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Chapter Text

The atmosphere in the Small Council chamber was like that of a vacuum flask, where the same issues were debated in a circle day after day, and every proposed solution seemed identical to the last. The sun feebly broke through the tall, arched windows, but its light provided no warmth. Avoiding the gaze of his counselors — a gaze each of them was trying to catch — King Viserys Targaryen focused his mind on a small stone structure that would, in due time, join his model of Old Valyria. Running his finger over the curve of a small stone dragon’s wing, he thought it wasn’t polished well enough, and that monotonously dragging a tool over stone was far more engaging than listening to his counselors bicker.

“The envoys from the Triarchy have… departed,” announced Otto Hightower in a voice that could lull a dragon to sleep. He did not look up from his scroll, the quill in his hand pausing only to dip into an inkpot. “Their terms remain unchanged. They demand tribute for safe passage through the Stepstones. They call it a ‘harbour fee’.”

Upon hearing that Prince Daemon Targaryen let out a soft, derisive sound. 

He pushed himself off the high back of his ornate chair — where he had been lounging with a bored expression — and leaned forward over the table. “They demand a toll for a harbor they do not own, for ships they did not build, in waters they have stolen. And we sit here, discussing the price of our own humiliation. How much, Brother? How many golden dragons to purchase the title of ‘Craven’ for House Targaryen?”

Viserys’s face tightened. “No one is purchasing anything, Daemon.”

“Aren’t we?” Daemon smiled thinly. “We pay in increments. With every scroll, every ‘diplomatic envoy,’ every moment we allow that upjumped corsair to style himself a king. We are not paying for our ships to pass. We are paying him to sharpen his knives for our throats.”

“War is not a game of cyvasse, Prince Daemon,” Otto said, finally looking up. His eyes were pale and unreadable. “It is a bottomless pit that swallows gold and blood in equal measure. His Grace seeks to preserve the peace and prosperity of the realm, a concept that has ever seemed to elude your… particular enthusiasms.”

“My enthusiasms,” Daemon repeated, his voice dropping to a venomous purr, “are all that stand between the Iron Throne and the perception of weakness. And in this world, perceived weakness is weakness. It is an invitation. The Crabfeeder is merely the first to accept it. Who will be next, I wonder? The Dornish? The Braavosi? Or perhaps some discontented lord with a sharper mind and a older name than Hightower.”

The insult hung in the air, precise and deliberate. Otto’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Before he could respond, the doors opened.

Queen Alicent entered with a serene expression, wearing her green samite. She carried a scroll, a pretext for her interruption. “Your Grace,” she said reverently. “A missive from Oldtown. My uncle is inquiring after the security of the shipping lanes. The Hightower fleet has suffered… losses.” She laid the scroll before her husband, her eyes briefly meeting her father’s. The message was delivered. Our house bleeds while you debate.

Viserys picked up the scroll, his shoulders slumping further under this new weight.

Princess Rhaenyra, who had been observing in silence from her seat beside the king, chose that moment to speak. Her voice was calm, melodic, but it also carried decisive edge. “It is a curious thing, this ‘harbor fee’,” she began, setting down the quill she had been toying with. “It suggests the Crabfeeder sees himself as a lord of a legitimate port, not a pirate in a stolen cove. By even entertaining his terms, we legitimize him. We elevate him from a nuisance to a peer. A dangerous precedent to set for any cutthroat with a few ships and ambition.”

Daemon looked at his niece, a spark of genuine amusement in his violet eyes. “The princess perceives the heart of the matter. We are not being asked for gold. We are being asked for recognition.”

Alicent’s smile was a gentle, pitying thing. “A perceptive point, Rhaenyra. But is it not the role of a king to be pragmatic? To choose the course that avoids the spilling of our subjects’ blood? Let the Triarchy’s gold fill the Crabfeeder’s coffers for a time. It will not make his claim true, and it will buy us time to strengthen our own fleets.”

“Time,” Rhaenyra countered, her gaze meeting Alicent’s, “is what we give him to strengthen his. Every coin he extorts is another ship he builds, another sellsword he hires. You propose we arm our enemy with our own treasury, Your Grace. A most… novel… strategy.”

Alicent’s composure did not break, but the warmth drained from her eyes. “I propose we value the lives of sailors over the pride of princes. A woman’s counsel, perhaps. But then, the childbed is also a field of battle, and we learn to pick our battles with care.”

The riposte was elegant and brutal, a reminder of Rhaenyra’s primary duty in the eyes of many. The air grew colder.

Daemon raised his heavy goblet and brought it down with a deliberate crash. The sound echoed like a dull gong in the tense silence, making both Hightowers flinch. “There is another way,” he said, his voice low and conspiratorial. “A message, not written in ink, but in fire. Let me take Caraxes to the Stepstones. Not for war. A… demonstration. A flight to stretch his wings. If a few pirate ships should accidentally catch alight from the heat of his passing… well, the sea is a dangerous place.”

Otto’s let out a snort. “An act of war disguised as an accident? Do you take the Crabfeeder for a fool? He would see it for the provocation it is.”

“Then let him!” Daemon’s patience snapped. “Let him see the fire and know it is the breath of the dragon he seeks to tax! Let him spend his nights listening for the beat of wings in the dark! I will give him a song to haunt his dreams, and it will cost the crown not a single copper.”

Viserys slammed his hand on the table, making the model city tremble. “Enough!” he roared, his face flushed. He looked from his brother’s defiant glare to his Hand’s icy disapproval, to his wife’s placid mask, and finally to his daughter’s sharp, knowing eyes. He was surrounded by dragons and towers, and he was being slowly crushed between them.

