Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Rhaenyra marries Laenor Velaryon with the blood of his lover still warm on both their faces.

It seems an impossible thing that a wedding could be performed after such violence and destruction, but there she is, whispering wows in the eerie quiet of the deserted throne room, food and wine spread on the floor, shards of glass scattered everywhere, Joffrey’s blood drying under their feet.

Only their families remain to bear witness to their union.

With one exception.

Daemon.

The most important part of Rhaenyra’s family disappeared when he vanished, taking advantage of the chaos he so enjoys creating to abandon her once more.

Rhaenyra’s memories of how everything went down are confused, but she remembers with frightening precision the moment Daemon dropped her face, the moment he dropped her heart and let it shatter on the floor.

They weren’t separated, they weren’t torn apart. Daemon is so strong that not even the most violent storm could have separated them.

It was his choice to let her go.

Take me to Dragonstone and make me your wife, she dared him, calling his bluff like she had once done on the bridge of Dragonstone.

Daemon folded, just like he did that day years ago, just like he did in that brothel when he left her, alone and shivering in the dark, the desire he had lighted with his touch cooling on her thighs.

Rhaenyra feels alone now. And she’s shivering, even with the heavy cloak bearing the colors of her house and house Velaryon on her shoulders.

It’s too big on her, and she’s drowning in the soft fabric, the consequences of what she’s doing slowly sinking in.

She’s getting married. To Laenor.  

His hands holding hers are the only thing keeping Rhaenyra upright, just like she is the only thing keeping him upright. The events of the night have turned their worlds upside-down, and now they’re colliding, melting together to form a new one they’ll share as husband and wife.

Husband and wife.

They both can hardly hold their tears as they are wed, but Rhaenyra still finds the strength to raise herself on her tiptoes to kiss Laenor’s cheek. It’s a small comfort in his grief, but all she can offer him.

And then, as if there haven’t been enough bad omens that night, her father collapses, ruby drops staining his hand, as he coughs and chokes on the air entering his lungs.

As if he’s drowning, too, and Rhaenyra hopes, for a brief second, that it’s his guilt suffocating him.

Shame paints her cheeks for her angry thought, and she rushes to his aid with her heart painfully throbbing in her throat. She has lost too much already, she cannot lose her father, too.

He is carried back to his rooms by his Kingsguards, and the Grand Maester is sent to care for him.

Rhaenyra would stay at his bedside, but she has just been wed, and her place is with her husband, in their bed.

Laenor is in no condition to consummate their wedding, but witnesses are gathered all the same, expecting them to fulfill their new duty to each other and to the realm.

Except, Laenor can’t get hard, and Rhaenyra can’t get wet, and her body struggles to take him, no matter how flaccid he is. Then, there’s nothing for her to do but to lay there, under the scrutiny of people staring through holes in the wall, her legs spread, her body aching, her heart fearful that she’ll get pregnant from this, the ghost of her mother haunting the halls of the Red Keep when the night is darkest.

There are a thousand apologies in her cousin’s—husband, her mind supplies—eyes. There’s no pleasure in the act, not for either of them, but Rhaenyra avoids his gaze, staring at the ceiling instead, imagining it’s the black stones of Dragonstone she’s seeing, imagining it’s another husband moving between her thighs.

Alas, there is no escape for Rhaenyra, not even in the confines of her own mind, and she’s all too aware of the soreness forming between her legs.  

After a small eternity, Laenor finally rolls off of her, curling up on his side, silent tears rolling down his cheeks.

Once she’s certain all witnesses have disappeared, Rhaenyra pricks one of her fingers with Laenor’s dagger, bloodying the night even more. She watches as the white sheets turn scarlet, her heart a heavy weight in her chest.

xxx

“Take me to Dragonstone and make me your wife,” Rhaenyra fiercely demands, the sound of her voice clear above the noise of the crowd.

Daemon is a warrior, and although the blood of the dragon in his veins runs hot, he does know how to keep himself under control.

He can’t, however, control how his body reacts to his niece’s open challenge, can’t control the way his heart lurches in his chest, lurches toward her, each beat stronger than the previous one, each beat for her.

He can’t control the way his blood rushes down, can’t control the desire Rhaenyra’s quick pulse under his fingers sparks.

He feels light-headed, images of the two of them flying away to Dragonstone and marrying in the traditions of their house filling his mind. He can see it perfectly, the stone altar covered in red wax from melted candles, the orange banners floating in the salty wind, the chalice that will collect their blood.

He can also see them, wearing the same robes Jaehaerys and Alysanne wore when they were wed in secret and against all odds.

He can see it all, and he wants it, wants it more than he’s ever wanted anything else.

It is wrong of people to assume that Daemon dreads the bonds of marriage, abhors them. The only thing he has ever abhorred is his wife, and she’s long gone, her plain features bloodied by the rock that freed him.

Daemon has nothing against marriage, he just needed to find the right partner, the woman that would match his fire and wouldn’t be afraid to dance with him in the sky.

He looks at Rhaenyra, her lilac eyes bright from the exertion of the dance, her silver hair up in a complicated updo that he longs to take down.

She’s the woman he has been waiting for all these years, his perfect match, his equal.

His niece, his family, his blood.

It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did, in that brothel where he kissed her, and she kissed him back, her fire burning as bright as his.

He got scared. He ran.

He isn’t scared, now. Not anymore. And as chaos breaks all around them, he has the perfect opportunity to make the fantasy in his head come true, the perfect opportunity to snatch the bride away from her wedding and take her for himself like the dark prince of the old fairytales his father used to read to him.

But if Daemon is a dark prince, then Rhaenyra is his princess of light. She’s his equal in spirit and strength, but she’s also so much more, and where he has failed and been exiled countless times, he knows she will prevail.

Taking her now, stealing her away, would condemn her to share his fate. She would lose her family, her home. She would be like a boat in a storm, unable to return to the shore.

Daemon has lived this way, he knows how painful it is, how one looks at the horizon at sunset and longs for familiar places, longs for beloved faces.

He will not have Rhaenyra know this pain.

Dropping her face, letting go of her, is the purest, most selfless act of his life.

But when the expression on her face falls, when hurt fills her lilac eyes, it becomes the most painful one, as well.

If it were easy, it wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice, he tells himself as he moves through the sea of bodies, not hearing the screams and shouts, not seeing anything but the doors he must reach.  

Once he’s out of the throne room, Daemon doesn’t look back. He knows he will be lost if he does.

He walks out of the Red Keep, out of the home he’s sorely missed for the past four years, night wrapping a cloak of black around his shoulders.

He walks through the streets of King’s Landing, impermeable to the pleasure and distractions it could provide him. He needs to be gone already, needs to put as much distance between himself and the niece he has left again—wine would help him forget the look of betrayal on her face, but he doesn’t want to forget, he wants to remember every single detail about that night, and the reason why he left.

In the Dragonpit, Caraxes is already saddled and waiting for him. He wraps his long neck around Daemon as soon as he sees him, and Daemon rests his forehead against his blood-red scales in turn, finding what little peace he can with him.

His heart is still pounding in his chest, begging him to turn back around, to return to the throne room.

Take me to Dragonstone and make me your wife.

Daemon tightly clenches his fists.

Your life would be wasted with me.

He climbs atop Caraxes’ back, and the two of them soar in the sky, disappearing into the darkness of the starless night.

xxx

Marrying Laenor is only half of Rhaenyra’s duty.

Producing an heir is the other.

Thanks to Daemon, she has learned of the pleasure that can be found in the bedchamber. But nothing he has shown her in the bowels of the Street of Silk has assuaged her fear of childbirth.

Her fear is inconsequential, however. Another thing Rhaenyra learned during her night in the city is that her claim to the Iron Throne is fragile, at best. She must have heirs to strengthen it, sons first, for they will appease the lords of the realm, then daughters that will no doubt be coveted by all the great houses.  

Rhaenyra must have them, and she must have them soon for Alicent is yet again with child, and if she brings forth another son, Rhaenyra’s position will only be more fragilized.

She lays with Laenor regularly, and unfortunately for her, she finds none of the pleasure she has learned about in Daemon’s dirty brothel, only discomfort—if not outright pain.

Rhaenyra’s anger at her uncle burns all the brighter for it. He was the one who taught her about pleasure. If it weren’t for him, she would be none the wiser as to what she’s missing on—and if he had taken her with him, she wouldn’t need to suffer under Laenor every night.

She doesn’t blame her cousin for what happens behind the door of their bedchamber however, not for one second. It isn’t his fault if he is the way he is, isn’t his fault he feels no desire toward her—he blames himself enough for the both of them, anyway.

The heart is a peculiar thing, Rhaenyra has learned. Peculiar and capricious like the ocean, but also unwavering in its desires like fire.

It isn’t easy to control a heart, to tame it and make it love or unlove a person.

Rhaenyra knows because she tries every day, tries to unlearn the ways she loves Daemon. It’s an impossible feat. She might as well try to unlearn who she is for it feels as though he has embedded himself under her skin in that cursed brothel, to become a part of her, one she can’t be rid of now.

It’s almost funny—in the saddest sort of way—how he’s managed to ruin her without even taking her in truth. What would have become of her if he had, Rhaenyra will never know.

After weeks, she and Laenor try other things to make things easier for themselves. Rhaenyra hides her long hair and puts on breeches, allowing her husband to take her from behind, to picture whoever he wishes as he fucks into her. They also buy oils and potions from Essos used by some whores to help stimulate their clients. All to no avail. Laenor struggles to spill his seed, and Rhaenyra’s belly remains desperately empty.

“Were you not pregnant already after three months of marriage, Your Grace?” A lady asks as they’re all having tea in the gardens.

Rhaenyra freezes and looks up at Alicent. Things have been frosty between them ever since Rhaenyra’s wedding to Laenor without her knowing what caused such a rift between them. She had thought their relationship was on the mend, but it seems that she was wrong.

And if Rhaenyra were to hazard a guess as to what happened, she’d say it has something to do with Ser Criston.

Since she turned down his ridiculous proposal, he has stopped being her sworn-shield, offering his blade to Alicent, instead. It is possible that he’s told her about their encounter after Rhaenyra returned from the brothel, and if he has, it could explain why Alicent looks down on her, now, as if she’s lesser than her.

“I was,” Alicent sweetly answers. “But I’m certain the Mother will soon bless the Princess with a child of her own. You and your husband just need to keep trying,” she sternly adds.

The words are poison coated in honey, and Rhaenyra isn’t deaf to the falseness of the sentiments behind them. She tightens her grip around her cup of tea, her cheeks reddening in humiliation.  

If only Daemon had taken her to Dragonstone when she asked—she would be pregnant already, for surely, her uncle wouldn’t have struggled like Laenor. If he was anything like his own father, he probably wouldn’t have let her out of their bedchamber until he was certain she carried his child.

But alas, he’s long gone, and she hasn’t heard from him since he abandoned her.

Until a raven comes, announcing that he has taken Laena Velaryon to wife.

xxx

Daemon flies away from King’s Landing, but he doesn’t know where to go, what to do.

The war in the Stepstones is over. Dragonstone belongs to Rhaenyra. Even the Vale is no longer an option.  

For the first time in a very long time, Daemon has nowhere to go, nothing to do.

But more importantly, he doesn’t want to go anywhere, doesn’t want to do anything. Day and night, he’s haunted by the ghost of the girl he left on the dance-floor, the crestfallen look on her face as he dropped her hand following him into his dreams.

He drifts from one keep to another until Caraxes lands on the shores of Driftmark. Corlys and Rhaenys have returned from King’s Landing to marry their daughter to some sealord’s son from Braavos, and they fill him in on what happened after he abruptly left.

Ser Crispin—the knight who once attacked him behind his back—killed Joffrey Longmouth, Laenor’s dear friend, after he insulted him—or so he claimed.

“The King pardoned him, but everyone knows it was at the Queen’s request,” Corlys bitterly says.

Rhaenyra and Laenor were married right after that, and Viserys collapsed, but “the marriage was still consummated”, Corlys smugly assures. He looks quite proud of himself, thinking he has finally gotten justice for what happened at the Great Council all those years ago, thinking he has finally ensured his blood will sit on the Iron Throne.

Daemon doubts things will be as easy as he thinks.

That night, he’s tormented by thoughts of Rhaenyra, his mind making things worse now that he’s been made aware of her fate. He was the one who told her that fucking is a pleasure, but was there any pleasure for her that night? After he left, and she was wed? After her father fell, and she was bedded?

Somehow, he highly doubts it. Laenor Velaryon wouldn’t know what to do with a cunt even if it was magically dripping. He couldn’t get one wet, couldn’t fuck one properly.

