Welcome back! Thank you for all the support!

I come bearing a new chapter and a new cover made by the queen herself, BeyondTheHorizonIsHope! She is also one of the main people who keep me on track to write this fic, so everyone say thank you to her lol.

This chapter is another angsty one, unfortunately, but I offer some Viserra/Daemon in exchange. (Or, as I like to call them, Targ Squared.)

As always, let me know what you thought!

xx

The black of mourning stood out harshly on the sandstone cliffs, but no more than the pyre stacked amidst the mourners. Two bodies wrapped in silk lay together upon it, one Queen Aemma, the other her newborn babe, Prince Baelon. He had not lasted through the night.

Viserra stared at the pyre as if she alone could set it ablaze. Salt and sea spray coated her dry lips, her wind-chapped face, but they disguised her tears. The Blackwater surged and roared below the cliffs, the only sound present among the gathered funeral party. She twisted her ring round and round her finger as if she did it enough times, she could erase the past, go back to the morn of the tourney when her mother had been alive and told her she loved her, and Viserra would not have left her alone to die in a pool of her own blood.

She turned her acidic stare on her father. King Viserys swayed on his feet, looking close to fainting, his gaze fixed on the horizon and somewhere far beyond that. She hadn't heard him speak a word since Maester Mellos told them of the babe's passing. She hadn't spoken one to him since the Queen's passing.

The Red Keep was not lacking for silence lately.

Rhaenyra stood some feet apart from both Viserys and Viserra. Her eyes were misty, her face drawn and pale, almost as white as her hair. Daemon stood behind her, his lips moving, but Viserra could not make out what he was saying at this distance. She hadn't spoken to her sister or her uncle, either. Words disappeared from her mouth every time she opened it, beaten back by sobs or screams in the dead of night when she was alone in her chambers. Her throat had become raw from it.

Perched on the wind-battered rocks above them was Rhaenyra's golden dragon, Syrax. The lithe creature stood still as a statue, sensing the grief in the air and abiding by it in whatever sense dragons could. She suddenly wished that Abraxas was there, but Ser Otto Hightower had but whispered something to the King, and then, only one dragon was allowed to attend the service to light the pyre. The rest would have to remain in the Dragonpit.

The Hand of the King looked the part of the sorrowful but stoic King's man in his black finery, his head bowed as he listened to the High Septon's final prayers, but Viserra knew better. He'd always feared their dragons, feared them, even if he pretended that he did not. He knew he unnerved her, but they were fairly matched in their mutual distrust and dislike, for she knew his fear.

What a jilted tune they danced to.

Rhaenyra stepped forward, her eyes red, once the prayers were finished. Viserra saw her hands shake slightly before they stilled.

"D—" She faltered. Breathed. Spoke again, her voice clear. "Dracarys."

Syrax ruffled her leathery wings, her sinewy neck snaking down the rocks as she opened her maw. In a quick burst of flame, the pyre was lit.

The scents of dragon-fire and burning flesh assaulted Viserra, but she stood firm, never taking her eyes off the flames. She flinched when Daemon spoke behind her, his soft voice caressing her ear; she hadn't sensed him approach.

"You should go to your sister," he said lowly, so only she could hear. "She needs you."

"She seems just fine," said Viserra.

Her eyes cut to Rhaenyra, where she stood beside Alicent Hightower. The two girls' hands were clasped as they watched the pyre burn, and a sour taste welled in Viserra's throat.

Before he could say anything else, she added, "The Lady Hightower's company is preferable to mine, after all, isn't it?"

Daemon sighed and shifted at her back. "I feared you would take mine own spite to the Hand personally."

"If you knew then why do it?" she spat.

"I had hoped you would have shed your jealous tendencies by now." A knuckle brushed the back of her arm. The touch should have sent tingles up and down her spine, but all she felt was the heat of the fire consuming her mother's corpse. "You are nearly a woman grown."

