Chapter Text
The wind clawed at the towers like a beast at the gates.
Thunder rumbled, shaking the stones of the Red Keep. Rain lashed the windows. Even the guards kept close to the hearths and drew their cloaks tight. Rhaenyra sat alone in her solar, bathed in the firelight.
Her bedchamber, once a sanctuary, now felt like a cage gilded in gold. If she had to endure a storm, she would have far preferred the wild cliffs of Dragonstone.
Her fingers curled around a goblet of cooled wine, untouched. She stared into the flames, her thoughts adrift.
Knock, knock
She looked up with a frown. It was too late for anyone to make a report.
“Come.”
The soft groan of the door and light footsteps beyond it made her turn. A Kingsguard stepped inside, damp from his post, his gloved hand resting on the pommel of his sword. His cloak shifted as he moved, just enough for her to glimpse a small hand peeking out from beneath it.
“Princess,” he said with a shallow bow, “forgive the hour. The young prince is here. He could not sleep. He insisted on seeing you.”
She set down the goblet and rose at once, tightening the belt of her robe. Her eyes swept toward the doorway, searching for the small figure that must belong to the hand she had glimpsed.
“Why did no maid accompany him?”
“He left the nursery on his own and climbed from his bed, or so the girl believes. We found him near the study, on his way to your chambers.
She sighed, “Let him in.”
The guard stepped aside.
Aemond walked towards her, small and barefoot. His wavy hair was damp with sweat. His nightshirt hung crooked on his slender frame. Lightning flashed, and he flinched.
“There you are,” Rhaenyra murmured, crossing the room at once. She slipped her arms beneath his and lifted him with ease as soon as he came close. He was getting heavier by the day, but not so much that she couldn’t carry him still, and gladly.
He clung to her neck, cheek pressed to hers, trembling.
“The sky is loud,” he whispered hoarsely.
“It’s only a storm,” she murmured, standing with him nestled in her arms. He held fast, legs dangling.
Her mind, troubled moments ago, quieted under his presence. She made a mental note to wipe his feet.
“The clouds speak in anger, but they cannot reach you here. You are safe with me. Always.”
“I don’t like it.”
“That is fine,” she said, kissing his cheek. “Come.”
She carried him to the cushioned window seat, still warm with firelight. At the basin nearby, she wiped his feet quickly before settling back with him in her lap. He curled into her body, head tucked beneath her chin.
Lightning flashed again, jagged and quick, but Aemond only curled into her lap. He stopped flinching. His thumb rose to his lips then, remembering he was too old for such comforts, he folded his hands instead.
“Grandsire sleeps,” he mumbled.
“The whole Keep slumbers.” She ran her fingers through his silver hair.
He tilted his head, thoughtful. “Do storms fight with the sea?”
She blinked, then smiled faintly. “Sometimes. The sea roars back when it must. But oft, it yields. Even the storm must pass.”
He pondered that. “Father says Velaryons come from the sea,” he said softly.
She froze, but reminded herself: Laenor. Of course. He was somewhere in the Keep, likely still abed after another long night in Flea Bottom with Qarl.
“Yes,” she said, brushing a damp curl from Aemond’s face. “Salt runs through your blood…”
She paused, fingers lingering.
“…as does fire.”
She paused there. Her son’s grip tightened around her, and she welcomed it. It grounded her.
Her son came to her like sunlight after a terrible storm.
She had always been wild. Headstrong, stubborn, too proud to kneel to anyone. She stripped bare without hesitation, straddled her lover, and kissed him as if the act alone could make him stay.
She was foolish, careless, and far too young to have thought it through.
But when she held her son for the first time and caught sight of his red, wailing face, every caution and fear slipped away.
Nothing else mattered. No one else mattered. Not even Alicent, who made sure Rhaenyra was on the verge of madness each day she feared revealing her condition to her father.
Only the boy who had become everything to her the instant he came into her life.
“I don’t feel brave,” her son whispered.
“You need not be brave every moment.” Her voice dropped to a hush.
“You need only come to me, and I will be brave for you, even when you become a knight.”
He nestled closer, resting his head beneath her chin.
“If I become a knight,” he mumbled, “I will be too big, so I will protect you.”
She smiled. Outside, the storm began to lose its fury. The wind no longer screamed, only sighed. Thunder rolled farther off, the voice of the sky grown tired. The indigo skies darkened.
“Mama?” Aemond murmured.
“Yes, my love?”
“I want to stay here. Just until the morrow.”
“You may stay as long as you like,” she whispered. “Always.”
