Chapter 40. Surrender.
Arthur knelt on the cold stone floor of the hall, holding Ena in his arms as the warmth slowly left her body. The bolts in her back stood out with obscene clarity, and blood soaked through his sleeves, ran over his fingers, and fell to the stone in dark drops. Around him, the Twins had become a slaughterhouse. Crossbows hissed from the galleries, blades struck flesh and bone, and men screamed as they died under banners that should have protected them by guest right. For a moment, all of it seemed far away. The Freys, the Boltons, the music, the wine, the broken tables, even the smell of blood and roasted meat faded until only Ena remained.
Something inside him went cold.
It did not feel like grief. Grief was human, messy, full of trembling hands and useless questions. This was cleaner. Crueler. The first sharp pain was buried beneath a cold that reached from his chest to his fingers, freezing everything that might have slowed him. He did not think of justice. He did not think of oaths. He did not even think of survival. One thought rose beneath the ice with perfect clarity, simple enough that no god, lord, or maester could twist it into something else.
Kill them all.
Everyone involved in the betrayal. Everyone who raised a blade under bread and salt. Everyone who wore Frey colors, Bolton colors, or stood aside while Ena bled on the floor. Arthur had always known Westeros was a pit full of smiling monsters, but this was something else. This was the world taking the last foolish softness in him and crushing it under a boot.
The system panel unfolded in his mind without waiting for his command. The numbers in his treasury flickered as he converted the wealth accumulated from Newroot, the brewery, the caravans, and the loot from the Riverlands. Months of careful building vanished in a breath. Coin, grain, ale, furs, trade routes, all of it became one thing.
Soldiers.
[Consumed: 120,000 dinars]
[Recruited: Battanian Young Noble Warriors × 300]
Golden light flickered silently through the corners of the hall.
Three hundred young warriors appeared in the chaos, clad in fine leather armor and carrying two-handed greatswords. They had the tense expressions of fresh recruits, but the scene before them wiped that away quickly. They saw the dead, the screaming guests, the Frey soldiers, the Bolton men, and finally Ena's blood covering Arthur's arms. Whatever fear had been born with them died before it learned to speak.
No order was needed.
Three hundred pairs of eyes turned toward every man in the hall wearing the Frey livery.
The slaughter began.
Two-handed greatswords carved wide arcs beneath torchlight and candlelight. The Young Noble Warriors had no long battlefield record, but the system had given them enough swordsmanship and instinct to make them dangerous. They moved in groups of three, back-to-back, cutting through the confused Frey men like saws through wet wood. Soldiers, servants, musicians, guards, anyone wearing the Frey crest found himself judged by steel before he could explain the exact depth of his innocence.
The Freys had planned a massacre. They had prepared for drunk northmen, unarmed riverlords, and shocked guests trapped inside a hall with sealed doors. They had not prepared for hundreds of armed warriors appearing inside the room like a nightmare with better discipline. It was almost offensive, how quickly their clever little betrayal became a problem they had no committee for.
Arthur lowered Ena carefully to the ground. His blood-stained fingers brushed her face, and he closed her still-open eyes with a gentleness that did not belong in that room. For a few seconds, his hand remained there. Then he stood and picked up a bloodied two-handed sword from a fallen Battanian warrior. The weapon was heavy, but his grip did not shake.
His eyes moved through the chaos and fixed on the high seat.
Lord Walder Frey sat there, sunken into his chair, his fat face drained of color and his cloudy eyes wide with terror. Beside him, Roose Bolton was trying to gather a few Dreadfort soldiers and force a path toward the side door. The man moved calmly at first, because Roose Bolton seemed the sort who could measure blood while standing ankle-deep in it. That calm did not last when more Battanian swords closed around him.
Arthur began walking toward them.
The tip of his sword scraped across the stone floor, sending sparks from the edge. Frey soldiers tried to stop him. They died badly. His movements were not elegant, and no singer would have wasted a verse on their beauty. Chops, slashes, sweeps, nothing more. Yet each strike carried enough force to break guards, split mail, and open men from shoulder to ribs. Blood struck his face and clothes, but Arthur did not blink. His eyes remained fixed on the two men above him.
Walder Frey watched him come.
The old lord opened his mouth. A wet, rattling sound came from his throat. His hands fluttered like pale spiders against the arms of his chair, and drool ran from the corner of his lips. He tried to speak. To beg, perhaps. To curse, perhaps. It did not matter. Fear seized him harder than any hand, and his body twitched once, violently. His eyes bulged, his head tilted, and Lord Walder Frey died in his chair before Arthur reached him.
Scared to death.
Arthur almost found that insulting. The man had arranged the death of a king and thought himself clever enough to survive the gods. Then he died like an old rat cornered by a cat. There was a lesson there, probably. Arthur had no patience to name it.
Roose Bolton did not die so conveniently.
His face had turned paler than usual, which was an achievement. He looked at Arthur, at the young warriors cutting through Frey men, at the bodies gathering on the floor, and finally understood that the betrayal he had helped shape had encountered something outside his calculations. His soldiers were being blocked from the side door, and every second made the hall less his.
"Wait," Roose said, raising both hands. His voice trembled despite his effort to keep it smooth. "Wait. I surrender. I know the true mastermind. It was Tywin Lannister. He promised to make me Warden of the North and give the Freys the Riverlands. That is why we did this."
The point of Arthur's sword stopped an inch from his throat.
Roose swallowed.
"Go on," Arthur said.