She jerked away from him, finally meeting his eyes. They were deep pools of sympathy and understanding, but she had never felt so scorned. She wanted to rake her nails across his fair, handsome face, claw out those violet eyes. She wanted to chase after the wisps of her mother's soul rising from the pyre and never have her heart break again. She wanted so many things that they howled and shrieked and tore at her from within, and for once, she was tired of wanting.

"If my jealous tendencies bother you so," she said, struggling to keep her voice even, "then you clearly do not understand why I would have them in regard to you."

His lips parted, but she brushed past him, hiding her face and the red that certainly bloomed there.

She left them all on that cliffside, the flames of the pyre and her own shame licking at her feet as she fled.

xx

The hours lengthened with the shadows, and Viserra's eyes had become blurry long ago, but still she sat hunched over the maesters' worktable, her hands cramped over a small surgical knife and forceps and her nose filled with the stench of decaying rat and maggots.

The maggots rested in a separate copper pan, wriggling and writhing over one another blindly as she pinched and cut the rat flesh. She'd long since acclimated to the smell and sight; all that mattered was her findings. An aged writing-book lay only just out of reach, the ink still drying from her last scrawl on petrified stomach contents. Her neck and shoulders ached, the candles had melted to puddling stubs, yet still she worked—looking for what, she did not know. Answers to questions that would never have them? But if anyone could solve the ultimate riddle of death, it would be her. It had to be. She was special, different from the rest, above them. She had to.

She poked at the rat a bit more. Blood had pooled in its lower extremities, and its body was coming out of its state of stiff muscles, but these were things she already knew to happen. Pockets of fat had coalesced on its heart, and she used the flat of her knife to carefully scrape them off. The heart was what mattered most. She had to preserve it as best she could. She set down her forceps and rifled through her book until she came to the right page.

It was the most abused page in her book. Limp and oily in her hand, stained with various substances over the years, the earlier writing near illegible. Concoctions she'd made herself, injected into the hearts of all her dead rats; hopes, that one of them would be the cure to restarting that vital organ so needed for survival. The maesters deemed it impossible; once the heart had stopped, its owner was dead. But there were those who had once deemed it impossible to ride dragons, and her very own ancestors had proved them wrong. Possibility was a gateway, and it would only open for those who dared to take the chances.

A knock on the door hardly roused her. She only sighed and picked up her forceps again. "Enter."

Belatedly, she realized that it was Daemon who had come. He stepped into the dark chambers with only a small wrinkle of his nose. One of her handmaidens had come to fetch her earlier for her noonday meal and gagged, nearly vomiting on the floor. Viserra had gained some small amusement from that before dismissing her.

Her uncle had swapped his mourning attire for something more casual, though the livery was still fine and colored black. A dark cloak settled on his shoulders, and Viserra raised an eyebrow.

"Fleeing the city again so soon?" she asked. Her voice came out as a rasp, and she suddenly wished for some wine. She'd drained her earlier carafe hours ago.

He gave her a rueful smile. "Fleeing into its underbelly, more like. The City Watch wishes for an appearance of their grand leader."

Viserra had very nearly forgotten the supposed "goldcloaks" her uncle commanded to patrol King's Landing. She only hummed in response.

"When you weren't in your chambers, I supposed you would be in here," he continued, moving deeper into the room with a slow, exaggerated step. "You've always sought refuge here when death became too unbearable for you." His eyes flicked to her rat. "Well, the death of humans."

"It reminds me why I do what I do," she said, defensive.

Daemon just looked at her sadly. "Not even you can bring someone back from the dead, Princess."

Viserra stabbed at her rat. "There are rumors. The Red Priests of Asshai can resurrect if they call on the Lord of Light—"

"Is that what you chase in here?" He gestured to the putrid, dank chambers around them. "Divinity inside rotten flesh? A higher power hidden in the bellies of feasting maggots?"

"The legends say Old Valyria had its own magic," she insisted. Anger swelled inside of her, hot and righteous. "You say we are the blood of that place, do you not? If it is true, then I will be the one to wake it again, harness it—"

"You can't bring her back, Viserra," Daemon said quietly. "No one can. I'm sorry."

She gripped her tools tighter. "And if it was me who had died instead?" She lifted her head and met his gaze head-on. "Would you not do everything in your power to bring me back?"

