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Chapter Text

You have no idea how hard I have been trying to make her have silver hair, bruh now I am super tired so anyways, USE YOUR IMAGINATION PLEASE, because it is tiring

Alicent Hightower (87 AC)

"I am more dragon than you are, I have the blood of Maegor through my veins. If not for him, the House Targaryen would be extinct."

Daemon Targaryen (81 AC)

"Marry me, dragoness, and I will lay the realm at your feet. I will kill every lord, lay waste to any house, if only to see your smile. Marry me."

Viserys Targaryen (77AC)

and

Amma  Arryn (82 AC)

Elaena Hightower (69 AC)

"All that glitters is not gold, my sweet. You need a lord husband that will take care of you, not a wanton and cruel prince who mocked his past lady wife."

Otto Hightower   (66 AC)

"I fear I cannot go against the King's wish,  but  you would have been happier with Viserys, my angel."

Corlys Velaryon, Rhaenys Velaryon, Laena and Laenor Velaryon  ( 53 AC, 74 AC, 92 and 94 AC respectively)

King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne (they're old but still kicking)

Chapter Text

Elaena Hightower's hands, pale and fine-boned as carved ivory, twisted in her lap until the knuckles whitened. The sitting room smelled faintly of rainwater, the storm had passed weeks ago, but its dampness still clung to the tapestries and the rushes underfoot. 

Across from her, Septa Anara sat prim and stiff-backed, draped in grey wool, her brown wimple shadowing eyes that glimmered with something halfway between awe and unease.

"She knows all the prayers, my lady... All of them. She recites the words of the Seven without flaw, yet speaks also of... of the Fourteen Flames, and the dragonlords' Gods. She says she wishes to pray to them as well. Because," the septa swallowed, "only they listen."

Elaena's lips curved into a composed smile, though her mind quickened with disquiet. What has the fall done to you, my sweet angel?

"Fret not, Septa Anara. I shall speak to my daughter. She is a kind girl, merely curious. Such notions are the hazards of youth," she gave an easy chuckle, the smile not reaching her purple eyes.

Anara hesitated, but obedience was second nature to her. With a nod and a murmured blessing, she withdrew, leaving Elaena alone to her thoughts.

Her daughter Alicent had changed. Not in the way most girls do when they near their flowering, but in something deeper, stranger. 

There was a gravity in her now, a composure far beyond her three and ten name days. She listened more than she spoke, and when she did speak, it was often to ask questions no child should think to ask. Her vocabulary was flawless and so were her manners.

Targaryen history consumed her, as if she sought to drink the bloodline into her veins by the reading of it. She pressed for news of King's Landing, of the court, of who sat where at council tables and who would be the next in line for the Iron Throne.

When Elaena attempted to gently tease her for it, Alicent had only smiled and asked when they might visit the capital.

That wish was granted a year later or so it seemed at first.

In 101 AC, Otto Hightower's ambitions were rewarded when King Jaehaerys named him Hand of the King. After the death of the heir to the Iron Throne, Prince Baelon Targaryen, unrest settled over the realm like poison in wine.

Oldtown buzzed with pride at the honor, but Otto did not take his family with him. The Red Keep, he said, was a nest of vipers, its alleys full of cutthroats and worse. 

The truth, Elaena suspected, was more pointed: in the bright light of court, there would be no hiding the fact that her daughter's silver-white hair and purple eyes marked her as something more than a Hightower maiden. Questions would be asked, dangerous questions.

They both feared what could befall Alicent, the King had never dared question why in Oldtown there was a maiden and her mother with Valyrian traits. Both her and her daughter wore scarves over their hair and veils across their faces when they went out to the docks or to the merchants' square.

Instead of taking them with him, Otto busied himself with arranging a betrothal for her with the eldest son of House Redwyne. The boy was of good stock, his family wealthy, his house old. A fine match. 

But Alicent refused outright, her voice calm yet unyielding.

"I will not wed anyone but a Targaryen Prince."

Elaena had tried, as any mother would, to temper her daughter's sudden boldness. "My sweet, the boy is the heir of Lord Redwyne. You would be Lady Redwyne in time, ruling your own household."

But those eyes, not the guileless eyes of a girl barely past her four and tenth name day, but the steady, assessing gaze of a woman grown, met hers without flinching.

"No. I shall marry a Targaryen Prince, and I shall be a good queen. You will see, mother."

Panic fluttered in Elaena's breast, though she kept her face serene. Alicent had always been an obedient child, eager to please, quick to heed her mother's counsel. Yet on this point she was immovable.

"They do not know of your existence," Elaena said softly, almost as if to convince herself.

Alicent exhaled through her nose, slow and measured. "They do. But if they wanted me dead, I would not be breathing at this very moment and neither would you. Sadden not your thoughts, mother. If father calls us to court, then I shall wed someone deserving of my station, a prince."

Elaena's smile wavered, and her daughter's cool, slender hands closed gently over her own.

"You will see, mother, how well we will thrive. You, me, and father, we shall be fine. The King will not harm us without harming his own blood. And kinslaying is a grave sin. The King now is a kinder man than in his youth."

Elaena blinked, studying the girl's face. "And how would you know such a thing?"

Alicent's lips curved, though there was no mirth in the expression. "Because that's what old men do."

The memory came to her not as a dream, but as a living thing, sharp-edged and dripping in grief.

The death of her son Aemond, carved from the sky atop mighty Vhagar, torn down in a storm of fire and wings by the Prince Daemon Targaryen. She had heard of it secondhand in that life, but the image had burned itself into her mind all the same: dragon against dragon, kin against kin's blood.

Her eldest son Aegon, the crown upon his head and poison in his cup, delivered by the cold hands of his own council.

Her daughter Helaena, gentle, brittle Helaena, flinging herself from her bedchamber's balcony, her body broken by the grief of losing her son Maelor.

Her youngest boy, Daeron, brave and dutiful, perished at Tumbleton, the flame of his youth snuffed out in a battlefield's chaos.

One by one, they had been taken from her. And when the war was done, and her house was ashes in all but name, they locked her away in Maegor's Holdfast. Not as a queen, nor even a prisoner of state, but as a relic, something that could neither be displayed nor destroyed.

Her last year in that life was lived behind heavy doors, her world bounded by the same stone walls that had once been her cage as a young bride. Her only companions were her septa, a few silent serving girls, and the guards who watched her with an indifference colder than the steel they bore. 

They gave her books to read, needles and thread to busy her hands, but her hands found little purpose. Her guards whispered that she spent more hours in tears than in prayer, her sobs carrying faintly through the iron-bound door. And it was true, she remembered feeling a great deal of pain, that no amount of tinctures would cure her.

It was a pain of the heart and the soul.

One day, without reason, she had torn every gown she owned into shreds, green was the color of it, every fine fabric she had on her frame destroyed in a frenzy she could scarcely recall. The color green, once her banner, had become a thing she despised.

When the Winter Fever swept through King's Landing in 133 AC, the sickness found her easily. For most, the fever brought delirium; for her, it brought clarity, if only for a little while. 

She confessed her sins to her septa, her voice ragged but certain. She spoke of longing to see her children again, of wishing for the comfort of their laughter, their embraces. 

In her last hours, she murmured often of Jaehaerys the Old King, a figure who had been to her, in youth, both sovereign and almost-grandsire, but never once did she speak of Viserys, her husband.

Never of Viserys and his stupidity, of his cowardice. 

And so, on a rain-soaked night, Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower had died.

She had thought it an ending as the Angel of Oldtown had fallen from her horse on a day swallowed by rain.

The darkness receded, and breath filled her lungs once more. She awoke not to the chill, close air of Maegor's Holdfast, but to the scent of rushes and beeswax, the murmur of her mother's voice.

Her hands were small again. Her limbs full of youth, she tried wiggling her toes and she could feel them, no longer the coldness of her prison, but the warmth and softness of bedcovers.

What shocked her most was not her return to youth, nor even the possibility that this was some afterlife given strange form. No, it was the face in the polished golden mirror near her bed. The face of a girl with eyes like deep-cut amethysts, hair of molten silver, skin pale as the stars in the night sky.

A Targaryen face, not the warm blonde hair and green eyes she had borne in her other life, but the visage of old Valyria, of Daemon and Rhaenyra, of dragonlords.

The timeline had shifted. The blood in her veins had shifted. And with it, the future itself.

She touched her own reflection, her fingertips trembling, not with fear, but with the sharp, cold thrill of opportunity. She did not want to wed Prince Daemon because of her love for him, since she held none, when the memory of her son Aemond's death was so fresh in her mind, but the Rogue fought for his loved ones with all his might and in the end, he gave his life for Rhaenyra.

What a pity, a life of duty fulfilled only to die like a commonborn.

Alicent had committed to memory the history of the women who came before her, her mother Elaena, her grandmother Alysa, her great-grandmother Flora, and her two-times-great-grandmother, Queen Ceryse herself. Not from books, though she devoured those too, but from the soft recounting of her mother's voice.

She had been blessed to recall both of her lives, this one and the other.

This was one of the rare comforts of her new life, that her mother was here, alive and well, still bending over embroidery hoops with deft, pale fingers, the silver in her hair catching the candlelight. 

In her other life, Elaena had been taken too soon, claimed by illness before Alicent reached her eight and tenth name day. Now, she treasured these moments, even if she knew her own purposes ran deeper than filial devotion.

They sat together by the window, both women, though one a woman and the other a girl, bent over a length of fine cream silk. Elaena's needle moved in even strokes, each loop of gold thread forming the curve of a rose. Alicent worked more slowly, not from inexperience, but because she was listening.

"It is said," Elaena murmured, "that Queen Ceryse did not wish Maegor to know of her child because she feared Tyanna of the Tower might use dark magics upon the babe, to conceive a male heir for the king, or perhaps to destroy the poor child outright. So she hid her here, in Oldtown. Lord Manfred Hightower did not refuse. He protected his daughter, and her daughter after her. Had it been another lord, he would have sold his daughter to the King only to have his blood on the Iron Throne."

Alicent smiled bitterly. If only you knew your lord husband did the same, and destroyed our family in the process with his ambition.

A faint smile touched Elaena's lips. "And so, for generations, the children with dragon's blood lived in peace here. They wed the lords of the Reach, kept to their own, and lived long, happy lives."

Alicent's fingers stilled on the hoop. She almost rolled her eyes at her mother's warm, simple telling, but she held her tongue. There was no use showing disdain to a simple-minded woman.

"How is it," Alicent asked instead, "that in each generation, only one Targaryen woman lives?"

Elaena's needle paused. She caught her lower lip between her teeth before answering. "The Maesters say it is coincidence. The Septons call it the will of the Seven. And there are some who whisper that it is a curse, set upon Maegor's blood."

Alicent let the words hang for a moment, her frown hidden as she bent over her work. To be the great-great-granddaughter of Maegor the Cruel was absurd enough. But for the Gods to now place her in a life where she is a descendant of his blood, when Prince Daemon was called in her past life Maegor Reborn... Well. She could almost laugh at the irony.

"And so we've been hiding," she said finally.

Elaena's expression faltered, and she blushed. "You may call it that, but it is more a matter of protection. We have guarded our kin."

Alicent lifted her gaze to her mother's, the warmth of her voice flattening into something almost cold. "We have the blood of a king in our veins, mother. And you would see me rot in some keep, the broodmare of a minor lord?"

"The eldest son of Lord Redwyne is a good boy," Elaena began, a note of pleading creeping into her voice. "Good stock-"

"And a dolt," Alicent cut in, her tone full with intention. "There is scarcity in the Targaryen household, is there not? Prince Aemon is dead. Princess Gael, too. Princess Saera lives across the Narrow Sea, Vaegon at the Citadel, Maegelle in a Sept. Princess Viserra died years past. What remains? Princess Rhaenys, wed to her Velaryon Lord, and their children. There is also Prince Daemon. Prince Viserys. Princess Aemma. The Gods know how frail Princess Aemma is, as her mother Princess Daella was before her. The royal line is at peril."

Elaena's lips pressed together. Her needle moved again, a small betrayal of discomfort at the breadth of her daughter's knowledge. "Prince Daemon and Lady Rhea will provide the royal line with children, and so will Prince Viserys and Princess Aemma. You should not lose faith in them."

Alicent straightened her back, her purple eyes glinting. "Prince Daemon loathes Lady Rhea, mother."

Her mother's needle halted mid-stitch. "How do you know such a thing?"

For a heartbeat, Alicent cursed herself for the slip. "The entire realm knows," she said instead, the words measured. "Prince Daemon hated the union from the moment it was forced upon him, he has made it quite clear."

Elaena hesitated, then nodded once. "That much is true. Everyone knows how he despises his Royce bride."

Alicent could say she had the patience of a septa, the kind who spends her days tending gardens no one sees, or laboring over a tapestry that will take years to finish. 

It was not in her nature to act in haste, not now that she had been granted this impossible second life. She knew well enough that only in time would her plan take root, and when it did, it would grow strong enough to withstand storms. 

For now, she was content to water it in secret, to feed it with every whisper, every name, every shifting alliance she could think of.

The first sign that the Gods themselves were moving the pieces for her came quietly, on the wing of a raven. 

It was not from King's Landing, but from the Vale, grim tidings, though she received them with an unreadable expression. Lady Rhea Royce, lady wife to Prince Daemon Targaryen, had died. 

The letter was brief, as if even the writer struggled to make sense of the tale: how the Lady of Runestone had fallen from her horse while hawking, how she had lingered with a fever for a week before recovering, and then - in a turn as strange as it was sudden - had risen from her bed, walked a few paces, and collapsed stone-dead upon the floor.

It brought Alicent immense joy that he was rid of his lady wife, in her past life she would have been livid and she had been, given that she disliked the Prince so much. It appeared that the Gods have allowed some things as they were, and Prince Daemon was as much a scoundrel in his past life as he was in this one.

A cruel, wanton creature that protected his family fiercely. That is what I needed, not a feeble King that went blind in his love for his past lady wife Aemma, naming his daughter heir to the Iron Throne even if I had given him not one but three male heirs, she mused.

Her mother, Elaena, had been stricken by the news. Lady Rhea was a distant figure in their lives, yet Elaena possessed that soft, yielding heart that could mourn for almost anyone. She sighed over the cruelty of fate, shook her head over a life cut short, and crossed herself before the Seven.

Alicent did neither. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, her eyes lowered, her mind already racing ahead. But how can I go to the court if there is so much secrecy around me? Will the King truly demand my head? King Jaehaerys is no cruel ruler but would he do anything to ensure the blood of Maegor the Cruel remained dead and buried?

Would he name someone to track me down and put me to rest, as they did to Maegor? Why hasn't King Jaehaerys done something against it? Was the kinslaying curse so grand that he wished not to employ someone else to rid him of the bad blood of his house?

Alicent never felt as if she woke up a year ago with a newfound sense of cruelty or wishing to torture poor souls, but she did wake with a determination that had her waiting for each move to unfold before her very purple eyes.

It was as though the Gods themselves had heard her prayers and decided to clear the board for her. She told herself she did not wish harm on an innocent woman and in truth, she did not. 

But she had long since learned that the only thing that could truly tear House Targaryen apart was itself. 

In her first life, she had been powerless to prevent that inevitable fracture, as she tried to make her son King and he was a poor one at that. This time, she meant to weld the pieces together in such a way that they could not be broken, not by bastards, not by succession disputes, not by petty rivalries.

She will keep House Targaryen strong and if she were given the same strong body, she will birth strong heirs that will be more capable than even King Jaehaerys himself, her daughters would be resilient and happy in their marriages, she would make sure of it.

And for that, she would need the one man who could command both fear and loyalty in equal measure. A man who would burn the world for her and her children. A man who would turn his back on anyone but his family.

And I will need to ensure he turns his back on his own brother too. Oh Gods, hear my prayer, let me be what Prince Daemon needs, let me be his weakness, let him obsess with me, let him love me, let him adore me, let him protect me, do not allow for the Dance to happen once more. Let me be happy, please oh Gods.

The second raven came not from some distant Vale lord but from her own father, Otto Hightower. His script was neat and elegant as always, yet even through the measured phrasing she could feel the urgency of the news.

The letter told that after the sudden death of Prince Baelon, the Spring Prince, King Jaehaerys decided to summon a Great Council to settle the question of succession once and for all. Every lord of note in Westeros was to be called to Harrenhal to cast their vote. Otto laid out the principal names: Princess Rhaenys' son, Laenor Velaryon; Prince Viserys; and - here Alicent paused, her brow furrowing - Prince Daemon.

She read the name again, almost disbelieving. She blinked, pale lashes fluttering in confusion as she read his name five and ten times over.

In her first life, she remembered this moment well, the Great Council of 101 AC, the day that had shaped the decades to come. 

She remembered how, out of the fourteen claimants, only Laenor and Viserys had been taken seriously. She remembered how Daemon's name had not been in the running at all, but she knew that he had raised a small army for his brother, made of second sons and men who followed his lead as he marched to protect his older brother's claim and his own claim at that, if Viserys ever failed to have a son.

Yet here, in this life, it was different. Prince Daemon was not merely whispered about as an ambitious younger brother; he was being put forward openly, his claim recognized alongside the others. The Gods truly must have disapproved of the war that happened between the kin of House Targaryen, she mused.

It was a shift in the pattern and one she could use.

She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the shape of him rise in her memory. Daemon Targaryen: a man who could be both savior and destroyer in the same breath. 

He was celebrated for his skill in battle, for his unmatched leadership, for the way he commanded men as though born to it. But he was also infamous for his volatility, his sharp tongue, his readiness to answer insult with blood. Fiercely loyal to those he loved and pitiless to those he did not.

