Chapter Text
Lacy, oh, Lacy, it's like you're out to get me
You poison every little thing that I do
Lacy, oh, Lacy, I just loathe you lately
And I despise my jealous eyes and how hard they fell for you
Yeah, I despise my rotten mind and how much it worships you
She could not remember a single moment in her life when she had not had to share everything with her younger sister. She supposed it began when Aeria stole their mother’s affection, then their father’s attention, and later the little red dragon plush their grandfather had given her for her very first Christmas. One Aeria had decided belonged to her enough to throw fits if it was taken away. Even though it was Daenys’s, it had been given to her, and her name was stitched into one of its paws.
Aeria had not even existed when the toy first came into her hands, yet no one cared. Because Aeria was just a baby, and Daenys was already a big girl. Therefore, the older sister: the one who had to give way.
As they grew, their parents forced them to share everything, as if it were some unbreakable rule for daughters that Daenys never fully understood. Why did everything that was hers also have to become Aeria’s? It made no damn sense. That lack of boundaries in childhood was a mistake she would pay for later. Long after it was too late to realize that her sister was nothing but a selfish little bitch.
When their mother died, both were on the cusp of adolescence. While Daenys withdrew into grief and silence, Aeria only grew more chaotic. Their father Maekar, with five children and an infant barely months old to care for, was too overwhelmed by his own mourning and the demands of running the household to pay any mind to her complaints as Aeria grew bolder, taking her things just to get a rise out of her.
By the time she was seventeen, it was normal for Aeria to rummage through her closet and wear her clothes without asking. Whenever Daenys planned to wear something in particular, fifteen‑year‑old Aeria would already have it on, throwing a tantrum that always ended in shouting matches. It was such a pointless struggle that their exhausted father never even bothered to intervene.
She met Duncan Pennytree at a high school party thrown for someone she did not know and did not care about. She’d received the invitation via Instagram, just like almost everyone else in their year.
She knew he was in her biology class. He was impossible to miss, standing well over six feet tall. A true giant, and a total nerd, with thick‑rimmed glasses so magnified they made his blue eyes look ridiculously large.
She had been standing in the front garden of a house in a middle‑class suburb, arguing on the phone with her cousin Valarr. The man she had fucked the previous weekend while his father, Uncle Baelor, was away on a business trip. Now, when she asked him to come pick her up, he told her he had gone back to his ridiculous college girlfriend: a girl with pink hair, the epitome of a hippie stereotype.
Valarr had a terrible habit of telling her he loved her every time he broke up with someone, only to return to that same girlfriend a few days later. In a vicious cycle the poor girl never even suspected.
“Go to hell. And if you ever come looking for me again, I swear to all the Gods, I will show your father the photos I have of us.”
Hidden at the back of her underwear drawer was an old film camera, holding a series of snapshots they’d taken on a drunken lark during one of their many encounters in roadside motels. Most were blurry, but the most incriminating had been taken from above: Daenys naked, perched on her cousin’s lap, his mouth against her neck, while she smiled right into the flash. His signature streak of platinum‑blond hair was unmistakable, as was the sharp line of his profile. Gentle, honorable Uncle Baelor would have a heart attack if he saw his perfect son surrendering to such incestuous passions.
“Dae..."
She cut him off before he could say anything that would only make her angrier. She was all the way across the city, and had less than twenty dollars in the pocket of her denim miniskirt. Hardly enough for a taxi, which would surely charge double for the distance and the hour. She no longer carried purses or personal belongings to parties anymore. Not after too many drunken nights where she’d lost every document and card, only to face the tedious hassle of replacing them all.
And it was then, as she kicked a small stone across the pavement with her high boots, that she noticed a figure standing just a few feet away.
“Hey, you. Do you have a car?”
Shameless as ever, Daenys walked over to the giant, who was hunched over on the sidewalk, petting a brown dog that wagged its tail furiously and licked his thick fingers.
“Me?” He asked, straightening up slowly. She had to tilt her chin so far back just to meet his gaze that her neck cracked like a dry twig.
“Yes, you. I’m Daenys. I need to get to Aegon’s Hill. Think you could be a gentleman and give me a ride home?”
And that was how she ended up in the passenger seat of an old Ford pickup that rattled like a broken coffee machine. The leather seats were cracked at the edges and scraped the bare skin of her inner thighs. The entire cabin smelled like teenage boy: greasy, like a forgotten hamburger left somewhere, and faintly of lemon‑scented car freshener. Combined with the vodka swirling in her stomach, it made her feel nauseous, a sensation she managed to calm only by rolling down the window all the way and letting the wind slap against her face.
