Chapter 59

I sat in the hallway outside my mother's chambers, listening to her scream.

If I focused hard enough, I could almost forget it was her doing the screaming. Almost convince myself it was some other woman, some stranger, whose pain I could observe with detachment.

But that wasn't possible. Not really. Every scream tore through me like a hooked dagger. 

And I wasn’t alone in my suffering. Father was wearing out the stones of the hallway, pacing back and forth like a madman. He'd been doing it for hours, muttering to himself under his breath—prayers, maybe, or arguments with some invisible enemy. I couldn't tell.

Beside me, Arianne had a book open on her lap. The same book that had been open on the same page for the past hour. She hadn't turned it once. Her eyes weren't moving. The book was just an excuse to keep her hands occupied.

Alysanne sat beside her sister. She'd been praying since the moment we'd arrived back at Evenfall Hall, working her way through all seven aspects of the gods. She'd gone through the whole sequence so many times now I'd lost count. The Mother. The Father. The Maiden. The Crone. The Warrior. The Smith. The Stranger. Then back to the Mother again.

I couldn't blame either of them. I was so anxious I felt like I might explode out of my own skin.

My hands wouldn't stay still. My leg was bouncing like a child waiting outside a test hall, and I kept grinding my teeth without meaning to. Sweat ran down my back despite the cool stone hallway. 

I tried to think about the tourney happening out there. Archers lining up their shots. Taking deep breaths. The absolute calm one had to find to release the arrow at exactly the right moment. The stillness inside oneself.

I tried to embody that same calm.

Then another of Mother's screams tore through the door and my stomach twisted so hard I thought I might be sick.

It was the second day of the tourney. Second of three. We should have been down at Dawnrest right now, watching the middling rounds of the competition, shaking hands with the winning archers and consoling the losers. Father should have been making appearances at all the right pavilions. 

Instead, we'd had to ride hard back to Evenfall Hall early in the afternoon when the messenger reached us. Mother had gone into labor early. Maester Rowen had thought there was still a fortnight before the baby came. He'd been wrong. 

That had been four hours ago.

Four hours, and the screams were getting weaker now. Less frequent. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. I knew well that long labors were dangerous. That women could die. That babies could die. That sometimes both did.

And the idea that my mother could share the fate of Aemma Arryn made me want to break something. 

Or even worse. For one disgraceful moment, it made me want to leave. 

To get up, saddle Smoker, and ride out for the day. Take a spear or a bow and find something to kill in the forest. Do as Robert Baratheon had done whenever Cersei was in labor and go off on a hunt or something. Anything to be away from this hallway and these screams.

As if summoned by the thought of it, another scream came from inside the room. Weaker this time. Followed by sobbing.

My heart clenched so hard I had to remind myself to breathe.

Beside me, Arianne reached out and grabbed my hand like a vice. Held onto me like I was the only thing keeping her alive. 

I looked down at her. Tears were running down her cheeks despite her tightly shut eyes. Her other hand was clamped onto Alysanne's slender fingers, knuckles white.

Suddenly, the thought of leaving burned like shame in my chest. What kind of coward would I be if I left my sisters here to suffer alone? Whose hand would they hold onto?

I bit my lip, taking down a gulp of breath that still felt too thin in my lungs. I had one goal that mattered in this life. One purpose. To make House Tarth Strong. 

But I wasn't Tywin Lannister. I couldn't have cared less about the family name, the dynasty, the political legacy. What truly mattered to me was the family itself. My sisters, holding onto me right now like I was a rock in a storm. My father, who I was watching slowly come apart in front of me. My mother, who was right now fighting to bring another life into the world.

My new brother or sister. Already part of this family before they'd even drawn breath.

Being strong for them meant more than training soldiers or signing trade deals or building ports. It meant being here. Being present. Holding their hands when the world was scary.

