Chapter Text
Daemon wrenched Dark Sister from her sheath the very moment Rhaenyra hit the wall.
She landed in a slump on the ground, her face screwed up in pain, her lungs struggling for breath. Wind knocked out of her, he presumed, along with a knock to the head. There was blood in her hair. He wanted to scoop her up and bring her out of here, but that would have to wait until Cole was no longer a danger.
Cole had not even noticed what he’d done, Daemon realized, as the white knight pulled his sword and met Daemon’s. He did not spare a glance behind him, probably knowing, rightly, that if his eyes left the Valyrian steel leveled against him whatever he looked at would be the last thing he saw. The man’s eyes were wild in the torchlight of the Pit, his mouth curled up in disdain. Daemon had never cared for Cole, no matter his prowess on the tourney field or the glimmer of spirit he’d shown when he came to Dragonstone. But despite what Aegon had told them of the Kingmaker of his time, Daemon had only seen the seeds of such hate in him.
His hate was seed no longer. “You would turn your princess into a whore,” he snarled.
Criston Cole was not leaving this tunnel alive. That had been decided the moment he’d laid a hand on Rhaenyra. But his words meant that death would hurt.
Steel met steel, neither giving much ground. Daemon’s feet slid on the sandy ground as Criston pressed his assault, but Daemon shoved his blade back and swiped at the knight, nicking his neck. Blood soiled his white cloak.
Though anger thundered in his ears, and a reedy whine that likely came from the blow to his head, Daemon had a commander’s awareness of the battlefield around him. From deeper in the Pit came shouts and a roar; from the tunnels above, the sound of clanking armor. He could not let himself be distracted by either, but as a second bellow sounded, Criston did, the merest shift of his attention.
Daemon used the distraction to press his own assault, wounding Cole’s leg before the man brought his sword down and slammed it against Dark Sister. His eyes were even wilder now, wide with fear as well as anger.
“You know what that sound is,” Daemon said. Of course he did. Cole had been the princess’ sworn sword for three years now. He must have known Syrax’s roar.
“Cole, put down your sword!” A shout from the tunnel. Another kingsguard, Daemon knew, though he did not move his head to see which one.
“Gods above. Princess Rhaenyra!” A second man shouted.
Criston’s eyes went to Rhaenyra then and they widened even more. Daemon dared a glimpse himself. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her breathing too fast, her face drawn tight in pain. “What?” Cole breathed. “How—”
“Rhaenyra!” came Aegon’s cry. Daemon heard him crash between the other kingsguard and the second man, and then he fell to his knees beside Rhaenyra.
“Don’t touch her, you bastard!” Cole snarled.
And Daemon lunged.
Cole blocked that strike, but not the one that followed. The blade plunged into his groin and he cried out, falling to one knee even as his hand tried to keep hold of his sword. Daemon twisted, then wrenched his sword free. Blood poured into the sand, Criston’s cries swallowed up by the sound of another of Syrax’s roars. She was closer now, the keepers too, their panicked shouts of “Calm!” and “Obey!” clearly unheeded as the dragon screamed her fury.
“You—” Cole clenched his teeth and raised his sword toward Daemon. “You dishonored her. You destroyed—”
Daemon didn’t wait for him to finish his accusation. He slammed the man’s sword out of his hand and raised the blade to his neck.
“No,” Daemon said, leaning in close, “I married her.”
And then he swung the sword and both head and body crashed to the ground.
“Prince Daemon,” came the shaky voice of the kingsguard. Daemon turned to him. Ser Steffon, his sword out, but not pointed at Daemon. “My prince, lower your sword. The king… the king needs must hear about this.”
The king. Daemon started to laugh. One of the king’s own guard had wounded his heir, and another stood, his blade at the ready to fight him—Daemon Targaryen, a prince of the blood—for what cause? For his defense of the woman who would be his queen?
Ser Steffon looked as though he knew not what to do with a bloody, laughing prince, and before Daemon could tell him what to do, Aegon’s voice sounded from the ground.
“Kepa!” The boy was half draped over Rhaenyra, his eyes focused on something deeper in the tunnel. “Syrax!”
Daemon turned again. He could see the outline of Rhaenyra’s dragon, black against the smoky darkness of the Pit. She was close now, and Daemon could see fire in her lungs as she opened her mouth, ready to defend her rider with all the might of Old Valyria. She felt her rider’s pain, Daemon knew, and would bathe Ser Steffon, the guardsman, and anyone else down here in dragon fire to aid Rhaenyra.
He would do the same if he could.
