The room smelled of sweat and iron and crushed citrus peel, the last a poor attempt at sweetness. Heat pressed down from the low ceiling, heavy as a hand on the back of the neck, and the shutters rattled faintly where the sea breeze worried at them. Somewhere beyond the walls, gulls cried. Inside, a woman screamed.
Maester Ryon had long since abandoned his dry counsels and retreated to the corner with his hands clasped, lips moving in silent prayer. It was left to the women now, old Nymella with her gnarled fingers and sharp tongue, and young Talia whose eyes had gone too wide, whites showing all around. The girl knelt by the pallet, slick with blood to the elbows, murmuring encouragements that sounded more like pleading.
"Breathe," Nymella snapped. "Seven save us, girl, breathe or you'll tear yourself in two."
The woman on the pallet—barely more than a girl herself—arched her back and cried out again, a raw animal sound that scraped the throat. Sweat plastered her dark hair to her temples. Her nails dug into the thin mattress, clawing at it as if she meant to burrow through and escape the pain altogether.
The room was too small. It always felt too small when births went wrong. Walls crept closer. Air thickened. Nymella had delivered more babes than she could count, in Sunspear's shadow and far from it, in silk-draped chambers and mud huts alike. She'd learned early not to promise easy endings.
"Head's crowning," she said, brisk and unsentimental. "Push when I tell you. Now. Now, damn you—push."
The girl pushed.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then Nymella felt it beneath her hands, pressure, resistance, a sense of wrongness that made her jaw tighten. The babe was large. Too large. She'd known it would be, the moment she'd seen the girl's belly, stretched tight and round, skin shining like polished bronze.
"Again," she ordered. "Push again."
The girl sobbed, gathered what little strength she had left, and pushed.
The child came into the world with blood and a wet, slippery weight that nearly wrenched itself free of Nymella's grip. She cursed under her breath, hauling him out properly, and for a heartbeat the room went very still.
He did not cry.
Talia's breath hitched. "He?"
"Quiet." Nymella turned the child over, swift and practiced. He was enormous. Seven hells. Not just long, but broad already, shoulders thick, chest wide even slicked with blood and birth. His skin was darkened, flushed deep red, veins standing out beneath it like blue cords. She slapped his back once, hard.
Nothing.
Again, harder. "Come on, you stubborn little..."
The child drew in a breath so deep it seemed to hollow him, and then he screamed.
It was not the thin wail of most newborns. This was a sound with weight to it, a rough, roaring cry that filled the room and seemed to linger in the corners, vibrating against stone. Talia startled back with a little yelp. Even Maester Ryon looked up, eyes wide.
"Well," Nymella muttered. "A strong pair of lungs on him."
She laid the child briefly on the mother's chest. The girl's eyes fluttered open, unfocused, and her lips curved in a faint, dazed smile. "Is he…?"
"He's alive," Nymella said. "That's something."
Yet it did not last.
As a she turned she saw the bleeding did not stop. No matter what Nymella did, compressing, binding, praying it went on, slow and relentless. The girl's breaths grew shallow. Her hand, still resting weakly on the child's back, slid away.
"No," Talia whispered. "No, please"
Nymella closed the girl's eyes herself, firm and gentle both. She'd learned not to leave such things undone. The room felt even hotter now, the air thick with the copper stink of death.
Maester Ryon crossed himself. "I will inform..."
"Inform who?" Nymella cut in. "The prince?" She snorted softly, without humor. "He's not here."
Indeed, Prince Oberyn Nymeros Martell was very far from here, chasing something or someone or himself across the sands and seas, as he was wont to do. He had left no instructions. He rarely did when knocking up those he fancies.
The child cried on seemingly knowing his mothers passing.
Nymella cleaned him with brisk efficiency, wiping blood and fluid from his skin, checking fingers and toes. Ten and ten, all present. She paused at his hand. His grip closed around her finger with startling strength, tiny nails biting into her skin.
She hissed, tugging slightly. He did not let go.
"Well, aren't you a greedy little bastard," she murmured, more curious than alarmed.
The word slipped out easily. Bastard. It fit him as neatly as the swaddling cloth she wrapped him in. She handed him to Talia, who took him with shaking arms.
"What will we call him?" the girl asked, voice small.
Nymella hesitated. Names had power. Names placed a child in the world, for good or ill. This one is alone his mother passed, he needs strength.
"Deimos," she said at last, surprising herself. She'd heard the name once, from a sellsword out of Myr who drank too much and talked of foreign gods and wars. Fear, Terror and Dread. Talia frowned. "That's not Dornish, let alone westerosi."
"No," Nymella agreed. "It's not, yet it I feel it fits him all the same."
The child quieted as if listening, dark eyes opening for the first time. They were very dark, almost black, and they fixed on Nymella with unsettling focus.
Something twisted low in Nymella's belly. An old instinct, honed by years of babes, she had helped delivered, those marked for greatness or and those forgotten to the passages of time. As for what this boy would do she was not sure. "Wrap him tighter," she told Talia. "He'll catch cold."