RICKARD I

Rickard Stark was pacing outside his wife's chambers. Despite his protestations, Maester Walys and Raya Glover had ushered him out. Apparently the birthing chamber was no place for a man, other than a maester. He'd argued that he didn't care about tradition, that Lyarra was his wife and she was giving birth to his firstborn child, and there was no legitimate reason why he couldn't be at her side. It had been Raya's husband Jon, one of his closest friends, who managed to convince him to leave.

"Trust me, you don't want to be in there. Hearing it is bad enough," he'd said.

He'd certainly been right about that. It was strange to hear his wife scream as she was. She was known throughout the North as the She-Wolf of Winterfell – as fierce as her mother, a clanswoman from the mountains, but with a gentle soul like her aunts, Berena and Alysanne Stark.

"This is why I haven't married," Halys Hornwood, another of Rickard's close friends, said with a chuckle.

"Yet you have no brothers and no cousins. Who will inherit the Hornwood if you have no children?" Jon asked. The oldest of the three, he was always the most level-headed and practical.

Halys just shrugged. "If Berena doesn't marry a Lord or his heir, her children could take the Hornwood name."

Jon looked to Rickard for support. "I heard that Lord Manderly's brother is looking for a husband for his daughter," he said non-committedly. He stopped paces and turn to look at Jon. "Does it usually take this long?" he asked.

"The Manderly girl's what? Three and ten?" Halys exclaimed, clearly not impressed with Rickard half-hearted suggestion.

"And you're yet to see your twentieth nameday, good-brother. You never had a problem with me marrying your sister when I was the age you are now and she just four and ten," Jon said sharply. "It didn't take this long with Alys or Galbart, though I remember Maester Donnel commenting that Galbart came unusually quickly. My father once told me that the first always takes longer though."

The momentary silence following Jon's comment was broken by a cry not made by any woman grown. A cry that could only have been made by Rickard's firstborn child.

"He's crying. That's a good thing, right?" Rickard asked. Lyarra had been adamant that the child she was carrying would be a boy.

"Raya always said so," Jon said.

The door opened, and Jon's wife appeared, a well-wrapped bundle in her arms. "Lord Stark, may I present to you your son and heir, Brandon Stark," she said. It was strange to hear her speak to him so formally, with her being one of his wife's closest friends, and the wife of Jon and sister of Halys, but the presentation of a new babe to its father was a formal affair, no matter who present the child. Raya placed Brandon in his arms. He and Lyarra had decided on the names Brandon, Eddard and Lyanna for their children not long after they were married, and any that came after that would be decided at the time.

"Is Lyarra alright?" he asked Raya hesitantly. It was customary for a mother to present her child to her husband personally, especially the firstborn son, though this custom was foregone if there were complication.

Raya winced as Lyarra screamed again. "Your Maester says there's another babe on its way."

"Twins?" Jon asked. "Shouldn't the Maester have been able to tell that she was carrying twins? Maester Donnel knew with Alys and her brother."

A sad look flashed across Raya's face. She and Jon didn't often speak about their daughter's stillborn twin. Raya had been devastated when the babe didn't survive, feeling like she had failed to provide her husband with an heir. It hadn't helped that she had two miscarriages the following year. "Maester Walys is as surprised as we are," she said. "I should go back in."

Rickard sat on one of the chairs outside Lyarra's chambers. A chair he hadn't sat in since he first heard her scream. He looked down at his baby boy. Brandon may have only just been born, but he already had the Stark look about him, with his dark hair and grey eyes.

"And that is why you should marry," Jon said to Halys, a wide grin splitting his face. "There is no better feeling than meeting your child for the first time."

Rickard looked up to see Halys roll his eyes. "Why do I get the impression that the two of you are japing at my expense?"

Halys laughed. "Jon isn't, though I absolutely am," he said.

"Be careful Hal," Rickard said, "or you may find yourself not invited to return to Winterfell until you find yourself a wife."

Halys feigned hurt. "You wouldn't," he gasped. When no response was forthcoming, he continued. "Oh, my lord, how you wound me!"

Rickard didn't deign to respond to the Lord of the Hornwood's dramatics, but Jon snorted.

"Well, I'm glad I amuse someone," Halys grumbled.

Lyarra screamed again from inside the birthing chamber. "How is it that one look at a babe makes you so easily forget all the pain your wife goes through to bring it into the world?" he asked.

"Because there is nothing in this world purer or more innocent than a newborn child," Jon answered.

Another cry could be heard, the cry of another babe, and Rickard stood up. After a couple of moments, Raya opened the door again. "You can come in now. Maester Walys was a little concerned when this little one refused to cry, but he says he's completely healthy."

"Another boy?" Rickard asked.

"Yes, Rickard, another boy. Lyarra is waiting for you," she said with a smile.

There was an empty chair by Lyarra's bed that he sat in. "My lord, may I present to you your son," his wife said.

"Eddard?" Rickard said.

Lyarra shook her head. "I know we agreed our second sun would be called Eddard, but he doesn't look like one to me," she said.

Rickard looked at the babe in the wife's arms. He had the same dark hair as Brandon, but he had green eyes the colour of the sea and darker skin. He had only a few vague memories of his grandmother, but he did recall that she had similarly green eyes. He also remembered that her mother's mother had been Dornish, a Gargalen from Salt Shore, he thought.

"You're right," he said. "He gets his looks from my grandmother. What shall we call him?"

"Your grandmother? Which one?" Lyarra asked frowning. He'd forgotten that she'd only ever known his grandmother from his mother's side, Lyra Locke.

"My father's," he said. "Melantha Blackwood. I wish my father still lived. I remember how much he loved her. He'd have liked to meet him, and Brandon. Both my parents would."

His wife had a sad smile. "I think I know what to call him, though it isn't a name I've heard before. I just hear a voice whisper it in my head when I look in his eyes. Perseus."

"It suits him," Rickard said.

"Maester Walys was so surprised when he realised there was another babe on the way. He kept saying how he'd checked on Brandon's progress just last week, and that he was absolutely sure there had been only one babe. As soon as he was sure that he was healthy, he hurried off to consult his books," Lyarra said, making him chuckle. As he supposed should be expected from a Maester, Walys was the kind of man who like to understand everything around him. The fact that he might have missed the fact that Lyarra was carrying twins would rankle, and he would need to find an explanation.

"You said you heard a voice whispering his name in your head?" Rickard said. Lyarra nodded slowly, evidently wondering where he was going. "What if you didn't carry him?"

"What are you saying?" Lyarra asked.

"Maybe he's a gift from the gods."