Daemon blinked, shaking off the sudden dreaminess, and looked again down at Aegon. His eyes reflected the light from the torches, but for a moment Daemon could see all too clearly how he must have looked as he watched his mother die.
“Syrax!” Daemon called, sheathing Dark Sister. “Lykiri, Syrax!” Caraxes’ whistle echoed his own voice, as the other dragon approached as well, calling out to her as Daemon did. They chattered to each other, Syrax still bellowing displeasure, and then she let out a stream of fire against the roof of the tunnel.
Daemon knelt beside Rhaenyra and Aegon. He was ready to repeat his command to his son, but he did not have to. Aegon looked up at him with determined eyes, a swipe of Rhaenyra’s blood across his face from when he had draped himself across her.
Foolish child, he thought, impossibly fond. As though he could protect her from dragonfire.
“My prince,” Ser Steffon said, his voice still frightened. His sword was sheathed and he approached cautiously. “The princess must be seen to.”
Daemon glanced back down the tunnel. The dragons, too, needed to be seen to, and without a dragonlord to calm them… He envisioned Syrax bursting up through the floor of the Pit, searching for Rhaenyra, and the carnage she would leave behind. Rhaenyra would want no such thing. “Take her. Fast as you can back to the Keep. I will be there as soon as I can.” He raised a brow. “Since the king needs must know about this.”
Daemon leaned in and cupped Rhaenyra’s face. Her eyes were cloudy, but she half-smiled at the sound of his voice. “All will be well, niece,” he whispered. He lifted her as gently as he could, and placed her into Ser Steffon’s arms. She winced as he did, and behind him, Syrax roared.
“You go too,” he ordered Aegon. “Stay with the princess.”
“My prince,” Steffon said, hesitating a beat as he started to leave. “You will be well?”
Daemon smirked. “There is one very good way to calm a dragon, ser,” he said, then bent down, gripped Cole’s gambeson, and dragged him toward Syrax. He kicked the man’s head out of his way as he went.
Daemon strode into the throne room streaked with soot and speckled with blood and came face to face with his brother the king.
Viserys was alone in the cavernous chamber. The king had been pacing. His eyes were bright with worry, his mouth twisted in anger, and his hand gripped the dragonbone hilt of his dagger, the same one Aegon had returned with. The last time Daemon had faced Viserys in this room, his brother had taken his side, after a fashion. The time before that, he had embraced him. It was past time then for his ire, Daemon thought, and stopped before he laughed at the thought.
“Is something funny, Daemon?” Viserys demanded.
Daemon supposed he had not tried hard enough. “No, Your Grace, nothing at all.”
“My daughter is injured and a kingsguard is dead. What have you to say for yourself?”
“The latter was done at my hand because he is responsible for the former. Your Ser Criston Cole struck the princess against the wall.”
Surprise flashed across Viserys’ face. He’d been told some, not the rest. But then Viserys’ eyes narrowed. “He challenged you, with a claim of dishonoring the princess.”
This time Daemon did not hold back his laugh. “I see Otto has been here.”
“This is not about Otto, Daemon,” Viserys spat. “Where were you? What have you done?”
“What I have done is killed a traitor. Or would you have had me let him go? Is that one of the laws your Hand would see softened by mercy?”
Viserys waved a gloved hand. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“He has everything to do with this. Or did you send two kingsguard and four other guardsmen to the Dragonpit to fetch us at our return?”
“I ordered riders to bring you back here, yes.”
Daemon pursed his lips. He would not admit it then, not to Daemon, that his Hand had been the one to send an escort armed as if for an arrest, not to greet. Fine.
Before he could reply, Viserys continued, his voice getting louder and louder as he spoke. “You were missing all night! My daughter, gone without a word, out of the Keep for two nights and a full day! How was I to know she was safe?”
“She has a dragon, Viserys.”
“As though dragons can assure one is unharmed. You know better than that. She lies abed right now, bloody and dazed!”
“Put there by your own man!”
“Where were you? Where did you take her?”
“I took her to Dragonstone.”
Such was not an unusual destination. Rhaenyra’s own holdings, their ancestral home, and the home they’d claimed for Aegon. But Viserys narrowed his eyes. “Why? Did you dishonor her as Criston claimed? Is your heart so black?”
“What would it matter if I did? You and I fucked our way through the Street of Silk when we were her age. She is no child.”
“She is a girl. It is different, you know that. What man will have her, dishonored so by you?”
Daemon’s lips curled up. “You will not have to worry about that.”
“What did you do?” Viserys asked. For the first time, he seemed to realize the cut on Daemon’s lip might not be from fighting. “You didn’t.”
