"My Queen..." the midwife whispered to the unconscious Cersei, her voice shaking. "This... this..." She fell to her knees, clutching the child to her chest as if holding a sacred relic. "Finally... a prince."
A collective gasp of relief swept through the room. The other midwives immediately sprang into action, tending to the unconscious Queen, cleaning the afterbirth, and preparing the hot water and linens.
Grand Maester Pycelle felt his old heart skip a beat. A prince! The realm was saved. The Lannister legacy was secured. He would send the ravens to Casterly Rock immediately.
"Bring him here, woman. Quickly now," Pycelle commanded, stepping forward and holding out his hands. His voice carried the authoritative weight of the Citadel. "Let me examine the royal heir."
The midwife hurriedly wrapped the quiet infant in a rich, crimson swaddling cloth embroidered with the golden lion of Lannister and the crowned stag of Baratheon, and gently placed him into the Grand Maester's arms.
Pycelle smiled, looking down at the savior of the Seven Kingdoms. But as the flickering torchlight fell across the boy's features, the Maester's frail smile froze. His bushy white eyebrows drew together in a deep, troubled frown.
What in the Seven Heavens...?
The child was exceptionally heavy, radiating a warmth that felt like holding a stone left out in the midday sun. But it was not the weight that made Pycelle's blood run cold. It was the boy's appearance.
First, there was the hair. Pycelle knew the secrets of the royal bedchamber. He knew of the Queen's golden twin. He had expected—and secretly prepared to cover up—another child with the brilliant blonde hair of the Westerlands. But this child's hair was a deep, midnight black.
The Baratheon seed is strong, Pycelle thought, a wave of relief washing over him. The King would never question this child's legitimacy.
But as Pycelle looked closer, his relief shattered. The black hair was not uniform. The ends of the soft infant locks were tipped in a startling, vibrant crimson, the color of fresh blood or dying embers. Pycelle had studied the lineages of the great houses for decades. No Baratheon, no Lannister, no family in the known history of Westeros possessed such a strange, unnatural trait.
And then, the Maester saw the mark.
Pycelle's breath hitched in his throat. He brought a trembling, liver-spotted finger down toward the left side of the infant's forehead. Starting just above the brow and jaggedly sweeping down toward the child's left ear was a bizarre, birthmark-like pattern. It was a deep, angry crimson, shaped like licking flames or crashing waves.
It did not look like a normal blemish. It looked like a brand. It looked... magical.
Pycelle's mind raced with terrifying implications. The lords of Westeros were superstitious. They feared the unnatural. A prince born with strange, red-tipped hair and a demonic, fiery crest burned into his flesh would not be seen as a blessing. The whispers would start immediately. They would call him cursed. They would say the Queen had dabbled in dark blood magic, or that the Lord of Light had marked the boy for some apocalyptic purpose.
The infant prince blinked, his dark, impossibly deep eyes locking onto Pycelle's. There was no fear in those eyes, no infantile confusion. Only a hollow, infinite calmness that made the Grand Maester feel as though his very soul was being laid bare and judged by a god.
Pycelle swallowed hard, his hands shaking so violently he nearly dropped the child. What is this thing? he thought, terror gripping his heart. This is no ordinary prince.
A low groan broke the silence.
On the bed, Cersei Lannister stirred. The milk of the poppy had not yet been administered, and the sheer force of her willpower dragged her back from the edge of unconsciousness. She felt hollowed out, her body battered and utterly exhausted, but the fierce, territorial instincts of a mother overrode her pain.
She opened her green eyes, squinting against the torchlight. The room was bustling, but she did not hear the cries of her baby. Panic, sharp and cold, pierced through her exhaustion.
She turned her head and saw the huddled, whispering forms of the midwives and the Grand Maester standing near the hearth, their backs to her. They were holding a bundle of crimson silk. They were keeping him from her.
Her legendary paranoia immediately flared to life. What are they hiding? Is he deformed? Is he dead? Are they plotting to take him away from me?
Gritting her teeth against a wave of agonizing cramps, Cersei slammed her elbows into the mattress. With a sheer, terrifying display of willpower, she pushed herself up against the headboard. A midwife rushed forward, alarmed, trying to press her back down.
"Your Grace, please, you must rest! You have torn—"
"Get your filthy hands off me!" Cersei snarled, her voice raspy but dripping with lethal venom. The midwife recoiled as if she had been slapped.
Cersei locked her burning green eyes onto the back of the Grand Maester's robes. She was the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, the daughter of the Lion, and no one would keep her blood from her. She drew in a ragged breath, summoning every ounce of her remaining strength, and spoke with an authority that left no room for hesitation or defiance.
"Grand Maester."
Pycelle flinched, turning slowly to face the bed, his face pale and slick with nervous sweat.
Cersei extended a trembling, blood-stained hand toward him, her gaze as sharp and uncompromising as Valyrian steel.
"Give my child here. I want to see him now."