He took a long, shaky breath. “There will be no fire. There will be no tribute.” He looked at Otto. “Draft another letter. Express our… continued dissatisfaction.” He looked at Daemon, his expression weary. “And you… you will do nothing. Is that understood? Nothing.”

Daemon held his brother’s gaze for a long, silent moment. A faint, contemptuous smile touched his lips. He gave a slight, mocking bow. “As my king commands.”

He turned and strode from the chamber without a backward glance. The dismissal was his.

When the door thudded shut, the silence he left behind was louder than any argument. The game was not over. It had merely been adjourned. And every player in the room knew, with cold certainty, that Prince Daemon had no intention of following his brother’s orders.

***

The silence after Daemon’s departure was thick and suffocating. King Viserys stared at the spot where his brother had sat, his trembling hand still resting on the model of Old Valyrian tower. The order he had given — you will do nothing — echoed in the quiet room, tasting like ash on his tongue. He knew it was a plea, not a command, and everyone knew it had been refused before it was even uttered.

Otto Hightower was the first to move, the scratch of his quill resuming as he prepared to draft another meaningless scroll of “continued dissatisfaction.” The sound was unbearably loud.

“If that is all, Your Grace?” Alicent said, her voice soft but her posture rigid. She did not wait for a full answer, offering a shallow curtsey before gliding from the chamber, the message of Hightower losses and her subtle victory delivered.

Rhaenyra watched her go, the Queen’s final words — the childbed is also a field of battle — still hanging in the air. She felt the familiar cage of expectation tighten around her. Rhaenyra’s gaze settled on her father. He seemed to be shrinking into his high-backed chair, his shoulders bowed as if under an invisible weight. His attention had retreated entirely into the intricate, lifeless tower of his model Valyria — a kingdom of ghosts and polished stone that demanded nothing more of him than a steady hand.

A faint, cold disappointment tightened in her chest. He was a king who believed that if he could not see the storm, the storm could not see him. But the waves were already at the door, and his silence was not a shield — it was an invitation.

A strange, cold clarity settled over her.

She stood, the legs of her chair scraping softly against the stone floor. “Father. A word in private, if it please you.”

Viserys waved a dismissive hand, not at her, but at the remaining council members. “Leave us.”

Otto paused, his pale eyes flicking between the king and his daughter. “Your Grace, the correspondence—”

“—will wait, Lord Hand,” Viserys said, a rare flicker of impatience in his voice. “Leave us.”

With a stiff bow, Otto gathered his scrolls and departed, the great oak door closing with a definitive thud. Father and daughter were alone amidst the sunbeams and dust.

“He will not listen to you,” Rhaenyra said. Her voice was not the melodic instrument from the council, but flat, hard, and weary. “You command the wind to change its course. Daemon will do what he wills. He always has.”

Viserys sighed with profound exhaustion. “What would you have me do, Rhaenyra? Unleash him? Start a war we cannot afford, for a stretch of water littered with rocks and pirates?”

“No,” she said, moving to the table. She did not look at him. Instead, she picked up a small, carved dragon from the edge of the Valyrian model. She ran her thumb over its stone wings. “You should let him do it. But not for the reason he thinks.”

Viserys frowned, confused. “Explain yourself.”

“The Crabfeeder is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is the perception that the Iron Throne is weak. That you are weak.” She met his pained gaze, but the king must be told uncomfortable truths from time to time. “Daemon is right about that, if nothing else. But he is also too reckless. He believes a show of force will solve everything. It will not. It will only make him a target.”

“Then what is your counsel?” Viserys asked, a note of genuine curiosity breaking through his despair.

“Give him his leash. Let him take Caraxes to the Stepstones. Let him burn a few ships.” She placed the stone dragon down precisely. “But do not send him alone.”

“The Royal Fleet is not—”

“Not the fleet,” she interrupted. “Me.”

The word hung in the air, absurd and magnificent. Viserys stared at her as if she had grown a second head. “You? Rhaenyra, this is not a hawking trip. This is… it is madness!”

“Is it?” she asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Think, Father. You send the Heir to the Iron Throne. You send Syrax. Not on a war mission, but on a diplomatic one. A royal progress, to… survey the damage to our trade routes. To show the realm that its future queen does not hide from its problems.”

Viserys began to protest, but she pressed on, her logic swift and sharp.

“Daemon gets his demonstration. He gets to be the fire. But I will be the crown. My presence transforms his tantrum into an official action of the throne. It is not a rogue prince starting a war; it is the King’s brother and the King’s daughter, together, protecting the realm’s interests. It shows unity. Strength. Resolve.”

She leaned forward, her violet eyes blazing. “And most importantly, it controls the narrative. Otto can write all the letters he wants. But when the songs are sung, they will not be only about the Rogue Prince. They will be about the Princess who Rode to Face the Danger. It steals the glory from Daemon, yes, but it also gives it to the Iron Throne. It steals the grievance from the Hightowers and proves their King’s line is one of action.”

Viserys was silent for a long time. He looked at his daughter — really looked at her. He saw not the girl who raced through the halls on her nameday, but a woman with sharp and calculating mind. She was playing a different game entirely, seeing three moves ahead where everyone else saw only the next piece to be taken.

“It is a tremendous risk,” he breathed, but the weariness in his voice was now tinged with something else — a faint, fragile hope.

“Sitting here is a greater one,” Rhaenyra countered. “Every day we do nothing, we bleed gold and prestige. Alicent speaks of the childbed as a woman’s battle. Let her. My battlefield is the realm. Let me fight for it.”

