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Daemon has returned to the Red Keep as King of the narrow sea and given up his crown, but not his ambition, though it has been banked by tiredness, by a certain weariness.
The sun feels softer here, the sea-winds fresh, the scent of the city it carries is one of life and wealth and squalor. It's home, he thinks, tilting his face upwards, listening to the leaves on the godswood tree shiver.
She finds him there, where he is waiting for her to find him. She is drawn to him, as she always has been. He doesn't like to think about how he is drawn to her too, how she is one of the reasons he has returned.
She's wearing the necklace he gave her. You wear your allegiance too openly, he thinks as he picks it up, warmed from her skin. And you do not know how to hide your feelings, he adds when he sees her preen slightly.
Her admiration of him is pleasing, of course it is, but he finds himself frustrated too, by what he has seen and heard. ‘Do you have a plan, princess?’ he asks her after their pleasantries are done.
'A plan?’
'Yes, to secure your succession, your reign. Tell me, what is your plan, who are your allies, what schemes are you arranging so that the years ahead of you may run smooth?’
'You speak cruelly.’
'I speak bluntly.’
She glowers, a little sullen thing. A beautiful noble girl, a princess, an heir, chafing at her lot but doing nothing to help herself. Unless she believes inaction is action.
'Why have you not chosen a husband yet?’ he asks her in High Valyrian, passing her his wine cup and watching her sip it.
'Because I do not wish to marry.’
'And when you die? When you fall from a horse or a dragon? When you prick your finger on the throne and sicken from a blood fever?’
'Do you spend a lot of time thinking about my death, Uncle?’
'Yes,’ he says harshly.
'Because you wish the throne for yourself.’ The wine he has passed her, he sees her think then, did he sip it himself first before her? Is she sure it isn't poisoned? Her cheeks flush.
‘Good,’ he says.
‘Good, what?’ she spits back.
'You should be scared, princess, not just of me, but of everyone at court. You should be on your guard.’
'You do not need to tell me that.'
'Do I not?' he asks, leaning closer, his jaw tightening. 'I ask again, what is your plan?'
'What is yours?' she retorts.
'I have many plans. I have schemes, I have spies, I have the knowledge of the world that you lack.'
'So you have come home to be my teacher?' she asks, shifting on her heels, spoilt as any noble girl.
'You think I came back for you?'
'Yes,' she says.
He laughs. 'You think highly of yourself, princess.' He takes her hand, her soft little hand. 'Do they ever teach you how to use those jewelled daggers you are gifted? Or do they believe that since you have a dragon and a sworn sword you need no other defences?'
'Are you to teach me how to duel, uncle?' she asks, threading her fingers in his. Her grip, with its rings and slim fingers, feels tight on his weathered digits.
'Do you honestly believe that you do not have to marry, and soon?’ he asks, ‘Are you so stubborn that you do not see the way of the world? It frustrates me,' he says tightly, though he does not tighten his hand, 'it angers me to return and find you here, waiting for the world to choose what to do with you.'
'The sooner I am married, the sooner I am gotten rid of, set aside for my brothers.'
'Yes.'
She turns and drops her hands on the table with a thud that shakes silver cutlery and makes goblets clatter. 'Then why must you press me on this matter, if you already know the knot in which I am bound.'
'A gilded cage,' he agrees, lifting his amber cup, motioning to the feast laid out for only them. He looks behind him at the godswood and the doorways to the palace; they are alone for now, and, just here, under the wisteria, no one may glance out of any window to see them either.
'Do you think we do not all live in cages, princess?' he says with bite.
She turns around, facing him, her hands resting on the table behind her. 'Why are you so angry with me, uncle?'
'Why do you think?' he asks, setting his cup down close to her, crowding her. Her breath catches, her body sways but she does not nervously look over his shoulder for aid, she does not look to be saved from him. Foolish girl.
'You asked me once to kill you,' he says, voice deep.
'Shall you do it with a blunt cheese knife, uncle?' she asks, brave and foolhardy, with the madness of their line glimmering in her eyes.