To think that it’s Rhaenyra in his bed makes Daemon sick to his stomach, and for the first time, he thinks he might have made a mistake when he left King’s Landing that night.

His mood doesn’t lighten after that, and Daemon sinks deeper into his cups—they are technically Corlys’ cups, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not wine he tastes on his tongue anyway, but exile.

This isn’t Daemon’s first banishment, and he thought he knew the pain of missing home, but he is learning it all over again—it feels like he’s being torn into pieces, locked in a cage and kept away from the place and the people that would heal him.

One can only be exiled, Daemon realizes one night, if one misses the place they’re banned from, or the people they are forbidden to see.

And Daemon misses Rhaenyra more than anything, his heart bleeding in his chest as he worries about her from where he has landed across the sea.

Corlys thinks he misses home, and he’s not too far off.

“Your brother doesn’t have the heart for anger and resentment, Daemon,” he tells him one evening. “Show him that he can trust you, and I’m sure he’ll welcome you back in his court.”

Daemon isn’t so drunk that he can’t see the sense in Corlys’ words.

Viserys sent him away because he thought he lusted after his throne and meant to take it through Rhaenyra. If he were to show him that he has no interest in her anymore, in the power that comes with her, if he were to take another wife and sire a child by her, then surely, his brother would believe him a changed man.

He would welcome him back in his court.  

Once the seed has been planted in Daemon’s mind, there’s no stopping it from growing.

He needs a new wife, and he needs one quickly. Luckily for him, there is a lady in Driftmark betrothed to a man she loathes, a lady who approached him with a seductive sway of her hips and embers in her eyes when they met in King’s Landing.

It’s easy to seduce Laena Velaryon, mostly because she wants to be seduced. They fly together around Driftmark and read Valyrian poetry under the shade of trees—meanwhile, Daemon imagines it is the knees of another his head rests on.

It’s easy to provoke her betrothed, and even easier to kill him. He even does Corlys a favor for the Seasnake wanted to end the betrothal, but couldn’t figure a gracious way to do it.

Daemon and Laena are wed a fortnight later. 

xxx

Rhaenyra’s father is furious. To marry, so soon after the death of his first wife—without the King’s permission—is yet another defiance, another insult from Daemon.

Rhaenyra is furious, too, but she can’t let it show, can’t explode like her father does, can’t bang her fists on the table, even though she’s dying to, inwardly screaming and cursing Daemon’s name.

Is this why you left me, uncle? Because you had set your eyes on another?

The thought makes her blood boil, and she remembers seeing Daemon and Laena at her wedding, chest to chest, circling one another, two dragons appraising each other before the start of a dance of fire. 

Was this when you set your sights on her, uncle? When you decided to leave me? Did her spirit match yours in ways mine didn’t?

That is something Rhaenyra can’t bear to consider. She and Daemon are of the same blood, and they have always been most alike, much to her father’s dismay. Her fire matches his, it always has. Laena has nothing over her, nothing but seawater in her veins.

And yet, you killed her betrothed but not mine, uncle? Why? Was everything you said to me a lie?

Rhaenyra doesn’t know what to believe anymore. Songs reach King’s Landing, bards claiming the Rogue Prince fell in love with the lady Velaryon when he saw her flying above Driftmark, her silver hair reminding him of the moon in the sky and inspiring him utmost devotion.

They sing that he couldn’t bear the thought of seeing her wed to another and killed her betrothed to have her all to himself. The poor boy’s blood was still drying on the Rogue Prince’s hands when he took Laena to wife.

The King’s heart softens upon hearing such a true tale of love.

“If it was all for love….” he says, his voice trailing down in forgiveness. He was in love, once. He knows how all-consuming it can be.

Rhaenyra can’t forgive. Rhaenyra won’t forgive—she doesn’t know that she’s been in love, but she she has loved, and it consumes her all the same.

And as people across the realm celebrate the love story of the Rogue Prince and Laena Velaryon, saying it will inspire lovers for ages, she banishes the bards singing their song from her side.

Their love only inspires her the most ardent rage, the deepest hatred, one that makes her want to fly to Driftmark on Syrax’s bed and burn the newlyweds where they are sleeping in their bed, the sheets still warm from their consummation. 

But Rhaenyra can’t fly to Driftmark, and so she trashes her rooms, tears the silks Daemon once gifted her, destroys the pearls he brought back from Essos, throws the books he used to read to her in the burning hearth.

She adds the Valyrian steel necklace—Daemon’s last present to her—to the flames, heaving and shaking, the beast inside her still not satisfied, still craving blood even though there is no blood to shed but her own in this place—she and Daemon are of the same blood. If she were to give her blood to the fire, would he feel the burn across the sea? Would he feel the pain he caused her?

These questions are bound to remain unanswered for all knowledge of blood magic has long since been lost. And as the fire flickers out before her eyes, she sees the Valyrian steel necklace glimmering in the ashes, intact.

Rhaenyra collapses in front of the dying flames in her chimney. After the rage come the tears, and they’re scorching hot as they roll down her cheeks. She clutches her throat, digs her nails in her chest, struggling to breathe and drowning in the depths of her grief, the weight of humiliation dragging her further down under the waves.

Rhaenyra feels a fool. For believing her uncle might have felt something for her, for believing there was an understanding between them, for believing the words spoken in High Valyrian under the warm sun of a late afternoon in the Godswood.

What a fool indeed! She couldn’t even get her uncle to fuck her in that brothel. It was foolish of her to think he would have taken her to Dragonstone and made her his wife. It was foolish of her to think he might have loved her enough to claim her for himself.

It was foolish to think he might have loved her, at all.

All he ever cared about was the Iron Throne—not her, not her, not her.

Rhaenyra spends the night crying, but when comes morning, there is not a single tear left in her.

Only fire and blood.

I’m bound to see them again, she thinks as she rises with the sun. My uncle and my good-sister.

Rhaenyra wishes it weren’t so, because she knows this new scar on her heart will never stop bleeding. The tears might have stopped, but the blood will keep on flowing.

She must be stronger than the pain. She must be stronger than them, rise higher. She can, she knows she can. There’s fire in her heart as well as blood, such is the strength of the dragon’s children.

Rhaenyra will see them again. Her uncle and her good-sister. And when she does, she will show them what a true dragon looks like.

xxx

Daemon’s first marriage was never consummated. Sheep aren’t made to be fucked—although he’s certain some are more appealing than his Bronze Bitch ever was—and he would have torn his hands off of his body with his own teeth before he ever laid a finger on her.

His marriage to Laena is a different matter entirely. He must lay with her if they are to have a child, the child he needs to return home to King’s Landing where his princess is waiting, her own belly still empty after months of marriage.

Things are just as he predicted. Laenor can’t get a woman pregnant to save his life, and while the realm still awaits the Princess’ heir, Daemon burns, fearing the worst for his niece in the marital bed—he will make it up to her. When he returns, he’ll make sure she knows nothing but pleasure for the rest of her life.

But before he gets there—to that time and place where he’s back with the niece he never should have left—he must lay with the wife he has just taken. The problem is, he doesn’t want to touch her anymore than he wanted to touch his Bronze Bitch.

Things are different this time. It has nothing to do with the fact that his wife has sheep’s blood running through her veins. No, this one shares the blood of the dragon, and she has silver-gold hair and violet eyes.

But her hair isn’t the hair Daemon wants to run his fingers through, and her eyes aren’t the ones he wishes to drown in. No. Daemon longs for silver ringlets, pale like moonlight, and lilac eyes that remind him of spring.

Soon, he tells himself. Soon, he says over and over again in his head, hoping to appease his revolting heart—his wife mistakes its wild beats for passion.

It’s not difficult for him to summon the memory of Rhaenyra when he crawls into bed with Laena. He’s been able to think of little else since he left King’s Landing, the warmth of her lingering on his skin, the scent of her on his fingers—his niece must be a powerful witch judging by the strength of the spell she casted on him that night in King’s Landing. He only got a taste of her, but he’s been craving more ever since.

Daemon imagines it is her withering under him, her nails raking down his back, her voice screaming out his name in utter abandonment—he imagines it, and he curses the gods when he remembers it isn’t her, when he tastes seawater on his tongue and not liquid fire.

Still, Daemon thinks he does a good enough job at satisfying his wife’s needs—he has a reputation to keep, after all, and no one would believe the tale of their love if he weren’t a devoted husband—but it costs him to linger after he has spent himself, costs him to hold Laena to him and whisper words of passion and promises of fealty in her ear.

She doesn’t sense his deceit, still high on the feeling of having been the one to tame the largest dragon in the world and the Rogue Prince—if only she knew.

Time and time again, Daemon visits his wife’s bed.

It is always another he pictures in her stead.

She must have heard of his marriage by now, must have heard the story of how he finally fell in love.

Do not believe a word of it, he thinks, staring at the horizon. My heart is yours.

It is too much to hope that the waves will carry his message to King’s Landing, but he hopes anyway, knowing all the while it will not be enough to assuage the rage Rhaenyra is sure to be feeling.

She has always had a temper, his niece, and she has also always been extremely possessive of the things she considers hers—the things and the people.

Rhaenyra is as much a dragon as he is. She doesn’t share what’s hers, and Daemon has always been that. Hers. It was true long before he ever fell for her, and it will still be true long after his death.  

It’s all for you. Everything I’m doing. It’s all for you.

xxx

The only good thing to come out of Daemon’s wedding to Laena is that it temporarily distracts the court away from Rhaenyra and her empty belly.  

She has been at the heart of the court’s gossips ever since her wedding, with people whispering around her, or abruptly ending their conversations when she passes by in the hallway.

Daemon’s sudden wedding has given people something else to talk about, but Rhaenyra isn’t certain that she didn’t prefer it when people were talking about her—if she must hear one more time of how much her uncle loves Laena since he killed for her, she will scream.

Fortunately—or unfortunately for her—Alicent makes sure her prayers are answered, and as her belly grows rounder with each passing moon, she subtly reminds everyone that Rhaenyra’s is decidedly not.

Follow some of the most awkward conversations of Rhaenyra’s life, with ladies giving her advice to ensure pregnancy—eat this, drink that, lay on your back, keep your legs up, all these unsolicited pieces of advice overwhelm her until she’s able to think of little else.

Thoughts of pregnancy consume her, and she tries even harder to conceive, laying with Laenor every night, struggling through their couplings—if what they’re doing can even be called that—but never relenting.

Her husband is the one who does after noticing her pained winces and the tears she’s holding back.

“I can’t—we can’t go on like this,” he says, pulling on his hair where he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his back arched, his limbs trembling in shame and grief.

“We must,” Rhaenyra says, even though she knows she’s reaching her own limits. Fucking is supposed to be pleasurable to some extent. There is nothing pleasurable about the throbbing between her legs, the sensitiveness of her folds.

“I’m sorry, Rhaenyra,” Laenor cries, holding his knees to his chest. He doesn’t look much like the knight he is this way, more like a young boy in dire need of his mother’s comfort. “I’m sorry I can’t be the husband you need. I’m sorry I can’t sire your children.”

Rhaenyra’s shoulders fall.

“Nobody hates the Gods more than me for making me this way,” Laenor adds, a hint of anger in his voice.

Rhaenyra slides toward him and wraps her arms around him. “Another husband, one who would proudly claim to love women, might fuck me bloody until I became pregnant,” she softly says. She’s not unaware of the violence of men, and she knows she’s lucky to have married the man she did. “You’re not of that sort, Laenor. And in my opinion, there’s no shame in that.”

Better a husband who can’t stand her pain than one who gets off on it.

Laenor’s rimmed with red eyes meet hers. “If you take a lover, I’ll claim his children as my own. You have my word.”

Rhaenyra nods, another lesson from Daemon resurfacing, unbidden, even though she’s sworn to never think of him again.

Marriage is only a political agreement, he said. Once you are wed, you can do as you like.

And with her husband’s blessing, Rhaenyra will.

Except, it’s easier said than done. Rhaenyra can’t just trust anyone with herself, and although there are many who look at her with desire in their eyes, she is no fool. She may be pleasant to look at, but she knows it’s not really her these men covet, only the power they think they can gain from her.

She needs to be careful, find someone that pleases her and will protect her.

But these things take time, time she doesn’t have, as her father reminds her. The celebrations for his name day are fast approaching, and as they are having dinner in his bedchamber, he confesses that nothing would make him happier than holding his first grandchild in his arms.

Rhaenyra’s food turns to ashes in her mouth, and no amount of wine can wash off the taste from her tongue.