Daemon stared at her. "What you ask is unfair, and you know it."

She laughed. It was a bitter and hollow thing. "What use is fairness? If the world were fair, then my mother would be alive! My father would have the son he wanted, and I—" Her breath hitched.

Daemon stepped closer. His cloak brushed her side, and his warmth seeped into her like she'd just dunked herself in a hot bath. She shuddered.

"You once told me you wanted everything," he said. He reached up and gripped a loose piece of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. "Does that still hold true, Princess?"

She wanted to say yes. She wanted to say no. She wanted to pull away and lean into his touch. She did want everything, but not if she couldn't have the thing she wanted most.

She set her tools down and stood. As she rose to her full height, Daemon's fingers unfurled to catch her face in his hand, cupping her cheek. His touch burned right through to her heart, but it was nothing compared to the look he fixed her with. It flickered between uncertainty and surety, shame and desire. Had this been what he had locked away that night in her chambers? All these emotions that churned and shifted like a raging river caught beneath ice?

"I want you, Daemon." Her voice was nothing more than a whisper, a breath caught between smoke and shadow. The candles burned and the shadows darkened. So did his eyes. "The rest comes after."

His thumb dug into her cheek unconsciously as a small tremor went through him. He inhaled deeply.

"The possibility had always crossed my mind," he murmured. "Before I was forced to wed that bronze bitch, I used to wonder what it would be like to wait for you to come into your own. That fierce, precocious child blooming into a woman worthy of the dragon's blood running in her veins.

"But now that I am faced with you, near-grown and forward with your own desires, I find myself afraid."

"Afraid of what?" she asked.

"Of tempering you and all your desires." He gave her a rueful smile. "You are a child yet, Viserra. You may change your mind."

"Never." The word came out too quickly and she flushed, but she held his gaze. "I've wanted you for as long as I could remember first wanting anything." She seized his wrist, suddenly desperate, but she hardly cared. "Daemon, please. I want you."

But she could see it—the shame, the uncertainty winning out. It made her want to scream. She gripped him tighter.

"You're grieving," he said, gently prying himself from her grasp. "You just lost your mother. You will make sense of your emotions in due time, but not tonight."

"What is there for you to misunderstand?" she demanded. "I told you what I wanted!"

He stepped away, and his eyes shuttered once more. Closing her out. "I need to go. Please do try and rest, Princess."

He turned on his heel. As he left, she spat out the only word that came to her then.

"Coward!"

He paused on the threshold. He half-turned as if he were going to face her again and reply, but after a moment, he disappeared through the door. It slammed behind him, and the gust was enough to snuff out her lonely little candle and plunge her into darkness.

xx

"Serra?"

Viserra floundered in her sheets for a moment, groping at the heavy duvet that covered part of her face. When she emerged, it was to find her bed-chamber swathed in darkness, but the golden glow peeking behind her closed drapes hinted at daytime. She must have overslept.

Or perhaps the pillow on the floor was indicative that her screaming at her handmaiden and launching the projectile at the poor woman was not just a dream.

Viserra watched, bleary, as Rhaenyra stooped and picked up the assaulting pillow. She crossed the room and placed it neatly next to Viserra's head, plumping it for good measure. Viserra blinked, wondering if this was another dream.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice groggy from sleep.

"Ser Lorent told me that you were still abed," Rhaenyra said, perching on the mattress. She tried for a smile, but it came out wan and bleak. It lacked any of her usual spark. "And that you'd been abed since early last evening."

That explained the sand in her eyes and the pounding in her head, then. She reached for the pitcher of water beside her bed, but Rhaenyra quickly stood and poured the cup for her. Viserra took it with some suspicion but downed it greedily. When she finished, she frowned at her sister.

"You're coddling me," Viserra decided. "You only act like this when you've something to hide. What is it?"

Rhaenyra turned away and strode to the windows. She began flinging open the drapes, and Viserra hissed at the intrusion of bright afternoon sunlight. She sat up, wrestling against her sheets until she was free.

