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White Harbor, The North. Year 286 AC
He woke up groggy, quickly realizing he was lying in a bed made of the most uncomfortable material. He opened his eyes and looked around; he found himself in a strange room with stone walls illuminated by candles.
A cold sweat covered the small body of five-year-old Corbyn Manderly. He had been burning with fever for three days, a delirium Maester Theomore had attributed to a bad eel in the stew. But this was no ordinary sickness.
In the back of his mind, a wall cracked.
Suddenly, the sharp ache in his head was not just that of a sick child. It was the throbbing hangover of a twenty-one-year-old university student named Alex, who had stayed up too late studying for a final history exam.
And at the same time, something else awoke. It was not another life, nor was it a voice. It was a... knowing. A torrent of cold, ancient instincts that settled into his bones: how to pull a bow until the string kissed his cheek, how to feel the grain of wood before carving it, how steel should sing when struck on the forge.
Two lives, and an inheritance of blood, crashed together in the mind of a five-year-old boy.
"What... what the hell? Where am I? My dorm? This isn't..." The panic of Alex was the first to surface. He looked at his hands. They were tiny, pale, and chubby.
'Calm. Breathe.' The thought was not Alex's. It was the ancient instinct, the elven blood, imposing an unnatural stillness over the panic. 'The body is weak, but... different.'
"Mommy... it hurts..." The whimper of Corbyn himself, the five-year-old boy, was what finally escaped his lips.
A woman rushed to his side. She had hair the color of a sunset red, identical to the hair Corbyn now saw with new eyes. Her blue eyes, like his own, were full of concern.
"Corbyn, my sweet child. You're awake."
'Corbyn. Corbyn Manderly.' The name resonated in the merged mind.
Alex felt a chill that had nothing to do with the fever. 'Oh, no. No, no, no. Manderly. White Harbor. Red hair... like the Tullys. My God, I'm in Game of Thrones. I'm in Westeros. Year... what year is it?'
"The fever has broken, thank the Seven," his mother murmured, placing a cool hand on his forehead. Her touch was gentle, but her fingers moved with a practiced familiarity, brushing the side of his head.
Corbyn—the new Corbyn, the fusion of the student and the child—lay still. He knew what she was doing.
Her fingers slid over his ears.
Slowly, Corbyn lifted his own tiny hands and touched what his mother had just adjusted. His thick red hair fell in curls, but beneath them, the cartilage was not soft and rounded. It was delicate, elegant, and ended in a sharp point.
They were elf ears.
'I was born with them.' The memory of Corbyn (the child) was clear. His parents loved him, but it was their secret. The midwife had been silenced with gold, and Maester Theomore had declared it a strange, but harmless, "birthmark." They always told him to keep his hair long.
'So... not just the memories.' Alex swallowed. 'This elven knowledge... is it real? My blood really...?'
'The blood sings,' whispered that primal instinct. 'This world... magic is wild. Dormant, but wild. Like an un-dammed river. The body has accepted it.'
"Better, my little merman?" His mother's voice pulled him from his stupor.
The nickname of his House. The Manderlys. Vassals of the Starks. Rich. With a fleet. Exiles from the Reach who made a home in the North.
'I am in 286 AC,' calculated Alex, accessing the child Corbyn's memories. 'Robert's Rebellion ended three years ago. Robert is King. I was born in '81. I will be seventeen when Eddard Stark rides south... twelve years. I have twelve years to prepare.'
"Water..." he croaked.
His mother helped him drink. As he did, his brothers entered. The first was Wylis, his older brother, eight years old, stocky and kind. Behind him, Wendel, four years old, was already a miniature version of his father.
"Mother said you were better. Are you not dying anymore, Corbyn?" Wylis asked.
"Can I eat your eel now?" Wendel asked.
Corbyn managed a weak smile. 'Wylis and Wendel. The canon heirs. I'm in the middle. The second son. And...' He looked toward the door, where a wet-nurse was holding a bundle of blankets. 'Wendel. The youngest. So I'm the second of three sons.'
His father entered shortly after. Lord Wyman Manderly was an imposing man, not the mountain of obesity he would be in twelve years, but large nonetheless.
"Ah! The Manderly resolve!" he roared, slapping him on the back so hard it almost sent him back into the pillows. "Look at that, dear! It takes more than a fool's belly and a bad eel to finish off my boy! You have your grandfather's blood!"
