The evening sun cast long shadows through the windows of the Palestone Sword, and Ashara could not tear her eyes from the approag rider. His grey cloak billowed in the wind that swept up from the Summer Sea, and even from this distance, she knew him. Eddard Stark. The quiet wolf. The one who lived while others died.

  Her firaced the smooth pale stone of the windowsill, the same stohat had supported her through tless nights of grief. First Brandon, then Arthur, then nearly herself - if not for the babe at her breast. Edric stirred now, his grey eyes - Brandon's eyes - blinking sleepily as he suckled. Four moons had passed since she had brought him into the world, screaming and red-faced. Four moons of secret smiles and quiet tears, of watg his dark hair already beginning to lighten to the sandy brown of the Daynes.

  "My dy." Wyl's soft voice came from the doorway. The wet nurse had been one of her few fidants these past months. "Lord Stark awaits in the great hall. He brings... he brings Dawn."

  Dawn. The name alone made her throat tighten. Arthur's sword. The st piece of her brother that remained in this world. She had thought herself empty of tears when the raven came, but fresh ohreatened now.

  Ashara adjusted her gown, ensuring it fell properly for receiving visitors. A dy of Starfall must maintain appearances, even when her world had crumbled around her. Even when receiving the brother of the man she had loved. Evehat brother had killed her own.

  The great hall was cool and dim, shadows dang across the pale stone walls. Eddard Stark stood beside the high table, still dusty from the road. The sword y before him, ed in grey cloth, but she could feel its presence - a phantom pain, like a missing limb.

  "Lady Ashara." His voice was heavy with unspoken grief.

  "Lord Stark." The words felt like gss ihroat. Against her chest, Edric stirred, and she saw Ned's eyes fix upon him. The reition there was immediate - those Stark grey eyes were unmistakable.

  "Gods be good," he whispered. "Those are Brandon's eyes."

  "Yes." She lifted her , pride warring with pain. "Your brother's son. Though he'll bear the name Sand, not Snow." Let him uand the steel beh her words. The North would not cim this child as it had cimed his father.

  She saw the flict cross Ned's face, so like yet unlike his brother's. "He would have a pce at Winterfell-"

  "No." The word cut through the air like Arthur's bde once had. "The North has taken enough from me, Lord Stark. My brother, my love... you will not take my son as well."

  The sileretched between them, broken only by the eternal crash of waves against Starfall's foundations. Her son - Brandon's son - slept peacefully, unaware of the weight of history pressing down upon this moment.

  "As you wish, my dy." Ned's haed on the ed sword. "Arthur died with honor."

  The words reopened wounds barely healed. Did he? She wao scream. Did any of them? But she swallowed the bitter words. Instead, she spoke ements already made. "My brother Allem has agreed to foster him. The tale will be that Allyria bore him to a traveling knight."

  She watched Ned digest this, saw him weigh hainst y. Finally, he nodded. "A kind solution. But know that he has kin in the North, should he ever wish to know them."

  Edric stirred again, oiny hand reag toward the ed sword. Even covered, Dawn seemed to pulse faintly, reizing the blood of the First Men and Dayhat flowed through the babe's veins. Ashara felt the weight of it all - past and future, truth and lies, wolf and star.

  After Ned departed, she stood at her window once more, watg his grey cloak disappear into the gathering dusk. Above, the evening star emerged - bright and cold as memory. Below, her so in her arms, unknowing of the lies that would shield him or the truths that would one day be his burden.

  "Sleep sweetly, my wolf pup," she whispered, pressing her lips to his brow. "For now, you are simply mine."

  The moons turo years, marked by the steady growth of her son. Ashara watched eaent from her vigil in the Palestone Sword, cataloging every ge, every echo of his father that emerged.

  His first word had been "star," spoken while pointing at the evening sky from her arms. She had wept that night, remembering how Brandon had oraced the steltions above Harrenhal. His sed word was "sword," and that had made her weep too, for it reminded her so much of Arthur.

  By his sed nameday, Edric toddled through Starfall's halls with the sure-footedness of both wolf and star. "Aunt Sha!" he would call, arms raised for her to lift him. The title had been carefully taught by Allyria, though it pained Ashara each time she heard it.

  "He favors the Dayne look," Allem would say when bannermen visited, a careful lie repeated so often it alm true. But Ashara saw Brandon in every wild ugh, every fearless climb, every defiant tilt of his .

  His third year brought the questions, as she k would.

  "Why's your hair so dark, Aunt Sha?" he would ask, tugging at her bck locks. "Mother's is lighter, like mine."

  "The Daynes e in many colors, sweetling," she would ahe half-truth bitter oongue. She had learo swallow such bitterness, to wear her mask of aunt and caretaker with practiced ease.

  By four, he was a terror with his wooden sword, swinging it with a natural grace that made the master-at-arms raise his eyebrows. "Blood will tell," the old knight muttered, and Ashara had to turn away, lest her face betray which blood he meant.

  His speech grew clearer, his questions sharper. "Tell me about my father again," he would beg Allyria, who would spin the same tale of the handsome hedge knight who had won her heart. Ashara would listen from the shadows, adding her own silent ames. Your father was wild and wonderful, she thought. He ughed like summer storms and loved like winter winds.