Pulling Arianne closer, she buried her face into my shoulder and started crying openly, no longer trying to hold it back. I motioned to Alysanne to come around to my other side and pulled her into the embrace too, so I could hold both of them.

They both clung to me. I could feel them shaking.

I needed to do something. Anything.

"You know," I said, my voice rough but steady enough, "you two would have been too young to remember, too newly-born, but I was there for each of your births too."

Alysanne snorted next to me. The first sound out of her in hours that wasn't a prayer or a sob.

"Idiot," Arianne mumbled, her voice thick. But there was a faint smile in the word.

"It's true," I insisted. "Want to hear about it?"

Neither of them said no.

"I was four when Arianne came along. Old enough to know something important was happening, young enough to be a complete fool about it. They wouldn't let me into the room, you see. Said it was no place for a little boy, so I decided I'd go around them. I went outside and climbed the ivy on the wall up to where I knew the birthing room window was. Except I got about halfway up before a vine snapped under my foot."

Arianne lifted her head slightly. "What?"

"Fell about ten feet onto a hedge. Mother was furious when she found out. Maester Rowen had to check me over for broken bones while she was still recovering from giving birth to you." I shook my head. "Almost broke my leg trying to climb in to see you. I was very young and very stupid."

"What were you trying to do?" Arianne asked.

"What do you think?" I squeezed her shoulder. "I wanted to see my new sister. I'd never wanted anything more in my whole life. Couldn't wait. Was furious they wouldn't let me in."

Arianne pressed her face back into my shoulder. But she was hugging me tighter now.

"It was the same thing for yours, Aly," I continued, looking down at my younger sister. "Except by then I was older and much wiser. I didn't try to climb in through the window."

"You were only a year older," Alysanne pointed out.

"Your brother is a quick learner. A genius, almost." She rolled her eyes at me. "I did try to peek under the door instead. But all I ended up seeing was under Maester Rowen's robes when he walked over to check on something."

Alysanne made a disgusted noise that was half-laugh, half-protest.

"Idiot," Arianne said again. But this time she was chuckling through her tears. A small, watery sound.

Smiling slightly, I held them both tighter, and for a moment, the hallway felt almost bearable.

xxx

It took another three hours.

Three more hours of intermittent screams, occasional quieter moments that somehow felt worse than the screaming, and the constant scrape of Father's boots on the stones.

I told my sisters more stories. Embarrassing ones from when I was younger. Times I'd done foolish things. Times I'd gotten into trouble with Mother. Anything to keep their minds away from what was happening behind the door.

Until, finally, the screams stopped.

A silence fell so deep that you could hear the faint churn of the ocean far below the castle. I felt my whole body go tense. Beside me, Arianne lifted her head sharply. Alysanne's hand tightened on mine.

Father stopped pacing. Turned to face the door.

Nothing for a long, terrible moment.

Then, faintly, the sound of a baby crying.

I felt something inside me unclench, but not fully—not yet. A baby crying didn't mean Mother was safe. Babies could survive when mothers didn't.

The door opened, and Maester Rowen stepped out, looking exhausted. His robes were stained, his white hair disheveled. He was holding a cloth in his hands, drying them.

He looked at Father. Then at us.

And smiled. The best smile I’d ever seen in that old goat’s face.

"Both mother and child are safe and well, my lord."

Father made a sound I'd never heard him make before. Something between a sob and a laugh. He nearly fell against the wall, one hand going up to cover his face.

Beside me, Alysanne gasped and brought both hands to her mouth, trying and failing to hide a huge smile.

Arianne jumped to her feet, wiping at her tears only for more to come pouring out, laughing and crying at the same time.

My own relief was so enormous I couldn't move for a moment. I sat there on the bench, my legs apparently refusing to work. The tension that had been winding tighter and tighter inside me for the past nine hours released all at once, and I found I was shaking. Actually shaking.

As if given new life by the good news, Father came to where we sat and kissed each one of us. Pressed his forehead briefly against Arianne's, then Alysanne's, then mine. His eyes were wet. His hand trembled slightly as he touched my cheek.