“I understand you might find childbearing dreadful after what your mother went through, but you need heirs, Rhaenyra, need to strengthen your line—”

A loud ringing in her ears drown out the sound of her father’s voice, her stomach swooping low in her belly. To be thus reminded of her duty means she has failed to fulfill it, and her father has noticed. While his tone remains gentle, his disappointment is obvious.

Rhaenyra wonders if this is how he spoke to her mother each time she failed to deliver the son he longed for, if this is how her mother felt herself whenever she failed to do the one thing that was expected of her.

“I’m sorry, father. I will try to do better from now on.”

As Rhaenyra walks back to her own empty bedchamber, the ghost of her mother trails after her. Her hand hovers over her belly, and for a brief second, she wonders if it isn’t her fault she and Laenor didn’t conceive, if she didn’t inherit her mother’s womb as well as her looks.

Sweat breaks all over her skin at the thought.

“Are you alright, Princess?”

Ser Harwin, the Lord Commander of the City Watch, has taken up Ser Criston’s position at Rhaenyra’s side.

He’s among the men who look at her with fire in their eyes, and one of the few she can say she’s actually considering taking to bed.

She hasn’t forgotten the way he looked at her when she returned covered in blood from her night in the Kingswood. He was one of the few who wasn’t shocked, one of the few who saw her for who she was and didn’t think she ought to be different.

She also hasn’t forgotten the way he easily lifted her over his shoulder on the night of her wedding, saving her from the chaotic crowd. As his strong arms closed around her, Rhaenyra can admit she wondered how they would feel around her waist, how his fingers would feel if they were digging into her bare flesh.

“Princess?” Ser Harwin asks when she fails to provide him with an answer.

He’s rather comely, with his curly brown hair and dark eyes—her heart longs for violet eyes and silver hair, but her mind knows better.

“I’m fine. Thank you, Ser,” Rhaenyra adds since they have reached her door. She dares smile at him, and he smiles back at her, and it lightens his whole face.

She could get used to the sight of him, she thinks as she retires for the night.

xxx

Daemon and Laena have been married for about two months when she tells him her moonblood hasn’t come. She affects shyness as she brings up the matter, but there’s no missing the hopeful triumph shuddering to life in her gaze.

The maester of High Tide easily confirms her pregnancy. Laena exults, and her parents rejoice.

“Our first grandchild!” Rhaenys says, clasping her hands.

Her way of saying the word “first” rubs Daemon the wrong way. Did she really think she would get any from her cocksucking son? He can excuse Corlys’ blindness, but Rhaenys is Laenor’s mother. She carried him in her womb for nine moons. She knows him better than she knows herself.

Daemon would remind her of that fact and more, but he still has a role to play.

He feels no true joy at the prospect of his coming first child. They weren’t made out of love, only out of necessity. He would never spurn his own seed, but he also knows he won’t love them as much as he would if they were from Rhaenyra.

What Daemon does feel is some relief, for once this child is born, he will finally be able to return to King’s Landing, to introduce them to court.

He will finally see Rhaenyra again.

That brings him joy, gives him the strength he needs.

Unfortunately for him, Laena’s pregnancy doesn’t put an end to the role Daemon has been playing since before they got married. His farce must carry on, and he remains an attentive husband to his wife, inwardly screaming as he feigns interest in the way she does her hair or the dresses she wears.

The Gods must take pity on him, though, for they send a raven to Driftmark, one that comes from King’s Landing and bears an invitation to court for the lord of the Tides and his family to attend the celebrations in honor of the King’s name day.

Daemon is the one to exult this time around, alone in the sky, with Caraxes sharing in his joy.

They are going to King’s Landing.

I’m coming home to you, Rhaenyra, he thinks, his eyes set west where he knows she is. He imagines that she’s looking right back at him from the Red Keep, most likely with anger and hurt in her eyes, but it doesn’t matter.

I’ll make it all better, I promise.

The entire family is there to greet them upon their arrival. Viserys and Alicent, once again great with child. Their little children. Laenor, Rhaenyra….

Rhaenyra.

Gods, none of Daemon’s memories have done justice to her beauty.

She looks absolutely-breathtaking wearing a blood-red dress that brings out the pale color of her skin—golden dragons have been embroidered on the bodice, which enhance the enticing curves of her waist and leave little to the imagination when it comes to the perfect dip of her hips.

Golden jewelry adorns her hands and neck, and dragon clips hold her silver hair up, showing off her throat that once bore Valyrian steel.

She looks like fire burning in a hearth, but when Daemon meets her gaze, there is no summer in their depths, only the coldest winter.

Her greetings are frostier than the skies of Winterfell. She doesn’t return Laena’s embrace, doesn’t offer Daemon one. She doesn’t so much as offer her hand for a kiss, letting him know he’s lost the right to touch her.

And while Daemon had expected anger and pain, he hadn’t expected this princess with her soul locked in a tower of ice. His niece is looking down on him as if he’s nothing but dirt under her dainty feet, and it’s abundantly clear to Daemon that if she were a dragon in truth, he and Laena would be ashes on the ground.

It takes all of his strength not to snatch her arm and take her to some place where he might speak to her, where he might explain what he has done and why, but he can’t, not with his brother’s eyes intently staring at him, quietly assessing the changes in him.

Very reluctantly, Daemon’s hand finds his wife’s lower back, and he guides her inside, escorting her to her rooms and letting her rest her weight on him.

He keeps up the devoted act at dinner that night. He is seated next to his wife, and he makes sure she eats well—her pregnancy was announced by Corlys before they started eating—makes sure she laughs, leaning in to whisper jokes in her ear.

Daemon risks a glance toward Rhaenyra on the other side of the table every time he thinks it’s safe enough for him to look at her, but she avoids his gaze and whenever Laena speaks to her, she answers, but in a manner that systematically puts an end to whatever conversation his wife was trying to start.

She looks beautiful as she does—devastatingly beautiful—and Daemon feels the first quiver of doubts in his heart as he slowly realizes that things aren’t going to go the way he thought they were.

But right now, Rhaenyra is using her appearance as a shield, as a mask to hide the raging dragon inside her—her knuckles turned white around her cup when Laena’s pregnancy was announced.

After dinner, Daemon retires with his brother, to share one last drink before bed.

“You seem different,” Viserys says, taking a seat by the fire. “Happy.”

Daemon glances at the content of his cup. He’s never thought himself to be a particularly good actor, but it seems he has fooled everyone, including his own brother—which goes to show the width of the gap between them if Viserys can be such a stranger to the contents of Daemon’s heart. “I am—” now that I’m back home where I belong. “Laena has been an unexpected blessing.”

That much is true, a blessing that has brought him just where he wanted.

“A blessing, indeed. Now, the bonds between us and the Velaryons are stronger than ever.” Viserys takes a sip from his own cup. “I think this is what father would have wanted. For his family to be one with that of his brother’s.”

Daemon nods. How many men did their father slay on Vhagar’s back to avenge his brother’s death? How many would Daemon slay for his brother?

But more importantly, how many would Viserys slay for him?

Daemon is afraid to know the answer to that question, and the more he ponders his brother’s words, the more bitter his wine tastes on his tongue. You’re one to speak of family, brother. You, who wouldn’t give your daughter to your own brother.

“Congratulation on your Queen’s pregnancy,” Daemon says, even though what he really wants to do is throttle his brother until he sees reason. If his Hightower bitch gives him another son, it will be yet another threat to Rhaenyra’s claim to the throne. His brother seems utterly oblivious to it, as oblivious as he’s been to everything else he’s done that has contributed to Rhaenyra’s delicate position.

“Congratulation to you!” Viserys replies. “Fatherhood changes a man as certainly as a happy marriage, you’ll see. Now, if only Rhaenyra could follow you down the path of parenthood…” his voice trails down, and again, Daemon must refrain the urge to throttle him.

What did you expect, brother? You gave her to a man who prefers cocks to cunts! It’s your own fault that she remains childless still.

But Daemon can’t say any of that, and he washes off his anger with wine, before he speaks again.

“Rhaenyra is mindful of her duty. I’m sure it won’t be long until she is with child.”

He’ll personally see to it that she is.

If she doesn’t kill him first that is.

xxx

She is pregnant. Laena is fucking pregnant with Daemon’s baby, and Rhaenyra wants to scream and break something, she wants to draw blood, wants to hurt them the same way they have hurt her.

But she can’t.

She can only watch as her uncle takes his place next to his wife, the very place that used to be hers. She can only watch as he whispers in her ear the same way he used to whisper into her own, as he draws smiles on her lips and watches her with heated eyes.

Daemon tries to catch Rhaenyra’s gaze several times throughout the evening, but Rhaenyra evades him. She cannot look at him for she knows he will see the emotions she’s trying her hardest to keep to herself—her humiliation would be complete if he saw her so miserable and hurt while he has obviously moved on, while he is obviously happy without her, in love with another.

As for his wife, she tries several times to strike up a conversation with her, but Rhaenyra turns her down every single time, holding her head high, reminding Laena that while she might have gotten the Prince, Rhaenyra will get everything else. The crown, the throne, the power, everything—if only it was enough to fill the void in her heart.

The following afternoon, Alicent invites them all to have tea with her.

“We are family after all,” she says once they have gathered around her. “It is important that we spend time together.”

Rhaenyra uncomfortably shifts in her seat. Some family, she thinks, glancing at Laena. Some family.

“I’ve asked for ginger tea to be brewed, Lady Laena. I find it helps a good deal with some of the discomforts that come with pregnancy.” As she speaks, Alicent lazily strokes her round belly, catching Rhaenyra’s eyes where she’s sitting across from her.

Rhaenyra clenches her fists under the table, her blood boiling in her veins at the obvious dig to her.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Laena gracefully answers, patting her still flat stomach. She does that often, Rhaenyra has noticed, even though there is nothing to see, yet. Perhaps, she wants to reassure herself that she’s truly with child, but the smugness in her gaze tells another story.

She’s proud her uncle’s wife, proud to have tamed the Rogue Prince, proud to have succeeded where his first wife failed.

Where Rhaenyra herself failed.

“I hope you haven’t been too afflicted by any of it. I know too well how uncomfortable the first weeks of pregnancy can be.”

“Whatever discomfort I might have felt has been chased away by my lord husband.”

“Yes, your husband,” Alicent nods. “I think I speak on behalf of everyone in the realm when I say I was most surprised to hear of your wedding. That Prince Daemon could be tied down, willfully on top of that—”

“Love transcends all, Your Grace,” Laena tells her, a hint of red spreading on her cheeks. Her shyness doesn’t feel genuine, it’s too much. Then, she spends a good half-hour gushing about Daemon, and there it is again, her pride.

Rhaenyra clenches her fists under the table, as she’s forced to listen to how attentive and devoted Daemon has been to all of his wife’s needs.

She digs her nails so deeply into the flesh of her hands, she draws blood, but it’s all she can do to not get up and smack Laena Velaryon in the face. Rhaenyra thought she was angry after Alicent married her father, but it’s nothing compared to what she feels faced with the girl who stole her uncle from her.

“Let your story remind us that all you need to take the rogue out of a prince is the right woman,” Alicent softly concludes.

And despite everything, Rhaenyra wasn’t the right woman.

She leaves for the Dragonpit after tea. She’s numb to everything in the carriage that takes her through the streets of King’s Landing, numb to everything save for the tight boiling ball of anger in her chest, the one that makes her skin feel like it’s stretching, as if she’s about to burst from the tension flowing in her veins. 

She needs to at least let some of it out, lest it kills her, and she knows no better place than the sky to scream her heart out.

What Rhaenyra didn’t expect was to find the very object of her ire in the pit as well. The expression on Daemon’s face shifts at the sight of her, as if he’d been waiting for her.  

Ridiculous. He has no more use for her now that he is happily married.

She ignores him and reaches for Syrax’s saddle—the dragonkeepers could put it on for her, but she loves doing it herself, loves to share these quiet minutes with her dragon before a flight.

“We need to talk, Rhaenyra,” Daemon says from a distance. At least, he is smart and knows not to approach her and Syrax right now. Her dragon has always been fond of him, and even fonder of Caraxes, but Rhaenyra is too upset for that to matter at the moment.  

She ignores Daemon, focusing on the buckles before her instead, wondering if he would bleed if she struck him with them. Probably.

Rhaenyra surprises herself with how much she wants to see him bleed, with how much she wants to hurt him—it isn’t fair that she should be alone in her suffering, after all.

“Talk to me, Rhaenyra.”

The abrupt switch to High Valyrian gets her attention. “What could we possibly talk about, uncle?” She replies, refusing to speak the language of their ancestors, not after learning that he wasted it on his new wife.