  At five, he began climbing everything in sight. The Kit Tower, the walls, even attempting the Palestone Sword itself. Each time she caught him, her heart would stop, remembering tales of another child who loved to climb.

  "Like a little monkey," Wyl would say, but Ashara thought, Like a wolf cub testing its limits.

  His voice grew stronger, his sentences more plex. The childish "Aunt Sha" became "Aunt Ashara," each sylble a reminder of their necessary deception. He learned his letters, trag out 'Edrid' with careful determination, unaware of how close he had e to writing 'Stark' instead.

  Now, watg him chase seabirds along the battlements, Ashara could see six namedays of memories yered over each other like the sediment iorrehe babe at her breast, the toddler reag for stars, the boy with his wooden sword - all of them her son, all of them a secret she must keep.

  "Be careful, Edric!" Allyria called from below, pying her role of mother perfectly. The boy waved, his ugh carrying on the wind, pure and free and painfully familiar.

  "He grows more like Brandon every day," Ashara whispered to herself, toug the smooth stone of her window ledge. "Gods help us all when he's old enough to see it himself."

  The sun began to set over the Summer Sea, painting the sky in shades of purple and gold. Soon it would be time for stories and bed, for kisses she could only give as an aunt, for watg another woman soothe her child to sleep. But for now, she allowed herself to remember: Brandon's ugh in their son's voice, Arthur's gra his movements, and the weight of secrets heavy as Dawn itself upon her shoulders.

  "Tell me about the Sword of the M again," Edric demanded, his grey eyes bright in the dlelight. Six namedays had passed, and eaight brought new questions, eae a potential misstep in their careful dance of secrets.

  Ashara sat at the edge of his bed, running her fihrough his sandy-brown hair. "Your uhur was the fi knight in all the Seven Kingdoms," she began, the familiar tale both fort and torment.

  "Better than Ser Barristan?" Edriterrupted, as he always did.

  "Some said so." She smiled despite the ache in her heart. "Dawn chose him, you see. The sword has been in House Dayne for thousands of years, but only the most worthy wield it."

  "Could I be the Sword of the M someday?" There was Brandon's boldness in that question, that unfling ambition.

  Before she could answer, Allyria appeared in the doorway. "Only if you sleep well and train hard, my sweet," she said, pying her part as mother. "Now, it's time for bed."

  Ashara rose, surrendering her pce to Allyria who would give the goodnight kiss she loo give herself. At the door, she paused, watg her sister embrace her son. The moonlight streaming through the window caught Edric's profile, and for a moment, he looked so much like Brandon that her breath caught ihroat.

  Later that night, uo sleep, she found herself in the practice yard. The dummy still bore marks from Edric's afternoon training - wild, powerful strikes that the master-at-arms said showed unusual promise for his age.

  "He has the wolf's blood," she whispered to the stars. Brandon had been the same, all passion and power, while Arthur had been precision and grace. Somehow, their son had ied both.

  "My dy?" Wyl's voice startled her. The wet nurse had aged these past years, but her eyes remained sharp. "He asked about his father again today."

  Ashara's hands ched. "What did he ask?"

  "Why there are no songs about this mysterious hedge knight who won Lady Allyria's heart." Wyl's voice was gentle. "He's beginning to notice the gaps iory, my dy."

  "He's too young for the truth."

  "Perhaps. But children see more thahink." Wyl stepped closer. "Today he asked why his eyes are different from Lady Allyria's. Why they're the same shade as yours."

  Fear gripped Ashara's heart. "What did you tell him?"

  "That the gods py strange games with features sometimes. But my dy... he's sharp, like his uncle was. Like his father must have been."

  Like Brandon, Ashara thought. Too sharp for his own good.

  The m brought more questions. Edric was watg the master-at-arms demonstrate sword forms wheuro her suddenly.

  "Aunt Ashara, why do you watch me train every day?"

  Because I am your mother, she wao scream. Because every moment I'm not watg you feels like drowning. Instead, she said, "Because you remind me of someone I onew."

  "Uhur?"

  "Yes," she lied, though in truth, he reminded her more of Brandon in that moment, the way he stood with his practice sword, fearless and proud.

  "Ser Daemon says I fight like a northman sometimes," Edritinued, i of how the words pierced her. "But Mother says our family has always been of Dorne."

  Ashara forced herself to smile. "The Daynes are one of the oldest houses in Dor's true. But all warriors find their own style."

  That evening, she watched him py at knights with the servants' children in the courtyard. He led them in mock battles, already showing the natural leadership that both Brandon and Arthur had possessed. His ughter echoed off the pale stone walls, free and wild as the North itself.

  "My dy," Allem approached, his voice low. "There's word from Winterfell. Lord Stark's wife has borne him another son."

  Another wolf cub, Ashara thought, while mine runs wild in the sands of Dorne, not knowing his own pack.

  "Let them have their wolves," she said aloud. "We have our own star to guard."

