Clarice

The day of the tourney dawned bright and cold, a thin sheet of frost covering the meadows outside the city as well as the tourney ground. The first tilt would begin only when the ice had thawed, to keep the body count low.

So it happened that the Hightowers broke their fast together. That in itself was a rare occurrence. Lord Otto was up before sunrise most days and usually ate the first meal at his desk. Clarice was the second to rise and she would eat in her own chambers, quite like her sister only an hour later.

The long dining table was therefore only rarely used and Clarice felt strange and foreign as she took a seat opposite Alicent at her father's right.

"Good morrow." Alicent's smile always held a raw and unadulterated sweetness that made Clarice feel both wistful and sympathetic.

Alicent, too, would soon learn that the world was crueller and harder than the picture-perfect dream she was living with the princess. Alicent loved sitting underneath the great heart tree in the godswood, Rhaenyra at her side, a book in her lap from which she would read to the princess. One day, in the not so distant future, her days would be spent in a great keep, one babe in her arms, another in her womb, her husband absent all day and eager all night.

Her father was buttering a slice of soft white bread when he asked, without so much as a turn of his head: "What will you wear for the tourney, Clarice?"

He did not ask this question out of a sudden interest in the height of fashion, nor did he care for his daughter's taste.

The great lords of the realm would be there, Clarice was just out of mourning, and in the royal stands, she would be in the focus of everyone's attention.

"The lapis silk," Clarice answered. It was dark enough to mark her status of a widow, yet elegant enough for a festivity of this scale. Their mother had owned a very similar gown.

"With Mother's pearls, perhaps, if I may."

When Alicent bent over her bowl of porridge, eyes trained on the greyish mush, Clarice knew her father's answer.

"Alicent will wear the pearls," he said indeed. "You should wear your wedding gift. The aquamarine that Her Grace has chosen for you."

"Her Grace?" Clarice echoed, certain she must have misheard.

Lord Otto looked up at her tone.

"It matches your eyes exactly," he replied with a rare indulgent smile. "Did you truly think Viserys picked it? I doubt he knows the colour of his daughter's eyes."

Could her father truly be so blind? Or was it her who had been blind after all?

Had it truly been Aemma who had sent her the stone, never Daemon?

It shouldn't surprise her, not after the cruel trick he'd played on her the night before, but somehow, it did, and not pleasantly. Clarice had liked to think that she had some influence on him. Not much, of course, quite like an oak tree could control an autumn wind, but she had felt that Daemon's eyes found hers even in a crowded hall. That he sought her out – to mock her, of course – despite a score of other ladies, all highborn, most of them prettier than she was, vying for his attention.

After last night, she knew she had fancied herself too influential. It was a humiliating realisation.

"Of course. I never thought about it, I suppose. The necklace is beautiful but it does not suit the gown I picked."

"You are out of mourning, Clarice. There is no need for sombre blues and greens anymore. Wear the silver satin, if it still fits?"

Silver. A widow was not like to wed in white, after all.

"It does." She inclined her head. And if it did not, her maids would have to lace her tightly today.

"Then it is decided. For this great day, you will wish to impress." Lord Otto skewered the last piece of sausage and swirled it around on his greasy plate before he popped it into his mouth.

Impress with a gown of silver, in the second row of the royal stands.

Alicent, red-cheeked and awkward, finally raised her head. "You can wear mother's pearls, Clarice, I know you love them. I can just wear my locket –"

"The matter is decided, Alicent." Their father bestowed a curt and threadbare smile upon his favourite daughter.

"You will look lovely," Clarice said to soften their father's words. It was true enough. All this hassle over jewels and gowns. With Alicent in the first row, shining bright in a maiden white gown with pearls at her throat and her beautiful auburn curls tumbling over her shoulders, Clarice could wear the king's mantle or nothing at all, no one would look at her.

The bitterness of her own thoughts took her by surprise. She thought she'd long overcome this childish jealousy, she had come to accept her qualities lay elsewhere. But her father always knew how to twist the knife. She wasn't even certain it was incidental.

Daemon

There was nothing more he wanted from Clarice Hightower. She had refused him, thinking herself shrewd, but he had outwitted her. Her favour meant as little to him as her hand, although he had to concede that he would pay good coin to see that look upon her face again.