“There is a great deal to be said, if only you would listen.” Her uncle sounds frustrated, as if he’s dealing with a petulant child and not a scorned woman.

Rhaenyra has finished buckling Syrax’s saddle, and she swiftly climbs atop her back. “I’m afraid I don’t feel inclined to listen to you.”

The ground shakes around them as Syrax gathers speed. Daemon, who was standing in the way, throws himself to the ground to avoid her claws, and Rhaenyra doesn’t once look back to see if he’s unharmed.

The wind howls in her ears, and she revels in its song, revels in the way it whips her face and brings tears to her eyes. Behind her, King’s Landing becomes smaller and smaller, and Rhaenyra’s blood abruptly rushes to her feet, her stomach swooping low in her belly as Syrax soars higher and higher in the sky.

“Dracarys,” Rhaenyra commands, and as her dragon paints the sky gold and red, she feels a thrill, the hairs on her arms rising under the sleeves of her riding leathers. Her head spins endlessly, the rush of power making her skin tingle. “Dracarys!” She shouts again, and more flames light up the day, burning rage melting the clouds around her.

Syrax’s wings swell in the wind, and Rhaenyra inhales deeply, filling her lungs with air for what feels like the first time since her uncle set foot in the capital with his pregnant wife and perfect new life.

Her respite is short-lived however. All around her the air vibrates with a high-pitched snarl. Rhaenyra glances over her shoulder to see Caraxes soaring in the sky to meet her and Syrax. He’s bigger, but still swift enough to catch up with them. He quickly erases the distance between himself and Syrax. They circle each other in a blur of red and gold, the sound of their roars chasing away all the birds.

Rhaenyra glances down at the wide expanse of the sea, and Syrax answers her silent command. She abruptly breaks her dance with Caraxes, wheeling around and nosediving toward the water. Rhaenyra is grateful for the chains keeping her attached to her saddle. They are going so fast, she can feel herself lift from her seat.

Syrax pulls up at the last minute, stretching her wings and letting her claws brush the surface of the sea. Rhaenyra looks behind her to see that Daemon is following after her, Caraxes’ serpentine body glimmering in the sun.

She sighs, understanding there is no escaping her uncle. He will follow wherever she goes, and if she were to return to the Dragonpit, he would insist they talk there. She guides Syrax along the shores of Blackwater Bay instead, finding a deserted patch of sand to land.

There, Rhaenyra waits for her uncle, her arms crossed over her chest. She forces herself to appear calm even though she feels anything but with how her heart is pounding against her ribs.

“You have grown more graceful in flight, Princess,” Daemon softly tells her, the hint of a smile on his lips. His cheeks are red from flying, his hair tousled. Rhaenyra imagines she looks no better.

She stands straighter, stands proudly, as he lazily strides toward her, confidence oozing off of him when he should be humbling himself, begging her on his knees for her forgiveness.

“And you have grown slow, uncle,” Rhaenyra sharply replies, feeling the need to take him down a notch. “Now, say your piece and leave me be.”

Daemon’s eyes narrow on her. “Are you in a rush, Princess?”

“No, but you are. Syrax is feeling rather impatient, today,” Rhaenyra’s threat is barely veiled, and she rests one of her hands against her dragon’s side, feeling her warmth, her strength.

“Such heat in your words, Princess. Such tension in your body,” Daemon adds, his voice smooth like velvet. Her anger isn’t lost on him, but it doesn’t seem to frighten him, nor does her dragon’s looming presence. “Tell me, is your husband not to your satisfaction? Is he not seeing to your needs?”

Rhaenyra’s cheeks redden, and her throat tightens, the same tight ball of anger she felt before rising, preventing her from speaking. The sting of humiliation radiates across her heart, and the urge for violence makes itself feel again, stronger than before.

How dare he bring up her husband? How dare he speak to her of her needs when all he’s ever done is deny her? HOW DARE HE?

Rhaenyra forces her heart to be still. She cannot lose face now. Inhaling deeply, she relaxes her arms, but not her fists, and gathers her wits. “Why do you concern yourself with my needs and satisfaction when you have a wife to warm your bed, uncle?”

“I have done my duty to my wife. Now, it’s time I do my duty to you,” Daemon finishes, stopping a few inches away from Rhaenyra’s trembling frame.

“What duty do you speak of, uncle?”

He has the audacity to reach for her, to brush the fabric of her riding coat above her belly. “You need heirs, Rhaenyra.”

And with that, she snaps. She slaps Daemon’s hand and pushes him away with more strength than he was expecting. He stumbles back, and she marches on him. “How dare you?” She growls, hitting his chest. “How dare you?” She asks again, her fists pounding against the heavy fabric of his doublet, her arms made stronger by Syrax’s presence at her side.  

Daemon catches her wrists, his grip tight enough to leave bruises. “Enough, Rhaenyra. Enough!”

Even in his grasp, Rhaenyra tries to shove him. “You think you can abandon me, not once, but twice, and come back into my life expecting me to be waiting for you? I’m not one of your whores, Daemon. You cannot have me at your leisure!”

“I had no other choice but to leave!”

Rhaenyra wrenches herself free from his grasp and slaps him across the face. Hard. “You had the choice, but you didn’t choose me. And now you may regret it, but you will find that I’m no one’s second choice,” she spits, mustering all the disdain, all the spite, she can in her voice.

Daemon looks up at her, rubbing his cheek. He looks like he’s never seen her before. “You’re not my second choice. You’re my first choice, always.”

Such words are unbearable to hear, and Rhaenyra goes to slap him again, but he’s ready this time, and he catches her hand in his. “You liar! It is Laena Velaryon that is your wife, she who bears your child!” Not me, because you didn’t choose me, not like you did her. “Bards are singing about your love in every keep!”

“They’re singing lies for I do not love her!” Daemon screams back, shocking Rhaenyra into silence for a few seconds. She’s never seen her uncle look like this, his cheeks scarlet, his violet eyes sparkling with a hint of madness.

“You ended her betrothal with the blood of the Braavosi boy on Dark Sister’s blade!” She reminds him.

You killed her betrothed and let mine live long enough to wed me and take me to bed.

“Yes, I did! I did everything I could to make people believe I loved her! Do you not see, Rhaenyra? She’s merely a mean to an end, my way back home to you.” Distress takes over Daemon’s features, his brazenness all but gone as he runs his fingers through the strands of his hair.

“I needed your father to believe I’d lost interest in you, but I didn’t think you would believe it, as well,” he adds more bitterly.

Rhaenyra frowns. “And what did you think exactly? That I would understand and welcome you into my bed? That I would be happy to be your mistress, happy to share you with her?” Rhaenyra shakes her head. Even if she believed him—and she certainly doesn’t—she couldn’t trust him ever again.

“You had your chance with me, chances, but you didn’t seize either of them. Now, I’m lost to you forever. And you have no one but yourself to blame for it.”

“Rhaenyra, please—” Daemon steps toward her, and she steps back, Syrax’s head coming between them, a low warning growl passing her sharp teeth. Caraxes replies with a snarl of his own, rising to protect his rider.

Something shifts in the air, the sound of the waves drowned out by the voice of the dragons feeling the rage and pain of their riders as if they were their own.

“It is over, uncle,” Rhaenyra says, voice wavering. Can’t he see that he’s broken them beyond repair? Can’t he see they can never go back from all the hurt and betrayals?

“Let us never speak on this matter ever again.”

He doesn’t try to hold her back when Rhaenyra turns around this time. He merely watches as she climbs atop Syrax’s back and disappears into the sky.

Only when she’s hidden in the cloud, does she finally weep.

xxx

Daemon remains on the beach long after Rhaenyra has left. He collapses in the water, drops of salt splashing his riding leathers. His cheek is still stinging from her slap, his heart still bruised from her words.

But he supposes any pain he’s currently feeling is nothing compared to the pain he’s caused her.

What did you think? Rhaenyra fiercely asked, and perhaps a more apt question would have been what he didn’t think about, because there are lots of things Daemon didn’t foresee.

Blinded as he was by his desire to return home, by how deeply he missed Rhaenyra, he didn’t stop to think how his actions might be perceived, the damage they might cause.

Oh, he knew his niece would be angry, he knew she would be hurt, but he underestimated the depths of both. That was a mistake. And an even bigger one was thinking he would be enough to comfort her. Wasn’t he always the one to dry her tears when she was a child? Didn’t he bounce her on his knees until she laughed again?

You weren’t the reason for her pain back then, he bitterly thinks, and that makes all the difference.

Because not only does Rhaenyra have a temper, she’s also not of the forgiving sort. And if by some miracle, she were to forgive a slight against her, she would never forget it. She would keep it in her heart and in her mind where it would fester, preventing the wound from ever healing.

Daemon hunches over the water, the sea lapping at his thighs. He grits his teeth to keep from screaming in frustration.

Nothing. Everything will have all been for nothing if he loses Rhaenyra, now.

You already have, an insidious voice whispers in the back of his mind. You have abandoned her twice. You have refused to take her to wife, giving all that should have belonged to her—your body, your seed—to another. She will never forgive you.

Never.   

No, Daemon fiercely protests, clenching his fists. He rises up again. His body is made heavier by the water, but the fire in his veins burns brighter than the sea.

After everything he has done, earning Rhaenyra’s forgiveness seems an impossible task.

But then again, people say the same about riding dragons, and he does it every day.

He will earn Rhaenyra’s forgiveness, or spend the rest of his life trying. Only in death, will he consider that he’s finally lost her—he’ll search for her through the darkness of the end of times first.

Daemon returns to the Red Keep, returns to his wife. The celebrations for Viserys’ name day come soon enough, and Rhaenyra stuns again in a black dress, diamonds shining like little stars in her silver hair.

All eyes are on her as she makes her way to the table on Laenor’s arm, whose own prettiness fades to nothing next to the ethereal beauty of his wife. Rhaenyra’s dress shimmers as she moves, and it seems as though she dressed herself in the fabric of the night sky itself.

She kisses her father’s cheek before taking her place next to him, and although Daemon knows he shouldn’t stare at her so openly in public, he can’t possibly tear his eyes from her. He doesn’t know what silk her dress is made of, but it looks soft and inviting, cleverly revealing patches of pale smooth skin he’s dying to touch.

If she feels the weight of his gaze, the heat of his eyes, she pretends like she doesn’t and promptly ignores him, as she has for the past few days. When the time to dance comes, she happily takes Laenor’s hand. Together, they play the part of the happy couple for a while, until they switch partners, Rhaenyra landing in the arms of one Ser Harwin.

Even from a distance, Daemon can see that the knight’s hands have landed far too low on his niece’s back, and yet, she does nothing to move them, even going as far as openly laughing to whatever it is he says to her, her fingers brushing his chest in a not-so-innocent gesture.

Daemon immediately straightens in his seat, a burning feeling spreading low in his belly.

Surely, she wouldn’t….

But she would. He can see it in her eyes as she and Ser Harwin circle each other in the dance. She looks like a dragon before it descends on its prey, conquering, sure of her victory. And Ser Harwin—Ser Harwin looks like he wants to be conquered.

Daemon has to fight off the urge to draw Dark Sister right there and then. He turns toward his wife instead.

“Care to dance, my love?” He asks, his tone betraying the turmoil in his chest.

But Laena, vain and naïve Laena, thinks it’s because he can’t wait to show her off. She has dressed herself in the colors of her house, a teal blue color that looks bland compared to the inky black smoothness of Rhaenyra’s own dress.

“Of course,” she eagerly accepts.

“Do not strain yourself, darling,” Rhaenys warns, ever protective of her daughter.

Daemon drags his wife to the dance-floor. They get into position, disappearing in the crowd of dancers. The music picks up again, and Daemon and Laena start moving, following the steps that have been drilled into them since they were children.

He steals glances at Rhaenyra still dancing with Ser Harwin whenever he can. He watches her smile at him, watches her touch him more than is appropriate. He watches him devour her with his eyes, watches him breathe in her scent whenever she comes close enough, watches his fingers feel her pulse on her wrist.

Daemon tightens his grip on Laena’s hand, once more fighting off the urge to draw Dark Sister.

She quickly tires of dancing and returns to her seat. Daemon uses his wife’s departure to his advantage. He makes his way to his niece and easily steals her away from Ser Harwin’s arms.

Rhaenyra cannot outright refuse him, not when there are so many people around. She regretfully watches her knight leave. The man still manages to kiss her hands before leaving, and it takes everything in Daemon not to punch him right where he stands.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She hisses at him, the sound of music drowning out her anger.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Daemon shoots back, towering over her. She smells divine, something flowery with a hint of spice that reminds everyone she is neither sweet nor delicate.

