Chapter Text
The morning they left Harrenhal, Alys Rivers had crept into his chamber before first light.
She looked like a ghost, clad in a thin gray shift and sticking to the shadows. For a moment, Daemon thought she meant to seduce him. In days past, he would have eagerly been seduced, but he found his mouth opening to send her away.
Before he could, she said, “You did not listen to me before. About the danger you face.”
“Did I not?”
“Not well enough. Only a fool doesn’t listen to good counsel.”
He was a prince of the blood; he could have killed her for that. "What is your counsel, my lady?”
“Take your dragon and your son and leave the Riverlands.”
“Your king has charged me to put a stop to this ghost.”
Her thin lips pursed. “There’s something different. There’s something… wrong.”
“That is why we’re here.”
“No. It’s not that. I see things sometimes. Glimmers, like a reflection on the God’s Eye.” She walked closer to the bed, her hair a dark cloud around her pale, worried face. “Your son—”
Whatever flashed across his face stopped her words. She sucked in a shaking breath instead, her eyes full of the caution she should have had when she entered the room.
After a long pause, Alys said, “Be careful with him, my prince. I fear this witch will bring naught but harm to him.”
He had listened to her words before, but those last ones haunted him. They rang in his ears as Aegon walked toward the witch. Dark Sister was solid and sharp at Daemon’s side, his hand too tight on her grip. You’ll lose movement if you hold your sword that tight, his uncle’s voice murmured in his memory. He’d said those same words to Aegon, not a moon past.
He would let no harm come to him.
The witch lifted her head from the candle’s dulling glow and Daemon felt as though a fist had slammed into his gut. Alys Rivers. It was her. Older, surely, but she had the same thin lips, the same dark hair. She did not look so fearsome, just a comely woman sitting on a stone in the moonlight, wearing a neat blue dress and red leather shoes.
Until he looked in her eyes.
Daemon opened his mouth to speak, but the witch beat him to it. “Your Grace,” she said, bowing her head to her king. She looked past Aegon to Daemon. “It’s about time.”
“Alys?” Ser Harwin asked. “But—”
“Harwin. I almost forgot your face,” the older Alys said, sounding almost fond, then gestured to the stones across from her. “Come closer, you two. There’s much to say, and I’m not going to yell.”
When Aegon sat, Daemon started toward him. Beside him, Harwin hissed, “Daemon, who is she? What—” Daemon ignored him and walking. After a beat, Harwin did too.
“You tricked me,” was the first thing Aegon said.
“No, I didn’t. You were desperate and asked no questions. A very foolish thing for anyone to do, much less a king.”
“A king?” Harwin asked.
“Aegon Targaryen,” Alys replied, her voice a little playful and her eyes on Aegon, as though she were sharing some private joke with the boy, “Third of His Name. Protector of the Realm.”
“I thought you claimed my titles for your son.” Aegon’s voice was sharp as glass.
“My son is dead. Thus his kingdom is yours. You outlived them all, didn’t you? Though not anymore. Or does it count still as outliving if none of them will ever be born? This could drive you mad, couldn’t it?” Alys shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose we’re both already a little mad.”
“What do you want?” Daemon demanded, tired of her smile already.
“First of all, to be thanked, my prince. It was no simple thing to kill your wife. I was surprised; you seemed to do it with ease in our time.”
To kill your wife.
“Rhea died from a fall.”
She gave him a pitying look, like she found him a fool to believe such a thing. “It was not difficult to spook her horse, but even with a crushed skull the woman lived on. Killing her after that was more complicated. A stubborn woman, your Bronze Bitch. A shame to kill her, honestly. But I needed to get your attention.” She huffed a breath. “And not even that did it. I’ve learned it’s is no small thing, getting a Targaryen’s attention. Aemond was much easier than you or your brother, Daemon.”
He felt cold all over suddenly. “My brother?”
Alys laughed. “Oh, you look as though you want to strike me dead. I’ve done nothing to harm Viserys. I swear it.”
He did not believe her. But before he could say anything else, Aegon was speaking. “I don’t understand. Why does this matter to you? Sending us back, killing Rhea, why do any of it? Is it because of your son? Did… did you want Aemond back? I don’t—” Aegon’s voice broke. Daemon wanted to pull him close, but his son held himself as tight and still as Daemon himself did, and would not welcome the touch.
“You really are a child, aren’t you? It’s all about the ones you love. You would have done anything for a chance to see them again. I could have asked for your crown. For a castle. For a dragon. And you would have found a way to give it to me.”
“I had no dragons to give,” Aegon said.
