Chapter Text
The sea wind howled against the gray stone of Dragonstone’s western wing, rattling the shutters and whipping autumn’s early leaves into a frenzied dance. Despite the weather being dull and gray outside, the temperatures have been rather confusing. One morning it was warm and humid, the next absolutely insolent and cold. Today was of the latter, crisp and yet they had wind that bit. Inside the castle, the warmth of the manor was preserved by flickering hearths and the chaos that seemed to follow Alicent Hightower wherever she went.
She galloped up the gravel drive astride a chestnut mare. Her skirts were bunched indecently about her knees, riding boots muddied, copper hair unpinned and flying. One of the younger stable boys rushed to take the reins, but she was already halfway off the saddle before the horse had even stopped.
"Where is the steward?" she called for Ryam Redwyne, storming into the manor with all the grace of a tempest.
"Helping Joselyn with the bag of potatoes, Miss Hightower," replied an exhausted Elinor Stokeworth, the only maid that Dragonstone had left. She was carrying a tray of spilled jam on one hand, the other full of draped covers.
"Tell him the sheep is on the roof again,” Alicent huffed, pinching at the bridge of her nose. It was not even noon yet. “And not just any sheep. Lady Fluffington, Eli.” Her voice snapped, patience wearing thin. “She’s bleating like a soprano at the opera."
“Oh,” Elinor paled. Underneath her voice, she replied in dread, “Not Lady Fluffington.”
Alicent knew Elinor would understand the moment the sheep’s name was mentioned. She turned to her, lips pulled into a thin line, though her maid’s expression almost made her want to chuckle. “Indeed. Please see to it that Ryam brings her down.. Immediately.”
Elinor nodded, and rushed inside in quick steps. “Yes, my lady,” she muttered before disappearing.
Inside, Dragonstone was lived-in and sprawling. With threadbare rugs in some places and fine crystal in others, one would think it was a blend of grandeur and eccentricity that mirrored Alicent herself. Dogs barked in the hall (she had several, but her favorite was Caraxes), and the scent of baking bread clashed with the pungent aroma of sea salt and ink from the study where she kept her correspondence.
Despite it all, Alicent absolutely loved it.
Once the daughter of Otto Hightower, Viserys Targaryen’s closest friend and sister to a brother lost young, Alicent had known loss early. Her mother died before she could even speak and by the time she was twelve, she had no family left. After a tragic carriage accident that took away her father and older brother, Viserys and Aemma had taken her in as their ward, raising her as one of their own within these windswept halls.
She had grown up within these walls, long before she was old enough to ride astride or order the steward about. She owed it all to Viserys and Aemma; It was Viserys who took her in, fulfilling a promise made to Otto, and it was Aemma who softened the blow of grief. They raised her as their own, never once treating her as a burden. Even when Aemma finally conceived, they did not cast her aside.
But the joy was shortlived. Aemma’s health declined after a difficult miscarriage, and Alicent – still barely past girlhood herself – nursed her through those final days with a quiet determination. Viserys began to unravel not long after. His grief, combined with a long ignored illness of his own, began to dull the fire in him. Alicent, already practiced in tending wounds and managing moods, found herself caring for him too. She coaxed him into meals, managed his affairs and tracked every shift in his breathing like it was her own.
There was no time to mourn nor falter. If Dragonstone was to survive, someone had to take up the reins, and so she did.
She knew every creaking floorboard, every leaking gutter, every crooked ledger. She’d memorized the rhythms of the tides and the quirks of the tenants. She had built something from the bones of loss.
This was her home and she had bled for it. The last thing she’d ever do was fail Dragonstone.
*
Across the Narrow Sea in Lys, Daemon Targaryen sat in a sun drenched salon, sipping tea.
Laena Velaryon lounged beside him, recounting news of her brother’s trip to Braavos, while a breeze stirred sheer curtains around them. A tray of delicate biscuits lay untouched while they laughed at the troubles Laernor found himself in. Their conversation flowed as the day progressed until a loud knock came, unannounced.
Daemon groaned, rolling his eyes as Laena gave him a comical grin. "Unless you’ve brought a title and a castle, I’m not interested."
“I should go anyway,” Laena said lightly, brushing a palm over the front of her soft blue frock. “My husband will be looking for me soon if I’m not back before dusk.”
He leaned back in the carved chair, swirling the last sip of his tea. “Send Cole my regards,” he said with a half smirk. “And tell him I’m still prettier.”
She snorted. “You’re insufferable.”
“I try.”
The sound of approaching footsteps cut through their banter, another knock echoing inside the salon. Finally, a servant appeared in the doorway, face unusually tense.
“My lord,” the servant murmured. “You have a visitor.”
Daemon glared at him, as well as the man who Daemon assumed have knocked prior. He didn't recognize him but whatever business brought him here, Daemon had a feeling it wouldn’t be fun dealing with. “I am not blind,” he scoffed at them, momentarily distracted by Laena who tapped him gently on the shoulder.
“Try not to bite them,” she gave him a pointed glare before making her exit.
Daemon finally turned his attention to the man. "Your grace," he bowed his head slightly. "I'm a solicitor from King's Landing." He wore the black doublet and crimson sash of King’s Landing’s legal court. His face was weathered, expression carved from solemnity. He bowed with stiff precision, his gaze flicking briefly to the servant, motioning for him to leave.
