Chapter Text
Harrenhal
130 AC
For the first time in his life, Daemon Targaryen faced battle unprepared to die. What farcical irony then, that the chances of his seeing the next day’s dawn were the smallest they’d ever been.
As the sun began its lazy descent beyond the towers of old Harrenhal, Daemon watched as a black speck appeared in the horizon and grew ever larger. Vhagar and Aemond, come so fast at news that he was alone here amidst the ruins of this monstrosity.
From deep behind the breastplate of his armour, Daemon retrieved a faded handkerchief—nicked from Rhaenyra too many years ago to remember—and cleaned the blood of Harrenhal’s heart tree from Dark Sister. Carefully, he folded the silk that once touched her skin back into a neat square and tucked it, stained red, against his heart.
Then he sheathed his sword and made for the outer bailey.
“Well, old friend,” he murmured as Caraxes nuzzled his hot velvet snout against Daemon’s shoulder. “Shall we finish this, once and for all? One way or another?”
Above, Vhagar’s shadow loomed, blacker than a storm, and Daemon heard her familiar cry, hot on the wind. The hot wind carried, too, Aemond’s overflowing arrogance, and Daemon could not help his derisive smirk. Did his dear young nephew believe he could cow him, flying upon Vhagar to meet him in battle? Daemon knew what it was to fly upon Vhagar’s back, clutching his father’s leather doublet. Daemon knew what it was to fly through Vhagar’s flames, chasing Laena through the Pentoshi sky.
There was not a thing about either boy or dragon that could frighten him. He would meet Aemond and Vhagar in battle this eve, and he would make sure it was their last. Yet for the first time, Daemon was unprepared to die.
Two nights ago at Maidenpool, as he and Nettie supped after yet another day of fruitless searching, Lord Mooton’s young maester had arrived with parchment bearing Rhaenyra’s broken seal and a terrible look upon his face. Daemon had sat frozen as his eyes drank in the letter, feeling as if his chest was being ripped open by rough hands.
The queen commands the head of the girl known as Nettles, who has been charged with the highest of treasons.
Oh Rhaenyra…his dearest Rhaenyra…Rhaenyra who had only fortnights ago kissed Nettie’s forehead as they departed for the Riverlands.
By an unspoken agreement, they had taken in the little smallfolk girl with her spindly arms and blinding grin as the daughter the Greens had stolen from them. Yet now…
Gods, what horrors had this war inflicted upon his wife? How much fear must plague and torment her at night, that she felt need to send this command?
Daemon’s hand had crept to his doublet then, wherein he kept the two scraps of parchment Rhaenyra had written him since he left her to find Aemond: one after the betrayals at Tumbleton, one after the idiot Corlys had spirited Addam away when Rhaenyra summoned him.
There were but a handful of words in Rhaenyra’s rounded, sprawling hand, but every one stuck in his throat.
…I cannot bring myself to trust anymore, though my head tells me I ought not to doubt their loyalty…It is near impossible to stay sane with you gone…I am trying to be strong for you, I am, but my mind is a mess…
…I cannot sleep…the taste of fear is constantly coppery in my mouth…Sometimes I manage to doze when I imagine your arm around my waist, but then I startle awake to my empty bed, and I can still see every one of my dead boys in the dark.
And today, this secret command, cold and impersonal. That hopeful part of Daemon wished to believe the Greens had somehow forged Rhaenyra’s seal to drive a wedge between them, yet if that were the case, the letter would have called for his head too, would it not? Instead, it demanded that Daemon not be harmed.
He could hardly bear to admit it, but he could see in his mind Rhaenyra shivering alone in that iron chair, panic seizing her as one of her grappling advisors convinced her that even little Nettie would betray her. Calling for Gerardys to pen this secret command because she did not know how else to keep the clawing fear at bay.
His darling girl, and the horrors this war had inflicted upon her. Horrors he could have prevented if he’d only been quicker, smarter, fiercer and more competent—if he had done more to protect their children. She'd named him Protector of the Realm, but the Realm was Rhaenyra now, and their family, and he had done a sorry, pathetic job of protecting both.
Alone in the Harrenhal godswood, Daemon had allowed all his rage at his incompetence to boil over, taking Dark Sister to the weirwood tree. The bloody disbelief at news of Luke’s murder, the maddening fury as a wounded Egg had tumbled off his dying dragon wailing Viserys’ name, the despair that crumpled Daemon’s insides at news of Jace’s death at sea… His boys, each one…dead—and here he was, still breathing, nary a scratch upon him.
