Chapter Text
The day she was born dawned without splendour.
No blaze of crimson nor gilded sweep of sun announced the morning above King’s Landing. Instead, the sky hung low and colourless, a vast sheet of tarnished silver pressed close upon the spires and battlements of the Red Keep, as though the heavens had stooped to observe what would pass beneath them. The air was thick, unmoving. Even the gulls that wheeled above Blackwater Bay cried less than usual, their thin voices swallowed by a stillness that felt less like peace than anticipation.
Within the Maegor’s Holdfast, it was entirely different matter, as that stillness did not reign.
Lady Alys Arryn laboured upon a great bed of carved oak and crimson velvet, its post wound with silks now twisted and damp from her grip. Her golden hair clung to her temples, sweat beaded upon her brow and traced the elegant lines of her throat. The room had grown oppressive with heat and the mingled scents of crushed herbs, hot wax, and blood. Tapers guttered in their sconces, bending low as if in obeisance to the travail unfolding beneath their light.
A septa knelt beside the bed, her seven-pointed-star pendant clenched tight enough to leave impressions in her palm. She murmured prayers to the Mother, to the Maiden, to any face of the Seven that might be moved to pity. Her voice trembled despite her discipline.
“Mother be merciful. Guide the child safely into this world. Protect the mother who gave her body to house them.”
At the foot of the bed, the midwives worked with swift and practiced hands, sleeves rolled, expressions composed in the manner of women long acquainted with both life and loss.
He stood apart, near the hearth, though no fire burned there. Prince Rhaegel’s pale hair fell unbound about his shoulders, fine as spun silver and left uncombed since the hour before dawn. His eyes—those unmistakable violet eyes of old Valyria—were too bright. They shone not with tears, nor with fear, but with a fervour difficult to name. He watched the bed as a man might watch the horizon for sails, waiting upon something long foreseen.
“They move closer,” he murmured softly, though no one had addressed him. His words were in High Valyrian now, swift and liquid, the syllables curling upon themselves like smoke. “The wings beat against the veil. I hear them.”
No one answered. No one wished to.
The hours stretched thin.
The wind beyond the shutters rose briefly, rattling the panes, then fell away as if reconsidering. Time folded in upon itself, measured only by the rhythm of the lady’s laboured breaths, the silent and desperate encouragements of the midwives, and the murmur of prayers from the attending septa.
At last, the eldest midwife leaned close.
“Now, my lady,” she urged, her voice firm but not unkind. “The child crowns.”
The lady cried out then—not shrill, but deep and raw, the sound drawn from the very marrow of her bones. The bed curtains shuddered with the force of it. Blood darkened the linens. The septa’s prayers quickened.
And then—
The child came forth.
The midwife lifted the babe into the light.
Silence.
No wail. No thin cry to pierce the air and banish dread. Only the faint hiss of a guttering candle and the distant roll of surf against the quay.
The midwife’s composure cracked. “She does not—”
“Strike her back,” another whispered urgently.
The midwife did so, once, then again, brisk but not cruel. She rubbed the infant’s chest with a cloth warmed by the brazier.
Still nothing.
Lady Alys tried to rise and could not. “Why does she not cry?” she demanded, her voice ragged, frayed by pain and fear alike.
Rhaegel moved then.
He did not rush, yet he was suddenly there, beside the midwife, his shadow falling long across the rushes.
“Give her to me.”
There was no plea in his tone. No tremor. Only certainty.
The midwife hesitated for the briefest of instants before surrendering the babe into his arms.
She was warm.
Warm, and astonishingly still.
For a heartbeat—two—three—the chamber seemed to hold its breath along with her.
Then the infant opened her eyes.
They were not clouded with the vague, unfocused haze of most newborns. They were clear, lucid, and of so deep a violet that they seemed almost to drink the light rather than reflect it. They did not wander. They did not flutter shut against the glare of the candles.
They fixed upon Rhaegel’s face.
He inhaled sharply, as if struck.
“There,” he whispered, in High Valyrian, as if the babe would understand. “There you are.”
The words were not those of a father greeting a stranger, but of one who had awaited an appointed arrival.
The babe drew breath at last—not in a desperate gasp, but in a slow and measured inhalation, as though the air belonged to her and she had merely chosen to claim it. Then came her cry. It was brief and piercing, more command than complaint, sharp enough to make the septa flinch.
