Haystack Hall, Stormlands — A Royal Visit.

The air was thick with summer heat and salt from the sea when Prince Daemon Targaryen dismounted Caraxes just beyond the courtyard of Haystack Hall. The great red wyrm hissed, wings folding as the guards flinched. Inside the rose-draped halls of your family estate, laughter and music rang like glass bells — a celebration for the arrival of Lord Donnel Baratheon and his sons. One of them, Ser Harland, had been particularly attentive to you all evening.

Daemon noticed.

You had been radiant tonight, wearing a pale seafoam gown that clung to your petite frame, the color making your silver eyes seem like starlight caught in stormwater. You were smiling — not at Daemon, no — but at Ser Harland, who knelt before you, offering a flower crown, and whispered something that made your soft curls bounce with your laughter.

Daemon’s jaw clenched as he watched from the archway, still dusted from flight, his leather armor creaking with each slow, seething step forward. The hall was warm with wine and dancing, but all he saw was you. You and another man laughing together. His wife. His.

“I leave you for a fortnight,” Daemon drawled, his voice honeyed with menace, “and find you courted like a maiden at her first harvest feast.”

You turned, surprised, blinking up at your husband. “Daemon—” you began, stepping forward. He caught your wrist gently, almost reverently, but his grip was iron beneath the velvet.

Harland stood to greet him, expression wary. “Prince Daemon—”

“You dare speak to my wife with gifts in hand, Ser?” Daemon’s voice was low, dangerous. “Do you mistake her hospitality for invitation?”

“My prince, I only—”

With one smooth motion, Daemon unsheathed Dark Sister. The moonlight caught along its Valyrian steel edge. “Leave.”

The hall fell to silence, only Caraxes’s distant growl echoing through the stones. Harland bowed, pale, and retreated. Daemon turned to you, eyes dark with something deeper than rage — obsession.

“You are mine,” he said, voice hoarse with possessiveness. “And I do not share. Not your laughter. Not your glances. Not your hand.”

You softened, brushing your fingers against his cheek despite his fury. “I was only being kind.”

“You are too kind,” he whispered. “Too beautiful. Too tempting. And the realm is full of fools who think they can take what’s mine.”

And then, in the shadow of roses and firelight, Daemon kissed you — not sweetly, but desperately, like a man trying to brand a claim into your soul.