If I Had A Voice, I Would Sing
"For though he was Skagosi, and Stoneborn to the marrow of his bones, there were nights he woke with strange names on his tongue and unfamiliar towers rearing through the shadows of his mind, and the ache these set in him left him terrified."
Some wolves were never dead, but only sleeping.
There were score upon score of stories told by his people. Stories of seal daughters with magical pelts and talismans of seaglass; tales of whale spirits that sung in the deeps and blessed those who heard them for seven years. Songs of castles trapped in glaciers, where the Ancient Ones slept, and drumming beats that mimicked the nimble step of horned horses across the ice. There were darker tales, too. Yet those that spoke of magic captivated him the most, and those of lost heirs and icebound cities even more so. For though he was Skagosi, and Stoneborn to the marrow of his bones, there were nights he woke with strange names on his tongue and unfamiliar towers rearing through the shadows of his mind, and the ache these set in him left him terrified.
And once or twice, he woke longing for a lone tree of the Old Gods, a black pool nestled in its roots that reflected pale bark and an unfamiliar carven face.
For years, he searched the island's swathes of bloody-foliaged forests for that tree.
He never found it.
His father told him that his rust-red hair and hard blue eyes were the Old Gods' mark of a favoured mortal, of the elements embodied, of a hunter blessed with wondrous gifts. "Red for fire, blue for water, brown for earth," he would say, pointing to his son's hair, eyes, and freckled skin in turn. "And the power of air is in your spirit. Why else would you be so fierce, eh? Adalstein the Great, they will call you one day. You will see." He would chuckle, taking a draught of smoke from his herb-stuffed pipe and ignoring the massive wolf at his son's feet. Adalstein, as always, would twist his fingers into the thick black fur, focussing on its warmth and softness rather than his father's mentioning of his name.
He hated his name.
He did not know why.
Years passed. One day a ship appeared on the horizon, its sails emblazoned with a rearing black bear. Adalstein stood on the dizzying cliffs and watched, as seabirds and dying men alike screamed far below. His father did not suffer uninvited visitors.
Later, as they scavenged the bodies for trinkets and furs, Adalstein noticed one of the invaders twitching weakly on the pebbled beach; an old woman dressed in dark green, her hair in a long grey braid. A spiked mace lay discarded in the sand. Adalstein kicked it aside and knelt down beside her, examining her bloodied face. A strong woman. Her jaw was set hard against the pain, and her breaths came sharp and heavy.
"…aark," she hissed, pale eyes suddenly meeting his. Adalstein forced himself not to flinch away, as his wolf came to stand by his shoulder. The woman spasmed, letting out a rough gasp as her eyes locked on the wolf. "Aark!" she said again, struggling feebly, looking between Adalstein and the wolf. "Staaaaark. Ri…" Her voice was fading, the death rattle haunting the edges of her breath. A reassuring, rumbling growl issuing behind him from the wolf, the Skagosi hunter leant forward, trying to catch the words spoken in her strange language. A strange anticipation skittered along his spine.
"Speak!" he commanded in Skagosi, hoping she would understand his native tongue.
The old woman gripped his arm, her eyes suddenly clear and focussed and they bore into his own. Beside him, his wolf snarled quietly, but made no move.
"Rickon Stark. Winter is Coming," she whispered, pressing something cold and hard into his palm.
She exhaled, and her rigid body slackened.
Stark.
Adalstein shoved the cold object in his pocket, and plucked the rings from her fingers and the beads from her braids in a daze.
Winter is Coming.
He dreamed that night of a towering wall of ice that cracked and splintered dangerously, of five dark wolves and one white, of a youth seated on a throne of ancient roots deep below the earth.
Stark, they whispered.
A creature with the body of a man and head of a wolf crowned a kneeling figure in a circlet of strange blue flowers. On the kneeling figure's cloak, a wolf and dragon chased one another in a neverending circle, and the ground surrounding him was thick with snow.
Stark, intoned the wolf-man. King in the North.
A tall, red-haired woman rode through a snowy forest, the winter sun glinting off her armour. A loping ghost-wolf flickered through the trees by her side, emitting an aura of incomprehensible sadness. A yellow flower – rose, his mind supplied, a golden rose – was pinned to her cloak, and by her side rode a woman with no face.
Stark, the forest murmured. Winter is Coming.
Again, the youth seated on the throne of roots, his eyes flickering around the earthen chamber.
"Rickon?" the youth called out uncertainly. "Rickon, is that… Rickon? Where are you? Are you alive? Rickon!"
Stark, the voices began to whisper again. Stark. Stark stark STArk STARK sTARk STARK STARK
The wolf-man loomed out of a darkness so complete it hurt Adalstein's eyes.
The wolves will come again, brother, he growled.
STARK.
Adalstein woke up soaked in sweat, a silent scream gathering behind his teeth.