He had hacked his fury and grief into the weirwood until its trunk was mangled and bloody as his heart. He could not imagine the anguish that must plague Rhaenyra, to lose those sons who were made of her flesh and blood. And he could not blame her for this command.
Yet neither could he let Rhaenyra make this mistake with little Nettie. When she realised she was mistaken about the girl, Rhaenyra would never forgive herself—she who had slapped him so hard he saw stars when she learned he’d sent assassins to avenge Luke. Even when she wanted the blood of her brothers, she could not stomach killing children.
When Daemon returned to present the truth to her and put his sword through the rat who’d made her so afraid, she would remember herself, and all would be well again. When Daemon returned, he would make all right with her.
If Daemon returned.
Because before he returned to comfort and assure his wife, Daemon needed to be here, at Harrenhal, to finally finish this task he had vowed upon Luke’s pyre. He had taken Rhaenyra’s leave with promises to deliver her Aemond’s head, and he did not intend to break his promise. His troublesome nephew upon Vhagar was and always would be the biggest threat to Rhaenyra’s reign, and Daemon’s priority must be to eliminate him, before he did even more damage.
So he would force Aemond to leave his life here, amid the ruins of cursed Harrenhal and the bottomless waters of the God’s Eye. He must. Even though he had never been so desperate to cling to life and have the chance to set things to rights.
If he must leave his own bones alongside his nephew’s…well, Daemon hoped keeping this promise would be enough for Rhaenyra to forgive him the betrayal of sending Nettie into hiding. He hoped she’d forgive him, too, for breaking that first promise he ever made her, on Dragonstone, with their bleeding palms joining their souls. He’d told her he’d never leave her again, but being unprepared to die had never helped any soldier survive battle.
He could see Aemond upon Vhagar’s back now, and squinting into the orange sunset, he made out another figure behind him—a woman’s form, with long hair streaming behind them. For a ridiculous moment, Daemon wondered if this was how Vhagar appeared in the sky half a century ago, carrying his own father and mother. For though Alyssa Targaryen always kept half her soul with Meleys, there had been times when Baelon liked to fly with his wife tucked against his lap.
As Daemon himself had done with Rhaenyra, back when all had been right with their world in those six golden years, no matter the storm that loomed on the horizon. The memories splattered like hot honey in his chest, but Daemon brushed them aside.
This was no time for softness. No time for thoughts about his lover, his niece, his wife. Now he could only allow himself thoughts of his queen and their heirs, and what he must do to win her this war.
So when Aemond helped his pregnant lover off Vhagar amidst the dust stirred from the colossal dragon’s landing, Daemon felt inside his breastplate one last time, touching that handkerchief as if he touched Rhaenyra’s skin.
And when Aemond jeered,
“You have lived too long, Nuncle,”
Daemon threw his head back and allowed brittle, bitter laughter to harden every tender point of pain, until he was stone and steel, one with his sword and Caraxes’ blade-sharp scales.
And when they took flight, his ears full to bursting with wind and war cries, Daemon urged his dragon high into the clouds—letting the lashing air strip him of all humanity, all reluctant clinging to life.
With a bright shriek from Caraxes’s mouth or his own throat, he was not certain, they dove down toward Vhagar. The moment teeth tore into flesh, Daemon was all beast, all steel, no regret. Through the maestrom of agonised screams and the terrible ripping of scales and hide, through the tangle of fire and molten splattering of blood, he urged Caraxes on with his calls and his whip.
Never had they fought together so, and never had he felt, so vividly, the blood of this beast burning in his own veins. Caraxes’ every shriek of pain Daemon felt in his own body, and each urged him closer to that certainty—that there would be no returning from this day, this battle.
Everything they had, they would leave here, under this bleeding sunset, lake water rushing up to meet them as they brought down Vhagar, the oldest, largest being upon this earth. Vhagar and her rider, who, in truth, began this war that had taken so much from their family.
And so, when Caraxes sank his teeth into Vhagar and granted him that opening, Daemon did not hesitate. Perhaps he had always known this was how he must end it. Perhaps this was why he had left loose those chains that usually bound him to the saddle. He pulled Dark Sister from its sheath, stood, and ceased all thought.
When his sword sank into Aemond’s skull, all Daemon knew was triumph. When the cool lake engulfed him, all Daemon knew was satisfaction. When darkness closed in, all Daemon knew was that he had done his best for her.
It had not been good enough, but it was all he could manage. With his last breath, he had removed this largest of threats and avenged their boys.
He regretted only that he could not stroke her cheek one last time.
Forgive me, Rhaenyra. I did my best.