Daemon had spent the past few days drilling the City Guard into something resembling an army. He commissioned new armor from the smiths and leatherworkers—simple chainmail and plate enough to give them weight and presence—and made certain every man carried both dagger and cudgel.
He trained them without mercy, breaking their sloppiness through repetition and exhaustion. His voice carried like a whip through the yard, every command obeyed without question. They learned quickly that the only orders they were to heed came from him or those of royal blood. No lord, merchant, or gold-bearing fool would command the Watch again.
Daemon stood in the training yard with a blunt sword and asked three men to come at him. He parried the first—an over-eager blow met with a shoulder push that sent the man down—and glanced around to see the others trying to surround him. They were trying, the key word. He advanced toward another and swung his sword, expecting to be parried; he feigned with his arm toward the gap, then turned toward the other man as he charged. He slid aside while delivering a kick to the side.
After that session, the guards who had been born in the city were more than thrilled to serve under the prince.
As for the commander and the other highborns in the Watch, Daemon didn't give a thought. He watched them squander the wages on drink and whores, thinking this was a flight of fancy for Daemon and that things would soon return to normal.
Their duty was simple in words but heavy in expectation—to protect the people of King's Landing, maintain order, and uphold the King's law.
Even as Daemon reacquainted himself with instincts dulled by another lifetime, his reforms took shape. Patrols were no longer aimless wanderings. He enforced a rule that no man would walk the streets alone: every patrol had at least three members. Formations were practiced until they became habit. He pushed them to their limits—running circles in the yard until legs gave out, then forcing them to rise, slow the pace, and begin again.
By afternoon, their exhaustion gave way to a different kind of training—literacy. Daemon had them learn letters and numbers, their calloused hands awkward around quills. Reports, records, city accounts—he intended the Watch to serve the realm with more than brute strength.
From dawn until dusk, Daemon worked. He rarely saw his family now, preferring the company of steel, parchment, and dragonfire. When not overseeing the Watch, he studied histories and treatises on law and economics, or took Caraxes to the skies to clear his mind. The secret passages of the Red Keep became his refuge; through them, he could avoid the endless corridors of courtly politics.
A week passed, and the transformation of the Watch was visible even to the city's drunks and beggars. Their new armor glimmered faintly under torchlight, earning them a name Daemon himself had coined—the Gold Cloaks, a tribute to canon.
He organized them into squads of five, each under a leader. Ten such squads formed a unit under a captain. Every day, half patrolled the streets at dawn, the other half at dusk. The shifts rotated, ensuring none grew complacent. The city began to notice.
But luck never lasted long. Today, Daemon could not escape duty in its most suffocating form: family dinner.
The summons had come that morning, carrying the weight of command. He obeyed.
The great doors of the dining hall opened with a quiet groan. The scent of roasted fowl and spiced wine filled the air. At the high table sat King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne, with Prince Baelon and Viserys beside them. Aemma Arryn and young Gael completed the gathering, softening the atmosphere just enough to make it tolerable.
Daemon entered, bowing his head slightly—courtesy by habit, not devotion. His greeting was clipped, polite enough to avoid reproach. Yet when he turned to Aemma and Gael, his tone warmed; there was something almost human in it.
Throughout the meal, he spoke mostly to them, his voice measured but intent. He told Aemma of the midwives and Essosi healers he had gathered to his service—experienced women who had seen countless births and losses, who understood the body better than any maester's book.
"They'll see to your health," he said quietly, "and to the child's. Every tonic, every draught the Maesters give you—they'll test it first."
He spoke not as a prince performing duty, but as a man ensuring the safety of his kin.
It was then that Jaehaerys's voice cut through the table like steel.
"At last," the King said, "you are doing your duty as a prince. Perhaps now you might write to your betrothed."
Daemon laughed. The sound was short, sharp, without mirth.
"Do not delude yourself, Your Grace," he said evenly. "The City Watch was not duty—it was survival. The smallfolk warned me to be careful for my own life on the streets. When even a prince cannot walk his own streets unmolested, what hope do they have?"
He leaned back slightly, eyes glinting. "I trained them, I armed them. Not for glory, but necessity. As for betrothal—" his lips curled in a faint smirk, "—I was unaware I'd accepted one. Or that there was a woman I'd care to marry or fuck, as you so kindly suggest."
A silence followed, the kind that thickened the air.
Jaehaerys's expression darkened, the room seeming smaller under his gaze. With a gesture, he summoned the guards.
"Viserys," he said quietly, "escort Aemma and Gael to their chambers. Let them have some sweets and fruit."
He turned his eyes back to Daemon. "The Prince and I have a discussion to finish—in my quarters. Baelon, Alysanne—you will join us."
Daemon rose smoothly, unhurried. "As you wish, Your Grace," he replied, tone neither defiant nor deferential—merely steady.
Inside the King's quarters, Jaehaerys sat with the habitual gravity of his office, Baelon beside him like a steadying counterweight. Daemon sat opposite, composed, one leg crossed over the other, posture loose as a man who trusts neither formality nor flattery. The room smelled faintly of tallow and old leather; the tapestries muffled sound until voices landed with more weight.
