The storerooms of Starfall became Edric’s hidden stronghold—shadowy recesses where he shaped his skills beyond the reach of curious eyes. More than once, a late-roaming servant or lone guard had wandered precariously close to uncovering his secret exercise. Each time, Edric deflected suspicion with a quick smile or a murmured excuse: an “accidentally misplaced trinket,” or the need for harmless solitude. Yet, every close call weighed on him. One mistake could unravel everything.
As the next full moon glimmered upon the Summer Sea, Edric sensed a newly offered gift that felt like a faint whisper in a silent room—an ability to slip out of sight as easily as an eel in murky waters. Not true invisibility, but a nearly imperceptible quality that guided eyes elsewhere.
Like mist rising from the Torrentine, he felt the power settle around him. Servants brushed past in the corridors, their gazes sliding off him as though he were merely a shape of dim light. Guards pacing the stone halls looked directly his way without truly seeing him. It was a power vexing in its subtlety—and perhaps more dangerous than any open show of might.
Before dawn, with only the faint sound of waves crashing against Starfall’s walls, Edric left his chamber to roam the secret corners of the castle. He memorized each hidden route, each hush of the torches, each hour when guards shifted positions. Every nocturnal expedition taught him a little more, and he discovered how easily he could pass unseen.
His stamina flourished. While other boys would slump from fatigue, Edric kept moving, his body as though forged in the quiet dark. Most astonishing was how little rest he required. He lived on mere scraps of sleep—three or four hours—and then pressed on, his mind somehow remaining focused and awake.
During the daylight, he maintained a careful façade: the image of a boy on the mend, fielding Maester Arron’s questions on history and the distant corners of the world. In truth, each tutor’s lesson became another piece of armor for future battles, every question carefully chosen to glean something useful.
When the next moon rose above the horizon, Edric seized another power: bones as strong as steel turned by the finest smith. At first, wooden swords bruised him, but soon he found even their stinging blows could do little harm. If a strike landed and should have knocked him sprawling, he instead felt only a dull thud.
Following that came a gift that blurred lines between mortal talent and arcane skill: lightning bound to his fingertips. A power both mesmerizing and fearsome, it demanded careful control. When he channeled a full surge, the bolt imparted a force charged with crackling energy that strongly disrupted a victim’s muscle responses and reflexes. Though the jolt might not burn flesh or shatter bone, it saturated the target’s nerves, causing a sudden, overwhelming shock that locked muscles in place and stunned the mind for precious seconds. If he loosed a mighty charge, he needed time before mustering another, lest he overtax both his own reserves and the subtle balance required to stun rather than kill.
Days passed before he dared test it on anything living. Only at sunset, with the towers lit in red and gold, did he try it on a pigeon resting on his balcony. As the bolt leaped from him, it forcefully overloaded the bird’s senses, leaving it momentarily paralyzed yet unharmed once the effect passed. Edric realized at that moment how precarious this power could be—wielded too fiercely, it might end a life; handled with enough restraint, it might only subdue. In this way, it had the potential to reshape destinies, its outcome hinging on his skill and caution.
Ser Daemon, once a trusted ally to the famed Arthur Dayne, stood at the edge of the practice yard with arms folded across his chest. The morning sun played off the links of his mail, accentuating the faint warmth in his otherwise stern gaze. Edric ran through a series of footwork drills, each pivot landing precisely where it should. When he finished the sequence, Ser Daemon offered a nod of approval.
“Your footwork’s sharper today,” the knight observed, his baritone carrying across the quiet yard. “Every step is placed with purpose. Keep that up, and you’ll move like a natural soon enough.”
Edric saw genuine pride in the older man’s eyes, a silent acknowledgment that his training was paying off. The brief moment of recognition felt as rewarding as any victory on the field.
Edric kept his expression confident, a flicker of pride lightening his gaze at the knight’s words. “I’m only trying to learn, Ser.”
Ser Daemon offered a low grunt that hinted at approval rather than doubt. “Keep that back foot in line. A strong stance is the root of a warrior’s strength.”
Maester Arron had also begun noticing changes, too. The boy’s searching questions grew more cunning, his ambition showing through faint cracks usually hidden by childhood. “Interesting,” the maester mused, observing Edric run a finger across a map of trading routes and border lines. “You connect ideas at a pace few your age could match.”
Yet Edric understood one key truth: children rarely improve at a steady pace. One day they might fumble, and the next they could handle a blade with surprising finesse—an inconsistency that would shield him from suspicion. So he carefully staged his own ups and downs: sometimes letting his sword swing true and his footwork shine, other times stumbling over the simplest move. Whenever curious eyes lingered, he’d offer a sheepish shrug or blame a headache. Let everyone assume he was simply a boy on the usual, uneven path to competence, and not a quiet prodigy hiding something far more deliberate.