How utterly off guard he had taken her. She looked best when she was furious, he had found. Anger brought a spark to her bright blue eyes that were bland and guileless otherwise. Daemon had not expected her to react this vehemently – she must have known he would try and turn the tables on her, he always did.

Why then had a flighty look of disappointment crossed her face, gone sooner than a bolt of lightning in the sky? Had she thought that her favour was truly what he wanted? Daemon did not care for wreaths and ribbons and he knew she would sooner give her favour to a hedgeknight than support him.

She was disappointed that she had not won their game this time. Well, she should get used to the sentiment because Daemon was not done defeating Hightowers. Lady Clarice might have spoken highly of her brothers but she was not foolish enough to truly believe they stood a chance.

Considering the rabble that had been allowed to enter, they would work their way up the lists thanks to armour and horse alone but as soon as they were set to ride against proper knights, they were done for. And Daemon was intent on doing them that courtesy himself.

Had not Otto Hightower kept on and on about his supposedly unchecked impunity? Had he not called Daemon's foray into the city a display of wanton brutality? He would see now how brutal he could be…and how well violence paid off. There was a lesson for the old man, though he was not open-minded enough to take it.

It was easy, judging men of action from atop the Hand's Tower, quill in hand and cushions under his arse. Hightower could drone on about Daemon's unfitness to rule but today, he would display his strengths. Viserys had always cheered him in the lists, as once their mother had.

Daemon had won more tourneys than he could count. Why should this one be different? And yet, as he donned his plumed helmet that morning, there was a strange sort of doubt lurking in a hidden corner of his mind.

The phantoms of wine, the reminder of a night well spent, nothing more.

It had nothing to do with Clarice Hightower, of that he was certain. Thrice widowed or not, she did not have an eye for fighting. Her judgement meant nothing.

This morning, she would be there, in the royal stands, sitting with her hands primly folded in one of her terribly boring blue gowns, her hair wound around her head in simple braids, her blue eyes resting on the jousters with the faintest hint of arrogant amusement. Well, that was what Daemon would glimpse, at least. The others would think her smile benign and sweet.

But Clarice Hightower had the unfortunate habit of proving him wrong time and again.

When the old man arrived, flanked by his two daughters like a statue by two pillars, she did not wear grey. Her hair was not hidden and she was not smiling her soft courtier's smile.

Even next to her pretty young sister, the cursed widow shone. The blue morning light was drawn to her simple gown of silver satin and her hair was free of braids and veils, curtaining her face and shoulders like a bride's on her wedding day. But no cloak weighed her down, no wreath of flowers obscured her face. Her only concession to ornament was a necklace Daemon recognised at once. The light blue stone matched the colour of her eyes exactly.

Was this her response to his attempt at humiliating her?

He was not wearing her favour, but she was wearing his.

As the Hightowers took their seats in the royal box, the buzz of gossip began and Daemon soon understood that the necklace was no silent message for him.

The necklace was the king's gift in the eyes of the court. A sign of royal favour.

And it was no coincidence that Clarice Hightower, recently out of mourning, wore silver.

Like a bride.

She was out to hunt for a husband.

His triumph died at once and the sour anger he knew so well returned. A more pensive man might have searched for the source of this anger, a more sensible man might have shut out the rising rage to focus on the tourney that was about to begin, but no one had ever dared to call him pensive or sensible.

He was the blood of the dragon and his blood was running hot.

Daemon glanced back up at the stands to see her returning a greeting from one of the Lannisters.

Would she still smile when he took her sister's favour? Would she still smile when he knocked her brothers in the dirt? Would she still smile when he crowned another queen of love and beauty?

He thought not.

Had she not told him her brothers would be difficult to challenge? That they would not rise to an uneven fight? He had seen them fight and he had seen them joust often enough to know they were no match for him. Usually, he wouldn't have bothered with such an unskilled opponent but shoving Hightowers in the dirt was always entertaining, and now more so than ever.

Daemon rode past the row of potential adversaries, if that term could even apply to such a motley crowd. One had not even fixed his shield properly. It would have been easy for Daemon to drive his lance right into the opening between breastplate and gardbrace and take the man's arm off in the process, or even aim higher and go right for the gorget, but where was the challenge in killing a fool in the lists?

