Emotional Damage–Chapter 4–Lyn Gala

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21 Minutes

Even from the air, Winterfell was huge. Daemon landed Caraxes by the largest set of gates. The guards stood on the battlements with weapons ready, as if an arrow would do anything to Caraxes. If Winterfell had a scorpion, Daemon might be concerned about the aggressive stance these men were taking, but as it stood, Daemon had little to worry about. He unhooked his riding chain and dismounted before striding forward. A servant with quality clothing hurried forward and fell to one knee. 

“My prince, welcome to Winterfell.”

“Is Lord Stark available?” He seemed like the sort of lord who would ride out to kill bandits or raiders, but Daemon hoped he wouldn’t have to search for the man.

“Servants have run to fetch him, your grace.”

Daemon’s eye twitched. Only the current rulers and the heir to the throne were ever called ‘your grace,’ but Daemon didn’t feel like teaching lessons in courtly manners to men dressed in furs and rough leathers. So he stood silent, one hand resting on Dark Sister. It only took a few minutes for Lord Stark to come hurrying out of his ridiculously enormous castle. 

“My prince,” Lord Stark greeted him. “How can Winterfell serve you Prince Daemon?” Lord Rickon Stark was a bear of a man with wide shoulders and a thick beard. Daemon wondered which of them would win if they were to cross tourney swords. But asking to spar seemed rude, and given that Daemon needed something from the Lord of Winterfell, annoying him seemed counterproductive.

“Lord Stark, I hoped we could speak in your private solar.”

Stark’s eyebrow rose but he stepped to one side and gestured for Daemon to come in through the main gates. “Of course, my prince. Please follow me.” A trio of Winterfell guards trailed after them as they crossed a wide courtyard with kennels and stables and dozens of buildings all within an enormous double set of walls. “Has this castle ever been taken, Lord Stark?”

“It has not,” Lord Stark said.

“It seems fortified enough to stand even against the giants and mammoths that are spoken of in the more fantastical tales of the North.”

Rickon Stark paused before answering. “Indeed, I wonder whether my ancestors built Winterfell for exactly such a danger. Unfortunately, my ancestors did not see fit to build defenses against dragons.”

“Unfortunately?” That was an interesting turn of phrase. Most of the time, the lords pretended that they were thrilled that the Targaryens had conquered them. Hearing Lord Rickon speak disparagingly of dragons was almost a relief. Daemon hated lickspittles.

“While I will never defend Winterfell from dragons, Torren Stark might have preferred a stronger negotiating position.”

Daemon snorted. “When Aegon and Torren Stark met, it did not end with negotiating.”

“No, but had we fortifications against dragons, it might have become negotiation rather than a surrender,” Lord Stark said bluntly. Daemon knew his grandmother had flown to the North, and now he wished he could have seen how she handled the plainspoken Starks.

“True.” Daemon admitted. 

Silence fell until Rickon led them into a utilitarian office with heavy furniture. He closed the door with the guards still outside. “Please, have a seat, Prince Daemon.” Daemon had seen lords offer his father their own seats, but Rickon gestured for Daemon to take a guest chair.

Daemon did so while Rickon settled behind the lord’s desk. “I will speak to the point as Northmen seem to prefer. I found a reference to a book that Maegor burnt. And the only way that I can confirm whether this reference is true or not is to seek the only other person that would still have a copy of an ancient agreement.”

Rickon frowned, clearly startled by the direction the conversation had taken. “An ancient agreement, my prince? How old is ancient by your reckoning?”

“It would have been during the days of your last war with the Boltons. It was something that happened right after Lady Bolton and her two maiden daughters were taken prisoner.”

“I have not read those particular scrolls, but having studied my family history well, I can tell you now what would’ve happened. Lady Bolton would have been sacrificed to the weirwood trees, her magic fed back to the roots in order to strengthen the old gods. Her maiden daughters would’ve either been sacrificed with her or would have been given as war brides to lords who fought for Winterfell.” He seemed unbothered by the idea of his ancestors sacrificing women to tree gods. The septons in the Red Keep would have been shouting “Shame!” at this point if they had heard Lord Stark.

“My information suggests something different happened with Lady Bolton and her two daughters. However, I can only confirm it by asking you to look through your family tomes.”

Lord Stark leaned back. “Now I am curious. What do your records suggest?”

