Chapter Text
Rhaenyra
The salt air of Dragonstone pressed cold and heavy against her skin, leaving a slick film over the lower paths before the sun could even rise to burn it away.
Rhaenyra gathered her underskirts. The velvet skirts were already sodden at the hem, dragging with the weight of wet sand and seawater. She knotted the fabric above her knees with an impatient jerk of her wrists. Cold foam curled around her bare ankles before slipping back into the tide pools.
“Princess, your hem,” Elinda warned.
The lady-in-waiting stood a few paces back on the drier shale, the woven basket looped over her arm already crowded with dried figs, flatbread, and three separate stones Joffrey had declared indispensable.
“Let it drag, Elinda. The sea will have what it wants anyway.”
The wind tugged fiercely at Rhaenyra’s sleeves. She pushed a loose silver-blond strand back beneath her braids, her eyes fixing on the water. Ahead of them, Joffrey shrieked as a retreating wave fled from his boots. A few paces farther down the shore, Aegon crouched over a patch of wet shale, his tongue clamped between his teeth as he worked a limpet loose with a piece of driftwood.
“Muña! Look!”
Joffrey came charging back, soaked to the knees and grinning. He thrust a jagged, barnacle-crusted shell into Elinda’s basket with enough force to nearly topple a sealed jar of honeyed milk.
“It has the ridges,” he announced, breathless. “Like Syrax’s tail.”
“It does indeed, my prince,” Elinda said gravely. “A rare treasure.”
Joffrey beamed.
Rhaenyra watched him, her mouth softening before a dull, familiar pressure dragged low in her pelvis. She pressed the heel of her hand tight against the tight bodice of her gown. The ache had been there since dawn.
Another month.
Another empty cradle.
“Princess.”
The raspy voice carried over the wind. Maester Gerardys was making his careful descent down the final stretch of the cliff path, the heavy metal links of his chain clanking against his collarbone with every uneven step. One of her younger ladies trailed behind him, looking as though she deeply regretted fetching him.
“Gerardys,” Rhaenyra said, dropping her hand from her stomach.
“The steps do not grow kinder with age.”
“No. They merely grow steeper whenever a maester wishes to find me.”
The old maester offered a dry, fleeting look. He stopped beside them, his eyes tracking toward the water where Joffrey was already racing away again. Her eyes followed Aegon instead. He had finally freed the limpet and was holding it up in triumph to the wind.
“The boys were feral this morning,” she added, her voice flat. “Daemon flew east at dawn. Without Caraxes roaring over the castle every few hours, they decided Dragonstone belonged entirely to them.”
“And does it?”
“Aegon attempted to feed a live crab to one of the hounds. Joffrey released three lizards into the kitchens.”
Gerardys hummed.
“So yes,” Rhaenyra said, her eyes drifting back to the shoreline just as Aegon’s voice pitched into a high, indignant wail.
“Muña! Joffrey’s stealing my shells!”
Rhaenyra closed her eyes briefly. “There. You hear that? Peace. Harmony. Civilization.”
“Muña.”
A small, damp weight plowed directly into her knees. Viserys twisted a fistful of her damp skirts in one chubby hand, his silver curls plastered to his forehead with sea salt. He looked up expectantly.
“Hungwee.”
His lower lip trembled.
“Muña. Bwead.”
Rhaenyra crouched before he could throw himself at her knees. The wet sand soaked through her skirts instantly.
“Gods forbid you starve.”
She swept him into her lap. His dense weight settled firmly against her chest, driving her knees deeper into the freezing silt. His curls smelled of dried sweat, sour peach juice, and cold salt—the faint, sweet milk-scent of his infancy scrubbed entirely away.
Rhaenyra brushed a sticky thumb across his chin, grounding herself in the solid heat of him. “You’ve been stealing peaches again.”
Viserys grinned, baring small teeth.
The ache in her belly twisted sharply as she shifted, but she just buried her face in his hair to mask the grimace, pressing a hard kiss to the top of his head.
“The bread is with Elinda.”
Viserys immediately twisted around, shoving at her collarbone. “Eli-da.”