He felt each new gift emerge slowly, not in an explosive burst. He realized how training, routine, and curiosity all converged to forge him into something beyond a simple Dornish boy. His arms and legs lengthened almost imperceptibly, the muscle beneath them becoming lean and sturdy. Servants’ children once taller than him now found they hardly surpassed him by more than a hand’s breadth.
Ser Daemon took note as well. “Lift your chin, Sand,” he would advise, though by the next session, Edric had already adopted the correction on his own, needing no reminder.
Among his fellow children, Edric no longer folded first in the midday sun. Whether running errands or dragging water, he endured each labor beyond normal boundaries. “That boy grows as surely as a weed in springtime,” remarked Wylla, marking a faint line upon the kitchen doorway. Each measurement told a story of quiet progress—though not so dramatic as to stoke rumors of sorcery.
Meanwhile, Ashara Dayne kept a distant eye on him. A mother’s longing existed behind the façade of an aunt, but that love still manifested in fleeting touches, or murmured questions about his health. Edric pretended not to notice, giving her no cause for alarm.
Maester Arron’s lessons kept his mind as honed as his body. He would prod the maester about lore outside Dorne—about the North, where winter’s breath shaped stronger men. Then, unhurriedly, he’d shift to the practice yard, letting movements of body and mind fuse into a single aim: self-improvement.
When yet another full moon rose, Edric took on a self regeneration skill. He tested it alone in the quiet of the storerooms—cutting his palm and observing, fascinated, while skin knit itself closed in mere minutes. With the power confirmed, he pushed it further: allowing everyday bruises from sparring to mend at a measured pace so no one would notice. But at night, he used his gift to erase deeper gashes soon after they were inflicted. Every misstep in his secret practice meant lessons learned, not days or weeks of convalescence.
The augmentation of his senses arrived next, subtle at first—a faint rustle behind a wall that revealed scurrying mice, or the glimmer of fish scales flickering in the Torrentine from his tower window. Soon, he caught the pungent tang of Dornish peppers in the kitchens, the brine-laced wind wafting over the castle’s ramparts, and even the quiet tread of servants moving through distant corridors. Every new detail sharpened his awareness until he realized how formidable these senses could make him—always a step ahead, always able to catch the whispers that might shape his fate. When the following moon rose, Edric claimed yet another ability, though he would not fully grasp its potential until later.
The ability to manipulate existing flame followed on the heels of that, a dancer’s discipline conjured through flickers of fire. He began modestly, coaxing a single candle’s flame in his room, shaping it into a delicate swirl that rose and dipped on command. The limits were clear: he needed an existing source of fire, and he could only bend it if it lay within a short reach. In the hush of night, he practiced on the embers glowing in the hearth, swirling them with careful sweeps of his hand, ever wary of stray sparks in a fortress built of both stone and timber.
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An unused but potent capacity to heal others loomed within him, though he had never called upon it openly. Now and then, he sensed the power stir, as if awaiting a summons—perhaps a scalded hand from spilled soup or a guard’s twisted ankle might trigger it. Still, he hesitated to test its boundaries, uncertain what prying eyes might witness if he dared reveal such a marvel.
More dangerously still, he could feel certain weaknesses in other fighters as though they were printed on flesh. A stride slightly off balance, a sore shoulder from an old break, or a heartbeat that quickened just before a thrust—all of it gave Edric an edge that went far beyond simple boyhood training.
The power to strike with terrifying force came next, almost like wielding bottled thunder. When he tested it in the gloom of the storerooms, the oak of practice dummies split under his strikes, leaving him both elated and drained. Each blow felt as if he squeezed out a part of his own soul, requiring time to recover.
In time, the power to conjure fire from nothing completed that circle of flame. He no longer needed a candle to stoke a spark—he could summon it from the air itself. Yet in a fortress built of stone and wood, Edric remained vigilant; a stray ember could bring the keep crashing down.
By his seventh nameday, he recognized the transformation. He was still a child in stature, but the potential coiled within him was distinctly adult, almost predatory. Rumors spread among the servants that he bore an echo of Arthur Dayne’s likeness, though Edric himself spied more of Brandon Stark’s lean determination in the mirror.
He refined his nightly routine, coalescing each gift into a unified training. Sparks of flame lit the storerooms as he practiced sword forms, merging speed, endurance, and that flickering ability to pass unnoticed should a guard venture near.
Rumors from King’s Landing seeped in through Maester Arron’s lessons and the whisperings of traveling merchants, all claiming the Crown sagged under mounting debt. The Iron Bank and the Lannisters, they said, held its purse strings tighter every day. Yet Edric, drawing from what he had seen unfold in distant retellings—almost like scenes plucked from a grand show—knew how easily such burdens could fracture an entire realm. He had witnessed enough of that story in another telling to grasp the danger a collapsing economy posed, a peril that could shake even the mightiest throne.
