Chapter Text
The smell turned her stomach.
The girl had lit incense in a desperate bid to sweeten the air, but made only made it worse.
Lavender and rose did not mix well with blood and sweat. It clung to the back of Sharra's throat, she could taste the foul air. The rot. The cloying perfume of death. It would no doubt cling to her memory, too. As it did her clothes and hair and skin.
The house shuddered, whether in agreement or from the storm, she knew not.
The storm had been building, rolling in from the sea, when her waters broke. It rattled the shutters and howled down the chimney. Thunder rolled overhead like drums of war, violent white light lit the room now and then. It was normal for Runestone to get storms but never like this.
The Stormland’s where true its name.
One strong wind and Sharra worried the roof would collapse in on them. It was all wrong. Everything had gone wrong. She should be giving birth in the safety of their castle walls, in her chambers, surrounded by care, not in this backwater home of a whore.
“I need more cloth,” the midwife muttered hoarsely. “Gods be good, girl. More cloth-”
“That’s all there is,” came a voice from behind Sharra. Thin and terrified.
The girl that leant them the house. A girl. Just a girl, no older than Rowena… Rowena. Sharra’s hands hang useless at her side, covered in blood. Hot and wet. Blood covered blood covering more blood.
Her little sister seemed smaller now, swallowed up in the bed. The once white sheets now red, like fresh blood spilt upon snow. Her sister was so full of fire, loud and bright and confident, but Sharra could barely call this being her sister. This was a shadow and it hurt. Watching the girl who would dance in the rain, barefoot with muddy skirts, be reduced to this… pale creature fighting for each breath.
“Sharra…”
She could scarcely speak.
Sharra moved at once.
She had been six when Rowena was born, old enough to remember most of it. Sharra remembered mother placing her little sister in her arms, fresh from the womb – red in the face, wailing and so, so small… like now. She’s yours Sharra, mother said tiredly. Protect her.
“I’m here sister,” Sharra said, sinking to her knees beside the bed. She gathered Rowena’s hand into both of hers, bringing it up to place a gentle kiss to her cold wrist. Cradling it. “I’m here, sister. I’m here.”
Rowena’s cracked lips trembled, fingers tightening slightly.
“Do you remember… remember the beach?”
Sharra closed her eyes for a moment. “’Course I do,” she said weakly. Tears burned at her eyes. “How could I forget? Father had forbid us after… after mother. But I took you anyway.”
"Only after I begged."
“We spent hours collecting shells and stones and sea-glass. We forgot the time and father sent out men to look for us. Had to rescue us from the tide,” Sharra gives a watery laugh. “Was one of the best days of my life. Got a whipping for puttin’ you in danger, I didn’t even care.”
“You always tried after mama,” the softness in her sister’s voice wounded her deeper than any blade. “You always tried and that… that was enough.”
But not enough for father, never enough. Idiot girl! She can almost hear her father’s roar. Almost feel the riding crop against her legs. Feel her own teeth biting at her hand, muffling her sobs. Knowing father would whip her harder if he heard. Stupid, selfish girl! Do something useful for once in your life!
“Please,” Sharra said, turning desperately to the midwife. “Surely, there must be something—”
“Nothin’ to be done,” the woman replied but not unkindly. Her eyes were old and tired, and certain. Certain of something Sharra would not, could not think about. “Babe came out wrong, tore her inside. All we can do is stay with her, mi’lady.”
Stay with her. As if that had ever been in question.
Rowena’s breath grew ragged, each breath a losing battle. Her tears fell then when she caught her sister’s stare, her blue eyes, so afraid and tired. Hands grasping at her older sister as she had when she was small and still frightened of the dark. Of storms.
“Listen to me,” Rowena whispered. “You must listen. T-There is no time.”
“We have enough time,” Sharra said fiercely. “‘Tis just a little blood, that’s all-”
“Sharra.” The name came sharper now, edged with urgency. “Don’t lie. I know I’m dying.”
The words struck harder than any blow.
Sharra bowed her head in shame, pressing Rowena’s hand to her brow. Her thin fingers were like ice. “I cannot bear it, sister. I-I can’t. Do not ask it of me”, she said, voice breaking despite her best efforts.
Rowena’s thumb brushed weakly against her skin. “I am afraid,” she admitted.
“I know,” Sharra croaks. “I am too.”
“Not for me,” Rowena’s eyes shifted and Sharra followed her gaze. “For him.”
In the corner next to the chimney, next to that terrified slip of a girl, was a crib. The child had been bathed and wrapped in cotton, though nothing could wipe the blood from his hands. The whelp had ripped her sister apart. The boy lay quiet, as if he understood what he’d done to his mother. Sharra winced at the thought of returning to father, Rowena’s babe in arms and no Rowena.
“Father will not look kindly upon him,” Sharra finally said.
Might even kill him, she kept that thought to herself.
Rowena’s grip tightened and Sharra’s brows rose at her sudden strength. Unease stirred within Sharra then at how lucid her sister became. “I know but there is something I-I need to tell you…” her sister breathed. “I-I should’ve sent for you earlier but I was afraid… ashamed… you would think less of me. But it doesn’t matter anymore, nothing matters...”
Sharra hushed her. “You are my sister. Fuck everything else, just tell me.”
