Invisible String - Cregan Stark

Twelve~ Flattened

The wind had flushed my cheeks and teased my hair loose from its braids, and my lilac eyes seemed almost black in the winter light.

And in that stillness, I heard him.

My little mermaid.

It wasn't real—just the ghost of a voice, salt-warm and sunlit. My father's voice. Laenor Velaryon, smiling with all the brightness of Driftmark's summer seas.

He had called me that since before I could remember, claiming the waves had gifted me to him in a moment of mercy.

I could see him now, as if the water carried his image: lifting me from the surf when I was small, my hair dripping and tangled with seaweed; holding me steady on slick rocks as the tide pulled hard at my legs; telling stories of mermaids who sang storms to sleep.

I reached toward the surface. My reflection shattered, scattering into a dozen fragments carried downstream.

Would he know me now?

Would he see the girl who ran barefoot along the soft sands of Driftmark, pockets full of shells and eyes wide with wonder—or only the woman shaped by courts, politics, war, and the cold steel edge of survival?

Looking into the rippling water, I felt older than my seventeen years. If I had indeed been a girl once, that time was far behind me.

I had pretended for so long—clever words, guarded silences, a smile crafted to conceal more than it revealed—that I had almost forgotten what I truly looked like beneath it all.

I let the water slip between my fingers until they went numb, as though trying to hold something long lost.

Behind me, Cregan called out to me. Low, even, but edged with that quiet watchfulness he carried into every word.

I straightened, brushing the water from my gloves, and turned. He stood by the horses, adjusting Ōrbar's bridle, one hand resting idly on Frost's head. His gaze met mine for a heartbeat—long enough for me to feel its weight—before he turned back to the straps.

I mounted without another look at the creek. The water smoothed itself as if I had never touched it, but the ghost of my father's laughter followed me as we rode on, mingling with the silence between us.

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By the time camp was set, the world was steeped in blue shadow. The fire cracked softly at the center, casting its reach only so far before the dark took back the rest.

Cregan was there, seated on a log, sharpening his blade in a slow, steady rhythm. I hovered at the edge of the firelight for a moment, unsure whether to break the quiet.

It was foolish, I told myself, to even think of mentioning this morning. What would I even say?

Still, my feet betrayed me. I took a place beside him, close enough to feel the fire on my face and the winter on my back. For a time I said nothing, only watched the measured drag of steel on stone.

He broke the silence first, his voice low, rough-edged as if the words cost him more than they should have. "About this morning... I should apologize. For falling on you."

I tilted my head. "Falling?"

A twitch of his brow betrayed him. "Aye."

"You flattened me, my lord."

Then he laughed—low, warm, unexpectedly rich—and it rolled through the chill night like a spark catching dry kindling. I felt it under my skin, heat spreading across my chest.