The Hightower brothers were garbed in green and silver, wearing their ugly tower proudly on their shields. Daemon chose the older one. Eldest sons could be a plague, he had found, all unfounded arrogance and misplaced self-confidence. He wouldn't be able to deny him, not here in front of the entire realm.

Daemon had forgotten the man's name but it didn't matter much. He pointed his lance at him and behind him, in the royal stands, he heard whispers.

No matter how much power old Hightower wielded in King's Landing, it was not enough to buy his son a victory in the lists. He would shame him, beyond a doubt, and that was just what Daemon intended. He had no desire to kill the man. A lance could go astray in the lists, that was the way of it, but he only meant to knock him in the dirt and see the look upon the Lord Hand's lined face and witness his cold daughter's slipping smile.

The cheers of the commons was loud as they realised whom Daemon had chosen to be his opponent. He was as popular with the smallfolk as Hightower was not. They would place their bets on his victory and love him even more when he had replenished their funds.

Without a glance at the boy he would knock off his horse shortly, Daemon wheeled his horse around.

Was there apprehension on her face? She had to know her brother, whichever one he'd chosen, was no match for him. Did she fear for his life? Was she now reliving the previous day, wishing she had behaved differently, wishing she had shown him more respect?

As he approached the royal stands, Daemon did not look at her. What did it matter that she would wed? She was nothing to him, a fly in his broth.

And there were butterflies to catch.

Yes, Clarice Hightower was proud, and she was jealous. She would feel his rejection all the more keenly when he asked the younger one for her favour in front of all the great lords in the realm. Those great lords she meant to seduce into marriage.

Would Lannister accept the second best? He thought not.

Daemon approached the stands and raised his lance in a show of respect.

Rhaenyra flew to the balustrade and leant forward as far as she could without falling.

It was not her he meant to honour today, though.

"Good luck, uncle." She smiled as she only did for him. He returned it generously. "Thank you, princess."

Behind Rhaenyra, the younger daughter appeared. Alicent. She was comelier than her sister with her slender figure, even but striking features and softly curling auburn hair.

Alicent half hid behind her friend as her gaze flickered to him.

"I am fairly certain I can win these games, Lady Alicent," Daemon addressed her, looking past Rhaenyra at the younger girl. "Having your favour would all but assure it."

He reaped a rare shy smile from the comely maid but it wasn't her smile he was interested in. As Alicent turned around to retrieve her wreath for him, his gaze met Clarice Hightower's. She seemed unperturbed by his grand gesture, the faint little smile was still in place. As she noticed his gaze, she inclined her head ever so slightly as if she meant to tell him that she saw through his attempt to enrage her.

Her father at her side looked only at young Alicent. Even Daemon saw the warning in his old toad eyes.

When Alicent slid her wreath over his lance shily as the maiden she no doubt was, he savoured the moment, careful to lay some suggestiveness into his smile for her.

"My lady." He inclined his head in a show of knightly gratitude.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Clarice Hightower crane her head, ever so slightly, so she wouldn't miss the look that passed between Daemon and her sister.

His helmet did not do much to hide his smirk.

With a nod in the girl's direction, he rode off, now certain that the older sister's seeming indifference was nothing more than an act.

He could have unhorsed Hightower on a donkey, with a whore balanced on his lap. As his opponent rolled around in the dirt, moaning in agony, Daemon threw a glance at the stands. Viserys seemed displeased, but Daemon was so used to this expression it barely registered.

The youngest Hightower was chewing on her nails but the elder wore a mask of feint concern, her fingers folded neatly in her lap.

Was she so unmoved by her brother's shame?

He could have killed him too, with embarrassing ease.

The rage had not abated, and it was with rage that he rode his next round. The coal knight. A nobody from the nothingness of the southern mountains.

Clarice

The prince had made short work of her brother. She had warned Gwayne that Daemon would not be chivalrous, that he would fight dirty and that he would do anything to win.

Gwayne had told her not to worry. The knights of the Reach were the finest in all the seven kingdoms, he'd said, with a smile that he'd no doubt thought to be mollifying but which had only served to annoy her further.

Now he lay in the sand, the crenellations of his absurd helmet broken off.