Relief washed through the chamber in a trembling exhalation.
“She lives,” murmured the midwife, as though astonished by the fact.
“She was never in doubt,” Rhaegel replied softly.
The child was placed against her mother’s breast. Lady Alys wept openly now, tears cutting bright paths through the sheen of sweat upon her cheeks. She stroked the damp silver strands upon the infant’s tiny head with shaking fingers.
“My daughter,” she breathed.
Yet even cradled thus, the babe did not behave as others did. She did not root blindly nor thrash in agitation. Instead, she turned her head, slowly, deliberately, as though surveying the chamber into which she had been delivered. Her gaze lingered upon the candle flames, upon the shadows cast high along the carved beams of the ceiling. The light flickered in her violet eyes and seemed to find welcome there.
The wind outside ceased entirely.
In the sudden hush, the door opened.
Shiera Seastar entered without herald or apology.
She moved with the unhurried assurance of one who had never in her life been denied entry, as though doors opened not by courtesy but by inevitability. There was nothing furtive in her step, nothing hesitant; the chamber, though thick with blood and prayer, seemed merely another stage upon which she had elected to appear.
Her gown was of pale silver silk, so finely woven it caught and fractured the candlelight with every subtle shift of her form, casting back a subdued radiance like moonlight upon still water. Threads of white-gold embroidery traced the hem and sleeves in patterns reminiscent of coiling smoke and unfurled wings, intricate without ostentation, deliberate without excess. The fabric whispered softly as she walked, a sound scarcely louder than breath.
Her hair fell unbound about her shoulders, a cascade of silver-gold that gleamed with a brightness almost ethereal in the wavering light. It was the hue of old Valyria, bright yet cool, and it framed a countenance too striking to be called merely fair. Both eyes – though different in colour and brightness – sharpened as she regarded the event unfolding before her. Her gaze came to rest upon the child, nestled in her mother’s arms.
“Has she come safely?” Shiera asked, her voice low and smooth as poured oil.
“She has,” Rhaegel answered, and there was something like exultation beneath his calm.
Shiera came to the bedside and paused there, close enough that the silver of her hair caught in the candlelight like drawn steel. Alys stiffened, though she did not forbid her. Few ever forbade Shiera anything.
“May I?” she asked softly.
It was spoken with courtesy, yet there was a curious weight beneath the words, as though refusal were a thing abstract and unlikely.
Alys Arryn tightened her hold upon the child.
Exhaustion lay heavy upon her limbs, yet some last instinct stirred stubbornly within her breast. This was her daughter. Her blood. The babe had scarcely drawn breath, and already too many hands had claimed her. Alys’s fingers curved protectively about the small, warm body pressed against her.
She looked not at Shiera, but at her husband.
Rhaegel stood near the bed, his pale hair unbound, his expression alight with that same rapt intensity that had seized him when the child first opened her eyes. There was no uncertainty in him. No hesitation. Only recognition.
“Rhaegel,” Alys said, and there was a plea in her voice.
He stepped forward without answering.
With hands that did not tremble, he gathered the babe from Alys’s arms. The motion was neither hurried nor forceful; it was done with the calm assurance of a man fulfilling something long foreseen. The child did not protest the change. Her violet eyes remained wide, luminous in the shifting light.
Rhaegel turned, and without ceremony, placed the infant into Shiera’s waiting arms.
As if she had always been meant to receive her.
Alys drew in a sharp breath.
“My love—” she began.
The protest withered before it found shape.
For in that moment, she saw her husband’s face clearly. Not tenderness alone dwelt there, nor simple paternal pride, but something fiercer and more exultant. An awe edged with possessive certainty. He looked not like a man surrendering his daughter, but like a man returning a treasure to its rightful shrine.
And beyond him stood Brynden Rivers. How had she not marked him sooner?
He had entered without fanfare, silent as shadow, and now remained at the foot of the bed, pale as bone and near as still. His single red eye regarded the scene with an unreadable calm; the other, a hollow socket doesn’t ease her at all, though empty seemingly gave her an unnerving stare. His hands were folded within his sleeves.
When Alys’s gaze met his, the red eye sharpened.
It was not an overt threat. No word was spoken. Yet there was iron in that look—an unspoken reminder of power, of favour, of the delicate precariousness of her place at court. The message was as clear as any blade laid bare.
Say nothing.
Alys’s lips parted.
Then closed.