She kissed the crown of his head, and there in the firelight, she held him close. And in her arms, he began to drift. She stroked his hair,
“Did you know your grandsire named you?”
Aemond murmured something unintelligible. She kissed his brow.
Aemond stirred faintly. “He did?”
“I was going to name you Baelon,” she said, wrapping the blanket higher around him.
“Baelon?” he mumbled, eyes fluttering open just enough to look up.
“Yes. But your grandsire was angry with me, and the only way to appease him was to let him choose your name.”
“That’s not very kind of him,”
Rhaenyra smirked. “Perhaps not. But I liked your name. He named you for Baelon’s brother, the greatest knight my father ever knew. Father to your grandmother, Princess Rhaenys.”
Aemond smiled faintly at that. Rhaenyra studied him as the firelight danced across his face.
He favored her most, they said, her features. But there were moments, like this one, when the curve of his mouth or the gleam in his eyes made her chest ache and think of another.
There were traces she could not deny. Traces of someone she tried to forget.
“Sleep now,” she whispered.
He nodded, curling closer, and drifted into slumber in her arms.
Her gaze drifted from the boy to the far corner of the room. She looked past the fire, and past the shadows, and then to the tapestry that hung unmoved.
Behind it, carved into the very bones of the Red Keep, was the hidden tunnel.
Her breath stilled. Waiting for the faintest sound. A click. A whisper. A shadow slipping through the wall. But nothing came.
Daemon would not come. Not tonight. Not ever again.
He had wed Laena. He had two daughters. He lived in Pentos now, far from the heat of King’s Landing and farther still from her.
Rhaenyra remained there in the dark, with her firstborn cradled in her arms, listening to the storm that still rumbled in the distance and the silence that answered from the wall.
The first light of dawn spilled faintly through the windows. The storm had passed, leaving the Red Keep damp and quiet, but the sun had yet to rise. The scent of rain lingered in the stone.
Rhaenyra stirred in her sleep, arms curling protectively around a warm, familiar figure.
She blinked, heart already bracing for the sight of Aemond’s silver head beneath her chin. But her arms were empty.
Her eyes flew open.
The fire had gone low. The chamber was dim, dark with morning. And across the room, at the edge of the hearth, stood a shadow she had not expected to see again.
Aemond’s cheek rested against his shoulder, still fast asleep. He must have thought she had carried him.
The stranger was silent, back half-turned, holding the sleeping boy in his arms. He wore a heavy traveling cloak, not damp from the storm. The silver hair that spilled over her son’s face gave him away.
Daemon.
Rhaenyra sat up slowly, her heartbeat thudding in her ears.
“Daemon?” she said, voice low and rough from sleep.
He turned slightly slowly so as not to wake the child. The look he gave her, sharp and quiet, stole the air from her lungs.
For a long breath, all she could do was take him in. The set of his shoulders. The line of his jaw. The way his hand cradled the back of Aemond’s head with an ease and care that made her throat tighten.
He knew.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. "Why did you come?"
“The boy is asleep,” Daemon said softly. “I would suggest you lower your voice.”
She rose, gathering her robe around her, trying not to tremble.
“I asked you a question. Who told you?” Her voice cracked as she reached not for the boy, not yet, but for something to anchor her.
“My father forbade it. He said he said you were to be kept out of this. I didn’t want you here—”
“I did not come for idle talk or gentle courtesies.”
Daemon’s gaze pinned her where she stood as if she were a moth trapped beneath a glass.
Aemond stirred softly in Daemon’s arms, shifting his small weight, and she felt a sudden sharp pang of panic. But the boy remained asleep.
She knew the fury simmering beneath his calm, the rage he didn’t bother to hide.
Rhaenyra could not bring herself to speak of Laena, of his children, or even of Pentos.
She had never given him the chance to choose. She liked to tell herself that if she had spoken before he married Laena, he would still have abandoned her.
But deep down, the gods whispered otherwise.
“I am not angry with you,” he edged, “But do not turn this into one of your storms, Rhaenyra. It is Viserys I’ll be speaking to,”
Daemon turned away, “...after you introduce me to the boy.”
She flinched. Aemond's lips twitched, shifting in his father's arms. Daemon adjusted his hold without thought, hand rising to gently support the child’s back.
The boy murmured something and nuzzled deeper into the crook of Daemon’s neck, too deeply asleep to know who held him.
Rhaenyra said nothing. And neither did Daemon.
It was a long time before Aemond woke.
Daemon silently agreed he would not be introduced as his father.
For now.