Terms of Endearment │Part I: The Princess and the Rogue

Chapter 16: Triumph

THE ROGUE

Daemon spends the next few days in hiding, taking his meals in his chambers and refusing to venture outside the safe haven of its four walls.

Considering just how many people he had managed to piss off in the space of a single evening, it is probably for the best. He has to admit that, by the third day, the room feels as though it's closing in on him. That being said, he has little wish to force his company on you after how frightened you had looked, or risk being murdered on sight if either his brother or oldest niece catch a glimpse of him anywhere near you. The fact that he had so thoroughly broken off relations with his old crowd leaves him with little alternative than to remain concealed, out of sight and mind.

Yes, it is best to wait, to let the outcome play itself out. Until Viserys deigns to speak to him again—until he gathers the will to approach you—here he shall remain.

He spends his time reading the old histories, fetched readily by his attending servants. Immersing himself in tales of the Conqueror, the Fall of Ghis, the Doom, he ponders upon his ancestry.

It is a sobering thought, he concludes, to consider how far House Targaryen had risen since the Old Days, from minor dragonlords to rulers of an entire continent.

And yet, for all the power they had amassed, they are all but alone in carrying the memory of their true home. The Freehold is now nothing more than smoking ruins and ashen horizons and fairy stories mothers tell to frighten their children.

It is a day similar to any other when he receives a knock upon the door. Given that the servants tap gently, the domineering pounding upon the wooden surface can only mean that his self-imposed isolation has come to an end. Sighing, he abandons the book and removes himself from the desk, striding over to the entry to reveal his guest.

Daemon had been expecting a member of the Kingsguard. He finds Rhaenyra.

"May I come in?" she asks, hands clasped before her and face impassive. He nods, obligingly standing aside. His niece stops in the middle of the room and turns to face him. It is fascinating that the sight of her no longer arouses the same ardour and shame and torment it had once done, just the throb of an old hurt on a rainy day. "You've been avoiding us."

He chuckles, closing the door. "I had thought that was rather obvious. I didn't think anyone would particularly enjoy my presence, seeing as I traumatised my poor sweet niece by attacking her suitor in the hallway."

He focuses his gaze upon the window past her head, unable to look her in the eye.

She huffs a breath. "He deserved it." She pauses; hesitates. "She's... confused. And upset."

His chest tightens at the information.

"I know," he says quietly. For all his bluster, he had no wish to distress you or see you distressed, and now it seems he is the very cause of it. "I hadn't intended... well, I suppose it doesn't matter now."

"Why?" Rhaenyra blurts, seemingly having paid little attention to his words.

Her utterance is too sudden, too abrupt after the conclusion of his sentence to be motivated by anything other than the wounds of the past. He focuses upon her face properly, frowning lightly when he absorbs the expression of hurt confusion upon it. She steps forward, her composure breaking somewhat in the slump of her shoulders and the relaxing of her spine.

It all comes spilling out in a rush—every question, every thought, every hurt she must have carried in her soul since he left, waiting for the perfect moment to unleash itself upon his ears.