“Enjoying myself,” she snarls.

“Enjoy yourself with me,” Daemon demands, taking hold of her hands. Like her hair and body, her fingers are covered in diamonds. He tightens his grip around them until she winces.

“You’re hurting me,” she gasps.

“I didn’t see you complain when it was Ser Harwin pawing at you,” Daemon replies, moving in rhythm to the music. Rhaenyra fights against his lead, purposefully stomping on his feet in the dance.

“It’s because I welcome his touch,” she hisses, her cheeks that were red from dancing now flushed in anger—it only serves to bring out the color in her eyes, and Daemon must admit that even full of rage, his niece is beautiful.

“You welcome his touch and not mine? Will you take him to bed next, allow him to give you children?” There’s something like a dragon’s roar in Daemon’s chest at the thought, something beastly awakening and vehemently protesting.

“It’s none of your concern who I welcome in my bed.”

“So, you can concern yourself with who I welcome into my bed, but not I?” Daemon counters, twirling her. The fluid fabric of her dress gracefully accompanies her, and his fingers twitch, aching to feel it, aching to lift it and reveal the legs shaped by years of dragon riding to his eyes.

“I don’t concern myself with thoughts of who is sharing your bed, uncle. I couldn’t care less who you fuck—”

“Could you?” Daemon challenges, pulling her close, close enough to whisper in your eyes. “Then, what of the jealousy you feel every time you look at my wife? Do you not wish it were you in her stead? Do you not wish it were you carrying my child?”

Rhaenyra pushes at his chest. “I don’t!” She whimpers. “I don’t wish to bear the children of a dishonorable man!”

Daemon darkly chuckles. “Any man who touches you that isn’t your husband is a dishonorable man.”

“Weren’t you the one who told me I could fuck whoever I wanted?”

Once more, Daemon pulls her into him, close enough that her hair in his nose, her flowery scent making his head spin, a thousand fantasies unfolding in his mind. “You know nothing about wanting,” he whispers against the crown of her hair.

And if she knew how much he wants her, she might be afraid.

“I know I don’t want you,” Rhaenyra replies, merciless.

“But you want him?” Daemon shakes his head, hiding how her words—no matter how untrue—hurt him. “He touches you, he dies. It’s that simple, Rhaenyra,” Daemon switches to High Valyrian so that she knows he truly means it.

All around them, the crowd has long since faded into nothing, leaving them alone in a world of their own.

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Wouldn’t I?” Rhaenyra was scandalized that he had killed someone to marry Laena, as if he hadn’t killed his Bronze Bitch for her.

“Killing him will not make me want you more.”

You have already lost her, the insidious voice returns, taunting him. All your efforts are vain. She will never want you again.

Daemon shuts the voice down. He’s dancing over the threshold of madness, he knows he is, and part of him wants to just cross over and unleash the dragon within him, see if Rhaenyra can still resist his fire once she’s engulfed in flames. “Then, I’ll kill every man in the world until I’m the only one left.”

“I still wouldn’t choose you,” Rhaenyra hisses, digging her nails in his hands, hoping to hurt him and failing.

Daemon grabs her neck and pulls her into him. Her breasts brush against his chest, her soft pants hitting his chin, as he catches her upper lip between his. She sucks in a breath, and Daemon revels in the taste of her back on his tongue.

His lips trail down the line of her jaw until they reach her ear. “I asked for your hand in marriage,” he whispers there, dropping the truth of his heart at the altar of her mercy. Rhaenyra, who has grabbed his arms, digs her nails into the fabric of his doublet. “With a dagger to my throat, I begged your father to give you to me.”

Daemon pulls away from his niece, watches as her mouth falls open in shock. They have both stopped pretending to dance. They face each other, chest-to-chest.

“You are angry because I killed for Laena, but I would have died for you, Rhaenyra. Died.”

His niece looks like she has stopped breathing, the colors rapidly draining from her face.

“When?” She finally breathes out.  

“After the brothel. Needless to say, your father rejected my proposal and banished me to the Vale once more.”

Different emotions come and go in Rhaenyra’s eyes. She settles on anger. She knows anger. It’s comfortable. “It changes nothing.”

Except, it does, Daemon can already tell. The fire of anger can only burn for so long, and once there’s nothing left to feed it, it will die.

As it stands, Rhaenyra is currently swaying on her feet, swaying toward him. Oh, she won’t fall into his arms, not right away. The fire of her rage needs to burn out first, but he can be patient for her.

Rhaenyra stumbles back, stumbles away, her mind still reeling after what he’s told her.

Daemon decides to let her go. “Remember what I told you. He touches you, he dies.”

xxx

I asked for your hand in marriage.

With a dagger to my throat….

I would have died for you, Rhaenyra. Died.

Days have passed since the feast in honor of her father’s name day, and Rhaenyra has gotten little rest since then.

She has spent most of her nights laying awake in her bed, replaying Daemon’s words in her head again and again, searching for deceit and finding none, wondering why it matters so much to her that he has spoken the truth, wondering how it could possibly change their circumstances.

Even awake, she has been able to think of little else, her thoughts returning to Daemon like a dragon to the sky.

“Is it true that Daemon asked for my hand in marriage, father?”

They are having dinner together in his bedchambers, as they have taken to do at least once a week since she married Laenor. They usually discuss politics, with her father preparing Rhaenyra for her future queenly duties.

The question escapes her lips. Rhaenyra didn’t really mean to ask it, but once the words have been said, there is no taking them back.

Her father looks up in surprise. A shadow crosses his gaze, and he sets down his fork and knife.

“Did Daemon tell you this?”

“Who else?”

Her father heaves a sigh. “He did,” he confirms, and Rhaenyra’s heart clenches painfully in her chest at the confirmation.

What could have been father, if only you had agreed, her heart laments.

“And you refused him?” Rhaenyra asks, her voice hardening despite herself, tension filling the space between her and her father.

“He would not have been a good husband to you,” he affirms, his voice hardening.

At that, Rhaenyra wants to burst out laughing. “Why not? He’s good enough for Laena.”

“It’s true,” her father nods. “But he loves her.”

As opposed to you, is left unsaid, but Rhaenyra hears the words all the same, crumpling in her seat at how hard they hit her. Her father could not have spoken more hurtful words to her if he tried. “You think he doesn’t love me?” She whispers, each beat of her heart painful against her ribs.

Her father finally seems to understand his mistake. “You uncle has always cared for you, Rhaenyra,” he carefully answers. “But his proposal was motivated by his lust for power more than his lust for you,” he explains, and at least, he’s consistent in his way of thinking the worst of his brother. “He ruined you to force my hand, but I didn’t yield to his crude manipulation.”

Ruin her?

“He didn’t ruin me,” Rhaenyra corrects, finally speaking the truth of what happened that night after her father refused to hear it moons ago.

“What?”

“He didn’t ruin me,” Rhaenyra says again, louder. “I left that brothel with my maidenhead intact.”

Her father whimpers at the mere mention of her virginity. “Do not lie to me, Rhaenyra. I know you drank the tea I sent for you.”

“Daemon didn’t fuck me that night, that much is true,” she counters, her father flinching at her crude language.

“But he said—”

“He lied!” Rhaenyra cuts him off. “Perhaps because he was indeed trying to force your hand to accept his suit. Only Daemon knows his reasons.”

He would not have been a good husband to you.

But he wanted to be mine, her heart sings, its beats a sorrowful song in Rhaenyra’s chest. She shakes her head, tears prickling at the corner of her eyes. Gods, what a mess she is, a pathetic mess of emotions!

“Do you even know why he took me into the city?” Her father shakes his head. “We had a conversation in the Godswood. I confessed my fears of marriage and childbearing to him. I was so terrified of—” she hesitates for a few seconds, before deciding she has spared her father’s feelings enough. “I was so terrified of sharing my mother’s fate, to be bred until death that I was ready to forsake it all. Daemon wouldn't have any of it. He wanted me to know what I would be missing on. He wanted me to know life beyond fear.”

Her father clenches his fists across from her, his face reddening in anger, and perhaps a little bit in shame, as well. “What does it matter? You have a husband, now. You should be thinking about him, and the heirs you have yet to birth, not my brother.”

Rhaenyra barely flinches at her father’s biting tone. She understands that his aggressivity is merely a façade behind which he hides so he doesn’t have to admit that he was wrong and made a mistake.

But if she’s being honest with herself, Rhaenyra is tired of being her father’s pawn, of letting him live his life free of the burden of his mistakes.

Because he has made mistakes. Plenty of them.

“You want to speak of my husband, father? You want to speak of my heirs? Well, I’m afraid you will have to keep waiting before you hold a grandchild of your own blood in your arms, for you have given me a husband who can’t sire them.”

“Rhaenyra—”

But Rhaenyra won’t let herself be stopped. She gets up, her chair loudly hitting the floor. “You have given me a husband who can’t get his cock hard for a woman, a husband who can’t spill his seed unless it’s a man’s hand pleasuring him!”

Her father becomes livid. “How dare you spill such filth!”

“How dare you make me go through all of this filth as you call it? How dare you send me to the bed of a man who can’t fuck me, all to fix a mistake you made, an offense you caused?”

“What other choice did I have, Rhaenyra?” Her father shouts back, getting up as well. He heaves a breath, the years having only weakened him.

“You had the choice not to marry Alicent Hightower! You had the choice to give me to Daemon!”

“No man sane of mind would give his daughter to his brother!”

“Not even when his brother loves his daughter dearly?” Rhaenyra stares at her panting father. “Daemon loves me, you know he does. He has always loved me.” No longer blinded by her anger and her pain, Rhaenyra can see her uncle’s heart, clear as day. “But we must all suffer now, all because of your poor choices,” Rhaenyra adds, sounding too bitter for her years.

Her father looks like she has slapped him across the face. His cheeks are devoid of color. “What will you do about Laenor?” He asks after a few minutes. “The marriage was consummated. You cannot set him aside.”

“I don’t wish to set him aside. I understand it is my duty to soothe Corlys Velaryon’s ego. I can only hope that you will understand I must do whatever I can to have heirs.” She meets her father’s eyes, making her meaning clear.

If she can’t have Laenor’s children, she will find someone else to give her some. 

Rhaenyra leaves her father’s bedchamber in a state of exhaustion unlike anything she has ever felt before.

Things have been difficult ever since she became her father’s heir, but they have been particularly unbearable since she married Laenor, the people’s expectations of her only growing more and more. Added to that are the tensions with Alicent, the mess with Daemon, her impossible marriage to Laenor—it’s a lot, especially for one young person alone, which Rhaenyra very much is.

Young and alone.

As she walks back to her rooms—one of her father’s Kingsguards escorting her—Rhaenyra feels as though the walls of the corridor are closing in around her. She adjusts the collar of her dress, struggling to breathe.

When her breaths keep on shortening anyway, she decides against returning to her bedchamber, the need for some fresh air strong.

Rhaenyra enters the Godswood and deeply inhales, filling her lungs with the sweet air of the night. She toes off her slippers, wanting to feel the freshness of the grass under her feet.

She’s surprised when she notices a silhouette laying on the ground, even more surprised when she recognizes Dark Sister’s pommel as it glimmers in the moonlight.

She’s tempted to leave. Her uncle doesn’t seem to have noticed her presence, and if she can just go, she will spare herself another unpleasant conversation.

But even as she tells her feet to move, Rhaenyra can’t tear her eyes off Daemon. He’s looking at the stars, his arms crossed under his head. He looks so soft like this, so unlike the warrior and prince he is during the day, her heart can’t help but lurch toward him.

“Trouble sleeping?” He eventually asks, and there goes all hopes of him having not noticed her presence.

“No. I just had dinner with my father.”

Daemon makes a non-committal sound and sits up. He meets her eyes, half of his face basked in moonlight, the other left to the shadows of the night.

In another life, you would have been my husband, Rhaenyra thinks. She would have been treated to this sight of him every night.

She’s overwhelmed by emotions at the thought, her meal rolling in her belly as her stomach revolts at the unfairness of their situation. “If you wanted me for your wife, why didn’t you take me to Dragonstone when I asked?”

At that, her uncle pushes on his hands to get up. “You didn’t ask, Rhaenyra. You dared.” After a brief pause, he adds, more quietly. “You didn’t really mean it.”

“I will be the judge of that,” she imperiously replies. She still knows the contents of her own heart better than him.

Daemon heaves a sigh. “If I had taken you with me, you could never have returned to King’s Landing. Your father would have disinherited you as he threatened to do when I asked for your hand, as he did me before.”