Without another word, he stepped past us into the labor room. 

Arianne and Alysanne followed immediately, but Maester Rowen lifted a hand. "Carefully, my ladies. Your mother is still fragile. She needs rest."

"We'll be careful," Arianne promised, already half through the door.

It took me a second to go after them, but when I did, I saw the best thing I’d ever seen with my own eyes.

Mother lay on the bed, pale and breathless, her hair matted to her forehead with sweat. There were dark circles under her eyes. The bedclothes had been changed but I could see fresh stains on the linens being gathered up by a nursemaid.

Yet despite all of it, the best word I could use to describe her was triumphant.

She was smiling. A tired, fragile, beautiful smile.

Father knelt by the bedside, both of his big hands holding her face like he needed to touch her to believe she was real. His shoulders were slumped as if the weight of the entire world had finally come off his back. He was murmuring something to her too quietly for me to hear.

On the other side of the bed, Arianne and Alysanne crowded around a nurse holding what looked like a bundle of white cloth. Both of my sisters were making cooing noises, their faces lit up with a kind of pure joy I hadn't seen on them in months. Maybe years. They looked like they were already in love.

"Gal," Mother said. Her voice was raspy and weak. "Come. Come meet your newest sister. Another one for you to love and protect."

I walked toward the bed like I was moving through a dream. Each step took twice the effort it should have. Father shifted to give me space, never letting go of Mother's face, and I knelt by the bed beside him. 

The first thing I did was reach for Mother's other hand. It was clammy and cold and limp from exhaustion. I brought it up to my lips and kissed it.

"I'm glad you're well, Mother."

My voice sounded like a child's in my own ears.

She smiled at me. Reached weakly with her free hand to touch my cheek. "My first baby."

I realized suddenly that I was crying. Tears running freely down my face. Mother was wiping them away with her thumb, caressing my face and hair. I felt impossibly silly. Having my mother comfort me even though she was the one who had just been through hours of agony. But she just kept wiping my tears with that fond, tired smile, and I let her.

That was what mothers did, I supposed.

The nursemaid moved closer with the bundle of white cloth. She passed it carefully to Mother, who shifted to take it with practiced ease.

Mother cooed at the baby for a moment. Made some soft sound that babies seemed to understand instinctively. Then she held the bundle out toward Father.

"Here, my lord. Meet your fourth child."

Lord Selwyn Tarth took the bundle as if he was being entrusted with something that could shatter at the slightest wrong movement. The baby looked impossibly small in his big hands, the bundle barely seeming to fill his palms.

He looked down at the baby. His blue eyes were glimmering with unshed tears.

I stood up so I could look over his shoulder and got my first glimpse of my new sister.

A tuft of pale blonde hair already showing on her tiny head. Pale skin still flushed pink from the trauma of being born. Eyes squeezed shut against the world. A small, perfect, scrunched-up face. Tiny fists clenched against her tiny chest.

She was beautiful. The most beautiful baby I'd ever seen.

"Have you chosen a name yet?" Father asked. His voice was rough.

"I have," Mother said.

She paused, looking up at him with such tender affection that I felt like I shouldn't be witnessing it. Like this moment belonged only to them.

"This is your daughter Brienne. Brienne of Tarth."

I smiled. She was earlier by many years, but of course it was her. 

As if hearing her name—or more likely just responding to her mother's voice—little Brienne started to cry. Her eyes scrunched up tighter. Her tiny face got redder. Her mouth opened in an indignant wail.

Father chuckled, the sound thick with emotion. "A strong voice already."

He shifted her carefully, rocking and shushing her quietly. Brienne's wailing didn't stop, but one of her tiny hands escaped the cloth.

I reached out. Hesitated. Then carefully extended my finger.

Brienne's tiny fist closed around it with surprising strength. Her whole hand barely covered the length of my finger. My smile widened.

