Chapter Text
She’s nineteen when Uncle Daemon comes back again by the first days of December : winter has begun early, lickety-split, but has not yet entirely started. Everyday the wind ; clouds huddling together, stuck in the horseshoe between the woods and the hills, clouds of October black as ink pilling up with November’s even darker ones, and then, clouds of December on top of it all, a darker shade of black heavy with the threat of disaster. The light looked green a week before. Now it’s black, peculiar black, the kind of black in which even darker shades of black dance with a deep purple hue.
Snow falls. At midday, everything in the field down the hill is covered, everything is erased, there’re no more earth, no more grass, no more wildflowers, nothing. Heavy smoke runs down the roof and swaddles Dragonstone ; snow falls in flutters like pristine white winter butterflies, and it makes the light clearer, colors it pink, fresh blood pink, and sometimes there’s a hand moving like the swing of a pendulum and wiping frost off of a windowpane ; and then some cruel, gaunt face appears, looking down through the glass before fading off into the darkness of the room.
Rhaenyra knows her mother’s face when she sees it. It’s been like that for years : a ghost in an old mansion, a pale face through the glass, wails lingering on the hallways’ walls — the echo of it.
She sees it in the distance : the blood-red sheen speeding around the corners of the dusty road. A glint of fair hair in the middle of it, silver melted with gold, short and slicked ; the dark collar of an expensive shirt as the car moves closer.
(It is a cruel, twisted thing, the way her heart aches into her chest at the sight : a little bird-flutter, a flower unfurling and blooming across her lungs.)
Up in his arms before he even opens them ; the scent of Daemon, heavy cologne and bits of amber whiskey. Her nose, buried in the hollow of his neck as his hands grip the back of her coat, legs wrapped around his waist : Daemon staggers backwards with a laugh, a low rumble that feels like a wild beast’s purr against her ribcage.
« I’m here, Nyra, » he says. Croons her name against her skin, rocks her a little in his arms as if she were still a little girl. « I won’t leave you again, I promise. »
Her uncle puts his hand on her cheek ; it is a gentle thing, callouses and scars rough against porcelain skin, a kiss to the ridge of her cheekbone.
« You always promise, » Rhaenyra replies ; but she knows she will forgive him for anything.
(He knows that, too. He leaves, comes back ; Rhaenyra stays, lingers, always here : a ghost in a castle. A part of her in him, phantom limb — a part of him in her that he leaves there.)
His hand comes to cradle the back of her head, presses her nose closer into the skin — smooth and strong and warm. Rhaenyra hasn’t known warmth for quite some time : but then again, warmth used to go where Daemon went. Warmth came from two bodies pressed against each other, impossibly close. Warmth came from Mother’s fingers tracing the pale lines of her face, from lips kissing her forehead, the warm press of cold lips against her cold skin. Two years is a very long time, long enough to forget ; she breathes into it, that foreign, half-forgotten sensation that burns her nostrils and warms up her cheek where it’s pressed against the scent of him — the lingering heat of a hand around a glass of whiskey, cigarette ash falling on marble, bits of ember swept away by the wind.
Daemon takes a deep breath, too ; his hand is steady where it keeps on brushing her wild strands of hair.
« You’ve grown. So much. »
Rhaenyra clutches the little curls she finds at his nape, shorter that she remembers them ; he shifts, and she feels the thrum of his heart in hers.
« Been two years, » she mumbles into the collar of his shirt ; her lips brush against his skin as she speaks and he shivers, but she pretends not to notice. « Of course I’ve grown. I’m nineteen now. »
Daemon leans back ; a crooked smile curves the thin lines of his mouth, and it’s tender, simple. Warm. « You’re almost a woman grown. »
« I am a woman grown. »
He lets her slip away from his arms. The ground scrunches underneath the heels of her shoes as she lands : snow, frozen dead leaves scattered around haphazardly ; spots of red among white, like snow splattered with blood.
Daemon’s face is still smiling, but this time it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. « Not yet, darling. But you will be. »
She’s fifteen when Uncle Daemon comes back for the first time in years. Fifteen and a little porcelain doll living in the castle by the sea ; Dragonstone is an enormous house, an old mansion that the town people avoid because it is said to be haunted by strange spirits — heartbreaking wails lingering on cold stone, heavy flutters of dark wings in gloomy rooms filled with spiderwebs and dusts of a forgotten time.
