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“Dracarys (dragonfire)!” Her voice rings out clear and strong over the cliffs of Dragonstone, his brave niece. Not a quiver or a tremble as she performs her ceremonial duty.
But all he can hear are the unguarded words spoken moments earlier, words meant only for him.
“Nyke'll dōrī sagon nykeā tresy (I’ll never be a son).”
The funeral is soon over and the attendees are rushing to pile back onto the ship that brought them here. They are eager to be gone, away from the screech of wild dragons, the burning brimstone smell of the Dragonmont, the gargoyles looking down on them from the castle. All the things Daemon loves about this place. Rhaenyra is the only one who loves them too, so it's fitting that they are the only two left behind; the only two dragonriders, save Rhaenys who has already mounted Meleys and taken flight back to Driftmark.
His brother is near catatonic and Otto Hightower is only too happy to be of service, daring to claim possession of the king with a hand on his arm. He steers a wide berth around Daemon as he guides Viserys onto the royal ship. There will be an emergency council meeting tonight, Corlys has told him. Like the fucking vulture he is, Otto means to prey on the king’s weakened state to finally have Daemon officially supplanted.
Rhaenyra was right. She’ll never be a son. Just as he’ll never be an uncontested first-born heir.
He finds her still staring at the smoking pyre as the ship departs.
Caraxes and Syrax are circling overhead, waiting to make the flight they've made together countless times before. One could almost imagine no time had passed since their last race home from Dragonstone.
It’s been years though. Two years since the last time Rhaenyra baited him with a smirk, declaring that Caraxes was getting old while Syrax was getting faster every day. Two years since he rolled his eyes, inevitably accepting her challenge and always winning easily. She never seemed disappointed to lose though. She hopped down from Syrax with the air of a victor every time, insisting that he show her which tunnels held dragonglass, which caves held wild dragons, which towers held ancestral treasures.
She was twelve the last time they were here, and it had occurred to him then that she was beginning to feel less like a child than a companion. She had always been curious, but she was becoming adventurous. She had always been amusing, but she was becoming funny . She had always been eager to hear his stories of Old Valyria, but she was beginning to pour over the histories herself.
“Someday I’ll live here,” she had announced that day, looking at the castle with a calm determination.
“I’ll allow it, I suppose,” he had replied with a half smile, knowing deep down even then that he would never be in a position to allow or disallow it; that Viserys would never formally name him Prince of Dragonstone.
Their races stopped when Otto orchestrated his dismissal as Master of Laws and convinced Viserys to make him Commander of the City Watch, requiring Daemon to live away from the palace. He spent the next two years spitefully declining all social invitations to the Red Keep. But, looking at Rhaenyra now, he wishes he had at least replied to her invitation to continue their races. He might have accepted if she had written again. But she never did.
And now, here she is, suddenly fourteen. It catches him off guard every time he looks at her, how much she’s grown. It's impossible to ignore, this strange new energy coursing between them. He wonders if she feels it too. He tries not to wonder. He tries to focus on the task at hand, of escorting his grieving niece back home.
“Emagon pōnta geptot (Have they left)?” she asks when she hears him approaching behind her.
“Kessa (Yes)." He stops a few feet back, unsure whether to leave her to her thoughts or try to comfort her or…
“Sȳz (Good).” Her voice is thick with unshed tears.”I can’t look at him.”
Loyalty to his brother prompts him to begin repeating what he said at the funeral. "Your father-"
“I heard you, uncle. My father needs me.” She snaps, turning to look at him. “But what of my mother? What did she need? Perhaps not to be butchered."
He wonders how much she saw of the birthing room before the Silent Sisters did their work. He hopes she saw nothing. He hopes she is interpreting the information given to her, not carrying the image of her mother’s mutilated body.
"She was dying, Rhaenyra.” he says as gently as he can. “She was already dying."
"There is a difference between dying and being killed, is there not?"
He cannot deny there is a difference. He cannot deny that it turns his stomach. Even though it is common practice. Even though he himself has killed men in equally brutal ways. There is still something grotesque about the idea of planting your seed in a woman and then cutting it out of her. He can’t say this to Rhaenyra though and so he says something just as true:
“We would be standing here either way."
The inescapability seems to overwhelm her and the anger in her face dissolves. Suddenly she is crying.
Fuck. He isn’t good at this.
But then Rhaenyra stumbles into his arms and he thinks maybe she needed to cry. Maybe she was just waiting for everyone else to leave. An unfamiliar warmth spreads through his chest at the idea that she trusts him with her tears.