Shiera cradled the child with effortless ease. The infant’s small body seemed to settle against her as though drawn by some quiet gravity. The mismatched eyes—one green bright as spring glass, the other dark blue and fathomless—regarded the babe with an intensity that bordered on reverence.
“Lovely girl,” Shiera murmured again, softer this time.
Rhaegel watched, enraptured.
Alys lay back against the pillows, her strength spent, her protest unvoiced. The candles flickered. The wind stirred faintly beyond the shutters.
And in Shiera’s arms, the babe lay wakeful and silent, as if the world into which she had been born was already arranging itself according to some design she alone could see.
Not beautiful. Not Sweet.
Lovely.
“Does the babe have a name yet?” Shiera asked, eyes never leaving the infant.
This time Rhaegel turned to his wife.
Some tension in his face eased, as though he had been roused from a vision and recalled to the mortal chamber. Alys felt it then—a breath of relief, thin but tangible—and beneath it a prickle of vexation. At last he seemed to remember that she yet lay bleeding upon the bed, that the child had issued from her body.
“Daenora,” she said.
The name was firm despite the tremor in her limbs. She extended her arms toward Shiera, not pleading now, but claiming.
For a heartbeat the chamber held its breath.
Shiera did not immediately yield. She studied the infant as though committing every contour of her face to memory, as though measuring some inward music only she could hear. Her strange eyes—one bright green, the other dark blue—rested upon the babe with a depth that was difficult to fathom. Then, with deliberate care, she stepped forward and placed the babe back into Alys’s waiting embrace.
The warmth of her daughter settled against her breast like a benediction, as though something vital had been restored. Alys gathered Daenora close, pressing her lips to the child’s silken crown, breathing in the faint, sweet scent of new life beneath the sharper tang of blood and smoke.
Rhaegel stood beside the bed, watching them both, yet there lingered still that peculiar fervour in him, as though he beheld more than a daughter.
Shiera withdrew a pace, her expression composed, though her mismatched eyes remained intent. At the foot of the bed remained Brynden Rivers, silent and austere. He had not spoken since his arrival. His pale hair lay straight against his shoulders, his single red eye fixed and thoughtful.
Only then did the strangeness of it fully settle upon Alys.
They had come themselves.
Not sent word. Not offered perfunctory congratulations after the fact. They had come themselves, into the birthing chamber, amidst blood and travail and women’s cries. Such things were not their custom.
They had not attended when the other grandchildren of King Daeron II Targaryen were born. They had not stood vigil for the birth of Valarr Targaryen—Valarr, the heir to the heir, whose coming had been hailed with bells and banners. No shadow had lengthened across that cradle. No pale watcher with a red eye had marked his first breath.
Yet tonight they had stood witness. For her child.
A chill, subtle as the draft that stirred the bed curtains, traced its way along Alys’s spine. She tightened her hold upon Daenora instinctively, as though the babe might be claimed again by some unseen current.
What did they perceive that others did not? What had drawn them to her chamber at the very hour of labor, silent and certain, as if summoned by an omen no one else had discerned?
Daenora stirred faintly in her arms. The child did not wail. She did not root blindly as newborns were wont to do. Instead, she opened her eyes.
They were the deep violet of old Valyria, clear and luminous even in the wavering candlelight. Not the clouded gaze of a babe newly come into the world, but bright—startlingly bright—as though awareness had kindled there too swiftly.
Alys bent her head protectively, drawing the babe nearer, as if the mere curve of her body could shield her from whatever subtle designs might be weaving themselves in the shadows of the room.
The candles burned lower. The wind worried at the shutters like a restless spirit.
And though her daughter lay warm against her heart, Alys felt the faintest tremor of foreboding, like distant thunder too far yet to be heard, but near enough to be felt in the bones.
- From the private papers of Maester Hollis, set down in cautious ink —
Concerning the birth of Princess Daenora, daughter to Prince Rhaegel Targaryen and Lady Alys of House Arryn, I deem it prudent to commit certain observations to parchment, though I pray they remain unread save by those of sober judgment.
The circumstances attending the child’s nativity were irregular.
Prince Rhaegel’s comportment throughout the travail was not merely anxious, as any father’s might be, but expectant in a fashion bordering upon the uncanny. He spoke little, yet his silence was not ignorance. Rather, it bore the cast of anticipation—as though he awaited not the arrival of a daughter, but the confirmation of something foreknown. Whether this arose from some prophetic fancy (the Prince being of a temper susceptible to such humours), or from knowledge conveyed by other means, I cannot with certainty declare.