They talked a little on the drive. He rambled about the truck, how it had been a gift from his uncle, with whom he lived in a small house deep in the heart of Flea Bottom. She only murmured vague replies whenever he tried to dig deeper into her life.
“Can you stop at AutoMac and get me a soda? I’m dying of thirst.”
Daenys only had to lean forward just enough to reveal the swell of her cleavage, resting one hand lightly on his firm thigh, to earn a wide‑eyed, stunned look and a dumb nod.
“Of course. Absolutely.”
They shared a bottle of ice‑cold Coke, and she thanked him for the drink and the ride with a series of sloppy kisses, grinding her clothed core against his erection through his jeans. He came in less than five minutes, cheeks burning bright red with embarrassment, and the front of his trousers damp with her arousal.
“See you around, David.”
“It’s Duncan.”
“David, Duncan... Same difference. Don’t tell anyone what we did, and maybe I’ll want to do it again.”
Daenys winked, and left him her damp panties as extra incentive to keep quiet—lace‑trimmed, with a Hello Kitty printed right in the middle. She was certain he would be touching himself to them later that night.
She got his phone number through Raymun Fossaway, who was apparently his best friend, and called him to meet her under the bleachers of the football field one Wednesday afternoon during last period, when a dose of Percocet had left her feeling hot. Boys were so simple and easily led: it only took a few kisses along his neck and one hand slipping up under his thrifted t‑shirt to convince him to skip class and run off with her.
They stopped at his place first so he could scrape together some cash to pay for a motel. His uncle Arlan was always home at lunchtime, and she couldn’t use her supplementary credit card without the charges appearing on her father’s monthly statement. She had no intention of risking being sent off to a convent for septas. They paid a hundred dollars for an hour in a place that asked no questions, and there, in a bed shaped like a heart with scarlet sheets, Duncan Pennytree had the glorious privilege of losing his virginity to her.
He was big and clumsy, but patient, tender, and a fast learner. Soon becoming vigorous enough to bring her to climax again and again. The last time, when they had run out of free condoms, she let him finish inside her. He spent every last coin of his savings on a morning‑after pill the very next day.
They carried on like that for a whole year: at his place whenever his uncle was out, in the school bathrooms during breaks, in the biology lab after hours, in the back of his truck, or in any cheap motel they could find. He fell in love with her, and Daenys liked the way he depended on her. How he would drop everything just to bury himself between her legs for a few hours.
“Are we… boyfriend and girlfriend?” Duncan asked once, after they’d finished on his narrow single bed, covered by a faded Toy Story blanket.
“I suppose." Daenys shrugged, waiting for the oxycodone she’d taken to kick in and make her feel… free.
“You suppose?”
“Mmm. Not sure I could say no to Valarr if he called again.”
“Valarr?”
“I’m sleepy.”
“Who is Valarr?”
She didn’t answer, drifting away into a drug‑induced, peaceful slumber. Valarr never called, and Daenys settled into being Duncan’s girlfriend officially.
She took a gap year after graduation, something her family’s wealth easily allowed, while Duncan enrolled at university on a sports scholarship. They stayed together, until Daenys made her greatest mistake.
One afternoon when her father was at the office and her brothers were at school, she finally invited him to her home: a sprawling mansion set among acres of green lawn in the most exclusive neighborhood in the capital. The housekeeper had left to buy supplies for dinner, and Daenys had sent her on several absurd extra errands to delay her return. Taking a coat she never wore to the dry cleaner, and picking up a book she had no intention of reading.
She was certain no one else was home when she climbed onto him on the sofa in the living room, but she was wrong. Aeria was as silent and cunning as a cat. Lost in the haze of pleasure, Daenys happened to open her eyes, only to meet the dark, menacing gaze of her younger sister standing right behind the couch.
“Aeria!” Daenys cried out, startled, wrapping her arms tighter around Duncan’s neck to stop him from turning to look. She never once slowed the rolling motion of her hips, not even with him buried so deep inside her.
“What...?” Duncan tried to speak, but she clamped a hand firmly over his mouth. If he grew nervous, he tended to lose his hardness instantly.
