Morning rose from the sea with no real will to be day. Fog wrapped Runestone like a stubborn cloak and the wind swept across the battlements, making the banners slap each other with a dry sound. A guard rubbed his gloved hands and scanned the yard. Firewood arriving, buckets of water passing from hand to hand, the blacksmith waking the anvil. Nothing new, nothing pretty. Only what was necessary. That is how the castle has always existed. By enduring.
Inside, the stones still held the night's warmth. Rhea Royce walked the corridor as if she did not need permission. Cloak clasped at the neck, hair tied without flower or ribbon, eyes forward. The master-at-arms, Ser Myles Redfort, inclined his head as she passed. The captain of the guard, Loryn Sunderlake, did not bother. Rhea did not expect reverence. She expected obedience. The head nurse, Melyne, opened the door from within and warm air spilled out, carrying a thread of herbal scent.
I was already awake. The ravens had announced themselves early and the castle answered in its usual way. Listening had become my favorite sport. Listen and keep. You would be amazed how much important stuff people say when they think a baby is only cloth and noise.
Rhea came to the cradle. She did not wait for anyone to hand me over. She reached in and lifted me like someone who knows exactly where to set the weight. She straightened the blanket under my neck, turned my face away from the draft coming through the shutter, and spoke low, without ceremony, as if confirming an entry in a ledger only she reads.
"Maevor."
The word landed clean. No drum, no trumpet. Maevor. I stopped watching the flame and looked at her. No silly smile, no ill-timed tears. Attention only. I had stopped being a pronoun. No longer just he, the boy, the son. Now I had a shape other people's mouths could hold. It is ridiculous how that organizes the world and the intentions in it.
Rhea repeated it, testing the music of the name in her own voice. "Maevor." As if to seal the choice, she brushed the backs of her fingers against my chest. A touch of assessment and possession. Not the kind that smothers. The kind that accepts responsibility. Melyne, beside her, let out a short, satisfied breath. The younger maid bit her lip to keep from smiling. In the hall, Ser Myles said something to Loryn, and I heard my name for the first time outside the room. Maevor. Good. Now they could talk about me without pointing.
I thought, Thanks, fate. A proper noun right out of the gate. Makes life easier.
Rhea let me rest near the fire. The new blankets itched less. The brazier burned with more purpose. Maester Edric was called in and checked my eyes, my hands, my tone, running the checklist of someone who loves being right.
"Healthy," he said.
Rhea answered with a near-lazy nod, but I saw the tension leave her shoulders for half a second. That was the smile she allowed herself.
"Maevor eats well," she said to no one in particular. "And he watches."
I grabbed her finger by reflex and by choice. Two seconds were enough for Melyne to tell the other maid I already had "a prince's grip." I preferred "the coordination of someone who does not want to die early," but every era has its vocabulary.
From then on Runestone started pronouncing my name into the day. "Maevor's room." "Maevor's blankets." "Maevor's milk." The word thickened, and with the thickness came expectation. People treat what they can name as something with a destiny. Good to remember. Better to use.
...
I had a plan. Nothing grand. No noble arcs. No changing the world before I can stand. The plan fit my size. Observe without looking like I am observing. Shape routines without looking like I am giving orders. Train people without them realizing they are being trained. Do it all with the patience of someone who has seen worse missions.
The body helped more than I expected. Not a miracle, just efficiency. I held my head a bit longer, tracked movement with my eyes, responded to certain voices with a calm that saved Melyne work. If they left me near a cold wall, I fussed. If they moved me closer to the brazier, I went quiet. I ran that pattern for a whole morning until it became a statistic, not a coincidence. The next day, without discussion, my cradle lived more in the center of the room than against stone. Problem solved with three-second cries and twenty seconds of silence.
Melyne got the hang of it. Rhea did too. The maester, pleased with my "sleep progress," logged the victory for himself on the parchments and left with the easy vanity of a man who believes in the science of herbs. To be fair, he helped. He kept clean hands, and in this place that already deserved applause.
I could have ruined the game by showing I was too clever. Stare at someone too long. React to a sound I should not recognize. Mimic expressions. Simple tricks, but tricks invite curiosity. Curiosity invites chatter. Chatter invites speculation. In Westeros, speculation creates ghosts where there was only caution. So no. No skipping steps. Only looking a little calmer, a little more attentive, a little easier to please. You would be surprised how much power that gives a baby.