More singular still was the presence of Lord Brynden Rivers and Lady Shiera Seastar within the birthing chamber itself.
Such attendance is not customary for persons of their station, nor was it observed at the confinements of the children of King Daeron II Targaryen, nor even at the birth of Prince Valarr Targaryen, heir apparent at the time. That they should come in person—unbidden, and at the precise hour—argues either remarkable coincidence or deliberate intent.
It is conceivable that Prince Rhaegel, whose mind is said to incline toward dreams and portents, believed himself forewarned of some import attending this child’s birth. In such case, Lord Brynden—whose interest in matters arcane and prophetic is no secret—may have shared in the apprehension of some design yet unmanifest. Lady Shiera, whose learning in hidden arts has oft been whispered of in the corridors of the Red Keep, might likewise have perceived significance where others saw only blood and pain.
Thus, one explanation presents itself: that the child is thought to bear some future consequence, whether auspicious or dire, and that those versed in shadowed knowledge came to witness the dawn of it.
Yet there are murmurings of another nature.
It is said—though I record this with reluctance—that Lady Shiera has long trafficked in tinctures, elixirs, and stranger concoctions besides; that beauty and youth have been preserved upon her countenance by means not wholly natural; that in her pursuit of mastery over flesh and fate she has ventured beyond the bounds of wisdom. Some go so far as to suggest that such pursuits may have rendered her barren.
If this be true—if, by artifice or excess, she has despoiled her own womb—then a darker conjecture arises. That she, desiring issue yet denied it by her own hand, might seek another vessel. That Prince Rhaegel, enraptured by her person and persuasion, might be induced—knowingly or otherwise—into an arrangement whereby his lawful wife carried a child destined not solely for herself.
Word of the child’s birth moved swiftly through the Red Keep, borne upon the tongues of servants and the rustle of silks in shaded galleries. By nightfall the babe had become not merely a daughter to Rhaegel and Alys, but a matter of quiet scrutiny.
King Daeron II Targaryen received the tidings with visible satisfaction. He attended upon the chamber not long after, robed plainly, his manner composed and paternal. The peculiar presence of Brynden Rivers and Shiera Seastar did not escape his notice—nothing ever did—but he dismissed it with a scholar’s pragmatism. Rhaegel was given to dreams. Brynden was given to caution. Shiera was given to curiosities. Such people gathered where strangeness might flower.
Yet a daughter was a daughter, and daughters were threads in the great loom of policy.
“Another jewel for our crown,” the king remarked mildly, gazing down upon the violet-eyed infant. “The realm is strengthened by alliances as much as by swords.”
There was relief in him, too. Aelora would not stand alone amongst the girls of the blood. Two princesses might bind two houses in time, soften two borders, quiet two ambitions. He saw in Daenora not omen but opportunity.
Queen Myriah Martell came more quietly.
She bent over the cradle with genuine warmth, murmuring a Dornish blessing beneath her breath, her dark eyes thoughtful. Yet Myriah was not blind. Afterwards, as time passes and the babe grew, she observed the singular fondness Shiera displayed. She observed, most of all, Alys’ growing distress.
For Alys complained—softly at first, then with a mother’s wounded bewilderment. The babe did not root eagerly at her breast. She did not turn toward her mother’s voice with the instinctive trust of infancy. At times she seemed… distant. Still. As though her small mind attended to some inner current rather than the comforts of her dam.
Yet when Shiera entered, the child would quiet at once.
It was Myriah who listened. Myriah who placed a cool hand over Alys’ fevered one and counselled patience. Myriah who contrived—gently, tactfully—to ensure the babe remained within her mother’s apartments, not forever drifting toward Shiera’s shadowed chambers.
She said nothing aloud of her misgivings. But she watched.
Prince Valarr, still young and solitary in his youth, delighted in the novelty of an infant within the walls. He would stand by the cradle with solemn determination, presenting carved wooden knights or bright ribbons as offerings, coaxing smiles with exaggerated gallantry.
“See, little cousin,” he would declare earnestly, “this one guards you. And this one rides to your rescue.”
Daenora regarded him with wide violet eyes, unblinking. She did not cry. She did not laugh. She simply looked.