'You test my patience,' he says and drops his head to her shoulder. She makes a startled noise. The skin of her neck is soft against his cheek, the brocade of her ugly dress rough on his nose.
He clutches the back of her head, tightens his fingers in her hair and presses his forehead against hers. Her breath is shallow across his face.
'You are the heir to the iron throne. The heir,' he says furiously, 'Men would kill to be in your position, they would kill their own babes in the cradle for it. The houses have all knelt to you, it is there within your grasp.'
'My brother will inherit the throne,' she replies, voice wet, angry.
'So marry a rich man and live in the gilded cage of his keep then, if you have already accepted this, if you see no other path.'
'I will not be sold off,' she grits out, 'and I will not give the throne up to you, you shall not have it.'
He kisses her then, steals her breath from her, startling her. Her lips are soft, she tastes sweet, untouched. He nips her lip as he lets her go and laughs at her outrage, her surprise, catches the hand that flies towards his cheek for a slap and then kisses the back of it for the hell of it too.
'Would you take a rogue for a husband, Rhaenyra?' he asks.
She is dumbstruck.
'I know that my offer is what you have been waiting for,' he croons. He had not meant to blurt it out like that, he had a whole scheme arranged, but the taste of her, the feel of her, disarmed him.
'It is not, I never once thought—! You have a wife.'
'She has no issue, she is ugly and horrid and I do not want her.'
'You are quite mad, Daemon,' she says, shaking her head. 'War has addled your wits.' But she will not look away from him, she is caught just like he is.
'The palace has slowed yours,' he replies darkly. 'It has dulled your brightness, your shine, your ambition. You sit here like a dragon sequestered in a narrow pit, you are stifled, you make yourself small.'
'The small council will never allow it, my father, the houses.'
'What will they allow? What will you sit in silence and accept as your lot? The problem with you, princess, is that you do not know what it is to be a second son.' He loops an arm around her waist, tugs her to him. Now that he has touched her, now that he has given in to desires long buried, it is hard to let her go. 'You do not know that you must steal what you wish from this life, you must take it.'
It is her who tips up on her toes to meet his kiss this time. Oh, it is cruel of him to make her drunk with kisses when she has never been kissed before. Pleasure, after all, is one of man's greatest motivations, sweeter and easier than revenge or ambition. And he has studied in it, pleasure, he has decades of experience.
The scuff of shoes on stone separates them quickly. She stuffs a fistful of cake in her mouth to hide her red lips as Daemon smirks into his goblet.
They make smalltalk with the court members that join them, while he steals glances across the garden at her, catching her blushes and her frowns.
The women there speak to her of babes and of sons, of their sons – strong and comely and wealthy, or good and kind and steadfast. It matters not, he sees, he knows, she does not want any of them. What she wants is something far more dangerous.
Kill me, she had said, kill me and be done with it. And he had known then there was no other path for them.
*
'What is your plan then, uncle?' she asks him the next day when they cross paths in the Red Keep.
He tugs her around a corner and behind a tapestry into a hidden alcove.
'Tell me,' he says, 'did you dream of me last night?'
'No,' she says.
'I dreamed of you,' he murmurs, stroking a thumb across her lips.
He steals a kiss.
'Your plan, ser,' she asks, bottom lip stubborn.
'It involves a trip to a brothel, are you up for that?'
'A brothel.'
'It may involve a brawl, too, and bloodshed.'
'Bloodshed.'
'Tempers fray inside brothels, men take liberties and then they pay for them.'
He sees her mind working behind her violet eyes. 'You plan to dishonour me?' Anger twists her mouth.
'I plan to let an audience of drunken revellers and whores believe you have had your honour lightly besmirched and then to make some poor man pay for it, to rescue you, and your honour.'
'Only a man would think of a plan like this. You do not know what I risk.'
'You are free to forge a better plan, princess. You are free to accept the hand of any other man.' But what choice has he left her? What other suit has she entertained?
