Chapter Text
Daemon had sworn to himself that he would not act on impulse again. And yet the moment he read the letter, all restraint unraveled. He had not walked—he had run.
The parchment remained in his hand, now crumpled so tightly the inked words threatened to bleed into his skin. Alicent’s careful handwriting—so precise, so controlled—now looked almost mocking in its elegance.
He moved through King’s Landing like a man pursued, descending toward the harbor without thought, without plan, only with the echo of her words and the weight of his own decision colliding in his mind.
Alicent Hightower had given him a choice.
Not directly—but clearly enough.
He could wait until dawn, ensure she had truly vanished from the Red Keep, and then deliver the letter to the king. Otto Hightower would fall. The game would continue, cleaner, sharper, stripped of one of its most poisonous players.
And perhaps… if fortune favored him… he might still bend the pieces toward himself. Even Rhaenyra. Even the crown he had always imagined just out of reach.
Yes. It all made sense.
So why did it feel wrong?
Why was he moving toward the docks instead of the throne room?
Alicent was supposed to obey.
That was what made her useful.
That was what made her safe.
But she had not obeyed.
She had chosen flight.
And now, inexplicably, Daemon found himself disturbed by the idea of her absence—not strategically, but personally, in a way he refused to name.
Why now? he thought bitterly. When I have finally begun to see her clearly… she decides to vanish?
He knew, somewhere beneath the irritation, that his reasoning was fractured. That following her into the city was no part of any plan. That it was reckless in a way even he could not easily justify.
And yet—
The alternative was to do nothing.
To let her go.
And that, for reasons he did not yet understand, was worse.
By the time he reached the harbor, the air had already turned brackish with salt and rot. King’s Landing always smelled as though it were slowly drowning in its own decay.
He scanned the anchored vessels, eyes narrowing.
No ship was far enough out to suggest she had already escaped his reach.
If she had, he would have gone to the Dragonpit without hesitation, claimed Caraxes, and torn the Blackwater Bay apart until he found her.
But something in him already knew—
She had not gone far.
A gold cloak approached hesitantly.
“Prince Daemon… are you searching for something?”
“A girl,” he said flatly. “Red hair.”
The man stiffened.
“Has she—”
“Stolen something?” Daemon finished with a faint, cutting smile.
“Aye.”
“Search the ships,” Daemon ordered. “None leave this harbor without my word.”
The gold cloaks moved immediately, boarding the nearest vessels, questioning sailors, disrupting the uneasy rhythm of the docks.
Daemon remained still, watching.
Waiting.
Until he saw her.
A small figure aboard one of the nearer trading ships, half-seated among passengers who had not yet realized what they were sitting beside.
A cloak drawn too tightly. A posture too rigid. And then—when the wind shifted—copper hair slipping free.
Daemon moved before thought could intervene.
“Alicent.”
Her head snapped up.
Their eyes met.
violet against green.
For a heartbeat, neither moved.
Then she spoke, disbelief sharpening her voice.
“You… what are you doing here?”
He did not answer.
Instead, he reached her, gripping her beneath the arm and pulling her upright with force that left no room for refusal.
“Come,” he said simply.
The sailor beside her stepped forward quickly.
“My prince, the lady has paid—”
Daemon did not even look at him.
“She has now paid for a faster exit,” he said coldly. “Take it from her wages.”
Alicent turned sharply toward him as he dragged her toward the gangplank.
“Now suppose you drag me off this ship—what then? I will simply take the next one!”
Daemon paused just long enough to glance at her.
“Then you will explain why you are running.”
“I told you in the letter!”
“You told me what to do after you were gone,” he corrected. “Not why you are leaving.”
Her frustration sharpened. “I cannot endure it any longer. I want my freedom.”
“That is not your reason,” he said flatly. “Something happened.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“What business is that of yours?”
“The kind you already involved me in,” he replied.
She pulled against his grip slightly.
“Wasn’t your concern to punish my father? Here—take your damned letter and leave me to it.”
He stopped.
Slowly turned.
“Dorne,” she said quickly, as if pushing the word out before she could lose resolve. “I will go to Dorne.”
Daemon’s expression shifted faintly.
Dorne.
A place of stories. Of illusionary freedoms. Of women spoken of as though chains simply did not exist there.
“Do you think,” he said quietly, “that Dorne is freedom?”
“It is better than this.”
“Men are the same in every kingdom.”
Alicent’s voice sharpened. “At least there, I will not be handed to a king’s bed and told it is duty.”
That silenced him for a moment. Not because he disagreed. Because there was nothing to answer. He released a slow breath through his nose. Then stepped closer again.
“You are naïve if you think there are no chains beyond these walls.”
“I am not naïve,” she snapped. “I am tired.”
There it was again. That honesty. That exhaustion beneath the defiance.
Daemon tilted his head slightly.
“You are very certain of what you are escaping,” he said. “Less certain of where you are going.”
“I will be free,” she insisted.
A faint, humorless exhale left him. “Free,” he repeated, as though testing the word.
Then, more sharply, “Come with me.”
Her brows knit immediately.
“Where?”
“Flea Bottom.”
Her expression changed at once.
“Why there?”
“Because you speak of freedom as though it is a destination,” he said. “I will show you what it looks like when it is lived.”
He tugged her again, not violently—but firmly.
“People there do not call it freedom,” he added. “They call it survival.”
Alicent resisted slightly. “Why would you take me there?”
Daemon glanced at her briefly.
“Because if you insist on running,” he said, “you should at least know what you are running toward.”
A pause.
Then, softer—but no less certain, “Now come.”
Daemon drew the girl through the narrow corridor without hesitation, his hand firm around her wrist as though she were something that might dissolve into the night if he loosened his grip even slightly.