“You will hate me,” Rowena sobs.
Thunder cracked overhead, so loud it seemed to split the world.
“I didn’t want to marry Lord Bolton… I didn’t… he scared me and father scared me so I ran the first chance I got. Stole father’s horse and left for the Kingsroad”, Rowena began, her gaze drifting as if she were thousands of miles away. “I-I didn’t even care what father would do to you, didn’t look back-”
“I remember,” Sharra nods.
She also remembered father’s fist. The crunch of her nose breaking, the hand ‘round her throat, choking the life from her. It was Lord Bolton’s hand, ironically enough, that stopped father from killing her.
Find her, he had ordered. Or you will not like the man I will become.
“All I wanted was to be free,” her sister went on. “I met a boy, Sharra. He was kind to me and sang so beautifully. H-he listened to me, like I mattered and said he dreamt of me. That he came to Westeros because of me. We spent all those moons together...”
Her lips curved in a faint, sorrowful smile. “He asked me to marry him. And I did.”
“Tell me his name,” Sharra demands. “Tell me.” And I’ll slit his throat.
“John,” Rowena said. “John. Said he was a wandering bard.” She looked away. “He knew about my family, about you, but grew quiet about his so, I looked through his things. I caught s-sight of something queer. He had a brooch, too fancy for a bastard boy."
Sharra’s heart sank.
“I asked about his pretty trinket,” her sister whispered. “Thought he stole it o-or perhaps bedded a wealthy lady. But then he spoke to me of dreams and blood and birthright, of how the crown wronged his family. By then it was too late… too late.”
The storm seemed to quieten, as if listening.
“Said he was sorry for lying to m-me and that he loved me so much, that he loved our child. But because he loved us he had to leave, to protect me,” she said. “His name was never John and he was no fiddler, ‘twas Daemon. Daemon Blackfyre.”
The name was like a curse. The midwife went still. The girl went still.
Sharra went still, her blood growing cold. The rebellion had been crushed when Sharra was a girl – but its shadow lingered. Hundreds bled for that name, thousands at Redgrass. And though the pretender king was dead, his bloodline was not. Goose-flesh prickled across her skin, if Daemon II was here, in Westeros, did that mean another rebellion? But he was little more than a lad himself, the age of her sister... Gods.
“You know what happened to his sons, his little sons,” Rowena’s voice trembled as she wept. “And the children that yet live, hunted. John is hunted. If they find out… they will come for him. They will look and t-they will know. H-he is my son and they will kill him all the same.”
“Hush,” Sharra coddles. “No one need ever know.”
Rowena shook her head, a small, despairing motion. “You do not understand.”
“Help me to,” Sharra pleaded.
“You are father’s heir. You will be Lady of Runestone soon enough and will have power. None would dare question you,” her sister says. “S-so I want you to claim him. Say he is yours. No one would look twice at a bastard from a small house, there are dozens.”
“No”, she said at once. “No, Rowena. Do not ask this of me.” Father will kill me.
“I must,” Rowena said, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes. “There is no one else.”
Sharra flinched, as though struck.
Sharra bowed her head, overcome. “Why did you not come home? Why make me chase you? Hunt you down like a dog?” she asked bitterly. Resentment reared its ugly head. “Did you really think that low of me? That I would forsake you? That I would let father hurt the boy? Hurt you?”
A sob tore itself from Sharra’s chest.
“I would give you anything, anything,” Sharra swore. “You know that.”
“I know,” Rowena whispered. “That is why I ask. I’m scared, Arra.”
Sharra lifted her head at the childhood name.
In that moment, she saw not the girl of ten and four before her but the child. The one she carried around on her back, pretending to be her dragon. The child she held when they watched mother be buried, their stillborn brother in her arms. The child she shielded from father’s disdain and drunken rage.
She saw all the years between, and all the years that would never be.
“The things I do for you.”
The words sealed Sharra’s fate and the boy’s.
“Swear it,” Rowena said, her voice fading once more.
“I swear it”, Sharra spoke in Old Tongue. The language of the very runes on their house’s sigil. Father had it bored into her skull, the scars on her hands proof of their house words. We Remember. “On my name, on my very life. On every fuckin’ god that hears me. He will live. I will protect him. I swear it, Rowena. I-I swear it.”
“Love him, please?” The child-like tone made Sharra’s vision blur.
Sharra shook her head in disbelief, “how could I not love him? He came from you.”
Rowena gave the faintest nod, a small smile. “Good…”
Her blue eyes fluttered shut, her little sister’s lips moved as if to speak but no sound came from her. The fingers threaded through hers went limp. Her chest rose twice, thrice, fell and then did not rise again. A strangled noise escaped Sharra before something sharper clawed up her throat.
The storm returned, wailing and roaring, or was it her?
Sharra lunged over her sister, pressing her forehead to Rowena’s cool one. Willing her own warmth to call her back. She cupped her sister’s face, shaking her. “NO! NO!” she screamed. “PLEASE! Please, no!”
But Rowena had gone where Sharra could not follow.
“Please come back to me,” Sharra wept. “Come back.”