They had planned to tell him together, but no plan survived contact with the enemy. “Yesterday on Dragonstone, I took Rhaenyra to wife.”
“No!” Viserys moved more quickly than Daemon had seen him move since they were boys, dagger suddenly in hand, then against his throat. “I will not have her shackled to you.”
Shackled, as though he were a weight to hold her down. “There is nothing you can do,” he replied. Daemon did not move to disarm Viserys, though he could have. He felt the steel of his brother’s hate against his neck and let it cut. “We are wedded and bedded, bound by blood in the way of Old Valyria. There is no septon to undo it with a piece of parchment.”
Viserys sneered. “You wed her in some sham ritual with but stars standing witness. You think I will acknowledge it? I cannot undo it because I say it never happened.”
“We had more than stars standing witness, Your Grace.”
Viserys’ eyes widened and his grip on the dagger faltered a little. “What?”
“Laenor and Laena Velaryon were with us as we wed. They both gave their fondest congratulations, and are both ever so eager to speak about a true Valyrian wedding.”
Viserys let out a growl and wrenched his blade away. It sliced at the base of Daemon’s throat, a clean, bright burst of pain. “How did you know? How?” Before Daemon could answer, Viserys continued. “You truly are a plague on this house.” He sounded as though he were recalling what someone else had said. Otto, likely, Daemon thought. His eyes looked far away.
“Give us your leave,” Daemon pressed, “and we shall wed here, again. When I gave up my crown, you said I could have anything. I want Rhaenyra. Let us be together, Viserys, and we will bring the House of the Dragon back to its proper glory.”
Viserys’ eyes shot back to him. “All you have ever wanted is the throne, and you would manipulate my child to find your way to it. When was it that you began to seduce her, Daemon? When you returned from the Stepstones? Before?” His lip curled in disgust. “You will leave, now, and never return to the Seven Kingdoms. You are exiled, in perpetuity, from any land that calls me king.”
His brother had exiled him before. From Kings Landing, from the Crownlands, sending him out to make his way in the Free Cities or in the Stepstones. Daemon often argued, but he never had refused. This time he did. “I will not leave her.”
“I will not acknowledge your marriage.”
“The Velyarons—”
“If the Velaryons say one word, I will have you executed for treason and I will disinherit Rhaenyra.”
Daemon took a step back. There was fire in his brother’s eyes now, dragonfire, and it was aimed squarely at him. He loved Rhaenyra more than any other, yes, but what Daemon had somehow underestimated was how little Viserys thought of him. How he must hate him, to threaten this. The knot in his gut cinched tighter and tighter. A plague. He’d called him a plague.
And then the doors swung open, and Rhaenyra was there.
She strode toward them, her hair shimmering silver in the gloomy light, streaks of her own precious blood running through it. A dragon queen, he thought, looking from the set of her chin to the gold embroidery on her riding coat to the black leather that hugged her legs.
“Father,” she said, her voice steady but tight with anger, and came to stand beside him. “Uncle, you’re bleeding.”
Daemon followed her gaze. He could see where the blood had dripped down, staining his leathers. The wound on his neck. He had forgotten.
“Is it ‘uncle’ still?” Viserys asked before he could reply. “Not husband?”
Rhaenyra’s eyes darted to him and he dipped his head. A confirmation or an apology—he would let her decide which. “He is no less my uncle because we are wed, Father,” she said.
Viserys’ lips pressed tight together. But it was not their relation that disgusted him, Daemon knew. It was him. The fire in his veins sparked again. “You’ve come in time to hear of the order for my execution, wife. For treason.”
Rhaenyra’s face went slack with disbelief, and then she turned her eyes to the king. “Treason? What treason?”
Viserys’ glare shifted from him to Rhaenyra. “He absconded with the heir to the throne and wed her without my permission, and killed a kingsguard sent to retrieve him.”
“You sent Ser Criston? Then I have you to thank for the injuries he dealt me?” Viserys opened his mouth to argue, but before he could, Rhaenyra continued. “And Daemon did not abscond with me. It was I who proposed the union to him.”
“Rhaenyra. Why would you do such a thing? Do you not understand—“
“Do I not understand what, Father? That as heir I have a duty to the throne? I know well my duty—to marry to strengthen our house and further our line. To ally with one who will bolster my claim and who will be a loyal consort when the time comes for me to take the throne.”
“And you think Daemon will do that? Any of that?”
“I think Daemon is the only one who will do all of that! What is the alternative? To marry a man of the West, and disfavor the those in the East? To wed a Blackwood and cause ire with the Brackens? And who among them would die for House Targaryen if need be? Who among them would die for me?”