“That’s the problem, Aegon. The dragons were dead.” The witch rose to her feet and stretched, black hair spilling down her back. Daemon and Harwin both moved to rise as she did but she held a hand up to them. “Stay where you are.” She walked toward the firepit and crouched before the burnt meat. She hmmed at something she saw as she poked at it, then glanced back over at them. “It’s a rat. I think I overcooked it.”
Daemon was beginning to think that she had not been lying when she said she was a little bit mad.
She spoke as she worked the rat corpse off the spit and tossed it away. “This did all begin with my son. He died of the Winter Fever, at the very end of it. I couldn’t believe he even fell ill. Targaryens do not get sick, Aemond said. And he was all Targaryen, my son. Aemond wanted the boy named for his kin, bastard get though he was. So I named him Maegor when he was born.” She smirked and whispered, “Aemond would have hated that.”
Daemon had lived with tales of this dreaded future in his head since the night the three of them had found Aegon in Flea Bottom. He and Rhaenyra believed the story; they had for months now. But there was something different in hearing it all in Alys’ voice. It sent a shiver up his spine, and he straightened it as though that could ward off the chill.
“I’ve always been talented in the healing arts. I saved many children from the sweats and women in the birthing bed with my skills. With my spells. But Maegor… I couldn’t save him. I hadn’t realized until then how different things were. It was like treading through mud to make a simple charm. I did not know why. So I began to look for answers, and I found them.”
“My prince,” Ser Harwin began, “I don’t—”
“Of course you don’t understand.” All of the warmth was stripped from her voice. She strode back to them, sitting and folding her hands in front of her. “They don’t understand either. Not one of them. I watched Aemond burn the world around me, but the fire’s not what we should fear. It’s the ice.”
From my blood comes the prince that was promised, Daemon remembered. And his shall be the song of ice and fire.
“This is madness,” Harwin said, looking back and forth between Aegon and Alys, and then to Daemon. “There is no Targaryen called Aemond and my sister is back at Harrenhal and Egg—”
“Aegon was a king. One who gave up everything to save his parents.”
Harwin’s mouth snapped shut and he leaned back. He still looked between the three of them. Daemon could not blame him for the confusion on his face or the alarm in his eyes. Madness, Daemon thought. Harwin wasn’t wrong.
“When the dragons began to die, so did magic. And the more I learned, the more I saw… We need that magic.” She looked down at her hands. “I need it.”
“So you came back with him,” Daemon said.
“Stopping the war saves the dragons, and I’d rather Rhaenyra the Cruel on the throne than Aegon the Drunken. I thought there were even odds that the boy would sneak into Keep and murder everyone with Hightower blood. I would have preferred that. Faster than whatever it is you’ve been doing.”
“How do you know what we’ve been doing?”
“I see things.” She tipped her head back, looking up into the bright, starry sky. “So much more now. It’s like the world is alive with the power of dragons.”
“What do you see?”
“Anything I want to. The Old Gods see all—all of the past, all the future.” She gestured to the glass candle that sat between them. “Your brother’s not much of a dreamer, but I did what I could. Showed him. Little good it did. The fate of the world rests with the Targaryens. Do you know how terrifying that is? You can’t even stop a baby from being born.”
A noise escaped Aegon, tiny, broken.
Alys looked back to the boy. “You didn’t know? The queen is with child.”
Daemon hadn’t known either. What had he called it, his distracting Viserys every night? A lazy attempt to prevent the birth of the man who would one day kill him? Too lazy, he thought as he watched Aegon’s breathing pick up speed. He should have done more. He could have done more.
“I’m not afraid of some Hightower whelp,” Daemon said.
“That Hightower whelp killed your stepson, burned half the Riverlands, and nearly ended the male line of my family. I had hoped he might be avoided.”
“Why did you want us here?” Daemon snapped.
“Because you need to know what it is you’re meant to prevent. It’s not the death of your princess, or House Targaryen succumbing to Andal blood, or your pets dying out. It could mean everything dying out.” She huffed a laugh just before Daemon opened her mouth to speak. “You wouldn’t care about that, would you? You wouldn’t believe me if I spoke of prophecy. But I know what you do care about,” she said, and her eyes flicked to Aegon.
“What of him?” Daemon asked, following her gaze. He misliked the alarm flashing in his son’s eyes.
“I needed him for the spell and I needed him willing. I was not certain he would help. His uncles certainly wouldn’t have, not to bring back their parents anyway. I found him in the godswood, alone.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Aegon said, sharp, commanding. That was what he sounded like when he was king, an idle part of Daemon’s mind realized, even as he disobeyed.