The King of the Seven Kingdoms looked down at the model tower, his dream of a dead empire. Then he looked at his living heir, who offered not a dream, but a dangerous, brilliant strategy.

He took a deep breath, the decision settling upon him like a heavy mantle.

“You will not engage. You will observe. You are the symbol, not the sword. Is that understood?”

A slow, triumphant smile touched Rhaenyra’s lips. It was not the warm smile of a daughter, but the cool, measured smile of a future monarch.

“Perfectly, Your Grace.”

“Go then,” Viserys said, his voice firm, yet filled with infinite worry. “Find your uncle. Tell him his king has reconsidered. But he follows your lead on this. His fire answers to your crown.”

Rhaenyra gave a bow, deep and respectful, but when she rose, her eyes were not of a young princess, but those of a dragonlord.

She turned and left the chamber, her footsteps silent on the stone. Outside, she did not head towards the training yards or the Dragonpit where Daemon would be brooding. She went to her own chambers.

There princess summoned her maids. “Prepare my riding leathers. The black ones, with the red detailing. And send a message to the Dragonkeepers: Syrax is to be saddled.”

As her maids scurried to obey, Rhaenyra walked to her window, looking out over the Blackwater Rush. She could almost feel the beat of wings, hear the distant echo of a dragon’s roar that was not her own.

Daemon thought he was being unleashed. Otto thought he had won a delay. Alicent thought she had defined the terms of their conflict and taught her a lesson on “princess’s primary duty”.

None of them understood. The game had not been adjourned. The board had just been flipped over.

And she was holding all the pieces.

Chapter Text

The message found Prince Daemon in the dim, smoky silence of the Dragonstone library, a place he frequented not for its scrolls of history and lineage, but for its isolation. 

You will do nothing! 

The order hung in the air, suffocating, its words echoing in Daemon’s skull like a bitter refrain that tasted of ash and weakness.

“Otto, draft another letter. Express our… continued dissatisfaction.”

Dissatisfaction. Daemon grimaced, a sharp, physical twitch of disgust as if the very word were a poison on his tongue. Letters. Scrolls. Ink. Viserys, hiding behind his model city and his crumbling throne, believed the realm could be ruled with apologies and politely worded complaints. He was not a king; he was a scribe, diligently recording his own house’s decline.

Every moment of his brother’s inaction was a jewel in the Crabfeeder’s crown. Every scroll from Otto’s quill was a golden dragon tossed into the pirate’s coffers. The Crabfeeder wasn’t a king; he was a parasite, and Viserys was not just his host, but his most generous patron. He let those cowardly lords on his council — those vultures who grew fat on peace — fund the very menace that mocked them.

They were pouring ink when it should be blood. And Daemon was expected to stand there and watch the Targaryen name become a whisper, a joke told in the ports of the Free Cities.

Banishing these infuriating thoughts, the prince began to study a great, yellowed map of the Narrow Sea, his fingers tracing the jagged teeth of the Stepstones, when the servant cleared his throat.

“A raven, my prince. From the Red Keep. Marked with the King’s personal seal.”

Daemon took the small scroll, his expression one of bored contempt. He expected another missive from Otto, couched in the king’s name, reiterating his command to do nothing. He broke the seal and unfurled it.

The script was not the neat hand of the Grand Maester or the flowing script of Otto Hightower. It was bold, sharp, and unmistakable.

Uncle,

The King has reconsidered your proposal. A demonstration of resolve is required. However, fire without purpose is merely arson.

You will have your flight. I will have mine. Meet me at the meeting point we spoke of as children. Sunset.

Do not be late.

R.

Daemon read it twice. A slow, incredulous smile spread across his face, a true one this time, devoid of mockery and full of a fierce, sudden delight. He looked from the scroll to the map, then back again.

The meeting point we spoke of as children.

Not Dragonstone. Not the Red Keep. A tiny, uninhabited island in the Blackwater Bay, little more than a rock with a few stubborn trees, where they had once pretended to be Aegon and Visenya planning their Conquest.

Fire without purpose is merely arson.

The meaning of her words unfolded in his mind like a battle standard. She was not just unleashing him; she was joining him. A short, sharp laugh escaped his mouth and echoed in the silent library, as he crushed the scroll in his hand, the parchment crackling in his grip.

“Smart girl,” he murmured to the empty room, a wave of pride and anticipation washing over him. She was not like her father, hiding behind his models. Neither was she heeding the counsel of frightened old men who measured their strength in words.

She measured hers in fire. And she was finally ready to wield it.

***

The sun was a bleeding wound on the horizon when the two dragons met in the sky above the lonely island. Caraxes let out a piercing shriek, a sound that tore the evening quietness. Below, Syrax answered with a deeper roar.

Daemon watched as the great golden she-dragon circled down to land on the rocky shore, her scales reflecting the dying light. Upon her back, strapped into the saddle, was Rhaenyra. But she was not the princess of courtly gowns and council meetings. She was clad in supple, black riding leathers, a dark cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair was bound in a simple, practical braid. She looked, he thought with a jolt, like a conqueror.

The prince guided Caraxes down to land a respectful distance away. The Blood Wyrm coiled his neck obediently. Daemon dismounted and strode toward his niece, wearing his black scale armour, as if he was ready for battle.

“Niece,” he said, his voice a mix of amusement and newfound respect. “I received your… summons. I assume His Grace the king does not know you are here, playing at being Visenya.”

“My father knows exactly what I am doing,” Rhaenyra said, her voice steady, though a thrill of adrenaline coursed through her. The raw, wild presence of the dragons, the salt spray, the looming darkness — it was intoxicating. “He has given his blessing for a royal progress to survey the Stepstones. You are to be my escort.”