He was dangerous.

He was perfect.

He was what she needed in a lord husband.

Alicent's thoughts sharpened like a blade being honed. In her first life, she had watched Daemon from a distance, an unpredictable figure always at the fringes of the court, never an ally, often an enemy. He had never liked her and the fool, Mushroom, even concocted a lie that she gave her maidenhead to him.

Alicent did feel pity for her past self, having to lay with a man that she did not like one bit, only to be pleased by the title as Queen and later mocked as her sons were overlooked by a spoiled Princess. 

She wondered now, if all the tales of the Rogue Prince's prowess in bed were true or just tales made by harlots that were paid coin to say and act anything their master wanted.

But now she understood something she had missed before. For all his swagger and his excesses, Daemon's heart - such as it was - beat to a single rhythm: the preservation of the Targaryen bloodline in its purest form. 

He had married Rhea Royce under protest, because it was a match made by Queen Alysanne, loathing the match not merely for her person but for her Andal blood. His mistresses had been of the Free Cities, women of Valyrian descent whenever he could find them. He had longed for a wife who carried the blood of Old Valyria in truth, not just in name.

He had wed Laena Velaryon, for her blood as much as her lord father's gold and power. He had wed Princess Rhaenyra for her blood and claim to the Iron Throne.

And in all the realm, in this new life of hers, there were only two such women of marriageable age: Laena Velaryon, barely nine name days, and herself.

The difference between the two was simple: Alicent was not a child. She could bear heirs now, heirs with hair like moonlight and eyes like amethysts. Her moonsblood had yet to come, but when it would, she would be granted the possibility to further down the Targaryen line, if her plans succeeded. She could give him many heirs, male heirs.

She could stand beside him not as some meek consort but as a partner in rule, one who would guide his fire rather than try to quench it.

Her hands tightened in her lap as the certainty settled over her like a mantle. This was not simply ambition. This was necessity.

Another strange thing was that Queen Alysanne had not passed away from a broken heart, as this time around, Gael had in fact died of an illness, and the King Jaehaery's was in a better form than in her past life. The Queen resided at Dragonstone and it was said that she was oft visited by her grandson, Prince Daemon on his dragon Caraxes.

Alicent oft wondered if she would burst out crying when she would see Caraxes up close, the dragon that killed Vhagar and her son Aemond.

A sudden realization made her almost laugh out loud like a fool. She had Targaryen blood in her veins, as diluted as it was due to her Hightower blood but... she could claim a dragon. But what dragon would she claim? Could she truly do so?

She knew of the bastards, the dragonseeds, that claimed Vermithor, Silverwing and Sheepstealer, but in this life, Vermithor and Silverwing were not without a rider, the King and Queen very much alive.

Since the raven's arrival, her prayers had doubled, tripled. And not the soft, murmured entreaties she offered her mother's Seven. 

No, these were different. She made them in the dead of night, in the quiet of her chambers, kneeling before a single candle until the wax pooled at its base. 

She whispered them to the Fourteen Flames, to the Gods of Old Valyria whose names her septa would have paled to hear. She prayed for Prince Daemon's health, for his strength, for his claim to rise above all others. 

She prayed for Viserys to falter, to stumble, to never again sit the Iron Throne. She prayed for the course of history itself to bend beneath her will.

In those hours, with only the flame for company, she felt the truth of her own blood more keenly than ever. 

She was no Hightower rose, delicate and fragrant, meant to adorn some lord's table.

She was a dragonflower, rare and strange, born in the gardens of Oldtown but rooted in the black stone of Valyria.

And Daemon Targaryen would see her for what she was, even if it meant tricking him into it.

At least now, she had the looks to lure him in, even if he would not take her seriously, sometimes a man needed to be polished by a sharp tongue, that could at times turn soft.

Alicent burst from the library with the swiftness of a startled bird, her slippers barely making a sound against the stone floor. She clutched the skirts of her pale gown in one hand, holding them clear of her steps as she weaved between servants bearing trays and guards in polished mail. 

She abhorred the color green, wearing colors like white, pink, blue or yellow, anything but green. The only thing she was obligated to wear by her lady mother had been a green belt, but she only did so not to raise suspicion.

Each man and woman moved aside at once, bowing or dipping their heads, for the niece of Lord Hobert Hightower had the right of way and, besides, she carried herself with that curious mixture of urgency and grace that made people instinctively yield.

The corridors of the keep wound like the inner passages of some vast, ancient tree, lit here and there by the colored glass of high windows. 

Her breath came quickly by the time she reached the solar. She smoothed her skirts, swallowed her excitement, and knocked twice against the carved oak door.

"Enter," came the familiar voice within.

She stepped inside, cheeks still warm from her dash. "Lady mother," she began, trying to sound composed though her breathing betrayed her, "you called for me?"

Elaena sat by the great window where the afternoon light poured in, turning the silver in her hair to threads of molten white. She was embroidery in human form, beautiful, intricate, and marked with a patience that could withstand years. 

Her eyes softened when she saw her daughter, though the smile she wore was tinged with something wistful.

"Come, my sweet," she said, patting the cushion beside her on the settee. "We have news from the capital."

Alicent's lips curved at once. She crossed the room in a few quick steps and sank down beside her. "Let me guess," she said lightly, "Lord father has once again decided to remind me that I am to marry some lord from the Reach, and to give up my 'fanciful' dreams of visiting King's Landing?"

Elaena's smile deepened, though it carried a thread of weariness. "You know your father speaks truth, do you not?"

Alicent sighed and folded her hands in her lap. "What are the news, mother?"

For a moment, Elaena's gaze lingered on her daughter's face as though searching for a chink in her resolve, a moment's hesitation to use as a lever. 

Alicent had been unyielding on this point for over a year now, ever since that strange day after she awoke from her coma when her determination had crystallized into something harder than steel. 

It was a mother's instinct to shield her child from fire, even if the child herself insisted she could walk through it unburned.

It must be the dragonsblood inside of her, the older woman thought.

At last, Elaena spoke, her tone carefully measured. "Your father's letter spoke of the matter of the next Targaryen heir to the Iron Throne, that a Great Council was gathered, as you may know, Lord Hobert had left for it. Apparently, and much to your father's dislike, Prince Daemon has been named heir."

Alicent froze. Then her eyes went wide enough that for an instant she seemed almost a caricature of herself. "Prince Daemon?"

Her voice rang against the stone walls as she screamed his name in disbelief.

Elaena barely had time to answer before Alicent sprang to her feet, the skirts of her gown swishing against the floor. She began pacing in swift strides, her fingers curling and uncurling at her sides. Surprise flared into something bright and wickedly pleased. Then, quite without warning, she laughed.

It was not a soft laugh. It was the laugh of someone who had been waiting for a turn in the game and had just seen the board tilt in her favor.

Elaena shifted uneasily. "My sweet, is everything... fine?"

Alicent pressed a hand to her mouth, but her mirth still bubbled out in an unsteady breath. "Fine? It is, Gods, it is better than fine. He was named heir to the Iron Throne. He is heir now, oh, praise the Gods."

Her mother regarded her with a look halfway between concern and suspicion. "Your father was displeased, you know. He says the prince is reckless, volatile, that he would make a poor king."

The laughter vanished as swiftly as it had come. Alicent turned to face her, her expression settling into a seriousness far beyond her years. "Unless," she said slowly, "he has a queen by his side who can rein in his impulses. A king is nothing if he does not have a strong queen beside him."

She returned to the settee, sat close, and clasped her mother's hands. Her voice dropped into something low and almost pleading. "Please, make father to take us to court. Imagine, mother, if Prince Daemon were to choose me... I would be queen."

Elaena's eyes glistened suddenly. She shook her head, looking away as if to put distance between herself and the words. "Why? Why go there? Did you not hear what your father said? It is dangerous, Alicent, for you, for me!" she withdrew her hands and folded them tightly in her lap.

But Alicent was not deterred. She slid from the seat to kneel before her mother, the light from the window catching in her silver hair until she seemed more Targaryen than Hightower. "Do you not wish the best for me, mother? Do you not wish to see me thrive? To see me rise to the best of my abilities?"

Elaena's breath was uneven, her gaze fixed on her daughter's upturned face.

"I would be queen, momma," Alicent whispered, the last word soft as a child's but carrying the conviction of a grown woman who had already seen the world's cruelties.

Elaena's resolve wavered, and she drew her into her arms. "My sweet," she murmured into her hair, "being queen is no mere thing. It takes more than beauty, more than wit. It will take everything of you, and Prince Daemon..." she hesitated, then said quietly, "He has a vile reputation. He is a man chained to his passions and he was said to visit brothels more than he visited his lady wife's bedchamber. Is that what you wish for in a lord husband?"

"Mother, lord husbands rarely care for being loyal, even uncle Hobert is said to have a mistress from Lys in the city." 

Elaena gasped at her daughter knowing such a thing and even more surprised that she knew of the wicked ways of men.

Alicent returned the embrace with equal force. "Would you truly see me wasted on some poor match, when I could be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms? Prince Daemon is no longer wed, his wife is gone. Men are all chained to their passions, but one must choose the better option. Please, write to father. Make him see reason. Make him change his mind about keeping us here."

Elaena held her for a long moment. She had no illusions about the danger in King's Landing, nor about the man her daughter sought to bind herself to. Yet she could feel the determination radiating from Alicent as surely as she could feel her heartbeat against her own.

At last, she sighed and leaned back to search her daughter's face. "I shall try," she said, the words heavy as lead. "I cannot promise anything, you know?"

Otto Hightower believed that, should he live to see old age, it would not be the natural passing of years that robbed him of his hair but rather the unrelenting frustrations of court politics, and, most especially, the elevation of Prince Daemon Targaryen to heir of the Iron Throne. 

The lords of Westeros - men who prided themselves on wisdom and honor - had gathered in their splendor, deliberated, and somehow cast their lot for the most volatile, impetuous, and salacious man the Seven Kingdoms had to offer.

Otto's composure remained as polished as the Hand's chain around his neck, but inwardly, he had been grinding his teeth since the proclamation.

He had written to his lady wife of the news and poured all his frustration in that letter.

Now, in the quiet of King Jaehaerys' bedchamber, Otto stood with head bowed, a picture of respectful deference, while the aged king spoke to the new heir. 

Sunlight streamed through the tall windows, catching on the golden threads of the king's coverlet and casting motes into the still air. 

Prince Daemon, for all his rebellious nature, sat almost primly on the edge of the great bed, his posture uncharacteristically restrained as his grandsire addressed him.

The heir to the Iron Throne wore a doublet of white and gold, silver trousers and black boots, his hair down his back, brushed to perfection as it fell past his shoulder blades.

"Lord Otto is a most capable Hand of the King," Jaehaerys said, his voice lined with the weight of decades, "and he will ease you into your duties. I care not if you find them dull or beneath your tastes. You were chosen by the lords of Westeros, by those you will protect, and you have a duty to them. You will find that in time, you will manage to do all there is with quite a naturalness."

Daemon inclined his head in a silent nod, but the twitch at the corner of his mouth betrayed his impatience. Otto expected any moment for the King to mayhaps change his mind and name Prince Viserys heir, he was more fitted and his lady wife was pregnant.

Jaehaerys studied him for a moment before continuing, his tone gentler. "You know, you remind me greatly of your mother. She, too, would bend rules until they near broke, always turning them to her own gain. But you, Daemon, are no mere Prince, you are the Heir to the Iron throne and Prince of Dragonstone, and you will be King once I pass. Do you understand the weight of that?"

Again, Daemon gave a silent nod. Otto wished to fling himself over the window if that day came to pass. He would turn the Red Keep into a brothel.

The king's next breath was heavier. "And now, news which I suspect will displease you further, you will wed and you will produce heirs."

Daemon's response was a low growl, barely more than the rumble of a discontented hound. "Again, grandsire?"

Jaehaerys' eyes narrowed, and his voice cracked like a whip. "Growl at me again, boy, and I'll see you take Lord Strong's office as Master of Laws. You will copy, by hand, every law passed since the first day of my reign, for my private library. Do you understand me?"

That threat seemed to sap some of Daemon's defiance. His shoulders slouched ever so slightly, though his mouth remained pressed in a hard line.

"Your brother Viserys has a lady wife, and a child on the way," Jaehaerys went on. "You must do the same. More so now that you are my heir. And, since your last match was so distasteful to you, I will give you a choice. I shall have every maiden of the most notable houses brought to King's Landing, and you will have your pick, so you will not pester either me nor your grandmother about the lady wife you have."

For a moment, Daemon's interest stirred, but then it was checked by a frown. "There are no Targaryen-blooded ladies left, grandsire."

Jaehaerys' mouth tugged wryly. "Laena Velaryon, perhaps, but she is a child yet, and I will not leave this realm before I see a babe of your blood running the halls. We need not wait for her to come of age." His eyes shifted toward Otto, still standing like a carved sentinel at the foot of the bed. "You have a daughter, Lord Hand."

Otto did not miss the weight in the king's tone. This was not a question; it was the careful placing of a winning piece on the board of the Cyvasse game. The Seven save me, he thought.

"I will not wed another sheep," Daemon interjected sharply, his voice carrying distaste as grand as the red Keep itself.

The old king's gaze hardened. "I have heard the names you've called Lady Rhea, may she rest in peace, and if I hear you utter them in my presence, I will have your tongue, boy."

Daemon looked away, his eyes dropping to the bedclothes, and gave a single, sullen nod.

"Your daughter," Jaehaerys pressed, turning his attention back to Otto. "I presume she has had suitors?"

"A few, Your Grace," Otto cleared his throat, his hands clasped behind his back.

"How old is she?"

"She just had her four and tenth name day, Your Grace," Otto said with an incline of his head, hoping Daemon would not choose his daughter. He needed to dispose the King of his heir and somehow find a way to install Viserys.

The Prince of Dragonstone said nothing further, disliking the idea of having to marry a mere Andal and not a Valyrian lady, as his brother Viserys had the chance to.

The king nodded once. "Then summon her to court, Lord Otto. What better match than a future king?"

Otto inclined his head in a slow bow. "Indeed, Your Grace," he hoped the king did not hear the displeasure in his voice.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Daemon's sneer, quick as a dagger and gone as soon as it had appeared. The prince said nothing, merely rose at the king's dismissal and left with the restless gait of a man who carried his own private stormcloud.

When the door shut behind him, the king leaned back against his pillows with a long sigh. "I take it she is in full health now, even after her... coma?"

Otto could not mask his surprise, and he had never spoken to the king about his daughter nor her... lineage. "Yes, Your Grace. She is in full capacity."

A strange glimmer passed through Jaehaerys' eyes, one Otto could not read. "Good. Then see that you can pour some sense into my grandson's head. He must learn to be level before the crown sits upon it."

Otto's smile was thin, brittle. "I shall do my best, Your Grace."

With a dismissive word, the Hand of the King left the King's Apartments, passed by the Kingsguard and walked down the corridor where he crossed paths with Prince Daemon.

"My Prince," Otto inclined his head.

Purple-violet eyes stared back at him with unadulterated hatred. "I shall hope you are enjoying your time as Hand of the King, because once I am King, you will be shipped back to Oldtown. And do not, for a second, believe that I will choose your daughter as my lady wife. Good day, Lord Hand," the mock in his tone did not go unnoticed.

He watched the Prince stride away, servants making room for the rage in human form to pass. Otto sighed, truly wishing for that to be true.

Mayhaps he will not choose her, as she is my daughter, and in the year that has passed, she must have grown to look more after me than her mother, he thought.

Chapter Text

Otto had played his part, weaving excuses and delays with the precision of a master embroiderer pulling fine thread, but even thread frays when pulled too taut. 

He had postponed his daughter's journey for as long as was humanly possible, citing her fall the previous year, her health and the dangers of such a long journey, the careful preparations for her comfort, the need for suitable attendants and carriages, and yet all the while the king's patience thinned like thin ice beneath too much weight. 

Now, Otto found himself seated across from his sovereign once more, watching the old man's hands tremble faintly as they rested on the polished wood of the table in the solar. Jaehaerys had woken with joints looser than usual that morning, and so had shuffled about his apartments, his eyes clear enough to pin Otto in place with a single glance.

The Old King had been a handsome man in his youth, but the passing of the years had left their mark on his withered face, thinning hair and growing beard. Yet he still possessed cunning and sharpness more valuable than men half his age.

"How is it," Jaehaerys said, squinting beneath heavy lids, "that Lord Rickon is nearer to arriving than your daughter, when the Reach is not so far as the North? I may be old, Lord Otto, but I know the lay of my own realm. The Northerners have traveled as light as possible and still, your daughter, if she had had a large procession with her, she still would've reached the capital in less time."

Otto held his composure, though inwardly his stomach coiled. He lowered his eyes, adopting the measured cadence of explanation that had swayed countless lords before and hoped his ways with words would work once more. 

"There were preparations to be made, Your Grace. And, in light of her fall last year-"

The king raised a hand, cutting him off. Otto clamped his mouth shut, knowing that he had made a mistake. 

The King's sigh carried the weariness of nearly a century, of pain and of loss and of burdens that came with the crown. Folding his hands, he leaned forward on the table. 

"You may fool other men with your pampering words, Lord Otto, but not me. I did not choose you as my Hand because you could swaddle me in excuses. I chose you because you are bright, because you can wield words like a sword. You can make a fool believe himself lord, and a lord believe himself a fool. But do not think for a moment that I am either of those things."

The sharpness in his tone sent a flicker of heat up Otto's neck. He kept his face steady, spine straight.

