Halmar had never heard the walls groan like this. The wind struck the castle's ancient stone as a knight might strike another's shield in the thick of battle. The ivy clinging to the northern wall had stiffened in the cold, so frozen that even the gale could not stir it.
The wolves had been howling for hours now, deep in the wood beyond the walls. Not at random — not the idle cry of beasts — but as though something unseen had drawn their attention, something that did not belong to the night.
Up in the high tower chamber, behind walls thick as a man is tall, serving girls rushed to and fro with sweat-slicked palms and trembling fingers. The room was stifling with heat, yet the breath of every soul within it hung before their lips in small, pale clouds. And there, amid thin sheets soaked through with sweat and blood, Princess Lyanna lay with her teeth clenched and her hands locked around the edge of the bed, fighting.
"One more." she gasped to the midwife, her voice spent to a whisper. "Just one more."
The eldest midwife — a stooped, grey-haired woman, long hardened by her years — drew her hand across Lyanna's brow. The skin beneath her palm burned like fever, though her own fingers were cold as the dead.
"You will, my lady." the old woman said, her voice rough but steady, her lips curved in a thin smile. "Stark blood is not known for surrender. Push when I tell you."
By the window, the glass and its frame had turned to ice.
It was as though the very stones of the castle were drawing inward. The howl of the wind clawed at the midwives from within, burrowing through the walls to find them.
Two guards stood before the door of the bedchamber, their hands wrapped tight around the hilts of their swords, as though steel might offer some comfort on a night such as this. Across the corridor, at the head of the stair, stood Kaelverion — lord of House Targaryen, his fists clenched at his sides, his brow slick with sweat.
The maester stepped out of the bedchamber. His robes bore the stains of sweat and blood.
"How does she fare?" Kaelverion's voice was quiet, but there was iron in it — iron enough that the fear in every eye around him eased, just a little, at the sound.
"It is a long night, m'lord." Maester Halmar replied, his voice frayed with exhaustion. "The child is stubborn. It does not wish to come."
The walls of the tower trembled.
Somewhere far off, a wolf loosed a sudden, sharp cry. Kaelverion's gaze snapped toward the sound, then back to the maester with the same swiftness. "What ails these wolves..."
"Do what you can. The rest..." Kaelverion turned to look at the wall, as though he might see through the castle's stone. "The rest the gods will decide."
Halmar held his hands above the hearth and still felt cold. He had served through too many winters to count, but a wind like this — a wind like this he had never heard. From within came Lyanna's cry, sharp as a blade driven into stone. There was no more time for prayers.
The midwife called from the doorway: "Maester Halmar — we have need of you." And with that, Halmar turned and went back inside, pulling the door shut behind him.
Within, the fire in the hearth and the flames of the torches shuddered all at once. One candle snuffed itself out, as though an unseen breath had found it.
"This wind..." muttered one of the younger midwives. "It carries ill omens."
"The wind carries nothing." the old woman snapped. "Cease your foolishness, or you'll find yourself out on the street. Hold that basin steady, and pay attention."
Lyanna gasped for air, her sweat-drenched hair plastered flat against her temples.
"Kaelverion..." she whispered, half-lost to the world. "Where is he?"
"Outside, my lady." the old midwife answered. "As men ought to be."
The maester settled at the foot of the bed and examined her with practiced, unhurried hands. The sweat on his brow gathered slowly, rolled down to the tip of his nose, and fell.
Halmar's hand went still against Lyanna's belly. His face went pale.
The skull was not where it should have been.
Cold moved through him, from crown to heel.
"By the Gods..." he breathed, his voice low and dire. "It is not coming headfirst."
The old midwife raised her head sharply. "What did you say, Maester?"
At that same moment, the ice sealed over the window's glass cracked. Icicles split from the frame above it. One midwife murmured a prayer. Another simply stepped back.
Halmar felt a tremor pass through the stone of the castle wall. Not like an earthquake — more like the hum of a distant bowstring, low and cold.
"Maester!" he called through the door. "If there is trouble—"
"No Winter has yet taken a Stark girl in childbed. We shall not let this be the first."
"Hot water. Now!" Halmar called. One of the midwives ran.
Halmar turned to the old woman. "Fetch a rope for the princess to hold." She nodded.
"I must turn the child," he said grimly. "Otherwise it will suffocate."
"Where is that water?!"
At that moment a soldier entered, a length of rope in his hands.
"Tie it to either side of the bed," Halmar told him. The hot water arrived close behind.
"My lady. This will hurt — I will not pretend otherwise. I must turn the child. Take hold of the rope, and bite down on this."
He reached inside. He tried to turn the child. It did not move. Lyanna screamed. The maester's arm was bloody to the elbow.
He reached again, firmer this time. The princess was fading, growing distant.
"Quickly! She must not faint!" he called to the midwives.
This time, he felt the child shift.
"Now, my lady. One great push!" Halmar called out.
Lyanna bore down, a great cry tearing from her. Her body seized and narrowed to a single point of pain — throbbing, burning, and yet somehow piercingly cold, as though the ice and snow pressed against the outer walls had found their way somehow between her ribs.
"Cold..." she breathed. "So cold..."
A midwife threw another blanket over her. Another fed the fire.
"You push. The cold — leave the cold to us."
Halmar set one hand upon Lyanna's belly and used the other to gauge the child's position.
"The child! I can feel it moving!" he called. "Quickly — more warm water!" he told the youngest midwife.
All at once, the wolves fell silent outside. The quiet settled over the towers like the snow that had been falling for weeks. Even the wind held its breath.
"Now! Now, my lady — one more, and with everything you have!" the old midwife cried.
Lyanna screamed. It was a sound that held the full weight of a woman's pain and, beneath it, something wild — something that belonged to wolves and winter and the old dark places of the North. She put the last of herself into it.
On the next breath, a thin, sharp sound cut through the frozen silence.
The child's cry was strange to Maester Halmar's ears — thin and unsteady, as a newborn's cry ought to be — yet he heard no fear in it. The old midwife gathered the child into her arms and wrapped it close.
"A boy!" she announced.
"Quickly — fetch the lord!" the maester called to the guards, relief breaking through his voice.
The infant's skin was fair — not white, not the pale of dawn, but clean and clear, like freshly fallen snow on a windless morning. His eyes, when they caught the light, were a deep, consuming indigo. His small chest rose and fell, rose and fell.
Kaelverion and the guards came in. For a moment he did not know where to go first. Then he went to Lyanna, took her hand in both of his, and said: "You were magnificent, my love." He pressed his lips to her knuckles.
Then he crossed to the midwife and the child she held, and she laid the boy carefully into his arms. As Kaelverion drew the infant close, the fire in the hearth surged — a brief, bright flare — and at its edge something flickered blue. Far away, the wolves cried out once more, but there was no desperation in it now. It sounded, if anything, like a greeting.
"Maester — is he well?" Kaelverion asked, his voice unsteady.
"Sound as an acorn," the maester said, with quiet pride.
Kaelverion stepped back to Lyanna and laid the child upon her chest. "What shall we call him?" he asked.
"Ae... Aeghal," Lyanna whispered, spent to the last.
"Then it is settled. Rest now," Kaelverion answered.
Halmar glanced at the window. The frost that had formed across the glass seemed to hold shapes within it — marks, like letters in some tongue he could not name. He stepped closer, squinting — and as he did, they vanished, one by one, as though they had never been.
Outside, the storm had eased a little. The snow still fell, but no longer drove. The howling of the wolves had faded, as though they had done what they came to do.
It was only then that Halmar noticed the blood dripping from his hands.