This chapter contains events that readers might find disturbing or triggering! Read at your own discretion!!
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The house of Perryn lived anxiously in expectation of an attack from Lord Royce and his allies for a few weeks. All the soldiers of the estate had been put to the task to train and prepare the castle for invasion.
Negaciations happened between the concerned Houses, but it was now certain that Lord Royce had never really had any intention to concede anything. He left the table of discussion and, without failure, after gathering various houses to his cause, returned to get what he wanted: the gold mines of Hornvale, and Alysanne.
Lord Perryn managed to resist the combined alliance for a few days after their arrival at the castle gates. But the battle was quickly overtaken when Royce brought heavy catapults.
They quickly breached the castle after destroying the main remparts, and immediately invaded the compounds, killing a good number of soldiers, servants and villagers in the process.
Even though he had prepared for this, Lord Perryn and his men were quickly overwhelmed by the sudden invasion.
At the peak of the attack, Daren begged him to retreat with his wife in the castle and to attempt fleeing by the underground tunnels. He promised the couple to go fetch the girls, but could only find Alysanne in her bedroom.
Freiyana, after hearing the fights, wandered in the corridors in search of her parents. She eventually found them in their private quarters, and Lord Perryn stared in horror when he saw her enter.
“What are you doing here?! You must not stay here and flee!”
He started to push her out of the bedroom and commanded her to go find Daren, but the stubborn girl refused with all her might.
“I will stay here and protect you and mother!”
“You foolish girl! Do you even think I would be here right this moment if I thought there is hope to defeat those men?! We have to flee!!”
Freiyana flinched at the solemness of her father’s yell; it was the first time she saw her so desperate. She was about to retort when they heard noise outside and people screaming. Lord Perryn’s eyes widened; he had not anticipated the troops to arrive there this quickly.
“Freiyana! Quickly hide!”
“What…?”
Lord Perryn grabbed his daughter’s arm and pushed her to conceal herself under the bed.
“Stay here no matter what, Freiyana! I beg you…” he pleaded before whispering something in her ear.
Freiyana just nodded and obeyed. She crawled at the end of the bed and waited.
The enemy soldiers broke in the room only a few minutes later, knocking down the big door in the process. The young woman could hear her father called out Lord Royce, who had apparently made the trip to meet her father.
“Royce! There is still a way to end this! War must not be the only way!”
"It is a bit too late for negotiations and begging now Lord Perryn... Do not worry though, I will take good care of your daughters when I catch them."
There were sounds of a short fight, with the intermittent cries of lady Perryn.
All of sudden, Freiyana saw her father collapse to the floor, and a pool of blood spread around him. She covered her mouth and resisted her urge to scream.
"You can leave us..." Lord Royce said to his soldiers as he wiped his sword on one of his boots.
Then her mother, Lady Perryn, let out a cry of grief and rushed forward, a blade in her hands, and attempted to attack him. Lord Royce, in a simple movement of arm, easily grabbed the lady by the throat. He threw her to the ground, right over Lord Perryn's lifeless body.
The malicious lord stradled the poor woman and gripped her face between his gloved fingers.
"You have always been such a beauty, Lady Elayna, I should have taken you a long time ago... " he said, a wicked smile on his face.
He slowly seized the front of Lady Perryn’s dress and ripped it down, revealing her breast. The mad man licked his lips at the view and, without any consideration, spread the lady’s legs on either side of him. He violently penetrated her and raped her. The proud woman just laid silently on her back as he violently took her for minutes that seemed like hours.
Elayna turned her head and wordlessly begged Freiyana to stay where she was, under the bed. Tears trickled down her temple as she could feel it was her last moments.
After his evil deed, lord Royce stood on his feet and looked down at the woman he had just violated.
"Thank you my lady, I will remember you fondly when I marry your daughter to my son." he flatly said with a grin, readjusting his pants.
Lord Royce took his sword in his hand and with no emotion whatsoever, stabbed Lady Perryn in the heart. Her head limply fell backwards, her blank eyes staring right at Freiyana as a trickle of blood poured out of her mouth.
The man immediately left afterwards, commanding his men to head back to the battle front.
Freiyana waited for a while before coming from under the bed after lord Royce's departure. Her limbs were shaking uncontrollably as she stepped towards her lifeless parents.