Melyne discovered I liked watching the fire. Not for the light, but for the sound. The wood popped in a rhythm I could count in my head. Rhythm is comfort. Rhythm is predictability. In this body predictability is worth gold. If I fell asleep to the brazier, Melyne slept too, and everyone won. Rhea noticed the pattern without looking straight at me.
"Bring drier wood. The smoke irritates his eyes."
It was not kindness. It was strategy. She wanted a baby who slept. I wanted a lady who ran the house well. An unspoken deal.
I had my first tours of Runestone in Melyne's arms. Nothing theatrical. Kitchen, corridor, hall. Smells, voices, frictions, habits. The kitchen felt like another fortress inside the fortress. Too much heat, too much noise, a lot of people handling dangerous things like it was nothing. The cook, Bartram, looked at pots the way some men look at people they need to win over. He spoke to Melyne without looking at me, but loud enough for me to hear.
"If the wind turns south, close the passage behind the kitchen. The smell of fish climbs and no one sleeps."
I thought, These people speak my language when I say logistics.
In the hall, hunting tapestries. Lean hounds, hard faces, oversized leaves. Nothing too gilded, nothing too noble. Work on display. I preferred it that way. Things that look perfect often hide hollowness.
Ser Myles came up to Melyne as we passed. His eyes are the kind that do not betray the owner. They look and keep. No baby voice, thank the gods.
"This is Maevor," he said, mostly to himself.
Inside, I thanked him for not shrinking my name. Melyne said I did not cry for nothing and Ser Myles smiled with half his mouth.
"He will save us cloth."
I laughed inside. Dry humor is the best kind.
Loryn made his rounds. He did not stop in front of me. He stopped at the window and used the thick glass as a mirror to check where I was. He did not need to like me. He needed to be loyal to the work. He was. If it were up to him, no chain would rust through. Men like that are underestimated until the day they save the house.
The maester appeared with a bundle of notes. Checked my mouth, my eyes, my fingers. Wrote it down. Melyne said I was reaching for the breast with more strength. The maester made that small sound only list lovers make when pleased. Rhea heard, did not smile, and said it was good. Two syllables are enough when a house has learned how to translate its lady.
By the fourth morning of touring, Melyne carried me into the yard for one minute. A minute is a lot when you measure the world through skin. The wind hits different without walls to contain it. I felt salt, cold, the rough bite that comes from the sea, and a new sound. Gulls. They screamed as if they had opinions on everything. I followed them with my eyes until they were gone. Melyne chuckled.
"Look at that. The boy tracks birds."
Loryn answered from across the yard without coming closer.
"Then he will learn early not to track men in a hurry."
I would have shaken his hand for that.
In the afternoon Rhea took me to a high window where the sea sits above the rooftops. She spoke without poetry, which made it land harder.
"You will learn to read that."
"That" was the sea, the sky, the wind hitting from one side and not the other, the thicker foam along a piece of coast. She said when the eastern line brightens and the south closes, boats return late. When the roar of the sea changes pitch, the rocks stay wet longer and people slip on the stairs. A lesson and a warning. Rhea does not promise safety. She teaches you not to die stupidly. Better that way.
I did not see Daemon. Not once. Not a shadow. Not a message. Not an object yelling remember me. Westeros loves to romanticize absences, but the truth is simple. Sometimes the one who does not come says more than the one who arrives loudly. I did not waste a second thinking about it. I logged the pattern. One day, when the absence becomes a problem or an advantage, the label will be ready.
And Viserys, Jaehaerys, King's Landing, Dragonstone. Not yet. The castle was breathing with itself and that served me. The fewer eyes from outside, the more time I had to become a habit here. The big world can wait a little, just a little.
...
I liked Rhea's quiet posture. It was not hollow coldness. It was economy of motion. She came in, washed her hands, picked me up, asked Melyne half a dozen precise questions, made two small decisions, and left. Two small decisions a day, for months, build higher walls than any proclamation. If something was out of place, she corrected it. If something worked, she did not meddle. If someone was sick, she called the maester and also ordered water boiled, windows opened, furs laid out in the sun. The things tradition has always known and science will one day claim.
Once, Melyne came back from the well with a sore wrist. Rhea did not ask how much it hurt. She took a strip of linen, wrapped it tight, told her not to lift anything for two days, and reassigned the work. Simple. Effective. The maester dabbed on a pungent salve and left satisfied that he had fixed something. Everyone content. I kept these micro-events like coins. They buy loyalty when you need it.