“My lord,” Daemon corrected him. "My brother was the duke, hence the title of 'your grace' belonged to him."
The solicitor did not answer, but began once they were left with privacy. “I bring grave news.”
Daemon arched a brow, sinking back to his chair. When the solicitor didn’t answer, he beckoned, “Well go on. I don’t have all day.” He reached for his empty cup, reaching for brandy from the other table instead.
“Your brother, His Grace Viserys… has passed.”
The room shifted.
The sunlight didn’t dim, the air didn’t still, but something inside Daemon froze all the same. His cup landed on the saucer with a quiet clink. The usual sharp retort hovered at the edge of his tongue, but it withered before it could form.
“How?” he asked, voice lower than usual.
“Peacefully, we believe. In his sleep.”
He and Viserys had once been inseparable, two silver haired boys running wild through Dragonstone’s halls, finishing each other’s sentences and starting each other’s fights. Viserys had been the elder, the steadier one, the dreamer with a taste for scrolls and history. Daemon had been the firebrand: reckless, loud, and impossible to ignore. They were a matched set in youth and for a time, the world bent to make room for them both.
But time had a way of carving cracks between even the closest brothers. Viserys grew into his responsibilities with quiet dignity, marrying Aemma, preparing for the dukedom. Daemon kept running towards glory, mischief, and everything that didn’t involve stillness or succession.
They’d quarreled often by the end. Over decisions, family prestige, sometimes even over nothing. Daemon couldn’t even remember what the final fight was about, only that it ended with his brother’s voice weary and disappointed, and a slammed door that stayed shut for years.
He hadn’t been there for him when news of Aemma’s death came and now, there would be no chance to ever be there for him.
The solicitor cleared his throat gently, piercing at the thoughts that ran through Daemon’s mind. “Per the king’s will and existing inheritance laws, Dragonstone is yours. As is the dukedom and all lands, holdings, and responsibilities therein.”
Daemon rose to his feet slowly. His fingers flexed against the carved wood of the chair.
“I haven’t seen the place in years,” he murmured, voice trailing off. After a long silence, he blinked, exhaled, and said flatly, “I suppose I should pack.”
*
Back at Dragonstone, the letter came sealed in black wax and carried the chill of bad news. Alicent stood in the sunlit hallway, the edges of the parchment trembling slightly between her fingers.
“He’s what?” she said, voice too loud for the quiet morning.
Alfador, the butler – ninety if he was a day and still clinging stubbornly to formality, gave her a long, wheezing sigh as he adjusted his spectacles. He had the posture of a weathered grandfather clock and a habit of dozing off mid-sentence if one wasn't quick. Most of the days, Alicent was doing more of his job than he was. However, like her, Dragonstone had been his home his entire life and she didn’t have the heart to send him away.
Where else would he go?
“The new Duke, my lady. Daemon Targaryen. He’ll be arriving by carriage,” Alfador croaked, blinking up at her, as if she didn’t understand the letter that brought the news. “Day after next.”
“Yes, I understood that, but–” Alicent blinked down at the parchment as if it might rearrange its message into something more sensible. But the envelope was from King’s Landing and the wax, of royal seal. This was a royal order from the King.
She folded the letter too roughly, the crease cracking through the wax.
“Daemon Targaryen never cared about the former Lord,” she snapped. “He doesn’t know Dragonstone the way we do. He probably doesn’t even know where the kitchens are.”
Alfador hesitated, then gave a small bow. “Nevertheless, my lady, it is now his land.”
She turned sharply on her heel, the hem of her riding skirt catching on a low table as she stormed off. Her boots struck the stone like a war drum, and her dogs, led as always, by Caraxes, followed in a noisy clatter of claws.
“This is my estate,” she muttered stubbornly under her breath, more to herself than to Alfador. “He just happens to own it.” The words tasted like iron, bitter and defiant.
The sea wind shrieked louder through the cracks of the castle, as if echoing her challenge. It rattled the windows, pulled at the old curtains and moaned down the hall like a beast waking from slumber. She felt it in her chest that the sea was trying to tell her of an ancient warning or a dare. She wasn’t sure which.
Let him come, she thought grimly. Let the new and mighty Duke Daemon Targaryen see what he’s inherited.
Her stomach twisted. She’d always assumed Daemon never cared. Not once had he visited in all the years Viserys had wasted away in these halls. Not even when Aemma died and not when Viserys still wrote to him. She once snuck a letter and read it, feeling for how lonely he was. He was grieving, breathless with age– and yet he still wrote to Daemon. Letters that always went unanswered.
She’d quietly hated him for it, if she was being honest. She also hated the way Viserys spoke of him, always with fondness, as if he were still the little boy who snuck sweets from the kitchens and swore he'd never leave his brother's side. Most importantly, she hated the ache it left behind, because Viserys had loved him, missed him, and he suffered for it right until the very end. And now he would be coming, not for grief but for land.
Title.
Power.
Her spine straightened.
If he thought he could stride in, surely with a rake’s grin and noble claim in hand to take command, he was in for a rude awakening.