She stared down at the bloody corpses of her parents, and almost gagged at the irony smell that jumped at her. But for some reason, she was too shocked to cry, and too numb to actually do anything right that moment.
It was a sound outside the chambers that woke her from her transe, and she suddenly remembered the last words of her father:
"There is gold and a short sword in the coffer in my study, go find it if you can! Please stay safe, Freiyana, and protect your sister!"
So Freiyana went to find the weapon and put the little bag of gold in a leather bag. She then steathedly sneaked out of the castle, by the same tunnels Lord Perryn had mentioned to Daren.
She exited the hidden passage and climbed down the last stairs that led outside. The young woman was met by two hooded figures. She took out the short sword at first, not recognizing the persons.
"Wait, my lady! It is us!" a familiar male voice hurried, taking its hood down.
The other figure did the same, exposing the beautiful face of Alysanne, who looked very scared.
Freiyana sighed in relief and hugged her sister.
"Thank you for protecting her, sir Stringer!"
"It is my duty, my lady! I promised you father I would keep you safe."
Daren's words made Freiyana wince in pain.
Her voice trembled, "We have to go..." she said, almost inaudible.
"What do you mean, sister? We cannot leave without mother and father!"
Freiyana looked her in the eye with a grave expression. She could feel her eyes burn, but her emotions remained locked away when she announced:
"They will not come..."
"What? But they..."
"Alysanne... Our parents are dead." Freiyana simply said.
"Do not say that, sister! They are probably still on their way! We should..."
"THEY ARE DEAD!!" Freiyana shouted, squeezing her hands into tight fists.
Daren stared at her with wide eyes, he could see she was telling the truth. He clenched his fists as well and stared down in shame.
"How...?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
Freiyana met his gaze as he looked back at her.
"Lord Royce... He killed them both."
"No..." Alysanne said. "It cannot be... true..." She faltered suddenly, caught in extremis by Daren.
Freiyana averted her eyes. I mustn't cry! she reminded herself, biting her lower lip.
"We cannot stay here... We have to run before they start searching for us."
Daren kept staring at her, both impressed and worried by her seemingly unperturbed demeanor.
"Where though...? Do you know any place we can go to?" he asked.
"Not really no..." Freiyana sighed. "Right now, we cannot trust anyone in the Riverlands, so we have to find help elsewhere, but... the only trustworthy allies I can think of are pretty far away..."
Daren thought for a second, "That's right, most of your father's "friends" were down by Oldtown, in the Stormlands and in Dorne. We also have contacts in Essos, but that will be too much of a hassle to reach…”
Freiyana nodded.
"To the South it is then." She said as she took the small pouch of gold out of her bag. "We should be able to travel for a while with this, and then we will figure it out as we go. We do not have much of a choice..."
Daren could not believe he was standing in front of the little girl who used to cling to him wherever he went just a decade ago. Her face was emotionless, determined and... strangely beautiful, as the evening sun hit her fiery hair and freckled visage.
Alysanne's voice abruptly broke his gaze. "Are they really... No... *sob* Tell me it's not true! Please!" she begged, clenching at his coat as tears started running down her cheeks.
He just hugged her, not really knowing what to say. He was himself very shaken by the news.
"Sister!" Freiyana called out. She stepped closer and cupped her hands on either side of Alyssane's face. "I know you must be shocked, and sad, and scared! But we must go now! We can mourn the dead and cry later!"
Alysanne let out another sob, then nodded. "Yes, I am sorry..." she whispered, lowering her head.
Freiyana sighed and kissed her sister on the forehead.
"We are going to be okay, I promise."
Freiyana took her sister's hand in hers and started walking past the hidden rocky cavern below the castle. Daren followed in their steps and walked next to Freiyana. The latter turned a surprised face to him. He gave her a small smile.
"I promised your father to protect you and your family. That is what I intend to do."
Freiyana returned the smile. "I never had any doubt, sir Stringer."
The three of them walked away for a mile or two. They halted their march and turned around to look back at their home. The castle had thick, black smoke rising above it.
“I swear on my life that I will get our castle back!" Freiyana declared solemnly, hugging her sister who had started crying again.
"We will." Daren added.
Their eyes met and they shared a silent moment of reckoning: The three of them were the only family they had now.
The trio headed to the woods bordering the estate of Hornvale, and began their long journey to the Southern parts of Westeros.
[End of Part I]
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