The chambers in the Tower of the Hand were never meant to belong to a prince of the blood, yet Daemon had made them his own. The stone walls, once cold and bare, now carried the marks of dragonkind—dragonbone candlesticks, Valyrian steel adornments, and a great carved map of Westeros mounted above the hearth, the coastlines blackened where his fingers had traced them in idle plotting.

But the heart of the chamber was softer than the rest. A silk screen stood near the bed, embroidered with cranes and roses. Behind it, laughter bubbled—high, sweet, and childish. The twins were playing.

Daemon leaned against the arch, watching with a predator’s stillness. His wife—Otto Hightower’s youngest daughter, once a girl barely eighteen, now twenty and ripened into womanhood—sat cross-legged on a velvet rug. Aegon and Viserys, their three-year-old sons, tumbled about her, one tugging at her braid, the other waving a carved wooden dragon as though it might take flight.

“Careful, my loves,” she murmured, steady even as she pried tiny fingers from her hair. “The dragon’s wings will break if you’re too rough.”

Daemon’s lips quirked. “Better to learn young that wings break, wife. The world does not forgive softness.”

She turned her head at the sound of his voice, her dark eyes catching his like a net. She had grown into her strength since their wedding—no longer the blushing bride Otto had offered up like a sacrificial lamb, but a woman tempered by marriage to fire itself. “They are children, Daemon. They will learn the world’s cruelties soon enough.”

“From me,” he said, stepping into the circle of lamplight. The boys squealed and ran to him, clutching at his legs. He swept them both up with a single, effortless motion, one under each arm, their tiny fists batting against his chestplate. “Already they have the makings of dragons. Strong, fierce. My blood.”

“Mine as well,” she said quietly, though her tone carried weight.

He looked at her then, really looked—at the curve of her mouth, at the softness that still clung to her even as she grew sharper with age. At first, he had thought to use her, to spite Otto, to shackle his old rival with the knowledge that his daughter warmed Daemon’s bed. But somewhere between her demure obedience and the flashes of cunning beneath it, Daemon had found himself ensnared.

And now he was obsessed.

He lowered the boys back onto the rug, where they resumed their game of dragon and knight, and crossed to his wife. His hand found her chin, tilting her face up toward his. “Every man at court thinks me mad for keeping you so close. They do not see what I see.”

Her breath caught, though she did not flinch. “And what do you see, husband?”

Daemon’s smile was sharp as dragon’s teeth. “A woman who was meant to be a pawn, and yet has become the only thing I would burn the realm to protect.”

The words, reckless and raw, might have unsettled another. But she only held his gaze, quiet and steady as ever. “Then guard me well, Daemon. Guard us. For if you fall, so do we all.”

Behind them, the twins shrieked with laughter, the wooden dragon snapping against a toy knight, their tiny voices echoing against the high stone walls. Daemon glanced over his shoulder, his heart twisting in a way he never admitted aloud. He had thought marriage to a Hightower would be a punishment, a reminder of his contempt for Otto. Instead, it had bound him to a woman who fed the flames of his madness, tempered by her strange, quiet cunning.

He leaned down, pressing his forehead against hers. “Let Otto choke on it, knowing his blood and mine rule these sons. They will carry the names of kings.”

“And you,” she whispered, “will carry the weight of loving them.”

Daemon laughed then, low and dangerous, but there was no denying the truth of it. His obsession had already rooted too deep. She was his, the twins were his, and he would never let them go.