'When are we going?'
He smiles. ‘Tonight.’
He has chosen boy's clothing to get her to the brothel in disguise because he does not want their night ending early when he cuts down any man who may glance at her lasciviously — or, more likely, gets distracted and importunes her himself in an alleyway — but once they reach their destination and have made a tour of the tamer, grubbier rooms closest to the street, the ones for those with little coin, he hands her to a whore to help change into something a little more...appropriate or, at least something that befits the spectacle he wishes to create.
When she emerges from behind the curtain, her hair is loose around bare shoulders and a gown of flame-coloured silk, far finer than any other whore here tonight, reveals far too much to the eye.
The object of his ire, he thinks, and his lust.
'This will be over in seconds with you looking like that,' he mutters.
'Should I take that as a compliment?' she asks with a sly little smile.
'Yes, you should take it as a compliment,' he murmurs against her lips, groping a hand down her back, feeling the warmth of her beneath the thin silks. 'Wait, wait,' he says, grasping the dress in his fists and rearing back.
'You there,' he says to the whore who helped her change, 'guard this door will you.'
The woman agrees, once he has pressed coin into her hand, and then he drags his niece inside the room, behind the curtain, to ravish.
'Please,' Rhaenyra is saying as he kisses her, as his hands roam her. 'Please, Daemon.'
'Gods help me, you are a torment, Rhaenyra, a torment sent from the Seven Hells.'
She tugs him by his shirt to her, she presses herself against him, making a startled moan when she feels him hot and hard through his breeches.
'Wait,' he says again, 'we cannot do this here, wait—'
'But I need you,' she says as he mouths her shoulders, her skin soft as silk. The smell of her, her noises, how has he resisted for so long.
He drops to his knees and pushes her into a seat, scrabbles at her skirts to push them up and up, sucking at each new patch of skin bared, tugging down her smallclothes and lifting her hips up so that his mouth may meet her cunt.
She whines like an animal caught, she pulses beneath his tongue, hot and wet and tight. Her fingers hurt his scalp where they tug at his hair and the pain feels good, the pain feels right. And when she climaxes, her body shudders with such violence he is almost smothered.
And what a sweet death that would be, he thinks with a chuckle as he presses a last open kiss on her cunt and sits back on his heels, panting for breath.
She looks a beautiful wreck and her face— wonder, pleasure, mixes with a kind of outrage.
'I did not know,' she says breathlessly.
'Did not know what, princess?' He adjusts himself beneath his breeches, it is not time for him to take his pleasures yet. Sometimes he enjoys anticipation, sometimes he isn't solely led by the heat of the sudden moment.
'That a woman could....that it was like that.'
He lifts up to kiss her for that, and she does not squirm away from the taste of herself.
'That, and much more to come, dearest niece.'
'I want it now,' she says stubbornly.
'I have created a monster,' he groans and then lifts her from the seat. 'Now,' he says, as her weak hands try to smooth down her hair. 'Now, let us do what we set out to do and the quicker we can be back at the Keep.'
'The quicker we can be wed,' she says.
'Yes, wedded, and bedded.'
'What is the plan?'
'For your bedding?' he smirks, hand drifting to her side.
'No, yes. Daemon,' she stamps her foot. He is so charmed.
'The plan is that I find a man foolish enough to see a maiden of silver hair and think it is his right to touch her in a crowded room of a brothel. Then, I shall cut off his hand and rescue you. And perhaps maim some of his companions too. Perhaps I shall kill everyone in the room who looks at you, wearing this.'
She is so warm in his arms and her eyes are dark with greed. She wants and she wants and she wants.
Matters proceed just as he described. A touch, a hand severed, a brawl. Mayhem and shouts and fire and his niece watching him stake his bloodied claim on her.
Perhaps they will sing a song of this, the smallfolk, he thinks as he gathers a cloak around her and lifts her up to mount the saddle of his horse. That would please him. It would please her too, his princess and her books and stories.
