward the eastern gate, the one that opened out toward the edge of the pine forest. As one passed, I caught a word that sank like ice into my stomach.
"Mountain clan."
My heart dropped. Shit.
This was the weakest defended village in the Vale. Three Goats Rest barely had ten able-bodied men on the guard rotation. We were poor. Forgotten. Most of our weapons were old, patchwork junk—except the ones I made, and even those were watered-down work, dulled by budget and need.
No time to think.
I turned and held out my hand. With a faint shimmer, Yamato, my soulforged blade, leapt from its place on the weapon rack and into my grip. Cold followed it—an icy whisper across my palm—as the Frostbind bracelet snapped into place on my wrist like it had a will of its own.
I sprinted toward my house.
Slamming the door open, I found my father already armed. A towering man with a chest like a mountain and hands that could break stone, he was strapping on his greaves and had one of my first greatswords resting across his shoulders. The metal hissed faintly, already tasting the coming blood.
But my eyes scanned the room and didn't find who I was really looking for.
"Where's Ma? Where's Lysa?"
He turned, calm as an oak tree in a storm. "They're safe, boy. Locked in the root cellar. No man lays eyes on them while I draw breath."
He stepped up, massive hand settling on my shoulder like a boulder.
"Now," he said, eyes glinting with both pride and expectation, "I think it's time you tested those fancy skills of yours on real men, not just those green boys you play with."
I nodded once.
Then I was out the door, boots slamming against the mud-packed road, heading east.
I crested the hill near the palisade and nearly stumbled.
There they were.
A tide of wild men in wolf pelts and mismatched steel—mountain clansmen. At least twenty of them, all frothing for blood. They howled and screamed in that guttural dialect of theirs, axes and curved blades flashing as they crashed against the wooden gate like waves against a cliff.
Our guards were already engaged, hopelessly outnumbered. Ten men, most of them farmers-turned-watchmen, trying to hold the line against battle-hardened raiders. For every stroke they gave, three came back. One man was already down—dragged behind the shield line, blood spraying from a gash across his neck.
I knew the math. A single mountain clansman was worth three men, sometimes more. These weren't just brigands—they were raised in blood and snow, forged in a place where mercy was weakness.
We were going to lose.
Unless I made sure we didn't.
I tightened my grip on Yamato, the cold pulse of the blade syncing with the rhythm of my heart.
Then I stepped forward into the fray.
The moment my boots struck the blood-slick earth inside the gate, the chaos slowed. Not for anyone else—but for me.
The world shrank to breath and blade, to movement and instinct.
The first clansman charged, his rust-crusted axe high, screaming something guttural. I stepped into his path and vanished—a blink—three meters to his left. He barely had time to register the shift before Yamato severed his spine in a clean, upward arc. He collapsed without a sound.
Another came at my right. I pivoted, not stepping away but into his space, letting his wild swing go past as I slashed twice—hip to shoulder, then neck to ribs. He folded open like paper.
Thank the stars I trained in all seven forms, I thought, as my footwork flowed from tight defensive pivots to sweeping, aggressive strikes. Both in this life... and the last.
Their disorganized charges became laughable in the face of precision. One form gave me the defensive footwork to evade multiple attackers. Another taught me how to use the terrain—kicking mud into eyes, pivoting around corpses to block incoming angles. Another gave me pure, brutal momentum. They came at me in threes and fours, but my blade found their flesh every time.
A wildman tried to grapple me from behind. I didn't even turn—just reached back and thought.
He flew ten feet backward and smashed into the palisade, neck broken.
Three more men encircled me with spears. I ducked, stepped forward, blinked again—three meters behind them—and with a single flowing strike, opened all three from their waists. Intestines hit the ground before they even realized I had moved.
They screamed. They panicked.
Then I gave them something to scream about.
I threw Yamato.
The blade spun like a silver halo, and before it touched the ground, I caught it with my mind.
A gentle pulse from my fingers, and Yamato danced.
The sword twisted mid-air, slicing horizontally like a saw. A clansman ducked—but not fast enough. The blade took the top half of his head clean off. Blood misted the air.
I walked forward slowly, eyes never leaving the floating weapon.
Yamato hovered, hummed, turned again—and launched forward.
The edge bisected a pair of raiders trying to climb the gate, cutting both in half at the waist. I raised my hand and called it back—it curved around in a vicious arc, carving two more men open from behind as they fled.
A few tried to scatter—bolting for the woods.
I blinked again.
Three meters ahead. One was in mid-stride when I appeared in front of him. He didn't even raise his blade before I bisected him at the shoulders, a clean horizontal slash that felt more like art than violence.
Don't run, I thought, almost disappointed. It's worse that way.
Someone screamed behind me.
I turned slowly. The remaining raiders—maybe four of them—were stumbling over bodies, slipping in gore, shaking as they held up their chipped axes.
I took a deep breath.
Yamato returned to my hand with a shhk of steel on leather.
"Leave," I said quietly. "Or die."
One of them did.
