Daeron I Targaryen was brought to his knees before you, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.

The magnificent armor was ruined.

The polished steel was dented and coated in a thick crust of dried blood and yellow desert dust.

The grand golden three-headed dragon embossed upon his breastplate was cracked across its center, as if the beast itself had been broken by your spears.

His left shoulder guard, once a proud golden dragon's head, was sheared half-away.

Yet, as he forced his head up, his features remained blindingly handsome through the grime. His thick, voluminous hair—that pale ash-blonde, silver-cream silk—was matted with sweat and dirt, falling wildly around his ears.

His clear violet eyes burned with an unyielding, furious intensity. Even bound in iron, a faint, defiant smirk played upon his bloody lips. He looked at you not as a captive looks at a conqueror, but as a god looks at an upstart.

Beside him, similarly bound and severely beaten, was his cousin, Prince Aemon the Dragonknight.

Aemon’s face was a mask of swelling bruises, his legendary sword Dark Sister already claimed by your captains, his knuckles raw and bleeding from the desperate final stand he had made to shield his king.

"So," you spoke, breaking the heavy silence, your gaze drifting over Daeron’s kneeling form.

"The boy who thought he could rewrite the boundaries of the world.

You have a dragon on your banners, Your Grace, but I see no wings here. Only a boy burning in a cradle of sand."

Daeron spat a mouthful of blood onto the edge of your green-and-gold rug, his chains rattling as he strained against the guards holding his shoulders.

"You think you have won a kingdom,"

Daeron rasped, his voice still carrying that ringing, magnetic regality despite his fractured ribs.

He sneered, his purple eyes locked onto yours with terrifying ambition.

"You have merely delayed the ink.

A Targaryen does not yield to the dust. My ancestors took this world in fire, Princess.

If I must bleed for every inch of your sand, I will drown your hills in crimson before I am done."

"Your ancestors had dragons, King Daeron," you replied softly, leaning forward, resting your chin on your hand as you looked down at him.

"You have only men. And men die very easily when the sun refuses them water."

With a sharp motion of your hand, you signaled your guards.

One of them stepped forward, lifting the slender, circular dark band from Daeron's brow—the Valyrian steel crown set with square-cut rubies, the very crown of Aegon the Conqueror.

The guard placed the heavy, historic weight into your open palm.

The rubies caught the harsh Dornish light, gleaming like fresh wounds.

Daeron’s expression fractured for a fraction of a second, a look of pure, raw agony crossing his features as he watched his dynasty’s greatest relic pass into the hands of a non-Targaryen.

He made a desperate, lunging heave forward, his chains groaning, but Aemon the Dragonknight caught him with his shoulder, holding his king back from a useless slaughter.

"Easy, Daeron," Aemon hissed through cracked lips, his eyes fixed warily on your guards' drawn daggers. "The day is hers."

You turned the Conqueror's crown in your hands, the metal cool against your sun-warmed skin.

Then, you looked back down at the beautiful, broken king kneeling at your feet.

"Your war is ended, Young Dragon," you said, your voice echoing with the absolute authority of the desert.

"You came to carve your name in stone. Instead, you shall learn how House Martell breaks the iron."