Their father was seething at her side, though to the eyes of the crowd, he no doubt looked concerned.

Daemon Targaryen had done it again. As he rode his victory lap to the overwhelming cheers of the commons, he gave her father a malicious grin.

Please let him fail in his next match, Clarice thought with just as much malice.

And indeed, Daemon's arrogance would soon grant her her wish.

Ser Criston Cole, the handsome young knight from the Marches, was set to ride against Daemon, and he had beaten every favourite so far.

He was not the sort of man Clarice would ever consider. His dark complexion and brown eyes and hair made him handsome enough, but he had the air of a dreamer, an idealist soon to be disappointed by the harsh realities of court life. Often, she had found, those that had grown up like him, in obscurity and disgrace, perhaps, but shielded and protected by castle wall, had dreams of knighthood and honour and glory that no royal court could fulfil.

But the knight of dreams had found an admirer in the princess. He took the favour the prince had disregarded, and he was well-armed with it.

Twice he rode against the prince, and while his lance only brushed the prince's shield at first, his second blow struck home when Daemon arrogant and distracted, fail to recognise the threat the Dornishman posed.

Only for a second did Clarice allow herself to feel shocked as the dragon prince, in his costly black and red armour, landed in the dirt.

Then, realising the extent of her shock and fear, she leant back, aware that next to her father, she had to control herself.

Daemon gave no further reason for fright. He pushed himself to his feet, and although his face was obscured, the rage that often came with humiliation radiated off him as he yelled for sword and shield.

It was just like him not to know when he was beaten. That was something she could admire. Daemon Targaryen would fight to the bitter end and then some. No matter the cost.

He was good with a sword, she knew, but the Dornishman was vicious with his morningstar. For a while, it seemed to prince would take the win but today, it seemed, the gods had decided to punish haughtiness and pride especially.

Arms raised in victory, the prince turned towards the royal stands and Clarice felt, only for a moment, his eyes on her, when his legs were knocked out from under him and the once victorious prince lay beaten in the dirt.

"Yield," Cole shouted, for all to hear. Would Daemon rather die than yield?

It was nothing she'd rule out.

For a moment, it seemed like it.

But then, at last, it seemed he did, for Cole rose and offered him his hand. It was a grand gesture, though one Daemon surely wouldn't appreciate.

Beaten and bloodied, the shamed dragon rose, slapping away the victor's offered hand. Even from her seat in the royal stands, Clarice saw the tension in his posture, the grim look upon his face. How sweet. She would have to light a candle to the Warrior for abandoning his champion.

Daemon Targaryen tried to take off his dented helmet but failed. Through the opening, he peered up at the dais.

Daemon

Clarice Hightower met his gaze – and awarded him with her gentlest smile.

The Dornishman's pity was nothing against her glee. She lit him on fire with her smile, that look that said I have told you you would lose. And you have. I was right.

There was something worse there, too, though he couldn't quite grasp it. She was right, aye, and that was bad enough, but that she had witnessed his shame made it all the more unbearable. For a moment, he meant to thrust his sword in the Dornishman's back and show him, show her, what he could do.

But then she looked away and the moment passed.

Daemon Targaryen returned to the Red Keep, beaten and disgraced, only to find that there, he had been supplanted, too.

Aemma was dead but as any good wife, she had given her life for the heir the realm had coveted so.

Viserys was overjoyed, no doubt.

The thought burned through his mind like acid.

The heir.

Daemon made his way to the dead queen's chambers, although he didn't quite know why. It was too late. Aemma was gone, what remained was the lifeless husk of her body.

And the babe. Baelon. Named for his grandfather.

The royal chambers smelled of blood and piss and ointments. Silent sisters and septas, maesters and servants swarmed about like flies. No one had taken care of the queen's body yet. She was torn open like a sow after the slaughter, lying on top of red sheets that had once been pearly white. It felt strangely intimate to see her like this, her hair spread out, her body largely bare. His good sister.

And she had been, most of the time. Affectionate, understanding, even when Viserys wasn't.

Death and pain had contorted her face almost beyond recognition.

"Daemon."

The voice was hoarse like an old man's and it took Daemon far too long to recognise it.

Viserys was crouched at the bedside, kneeling in his wife's blood. The front of his tunic was dark and wet and torn in places, his hair ruffled and his cheeks streaked with tears.

