Chapter Text
For most of Rhaenyra’s life, the only person who speaks with her in Valyrian is Daemon. Her father knows the language but rarely uses it; the dragonkeepers keep her lady Syrax well fed and well kept, but they are not conversationalists. With Daemon, Rhaenyra talks of the chill of the wide open sky and the musty smell of the library and the fact that Otto Hightower's doublet is the color of mashed peas. It is a language full of laughter and light, and when he leaves for the Free Cities after being dismissed as Master of Coin, Rhaenyra has no one to speak their language to. The Red Keep seems a little bit darker.
He is gone for two months before the first letter arrives. It is penned in Valyrian letters, and clearly in Daemon’s hand. His Common script is often sloppy, but he takes care to write while using the letters of their forebears.
Rhaenyra reads the letter out loud, and the keep seems a little bit brighter.
She has no way to reply to him. The letter says he is traveling and no raven will know where to find him. But she has much to say to him, so she writes a reply anyway, telling him about Laenor’s first dragon flight on Seasmoke (at age twelve, a full five years later than she herself had first flown), and her mother’s ill health, and that Dreamfyre has laid a clutch of eggs. She tells him she misses him and scratches it out even though he’ll never read it.
The next letter comes two weeks after the first. Daemon is in Lys. A letter came to her father as well, this time, and one of the men on the Small Council makes a comment about the beautiful silver-haired ladies Daemon must be entertaining. Something strange squirms in Rhaenyra’s stomach at the thought of her uncle entertaining women with silver hair the same way the men entertain the women in the king’s tapestries.
The letter he sent her does not speak of silver-haired beauties other than her. He asks how she fares, though of course she cannot get an answer back to him. He tells her that he dove from a cliff into the stormy seas that surround the island, and that he misses her daily.
Her return letter, again unsent, tells him the same.
She gets a letter from Volantis (red priests sacrifice a heretic to their god, and bow as one to Caraxes), from Norvos (he passed through Ghoyan Drohe on the way, a city the dragons had destroyed at the height of Old Valyria, and in Norvos he got into some trouble with the bearded priests when he did not follow the schedule of their bells, though he did not mention what he should not have been doing), and finally from Braavos. He would be staying at the Sealord’s palace for his stay, he told her.
Though it feels like an invitation to write, Rhaenyra does not send the first letter she writes, nor the second. She finally sends the third, a teasing missive that does not hold the yearning for adventure of her own that the first had, or the yearning to hear his voice that the second had. Did Caraxes kill lizard-lions in the Rhoyne? Did he eat that bearded priest? She saves the other two letters in the same small box with the rest of her replies, and his own carefully written missives.
Another letter does not arrive until her fourteenth nameday. Her mother is with child, her father announces to the Small Council that morning, and his smile is as happy as it ever is when he believes the queen to be expecting his long-desired heir. When word from Daemon arrives, it comes with a tired, dusty traveler, who says he rode from Storms End when his ship was delayed in order to be here on this day and no later. He gives the king a roll of parchment and a bundle wrapped in travel-stained cloth to Rhaenyra. Her father orders a servant to see to the messenger, and both she and Viserys turn to what Daemon has sent them.
Beneath the cloth is a carved wooden box, made of ebony polished to such a shine that looked like dragonglass. On the top of the box is an inlay of golden satinwood in the shape of a dragon. She runs her fingers across the wings. Not just any dragon. Syrax.
She opens the box. There is a small roll of parchment inside, sealed with a blob of wax impressed with Daemon’s seal. Before she can take the letter out, her father says, “A truly joyous day, Otto! My brother is returning.”
Rhaenyra’s eyes shoot to her father. She can see Otto’s face as well, for he is at her father’s side as always. He does not seem nearly as excited as Viserys at the prospect.
“A happy day,” Otto says, his voice strained.
Viserys laughs. “It’s not as bad as all that! We’ll only have to keep him busy.”
Rhaenyra had heard hours worth of Otto’s thoughts on keeping Daemon busy, but she does not let him speak this time. “When does he return, Father?”
“He flies from Braavos to Pentos, and then to Kings Landing. We shall expect him within a fortnight.”
Two more weeks, she thinks, and excuses herself from her father and the Hand.
When she gets back to her chambers, she opens the box again, and then the small roll of parchment. There are few words written there, but they are enough to set her heart thumping with some indescribable feeling.
Daemon’s careful hand had spelled out in Valyrian, “With love.”
Daemon is to command the City Watch. Her father meets him at the Dragonpit upon his arrival, the Blood Wyrm screeching his approach, but the queen has had a rough morning and Rhaenyra cannot bear to leave her side with her looking wan and pained.