"I suppose then," Jaehaerys continued, his voice quieter but no less sharp, "that it is not preparations delaying her, nor her health. Has your lady wife resisted this summons?"

Otto shook his head. "No, Your Grace."

"Your daughter then?"

Again, Otto's answer was calm, clipped. If only, she has begged for months to visit the capitol. "No, Your Grace."

The king hummed, long and thoughtful, his expression unreadable. "Then perhaps you are not as bright as I believed."

For the briefest of moments, Otto's mask slipped. He looked down at the table, words caught like thorns in his throat. To speak poorly would be to risk more than his station; it could cost him his head. He forced his silence into obedience, waiting for the king to move the game forward.

At last, Jaehaerys exhaled, the sound weary but not defeated. "Be that as it may... she is on her way to the capital, I suppose?"

Otto inclined his head. "Indeed, Your Grace. She will arrive before, or at least alongside, the Northmen."

The king's shoulders eased somewhat. "Good. At least I may have rest of mind on that count. So many maidens have been paraded before my grandson already - comely, of good stock, well-bred - and yet he despises them all, speaking of them as sheep and many words that he has refused to say in my presence but said them nonetheless. If only he were half so listening as Viserys."

Otto said nothing, though inside his thoughts burned. Viserys should have been chosen, he told himself for perhaps the hundredth time since the council's decision. The elder prince was pliable, affable, and easy to guide. 

Daemon was fire, unpredictable and untamed, and the thought of binding his own daughter to that flame unsettled Otto in ways he dared not confess aloud. She deserves someone like Viserys not a mongrel like Daemon, he thought.

Jaehaerys' eyes, sharp even in age, lingered on him. "You do understand, do you not, that I have no intention of murdering your child?"

Otto looked up at that, caught off guard by the bluntness of the words. He had feared such a thing, given how much Maegor's shadow lingered in the past of the Old King.

The king leaned forward, his voice low, intimate, as if stripping away the ceremony of crowns and chains. "Otto, if I may call you so, heed my words. Get your head back upon your shoulders, or I will have that chain taken from your neck. I have more to gain from this match, between your daughter and my grandson, than any fear you may nurse." 

"Your daughter marrying my heir would unite the last sundered branch of House Targaryen. As rotten as that branch may be, it is still kin, and your girl - knowing you - must be a fine maiden. All she needs to is breed and not be too quarrelsome or quick to anger like my uncle was, or as slow to forgive as him, and we ought to be fine. Better that than one of her children with some petty lord waging war years from now. The realm does not need another war."

Otto inclined his head slowly, his silence more eloquent than words. There was nothing to say, since the King seemed adamant about the union, his only hope was Daemon, who would spur his daughter.

Jaehaerys sighed."Go then. Make yourself useful. Return to me when your mind is sharp again, not this dull stone you've presented this morning."

Otto rose smoothly, bowing with impeccable form. "Of course, Your Grace. Shall I summon Prince Daemon?"

"No. Leave him be. That blasted boy will slouch his way here of his own accord soon enough. Go now," the king scoffed, a rare sound of disdain.

Otto bowed once more, retreating with slow, measured steps. The heavy door closed behind him, muffling the king's breaths. Alone in the corridor, Otto let the mask slip for a moment. 

His jaw tightened, his lips pressed thin. He prayed - not to the Seven, nor to any god men named aloud, but to the cruel, unseen fates that ruled Targaryen blood - for one mercy: that Daemon Targaryen would look upon his daughter and not find her wanting.

Some days before Lord Hand's latest audience with the king, a supper had been held within the royal apartments, one intimate, though hardly comfortable. 

Prince Daemon sat across from his elder brother, Prince Viserys, and beside their cousin, Princess Aemma Arryn, with King Jaehaerys himself at the head. It was meant to be a family meal, one free of the endless petitions and quarrels of lords, yet the tension at the table was palpable from the moment the dishes were set down.

Viserys wore a purple and white doublet, a gold chain around his neck and his hair cut short to his shoulders, a slight beard framing his not-so-well-defined jaw. Aemma wore an Arryn blue dress that accommodated her belly, her hair plaited in many Targaryen braids, a dragon pin in her hair, few gold rings on her fingers.

Daemon wore a doublet of white and red, his breeches and boots black, his silver-white hair down his back, his singlet with the sigil of House Targaryen on his pinky finger. His doublet had clasps in the form of dragonheads, silver chains uniting each clasp.

The king's eyes drifted to his sullen grandson and heir. "So," he said, spearing a bit of fish with his knife, "did you find any lady to your tastes among the first of the maidens?"

Daemon chewed with deliberate slowness, his frown darkening with each bite. He said nothing at first, as though the question were beneath answering. He merely shrugged.

Viserys, ever eager to smooth things over, smiled gently, his voice warm with easy optimism. "They are very good matches, brother, all these ladies. The Lady Lannister, cousin to Lord Jason and Lord Tyland, is comely and well-bred and she comes from a rich family, their gold, Gods they always boast about it. And Lord Lyonel Strong, Master of Laws, has brought both of his daughters, each clever and well mannered. Truly, the best houses have sent their jewels."

"And? You're wed already, brother. Why do you care about the comely ladies? You got to marry a Targaryen, don't speak to me about comely ladies when you got the best pick of them all," the mockery in Daemon's tone was palpable.

The King almost rolled his eyes, for if only his grandson knew that he also had his pick in lady wives, but Jaehaerys would rather have Daemon tone down his entitlement before meeting said Targaryen.

At the princes words, Aemma blushed, lowering her eyes to her plate, fussing with her potatoes as though they alone might shield her from her goodbrother's barbs.

The king let out a long-suffering sigh.

Viserys, confusion knitting his brow, pressed gently, "Why, for you, of course. You must find a suitable lady wife, Daemon, and sire children. It is our duty."

Daemon's mouth curved into a sharp mockery of a smile. "I know what my duties are, brother. I do not need you to sermon me like a bloody Septon."

"Enough," Jaehaerys cut in, his voice firm, his gaze sharp as it swept between the two princes. "The both of you. Can we not, for once, eat as a family without tearing at each other's throats?"

The table fell quiet, though the silence was hardly peaceful. Daemon sat rigid, his eyes fixed on the plate before him, his jaw tight with swallowed retorts. Viserys, after a moment, turned his smile back toward Aemma and spoke softly to her of lighter things, drawing her into gentle conversation until the tension bled somewhat from her face.

The king dabbed at his mouth with a cloth, eyes lingering on the candlelight flickering in the goblets of wine. 

"It has been a hard year," he said finally, voice lower, almost weary. "I know it well. Losing your father is no small grief. I, too, have seen mine on the pyre at Dragonstone . And my son-" his throat caught for an instant, but he pressed on. "Baelon, who was meant to outlive me... I had seen him on his pyre too. I have buried too many of my blood, sons and daughters. Sometimes I wonder if it is the Gods' punishment for my sins."

The words hung heavy over the table. Even Daemon's scorn was quieted by them. It had been difficult for the young heir, to have his father burning on the pyre, a troubled young man, now adrift in a sea of grief and power.

The king exhaled, folding his hands upon the table, his gaze softened though sorrowful. "But we cannot change the will of the Gods. They weave their threads as they will, and we walk where they pull us. Still-" he looked between Daemon and Viserys, his voice gentling. 

"When you each have your own families, the burden grows lighter. Viserys already has a lady wife and soon he will a child, the pains and the happy instances are better shared. Teka my word for it. A lady wife to listen to your wrongs and your rights, children to remind you that life does not end with grief... these things ease the ache, even if they do not erase it. That is the truth I have found."

He smiled faintly thinking of his lady wife he had not spoken to in moons, lines deepening about his eyes. "A small piece of advice, not from your king, but from your grandsire: always do as your lady wife says. Somehow, they are always right."

Viserys' smile bloomed, tender and earnest. "Wise words, grandsire," he shared a look with Aemma, who looked at him lovingly.

Daemon only rolled his eyes, though the sharpness of his earlier mood was blunted. He reached for his goblet, taking a long swallow of wine.

Jaehaerys' gaze lingered on him. "On the morrow, it is said that Lady Alicent and her lady mother Lady Elaena are bound for the capital. As they are kin to my Hand, we ought to be present to welcome them."

Daemon frowned. "Why? We were not present for the Lannisters, nor the Tullys, not even when Prince Qoren arrived. Why must we be present for the daughter of a mere servant?"

The king's gaze cut to him, sharp, flinty - a glare that made the air at the table go still. The Rogue Prince, for all his brazenness, felt the weight of it. His shoulders stiffened, his mouth shut. He looked down at his plate, appetite gone, and toyed with his food without eating another bite.

The king returned to his meal in silence, but the air about him was iron. Viserys glanced toward his brother with quiet dismay, but said nothing more. Aemma kept her eyes lowered, cheeks still warm with discomfort.

After supper had ended and Viserys and Aemma departed, Jaehaerys bid Daemon remain. The old king shifted in his chair with care, every movement betraying the stiff protest of his joints, but his eyes were keen and searching as they settled upon his grandson.

"How are your duties unfolding?" Jaehaerys asked, his tone deceptively mild. "Well, I hope?"

Daemon leaned back, folding his arms, expression caught somewhere between boredom and defiance. 

"It is dreadfully boring. I'd rather be flying, but other than that..." he shrugged, as though the weight of governance were no more than a sack of grain tossed onto his shoulders. "I suppose it is fine."

The king nodded slowly, though his eyes traced the restless twitch of Daemon's fingers upon the arm of the chair, the way his foot tapped faintly against the floor. The impateince of the youth, he mused.

 "And you've been slipping into Flea Bottom, have you?"

Daemon froze, his fidgeting ceasing. His purple-violet eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, grandsire?"

Jaehaerys gave him a look both tired and knowing. "We have all been young once, Daemon. Chasing the pleasures of the flesh is nothing new, especially at your age. The blood runs hotter than dragonfire when a man is scarcely more than a boy."

A smirk tugged at Daemon's lips, careless, unashamed. He made no effort to deny it, which almost made the Old King smile.

The king, however, leveled a finger at him, his voice stern. "And it is for that very reason a lady wife is needful, a partner who might rein in some of that fire of yours. The sanctity of marriage was created for more than show, it is more than a union to procreate, it is a partnership, especially for a King and Queen, a good Queen can make a King and a bad Queen can break a King. Marriage was created-"

Daemon snorted. "To fuck as oft as one wants."

The king closed his eyes briefly, pinching the bridge of his nose, as if in prayer. May the Gods offer you rest, and the Fourteen Watch over you Baelon, but blast your son, he is testing even my patience, he thought.

"Gods be good, must you always be so crass?"

To his credit, Daemon's smirk faltered, a faint flush of embarrassment crossing his sharp features, the tip of his ears, the large yet elegant ears of Alyssa, brightened and his high cheek bones were tinted pink.

Jaehaerys sighed. "In truth, yes, that is one of the perks of wedlock, as you put it. But as I said at supper, a lady wife is more than that. She is your partner, in good and in ill, the mother of your heirs - may they be blessed with long lives, unlike so many of mine." 

His gaze softened for but a heartbeat, then sharpened again. "So, when the time comes, no matter what inclines your fancy, I wish you to weigh all your options with a steady mind. Every one of the maidens brought here has been chosen for their breed and the good families they come from, their dowry. So heed my words: keep in mind all your options, don't stumble on the first that you fancy. Give it some thought."

"Am I not to pick a lady I fancy? Isn't this the purpose of all this mummer's farce? All these ladies and their preening brothers and fathers speaking of whatever things I care not. Gods, Tymond Lannister was wearing more gold than his own niece, if you can believe, it was as if he was presenting himself for marriage."

Jaehaerys shook his head. "Yes, the Lannisters and their pomp, but, truly, do take in consideration all of the ladies presented to you."

Daemon squinted at him, suspicion curling his lips. "Why do you believe I will favor the Hightower girl? Is that your intent, grandsire?"

Jaehaerys exhaled through his nose, irritation tempered by patience as he avoided the question. "Just promise me you will give fair thought to all matches."

The Rogue Prince, eager to escape the lecture, gave a swift, empty nod. "I do."

The king scoffed. "Quickly said, and quickly forgotten. But I'll take what I may, the Gods were not kind enough to offer me an heir with more wit than debauchery."

For a moment, silence lingered between them, broken only by the crackle of the hearth. Then Jaehaerys shifted, voice softening. "When you last went to Dragonstone... how was Alysanne faring?"

Daemon's expression eased, genuine warmth flickering across his face. "Grandmother was well. She said her hip trouble her less, thanks to Maester Gerardys. Called him a magician, though she cursed him when he scolded her for climbing the steps."

A wistful smile broke over the king's weathered face. "Good. Good. And... did she read my letter?"

Daemon hesitated, then grinned faintly. "She did not throw it away this time. She merely cursed you. In High Valyrian of course."

Jaehaerys snorted, shaking his head. "Ah. Then I am chipping away at her fortress. In time, she will be eating from my hand again."

The Prince of Dragonstone chuckled, though there was a shade of sadness in it. "She never says it, but I know she misses you. You know I could take you on Caraxes, we would be there in no time."

The king scoffed, though his eyes glistened faintly in the firelight. "I can scarce walk from bed to chair. Do you think I could climb upon a dragon's back? No, boy. My dragonriding days are gone. I was a king too soon and too long. I sometimes wonder..." his voice trailed, thinning with age and regret. "What might have been, if we had only been princes. Married, with children enough to carry our line forward, and no crown to weigh us down. Ah. What a life that would have been."

The hearth popped, and for a long moment Daemon said nothing. He only sat with his grandsire's words, his restless fingers still at last.

The Rogue chewed at his bottom lip, a nervous habit he had never quite grown out of. He had never been afforded the chance to ask his father such questions, not before Baelon’s untimely death. 

The thought of it made his throat tighten, and so he gulped and forced himself to wear his usual mask of cocky detachment. Yet his voice betrayed him all the same, pitched softer, almost uncertain.

“What do you think I should look for in a lady wife?” the Prince of Dragonstone asked, trying to keep his tone light. “Since I will never have the chance to marry a Targaryen like my beloved brother - oh well. At least, I suppose, as long as she is comely then I can settle. But… what are the attributes I should look after in a queen?”

Jaehaerys regarded his grandson for a long time. The question, so guileless, startled him. He had grown used to Daemon’s sharp tongue, his bravado, his incessant rebellion. He had not been as shocked as he thought he would be when he heard what his grandson had said about his dead lady wife: 'in the Vale, the men fuck sheep. You cannot fault them. Their sheep are prettier than their women.'

To see him laid bare, uncertain and searching, revealed a truth the old king had nearly forgotten: Daemon was still little more than a boy, one who had lost his mother far too young and only now his father. A boy who wielded sword and dragon as if they were extensions of himself, but who yet floundered when it came to the subtler battles of heart and duty.

Damned be the heart, it drives us in the most unsavory businesses, he mused.

The king’s heart ached with a tired sorrow. He realized too that his grandson had already abandoned the dream of wedding a fellow Targaryen. There was resignation in his words, a quiet acceptance that such purity of blood would not be his. Jaehaerys wondered - was he to pity the boy for giving up that dream, or to feel pride that Daemon had placed the realm’s needs before his own?

One thought struck him with sudden certainty: when Daemon laid eyes upon Lady Alicent Hightower, it would matter little what her breeding or disposition were. The boy would cling to her with all the force of his passion, and no lord nor king would sway him.

He speaks of duty now, but one look at Lady Alicent's silver locks and he will walk in dragonfire if it meant wedding her.

Jaehaerys rubbed his long beard, gathering his words with care. “

As a king, I would tell you this: your marriage must be political above all else. Choose a wife whose family commands armies, fleets, or coffers of gold. She must be clever in politics, strong enough to withstand the whispers of court, but charming enough to win men to your cause. And, aye, manipulative too. It comes in handy. Mark my words well, grandson.”

Daemon nodded, absorbing every word, his purple-violet eyes fixed upon the king like a student upon a master.

Jaehaerys slumped back into his chair, exhaustion stealing over his features. He stared down at the ring upon his left hand, the symbol of his own long, bitterly hard-won marriage. “That is what will give you leverage, and with it, you will prosper in your reign - as long as you surround yourself with wise council and a steady and savy Hand.”

Then, his gaze softened, and his voice lowered, almost as though he were speaking not as a king but as a man. “But as your grandsire, as a man who has lived too long and buried too many… I would tell you to find a woman you can endure. Because the Gods will give you much to endure. One you can laugh with, quarrel with, one whose company does not sour after the first flush fades. Love… can grow. Or not. But partnership - partnership is what sustains.”

Daemon’s lip trembled faintly. His voice was small when he asked, “Did you love grandmother from the start?”

Jaehaerys smiled, though there was pain in the curve of his mouth. “I did. Blast us both, she bewitched me entire. They ought to have named her a sorceress rather than the Good Queen.”

The Prince of Dragonstone gave a faint, fleeting smile of his own. “Would it have been less painful, if you had loved her less?”

The king shook his head. “Love is not a coin to be flipped, with pain on one side and joy on the other. Love is the air that surrounds the coin, pushing it one way or the next. Life is full of both. Love is fickle, aye… but it is life itself.”

Daemon said nothing. He only stared at his hands, as though ashamed of how raw they suddenly looked. He blinked, trying to recall what he could of his parents. He knew that the love Baelon and Alyssa was one of a kind. She wished to give him an army of sons, and she died giving birth to my brother Aegon, he thought sadly.