Rhaenyra has been living into that place for fifteen years ; she’s never seen ghosts. Some spiderwebs, perhaps. Dust, too. She’s even heard crows before : terrible shrieks buzzing like the devil’s bow above her head as she reads under the old oak tree ; seen them, little dots of black against the grey sky, like ashes on marble. Most of the time, the image of it — jagged, twisted — lingers in a dream behind her eyelids : ethereal waves, shaded lines curving like scars on delicate white, and then Daemon flicks his cigarette and cinder falls atop of it. It’s dark and uneven like a crumpled piece of paper, flutters in the air like snow for a moment before it falls and crumbles — and sometimes there’s this tiny moment when she imagines a world where everything is twisted, like ashes falling on marble, like a flock of crows flying into a grey sky that never turns blue.
(A world where Daemon is her prince, her white knight ; and she’s a lonely princess tucked away into the castle by the sea.)
Her feet sink into the silent sand. She moves as if she’s walking on clouds, follows a trail of shells along the shore. From time to time a breeze ripple the water : wind pushes their foam here and there, forms freckles of pearly white upon dark blue. Rhaenyra has a world of infinity in front of her, but she looks for the smallest seashells she can find at her feet. She likes the smooth feel of them between her fingers : the lingering sheen of foam, the undulations of brown against white.
Daemon is a silent shadow behind her. She knows he’s not really fond of their little walks on the beach, but he indulges her every time. So she keeps on asking — it is in her nature to be greedy, Alicent said, and greed is never a pretty thing on little girls like her —, and he keeps on falling into step behind her as she walks on clouds of sand ; pretends, if only for a time, that they’re walking around a castle in the sky. High above where crows fly in flocks of ashes, cinder on marble.
(Uncle Daemon’s hand finds hers, and the grains of sand smear there like tiny gemstones at the bottom of the ocean, lost glitters into the silence. She distantly feels the heat of his skin where his fingers touch hers : a burning needlepoint on her fingertips.)
When he leaves, just a few steps away from her, she watches him — the figure he cuts against the dark grey air, short slicked hair light like moon-drops curled around his nape. Rhaenyra opens her palm : mother-of-pearl into the cradle of her hand. A gift from the sea, she thinks he told her, doesn’t remember, but she keeps it anyway : a pearl hanging on by a thread in the hollow of her throat, a token found into an old, distant castle among clouds of sand.
(She’s just turned seventeen when he leaves again with a bruise blooming on his nose.)
« Did you know he was coming ? »
Rhaenyra doesn’t even turn ; it snows still, and she’s looking at the grey sky — uneven shapes curling around each other like tale-colored waves across the sea. Soft and ominous at the same time, dark grey cotton candy, some dim rays of sun piercing through from time to time like golden seaweeds against the dark sand.
« No, » she says, so softly she’s not even sure her stepmother has heard her. She grips her phone a little harder and stops the music playing through the earphones stuck in her ears.
She can feel the prickle on her nape, the tell-tale of Alicent’s cold eyes fixed on the back of her skull. « Don’t lie, Rhaenyra. »
« I’m not lying. »
There’s a shift behind her, the click of heels on the ground — pretty green shoes with a square silver shoe-buckle, something only a princess would wear, or a (evil) queen.
« You must have known, » Alicent snaps, and Rhaenyra sees it now : the shape of her silhouette framed by the gloomy light passing through the glass, elegant but rigid. « He never does anything without telling you first ; did you think I wouldn’t notice the constant texting between the two of you ? The way you whisper at your phone at night when you think no one’s listening ? »
There’s nothing pretty about Alicent’s face now, Rhaenyra finds ; the plump cheeks and plump lips angled by the soft glow of the candlelight makes her look stupid and bloated. There was a time when she thought those features were the prettiest she’s ever seen, when she was looking at those round curves and saw everything she wanted to see ; and then came the haunting, distant memory of a gaunt face with hollow cheeks, of hair pale and thin, of eyes glassed over and unseeing.