Rhaenyra tries to imagine it, the burden of the Iron Throne gone from her shoulders, Aegon’s prophecy another’s problem. She tries to picture the life she and Daemon could have shared, the freedom they would have had with their dragons and the wind at their backs, hurrying them away from this wretched place that has hurt them so.

“Would that have been such a bad thing?” She whispers under her breath. She doesn’t think so.

Her uncle chuckles, but he doesn’t sound amused. “Look around you, Rhaenyra. Look at this place, think of the people between these walls. They would have been lost to you for years, if not forever.”

Rhaenyra’s father wouldn’t have disinherited her—but if he had, Daemon would have been enough for her. “Instead, it’s you I’ve lost forever,” she says, and she can’t mask her bitterness from her voice.

“You haven’t,” Daemon counters, stepping toward her.

“Except I have!” Rhaenyra raises her voice, effectively stopping him in his tracks. “Why did you have to marry her? Why did you have to get her with child?”

If you really loved me, how could you do any of it?

She hates the way her voice wavers, hates that she easily comes undone around him, hates the way he leaves her feeling so raw, so exposed.

“So that I could come home,” Daemon explains, clasping her face between his hands so that she doesn’t evade him any longer. His warmth seeps into her, and Rhaenyra feels herself melt, feels her defenses crumble under his fire. “She doesn’t matter to me, Rhaenyra. Every second that I was gone, I was thinking of you. I said my vows wishing it was you receiving them, I fucked her thinking it was you beneath me.”

Daemon’s words bring forth Rhaenyra’s tears, but he catches them with his thumbs, gently stroking her skin.

“We can still be together,” he whispers, his lips brushing hers in an agonizing almost kiss.

He would kiss her in truth, Rhaenyra knows, and he wouldn’t stop at a kiss, so she turns her head to the side, denying him her mouth. “How would that even work?”

Daemon turns her face toward his once more, forcing her to meet his violet eyes. “People say for every night Aegon spent with Visenya, he spent ten with Rhaenys.”

Rhaenyra’s mouth twitches at the mention of the Conqueror and his wives. “And who am I supposed to be? Visenya or Rhaenys?” Aegon loved both of his sisters, but there was one that he loved more, and it is of the utmost importance to Rhaenyra that she be the one Daemon loves more, that she be his favorite, as she was when she was still a girl.

It is important that she be the one for him.

Daemon leans into her, his breath ghosting over her lips.

“In my heart, you are always Rhaenys.”

Rhaenyra’s heart bleeds in her chest at Daemon’s words. She believes him, can feel his desperation in the way he holds her, his desperation as well as his affection. “People also say Rhaenys spent her night without Aegon surrounded by comely young men. They even say she took some to bed.”

Daemon tightens his grip around her cheeks, and Rhaenyra darkly smiles. “You can’t bear the thought of it, can you, uncle? And yet, you expect me to share you with her and be happy about it?”

“You don’t have to be happy about it.”

“Good, because I’m not.” She clasps her hands around Daemon’s wrists, makes him let go of her face. “What if I say yes to you? What if we fuck right here, right now, with the stars as our witnesses? What happens next?”

“We fuck again,” Daemon says, bringing her hands to his lips and pressing hot kisses into her palms.

“And I have your bastards? Then, what? Laena takes you and your brats back to Driftmark with her, leaving me alone with our children to raise?”

“I’ve lived apart from my wife before.”

“Your former wife did not ride the largest dragon in the world,” Rhaenyra reminds him. “Can you truly not see how unfair this proposal of yours is to me?”

“Nothing about this is fair to any of us, Rhaenyra,” he says, and for the first time, he seems to falter, his body slightly sagging as he realizes there is no changing Rhaenyra’s mind.  

“On that point, we agree, uncle.”

xxx

While Corlys and Rhaenys return to Driftmark after the celebrations for Viserys’ name day, Daemon and Laena linger at court.

Viserys seems to be happy to have his brother back, happy with the changes he sees in him. As for Laena, she seems to enjoy life at court. The Queen has taken an interest in her, and she enjoys the feeling of importance that comes with that—completely disregarding the fact that it was in favor of this very Queen that she was spurned by Viserys.

“Why should I care about all of this still?” Laena asks one evening. “I have you, and I’m perfectly happy this way.”

Daemon grits his teeth at her words. She’s the only one who’s perfectly happy with their marriage.

“In all honesty, I’m more worried about the Princess,” she adds, smoothing the fabric of her dress over her now round stomach.

It takes everything in Daemon not to react to the mention of his niece. “Really? What brought this on?”

“Well, she is my brother’s wife, but she has rejected all of my attempts at striking up a friendship with her. We used to get along well-enough when we were children. I don’t understand what changed.”

Daemon says nothing, even though he knows just why Rhaenyra refuses to take his wife’s outstretched hand.

“The Queen thinks it might have to do with my pregnancy. You know how she and Laenor have yet to conceive a child. The Queen implied that she might be jealous, but I don’t think that’s just it.”

Rhaenyra is jealous all right, but it has nothing to do with the fact that she and Laenor remain childless after months of marriage.

“I mean, it must be incredibly difficult for her to be around so many expecting ladies while her own belly remains empty. Especially when it’s all everyone can talk about at court.”

Daemon uncomfortably shifts in his seat. He’s not unaware of the vicious gossips around Rhaenyra, but people have yet to be brave enough to say anything in front of him.

“You and Rhaenyra are close, aren’t you?”

Daemon tenses. “Not particularly, no.” It’s the painful truth. They haven’t spoken alone since their talk in the Godswood, where Rhaenyra made it abundantly clear that nothing would happen between them.

He’s been forced to watch her from afar, discovering a new form of torture, for what else can you call having the person you love close enough to touch, and yet not being able to touch them? Even worse, you have to watch them get close to another, laugh with them, dance with them.

It’s pure agony, and Daemon is well-aware it’s an agony of his own making.

Laena gives him a look. “Husband, please. I have heard the rumors. You can speak of it freely, I know it’s all in the past,” she adds, sweetly smiling as her eyes fall to her bump.

“Why do you care if we’re close or not?” Daemon asks, his voice echoing the annoyance he feels at this seemingly pointless conversation.

“You could talk to her on my behalf. Tell her I wish to be friends.”

“And what of your friendship with the Queen?” The enmity between Rhaenyra and Alicent is a secret to no one. The court is divided between Blacks and Greens, the former supporting the Princess, and the latter the Queen.

“Must it be one or the other?”

Daemon shakes his head at her naivety. “Yes, it must,” he whispers under his breath.

Alicent is pushing for her son to be named heir. He recognizes the work of her father in her, and her “friendship” with Laena is only a clever maneuver to gain the support of the largest dragon in the world.

The word betrothal has yet to be uttered, but Daemon is certain that if Laena’s child is a girl, Alicent will suggest a match between her and Aegon—she might even hope to sway Daemon and Caraxes to her side, as if he could ever support another claim over Rhaenyra’s.

And unfortunately, every day that Rhaenyra remains without heirs gives more weight to Alicent’s proposal, gains her more supporters.

As does the birth of her and Viserys’ third child, a second son they name Aemond.

Viserys exults with pride and orders that the boy’s birth be celebrated with a hunt in the Kingswood.

Now, Daemon knows his brother is no stranger to celebrations. Back when Aemma was still alive, not a moon passed without a feast of some sort. But to celebrate the birth of his new son by his second wife, a boy that is a direct threat to his eldest daughter’s claim is beyond his comprehension.

He tries to bring it up to him, tries to make him see the risks, only for his brother to wave off his concerns.

“You worry too much, brother,” he jests. “That’s not good for your babe to be!”

Not for the first time, Daemon has to refrain the urge to throttle his brother.

And since he can’t stop the hunt from happening, he decides to participate in it. Blacks and Greens alike will attend, and it will be a good opportunity for him to let people know where his allegiance lays—there are still some who haven’t figured it out, believing him to still be resenting Rhaenyra for “stealing” the Iron Throne from him.  

Even though he resents the reasons behind the hunt, Daemon is grateful for the opportunity to be out in the Kingswood again. It’s been a while since he participated in a Royal Hunt, and he will admit that he’s missed being an active part of the court—of course, it won’t be long until he tires of the leeches that have infested it, but for now, he will appreciate the fresh air and the rustling leaves.

He enters the crowded Royal Tent and pours himself some wine, watching as the men speak loudly, whereas the women have gathered in circles, eating the small cakes regularly brought by servants.

Daemon drifts from one group to another, lingering in the shadows to better listen in on the different conversations without being noticed.

There is one group of women in the back of the tent that draws his attention.

“The Seven have blessed our Queen with another boy! This is such wonderful news for the realm. If only the King weren’t so stubborn in his choice of heir….”

The last words are whispered, and the woman who speaks them bravely looks around herself before doing so. Daemon’s skin tingles, the weight of Dark Sister growing at his side.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if the Princess had sons of her own,” another cuts in. “But I fear what her barren womb means for the future of the realm.”

“Aye,” another nods. “It’s a bad omen to be sure—”

And with that, Daemon has had enough. “The only bad omen is your presence at this hunt, Lady Redwyne. If we don’t catch anything tomorrow, we’ll know who will have scared the game away.”

He speaks loud enough for the rest of the people around them to hear him. A few of the younger ladies hide their giggles into their cups.  

The lady Redwyne’s cheeks redden in humiliation. She breathes hard, but says nothing back to him.

Good, Daemon thinks, stalking away and outside the Royal Tent. He scans the camp for a head of silver hair—this is getting ridiculous. Rhaenyra needs heirs, and she needs them yesterday. Daemon can provide them, silver-haired boys and girls with the blood of the dragon burning in their veins.

It isn’t long until he finds Rhaenyra, but she’s laughing with one Ser Harwin, one of her hands resting on his arm while he touches her hair, replacing a fallen strand back behind her ear.

Daemon clenches his fists at the sight of them, the white-hot burn of jealousy unfurling in his stomach—the bastard fucking touched her hair, and now he’s leaning toward her, whispering the Gods only know what into her ear.

Judging by Rhaenyra’s reactions—Daemon can see how her cheeks redden even from a distance—it must be something utterly inappropriate.

How dare Ser Harwin whisper inappropriate things to his niece? How dare he take her hand and lead her away from camp?

How dare he?

And while Daemon is fairly certain he’s going to regret this decision, he decides to follow after them—he would regret it more if he didn’t.

He takes care to keep some distance between them and himself, watching his every step so as to not betray his presence to them—it also helps that Ser Harwin is too absorbed by Rhaenyra to pay much attention to their surroundings.

The sound of their voices fills the woods. Daemon can’t discern the words they’re saying, but he’s surprised to realize that Ser Harwin is such a conversationalist—the man having always seemed a bit boorish to him.

Until all of a sudden Daemon can’t hear them anymore. His heart jumps in his chest, and he hurries up, his stomach rolling when he hears suction noises that can only be kissing noises.

He hides behind a tree close enough to where moaning sounds are coming from and braces himself for a sight that is sure to haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.

Rhaenyra and Ser Harwin are kissing, or rather, he’s sucking on her lips, and Daemon shudders. He’s seen drunks kiss with more finesse. From this distance, Ser Harwin looks like he’s trying to swallow Rhaenyra’s entire face into his mouth.

His niece doesn’t seem to mind, tangling her fingers through his curly hair and keeping the knight to her, as he paws at her with his large rough hands.

Daemon looks away, hitting the trunk of the tree hiding him with his head, hoping to erase the memory of what he’s just witnessed from his mind.

This is a nightmare. This is a nightmare. This is a nightmare.

The sound of rustling clothes and belts being unbuckled has him looking back at them in time to see Ser Harwin slam Rhaenyra against a nearby tree without much of a care for her back. He’s barely undressed her, impatient man that he is, rushing to take the gift between his hands without properly unwrapping it.

It makes Daemon sick, to see him waste Rhaenyra’s beauty, to not pay much attention to her pale throat, to her gorgeous breasts. No. Ser Harwin doesn’t treasure her the way a princess should be, doesn’t savor the heat of her skin against him, doesn’t taste every inch of her body before drowning her in deep waves of pleasure.

He merely reaches between her legs and gauchely touches her there, making sure she’s wet enough for his cock without making her come.

Then, he spears into her like the brute he is, and Rhaenyra hisses, digging her nails in his shoulders—that can’t have been entirely pleasant, Daemon thinks, but he can’t be sure, not with how hooded his niece’s eyes are.

Ser Harwin waits but a few seconds before he starts moving inside her, their pants and moans drowning out the song of the birds above their heads.

Daemon tightly clenches his fists as they fuck only a few feet away, digging his nails into his palms, imagining a hundred different deaths for Ser Harwin.