“Get the hell out of here! Can’t you see this is private?” She waved her sister away dismissively, but Aeria only shrugged. Before she turned to leave, she looked back at Daenys one last time.
“Then don’t do it in the middle of the living room, you junkie.”
Once she was done with Duncan, she walked him out through the kitchen door, where there were no security cameras, with a kiss goodbye. Then she marched straight to Aeria’s room, and found her sitting cross‑legged on her bed, holding Daenys’s old red dragon plush tucked between her spread knees. She had never wanted to give it back. Their mother had once sewn up a tear in one of its wings after the two girls had fought over it as children, each yanking so hard at an arm that the stuffing had gone flying everywhere.
“Don’t tell Dad what you saw… or go ahead and tell him. I’m nineteen now. I can do whatever I want.” Daenys’s voice wavered slightly as she crossed her arms, trying to hold her ground against Aeria’s piercing violet stare. The little witch had inherited their father’s eyes, while she had been left with her mother’s. Just as she had inherited the Dayne's sand‑blond hair.
“What’s his name?”
“Uh?”
“The boy you were with. What’s his name?”
“Duncan.”
“Duncan.” Aeria tasted the name on her tongue, and Daenys narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
“I’ll kill you if you breathe a word of this to Dad." She warned, assuming that malicious little half‑smile meant Aeria was memorizing the name just to use it against her.
“That bear in your room, the one sitting on your bed. Did he give that to you?”
She knew exactly which stuffed animal she meant: the one with fur that felt rough and scratchy from cheap synthetic fabric, a tiny bear bought from a supermarket, holding a red fabric heart. Dunk had worked extra shifts for weeks just to afford it, and had taken her out to dinner at a nice restaurant for their first anniversary when he gave it to her.
“What’s it to you?”
“I like it." Aeria said simply. Daenys would learn later that she had not been talking about the bear at all.
After that day, Duncan began acting strangely. He seemed to avoid her, and whenever they met to be together, he grew tense and distracted. When Daenys confronted him, he blamed the stress of adjusting to university life, and she believed him. She had no idea that Aeria was already creeping into his thoughts. She didn’t know how they had crossed paths. He was a college student, and her sister was still in her final year of high school, hardly likely to frequent the same places. But somehow, Aeria always found a way to get her hands on everything Daenys held dear.
She found out for certain at a Halloween party at a downtown club. Daenys had bought an angel costume, complete with a beautiful set of feathered wings, only to be stunned when she spotted Aeria and her clique of hateful friends. All far too young to be allowed inside such a place. Her sister was dressed as a devil, in a costume far more revealing than Daenys’s own, and she never stopped glancing back at Duncan, who was dressed as a nerd from some pop‑culture reference she didn’t quite get. Something from a comic book or a film.
“Does Dad know you’re here?”
Daenys grabbed her boyfriend’s hand and pulled him closer to her side, but Aeria only smiled sweetly before vanishing into the crowd.
Sometime later that night, Dunk slipped away from her. Daenys, already high on a cheap pill she’d bought from a dealer near the entrance, grew dizzy amid the heat of the crowd and the spinning, flashing lights. She felt unsteady, vulnerable without Duncan’s hand to hold onto. Nausea rose in her throat, and she stumbled toward the women’s restroom, only to find a line that stretched on forever. She turned instead and ran for the emergency exit that opened into an alleyway.
There, among the dumpsters and beneath the glow of a flickering streetlamp, Dunk was holding a woman dressed all in red, a pair of devil’s horns perched on her head, by the waist. Daenys would have recognized that long, pale blond hair in any lifetime. It was Aeria, kissing her boyfriend. Duncan was kissing her sister. And they did it with such familiarity, as if it were not the first time. She felt as though she would die right there on the pavement.
Duncan saw her first. He pulled away from Aeria as if burned, his eyes wide with shock, but it was already too late. She could barely breathe, clutching at the necklace he had given her: cheap, gaudy, something that looked out of place next to all her fine jewelry, but which she had never taken off.
“Dae…”
She turned and ran back into the club, shoving past everyone to make her way to the front entrance, where she gasped as if she could no longer draw air into her lungs. She tripped over a loose paving stone and fell hard onto the asphalt, tearing her white lace stockings patterned with flowers and scraping her knee raw until it bled. She sobbed openly in front of the bouncers and the people smoking in the parking lot, and was just pulling herself up with the help of a kind stranger when Duncan finally reached her.
