After returning from the intermission, Daenerys immediately noticed something strange about Jon.
That guy kept glancing at her from time to time, with a kind of closeness that made her skin crawl. Whenever she looked back at him, he would give her a shy, ingratiating, almost husky-like smile.
Daenerys was not so self-absorbed as to think that after only a few hours of rest, he had suddenly fallen in love with her.
So what had caused such a change in him in such a short time?
"My original target did not include the Lannisters of Casterly Rock," Arya's voice, calmly confessing her crimes, interrupted the Dragon Queen's thoughts.
"From the very beginning, I planned to use the Rat Cook's method to punish Walder Frey for violating guest right.
But before I could even get close to Riverrun, he had already moved his whole family to Casterly Rock.
Outside Casterly Rock, I caught up with the Frey family's procession.
Using the Faceless Men's methods, I replaced one of Walder Frey's attendants and followed them into Casterly Rock. First, I cooked one of Walder's sons and personally watched him drink 'Frey Soup' and eat 'Frey Pie.'"
"Seven gods—ugh!"
A wave of horrified cries and loud retching filled the hall. They had just eaten meat pies and drunk meat soup during the break, and now hearing about Frey Soup and Frey Pie made them feel as though they themselves had become Walder Frey, eating their own son's flesh.
The Dragon Queen wrinkled her delicate nose slightly and summoned two wind spirits to keep the sour stench away.
"Didn't you know that Lord Manderly had already cooked two Freys and made Frey Pies for Roose Bolton and the rebellious northern lords to eat?" she asked.
Her words caused another stir in the crowd.
"Mother above, there were already two Frey Pies before this?"
"I think that really did happen. Last year when the Starks retook Winterfell, they caught several Freys, and then Lord Manderly publicly revealed the secret."
"Mother have mercy, these northerners are ruthless."
"Poor thing. Three sons all turned into Frey Pie. Old Walder seems even more pitiful than the Andal king in the Rat Cook story."
"I know," Arya nodded expressionlessly. "But the true culprit was Walder Frey. He had to be punished."
"If you never intended to deal with the Lannisters, then why did you attack the Lannisters in Casterly Rock?" Jaime asked in a deep voice.
"Not all Freys participated in the Red Wedding. My targets were only Walder Frey and his sons. As for the other Freys, my feelings toward them were about the same as my feelings toward the Lannisters.
Neither here nor there. I wouldn't deliberately target them, nor would I deliberately avoid them.
If it had only been Walder Frey alone, I wouldn't have needed poison.
In fact, after old Walder ate the Frey Pie, I killed him that very night, then used his flesh to make a pot of Walder Soup.
The next night, everyone at the banquet drank Walder Soup."
"Seven gods!"
"The first female demon king in twelve thousand years of Westeros!"
"A blood demon indeed."
"I'm actually starting to sympathize with the Freys."
Another round of horrified cries filled the hall.
There was not a trace of emotion in Arya's gray eyes as she swept her gaze across the room. Wherever her eyes passed, people immediately fell silent, holding their breath, lowering their heads in fear, not daring to meet the demon queen's gaze.
"After killing old Walder, my only remaining targets were his more than one hundred legitimate sons and grandsons. Their hands were stained with my mother's and brother's blood.
So I had to kill them all.
There were too many of them. I couldn't deal with them one by one with a knife like I did with Walder Frey, so poison became my only choice.
Although eight hundred and seventy-four people died, my true targets were only one hundred and eighty-nine male Freys. The rest were collateral damage, but I didn't care."
"Mother above!" Tyrion groaned, pressing a hand to his forehead. "We should have refused to let the Freys into Casterly Rock."
"With so many innocent people there, how could you do it!" Jaime said, his eyes red.
Arya met his sorrowful blue eyes with her cold gray ones and said each word clearly:
"In King's Landing, before the Great Sept, I personally watched Joffrey cut off my father's head. On the roads of the Riverlands, I personally watched lions kill several of my friends. At the Twins, on that nightmare of a night, I personally watched northern soldiers slaughtered. I watched the Freys cut off Robb's head, then sew Grey Wind's direwolf head onto his neck.
They even put him on horseback, cheering and laughing as they led him around in circles. They cursed him with the vilest words, insulting my brother, insulting my mother, insulting the Starks and the people of the North."
"I saw all of that with my own eyes, and you still ask me how I could do it? From the moment I decided on revenge, I was prepared to drag my enemies into hell with me.
Forget the fact that the Lannisters and Freys were already my enemies. Even if they were ordinary people, if they stood in the way of my family's revenge, I would kill them without hesitation," Arya said firmly.
"You… you were there that day too?" Jaime asked, his face pale, his voice trembling.
Arya said coldly, "When the White Knight led the Gold Cloaks into the Tower of the Hand, slaughtering the northern guards, maids, and wet nurses, I was there.
When Ser Ilyn Payne cut off my father's head, I was right below the platform. I could even feel the warmth of the blood spraying from my father's neck.
On the night of the Red Wedding, the Hound happened to bring me to the Twins. He had planned to find my brother and exchange me for ransom, but instead, I went to hell.
That night, I was in hell, because such a horrifying scene should not exist in the human world.
I was only a few steps away from Robb. I saw him wearing a brand-new formal outfit. I saw the gray direwolf sigil on his clothes dyed red with blood.
His blood mixed with Grey Wind's blood and flowed everywhere. In the end, they even urinated on his corpse. While doing so, they used filthy words to insult my mother.