He made no reply.

What good could words do here?

Aemma had been his brother's great love. The woman that had ended Viserys' trips to the lower parts of the city when they had been green boys, the woman that had made the boy a man and then the man a king.

And Viserys had lost her for a sickly little babe.

For a moment, the two brothers looked at each other. Then Daemon offered Viserys his hand.

It seemed almost as if Viserys meant to refuse, as if the king meant to stay on his knees at his dead wife's side, praying to whatever god hadn't left him for whatever was left of the woman he had loved more than anything. More than his brother.

But then, with a glance at the bustle in his dead wife's chambers, Viserys laid his bloodstained fingers in Daemon's and rose to his feet slowly, staggering like a drunkard.

"Dead," he said, in that voice that should belong to a man older than their grandfather.

There was no denying that. Aemma made for a very expressive corpse.

"Dead," Viserys said again, and this time, his voice broke. The king would have sunken to his knees again had Daemon not steadied him.

"And all because –" The truth was too terrible for words.

All because of that squabbling little monster that kept the silent sisters busy behind them. The heir.

"It's my fault, all of this. She always said –" Viserys raised a hand to cover his face as the tears started streaming down his stubbled cheeks once more, leaving light paths in the crusted blood.

The ring Aemma had given him was on the fourth finger of his left hand.

Daemon looked at the dead woman's hand on instinct. Viserys' ring was there, on the fourth finger of her left hand. Close to her heart.

Side by side they stood at the foot of the bed. Viserys' gaze was trained on the ruin of his wife's body, but now, Daemon had eyes only for his brother.

"I saw it in a dream. The crown of Aegon, I was so sure –" Viserys' voice trailed off into uncertainty.

His brother's dreams. Every drunkard dreamed and believed the phantoms of wine signs and symbols the next morning.

Viserys had always been obsessed with the dragon dreams, as he called them. With Daenys, the first dreamer.

"She died for a dream. A prophecy."

Viserys tore his gaze away from his dead wife as if the act alone caused him physical pain. His pale lavender eyes were still filled with tears as he raised them to Daemon.

"The prophecy, Daemon, the prophecy."

For a moment, the pain in his eyes was replaced by an uncharacteristic urgency and Viserys' grip on his hand tightened.

"You don't know –"

"Your Grace, the sisters wish to clean the body. And the blood."

"I am grieving, Runciter. The sisters can wait." Some authority had crept into the king's broken voice and the grip on his brother's hand was as strong as before.

What did Daemon not know?

"My pardons, my lord." The grey man bowed, awkward and embarrassed. "But the blood…It will attract rats, my lord."

Still as a statue, Viserys stood before he gazed at his wife, spread out to be a feast for vermin.

A different man might have insisted on staying, might have insisted on overseeing the care of his dead wife, but Viserys had used up all his strength already.

With a weak nod, he allowed the grey women access to his wife's dead body.

He turned away before they began.

Across the room, two septas were taking care of a pink little babe, smaller and frailer than Rhaenyra had been.

Viserys let go of Daemon's hand.

He no longer needed him. He had the heir he had always wanted. The hero from his dreams.

Clarice

Clarice hurried down the long passage up to the queen's chamber when she passed an open door.

She recognised it at once as the room Aemma had once used as a reception chamber, before she had become queen and moved to the royal chambers, when Clarice had been a little girl trying too hard to please. The room had fallen into disrepair: too fancy for a servant, too far away to be used by the king, his wife or his daughter, there had been no use for the chamber.

Daemon Targaryen was lounging in the window seat overlooking the Narrow Sea, a goblet in hand, a jug of wine next to him on a rickety table.

He looked strangely forlorn, the paned window behind him and the tall walls to either side lending him a caged look.

Like a captured lion, like a beaten dog, like a bear in a pit.

She didn't know why she entered. He didn't look like he wanted company.

When he heard her footsteps, he looked up and she saw that he was drunk.

It was strange to see him like this. Vulnerable. Pained.

"My condolences for your loss," she found herself saying.

He didn't look at her when he scoffed, his hand busy with a chalice.

"Which one?"

"You have lost a sister."

"And gained a nephew. The heir."