Elinda sighed. “How fortunate. I was thinking this basket seemed far too heavy.”
She tore off a thick piece of barley bread and handed it down. Viserys seized it with both hands.
“Only the soft part?” Elinda asked.
Rhaenyra nodded. “The crust comes back untouched every time.”
Viserys shoved the bread into his mouth. He inspected the dark rim, gave a small, offended grunt, and ripped the crust away, hurling it into a saltwater puddle with a wet smack.
Elinda blinked. “I stand corrected.”
The boy wriggled free, his feet kicking up wet sand as he toddled away with his prize. Rhaenyra watched him go, her hands dropping to her damp lap.
Beside her, Maester Gerardys shifted his weight, his chain clinking softly. “You did not take the draught.”
Rhaenyra’s smile faded. “No.”
The maester waited. When she offered nothing else, he exhaled a slow breath. “Princess—”
“It would still be no.”
Gerardys looked toward the sea, the wind whipping his grey robes sharply around his ankles. “Prince Daemon asked me to remind you to rest.”
Rhaenyra let out a sharp, humorless breath. “Daemon says that every month and then disappears on dragonback before breakfast.”
“He worries.”
“He hovers.”
The maester’s mouth twitched.
Rhaenyra looked back toward Viserys. The boy had already abandoned his bread to poke a trapped crab with a stick.
Before Gerardys could press the matter, boots scraped sharply across the wet shale.
“Muña! Look!”
Joffrey came skidding across the stones, catching himself by slamming two freezing, wet hands directly onto Rhaenyra’s knee. The sudden pressure sent a jolt of dull, radiating ache straight up into her pelvis, but she locked her jaw, refusing to flinch.
Something bright orange writhed weakly between his muddy palms.
Aegon appeared immediately behind him, chest heaving, his eyes wide with fascination. “Look at the legs!” his hands twitched to grab it.
“We’re keeping him,” Joffrey declared triumphantly, his voice shrill against the wind. “He’s sleeping beside my bed.”
“He has to stay with us,” Aegon agreed, leaning in. “Look how bright he is.”
Rhaenyra looked down.
The creature twisted between Joffrey’s fingers—a shock of brilliant orange stark against the black, rotting seaweed and the boy's pale skin.
She reached out. Her fingertips brushed its back.
It didn't feel like a living creature; its back scraped against her skin like a chunk of calcified bone, stiff and starved of moisture by the freezing wind.
“No.”
Joffrey blinked, the triumphant grin slipping. “No?”
“He’ll be dead before supper.”
The boys stood very still. Rhaenyra held out her hand, her palm flat and waiting.
Reluctantly, Joffrey surrendered the starfish. The moment its rigid arms settled against her skin, it curled inward.
“He belongs in the water.”
“But we will give him water,” Aegon protested, his small brow furrowing with anxiety.
“The sea gives him more than water.”
Rhaenyra sank into a clumsy crouch, her breath hitching as a violent pull tore through her lower back. She clamped her teeth together, hiding the grimace from the boys as she lowered her hand into the nearest tide pool.
The freezing water rushed over her fingers, a biting cold that immediately numbed her skin—a contrast to the heavy heat throbbing in her abdomen. Beneath the surface, the stiff orange limbs loosened, relaxing into the pull of the current.
“See?”
Both boys leaned closer, their boots sinking deep into the wet grit.
“If you carry him back to the castle, he’ll dry out,” Rhaenyra said, letting the water take the orange shape. “By the morrow, he’ll be hard as driftwood and twice as ugly.”
Joffrey looked horrified. “Ugly?”
“Hideous.”
Joffrey made a loud face of disgust, instantly wiping his wet, sandy hands directly onto Aegon’s shoulder. “He’d smell bad anyway. Like the dead seal from last week.”
“Don't touch me!” Aegon yelled, shoving Joffrey back with a muddy elbow. His eyes had already locked onto a large yellow snail sticking to a rock. “Muna, look at this one. It’s a yellow one. Can I smash it?”
“No smashing.”
