Chapter Text
chapter one. dream deliver us to dream
.
.
.
In the hour of the owl, when the Red Keep was so quiet one could hear the rhythmic breathing of its sleeping inhabitants and the furtive steps of those who reveled in the shadows of night echoing in the halls, Viserys Targaryen dreamed.
He'd always been a dreamer, more so than he'd been a dragon. His interest lay not in the great beasts that were the wonder and terror of Old Valyria, but rather in the weathered, yellowed, and crumbling tomes of his family's fallen homeland. He loved the higher mysteries, the arcane; the intricate web of alliances, sorcery, and cutthroat politics that decided who lived and died by fire and blood.
Dragons were weapons of conquest, instruments of the dragonlords' will and power. Viserys admired and respected them too, just as one admired the sea amidst a storm or a volcanic eruption spewing lava and ashes from a safe distance. He wasn't like Daemon or his mother or even his own daughter, whose blood ignited and rejoiced as they weaved intricate patterns through the clouds.
Viserys never did need a dragon's leathery wings for his mind to reach the skies.
Rider of Balerion he might have been, but he was drawn to the dragon not because of his destructive might, nor for his fearsome reputation. Viserys claimed Balerion because he was the last remnant of Old Valyria; because long before he had been the Conqueror's, he had been Daenys the Dreamer's mount.
Daenys's dream saved them from the Doom; Aegon's dream gave them a greater calling, a newfound purpose in their perpetual exile. Viserys's own dream had at first seemed like a confirmation of the right path ahead, one he had seeded, watered, pruned, and watched grow into a magnificent tree. Yet, for all his dedication and with one sole, cherished exception, the tree bore only rotten, bitter fruits. Termites found their way inside and made a home within the tree's bark.
His beloved wife's death and Daemon's betrayal taught Viserys a bitter truth: one could not dwell in dreams, lest they forget the living. Dreams, for all their importance and burden, weren't absolute — how many tales were there of seers and prophets who had led people not to their promised salvation, but to their doom? Thus, he'd named Rhaenyra his heir and even when Aegon was born and his faith shaken, Viserys remained steadfast in his decision.
Silently, he held onto the hope that the Gods would send him a new dream, one that would assuage his innermost fears. Most nights, Viserys slept to find himself immersed in peaceful darkness or in dreams that had no rhyme or reason and were forgotten come the light of morn.
Not that night. That night, for the first time in years, Viserys dreamed.
───※ ·♛· ※───
The night was alive and filled with colors. There was music in the air, the bawdy, raucous tones favored by Flea Bottom's bards. Deft fingers plucked on the strings of his memories, pulling Viserys to the past, to a time before Aemma, when he was but a Prince.
He closed his eyes, feeling the music thrumming through his body, soothing every tired, broken crevice. His feet started to move — if by his own will or by that of another, he could not tell — and he swept through the crowd of indistinguishable faces and brightly dyed clothes in time to the beat of the drums.
A piece of new music started then: a softer, sweeter sound, fresh as a lemon cake on a hot summer evening. The colors of night brightened and danced as the melodies entwined, building on each other in perfect harmony. Slowly, the two melodies shifted, giving way to laughter — familiar laughter.
Viserys' eyes snapped open and he turned sharply to his right. It couldn't be, he told himself, it couldn't be.
Oh, but it was. There, standing at the end of the alley and haloed in fire, were Daemon and Rhaenyra. Daemon and Rhaenyra with their hands entwined, blending into the crowd with their dull, inconspicuous disguises and covered silver-gold tresses. Daemon and Rhaenyra, drowning in each other's eyes and with smiles of quiet joy and pure delight.
Viserys's chest tightened, providing little room for air to fill his lungs. When was the last time he'd seen Rhaenyra so happy? Not for years — not since Aemma died and he married Alicent. When was the last time he'd seen Daemon so open? He could no longer recall.
"Wait," Viserys called and took a step forward, reaching out to them. "Wait!" They walked on, laughing and drinking from the same wineskin. "Daemon, Rhaenyra, wait—"
But they weren't listening.