The midwife approached after what felt like an eternity, murmuring to her in a soft useless tone. Her bony old fingers tried to pry her away from Rowena’s side. But the old woman was no match for Sharra, as she howls with the wind, holding her sister’s body close. No, no, no.
Then a child’s cry cut through her.
Sharra lifted her head, the sound cut through her grief like a blade.
The girl held him in her arms. Rocking him as tears dripped down her freckled face. Swear it, her sister’s voice was clawing at her. Swear it, swear it, swear it. Slowly, Sharra rose and stumbled across the room towards them. The boy was screeching, his pink face scrunched up.
“Do you wish to hold him, mi’lady?” The girl sniffled.
Sharra looks at him for a moment before nodding, once again with more certainty. She takes the babe gently from the girl’s trembling arms. The boy seemed to settle slightly, as if he knew his own blood were holding him. Tears fall freely as Sharra looks back at the bed, at the still form of her sister.
A memory takes hold then. Of a little girl giving her a toothless grin, holding a giant fish in her hands. Then slightly older, looking sullen and dressed in pink. The colour of flesh for her betrothed. She disappeared that very night.
The midwife worked quietly, ridding Rowena of the red.
As she watched the midwife draw the sheet over her sister’s face, Sharra came up with her half-truths for father. She found Rowena near Bronzegate, she was ill with sweating sickness and in her dying breath, wished to be buried at Evenfall with mother.
The lies came easily after that.
In her search for her sister, Sharra takes a lover. Brings forth a bastard son on the road.
Not a Blackfyre, a Storm.
She would bear their looks, their whispers, their contempt… let them all choke on it. Sharra was not afraid of them, it was her father’s wroth that made her belly churn. He would be furious that Rowena was at Evenfall. He hated the Tarth’s, refused to step foot on the island even when mother was alive… would her lie be enough? Or would it all be for nought? Would he take one look at the boy and know?
No, Sharra shook the thought away fiercely. NO.
I failed you in life. I will not fail you in death. I. Will. Not.
Sharra held the babe tighter, pressing her cheek to his head.
A bastard, the world will call him.
A whore, the world will call her.
It mattered not.
For he was all that remained of her sister.
And she would keep her oath.
─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───
The storm broke with dawn.
Yet it still lingered, a grey heavy weight upon the morning sky. Rain fell still but it was softer than last night’s rage. The house had gone quiet. The girl, Rosie, Sharra finally remembered, had helped the midwife clean and dress Rowena’s body.
Givin' 'er back some dignity, Rosie said. A lady's a lady, even in a whore house.
She did not, could not watch them do it.
Instead she stood by the narrow window, the child in her arms, staring at her reflection. A hollow-eyed, pale beast was wearing her face. The boy stirred against her breast, a small warmth in a world gone cold.
“You should rest, mi’lady,” the midwife urges gently. “Get some sleep.”
“I am not tired," she said. The voice was distant, as if it belonged to someone else.
The midwife seemed to hesitate. “The babe needs you, mi’lady. Needs you strong.”
At that, Sharra looked down.
The boy had screamed himself tired hours ago, his tiny face was now pressed against her. Little noises escaping him as he slept. One of his small hands had found its way free of the swaddling and now curled in the air, grasping weakly at nothing.
Or perhaps at her?
Sharra shifted him with care, supporting his head the way the old woman had shown her. The way her mother had shown her once. How mother trusted Sharra with Rowena, she did not know. The very thought of someone else touching him set her on edge. A tiny thing made up of breath and blind trust.
“Lady Sharra?” the midwife prompted once more.
Her gaze lingered on the boy’s face, tracing the faint curve of his cheek, the shape of his furrowed brow. There was nothing remarkable about him. No sign of dragon blood. Just a newborn child.
For now, a part of her warned.
“What’s the little lad’s name?” Rosie asks.
The question hung in the stale air.
This was supposed to be Rowena’s moment. It should be her holding and naming her boy. It felt too soon for Sharra and too grave a task. Names had weight. Names could bind the living to the dead, the present to the past.
Yet as she looked upon him, one came unbidden.
“Torrhen,” she said. “Torrhen Storm.”
The midwife inclined her head. “A strong name.”
Rosie smiled softly, “Suits his little grumpy face.”
It must, Sharra thought. Least I can do is give him a name that isn’t shit.
With a small breath, she turned from the window at last. The room was small but the bed loomed large in the corner. Her sister covered in a linen shroud, her blood-stained chemise lay in a heap on the floor. The basin of water beside her had gone pink and cold.
“Storm’s finally liftin’,” the girl says idly. “Thank the Crone’s saggy tits.”
The house fell silent after that. The girl tended to the hearth while the midwife moved quietly, gathering up her things. Sharra stared at the old woman, the deep lines on her face, the twitch of her mouth. She knew, as did the girl – who kept stealing glances at the boy.
They had seen and heard everything.
Her gaze fixed on the midwife’s hands then. Strong but shaking, red still under her nails. Someone will speak, someone always does. Sharra’s arms tightened around the child. He made a grunt of protest, scowling. Her heart began to hammer in her chest, blood pounding in her ears.
She could see it, men approaching Runestone, bearing the king’s sigil. Servants cut down, the castle aflame, doors thrown open, their roaring voices. The child torn from her arms, his little head dashed against the wall. His cries cut short. Blood. So much blood.