Another little sister to hold my hand.

"Hello, Brienne of Tarth," I said softly. "It's so good to meet you."

Her crying didn't stop. But for a moment, she opened her eyes. Just for a moment. Bright blue, unfocused, but looking generally in my direction.

Then they squeezed shut again and she went back to her important business of complaining about the world. I laughed despite the tears still running down my face.

"Welcome to the family, little sister," I whispered. "You're going to have a great life. I’ll make sure of it."

xxx

Much as I wanted to, I couldn't spend all my time with my mother and baby sister.

Mother needed rest, and the baby needed her mother far more than she needed me. And there was still a tourney happening down at Dawnrest that Father and I had abandoned in our rush back to Evenfall Hall.

With labor taking as long as it did, we didn't return for the second day. But the final event drew us both, transformed now into something more than just an archery tournament. The bells had rung the day before to announce Brienne's safe arrival, and the news had spread through the island faster than wildfire through summer grass. The final day became a kind of double celebration, the closing of the tourney and the welcoming of House Tarth's newest member.

Our family was beloved on Tarth. Father had been a good lord all his years, and Mother charitable beyond what most ladies bothered to be. The smallfolk took genuine pride in their lord's family. A new daughter meant House Tarth was growing. In numbers, in strength, in continuity. It meant security for the people who depended on us.

The meadow outside Dawnrest where the tourney was held looked like a festival. Banners and stalls and people everywhere. Music drifting from multiple sources at once. The smell of roasting meat and spiced wine and trampled grass.

The winner of the archery competition surprised everyone, myself included.

He was a weather-worn, greying man from a village so remote I'd never heard of it. Hands like old leather, a face creased by decades of sun and weather. He hit the bullseye three times in a row at a hundred paces, a feat that drew genuine gasps from the watching crowd. The other finalists were professional men-at-arms or seasoned hunters, while this man looked like he'd walked out of the deepest forest in the realm.

When I offered him the grand prize in silver, he refused. He had one request instead. That we take his two teenage sons into our household and train them as men-at-arms.

His wife had died years ago, he explained. The boys had grown up with him in the wild, hunting and trapping and trading occasionally at their local village. He wanted better for them than the life he'd given them. A path that didn't end in a hut in the woods.

Father and I talked it over quickly while the man waited. Then we agreed—but with a condition. The man would stay too. Not as a guard or servant, but as a teacher. He'd train his sons, all our men, and my Companions in archery. The skill he'd demonstrated wasn't something you could teach in a month, but whatever portion of it he could pass on was worth gold.

He hesitated. There was nothing for him to return to in his old life, but old habits were hard to break. In the end, he agreed, and the celebrations for the tourney’s end lasted long into the night.

The whole meadow turned into what could only be described as a medieval block party. Smallfolk danced around bonfires. The musicians played until their fingers blistered, then rotated out for fresh ones. Ale flowed freely. Couples disappeared into the surrounding fields and emerged hours later looking happily disheveled.

Father returned to the castle early to be with Mother. He'd done his duty appearing publicly, but his heart was already gone to her bedside.

I stayed and oversaw the festivities. Which, conveniently, included a great deal of dancing with a certain black-haired beauty whose violet eyes caught the firelight in ways that kept distracting me.

xxx

The next two weeks followed a similar pattern.

When I wasn't with Mother fussing over little Brienne—and gods, that baby grew faster than I could believe, her tiny fingers already trying to grasp things, her eyes starting to track movement—I was either working on matters too delicate to delegate or playing host to our esteemed foreign guests.

I took them riding to my favorite spots around the island, through the lush green forests of the south, along the gentle streams that crisscrossed the valleys. We rode to a waterfall I'd discovered as a boy, where the water fell forty feet into a clear pool. We climbed to the high meadows where wildflowers bloomed in carpets of color. We followed the coastal trails where you could see the best sunset in the Seven Kingdoms.