Meanwhile, Ashara seemed more guarded than usual. She occasionally caught him in a gesture or expression far too reminiscent of another man—his father—and her eyes would grow distant with a mother’s conflicted longing. Soon, Edric knew, he would need to address this. Yet his mind stayed on the next full moon, the twelfth power, which would complete a full circle of discovery.
Night after night, his routines spiraled into something almost artistic. He tested sword forms in utter darkness, conjured dancing flames that broke into a dozen glowing embers around him, and used his heightened senses to detect each swirl of air. He refashioned his practice dummies into more elaborate contraptions, roped with pulleys so they could strike back. Each time he unleashed a destructive blow, splintering their wooden frames, he reminded himself not to raise suspicion by requesting too many replacements.
As he crept through the labyrinth of alliances forming across Westeros, Edric pieced together how the Greyjoys rattled their chains in the west, how the Targaryen exiles across the sea might cultivate power in secrecy, and how Eddard Stark in the North worked tirelessly to secure his hold. More and more, Edric recognized that even Dornish politics demanded his attention. Bastard though he was, Starfall’s prestige made him an object of interest to Prince Doran and other watchers.
The library became his command center. Late into the night, with Maester Arron long since abed, he pored over volumes detailing the genealogies and intrigues of the Seven Kingdoms. He drew upon flickering memories of his other life where certain names and grudges loomed large, knowledge the texts could never supply.
His questions had always drifted northward, compelled by the wolf’s blood in his veins. Winterfell’s distant shape caught his imagination—Eddard Stark’s steady rule and whispers of a bastard brother, Jon, who might share his lineage. In quieter moments, Edric mused on the North as though it were a touchstone of identity, its cold winds seeming to call his soul across seas and sands.
Counting the nights, he realized nearly eight moons had passed since his seventh nameday.
He stood by his window, breathing in the salt-tinged breeze as he watched merchant ships glide over the Summer Sea. Their broad sails shimmered softly in the waning light, and even from a distance, he could sense the promise of distant ports, each vessel carrying its own whispers of far-flung lands.
His frame showed distinct changes: a hint of Stark in the line of his cheeks, newly sharpened features that seemed to reveal his northern heritage. Gossips whispered about his resemblance to Brandon Stark, though none in Starfall had ever met the famed Wild Wolf. He noticed how Ashara’s watchfulness had grown, how the aunt-and-nephew illusion wore thinner each day.
In a flurry of raven-borne tidings, other news blackened his thoughts: Ironborn raiders harassing the western coasts, the crown’s mounting debts heightening unrest. Merchants whispered of gold cloaks taxing everything in sight, while sellsword companies thronged across the Narrow Sea. Stocks of grain and steel trickled into private storehouses among suspiciously watchful lords.
As midnight approached, Edric stood by the narrow tower window, moonlight silvering the stone at his feet. He felt a familiar stirring inside him, like the hush before a storm, and he knew the appointed hour had arrived. Each moon brought an unchosen gift, and tonight’s would be no exception. The castle lay silent save for the muffled tread of guards and the distant crash of waves; in that pocket of stillness, Edric waited.
When the power arrived, it startled him at first. He had expected the usual array of seven distinct whispers—those moon-gifted powers he would have to choose from—but this time proved different. Instead of hearing multiple, clamoring voices, he felt a single surge of something deeper and more unified, as though his talents themselves were calling to each other.
It coursed through him like quicksilver, a sudden ripple of understanding that settled into his thoughts. At first, he couldn’t quite name what had changed, only that new awareness gleamed at the edges of his mind. Then realization struck: he had gained the ability to merge his existing powers. He sensed at once how heightened senses could mesh seamlessly with control of flame, or how healing might work in concert with his resilience to pain, creating something far greater than the raw abilities on their own.
Shaken by this departure from the usual pattern, Edric took a moment to gather himself. Gone were the familiar voices competing for his attention; in their place was a singular insight, guiding him down a path he had never before considered. The thought of weaving powers together sparked equal parts excitement and caution—if he could combine flame and senses, or healing and endurance, the possibilities no longer felt scattered but profoundly interconnected.
A distant bell tolled the hour, and Edric exhaled as the revelation narrowed into focus. He pictured the new monthly choices that would soon appear before him, each one glittering with promise and peril. The difference was clearer now than ever: thanks to this anniversary boon, the illusions of “random” powers had evolved into a carefully woven tapestry. He was beginning to see how it all fit together—and why, in this realm of possibilities, “other models” of growth often fell short.
He stood there a little longer, letting the moonlit air cool his flushed cheeks. For a moment, he considered that with each new gift, the world around him would grow more malleable and unpredictable. But that was a challenge he accepted. One step at a time, he would follow the path unfolding before him, weaving these new powers into the being he was meant to become.