At that time, I was so helpless, like a maggot, struggling and twisting in the Hound's arms. I cried, he hit me. I wanted to fight those demons to the death, and he kept hitting me. All I could do was cry.
For revenge, I went alone to Braavos and joined the House of Black and White. That year, I was only nine years old.
That year, I lost the identity of Arya Stark. I became the lowest and most wretched servant in Braavos.
Everything in Dr. Vogref's play about the Faceless Men was correct. The life I lived, you all saw it on stage.
I stayed in Braavos for four years!
It was my faith in revenge that brought me to where I am today.
In my heart, I always kept a notebook filled with the names of my enemies. So I would never forget them, every night before sleep, I would recall their faces and their crimes, and recite their names."
"Ser Gregor, Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Regent Cersei, Joffrey… Valar morghulis. Valar morghulis. Valar morghulis…"
She closed her eyes, just as she had done countless times before sleep.
As she repeated "Valar morghulis" again and again, it seemed as if a chilling aura slowly rose within the hall.
It was not an illusion.
As murderous intent rose in her heart, Arya unconsciously began operating the "Death God Meditation Method." The power of death and ice surged like a tide, and the hall was almost dragged into the world of death.
Daenerys' eyes flashed. Quietly, she activated the Stranger's divine power, and the hall returned to normal. Everyone felt as though they had just woken from a dream. They only sensed Arya's eerie and sinister aura, but were completely confused about what had just happened, thinking it must have been an illusion.
"After waiting so many years, finally, the chance for revenge stood before me. If you were me, could you have stayed your hand?" she stared at Jaime and asked coldly.
Jaime closed his eyes and collapsed weakly into his chair, as if all the bones had been pulled from his body.
At that moment, he felt only pain and no hatred at all.
She was right. She had personally witnessed the deaths of her father, brother, and mother, and they had died in the cruelest ways imaginable. Anyone facing the chance for revenge would not hesitate.
Especially since the Freys and Lannisters were already her enemies.
Tyrion looked grave and had nothing to say.
Jon's eyes were filled with pity and sorrow, but he stopped himself from speaking. Any words of comfort felt too shallow. He even began blaming himself for failing to protect his little sister and letting her suffer those horrors.
Sansa covered her mouth and cried silently.
When the others in the hall looked at Arya again, still expressionless as ever, the hatred and fear from before had vanished. In their place were genuine sympathy and admiration.
Putting themselves in her place, if they had personally witnessed their loved ones tortured and murdered one after another, they too would not hesitate when the chance for revenge came.
Or rather, they would never consider any Lannister or Frey innocent.
They would want to wipe out the enemy's entire bloodline, men and women, young and old, leaving not a single one alive.
Even Daenerys was deeply shaken. She had always defined Arya as a blood child, someone followed everywhere by cold-blooded killing, but she had rarely considered how much the outside world had shaped her.
Just as Arya herself said, at nine years old, she stood helpless in the crowd watching her father be beheaded only a few steps away, able to do nothing but scream. After enduring endless hardship, she finally made her way from King's Landing to the faraway Twins. She came full of hope, thinking she would be able to throw herself into the arms of her mother and brother and find comfort, only for the greatest tragedy to descend upon her. The Red Wedding happened before her eyes. Again, only a few steps away, she helplessly watched her brother's corpse have a wolf's head sewn onto it.
So she longed for power. She willingly went to Braavos.
And so, when she finally gained power, no one could stop the return of the goddess of vengeance.
Thinking about it, Arya was actually the most loyal and righteous person in all of Game of Thrones.
Why did she put the Hound on Arya's blood list?
Because the Hound killed the butcher's boy, Mycah—the boy she practiced wooden sword fighting with on the Ruby Ford, when Joffrey happened to encounter them.
Why was the Mountain on the blood list?
Not because he had done anything directly to her or the Starks, but because of his atrocities in Harrenhal—burning, killing, looting, and carrying out scorched-earth policies.
And who was "Sweetmouth" Raff?
He killed Lommy, one of Arya's little companions on the road. When Yoren recruited men for the Night's Watch in King's Landing, Arya disguised herself as a boy and hid among them. Lommy was one of those recruits.
And there was Ser Meryn Trant, the White Knight, who killed Arya's "dancing" teacher—the First Sword of Braavos who taught her water dancing.
And many more. They stood alongside the murderers of Eddard in Arya's memory.
This showed not only that she truly held grudges, but also that she was fiercely loyal.
Looking across the entirety of A Song of Ice and Fire, only Arya and Daenerys ever truly became angry and sought revenge for ordinary people at the bottom of society.
Of course, Arya's loyalty does not erase the fact that she is a blood child. Many times, she would kill over small matters too—if someone threatened her, insulted her, hit her, or stole from her.
Overall, Arya was the kind of wandering hero who acted by personal loyalty and justice: if she was displeased, she killed. Ten steps, one kill; a thousand miles, no trace left behind.
"Sigh… tell me, then, how should she be punished? Ser Jaime, Tyrion, you are the parties involved, so speak first," Daenerys said after a long silence.
"Your Majesty, you decide. Whatever the result, I will accept it," Jaime said with a defeated expression. There was neither hatred nor relief in his eyes now, only endless desolation.
"As I see it…" the dwarf's brows seemed twisted into knots, "Arya has more than enough reason for revenge, but so many people died in Casterly Rock. I cannot accept letting her walk free without punishment."
"And what does House Frey think?" Daenerys looked toward the remaining Freys.
(End of Chapter)
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