Daemon’s smile widened. “My! Royal progress?! How official. And what does this survey entail?”

“Observation. Assessment. A show of force,” she listed, her eyes holding his. “But the show must be undeniable, uncle. The Crabfeeder, the Triarchy, the lords of Westeros watching from their keeps… they must see one thing, and one thing only: the united strength of House Targaryen. Not a rogue prince, but the Heir and her most formidable protector. We are not starting a war. We are reminding the world why they should fear to start one with us.”

Daemon studied her. He saw the cleverness of it, the brilliant political maneuver. She was using his aggression, tempering it, and redirecting its meaning. She was making his rebellion into her pageant.

“You would use me as a prop in your show of strength?” he asked, though there was no anger in it, only a hunter’s interest.

“I would have you be the sword in my scabbard,” she corrected. “The most dangerous one I possess. A sword is most effective when its wielder chooses the time and place to draw it. Do not mistake me, I want you to burn his ships. But I will be there when you do. The world will see it was done at my command.”

He was silent for a long moment, the only sounds the crash of waves and the restless shifting of the dragons. He had wanted freedom to unleash his fury. She was offering him something far more potent: legitimacy.

“And what is my reward for playing the loyal sword?” he purred, taking a step closer.

“The reward is the same as mine,” Rhaenyra said, not yielding an inch. “A secure realm. A strengthened throne. And the memory, written in fire and sung in every court from here to Volantis, of the day the dragon’s daughter reminded them all what it means to be a Targaryen. That is a song that will outlast any petty pirate’s triumph.”

Daemon looked at her — the fire in her eyes, the unwavering certainty in her posture. She was not just her father’s daughter. She was the blood of the dragon, through and through. And her plan was not just smart; it was inspiring.

“Very well, my Queen,” he said, the title a promise and a challenge. “Let us go and give them a song to sing.”

He mounted Caraxes in one fluid motion, the Blood Wyrum coiling beneath him with eager malice. Rhaenyra climbed into Syrax’s saddle, feeling the familiar heat of the golden she-dragon’s scales beneath her hands.

As they rose into the twilight, two shadows against the deepening blue, Daemon glanced over. She was not trailing behind. She was flying at his side, her gaze fixed ahead — not on the past, not on the politics, but on the storm they were about to become.

And for the first time in years, Prince Daemon Targaryen felt not like a weapon cast aside, but like a part of something greater. 

***

The air over the Stepstones was a brine-soaked haze, thick with the smell of salt, rot, and smoke from the pirate camps on the jagged islands below. From the back of Syrax, Rhaenyra could see it all — the narrow, treacherous channels, the hulks of plundered merchant cogs beached like dead whales, and the swift, ugly longships of the Triarchy, their sails limp in the still air.

To her left, Caraxes circled like a patient shark, Daemon a dark silhouette against the blood-red sky of dawn. He was waiting for her signal. The plan was set: a low, terrifying pass. A display. A reminder. Fire without purpose is merely arson, she had said. The purpose was to terrify, not to ignite a continent.

But as Rhaenyra looked down, her eyes caught a detail that made her blood run cold. It was not a warship. It was a merchant vessel, its sails marked with the seven-rayed sun of the Faith. A Septon’s ship, likely carrying pilgrims or holy relics. And it was being boarded. She could see the tiny, ant-like figures of pirates swarming its deck, the flash of steel. They were herding the crew and passengers — distinguishable by their dark, simple robes — towards the railing.

They were going to make them walk the plank.

Her plan, her careful political theater, evaporated in that instant.

“Lykiri, Syrax,” she murmured, calming the eager dragon. Her mind raced. A display of force was one thing. Watching a ship of holy men be slaughtered for a spectacle was another. It would be a story of Targaryen impotence that would spread faster than any fire. The Princess who Watched and Did Nothing.

Otto would draft a scroll of “continued dissatisfaction.” Her father would sigh. Daemon would fume. And the Crabfeeder would grow bolder.

An idea, cold and ruthless and utterly unexpected, snapped into place. It went against the promise she had given to her father — the careful, political script of observation and restraint. For a heartbeat, she felt the weight of that vow, the desire to be the dutiful daughter he still saw her as.

But the sight below — the holy men being forced to their deaths — burned that hesitation away. She was not just an obedient daughter, but the Heir to the Iron Throne, a dragonrider, and a future queen who would be measured not by the promises she kept, but by the strength she showed when peace frayed into savagery. A ruler was supposed to make her own decisions. And sometimes, the right decision looked like betrayal from a distance.

This would be one of those times.

Her hand, which had been raised to signal a cautious pass, shifted. Her fingers curled into a sharp, slashing gesture — the signal for attack she’d seen Daemon use a hundred times on the training grounds. 

A mile away, Daemon’s focus — previously fixed on the pirate ships below — shattered. His head snapped up, eyes instantly finding Rhaenyra’s distant form. He saw her arm slash downward through the air — not the cautious, agreed-upon signal, but his signal. The one that meant attack.

A feral, disbelieving grin split his face. He had expected more of the same: restraint, politics, the endless, infuriating dance of words over action. He had not expected this — this raw, decisive command. He was also pleased that Rhaenyra had watched him so closely in the training yard…

Without a shouted word, Daemon leaned forward, his body becoming one with the dragon beneath him. A shift of weight, a thought conveyed through bond and instinct, and Caraxes responded instantly. The Blood Wyrm tucked its wings and dropped into a near-vertical dive. The wind tore at Daemon’s hair and clothes as they plummeted toward the sea.

