Emotional Damage–Chapter 9–Lyn Gala

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13 Minutes

Morning brought a nightmare that left Daemon jolting out of bed. Rhea blinked, pulling the sheet up around her breasts to hide herself, and the only light in the room were the dying embers from the fireplace.

Still naked, Daemon walked to the fire and lit a stick before carrying it to several candles in the room. “Are you well, my wife?”

“Sore, my husband. I feel as though I had not ridden a horse for six months and then decided to break a young stallion who never wore a saddle.” Daemon pulled back the sheets and he was unsurprised to find them unmarked by blood. There were plenty of other bodily fluids, but no streaks of red.

He went and retrieved a knife.

She scooted away. “What are you doing?”

Daemon held a finger to his lips to quiet her before he sat on the bed and drew the knife across the soft part of his foot. The flesh parted and Rhea’s eyes grew wide. Daemon brought his foot up and rubbed it across the sheets in an erratic pattern. He’d seen wedding sheets often enough to know that there was very little blood but the men who were most praised, or teased depending on one’s interpretation, were the ones who were clearly athletic in bed. Daemon ensured that the pattern showed that they had had an enthusiastic evening. After all, they had.

The cut he had made was shallow so he had to squeeze his foot to get a few more drops of blood gathered on a finger before he wiped it on the inside of Rhea’s leg.

“What are you doing?” She whispered, taking his admonition to stay quiet seriously.

Daemon got a fresh cloth out of his dresser and wrapped it around his foot before blowing out the candles and climbing back in bed. “Women who ride horses sometimes lose their maidenhoods to too much bouncing. I will not have someone questioning your honor just because there was no blood on the sheets,” Daemon whispered. Rhea studied him for a moment, propped up on one elbow as she searched his face. But then she slowly sank back onto the mattress and rested her hand against Daemon’s chest. This was proof of Daemon’s skill at mental sparring. With that one gesture, he had tied her loyalty to him.

“You are nothing like what I expected of a prince,” Rhea whispered.

“Oh? I thought the stories of gallant knights and princes always had them defending their lady.”

Rhea snorted. “The prince usually defends a lady who is not only useless but also actively makes the prince’s life more difficult through making the worst possible choices. I will not cast myself as a fool.”  Daemon swallowed, taken aback at how that statement cut through to the core of all his fears for the future. He had always wanted a partner in the custom of Valyria where men and women stood as equals.

“I am grateful, for I do not wish to have a fool for a wife,” Daemon said as he pulled her closer.

She rested her head on Daemon’s chest, and Daemon was reminded for a moment of Rheanyra on their darkest days, before they lost trust in one another. Laena never allowed him to play the hero in her story. She was the one who chose to run away with him. She had claimed him, and he needed only to agree. In contrast, Rhaenyra had asked him to be her warrior, her hero. But she had been exactly the sort of woman Rhea described. She’d made foolish choices that made Daemon’s life more difficult just as he had made violent ones that had driven her allies from her.

“Can we talk about what you said last night?” Rhea asked.

“When you compared me to a ram or a stallion in the field?”

There was a moment of silence and Daemon could practically feel her embarrassment like a fever heat. Given enough time to think about what she had said, Rhea had at least a minimal awareness of social niceties. “I apologize.”

“Stallions and rams are quite enthusiastic. I should be complemented, but I promise you that I mate like a dragon. If you ever have a chance to see Caraxes take a female, you will know what I mean.”

“I have no doubt, my prince, although I doubt I shall ever have the pleasure of seeing it,” Rhea said.

She had no idea the plans Daemon had. He was going to start with Sheepstealer. The Vale had enough wild goats and sheep to keep that old beast happy, and if Nettles never climbed on a dragon, she would never be sentenced to die or hunted so that she could never return to her home. Daemon forced his thoughts away from her trapped on that mountaintop, growing older, alone.  She’d flown over Dragonstone once and seen it empty of any dragons. She’d been a smart girl. She’d known what it meant because she’d gone right back to the Vale and her hidden mountaintop home.

He’d gotten one last glimpse of her old and bent and alone on that mountain.

Taking Sheepstealer away from Dragonstone would, hopefully, give Nettles a better life, assuming she existed at all. She didn’t know her age, but he suspected he had fathered her. If he had been her father, she might never exist now, and he did mourn that. She had been a clever and loyal girl–a worthy Targaryen, even if she did not carry the look.