(Rhaenyra’s mother was nothing like Alicent at all. She’s seen it into the mirror, a reminder of something remote and half-forgotten : her sharp angled face and high cheekbones, blue eyes piercing and hair light like moon-drops, silver melted with gold.)
« I’m talking to my friends, » Rhaenyra says ; half a lie, half a truth. She doesn’t have a lof of friends, and Uncle Daemon is —will always be — one of them. « Father has forbidden me to talk to my uncle. You, » the word spit out like a curse, « you have forbidden me to talk to him. Remember ? »
Alicent’s mouth thins. « Because you clearly always listen to what your father says. »
Rhaenyra’s fixes her eyes on Alicent, pulls her mouth into a sneer.
« Shut it. »
Something between them snaps, breaks : Rhaenyra’s cheek stings from the slap, and she touches it distantly, runs her soft fingertips on the (unpleasant, cold) heat of it — it’s a heat that holds no warmth, none at all.
« You do not get to talk to me like that, Rhaenyra, » Alicent hisses. There’s something of the snake in her ; the hiss of her anger like the venomous bite of a tiny, insidious creature. And then, a shift : the anger on her face melting down to something softer, a mother chastising her child — gentle, pitying. « I know it has been difficult for you. I do. But you have to accept the fact that I’m here, now ; I won’t leave. I know I’m not your mother, but I won’t leave, Rhaenyra. Even if you want me to. »
Her voice is so soft, sounds so sincere that Rhaenyra almost gets caught in the lie. The light outside shifts through the window, fades away a little as the snow carries on falling : drops of white ash against the marble of the sky. Posters ; dried flowers in a beer mug ; the luminous glow of her phone screen in the dark. It is all too familiar from her childhood, yet now seems unbelievably remote and innocent — a memory from some lost, warm night into her room.
(Now it is cruel ; grief and loneliness has twisted her, has turned her cold and aching. Sometimes Rhaenyra wants to turn off her mind, the buzz of the devil’s bow pulling a soft virgin string : terrible shrieks from above, from below.)
« I want you to. »
When Rhaenyra is seventeen, they celebrate Christmas in a pub down the village. It’s strange, because they’ve always celebrated Christmas at Dragonstone ; but now there’s something into the castle that haunts its walls, a lingering stench of rot appearing from time to time into the living room, sometimes across the hallways — something cold, dreadful, a gaunt face looking down through the windowpane. No one can stand it ; the least of all Alicent, because wherever she goes during Christmas night the thing follows.
They go to the pub : it’s a busy night and it’s crowded with people that swarm in and out of the room like a cloud of bees, but it’s warm and the music is loud and Uncle Daemon is here. They eat and they drink. People watch them warily from afar for a time, but then seem to forget about their existence entirely as the night grows darker : a pale night with a full moon to balm the dark sky. They get drunker, and happier, some sadder, but by midnight everyone shares the warmth of the room as they raise their glasses up to everything that is sad and happy and warm in the world. Rhaenyra hums quietly as she hears it : laughs, joyous cries and slurred words. Daemon is close beside her, silent as she is ; another cigarette burning close to his chin, the little gleams of dark silver on his fingers turned brass in the trembling half-light of the pub.
(She doesn’t know why they do it. There’s mistletoe hanging from a wooden beam above the bar and people push them under it, gazes turned glassy and half-lidded eyes unseeing, echoes of laughter still curving the lines of their mouth. They do not look at them : here, in the middle of the crowd, they are anonymous. No more Targaryens ; no more old money and castles and bloodline old as the king himself. It is a moment when they are not uncle and niece, Rhaenyra knows : just Daemon and her, a little princess of fifteen living in the castle by the sea, mother-of-pearl hanging on by a thread nestled in the hollow of her throat. A gift from the sea, from him ; a hard kiss, warm on her mouth like a stone hiding the smooth touch of a pearl.)
Viserys is nursing a glass of whiskey when Alicent finds him. He’s looking through the window ; his pale hand stark against the warm mahogany wood of his desk, stiff fingers pressed against the lumpy surface. She doesn’t want to see it, his face : cold and distant and so remotely here, sadness trembling in the hollow of his eye like a fragile reed bent by the wind.