“Daenys..." As he reached for her wrist, she raised her free hand and slapped him hard across the face. Her palm stung, and his cheek flared bright red instantly.
“Why her? Why Aeria? You could have had any woman in the world. Why did you have to choose her?”
He had no answer, and she did not need to hear it to know the truth. Aeria had always been better than her. From the moment their mother had first held her in her arms, she had been more: more beautiful, more intelligent, more accomplished. Everyone remembered how she had learned to read and write long before her older sister. Father adored her because she was just like him. Grandfather Daeron claimed she bore the striking resemblance of his own mother, their great‑grandmother Naerys. Even Uncle Baelor praised her for her true Targaryen spirit. And what did they say about Daenys in return? That she was a mess. That she was lost.
“I’ll tell my Dad. She’s still a minor, and you’re an adult. You’ll go to prison. I will ruin your life.”
But Daenys’s threats were empty. She fled instead, booking the first flight she could buy at the airport, where the attendant looked at her bizarre angel costume with confusion. But said nothing, and called no police, when she slid her black credit card and identification across the counter.
She took the last tranquilizer she had left in the airplane bathroom, hoping it would kick in and numb the pain in her chest before they touched down. Her grandmother Dayne welcomed her at Starfall with open arms and no questions, only holding her tight as Daenys collapsed against her, as if trying to find some trace of her mother in the woman’s embrace. She helped her undress and bathed her, washing the grime and the tears from her hair and her back. She tended to the cut on her knee, brushed her damp hair at the vanity in Dyanna’s old room, and tucked her beneath the covers with a soft kiss on her forehead. Half‑asleep, Daenys heard her grandmother speaking on the phone to her father.
“Aeria… I think she did something to her, but Dae won’t tell me what happened.”
She spent an entire year at Starfall before her father finally came to collect her. During that time, she haunted the seediest bars and slept with men whose faces she could never recall. She tried every drug imaginable just to stop feeling anything, and drank herself into a stupor with vodka at her mother’s grave. Meanwhile, Aeria, shrewd as a fox, introduced Duncan to the rest of the family, and never once mentioned that he had belonged to Daenys first.
Maekar Targaryen, the feared lawyer known to all as The Anvil, only traveled to Starfall when Daenys suffered her first and only overdose. Her grandmother had found her collapsed on the bathroom floor, choking on her own vomit, and Maekar immediately sent her to a prestigious rehabilitation clinic in Highgarden. She missed Valarr’s wedding to his pink‑haired girlfriend and Aegon’s high school graduation, but she learned how to crochet little dolls, and how to stop pushing her sadness down deep inside.
She made friends with a small group of girls who shared their own struggles, and for the first time in her life, she felt calm. She discovered she was good with her hands, learning to embroider and create art from recycled materials. Her father called once a month to ask how she was doing, but every time she asked him to come visit, he always said his work kept him too busy. Daenys never argued, though she knew it was a lie.
“Why do you think your father doesn’t want to see you?” Asked the clinic’s therapist, during one of their many weekly sessions. She had such warm eyes, and never minded when Daenys curled up on the couch, pulling her knees tight against her chest.
“Because I embarrass him. I always have. I’m his firstborn daughter, and I never… never lived up to what he expected from me. Not as a daughter, not as a sister, not even as a person.”
“Do you think he knows what happened with Aeria?” Though the therapist always tried to meet her gaze, Daenys would look away, avoiding those wise, owl‑like eyes that seemed to read every thought in her head.
“I don’t know. But he probably doesn’t care. Aeria was always his favorite.” She shrugged and quickly changed the subject.
One Sunday, while playing cards with her friends in the recreation room, a staff member told her she had a visitor. It was the first time anyone had come to see her in nearly two years. She assumed it would be her father, and tried to hide her disappointment when she found Uncle Baelor waiting instead. He hugged her tightly, saying how beautiful and healthy she looked, and Daenys thanked him for the kindness. They spoke for a few hours about her recovery, and she led him back to her room to show him the little crocheted doll she had made that looked just like him. She had crafted one for every member of her family. Everyone except Aeria.
“This is wonderful, my dear. You have such talent.”
“It’s silly, really… but you can take it, if you’d like.”
Her uncle looked at her strangely at the offer, and Daenys began rambling nervously about the tiny imperfections in the stitching. Until Baelor took both her arms in his hands, his eyes glistening with tears.