She shivers in his arms, trembles, as they ride towards the Keep behind two of his gold cloaks he trusted to help usher them out of the brothel. 'Are you well?' he asks her.
'Yes,' she says, and clutches the arm braced around her.
'That was the true excitement of the evening, the rest of it will contain many tedious arguments and much hand-wringing from your father and the small council. How they will rage in their cowardly, weak way. How they will strike me down with words.' He laughs. He lies in part of course, there is excitement, a thrill, for him in what is to come, in stealing a daughter from Viserys, in enraging him. Oh, brother, you should not have welcomed me back with open arms.
'Sedition, Your Grace,' the odious hand of the king mutters furiously in the council room where the scene takes place. Daemon might have preferred the throne room for some added grandiosity, but the looks of horror on the men's faces, on his brother's face, are spectacular enough.
'I came to her rescue, Otto,' Daemon replies. 'I saved the girl and her virtue.'
'You could have secreted her from there quietly, under cover, instead you created a spectacle,' the King roars.
'When is the last you visited Flea Bottom, brother? You have no idea of the dangers there, the cut-throats. The heir to the throne was in their grasp.'
'And now what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do when word of the princess's visit to a brothel spreads across the city and the court like wildfire?'
'Send her away, Your Grace,' the Master of Laws says.
'I shall send you away, Harrenhal. I shall send you away,' Viserys hisses back.
His brother is a wreck, Daemon thinks with no small manner of delight. He has unmanned him completely.
'She was only curious, brother. A girl of her age, sheltered, kept apart from others.'
'She has had men paraded in front of her,' the King says, hitting his palm on the table. 'Dozens of them, comely no doubt, rich, powerful, fawning over her. And she chooses to go to a brothel?'
'You would prefer she makes a match with a nobleman fuelled by a sudden whim of passion? Let herself be captured by a family with a smirking knight for a son?'
'I would prefer that she stay chaste.'
'Wed her to me,' Daemon declares and the room is silenced. 'Wed her to me. When I offered up my crown, you said I could have anything. I want Rhaenyra, I'll take her as she is and wed her in the traditions of our house. Give me Rhaenyra to wife and I will protect her.' Let me return the House of Dragon to its proper glory, brother.
The room explodes in outrage, in mutters of fury and astonishment. Viserys shakes his head as he stares at Daemon, his grimace so tortured it might make Daemon laugh at any other time except when what he has wished for so long hangs in the balance.
'You know it is the wisest course, brother,' he says.
'You have a wife, my prince,' the bore Mellos calls out.
'The King's word is truth and law. He may set her aside for me.'
'This is against all good judgement, this alliance will tear the realm apart—'
'Get out, all of you,' Viserys declares. He looks sick, and old, twisted with anger.
'I will care for her, I will protect her, brother,' Daemon says, coming closer once the room is emptied.
He thinks of Rhaenyra waiting for him in her chambers where she has been barricaded (but then, they do not know about the secret passageway, do they, and that a locked door has never stopped Daemon).
'You are behind this, I know it,' Viserys says.
'Behind what? My men told me where she was and I came to her aid as quick as I could.'
'You think me a fool.'
'If I thought you were a fool, I would not kneel for you, I would not give up my crown.'
'You gave up your crown for a chance at a better one.'
'Does it not please you to think of my sword by her side? You know she could have no fiercer champion.'
'You will be her ruin, the realm's ruin.' An angry sob catches in his throat. 'My only daughter, Daemon.'
'She wishes to wed me.'
'She desires many things, it seems,' he says bitterly.
Oh, yes.
'Naturally,' Viserys says, 'you made sure to make the greatest of spectacles with your arrival at the brothel, your brawl, you risked her reputation to make sure that all knew that silver-haired Prince Daemon was there to retrieve her, you tied her to you. This is your blackest scheme, Daemon, and I shall never forgive you for it.'
'Not even when she gives you silver-haired grandchildren?'
Viserys punches him for that, a blow that knocks him to the ground.