Alicent doesn’t want to see it. She speaks anyway, but she’s looking past his face at a stain on the wall.
« You’re not gonna say anything about this ? »
Viserys sighs ; he’s heard her, she knows, but he doesn’t even turn.
« And what do you want me to say ? » he asks, voice hard and exasperated ; Alicent has to bite her tongue so that bitter words don’t get past her lips — those brewed inside her mind for years, a sweet beer turned bitter and acidic on the tongue as the time went by.
« I want you to show me you’ve got balls, for once, » she hisses through gritted teeth. « Tell your brother to leave. »
Viserys scoffs. « And why would I do that ? »
« You know very well why. »
The stain on the wall shifts as the snow carries on falling. Here, it snows every time every year as soon as winter comes : it’s nothing like Oldtown, where it’s warm and misty when the sun goes down on the ocean. Here, it feels like they are trapped : leaves the color of poppies scattered around like blood on snow in the field down the hill, a grey sky that never turns blue, flocks of crows flying past the castle like a bad omen every morning when the dim light trembles on the sea.
Viserys twists his face, his bluish-green eyes resting on her own for one brief, terrible moment. This family has something in their blood, Alicent knows, something in their blood and in their bones that is anything but natural : it’s holy, sacred, a fire that burns hot underneath their skin, something caught between the ethereal grace of gods and the twisted hearts of men.
« What happened is in the past now, » he says. « And the matter has been cleared up. »
Alicent sneers ; thinks about the way Daemon’s hand always finds his niece’s nape to brush the skin as if belonging there, how his fingers curl around the curls — so much like his own, this hair, silver melted with gold.
(The both of them standing on the beach to watch the stars in the rare moments the sky parts to reveal the cosmos, twin flames standing side to side and linked by a thin thread the gods themselves probably put there.)
Alicent sees it still, this haunting memory of a Christmas night at the pub : Rhaenyra still awake and lolled into her uncle’s side on a sofa, tucked away from the maddening crowd as the hour approaches midnight. Daemon is a different man entirely around his niece, resting against him as she does with her fingers entwined with his — his grip gentle like he’s holding porcelain. Her eyes crinkling with mirth as she listens to the soft things he no doubt is telling her.
(Her, fifteen, a pretty porcelain doll ; him, twenty-seven, a monster concealed underneath layers of grace and charm. Then, the mistletoe ; the kiss they shared under it. Alicent restraining Viserys ; Daemon lunging, his mouth pulled into snarl : the red sheen on his white teeth, a bruise blooming on his nose. The elbow of one of them hitting Alicent's lip in the struggle — two dragons caught into a firestorm. Rhaenyra’s shouts, her uncle’s body angled protectively in front of her : but who does protect her from him ?)
« Cleared ? » she spits out ; the memory is still fresh on her mind, a taboo she wishes she could wipe out with a flick of her fingers. « Cleared ? Have you lost your mind ? What happened was— it was vile. Unnatural. Immoral. You know this. »
« For god’s sake, woman ! It was only an innocent little kiss ! »
The glass shatters on the ground and whiskey spreads on the carpet like a stain of rust.
« A kiss on the mouth — between an uncle and his niece. » Alicent knows ; she’s seen it, and the memory still haunts her every time she prays to the Seven. « And I do not remember you saying it was just an ‘innocent little kiss’ two years ago when you almost broke his nose. You made him leave Dragonstone, threatened to cut him out entirely ; so do not come and talk to me about how it was all innocent and tender now. »
Viserys visibly flinches. « I was still grieving. My perception was— it was altered, Alicent. You know this more than anyone. »
Alicent’s mouth thins. The stain on the wall shifts again, and this time it is a shadow, a shade of something dark and trapped into cold walls, a distant, insidious echo she has heard into the castle ever since she got here. Lingering since death has come ; since the stench of rot has invaded the room down the hall. Alicent knows that ; she knows whom it is that haunts the castle by the sea.
(Seen it : a shadow through the windowpane.)
