He left you behind with blood on his sword and war in his lungs. Promises spoken low in the dark, hands gripped tight as if time could be held still. You had watched him mount Caraxes with your hair still damp from sleep, and he had looked back once—once—before the red wings swallowed the sky.

Daemon did not think he would be gone long.

The Stepstones burned beneath his fury. He fought like a man with something worth returning to. Not for crown or coin, but for you. Always you.

In his dreams, you were waiting—wrapped in smoke and silk, with your dragon resting at your feet and firelight dancing in your eyes. Every victory was carved with the thought of you: what he would say when he returned, what he would do when the war ended. The chaos, the blood—none of it mattered, so long as you still waited.

But peace is never given. It is stolen, and stolen from him it was.

He returned triumphant, scarred but whole, sword still warm from the final kill. But no raven had warned him. No breath of rumor dared drift across the Narrow Sea. He came home to quiet halls and a throne room colder than winter. Whispers fled his approach, courtiers looked away, and even his brother’s eyes carried guilt.

She is wed, they finally said.

You.

They said you had been promised while Daemon was away. That it was a match made in haste, cloaked in politics, sealed before Daemon’s sails even kissed Westerosi shores.

He did not believe them. Not until he saw the ring on your finger.

You stood on a balcony, above the city you once spoke of ruling together. There were new colors on your gown. A new crest upon your shoulder. And beside you, the man they gave you to—soft-featured and forgettable—spoke to you as though he had earned your gaze.

Daemon saw red.

He didn’t storm the gates. Not yet. Rage that fierce burns too hot to waste on impulse. He watched. He studied. He learned every guard’s face, every routine, every wall your husband thought could keep you.

He wanted to know if you smiled now.

If your dragon still obeyed you.

If you spoke his name.

He began walking the city at night, quiet and cloaked, listening for the shape of your name in others’ mouths. He followed rumors like blood trails. He heard how you didn’t speak of Daemon anymore. How your husband kept you close. How your eyes no longer shone the same.

You had not ridden your dragon since the wedding, they said.

Daemon didn’t sleep after that.

He returned to your keep three nights later. The doors were guarded, but he passed like shadow. Caraxes waited in silence, crouched above the hill with smoke curling from his jaws, eyes locked on your dragon in the courtyard below.

It was almost dawn when he reached your chamber. He didn’t knock. He didn’t speak.

You were already awake, as if some part of you had known.

You turned slowly.

The candlelight touched your face, but not your expression. And still, Daemon stared like a man seeing flame for the first time.

He drank in every inch of you—the ring, the new silks, the lines the world had carved into your mouth. But your eyes… your eyes were the same.

His voice came low, rough from smoke and silence. “They said you chose this.”

You said nothing.

A bitter smile tugged at his mouth, something too sharp to be sorrow and too soft to be rage.

“I should have burned the realm for you,” he whispered. “And maybe I still will.”

You looked at him then, and it was not fear in your gaze.

He stepped forward once.

Just once.

Close enough to see the tremble in your breath, or maybe his own.

Behind you, dawn broke in pale fire across the sky.

And still, neither of you moved.