“But we can still visit him here, right?” Joffrey ignored his brother entirely, leaning over the water. “He lives in this pool now. It’s his house.”
“He does, and we can.” Rhaenyra used the momentum of a sharp cramp to push herself up into a standing position. She looked down the shoreline, spotting a pair of pale seabirds landing on a jagged spur of rock. “Though I think a prince ought to be responsible for the defense of his subjects. The gulls look quite interested in your new pool. They’ll eat him the moment we walk away.”
Joffrey straightened in instant panic. “What? No! Shoo! Go away!” He kicked a spray of wet sand toward the birds. “Aegon, give me stones! We have to hit them so they don't eat him!”
“I want to build a fort!” Aegon shrieked, completely forgetting the yellow snail. He dropped to his knees and began frantically digging into the wet grit, spraying mud all over Rhaenyra’s hem. “A big fort so the starfish stays safe and the birds die!”
“A wall around the pool,” Joffrey corrected, shoving Aegon’s head toward the mud. “Dig here. No! Move, you’re doing it wrong! The water is going to get in.”
“Build it quickly then,” Rhaenyra said, pulling her shawl tighter against the raw wind.
She didn't bother warning them about the incoming tide. Within seconds, the project dissolved into chaos. Joffrey was screaming at Aegon for dropping a heavy stone on his foot, and Aegon responded by bursting into loud, wet tears while stubbornly continuing to dig.
Behind her, Viserys had settled entirely into a hollow of the wet shore.
At some point, he had wriggled completely out of his linen shift. The garment lay abandoned several paces away, half-buried beneath broken clam shells. He sat directly in the muck in nothing but his nappy, his round, pale belly protruding proudly as a freezing wave crept up the shale and soaked his bare legs.
The child didn't so much as shiver. He grunted, his small face twisting in fierce concentration as he dug his chubby hands deep into the thick, black silt. His tiny arms shook as he pulled against the suction of the mud.
With a wet, heavy tear, the earth gave way.
He pulled something free. It was a piece of metal, dark with salt rot and heavy enough to drag his small wrists downward. Viserys traced the edge of it—three jagged, symmetrical prongs protruding from a solid base. He rubbed at the center with a wet, sandy thumb, smearing the silt away.
Something black gleamed stubbornly beneath the grime.
Viserys held it tighter, his small knuckles pressing white.
“Right, that’s enough.” Rhaenyra turned back as a stronger wave shattered against the outer reef, sending a spray of freezing mist into the air. “Joff. Aegon. Gather your things. Viserys—”
She stopped.
The boy was sitting directly in the path of the rising tide, clutching a piece of rot to his bare chest.
“Viserys Targaryen.”
The full name made him snap his head up, seawater dripping from his silver lashes.
“What did I tell you about the water?”
Viserys looked down at his own bare, freezing legs. He looked at the foam inching closer. Then, looking her dead in the eye, he brought both hands down, slamming the heavy metal into the surf.
He fully expected to soak her. Instead, the massive spray shot straight upward, catching him squarely in the eyes and nose.
The boy gasped, his silver lashes instantly matted with brine. The defiance vanished from his face in a fraction of a second. His lower lip ballooned outward, trembling violently as he wiped at his wet nose with a muddy wrist.
“Wah!” he whined.
Rhaenyra closed her eyes. Behind her, Elinda laughed drily.
“Joffrey,” Rhaenyra said, pointing. “Retrieve your brother before he decides to become a fish.”
Joffrey groaned, the sound of elder-brother suffering, but he trudged back through the muck. He hooked his arms beneath Viserys’s armpits and heaved him upward.
Viserys went completely rigid, as his face flushed a dark red. As he thrashed against his brother's hold, his fingers opened.
The metal object slipped.
It hit the sand with a hollow thud. As it sank instantly into the silt.
Viserys shrieked raw, as his hands clawed frantically toward the mud. But Joffrey merely hitched him higher, hauling the screaming child away from the surf, entirely oblivious to what had been dropped.
A wave washed over the spot. The black sand rushed back in, burying the three jagged prongs, swallowing the metal whole until it vanished entirely beneath the shore.