"So, what do you wish to discuss, Your Grace?" Daemon asked, the question flat.
Around them, Baelon and the attendants listened in the brittle silence that follows trouble too long ignored. Jaehaerys's eyes narrowed. "Enough of this disrespect. I am your King."
Daemon tilted his head as if considering a trivial fact. "Yes, yes, I know. But if that is the case, you should also know that I am a subject and a dragonlord in my own right—not a slave."
The King's voice hardened. "What is this insolence? Have I ever treated you as a slave?"
Daemon laughed, but it was a laugh without warmth. "Am I not? Your wife cannot get over the fact that you and your small council passed over Rhaenys. Now, she has only one daughter left, and the only eligible Valyrian match is me. My father loves me the most, so Alysanne proposed a marriage to a lady from the Vale—someone older than me, who has her own ambitions of ruling her castle. I would have to scrape and beg for her favor, all so you can placate your wife. And you think I will agree? You think I don't see the plan? That after she gives birth, she will conveniently die, leaving me to claim the Vale for you? Is that your most optimal outcome? And my father, ever the dutiful son, accepted this farce, just as his parents destroyed his siblings. Now, they turn their eyes to their grandchildren. Why should I give more respect than I already give when there is none for me? I repeat: I am not you or your wife's slave."
Daemon's words landed like a blade. Jaehaerys clenched his jaw; the lines at his eyes deepened. Baelon shifted, a small, controlled movement, his lips pressed thin—panic and helplessness both there. Alysanne watched with a mind that catalogued and weighed everything; her silence was assessment.
"And you keep speaking of 'the realm,' yet our house is weaker than ever—more than in your father's reign. You made the realm strong but failed to weed out the families and forces that led to your father's weak rule and later to your uncle's downfall. I am certain he was at least poisoned or bewitched into madness. Worse still, you allowed a child to be bedded in this castle, exiled or killed your daughters, and let the lords call us 'dragonless' because you denied them their birthright."
Daemon's voice dropped until it was almost a private thing—less shout than promise. "And on top of all this, I have to restrain myself from burning Oldtown to the ground when I hear the septons gloat over my uncle's death and say an abomination won't rule over them. So, tell me, Your Grace—what insolence have I truly committed?"
Jaehaerys's knuckles whitened on the armrest. Outside the chamber, servants moved like shadows; within, the air seemed to tighten. "You speak with the tongue of a viper and words like a blade, boy," the King said at last, flat and cold as the Void. "And like a viper, you will find that snapping at dragons leads only to fire."
Daemon leaned forward, the candlelight catching violet in his eyes. His smirk never faded. "Where I don't see any, then burn me, Your Grace." He held the look until it tested the King. "Or is it that you know I speak the truth? That your reign, for all its wisdom, has left our house brittle?"
Baelon cut in, measured, the voice of a son who has learned to steer between rebellion and reason. "Daemon, you go too far."
"Do I?" Daemon turned that small, mocking question to his father. "Tell me, then—am I lying? Will I not be shackled to some ambitious noblewoman to secure your mother's acceptance? Will I not be expected to dance like a puppet, just as you did?" He scoffed, the sound sharp as flint. "You think I do not see? You are the Prince of Dragonstone, heir to the throne, yet you are nothing more than the sharpest tool in his arsenal. In fact, if he wanted more heirs shouldn't you marry and do your duty?"
Baelon's jaw tightened; he had no answer that could both defend and avoid betrayal.
Jaehaerys breathed out slowly, the exhalation of a man who has measured the cost of many choices. "You fancy yourself clever, Daemon, but you are young. You do not understand the burden of a king."
"Oh," Daemon said, smooth and cool. "Maybe so. But I understand that you were never meant to rule this long. That you should have abdicated when the cracks began to show. That you fear change more than you fear our enemies."
Alysanne's eyes flashed, a controlled flame. "And what would you have done, then, boy? Seized the throne by force? Married Rhaenys yourself? Hatched a war against the lords?"
Daemon did not blink. "Why would I want the throne if I end up like your husband? I would first think of suicide. No, I would have made Rhaenys marry my father, my brother, or me; then I would name whoever was married as consort and the other left would be slowly joined under the small council for training to learn something and rule effectively—not be this weak man who, when he had the opportunity to remove the teeth of one of our greatest enemies in these kingdoms, instead gave them concession, making them satisfied. Now I have to suffer these affronts against me to placate you. We have never been close, grandmother—yet I didn't know you hated me this deeply. For that, I will make you burn in return, as the loss of your favorite children burned you."
His gaze slid to Jaehaerys, sharp as a prod. "I would not have let my enemies live long enough to call me weak."
Jaehaerys's hand moved before thought could catch it.
The strike cracked through the chamber — sharp, final.
Daemon's head jerked to the side from the blow. For a moment, silence held; then he spat a thin line of blood onto the floor, the dark red glinting against stone. His gaze lifted, eyes burning with restrained fury. His hands clenched until the knuckles went white and small lines of blood welled from his palms where his nails bit skin.
