Sleep came in fits, a restless fog that dragged James—or Edric, as they called him now—between confusion and fleeting clarity. Each time his eyes fluttered open, the world hit him hard: torchlight stabbing at his vision, the sharp bite of herbs in the air, and the suffocating press of blankets pinning his tiny, useless limbs. His adult mind roared to move, to shout, to demand answers, but his body betrayed him—small, frail, a traitor's cage.
He'd fought in deserts, wrestled men twice his size, built machines that laughed at gravity. Now he couldn't even roll over. The indignity burned, a quiet fire in his chest.
The room had grown hushed. The sobbing woman—Lady Lysa, he'd pieced together—was gone, replaced by a low murmur of voices. He squinted, forcing his blurry eyes to focus. Cold stone walls loomed around him, softened by tapestries he couldn't quite decipher. A wooden cradle held him, its edges carved with faint shapes—birds, maybe?—and beyond it, shadows shifted in the flickering light
A woman's voice cut through the haze, warm but steady. "He's a quiet one, ain't he, m'lady? Not a peep since the birth." She stepped closer, and Edric caught her in his sight: sturdy, late twenties, with dark brown hair yanked into a messy bun. Her woolen dress was stained with sweat, and her rough hands adjusted his swaddling with a quick, practiced touch. Maddy, he decided to call her in his head—short for something, probably. It suited her no-nonsense air.
Lady Lysa's reply came sharp, edged with exhaustion. "He's alive, Maddy. That's enough. My Edric… my little falcon." Her auburn hair spilled over her shoulder as she hovered near the cradle, blue eyes flicking between him and the maid. Her gaze pressed down on him, intense and unsteady, but Edric stayed still, his old instincts wrestling with the need to play newborn.
Maester Colemon spoke next, his gravelly voice calm from somewhere to the left. "He seems healthy enough, Lady Lysa. Strong limbs, clear eyes—but I'm troubled he hasn't cried yet. A babe should wail; it's a sign of vigor." The lean man, mid-thirties at most, stood with a chain clinking against his robe, his dark hair catching the torchlight as he scratched notes on parchment.
Edric's mind snagged on the words—healthy, hasn't cried—but they spun in a sluggish fog. He knew he should cry, scream, do something to blend in. But forcing it? Absurd. Fifty years of barking orders and throwing punches, and now he was supposed to wail like a child? He tested the waters with a small grunt, barely a whisper.
Maddy's head tilted, a faint smile tugging her lips. "There, see? He's got a voice," she said, patting his belly lightly. "Just a thoughtful one, like the maester said."
"Rest easy, Lady Lysa," Colemon added, stepping back. "We'll watch him closely. A quiet babe may simply be a thoughtful one."
Lysa's fingers brushed his cheek, warm and trembling. "He's perfect," she whispered, almost to herself. "Jon will be so pleased when he returns." Jon. The name flickered in Edric's head—kings, knights, wars?—but it wouldn't stick. Another thread from a story he couldn't place.
Then came the awkwardness he couldn't dodge. Maddy's hands shifted him, peeling back the swaddling, and a cold draft bit his skin. He tensed inside as she clucked her tongue, muttering about a mess he hadn't even noticed he'd made. "Little lord's already keeping me busy," she said with a chuckle, wiping him down with a damp cloth.
Edric's adult mind recoiled—Christ, this is humiliating—but he forced his face slack, his body limp. Speaking was a no-go; a talking babe would spark panic, or worse, mark him as a freak. So he lay there, silent, letting Maddy's chatter wash over him.
"—heard the king's been in a right mood lately," she was saying, her voice dipping low as she worked. "Something about those Targaryen brats across the sea. Makes you wonder what's coming, don't it?"
"Enough of that," Lysa snapped, her tone a whipcrack. "Tend to my son and leave the gossip to the washerwomen."
Maddy ducked her head, mumbling an apology, and Edric felt the cradle sway as she wrapped him up again. The king. Targaryens. Words that should mean something, teasing the edges of his memory, but they slipped away. His eyelids sagged, this tiny body dragging him down despite his will to stay sharp. Newborns slept a lot, he told himself. He'd need the rest to unravel this mess.
The voices blurred into a distant hum as sleep took him again, stranding him in a world he didn't yet understand.