Chapter Text
CHAPTER ONE — THE SECOND BIRTH
He died on a Tuesday.
A normal day, painfully ordinary — three lectures, one stubborn student who insisted steel behaved the same in every temperature, and a long drive home under a sky bruised with early evening clouds. He remembered checking the time. He remembered thinking he should cook something healthy. He remembered headlights — too close, too sudden — and then the sickening weightlessness of a car spinning, metal folding inward like soft clay, glass turning into glittering shrapnel.
Pain. Silence. Darkness.
And then—
Cold.
Not the sterile chill of a hospital, nor the sharp bite of winter wind. This cold was ancient, woven into stone walls and drafty halls, the kind of cold that felt like it had lived here long before man ever walked the land.
He opened his eyes.
Everything was blurred, shapes and colors swimming like paint in water. Firelight flickered somewhere above. A shadow moved — large, broad-shouldered, familiar in a way he could not yet understand. Hands wrapped in leather gently lifted him, cradling him with a care that felt practiced, natural.
A voice, low and steady, filled the world.
“Edwyle.”
He knew that name, though he had never heard it spoken to him. It thrummed through him like a chord struck on a harp.
Edwyle.
“My son,” the man murmured, and the sound carried weight — of duty, of love, of the North.
Another voice joined, softer yet strong in its own way. A woman leaned into view, her face flushed with exertion, red hair damp with sweat and clinging to her temples.
“And Robb,” she whispered, holding another swaddled infant. “Two healthy boys.”
Twins. He and another. Born together into a world he did not yet know.
His mind scrambled to make sense of the impossible: he was an infant, he couldn’t move properly, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even control his own breathing. But he remembered. He remembered everything — lectures, the accident, his name, his age, the shock of dying.
Two lives’ worth of memory folded into a body hours old.
He tried to inhale, but his lungs seized. The cold stung. He let out a newborn wail, high and sharp.
“It’s all right,” the man soothed, rubbing small circles on his back with a calloused thumb. “Winter has sharp teeth. You’ll grow used to them, little one.”
The warmth of that hand lingered even through the haze. The man’s face came into clearer focus: grey eyes, calm as still water; dark hair; a long, solemn face set in lines of quiet strength.
Recognition slammed into him like a hammer.
Eddard Stark.
Lord of Winterfell. Warden of the North.
A man of honor carved from the old gods’ own tree.
And if this was Eddard Stark…
Then the woman was—
“Let me see him again,” she whispered, exhaustion yielding to awe as she shifted both infants closer. Catelyn Stark’s eyes were brilliant with emotion. “My boys.”
The realization hit him fully then, crashing over him like a wave.
I’ve been reborn into Westeros.
He struggled against the weight of his tiny limbs, desperate to lift his head, to see more of this world he’d only read about — but all he could manage was a weak squirm.
A laugh escaped Catelyn, light and disbelieving. “He’s strong, Ned. Look at him. Already fighting.”
Eddard’s expression softened even further — a rare thing, from what the engineer remembered of the man’s reputation and character.
“He has the North in him,” Ned said quietly. “A true Stark.”
The words grounded him more than the hands holding him.
A Stark.
He was a Stark now.
Edwyle Stark. Elder twin to Robb Stark.
Firstborn son. Heir to Winterfell.
The weight of the role settled into him like a mantle. In his old world, he taught engineering and occasionally stitched up the clumsy injuries of students. Here? Here he would one day rule a land built on ice and stone, where winter could kill as surely as steel and politics sharper still.
He forced another breath. The cold hurt less this time.
The room around him gained sharper edges — a chamber with thick stone walls, furs piled high, rushes scattered across the floors. A midwife moved about, cleaning tools and cloths, humming some Northern lullaby. A pair of wolfshead banners hung from the far wall, their grey silhouettes seeming almost alive in the dancing firelight.
This wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t limbo. It wasn’t some fevered hallucination.
This was Winterfell.
This was real.
His new life pulsed within him in weak, fragile heartbeats.
Catelyn shifted slightly, adjusting both infants, and his tiny body was pressed briefly against Robb’s. Warmth radiated from his twin, steady and grounding. Robb’s small hand twitched and curled around his blanket.
Brothers. Born together.
Eddard placed a hand on both their heads.
“Rest now,” he told them. “Tomorrow brings its own trials, even for the smallest of Starks.”
His voice held a quiet, gentle humor that was almost jarring — the Ned Stark of legend was so often portrayed as grave and stern. But here, in this moment, he was something else as well:
A father.
Edwyle’s new father.
The engineer — the man he had been — felt something tighten in his chest. A grieving ache for the family he’d lost. A desperate, tugging sorrow. But the tiny infant body could not hold such emotions for long. The world blurred at the edges, sleep tugging at him, soft and heavy.
As darkness crept in, one last thought flickered like a candle flame:
This world is dangerous. Violent. Beautiful. Unforgiving.
But I have knowledge Westeros has never seen.
I can change things.
I will change things.
His eyes slipped shut.
And Edwyle Stark — heir of Winterfell, reborn from another world — slept his first sleep in the land he would one day reshape.
Author’s Note:
Hi everyone! This is my first time writing a story, and since English isn’t my native language, there may be a few mistakes here and there. I’m using AI to help me express my ideas more clearly. Thank you for giving this story a chance—I hope you enjoy it!