"Rhaenyra," she said. It was strange to use such a stern voice on her sister when she was the younger. "Tell me what's happened or I'll throw this cup at your head."

"You missed the Small Council meeting." Now that the drapes were opened, Rhaenyra set about straightening random throw pillows and miscellaneous items around the room. She did not meet Viserra's gaze.

"I never attend, anyway."

Abruptly, as if she could not hold herself back anymore, she turned on Viserra. "Did you speak with Uncle Daemon last night?"

Viserra thought of their conversation in the maesters' chambers and inwardly cringed. "Perhaps. Why?"

"There's been...a rumor." Rhaenyra bit her lip. "An ugly one."

"Well, do go on now that you've enraptured me so," Viserra said wryly when Rhaenyra hesitated.

"Daemon was in a pleasure house," said Rhaenyra.

Though her stomach clenched, Viserra just blinked. "It's common knowledge he enjoys the Street of Silk. So?"

"There were many people gathered. A celebration, of sorts."

"I fail to see where you're going with this, Nyra." The childhood nickname slipped out; Viserra grimaced when Rhaenyra started. She hadn't called her sister that in ages. She pressed on quickly. "We always used to boast about going there ourselves in disguises one day. It's not a treasonous place."

"There was a tribute made, apparently." Rhaenyra's lips thinned. "One in which our brother Prince Baelon – Mother have mercy – was referred to as 'the heir for a day.' A toast allegedly made by Daemon himself."

"That's absurd," Viserra spluttered. "Daemon would never do that. Who told the Small Council of this?"

"A spy."

"Whose spy?"

Rhaenyra looked to the nearest window. "Ser Otto's."

"And you believe him? This spy for the Hand of the King? The same Hand who shrinks away from our dragons and our hems as if terrified he will burn?" Viserra shook her head. "No. This is a lie. A disgusting lie. Daemon would never—"

A new thought occurred to her when she caught the desperate, sorrowful look on her sister's face. "Did Father believe him? Did Father believe Ser Otto's spy?"

Rhaenyra shut her eyes. "Daemon is to depart for Runestone at high noon. By order of the King."

"It's noon now," Viserra said. She lurched to her feet, tossing her empty cup aside. "Rhaenyra, Daemon is being sent away right now. Why did you not come to me sooner? Rhaenyra!"

"It would've made no difference. Father is furious. I've never seen him so upset."

Viserra was bolting for her wardrobe, shedding her shift. "We have to stop this. Rhaenyra, help me dress. Quickly!"

Rhaenyra didn't move. Viserra grabbed her shoulders and gave her a shake. "Rhaenyra! You can't— You don't think—?"

"Father will not listen to reason right now," she said, her voice thick with suppressed tears. Viserra could see them in her eyes, could see her own reflection in them, distorted and wavering. "It will be all right, Serra. We can change his mind later, when it's not so clouded by grief."

Viserra made a noise of frustration as she released her hold on Rhaenyra. She scooped up her dressing gown and pulled it on as she made for the door. Rhaenyra followed. "Viserra, don't. Let Father handle this."

Viserra yanked open the door. Ser Lorent turned, his eyes widening in surprise when he took in her tangled hair, disheveled clothes, and bare feet. "Princess—"

She gave him no time to speak. She darted down the corridor, leaving her rooms behind. Ser Lorent's armor clanked after her in pursuit, but he made no move to stop her. She flew through the halls and down the stairs, her feet slapping against stone as she ran for the throne room. It was a lie, a trick, a deception – her father had to see that, had to know that Daemon would never say such a horrid thing, that this was all Ser Otto's doing—

She burst into the throne room, flinging the doors open herself when two guards clad in Targaryen colors moved too slowly. The doors crashed against the walls, and the sound reverberated throughout the long room before being swallowed up by the high, vaulted ceiling.

The Iron Throne loomed at the other end, an iron beast, fearsome and dreaded in its own right. King Viserys slumped in the great seat as if all the weight in the world rested upon his shoulders at that moment, and all that guarded him against being crushed was the crown on his head and the sword in his hand. Three Kingsguard stood watch at the foot of the dais, and they watched her approach with wary eyes. She could not blame them; she probably looked half-mad. Perhaps she was.

