The storerooms of Starfall became Edric’s hidden stronghold—shadowy recesses where he shaped his skills beyond the reach of curious eyes. More than once, a te-roaming servant or lone guard had wandered precariously close to unc his secret exercise. Each time, Edric deflected suspi with a quick smile or a murmured excuse: an “actally mispced tri,” or the need for harmless solitude. Yet, every close call weighed on him. One mistake could unravel everything.

  As the full moon glimmered upon the Summer Sea, Edrised a newly ift that felt like a faint whisper in a silent room—an ability to slip out of sight as easily as an eel in murky waters. Not true invisibility, but a nearly imperceptible quality that guided eyes elsewhere.

  Like mist rising from the Torrentine, he felt the power settle around him. Servants brushed past in the corridors, their gazes sliding off him as though he were merely a shape of dim light. Guards pag the stone halls looked directly his way without truly seeing him. It ower vexing in its subtlety—and perhaps more dangerous than any open show of might.

  Before dawn, with only the faint sound of waves crashing against Starfall’s walls, Edric left his chamber to roam the secret ers of the castle. He memorized each hidden route, each hush of the torches, each hour when guards shifted positions. Every noal expedition taught him a little more, and he discovered how easily he could pass unseen.

  His stamina flourished. While other boys would slump from fatigue, Edric kept moving, his body as though fed in the quiet dark. Most astonishing was how little rest he required. He lived on mere scraps of sleep—three or four hours—and then pressed on, his mind somehow remaining focused and awake.

  During the daylight, he maintained a careful fa?ade: the image of a boy on the mend, fielding Maester Arron’s questions on history and the distant ers of the world. In truth, each tutor’s lesson became another piece of armor for future battles, every question carefully chosen to glean something useful.

  When the moon rose above the horizon, Edric seized another power: bones as strong as steel turned by the fi smith. At first, wooden swords bruised him, but soon he found even their stinging blows could do little harm. If a strike nded and should have knocked him sprawling, he instead felt only a dull thud.

  Following that came a gift that blurred lines between mortal talent and are skill: lightning bound to his fiips. A power both mesmerizing and fearsome, it demanded careful trol. When he eled a full surge, the bolt imparted a force charged with crag energy that strongly disrupted a victim’s muscle responses and reflexes. Though the jolt might not burn flesh or shatter bo saturated the target’s nerves, causing a sudden, overwhelming shock that locked muscles in pd stuhe mind for precious seds. If he loosed a mighty charge, he ime before mustering another, lest he overtax both his own reserves and the subtle bance required to stun rather than kill.

  Days passed before he dared test it on anything living. Only at su, with the towers lit in red and gold, did he try it on a pigeoing on his baly. As the bolt leaped from him, it forcefully overloaded the bird’s senses, leaving it momentarily paralyzed yet unharmed ohe effect passed. Edric realized at that moment how precarious this power could be—wielded too fiercely, it might end a life; handled with enough restraint, it might only subdue. In this way, it had the potential to reshape destinies, its oute hinging on his skill and caution.

  Ser Daemon, orusted ally to the famed Arthur Dayood at the edge of the practice yard with arms folded across his chest. The m sun pyed off the links of his mail, atuating the faint warmth in his otherwise stern gaze. Edri through a series of footwork drills, each pivot nding precisely where it should. When he fihe sequence, Ser Daemon offered a nod of approval.

  “Your footwork’s sharper today,” the knight observed, his baritone carrying across the quiet yard. “Every step is pced with purpose. Keep that up, and you’ll move like a natural soon enough.”

  Edric saw genuine pride in the older man’s eyes, a silent aowledgment that his training aying off. The brief moment nitio as rewarding as any victory on the field.

  Edric kept his expression fident, a flicker of pride lightening his gaze at the knight’s words. “I’m only trying to learn, Ser.”

  Ser Daemon offered a low grunt that hi approval rather than doubt. “Keep that back foot in line. A strong stance is the root of a warrior’s strength.”

  Maester Arron had also begun notig ges, too. The boy’s searg questions grew more ing, his ambition showing through faint cracks usually hidden by childhood. “Iing,” the maester mused, Edri a finger across a map of trading routes and border lines. “You ect ideas at a pace few ye could match.”

  Yet Edriderstood oruth: children rarely improve at a steady pace. One day they might fumble, and the hey could handle a bde with surprising finesse—an insistency that would shield him from suspi. So he carefully staged his own ups and downs: sometimes letting his sword swing true and his footwork shiher times stumbling over the simplest move. Whenever curious eyes lingered, he’d offer a sheepish shrug or bme a headache. Let everyone assume he was simply a boy on the usual, uneven path to petence, and not a quiet prodigy hiding something far more deliberate.He felt eaew gift emerge slowly, not in an explosive burst. He realized how training, routine, and curiosity all verged te him into something beyond a simple Dornish boy. His arms and legs lengthened almost imperceptibly, the muscle beh them being lean and sturdy. Servants’ children oaller than him now found they hardly surpassed him by more than a hand’s breadth.