Jaehaerys sighed and leaned forward, his old bones creaking. “A piece of advice, Daemon? Take all advice with a grain of salt. Even mine. We barely know what is good for us, let alone for others. I am speaking from my experience and it may - or may not - serve you purpose. But if you ever ask me out of this chamber, I shall deny every words I said.”

Daemon swallowed, straightened his back, and gathered himself with visible effort. His voice cracked before he steadied it. “And as my grandsire - as the closest thing I have to a father now - what do you advise?”

Jaehaerys hummed thoughtfully. “A little of both. Take what is wise for the realm, and what soothes the soul for yourself.”

The Rogue nodded once, curtly. “I should leave. It grows late, grandsire.”

“Yes, yes,” Jaehaerys waved a dismissive hand, though there was warmth behind the gesture. “Your whores are waiting.”

The Prince of Dragonstone gave a snort, shaking his head. “No. Truly, I’m tired. It has been a long supper.”

The king’s eyes softened, almost kindly. “I like you better as a scoundrel, not a weeping boy. Go on, then. Have your fun while you may. Once you are king, you will have eyes on you all the time, go now.”

The Rogue rose from his chair and gave a bow that was almost too stiff, his voice low. 

“Your Grace, good night.”

Jaehaerys made a sound in his throat, half a sigh, half a grumble, as his eyes followed his grandson’s retreating form. “Do not despair, boy. You are more frightened of this than most of the maidens their fathers have paraded before you, as if they were cattle.”

The words were meant for jest, but as his grandson approached the door, a pang struck the old king’s chest. 

He wished - how he wished - that he had been a warmer man. It had been years since he had allowed himself to act so openly toward another. Yet the sight of the boy, a mirror of both Baelon and Alyssa, carved from their blood and bone, walking away looking so lost - it near broke what remained of his heart. 

Duty, he thought bitterly, he had pressed duty upon Daemon so harshly that perhaps he had snuffed out the boy’s chance at youthful joy.

“Daemon,” Jaehaerys called, his voice rough.

The boy stopped, hand upon the latch. “Your Grace?”

Jaehaerys groaned, willing his stiff body to rise from the chair. His cane clattered faintly as he leaned on it. “Come here, boy.”

Daemon turned swiftly, his boots clicking against the stone, and hurried back toward his grandsire, ready to help him to his bed or wherever he wished to go. But instead, the old king reached out with trembling hands and pulled Daemon into an embrace, an awkward, uncertain thing, with neither of them quite knowing where to place their arms. 

For a heartbeat, Daemon froze, eyes wide.

“It may seem confusing now,” Jaehaerys murmured into his grandson’s shoulder, voice gentling. “But it will sort itself out. You will see, Daemon. And you have me, for as long as the Gods keep me in this world.”

The Prince of Dragonstone swallowed hard. His eyes burned and, after a long moment of hesitation, he closed them and returned the embrace. His arms tightened, and ugly, stinging tears threatened to spill. He bit them back, jaw clenched, unwilling to weep openly even now.

Jaehaerys patted his back, his own throat thick. Curse the gods, he thought, curse them a thousand times for taking Baelon from us so soon.

At last, the king pulled away and forced a crooked smile. “Go now, or I’ll find the whores lined up outside my door demanding your presence.”

Daemon snorted, it came out half a laugh, half a wet, muffled sound that betrayed his struggle with emotion.

“Go on,” Jaehaerys said more kindly as he shuffled through his solar, over to his bedchamber, his grandson following, “to sleep, or to whatever mischief it is you wish. And no bastards, mind you - or I’ll name Viserys heir.”

Daemon’s lips twitched into a faint smirk. “The realm would suffer if my brother were king.”

“A cruel king is bad for the realm,” Jaehaerys replied gravely, leaning heavily upon his cane as he looked at Daemon. “But a foolish king… just as bad, I'm afraid.”

Without being asked, the Rogue guided his grandsire to his bed. He helped him sit, then tugged the covers over his legs, fluffing and settling pillows behind him.

“That is the duty of the maids,” Jaehaerys scolded weakly. “Call one.”

“It is naught,” Daemon muttered.

The king looked at him closely, studying the lines of the boy’s face, the stubborn mouth, the purple-violet eyes that could cut like glass. And yet beneath it, he glimpsed tenderness Daemon himself did not know he possessed. Jaehaerys exhaled a long breath. “She will be lucky.”

The Rogue frowned. “Who?”

“Your future lady wife,” Jaehaerys answered, with weary certainty. The Gods have blessed you Lady Alicent, you will not have a boring life with this grandson of mine, nor want for kindness.

Daemon’s frown dissolved into a boyish smirk, one that carried a touch of mischief that reminded the old king painfully of Baelon in his youth. He offered no reply, only a small nod, before stepping away to douse the candles one by one and stir the embers low in the hearth.

With his hand on the door latch, Daemon turned back, his grin flashing in the dark. “My future lady wife is lucky indeed. She’ll have a Targaryen husband.”

Jaehaerys narrowed his eyes, waiting for the sting in the tail he knew would follow.

And right on cue, Daemon’s grin widened into something wicked. “One who will ride her more oft than his dragon.”

“Seven hells, Daemon-!”

But before the king could loose his scolding, the Rogue had slipped out, shutting the door firmly behind him, leaving Jaehaerys shaking his head alone in the dim chamber.

For all his faults, the boy had a fire that would either burn the realm to cinders or forge it anew.

Daemon had felt seen the day his name was called as heir to the Iron Throne. For the first time in his life, he thought the realm finally recognized his fire, his blood, his birthright. It had been exhilarating, a rush through his veins like dragonflame.

He had felt something akin to exhilaration again, too, when word reached him that his sheep wife, Lady Rhea Royce, had succumbed to her death. A chain broken, a farce of a marriage unshackled. He had laughed then, drunk and triumphant, cursing her name and the Vale that had sought to tame him.

But exhilaration was fleeting. And nothing - no crown, no throne, no freedom - helped when the truth gnawed at him. He had no father to turn to, no mother’s hand to steady him, no guiding voice in the dark. 

Alyssa gone. Baelon gone.

He had Viserys, soft and trusting. Aemma, sweet and sickly. His grandsire, Jaehaerys, who bent beneath age like an old oak threatening to snap. His grandmother, Alysanne, who lingered still but whose body and spirit were already half in the grave. 

The Rogue was not fool enough to believe they would remain much longer. Life was a fickle thing, cruel in its turns.

He despised tears, they showed weakness. He never shed them. Not at his father’s funeral, not when the Great Council of 101 AC declared him heir, the very moment that should have been his triumph, yet felt instead like the bitter payment for Baelon’s death.

So he drowned his nights elsewhere.

He was sprawled in a brothel now, cheap wine staining his tongue, staring at the cracked ceiling beams. A harlot was on her knees before him, working diligently with her mouth on his shaft, but Daemon’s thoughts wandered far beyond the dim candlelight and stinking rushes.

Grief was part of him. It had dug into his marrow since the first breath he remembered. He was three when his mother died. Six when his aunt Viserra followed. Eleven when his uncle Aemon was struck by a bolt. Fifteen when his aunt Maegelle, kind Maegelle, wasted away after tending greyscale children. Eighteen when poor Gael perished. He had watched Aemma miscarry babe after babe, watched life shrivel before it had even begun.

Death clogged his every memory. He had been raised on its taste, and now his father too was gone.

What good was being named heir, if all it bought him was solitude?

He tried to picture Alyssa’s face, his mother’s voice. But she was like smoke in his mind, sometimes close enough to choke him, sometimes so distant she vanished altogether. He could not recall if her laugh was soft or sharp, nor if her eyes had been gentle or fierce. 

That loss was its own cruelty. He only had Viserys to recount how their mother was.

Daemon sighed, long and ragged, even as his body found its fleeting release, spurt after spurt. The whore eagerly lapped at him and he frowned, remembering that he had to wake up earlier the next morning. 

The harlot climbed eagerly onto his lap, but he shoved her away, disgust tightening his mouth. The pleasure faded as quickly as it came, leaving nothing but the gnawing emptiness he always carried.

His grandsire’s words circled in his skull. A wife who will be by your side… heirs who will outlive you… a queen who is clever, shrewd, strong enough to tame a court.

Could such a woman exist? Could she tame him? Would he even let her try? Would he want her to.

Daemon groaned, passing a hand through his silver-white hair. He rose, pulling his breeches up, fastening his tunic hastily. The harlot whined for him to stay, but he ignored her, dragging his boots on with little care. He would look a mess on the morrow, but he cared little for Hightower sheep.

Otto did not know what to feel as he stood draped in his house's colors in the courtyard before the Great Hall. His heart thudded slow and heavy as he stood among lords and princes, the eyes of court and council upon the gates. 

This was the moment he had dreaded, prayed against, and yet could not prevent. The carriage was nearly here. His lady wife and his daughter - his precious and sweet Alicent - were about to step into the jaws of court, and the Gods alone knew what doom or fortune awaited.

The courtyard bristled with banners. Red and black flanked the high white towers of Oldtown as Hightower men bore their standards high. Knights on horse led the way, their armor gleaming though dusted from the long road. Behind them rolled the carriage, its wheels groaning on the cobbles, and Otto’s throat tightened.

He glanced sideways. Prince Daemon stood at the front as the Prince of Dragonstone, clad in black with the silver hair of old Valyria catching the sun. His fingers drummed lazily on the pommel of Dark Sister, the Valyrian steel that seemed glued to his hip as if it had grown there. 

The sight made Otto’s stomach twist. If Alicent came forth looking too much like the blood that Daemon bore, the boy would sniff it out like a hound on a trail. He prayed, hard, that she might favor him instead, his brown hair, his sober mien.

But the Gods were cruel jesters. They had hatched a plan to ensure the Dance of Dragons would not happend, unbeknownst to them all. And that was the only way.

The two princes began squabbling while Aemma tried to handle the heat of the sun.

“You seem so eager, brother. Like a maiden awaiting her groom. What's gotten into you?”

Viserys, ever soft of heart, merely smiled, his plump face warming with cheer. “We ought to make a good first impression, don't you think?”

Daemon scoffed, his lip curling. “Upon the daughter of a servant? Of a second son who rose too high by clinging to the king’s coattails? Are you mad?”

Viserys frowned faintly, unoffended but firm. “Do not be so vulgar, brother. The Lord Hand might hear us.”

Daemon gave a low, mocking laugh, loud enough for all to hear. “Like I care a rat’s arse what that cunt thinks of me.”

Otto’s jaw clenched, but he did not look their way. To give Daemon the satisfaction of a glare was to lose the game before it began. He folded his hands behind his back, steady as stone, and fixed his gaze forward.

At last, the carriage rolled to a halt before them. Please, let her bear more resemblance to me than to her mother.

A knight stepped smartly forward, bowing low before pulling the door open. Another extended his arm, offering it with deference.

The first to descend was Lady Elaena. She took the knight’s hand with grace, her pale gown shimmering in the light as her feet touched the stones of the courtyard.

By the silence that followed, Otto realized the shift: Prince Daemon, ever loud and biting, stood arrested, confusion flickering across his face at the sight of Elaena. 

In her pale gown, silver-threaded hair gleaming, purple eyes, she looked every inch a daughter of Old Valyria, regal, untouchable, with that subtle beauty that came with Targaryen blood. For a brief, wild moment, Otto dared hope the prince was displeased, that he had mistaken wife for daughter and already found her too cold for his liking.

But Daemon’s eyes were not so easily misled.

Otto’s spine remained rigid, his hands tight behind his back as Elaena offered her faint smile to the court, then turned to look behind her, beckoning softly. 

From within the carriage came the sound of rustling silk, a shift of movement, then another figure stepped into the light, helped down by the knight’s steady hand.

Otto felt sweat bead at his brow, running slow down the back of his neck. He fought to keep his breath even, but his gaze flicked - just once - toward the heir to the Iron Throne.

Daemon was still, transfixed by the sight before him.

Seven take me, mused the Hand of the King.

Alicent emerged with the unhurried air of one who knew the world would bend to her pace. Her chin lifted slightly as she scanned the gathered court, her purple eyes narrowing with a faint, unhidden disdain. 

It was not the girlish awe Otto had prayed for, but the imperious scorn of a queen surveying subjects unworthy of her notice. The sight nearly made the Hand grind his teeth to dust. 

Seven hells, child. Not here. Not now. Not before the blasted court because once they find out whose blood you carry, we will have more vultures circling us.

The truth of her blood was no longer hidden. Alicent was no mere Hightower rose. She was the great-great-granddaughter of Maegor the Cruel, her mother’s line twisted in secrecy until now, when the Gods saw fit to mock him by making her every inch the image of House Targaryen. Silver hair, pale skin, lashes white as snow, eyes purple. 

A Valyrian beauty carved to tempt the dragons themselves. And that she did.

Daemon’s lips parted, and he whispered low enough for only Viserys to hear, though Otto caught it all the same:

“Bugger me bloody.”

Viserys blinked at his brother, startled, but Otto’s prayer was answered with only torment: his daughter had ensnared the prince in a heartbeat. He had every eligible maiden of every major house, all but present their bare bodies, which he believed some did, to him, and he was swept from his feet by a girl on the cusp of womanhood.

Then Prince Daemon - Daemon, the very same who had mocked every maiden paraded before him, who spat at duty and scorned courtesy - shifted in an instant. The rogue prince became the perfect host, a smile curving across his lips, charm pouring from him like wine from an overturned cup.

Gods please, put an end to this! Otto wanted to pull his hair out.

Stepping forward with measured grace, he bowed his head slightly, his silver hair gleaming in the light.

“Lady Elaena, Lady Alicent,” Daemon said, his voice smooth as silk, “welcome to King’s Landing, and most of all, to the Red Keep. I trust your journey was uneventful, my ladies?”

The women dropped into curtsies. At his gesture they rose again.

Elaena, composed as ever, inclined her head. “It has been quite a fine journey, I thank you, Prince Daemon.”

The Rogue took her hand lightly, bowing over it and pressing a fleeting kiss to her knuckles, his smile polite but brief. His eyes flicked almost at once to the younger lady.

Otto had reached a point where he was considering placing a curse on the Prince.

The Prince of Dragonstone, turning to Alicent, the mask shifted; the smile curled into something darker, more dangerous, a smirk that could seduce or consume. “And are you of the same mind, Lady Alicent?”

Alicent regarded him coolly, unimpressed by the famed prince and his sudden courtesy. Without hesitation, she extended her hand, her tone clipped yet refined. “It has been a tiring journey,” she said, her eyes locking with his, “but a fine one nonetheless, Prince Daemon. You're too kind.”

The Rogue chuckled low at her coldness, her purple eyes mesmerizing him beyond point, his fingers lingering longer as he bent over her hand. This kiss was not fleeting but drawn out, deliberate, his lips brushing her skin with a hint of claim.

Otto felt the blood drain from his face. He wanted to faint, to crumble where he stood. It had taken the boy no more than a glance. For a fleeting second, he hoped his daughter's insolence would provoke ire or scorn from the heir to the Iron Throne. The effect was quite the opposite. The Gods had cursed him: Prince Daemon Targaryen was already lost to his daughter.

Chapter Text

Through the long journey towards the Crownlands, Alicent had allowed herself time to think, to weigh and measure every possibility. 

Her mother Elaena, ever delicate in spirit, had been nervous from the start, hands trembling in her lap, voice breaking whenever she tried to speak of King's Landing, of what was to come. She was afraid he daughter would be picked by the Prince.

Alicent could not fault her. For the first time, the realm would see the truth: that a branch of House Targaryen had lived hidden in Oldtown, disguised beneath the proud Hightower name.

Powerful Targaryens that held the blood of the most feared Targaryen since Aegon the Conqueror.

It was one thing for Otto and the Old King to keep such a secret between them. Another for the whole of court to learn that she herself was blood of Maegor the Cruel.

What a revelation that shall be, Alicent thought, almost smiling despite herself.

The shock, the whispers, the silent horror on every face - how fitting it would be. They ought to fear me, after their treachery in my past life.

Her smile did not linger. Her mood darkened the moment the red walls of King's Landing came into view.

The city was no stranger to her - every street, every turn, every stone carried ghosts.

She could not look upon the Red Keep without recalling the bitter years after Viserys' death: her children taken from her one by one, Helaena flinging herself from her own chambers, her sweet grandchildren doomed by the Blacks, her father beheaded when Rhaenyra claimed the city.

She never learned whose sword fell, but her heart had long whispered Daemon's name. And she cared not now for his death, if she had to think about it. She would not weep now if he died. He brokered a weak marriage for her.

And now, here she was, about to face that same prince, except he was no hardened warrior, no father, no husband of Rhaenyra, no enemy of hers.

He was twenty, raw from losing Baelon, the father he had loved, his only living parent now gone. This Daemon had not yet bled the realm dry, nor tasted the full bitterness of ambition.

She did not know whether to loathe him for what he would be, or pity him for what he was.

A question plagued her as the wheels clattered against the cobbles: had his eye fallen on any lady in the weeks Otto delayed their departure? Or was he still the restless, arrogant creature who prized Valyrian blood above all else?

She prayed to the Fourteen Flames he had not changed too much, let him remain as entitled and proud as she remembered.

That way, he might look at her and see not just a lady, but a mirror of his own blood. Blood he held so high above all else.

If not, well... scheming had never daunted her. She was young again. They would all think her dull, meek, a doll in her father's care.

That suited her well enough. They would not see her listening, prying, weaving threads until she held the web tight in her hand and she would strangle them to death when they no longer served her.

But as the carriage rolled past the red walls, nausea rose in her throat. The Red Keep loomed hateful against the sky, every stone dipped in her grief. She refused to look to the small gathering until the carriage stopped, until her mother descended.