"Where is Daemon?" she said without preamble. Her voice sounded small and meek in the large hall. "Father?"

Viserys stirred slightly. "Gone."

Viserra froze in her tracks. "Gone?"

When he said nothing, Ser Ryam Redwyne cleared his throat. "He was escorted out of the Red Keep naught twenty minutes ago, Princess. By order of King Viserys, Prince Daemon is no longer the King's heir nor the Prince of Dragonstone, and is to return to Runestone without delay."

"You had no right," Viserra said, speaking directly to her father. Her voice quivered with fury. "No right. Daemon would never say such a horrible thing, Father, you must know this—"

"'The heir for a day.'" The words came to Viserra on dust, whispered into the air by King Viserys. He stared at that faraway place again and shook his head. "My son. Mocked. By mine own brother."

"He wouldn't—"

"Might I have mistaken a viper nesting among the dragons?" Viserys muttered, more to himself than to Viserra. "Mine own brother..."

"The word of a spy," she said, clenching her fists. She felt the band of the ring tighten around her finger with the movement, and her bones ached in protest. She didn't care. "A spy in the pocket of Otto Hightower. And you would believe him over your own brother? Your own blood?"

"Daemon has always wanted the throne." Viserys seemed to shrink, as if his own body could not even fathom his hollow words. "He is ambitious. Callous, even. He never wanted Aemma to bear me a son. He never wanted to be supplanted as heir."

"Words that drip with Hightower's poison," she hissed. She had reached the dais now. The Kingsguard did not move, but she felt their eyes boring into her. Viserys was still trapped in the faraway place. "It's not too late, Father. Call Daemon back."

"He wounded me, daughter," he said. "Wounded us. Our family. The memory of your mother—"

"Don't." The word rippled through the room as if she'd shouted it, but she had only uttered it quietly. "Do not speak of my mother's memory as if you were not the cause of her demise."

Viserys's eyes snapped to hers. He looked at her squarely now, seeing her for the first time. A tremor went through her shoulders, but she held her chin high.

"What?" Viserys breathed.

"I saw what you allowed the Grand Maester to do to her. I saw how her body had been mutilated. I saw how you stood by and allowed her to be butchered so that you could finally, finally have your son."

Viserys's breathing had turned ragged. He only stared as Viserra's anger, her hurt, her grief, finally overwhelmed her and spilled out like blood from between her teeth, a torrent of it that threatened to drown her and take the throne room with it.

"You killed her!" she screeched. "You! You killed my mother! You killed her!"

Her voice gave out just as she began to heave with sobs. She clutched at her chest, at that brutal hole that had been carved into her and hollowed out. She thought her heart would burst from the agony of it. And it was his fault, all his fault, but maybe if she had been there, maybe if she had known how to bring her back, maybe if she wasn't just a powerless little girl crying at her father's feet and wanting her mother—

Viserys flung his sword aside and staggered down the steps. He crashed into Viserra and brought both of them down to their knees. For one wild moment, Viserra thought he was attacking her, but her father only sobbed into her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her in a bruising grip.

Viserra clung to him as if she were a child again, her nails digging into his clothes like she could anchor herself to him, and he to her. Her anger, bright as a spark, dulled into something else, something infinitely sadder and more tragic.

"I'm sorry," Viserys sobbed. "I'm sorry, Aemma, I'm so sorry..."

They held each other and cried. Viserra could not tell who was comforting whom; they could only hope that they would not shatter completely in the other's arms.

She did not know how much time had passed when Viserys caressed her hair, his stubble digging into her forehead as she rested, exhausted, against his chest.

"I'm sorry, my daughter," he whispered. His voice scratched nearly as badly as his stubble. "You are right."

"It was cruel of me to say," she whispered back. "I just want her back."

He squeezed her tighter. "I know."

Her father's embrace was warm, but in the shadow of the Iron Throne, everything turned cold.

xx

Therapists would love Viserys and Viserra is all I'm saying.

Until next time!