  But watg Edric swing his wooden swrey eyes fshing in the dying light, she wondered how long any star could tain a wolf's spirit. Sooner or ter, the North that ran in his veins would call to him, as it had called to his father before him.

  For now, though, he was still her secret to keep, her wolf pup pyih the falling star of Starfall.

  But the gods were cruel in their jests, for not three days after Edric's questions about Dawook to his bed with a fever. It started ily enough - a chill after swimming iorreh the servants' children. By nightfall, though, his skin burned hotter than the Dornish sun.

  "Just a child's fever," Maester Arron had said initially, mixing honey and herbs. But days passed, and instead of breaking, the fever grew stronger.

  Now, a moon's turn ter, Ashara pressed another cool cloth to his burning forehead, watg her vibrant wolf pup waste away before her eyes. The same boy who had begged for stories of the Sword of the M now y still as death, his sandy-brown hair dark with sweat, those Stark grey eyes opening only to stare unseeing at phantoms.

  "Like fire in his blood," Maester Arron said, his links king as he mixed another potion. "I've not seen its like before."

  In his fever dreams, Edric would mumble things that made Ashara's heart stop - of wolves and snow, of weirwoods and winter winds. Things a boy raised in Dorne should know nothing of, yet somehow his blood remembered.

  "Mother," he called now, his voice cracked and weak. "Mother, the wolves are calling."

  Ashara gripped his hand tighter, not g who might hear. The careful lies of six years meant nothing before the prospect of losing him. "I'm here, my wolf pup," she whispered. "Stay with me."

  His eyes opened slightly, grey as the wiorms she'd never seen. "I see them... in the snow... calling..."

  "The wolf's blood fights the star's fate," Wyl whispered from the er, her old eyes knowing. The wet nurse who had helped maintain their mummer's farow watched it unravel in the heat of fever dreams.

  Outside the window, the same stars Edric had poio as a babe wheeled overhead, cold and distant as the gods themselves. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled - an impossible sound in Dorne, yet she heard it clear as day.

  How quickly joy turo terror, Ashara thought, remembering how just days ago he had stood proud in the practice yard, asking her why she watched him train. Now she watched him for different reasons, ting each bored breath, praying to any god who would listen that this wouldn't be the st time she heard Brandon's ugh echo in their son's voice.

  "Fight it, my son," she murmured, pressing her lips to his burning forehead. "Fight and e bae."

  The night deepened, and still she kept her vigil, watg the war between wolf and star py out in her son's burning flesh.

  Ashara had never been particurly devout, but desperation drove her to every god she knew. She lit dles in the sept of Starfall - one for each of the Seven. To the Mother, she prayed for mercy; to the Warrior, for strength; to the e, fuidance. When these prayers went unanswered, she found herself whispering to the old gods of the North, the nameless gods Brandon had kept.

  "If you hear me," she would murmur in the darkest hours of night, "if any part of his father's blood calls to you... save him. Save our son."

  A moon and a half had passed, marking time only by the rise and fall of Edric's chest, each breath a battle won against the burning in his blood. The household moved in hushed whispers, and even Allyria's practiced posure cracked, her tears falling freely whehought none could see.

  Then, on a m when the dawn paiarfall's pale stones pink and gold, Edric's fever finally broke. Ashara had dozed in her chair, her hand still g his, when she felt his fiwitch. His skin, wheouched it, was cool for the first time in weeks.

  "Water," he croaked, his voice rough from disuse, but blessedly lucid.

  The days that followed were a slow crawl back to life. He could manage only spoonfuls of soup at first, then slowly progressed to mashed fruits and soft bread soaked in broth. His ourdy frame had grown thin, the wolf pup reduced to a shadow of himself. Yet each small victory - a few more spoonfuls eaten, a longer moment of wakefulness - made Ashara's heart soar.

  "The worst has passed," Maester Arron decred, though his eyes remairoubled. "But my dy... such fevers often leave their mark."

  Ashara uood his meaning. Edric had not spoken beyond asking for water or food, had not mentiohe strange dreams that had made him cry out in his fever. His grey eyes, once so quid bright, now held a distant look, as though part of him still wandered in whatever realm the fever had taken him to.

  "He will ime," Wyl seled, helping to ge his sweat-soaked sheets. "The blood of the First Men runs strong in him, my dy. Stronger perhaps than we knew."

  Ashara watched her son drift in and out of sleep, noting how his hair had darkened again during his illness, how his cheekbones seemed sharper, more Northern. The fever had burned away some of his childish softness, leaving behiures that reminded her painfully of Brandon.

  "Rest now, my wolf pup," she whispered, daring to stroke his hair while he slept. "e back to us in your own time."

  The maesters were hopeful now, speaking of recovery rather than survival. Yet Ashara couldn't shake the feeling that whatever battle had raged in Edric's blood had ged him fually. The boy who woke might not be the same one who had begged for stories of the Sword of the M, who had pyed at knights in the courtyard.

  But he lived. For now, that was enough.

  Outside his window, the evening star appeared, bright against the darkening sky. A cool wind blew in from the Summer Sea, carrying away the st of the si's heat. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled one final time - or perhaps it was just the wind, singing its own prayer of thanksgiving to gods both old and new.