Only when a knight offered his arm did she step down, movements measured and deliberate.

The courtyard awaited. A small gathering of lords, knights, and courtiers, all stilled as she emerged.

She did not rush to take it in; instead she let her eyes wander slowly, glaring first at the banners of the dragon, the black and red drapery, the guards' armor emblazoned with the three-headed dragon. The air was dry, heavy with the scent of horse and sweat.

Her lip curled faintly in distaste, remembering the moment Rhaenyra landed to claim her crown.

The same banners that are mine now, will be those of my children, she thought. The sight made her fingers itch for her skirts, as if she could clutch them tighter and keep from spitting curses aloud.

Then did she deem it fit to look at those who had come to greet her.

Otto stood pale, his face so strained she thought he might collapse. He was a proud and entitled man, but it did not sit well with him that the realm accepted the Rogue Prince as its next ruler.

The small council looked a mix of aghast and dumbstruck, mouths half-open. Their eyes made plain what she had known: her blood could not be hidden any longer.

She wore a silver dress, simple, the embroidery made of gold thread along her cuffs and hem of the gown. She knew this would make her stand out as the Goddess that she was.

Her gaze slid past them to Viserys, the lousy and cowardly husband of her past life. How young he looked, his eyes bright with a kindness that later soured into weakness.

At his side stood a woman, rounded with child, her beauty soft and glowing, her hair a silver-gold river down her shoulders.

Alicent knew at once: Aemma Arryn, the beloved of the eldest son of Baelon. No wonder Viserys had wept for her to the end of his days. For all your comments about your younger brother, you loved your own blood as much as he did, you fool hypocrite, she mused in distaste.

Her breath stilled when her eyes fell upon Prince Daemon Targaryen.

He was not the reckless, half-mad Prince of memory, nor the hardened warlord who had slaughtered and burned.

No, this Daemon was untested, his beauty raw and untouched by age.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, his waist lean, his face sharp with high Valyrian cheekbones and pale lashes framing those purple-violet eyes. His hair, silver and white as starlight.

His lips were thin, curved already into a devious smirk. But his eyes, his eyes, were wide with awe.

And his manners.

That startled her more than his young face. The Prince of the City, bowing his head with grace, his smile warm as though he sought to charm, not provoke.

His voice smooth, his courtesies impeccable. She could scarcely believe it. 

This was the man she remembered as brash, wild, and cruelly honest? This was the one who had driven her half-mad with grief?

Her mouth was dry as realization struck. She understood, for the first time, how Rhaenyra had fallen for him.

So this is the Daemon they knew first, the prince who lured you in with charm before showing the fire beneath.

And yet, despite her dismissal, his smirk had only grown sharper. He was not deterred. No, he seemed to relish it.

Fourteen save me, Alicent thought, as Daemon's eyes lingered on her still with an awe that seemed to have never been bestowed upon her. This was easier than I thought.

The solar of the King's Apartments seemed smaller all of a sudden, though it was vast enough to host half a dozen courtiers and still have room for a feast.

He had ruled for three and fifty years, had buried more kin than most men dared count.

The Kingsguard's voice announced the visitors, and the doors swung open.

Jaehaerys fixed his eyes upon the threshold.

In came a lady, her bearing soft, her eyes downcast, a blush upon her cheeks. This would be Elaena, the Hand's lady wife, he nodded.

At her side trailed a younger figure, though nothing about her carriage suggested girlishness.

Straight-backed, proud, with a gravity rare in one so young, she entered as though she had crossed such chambers a hundred times before.

The king's heart skipped, his breath snagged in his throat. He had been prepared for beauty, the Targaryens were unmatched in their otherworldliness. Yet he had not been prepared for this.

When the maiden curtsied, it was as though time folded back upon itself. He was young again, a boy standing before Visenya Targaryen, the aunt who had terrified him even as she fascinated him.

Seven save me, the likeness was uncanny. The girl was no timid child, she carried herself like one who had seen and known too much, though her skin was smooth as polished ivory. And she looked at him not as a trembling subject gazes upon their king, but as though she beheld an equal. An old companion.

"What a great pleasure it is to meet the family of my Hand. Do take a seat, no need to stand before me, after all I am sat," polite words, almost japing, yet his eyes never left the girl.

She did not falter, simply lowered herself gracefully into the chair offered.

Jaehaerys' mind wandered in spite of himself. One for love, and one for duty my arse. He had once told himself when he thought of Aegon and his sisters. A lie it was, perhaps, to keep the peace of his own heart. Yet here was proof of the folly of such sayings. If Visenya's blood still lingered in the world, if it could fashion a face such as this... then truly, what must Rhaenys have been like if Aegon married her for love?

The king drew a slow breath and as his gaze lingered upon her, he thought - not for the first time - that perhaps the gods still had one last game to play with him before they drew him down into the dark.

"We thank you, Your Grace, for your summons; it was past time you met my family."

The weight of silence pressed after Otto's carefully chosen words, his voice carrying the respectful tone of a Hand speaking to his King, yet beneath it lay a plea. Don't put my family to the sword.

Otto Hightower wished - no, needed - the King to accept his daughter as no threat, no shadow of the past come to haunt them, but as a dutiful young maiden suitable for courtly life. Or unsuitable so she would not marry the wretched Prince.

Jaehaerys' sharp eyes did not leave Alicent. She was a fair lady, of tragic Targaryen beauty that would have men sell their keeps and property only to breathe in the same air as he.

He had been a king long enough to sense when a man's words were polished to the point of concealment. He could smell a secret more than he could see it. And here sat the girl, pale as milk, silver-haired, eyes like polished amethysts. It was her stillness that unsettled him most.

Most girls her age would tremble at an audience with him, even those of the highest houses. They would fumble curtsies, avert their eyes, and speak in breaths barely audible. Alicent, however, did not.

"I recall," Jaehaerys said at last, voice low and gravelled by age, "that Maegor himself once lay still for weeks, as though the Stranger's hand had lingered over him but not plucked him away. He woke stronger, or so the tales say. There are those who whisper he was... touched by powers best left unspoken."

His words were meant to coax answers he already had but it was best to see everyone's expression, and he was rewarded, as Otto shifted uncomfortably. Elaena's lips pressed tight, her eyes flickering down, while she wrung her hands.

Jaehaerys' eyes found Alicent's again. "And you, child? Did you wake stronger after your ordeal?"

Otto opened his mouth to intervene, but Alicent spoke first, her voice firm though wrapped in sweetness. "I woke clearer, Your Grace. The Gods grant trials to temper us. I believe I see the world with sharper eyes than before. What once seemed trifling to me is now of weight. What once burdened me, I can now endure. If that is strength, then yes - I woke stronger."

May the Seven Hells burn you Maegor, the king mused, and blast you and your spawn.

The girl's words were not those of a sheltered maiden. They were the words of a woman who had lived, who had lost, who had bled. And yet she wore them as easily as one might wear a gown.

He wondered, fleetingly, if the gods had sent her as omen or gift.

"I am pleased to see you restored, child," he said at last, his voice gentling despite his misgivings. "The realm is harsher than it ought to be. We must treasure what little mercies it gives."

Alicent inclined her head. "Wise words, Your Grace. I shall endeavor to remember them."

Jaehaerys leaned back, his fingers stroking the long silver of his beard. His mind, sharp even in age, sifted through every whisper, every record, every omen. He remembered the day he first learned of Maegor's line hiding in Oldtown, a shameful wound buried deep in history, tolerated only for peace's sake. 

He had left it to fester, untouched, for war was not worth unearthing every sin of the past. Now, before him sat proof that the blood of Maegor had endured and not just endured, but flourished, cloaked in courtesy and sharpened with purpose.

Yet her mother seemed not to have inherited none of that, a fidgety thing Elaena is, he decided.

"Exceptionable manners," Jaehaerys repeated, his voice a murmur. "Yes, I see that." His eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her posture, the tilt of her chin, the way she clasped her hands in her lap, not in girlish fidgeting but in quiet command. "You speak well, Lady Alicent. Better than most at court."

Alicent inclined her head, gracious yet firm. "I thank you, Your Grace. My father has always said that words may win more battles than swords."

Otto gave a stiff smile, his pride carefully concealed beneath the humility required before his king. But his eyes flickered - fearful that the girl had said too much, revealed too much of the sharpness he had tried to temper. Or to hide.

Jaehaerys' gaze lingered on her for a long while, then turned, at last, to Elaena. The lady sat with her hands folded neatly, her silver lashes lowered, the perfect picture of meek propriety. She looked every inch the Targaryen wife, subdued yet dignified, her beauty of the Valyrian sort that needed no embellishment.

"You carry yourself with the grace of our kin," Jaehaerys said gently. "It is long since I have looked upon kin with such likeness."

Elaena dipped her head. "I am humbled, Your Grace. We have long lived quietly in Oldtown. It was not our place to press our blood before you."

"And yet," Jaehaerys added as an afterthought, "blood does not quiet itself, does it? It sings, whether one wishes it or no." His old eyes shifted once more to Alicent. "And it seems to sing most loudly in your daughter."

A flicker of unease passed through Otto's face before he could school it. Elaena remained silent, her fingers tightening around each other in her lap. "Our daughter is young and has many a things to learn still, and here at court she will have a chance, if it please you to have us, Your Grace."

Alicent looked at her mother Elaena, with a look that bordered on displeasure, as if her mother's words were unnecessary. The King thought it was interesting how she acted compared to her much elder mother.

"The blood of the dragon runs hot, Your Grace," Alicent said softly.

Jaehaerys felt a strange chill at her words. So simple, so softly spoken, and yet they carried the weight of who they were. They were dragons. 

He remembered another time, another Targaryen woman, who had spoken with that same serene certainty, Visenya, whispering to her son Maegor of dragons, of destiny, of the fire that must endure.

For a fleeting moment, he wondered if the Gods were mocking him, bringing forth echoes of his kin to remind him that even in age, his house was bound by the same patterns, the same hungers.

That evil could not be simply rooted out.

He leaned forward, his cane tapping once against the stone floor. "The blood of the dragon runs hot, indeed. But it must run its course wisely, lest it consume itself."

His words were warning as much as agreement, but the girl did not flinch. She met his gaze with quiet confidence, and he thought he saw - just for an instant - a flicker of something far older than her years in those purple eyes.

She looks at me as if she knows me, the king thought.

The King straightened once more, suppressing the unease that gnawed at his chest. He had ruled long enough to know when the gods set a strange piece upon the board. He had no doubt now - this girl was such a piece. Whether she was boon or bane remained to be seen. Seven have mercy upon my grandson.

A loud commotion outside made him understand that he had summoned the Prince, hearing the muffled conversation behind the doors of his solar.

"Get your hands off me you cunt. You dare touch me? I am the Prince of Dragonstone, let me pass!"

The Kingsguard might've tried to calm down the Prince until Jaehaerys heard a sword unsheathed and he sighed. "Let the prince in, ser."

The door opened slowly and the king heard the Rogue breathe heavily and name the honorable knight of the Kingsguard a 'white-cloaked cunt'.

Jaehaerys pinched the bridge of his nose as the boy barged in. His grandson always stormed through doors as if every room in the Red Keep belonged to him already. Perhaps in a sense it did, though it set the Old King's teeth on edge.

Daemon cut a fine figure, tall and lithe, his pale hair catching the noon light. He swaggered forward with the confidence, his hand rested casually upon Dark Sister's hilt, as though the ancient blade were an extension of his hip.

"Grandsire," Daemon said again, his tone half-apology, "forgive the rudeness of my entry. Had I known you were receiving guests..." His eyes slid deliberately toward Otto, his smile sharp and dragon like. "...I might have come sooner."

Otto stiffened, but Jaehaerys raised a weary hand before his Hand could speak. "Come in then, boy. Since you've shattered courtesy, you may as well join us."

Daemon dipped his head with exaggerated flourish. His gaze lingered, not on Otto nor on Lady Elaena, but squarely on Alicent. The faintest spark lit his purple-violet eyes as if he had just uncovered a dragon's egg hidden in plain sight.

"Lady Elaena," he began smoothly, stepping toward her with a predator's grace, "your presence here is a balm. House Hightower must thank the Gods each morning that they hold so fair a jewel in their midst."

Elaena colored faintly and inclined her head, her smile uncertain as she gazed upon the Prince. The King watched this with veiled patience.

But Daemon was already shifting, his eyes sliding toward Alicent. His smirk deepened, softening almost imperceptibly as he bowed before her. "And Lady Alicent..." he paused, savoring the way her name lingered on his tongue. "I confess, I had not expected Oldtown to keep such treasures hidden from the realm."

Alicent met his gaze without flinching. Where another girl might have blushed, she sat poised, lips curved in the barest hint of politeness, though her eyes held something older, sharper, almost mocking. "You are kind, Prince Daemon, but perhaps you mistake novelty for rarity. Oldtown holds many things the realm has long forgotten."

The old king had to fight the same off his face. Trust my grandson to meet his match so swiftly.

Otto shifted, clearly uneasy. "Your Grace," he interjected, his bow stiff, "my lady wife and daughter are weary from travel. Perhaps it would be wise to-"

But Daemon ignored him, stepping closer to Alicent. "I would be most curious, Lady Alicent, to learn what other wonders Oldtown hides. You must allow me the privilege of discovery, given that you must know more of its mysteries, mayhaps you can share some with me," his eyes glinted mischievously.

"Perhaps in time," she replied, her tone even, her gaze level. "Though I suspect, Prince, you prefer wonders that reveal themselves quickly."

Jaehaerys took in a deep breath. Gods, but the girl was sharper than a Valyrian blade. No wonder his grandson looked half-dazzled, half-in love. Daemon, unused to being outmaneuvered, tilted his head, studying her like a puzzle he meant to solve.

The Old King rapped his cane against the stone floor. "Enough Prince Daemon, sit down before you wear holes into my carpets with your strutting."

With a smirk, Daemon dropped into a chair as if he had claimed victory regardless. He sprawled comfortably, one leg stretched, Dark Sister glinting at his side. His eyes, however, never once left Alicent.

Jaehaerys turned his attention back to Elaena, determined to reassert some semblance of order. "Lady Elaena, I trust your journey was without incident?"

Elaena inclined her head, her voice gentle. "It was smooth, Your Grace. We were well attended, and the knights who escorted us ensured our safety."

"Good," Jaehaerys said, though his gaze slid once more toward Alicent. The girl sat composed, as though carved from marble, yet there was something alive in her stillness—something that unsettled him. She reminded him too much of Visenya, of the fierce, knowing gaze of his aunt, whose presence had always filled a room like wildfire even when she said nothing at all.

Otto, perhaps sensing the undercurrents, pressed forward. "If it please Your Grace, Lady Alicent has been most diligent in her studies since her recovery. She is well-versed in the histories of Oldtown and of the realm, in the Faith's teachings, and in the keeping of a noble household. My brother's lady wife has tutored her, and she has shown herself both obedient and astute."

Yet beneath that possibility lurked unease. His spies had not lied: the girl's coma had mirrored Maegor's own unnatural slumber. And now here she was, speaking with the wit and gravity of a court veteran, not a girl on the cusp of womanhood. 

Was it truly only a miracle of the Gods? Or something darker, something the realm might one day curse?

He rubbed a hand over his long beard, his bones aching. "You have both charmed and wearied me, Otto, see that your family is made comfortable. The feast this evening will welcome them properly. Until then, let them rest."

The Hand bowed deeply, relief flooding his features. "As you command, Your Grace."

Elaena curtsied, her cheeks still faintly pink. Alicent rose as well, her movements fluid, deliberate. She met the king's gaze one last time, and for a fleeting moment, he swore he saw not a maiden of Oldtown but a woman forged by fire and blood, older than her years, older than this very moment in time.

Lady Elaena felt as if a phantom might step forth at any moment, summoned by their departure of the King's apartments. The weight of her blood - of Maegor's blood - pressed heavy upon her chest, but her fears were not for herself. 

They were for her daughter. Sweet Alicent, still child enough to cling to her prayers and books, yet soon to become a woman when her moonsblood came. 

Elaena prayed fervently to the Seven that it would be delayed, as long as the Gods willed.

At first sight, Prince Daemon had appeared no villain. His manners had been polished, his smile warm enough to charm even the stoniest of hearts. Nothing in him had borne the marks of those vile rumors - whispers of his wanton nature, of his recklessness in bed and in battle. For a fleeting moment, Elaena almost allowed herself to believe otherwise.

But Otto had not. He had leaned close during their escort through the hall, his voice low and certain. "He is all they claim him to be, Elaena. Impetuous, quick to anger and violent. Do not be fooled by smiles."

Now, in the quiet of Alicent's chambers, Otto entered with a grim face, followed by Elaena herself. The girl took seat by the window, composed as ever, her hands folded neatly upon her lap. 

"My angel," Elaena whispered, her own voice trembling, "you have been so brave. I believe the King has shown mercy upon us."

"I never had a doubt, lady mother. The King will not commit kinslaying. Not after Maegor. He will not see himself allied with such a crime, nor with such rumors."

Elaena nodded, though her heart longed for faith as strong as her daughter's. "We will be fine. Do not fret, your father is Hand of the King. He will protect us."

"You saw the Prince, lady mother. Nothing will happen to us. He was struck the moment he laid eyes on us. That alone is shield enough."

Elaena tried to smile, but her heart ached. She wished she could protect her daughter, wrap her in cloistered safety, keep her untouched by princely whims and hungry courts. 

Yet how could she?