Her breath caught, growing light-headed.
The midwife turned, perhaps sensing the shift in the room. “My lady?”
Sharra did not answer.
There, among the tools and clutter, it glinted under candlelight. A knife. Nothing grand – just a simple blade, used for cutting into fruit. But a blade was a blade. It would not be difficult, her traitorous mind whispered. The midwife was close. Older and strong, but unarmed. And the girl, she was about Rowena’s age, all skin and bones… it would be quick. Quiet.
Necessary.
Torrhen shifted again, his tiny fingers brushing against her skin.
It was necessary.
She took a step forward.
The midwife straightened slightly, watching her now with a hint of unease. “Is something amiss, my lady?”
Another step.
The knife lay just within reach.
For him, the whisper came again, louder now.
For the oath, bound in your sister’s blood.
Sharra’s hand trembled.
Only she and the Gods ever need know.
Her fingers brushed the edge of the table.
The knife was there.
All she need do was take it.
The midwife’s eyes narrowed in concern. “My lady, you are pale. Sit, before you—”
She snatched her hand back as if burned. The dull grey world came back to her all at once. The sound of rain, the crackling of fire, the gurgle of the child in her arms. Her gaze dropped to Torrhen and he blinked up at her blearily, dark eyes unfocused.
A boy who knew nothing of bloodlines or betrayals or the price of crowns.
A boy she had just, in her heart, used to justify murder.
Sharra staggered back a step, her breath coming sharp and fast.
“You alright, mi’lady?” The girl looked up from the fire, alarm plain on her face.
“Please sit-” the midwife moved towards her.
“No.” Sharra’s voice cracked like a whip. “I am fine, stay away from me.”
The command froze them both.
Silence fell, heavy and uncertain.
Sharra closed her eyes.
All her life, Sharra protected Rowena. It is your duty, mother had said once. Had she meant this as well? To become something unrecognisable? To look upon a frightened girl and a weary woman and see not innocent lives, but threats? To weigh their deaths against his and find them wanting? Her stomach churned.
“What would you have me become?” she whispered, though Rowena could no longer answer.
When she opened her eyes again, the knife was still there, untouched.
The midwife stood a few paces away, wary now but not afraid. Not yet. Perhaps she thought the knife was for the boy and not her very own throat? Rosie hovered at the fire, clutching a mug to her chest, eyes wide.
Sharra felt something inside her crack.
“I am sorry,” she said suddenly.
The words startled them both.
“My lady?” the midwife asked.
“I…” Sharra swallowed hard. “I am not myself. The night has been long… my sister…” Her voice faltered, but she forced the rest out. “You must think me witless.”
Understanding dawned in the older woman’s face. “Grief makes strangers of us all,” she said gently. “There is no shame in it.”
If only that were true, Sharra thought.
She looked down at Torrhen once more and drew him closer, as though to anchor herself.
“I would have you swear something to me,” she said.
The midwife inclined her head. “If it is within my power, my lady.”
“What was said here, what happened in this room”, Sharra spoke each word carefully. “What was seen… it does not leave this room, does not leave these walls.”
The girl’s grip tightened on the mug. The midwife’s gaze sharpened, just a touch.
“My sister is dead,” Sharra went on. “The child lives. I birthed him. That is all the world need know.”
A long moment passed.
Then the midwife nodded. “I help women to serve the Mother, I have no wish to spread tales. It would only invite trouble to mine own door. What passes in the birthing room is best left there.”
“And you?” Sharra asked, looking to the girl coolly.
Rosie swallowed hard. “Y-yes, mi’lady I’ll not say a word. I swear it.”
Sharra studied them both.
Two lives.
Two possible graves, had she been a little weaker. Or a little stronger.
“Before I depart, I will see you both rewarded,” she said at last. “For your service. And your discretion.”
The midwife dipped her head again. “You are kind.”
Kind.
The word twisted in Sharra’s chest.
There was no kindness in her mere moments ago when she wanted to cut their throats.
“If you have no further need of me,” the woman said, “I will take my leave.”
The girl looks over at the bed and sighs, setting her ale down. “I’ll bring my cousins ‘round, tell them she got stuck by a blade. They’re strong and stupid, don’t ask no questions, help you get ‘er back to that ship ‘o yours.”
Sharra inclines her head in thanks, watching Rosie bolt out of the door. Footsteps thumping along the path. The midwife lingered for a spell, gave her a heavy stare, before leaving. The door closed softly behind her, casting Sharra into darkness. Alone, save for her dead sister.
And her child.
Sharra stood in the centre of the room, Torrhen in her arms, and listened to the rain.
“I named you after Torrhen Stark,” she murmured after a time. “He knelt to dragons. A king who bent the knee so his family, his people might live-” her fingers softly caressed his cheek. “A lot of people thought him craven for this… I never did. But Rowena-”
Torrhen made a small sound, as if in answer.
Sharra let out a slow, unsteady breath.
“I was named after a kneeler too. She was the last Queen of the Vale. Rowena hated that she knelt, hated that Torrhen knelt”, she continues. “Said that there was no honour and pride in kneeling… I told her there is no honour in needless death. No pride to be had standing in the ashes of innocents.”