But Sheepstealer would be easy to tempt. Runestone and Dragonstone were close enough that Daemon could visit and deliver sheep often enough to tempt the wild dragon to follow Caraxes.

After that was done, Daemon might have to get more creative. He certainly knew Dragonstone well enough to steal a few eggs, and any missing eggs would be attributed to Cannibal. That wily old dragon had been getting in and out of the caves right under the dragon keepers’ noses for longer than Daemon had been alive. Sunfyre would hatch in a few years, and Daemon was determined that Allicent’s Aegon would never get close to the dragon. Given its youth, it had been terrifyingly good in battle. 

Daemon might try driving some young drakes the way a shepherd’s dog would drive sheep. Once they got to the volcano in the Vale, the colder temperature would keep them from straying far from the heated sanctuary. One way or another, Daemon was determined to make sure the dragons survived the coming war.

“I am more interested in discussing our children,” Rhea said, which pulled Daemon from his daydreams immediately. Children were his sole reason for marrying Rhea. He didn’t need her wealth, and he certainly hadn’t chosen her for beauty.

“What of them?”

“If you are right that there is a chance that people may be encouraged to seek power, our children will be in danger. As Targaryens, people will look on our daughters as a way to pull dragon magic to their family, and they will look at our sons as a pathway to the throne.”

Daemon had already changed so much that he wasn’t sure how much of the future would remain the same, but that did seem reasonable. “Viserys may want any son of ours to marry Rhaenyra, but other houses may wish for her hand in order to get their own kin on the throne.”

She frowned. “Once Viserys has a son, that won’t matter.”

As much as Daemon didn’t want to confide too much in Rhea, her cooperation was key to ensuring a different future. “Viserys lies with Aemma before she has a chance to heal, and he does it over and over and over. Rhaenyra is their first child to survive. What if he has no other?”

Rhea was silent for a time. “What if he has others but they are made to be sickly or die so that other houses can get closer to the throne?”

Daemon sucked in a startled breath. It never occurred to him that the Andals might have caused Aemma’s miscarriages but it was true that the royal family trusted the maesters for everything. And maesters gave their first loyalty to Oldtown.

“Am I overstepping by saying this?” Rhea asked

“No,” Daemon said. “What you say is logical, but I am startled to realize it never occurred to me. Surely my father would have noticed if someone were preventing his good-daughter from having children.”

Rhea frowned. “Queen Alysanne had so many children but then Rhaenys was the only child to survive her parents’ marriage and your mother died after just two sons. Now Aemma struggles. If I see an animal who births easily, I expect that animal’s offspring to be the same. And when you spoke to me about our pairing being like the stallions and rams in the field, it made me think about the breeding of those animals.”

Daemon struggled as his brain rearranged a lifetime—two lifetimes—of information into new patterns. He had blamed Viserys for Aemma’s death, but could he have been lied to? And Viserys’ rot—did the maesters poison him once he had sired a Hightower son they could control? It couldn’t be. That would mean that Daemon had sat in rooms with people who were killing his family. No. “Could it be that Alysanne is the unusual one, that my line struggles to have children and she was simply the exception?”

“It could be,” Rhea said, “but I have heard your Aunt Saera in Lys has more children than Queen Alysanne.”

Daemon felt a cold rage that made him want to disembowel the nearest maester, to allow the traitor to die only after he confessed his sins. He wanted to weep for all Aemma’s lost children, and rage against the ease with which Allicent had birthed her four, but now it made sense. Only two or three women out of a hundred died in childbirth, yet Targaryens had two generations of struggle now. He wanted to raze Oldtown. He wanted to hang Otto Hightower by his own entrails.  However, he had seen the harvest he gathered when he sowed violence in his other life. If he wanted his enemies to suffer without having his children targeted in revenge, he needed to be smarter.

“You make me think that we should hire healers from Braavos or Penthos rather than leaving your health to maester.” Daemon knew many trustworthy men in both cities—or at least they were trustworthy when paid to be. And if they were living in Daemon’s home, he could bind them to him so closely that they would die for his family as his gold cloaks once had.

“You think it the maesters?” Now Daemon had shocked her.

“Who else would have such access to the royal family? And they are loyal to the Hightowers who were forced to bend the knee at the Field of Fire. Do you know of any family that willingly gives up power?”

“The Starks,” she countered.

“They did not,” Daemon said with a laugh. Until he had lived and worked in the North, he had not realized how little life had changed up there. “The Starks have the same power and the same life they had before Aegon Targaryen stepped foot on this continent. They make very little coin and largely live off the land, which means they pay very little in taxes. I would say house Manderly is the only one whose life is significantly different because of the appearance of dragons.