Half a smile stole onto his face, laced with a bitter sort of sadness. It wasn't only the queen he grieved for. It was also the position he had lost.

A different woman might have called him a monster but Clarice Hightower could not claim the moral high ground here.

"The heir for a day, so far."

She was shocked by her own words. It was a monstrous thing to think and a more monstrous thing to say. Had she meant it as some sort of consolation? A reminder that everyone was replaceable – this new prince as much as the old?

How many children had the king and queen mourned until at last, it had consumed her and left him with nothing and no one but Rhaenyra? And Daemon, of course.

Daemon's sullen gaze was on her, as if he was trying to determine the nature of her utterance, her intention.

Good luck. Clarice herself did not know why she had given such a mean thought breath.

Was it to console him, the prince who seemed so broken that it moved her despite herself?

Or was it a darker part of her that looked at the world with too much pragmatism?

"The heir," the prince insisted, turning his cup in his hands too forcefully. Some of the blood red liquid spilled onto the stone tiles.

Viserys had wasted no time and named the newborn babe Prince of Dragonstone, or mayhaps, it had been her father who had acted so quickly.

"His Grace still needs you. Your support. Your counsel."

That wasn't true, they both knew it. Viserys liked to rely on her father and Otto Hightower had never learned to share.

He scoffed at that. "Kindness does not suit you."

"Nor does self-pity suit you."

He looked strangely, alarmingly vulnerable, less man than boy, smaller and pitiful. Nothing more than a second son meant for a life of insignificance.

Now, he raised his gaze to her irritably. If ever a look could kill, she might have dropped dead there and then, but thankfully, his magic was limited to an unnatural gift for getting on people's nerves.

Irked by her comment, the prince threw aside his goblet carelessly, then reached for the blade he had draped across the table.

His shoulder brushed against hers as he made for the door but he didn't look back.

Later that day, the young prince had died, just in time to be burned alongside his mother.

And a day after that, Clarice, once again in black, entered the solar to find her father looking strangely victorious in his mourning garments.

"Are you quite well, father?"

Otto turned around to look at her, quizzically, as if he meant to ask her how she had found out, but then he only nodded. "As well as can be expected. His Grace takes the loss to heart."

"Of course. They were married for near on twenty years."

Though not as long as Lord Otto had been wed to Lady Elinor.

"Prince Daemon has chosen this moment of weakness to steal a dragon egg and flee the city with his lover."

Her father's voice was even, controlled. Too much so.

Daemon had left the city once again? It shouldn't irk her.

"A dragon egg?"

"For his child, he claims. To hurt the king."

"His child?"

"Have you adapted the manners of those garish southern birds, Clarice, that you must repeat my every word?" A flare of impatience lit her father's face up. "Yes, his child with that lowborn whore. I must depart for Dragonstone at first light."

Although her father tried to sound angry, Clarice knew him well enough to see how pleased he was. He had lost a queen and a prince but he had gained something too: Prince Daemon's ultimate defeat, or so he thought.

"Why did he leave the city?"

"His Grace had no other choice but to exile him," Lord Otto said, and there was a smoothness in his tone, "not after the prince's words."

Clarice waited.

"He was in the brothels last night instead of consoling his brother, celebrating his nephew's death with his concubines and lickspittles. He called his nephew "heir for a day"."

Heir for a day.

Had he repeated her words in a moment of anger and humiliation?

Or had he meant them?

Or perhaps, and it seemed not unlikely, the story was a fabrication, cobbled together from bits of dialogue overheard by servants and spies.

Her father was not wont to get to the bottom of this, not when these words, spoken or not, provided him with an excuse to banish his greatest rival. And Clarice had to admit it was a stroke of genius, the way he had played this: a concerned councillor, and one who understood the king so well: his own wife had died in childbed, too, after all. And he had mourned her, after his own fashion.

From this place of shared grief had he imparted the unwelcome news to the king and Viserys, blind with guilt and grief, had no doubt been grateful for an opportunity to be angry at someone other than himself.

Daemon Targaryen was not one to protest. He was not one to try and convince where a judgement had been made. He was, in his strange and twisted way, too proud to defend his innocence where it was not readily assumed.

And now he was gone.

It was better that way. He had distracted her too much and now, with an empty throne, Clarice could not afford being distracted.