Sometimes, when Elia and Gerion were lost in their own conversation and Oberyn had inevitably wandered off to flirt with whoever caught his eye, I'd seize the reins of Ashara's horse and pull her down a hidden trail I'd known since childhood. We'd ride out laughing like fools until we found some quiet spot. A glade, a hidden stream, the shadow of an old tree. Then we'd kiss until a worried Elia came calling for us.

When the weather cooperated, I took them diving from the cliffs outside the castle, showing off Tarth's most famous feature aside from our marble. The water there was as sapphire as the island's reputation promised, deep and clear and warm enough to swim in for hours.

Gerion revealed a fact he'd successfully hidden from most of his acquaintances for years: he had a deathly fear of heights. He stood at the cliff edge for nearly an hour, increasingly elaborate excuses pouring out of him while the rest of us swam in the water below.

Elia eventually climbed back up and dragged him to the edge. He clung to her like a koala baby to its mother, his eye squeezed shut.

"I cannot believe," Oberyn called up from the water, "that the great Lannister knight is afraid of a little jump."

"This is not a little jump!" Gerion shouted back. "This is suicide!"

Elia finally got him to leap by promising she'd hold his hand the whole way down. They fell together, Gerion screaming the entire fifteen feet, and surfaced spluttering and laughing while the rest of us tried not to drown from our own laughter.

He refused to jump again. But he'd done it once, and that was something.

And at night, when most of the castle slept and the moon hung silver above the cliffs, Ashara and I would meet in the gardens. Sometimes just to talk. Sometimes to walk through the wild flowers under the stars. But more often, I'd take her down to the crystal pool below the castle again.

There, we'd swim in the silver-touched water. Float on our backs and watch the crystals glitter overhead. Kiss until our lips were swollen. Talk for hours about nothing in particular and everything that mattered.

Like two young fools crushing hard on one another. Which, I supposed, was exactly what we were.

But such times could not last forever.

Lord Steffon's letter arrived two weeks after Brienne's birth, and the message was simple. We'd be heading off to Essos in a fortnight. His fleet was already gathering at King’s Landing. Ships, supplies, the entourage that would accompany him on his royal mission.

I told Ashara about it that night, as we lay on the sand by the crystal pool. The moonlight pouring through the cliff opening painted everything silver-white. The crystals on the ceiling caught it and threw it back tenfold, turning the cavern into something out of a dream.

I'd brought her an orchid that night, picked from one of the wilder corners of Mother's gardens. I'd put it behind her ear. The purple of the petals matched her eyes almost exactly.

"Two weeks..." Ashara murmured.

"Two weeks."

She turned to her side, propping herself up on one elbow to look at me. The orchid stayed in place behind her ear.

"It's best if we left before Lord Baratheon arrives," she said. "Before all the noise and ceremony begins. We can be on our way to Sunspear before his fleet ever reaches Tarth's harbor."

I shifted to my side as well, taking her in. The curve of her neck. The line of her shoulder. Those pouty lips that I'd kissed enough times now that I could trace their shape from memory.

I must have been looking at her too long, because she frowned at me.

"What?"

"I take it back," I said. "Your eyes aren't froggish purple. They're orchid purple."

She snorted and pushed me onto my back, then settled herself with her chin resting on my bare chest. Her fingers traced absent patterns on my skin.

"What will we do?" she asked.

I raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who said we cannot marry yet."

"You weren't exactly jumping at the thought of it either." She harrumphed. 

I shrugged, careful not to dislodge her. "Any man would be eager to marry you, Ashara. But marriage isn't the kind of thing one should rush into. And I wouldn't want to do so without your father's permission."

She sighed. "I know."

She looked down, seemingly fascinated by the lines of muscle on my chest. Her fingers traced one of them, light as a breath.

"But I will speak to him," she said. "When I return. I'll make him see sense."

"You don't sound so convinced."

