Moonlight spilled through the window of the old storeroom as Edric extended his hand, fog on the small fme dang atop a dle. Since disc his ability te powers, he had started with what seemed most natural—bining his fme creation with his ability to manipute existing fire.

  The fme responded differently than before, not just bending to his will but seeming to resoh his very thoughts. When he reached for it, the fire flowed like liquid gold, splitting and ref with an ease that startled him. He created a new fme in his palm and watched as both fires twisted together, f patterns of impossible plexity.

  "More," he whispered, testing the limits. The merged ability felt natural, as though this was how it should have always been. No longer did he o trate separately oing and trolling—the fire simply was, aension of himself.

  Excited by his success, Edric turned his thoughts to his ifts. He reached for the lightning that occasionally da his fiips, trying te it with his fme abilities. Nothing. The power remaiubbornly separate, refusing to blend with either fire creation or manipution. He sensed no potential synergy there, no possibility of bination.

  His enhanced sei the edge of his awareness, and he wondered... Could more than two powers merge? He closed his eyes, reag inward to where his gifts resided. The endurahat kept him moving tirelessly, the borength that made him nearly unbreakable, his regeive capabilities, enhanced senses, and ability to suppress pain—they all seemed to pulse in harmony.

  Following instinct, he didn't try to force them together but rather allowed them to resonate, like notes f a chord. Something shifted within him, a sensation of pieces clig into pce. His body grew warm, then hot, muscles tensing as the powers began te.

  The st thing Edric remembered was a searing pain rag through his limbs, and the strange certainty that he was being remade from the i. Then darkness cimed him, and he knew nothing more.

  When sciousness finally returned, it came slowly, like swimming up through deep water. The first thing he registered was the familiar softness of his bed, then the st of healing herbs and worried whispers nearby.

  "Three days," Maester Arron's voice came from beside him. "You've had us all quite worried, Edric."

  "We found you unscious three ms ago," the maester said, moving closer to check his pulse. "Covered in some bck substance... like tar, but different. The smell..." he paused, his ical detat wavering at the memory. "It was most peculiar. Took the servants half a day to it from your bed linens, though it left no stain on your skin."

  Edric hadn't expected that detail. The physical merger of his gifts had apparently maed this strange byproduct, as if his body had shed something in the process of transformation. "The smell," he prompted, curious despite himself.

  "Like rotti and something sweeter... almost like overripe fruit, but wrong somehow. Both Lady Allyria and Lady Ashara were beside themselves. Your mother—" the maester paused briefly, "Lady Allyria barely slept, and Lady Ashara... well, we feared something worse than st year's fever."

  But this was different from the fever that had granted him his first gift. That had been a gateway, opening him to possibilities. This was a fusion, a remaking of what already existed within him. He could feel it in every breath—his lungs drawing in air more effitly, his heart beating with perfect rhythm, his very cells humming with enhanced vitality.

  "I feel..." he paused, searg for words that wouldn't reveal too much. "Different."

  The maester's ked as he nodded. "Yes, I expect you do. Your body has undergone quite remarkable ges. Almost as if years of growth happened in days." The old man's eyes held a mix of professional curiosity and genuine . "Both dies will want to know you're awake. They've taken turns watg over you since we ed away that... substance."

  As if summoned by his words, the door opened quietly, and both Ashara and Allyria Dayered. They looked exhausted, dark circles beh their eyes, their usual graewhat diminished by obvious worry. When they saw Edric sitting up, relief flooded their features, quickly followed by something else—reition, perhaps even fear, in Ashara's violet eyes.

  "Leave us, Maester," Ashara said softly, aking her eyes from Edric's face. "We would speak with him alone."

  The way Allyria gnced betweeold Edric everything. In his new form, the resembo Brandon Stark must be unmistakable. His careful deceptions, maintained sinfancy, had been undone by a single night of transformation.

  Watg them, Edric felt a tightness in his chest. Both women's eyes brimmed with tears of relief, their faces etched with the kind of bone-deep worry that only true love could engender. Allyria—his supposed mother—moved first, crossing the room to touch his face with trembling fingers. Ashara—his true mother—held back, but her violet eyes never left him, drinking in every detail of his transformed features.

  He had never po reveal his abilities, had guarded that secret with the same vigihat Starfall protected its own mysteries. But this ge... there would be no hiding it, no expining away the dramatic transformation of his body. A boy of seven did not simply wake up looking years older, with muscles aures that echoed a dead man's face too clearly to ignore.