Daemon ignored the suggestion that information came from a record.  “It is politically sensitive and I do not wish to say unless I have confirmation. Even then, I would not wish to tell others unless the two of us agreed that it was politically wise to do so.”

Both Stark’s eyebrows raised significantly. “This is an interesting challenge you bring me, my prince.”

“Not a challenge, simply a clarification on the history of your house.”

Rickon went to the shelf where he started removing wooden chests until he reached one that was so worn by age that the brass black with tarnish. Rickon opened the hasp and lifted out the leather-bound parchments within. “It is near time for these to be copied over again anyway, so I may ask my maester to undertake the task. Time will fade even the most skillful scribe’s work.” He opened one ledger before closing it and choosing the next in the box.

“I would suggest the contents of this ought not be shared with a maester whose loyalty to Oldtown might linger.”

Stark looked up at Daemon.

“The maesters hold a very negative impression of magic, and I fear whether that magic is dragon riding or warging, it makes little difference to them. According to them, magic is worthy of nothing other than the seven Hells.”

“I find I am unconcerned with where the Andals believe my soul, my magic or my gods will go in the end. I trust my old gods.”

“And I trust my fourteen flames, that does not mean that I have to poke the stupidity of others when they can make my life difficult here and now.”

Lord Stark gave him a curious look before he returned to flipping through several sheaves of parchment. “Here it is—the last Bolton war. I assume you do not need the figures for how many wagons full of grain we sent with the fighting men.”

“No, I need you to look for an unusual ally. Someone came and helped you with your war in return for a boon.”

Stark turned his attention back to the book and started reading, his finger tracing each line. Now he flipped the pages slower and Daemon leaned back in his chair waiting to see if the answer he needed was here. If this part of his vision was true, then he would believe his ancestor about everything. 

He would even believe her when she showed him paying for the death of a child. Daemon would expect himself to kill the kinslayer Aemond, and he would be proud of himself for killing Aegon or even Allison who schemed with her father and acted far above her station. She had been a woman of near twenty feuding with a twelve-year-old Rhaenyra. Allicent deserved death.

But he did not want to believe that he would have killed a little boy. Not only was he a child of the blood who had magic at a time when there were few Targaryens alive, but he was an innocent child. And the mother’s pain had been horrific. Daemon hoped that Rickon Stark found nothing. He hoped that he could dismiss at least part of his vision as nothing more than imagination twisted by foul wine. If the ancient Targaryen alliance with Winterfell was not true, then Daemon would forever believe that the vision of himself as a kinslaying monster was also untrue. 

It was far too long and Lord Stark turned far too many pages before he finally said, “Here it is.”

Daemon leaned forward. “What did you find?”

Lord Stark read aloud. “The warrior has come with the great flying beast as white as snow who breathes fire as blue as the great floating chunks of ice that are found upon the sea. He has promised to burn the Bolton ships and drive the fighters from the shore in return for those of Reed blood.”

“Reed? Like the crannogmen in the neck?” No.  No.  It could not be true. Daemon would never be a monster. He did not want this confirmation.

“The Lady Bolton was born a Reed, and this warrior on an icy dragon seeks three women with the bloodline of greenseers.” Lord Stark looked up at Daemon, and Daemon ran a hand across his face. He could no longer dismiss any part of his dream.

“My prince?” Stark prompted him.

Daemon let out a shivering breath. “I had a dragon dream, or perhaps I should call it by its true name,  greendream,” Daemon said.

Stark leaned back in his chair and the silence grew heavy. It was clear he had taken lessons from Prince Baelon who could use silence to force confessions from the most recalcitrant child.

Daemon spoke slowly. “The Targaryens were the least significant family of all the dragon riders. Other families distinguished themselves by developing unique skills. One found the secret of Valyrian steel. Another wove great magics. Some possessed great wealth from slaves or mines. The Targaryens possessed none of it, so instead of building something, they sought to take for themselves a magical gift.”

“Prophecy,” Stark said softly.

“Yes. Maegor burned all of the records because he never wanted anyone to know that the one gift that saved the family, the one gift that was unique to us, was inherited from the North. In my dream, an ancestor visited me and showed me the past and a future I cannot allow to happen. The ancestor told me the blood came from Boltons and Reeds, but our pact was with the Starks of Winterfell.

Rickon Stark leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard. “I suppose this makes us kin of a sort.”

