Chapter Text
Daeron finds her way to the kitchens of Ashford castle. Once there, she finds her way to a flask of wine in a cupboard. She drinks down some mouthfuls before she remembers that she ought not be here. She takes another sip. It feels nice. It calms her mind, steadies her hands.
She decides she’ll sit outside in the yard for a bit. Just to catch some fresh air, to calm her mind. To look up at the stars and think of the red mountains that are her home. She’ll come back and have some more wine before she goes back to bed.
That should keep the dragons away.
Ashford Castle is unfamiliar, but Daeron has visited enough small castles in this region to find her way around. She has practice finding the secret corridors that servants use to carry water and laundry back and forth. She has snuck in and out through them many times. Not here, that’s true, but everywhere’s the same when you are looking for a drink, or a lay. She flits between the cold walls, wrapped in her big dark coat like a bat.
At the door, she stumbles into Egg.
The boy gives her a sidelong glance, an accusation without words. She was getting drunk while he went off with some stranger, and then she lied about it, blamed the hedge knight who will die for it on the morrow. Daeron swallows an apology.
“Egg. It’s good to see you.”
“Sister,” he greets politely. “Did you even notice I was missing?” Egg sniffs the air, and wrinkles his nose. “Are you drunk again?”
She shakes her head. “Not yet. Look, Egg, I'm sorry I lied. I only really understood that you were gone when father’s men found me. So I told them that hedge knight took you away. I had to tell them something.”
Egg gives her a scathing look. His gaze flickers to the small triangle of bruised kin visible below her throat, and he sighs. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble. I just really wanted to see the tourney. It’s so nice, seeing all the knights. You know, when I don’t have to deal with him.”
“So you’re saying you love that stranger better than our own brother?” Daeron grins, but then the thought prods at her with slender fingers, making her bruises itch. There are reasons why Egg might not love Aerion. But surely a stranger is no safer than their brother… “Did he hurt you? The hedge knight?”
“His name is Ser Duncan the Tall,” Egg says haughtily. “And he hasn’t done anything bad. He sleeps under a tree, and he taught me how to mend my clothes. He never touched me at all, except when I made him hold me up so I could see the lists.”
That stuns her for a moment. She tries to imagine her little brother being held high on a man’s shoulders amidst the rabble. Laughing and pointing at the jousting knights. Egg was the sunshine of their family when he was small, but ever since father made him Aerion’s squire, he has become withdrawn and quick to anger.
Daeron knows why.
A hot flush of shame runs through her. She snuck away from father’s wagon train to Ashford because she wanted to waste the week away in a tavern, she did not want to go to the tournye, she did not want to be introduced as a promising broodmare to lords of the realm. She did not want to meet Uncle Baelor and be reminded of that time when they visited him on Dragonstone and Aerion crept into her bed among the stone dragons. Daeron has never enjoyed smiling and waving and throwing a wreath of flowers over a hopeful knight’s lance. She didn’t like it when she was a maiden, and she likes it less now that she knows what it represents.
But Egg — Egg loves chivalry and pageantry. Egg has a picture book of famous knights, and Egg has shown her all the ones he wants to see some day. Leo Longthorn. The Laughing Storm. They would all be in Ashford; of course Egg was eager to go.
It’s just that, when he found Daeron sneaking out of their father’s convoy, he grabbed on to her skirts, snot-nosed and red-eyed, and said: Take me with you. I can’t stand one more day with Aerion.
It has always been their brother Egg fears, not the tourney itself. Daeron should have known that he still wanted to go. They are both running from the same things, Daeron and her last brother, but Egg still has something he wanted to run towards. He wants to be a famous knight, brave and strong and beautiful.
Aerion was the same when he was Egg’s age.
The memory stings.
Egg stands by the door now, his arms behind his back, a pose that always makes him look like a little soldier. He’s waiting for Daeron to wander off, she realizes. Just standing there and waiting. His big sister is so useless that he doesn’t even bother asking her for help anymore.
“Are you going outside, Egg?”
He shifts on his feet. “I have to help Ser Duncan. It wasn’t his fault what happened. He thought I’m a little orphan boy like he once was. He just wanted to take care of me. And now he might be killed for it.”
He pulls his face into an adorable little pout. Daeron thinks, he didn’t really tell a lie — her youngest brother has been a little orphan boy since their mother died, has had no-one who really cared for him while father broods in Summerhall. Egg latched on to Daeron for a while, after mother was gone. She looks the most like their mother out of all the siblings. But Daeron can barely take care of herself, much less a child. She tries her best, she really does, but her best is far from good enough.