The boy slept on, untroubled. Sharra pressed her forehead to his, tears dripping onto his face. “I-I am afraid, Torrhen… afraid of what will happen,” she finally confesses. “Your mother is dead, nothing can touch her now… but us… she left us behind...”
Outside, the rain had stopped. Gentle morning light crept slowly into the room, pale and fragile. Birds started singing of a storm finished. Sharra lifted her head, the storm had passed. But something of it remained with her, always would.
She looked once more to Rowena, her tears never ending.
Then she turned away from her, holding the boy close.
─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───
The white gates of Evenfall Hall creaked open slowly as Sharra swung off her horse with care. Her limbs were stiff from the long ascent, her body aching in ways she no longer bothered to name. The ride up the hill was arduous, thighs rubbed raw from the saddle.
Torrhen stirred faintly in her arms as her boots met the ground, his small body pressing instinctively closer to her warmth. The unfamiliar sounds disturbed him, though he did not wake. Sharra adjusted him without thought, a practised motion already, her hand steady. She walked further into the castle grounds.
Behind her, men carried her sister on a makeshift bier – wrapped in blue linen. Her grandsire’s men were standing as the ship docked and at their insistence, changed the dull grey linen to Tarth blue. Little yellow suns and moons embroidered on the cloth.
The sight of it struck something quiet and deep within Sharra. That was her mother's stitching, she'd recognise it anywhere. Jeyne Tarth had loved such designs. Suns and moons for her daughters. Day and night, she had once called them, her voice full of a tenderness that felt, now, like it belonged to another life entirely.
The courtyard was filled. Sharra recognised some of them from her girlhood. From when mother brought her and Rowena over for the summer. Others from when she returned, older, to bury her mother and brother.
None looked at her.
All were fixed on the shroud of blue and gold. Not a soul stirred, no murmuring or whispers. Even the birds had grown silent. As if her little sister's death made time stand still.
And then came her grandsire.
Lord Ormund Tarth descended the steps slowly, limping. He was older than she remembered but age had not made him smaller. He was still heavy around the middle and tall. His blue eyes, her mother’s eyes, her sister’s eyes, went to the shroud.
“No!” he exclaimed, his deep voice cracking. His cane clattered to the ground as he descended from the steps with unsteady urgency. Grandsire brushed past Sharra as though she were a ghost, hobbling over to her sister. “No, Rowena-”
He pulled back the cloth.
For a long moment, he did not move. Still as stone, did not even breathe. Then his shoulders fell inward, his grey head downcast. “My dear girl…” his voice hoarse as he wept. “My bright, shining sun.”
Although she had no right at this moment, no right, Sharra felt the old familiar sting of that name. The childhood resentment. Rowena had always been his sun, never her. For how could she not be his shining sun? Radiant and lively, warm, kind, beloved by all who knew her. Whereas Sharra had been the moon. Distant and dark, cold, watching from afar.
Sharra Moon-eyes, her mother called her sweetly.
She stood still, shifting Torrhen slightly in her arms when the men set Rowena down.
“No,” he said quietly. “No… not her.”
She had enough time on the ship to imagine this moment, imagined over and over, but nothing prepared her for the sounds her grandsire made – a quiet, broken keening that echoed in her ears.
“She’s gone,” Sharra said. Flat. Final.
The words seemed to strike him harder than any blow. His shoulders bowed, breath leaving him in a broken exhale. For a moment, the Lord of Evenfall Hall looked like nothing more than an old man who had buried too much.
"I should have sent out more men... would have found her sooner, should have insisted to him," he muttered to himself. "I should have-" His eyes shifted then, to her. To the child.
The boy stirred, fussing softly.
Her grandsire stared.
Long.
Too long.
“Who is that?” he asked at last.
Sharra met his gaze without flinching. "He is my son."
Something colder entered his expression then, the grief momentarily gone. It was shock at first, then anger, then something she could not quite name. But it made the hair on her neck rise, she took a wary step back. Grandsire has never struck her before, he was an honourable man, but there was a first for everything. Grief makes stranger’s of us all, the midwife’s words stuck with her.
"You,” he breathed. "You bring your sister to me dead... with… with a bastard at your breast? Y-you bring a bastard into your mother's home?”
“Yes.”
The word landed like a stone.
Ormund's jaw tightened and some servants scurried away like rats. "Have you taken leave of your senses, girl? Do you realise what you have done? What you have done to your father's good name? To mine? To your mother's?"
“I understand grandsire.”
“Who is the father?” he demanded.
“No one."
His eyes narrowed. “That is not an answer!"
“It is the only one you will have.”
The wind stirred up, carrying the scent of salt. For a moment, Sharra thought her grandsire might press further. Might rage and roar at her. But then his gaze fell back -back to Rowena.
And whatever fight he had left faded.
His grief won in the end.
"Gods be good..." he shook his head, falling to his knees where her sister's body lay. He rests a shaky wrinkled hand on her covered head. "I was meant to protect you... both of you. I have failed you both. Jeyne, forgive me. Oh, Jeyne. Please forgive me."
There is nothing to forgive, her mother would tell him. That is who her mother was. Kind and considerate, the gentleness to father's harshness. The soothing balm to her father’s stinging hand. Not this vengeful wraith her grandsire seemed to be wailing to.