“Do you not wish to greet your uncle?” Aemma asks her.
“My uncle,” Rhaenyra says with her chin tipped up proudly, “may come greet me.”
Except he doesn’t.
She expects him at dinner, but he does not come. She worries that her father has already somehow banished him again, but when she inquires, Viserys says only that he believes Daemon has taken to his new role as Commander of the City Watch the way a dragon takes to the skies.
Aemma recovers slowly over the next four days, her color returning and her stomach settling as the babe in her belly grows. Rhaenyra tells her she thinks it is a girl, a Visenya to claim Dark Sister after Daemon has gone gray and feeble. This makes Aemma laugh, delighted.
“I cannot imagine Daemon gray or feeble,” she says. “Nor anyone prying Dark Sister from his hands while there is life left in him.”
Rhaenyra does not joke about her sister claiming his sword anymore. She finds she does not like the idea of her uncle—vital, vibrant, fiery—lifeless by reason of age or death.
Daemon is home but not here, and Rhaenyra finds it maddening. His presence she sees in small things—a Norvoshi prayer bell her mother hangs to catch the wind from the balcony door, the tightness around Otto’s eyes that grows with each mention of the funds Daemon has been allocated for his Watch project, her father’s good mood. Viserys is always happier when his brother comes home—until he inevitably gets angry and sends him away again. Daemon is in everyone she sees, but why has he not come to her?
She wants to stomp her foot and demand his presence as she had at the age of six or, she thinks, almost embarrassed, even one-and-ten. He had always indulged her when she was a girl, bringing her beautiful trinkets from his travels, whether he went to Maidenpool and brought back a hand-painted doll or all the way to a cursed dead city near Qarth, returning with a piece of ancient shattered stone, the shape of a shooting star engraved by a hand long dead. She had always been the first person he greeted on his return, sometimes even before he saw the king. Had he grown too busy for her? Had her letter to him been too glib and offended him? Was he too no longer interested in her now that a son was on the way?
That at least she couldn’t believe. Her uncle guarded his status as Viserys’ heir greedily, despite never showing interest in administration or producing heirs for the kingdom that might be his one day.
It has been more than a year since she has seen him, their longest separation since she was old enough to remember. He had spent two years in the Vale when she was but a toddler. Her first memory is of his return, of him kneeling to meet her, his eyes soft. “Rytsas, darilaros.” Her heart had leapt to see him, though she had not known he’d cradled her to his chest when she was a babe or that he had been the one to bring her the carved wooden dragon she rocked back and forth on, pretending to fly. All she’d known was his starlight hair and the love in his voice.
When Alicent meets her in the godswood, seven days after her uncle’s arrival, her first words are, “There’s a fight in the yard,” in a hushed voice that spoke of scandal.
“That’s what the yard is there for,” Rhaenyra replies, but is intrigued despite herself.
“An honor duel, between Ser Rennifer Wylde and your uncle Prince Daemon.”
Daemon is here. Rhaenyra shoots to her feet, feeling like the stomping child of one-and-ten, but having no will to stop it. She takes Alicent’s arm and pulls her from the godswood, the other girl objecting too lightly to really mind being pulled away.
The clanking of swords greets them as they approach the yard. Men-at-arms are always at work here, or play even, rolling around like boys in the dirt. But even before seeing the fighters in this honor duel, as Alicent had called it, Rhaenyra knows this was different. There is a hush over the spectators in the yard, and everyone stands far back. The clanging of steel even sounds different, it’s song sharper, like high notes of a melody piercing morning fog.
Daemon fights with Dark Sister. The Valyrian steel shines in the pale morning sun as he swings. His hair is pulled back in a braid and he wears the black and red of House Targaryen, and though Daemon loves to fight, there is something strained and serious in the set of his jaw. His eyes are flinty.
Rhaenyra is surprised. Generally, it is Daemon challenged to duels of honor. One look at his face says that wasn’t the case here.
They came too late to see the fighting. Daemon has Wylde to the ground in three moves, the man choking out that he yields, that he apologizes, that he asks for mercy from his prince.
A smile curves Daemon’s lips, dark and angry. She thinks he will cleave Wylde open with his sword, slake Dark Sister’s thirst for blood. Her heart pounds, but not from fear.
Then he steps back. “You are fortunate, ser, that I hesitate to shed blood in front of maidens. You should thank the princess for her presence.”
Ser Rennifer thanks her for her presence, begs her pardon, begs her mercy. Daemon looks on, the amusement in his gaze nothing like the laughter they have shared together. There is something dark in his eyes, murderous almost, but still, she is not afraid. There is no part of him that would hurt her. She knows it as she knows her own breath, trusts it as she trusts her bond with Syrax.