“Cousins separated by a thousand years,” Daemon said with a dark laugh.  Every Targaryen was descended from those three captured women as each generation of Targaryen married cousins to keep Northern blood and First Men prophecy in their line.

“What would your grandparents say if this were to become known?” Stark asked.

Daemon frowned. “I have no idea. My grandfather raised all of us to believe in the strength of the Targaryen family and magic. He insists that brothers should marry sisters in order to maintain the purity of our magic, but it turns out our most unique gift doesn’t come from Valyria at all, and marrying First Men would not weaken our magic but strengthen it.

“My brother would hate this truth,” Daemon continued. “He worships Valyria, ignoring the suffering of slavery and even the corrupted magic that was the Doom. When he speaks of Valyria he speaks of a world of perfection that if he could only visit, then he would be happy forever. For him, all goodness comes from that lost world where nothing could tarnish the greatness of the people.”

Stark studied him for a moment. “Then your brother is a fool.”

“That statement, while treasonous, is also true,” Daemon agreed. “More true than you can know if my dreams are to be believed.”

“Greenseers can get glimpses of the future, they can be shown a coherent future, or they can have a guide take them through time. It sounds as though your dream was the last.”

“It was, and my ancestor was less than complimentary about my mistakes, even though I haven’t made them yet.”

Stark took a deep breath.  “Guided dreams are the most accurate.”

Daemon ran a hand over his face. He didn’t want to hear that. A little boy on blood-stained sheets. “I would wish the opposite was true,” Daemon confessed. “And that explains why, in the dream, touching a Northern weirwood made my dream sharpen and change.”

“Weirwoods reinforce Northern magic. That’s why we used to feed our enemies to the trees, and why the Andals hate them. If you have Northern blood, it makes sense that a weirwood would strengthen the vision.” Stark tapped his fingers against his desk. “Perhaps it is wise that people do not know of this, of your dreams or the connection between the North and Targaryens.”

“I agree,” Daemon would never be able to confess to his father or brother.  He could not tell them what he had done, who he had killed.  His father would die in shame if he knew how his sons’ families had turned against one another. And the North did not want to be the center of court politics the way this truth would make them.

“You did not come all this way to have me look up a record. Your dream taught you something you hoped to disprove. If this was untrue, then your dream might be as well.” Stark rested his hand on the tome. “What did your dream show you?”

“Do greenseer dreams ever show anything good?” Daemon asked.

“Rarely. Some greenseers say they can see into the past and watch events which can be either for good or ill, but typically the greenseers dream of warnings.”

“Which is true of dragon dreams as well, which makes sense since they are the same magical talent.”

Again, silence filled the room.  Daemon stood and walked to the window where he could look over Winterfell.

“Is this something you can share?” Stark asked.

Daemon left his cousin separated by a thousand years at his back. “It is not safe for anyone who knows too much.”

Stark’s laugh was low and rumbling. “You have just described a life, boy. It is not safe to know secrets. It is not safe to know when Boltons are creeping along the border because then I must lead men to war. It is not safe to ride out into the field at the head of an army and stand in front of dragons. It is not safe to be alive in winter. Most of life is not safe, but information is nothing but a tool that we can use to either make ourselves safer or place ourselves in greater peril. I assure you, I do not seek to place myself in peril.”

Daemon could not trust him with everything. There were Northerners who had left to their homeland to avoid bending the knee to dragons. If Stark knew there was a way to eliminate all dragons, he may choose to work against Daemon. But he needed an ally. “I saw a terrible war coming.”

Stark sat silently, watching Daemon. It felt very much like the weight Daemon would feel when his father was displeased with him and waiting for Daemon to explain himself. He struggled to get his thoughts and words in order. “I dreamed that lady Aemma became queen but that she died in childbirth.” He paused, not sure how to explain the horror of watching his brother become a kinslayer. His hand was not on the knife, but he gave the order knowing what it would mean to the woman he had vowed to protect, to the woman he had put under his cloak.

“Childbirth is a woman’s battlefield. Many women lose their lives upon it.”

Daemon shook his head. “It was an unnatural death, but I do not wish to say more of it. I suspect that her death was arranged because six months later Viserys married the daughter of the Lord Hand, the Lady Allison Hightower. My brother insisted Rhaenyra was heir and remained so even when his second wife gave him a son. He taught her truths about our magic that the heir must know, including the coming of a second Long Night.”

He watched the alarm in Rickon’s face.