Sharra drew a breath. “I would ask something of you.”
“Anything,” he said hoarsely, still looking at Rowena.
"Bury her here," Sharra says quietly. "Beside mother... and our brother."
That gave him pause.
“You know your father-”
"I don't give a shit about what my father would want", she hisses, steel cutting through her exhaustion. “She is your granddaughter, your blood. She belongs here. With them. This what she wanted, to be buried in a place she loved with those who loved her.”
Ormund studied her for a long moment.
Then nodded slowly. “Yes,” he murmurs. His stare was distant, haunted. As if she weren’t in front of him at all. “Yes… she will rest with her family. She deserves to be with her mother.”
A weight lifted from Sharra, so sudden that she almost collapsed.
“Thank you.”
His gaze shifted once more, to the child. Sharpening.
“And the boy?” he asked.
“He is my boy,” her words held certainty.
Ormund exhaled slowly, studying the child’s face. He ran a hand through his thick white beard. "Yes, I suppose he is,” he grumbles. "The world will not be kind to you both... but you knew that when you-" He stopped himself.
"I don't care what some fat, balding lord in some backwater castle has to say about me. Or what a perfumed, pampered princess thinks. All of them can choke," Sharra sneers. “Can’t stand them.”
A faint, weary huff of something like laughter escaped him.
“Where did you get such a tongue girl? Not from my fair Jeyne, must be from your father. That damned Edric,” he sighed. Lord Ormund gave her a soft, solemn smile that she did not return. “Gods help us all.”
She wanted to be nothing like her father.
“Come,” Ormund said at last, rising shakily to his feet and turning toward the hall. “We... we best bring her inside, out of this blasted cold. Have her prepared properly… and get your boy a wet nurse.”
Sharra followed, tightening her hold on Torrhen.
─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───
Her father’s solar was always comfortable and inviting. One of the largest and highest rooms in Runestone – with a high-vaulted ceiling, windows that overlooked the land… even to the sea when the usual mountain fog lifted.
The hearth was wide enough to stick a whole boar in it and always lit. Cushions lined the chairs, thick carpets made of fine fabric lay across the stone floor. The shelves were lined with books and bronze trinkets. Ancient and runic.
It was a dreadful place for Sharra.
All the memories of her father, the bad ones, the ones that woke her from sleep sweating and clawing at her neck, were in his solar. The solar seemed to notice she was here. Walls pressed inward, the air growing thick. The portraits of her ancestors staring at her. The Bronze King Yorwyck loomed the largest over her. Dark eyes judging.
Her? Or the man who reeked of wine?
Not the watered down or spiced sort served at dinners. This was harsher, the smell overpowering that it made her light headed. Several flagons were scattered across the room. One lay on its side near the hearth, bleeding red into the cracks of stone.
Her father was gazing out of the window, standing with his back to her. One hand holding a cup, the other braced against the wall. His red hair was streaked with grey and greasy, it hung loose and uncombed.
The steward did warn her he hadn’t washed in weeks. Hadn’t left his solar in two moons, since her grandsire’s letter.
That all he did was drink and rage and then drink more.
“The door.”
His voice was low, roughened by drink and something older.
Sharra did as she was bid. The heavy door closing behind her with a dull thud. The sound echoed into the silent chamber. She stood with her back pressed against the door, arms behind her back, childless. The absence of Torrhen was disorienting. She could almost feel the faint press of him against her chest. The warmth of him and his small movements.
It had taken her two moons to muster up the courage to return home. In that time, she only ever set the boy down to eat and sleep and bathe. Even then, he was within her reach. But for now, Sharra had handed him over to Clara, the wet-nurse grandsire sent with her. It was safer for him. Best she face the beast alone.
“So,” Lord Edric Royce said at last. He did not turn. Instead, he lifts the cup in his hand and swirls the dregs within it. “This… this is how you return to me, daughter.”
Sharra did not answer, knew not to when he was like this. The tension was growing in his shoulders. The muscles in his neck rippling. The way his fingers tightened ever so slightly around the cup. He was about to blow.
"I sent you away with the expectation you return with your sister,” he went on. "I expected failure from you. Tears and excuses," a bitter edge crept into his tone. "Not this."
He turned to her face.
The movement was abrupt and sharp, almost violent, the last thread of his composure was about to be snipped. His grey eyes, so much like her own, found hers immediately.
“You bring a bastard into my house.”
Sharra held his gaze. “I do.”
Edric stared at her as if the answer itself were an insult.
“You do,” he echoed softly.
Then he moved.
Quickly, so quick that she startled. He advanced on her like an animal. The firelight caught the lines of his face, carving shadow into him until he resembled the monster from her dreams, from her memories.
"I gave you an order. You find your sister and return home to me. Instead, you disappear for a full year," he said. "And failed the one duty I set before you." His voice tightened. "You did not bring your sister home."
The air grew thin.
"Instead," he continues. "You return to me a whore."
Sharra’s jaw tightened, but she did not look away.
“He is mine.”
The simple words enraged him even more.
“Yours?” he snapped, gesturing sharply to her. "YOURS? You have brought home a stain. A stain on my name! A stain on me!"
His voice rose now, the restraint slipping.