But it's worth it, and the ache in his jaw is worth it when he finds his way to her chambers later that night, secure in the knowledge that their match will be announced on the morrow and their wedding will take place within the moon.
And if one of those silver-haired babes arrives a moon early later this year, then so be it, he thinks as she runs to him with and he takes her up in his arms.
'You were gone too long,' she murmurs crossly as she kisses him, nipping at his lips now.
'I had to duel a roomful of men for the pleasure of your hand.'
'You did not duel the small council,' she says, as he carries her over to her bed. Her maidenly bed where she has lain awake at nights and sighed and wished for a man to ravish her, he imagines.
'Your father punched me.'
'He did?' She sits up on her knees and frowns at the red mark on his cheek that will soon become a bruise. She places a kiss on it. 'He was very cross with me too. But he didn't threaten to exile me or disinherit me,' she adds, sly and pleased.
He pushes her back to the bed, enjoys her huff of shock at the speed of his movement. 'Then my plan worked, didn't it?'
'Our plan,' she argues as he tugs his shirt over his head, as he pulls down his breeches with haste.
Her hands reach for him but he will sup at her cunt again first. He tears her dress in two, the flimsy silk good for that, and barely takes a moment to feast on the sight of her, bare, pale, trembling in want for him, before his mouth descends on her tits first, laving one nipple after the other, groping them with his hands as his mouth descends to the sound of her moans, down to the heat between her legs.
He uses his fingers too this time, fitting them inside of her, curling and stroking and bringing her off under his hungry mouth.
She pulls him up by his hair and he groans, settles himself between her legs while she wriggles underneath him. He kisses her when he takes her, swallows her gasps, her cries. There now, he thinks, she is mine.
'Is it good, princess?' he murmurs as he thrusts, as her fingers dig into his back. He grits his teeth on the pleasure of her, tight and warm and wet. He wants her to come twice again before he does, before he can spill his seed inside of her. Gods.
'Yes,' she whines, to his question, to his filthy words about how she feels, about what he will do.
'You'll take my ring, you'll have my babes,' he grunts, hoisting her legs higher around him.
'And I'll keep my throne,' she gasps, biting her nails into his skin.
He laughs richly. 'Yes, you'll have it all.'
'And you'll wear my crown, as King Consort,' she pants after her first climax.
'Your crown?' He lets himself be pushed over, lets her climb him like a dragon – or, not, quite, he thinks and laughs to himself. She hears his laugh and frowns, fits one of her little hands around his neck as she rides him.
'My crown, my throne, my husband,' she says, sing-song, and he groans deep and clasps it there, his larger hand over hers.
'Now where did you learn that, princess? Did you see that in the brothel?'
'Learn what?'
'This,' he pulses his grip.
'You gave me a necklace that I have worn for many years, it is your turn now.'
Her grip could never harm him, it barely even has an effect on his breath, but he lets her feel her power over him. He lets her use him for her pleasure, conquer him for just a moment until he climaxes too.
In the aftermath, he kisses her, rearranges her to his liking in bed so that he make stroke his hand down her side, press kisses to her shoulders, play with her hair. He tells her about the meeting with the small council, putting on voices, mocking the men to make her laugh and laugh.
'They will turn purple with anger at your wedding, all the lords will. And the maidens will quiver with jealousy at your fine dress and how handsome your husband is.'
She bats his hand away, laughing.
'I've missed your laughter,' he says.
'As have I,' she replies.
He runs a finger down her nose. 'Do you know,' he confesses suddenly, 'I made a promise to your mother once, days before she perished.’
'What promise did you make?’ Rhaenyra asks.
'I promised…’ he huffs a breath, ‘I promised to protect you.’
'And yet you have spent more years abroad than here with me.’
'That is your first response to what I tell you?'
'I am not surprised that my mother was protective of me, that she loved me,' she says in a small voice then and he drags her under him to comfort her, smooths a thumb across her cheek.
'Of course she loved you,' he says and kisses the spot where his thumb stroked. 'But do you not think it strange a woman may ask such a thing, fearing death, that she may ask her daughter’s uncle for protection? Why would she not trust her husband?’