Viserys pushed through the crowd, screaming their names, but with each step his brother and daughter grew more distant, their contours blurry, intermingling with the flame until they’d become flame themselves. The music halted; the colors faded. The once indistinguishable faces of the crowd crystallized into that of his mother and father and grandfather and grandmother and all those he’d lost, their sapphire stares following his every movement.
They reached out to him, their hands wrapping around his wrists, his ankles, his throat. Viserys had never been strong to begin with and his illness had done him no favors, but he would not let the dead hold him down and drag him into their cold, lifeless hell. He had a duty, a burden, a purpose: the fire, the fire. He had to reach the fire. Daemon and Rhaenyra.
Viserys screamed into the cold dark. He struggled, kicked, punched, and at last, roared against merciless everwinter.
“You will not have me! By the gods, you will not have me!”
“There are no gods when the snows fall and the white winds blow, Viserys Targaryen,” a voice whispered in his ear, frozen fire to match a world without light. “But there may yet be dragons.”
And just like in his dream, the dream that killed Aemma, the flame still burning in the distance erupted and all dragons roared as one. The white shadows released him, screeching, melting away into pools of black that disappeared into the darkness. Viserys fell to his knees, trembling hands fisting the snow on the ground, gasping for air as the fire in his veins tried to expel the frost from his lungs.
The deep shadows gave way to a pale half-light, to a day that wasn’t a day. Around him, the snow fell quietly, unhurried. Silence reigned, undisturbed even by his labored breathing.
He didn’t know how long he stayed there, shaken to his bones, kept warm only by the memory of a flame. Maybe it was the ephemeral moment a butterfly flapped its wings, over before it began, or maybe it was the undisclosed length of all eons of history. It didn’t matter — time was meaningless in a dream.
“Blood of two, joined, as one,” the voice of frozen fire echoed all around him, chanting to the melody set before darkness, before death.
Viserys’ breath hitched and he raised his head.
He was in the Red Keep. Not the Red Keep where he’d heard petitioners this past morning, but a decrepit mirror of it, one he barely recognized. The ceiling had collapsed, exposing a gray, melancholic sky; blood and ash coated the snow, painting it red and black. There was no Targaryen heraldry in this throne room, only crumbling icons of the Faith of the Seven and Seven-Pointed Stars.
“Ghostly flame, and song of shadows,” the woman — for it was a woman — continued her chant, undaunted. Her voice was a dragonglass blade, sharp and polished, cool to the touch, carrying an underlying warmth from its birth amidst flame and smoke.
It stirred in him feelings of nostalgia and loss, the familiarity of sweet dreams gone come the light of morn. Slowly, so afraid he was to hope, Viserys turned towards the Iron Throne — but the Iron Throne was no more.
In its place, there was only an amorphous, incandescent mound of metal, the fused iron trickling down the surface in rivulets and evaporating as it met the snow on the floor.
The woman chanting sat on the half-crumbling steps leading up to the molten throne, a maiden no older than his daughter. She was a pale wisp of a thing, with tresses of spinned-silver as fair as her skin tied in an elaborate braid. A headdress of dragonglass and rubies in traditional valyrian style rested atop her head, matching ceremonial beige and red robes embroidered with dragon scales.
A dragon lay beside her, eyes closed, curled into itself save for its head, which rested on the maiden’s lap.
"Two hearts as embers, forged in the fourteen flames,” she sang, caressing the dragon’s jet-black scales. Blood dripped along her elongated fingers, coating some of the beast’s scales in frighteningly familiar patterns.
“Balerion,” Viserys whispered, his bloodless lips parted. This was Balerion long before he was the Black Dread, the terror of all Westeros. This was Balerion at his infancy, a few years after he’d hatched from an egg picked by a young — gods have mercy. “Daenys the Dreamer.”
