The morning broke grey and cold over Riverrun, fitting weather for what the day demanded. Every available space within the castle's great yard had been given over to the assembled lords—northern faces hard with grief still fresh enough to bleed, Vale lords standing shoulder to shoulder with men who had fought beside their fathers and grandfathers in the Rebellion, Riverlands bannermen whose own lands still bore the scars of Lannister fire. At the high seat, three men sat in judgment: Michel Arryn at the center, Robb Stark to his right with a face carved from stone, and Edmure Tully to his left, his jaw tight with an anger that had not cooled since the news first reached them.
The crowd parted as Jaime and Tyrion Lannister were led forward in chains, and the sound that rose to meet them was not silence. It was cursing—low at first, then rising, a tide of hatred from a thousand throats that had buried fathers and sons and brothers to Lannister swords across this long and bitter war. Jaime's golden hair hung lank and unwashed, his face carefully, deliberately blank against the hatred pouring over him, though something in the set of his shoulders suggested the effort of that blankness cost him more than he would ever admit aloud. Beside him, Tyrion walked with his usual uneven gait, his mismatched eyes moving fast across the crowd, cataloguing faces, weighing the mood of the yard the way a gambler weighs a table before he sits to play.
Yohn Royce rose from among the assembled lords, his weathered face grim as winter stone, and the crowd quieted enough to let his voice carry.
"Today we gather to answer for a crime," he said, his voice rolling out across the yard with the particular weight of a man who had buried too many friends to soften what came next. "In King's Landing, the boy who sits the Iron Throne and calls himself Joffrey Baratheon ordered the execution of Eddard Stark, Warden of the North, Hand of the King." A fresh wave of low fury rippled through the northern ranks at the name. "He died for telling the truth—that Joffrey, and his siblings Myrcella and Tommen, are not true-born sons of Robert Baratheon's blood. That they were born instead of incest, between Cersei Lannister and her own brother." His eyes moved, cold and deliberate, toward the two chained men standing before the high seat. "We are here to punish the house responsible."
A murmur of grim satisfaction passed through the crowd, and for a moment Jaime's composure cracked—not fear exactly, but something harder and more bitter, the look of a proud man forced to stand chained before judges he considered beneath him.
It was Tyrion who spoke first, and his voice, though smaller than his brother's, carried with the particular clarity of a man who had survived a lifetime of being underestimated and had learned, long ago, exactly how to turn that underestimation into advantage.
"Forgive me, my lords," he said, his tone almost pleasant, almost reasonable, "but what proof do you actually have of this remarkable claim? That my sister and my good-brother conspired in incest, that the crown prince is somehow not the crown prince at all—these are serious accusations. Surely a man's life shouldn't be forfeit on the strength of a dead man's final words alone."
Yohn Royce's jaw tightened. "The proof was in Eddard Stark's own hand. Evidence he gathered, evidence your nephew's mother had him murdered to silence."
"Had him *murdered*?" Tyrion's eyebrows rose, feigning astonishment with practiced ease. "A serious charge, and yet I notice you offer no document, no witness, nothing but the word of a man who can no longer speak for himself to confirm what he claimed." He spread his hands as far as the chains allowed, addressing the crowd now rather than merely the high seat, his voice taking on the easy, reasonable cadence of a man accustomed to arguing his way free of worse corners than this one. "Without proof, my lords, you have only accusation. And I would remind this council—however much grief and fury fill this yard today—that killing a man on accusation alone makes you no better than the boy king you claim to despise."
The yard stirred, uncertain murmurs rippling through lords who, moments before, had been united entirely in their fury and now found themselves, however briefly, giving pause to the dwarf's words despite themselves. Tyrion watched it happen with the faintest, carefully hidden satisfaction—watched doubt take root where there had been only righteous anger, exactly as he'd intended.
Michel watched it too, and understood immediately what was happening. He had heard enough of Tyrion Lannister's reputation to know this was no accident, no desperate man's lucky grasp at survival—this was a blade, honed and deliberate, wielded by the single most dangerous weapon House Lannister possessed that had nothing to do with swords at all. A silver tongue, sharp enough to turn a yard full of grieving, furious men back from the edge of the justice they'd gathered to see done.
Michel rose from the high seat before the doubt could spread any further.
"We don't need proof beyond what we already have," he said, and his voice, though quieter than Yohn Royce's, carried an edge that cut through the murmuring crowd and silenced it entirely. He let his eyes settle on Tyrion, unflinching, unmoved by the clever argument that had, moments before, nearly turned this yard against itself. "My father was investigating the very same truth Eddard Stark died for speaking. Jon Arryn began asking questions about the parentage of the royal children, and within weeks, he was dead—poisoned, in his own bed, in King's Landing, inside the very walls your family calls home." He let that settle, watching understanding and fresh fury ripple back through the crowd in equal measure. "We don't know, precisely, whose hand placed that poison. We may never know for certain. But I know this—two men who sought the same truth are dead, both of them silenced before they could speak it safely, and your family profited from both their silences."
He stepped down from the high seat, closing the distance toward the two chained brothers, his voice dropping lower now, colder, carrying the particular finality of a judgment already made.
"This isn't merely about proof anymore, Tyrion. It's about blood." His eyes moved from the dwarf to Jaime, and back again. "Your house took Eddard Stark's life. Robb Stark's father. My father's dearest friend, a man who lived among the Vale's own lords for years and was loved for it." Michel's jaw tightened, old grief and fresh fury tangling together behind his composed exterior. "We hold both of you. The price for what your house has taken will be paid in the same coin, measure for measure. That is the debt. And today, House Lannister pays it."
Tyrion's clever words finally failed him, his mouth opening and then closing again around nothing, and for the first time since he'd been led into that yard in chains, something like real fear flickered openly across his face.
Beside him, Jaime said nothing at all—only lifted his chin, meeting the hatred of the crowd with whatever remained of his pride, already resigned, it seemed, to whatever judgment this yard had gathered to deliver.