The stairwell descended quickly into the lower shadow of King’s Landing, where stone gave way to timber and timber to noise—laughter, shouting, music half-drowned by cheap wine and cheaper desire.
The air changed first: not salt and tar, as by the docks, but something warmer and fouler, heavy with sweat, spilled ale, and too many bodies pressed too close together.
Fleabottom.
Even the name carried a kind of weary resignation in the city’s tongue.
A place where the Crown’s gold never reached, only its neglect. A place where people came to be forgotten.
Daemon paused only long enough to pull the heavy curtain aside. The moment it opened, sound and light spilled out like a wound.
Inside, the world was reduced to flickering lanterns, crooked tables, and bodies moving in ways that were either practiced or desperate—or both.
A fiddler played somewhere off-beat, trying and failing to keep rhythm against the laughter of a drunken crowd.
A girl not much older than fifteen moved between men with a tray of cups, her eyes already empty in a way that spoke of repetition rather than innocence lost.
For a heartbeat, Alicent stopped breathing.
Daemon’s mouth twisted into a faint, knowing smirk. He leaned close, his breath warm against her ear.
“This,” he murmured, “is what awaits you. I am not saying you would end up like them… but look at them. Truly look.”
His gaze drifted over the room as though he had seen it too many times to be impressed by it.
“I have sat with many of them,” he went on. “Spent enough nights in this place to know their stories well enough.” The smirk returned, colder now.
“Many were girls who ran from their own houses, thinking King’s Landing would offer them something better. Many fled marriages forced upon them, afraid of what waited in their husband’s beds. And many,” his voice dipped slightly, “now regret ever leaving the only homes they knew.”
Alicent let out a short, bitter laugh.
“Oh, how generous of you, Prince Daemon,” she said. “Truly, I am enlightened. I shall return at once, kiss my father’s hand, and lie beneath whatever lord he chooses for me—and then the king, the one who cannot keep his cock in his breeches, may have me as well. Does that satisfy you?”
The words left her mouth before she could stop them.
Then she regretted them immediately.
Daemon’s expression darkened.
“Viserys?” he said sharply.
Alicent looked away. “It was nothing. Forget it.”
Daemon stepped in front of her at once.
“No,” he said. “Tell me what he did.”
She hesitated. “What difference does it make? You said it yourself—all men are the same.”
Daemon’s voice hardened.
“No. They are not. The man who forces himself upon you is not the same as the man who waits, who earns trust… who does not take by strength what should be given freely.”
Alicent’s lips curled. “And you are which one? The second?”
Daemon answered without hesitation. “I do not need to force anyone to lie with me.”
Alicent gave a pained laugh. “Of course. I suppose the king would say the same. I was the one who went to his chambers, after all.”
“Tell me what he did,” Daemon repeated, sharper now.
Silence.
When she did not answer, he took her wrist and led her into one of the smaller private rooms off the hall.
The moment they stepped inside, the noise of Flea Bottom dulled. Alicent lowered herself awkwardly onto the edge of the bed, as though even the wood beneath her might stain her further. Daemon shut the door behind them.
He saw her and let out a quiet, disbelieving breath. “Seven gods…”, Then, more bluntly, “You are not made for Dorne, Alicent. Why can you not accept that?”
Alicent hesitated, then spoke carefully, “Why do you want to keep me here?” she asked. “What use am I to you?”
Daemon did not answer immediately. When he did, it was a half-truth wrapped in something sharper.
“That letter of yours is worth nothing if it cannot be proven,” he said. “Otto will claim I forced you to write it. That I removed you from the Red Keep. And there will be no one to contradict him.”
He did not say what he meant aloud.
But she heard it anyway.
I have no allies in court.
Alicent’s chest tightened at that, though she did not know why it should matter to her.
Still, she had considered it too.
“I was thinking,” she said slowly, “that I might tell King Viserys myself. Then leave.”
Her fingers twisted together in her lap.
“But I fear… he would conclude it on his own. That I came because of Otto. And in trying to preserve my honour, he would simply marry me instead.”
“Viserys is not one to force himself upon others,” Daemon said at once.
Alicent let out a small, humourless laugh. “Yes. I am sure he is not.”
Daemon’s temper snapped.
“If there is something you are not saying, you will say it now,” he said sharply. “You do not speak of the king like that.”
Alicent did not flinch.
“I think we are past pretending at courtesy,” she said.
Daemon stared at her a moment, then pulled a chair around and sat opposite her.
“Then speak,” he said.
At last, she did.
“The king was drunk,” she said quietly. “I Gone into his chamber… and he used my ignorance. He stood behind me, and he—” her voice tightened, “—he finished himself upon my mother’s gown.”
A pause.
“He spoke her late queen's name while he did it.”
For a long moment, Daemon said nothing.
"And you know what's the worse part?? guards saw the stain,” she said. “They understood and smirk to humiliate me.”
Daemon’s jaw tightened.
“I will handle them,” he said. “No word of this leaves that place. Not if they wish to keep their tongues.”
Alicent searched his face. A faint, dangerous smile touched his mouth.
He rose then.
“So it is not your father you flee,” he said. “It is the king.”
Alicent said nothing.
Daemon studied her for a long moment, then exhaled.
“If you wish to go, I will not stop you,” he said. “But if you remain…”
He stepped closer, voice lowering.
“…then you will not be alone in this.”
A pause.
“If it all goes wrong, and you still choose to run, I will put you on Caraxes and take you to Dorne,” he said simply. “Or anywhere else you think you might find it.”
A beat.
“Is that understood?”
Alicent hesitated. Then, quietly said, “Yes.”
Daemon nodded once, as if the matter were settled. And something—though neither of them named it—shifted between them.