  Ser Daemon took note as well. “Lift your , Sand,” he would advise, though by the session, Edric had already adopted the corre on his own, needing no reminder.

  Among his fellow children, Edrio longer folded first in the midday sun. Whether running errands ing water, he endured each bor beyond normal boundaries. “That boy grows as surely as a weed in springtime,” remarked Wyl, marking a faint line upo doorway. Each measurement told a story of quiet progress—though not so dramatic as to stoke rumors of sorcery.

  Meanwhile, Ashara Day a distant eye on him. A mother’s longied behind the fa?ade of an aunt, but that love still maed iing touches, or murmured questions about his health. Edric pretended not to notice, giving her no cause for arm.

  Maester Arron’s lesso his mind as honed as his body. He would prod the maester about lore outside Dorne—about the North, where winter’s breath shaped stronger men. Then, unhurriedly, he’d shift to the practice yard, letting movements of body and mind fuse into a single aim: self-improvement.

  Whe another full moon rose, Edric took on a self regeion skill. He tested it alone in the quiet of the storerooms—cutting his palm and , fasated, while skin knit itself closed in mere minutes. With the power firmed, he pushed it further: allowing everyday bruises from sparring to mend at a measured pace so no one would notice. But at night, he used his gift to erase deeper gashes soon after they were inflicted. Every misstep in his secret practice meant lessons learned, not days or weeks of valesce.

  The augmentation of his senses arrived , subtle at first—a faint rustle behind a wall that revealed scurrying mice, or the glimmer of fish scales flickering iorrentine from his tower window. Soon, he caught the puang of Dornish peppers is, the brine-ced wind wafting over the castle’s ramparts, and even the quiet tread of servants moving through distant corridors. Every new detail sharpened his awareness until he realized how formidable these senses could make him—always a step ahead, always able to catch the whispers that might shape his fate. When the following moon rose, Edric cimed yet another ability, though he would not fully grasp its potential until ter.

  The ability to manipute existing fme followed on the heels of that, a dancer’s discipline jured through flickers of fire. He began modestly, coaxing a single dle’s fme in his room, shaping it into a delicate swirl that rose and dipped on and. The limits were clear: he needed aing source of fire, and he could only bend it if it y within a short reach. In the hush of night, he practiced on the embers glowing in the hearth, swirling them with careful sweeps of his hand, ever wary of stray sparks in a fortress built of both stone and timber.

  An unused but potent capacity to heal others loomed within him, though he had never called upon it openly. Now and then, he sehe power stir, as if awaiting a summons—perhaps a scalded hand from spilled soup uard’s twisted ankle might trigger it. Still, he hesitated to test its boundaries, uain rying eyes might witness if he dared reveal such a marvel.

  More dangerously still, he could feel certain weaknesses in hters as though they were printed on flesh. A stride slightly off bance, a sore shoulder from an old break, or a heartbeat that quied just before a thrust—all of it gave Edri edge that went far beyond simple boyhood training.

  The power to strike with terrifying force came , almost like wielding bottled thunder. Wheested it in the gloom of the storerooms, the oak of practice dummies split under his strikes, leaving him both eted and drained. Each blow felt as if he squeezed out a part of his own soul, requiring time to recover.

  In time, the power to jure fire from nothing pleted that cire. He no longer needed a dle to stoke a spark—he could summon it from the air itself. Yet in a fortress built of stone and wood, Edric remained vigint; a stray ember could bring the keep crashing down.

  By his seventh nameday, he reized the transformation. He was still a child in stature, but the potential coiled within him was distinctly adult, almost predatory. Rumors spread among the servants that he bore an echo of Arthur Dayne’s likeness, though Edric himself spied more of Brandon Stark’s leaermination in the mirror.

  He refined his nightly routine, coalesg each gift into a uraining. Sparks of fme lit the storerooms as he practiced sword forms, merging speed, endurance, and that flickering ability to pass unnoticed should a guard venture near.

  Rumors from King’s Landing seeped in through Maester Arron’s lessons and the whisperings of traveling merts, all g the sagged under mounti. The Iron Bank and the Lannisters, they said, held its purse strings tighter every day. Yet Edric, drawing from what he had seen unfold in distaellings—almost like ses plucked from a grand show—knew how easily such burdens could fracture aire realm. He had witnessed enough of that story in aelling to grasp the danger a colpsing ey posed, a peril that could shake even the mightiest throne.