By the time Rhaenyra reached them, Viserys was still beating furiously against Joffrey’s shoulder. She simply grabbed Viserys's discarded, muddy shift from the rocks and turned back toward the cliff path where Gerardys was waiting.
High above them, a dragon cried.
The sound echoed off the black, volcanic cliffs, with a metallic shriek cutting through the roar of the surf. No one looked up. It was just background noise, as ordinary and constant as the crashing tide.
Rhaenyra took Viserys’s thrashing hand in a firm, uncompromising grip and started the steep climb.
Behind her, the heavy links of Maester Gerardys’s chain clicked softly against the stone. He had stopped on the lower landing, bracing one hand against the cliffside as his breathing began to rasp.
“Do not slow yourselves for my sake, Princess,” he called up, his voice strained.
Rhaenyra did not answer. She didn't quicken her pace, either. She kept her steps heavy and deliberate, refusing to widen the gap between them. The stone was unforgiving enough without pride.
Ahead of them, Joffrey had already bounded up a dozen steps, leaning over the edge to shout down at his brother. “You’re too slow! The crabs are going to climb up and pinch your feet!”
Aegon hadn’t moved from the lower landing. He was squatting over a puddle, aggressively poking a dead beetle with a piece of driftwood. “I’m not slow, I’m looking at a dead thing! It has no eyes!”
“Leave the bug, Aegon,” Rhaenyra called up, her voice strained from the incline. “Keep moving.”
“I’m leaving you behind!” Joffrey yelled, attempting to take two steep steps at a time.
“No, you aren't!” Aegon shrieked. He dropped the stick and scrambled up the stairs on his hands and feet, his basket swinging wildly and spilling a handful of wet shells onto the stone.
At the very least, Rhaenyra thought, they would sleep before the moon rose.
By the time they passed beneath the heavy oak arch of the lower bailey, woodsmoke and roasting meat had replaced the bitter salt wind. Rhaenyra let out a ragged breath, the tight knot in her back easing at the familiar heat of the courtyard—until a high burst of laughter cut directly through her headache.
She stopped short. Viserys walked face-first into the back of her velvet skirts.
In the center of the courtyard, Daemon was doing deep, measured squats in the dirt.
His riding leathers were dusted with soot, the wind having torn his silver hair loose from its ties. Luke sat triumphantly perched over Daemon's left shoulder, gripping his step-father's collar, while Rhaena clung to his right, laughing so hard she nearly slipped every time Daemon lowered his weight into another squat.
Jace was bent nearly double beside the mounting block, wiping a tear from his eye. “It isn’t fair!” he called out. “Luke weighs less than a sack of feathers. Put him on the other side!”
“Oh, be quiet!” Rhaena shouted back, swatting blindly at Jace from her precarious perch. “You are only upset because you are too big to ride the dragon!”
“What in the Seven Hells is he doing?” Rhaenyra muttered.
At the sound of her voice, Daemon paused mid-squat. He looked up, his face smeared with courtyard dust, and a slow, wildly inappropriate grin broke across his face.
“Perfect timing,” he declared, spreading his arms in invitation. “Come see how wrong they all are.”
Viserys instantly ripped his sticky hand free from Rhaenyra's grip. “Kepa!!”
The exhaustion of the stairs vanished. The toddler charged across the cobblestones, screaming at the top of his lungs. Joffrey and Aegon didn't hesitate. They dropped their baskets right where they stood—three dull thuds echoed as shells, wet sand, and dead crabs spilled across the bailey—and sprinted after their brother.
The three boys hit him at once. Daemon grunted, catching Viserys around the waist as Joffrey and Aegon launched themselves at his chest, their small arms locking tight around his neck. He adjusted his stance, now bearing the weight of the two older children on his back and the three toddlers dangling entirely from his front.
Rhaenyra ignored the mess of shells at her feet. Her body demanded she sit down immediately.
She looked toward the stables and found Baela leaning back against a wooden post, arms locked tightly across her chest, scowling at the dust cloud. She looked exactly like a miniature, deeply unamused version of her father.