“I can’t let you go traipsing across the tourney fields in the middle of the night.”
Daeron means to sound responsible, but Aegon just gives her that little-kid stare that he has perfected over the years. She feels herself being judged, and it hurts. When Aerion was that age, and she just a bit older, he looked at her as if she was the sun.
She sighs. “I’ll go with you, all right? I owe that knight an explanation. Maybe even an apology.”
—
Egg spots the hedge knight from across the field. Ser Duncan is walking with Raymun Fossoway towards the big party tent that belongs to the boy’s cider-brewing family.
Daeron knows the Fossoways from past tourneys, has spent some blissful nights getting drunk with them. When the evening gets late, they always arrange for someone to throw the princess out, or rather, to respectfully escort her back to her father’s lodgings. Her father beats her for it, once they’re alone, but that is not the Fossoway’s fault. Their cider is good. Strong enough to keep the dreams away.
She’s grateful that Egg spotted them. She didn’t quite feel like marching off into the woods to search for an absurdly tall hedge knight under an elm tree. Her legs are aching, and her abdomen screams at her when she tilts her hips wrong. But she’d have done it, she thinks. She’d have walked off into the wilderness and down to the brook. For her little brother, the one that is still sweet.
Egg is babbling about how Raymun saw what happened, and Raymun knows, he knows it’s Aerion who did the bad thing and not Dunk the Tall. Daeron nods.
It has been rare for Egg to talk so freely. He’s been sullen lately, has not let anyone come too close. Daeron wants to wrap her arms around him, wants to pick him up and whirl him around. She wants to do the same thing to this Ser Duncan, to thank him for bringing the smiles back to Egg’s face.
But she’s seen him kill a dragon in her dreams…
—
They’re talking inside the tent, while Daeron stands outside and tries to breathe slowly. They'll have cider in there, she tells herself. I'll talk to the man and then I'll make myself so drunk. She reaches for the canvas door, and listens for a moment.
“Won’t they kill me if I run?” asks Duncan.
“Won’t they kill you anyway?”
Kill, kill, kill. The word is pounding against the walls of her skull. She thought the hedge knight stole her brother, and now she knows he’ll be the death of her other brother. Aerion, the dead dragon… he would like that. He did like it, when she told him. Being a dragon is more important than being alive, at least to Aerion. Daeron’s fingers feel slippery against the waxy canvas of the tent. Maybe he deserves death. Maybe she deserves it too.
Maybe Ser Duncan is the one person who doesn’t deserve any of this. Egg loves him. Little Aegon who was so lost for so long. She looks down at her brother’s pale face, and he frowns up at her.
She opens the door.
As soon as the hedge knight spots her, he grabs her by the collar, pushes her through half the tent as if she weighed nothing to him, throws her on a table. Somewhere behind him, Egg’s little voice implores him to let her be, let her go, but the rage in the man’s eyes is a storm.
“You,” he says. “You. Did you come here to mock me?”
Egg loves him, she reminds herself. Egg trusts him. In some strange way, she trusts him too. His big honest face shows big honest anger. His clothes are mud-stained and musky. She reaches up and runs her fingers along the arm that is holding her down, marvels at the gentle strength in it.
Duncan pulls back abruptly. Maybe it’s Egg and Raymun pulling him back, although neither of them seem big enough to restrain the man. Daeron sits up, swallows down some bile.
“My brother was looking for you,” she says when her throat is clear. “He means to help you fight our other brother.”
“And our father,” Egg pipes up. “And the kingsguard. Father commanded them to fight on Aerion’s side for Daeron’s honor.”
Dunk glowers at Daeron, but doesn’t touch her again. “You lied about me.”
“I never said you hurt me. I just said you took Egg. Are you saying you didn’t do that?”
“I only meant to help.”
The knight looms over her, and his face looks so pained that Daeron feels she owes him an explanation.
“I never meant to go to Ashford. I wanted to sit in that tavern and drink until all the tourneys in the world were over. I didn’t even notice Egg was gone, until my father’s men dragged me back. I had to tell them something. I didn’t know you were here in Ashford. I wasn’t even sure you were real. I have vivid dreams…”
It sounds weak, pitiful. She can’t stand to hear herself talking like that. Dunk looks distraught. Daeron wishes she could offer him more than she can. She wishes he didn’t have to fight Aerion.
The dragon was dead.