Corbyn coughed, but nodded. 'Good. I'm not the heir. Wylis is. That's perfect.'
Alex's panic was fading, replaced by the cold logic of a student and by those new elven instincts that gave him a strange, quiet confidence.
'The North. The Long Night. The Others. Dragons. Chaos.' The list of horrors was long.
'I need power.'
Corbyn analyzed his instincts. Westerosi combat was brute strength, but he felt the fight differently. Speed, precision, grace. He knew he would become a great fighter, but he would need more than the strength of one man. He needed an army.
'I can't be a Lord. Wylis is the heir, and I am... strange.'
So, what was left?
The answer was all around him. White Harbor. The busiest port in the North. Ships arriving from the Free Cities.
'Trade,' Corbyn decided, with sudden clarity.
'The elven instinct. Forging. Alchemy. Healing... Was it all there, dormant in his blood? What could a sword forged with this knowledge be worth? A healing potion that actually works?'
'Alex's knowledge. Canon. Future events. Who lives, who dies, who lies. The value of information.'
'The knowledge of Corbyn. House Manderly. Access to ships, trade routes, wealth.'
The plan began to form.
His family noticed the change in the following days. The previously quiet child had become intensely curious. A silence enveloped him, but it was not from sickness; it was from observation.
That night, the dream was not Alex's, nor the child Corbyn's. It was something new.
He was in a forest. Cold. Snow. And he was not alone. He saw eyes... large, liquid, innocent. A fawn. No, larger. A stag. A pure white, newborn stag, normally associated with royalty and a sign of good omens, looking at him from the thicket. He felt a... connection. A tug deep in his stomach. He wanted to... protect it.
He woke up before dawn, his heart pounding. 'A white stag...'
That same morning, he sought out his father. He found him in the Merman's Court, reviewing cargo manifests.
"Corbyn? You're up already?"
"Father," Corbyn said, his child's voice sounding strangely serious. "I had a dream."
Wyman raised an eyebrow. "A dream?"
"I dreamt of a white stag. Or a deer. It was a baby."
Wyman chuckled. "The gods send you visions of hunting, eh? Well, it's a good omen."
"Father... I want to learn to fight," Corbyn blurted out.
"Haha! Now you talk like a Manderly!" his father roared. "The master-at-arms will put a shield and a wooden sword in your hands. It will strengthen you."
"Not just the sword," Corbyn interrupted him, a bold move. His new instincts told him to push. "I want to learn to use the bow. And... two swords. Short ones. Like... long knives."
Silence filled the hall. Wyman Manderly stopped laughing. He looked at his second son, at this five-year-old boy asking to wield two daggers and a bow.
"Bow and two swords? What madness is that? And a normal sword?"
"Also," Corbyn conceded. "But I want to be fast."
Wyman stared at him. A son who had been born... different. And now this.
"You are a strange lad, Corbyn Manderly," Lord Wyman finally said, with a hint of pride in his voice. "Very well. The master-at-arms will teach you the bow and the sword. But two knives? That is not for knights..."
"But it is fast," Corbyn insisted.
Wyman sighed, rubbing his beard. "I have heard tell of a style... from Braavos. The Water Dance. They use thin swords. Speed. Perhaps that is what you seek. I will find a master for your... 'dance'. But you are costing me money, boy. I hope you are worth it."
"I will be, Father," Corbyn assured him. "I promise."
Wyman laughed, a chuckle that shook his belly. "Go then, little shark! Go and sharpen your teeth!"
Corbyn bowed, a surprisingly elegant movement for his age, and left the hall.
He walked through the corridors of the New Castle, his family's stronghold built to withstand the Kings of Winter. He headed for the training yard.
The first step was taken. He had secured his physical training. In his mind, the plans to learn to read, master languages, and build a trade network were bubbling up... but all in good time. First, he had to learn to move.
And in his mind, the image of a white stag in a snowy forest remained. He had twelve years of borrowed time, and he did not intend to waste a single second.
White Harbor, The North. Year 286 AC
Three days passed before Lord Wyman Manderly made good on his promise. Corbyn, now fully recovered from the fever, was summoned to the training yard at dawn. The air of the North was cold and smelled of sea and woodsmoke.
