Rhaenyra drags the stone blade against her lower lip, splitting it, before passing the dagger to her uncle. She smears the blood between her brows as he cuts his own flesh and does the same. They slice open their palms and clasp their bleeding hands, binding their blood, in the Valyrian rite of marriage. Their children stand with them before the sea, as the priest unites their two families as one. Luke weeps quietly, still raw from the loss of Laenor, and Rhaena slides her arm around the boy, pressing him to her hip.

Jace watches the priest wrap his mother's and his uncle's wrists with ceremonial cloth as blood drips from between their clasped hands, falling onto the white sand they stand upon. Rhaenyra drinks from her chalice and then passes it to Daemon, who sips from it, never once lowering his gaze from her face, and the two of them share a private smile. In this moment, Jace understands that the two of them are in love. It is a thing he has not witnessed. His small hand travels to the back of his head but for a moment, feeling for the missing patch of hair. Wherever Laenor has gone, the boy hopes his father is as happy as his mother looks in the evening light.

Rhaenyra touches her groom's face, and he kisses her then, his free hand sliding through her white-blonde hair to grip the back of her neck. They lose themselves in one another as the sun sets against the darkening sky.

The bride had not wished to spend her wedding night inside the castle. Too much there reminds her of what she has lost and what more she stands to lose. Tonight, she wishes to be alone with her lord husband under the stars, and so she takes him by the hand along the beach until they arrive at the canopy she'd had raised and then decorated with a circle of lit candles upon the sand.

"This is my first true wedding night," she says to Daemon, "for I spent the other one listening to my lord husband weep."

Daemon circles his arms around her from behind, sending a shiver through Rhaenyra in the moonlight. She can feel his heat through his clothes and his heartbeat against her. He softly presses his lips to her neck.

"I do not know," she begins, "why I should find myself nervous, for already I carry your child."

Daemon places his hand on her belly and Rhaenyra feels all the love she has for the man well up inside her. "There is no rush," he tells her. "We have all night."

"Yes"

"Let us sit," says her uncle as he guides her to the ground. He gathers her in his arms, and Rhaenyra rests her head against his chest. She looks up at the stars above them and feels her heart pound in her ears.

"Tell me," Rhaenyra murmurs, "what you're thinking."

"I am thinking," begins Daemon, "that I am finally content. After all these years, all that I have wanted finally lies within my arms." His face is serious, thoughtful in the moonlight. "I asked your father, you know," he tells her, "shortly before he had me thrown from the castle. For your hand."

"At the wedding feast?"

"No, before that," he says, "the first time. After our… excursion in Flea Bottom."

"That would have been the second time then," Rhaenyra says with a smirk. "You are forgetting the time he tossed you out for celebrating my late brother's death."

"Oh right," says Daemon dryly, "it is hard to keep track."

Rhaenyra laughs at this, though she can see his eyes are dark.

Daemon says nothing.

Is he hurt? his wife asks herself. How has she already thrown off their rapport? She shall coax him back out of himself. "So you asked for my hand," she presses. Rhaenyra sees a flicker of anger on her uncle's face, and she reaches for his cheek. His hand flies up to clasp her wrist, making her jump, before his thumb strokes circles on the back of her palm. His eyes flutter closed and he leans into her touch, rubbing his stubble against her skin.

"I asked him to wed you to me," he says with his eyes still closed, "in the tradition of our house. I reminded him he said I could have anything for offering up my crown. It was you that I wanted," he continues, finally opening his eyes, "but he thought me after his throne."

"I did not know," she says quietly.

"I thought," he begins, "that if I could have you, I should make things right. After tarnishing you in the eyes of the court."

"I see."

"But it was also what I wanted," says her husband, "with all my heart."

"Daemon," she breathes.

"The King said no of course and tossed me out. And so I waited, biding my time at Dragonstone. But then I heard you were to be wed and I could not stay away."

Rhaenyra runs her fingers through his hair, kissing his temples as he talks.

"And I then I saw you dance with Laenor, mischief in your eye as you glanced my way, wrapping the court around your pretty finger. That's when I saw what you were, Rhaenyra. A dragon."

She kisses him then, but he shakes his head, continuing to speak.

"Against my better scruples I followed you to the floor, not knowing what I might say, only that I must stop whatever it was you had planned for yourself. And then you challenged me, Rhaenyra, setting my blood aflame. It was then I had no doubt, Rhaenyra." he breathes. "That I should love you with my dying breath."

"Daemon," she says again, stroking his cheeks.

"But I was ripped from you," he says, "and kept from the castle whilst you married him. I licked my wounds in Dragonstone. I married Laena Velaryon to be closer to you when you inherited my home, but then I changed my mind and took her from Driftmark. I would not let us return. I could not bear to see you, you see, on the arm of another."

"You said marriage was but a duty."

"I was a fool, Rhaenyra. I believed not my own words. Not when it came to you."

"I am sorry," she says.

"No. Rhaenyra," Daemon says, squeezing his eyes shut in frustration, "let me speak. You see, I had come to know your strength. Your fire." He opens his eyes to look at her.

Rhaenyra's heart heaves in her throat as she sees the truth of his words in his gaze.

"It was what made me love you. And I believed you to be happy. I grew to think of myself as but a thorn in your side. You are a dragon, Rhaenyra. I had forgotten, you see. That you were also a child. I did not see. That you needed defending. I was a fool, Rhaenyra. And I am sorry."

She will remember the anguish on his face for the rest of her life. Her own eyes are damp and she blinks back tears. "I forgive you," she says, kissing him. "I forgive you."