But Rhaenyra did not follow. Instead, she pulled Syrax into a steep climb, seeking altitude, seeking visibility.

Below, hell broke loose. A sheet of dragonfire, red and furious, engulfed the lead pirate longship. It did not burn; it vaporized into splinters and steam. The shrieks of men were swallowed by the roar of the Blood Wyrm, lighting up ship after ship. Panic erupted through the narrow channel. Ships scrambled to turn, to flee, crashing into each other in the confined waters.

Meanwhile Rhaenyra saw what Daemon, in his fury, could not. On a high bluff of the largest island, a command post had been established. Tents. A signal fire. And men pointing, shouting orders. Among them, a figure in finer, if practical, armor. Not the Crabfeeder himself, but one of his principle captains.

Daemon was winning a battle against ships. She could win the war against command.

She leaned forward, speaking into the spined crest of Syrax’s neck. “Dracarys.”

But she did not aim for the captain. Or the tents.

Syrax’s golden fire, brighter and hotter than Caraxes’s, lanced out not as a sweeping sheet, but as a precise, focused jet. It struck the base of the signal pyre. The dry wood and pitch exploded in a shower of sparks and flame. Then, without pause, Rhaenyra guided her mount. The golden fire swept along the line of the bluff, not targeting the men, but the edge of the cliff itself.

The rock, heated to an impossible degree, fractured. With a sound like a mountain breaking, a huge section of the cliff face sheared away and crashed down into the narrow channel below.

The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic. The avalanche of stone utterly obliterated two more longships and, more importantly, sealed the channel. In moments, the Crabfeeder’s key strategic passage was transformed  into a tomb — a barricade of rock, soil, and shattered wreckage, leaving his main fleet trapped and burning within.

The battle below ceased. The remaining pirate ships were trapped in a fiery cauldron, their escape route gone. The captain on the bluff could only watch, his command post isolated, his fleet destroyed.

Daemon pulled Caraxes up, circling the scene of devastation, his own fury spent, replaced by a stunned confusion. The attack was over in minutes.

Rhaenyra guided Syrax down in a wide, careful arc, the great golden dragon beating her wings to disperse the smoke. They landed on the newly created peninsula of scorched rock — a shelf of earth and stone that ended in a jagged, glassy edge where her fire had sheared it from the mainland. The heat rising from the surface was immense, a physical wall that made the air shimmer and dance. As she dismounted, her boots crunched on the blackened, brittle crust, and she could feel the warmth of the rock beneath seeping through the thick soles of her leather boots. The smell was overwhelming — a mix of ozone, shattered stone, and the thick, greasy scent of burned pitch and wood.

Daemon landed Caraxes beside her with a thunderous impact that sent a shiver through the unstable ground. The Blood Wyrm, still eager for more violence, let out a piercing shriek that was answered by a low rumble from Syrax. Daemon swung down from the saddle and strode toward her, not with anger, but with a look of pure astonishment, his usual mask of cynical amusement completely gone.

“What in the Seven Hells was that?” he demanded, gesturing wildly toward the catastrophic scene — the channel now permanently sealed by a mountain of rubble, the trapped fleet burning like kindling in a hearth. “The plan was a show of force! A display! And this... this is a cataclysm! You’ve not just shattered them, you’ve buried them! You’ve rewritten the bloody maps! You think the ravens from the Red Keep will now carry congratulations?” He shook his head. “Otto Hightower will name this a naked provocation. The Small Council will wring their hands over the cost of war, and your father the king… he wanted peace. You have handed him a war on a bloody platter, and they will blame you for it.” 

Rhaenyra turned to face him fully. The wind tugged at the loose strands of her hair, whipping them across a face that was smudged with ash. Her violet eyes, reflecting the orange glow of the dying fires below, held not a trace of doubt.

“No, uncle,” the princess said, her voice calm as she looked at the trapped, burning fleet. Her eyes followed the Septon’s ship, now safely drifting away, its deck filled with praying figures. “They wanted a pretext to avoid war? I have given them a pretext to win one. We did not attack the Crabfeeder. We saved the servants of the Faith from his aggression. Our response was not an act of war; it was an act of pious duty. That is the story. That is the fact.”

She gestured decisively toward the narrow channel, now permanently sealed by shattered hulls and collapsing cliffs, a tomb of rock, splintered ships and fire that glowed like the Seven Hells.

“Let Otto Hightower try to write a scroll of ‘continued dissatisfaction’ about that. Let him sit in his tower and fret over the tone of a letter while our enemy’s strength lies broken and smoldering. He cannot negotiate this away. We didn’t just burn a few vessels. We crippled him. We’ve taken a third of Crabsfeeder’s fleet and his key channel, presenting him with a problem that extortion cannot solve and no politely worded letter can answer.”

Daemon stared at her, then at the geological scar she had carved into the world, then back at her. The anger on his face melted away, replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated awe. He had wanted to be the fire. She had used him as the kindling, and herself as the architect. It was impossible to tell from his expression whether he condemned her for her manipulation or adored her for the magnificent chaos they had wrought together on the Stepstones.

The tension broke. He began to laugh, not the mocking laugh of the council chamber, but a roar of pure, triumphant delight that echoed over the water, challenging the crackle of the dying flames.

“They think you are just a girl,” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “They think your only battlefield is the childbed.”

Rhaenyra allowed herself a small, cold smile. The seed of her plan had taken root. “Let them think it. Delusion can be a sharper weapon than any sword.” She looked toward the west, toward King’s Landing, where the game of thrones was played with words. “Now, let us go home. The ravens will be flying. And I wish to be there when my father and his Small Council try to decide what, exactly, to write in their next letter.”