The sight pulled a genuine, tired smile from Rhaenyra's mouth. “Come here, sweet girl.”
She crossed the courtyard, wrapping an arm around the girl's shoulders, pressing a kiss into her braids. “You’ve only just arrived and you already look ready to murder someone.”
Baela didn't uncross her arms, but she leaned heavily into Rhaenyra's side. “I am exasperated.”
“What has he done now?”
Baela pointed a single, accusing finger at Daemon, who was currently letting out a strained groan as he tried to push himself up from a squat with five children anchored to his body. “He hurt his back.”
“I did no such thing,” Daemon called out, his voice muffled by Aegon’s elbow shoving into his ear.
“You absolutely did,” Baela called back.
“There is nothing wrong with my back.” Daemon shifted his weight, his jaw locking tight as he hoisted the collection of children an inch higher.
“There is,” Baela said.
“How?” Rhaenyra asked, watching Daemon’s neck strain red.
Baela picked at a splinter on the post. “He was proving a point to Jace.”
“There was no point,” Daemon grunted, shifting his stance to keep Joffrey from sliding down his ribs.
“There was,” Baela said calmly.
“There was not.”
“There was.”
Daemon managed to straighten his knees another inch, his boots scraping backward in the dirt under the squirming weight. He looked through a tangle of silver hair and small limbs directly at Rhaenyra, panting slightly.
“Traitor,” he declared, lacking the breath to make it sound truly commanding. “I am surrounded by traitors.”
“He’s only lifting the little ones because his knees are turning to gravel,” Jace called from beside the water trough. He was grinning like a boy who knew exactly where to slip the knife. “I’d like to see him try that with someone who actually has bone in them.”
Daemon stopped moving.
Beneath the pile of toddlers, his head turned. His violet eyes locked onto his eldest stepson. “Is that a challenge, boy?”
Jace’s smile split perfectly from ear to ear. He didn't bother answering; he just bounced on the balls of his feet.
The children fed instantly off the shift in energy.
“Muña, he’s doing the look!” Joffrey shouted happily from his position clamped around Daemon’s neck.
“The challenge looks!” Rhaena agreed, smacking Daemon’s shoulder blade to spur him forward.
Aegon began bouncing violently against Daemon's chest. “Fight him! Fight him!”
“I am not fighting him,” Jace laughed, taking a quick step backward as Daemon finally unhooked the younger kids from his neck, setting them in the dirt, and let Luke and Rhaena slide off his back. He stood up, brushing the dirt from his chest.
“Fi-t him!” Viserys shrieked, having no idea what was happening but joining the noise anyway.
Before Jace could retreat another step, Daemon crossed the courtyard in three long strides. Jace yelped, trying to duck, but Daemon caught the teenager around the waist.
“Daemon, you're back—” Rhaenyra started, pushing off the post.
It was too late. With a massive heave, Daemon hauled Jace completely off the cobblestones. Jace let out a loud, breathless oof as he was flipped upside down, his boots kicking wildly in the air as he landed squarely over Daemon’s right shoulder.
“There,” Daemon said, breathing heavily but looking incredibly smug. “One growing boy.”
Jace immediately began kicking, his boots swinging hard into Daemon's ribs.
The first one connected with a dull, solid thud. Daemon's breath left him in a sharp grunt. His arm came down on pure reflex, locking Jace's legs tight against his torso and pinning the boy's boots flat against his hip.
"Do that again," Daemon said pleasantly, his grip tightening until Jace's ankles went white, "and you'll be learning your formations from the floor."
"I was not serious!" Jace yelled, his voice half-muffled from somewhere behind Daemon's shoulder.
“Neither am I,” Daemon grunted.
“You absolutely are!”
The younger children erupted into a unified, deafening chorus.
“My turn!”
“Mine!”
“Kepa!”
Viserys launched himself like a cannonball directly at Daemon’s knee. Daemon caught him blindly, hooking an arm under the toddler’s middle just as Aegon slammed into his other side. Joffrey and Luke swarmed his back, and Rhaena, who absolutely knew better, threw herself into the fray anyway. Daemon staggered, his boots grinding hard into the dust as he became less a prince and more a buckling, swearing, collapsing tower covered in shrieking children.