“I will name a champion,” she says finally. “I’ll tell him to lose, I’ll tell him not to hurt you. In return I only ask you let him live.”
“Your brother?”
It’s Egg who tugs at Dunk’s sleeve now.
“She means her champion. Even Daeron knows our brother is a monster.”
And then, Egg says more. Things he has never told anyone outside the family.
Daeron is too stunned to stop him. How does he trust this stranger so much?
Egg tells Dunk how Aerion touches him at night. How Aerion hurt that cat. How cruel he has been to all his siblings. There are tears in Egg’s eyes, and in Daeron’s too.
She should have protected Egg.
She’s weak.
Raymun Fossoway has known Daeron for years, and known her brothers too. It seems he didn’t know any of what Egg is saying now. He glares at Daeron, his face a mixture of disgust and wry amusement. Did Aerion really do that? Then, all of a sudden, he seems to understand what it means that Aerion threatened to make Egg into a sister for him to marry. His gaze crawls down along Daeron’s body.
Her skin burns where Aerion touched it not so long ago. She wonders if the others in the tent can tell. She wonders if they can smell him on her. Probably not, she tells herself. The Fossoway tent smells of apples and candles, as it always does. Daeron smells of sweat and bile as she always does. And the rose oil her father gave her… It should be enough to cover up any trace of Aerion’s spit and Aerion’s seed. She has to say something, to stop them thinking more about her.
“Aerion’s quite the monster. He thinks he’s a dragon in human form, you know. A pity he wasn't born a Fossoway, then he'd think himself an apple and we’d all be a deal safer, but there you are.”
Raymun scoffs, and Dunk looks uncomfortable. Daeron is uncomfortable, too. This man will kill her brother, who has been with her since she was a toddling child.
“I will die on that field,” Dunk says, “and you never even withdrew your accusations.”
“You did take Aegon. And you threatened me.”
“I did no such thing. I threatened you in your dreams, my lady. That’s madness.”
How has he diagnosed her so easily? Daeron shrinks into her kaftan, glances over at Raymun. Did he say something? Doubtlessly he did. Some friend he is. Daeron clears her throat.
“I can tell that Egg likes you. I didn’t know that when I — when I lied about you. I was only thinking about myself, about how to avoid a worse beating than the one I was already guaranteed. I should have kept an eye on my brother, I know that. But now it’s too late to worry. Aerion has invoked his right to a trial by combat, and what I say matters little.”
Daeron feels Egg’s purple eyes cast scorching glances her way. She wishes she could be better than she is. She wishes she had had another cup of wine. Her head feels heavy.
“I’m sure you will find six knights to take your side. There are enough people north of the mountains who have a grudge against the dragons of Summerhall.” She waves a hand at Raymun, who waves back half-heartedly. “If you’re innocent, I’m sure the gods will give you the win.”
Dunk looks puzzled. “North?”
“She says north of the mountains,” Raymun explains, “because she spent half her childhood in Dorne. Their mother is a Dayne, you know? Horrible people. Raided us for centuries. One of their forefathers burned down Oldtown, and they didn’t even need a dragon.”
Raymun would jump at the chance to fight Aerion, Daeron thinks. He’d join the trial in a heartbeat if he was a knight. Daeron feels a strange fondness for the boy. He has always been kind to her, even if he thinks both sides of her family are evil. It’s good that he’s never been knighted. She wouldn’t want him to die today.
Dunk looks at Daeron and Egg with some bewilderment. Looking for the Dornish aspect in their faces, she thinks. The puppet girl Aerion quarreled with was Dornish too.
“You’ll have to take my brother out,” she says to Dunk. “Kill him if you must, but I think he will yield if you beat him. Then the trial will be over, and you will be free.”
“Kill him,” says Egg.
Daeron shakes her head. None of them know Aerion, not really. They only know that he’s a monster. They don’t know that he was a little boy who cried in his sister’s arms while father was away at war. While brother fought against brother on the Redgrass field, and the children of Summerhall saw bloody arrows in their dreams.
“Go find some knights to fight for your friend,” she says to Egg and Raymun. “And you, walk with me for a moment.”
It is a little scandalous, she supposes, to ask for time alone with a stranger, with a knight of common birth. But only two people will know — her youngest brother, and the apple boy — and they already think the worst of Daeron. She slips out of the tent, and Dunk follows.
They stare at the stars together for a while. Daeron feels strangely safe in the silent presence of the hulking knight that she once thought would kill her. Egg loves him. He can't be so bad. She looks at him, and he looks away, and she realizes that he is being silent because he does not know how to talk to a girl, or a lady, or at least a lady like Daeron.