“It will not come for generations, but my father has a dagger with the prophecy etched upon it. The words appear when it is heated.  Viserys’ son Aegon knew nothing. In the dream, I knew nothing until I saw a vision of it. I saw the Long Night coming and I chose to die to take out the greatest threat because if the Hightowers won, there would be no way to save Westeros when the Long Night came.”

“But Westeros would not accept a woman heir when a man can take the throne,” Stark said.

Daemon sighed. “They rejected her, and Rhaenyra made things worse because she was entitled and thoughtless. She believed that once her father named her heir, no one could speak against her. She believed she had no obligation to improve the realm or help the lords and she accused those who questioned her of treason, even when they hoped to make her a better heir and queen. Worse, her husband was incapable of giving her heirs, so she had three children who were so unlike her husband, that all the realm knew that she had taken another man into her bed.”

“I dislike the idea of a queen that would dishonor her vows and who would expect the rest of the realm to believe such blatant lies,” Stark said. “Was the realm correct to choose the brother?”

“Aegon dishonored women, raped a silent sister, and threw a celebration when his kinslaying brother killed their cousin, a boy of ten.  He fathered a bastard, which is common enough. But when he saw his whore and recognized his son, he did nothing while the boy was forced to fight for his life in betting pits.”

Stark clenched his teeth until his jaw bulged.

“His brother was a kinslayer who coveted the throne so much that he tried to burn Aegon alive and nearly succeeded.”

“Then you have a problem indeed. If those of the two sides in this war, I do not know what your dream hoped to warn you to do. They both sound terrible.”

Daemon had not even told Stark his own sins, horrors which stained Rhaenyra because he was her husband and king consort.  A little boy on blood-stained sheets.

Daemon confessed, “I know I made Rhaenyra’s claim more difficult to pursue because I acted without thought or plan or even regard for common decency, but I will never support Aegon. All I can think is that if I have enough allies and if I have enough children who ride dragons of their own, I can force both sides to make some compromise. The real goal is to keep Westeros united and strong until the Long Night comes, and neither my niece or nephew is capable of that task. Maybe I can get them to wed their children to one another to join their claims and then force them to give me their children so that they are not raised to be monsters.”

Daemon grimaced. “I should not say that. Rhaenyra raised strong and ethical boys.” Daemon smirked at his own pun. The Strong boys. “And Aegon had nothing to do with raising his children at all. If I could make the elder Hightowers go away, his sister-wife Heleana was a kind woman who would love her children. If she raised them on Dragonstone away from Aegon and the vipers of King’s landing, they may have been good children.”

At least the two who survived Daemon’s assassination plot. “But this time, I will have dragon-riding children, and the threat of blood and fire might be able to restrain the worst of their impulses.”

“My Prince, you are not the heir to the throne. Your children will not be given dragons.”

That was the least of Daemon’s concerns. He already had plans to make sure only his children had dragons.  Or at least to deny the Hightowers their dragons.  He didn’t plan to keep Caraxes from mating Syrax, so Rheanyra would still have her dragon’s eggs for her boys, but he could take Sunfyre while he was still a hatchling or even an egg.  “Viserys is weak. If I can find a legitimate reason to have my children on Dragonstone, then nothing will stop them from claiming a dragon, and he will have nothing to say about it.” They had left the realm of implied treason and had now started discussing open rebellion to the crown.  Daemon knew the North cared more about defending the realm of men than engaging in court politics, so he hoped that meant Lord Rickon would not reveal his treason.

And if he did, it was better for the betrayal to happen now when King Jaehearys would be more likely to roll his eyes than throw Daemon in the black cells. Not that Viserys would be so cruel, but Otto might find a way to imprison Daemon without Viserys knowing if Viserys were on the throne.

“Did that not happen in your dream? Did you not encourage your children to bond with dragons?”

Guilt nodded the edges of Daemon’s mind. How many years had he wasted pining for a Targaryen wife? Instead of raising warriors who could help defend his younger children, his children had been babes during the war. And then instead of strengthening Rhaenyra’s position, he had weakened her. He couldn’t even give her dragon-riding children to go into battle at his side. No, he had sat and waited and thought himself most abused of souls because his brother would not give him an annulment.

