Runestone

Ancient seat of the Royces, whose bronze armor is graven with runes older than the Andals.

The fuller tale

Runestone stands on the Vale’s coast for House Royce, First Men blood in an Andal kingdom, and wears its age openly: the house’s ancient armor is bronze, graven with runes said to ward its wearer, older than every sword ever raised against it. The runes’ record is honestly mixed — Royces have died in the armor for thousands of years — but the point was never invincibility; it is memory. In a Vale that prides itself on Andal purity, Runestone is the older truth, politely persistent.

The house brackets the story. Its opening chapter belongs to a Royce — the proud young ranger whose fatal encounter in the haunted forest is the tale’s first scene — and its later ones to Bronze Yohn, the blunt, honorable lord who distrusts Littlefinger on sight, backs the Stark cause when the Vale finally moves, and stands in the ring of lords who choose the realm’s last king. When the story needs the Vale to have a conscience, it sends a Royce.

Born here

Souls the story brings here

The fallen of this place — if any, they are named here. Spoilers.

No death the chronicle records has come to this ground — or none the maesters have set down.