There aren’t very many ladies like her.
“What do you plan to do plan to do if you win the trial?”
“Win?” Duncan sounds perplexed. “You think I can win?”
“There’s no use in asking what you’ll do if you lose. You’ll be dead.”
He frowns at her, but he doesn’t attack her again, not with his words and not with his hands. He looks young as he stands there, Aerion’s age maybe, even if he’s much larger than anyone in Daeron’s family. My lies may have killed him. She feels a strange urge to reach out for him, to wrap him in her arms, to wipe the tears of his face and make him smile again like Egg smiled when he spoke of his time with Dunk.
But it wouldn’t help. Dunk wouldn’t be comforted by her arms. He’d think she’s a noble lady, and someone like Dunk is not allowed to touch the likes of her. He shoved her a bit, back in the tent, but he regrets it now, she can see it. He won’t do it again. And a friendly touch might not be welcome. It’s not that Daeron hasn’t had her share of lowborn knights in her arms, and between her legs. It’s more that this one is different. Honorable. Innocent.
“I dreamed of you.”
Dunk nods. “You’ve said that before.”
“I dreamed you killed a dragon. I thought it might be me. I thought it might be Egg. It scared me. You will win today, Ser Duncan.”
There is a long silence, the noises of the tourney ground masked by the patter of a drizzling rain. Daeron pulls a hood over her head, disappears deeper into the folds of her coat. Dunk watches her hands as she does it, then averts his eyes when she catches him watching. She remembers a time when she herself was so pure. It was not all that long ago, in the grand scheme of things.
Dunk’s jaw twitches in a way that seems to echo the twinge in Daeron’s heart.
“Raymun says your brother means to wed you.”
She shrugs. “We are Targaryens. That’s why he wants it. I’m heir to Summerhall, and most of our house thinks it should be him. It’s only because my mother was Dornish, and my father named me heir to please her. Before I was even born. Before he even had a castle to give me. Aerion is his eldest son, and should be heir according to the laws north of the mountains. That’s the reason he means to wed me. It’s not because he loves me.”
“If he dies…”
“He deserves it more than most,” Daeron says curtly. She doesn’t quite believe it. Aerion is her brother, he grew up with the same father, the same pressure, the same dragon blood in his veins. It’s not his fault, she wants to say. She looks up at the stars again, wishes that one of them would fall and burn all of Ashford clean. Daynes. Horrible people. Mother’s family owns a sword made from the heart of a fallen star. Daeron has seen it on a visit. Aerion wanted to hold it, but their Lord uncle forbade it. Maybe that’s why he decided he must be a dragon.
She realizes she’s chewing her lip, and makes herself stop. Dunk is looking at Daeron, not at the stars. She wonders what he sees. Eventually, he says: “I’ll try to spare Prince Aerion. I never meant him any harm. I have no right to lay hands on a prince, I know that. But I can’t just let them kill me today. I hope you understand.”
“You will live. I’ve dreamed it. My brother will die. I’ve dreamed that too.” She wonders if she should be telling him more, wonders if he would be the one to finally understand. No. Dunk doesn’t care for Daeron, he just doesn’t know how to say no to a highborn lady. He thinks she’s crazy, just like everyone else. He has more reason to believe it than most. She sneered at him the first time she saw him. I dreamed of you. She wants to walk back to the castle kitchens, to get another cup of wine. But she has lured this knight out here, and she owes him…
“I ran from the tourney because I didn’t want to die.” She might as well say it. The words come pouring out. “I thought I was the dead dragon that I dreamed of. And then I thought I had escaped you, and then I thought I had exchanged my life for Egg’s. It’s the dreams, and the dragons in my dreams. We were the masters of dragons once, we Targaryens. Now the dragons are all gone, but we remain. What does that make us?”
Dunk shrugs. “Egg is just a boy,” he says. “And your brother is a rat.”
She laughs. Suddenly it is so easy.
“I’m sorry I’ve put you into this situation. I’m sorry that you will have to fight for your life. I’d ask you not to hurt Aerion, but my dreams tell it true. It’s not your fault, Ser Duncan. Still, my father will grieve. Maybe I’ve doomed us all to some hell. For now, I need more wine.”
She can’t look at Dunk any more. She pulls her hood deeper into her face and makes off towards the castle. He forgave me, she tells herself.
Dunk doesn't follow her.