Visitors began to appear, the internal sort. Two ladies in fine wool, a distant relation with a cloak too clean for a place where the rain slants sideways, a squire eager to be a knight before his time. All came for the same purpose. See the baby, judge the baby, tell someone they saw the baby. I kept my first-night promise. Silence when noise does not help and a look at the right moment. A well-timed look beats two smiles in the wrong place. The lady in fine wool said I had "Valyrian eyes." The other said I was "quiet as the stone of the house." Ser Myles, listening from a distance, murmured to Loryn, "Better silence than the wrong shout." Loryn agreed with his chin.
As for me, I was getting used to the simple pleasure of existing without a vest, without a radio, without a checklist of imminent death. I had hunger, cold, sleep. Things that do not require reports. I had a mother who did not make speeches but did the work. I had Melyne, who read me better than many grown people ever read my face. I had Loryn, who treated my window like a gate. And I had a name. Maevor. Say it aloud and it plants a pillar in your chest. Whisper it and it acts like a password.
At the end of a week I woke in the middle of the night and the room was almost dark. The hearth whispered, Melyne breathed heavy, and Rhea slept upright again, her hand stretched toward me. I watched the shadows on the ceiling and thought you can be grateful without being a fool. You can plan without turning to stone. You can start small without forgetting the size of the map.
I was already reading the rhythms of the castle. Two pulls on the well bucket followed by lighter footsteps meant the water was colder and the brazier needed tending. Short and long strikes from the smith meant he had switched from blades to horseshoes. Louder ravens than usual often meant a messenger. I have never been superstitious. I am a statistician with a sense of humor. Statistically, excited ravens mean news.
On the second clear day they were restless. On the third a rider in a wet cloak reached the inner gate. I did not join the conversation, but I heard enough. A messenger from the Highlands, a matter for my lady, nothing urgent, no black banner. While Loryn handled the practical side, Rhea did something I liked. She ordered the man fed first. Information lands softer on a full stomach. Not kindness. Intelligence.
When she returned to the room she looked out the window and said, as if to the wind, "The sea has changed its voice." Melyne answered with a sound that would be laughter in other houses. Here it was only agreement. I settled in the cradle, content with how much of the world fit inside that room. An entire world framed by the habits of a fortress that knows how to last.
Rhea's hand passed lightly over my hair and she repeated without needing an audience, "Maevor."
I took a deep breath within the limits of a newborn and thought it was a good name to hear. Names are silent promises. Here, promises turn to steel or to knots in the throat. I would take steel.
The afternoon slid by in routine. Melyne changed my clothes with near-military efficiency. The maester brought Rhea an herbal broth and pretended he did not enjoy checking whether she drank it. She did. Ser Myles appeared quickly and left even faster, a man who knows that showing up can be a duty. Loryn checked my window again. The blacksmith decided he liked the anvil's song at that hour. I like it too. It reminds me that useful things are born by taking a beating.
At day's end Rhea carried me to the highest window in the corridor. The wind was sharp, but the evening light had beaten the fog. The sea looked like metal. Rhea spoke low, for me and for the place.
"You will learn the voices of all this, Maevor. The wind, the stones, the people, and yourself."
I had no words to answer, but my hand closed on her cloak and stayed. She accepted that as enough.
We returned. The brazier burned without drama. Melyne tucked my blankets again, as if setting me at the center of a map. Rhea stood for a minute, watching and calibrating, then snuffed half the candles with her fingertips.
"Sleep," she said.
It was not an order or a request. It was an agreement.
I closed my eyes. The castle breathed with me. I, who had been many things with little name, fell asleep as Maevor, with the rare comfort of knowing that for now it was enough. Tomorrow I would watch more, adjust one small thing here and another there. Maybe prod Loryn into locking a neglected latch with a timely grunt. Maybe let Melyne discover I prefer the quiet of the kitchen to the noise of the hall. Nothing big. Not yet.
I have time. I have patience. I have memory. Now I have a name. Enough to start bending the world a few millimeters a day without it noticing.
When I woke again it was still night. The fire had gone to embers. A lone raven spoke to the dark. Three short notes, one long. I smiled inside. He had his routine too. We are alike, the raven and I. Watchers in high places, waiting for the exact moment to spread our wings.
The rest can wait for tomorrow. Tonight I will learn a bit more about sleeping. Tonight I will keep the feeling of having been named into use. Maevor to Melyne, to Loryn, to Ser Myles, to Maester Edric, and most of all to Rhea. And to myself.
The world outside may be vast. For now, mine is this room, this window, this brazier, and these people. It is a good beginning. Better than some of my restarts. Honestly, it is already a little fun.
Yes, fun. The quiet fun of moving pieces with small fingers and thinking far ahead.