“Your father found a camera in your bedroom." He murmured, and she felt the blood drain from her face. The photos with Valarr. They had actually seen them. Seen her naked, sprawled across her cousin’s lap. Her cousin, who was now a married man.
“I don’t want to talk about this." She said sharply, trying to pull free, but her uncle refused to let go. The mask of polite civility fell away, revealing a man broken and devastated. They should never have taken those photographs.
“Daenys. Valarr… You look so young in those pictures. Did he...? I need you to tell me the truth.”
“No, no! I was smiling, Uncle.” She defended him, because it was true. It had been her who threw herself at him during the New Year’s party at the family estate. He had just broken up with Kiera for the first time and looked so miserable. And Daenys had never been able to stand seeing anyone sad.
“It doesn’t matter if you were smiling. He is four years older than you.”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” She shouted, and one of the nurses who patrolled the hallways approached them with quiet, professional caution.
“Mr. Targaryen. The patients must not be agitated.”
“She is not just a patient, she is my niece! Daenys, please. If you are here because Valarr did something to you, I..." Her uncle looked frantic, his eyes wild, his grip tight enough to bruise her skin.
“I wanted him. He was sad, and I wanted to make him smile… and I liked it. He did nothing wrong. It was just a stupid mistake. And now I want you to leave.” She snatched the doll from his hands and placed it back on the shelf above her bed, beside the ones she had made of her father and her other uncles, Aerys and Rhaegel.
She was discharged a few months later, and her friends helped her pack her things until her father arrived to take her home. During the flight back aboard the Targaryen family’s private jet, while Daenys gazed out the window at the clouds, feeling light with the promise of new freedom, Maekar leaned across the aisle and covered her hands with his own. She could not look him in the eyes, because every time she did, she only saw Aeria staring back at her.
“I know what your sister did. I know Duncan was yours first, and that she… came between you. It was cruel, truly. But you are doing so well now, and she is happy too. I just want things to go back to how they used to be, DaeDae.” The childhood nickname felt empty, coming from the same mouth that defended Aeria.
“So she is still with Duncan?”
“He is a good boy, after all. Your brothers adore him, and...” Her father fell silent as Daenys pulled her hands away and crossed her arms tightly over her chest.
“I don’t want to live at home. If I can access my trust fund early, I promise I won’t waste it. I spoke to a lawyer at the clinic, and he said it’s possible. That it is my right.”
“And what will you do with that money?”
“I want to prepare for university next year… and I refuse to live under the same roof as Aeria. Or under yours, if you will always excuse her behavior. I’ll be fine. My therapist referred me to an excellent one in the capital, and I’ve already signed up for weekly NA meetings.”
“I do not excuse Aeria." He said, with the audacity to look offended by the accusation. She only sighed, tired to the bone, while deep in her chest, all the anger she had spent years suppressing with drugs began to boil like water in a kettle over flame.
“Yes, you do. You always have, even if you don’t realize it. It started the day you gave away my little red dragon.”
“Your dragon? What in the hell are you talking about, Daenys?”
“The one Grandpa gave me for Christmas, before Aeria was even born. The one with my name stitched on its paw. She was just a baby, and you gave it to her anyway. Even though Mom told you not to, that it would only spoil her. And look how right she was. Everything I had, she stole from me. Your love, Mother’s love, my clothes, my belongings… even that guy from Flea Bottom, whom she only wanted because he was mine. I hate her, and I hate you for staying here instead of my Mom." By the time she finished, her cheeks were flushed, and thick tears blurred her vision. But for the first time in her life, she felt light, as if a great weight had lifted from her shoulders.
Her father did not speak another word for the rest of the flight, but Daenys did not regret what she had said. Not after waiting two long years for him to come visit, only to be disappointed every Sunday when everyone else received guests except her. Foolishly, she had even asked her friends to braid her hair in the Dornish style, just the way her mother used to wear it, hoping he would notice and remember. But he never came, and she was tired of waiting to be chosen.
She lived in a hotel for a month until she managed to rent a charming little apartment close to the university and the church where Narcotics Anonymous meetings were held every Thursday. She tried to reconnect with her younger siblings, especially Daella and Rhae, helping them with their Girl Scout activities and inviting them to spend weekends at her place. Both had been far too young when their mother died, and while Aeria and Daenys had coped with grief by competing, their little sisters had become each other’s anchor. It was beautiful, the love and respect they shared.
