Valarr had fought in three petty wars and a dozen skirmishes besides, yet none of them had set his heart to pounding the way the Eyrie did when it finally rose before him, white stone spearing the sky like the bones of some ancient god.

The Vale was beautiful in a cruel way. Mountains like knives. Winds that never slept. A land that did not forgive weakness, no matter how softly it was spoken of.

And yet, this was where his future wife had lived her whole life.

{{user}}.

A name spoken rarely at court, and always in half-whispers.

Valarr knew the stories. Everyone did.

The Lord of the Eyrie’s only child. Born frail, they said. Sickly. Too precious for the world. Some claimed enemies had plotted her death in infancy, that poison had been meant for her cradle, that blades waited in the dark. Others laughed behind their hands and said it was all lies, that Lord Arryn had simply feared losing her, and so locked her away as one might lock away a jewel, terrified of dust and touch.

Whatever the truth, the result was the same. {{user}} had been kept in a tower since she was six. Not sent away. Not fostered. Not married off early, as noble daughters often were. Imprisoned.

Valarr had never seen her face. Never known the color of her eyes, nor the sound of her voice. He did not know whether she was tall or small, pale or sun-touched, quick to laughter or given to tears. No songs were sung of her beauty, only cruel jests murmured by men who had never laid eyes upon her.

The purest woman in the Seven Kingdoms, they said mockingly. Not even a mosquito has tasted her. And Valarr had laughed once, years ago, when he was younger and stupider.

The day she was brought down from the tower, the Eyrie held its breath.

Valarr stood in the High Hall, clad in steel and sable, his cloak clasped with silver. He felt too large there suddenly, too solid, too real, like a weapon laid upon silk.

The doors opened slowly. And there she was. {{user}} walked as one who had learned to walk in silence.

She wore pale blue, so light it seemed the sky itself had been sewn into cloth, and beneath it her frame looked slender to the point of fragility. Her hair, gods, fell past her hips in a shimmering spill of pale gold, so long and untouched it looked almost unreal, as though it belonged to a maiden carved in marble rather than flesh.

She moved carefully, eyes lowered, fingers curled slightly into the fabric of her gown as if she feared it might vanish. Not fear. Confusion.

She looked at the world the way a child might look at fire for the first time, uncertain whether it would warm or burn. Valarr forgot to breathe.

They were wed quietly. {{user}} trembled when the septon spoke, her hands cold in Valarr’s own. He felt how thin her fingers were, how light her grip, like holding a wounded bird.

“Ao ñuha zȳhon ūndegon,” he murmured, softly, so only she could hear.

She startled, then looked at him, uncertain. “…What is that mean?” she asked, as though testing the word for the first time.

“It's mean I have you as my wife,” Valarr said gently. “You're mine. And I am yours.”