His brothers were already there. Eight-year-old Wylis was awkwardly hitting a wooden post with a blunted practice sword under the watchful eye of the master-at-arms. Four-year-old Wendel was sitting on the steps, cheerfully abandoning himself to eating a breakfast tart.
The master-at-arms was Ser Karyl, a burly man with a grey mustache and hands like hams. He watched Corbyn approach and scowled.
'Great,' Corbyn thought, 'he already thinks I'm a nuisance.'
"Lord Manderly has given me... peculiar instructions for you, my lord," Ser Karyl grumbled, with little preamble. He did not look happy. "Bow, sword, and daggers? And he made me call in the best Braavosi instructor I could find on the docks? Is it a dance or a battle he's looking for?"
'A little of both, actually,' Corbyn thought.
"I want to learn everything, Ser," Corbyn said, his child's voice sounding small in the open yard.
Wylis stopped, looking at his younger brother with curiosity. "Are you going to fight, Corbyn? But you're smaller than Wendel!"
Ser Karyl sighed. "Your father commands it, Lord Wylis. Very well, Lord Corbyn. Take a bow."
He pointed to a small yew wood bow, made for a child. Corbyn picked it up. It was light, but felt heavy in his five-year-old hands. Ser Karyl handed him a blunt-tipped arrow.
"Show me what you know."
Corbyn paused. He closed his eyes for a second. Alex's memories knew nothing of bows, but the elven instincts... they sang. He felt how he should stand. He let half the air out of his lungs. He nocked the arrow, raised the bow, and drew.
He had no strength. The string barely reached halfway. The arrow left with a weak poof! and fell less than three yards away, bouncing pathetically on the ground.
Wylis laughed.
"Silence!" Ser Karyl barked.
But Ser Karyl wasn't looking at the arrow. He was looking at Corbyn. The boy was shaking from the effort, but his posture had been... good for a novice. His feet were well-placed, his back straight, his grip on the bow was firm but flexible. It was the stance of someone with some training.
"Again," Ser Karyl said, with a new tone of interest.
Corbyn tried again. And again. For an hour, he shot arrows that barely flew. His arms burned. Sweat stung his eyes. But each time, his form was increasingly refined.
'This is useless,' Corbyn thought, frustrated. 'I have the feeling, but this body is a wet noodle.'
"Enough bow for today," Ser Karyl said, scratching his chin. "You have the strength of a newborn cat. But, by the Seven Hells, I have never seen anyone stand like that on their first day. We will make you an archer, my lord. Even if it takes us ten years."
Just then, a man crossed the yard. He was the complete opposite of Ser Karyl. He was thin, wearing a snug leather vest, dark hair tied back in a queue, and a sharp nose. He walked like a cat.
"Ser Karyl?" His voice had a strong Free Cities accent. "Lord Wyman told me I would find my new student here. I am Mero, from Braavos."
Ser Karyl pointed at Corbyn with his thumb. "He's all yours. But bring him back for the sword. The real sword."
Mero looked at Corbyn. His dark eyes seemed to see everything, even the pointed ears Corbyn kept hidden under his red hair.
"So. You are the little merman who wants to dance," Mero said. He did not give Corbyn a weapon. "Do you know the first lesson of the Water Dance?"
"Speed?" Corbyn ventured.
"No. The first lesson is balance." Mero pointed to the top of the wooden post Wylis had been hitting. "Climb up. And stand still. On one foot."
Five-year-old Corbyn looked at the post, which was twice his height.
"But..."
"You want to be fast? Fast means your feet obey. And your feet will not obey you if you cannot stand still. Climb up."
For the next hour, Corbyn did not touch a sword. He learned to fall. He climbed the post and fell off. He climbed up and fell off again. Mero simply watched, correcting his breathing, not his movements.
'This is different,' Corbyn thought, as he dusted off his knees for the tenth time. 'Ser Karyl wants to make me strong. Mero wants me to forget about strength.'
By the end of the morning, Corbyn was bruised, sore, and completely exhausted. He sat down next to Wendel, who offered him what was left of his tart.
"Fighting looks boring," Wendel declared.
Corbyn laughed, a rough sound from fatigue.
"It is," Corbyn agreed.
But as he ate the piece of tart, a fierce determination settled in his chest. The steel of Westeros and the Dance of Braavos. Strength and speed. He had both. And he had twelve years to master them.