News reached her through Aegon, who had become close friends with her ex, apparently serving as his coach for the youth rugby team. In a fit of jealousy, Aeria had broken Tanselle’s fingers after a play. Daenys knew the girl. They had studied literature together in high school, and she was a good friend to both Dunk and Raymun. She had never once seen her as a threat, but her sister had thought otherwise: she had thrown a screaming fit and smashed the girl’s fingers until Duncan was forced to pull her off by sheer strength.
Aeria stumbled backward over the edge of the stage and fell flat onto her face, breaking a tooth against the wooden planks. Their father tried to press charges for assault, looking for the easiest way to erase the boy from their lives entirely, but Egg begged him not to.
“She’s crazy. She broke into your old room and smashed that bear you kept on your bed. The ugly one with the rough fur. Dad almost slapped her. It was hilarious seeing her lose her mind.”
Egg, innocent of the tangled history between the three of them, laughed as he told the story, but Daenys went cold all over. She never went back into that room again, yet the only stuffed animal that had ever truly belonged to her was the bear Duncan had given her.
The disaster did not end their relationship, no matter how hard their father tried to make it happen. Whatever bound them together seemed either sincere love or shared obsession. The years rolled on, and family gatherings forced Daenys to see them, to pretend nothing had ever happened, that Dunk had never been hers. It was better to keep the truth hidden from everyone else than to lay it bare and receive only pitying glances at every reunion she could not avoid forever. She also crossed paths with Valarr again, and his new wife Kiera.
“At last, I meet you. Valarr has told me so much about you." The woman greeted her with a warm embrace and a bright smile, and Daenys felt sick to her stomach. There had been a time when she had wished nothing but misery for their relationship, just so her cousin would call her again, begging to meet her for a few stolen hours in a motel room.
“Thank you. It’s a pleasure." She replied, and for the rest of the evening, she felt the heavy gaze of Uncle Baelor fixed upon her every time Kiera stepped near to speak.
A few years later, as she was about to graduate from law school and working as a legal assistant in her father’s firm, a cream‑colored envelope sealed with gold lettering was waiting on her desk.
She opened it with curiosity, and the news sent a dull ache through her chest and a cold shiver down her spine. No matter how much therapy and rehabilitation had helped her, she still sometimes felt the sudden urge to reach for something to numb her feelings, if only for a few seconds. When she felt, she felt everything more intensely than anyone.
“Don’t forget to bring the files for the case…” Her father had stopped dead in the doorway, freezing at the sight of her holding the card. It was the invitation to Aeria and Duncan’s wedding.
“I told your sister she shouldn’t have sent them yet." Maekar sighed wearily, leaning against the glass frame with one hand pressed to his forehead. Of course he knew.
Daenys breathed deeply and feigned indifference, slipping the invitation into a desk drawer and picking up the folder of documents for the trial due to start in an hour. She tried to slip past him unnoticed, but he caught her gently by the arm to stop her.
“Dae…”
“It’s fine. If they love each other, it’s fine, Dad.”
“Aeria is pregnant. She refuses to terminate it, and I will not allow my grandchild to be born out of wedlock. She will not bring further dishonor to my lineage.”
Pregnant. Her sister was going to have Duncan’s child. The thought struck her as absurd, and she let out a hollow, nervous laugh. Once, during their own time together, she had missed her period for a whole month. They had locked themselves in the musty bathroom of Uncle Arlan’s house, waiting anxiously for the results of three pregnancy tests he had bought her. They had celebrated the negative lines with protected sex right there on the edge of the sink.
“She wants you to be matron of honor. It’s what your mother would have wanted.”
“But it’s not what I want. And Mom would have understood that.”
Aeria was petty and spiteful to the end: she did not seat Daenys at the main table beside their father and siblings, nor even among the aunts, uncles, or cousins. She had arranged the seating so the numbers came out uneven, leaving her wedged between distant Dayne relatives and a small group of former school friends who had not made the cut for her exclusive bridal party.
Daenys attended the ceremony only because to stay away would have been to admit that it still mattered, that it still hurt. But when the waltz began, and they danced a romantic song in the center of the floor for everyone to see, she could not stop a single tear from rolling down her cheek.
They truly looked like they were in love. As if the wedding had not been hastily arranged to cover an unplanned pregnancy. There had been a time when the way Duncan held Aeria’s waist had once been hers: a firm, steady hand, meant to guide her through the darkness of her own demons. Was it love he felt now, or only the safety of what was familiar? Why did the betrayal hurt so much? Was it worse that it came from Duncan, or from her own sister?