"I don't know how to be without her." She is sniffling into his tunic and he is awkwardly returning her embrace. He has the confusing impulse to kiss away her tears, to stroke her hair, to hold her closer. But he can’t tell which impulses to trust around her anymore and so he follows none of them.
Instead, he stands stiffly, hands resting safely near her shoulders and says the only thing he can think to say, “I know, sweet girl, I know.”
It seems to occur to her then that he does, indeed, know. She steps back.
“What did you do - when your mother died?” she asks, looking up at him as she used to when she was a child who imagined he had the answers to all her questions. There is anguish and hope in her voice when she asks, “What should I do? Tell me what to do.”
“I was three, Rhaenyra. It wasn’t the same.” He fumbles, taken aback by the question. This is not a topic he dwells on. But then he has never had his niece look up at him with a tear-streaked face and ask to discuss it. “She had been ill most of my life. I don’t remember her.”
A half-truth. He remembers mismatched violet and green eyes. A crooked nose, an exuberant laugh, rein-calloused hands adorned with gold-emblazened rings. The smell of grass and rain and dragon. The scarlet scales of Melyes that belonged to his mother before Rhaenys. The bright red that came before the deeper red of Caraxes: the color of his first flights on dragonback. Dragon lullabyes that still haunt his dreams.
None of this is helpful for Rhaenyra though and she is looking down in disappointment at his lack of guidance.
He searches for something, anything that might be of use.
“I was older when my father died - closer to your age.” he says slowly. “It still wasn’t the same. We weren’t - close. But… Caraxes helped.” he pauses, suddenly realizing that he might have an answer for her after-all. “Syrax will help.”
“Syrax.” Her voice contains a whisper of optimism and he wants to keep it there.
“Yes, byka kipagīros (little rider).” He replies confidently. “Syrax will help. Pāsagon issa. (Trust me)"
There is a dim spark in her eye when she looks up. “We should race.”
“Yes, we should race.” He takes her hand, trusting at least this one impulse. He leads her up to the cliff where Caraxes and Syrax have landed, impatiently awaiting them. “Race me to King’s Landing, princess. And then race me back tomorrow.”
"It was only a dream," is the hushed refrain of his indomitable wife in the weeks following their move to Dragonstone.
They are all plagued by nightmares. Only Joffrey sleeps undisturbed in his cradle.
Daemon stands guard over their days - training with the boys, exchanging favors with informants in the Red Keep, forging the island inhabitants into staunch loyalists, just as he once forged the Gold Cloaks.
But she is the guardian of their nights. It is Rhaenyra who the children call for when they wake up crying from the horrific scenes of death haunting their dreams.
“It was only a dream. I won’t let anything happen to you,” she tells Jace and Luke. Less than one moon between the deaths of Harwin and Laenor. Two fathers gone, two bodies found burned. The boys have active imaginations. They can hear the screams. Their mother is the last safe place in the world and they cling to her.
“It was only a dream. You’re safe now,” she tells Baela and Rhaena. Like the boys, the girls dream of burning, but, more often, they dream of blood. They dream of the shrieks they heard from the birthing room before the flames ended Laena’s misery. When Daemon tries to comfort them, they turn away. They punish him with stony silence for the sin of being happier now than they've ever seen him before. But they never seem to blame Rhaenyra. They clutch at her when she sits beside them in bed, when she showers them with the affection Daemon struggles to show. Perhaps they sense that she understands what it’s like to be a girl who has lost a mother in childbirth, what it’s like to mourn while fearing the same fate awaits you.
“It was only a dream, my love,” she tells him, rolling over in bed to clasp him in her arms until his heart is no longer pounding in his ears.
He resists at first, just as he always resisted solace from Mysaria and Laena. He pushes her away. He sets up camp inside his old fortress with all his old defenses. But, where Mysaria was lackluster in her siege and Laena deferential, Rhaenyra is relentless. She brings ladders and battering rams. She scouts the perimeter and finds the openings, the unguarded secret passages.
He hides. He disappears on midnight flights across the island to deserted beaches where he drinks and sleeps fitfully, dreaming of Vhagar. She chases. Syrax bears her on sunrise missions to bring him home before the children wake or sometimes to lie down beside him in the sand.
“I would drink with you if you would let me, ” She tells him as he winces in the early morning light, hiding his face in the crook of her shoulder and letting her comb her hands through his tangled hair. “There are things I'd like to forget too. We could forget together.”
She has her own dreams to contend with. She is reluctant to tell him, but he hears the anguished noises she makes in her sleep. He feels her trembling when he reaches out to soothe her and, more often, he feels her tossing and turning. He sees her bleary eyes in the morning after the nights she spends comforting first one child and then the next.
“You’re awake.” He finds her sitting on the balcony tonight, head buried in her hands.