"Do you have any notion what they will say? The entire Vale-" he cut himself off, shaking his head furiously, the very thought offending him. "They will all laugh at me. They will say that Edric Royce cannot keep control of his blood, his own daughters. One fled her betrothal and the other in her search, became a whore. That his heir- his fucking only heir- spread her legs for some wretch and comes crawling back with proof!"
"I don't care what they say,” Sharra raises her chin slightly in defiance.
His eyes narrowed, lips pulled back to sneer. “Insolent girl,” he hisses. “You presume you have the luxury not to care.”
“I do not care,” she repeats.
For a moment, he simply stared.
Then he snarled.
"Of course you don't care!" He took another step closer, his voice growing sharper, crueller. "You're a lack-wit, that's why you don't care. You were always stupid, Sharra. Always. Stupid and selfish to understand what this has cost us. Cost me.”
Sharra’s fingers curled.
“Of course I understand, father."
"Do you?" His tone was mocking now. "Then enlighten, dear daughter. Who is the father? Tell me his name. Tell me which man you opened your legs for like a bitch in heat and I might show you leniency.”
"I don't know."
It was the wrong answer.
He struck her.
The sound cracked through the room, sharp and sudden. Her head snapped to the side, dark red hair falling into her face from the force of it. For a heartbeat, everything stilled. Her vision blurred, dark dots dancing across it.
Then slowly- very slowly- Sharra turned her face back towards him. His ring had bit into her cheek, bursting the pale skin, blood slid down her face like a river.
"I don't know, father," she says once more. Softer, shrinking into herself as she did in girlhood. Twenty namedays, a head taller than him and still frightened.
Something ugly flickered in his eyes then. “You think me a fool,” he said quietly.
“Of course not, father.”
"Then you must think me blind?" he pressed on. "Deaf, perhaps? I know that you know who the father is. Do you think I will accept this?"
Her face throbbed in time with her heart, as she chose her next words with care. "I asked for his name, father. I did. But he did not give it..."
"TELL ME!" He roared.
Were the walls not stone, Sharra was sure his voice would shake them. He turned away from her, pacing by the table, one hand dragging through his hair before slamming it flat against the table. It cracked under the impact.
"We are blood of the First Men and you sully our blood! Our fucking legacy! It is what separates us from the mongrels! F-from those incestuous cunts in King's Landing!" He spat, spittle landed on her. "And you cast it aside for-what? A passing fancy? A moment's weakness?"
"I was weak. I was not well, father," Sharra admitted. "I was a stranger to even myself and he gave me comfort and company when searching for my sister. By the time I discovered I was with child, it was too late.”
That made him laugh again—short, sharp, disbelieving.
He turned back to her. "Do not insult me."
"'Tis the truth," she insists. "You are my lord father, I respect you too much to lie. It would be folly to do so, you can tell when I lie. Always could." Lies, lies, lies. She hid her hands behind her back, nails digging into the fat of her palms.
Her father went still. He studied her more closely now, grey eyes growing dark. Whatever he was searching for he found it and disliked it. Greatly.
"The year on the road has changed you, seems you’ve grown a spine in that time," he said at last, jaw tightening. "Do you think that changes anything? That it gives you the right to defy me in my own castle?"
"He is my son, father, my boy," Sharra croaks out. She curses herself for how weak she sounds. Tears gather. "I cannot abandon him."
"I want rid of it," he demands. Gaze sharp, finger pointed at her face. A part of Sharra wants to lunge and rip it off. Too gnaw at his finger between her teeth and spit it back at him. "I want it gone on 'morrow or else."
“No.”
The word her father hated most.
For a moment, Edric Royce did not react. He was a man, first. Then something in his face broke and he became the beast she and her sister feared. That did it, the last thread snapped. His lips peeled back from his teeth, his eyes wide and pupils blown. Like a feral dog.
“What did you say?” he asked, too quietly.
It was now or never. The final pawn to move on the board. If she does this, Torrhen will be safe. Forever. Her oath to Rowena upheld. Despite her heart hammering violently, her cheek bloody, she did not run. Could not.
“No,” she repeated. Firm and final.
He hurled the first thing he could grab at her, his cup. It struck the wall beside her head and shattered, red wine drenching the stone and shards falling to the ground. Some of it hit her. She flinched but did not move.
“You dare defy me!” he roared.
The table came next.
He grabbed its edge and overturned the table in a violent sweep, everything on it crashed to the floor. Parchment and books went flying. Wood splintered. The sound dulled by the pounding in her ears. When she was a girl, this is when she would run. Run and hide in the stables, hands over her mouth so none would hear her breathe.
This time, she did not move.
"You're a whore!" he spat, advancing again. "I should let my men have at you! A silver a turn! Then whatever is left of you, given to the mountain clans!"
"I may be a whore but I am your heir. And daughter."
Her voice shook—but it did not break.
That, more than anything, seemed to rile him further
A chair was snatched up and flung aside, smashing against the hearth. The fire leapt, embers scattering across the stone like startled fireflies.
"I will not have it in my castle!" he bellowed. "I will not have that thing-"
“He. He has a name.”
The interruption was soft.
It cut through him sharper than any shout.
It was enough to douse the fire in him.