At one point, Rhaenyra looks up from where she’s roughly being fucked into a tree. Her eyes catch Daemon’s, and he knows she sees him, because her mouth opens in the shape of his name.

He stumbles back, stepping on a branch that loudly snaps.

Startled, Ser Harwin unceremoniously drops Rhaenyra to reach for his sword. Daemon hides himself once more, wincing as his niece cries out in pain.

“Princess, I’m sorry—I heard something, I thought it might have been a boar. Here, let me see.”

Daemon hears Ser Harwin sheath his blade back and rests his head against the tree hiding him. Rhaenyra grunts in pain, and Ser Harwin utters something about her needing stitches. She swears as he lifts her up in his arms, and Daemon watches them rush back to camp from his hiding place.

He waits until they’re far enough to move, circling the tree to the place they just deserted, noticing blood on a sharp-looking stone on the ground.

Daemon kneels and touches the stone, red smearing his fingers. Rhaenyra’s blood—his own blood. Scarlet and warm.

“I’m afraid your life is about to reach its unnatural conclusion, Ser Harwin,” he whispers.   

Daemon returns to camp, and everyone is talking about how the Princess injured herself while taking a walk through the forest.

“She tripped on a root—”

“There was so much blood—”

“Do you think she’ll lose the arm?”

Daemon rolls his eyes upon hearing such nonsense. He finds Viserys in the Royal Tent, yelling at Ser Harwin for not taking better care of his daughter and heir.

The knight has the intelligence to look contrite while he’s being told off in front of his father, the Hand.

“Peace, brother,” Daemon intervenes, coming to the knight’s rescue. “It seems it was only an unfortunate accident,” he says, meeting Ser Harwin’s grateful gaze.

“One that could have had dire consequences!” Viserys insists, a deep frown between his brows. “I expected better from you, Ser Harwin.”

Rhaenyra doesn’t appear at dinner that night. She has been given milk of the poppy to manage the pain from her injury, and she’s resting in her tent.

As he eats, Daemon hears whispers around him, whispers that claim her accident—on this hunt meant to celebrate her half-brother’s birth—is yet another sign from the Seven that she’s unfit to rule.

Daemon can’t find the source of such gossips, but he decides to investigate the matter later.

For now, he has a niece to visit.

He waits until the night is darkest to slip into her tent where she is soundly sleeping, a white bandage on her arm covering her stitches.

Daemon comes to sit next to her and watches her sleep for a few seconds, the candle he has brought with him the only source of light in the enclosed space. He admires the pout of her mouth—Gods, even in sleep, she look petulant—her lips begging to be kissed, and brushes a few strands of hair away from her face.

She opens her eyes at his touch and smiles when she recognizes him. It’s the softest smile she has given him since his return, and that’s how Daemon knows the effects of the milk of poppy have yet to fade.

“Uncle,” she sleepily says, arching her back as she lazily stretches.  

“I came to see how you’re doing,” Daemon explains, ignoring how tempting she looks like this.

“Took you long enough.”

Daemon chuckles at the barely-veiled reproach. So demanding his niece—and so agreeable when under the influence. “May I?” He points at the bandage on her arm.

Rhaenyra sits up and rests her arm in his lap. Daemon carefully undoes the bandage, his stomach clenching at the sight of the stitched gash on her arm. Her skin has tightly been pulled together again, but the irregular wound looks painful still. “How much poppy did they give you?” He asks.

“I don’t know, but I’m feeling very good right now,” Rhaenyra says, scooting closer to him.

Her body radiates warmth, and Daemon revels in it, so much that he nearly forgets to answer her. “That’s good,” he manages to say. He couldn’t bear it if she were in any sort of pain.

Rhaenyra reaches up to play with the buttons of his collar, her fingers stroking the skin of his throat. “What happened to me is all your fault, uncle.”

Daemon arches a surprised eyebrow at that. “Is it?” He’s fairly certain he isn’t the one who dropped her back in the forest.

“Aye,” Rhaenyra vigorously nods. Then, she leans in and whispers in his ear, her breath hot on his skin. “I saw you back there, hiding behind a tree. You startled Ser Harwin when you stepped on a branch.”

It isn’t easy for Daemon to think clearly with Rhaenyra so close to him, but he still tries his hardest to come up with a clever reply. “He is in charge of your protection. He should not have been startled, he should not have dropped you.”

“Hm,” Rhaenyra pouts. She scoots impossibly closer, until she’s sitting in Daemon’s lap, and his mind scrambles to comprehend how he ended up with his arms full of her, while his groin just welcomes her presence so close to where he has been aching for her for months.

“Could you see us well behind your tree, uncle?” She whispers against his lips, wrapping her arms around his neck and rubbing herself against him. “Did you see how well he fucked me?” She throws her head back, giggles spilling from her lips.

Daemon groans, his cock stirring to life in his breeches. “That man didn’t fuck you well, Rhaenyra.” Not as well as I would.

His words only make her laugh harder. “Maybe I’ll get pregnant from this.”

The words are as efficient as cold water to dim Daemon’s desire. He doesn’t want to laugh, not about this. And although he doubts Ser Harwin got to spill inside of his niece, he still has come prepared. “No, you won’t,” he sternly tells Rhaenyra. “Drink this.”

It wasn’t difficult to get his hands on moon tea. Hunts such as this one offer plenty of opportunities for men to stray from their wives, especially if said wives aren’t in attendance of the hunt. Maesters are well-aware of that fact and are always ready to be of help to the rich and powerful.

Rhaenyra throws a disgusted look at the cup Daemon is holding in his hands. “Why?” She presses herself closer to Daemon, her breasts rubbing against his chest. That’s when he realizes she’s wearing nothing but a thin chemise, and his mind spins as he considers how easy it would be to just take her now and make her his.

Easy, but not how it should be, he reminds himself.  

His niece clasps his face between her hands, tangling her fingers in his hair. “Not only do I live with thoughts of you sharing her bed, I have to watch her belly grow heavier with your child every day.”

Rhaenyra’s hands let go of his face and trail down his chest as she nuzzles his face. “When it should have been my child,” she tauntingly whispers in his ear, making him shudder. “But if I were pregnant, you would finally know how I feel every day,” she adds, pulling away.

Daemon stills her hands as they near his belt. “Did you do this on purpose, Rhaenyra? Did you want me to see you with Ser Harwin in the forest?”

She smiles, and she looks too innocent to be honest. “I have to see you every day with her, don’t I? It’s only fair that you saw me as well—”

“You haven’t seen me fucked her, Rhaenyra,” Daemon growls, the fire of anger replacing that of arousal in his veins.

She shrugs. “Maybe I just wanted to punish you,” she casually says, leaning in to kiss him. Daemon evades her mouth, and she pouts. “I thought you wanted this. Was it not your offer? One night with her for ten nights with me?”

Daemon grabs her waist and helps her slide down from his lap. “I want this, Rhaenyra. More than you could ever know. But when I finally fuck you, I want you to know I’m fucking you. And I’m afraid that right now, your mind is too clouded by the poppy.”

She isn’t happy with him, his niece, but she dutifully drinks the moon tea he brought her and allows herself to be tucked back into bed.

Once that’s done, Daemon kisses her forehead goodnight and returns to his own tent.

The hunt begins tomorrow, and he needs to be well-rested if he is to catch his prey.

xxx

Throbbing pain in her arm wakes Rhaenyra up in the morrow. She sits up in bed, her mouth feeling furry, her mind foggy. One of her ladies-in-waiting, Elinda Massey, rushes to her side and inquires about her health.

“I’ll send for the maester,” she decides when Rhaenyra mentions the pain in her arm radiating up to her shoulder.

The maester comes to examine her. He offers her more milk of the poppy, but Rhaenyra declines. Her memories of the night are vague, but she distinctly remembers Daemon’s presence in her tent, his body hard against hers and his mouth evading hers.

Confused as she is about what exactly happened, Rhaenyra still remembers the events of the previous day clearly enough to blush and hide under her covers. Her body is still sore from her outing with Ser Harwin, her back aching from how it rubbed against the trunk of a tree as her knight finally fucked into her.

That man didn’t fuck you well, Rhaenyra.

Daemon’s sultry voice echoes in her head, and Rhaenyra’s toes curl as she remembers the heat in his gaze where he hid behind a tree, watching as another fucked her. He looked so angry, his body shaking with it—she could have peaked from that alone.

But she didn’t, because even though she hates, Daemon is right. Harwin didn’t fuck her well, not how she wanted it, needed it.

Well, neither did you, uncle.

It seems Rhaenyra was out of her mind enough to offer herself to Daemon during the night. Another would have taken her without hesitation, and it speaks volumes about her lack of luck that her uncle didn’t. He seems intent on remembering his honor only with her, denying Rhaenyra an encounter with the Rogue Prince she’s heard so much about.

Rhaenyra spends the rest of the day resting in her tent, in the company of her ladies. They entertain her with stories while the men hunt and bring her cake whenever she asks for it.

The men return at sunset with a stag they caught, reminding Rhaenyra of the majestic white stag she once came across in these very woods.

One man is notably missing from the returning party.

Ser Harwin.

Dread unfurls in Rhaenyra’s stomach as she catches sight of her uncle atop his black horse. He looks like death itself, his body cladded in black, Dark Sister glimmering at his side.

“What did you do?” She hisses after drawing him away from camp, away from prying eyes.

Daemon smirks. He smirks, and it sets Rhaenyra’s blood aflame. She slaps him across the face, hard.

It makes him laugh.

“I warned you what would happen if you let that man touch you.”

“You are mad,” Rhaenyra scathingly says. Maegor come again, they once said. She’s starting to believe it.

“Aye, mad for you,” Daemon replies. He steps toward her, forcing her back until she hits a nearby tree. He doesn’t stop moving, crossing her boundaries and entering her territory like the conqueror he fancies himself to be. Rhaenyra offers him her fiercest resistance, but it seems the Rogue Prince has decided to meet her at last, and he easily catches her wrists, pining them above her head.

Rhaenyra winces in pain at how the position pulls on her stitches, but Daemon doesn’t seem to care, pressing his body into hers, allowing her to feel the weight of him.

“Why the anger, Princess?” He whispers in her ear, the smell of pine and spice and sweat filling her nose. “I thought this was what you wanted,” he gravelly adds.

Indignation swells in Rhaenyra’s chest. “I never wanted you to kill him!”

“But you wanted me to kill for you, didn’t you? You thought it was your due after I killed for my wife.”

“How dare you—” she gasps as he bites her earlobe, desire pooling low in her belly. She should not want him thus, not when the blood of her lover smears his hands, but she wants him, just like she wanted him when she fucked another man.

“Let’s not lie to each other, Princess” Daemon says, pulling away to stare into Rhaenrya’s eyes. “You knew what I would do if that man touched you, and you still made sure I saw the two of you going into the forest, still made sure I saw the two of you fuck. Perhaps, you wanted to see if I’m a man of my word. Now, you have your answer.”

Rhaenyra shakes her head. “I did not—this wasn’t—” she trashes against Daemon, trying to escape him. But his hands are made of steel, and he’s not letting her go. Not this time. And she can’t deny the way her blood spikes in her veins so close to him, can’t deny the thrill traveling down her spine at the thought of Daemon being so enraged he killed her lover.

“Now, now, do not mourn him, Princess,” Daemon tells her, the light in his violet eyes unlike anything she’s ever seen. “He would have made a terrible father for your children.”

“As opposed to you?”

Daemon shifts his hold on Rhaenyra, now only using one hand to keep her wrists pinned above her head. His other hand trails down her body, raising goose bumps on her skin until he finally cups her mound through her breeches. “It is bad to speak ill of the dead, but this must be said. Unlike poor Ser Harwin, I always make sure my wife comes when I fuck her.”

The mere mention of her uncle’s wife is enough to rekindle the fire of Rhaenyra’s anger. She tries to stomp on his feet to make him let go of her, to no avail. She bucks and trashes against Daemon, but her resistance only seems to amuse him greatly, and he lazily strokes her over the fabric of their clothes, only stopping when she spits in his face.

That seems to piss him off, and he drops her mound to cup her face, painfully digging his fingers in her cheeks. “This has gone on long enough, Rhaenyra,” he speaks the word fiercely into her face, pressing his forehead and nose against hers. “You’ve made your point quite clear. You are angry with me, but do not let that feeling come between you and your throne.”

He presses into her, making her feel how hard he is for her. It only makes Rhaenyra burn hotter—it only makes her wetter.

“You need heirs,” Daemon hammers the words into her skin. “I can provide them. I want to provide them. So, stop fighting. Drop the anger.”

