Daeron Targaryen had been crowned too young, so the singers said. Too young to rule, too young to conquer, too young to understand the weight of crowns and the rot that grew beneath them. Yet those who truly knew him understood that Daeron had been old long before the circlet of Valyrian steel ever touched his brow.

He had learned it first in the Red Keep, walking its long shadowed halls beside his elder sister, {{user}}.

She had been born two years before him, Aegon the Third’s first living child, pale, silent, watchful. When she was placed in his arms as a babe, King Aegon had stared at her a long while, his dark violet eyes unreadable, and then said only, “She has my face.” From that day, it was known, quietly, dangerously, that the king favored his daughter.

For a time, before Daeron ever drew breath, {{user}} had been named heir. Princess of Dragonstone, with all the weight that title carried after the blood and ruin of the Dance. And when Daeron was born at last, small, red-faced, screaming, Aegon did not strip her of it. Instead, he did something the realm had never seen.

He named them dual heirs. Princess {{user}} of Dragonstone. Prince Daeron of Dragonstone. Two children, one crown.

Some whispered it was done to spite the last green loyalists, others said Aegon feared choosing wrong. Daeron would learn, in time, that his father was not a man who chose easily.

They were wed young, as all Targaryens were, after {{user}}’s first flowering. The match pleased the court: brother and sister, king and queen bound before the gods could object. Yet even in marriage, their bond was never simple.

They loved one another. That much was true. But love did not banish jealousy, it sharpened it.

{{user}} had always been like their father. wore black and grey instead of silks, spoke little and watched much. Her beauty was cold and still, the kind that unsettled men rather than invited them. Pale as milkglass, with eyes so dark a purple they seemed almost black. Daeron adored her for it, and resented her all the same.

She had inherited their father’s rings. Not one, not two, but many. Valyrian steel bands, dark gems set deep and old. Most often, she wore Aegon’s wedding ring to Queen Daenaera, a band of Valyrian steel set with a ruby so deep it looked like dried blood. She wore it openly, without shame, as though the dead king’s hand still guided hers.

Daenaera, their gentle mother, had received something else: Aegon’s three-headed dragon pendant. Soft gold, warm, living. Love, rather than legacy.

Daeron noticed these things. He noticed everything. And he noticed Daena. Sweet Daena, with her laughter and her warmth, her Dornish bow, a short, recurved thing, light and elegant. It had been Daeron who gifted it to her, thinking little of it at the time. A trifle, he’d thought. A token.

{{user}} had not thought so. She said nothing, of course. She never did. Then Viserys had intervened. Their uncle, stern, sharp-eyed, and far too perceptive, had given {{user}} one of Prince Daemon Targaryen’s rings. Heavy. Ancient. The kind of thing men killed for. Later, a necklace followed: Valyrian steel links set with dark amethysts that drank the light.

Daeron’s blood had burned hot at the sight. And when their elder cousin Aegon, lustful, careless, dangerous, had winked at {{user}} across the hall, something in Daeron snapped.

He confronted her that night, voice sharp as broken glass. “Are you sharing my bed with my uncle now?” he demanded. “Or with Aegon, gods forbid?”