Otto sighed heavily, drawing both women's gazes. "Striking the fancy of Prince Daemon is nothing to be proud of. He is impulsive, violent, debauched in his ways. If he has turned his eye upon you, it will bring more peril than safety. The Gods have taking a liking to mocking me it seems, first he was name heir instead of Viserys, the lords choosing the reckless prince not this. Its as if the Gods are playing a game."

Alicent turned her face away from them, looking out of the window. Only if you knew father.

The Rogue Prince's eyes lingered long after the door closed behind Alicent. His eyes still traced the image of her, silver hair gleaming like quicksilver, purple eyes as piercing as the heart of a flame, and a spine as straight as a swordblade. 

She had walked as if she owned the keep, as if all their gazes were beneath her. Even her disdain had seemed regal. Daemon smirked at the memory, the way she had extended her hand to him as if she was expecting him to bend and kiss her knuckles, which he did gladly.

He whistled lowly, a sharp, playful note that cut through the stillness of the King's solar. He turned, lips curved in that familiar smirk.

"Oh, grandsire, you've outdone yourself with this one," he said, voice lilting with amusement. "A jewel hidden in Oldtown all these years, and only now you bring her to court? You are such a wonderful king, keeping something so precious all to yourself-"

Jaehaerys did not smile. The old King's face, long as the winters, bore none of Daemon's humor. His eyes cut into his grandson like knives.

"You will treat with every maiden at court, do you hear me? Every lord has brought daughters, nieces, cousins, sisters for your consideration. You will be respectful to each of them, and you will offer those from the highest houses more than a passing glance. You will not," he emphasized with a pointed finger upon the arm of his chair,  "concentrate all your breathing moments on Lady Alicent."

Daemon blinked, as if struck across the face. The smirk faltered, and in its place came a boyish frown. "Why?" his voice carried both confusion and something wounded beneath the bravado.

"Because you will be King," Jaehaerys snapped, his patience already thinning. "And a king must choose his lady wife and his queen not solely for the shape of her face, nor the gleam of her hair. The realm does not need a wife that pleases only your eye. The realm needs a queen, boy."

Daemon scowled, his temper rising hot and quick, like kindling catching flame. "Then why bring her here at all, hm? Why parade her before me if I am not to choose her? Is this your way of goading me? Another jest, another way to bind my will?"

The King scoffed, a harsh, disdainful sound. "You are a fool, Daemon. You think yourself clever, a master of games and men, when in truth you are still a boy who confuses his pride with his wisdom. You must take your duties more seriously. The Iron Throne is no plaything. You cannot pluck the first pretty lady that crosses your path and set her beside you."

Daemon's jaw worked furiously. He slammed a fist onto the table, rattling the cups upon it with his conviction. "But she is a Targaryen!" he roared.

Jaehaerys leaned forward, his lined face severe. "And is that the sole reason you would wed her, grandson? Is blood enough for you, when a kingdom of lords must bend the knee to you?"

"Yes!" the Rogue did not hesitate. His chest heaved, and his voice cracked with another shout.

The room rang with it. His declaration filled the solar, daring the dust motes - daring even the King himself - to defy him.

He pressed on, seizing the moment, voice hoarse with emotion. "You gave my brother a Valyrian bride! Viserys was gifted Aemma Arryn - half blood of the dragon, blood of your beloved Alyssane's line and yours - while what was I given? A sheep from the Vale. A sheep, grandsire! You wed me into a cadet branch of the Arryns, into a house of little consequence, as if I were naught but a spare sword to be put away when not needed. And you wonder why I did not warm her bed?"

He spat the words, his pride torn raw.

"You could have matched me with Gael," Daemon continued, voice trembling between rage and grief. "Sweet Gael, of dragon's blood, who would have given me heirs with silver hair and purple eyes. But no. Instead you and grandmother saw fit to hand me over to a bleating, sheep faced girl whose name will never be sung in song. As if I were some inconvenient second son to be swept aside."

Jaehaerys's face darkened, a stormcloud brewing over him. He rose from his chair slowly, using his cane for balance, and when he spoke, his voice carried the weight of the realm.

"You dare speak so of marriage, of duty, as if it were only a matter of pride and insult! Do you not see, Daemon? The realm will not bend for your temper. It will not sway for your hunger for silver hair in your bed. A king does not wed for himself - he weds for the realm. For peace. For unity. You think yourself wronged, but I tell you, boy, you have not been wronged."

The old king knew of his grandsons' grievances but the way the boy spoke the words as if that marriage had been the biggest insult, it made Jaehaerys realize something important. It was not the whine of a boy but the pleading of a man. Yet the king needed to go to the bottom of this.

Daemon's eyes burned, his teeth clenched. "Spared?" he hissed. "To be shackled to a woman I cannot stomach? While my brother lies with a true Targaryen in his bed each night? You call that mercy?"

"Yes," Jaehaerys thundered. "Because unlike your brother, you are unbridled, wild, quick to rage. A dragon untamed. And had you been given what you desired, the realm would already be ash. You think yourself clever, but I see you plain: a boy who stamps his feet when denied a toy. And this talk of Lady Alicent - this sudden fire in your belly - do you think I do not see it for what it is? Infatuation. Nothing more."

The word struck Daemon like a slap. His nostrils flared, and his hand gripped Dark Sister's hilt though he did not draw it.

"Infatuation? Do you think me some green boy, staring at his first maid? I know what she is. I know her worth. She is dragon to the bone, more so than any of the peddled maidens these lords drag like cattle into court. And if I wish her, it is not infatuation. It is destiny."

Jaehaerys's cane struck the stone floor with a crack like thunder.

"Do not speak to me of destiny, boy. I have ruled for fifty years, and I have seen what comes of those who claim the Gods have marked their path. Maegor spoke thus. So did others whose names are now cursed. Destiny is the word of fools. Duty is the truth of kings."

The two faced each other: the weary old dragon and the young, restless one, each unwilling to yield.

Jaehaerys scoffed, his wrinkled lips tightening as if he tasted something bitter as he pressed on, trying to find the breaking point. "Lady Alicent is the daughter of a second son."

The words were meant to cool Daemon's fever, but they only stoked it.

The Rogue's hand twitched "But she is a Targaryen. Did you not see her? Her hair, her eyes, her blood speaks plain enough. She is... is she not?" he faltered. 

The certainty in his voice slipped, and for the first time Daemon's frown showed doubt. He searched his grandsire's eyes, searching for the truth he suddenly feared. But the old king looked away, keeping the farce.

The silence struck harder than any blow. The heir's breath hitched, his throat tightening. He took one step back, his voice softening, raw.

"She is not... is she?" his eyes narrowed, suspicion mounting like dragonfire. "What is Elaena then? A Lysene whore? Is this some jest? Some cruel jape, that you would set a counterfeit beneath my nose, call her dragon's blood, and let me be the fool who chases after painted feathers? Is this one of your tests?"

"If you would allow me to damn speak- " Jaehaerys's face darkened with irritation.

But Daemon cut him short with a mirthless chuckle. "If you hated me so much, grandsire, you should have slit my throat in my crib and been done with it. Anything would be better than this mockery. Viserys - useless boot of a brother that he is - gets a Valyrian bride, soft and pure, with dragon's blood thick in her veins, and I am left with the swine of Westeros. A Vale sheep, a Lysene counterfeit, a test of yours as if you believe me to be anything but fit for the Iron Throne."

Jaehaerys let him say his piece until his grandson's voice broke into another roar. 

"Fine!" he jabbed a finger toward the king, eyes wild with fury. "Unname me, then. Cast me aside. Place your crown upon Viserys's soft skull and see how long your precious realm endures beneath a fool's hand. See if your work, your five decades of peace, does not turn to ash beneath his blunders. See if you'll like to watch the realm burn. I don't care for your throne if you don't believe in me. If you got to wed the woman you loved, who am I to marry for the realm? Fuck the realm!"

He did not wait for an answer, he turned and stormed for the door. His boots struck the stone like war drums, and before Jaehaerys could call his name, the door slammed with such force that the hinges shrieked. For a heartbeat, the Old King thought the wood itself might splinter.

Jaehaerys closed his eyes, his breath rattling in his chest. His old bones ached as he leaned heavily on his cane, yet there was a glint of something more than weariness in his gaze when he opened them again. A hint of amusement. A spark of knowing.

He shook his head slowly, a faint smile curling the corners of his lips despite the sting of Daemon's words. "If she has you so worked up after a few words," he muttered into the empty chamber, "I wonder what you'll do once she offers you a child. Foolish boy, I have no choice, you will marry her, otherwise, war is at risk. Suddenly, I realize that if I make you wed her, you will do so gladly. Blasted blood of the dragon burning hot," he snorted.

Chapter Text

Viserys had left his lady wife's chambers with a heart as heavy as lead.

The air within Aemma's chamber had grown close and suffocating in these final weeks before her labor. The Maesters had imposed their endless rules, their endless mutterings about tradition, custom, and precedent. 

Curtains drawn low, so that sunlight did not intrude and weary the mother. Windows latched tight, so that no chill draft might whisper across the bed. Lamps doused early, to encourage long hours of sleep. Strong-smelling herbs burned to purify the air.

The effect, to Viserys, was not one of purity, but of a cell. Aemma, pale as fresh snow and round as the full moon, lay abed with nothing but her embroidery hoops, the maids' quiet footsteps, and the measured sighs of the septa for company. One visit per day was permitted, no more, lest the princess tire herself with chatter.

It broke Viserys's heart. He hated the thought of leaving her in such stillness, caged by her own body. He kissed her brow, promised her that he would pray for her strength, and swore he would return on the morrow. 

As he departed, her tired eyes had lingered on him with such trust that his chest ached.

Now, as he walked through the long stone passages toward the King's apartments, the echo of her gaze still weighed heavy. He had dressed finely for the evening, in his best doublet of violet trimmed with the blue of House Arryn, his fingers adorned with golden rings and a thick chain of gold resting against his chest. Yet beneath all the finery he was still a husband who worried, who prayed, who feared.

It was the scent of roasted capon with honey and milk, wafting through the corridor, that finally banished his darker thoughts, as though he forgot about all that was wrong in the realm.

Viserys' mood lifted almost at once. His lips curved into a smile, his stomach giving a pleasant grumble. Ah, honey-milk-capon... his mind sang. Grandsire surely knows how to throw a feast. By the Gods, the kitchens must have worked all afternoon on this.

With renewed cheer, he strode forward, nodding at the Kingsguard who held open the door for him. Passing quickly through the ante-chamber and into the solar, he entered the smaller dining chamber - though small was only a matter of comparison. 

The rectangular table, laid with fine cloth and golden vessels, could have seated a dozen lords in comfort. The chandeliers above spilled a warm, golden light across polished wood, silver dishes, and the rich colors of noble garb.

At the head of the table sat King Jaehaerys himself, silver hair cascading like a fall of molten moonlight, his posture straight though his age weighed on his shoulders. To his left, in the seat of honor, sat the Hand of the King, Lord Otto Hightower, stiff-backed and composed as if he was more important than the King himself. 

Beside him, Lady Elaena Hightower, serene and fair, her smile as careful and shy as her every movement. Next to her, their daughter, Lady Alicent, whose gaze had terrified him ever since he first saw her in the courtyard when both of them arrived from Oldtown.

The seat at Jaehaerys's right hand stood empty, reserved for Daemon, the heir of the King, though no sign of the Rogue Prince yet graced the chamber. Viserys, unbothered, made his way to the seat just beyond.

He paused to bow deeply before the table. "Your Grace. Lord Hand. My ladies," His voice rang with warmth and courtesy, as if he were made of joy itself. "Oh, how grateful I am to spend this evening in your presence."

Lady Elaena inclined her head gracefully, her voice soft as she returned the courtesy. Alicent, too, spoke the proper words, her voice even, yet Viserys could not shake the odd impression that her courtesy was only a veil. 

Twice her purple eyes darted toward him, and twice he caught the faintest flash of disdain there, a glare quickly smoothed over by girlish composure.

It unsettled him. It was as if he had faulted her in the past and she did not forget.

Why does she look at me so? he mused silently as he settled into his seat. What wrong have I ever done her? She is but a girl, and I have not once exchanged a word with her before today.

He tried to push the thought aside, tried to turn his attention instead to the gleaming dishes arrayed upon the table. The golden-brown sheen of roasted birds, the sweet promise of sugared lemons, the buttery gleam of baked breads, the red sparkle of Dornish wine in golden cups.

Before he could comment, Jaehaerys turned toward him. "Ah, my beloved grandson. How does your lady wife fare?"

The cheer drained from Viserys as swiftly as wine from a cracked cup. His shoulders dipped, his smile softened into something sad. "She is beginning her confinement. She had wished dearly to be here tonight."

"So is the lot of most ladies. Fret not over it, boy. It is the way of our wives, the price they pay to give us heirs. Do not burden yourself with guilt."

Viserys bowed his head. He reached for his cup, sipping the sweet red, and forced himself to swallow down his worry with the wine.

Lady Alicent sat with her back straight and her hands folded neatly over her lap. Her gown shimmered with every flicker of candlelight: pearl-colored silk, soft as water, threaded all through with delicate silver. 

Along the hem and cuffs the embroidery caught the glow like moonlight, subtle yet dazzling. Her long silver hair had been brushed to a sheen and left to fall in a simple curtain down her back, a maiden's style. 

She wore no bracelets at her wrists, no rings upon her slender fingers, only a pair of dangling pearl earrings that swayed softly each time she turned her head. 

She looked young, almost untouched by the world, and yet her violet eyes held the weight of knowledge far older than her years.

The King had parted his lips to begin the supper with some measured words, when the doors burst open with a thunderous slam.

Jaehaerys's mouth snapped shut. His sharp eyes cut to the doorway.

And there he was: Daemon.

Tall, silver-haired, clad in black and red as though he had stepped straight out of legend, and carrying about him the air of someone who neither cared nor feared the disapproval of Kings or Gods. 

His lips curled into that dangerous smirk of his.

"Ah," Jaehaerys muttered, his voice laced with irony, "my other beloved grandson. Do go on, Daemon. Perhaps, before you leave us tonight, you might consider tearing the bloody door from its hinges. It would save you the trouble of slamming it so often."

Daemon's lips twisted, a half-mad gleam in his eyes. He swept into a shallow bow, mocking and graceful all at once.

"Your Grace," he said silkily, "I will keep your words in mind, as I do with all your advice."

The old King watched him like a hawk as the prince crossed the chamber. The Rogue paused only briefly before the table, offering the barest dip of his head, a bow that was more a slant of his shoulders than any true courtesy. His words spilled out half-mumbled, insincere, his eyes lingering on the silver-haired girl and her mother.

"Lord Hand. Ladies."

Otto's lips tightened in visible disapproval. Are you coming from a winesink or a brothel, so late in the evening? he mused. He adjusted his seat, spine straight as a lance, but kept silent. 

Elaena, ever the kind lady, inclined her head faintly, though her fingers curled around her daughter's wrist as if in unconscious protection.

But Alicent... Alicent kept her gaze fixed upon The Rogue Prince.

Her purple eyes, lit by the soft glow of candles, did not flinch nor avert. For a heartbeat too long, she stared at him, as though she could pierce his very soul and weigh it against the scales of her memory. 

She had seen this man die. Seen him, older, hardened, with the same silver-white hair falling over cruel eyes, standing upon Caraxes, bringing death to her own son. And yet here he was, in the bloom of youth, sharp-featured and radiant as the tales claimed, the smirk of a dragon who thought the world itself should bend to him.

Daemon, unbothered, dropped himself into his seat. His sword, Dark Sister, clinked faintly as it knocked against the leg of the chair. Alicent pursed her lips, and she looked at her plate, arranging a piece of hair behind her ear, the movement drawing the attention of the Rogue Prince.

Jaehaerys exhaled slowly through his nose, his lips compressed to a thin line. Like moth to a flame, the Gods do love to test me, the old king thought. "Well. Since Prince Daemon has chosen to dignify us with his presence at last, let us begin."

The servants moved quickly then, filling cups with wine, passing dishes of steaming food down the table. The fragrance of roasted capon and venison, of buttered greens and sugared lemons, filled the chamber.

Viserys, ever the cheerful one, immediately piled his plate with a mountain of food: greased potatoes glistening with fat, thick slices of capon glistening in their honey-milk sauce, tender cuts of venison, peeled soft-boiled eggs gleaming like pale moons, thick slices of roast beef, and of course an enormous portion of bread. 

He hummed happily under his breath as he worked, already smiling before his first bite.

Daemon, by contrast, lounged back in his chair, had only served himself venison and, begrudgingly some roasted carrots and potatoes, tearing a piece of bread with one hand, his sharp gaze sliding around the table as if measuring each soul present.

The servants left with a flick of the king's wrist, only four Kingsguards lined the opposite walls of the dining chamber, their white armor gleaming in the torchlight.

"Do you want the greens with peas, grandsire?" Daemon suddenly asked, his voice deceptively light.

Jaehaerys turned his head slowly toward him. "Yes. Pass the plate."

Daemon lifted the dish, scooped a modest portion onto the King's plate, and - without waiting to be asked - reached for the pepper and sprinkled it generously across the greens.

The King's eyes did not leave him for a moment. He said nothing, but he knew what his grandson was doing. Daemon, sensing it, only smirked faintly and resumed his own meal.

The Old King looked at Alicent. You will have a great husband, thoughtful and one who would lay the realm at your feet, but he will bring you to the end of your patience, and if not for your silver hair, you would have gone white in the hair by your thirtieth nameday.

For a time the chamber was filled only with the sounds of feasting, knives against meat, the clink of goblets, the soft murmur of servants pouring wine. But Jaehaerys, never content to let silence reign when it might be filled with instruction, finally dabbed his lips with a napkin and spoke.