  Yet even as his mind raced, Edric felt a strange calm. He had prepared for this possibility, crafted half-truths and pusible expnations that might satisfy their questions while keeping his true abilities hidden. The bck substand the smell would actually help—they would make his story of strange dreams and fever-visions more believable. Maternal love would fill in the gaps, expin away the insistencies as their minds sought fortable ao unfortable questions.

  "Yhtened us so badly," Allyria whispered, her hand cool against his cheek. "When we found you..."

  "The dreams," he said softly, beginning the tale he had crafted. It would be a delicate danough truth t sincere, enough mystery to expin the inexplicable, but nothing that would reveal the full scope of what he had bee.

  "It began with the fever," Edric said carefully, watg both women's reas. "The dreams came first—visions of the old gods and the new, of aimes when the realms of gods and men weren't so separate."

  He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. Religious visions were something they could uand, something that wouldn't immediately frighten them. "They showed me things... spoke to me. Said they had chosehough I never uood why."

  Ashara's hand found Allyria's, the sisters drawing strength from each other as they listehe mention of diviervention had caught their attention—in a world where the Seven's influence ted truth, su expnation offered familiar ground.

  "That's why I've been training so hard, studying so much," he tinued, weaving truth with careful fi. "They wao test me, to see if I was worthy of... whatever they intended." He looked down at his transformed body. "I think this was their answer."

  "The bck substance," Allyria begaantly, "when we found you..."

  "Like being unmade and remade," Edric said softly, allowing some genuine uainty to color his voice. "In my dreams, they spoke of trials, of proving myself. I think... I think this ge is part of that."

  He saw Ashara's violet eyes narrow slightly—she had always been the sharper of the two, more proo questioning. But even she couldn't deny the physical evidence before her, nor the pret of diviervention ierosi history. How many tales spoke of the gods marking their chosen ones?

  These visions," she asked carefully, "what else did they show you? And why... why didn't you tell us?" she asked, tears welling in her eyes.

  "Because I was scared," Edric admitted, l his eyes. "The visions... they weren't just of the Seven. The old gods were there too, showihings. I thought you might think I was cursed, or mad." He swallowed hard, watg their reas carefully. "They showed me so much, most of which I still don't uand."

  His voice grew softer, more uain. "I saw a fight at a tower, a warrior wielding two swords moving like nothing I've ever seen. A king lost to madness, burning in his own fmes. A wall of ice so tall it seemed to touch the clouds. Towers that were once mighty reduced to burned husks, with something like liquid fire flowing through their ruins. Strange fogs that killed everything they touched..." He shook his head. "So many fragments, so many pieces I couldn't make sense of."

  The women exged gheir faces paling at his descriptions. These were specifiough to be believable, vague enough to maintain mystery, and disturbing enough to distract from any insistencies in his tale.

  Then Edric lowered his head further, his voice barely a whisper. "They... they also showed me other things. About who I am. About my father..." He let the words hang in the air, heavy with implication. "About my true mother."

  The chamber grew deathly quiet. Ashara's sharp intake of breath was the only sound, while Allyria reached for her sister's hand. The careful fi they'd maintained since his birth trembled on the edge of shattering.

  Ashara's posure cracked, tears spilling down her cheeks as years of carefully guarded pain broke free. "I wao tell you," she whispered, her voice raw. "Every day, watg you grow, seeing his features in your face... it killed me to stay silent."

  "Why?" Edric asked softly, though he already knew many of the reasons.

  "Because the game never ends," she said, her violet eyes fierce despite her tears. "Even a bastard with Stark blood... do you know what they would do with that knowledge? The Northerners who still whisper about Brandon's death, the enemies of House Stark who would use you as a on, the schemers who would see you as nothing but a piece to py with?"

  Allyria squeezed her sister's hand as Ashara tinued, "You would have been a pawn in their game before you could even uand the rules. Robert's Rebellion may have ended, but the shadows it cast still linger. Some would see you as a threat to be eliminated, others as a tool to be used."

  Her voice broke slightly. "Even now, you're the closest heir to Winterfell after Brandon's brother and his children. A legitimized bastard of Brandon Stark... some would rally to that cause, whether you wa or not."

