Chapter 176

Sunrise in the Vale painted the eastern sky in rose and gold.

Domeric rested both hands upon the richly carved balustrade and gazed at the spreading light. He had risen earlier than the sun itself for the sake of this view. Dawn crept across field and forest. The world beneath his feet passed from black to indigo and then to living green. Streams like hidden springs burst from the ridges and began their long, tumbling journey down the Giant’s Lance. White mist boiled above Alyssa’s Tears.

Alyssa’s Tears was a waterfall of the Vale, named for Alyssa Arryn, a woman of House Arryn in ancient days. Legend said she had watched the slaughter of her husband, her brothers and her children without shedding a single tear. The gods therefore condemned her to weep without end after death, until her tears filled the black, fertile plain of the valley below.