The wail softened into a trembling sob. James felt himself lifted, his small body cradled against something warm and shaking. His vision blurred, a watery haze, but he could just make out a face—a woman gazing down at him. Auburn hair framed her sharp features, blue eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Her voice quavered as she murmured, "My sweet boy," her breath catching in her throat.
Her face was striking—worn by exhaustion, yet softened by something deeper. A pang stirred in James's chest, faint and unplaceable. Familiar, maybe, but too distant to hold onto. His lungs burned, tight and strange, as if they didn't know how to work right. He tried to move, to twist his head and look around, but his limbs flailed—weak, useless, alien.
Panic clawed at him. Where am I? The grocery store, the robber, the gunshot—it was all gone. Vanished. In its place was this suffocating sense of being small, swaddled, powerless. His eyes adjusted slowly, the dim light flickering into focus. Stone walls rose around him, cold and rough, draped with heavy tapestries that swayed in the torchlight. The air carried a sharp mix of herbs, wax, and something metallic—blood, he realized dimly. Birth blood.
His gaze darted, desperate for answers. Figures moved nearby, their voices a low hum beneath the woman's quiet weeping. Nothing made sense. A man stepped into view—lean, upright, no older than thirty. Dark hair cropped short, a neat beard framing a thin, sharp face. His eyes were keen, assessing, and a robe hung from his shoulders, a chain clinking softly with every step. Metal links glinted in the faint light.
Maester. The word floated up in James's mind, a stray thread from a story he'd read a hundred times. It hovered there, unmoored, teasing him. "Maester Colemon," a soft voice called, and the man turned, nodding to someone out of sight. Colemon. The name echoed faintly, a whisper from some half-forgotten page, but it refused to click.
The Maester leaned closer, peering down at him with a furrowed brow. "He seems healthy enough," he said, his voice gravelly but steady. "Strong limbs, clear eyes—but I'm troubled, my lady. The babe hasn't cried yet. A babe should wail at birth; it's a sign of vigor."
The woman's grip tightened, her fingers trembling against his cheek. "He's alive, isn't he?" she replied, her voice breaking. "That's all that matters, Maester Colemon. My Edric… my little falcon." Her touch was warm on his newborn skin, but her words sent a shiver of confusion through him. Edric? His name now, apparently.
His tiny heart thudded faster. Falcon? The word tugged at something—mountains, maybe?—but it slipped away, buried under exhaustion and fog. He strained to hear more, to claw through the chaos in his head.
"Rest easy, Lady Lysa," Colemon said, his tone softening as he stepped back. "We'll watch him closely. A quiet babe may simply be a thoughtful one."
Lady Lysa. The name drifted through James's fading thoughts, heavy with meaning he couldn't grasp. It felt like something he'd seen before, inked on a page, but it slipped from his grip as his eyelids drooped. Stone walls, a Maester, a woman named Lysa—none of it fit together. Not yet.
His body, this fragile, tiny thing, pulled him toward sleep. He couldn't fight it. Newborns slept a lot, didn't they? He'd figure it out later. For now, the world faded to black, leaving only questions swirling in the dark.