  Then her face crumpled, the proud mask falling away pletely. "And yes, I was selfish too. I knew... I knew if you learhe truth too young, you would dream of Winterfell, of snow and wolves and your father's people. You would long for a pce among your kin in the North, away from me. I couldn't bear it." She covered her face with her hands. "I couldn't bear to lose you too, not after losing him."

  "The gods," Edric began carefully, choosing his words, "they said my dedication had proven worthy. The training, the studying, the stant preparation..." He gestured to his transformed body. "This was their gift, though the ge was harder than I expected."

  Ashara's analytical mind wouldn't let this pass without questions. "The bck substance we found..."

  "The price of the transformation," he expined, weaving truth with necessary fi. "My body had to ge to hold their blessing. Even now, at seven namedays and a few moons, I have the strength of several grown men." He flexed his fingers, demonstrating the fluid grace of his movements. "But I don't fully uand it myself. The gods showed me that mifts will e as I grow, that this is just the beginning."

  "More ges?" Allyria asked, creeping into her voice.

  "Not like this," he assured them quickly. "They said this was the hardest part—preparing my body to handle what's to e. Future gifts will be... gentler." The lie tasted bitter, but it was necessary. Better they expect gradual ges thaion every new ability that emerged.

  "The visions weren't clear about everything," he added, letting genuine uainty color his voice. "There's much I still don't uand about what I've been given or why I was chosen. I just know I have to be ready for whatever es ."

  "And you're certain you feel no pain?" Ashara asked, her motherly warring with the analytical look in her eyes. "This transformation..."

  "I feel strohan ever," Edric assured her. "Different, yes, but not unwell." He paused, sidering his words carefully. "The gods showed me that these ges were meant to happen, that my body was always meant to bear these gifts. That's why I've been different sihe fever—they were preparing me, slowly."

  "The fever st year," Allyria said slowly, realization dawning. "When you recovered so quickly..."

  "The beginning," he nodded. "Though I didn't uand it then. Just like I don't uand everything now." This admission of ignorance was calcuted—the more he admitted to not knowing, the less they would press about specific details.

  "But why you?" Ashara asked softly, though her tone suggested she might already have theories of her own. "Why would the gods choose..."

  "A bastard?" Edriished for her, keeping his voice gentle.

  "No," Ashara cut in sharply, her violet eyes suddenly fierce. "Never speak of yourself that way." She reached out, taking his fa her hands. "You are my son. You are Brandon Stark's son. You are of two a houses, with the blood of the First Men in your veins. Being born of love rather than duty does not make you less."

  Allyria nodded in agreement, and Edric felt warmth spread through his chest at their unified defense of him.

  "Perhaps that's why they e," he amended softly. "Because I bridge two worlds—North and South, old gods and new. Because I carry the blood of both the wolves and the stars." He paused, letting his words sink in. "The visions showed me heroes of both faiths, warriors who served both the old gods and the hey showed me that greatness isn't bound by names or titles."

  He saw how this resonated with them, particurly Ashara. The idea that her son might have been chosen for something greater, that the circumstances of his birth might be part of a divine pn rather than a tragedy—he could see hope beginning to repce fear in her eyes.

  "Uncle Allem," Edric said hesitantly. "We'll o tell him. What do you think he'll..."

  "Your uncle loves you," Ashara interrupted gently, her voice firm with certainty. "And he loves me. He's protected our secret all these years, protected you as his own blood. He would never let harm e to you." She stood, smoothing her skirts in a gesture that spoke of gatherihoughts. "You've given me much to sider. Let me think on how best to expin this to him."

  "But I feel fine," Edric protested, starting to rise. "I could—"

  "No." The word carried all the authority of a mother's and, brooking nument. "You haveen in three days. I uand these new abilities may let you push yourself beyond normal limits, but as your mother, I'm asking you to rest. Just for today." Her violet eyes softened, but her voice remained resolute. "Do this for me."

  He saw the worry still lingering in her face, the fear that had gripped her during his three days of unsciousness. This wasn't just about rest—it was about easing a mother's heart.

  "I'll speak with your uncle," she tinued, her toling. "But first, you will eat, and you will rest. That's not a request, my son."

  The st two words, spoken with suatural vi now that the truth was in the open, made any further protest die in his throat.

  Author's Note:

  Hey everyone!

  Thanks so much for the support and all the ents—I really appreciate it! I'm gd you're enjoying the story. Your feedback means a lot, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you have any issues with the chapter or anything you'd like to discuss, feel free to ent!

  Hope you enjoy the chapter! ??