Valarr persisted, redoubling his efforts with a knightly fervour that might have been admirable had it not been met with such serene indifference. He took her silence for mystery, and mystery for challenge.
Prince Baelor Targaryen maintained civility. He congratulated Rhaegel with appropriate warmth, though something restrained lingered beneath his courtesy. Baelor was not a man prone to superstition, yet neither was he careless. The attentions of Shiera Seastar were seldom idle, and Baelor’s instincts, honed by war and court alike, urged caution. He kept his counsel, but he did not entirely trust what he could not comprehend.
His wife, however, wore disinterest like a brooch. Outwardly, she dismissed the child as yet another silver-haired babe in a castle almost overrun with them. Inwardly, unease coiled. She spoke of it in hushed tones to Aelinor Penrose, wife to Prince Aerys, behind half-closed doors and over cups of wines and imported cheese.
“There is something in her,” Jena would murmur. “Children ought to wriggle. To wail. She watches.”
She did not forbid Valarr’s visits—such interference would have been remarked upon—but she discouraged them with subtle redirections and gentle scoldings, seeking to divert him toward more wholesome pursuits than hovering about a cradle that unsettled her.
Daenora’s brother, Aelor, saw no cause for agitation, nor for fancy. To him, Daenora was simply his sister—small, quiet, unremarkable. He neither feared nor revered her. The adults made much of shadows, as adults were wont to do. Her sister, by contrast, was at first enchanted. A living doll, silver-haired, unlike her own golden ones, and perfect, placed within her reach. She would lean over the cradle and chatter brightly, awaiting giggles and flailing hands.
However, her enthusiasm, much like Valarr, was met with disinterest. Daenora did not babble. She did not squeal. Her gaze would fix upon Aelora’s face with a stillness that soon became intolerable.
“She is dull,” Aelora pronounced at last, drawing back with open displeasure. “She does nothing.” Children are quick to abandon what does not delight them. Aelora’s interest waned as swiftly as it had risen.
A few weeks after Daenora’s birth, Prince Maekar Targaryen came to court with his household, as duty and custom required. With him rode his wife, Dyanna Dayne, heavy once more with child. The court received her with gentle optimism, though it was an optimism tempered by memory. Her last confinement had ended in sorrow; the whispers had been soft but persistent. Now many eyes turned toward her swelling belly with cautious hope, prayers murmured that this babe might quicken strongly and draw breath in due season.
Their sons accompanied them: the solemn Daeron, thoughtful even in youth; and Aerion, bright-eyed and sharp with restless vitality. They were presented in due course to the princess of the blood. The encounter was meant to be an ordinary courtesy.
After their parents’ courtesy blessings and prayers to the babe, Prince Daeron was bid to approach the cradle first to introduce himself. He did so without reluctance, his bearing steady, hands clasped behind his back in unconscious imitation of the adults around him. He was not a child given to wild fancies or sudden passions. His temperament was measured, his mind inclined toward thoughtfulness beyond his years.
Daenora lay awake. She was wakeful more often than other babes, the nurses had remarked. Wakeful and watchful.
The instant Daeron’s eyes met hers, the air seemed to shift.
His breath caught. What followed was no ordinary startlement.
His face drained of colour. His composure shattered as if struck. And then he began to cry—not the thin protest of a weary child, but a deep, unrestrained sobbing that tore from him with shocking force. He wept as though something dreadful had been revealed to him, something too vast for language.
The chamber erupted in confusion.
Maekar stepped forward at once, sternness settling over him like armour.
“Daeron,” he commanded, low and sharp. “Enough.”
The rebuke might have stilled another child.
It did nothing.
Daeron clutched at his father’s sleeve, shaking, his eyes wide—not fixed upon the room, but upon the cradle. Upon the babe within it.
And Daenora?
She did not cry. She did not stir. She simply regarded him. Her violet eyes were clear and untroubled; her small face composed in an expression far too intent for one so newly born. She seemed neither frightened nor distressed by his anguish. If anything, there was a peculiar steadiness in her gaze—as though she were studying him.
Maekar attempted to soothe his son with firm reassurance, but the boy’s weeping only worsened in the presence of the cradle. It was Dyanna, pale with alarm, who insisted at last that he be removed.
The moment Daeron was carried from the chamber, his sobbing diminished. Within minutes, it ceased altogether.
An uneasy quiet remained behind him.