“He had a Valyrian steel dagger in his hand. I needed Valyrian steel to do the work. It was…fate.” She smiled again. “And then he held it to his throat.”
He’d suspected. I just went for a walk, Aegon had said that night at Harrenhal, but Daemon had heard the lie in it. The boy had wanted to die. Bright and strong and born to a queen, with so little hope he’d been ready to spill his blood into the mud. Daemon’s chest felt so full of pain he wished he could tear it open, as if that might cause some relief. His son had wanted to die.
“But as I told him, there are better uses for kingsblood.”
That drew his gaze back to her. Aegon had said she’d used his blood to send him back, but the way she said it… “Better uses?” he asked.
“Kepa, please make her stop,” Aegon begged, but Daemon did not listen.
“The strongest magics need blood. Kingsblood is the most potent. And for a spell like this, I needed a great deal.”
“What?” Harwin asked. His voice sounded miles away, but Alys’ voice was clear and ringing in his ears.
“Aegon didn’t fight. His sister was screaming but he didn’t even flinch. I picked up the dagger and I sliced it right across his throat. He was just waiting—wanting—to die.”
Daemon’s hand was around her throat before he even knew it was moving.
Her voice wheezed a little as she said, “What can I say? Like father, like son.”
Daemon’s hand froze, fingers still gripping tight around her neck.
“What?” Egg’s voice was tiny, then a little bigger when he continued. “What does that mean?”
Alys mouth opened but no words came out. He could feel her throat work beneath his hand as she struggled for air, but the light in her eyes seemed to be amusement more than fear.
He let her go.
She sucked in air, let it back out with a broken laugh. She looked right in Daemon’s eyes as she spoke. “It was whispered everywhere. Not of the battle. That’s a thing for the singers and songs—two princes meeting to fight, neither ever leaving the God’s Eye. But the whispers… Prince Daemon, off in the Riverlands with his whore. Prince Daemon, humiliated again by his ruler, called to heel like a cur. Prince Daemon, whose last act for his queen was to die—and who wanted it that way.”
“No. No, you’re wrong.” Aegon’s voice was heating.
“Egg—” Harwin cautioned, and was ignored.
“My father didn’t want to die. He wanted to come back to us, he promised he’d come back to us!” Aegon was nearly shouting now and Daemon’s hands shook harder at each word he said. “He told Joff that he would let him hold Dark Sister and he was going to take me to see Baela and Rhaena and he told my mother he would come back!”
“But he didn’t come back,” Alys said. Aegon let out a broken cry at her words.
“Stop,” Daemon ordered.
Alys raised a brow, unafraid though she’d have bruises on her throat come morning. “Do you doubt me, my prince? You know, I was at Harrenhal when the castle fell to the Greens. All those loyal Black knights, eager to die rather than face the consequences of their allegiances. They locked we women up in the great hall, pledging to return once the battle was won. Not one of them believed they would live, and not one of them did. Every man of House Strong died that day and all I ever saw of them was bones. They had the same looks on their faces as you did when you mounted Caraxes. When we arrived, Aemond said that you had lived too long. Do you know your reply? You agreed. And then you rose into the air with your chains loosed. When you had an opening you took it, knowing you would die, and I’m sure you hit the water with a smile on your face, you craven—”
“Stop it!” Egg cried, shoving Alys back. She tripped backward, clearly not expecting a hit from the side. “You’re lying!” But he no longer sounded as if he believed that.
And Daemon knew she wasn’t.
He was not the man who read whatever orders his queen sent, just as he was not the man who left loose his chains as he went into battle. But he knew that man, had been that man just the same. He remembered the pull of his scar tissue as he rowed closer to the Crabfeeder, remembered the play of light on his brother’s words. Death or victory, he’d thought. If he’d thought both were an option, would he have taken that instead?
Aegon spun away before anyone could say anything else and darted away, running into the darkness down the hill.
Alys jabbed a finger in the direction his son had run. “That’s what your complacency caused, my prince. Hiding on Dragonstone with your wife and your children and your dragons. Letting your weak brother be led around by Green strings attached to his poxy cock.”
“I didn’t—”
“You might as well have. What have you done since you learned the truth? Killed a knight? Fucked a maiden? As if that’s enough.”
Dark Sister was half unsheathed when a hand wrapped around his forearm, stopping him. “My prince,” Harwin said. For an instant, Daemon considered killing him. Then he said, “Aegon needs you.”
Daemon pushed Dark Sister back into her sheath, though he’d rather plunge her into Alys Rivers’ heart. But Harwin was right, at least partially—Aegon needed his father.
And Daemon had never been so certain that man was him.