Silence fell. Sharra swallowed, her throat tight, her hands shaking behind her back but she spoke again, voice steadier than before.
“Torrhen,” she said. “His name is Torrhen."
Her father stared at her as though she had grown another head.
“I do not care what you call it.”
“I do,” she answered. "I carried him. I bled for him, I almost died for him. When I found Rowena, her dying words to me were how happy she was for me. How I would make a good mother," Her breath hitched, but she pressed on. "If it were not for my sister, I would not have-" Been in this mess.
“He is a wretched creature,” Edric snapped.
“He is my blood, your blood.”
Father’s chest rose and fell heavily, his hands flexing at his sides as though searching for something else to break, something else to destroy. But there was nothing left within reach. So his gaze settled on her.
“You would choose it,” he said slowly. “Over your house? Over me?”
Suddenly, Sharra was a little girl again. Every instinct in her screamed to yield to him, to bow her head, to be shy and say words that would appease him.
But then all she could see was Torrhen. His small hands, grabbing at her. The gentle warmth of him. The way he curled against her, trusting, needing her. His eyes wide and so, so blue, staring up at her like she was his entire world.
No one had ever looked at her like. Not even mother.
“I already have,” she said in Old Tongue.
The words hung between them.
The maester failed at teaching her, father did not. His belt landed on her hands each time she mispronounced a word, did not recognise a rune. She made sure not to make the same mistake twice.
Edric Royce stared at her for a while. His chest still rose and fell from the remnants of his fury, but the wildness in his eyes began to ebb, replaced with something more calculating.
"We remember the old blood. Lament it and keep vigil", he returns in the same tongue. Father took a slow step towards her, measured and controlled. "That is what was passed down to Bronze King to heir for thousands of years-" His lip curled. “Then to lord and heir.”
“You believe I cannot act,” he went on. “That I am trapped. Stuck with you.”
She caught on to the meaning. If he cast her aside – truly cast her aside – House Royce would die with him. His son was dead. His youngest daughter dead. He only had her. And Torrhen.
As she watched him pace, a part of her wanted him to. To send her off, never to return. Their life would be simple and sweet. Just Sharra and just Torrhen. Just the two of them living in the woods somehwere. Sleep under the shade of an old oak on hot days-
Her thoughts stilled when her father did, Edric staring into the flames as though the fire held his answer. When he spoke again, his voice had changed.
Quieter.
“You have always been a disappointment,” he said. “From the moment you first drew breath and they told me you were not a boy.”
Sharra swallowed, but did not speak.
“I told myself,” he continued, “that it did not matter. That I would make you into my heir. Something worthy of the name you carry.”
Sharra’s heart pounded—but she kept her face still. He turned and leaned in just enough that his next words were meant for her alone. Not the gods or the all-seeing eyes of their ancestors.
"You think being my heir means I cannot touch you? That I cannot bring you to heel?" he murmurs. His breath is warm and foul on her face. "There are others means to get what I want from you."
His eyes flicked—briefly, meaningfully—toward the door.
“And you have brought one into my halls."
A chill ran down her spine.
Then he straightened and turned away from her entirely.
“Begone,” he said, louder now. “Before I forget myself.”
Sharra did not move, not at first.
He never dismissed her that simply. Ever. Her body was still braced for another strike, another thing thrown at her head. But nothing happened.
Her father stood with his back to her once more, as though she had already ceased to exist. His rage she knew deeply, intimately, she knew how to handle his wroth. This unsettled her.
Slowly, carefully, she pushed herself off the door. Her legs felt unsteady beneath her, her cheek burning, her pulse loud in her ears. For a fleeting, dangerous moment, she wondered if this was some trick—if the second she turned, he would seize her by the hair, drag her back, make good on every threat he had ever spat at her feet.
But he did not.
Sharra opened the door, stepping in through it without looking back. The door closed behind her with that too familiar thud. The cool air hit her and she almost collapsed. Yet her legs carried her forward, slow at first before picking up pace. She wanted to be far from him, far from that room, far from those all-seeing portraits.
Her cheek throbbed. When she lifted a hand to it, her fingers came away sticky with clotting blood. Sharra stared at her hands for a moment, blood upon blood upon blood...
She shook the thoughts of that night away and wiped it against her skirts, and kept walking. Or was she running? The corridor was a blur of stone and bronze.
Torrhen.
She could withstand her father's hand, clench her teeth at the insults. But what he said, the way his eyes flicked to the door. The promise in them. Many did not consider killing bastards kinslaying... the Targaryen's certainly didn't at Redgrass.
Sharra slowed, lungs aching.
A new kind of fear crept into her bones, burning her grief and rage away. He wouldn't fucking dare, Sharra thought wildly. He was a monster but was he enough of one to-
She straightened, lifting her chin despite the ache in her body, and turned down the corridor that would take her back to Rowena’s chambers—back to where her son waited.
When her sister died, it broke her. Then she had Torrhen's life in her hands and he reforged her shattered heart. Made her anew, into a bronze queen of old. Her father would find she was no longer the daughter he sent away.
He would not touch Torrhen.
Not while she still drew breath.
House Royce would end by her bloody, scarred hand.
And there would be nothing left of Runestone worth remembering.