“A future promised in glass, the stars stand witness—” Daenys halted, hand freezing mid-air. Balerion’s eyes snapped open, pools of blood swirling with hunger and rage. She did not look up as she said, “Do you know, Viserys Targaryen, why I named him Balerion?”
“God of Flame and Bloodshed,” he replied, the answer carved into his memory since boyhood, “greatest of the Fourteen Flames.”
“God of Flame and Bloodshed, pride of the Valyrian Freehold.” She caressed Balerion lovingly, with a small, sad smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “Our glory, our power, and our great tragedy. Our beginning and our end. It suited me. It suited the Conqueror. It suited you, too.”
Viserys balled his hands into fists.
“The House of the Dragon will not end with me. I have a daughter and two more children besides, a realm thriving and in peace. I have a brother, rogue as he is. We will endure."
Daenys chuckled. “Look around you, child. Does this remind you of endurance? Of strength?”
He had no answer for her, no time to think of one.
Daenys rose, gathering her hands behind her back. Rhaenyra — she looked so much like his Rhaenyra.
“To nurture the fire, blood must have blood, Viserys Targaryen. They need each other. It keeps them alive, thriving, and controlled. The mages of Valyria understood that.” She stared down at him, pale lilac eyes almost colorless under the faint light. “You do not.”
Balerion stirred, unfurled, spread his wings. He grew larger by the moment until the Red Keep shook; the ceiling, already fragile, began to collapse. Viserys couldn’t move, an invisible chain binding him to Daenys.
“Blood must have blood,” she decreed, opening her arms wide. “The vow spoken through time, of darkness and light. Blood must have blood, Viserys Targaryen. Only then will the fire of the House of Dragon survive the night.”
───※ ·♛· ※───
Viserys jumped awake, a scream caught in his throat. He clutched at the soft linen of his sleeping garments and felt the thunderous heartbeat lashing at the confines of his ribcage, just as the gods of sea and wind did to the walls of Storm's End long, long ago.
Besides him, Alicent turned around, propping herself up with a hand.
"Viserys?" She rubbed her eyes, trying to banish the last of sleep. "Is everything alright?"
Was everything alright? He couldn't say. Buttery sunlight streamed into the chambers through latticed windows, creating a peaceful, cozy ambiance, but it did little to chase away the cold.
"Viserys?" Alicent called again, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"It's alright," he whispered, covering her dainty hand with his. Inclining his head towards her, Viserys offered his wife a reassuring smile. "A bad dream, is all. Nothing you need to concern yourself with, my dear."
Alicent's brow creased and she pressed her lips together, but no words left them. They remained like that for a while, immersed in the tranquil, melancholic quietness of early morning.
Someone knocked on the door and a twin look of confusion passed between them.
"Who could it be at this hour?" She inquired, pulling her hand away from his.
He shook his head. "All I know is that no good news ever comes this early in the day." The knock came again — this time louder, more insistent. Viserys cast a sideway glance at Alicent and motioned to the YiTish folding screen near the window. "Go. This shan't take long, I gather."
With a perfunctory nod, his wife slipped out of the bed, gathering her silk robe about her as she did. Viserys rose and once Alicent had safely absconded behind the screen and disappeared from sight, he said, “Come in.”
The door opened and Otto strode in, already dressed in his impeccable court attire, the Hand of the King's pin gleaming on his chest. There was a hesitancy to his walk, an agitation to his features at odds with what Viserys’ had come to expect from his trusted Hand.
“What is it?” Viserys asked, coming to meet Otto at the gates of his model of Old Valyria, besides the chair where years ago he’d talked to Rhaenyra upon her return from the impromptu visit to Dragonstone.
“I apologize for the early hour, your grace,” Otto started, clenching and unclenching his hands. “I have, ah—” He paused and blinked, quickly reassessing his words. “— discomforting news. I thought it best shared discreetly before the council convenes.”
Viserys looked away, his mind racing at the possibilities. “The Sea Snake.”
Otto shook his head. “I’m afraid it concerns the princess, my king.”