'She knew he would be blind with grief.’
'No, she knew the way of things, that the King would remarry and be soft to his new wife, that he would have sons by another woman and those sons would supplant you. That you would be merely chattel to be sold to the highest bidder.’
Rhaenyra frowns.
Why does she need my protection? he had asked Aemma that day in her chambers when one of her closest ladymaids had come to fetch him to her with a glower. Your daughter is the delight of the realm, the joy of your husband.
She is a girl. And he is a king.
Why do you think I am the man to ask? he said, letting a hint of scorn into his voice. Have you forgotten that I am the heir to the throne, that your daughter may stand in my way?
Protect her, Aemma said. And you protect yourself.
You’re a mad woman, Aemma, your head full of birthing fevers.
A woman tastes death at birth, do you know that? She groaned as she tried to find a comfortable position on the daybed. She feels both worlds meet within her.
I taste death on the battlefield, at the lists. I mete it out too.
So you know the clarity it brings, the savage animal clarity, she said, and then her face washed pale, one of her hands clutched the other.
Shall I fetch a maester? Women thick with child made him nervous. He should not have been there. He looked to the door but she grabbed his hand. Her flesh was clammy, sickly.
This child may be a girl, it may not survive. Neither may I.
You have survived every other birth, he said, offering awkward comfort.
Will you promise me you will do this, Daemon? she asked.
You know you cannot trust my promises, Aemma. You know I am a liar. And furthermore, he said, what you ask for is...impossible.
It is tradition, she replied with a dark humour.
And I have always been the most traditional of men, he replied sardonically.
You love your family. And you are ambitious.
And you need your rest, Aemma, he had said, standing up, readying to leave her.
I know she delights you, Daemon, she called out with a shake in her voice. I know that you both share a wildness of spirit. So, think of this not as a promise you make to me, but permission I give to you. Gods know it, my husband will never give it to you willingly.
What you suggest would tear this court asunder, he said at the door.
She smiled, a grimace of teeth. Then her features smoothed, softened, she became a lady once more. After this birth, when I hold my son in my arms, we shall not speak of this conversation again.
Of course, Your Grace.
He tells Rhaenyra a softer version of what her mother said but he can tell she does not quite believe it. Who would believe Aemma would suggest a marriage like that?
'You do not have to lie and pretend that this is my mother's scheme, Daemon, or that she would have given her blessing.'
'She was fond of me, you know,' he jests defensively, 'she didn't loathe me.'
'But I like thinking that she knew that you would protect me.'
'I will.'
'You will protect me with one hand and endanger me with the other,' Rhaenyra says knowingly, rolling atop of him, looking pleased when he groans at the passage of her own hand down his body. 'You're dangerous, Daemon, you have a chaos inside of you, a fire.'
'Like calls to like, my love,' he replies, fitting himself inside of her cunt, pushing her down on him so she whines.
He sits up, gathers her to him as she rides him, as he bucks his hips up and up.
'You and I will rule the Seven Kingdoms,' he tells her, 'we will usher in a new reign of the house of the dragon, and no one, man nor god, will stop us.'
'Who would dare stop a dragon?' she agrees.
Perhaps, he admits later, when he drags himself back to his chambers just before dawn light, well-had, bitten and bruised, happy, he was lying to himself when he imagined his ambition was banked even a little bit. Perhaps he just needed the spark of her to remember it.
Rhaenyra is happy too, as she bathes before the day, smiling as her ladymaids ignore the marks upon her, from mouth and fingers and from the thrust of battle-hardened muscles.
It is as she planned it, she thinks, and she did not even have to beg him to return to court. He did that himself, and brought a crown too.
Oh, she is not naive, he is not a knight from a children's song, pure and brave and good, honourable. He is something better. Valyrian steel made flesh, a dragon, a scoundrel, a taker of maidenhoods, her dearest uncle, and the only husband she ever wished for.