The room grows colder by the minute, and Alicent draws a breath that stutters quietly in her throat. « Are you grieving still, Viserys ? » His eyes turn confused, then guilty, then angry : his secret lays bare before her and she wants to claw at it until it’s flayed. « Ah ; did you really think I would miss the way you look at her old photographs ? I see everything. I see Rhaenyra’s contempt towards me ; I see your indifference. I see the indifference you show towards your own son. »
Alicent touches her swollen belly : the only thing that makes the loneliness go away, that loneliness that has crawled inside of her aching heart long ago. This family don’t love her, she knows, because you cannot love what’s beneath you.
Viserys face turns sad, and then he’s looking away from her : through the windowpane. She wonders what he sees there. « Maybe I am, » he whispers, and Alicent heart aches again even though it has hardened over the years, scars toughening up around the tender beat of it.
They remain silent for a moment. When Alicent speaks again, she’s imperious : she’s promised herself — oh, so long ago — no one will ever hurt her again.
« Tell him to leave, » she demands.
« He will stay, » Viserys says.
The stain on the wall disappears, swallowed by the shadow, and Alicent leaves.
At eight in the evening, dinner is uncomfortable for everyone. It snows still outside, layers of white powder pilling up for the night. Distant howls and the cracking of flames burning in the fireplace : the sharp face of her uncle angled by the soft orange light it sheds on the perfect ivory of his skin.
Rhaenyra picks at her food, watches as the fire moves in the gathering gloom. She feels Uncle Daemon eyes on her, but she doesn’t turn to meet his gaze.
(Her, standing by the fireplace with her eight years old baby-face, the paper crown on her head : she’s a Christmas queen as her uncle lifts her up in the air and into his arms, her silver head tucked underneath his chin. Mother’s laugh ; Father’s smile that makes his eyes crinkle.)
Now the memory is cold, and there’s nothing left of it but dust and the wrinkles on Father’s face.
They eat in silence while the wind howls outside, makes the walls wail. There’s no shadow tonight to haunt them though : just the four of them and a baby half-brother that is not even born yet.
Uncle Daemon’s hand reaches for hers underneath the table : her wrist caught in the warm cradle of his fingers.
They go hunting in the morning. A world of white is wide open before her : a frozen ocean, snow and leaves turned white feathers and red poppies as they lay there at her feet. The light is clearer than the day before and the air is pale, the whitest shade of pale she’s ever seen, streaked with plumes of pink fog the color of fresh spilled blood. Snowflakes fall in flutters around them, a swarm of winter butterflies. Her uncle’s rifle is resting on the back of his shoulder ; Rhaenyra tries to mimic his stance as they scrunch snow under their feet, and her face tingles and burns as from a thousand needle-prickings.
(It is a cruel, twisted thing : the way her heart aches in her chest as she watches him slink through frosted air and ice a few steps ahead of her, the both of them trapped in the womb of winter. Here, it’s just the both of them : no more old money or castles or bloodline as old as the king himself.)
Daemon stops, crouches down behind a bunch of snow-flecked bushes. Beckons her to stand beside him, just a little bit behind ; strong shoulders angled so that she can see past him, a protection against the cold harsh air that blows against her face and makes the skin of her cheeks tingle. A boar, head down into the snow, between the trees. The quiet of the air sits on them like a cloak ; the handle of Daemon’s rifle rests on the top of his shoulder as he takes aim. A breath that needles out through his teeth. His fingers find hers, and they entangle against the trigger.
« Good, Nyra, » he says quietly. « Very good. You take aim, you don’t tremble. No faltering. »
(Rhaenyra remembers : a pheasant, brown and blue and red feathers scattered around, blood on snow. The thrill of it ; her uncle’s eyes, proud as they rest upon the figure she cuts against the grey air. She feels like a queen of old, unfaltering as she is. Her first kill, a colorful bird bleeding out as she watches.)
There’s steel within her when she presses his fingers, pulls the trigger. A loud bang rings into the silent air, into the quiet rustling of leaves ; a cry, a gurgle, a squeal not so unlike one a new born would make as he takes his first breath into the world. But there’s no life there, none at all ; it’s death she sees, death she tastes on the iron of her tongue.