Fear gripped at Visery’s heart. He reached for the back of the chair closest to him for support, purple eyes locked with Otto’s. The image of Daenys, singing softly on the foot of the destroyed Iron Throne, flashed in his mind.
“Has something happened to Rhaenyra? Has she been harmed? Is she ill?”
The Hand didn’t respond immediately, exhaling sharply and averting his gaze, unable to look Viserys in the eye. “It’s no easy thing to tell a father of his daughter’s exploits. I had considered saying nothing but—”
“Look at me, Otto,” Viserys demanded. His nails dug into the wood. “What has she done?”
Otto acquiesced, and the disquiet he spotted in the man’s countenance was genuine. “The princess was spied last evening beyond the walls of the keep… in a pleasure house.” He looked away again but, this time, Viserys did not push.
“What of it?”
“She was carrying on with her uncle. They were engaged in behaviors unbecoming of a maiden — of a princess.”
Rhaenyra and Daemon, walking hand in hand through the streets of Flea Bottom, looking happy and free and content. Had it not been a dream, then? Had it happened?
But there had been nothing untoward in his vision, nothing unbecoming. There had been only light-hearted joy.
Unless—
Blood must have blood, Viserys Targaryen.
Otto continued talking about trusted sources of information, offers of apologies, how they may yet smother the inklings of scandal if just—
Viserys closed his eyes, taking in deep, shaky breaths. He knew they’d been out last night, he had seen them himself. And Otto… Otto wouldn’t be here if he didn’t trust the source of this information. If he didn’t think of this as an opportunity.
“Get out,” Viserys said through gritted teeth, interrupting Otto mid-rant. “Leave me, Otto.”
Otto immediately recanted. “Your grace, if I gave you any offense—”
“Offense? You had my daughter stalked, spied upon, and for what? Awaiting your best chance to destroy her reputation? To further your own selfish ambition?”
“Your grace, I had no such intent—”
“You did!” the King seethed, coming alive with the memory of Balerion. “Your designs are obvious. You so wish to see your blood on the Iron Throne that you would destroy mine own.”
“Your grace—”
“Get out,” Viserys repeated, slamming his hands on the wood. “Get out, Otto, and order Daemon brought to me. If he truly ruined my daughter, I’ll hear it from his mouth. Not from yours.”
Otto opened his mouth to argue, to say something, but seemed to think better of it and merely nodded, bowing to the waist. “As you wish, your grace.”
Once the door closed behind him, Alicent stepped out of her hiding spot, glancing between the door and Viserys himself. The skin around her nails was red and freshly bloodied.
───※ ·♛· ※───
It had been a long, long time since Daemon had drunk himself into oblivion.
He'd overindulged plenty of times before, usually for freedom or for pleasure, for the heady, exhilarating feeling of the liquid burning down his throat. He'd even drunk to ward off his dark moods, particularly after a fight with Viserys, though never to this extent.
The last time Daemon had drunk himself into a stupor simply to drown out all the unwelcome, heavy feelings twisting their way around his heart was the night his father died. He'd woken up in a rundown alley with bruised knuckles, a black eye, the grandmother of all headaches, and no recollection of how he'd gotten there.
He had no black eye this time. No bloodied fists either, and the place he had woken to was much nicer than the last one. Courtesy of Mysaria.
Yet just like that horrible night many years before, the wine hadn't burnt away the memories. It had given him a reprieve, an isle of numbness amidst the sea of confusion, gone as soon as dawn broke across the sky.
When he'd won the war in the Stepstones and a crown for his efforts, there was little he thought of if not returning to King's Landing and setting the crown on his brother's feet, thus forcing Viserys to recognize him. He meant to take this recognition and crush it in his hands. Daemon would draw his brother into an illusion of safety and peace and then smash it to pieces. Let him feel the same anger, the same betrayal, as Daemon had when he was exiled and abandoned, only to have an offer of rescue arrive out of misplaced, unwanted pity.