No one could account for it.
“Overtired from travel,” Dyanna said, though her voice lacked certainty. With the same excuse, they withdrew the introduction between the princess and their second-born. However, such attempts did not deter Prince Aerion. He did not come to the nursery because he was summoned, he came because he had heard quite enough.
Every corridor seemed thick with the same tiresome murmur: the babe was strange, the babe did not cry, the babe stared too long, Prince Daeron had wept. It struck him as profoundly foolish. Adults were ever eager to dress the ordinary in mystery, as though the world might grow dull without their embroidery.
When at last he stood before her cradle, he did so with the faint impatience of one prepared to be disappointed.
“All these whispers over a small babe such as yourself?” he said lightly, gazing down at her. “Ridiculous.”
Daenora lay quiet, as the tales had promised. She did not flail. She did not redden her face and shriek as other infants did when confronted by unfamiliar company. Her violet eyes regarded him without agitation. If anything, her composure seemed an improvement upon the usual disorder of nurseries.
“So what if you are still?” he went on, almost dismissively. “That is a mercy. Most babes make themselves intolerable.”
He remained there but a moment longer, finding nothing particularly marvelous in her silence. She did not cry out as Daeron had. She did not stare at him with some dreadful omen burning in her gaze. She was merely… composed.
Aerion gave a faint sniff, half in scorn of the castle’s hysteria, and turned as if to depart.
It was then that she made a sound.
Not a wail.
A soft, bubbling gurgle—followed by a bright, unmistakable peal of infant laughter.
He paused.
The sound came again, higher this time, threaded with unmistakable delight. Her wet-nurse, who was embroidering without care of the little prince and princess, gasped softly, startled, for the babe had been sparring with such expressions.
Aerion turned back.
Daenora’s small arms were lifted toward him, her fingers opening and closing in clumsy invitation. Her face, so often composed in grave watchfulness, had altered. Her mouth curved in what could only be described as a smile—no, more than a smile. A gleeful, eager thing.
It was, unmistakably, a reaction.
To him.
Aerion stepped closer again, slower now. The faintest crease touched his brow, though his expression remained outwardly sceptical.
“Well,” he murmured, “so you can make noise after all.”
She gurgled once more, her arms stretching higher, her hands grasping at empty air with infant urgency. There was no mistaking the direction of her attention.
He hesitated only a breath before extending a single finger toward her. It was done with the air of one indulging a trivial curiosity. If she ignored it, he would withdraw at once and be vindicated in his contempt.
Instead, her tiny fist closed around his finger with surprising strength.
Her grip tightened.
She laughed again.
The sensation startled him—not the pressure itself, but the decisiveness of it. Infants grasped reflexively, yes, but this felt… deliberate. She held fast, her violet eyes shining up at him with unguarded animation.
Outwardly, Aerion gave a short, almost derisive exhale. “Absurd creature,” he muttered, as though the display amused him only faintly.
Yet he did not pull away.
In truth, a warmth—sharp and quick as flame—moved through him. Not tenderness. Never that. Something closer to gratification.
She had chosen to respond.
Not to her wet-nurse. Not to the murmur of women in the corridor. Not to the soft jingling toys hung above her cradle by Prince Valarr. Not even to her own mother who should have been warranted such affectation.
To him.
He glanced briefly to the wet-nurse present, half-aware of her watching eyes, then returned his attention to the child who clung so firmly to his finger. A faint satisfaction settled into his posture.
Perhaps, he reasoned, it was only natural.
He was, after all, unmistakably of the blood. His hair shone silver even in shadow; his eyes held the pale clarity of Valyria. Others about the castle bore diluted shades—Valarr’s dark hair marred by only a single silver streak; Aelor and Aelora golden with their mother’s coloring; Daeron’s sandy brown entirely unremarkable.
Perhaps the child merely recognized what she ought to recognize.
Perhaps, at last, she beheld someone who looked as a Targaryen should.
The notion pleased him more than he cared to admit.
“You have sense, at least,” he said quietly, watching her tiny hand wrapped so tightly around him. “That is something.”
She did not release him.
And though he would later dismiss the moment as trivial, even laugh at the idea that a babe’s approval could signify anything at all, he lingered there longer than he intended—allowing her grip to remain, allowing her laughter to continue.
The whispers of strangeness seemed suddenly less ridiculous.
Not because she was uncanny.
But because she had chosen him.