Chapter Text

The heavy oak door of the king’s chambers closed with a soft, final thud, muting the distant sounds of the Red Keep. Here, away from the judging eyes of the court and the oppressive shadow of the Iron Throne, Viserys seemed to deflate entirely.

He stood for a moment, his hand still on the carved wood, as if steadying himself. The journey from the throne room had been a long one, each step an effort under the weight of the day.

“You should not have let Rhaenyra go into that madness,” Alicent’s voice came again, but the public fervor was gone, replaced by a colder, more intimate frustration. She had followed him, of course. The argument was not finished. “Your indulgence of her knows no bounds.”

Viserys did not turn to face her immediately. Instead, he moved slowly to a high-backed chair near the cold fireplace, lowering himself into it with a soft groan of exhaustion. He leaned his head back, closing his eyes. The ghost of a migraine pulsed at his temples.

“What would you have had me do, Alicent?” he asked the ceiling, his voice thin and weary. “Chain her to the floor of Maegor’s Holdfast? Forbid her from mounting Syrax? She would have gone anyway. This way, she went with her king’s blessing.”

“A blessing for a folly!” Alicent’s slippers whispered against the stone floor as she paced. The informal setting did nothing to soften her. If anything, the privacy stripped away the need for queenly decorum, revealing the sharp edge of her fear and disagreement. “She shames herself. She shames us. And you gave it your sanction.”

“She defended her family’s honour,” Viserys countered weakly, one hand making a vague, dismissive gesture that cost him dearly in energy.

“She defended Daemon’s honour,” Alicent shot back, her voice sharpening to a point. “A man who would see your reign overturned, who would pluck the crown from your daughter’s head if given half a chance. She risks everything for him, time and again, and you simply sigh and look the other way.”

The truth of it lanced through him, a pain sharper than any illness could inflict. He saw the portrait she painted: not a brave princess, but a reckless girl manipulated by a treacherous uncle. The alternative — that Rhaenyra was fierce and loyal and right — was a path that led to a conflict he could not bear to face.

Alicent’s next words struck him like a physical blow, colder and crueler than any political calculation.

“Rhaenyra’s main duty and battlefield should be a birthing bed.”

Viserys shivered, the memory of Aemma’s screams and the silence that followed haunting the room. He had sacrificed one woman to the birthing bed for an heir. The gods had taken her, but given him Rhaenyra. He prayed daily they would not demand his daughter as well.

The queen’s voice cut through his grief. “By indulging such whims, you make her disregard the duty of an heir. If you insist on keeping her in this position, then you must make her understand its importance.”

Viserys opened his eyes and looked at her then, truly looked. The gentle girl he’d married was gone, replaced by a queen armored in righteousness, fighting for the future of her own House. Her argument was no longer about peace or gold, but about a fundamental truth she believed he was blind to. And in his heart, he feared she might be right.

The fight seemed to drain from him all at once, his shoulders slumping beneath the weight of his embroidered doublet.

“I am tired, Alicent,” he said, the words a bare whisper. It was not an apology, nor a concession. “The complaints… the arguments… they are a drone in my ear from which I cannot escape. Even here.”

Otto was no better in this respect. Where Alicent used her words with passion, the Hand employed his with the cool, precise tap of a mason’s chisel, each one carefully struck to split Viserys resolve. He did not rage; he reasoned, and his reason was a relentless, suffocating weight.

“The company of the rogue prince does no good to your heir, Your Grace,” Otto began, his voice measured and calm. He stood near the table, his hands clasped behind his back. “It is risky, and the destructions that will certainly follow cast a shadow on the crown.”

Viserys let out a long, weary breath that shuddered through his entire frame. He had heard this song before, every verse and chorus. “What shadow?” he asked, the question hollow and defeated, though he was not truly asking for an answer. For the tenth time that hour, a sharp spike of regret pierced him — the memory of Rhaenyra’s determined face, the reckless hope in her eyes, and his own weak, indulgent nod of blessing for her “progress.”

Otto was ready, as always. “The crown is not at war,” he stated, his tone implying that this was a simple, undeniable fact that Viserys was foolishly ignoring. “While Prince Daemon, by his very nature, will try to prove the opposite. He thrives on chaos. He requires conflict to prove his worth. The princess, in her admirable but misguided loyalty, will be swept into his wake.”

The Hand took a single step forward, his voice dropping into a more intimate, grave register. “The cost of the harbour fee is a thousand times lesser than the cost of a war. A trifling sum from the royal coffers, a minor irritation to the merchants. It is a price we pay for peace.” He let the word hang in the air between them. “A war in the Stepstones would be a bottomless pit of gold and men. Not to mention the deaths which accompany any war. Deaths that will be laid at the feet of the crown that allowed its heir to help start the conflict.”

Viserys saw it then, not as a father, but as a king. He saw his fiery, unpredictable brother and his headstrong daughter moving together into a volatile corner of the realm. He saw the gambit spiraling into a conflict he did not want, funded by a treasury he was responsible for, paid for with lives he was sworn to protect.

But he said nothing. He simply stared into the cold, ash-filled hearth, buried anew under the relentless, suffocating snow of their counsel.

And then the day finally came, as well as did the news…

A messenger, pale and wide-eyed, arrived at the king’s chambers moments later, his words tumbling over themselves. Viserys was already awake, the dragons’ cries having torn him from a thin and troubled sleep. He stood by the window, his bedrobe drawn tightly around him, watching the two great shapes circle round the city.

