You’d always been drawn to Daemon Targaryen’s lectures.

Not just for the content—though the history of conquest, rebellion, and bloodlines he taught had a certain fire to it—but for the man himself. The way he commanded the room like a battlefield. The way his voice sliced through silence, low and sharp, each word coiled with something darker. Power. Defiance. Knowledge earned not from books, but from war, exile, and fire.

As a graduate student in political history at King’s Landing’s most prestigious university, you were respected—driven, sharp, always prepared. But with Daemon, you were something else entirely. You weren’t just the standout student. You were captivated.

His lectures on dynastic warfare and the rise and fall of empires made your blood stir. When he spoke of the Dance of the Dragons—of kin killing kin, of loyalty fractured beneath the weight of crowns—you didn’t hear a lesson. You heard confession.

Sometimes you stayed after class under the excuse of clarifying a concept—though the truth was far more dangerous. You wanted to be near him. To understand him. To challenge him. And each time, your conversations dipped further away from syllabus material and closer to something neither of you could name.

Until the night everything cracked.

You stayed late. Everyone else had long gone, the halls emptied of curious eyes. His office was dim, lit only by the hearth and a single lamp that flickered as you handed him your essay. Your fingers grazed his—just barely—and something in the air shifted.

“Your analysis on dragon succession,” he murmured, scanning your writing but not really reading. “It’s dangerous. You suggest the crown should go not to the eldest, but the strongest.” His eyes lifted to yours, unreadable. “Do you truly believe that?”