He hadn't known how to go about it, only that he would. Daemon was no Otto Hightower, patiently playing a game of cyvasse and planning five, six steps ahead. He'd rather flip the entire board as his plans fell apart and improvise from there, keeping his enemies on their toes, wondering what he was up to next. If they thought of him as some kind of master schemer, all the better for his reputation.
Rhaenyra wasn't part of his initial plans of getting back at his brother. For all Daemon knew she was still gallivanting around Westeros with that dornish knight of hers following like a lost puppy, listening to sheep attempt to convince a dragon they could ever satisfy her. That had changed the moment he'd spotted her weaving through the gathered crowd at his reception, purple eyes full of hunger.
Viserys had taken everything from him. Taken, taken, and refused to give it back in equal measure. Why shouldn't Daemon do the same, then?
He wasn't blind to Rhaenyra's interest in him. It was only natural — they were Targaryens, dragonlords of old, after all. Daemon wasn't so much of a hypocrite to deny he enjoyed her undisputed adoration or that he had fueled it over the years with his many gifts. Neither was he going to deny the primal, unabashed satisfaction at seeing her proudly wearing the valyrian steel necklace he'd gifted her. He wondered if she'd worn it to meet her suitors, too.
So he had lured her out of the Keep, taken her hand, and led her into Flea Bottom with the promise of a night of freedom and adventure. As they threaded the streets, his gaze wandered to her, taking in her joy at the men crossing a tightrope above the alley, the bards and their filthy shanties, the vendors and entertainers performing illusions and tricks.
His niece was radiant, blindingly, devastatingly so. She pulled him in with her enthusiastic grin, with her merry laughter. Her delight softened the sharp edges of his resentment and he couldn't help but share in her joy. Daemon held on to her hand, laughed with her at some bawdy joke, shouted over the crowd, and twirled Rhaenyra around as they hit up a tavern where a group of performers played a particularly riveting song.
She'd looked up at him then, flushed and sweaty and a little high, with his name on her pink lips. Daemon's heart twisted, the reason why he brought her here pushing its way to the forefront of his mind. He had a mission: ruin Rhaenyra and get back at Viserys. The path ahead was clear.
Daemon brought her to the Street of Silk, to one of his old haunting places. He removed her cap, leaving all to see the silvery sheen of her hair, how it framed her lovely face. Hands together, Daemon led her down the path of damnation.
Hers or his own, he could no longer say.
He remembered Rhaenyra's forehead pressed against his, their lips melding together as she pulled him down, closer, closer. Her mouth was sweeter than honey, her fingers leaving scorch marks down the nape of his neck. Yes, Daemon realized, yes he could get addicted to her, to this exquisite taste of pleasure that was unmistakably, uniquely Rhaenyra's.
He pinned her against a wall, untying her clothes, her back to him. But Rhaenyra was voracious and unapologetic, a dragon just as he was, and she'd not be a quiet, passive subject of her own ruin. She'd turned to face him, eyes brimming with trust — and his resolve broke.
It was the Dragonstone bridge all over again. Just as he couldn't bring himself to kill Rhaenyra there, Daemon couldn't bring himself to cross the line here either, not when she looked at him with those damned eyes. She deserved better than to lose her maidenhead in the bowels of a brothel, in sight of others, over Daemon's petty grudge.
So he'd walked away and left her there in a whirlwind of fury, frustration, and confusion. He went into the nearest tavern and downed cups of wine faster than his body could handle them. Her memory haunted Daemon's every step: her laughter, her body, her lips.
In trying to lay waste to her reputation, he'd inadvertently laid waste to himself. In exposing her in such a public manner, he'd exposed parts of him he'd buried and avoided for far too long.
He was cursed, damned, forever leashed to the memory of what he almost had within his grasp.
Daemon turned around on the cot, turmoil brewing in his heart. He supposed he ought to return to the Red Keep and see what his efforts had wrought.
No sooner had he stumbled past the main gates, Westerling and two other Kingsguards whose names he couldn't bother to remember descended upon him.
His brother, it seemed, wanted an audience.