He shifted his stance wide to keep Jace from sliding off his shoulder.
“Father,” Baela said, her nose wrinkling as if the sheer stupidity of the stunt physically smelled bad. She threw one hand out to gesture wildly at the squirming pile. "You are proving my point."
“There is no point,” Daemon wheezed, his knee giving a faint, audible pop.
Baela dropped her hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. “You look ridiculous.”
The children immediately booed in a deafening chorus.
“Gang of traitors,” Baela muttered.
Dangling upside down over Daemon’s shoulder, Jace snorted. Then he made the fatal error of actually laughing out loud.
Daemon’s violet eyes narrowed.
“Princess,” he called over Jace’s dangling legs.
Rhaenyra immediately took a step backward, the heavy velvet of her gown dragging in the dirt. “No.”
“Princess.” Daemon took a heavy, deliberate step toward her, his boots scraping loudly as the entire pile of children swayed with the motion.
“Absolutely not.”
“Come here.”
“I am wearing velvet.”
“You are,” he agreed, taking another lumbering step. Aegon shrieked in delight at the lurching movement.
“I am not climbing on you.”
“Nobody said climbing.”
“You are eight and forty!”
Daemon pulled his chin back, looking genuinely affronted. The sudden shift in his posture caused Luke to slide precariously down his collarbone. “I am in my prime.”
Baela barked out a loud, incredulous laugh.
That decided it.
Daemon lunged. He didn't drop a single child. Moving with the terrifying momentum of a collapsing siege tower, he closed the distance before she could take another step backward.
“Daemon—”
Freeing his right arm from beneath Viserys, he hooked it securely around Rhaenyra's waist, completely ignoring the dragging weight of her wet skirts. Rhaenyra let out a sharp gasp as her boots abruptly left the cobblestones. The violent shift in gravity sent a dull jolt into her pelvis, making her grip his shoulder hard to brace herself.
The children erupted.
“Kepa won!”
“I told you!”
“Again!”
“Papa’s stwon!”
“Baela lost!”
“I did not lose anything,” Baela snapped, dragging a hand hard down her face in utter defeat.
Daemon slowly tried to straighten his spine. Thick leather creaked loudly under the impossible strain. The children squealed as the entire chaotic mass swayed, Rhaenyra grabbing tight to his shoulder to keep from sliding backward.
He managed to lock his knees. Drawing in a massive breath, he puffed his chest out and tipped his chin up like a tourney champion awaiting applause.
Pressed tightly against his hip, Rhaenyra stared at the sharp line of his jaw. For a split second, the courtyard faded. He wasn't a panting father; he was the Rogue Prince in midnight armor, soaking in the roaring crowd. Twenty years, and the sheer, arrogant theater of the man hadn't changed a fraction.
Behind them, Maester Gerardys made a strangled noise. The old man had finally cleared the archway, leaning heavily against the stone as he stared at the teetering tower of Targaryens in absolute horror.
“My prince!”
Nobody listened.
“My prince—” Gerardys tried again, his chain clanking as he limped forward. “My prince, the Princess—”
“Perfectly safe,” Daemon grunted. His voice was incredibly tight, forced out between shallow, locked-jaw breaths.
“The children—”
“Perfectly safe.”
“The laws of nature—”
“Have never troubled me.” Jace barked out a laugh from upside down.
The sudden heave of the teenager's chest threw off the balance.
Daemon’s left boot slid backward in the dirt. It was only an inch, but it was enough. The smugness vanished instantly, replaced by sudden, rigid panic.
Rhaenyra felt the massive, terrifying sway. “Daemon,” she gasped, her fingers digging desperately into his shoulder.
“I have it,” he grunted through locked teeth, his knee trembling violently.
“You do not!”
Viserys chose that exact moment to lunge across Daemon’s chest, trying to grab the gold silk woven through Rhaenyra’s sleeve. Aegon immediately shifted his weight to see what his brother was grabbing.