The return of the dragons to the Dragonpit was not a secret. It was a spectacle. The roar of Caraxes and the answering cry of Syrax echoed over Aegon’s High Hill, shaking windows and stilling the chatter in the streets below.

Viserys did not need to send for his Hand or Queen. They came to him. Otto was first, his face a grim mask. Alicent followed, wrapped in a velvet dressing gown, her expression tight with a mixture of fear and furious triumph.

Despite the early hour, they assembled in the Small council chamber, joining lords Beesbury, Strong and Ser Tyland Lannister. The air was thick with unspoken accusations. Viserys took his seat at the head of the table, feeling the weight of every gaze…

***

By the time the sun rose, the story was already mutating, growing in the fertile soil of rumor. It was not a simple military report but a thing of myth: The Princess and the Rogue Prince had descended on the Stepstones like the Wrath of the Seven! The sea itself boiled! They had crumbled the cliffs with dragonfire to build a tomb for the pirate fleet! 

Sitting in the Small council chamber king Viserys looked suddenly older, the wrinkles on his face etched deeper by a sleepless night. Before him lay not a model, but a hastily drawn map of the Stepstones, a fresh mark showing the blocked channel. Otto Hightower stood rigid, his usual composure replaced by trembling indignation. Alicent was pale, her hands clasped at her front in a pious gesture.

The doors opened. Rhaenyra and Daemon entered together.

They did not look like penitents. Rhaenyra was still in her black riding leathers, smudged with soot and smelling of salt and smoke. Daemon wore his usual scale armour, plumed helm in his hand. They stopped before council table — a stark contrast to the king’s own bright embroidered doublet, Otto’s impeccable green robe and Alicent’s heavy brocade gown.

Viserys found his voice first, it was a dry, cracked thing. “Explain yourselves.”

Otto did not let them speak. “You have single-handedly ignited a war!” he hissed, the words sharp as daggers. “An unprovoked attack! The Triarchy will see this as an act of aggression from the Iron Throne itself! The Volantenes may be drawn in! You have jeopardized the peace of the entire continent for… for a gesture!”

Daemon opened his mouth, a retort already forming on his lips, his eyes alight with the prospect of an open argument with the Hand.

But Rhaenyra was faster.

A subtle shift of her hand, a glance that was both a warning and a claim, silenced him before a sound could escape. The surprise that flickered across Daemon’s face was brief, swiftly replaced by a slow, approving smirk. He yielded the floor with an almost imperceptible incline of his head, his pride not wounded but intrigued.

“There was no attack, Lord Hand.” the princess said, her voice full of resolve.

The silence lasted if only but a moment.

Otto sputtered. “Do you take us for fools? The reports—”

“Are mistaken,” Rhaenyra interrupted, her gaze fixed not on Otto, but on her father. “We undertook the royal progress you authorized, Father. To survey the damage to our trade routes. We found the Crabfeeder’s forces engaged in an act of profound sacrilege. They were attacking a vessel of the Faith. They were forcing Septon and holy brothers to walk the plank into the sea.”

She let the image hang in the air, its horror staining the room. Alicent flinched. Viserys’ eyes widened.

“Prince Daemon,” Rhaenyra continued, her tone formal, “in his righteous fury as your protector and the champion of your realm, moved to intervene. He engaged the pirate ships that were actively committing this atrocity. In the chaos of the battle, the unstable cliffs of the region, weakened by the Crabfeeder’s own mining and tunnel-digging, gave way. It was a tragic accident of war. An act of the gods, smiting the despoilers of the holy.”

She paused, her eyes sweeping the council. “We did not start a war. We ended a massacre. We did not attack. We protected. We did not provoke. We avenged an affront to the Gods of Westeros.”

The genius of it was breathtaking. It was not a denial. It was a reframing. She had taken an act of aggressive politics and transformed it into a holy crusade. Otto could argue strategy. He could not argue against the defense of the Faith without seeming a heretic himself.

“The Faith…” Alicent began, her voice soft but strained. “They will hear of this?”

“The ship we saved is limping back to Oldtown as we speak,” Rhaenyra said, her eyes meeting Alicent’s. “Filled with grateful brothers of the Faith who witnessed the dragons of House Targaryen arrive as divine instruments of justice. I suspect the High Septon will have quite a different letter to send than the one you anticipate from the Triarchy, Lord Hand.”

Otto was utterly checkmated. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. The political ground had been cut from under his feet. Any complaint he made now would sound like he supported the murder of septons.

Viserys looked from his daughter’s resolute face, alight with a conqueror’s fire, to his brother’s proud, defiant smirk. He saw the stunned, furious silence etched into Otto’s features and Alicent’s pale, rigid disbelief.

And they called her a reckless child… A woman whose only battlefield is a birthing bed.

The thought echoed in the hollow of his exhaustion. But she had not returned from a birthing bed. She had returned from a true battlefield, and she had brought him not a disaster to manage, but a victory to proclaim. She had given him a story that was not merely acceptable — it was glorious. A song of dragons and justice that would ring louder in the septs and taverns of the realm than any ledger of harbor fees or complaints of petty lords.

A slow, weary smile touched the king’s lips, smoothing the deep lines of worry. It was not a smile of joy, but of profound, bewildered relief.

“An accident,” the King said, his voice gaining strength that had been absent for days. It was no longer a question, but a decree. “A tragic accident during a noble intervention to save the faithful from pirates.” His gaze, clear for the first time, settled upon Otto. “Draft a letter to the Triarchy. Express our… profound sadness at the instability of the rocks…  in the Stepstones. And our firm support for the safety of all religious vessels.”