“I was a churlish knave to Lady Rhea, and in turn she used words as a weapon so sharp and deadly that I struck back. It started a war of insults that resulted in a marriage without love or respect or children. We did not even lay with each other, and she eventually died during a hunting accident without ever having a child. When the war came, my children with Rhaenyra were little more than babes, and they stood no chance against Allison’s sons.” He did not mention his daughters because he had raised them too much in the Andal way.  They should have been warriors, and he had raised them to be wives. They had survived the war, but Daemon would not have wished their lives on anyone with his blood.

“Then the dream warns you to change yourself,” Lord Stark said.

“I am aware. And I am doing my best. I have introduced myself to Lady Rhea and reassured her of both my respect for her lineage and my willingness to allow her to run Runestone.”

“Lady Rhea has a streak of honesty that goes far beyond even the Northern preference for plain speaking. She is like to say things that are nigh unforgivable.” Stark sounded thoughtful.

“I’ve seen that both in my dream and in real life. I flew her to the Eyrie so she could confront her father about his willingness to betroth her without her permission. She said things in front of servants that could damage Lord Royce’s reputation.”

Stark gave a huff of laughter. “I doubt it will do his reputation any harm given that most know of Lady Rhea’s inability to be polite.”

Strange, in the dream, most people seemed to believe that Daemon was the churl who had dishonored Lady Rhea. He never heard anyone discuss her penchant for insulting others inappropriately or complain about her lack of manners. Had Daemon’s behavior been so outrageous that it had masked Rhea’s own faults?

“I have to wonder if this betrothal is some punishment on my grandmother’s part for all the times that I was impolite to her. That said, the dream made it clear that First Men blood would strengthen my line, but I fear she will not respect me if I lack the skills required to be a lord.  I was prepared to be a prince and the hand of the king.”

“But you were not in your dream. Otto Hightower was.”

Daemon nodded. “Otto told my brother what he wanted to hear. I told him the truth and when he ignored it, I tried to go around him to fix the problems, and in doing so, I angered him when I was trying to protect him. I cannot live that way again. This time, I will strengthen myself in the Vale, and in doing so, strengthen my children and my wife.” Daemon added the last after the shortest of pauses. “But I lack the skills of a lord.  The Starks have ruled their land longer than history has been written. Would you consider teaching me as you would your heir so I understand the obligations of a lord?”

Rickon went so still that it seemed as if he was not even breathing for a time. “My prince, I would be happy to teach you what I know, but I fear it would not be appropriate. Your father would not appreciate another man seeking to teach his son.”

“If my father takes offense, then I will not return. But I have no doubt that I can convince him and my grandfather that it is best that I take some time to learn to be a lord of the land instead of a prince of the realm.” That tasted like ashes in Daemon’s mouth. He was a prince who should have held power in the seat of his family’s city. He should mold the kingdom as Viserys’ hand. But that was not his fate. If he chased that dream, he would doom the dragons. 

Stark took a breath and did not answer for a time. “My Prince, it is a wise and strong man who recognizes his flaws and seeks to remedy them.”

“I do not seek to remedy them as much as I seek to avoid the utter disaster that is coming if my brother proves as incompetent in reality as he was in the dream.”

Stark ran his fingers along the spine of the book that held the proof that Maegor had worked so hard to burn. The silence continued for a long time before he said, “I had higher expectations of Prince Baelon to teach his heir.”

Pain unrelated to his conflict with Viserys seared Daemon down to his soul.  “Had my father not fallen ill and died long before Viserys learned to be anything other than a spoiled child far enough from the throne that no one bothered to teach him, Prince Baelon would have taught him better.”

”I regret your loss,” Lord Stark said.

“He is not lost yet. I will do what I can to force him to strengthen himself,” Daemon said.  His father had grown so busy that he had stopped riding Vhagar and he would eat in his solar while he worked to learn to be the future king when he had always planned to serve his brother. Aemon’s death had started their family down a pathway to disaster, but if Daemon could save his father, he would.

Lord Stark gave him a sympathetic look.  “Prince Daemon, there are things that we can change, especially when we change our own behavior. However, illness comes. Winter comes. Death comes for all of us, and no dream can help us avoid that. You’ve been given a great gift, but greenseers are known to lose themselves to desperation when they cannot change that which is fated to happen.”

“I can try,” Daemon said. “I have to try to save him.” 

Lord Stark didn’t answer, but Daemon could feel the disappointment in his gaze. It was very much the same look the Prince Baelon gave him on a regular basis, but Daemon ignored his father and he could ignore Lord Stark just as well.