“But the Hightowers went from kings that were growing in power and using religion to consolidate that power to being vassals stripped of any real authority and whose great wealth leads them to pay exorbitant taxes. If you’re right that someone is preventing the Targaryens from having children, they are my first and my last suspect.” Daemon spread his fingers out and ran his hand down to his wife’s hip. “Should I apologize for dragging you into my family’s drama?”

“My husband, you have offered me more respect by confiding in me and listening to me than I have had from any other man in my life. I would not choose another for my husband, and if there are shadows moving against your family, then the threat is to my family. The Royces are not to be trifled with. We will raise strong children who will defend the family from whatever danger may come. But we must strengthen Runestone.”

He liked that she was practical. She did not advise fleeing or ignore threats until the danger was unavoidable. Maybe he lacked love, but he found he valued pragmatism. “The new docks my grandparents are installing will help us expand trade, but I am more concerned about defensive structures.”

“What do you mean?”

Daemon wondered how far to push honesty. But if she was bound to him by the ropes of his trust in her, then more trust would only strengthen the bond. “If, as you say, the Hightowers or other Reach lords conspire against us through Oldtown, then they may seek to march against the Vale.”

“We should tell the king and queen,” Rhea said.  It was a practical answer, but it was the wrong one.

“Jaehaerys is too proud to admit the peace he forged with Oldtown is a false one,” Daemon said slowly.  “And Alysanne has lost too many children. She refuses to consider any danger because it causes her to fear too much.”  Daemon frowned as he considered that. “I actually think she might have arranged for our betrothal because she feared I would claim Gael.”

Rhea’s expression grew cold.

Daemon quickly added, “As if I would marry a trembling girl who fears to even be near a dragon. I would never try to claim Aunt Gael. But if the Reach is in quiet rebellion, we cannot speak of it until they have made their treason clear for the kingdom to see. Otherwise we will be labelled lackwits.”  Daemon had been called that often enough, although most focused on his violent nature rather than their assumption he was stupid. “We must protect the Vale. Runestone cannot stand alone in a war.”

Rhea’s expression softened, and she rested a hand on his chest. “You are going to have the best trained men-at-arms in all the kingdom. I will tend to the logistics of running Runestone so you may spend what time you wish drilling them.” 

“It is a good plan. We can use the additional docks to strengthen us economically. I am also thinking of asking my father to let me lead the city guard. If they are loyal to me, if I can raise their status and earn their loyalty. They would be a powerful source of information inside the city. A thousand eyes can see what one pair of eyes will miss.”

Rhea nodded. “Many women use the same tactic with their ladies in waiting. They choose them from different regions and then the ladies will help them navigate the politics of those regions. I sometimes think they are little more than spies trading information across borders.”

“Do you wish to have ladies in waiting?” Daemon asked. That seemed out of character for Rhea, but in truth, he did not know her well.  In the dream, he had made such assumptions that he had never seen the true Rhea, and in this life, he had not known her long.

“I am no royal or lady paramount to have ladies, nor do I wish for any,” Rhea said. “But if your father names our children princes and princesses of the realm, we might use our daughters to form alliances with regions that might not ally themselves to us without encouragement.”

“Second sons are often sent to squire.” Daemon hadn’t been, but the royal family had lost so many family members in such a short period of time that no one wished to send a son away.

“If someone is targeting our family, I would be loath to send a son to squire with another. No matter where they go, maesters would have access to them,” Rhea said. She had gone from shock at the thought of maesters conspiring against them to a calm certainty that they must be kept away from the children.

“I would trust them to be safe in the North, but Northmen do not take squires, and winter kills far more Northmen than the maesters could hope to.” There were so many dangers that Daemon trembled with a need to kill at least some of them.

Rhea took a deep breath. “So we make ourselves strong and handle whatever happens when it happens.”

Daemon would’ve answered, except the door burst open and suddenly Daemon’s grandmother was there with all of her ladies in waiting sweeping into the room and chasing Daemon from his own bed so that they could strip the sheets to display to the court. Rhea looked at Daemon with near panic in her eyes as the older women wrapped her in a bathing sheet and rushed her from the room, but this was one tradition Daemon could not save her from. No, Daemon needed to get dressed and endure the misery that was going to be his father and brother coming to interrogate him about the wedding night.

Daemon might love his family, but that did not make them any less annoying.