The Kingswood lay quiet beneath a washed-silver moon. Daemon Targaryen had no destination in mind—only the need to escape the stale air of the Red Keep. Caraxes waited restlessly on the cliffs beyond the city, but tonight Daemon craved something smaller than fire and blood: the cool hush of trees, the sharp bite of night air, the simple act of walking where no guards or courtiers followed.

A narrow path wound toward the forest’s edge, where scattered cottages dotted the dark. But one stood apart, a good mile beyond the last light, tucked deeper into shadow where the trees grew thick and the path thinned to a deer trail, stood a solitary cottage, more rumor than neighbor. Your home.

He almost turned back when his boot struck something hard beneath the thin carpet of fallen leaves.

The jolt snapped through the sole, sharp enough to make him pause. Daemon ground his heel lightly, hearing the faint scrape of something solid.

He crouched, brushed aside damp earth and brittle oak leaves, and his fingers closed around a shard almost the size of his palm. Smooth ridges bit against his skin, cool as river rock yet strangely alive.

When he lifted it into the moonlight, a silver sheen shot through the onyx surface. Not metal. Not stone. A scale unmistakably.

He turned the fragment over in his palm, a slow smile curling his mouth.

Beyond the trees, a single window glowed. A small garden stretched behind the modest house, its herbs silvered by moonlight. There—you bent over a row of late-blooming flowers, a candle flickering in the window.

He slipped the scale into his cloak and strode forward, gravel crunching under his boots as he reached the low gate. You started when he spoke, voice smooth as aged wine. “Evening. Strange hour to be tending a garden, isn’t it?”

From the folds of his cloak, he produced the scale, letting the candlelight dance across its mirrored ridges.

“Found this quite near your gate,” he said lightly, though his dark eyes held something sharper. “Not the sort of trinket one expects to see lying about. Care to tell me why it’s here?”

The gate creaked as he pushed it open and stepped inside, silver hair catching the moonlight. “Because this,” Daemon added, lowering his voice as he drew near, “belongs to no creature I know… and I know them all.”