A few weeks ago, he would never have seen her there. He would have been gone by now, mounting Caraxes within minutes of waking up from yet another nightmare. But he’s slower to run these days. It’s his turn to chase, he thinks. It’s his turn to be relentless. She has been guarding their nights for more than two moons now. It’s his turn to take the watch.
When she lifts her head, he can see that her face is wet with tears. It alarms him. He can’t remember the last time he saw her cry. Maybe the day of her mother’s funeral.
He makes his way to kneel on the ground before her chair, where he can cup her face in his hands and wipe away her tears. “Tell me. Did you have a bad dream?”
She takes a shaky breath and rests her forehead against his. “I’m so tired, Daemon.”
He sighs, reaching for her hands. “I know. You’re exhausted.”
This cannot continue. He’ll try again with Baela and Rhaena. He’ll try harder.
“I can’t sleep. I …” she trails off, looking down at their hands joined in her lap. “I see horrible things when I close my eyes.”
“Ivestragon issa (Tell me). What do you see?” He asks.
"I see..." When she looks back up at him, she is still hesitant.
“Pāsagon issa, dōna hāedar (trust me, sweet girl).”
She shrugs, fighting tears. “I see burning and bleeding. Everything muddled.” She stares over his shoulder, as if she can see it even now. “Harwin burning, but it’s Luke - and then it’s you. My mother being cut open, but it’s Baela - and then it’s me. Cannibal - I dream of dragons devouring and burning us all. So strange, I never used to fear wild dragons …”
A kaleidoscope of all their dreams combined. She has absorbed them all.
“Horrible things indeed.” He affirms, searching for the words she uses to lessen everyone else’s horror. He repeats them as he squeezes her hands. “But they’re only dreams. I won’t let anything happen to you."
“I know.” She squeezes his hands back. “But then I wake and …” She pulls back to look at him and suddenly her expression changes, softens. She brings one hand to either side of his face, thumbs running over his cheeks. “Do you remember when we used to race from King’s Landing to Dragonstone? All those years ago?”
“I remember well, byka kipagīros (little rider).” he smiles fondly, turning his face in her grasp to kiss her palm.
“I told you once that I wanted to live here and you said you would allow it.” She breathes a small laugh, her eyes brimming with tears. “I meant with you. Even then. When I dreamt of living here, it was always with you.” She brings her lips to his forehead with a tenderness that clutches at his heart. “I’ve loved you forever, issa valzȳrys (my husband). Bisa iksos issa jaelagon (This is my wish), living here with you.” She glances down. “But - I’m still so sad.”
She misses Harwin, he knows. Just as he misses Laena. It’s a strange thing to mourn while suddenly having the thing you’ve always wanted. The euphoric rush and the grief, the relief and the guilt, the bitter and the sweet mixed together until they’re indistinguishable. She’s looking at him with such raw affection and wistful regret that it makes him ache. He understands.
“Of course you’re sad, Rhaenyra.”
“I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to fix it.” Her tears are spilling over now, running down her cheeks again.
“It’s not possible to fix it.” He shakes his head apologetically. “It won’t always be like this. But it’s not something you can fix.”
“Then what should I do?” she asks, at a loss. “Tell me what to do.”
He reaches for the open bottle of wine he had been about to consume when he noticed her out here. “You should drink with me.”
She gives a short laugh, apparently unprepared for such a simple answer. But there’s a dare in his eyes when he offers her the bottle and she has always had a weakness for taking his dares. She accepts it without hesitation. She takes a long swig directly from the bottle and then hands it back to him.
He raises an eyebrow, amused and impressed.
“What?” she asks, a small smile crossing her lips. “I told you I wanted to forget."
He brings the bottle to his lips and takes a gulp before pressing it back into her hands. They pass the wine back and forth in peaceful silence.
She takes a deep breath and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, relaxing into her chair. She stares out at the crescent moon over the sea. He settles more comfortably into his spot on the ground between her legs, leaning so he can rest his head on her knee; rest his tired eyes between drinks. The silk of her nightgown is cool against his cheek. He looks up at her from time to time, admiring the silver waves of hair falling loose over her shoulders. She smells of the spiced bergamot soap he brought back for her from his last trip to the mainland, the black cherry of the wine they’re sharing, the lush, dewy scent that is only Rhaenyra.
The bottle is more than half gone when she sets it on the ground and begins gently running her fingers through his hair, loosely braiding and unbraiding in haphazard sections. He hums contentedly as his hands make their way to her bare legs, smooth and soft and familiar now.
He never would have dreamt it three months ago - Rhaenyra’s body, not as a long locked-away fantasy, but as his home.