Two hesitated.
One roared and charged.
He lasted two seconds. Yamato hummed once more, splitting him from groin to sternum in a single upward draw.
The last two dropped their weapons and fled into the woods, tripping over corpses, howling like animals.
The battlefield fell silent.
Mud, blood, and bodies surrounded me. The village guards stared, panting, stunned.
None of them spoke.
I sheathed Yamato with a slow, deliberate motion. The sound of it sliding home echoed like thunder in the aftermath.
And then I turned back toward the village gate.
The sword was clean.
I was not.
But the village still stood.I paused at the gate, blood drying on my hands, my breath finally slowing.
Then I heard it—a scream. Far off, deeper in the forest.One of the raiders I spared.Running. Calling out.
Still alive.
My jaw tightened. Mercy was a coin I didn't spend twice.I turned on my heel, unsheathing Yamato in one smooth motion.
"Should've kept running," I muttered.
With a flick of my wrist, I hurled the blade into the woods. It vanished like a silver streak.Then I closed my eyes and reached for it with the Force.
In my mind, Yamato sang as it flew. I guided it—twisting, arcing, spinning like a predator through the brush. The sword cleaved through a tree trunk without slowing down, split a boulder, and then—
Screams. Short. Wet. Final.
One man was cleaved through the chest mid-sprint. Another tried to climb a tree and was cut in half. A third raised a shield—and Yamato went straight through both the wood and his skull.
Three trees fell in the wake of the slaughter, crashing to the forest floor in the silence that followed.
A moment later, the sword flew back to my outstretched hand, slick with sap and blood.
I slid it back into the sheath at my hip.
"No loose ends."
I turned and walked back through the gate.
[Timeskip — Two Days Later | Captain Meryn's POV]
The sound of hooves echoed down the narrow woodland path as a dozen Vale cavalrymen rode into Duskmere. The once quiet, forgotten village was now the center of grim spectacle. What greeted them sent a few horses into nervous sidesteps: two dozen mountain clansmen strewn across the field in grotesque states of death, their bodies half-eaten by wolves, carrion birds, and the bolder kind of scavenger. A pair of villagers with rough faces and blood-stained hands were dragging more of the corpses into rough piles, tossing them like firewood to be devoured by the forest.
"Th-this is barbaric, Captain," muttered a young soldier at the rear, barely a man, his voice shaking behind his helm. "These are savages, but still… This isn't right."
Captain Meryn turned in his saddle, face cold beneath his weather-worn helm. "And what mercy would these savages show you, boy?" he said, voice steady. "You've yet to bury a friend flayed open by one of their gut-hooks. Keep your thoughts to yourself."
The lad flinched, chastened.
Without another word, Meryn spurred his horse forward, leading the men into the village proper. He gave curt orders for them to speak with the locals—gather names, accounts, anything that might explain this massacre. As his men split off, the captain dismounted and made for the blacksmith's shop, remembering the name that had reached his ears: Jinx. The one the sellsword Umber had spoken of in such improbable praise.
He pushed the door open—and paused.
At first glance, the sight before him seemed to shatter the story he'd been told. Standing behind a cluttered worktable, lit by the dancing glow of the forge, was not a boy, but a figure with the unmistakable shape of a woman. Slender, but not fragile. Curved hips, smooth arms dusted with soot, and a face too refined, too striking, for a backwoods smith. A braid hung over one shoulder, catching flecks of ash and sweat. She was… beautiful. Almost distractingly so.
Meryn narrowed his eyes.
No. Not a she.
He said nothing at first, stepping inside as his eyes did the work his mind had learned over decades of war and courts. Posture, stance, the way the smith carried their weight. There was a subtle tension in the shoulders, in the way the chest rose—not the vanity of a girl conscious of being seen, but the coiled awareness of a fighter prepared to move. And the eyes—sharp, watchful, not soft with uncertainty, but flint-like with the quiet confidence of someone who had killed.
The captain exhaled through his nose and offered a slow nod.
"So," he said at last, voice calm, "you're the smith the Umber lad wouldn't stop praising."
The figure looked up, arching a brow and wiping blackened hands on a cloth. A half-smile tugged at the corner of their lips.
"I am," Jinx replied, voice light but steady. "Though if you came expecting a bearded giant with soot-covered muscles, I apologize for the disappointment."
Meryn chuckled—once. "Seen enough war to know steel comes in more forms than one. And you?" His eyes flicked to the sword at Jinx's hip. "You're not just hammering blades. I can feel it. Smell the magic in the air. The blood on the wind."
Jinx tilted his head, expression unreadable. "Magic? Who said anything about magic?"
The captain gave him a look. "Don't play coy. I've seen Valyrian steel drawn. Felt it hum in the air. That wasn't what carved up those clansmen, no—what did that was new. Different."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice.
"Tell me, boy. What in the name of the Seven did you do to that sword?"
Jinx leaned an elbow on the workbench, amusement flickering in his eyes like a secret. "I just made it… better."