“And Daemon would?”
The question was not addressed at him, but he answered. “Yes.” He would have died for his brother, too, once.
Viserys had not believed it then and he did not believe it now, shaking his head violently as he paced away from him and Rhaenyra.
“It matters not what you think,” Rhaenyra called out to her father’s back. Viserys turned slowly. How often did anyone dare say such a thing to the king? “You granted me leave to choose my consort myself. Would you break your word to me?” She tipped her chin up, as though daring him to admit he had sought to do that very thing.
Viserys slammed his hand against one of the pillars. “You will both be the death of me! And the ruin of this kingdom. You rip all plans asunder with the whirlwind of your chaos and—”
“We will be its ruin?” Rhaenyra strode toward him. “You want peace, and so you ignored a war that threatened your own waters. You wish harmony, yet you spurn those who you should keep close. You say we must make sacrifices as rulers, and yet you are never the one to do so! You have a wife of your choosing and you’d have me have a husband of your choosing as well, would you not? No, Father, we will not be the ruin of our house. You—you would damn us all.”
Viserys stumbled back a step. “What? You—”
“Disinherit me if you must. Exile us both from your kingdom. But Daemon and I are wed, and naught shall come between us.”
Viserys stared at her as though she were a figure from a nightmare, but Daemon had never seen anything more glorious. He stepped up until he was right behind her, then laid his hands on her shoulders. She leaned back into him, just barely, but Viserys’ eyes followed the motion, clouded with confusion.
“I need to think,” Viserys said. The anger had bled from his voice, and Daemon did not understand why. “I need time.”
Rhaenyra nodded, stiffly. “Then we shall retire, my king.”
“No,” Viserys replied, his voice a little stronger. “I need time. I don’t— If you want this marriage of yours to stand, you will give me that.”
“What do you mean?” Rhaenyra asked.
“There has been a fire at Harrenhal. Many were injured, including Lord Strong. Ser Harwin has taken his leave, to find the man responsible. I would have you go with him, Daemon.”
A fire at Harrenhal. That was what had killed Lord Strong in Aegon’s time, Lord Strong and Harwin. But this was years before that. What could have caused such a change? What—
Rhaenyra’s voice broke into his thoughts. “You would send him away? Did you not hear a thing I said?”
He could feel the shiver that ran through her body. So mad she was shaking, he thought for a moment, then realized it was more than that. The wound on her head had gone untreated and yet still she stood before her father, arguing for him. Ready to give up her throne, for him. His brother despised him, but Viserys had never felt that way about Rhaenyra. Speaking about her father made her sad, Aegon had said of his mother. Would that be her fate here?
“I will do it,” he said, before Rhaenyra could say anything else. She twisted around to look up at him, her eyes wide. He brushed the back of his fingers against her bloodstained cheek, then looked back to his brother. “I will go with Ser Harwin to the Riverlands and find this criminal of theirs. We will bring him to justice and then I shall return.”
Viserys nodded sharply. “Now both of you,” he said, “out of my sight.”
Daemon slipped into Rhaenyra’s chambers two hours after leaving her with Mellos.
The sun had only just begun to set, but the room was dark even so, the doors to her balcony closed, the lights put out, save one. Rhaenyra lay on the bed, her hair clean and spilling across her pillow. Her eyes were closed, but as he approached, she murmured, “You’re leaving me again, uncle.”
He knelt beside her bed and took her hand, warm and steady inside his. He kissed her palm. “No.”
She opened her eyes. “But you are. Is it the throne? Is it—”
“No,” he said again, and meant it. “There is no way back for my brother and me. But you… I would not have you lose your father, Rhaenyra. You should not have to choose between us.”
“He is so blind.”
With that, he could not argue. But it was not only about Viserys. “There is something wrong in the Riverlands. Something is different from the world Aegon told us about. So I will go with Ser Harwin and we will find out who is setting fires and changing things. And then I will return.” He smiled. “In time for your tourney. I shall crown you Queen of Love and Beauty once again.”
She nodded. “The tourney. That is the time my father gets. After that, I care not what he says. I am your wife, and you my husband, and everyone shall know it.” Her voice—resolute, fiery—send a wave of desire through him. She smirked at whatever the look was on his face and scooted over on the bed. “Come join me, my prince. Let me share my bed with my husband, even if only for a little while.”
He settled beside her on the bed and drew her to him carefully. It was she who kissed him, her fingers carding through his hair. Soon, he told himself, he would be with her like this every night. Soon.