"Have you found a lady to your liking, Daemon?"

Daemon glanced sidelong at him, his mouth tightening. Then, deliberately, he dropped the name like spitting out a pit from a sour fruit. "Jeyne Lannister."

Jaehaerys leaned back in his chair, tilting his head with the smallest smile that was not truly a smile. "Hm. And what do you like about her?"

Daemon shrugged. "She has gold. She has ships. The Westerlands are fat with riches. It's a good match."

Across the table, Alicent's frown deepened. For all her carefully schooled composure, the disdain in her gaze was plain as daylight.

Jaehaerys, who did not miss a flicker of expression on anyone's face, saw it - saw the frown, the almost scolding look in those purpleeyes - and his own lips curved in a sly grin.

"What color are her eyes?"

Daemon froze. He swallowed the meat in his mouth, his brows knitting together in faint irritation. "Whose, grandsire?"

"Jeyne's," said the King. His tone was calm, patient, but his eyes gleamed with quiet challenge.

Daemon blinked, shifted in his seat, then finally muttered, "Green."

Jaehaerys let out a long, weary sigh. "They are blue, Daemon. Blue as a clear sky, with hair bright as sunlight. Her mother had roots in Dorne, specifically House Yronwood, a line known for fair hair and blue eyes. How could you possibly have missed that, if you have truly considered this lady to be your wife?"

Daemon's jaw flexed, anger tightening the muscles in his face. He looked down at his plate, his fingers clenching around the handle of his knife. "Because there are more important matters to consider."

"Enough," Jaehaerys cut sharply. "Let me set the record straight once and for all-"

The chamber went still. Viserys paused mid-bite, glancing between his grandsire and his brother, his cheerful face now uncertain. Otto stiffened in his chair, his eyes darting briefly to Alicent and back. Elaena's hands folded tighter in her lap, her expression unreadable.

Jaehaerys's gaze did not waver from his unruly grandson as the younger prince scowled down at his plate, jaw working in restrained defiance.

"You will not interrupt me once. By the Seven, if you so much as open your mouth before I give leave, I shall have you wed Jeyne Arryn on the morrow."

Daemon's lips curled but he said nothing, nodding curtly as though swallowing molten glass. His fingers drummed against the table, restless, dangerous, but silent all the same.

"Well. This has been a matter long left unsaid. I should have spoken to you both years ago, but the moment never seemed right. Perhaps I feared it. Perhaps I hoped silence might bury it. But tonight, with my grandsons present, there can be no more evasion."

Every eye fixed upon him. Even Viserys stopped eating for a moment.

"My grandchildren," Jaehaerys continued, his voice deliberate, "tell me, have you heard the strange rumors that circle around Lady Alicent and her lady mother?"

A chill swept the chamber. Daemon's eyes flickered at once toward the two women; Viserys turned slowly, blinking in mild confusion. Alicent sipped from her goblet unbothered, her expression frozen into the mask she had crafted so carefully.

Viserys, always too eager to show he was not ignorant, cleared his throat, wiping grease from his lips. "Well... the court says..." he darted a glance at the two silver-haired ladies before forging ahead. "That Lady Elaena is... is born of a bastard daughter of King Aenys, though some claim she is the child of a Lyseni magister, and-

Jaehaerys nodded once. "And?"

Viserys shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "And... I've heard some whisper she was a descendant of Maegor's. That she is... a bad omen."

Daemon rolled his eyes and muttered something foul under his breath.

"Half-truths and poison, repeated until they wear the mask of wisdom," the king said, looking at his heir, the Rogue Prince. "Listen well, to all I have to say."

"My uncle Maegor, cursed be his memory, set aside his first marriage to Lady Ceryse Hightower. He cast her back to Oldtown when she could not quicken with child. That much, the singers recall. But what the singers do not know - or will not sing - is that she was with child, though weakly so. The babe was thought lost, yet... not all losses are as final as we claim."

The silence deepened. Otto's head lifted slightly, his face unreadable, but his eyes betrayed the faintest flicker of something, pride, perhaps, or unease.

"Lady Ceryse returned to Oldtown, disgraced, shamed, discarded," Jaehaerys went on, his tone sharpened with bitterness. "Her father, Lord Manfred, never demanded her reinstatement. Curiously so, he had coveted his daughter even more, never entertaining any other suitors. His silence has haunted me all my years. I let it be, until rumors reached me of a silver-haired woman, sighted in Oldtown's streets. A whisper here, a rumor there, enough for me to send eyes to watch. And what those eyes confirmed..." He gestured with one gnarled hand toward Elaena. "Three generations of women hidden away, each bearing the marks of Valyria upon their brow. Until at last, Lady Alicent was born, with the unmistakable look of the dragonlords. Again."

The King's gaze slid to her, and for an instant, his expression softened. Then he turned back to his grandsons.

"Lady Alicent, her mother and her mother before her, and her mother before that, are the blood of Maegor Targaryen. That is the truth."

"What?" the eldest son of Baleon squeaked.

Viserys's fork clattered to his plate, his mouth agape. His wide, kindly eyes darted between Elaena and Alicent as though seeing them anew, as though their silver hair had only now caught the torchlight.

The Old King looked at his youngest grandson. "You may speak now."

Daemon's reaction was just as subtle. His eyes widened, shock flashing like lightning across his sharp features. He pushed back his chair so suddenly it screeched against the stone floor. He stood, fists clenched, his face a mask of fury and betrayal.

"Why did you not tell me?! Why let me sit here, chasing Andals, while you-"

Jaehaerys lifted a single hand, his tone calm. "Because, Daemon, you never let me bloody finish a sentence without lunging like a mad dog at a bone. Mayhaps this will serve as a lesson and you will listen to my words from now on."

Daemon gave a mirthless laugh, shaking his head. "Jaehossas sȳris sātās. All this posturing, all this silence, and for what? To mock me? To watch me stumble after half-truths like a fool? By the Gods, Grandsire..." 

"I'm not marrying Jeyne Lannister," Daemon spat suddenly. "Just so you know."

Jaehaerys tilted his head, almost amused despite himself. "Is that so? Did you not tell me not moments ago that she was rich beyond measure, that she brought ships and gold with her-"

The Rogue snorted, cutting him off. "I don't give a rat's arse about her gold. You know what I want, Grandsire. You've always known what I wanted most."

The King's eyes narrowed. "Yes, I know. And you will keep your seat, and your tongue, before you make a fool of yourself in front of these ladies."

The command cracked through Daemon's fury like a whip. He hesitated, seething, but at last sank back into his chair, every motion taut with restless defiance. His lips twisted into that familiar smirk, half challenge, half promise.

And then his eyes sought hers again. His gaze was no longer furious. It was hungry. Unashamedly so.

And to the astonishment of all, the young lady did not turn away, nor did she bow her head like some shy maid. Instead, she leveled him with a sharp and unwavering smile. As if to say: If you mean to claim me, you will not find me easy prey.

Jaehaerys lifted his goblet, sipping the watered wine with deliberate calm, as though every soul at the table were not hanging by his next breath.

"So, in order for the future generations of House Targaryen to be safe from whispers, slanders, and the peril of division... I have no other choice but to broker a betrothal. Between my heir, Prince Daemon Targaryen, and the daughter of my Hand, Lady Alicent Hightower."

No room was left for debate, nor for subtlety. The words were not proposal but decree.

"This is not," Jaehaerys pressed, his gaze sweeping across them all, "a matter of negotiation. The Targaryen line is at stake. I will not have another branch, hidden in shadows, set to fracture us anew when the dragons' strength must stand united."

Otto Hightower's jaw clenched visibly. His spine remained stiff, his expression schooled into the picture of deference. But his lips curled downward, soured as though he had bitten into something rancid. He bowed his head. I fear you have only given in to your grandson's whims, the Hand mused.

"We will do our duty, Your Grace," he intoned with grave finality. "And so will my daughter."

Elaena bowed her head as well, pale fingers tightening over her daughter's arm as if to tether her. Alicent, regal even in her youth, dipped her head reverently.

The young Prince of Dragonstone leaned back lazily, lifting his goblet of wine. He smirked over the rim before sipping, his eyes glittering as they lingered on Alicent's face. He turned then to Jaehaerys, pressing one hand over his heart in mock ceremony.

"I am positively bereft," Daemon drawled, every syllable dripping with insolence, "that I am to be wed against my will. Shackled, bound, and bartered like a prize stallion," he winked at Alicent. "But fear not, Grandsire. I shall do my duty as your heir. As ever."

The smugness upon his face was a dagger aimed squarely at his grandsire's patience. Jaehaerys's jaw twitched; he wanted nothing more than to cuff the boy, to smack the grin clean off. 

Yet as his old eyes lingered upon his grandson's face, he saw what had long been absent since Baelon's death, that haunted, hollow look, the gnawing emptiness. For once, it was gone. In its place burned a restless fire.

The King sighed inwardly. Give the dog a bone, and he will chase it day long.

Jaehaerys leaned back with weary grace, his voice brisk. "That is settled. Let us enjoy our meal."

Daemon hummed a low note of satisfaction, spearing a piece of venison and tearing into it with relish. Viserys busied himself with buttered bread, offering awkward smiles toward Alicent and her mother. Elaena's gaze stayed upon her plate, serene but watchful, while Alicent sat still as a statue, her purple eyes betraying no emotion but a strange, measured calm.

The rest of the dinner passed in strained quiet. Words were exchanged, yes, but the weight of the King's decree hung over them like smoke, suffocating mirth.

When the final dishes had been cleared, Otto rose swiftly, bowing. "Your Grace," he said with stiff formality, "I thank you for your hospitality and wisdom. We shall retire for the night."

"Go, then," Jaehaerys murmured, waving a hand.

And so Otto departed with his wife and daughter. Elaena and Alicent walked side by side, arms linked, their silver hair catching torchlight like spun moonlight. Otto trailed just behind, hands clasped behind his back, his thoughts unreadable but his lips pressed in that thin, iron-hard line.

They had not gone far when Daemon's voice cut through the corridor.

"Lady Alicent."

The call rang smooth, as the footsteps of the young prince were heard. The women turned; Otto too, his face tightening. His voice was cool, formal, but carried an edge.

"Prince Daemon," Otto said, bowing slightly, though his lips barely moved. "May I inquire what it is you wish to speak of with my daughter?"

Daemon's smirk widened. He strode forward, hands clasped behind his back, a princeling predator at ease in his own den.

"Only wished," the Rogue said silkily, "to bid her farewell properly."

He brushed past Otto without pause, as though the Hand were little more than a servant holding a door. He came to stand before the two women, bowing with courtly flourish, first to Elaena, then to Alicent. His eyes never left the younger.

Alicent's violet gaze locked upon his. With a subtle nod of her head, she signaled her parents to step aside. Elaena's brows lifted slightly, Otto's lips thinned further, but they obeyed, retreating several paces down the hall.

Now only Daemon and Alicent remained, face to face, the air taut between them.

The Prince's smile curved into something promising, dangerous, intoxicating. His voice dipped low. "My lady... I wished-"

But Alicent raised a hand, forefinger lifted, silencing him as one might silence a child.

"I wish not to hear it."

The heir blinked, his smirk faltering.

"Not once," Alicent continued, her voice steady as her eyes bored into his, "have I heard a good thing spoken of you, my prince. You are called hot-tempered. Salacious. Impetuous. Quick to anger-"

Daemon tilted his head, lips twitching. "Charming."

But she did not pause, nor soften. "And I will not kneel before you as though you are worthy of me."

The silence stretched, her words hanging in the torchlit air. Daemon's smirk returned, thinner, sharper, but it did not disguise the glint of fire now lit within his eyes.

Alicent's gaze did not waver. "If you can win me, you can have me. I will be yours. And then you will have earned it. But not a moment before."

With that, she turned upon her heel, silver hair sweeping like a cloak behind her, and walked away, her arm sliding once more through her mother's. Then she stopped again and looked over her shoulder at him. "And remember, I am more dragon than you are; I have the blood of Maegor through my veins. If not for him, the House Targaryen would be extinct. It will take more than a poor apology to win me over, Prince Daemon."

Three people stood stunned in her wake. Otto's eyes widened slightly were tinted with pride and Elaena, wide-eyed chastised her daughter and apologized on her behalf, speaking of the hot blood of the dragon making her prone to outbursts. 

 Daemon Targaryen himself, left rooted to the floor, his smirk frozen, could simply nod as he watched the trio walk away.

He let out a breath, low and sharp, his lips curling slowly into something darker, hungrier.

"Oh, by the Fourteen," he muttered under his breath, almost laughing. "I think I'm in love."

Chapter Text

Alicent stood unmoving, chin lifted, back straight as a rod as the seamstress worked around her, pins clinking faintly against the polished wood floor each time one slipped from her bundle. 

The silk gown of pale lavender was half-stitched and drawn about her form, heavy with silver embroidery around the hem and cuffs. The woman hummed as she adjusted the fall of the skirts, tugging, muttering about stitches and seams. It complemented her skin very well.

Alicent, however, paid no heed. Her violet eyes fixed upon her reflection in the tall bronze mirror propped in the corner. What she saw unsettled her still, though it had moons since she realized who she truly was.

A girl stared back. not the Alicent she had once known herself to be, not the dutiful daughter who had prayed and prayed until her lips bled, not the Dowager Queen who had lived long enough to see her house reduced to ruin. Instead the mirror reflected a dragon's child: silver-white hair spilling loose down her back, purple eyes as clear and sharp as cut amethyst, the pale complexion of Old Valyria stamped upon her face.

Her mother, Lady Elaena, sat near the window with a small retinue of ladies from the Reach who had accompanied them from Oldtown. They whispered, trading glances between needlework and Alicent's reflection, their eyes shining with pride or envy both.

It was still jarring. Still unreal. A Hightower she had been, through and through, yet now the blood of Maegor Targaryen ran in her veins and declared itself upon her features like a banner unfurled.

And she was happy for it, to be a Targaryen, to be afforded another chance of avoiding the massacre of her family. She did not mourn being a devoted Hightower. That part of her blood only brought her pain and anguish, but no more.

And the Rogue Prince's gaze made her skin crawl. That, more than all else, unsettled her. In her first life, Daemon had sneered at her Andal blood, mocking her as little better than a warm bed for a king. 

He had spat venom behind her back, whispered to Rhaenyra of her smallness, her weakness, her piety. Yet now his purple-violet eyes had burned into her as if she were the only soul alive in the Red Keep.

It was as though she had stepped into a mummer's play where only her role had been rewritten.

Her lips pressed into a line, remembering. She had once believed the Gods would aid her, that her faith in the Seven would carry her. She had believed that by her prayers, by her devotion, Aegon would rise. What had it earned her? Nothing but grief. Nothing but fire and ash and blood and pain. Her children dead, her grandchildren too, her sweet Helaena driven to despair and her father butchered. The rest of her years, she had lived locked away in a tower, abandoned, alone.

No more.

"Alicent, did you hear me?"

Her mother's soft voice broke through.

Alicent turned, her reflection forgotten. "I apologize, lady mother. I was thinking. Pray, what did you say?"

Elaena rose from her seat, her pale violet eyes crinkling with the faintest smile. She crossed the chamber, skirts whispering across the flagstones, and gestured to a small boy of ten who hovered uncertainly at the door.

"You have a gift," Elaena said warmly, "from your suitor."

Alicent's eyes narrowed the instant she saw the velvet case in the boy's trembling hands. Her lips pressed into a thin line. A gift. Of course.

The boy stepped forward shyly, bowing as best his young limbs could manage. His voice wavered, though he had been rehearsed. "A gift from the heir to the Iron Throne, Prince Daemon Targaryen."

The words clanged in her ears, dripping with pomp. Alicent nearly rolled her eyes skyward but restrained herself, her chin jutting upward with deliberate disdain.

"Open it," she commanded, her tone dry.

The boy obeyed eagerly, lifting the lid with reverence. Within lay a bracelet of fine metalwork, wrought into interlocking links shaped like flames. Small rubies glittered in their settings, catching the candlelight and throwing flecks of red across the room.

The ladies gasped softly. Elaena smiled with approval. Even the seamstress, still bent over her hem, muttered an admiring word.

Alicent merely hummed, unimpressed. "Do thank the prince for his generosity."

She turned her gaze away at once, as though the glittering rubies were no more than beads strung upon a child's toy.

The boy hesitated, looking to Lady Elaena. She nodded quickly, dismissing him with a soft smile. He bowed again, placed the box upon the nearby table, and scurried out of the chamber.

When the door had shut, Elaena turned to her young daughter with a faint frown. "You scarcely seemed impressed."

Alicent's voice came cool, clipped. "Why should I be? Over a simple bracelet made of common metal? He might have at least commissioned one wrought of silver, or gold."

Her words drew startled glances from the ladies. One of them muffled a nervous giggle. The seamstress smiled openly, her needle between her teeth, clearly pleased that someone at last had dared curb the young, temperamental prince.

Elaena shook her head, her smile wan but her eyes betraying worry. "Alicent, you must cease this behavior immediately. This is no way to treat the gifts of your intended. Especially the heir of the Crown."

Alicent's lips curved faintly upward, a ghost of a smirk. "Intended? He is heir, yes, but he is no husband of mine yet. And a trinket of rubies does not win me."

Elaena stepped closer, lowering her voice though the ladies strained their ears. "You provoke him at every turn. That is dangerous, child. Do you not see? Prince Daemon is not just any lordling. He is impetuous, proud, quick to rage. To spurn him is to invite a storm and worse, you could invite the displeasure of the king too."