She slipped away a little while later to smoke, sitting on the edge of the terrace of the grand hotel. The wind stung her face, and she only opened her eyes when she heard the heavy metal door creak open.
Valarr stood there, handsome in a tailored suit. She had always been in love with him. Ever since they were children, playing games where she was the princess and he the noble knight who would come to her rescue. She had loved him even when she knew he used her. And perhaps, deep down, she still did. Because if it did not hurt to see him, she would not have felt anything at all. Her therapist had taught her that you cannot grieve something you never truly loved.
“Got a cigarette?” He asked, with that same charming, lazy smile that had always disarmed her. She could have said no, but instead, she reached into her purse and pulled one out, offering it to him in silence.
Their fingers brushed, and a spark of electricity shot through her veins. They stood there under the moonlight, and Daenys knew he had missed her just as fiercely as she had missed him. They had never needed many words. She lit the match, and as he leaned in close enough to shield the flame from the breeze, he rested one hand high on her thigh beneath her silk dress. His wedding band glinted like a cruel reminder beneath the stars. Valarr had never been hers.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I missed you, Dae. Tell me you missed me too.”
She did miss him, but that did not mean, at twenty‑four years old, that she could ignore the wife waiting for him downstairs, probably wondering where her husband had vanished to.
“I don’t.”
“Liar.” His touch grew more insistent, sliding higher up toward her hip bone.
“Let go of me, Valarr.”
“Don’t do this to me, Dae. You have no idea how much I’ve needed you. I tried to reach out, but my father… after those photographs, everything fell apart. He forbade me from going near you, and I knew he had me followed everywhere.”
Daenys felt a thick knot tighten in her throat, too heavy to swallow. She tried to step back, to pull away, but he wrapped his arms around her from behind, trapping her against him, and buried his face in the crook of her neck as if gasping for air.
“I love you." He whispered, just as he always did, soft enough that no one else could hear. It was a confession meant only for her, or for the cracked walls of some motel room. And Daenys was so, so tired of being his secret.
She twisted free with all her strength, and when she spun around, she slapped him hard across the face, hard enough to turn his head sharply to one side. His cigarette fell from his fingers, burning a small hole in the lapel of his suit jacket.
“You have a wife waiting for you downstairs. A woman you chose over me. One you decided was worthy enough to stand beside you. You are a coward. Nothing but a goddamn coward.”
Incest was not unheard of in their family. The Targaryens acted as if they owned the world, controlling wealth amassed over centuries. Their own great‑grandparents had been brother and sister. They could have had something real, something lasting, but he had never chosen her. Because she was not good enough for the great Valarr Targaryen. Kiera, daughter of the Archon of Tyrosh, fulfilled every requirement Daenys could never meet.
The sobs and tears that rose within her took her by surprise. A torrent, as if the floodgates of a dam had suddenly been thrown open. The pain she had suppressed for years with alcohol and drugs finally found its way to the surface.
“I can’t share you anymore. I can’t compete anymore. I am so tired. You say you love me, yet you only hurt me. You don’t love me. You just like having me at your feet.” She let out a hollow, bitter laugh as she spoke, finally accepting the truth she had denied herself for so long.
The door burst open with a sharp bang, followed by the laughter of two men, and Valarr’s face went pale and dark with alarm. Daenys did not even need to turn around to know that Baelor was standing there, and that her father had followed close behind. His voice, once loud and booming, now falling into heavy, dead silence.
“You will lie beside her every night… and you will miss me. And that will be your punishment.”
It was barely a choked whisper, but it carried to every ear present, leaving her beloved cousin trapped in that same small, uncomfortable, second‑rate place where Daenys had refused to remain any longer. It took two to keep a secret, and she was no longer willing to be the face of shame.
She hurried out of the rooftop terrace, dodging her father’s outstretched hand and rushing down the stairs, careful not to stumble in her heels. Inside the elevator, on her way to the exit, she pulled out the pins that held her golden hair back. And there, in the mirrored walls, she saw the reflection of her own mother looking back at her. Perhaps, that was what Aeria hated most about her: that Daenys carried within her a piece of their mother. Something no matter how hard she tried, her sister could never steal, nor copy, nor ever take away.
Tomorrow would be a new day. Daenys would stay clean, and one day, somewhere, someone would choose her. She only had to wait.