He paused, savouring the scene unfolding before him. “And draft another to the High Septon in Oldtown. Assure him of the Iron Throne’s unwavering devotion to the protection of the Faith and its pious servants upon the seas.”

Rhaenyra offered a slight, respectful nod, her eyes holding her father’s for a moment — a silent acknowledgment of the victory they now shared. Beside her, Daemon offered a bow, a glint of newfound respect in his eyes as he absorbed the skillful way Rhaenyra had framed their victory.

Then came the time for the final blow…

Rhaenyra’s hand went to the leather satchel at her hip. She withdrew a small, cloth-wrapped bundle and placed it on the council table with a soft, definitive thud that echoed in the silent room.

Otto Hightower, his composure still frayed from the king’s unexpected pivot, stared at the unfamiliar object. “What is this?”

With deliberate slowness, Rhaenyra untied the cord. The cloth fell away to reveal a heavy, leather-bound ledger. It was scorched at the edges and smelled faintly of smoke.

“We found it in the captain’s quarters on the lead pirate ship,” she said. “It seems the Crabfeeder runs a surprisingly meticulous operation. Every ‘harbor fee’ is logged. Every ship. Every amount extorted.”

The princess opened the book to a page marked by a singed ribbon. Her finger traced down a column of figures, then her eyebrows rose in surprise.

“How interesting. It seems House Hightower’s merchant fleet has been one of Crabfeeder’s most reliable sources of income. Page after page of it.” She looked up, her violet eyes meeting Otto’s directly, devoid of all warmth. “You have paid him quite a fortune over the last few years, Lord Hand. A fortune that funded the very fleet we just sent to the bottom of the sea.”

She closed the book with a sharp snap that made Alicent flinch.

“I thought you might want the book back,” Rhaenyra said, her tone sweetly poisonous. “For your records.”

The silence that followed was not one of shock or anger, but of perfect, profound irony. Otto Hightower, the pragmatist who had argued for paying tribute to avoid the bottomless pit of war, now stood exposed as the man who had been filling the enemy’s coffers all along.

“Otto?” the king exhaled in disbelief. “So this is how your House labours for the good of the realm — by funding its enemies? How… unbecoming.” Viserys shook his head in reproach, though the tone of his voice trembled with barely restrained triumph.

“Are the sailors and knights of Oldtown so feeble they could not raise a sword in their own defense?” Viserys leaned forward, his eyes narrowed as he fixed Otto in a piercing gaze. His daughter’s decisive strike had breathed strength and resolve into him as well. “And is the Lord of the Hightower so craven, so consumed by greed, that he would ransom his own honour and fill the coffers of the crown’s enemies, all for the sake of favourable trade?”

A slow, wicked smile spread across Daemon’s face, his eyes glinting with amusement. “Hmmm…” he purred,  “Sounds an awful lot like treason. Feeding the enemy, weakening the realm… all for a bit of gold and peaceful passage for your own ships,” Daemon mused, tapping a finger against his lip in mock contemplation. “Yes. I do believe that’s the very definition of it.”

“What folly! What absurdity!” Otto exclaimed, though his voice rang more of fear than outrage. “House Hightower and I myself are your Grace’s most loyal servants. Never—never would we conceive of such a thing! And these… these figures…” He gestured wildly at the ledger as if it were a venomous serpent. “We were merely doing what any other house would — willing to sacrifice our own gold for the preservation of peace, for the preservation of life!”

His words tumbled out in a desperate, hurried cascade, lacking their usual measured precision. The cold, calculating Hand was gone, replaced by a man scrambling to shield his reputation and his House from a charge that could end them both.

“Is it a crime to value stability? To choose commerce over carnage? Every coin was a bitter payment to spare the realm the unimaginable cost of war! To protect the very sailors and knights you accuse us of abandoning!” Otto drew himself up, attempting to reclaim a shred of dignity, but the tremor in his hands betrayed him. “This is not treason. It is… it was a burden. A burden we bore alone to keep your kingdom safe, Your Grace.”

“The Seven command us to be—” Alicent began, stepping forward to her father’s defense, her voice trembling with a fragile blend of piety and panic.

But Daemon’s voice cut her off. “The Seven command obedience to the crown,” he interrupted. “Not funding its enemies. Or does your family follow a different set of commandments, Your Grace? One that places Hightower gold above a king’s peace?”

He took a single step toward the table, his eyes never leaving Alicent’s. “Spare us the scripture. It rings hollow next to a ledger of payments to a butcher.”

Watching the flustered faces of her stepmother and the King’s Hand, Rhaenyra could barely suppress a smile. They had doubted her. They had not believed that dragon blood ran thicker and fiercer than any other. No — she would not be some meek woman whose duties began and ended in the birthing bed. Nor would she be a weak queen hiding behind the illusion of peace.

“Then let the accounts be settled,” Rhaenyra proclaimed, her gaze sweeping over the stunned council before locking onto Otto Hightower. “Wouldn’t you agree, my Lord Hand?”

Otto could not refute the evidence. He could not spin the truth. All he could do was stand in the ruins of his own strategy, outmaneuvered by a young princess and a reckless prince.

Slowly, stiffly, he gave a single, shallow nod. It was not a gesture of agreement, but one of surrender. “The accounts,” he forced out, the words ash in his mouth, “will be settled.”

And with that, the Realm’s Delight turned and left — the scent of smoke and sea lingering where she had stood. She left her father bewildered, yet proud, among his stone dragons; her stepmother pale with unspoken fury; and the Hand seething with a helpless defeat.

The war that had dragged on for years in letters and cautious councils was won in a day — not with brute force alone, but with a dragon’s fire and future queen’s delightful, devastating grace.