  Meanwhile, Ashara seemed muarded than usual. She occasionally caught him in a gesture or expression far too remi of another man—his father—and her eyes would grow distant with a mother’s flicted longing. Soon, Edriew, he would o address this. Yet his mind stayed on the full moon, the twelfth power, which would plete a full circle of discovery.

  Night after night, his routines spiraled into something almost artistic. He tested sword forms in utter darkness, jured dang fmes that broke into a dozen glowing embers around him, and used his heightened seo detect each swirl of air. He refashioned his practice dummies into more eborate traptions, roped with pulleys so they could strike back. Each time he unleashed a destructive blow, splintering their wooden frames, he reminded himself not to raise suspi by requesting too many repts.

  As he crept through the byrinth of alliances f across Westeros, Edric pieced together how the Greyjoys rattled their s in the west, how the Targaryen exiles across the sea might cultivate power in secrecy, and how Eddard Stark in the North worked tirelessly to secure his hold. More and more, Edric reized that even Dornish politics demanded his attention. Bastard though he was, Starfall’s prestige made him an object of io Prince Doran and other watchers.

  The library became his aer. Late into the night, with Maester Arron long since abed, he pored over volumes detailing the genealogies and intrigues of the Seven Kingdoms. He drew upon flickering memories of his other life where certain names and grudges loomed rge, knowledge the texts could never supply.

  His questions had always drifted northward, pelled by the wolf’s blood in his veins. Winterfell’s distant shape caught his imagination—Eddard Stark’s steady rule and whispers of a bastard brother, Jon, who might share his lineage. In quieter moments, Edric mused on the North as though it were a touchstone of identity, its cold winds seeming to call his soul across seas and sands.

  ting the nights, he realized nearly eight moons had passed since his seventh nameday.He stood by his window, breathing in the salt-tinged breeze as he watched mert ships glide over the Summer Sea. Their broad sails shimmered softly in the waning light, and even from a distance, he could sehe promise of distant ports, each vessel carrying its own whispers of far-flung nds.

  His frame showed distinct ges: a hint of Stark in the line of his cheeks, newly sharpened features that seemed to reveal his northerage. Gossips whispered about his resembo Brandon Stark, though none in Starfall had ever met the famed Wild Wolf. He noticed how Ashara’s watchfulness had grown, how the aunt-and-nephew illusion wore thinner each day.

  In a flurry of raven-boridings, other news bed his thoughts: Ironborn raiders harassing the western coasts, the ’s mountis heightening u. Merts whispered of gold cloaks taxing everything in sight, while sellsword pahronged across the Narrow Sea. Stocks of grain and steel trickled into private storehouses among suspiciously watchful lords.

  As midnight approached, Edric stood by the narroindow, moonlight silvering the sto his feet. He felt a familiar stirring inside him, like the hush before a storm, and he khe appointed hour had arrived. Each moht an unchosen gift, and tonight’s would be no exception. The castle y silent save for the muffled tread of guards and the distant crash of waves; in that pocket of stillness, Edric waited.

  When the power arrived, it startled him at first. He had expected the usual array of seven distinct whispers—those moon-gifted powers he would have to choose from—but this time proved different. Instead of hearing multiple, cm voices, he felt a single surge of something deeper and more unified, as though his talents themselves were calling to each other.

  It coursed through him like quicksilver, a sudden ripple of uanding that settled into his thoughts. At first, he couldn’t quite name what had ged, only that new awareness gleamed at the edges of his mind. Then realization struck: he had gaihe ability te his existing powers. He se once how heightened senses could mesh seamlessly with trol of fme, or how healing might work in cert with his resilieo pain, creating something far greater than the raw abilities on their own.

  Shaken by this departure from the usual pattern, Edric took a moment to gather himself. Gohe familiar voices peting for his attention; in their pce was a singur insight, guiding him doath he had never before sidered. The thought of weaving powers together sparked equal parts excitement and caution—if he could bine fme and senses, or healing and endurahe possibilities no longer felt scattered but profoundly interected.

  A distaolled the hour, and Edric exhaled as the revetion narrowed into focus. He pictured the new monthly choices that would soon appear before him, eae glittering with promise and peril. The difference was clearer now thahanks to this anniversary boon, the illusions of “random” powers had evolved into a carefully woven tapestry. He was beginning to see how it all fit together—and why, in this realm of possibilities, “other models” of growth often fell short.

  He stood there a little longer, letting the moonlit air cool his flushed cheeks. For a moment, he sidered that with eaew gift, the world around him would grow more malleable and uable. But that was a challenge he accepted. Oep at a time, he would follow the path unfolding before him, weaving these new powers into the being he was meant to bee.