"Worry not mother, I will be queen."

Elaena watched her daughter, the proud tilt of her chin, the strength she seemed to possess.

Where is my sweet angel that a year ago loved to spend time embroidering and reading poems about knights and princesses? The fall has changed her, the woman mused worriedly.

Elaena twisted her fingers, watching as her daughter proudly stood and allowed the seamstress to cinch her dress to perfection.

Otto's solar in the Tower of the Hand was dimly lit, though the hour was not late. He preferred it so, the flickering of candles against parchment, the long shadows across his shelves stacked with books, the faint smell of wax and ink. 

Orderly, predictable, contained. 

His desk was spread with scrolls and ledgers, letters yet sealed, missives folded in precise corners. To the side rested a fresh goblet of watered wine, but he had not touched it. His hand, which only moments ago had been furiously scribbling at a missive, now lay flat against the desk as though to pin down his rising frustration.

Across from him sat his lady wife.

Elaena was ever soft-spoken, and even now her voice trembled, though her eyes were steady with that earnestness of hers. Her slender hands twisted together in her lap, fingers clutching, unclutching, betraying nerves that her smooth tone attempted to disguise. 

The Hand of the King had grown accustomed to this gesture, she wrung her hands when she was with child, she wrung them when she worried over Alicent's health after the fall, and now she wrung them for fear of the crown prince.

"She is too harsh when speaking to the crown prince," his purple-eyed wife whispered. "The King had been good enough not to have us thrown into the black cells or worse, and yet she speaks to the heir with barbed words. What if Prince Daemon lets his grandsire know how Alicent acts around him? I do not care for my future, Otto, but I do care for hers. She is so young, and has so much to live for, she is a proper lady and she knows her duty and courtesies but ever since her fall she... I do not want anything happening to her."

Her voice broke on those last words. She looked down at her hands, pale fingers reddened from their own twisting.

I also wonder what changed since the fall, he thought sourly.

Otto leaned back in his chair, studying her. His wife, his docile and gentle Elaena, had ever been a creature of peace, of quiet corridors and soft-spoken prayers. She had none of the fiery personality associated with the abominations, nor the sharp political instincts of himself. 

And yet, for all her softness, there was in her a depth of care that could break a man's heart if he dwelled on it too long. How unfortunate that such tenderness had not been passed to their daughter.

He forced himself to look away from her worried face and back to the parchment upon his desk. For an instant, a terrible impulse stirred in him, to take up the quill again and drive it through his own eye, if only to blot out the futility of it all. He clenched his fist instead, knuckles white.

"If only," Otto muttered bitterly, "if only Daemon would show displeasure towards her. That would be enough. Then she would be rid of him, and we might have some chance of steering her to safety. But no. All the maids of court had thrown themselves at his feet, and he has grown accustomed to their simpering. Meeting resistance has made our daughter into a prize. And he will win her at any cost, not out of love, but pride."

If only the old king had allowed the wretched prince to marry the Lannister girl, if Daemon had treated her badly then he could convince the king that the prince was ill fit for ruling, he thought.

Elaena gazed at him. Her eyes, those peculiar purple orbs, so unmistakably Targaryen, caught the candlelight. They had always unsettled him, even after decades of marriage. For all her gentleness, for all her meekness, there were moments when those eyes reminded him that she was not merely a Hightower bride but a woman of dragon's blood. It was not a comfort tonight.

"I have advised her to be more kind," she said softly, her voice pleading. "Even if she does not like him, even if she mistrusts him, she should not act on every impulse. Courtesy will cost her nothing. She should smile, she should soften her words. If she must resist, she should do so with grace, not open disdain. I know what you feel about him, but he is the heir to the Iron Throne and such acts from her could have repercussions and I want her to be safe and protected."

Otto gave a sharp sigh and pressed his fingertips against his temple. His head throbbed from too many nights of scheming, from too many hours spent balancing on a blade's edge between duty to the king and the safety of his family.

"The King-"

Otto cut her off. "The King is old. Too old. And he is scrambling to patch wounds he left open for too long. Do you not see, Elaena? This betrothal is not kindness, nor mercy. It is a plaster, a desperate attempt to bind the cracks of his reign before it all falls apart. He thinks to secure Daemon's loyalty, to bury the whispers of Maegor's seed in Oldtown, to tighten his family's hold on the throne. He is not thinking of our daughter's happiness. He is not thinking of her safety. He is thinking only avoiding war."

Elaena flinched at the sharpness of his tone but said nothing.

The Hand of the King knew well enough what Daemon Targaryen was. He had watched the prince since he came to serve as hand, had seen the way he strutted through the Red Keep like God made of flesh, his every motion enticing and dangerous, to remind others that he was of dragon's blood. 

The smallfolk adored him, the soldiers feared him, and the court whispered endlessly about him. Rogue, they called him, for his appetite of rashness, infamous temper and desire of blood coating both of his swords. Yet Otto had always thought him something more dangerous than that, a boy who had never been told no, a man who had never been made to bow.

And now Alicent, his own daughter, had dared to say no where others had simpered.

He rubbed his temples. Gods preserve us, what if that refusal only stokes his fire? The boy was contrary enough that resistance might make him mad with desire, determined to prove to himself and all the realm that he could claim what had denied him.

Otto rose from his chair and began to pace, hands clasped behind his back, his robe whispering against the floor.  "The blood of Maegor," he muttered. That cursed legacy he was binded to.

For years, he had kept the whispers tamped down, burying them beneath courtesy and silence, along with the help of his brother and the Faith. A silver-haired girl in Oldtown was an oddity, yes, but oddities could be hidden. A Valyrian look could be explained away, a merchant's bastard, a Lysene strain, the fancy of gossips. He had thought the matter long buried.

And yet Jaehaerys, in his wisdom or his cruelty, had chosen to uncover it now. To bind it about their necks like a chain or a noose. That cursed dinner. Descendants of Maegor.

"Lady Ceryse returned to Oldtown, disgraced, shamed, discarded," Jaehaerys went on, his tone sharpened with bitterness. "Her father, Lord Manfred, never demanded her reinstatement. Curiously so, he had coveted his daughter even more, never entertaining any other suitors. His silence has haunted me all my years. I let it be, until rumors reached me of a silver-haired woman, sighted in Oldtown's streets. A whisper here, a rumor there, enough for me to send eyes to watch. And what those eyes confirmed..." He gestured with one gnarled hand toward Elaena. "Three generations of women hidden away, each bearing the marks of Valyria upon their brow. Until at last, Lady Alicent was born, with the unmistakable look of the dragonlords. Again."

The King's gaze slid to her, and for an instant, his expression softened. Then he turned back to his grandsons.

"Lady Alicent, her mother and her mother before her, and her mother before that, are the blood of Maegor Targaryen. That is the truth."

 

Otto grimaced. It was not only shame that troubled him. It was danger. For though the king's word had been clear enough, who could say what might come of such knowledge if it spread beyond the walls of the Red Keep? Maegor the Cruel was no ancestor to boast of. 

The Faith had loathed him, the lords had feared him, the commons still told tales of his wickedness. If it became widely known that his blood ran in Alicent's veins... The Hand of the King would be accused of scheming to put another doomed blood on the throne.

His thoughts churned as his words spilled, half for her and half for himself.

"Do you think I do not see it? The king's hand trembles on his cane. His council bickers more fiercely by the day. The realm holds together by little more than his will. And into this brittle moment, he throws our daughter like a scrap to feed Daemon's appetite. He calls it duty, legacy. I call it desperation. And to choose such an impetuous and irresponsible"

He stopped before the hearth, staring into its shifting flames.

"And what choice have we? None. None but to bow, to smile, to accept the weight he lays upon her shoulders. For if we refuse, if we resist, then not only will we incur the king's wrath, but the shame of her blood will be shouted from the rooftops. The blood of Maegor."

The words came out as a growl, a curse spat into the flames.

It could undo everything, his years of service, his careful climbing of the ladder of power, the security he had built for his house. If the wrong rumor took hold, all Hightower ambitions would burn to cinders.

And in the center of it all stood Alicent.

Daemon would not care, of course. The Rogue had never cared for the Faith's judgment, nor the whispers of courtiers. The son of Baelon, the grandson of Jaehaerys, would see in her cursed blood a badge of defiance. Another strike against the lords who doubted him, the septons who condemned him.

Otto clenched his jaw. Yes, the prince would want her all the more. And therein lay the danger.

If Daemon claimed her, whether by love or by scandal, what then? He would not treat her kindly, Otto had no illusions of that. A man such as the Rogue saw wives as playthings, obstacles, or trophies. Alicent would be consumed in his fire, and whatever cleverness she possessed would be ground down beneath his will.

Unless... unless she was cleverer still. Otto shook his head, forcing the thought away. He would not gamble his daughter's life upon her wit.

No. Better by far to steer Daemon's interest elsewhere, to dull the edge of his desire, to show him some richer or shinier bait. If only Viserys had an unmarried sister yet unpromised, or if Gael Targaryen still lived... but there were precious few women of pure blood left unwed. Laena was an option but it would be years before she could be of age to carry a child. That scarcity gave Alicent value she could ill afford.

Elaena's voice cracked as she finally spoke. "She is innocent of it."

"Innocence has never mattered," the Hand of the King snapped, turning to her with sudden intensity. "Do you think the Poor Fellows at the Sept cared for innocence when they tore down the royalists and loyalists of Maegor? Do you think lords care for innocence when they whisper bastardy and treason? The blood that flows in her veins will damn her in their eyes, no matter what she does. No matter what I do. And I must do more."

Elaena bowed her head, silent tears slipping down her pale cheeks.

Otto stared at her, his chest rising and falling with the force of his words. For a moment he felt the sting of guilt, but he pushed it aside. Better she weep now than later, when their daughter's fate was sealed.

Slowly, deliberately, he returned to his chair. He sat, resting his elbows on the desk, folding his hands before his mouth. His eyes narrowed, sharp with resolve.

"I will not let her be consumed," he said at last, his voice low but firm. "Daemon may hunger for her, may see her as prize, but he is reckless, unstable. If she is to be bound to him, then she must learn to temper him, to wield him as weapon rather than chain. It is the only chance she has."

Elaena lifted her tearful eyes. "But she is so young-"

"She won't be the first lady to be wed young, nor will she be the last, so is our duty and our duty we must uphold," Otto murmured, more to himself than to her. "Gods preserve me, for I play against dragons."

If the king meant to play this game, then so would he.

Daemon's boots struck the stone corridor with the heavy cadence of irritation. Each echo followed him, an accusing ghost of his temper. Two guards followed him as if he couldn't cut through them with Dark Sister with only a swing and have their heads roll on the floor.

The torches along the walls burned low, their smoke curling in slow, accusatory trails as if the Hods themselves watched him in quiet disapproval. He cared little. The Gods had done him no favors by taking both his parents from his side, and he had long ceased seeking their counsel.

He had left the Small Council chamber before the Hand's final words had even died on the air, too weary of his speeches, too sick of counsel, too choked by the scent of honeyed civility that clung to every Hightower. That cunt, that crawling, smiling serpent, was enough to test the patience of any man, let alone one like him.

Daemon grunted, his hand brushing the hilt of Dark Sister at his hip, the familiar cold of the Valyrian steel comforting him. The blade never spoke false. It was honest in its appetite. Unlike the rest of the world, it never lied. Mayhap I should visit Caraxes, I need to fly or fuck, he pondered.

He rolled his shoulders, muscles taut beneath his crimson doublet. His mind churned, restless and fouled with thoughts that refused to still. He needed to break something,  the skull of a knight, or break into a maiden. Either would suffice.

When he reached his chambers, he slammed open the door hard enough that the hinges protested.

The solar was dim save for the light spilling through the balcony doors, pressing gold hue on the banners that hung along the walls. The carved dragon motifs gleamed faintly, reminders of what blood he bore and what burden it was to carry it.

Daemon tore at his leather gloves and threw them across the chamber, their thud lost among the sounds of his boots striking the floor.

"Blasted woman," he muttered under his breath in High Valyrian, pacing.

He hated that he cared. Hated that the image of her, that silver-haired, purple-eyed chit, lingered behind his eyelids like a curse. He had sent her a gift, a piece of high value, Valyrian-forged metal wrought into delicate artistry. 

A token worthy of her blood, her looks, her future station.And the page had returned that morning with nothing but polite words.

The lady thanks the prince for his generosity.

Cold. Empty. Dismissive. Daemon stopped before the fire, glaring into the flames. His hands curled into fists.

"Does she not know how rare Valyrian steel is?" he growled to the empty room.

He kicked at the chair nearest him. It toppled, the clatter loud enough to rattle the goblets on the table. His blood heated, the familiar dragonfire rising in his chest.

Johanna Lannister, that simpering golden-haired fool, would have squealed with delight, would have kissed his hand, his mouth, his damned boots if it pleased him. She would have fallen to her knees to show her appreciation.He could ask for her maidenhead and she would part her legs of her own accord for him.

But Lady Alicent Hightower, future Princess Alicent Targaryen, had the gall to appear unimpressed if the page's words could be taken as truth.

He muttered, half to himself, half to the Gods that surely laughed at him, "A sheep would bleat with joy. But a dragoness shows her teeth."

His lips twitched, not quite a smile, not quite a snarl.

He strode to his desk, the heavy carved one of ebony and gilt that his grandsire had given him upon naming him Prince of Dragonstone. From the top drawer he drew forth a small chest lined with velvet. The hinges squeaked faintly as he opened it.

Inside, two other gifts waited, a necklace with a small pendant wrought of Valyrian steel, and a pair of earrings of the same material, two pair of rubies adorning each earring like dropplets of blood. He lifted the necklace and let it dangle from his fingers, watching how the lamplight caught in its curves.

"Perhaps she prefers gold," he muttered darkly. "Or pearls, like her mother. Something soft, something southern," he almost spat out his indignity, his bruised ego still suffering.

He set it down again with a clink and reached for the second box tucked at the back of the drawer. This one was smaller, older, its surface worn smooth by time and the touch of many hands.

Daemon's fingers trembled slightly as he lifted it. He exhaled through his nose, steadying himself, and opened the lid.

Within lay a ring, with the symbol of House Targaryen. His mother's ring. Simple, yet elegant, it was the ring for a lady's finger.

He stared at it for a long time, his throat tightening.

His father, Baelon, had given it to him the day before his first flight on Caraxes. He remembered the way his father's large, calloused hand had rested on his shoulder, the warmth of it. The way he had said, "Your mother wished this for you. She said to give it to the woman who will not fear the fire in you, only love the man beneath it."

Daemon swallowed hard. He had laughed then, brushed off the sentiment as he always did. But now, holding it, the memory burned like a coal in his chest. He blinked rapidly, pushing the sting from his eyes.

"What if she dislikes this gift also?" he whispered bitterly, closing the box.

He had never feared rejection, not from lords, not from knights, not from women. But this one -  this one made him uncertain in ways he despised. She was not like the others. She did not giggle or tremble or flatter. She looked at him as though she knew him, as though she saw every fault, every wound, and found him wanting.

The thought made his stomach twist. Why does she always look at me like that? As if I'm not what she wants?

A knock sounded at the door. He scowled and snapped the lid shut, tucking the boxes back into the drawer.

"Enter!" he barked.

The door creaked open. A serving girl stepped hesitantly inside, her head bowed low. She was dressed in the clothing of the maids who would ran up and down corridors, her dark hair in a plait, her face pain but littered with freckles.

She was a slight thing, with pouty lips and eyes that darted nervously. She held her apron in both hands, wringing the fabric as she spoke.

"Prince Daemon," she stammered, her voice barely above a whisper.

He turned his back to her, pouring himself a goblet of wine. The dark liquid sloshed near the rim, staining the cup's edge. "What is it?"

"I-I have news, my prince," she said quickly, voice trembling. "About Lady Alicent."

"Out with it." The sound of her name was enough to make his pulse quicken. He took a slow sip of wine, savoring the taste of it before replying.

The girl swallowed hard, eyes fixed on the floor. "Her-her moonsblood has arrived, My Prince. This morn I was sent to change her sheets."

The Rogue's lips curved, not into a smile, but something darker, deeper, more primal.

"Is that so?" he murmured as he set his goblet down.

The girl nodded, flustered.

He rounded his desk, opened another drawer and picked up a few coins from a pouch he kept there. The Prince of Dragonstone turned and walked to her and she flinched under the weight of his gaze. His eyes gleamed like molten amethyst, his expression unreadable.

"Very well," he said softly, almost gently as he took her hand and placed the silver coins in her palm. "You've done well. Go."

"M-m-my P-prince," she curtseyed so fast she nearly tripped over her own skirts and fled the chamber.

When the door closed, Daemon stood motionless for a moment, staring into the middle distance.

"Finally," he whispered as he walked back to the table where his goblet sat.

He took another long drink of wine, the light catching the edge of his grin.

She has flowered.

The words echoed in his skull, thrumming with a dangerous rhythm. His future wife was now, by every measure of the court, a woman grown. Fit for betrothal. Fit for marriage. Fit for him.

The dragon within him stirred. He closed his eyes, moving his head from side to side his neck popping as images of her blood coating his appendage flitted through his mind, her swollen with his child, her laying on the Myrish carpet as she played with their babe another one already growing inside of her.

He imagined her again, the proud tilt of her chin, the sharpness of her tongue, the disdain in her eyes. The way she had turned her back on him in the corridor, the way her silver hair had caught the light as she walked away.

If you can win me, you can have me, she had said.

He laughed aloud, a sound low and wicked.

"Oh, my little dragon," he murmured to the empty room, "you have no idea what you've done."