The center of gravity snapped.
Sensing the inevitable, Rhaena and Luke shrieked and abandoned ship. They let go of his collar and scrambled backward, vaulting off Daemon’s shoulders into the dirt just in time to escape his crushing weight. Jace, dangling helplessly upside down, had no such luck.
Daemon didn't try to save his pride. He twisted violently, throwing his weight backward. His arm clamped like a vise around Rhaenyra’s waist, dragging her tight against him, while his other hand grabbed Viserys by the back of his tunic. He rolled his shoulders, putting his own back toward the dirt to take the brunt of the fall.
They hit the courtyard with a massive, breathless impact of heavy leather, tangled limbs, and velvet. An immediate explosion of dust, coughing, and the sharp clatter of Joffrey’s basket scattering shells followed.
Rhaenyra found herself dumped awkwardly half-across Daemon's ribs, a foul taste of dirt on her tongue. The sharp jolt sent a throbbing flare through her pelvis, but she was otherwise unhurt. Viserys was squashed securely between them, oblivious to the danger and already shrieking with laughter. Joffrey was already trying to use Daemon’s knee to climb back up.
Beneath Rhaenyra, Daemon lay perfectly still, staring blankly up at the sky. He closed his eyes and inhaled a very slow, careful, rattling breath.
“It is the sacred duty of the sire,” he wheezed, his voice entirely devoid of breath, “to strike the ground first.”
A muffled, furious snarl erupted from the dirt near Daemon's calves.
“You didn’t strike the ground!” Jace yelled, struggling wildly to shove Daemon’s heavy leather boot off the back of his neck. “You struck me!”
Daemon considered this without opening his eyes. “A worthy sacrifice.”
“I hate you.”
“You challenge poorly.”
A shadow fell over them. Rhaenyra opened her eyes to see Baela standing over the wreckage, her arms crossed and a look of absolute, vindicated triumph on her face.
“I told you,” Baela said.
Rhaenyra finally pushed herself upright, spitting a grain of courtyard dirt from her lip. Her face burned hot with embarrassment as she tried to pull her heavy, ruined velvet skirts down over her knees. One of her pearls was hanging sideways.
Maester Gerardys materialized at her elbow, his grey robes trembling as he looked moments away from his own collapse.
“Princess—”
“I am fine,” Rhaenyra said, slapping a heavy layer of dirt from her skirts.
“Your wrist—”
“It remains attached. I am fine, Gerardys.”
Behind her, Aegon began hopping excitedly in the dust, completely unbothered by the crash. “Again! Do it again!”
“No,” Daemon croaked miserably from the dirt.
Baela stepped forward and nudged her father’s thigh with her boot. “Get up.”
Daemon didn't move a muscle. He kept his eyes squeezed shut against the sun.
"I am reflecting," he informed his firstborn. "The gravel cools my spine."
Rhaenyra let out an exhausted breath, stepping forward to deliberately drop her shadow across his face. He cracked one eye open.
"You cannot stand," she said flatly.
"I can," he muttered. "I am a dragon."
"You are eight and forty."
With a wet, straining grunt, Daemon drove his elbows into the gravel. He grabbed blindly at Jace’s tunic for leverage, ignoring the teenager's indignant squawk, and hauled his torso upright.
For one brief, horrifying instant, his left knee buckled entirely.
Rhaenyra tensed, her hand twitching forward to catch him. Across from her, Baela mirrored the exact same flinch.
But Daemon caught himself. He locked the joint with a sharp, hissing intake of breath, aggressively brushing the dust from his leather sleeve. He puffed his chest out, lifting his chin as he looked at both women with immense, completely unearned dignity.
“The young,” he declared stiffly, “do not linger in the dirt.”
He turned and marched toward the heavy oak doors of the keep.
Rhaenyra stood in the dust and watched him go. She pressed a hand to her mouth to hide a smile. It was a proud, defiant march, though the performance was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was limping heavily on his left side, walking as though every single joint in his body was actively negotiating separate terms with the Stranger.