"It would help if you were Dornish. Or Essosi, even. Or anything other than a Stormlander."

I laughed. "Even a Reachman?"

Her eyes lifted, almost offended. "I'm speaking about men, ser. Not..." She waved a hand vaguely. "Whatever they are."

I shook my head, chuckling. "People are people everywhere, dornish girl." I poked her gently on the forehead. "Don't let your father's ideas do your thinking for you. Or you wouldn't have ended up on the chest of a dashing Stormlander, no?"

She glared at me, though there was no real heat in it.

"You are quite eager to defend the flowers, aren't you?" She pressed a long nail against my chest. "Is this about that Hightower bint?"

I frowned with theatrical confusion. "Who, Malora? Well, I wouldn't call her a bint. Malora Hightower is actually quite the charming young—ow, ow!"

Her nail dragged lightly down my chest. It honestly felt more like a pleasant scratch than anything painful, but I had to give her the win after mentioning another woman in our private cave. Her glare intensified.

I lifted both hands in surrender. "Fine, fine. I won't mention the unmentionable. But look—we are young still. We don't have to marry yet. As I said, I'm not in any rush."

Ashara looked at me for a long moment. Then she sighed and lowered her head back onto my chest.

"I know. I just don't like the idea that you'll get to go gallivanting off to Essos or Oldtown in search of a new bint to charm."

"Such is the tragic fate of dashing knights, my lady.” I let out a put-upon sigh. “We're irresistible to the bints."

I got a sharp bite to my chest for that one. I didn't mind.

We lay there for a while in comfortable silence, the only sound the gentle lap of water against sand.

After she'd told me her father would be unlikely to allow her to marry anytime soon—and especially not to a Stormlander—I had decided to enjoy my time with her without the specter of marriage and family alliances hanging over us. I hadn't lied when I told her we were still young. I knew it was common to marry at our ages in Westeros, me at seventeen and her at sixteen. If we had to do so quickly, it wouldn't bother me much. But I also wasn't against waiting. Letting things develop naturally. Letting us both grow into ourselves a bit more before making lifelong commitments.

I liked Ashara. I could feel that I might come to love her, given time and proximity. But what was between us wasn't quite love yet. It was the beginning of something. The promise of something. Whether that promise would be fulfilled or wither was something only time would tell.

We'd talked about it openly, which I appreciated. Agreed to take any opportunity to see each other when our paths crossed. To use those times to deepen our connection. Love would either come from it naturally, or our feelings would fade like any other young crush.

Either way, we'd know.

xxx

Three days later, Ashara Dayne and Princess Elia Martell boarded a ship and left for Sunspear.

The parting was harder than I'd expected. We said our public goodbyes with proper formality on the docks at Dawnrest. Ashara curtsied and I bowed and we exchanged polite words about how we hoped our paths would cross again soon.

But that morning, before the household was fully awake, she'd slipped into my chambers one last time. We hadn't done anything more than hold each other and exchange a long, lingering kiss. But it had felt more significant than all our nights in the cave combined.

Ashara and Elia left behind many memories when they were finally gone. The riding. The diving. The dances at the feast. The nights by the crystal pool. The way Elia laughed at Gerion's jokes. The way Ashara's hair caught the moonlight. 

They also left behind a Prince who'd all but invited himself onto our journey east.

I didn't mind. Oberyn was as pleasant company as Gerion, and now that we were friends, I welcomed his presence on the voyage. Plus, he'd been to the Free Cities before. He had contacts. He knew enough about which magisters were trustworthy and which were snakes wearing perfume.

Having him along would be useful.

But for now, in the days before Lord Steffon arrived with his fleet, I had a baby sister to spend time with. A mother to dote on. A family that had grown stronger and more precious to me than ever.

Whatever else came, those few weeks of warmth and safety, of swimming in moonlit caves and watching Father hold his newborn daughter, were memories I'd carry with me across the Narrow Sea.