Wylde is still begging mercy. She looks to him instead of her uncle. “Rise, ser,” she tells Wylde. “Be at ease.”
He scrambles to his feet, collects his sword from the dust, and jumbles thanks again as he goes. She wonders what she missed. It is clear that Daemon has not just beaten him; he has been humiliated.
It is only once Wylde has gone that Rhaenyra steps toward Daemon. He knew the moment she set foot in the yard, it seems, but he’s yet to look at her, taking his time sheathing Dark Sister.
“Good morrow, Uncle. Do you often make sport of men for breakfast?”
He laughs, as bright a sound as Dark Sister’s song, and finally looks at her. The darkness is not quite gone from his eyes, but the anger is, and the flint has softened.
He smiles at her. “Rytsas, darilaros,” he greets, and something inside her blooms, hot and wanting.
He is always the most vibrant thing she sees, whether in sunlight or shadow, but in the sun he is beautiful. His hair is longer than when he left, and he seems taller, somehow, though it is her who has grown in the last two years. Or perhaps not taller, but more solid, like if she took hold of him, she could keep hold forever.
And she wants that, with an intensity that startles her. She wants to run her hands through his hair, to grip the leather of his doublet and press his body close to hers and—
Her breathing is too heavy. Is she flushed? Beside her Alicent asks, “Are you well, princess?” and Rhaenyra can barely stand to look at Daemon, in case he can see the thoughts on her face.
“Very well,” she says. Her voice does not shake. She meets Daemon’s gaze. “Only sad to have missed the excitement.”
She cannot read the look in his eyes, but it does not match his easy smile. “I’m quite sure there shall be more excitement around here soon enough.”
“How not, with our rogue prince returning?”
He laughs again. “I must beg the pardon of you ladies. My duties keep me from the Red Keep more often than not, and I must return to them.”
“You came only to duel Ser Rennifer?” Rhaenyra asks, wondering if he can hear the disappointment in her voice.
Of course he can. He takes a step closer to her. “I’m never far, zaldritsos.”
He had not called her little dragon in years. She had missed it in truth, until this very moment. She was not so little, not anymore.
“I wish you luck with your watchmen,” she says primly. “Alicent and I shall leave you to it.”
She turns on her heel and he does not call out for her to stop. Alicent walks beside her back into the keep. Rhaenyra does not know where she is going, only knows she must be far away from her uncle, who thinks her still a little girl.
“Your uncle is very handsome.” Alicent whispers it like it’s a secret, as though every woman who looks upon him cannot see it.
Do they all feel as she does, warm inside, and as though her heart might beat out of her chest? No, she thinks, they cannot possibly feel this way, as though his blood calls to hers.
“Is it not a shame he and his lady wife are so… estranged?”
His lady wife. The heat turns to anger. “His wife was not of his choosing.” Her voice is harsh even to her own ears, but she does not want to mellow it. “Perhaps if he had a better one, the estrangement would not be thus.”
With that she leaves Alicent, who is already speaking apologies for speaking ill of the prince, and climbs the stairs to her chambers.
Rhaenyra closes and bars the door behind her. She feels too much, and all too suddenly. She stands in the middle of the room and is surprised when tears bloom in her eyes.
Has she always felt this way, and just not known what it was? Had the feeling grown into something else with her womanhood? Or had it struck her anew when she saw his face in the sunlight?
A part of her wants to crawl into her bed and sob. But she does not. She goes to the box Daemon had sent to her, and empties the contents on her bed. She had placed all his letters inside, five from the last year and a half, and the single line he’d sent on her birthday. With love. She reads them, and feels her heart ache. She reads her own, and knows that it ached then too, when she scrawled that she missed him and then crossed it out, embarrassed of her feelings even alone with them.
Rhaenyra has lived her life knowing she would one day be wed to a brother. He has been too long in coming; she should have been betrothed by now, if not wed, but the first boy who would have been her king never drew breath, and two more arrived too early in welters of blood, barely formed, but sons. She has always been meant to marry her father’s heir.
Daemon is his heir.
She lets herself think about it. Not wedding a boy with shadows where his face might be, but wedding Daemon. She cannot bring to mind the image of the two of them in the sept, so she pictures them joining hands beneath the branches of the weirwood, or on rocky Dragonstone, making offerings of fire and blood to the gods of Old Valyria. He would take her face between his palms and kiss her, and his eyes would see only her.
Then she puts the letters away, and snaps the box shut.