His hands slide up slowly, bringing the fabric of her nightgown with them as they go. He takes his time, drawing the lazy patterns with his fingers that he knows she likes. He is enjoying the goosebumps that appear under his fingertips, the way she is now clutching his hair in her fist. When he makes a leisurely arrival at her thighs, he can hear her breath growing ragged. He leans back to find her watching him with hooded eyes. Deliberately meeting her gaze, he presses his palms against the insides of her knees, spreading them wider so he can continue his trajectory. When he reaches the thin fabric of her undergarment, he stops to trace light, languid circles on either side of his final destination.
She is stunning in the moonlight, still staring into his eyes, flushed with wine and desire, lips parted and making little breathy noises that challenge his resolve to continue at the unhurried pace he has set.
"I've thought of something else that will help you forget," he murmurs.
"Yes, please," she whispers, helpfully slouching in her chair as he removes the final barrier between them and lowers his mouth to join his hands.
“We’ve received a ravan from Storm’s End.” She stands tall before the Painted Table, his fierce Rhaenyra.
Her voice is Valyrian steel, cold and hard, when she announces that Luke is dead and they are officially at war. The room descends into chaos around her, but her face is impassive aside from the rage flashing in her eyes.
“They murdered my son. They are responsible for the loss of my only daughter. They stole my crown.” The fireplace is glowing behind her, an inferno against her frost. “They shall answer for it.”
The council is in an uproar, ready to support any strike she orders, clamoring for vengeance. She decrees that tomorrow Daemon will lead a faction to take Harranhal while Corlys will sail his ships to close the Gullet and choke off trade to King’s Landing.
She is perfect, fearsome. Every inch a queen. Every inch a dragon.
Daemon has never been more relieved in his life.
He would never have chosen this fate for Luke. Luke, who loved flying, but dreamed of sailing the Narrow Seas with his grandfather. Luke, who had been so faithful in his sword drills, despite a deep aversion to fighting since the day he accidentally took his cousin's eye. Luke, who had delighted in the illuminated manuscripts at Dragonstone and the candied fruits that Daemon brought back from his trips to Pentos.
And yet, however tragic the loss of Luke, the unspeakable truth is this: The boy died a worthy death if this is what it took to wake his mother from prophetic dreams. He died the death of a martyr who will save them all, save their dynasty. His blood was not spilt in vain if it has given them the decisive, unyielding queen now standing before them.
There are cracks though, in this queen of ice and stone.
He can see them beneath the surface, spreading every second. He can tell from the way she is starting to twist the rings on her fingers, the way her gaze is beginning to shift to the fire, the way her breath is becoming shallow.
He needs to get her out of there. He won't allow her to crumble before the council.
Corlys, overcome at the loss of yet another heir, is speculating as to whether the Baratheons were complicit, but Daemon interrupts him mid-sentence.
“Shall we reconvene at dawn, Your Grace?” He is already moving to usher her away,
She has been staring transfixed at the flames, but his voice seems to snap her back to reality. She looks at him, as if recognizing him for the first time since he delivered the news that has changed everything.
There is a flash of something in her eyes that makes him fear she is picturing what happened here in this room last night, the - manner in which he spoke to her. For one terrible moment, he fears she will resist her own rescue to spite him.
“Your Grace?” He nudges quietly.
Pāsagon issa, my love, please trust me.
She stares at him for another long moment before abruptly nodding. “Yes, at dawn. We’ll reconvene at dawn.”
He releases the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. She clings to his arm when he offers it to her, following readily as he leads her from the Great Hall.
She starts down the stairs with her head held high, but her shoulders slump a little more with every step. She waits until there are no eyes but his to see before she collapses, his fearless Rhaenyra. He is ready to catch her when her knees give out at the bottom.
His name comes out of her mouth as a low, guttural moan of despair that makes him sick with helplessness.
“I know, issa prūmia (my heart), I know.” He scoops her up in his arms.
“I can’t - I don’t know how to do this,” she mutters into his neck.
"You do. You’re already doing it. You did so well in there, my love.”
She clasps her hands behind his neck as he carries her into her chambers, like she used to when she was a little girl being carried to bed ("Help me, would you, Daemon?” Aemma would ask at late-night feasts, an occupied husband holding court beside her and a half-asleep child nodding off on her shoulder. He would invariably give a long suffering sigh, but, in truth, he would have been offended not to be asked and perhaps Aemma knew that; knew that he secretly relished his status as Rhaenyra’s favorite, the way it made him feel like he was worth something when she looked up at him with more trust than he deserved.)
He lays her down on the bed, where she immediately curls into a fetal position, muttering unintelligibly. And then he hesitates.