Jaehaerys held that look for a long moment, the weight of years and wartime counsel settled into the lines of his face.
"You think you are the first Targaryen to seethe at the chains of duty?" he asked finally.
"The first to curse the necessity of politics? If you were king today, you would only trade one leash for another. And when the realm fractures beneath you, when the dragons begin to die, you will realize—" he leaned forward, voice a whisper that carried steel—"that wisdom is knowing which battles to fight."
Daemon chuckled, a small, sharp sound.
"And yet, Your Grace, you have been fighting the wrong battles all along."
Silence pooled around them. The words had weight; even the tapestries seemed to hold their breath.
Alysanne broke the stillness, voice even, clipped.
"Enough of this. We did not summon you here for a debate on governance."
"No," Daemon said, rising with a movement that was all economy and contempt, "you summoned me to bend. To remind me of my place. But let me save you the trouble—I know my place. And it is not at the feet of Oldtown, nor at the mercy of lords who fear dragons."
He met Jaehaerys's gaze once more, steady as a drawn sword.
"You once dreamed of a united realm, of peace and prosperity. But peace does not last, Your Grace. And when war comes again, when fire and blood are needed—" he paused, hand on the latch of the door, voice low as a promise—
"do not expect me to clean up the mess you made."
Then he left. The door closed on the echo of his stride; only the dying candlelight and the residue of his words remained.
Jaehaerys remained in his chair, still as carved stone, fingers steepled as if the posture could steady thought. The footsteps faded down the corridor, each one a small indictment.
His youngest grandson had always been a wild thing—unpredictable, rebellious, hungry for something to burn for—but the King felt something new in him that night. The smirks were still there; the barbs, too. But beneath them lay not mere defiance, but conviction with teeth.
At length, the King spoke, voice quieter than it had been in the quarrel.
"Daemon will need direction. Purpose. He has always sought it, and if he does not find it with us, he will find it elsewhere."
His look slid to Baelon, weighted and deliberate. "I intend to create a new position—Master of Defense. It will be his, and through it, he will look outward rather than inward."
Baelon took that in, slow and cautious.
"You should be careful, Father," he said. "Daemon may be young, but he is not reckless. Not in the way you think. He hides his fury behind smirks and sharp words, but he burns hotter than any of us."
Jaehaerys raised an eyebrow, measuring the weight behind the warning.
Baelon continued, voice grave. "He loves our family, but not blindly. If what he says is true—if the Faith, the lords, the maesters, or any others conspired to weaken us—then he will not sit idly by. He will burn them, all of them, down to the stones of their septs and the ashes of their halls. And from what he just told us about Aemon's death being celebrated?" Baelon's mouth tightened. "I would very much support it."
Alysanne stiffened, a motion that wore caution like armor. "Baelon—" she began, then stopped herself.
"You heard him," Baelon said softly, inexorable as a verdict. "He did not speak as a rebellious prince throwing a tantrum. He spoke as a dragon only just realizing how many snakes coil around his nest. And worse, that his elders have allowed them to remain."
Jaehaerys's fingers white-knuckled the armrest. The years pressed down on him; the old wound of Aemon's death—an ache he had never allowed to close—opened afresh. The thought that his son's end had been welcomed, perhaps aided, by unseen hands was a corruption that ate at the foundations of what he had built.
"And what do you suggest I do, Baelon?" the King asked at last, voice weary but sharpened by fear.
Baelon exhaled and let the answer fall.
"Daemon is not wrong. The Faith has overstepped before, and they will again. You gave them power when you reformed the realm, let them into the highest places, made concessions for peace. But in their hearts, they do not believe we should rule. They have never believed it. And they celebrated Aemon's death—your heir's death."
His face hardened.
"If the Septons truly see us as enemies, then we should start seeing them the same way."
Alysanne's eyes searched the room, mind already weighing consequence.
"The Faith is deeply rooted in Westeros. If we move against them openly, it will be seen as tyranny. And if we act too rashly, we could turn the lords against us. The Faith Militant may have been put down, but we cannot afford another uprising."
Baelon inclined his head.
"Then we do not move rashly. We do as Daemon does—observe, uncover, prepare. And when the time comes, we act before they can."
Jaehaerys sat silent, the slow, bleak arithmetic of rule working in his head. It was not the way of peace he had built; still, perhaps peace had been no more than a reprieve. Perhaps the storm had already come, and he had been too content to notice.
Finally, he said, with the resigned firmness of an aging general,
"Daemon will have his office. He will uncover the threats against our house. And if he finds what he claims is there… we will not hesitate."
Baelon nodded once, slowly, but his eyes remained distant as if peering into a future already laid in ash.
"Just be careful, Father," he said again, softer this time. "Because if Daemon truly believes our house has been weakened from within, then nothing will stop him from purging it. And if he finds out you knew and let it happen…"
He stopped — the rest needed no voice.
They sat in the dim room, each wrapped in the particular loneliness of those who govern.
Daemon remained blood and kin; but a dragon with nothing to lose was the most dangerous thing of all.