"Father!" shouts Baela as she runs to him.

"Baela, my girl," says Daemon and swings her round, "it is good to see your face."

Rhaenyra stands in the corner of the throne room, a vision in her dress of blue.

"I thank you," Daemon says to Lady Rhaenys, "for looking after my girls."

"They are a delight, my prince," the lady says with a smile, "I would keep them indefinitely."

Rhaenyra catches his eye and walks from the room. He shall follow her when he finds a moment to slip away.

She leads him further from the castle than he'd originally thought necessary, but he is glad to see her. She is radiant in the moonlight – her blonde hair in loose braids that are coming undone in the wind, the steel he gave her 'round her neck. "What troubles you, Rhaenyra?" asks her uncle, but she merely shakes her head and continues to walk. When they can behold only sky and sea, she turns to him at last and begins to speak:

"Fire is such strange power," she begins. "Everything that House Targaryen possesses is owed to it." She is stiff, formal.

She has written this speech in her head, Daemon thinks to himself with a smile.

"Yet it has cost us both what we loved."

Daemon knows it is all leading somewhere. "Perhaps the Velaryons knew the truth of it," he muses, watching the waves. "The sea is the better ally."

"Fire is a prison," replies Rhaenyra. "The sea offers an escape."

He watches her, trying to guess the meaning of her words as her hair blows about her face.

"I need you, uncle," she says. And then she speaks in High Valyrian: "I cannot face the greens alone."

Daemon's blood quickens and he stares at her, stunned. He has not heard the language from her lips in ten years.

"Let us bind our blood," she continues, "just as Aegon the Conqueror did with his sisters. With you as my husband and prince consort, my claim would not be so easily challenged. The Velaryons are of the sea," she continues. "But you and I are made of fire."

Daemon is transfixed.

"We have always been meant to burn together," she finishes.

"What are you saying?" he asks her in High Valyrian.

"I am asking you to marry me," she says.

He almost kisses her then before he remembers. He switches back to the common tongue: "We could not marry unless Laenor were dead."

"I know," she says simply. "Before I continue, answer me this. If there were a way. For us to be together. At long last, would you have me?"

"Of course," he says, reaching for her.

"I am pregnant."

"Rhaenyra," he breathes.

"It is yours," she says, "I wish to raise him as yours. It is a son. I can feel it."

His eyes darken in the starlight.

"Rhaenyra," he says again.

"Tell me," she breathes, her voice trembling. "Tell me you want this. Tell me you want me."

"I am yours," he says to her. "Always was."

She kisses him then. It is brief and almost timid. She pulls away from him to speak: "I have discussed it with Laenor. Qarl knows of places across the Narrow Sea where it doesn't matter what a man's name is. Only how much gold he possesses. We have plotted it out."

He watches her mind work. He can tell she is emboldened. The words flow out of her more naturally.

"A quick death," she continues, the fire alive behind her eyes. "One with witnesses. Laenor and Qarl shall wait until we are gone with the children and then stage his death."

"This will cost Lord Corlys and Lady Rhaenys their only remaining child," says Daemon, "and the realm will whisper that we are somehow responsible."

"Let them suffer," says the princess with an edge in her voice. "for they chose to lose him long ago."

Daemon bows his head in agreement.

"And as for the realm… I once decided," begins Rhaenyra, "that I should not be a tyrant. And rule through terror. But if a Queen is not feared, she is powerless. If I am to be a strong Queen, I must cultivate love and respect, yes, but my subjects must fear me. So let them whisper," she says fiercely.

His hands reach for her face.

"We will know the truth of it and our enemies won't," she says as he draws his thumbs across her lower lip, "and they will fear what else we may be capable of."

"It shall be as you command."

She flings her arms around him then and presses her mouth to his. His hands find her hair and grip her to him as she sighs into his mouth. He is already hard against her. She had not known she'd been drowning until she finds him in this moment: he is the air she breathes. His lips find her neck. She needs him closer. She needs to feel his skin on hers. She pulls his tunic from his head and throws it onto the sand. His hands grab her waist and pull her tightly against him. She moans aloud.

A dragon soars overhead and they break apart from each other to watch the beast as it cries out into the starry night.

"Who is it?" asks Rhaenyra.

"Vhagar," breathes Daemon. "We must head back."

"What has happened!" demands Rhaenyra as they reach the castle doors.

"The children fought," says a knight, "over Lady Laena's dragon. Aemond snuck out of his quarters and claimed her."