“You want to give me heirs?” Rhaenyra hisses. “Do it now. I’m at your mercy. Make me a mother,” she dares him, just like she once dared him to take her to Dragonstone and make her his wife, just like she once dared him to kill her.

And just like he did back then, Daemon folds.

He drops her face, drops her hands. “Only when you come to me, will I make you a mother, Rhaenyra. Only then.”

So, it’s her surrender that Daemon wants. He wants her to yield, to agree to his proposal, to agree to share him with his wife.

He can keep waiting.

“Then, I guess I will remain childless,” she says, purposefully bumping into his shoulder as she leaves.

Ser Harwin’s body is found the following day, his face unrecognizable, completely smashed after a tragic fall down a ravine.

The hunting party returns to the Red Keep, and life pretty much goes back to the way it was before the hunt.

Except, Rhaenyra isn’t the same.

It is not so much the death of Ser Harwin that weighs on her, although Rhaenyra supposes she misses him in a way. He was a good knight, and she liked his company enough to welcome him inside her body.

Rhaenyra is tired.

Tired of being the heart of the court’s gossips.

Tired of missing Daemon even though he lives in the same castle she does.

She knows why she has turned him down time and time again. She knows she is right to refuse him access to her bed. It’s not just about punishing him, although she has had her fun with that.

It’s about fear. Not just her fear of childbirth, but the fear of entrusting Daemon with her heart when he’s treated it so carelessly in the past.

His hold on her is already so strong, and they have yet to fuck in truth. Every single hour that Rhaenyra is awake, she thinks of him, and when she’s not, he haunts her dreams. She’s lost her appetite, turned her fingers bloody from how much she tortures them.

Things would be much worse if they were to share a bed, if they were to have children. She would make herself sick every night he wouldn’t be with her. She would resent the fact that she cannot touch him when she wants, cannot love him out in the open. She would hate that no songs would ever be sung about them.

The truth of the matter is, Rhaenyra is in love with Daemon. Perhaps she’s always been. She certainly was infatuated with him while growing up.

Her love for him is what sets him apart from all the men she could take to bed. Rhaenyra wants him too much to make him her lover, loves him too much to keep him a secret.

But the more nights she spends alone between the cold sheets of her bed, the more her resolve falters.

Rhaenyra seeks the peace and quiet of the Godswood one afternoon after a particularly long and tedious session of the small council—Lord Lyonel, heartbroken after the loss of his son and heir, has announced his intention to leave the Red Keep, leaving her father without a hand once more.

It won’t be long until Alicent convinces him to call her father back to court.

Rhaenyra sighs, her neck and shoulders aching from the tensions that have gathered in her muscles.

She stops dead in her tracks when she notices the presence of her uncle’s wife under the red leaves of the weirwood tree.

Laena is reading a book, but she looks up from the text at the sound of Rhaenyra’s footsteps. “Good day, Princess,” she says with a small inviting smile.  

“Lady Laena,” Rhaenyra replies. “I’m afraid I didn’t expect to find you in here. I will leave you to your reading—”

“Why don’t you stay? Please, I insist.”

Rhaenyra clenches and unclenches her fists. Over the course of the past months, Laena has tried many times to approach her. Rhaenyra has kept her at a distance, unable to pretend that the woman isn’t sleeping with the man she loves every night, isn’t carrying his child.

“And I insist that I don’t,” Rhaenyra counters.

“Princess, wait—” Laena swiftly gets up—or as swiftly as she can, given her circumstances. There’s not a single part of her body that hasn’t swollen with pregnancy, most notably her belly. It looks like it’s about to burst free from her dress, which makes it even harder for Rhaenyra to ignore it.

“We are family,” Laena says, once she’s come up to Rhaenyra’s level, her huge belly between them. Her cheeks are flushed, and she’s slightly panting. “You’re going to be an aunt to this baby,” she adds, lovingly caressing the curve of her stomach. “But I would also like for us to be friends?”

Rhaenyra sighs. “Why bother with the bonds of friendship when we’re already family?”

Laena nervously chuckles. “But that’s the thing. It doesn’t feel like we’re family.” Her shoulders slump. “I’ve tried to approach you several times since I came here, and you have turned me down me every time.”

“Maybe I don’t want your friendship,” Rhaenyra lightly says, her patience dangerously thinning.

“Is it because I’m close to the Queen as well?” When Rhaenyra doesn’t say anything, Laena goes on. “I thought I might be a bridge between the two of you, help you mend your relations.”

“How highly you think of yourself, Lady Laena,” Rhaenyra whispers, unable to contain her disdain. “You may ride the largest dragon in the world, but that doesn’t make you more relevant in any way.”

Hurt flashes in Laena’s eyes. “The Queen certainly seems to think differently on the matter.”

“Then, go pester her and leave me alone.” Rhaenyra turns around and starts walking away, inwardly wincing at how poorly she has handled the situation. But then again, she has spent months watching in silence as Daemon played the devoted husband to Laena, months quietly listening to her gush about him.

She was bound to snap at some point.

Laena gasps, but much to Rhaenyra’s dismay, she doesn’t give up. “I understand that things are difficult for you, but what have I ever done to you that you could show me so little respect?”

Respect? Respect?

Oh, this time Rhaenyra has had enough. She abruptly spins around, her blood roaring in her ears. “You stole him from me, you stupid cunt!”

Laena’s steps falters. Worry flickers in her eyes as she frowns. “Him? Who?”

“Daemon! He was mine, but you stole him from me!” Laena looks too startled to speak, and Rhaenyra is too angry to stop.

“Do you think I didn’t see you at my wedding? In your dress that showed half of your breasts? Do you think I didn’t see how you looked at him that night?” Rhaenyra clenches her fists as she remembers the way Laena sultrily approached her uncle, her blood burning with the same jealousy she felt that night as they circled each other. “You had already set your mind on him, hadn’t you? He was going to be your way out of your betrothal to the Braavosi lord, wasn’t he?”

“That’s not what happened. I didn’t—Daemon chose me. He fell in love with me. He picked me,” Laena stammers.

Rhaenyra has to bite back a frustrated scream at that. “He picked me, you stupid fool! He might have married you, yes, but it’s me he pictured as he said his vows. Me he pictured as he fucked you. Me he wished would carry his child.”

Laena frowns, her mouth falling open. “You speak such nonsense and dare call me a fool?”

Rhaenyra looks down on her. “You are a fool. For months, I have watched you parade yourself around, proudly telling all who wish to hear that you have tamed the Rogue Prince. As if he’s some pet you have ensnared.” She shakes her head in disgust. How she has wanted to smack her in the face. How she has wanted to tear her hair from her face, to gouge her eyes out. “But dragons are no pets.”

“Pet or no pet, Daemon is mine,” Laena speaks the words with the same pride, with the same triumph in her eyes that she has brought with her from Driftmark. “You speak of his alleged great love for you, and yet the two of you have hardly spent any time together since we came here.”

A dark smile twists Rhaenyra’s lips. “I may not respect you, Lady Laena, but I do respect myself. I have refused many an offer from my uncle to give me children over the course of the past few months. But I think—after this rather enlightening conversation—that I will finally accept. Give him a son to sit on the Iron Throne after me. That’s more than you could possibly offer him, isn’t it?” She speaks sweetly, but there’s poison dripping from her words.

“That would still not make him your husband,” Laena harshly reminds her, her eyes sparkling in triumph.

Rhaenyra’s fingers tingle with the urge to slap her uncle’s wife, but she can’t, she really can’t hit a pregnant woman. “Fuck you.”

“I have my husband for that,” Laena haughtily replies, and it’s a testament to Rhaenyra’s strength that she doesn’t just slam her into the nearest wall. She forces herself to slowly breathe

“Has he ever told you that he loves you?” Laena’s eyes widen, and Rhaenyra presses her advantage, taking back control of the conversation. “Has he ever told you that he burns for you? That he’s mad for you?” 

Has he called you his Rhaenys or his Visenya?

Laena’s lower lip trembles. “He’s my husband. Of course, he loves me.”

Rhaenyra smiles. She’s obviously hit a nerve. “But has he said it?”

Laena’s face changes colors, something like doubt shining in the depths of her eyes. “I understand now that we could never be friends, Princess. I do not bid you a good day.”

As if Rhaenyra cares. She watches her uncle’s wife go, thinking it’s finally time she takes him up on his offer to get her with child.   

xxx

Daemon is startled awake by muffled moans of pain coming from his wife. He turns around to find her sitting next to him, hunched over her belly, tightly clutching the sheets of the bed between her fingers.  

“What’s wrong?” He asks, sleep clinging to his eyes still.

“I don’t know,” she pants. “I just—ow!” Laena screams, and Daemon scrambles out of bed, his hands touching a wet patch, something warm and sticky. He quickly lights some candles.

Daemon’s fingers are covered in red. As are the sheets around Laena.

That’s when the metallic scent of blood registers with him.

He calls for servants, sends for a maester. When the man arrives, eyes bleary and hair in disarray, he examines Laena and grimly declares that she has started her labors.

“It can’t be,” Daemon says in disbelief. Laena still has a few more moons of pregnancy ahead of her. “It’s too early.”

The maester shoots him a look of sympathy and sends for a midwife. Together, with the servants, they assist Laena as she brings not one, but two babes into the world.

It’s a gruesome birth, full of blood and tears, sweat and screams. Even Daemon, who is used to the horrors of war, feels his stomach churn as Laena contorts herself, straining to bring her children into the world.

In the end, the babes are two small and red things that do not scream as they struggle to take their first breath.

“It often happens when there is more than one babe,” the maester explains, his tone solemn. “There’s not enough room in the womb, and they are born before it is time. They will not pass the night,” he adds, patting Daemon’s back in silent comfort.

And indeed, they don’t. The twin girls die before the sun rises, nameless. Laena, who has been left exhausted by the bloody night, collapses, her heart broken by the loss of her daughters.

Fever sets in and spreads despite the maester’s attempts at bringing it down.

Laena’s body weakens every day a little bit more. Her skin turns ashen and clammy. Sweat covers her forehead, drenches the sheets of her bed.

She’s burning from the inside.

Days pass, and Laena’s condition only worsens. The air in the rooms she once shared with Daemon grows stale, heavy with decay.

That doesn’t stop her brother from visiting her daily. He holds her hand and caresses her forehead, whispering words of encouragement in her ear when Laena manages to open glassy eyes.

She still doesn’t get better.

“We need to send word to Driftmark,” Daemon eventually says one day.

Laenor immediately writes to his parents.

As if the thought of seeing her parents again is bringing some of Laena’s strengths back, she opens her eyes and even tries to get up. She collapses on the floor but still tries to crawl to the door.

“Vhagar!” She cries out as Daemon lifts her up into his arms. “Let me go, Daemon. If you love me, you will let me die a dragonrider’s death,” she weakly says.

Daemon says nothing about loving her because he doesn’t, and he will not perjure himself thus. “You can’t, Laena. You can’t,” he does say, using his most soothing voice. His wife is too weak. The ride alone to the Dragonpit could kill her.

He brings her back to bed and gently sets her down. “Daemon, please,” she whispers, her cheeks hollowed by days of sickness. “If you love me, let me go,” she says, struggling against his hands that are now trying to tuck her in.

“Hush, Laena. You need your rest,” Daemon firmly tells her, even if he knows she will not make it.

She catches his wrists. Of course, Laena is not strong enough to stop him, but something in the way she grabs him forces him to look up. She’s looking at him with bright fever eyes, but there’s some clarity in the fog clouding her brain.

“You don’t love me, do you?” She speaks the words so quietly Daemon thinks he’s misheard her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, once he’s recovered enough from the shock.

“Say it,” she weakly insists. “If you love me, say it,” she says, her voice sounding more and more labored.

Daemon freezes. Over the course of their brief courtship and marriage, he’s circled around the word “love”, using other ways to assure his wife of his devotion.

“You don’t love me, do you?” Laena whispers after he remains silent for too long.

“Save your strengths for your family,” he tells her. Daemon touches a hand to her forehead. It’s hotter than it has ever been, her fever reaching its peak.

“You love her, don’t you? It was all for her, wasn’t it? For Rhaenyra?” She chuckles, the sound dry and painful.

It chills Daemon to his bones.

“Have you run out of words for your wife, husband? Come closer, I have plenty for the both of us.”

Daemon hesitates. The agonizing woman laying before him looks nothing like the young girl he married, but he still bends closer.

She grabs the collar of his doublet and roughly whispers. “May your line end with you, Daemon Targaryen. May you never find happiness. May all that you touch turn into ashes.”

She lets go of him and falls back against her pillows, her life spent to curse him.

She dies before her parents arrive from Driftmark.