Gazes lock (pride in his eyes as he watches her) — Uncle Daemon’s fingers brush the ridge of her cheekbone, callouses and scars rough against porcelain skin. When it comes down, a sweep on her lips, she licks his thumb ; he doesn’t even tut.
« That’s good, Nyra. As sharp as ever, I see ; didn’t even hesitate, my little dragon. »
The high valyrian is sharp on his tongue ; a reminiscence of something lost and half-forgotten, a time when she used to belong somewhere.
« I’m not so little anymore, uncle. »
They amble up to the still bleeding carcass ; that’s where she sees it. Next to the dead wild boar, the body of a woman. Drops of blood, very fresh, very clean, on the snow, the bloody shape of her footsteps.
Rhaenyra stumbles back into the snow ; hears her uncle take a sharp breath through his mouth.
It is not as they say it to be in the books. It’s supposed to be poetic, she knows, like the pretty pale face of Ophelia, floating into water like a great lily, but there’s no pretty red hair against white snow ; no clear, empty blue eyes looking up at the sky through the twiggy trees. There’s only dirt : dirty blond hair and brown eyes the color of dried leaves.
« Rhaenyra, get back, » Daemon rasps out, alarmed and dazed, « Get back. Don’t look. Fucking hell ; shit. Don’t fucking look, Nyra. »
She’s always listened to her uncle. It comes to her as easy as breathing does ; seeking her uncle’s approval in every nook and cranny of her life.
(‘You’ll catch a cold, Nyra,’ and then Uncle Daemon takes his sweater off and makes her wear it : the softness of it, the scent of him everywhere around her as they watch the stars on the beach. The night grows colder ; they get back in. Rhaenyra keeps the sweater anyhow — an old, worn out color of blood-red against her porcelain skin.)
Yet, there’s nothing Rhaenyra can do but look : the dead woman’s face, her neck, her body ; not gutted, but it sports cuts everywhere, a hundred cuts that should have been made by a razor sharp knife. Most of the gory slits are not forthright, but adorned with zig-zag edging, serpentine, curved, arc-shaped, all over the skin, very deep. Some twisted sort of art that must have been made by someone who clearly enjoyed it.
Rhaenyra is frozen to the core. Then bile rises up in her throat and she’s throwing up on her shoes ; she’s not even disgusted by it. It is an abyss, that monstrosity, something black and cold that cannot hide itself into the pretty red of her blood on the snow, poppies and white feathers, the womb of winter that takes away but never gives back. A hardness to the set of her flayed chin, the curve of something that must have been alive and breathing not so long ago : a memento mori of sorts.
(Her uncle’s face obstructs her view at some point and she can breathe again : all sharp angles and hard eyes, jagged features, snarling mouth ; the face of Daemon, familiar and warm. Rhaenyra clings to it as he reaches for her, bends to wrap his arm under her knees and lifts her up completely. Carries her away from the body, curves himself around her as he does.)
« Nyra, it’s alright. It’s alright, I promise. Look at me. » She does, shaky, but he holds her close, brushing away invisible lines of dirt on her face ; or maybe there’s blood and snow splattered all over it and Rhaenyra hiccups again. « That’s it, good girl ; look at me, only at me. Breathe, Nyra. In and out. »
Rhaenyra does. Her nose is pressed against her uncle’s skin : the scent of burnt wood and amber whiskey, iron and cigarette smoke.
« Uncle, » she pleads ; doesn’t even know what for.
Daemon shifts against her, adjusts her so that she is sheltered by the cradle of his arms — safe into his lap. Kisses everywhere on the crown of her head, her eyes resting on the somewhat erratic rise and fall of his chest ; but all she sees is a monstrosity, stark and red against the snow.
« I know. You’re fine, Nyra, alright ? You’re fine, you’re safe. As long as I am here. Remember ? »
Rhaenyra does.
(A promise under the stars. A tender kiss on her forehead, something between them that feels like the burden of another lifetime, when she was his and he was hers. Maybe they weren’t even uncle and niece, then ; maybe it wasn’t as twisted, as jagged as it is now. Maybe they were happy, even.)
« I’m safe. Safe. You’re here. »
« I am. I’ll always be. »