They haven’t been alone since last night. He slept huddled next to Caraxes, or rather he huddled sleepless until dawn. He spent the day in the caves before the raven arrived with word Luke. Nothing is settled between the two of them.
Perhaps she would prefer it if he called for Baela, who is ready to slice throats and burn cities at the loss of her step-brother; or Rhaena who is crying in her grandmother’s arms at the loss of her betrothed.
But then he hears what she’s muttering, “Please don’t leave me,” she says.
“I’m not going anywhere," he assures her, the decision instantly made.
He sits on the edge of the bed, where he can rid her of the layers of clothes constricting her breathing. He makes quick work of the pearl buttons on her skirts and the gold clasps on her jacket, but he can’t remove them while she’s lying down. “Can you stand up for me, sweet girl?”
She is racked with long, mournful sobs by then, but she lets him help her to her feet. He frees first one arm and then the other from the jacket before pulling her skirts down around her ankles and helping her step out of them. He stays down there, untying and removing her soft leather boots. She is standing in only her laced-fringed chemise when he rises, her sobs replaced with a muttered litany.
“You were right,” she is saying through her tears. “We should have taken Otto Hightower’s head. We should have burned them all on the bridge when we had the chance. You were right about everything. You were right…”
He was right, but her neck.
Without her jacket, he can see the faint blue, purple, yellow of the bruises he left there last night. She clearly took care to hide them this morning, choosing her highest collar. She camouflaged them well. No one would have noticed. But here she stands before him uncovered, unarmored and they are glaring at him even in the dim light of her candlelit chambers. They are all he can see.
She is still muttering, repeating his own words back to him. “Dreams didn’t make us kings. Dragons did. You were right. And now Luke is gone.”
She deserted him yesterday. All their plans forgotten, all her trust in him discarded. Replaced by inexplicable suspicion in her eyes and his brother's delusional words in her mouth. He had done nothing from morning til evening but demonstrate his loyalty to her - protected her claim while she battled in the birthing room, placed a crown on her head, kneeled in the dirt before her. And she had turned on him. Lectured him on fairy tale prophecies, spouting fucking nonsense. Rejected his counsel, jeopardizing everything he thought they were fighting for. Mocked him, rubbed salt in wounds that only she knows exist, jabbed at weaknesses that he has only ever bared to her. By the end of the night, he had reached a breaking point. He had been beside himself to exorcise the ghost of her father walking around in her body, to pry her from her father's grip with his bare hands and bring back his wife, his niece, the dragon queen he knew was inside there somewhere. He had done what seemed necessary.
But her neck. Gods, her neck .
“We should have already taken Harrenhal. We should have mounted an offensive already. You were right,” she is repeating with increasing volume and frenzy, breathing hitched. “It’s all my fault. You were right.”
He was right, but she is hyperventilating now.
“Shh.” He grabs her face in his hands. “Breathe. You must breathe.”
He takes a deep breath in, then a deep breath out. Until she is following his lead. Until her breathing regulates.
“You were right,” she whispers one last time. She is calmer now, eyes clearer.
He was right, but she bears the faint outline of his hand on her throat.
He brings a single finger to her collar-bone and runs it up, feather-light, inspecting her neck.
She is watching him now, wary and confused.
And he doesn't believe in regret, but he still bows his head so he can brush his lips over the bruises on her throat in penance.
He doesn't believe in apologies, but he breathes one anyway.
“Shijetra issa, issa dāria (forgive me, my queen).”
When he pulls back, her eyes are wide and her crying has ceased. Perhaps she is too stunned to cry for the moment. He supposes he’s never asked her to forgive him for anything before. But then he has never danced around the edges of treason with her before. He drops to his knees, wrapping his arms around her waist.
Her fingers thread through his hair and he takes it as a truce. Not a final resolution of the tension that erupted between them last night, but an unspoken agreement to live at least for tonight inside this moment where she admits he was right and he acknowledges he was wrong. A silent acceptance that she needs him too much right now not to trust him.
She slides down beside him on the floor, crawling into his lap and holding onto him as if she hopes he’ll save her from drowning. He’ll try.
“Luke will be avenged,” he promises, cupping the back of her head in his hand, holding her close to his chest.
“How?” She asks. “What should I do? Tell me what to do.”
He wonders if she realizes that she has asked him the same question in the wake of every significant loss she has ever suffered. She must have guessed by now that he has only been making up answers as he goes; grasping for whatever he can offer to lessen her pain - dragonback races and black cherry wine and his body at her command.
But this time is different. This time he does have the answer. He knows what she must do.
“You should take an eye for an eye,” he says. “A son for a son.”