The air in Riverrun was heavy, thick with the scent of rain-soaked stone and the iron tang of sharpened steel. Outside, the clang of armor and the bark of orders carried across the yard, where Robb Stark’s bannermen readied themselves for battle. Horses stamped, snorted, their tack rattling in the mist. The Tully banners stirred in the damp wind beside the direwolf of House Stark, both snapping with restless impatience. The Lannisters pressed closer each day, and the air buzzed with the storm of blood soon to break.

But within the high chamber, tucked away from the men’s preparations, another storm brewed.

Your body trembled against the onslaught of pain. A Dornishwoman by birth, raised beneath the searing sun and orange blossoms of Sunspear, you had once thought yourself tempered by heat and hardship. But no desert fire compared to this: the relentless tide of labor pulling you under, wave by wave.

The midwife wiped sweat from your brow with a rough cloth. “Breathe, my lady. Deep. You’re strong as ten men—show this babe what sort of mother waits for it.”

You tried to obey, sucking in ragged gulps of air, though the pain shattered your focus. Your belly seized again, harder than before, and you gripped the bedpost so tightly your knuckles blanched. The Dornish runes inked faintly at your wrist—a relic of your mother’s faith—glimmered faintly with sweat as your nails dug into wood.

Another cry tore from you, raw and guttural. The sound echoed off the chamber’s stone walls, mingling with the distant clash of men drilling in the yard. The contradiction was unbearable—life beginning as war sharpened to end it.

The door burst open. Robb strode in, armor half-fastened, grey cloak damp with drizzle. His hair curled wild at his temples, his eyes blazing with both fear and devotion.

“Seven hells,” he breathed, rushing to your side. He took your hand, though you nearly crushed his fingers in your grip. “It’s time?”

“It has been time,” the midwife snapped, shooing him from blocking her light. “Your lady labors, and if the gods are kind, the child will not wait for your battle.”

Robb knelt beside you, the weight of his presence grounding your chaos. His thumb brushed across your damp temple. “Look at me,” he whispered. “You’ve faced worse. You will see this through. And I—” his voice faltered as if he might break, but he swallowed it down. “I’ll not leave you, not until I must.”

You wanted to curse him, to clutch him and forbid him from stepping foot on that battlefield. But another contraction ripped through you, cutting thought into fragments. You screamed, the sound muffled as Robb pressed his brow to yours.

“I hear you,” he murmured. “I feel every breath with you.”

The midwife barked orders for water, for cloth. Maids scurried, skirts whispering over rush-strewn floors. The chamber grew hotter, the fire in the hearth stifling. The scents mingled—woodsmoke, blood, sweat.

Then came the shift. The unbearable storm within you changed, contractions slamming faster, harder, each one clawing through you with almost no reprieve. The midwife caught your eye. “She’s in transition now,” she muttered to her assistant. “The hardest part.”

Your whole body trembled. You wanted to push, to scream, to claw at fate itself. Robb’s hand anchored you, his voice steady as he counted breaths with you, though you saw how his jaw clenched—how he warred with himself, torn between you and the battle waiting below.

Outside, a horn sounded, low and ominous. The men were gathering. War pressed its hand to the door.

Robb kissed your knuckles, fiercely. “I will fight them, but first—first I see my child born. You hear me? You are not alone.”

Your vision blurred with tears, sweat, the sheer agony of your body ripping itself open for life. Somewhere deep, you clung to his voice, to the love that bound you across North and South, war and birth.

And as the next contraction came, searing and merciless, you cried out—a raw, primal sound that drowned even the horns of war.