Chapter Text
Daenys Targaryen, the Dreamer, did not only dream of the fall of Valyria, but also of a brown-haired princess with silver streaks, with eyes that changed color, who would have to overcome trials in order to fulfill her destiny.
A princess who forges her own destiny far away from her family.
Aegon I Targaryen, the Conqueror, also dreamed of that princess; it was after dreaming of the Song of Ice and Fire that he believed that princess was the promised princess, and that hers would be the Song of Ice and Fire.
They both dreamed that this princess would be called the Red Queen, the Cannibal Rider.
The only Targaryen capable of riding more than one dragon.
The water danced around her, clinging desperately to a piece of wood from some sunken ship. She could feel the arrows piercing through her chest and the blood flowing from her wounds, mixing with the salty water of the sea. The saltwater made her wounds burn; the discomfort was enough to keep her from falling asleep and force her to remain awake.
She opened her brown eyes, and the only thing she could see was the sea, miles and miles of endless ocean. The ships had disappeared, just like the dragons. In that moment, the heir princess cried with the little strength she had left. She had failed in her mission; she had wanted to save her younger brothers, but she had failed.
She felt that she had betrayed and failed her family by not fulfilling her duty to protect her younger brothers. She was the eldest sister; it was her duty to protect them. And she had failed. But she had managed to see her little brother Aegon III escape with his dragon, Stormcloud, still too young to fly long distances or carry the weight of a rider. That brought some relief to her tired heart, but what tormented her was not knowing what had happened to little Viserys II, or whether Aegon had managed to reach a safe place.
“I’m sorry, forgive me,” Daenyra lamented, gripping the wooden plank tighter. In those moments, she could only think about her family, about what they would think when she died. She wanted them to be proud of her, to honor the Velaryon and Targaryen names, but she had failed them. She had disappointed them.
In her exhausted mind, dizzy from the loss of blood, she could only see the faces of her family, imagining them with expressions of disappointment and anger toward her.
Her crying grew louder until it became a desperate sob. She no longer cared about the etiquette expected of a princess. She was going to die, and she was alone. She was going to die alone, in the middle of the sea, without her family being able to burn her body as Valyrian traditions demanded.
In her final moments, before exhaustion overcame her, she remembered a man, a man she loved. She remembered his black hair, with snowflakes woven through it. She remembered their blood oath, a vow of brotherhood that became stained when the two of them, ignoring what was right, forgetting the etiquette they had been taught and everything it meant to be a knight or a maiden, kissed before she departed from Winterfell. They did nothing more than share a few kisses, because Cregan wanted to do what was right in that regard.
Cregan had sworn by the Old and New Gods that, when he finished the fight for the Iron Throne, placing the crown upon Rhaenyra’s head, he himself would kneel before Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen to ask for her hand in marriage.
Even at the edge of death, Daenyra shuddered as she remembered Cregan’s determined gaze.
“You will face Dark Sister, my lord,” she said as she approached and dared to place a hand on his chest, looking into the grey eyes of her lover.
“My princess, I would face the very flames of Caraxes, the fire of any dragon, even the dragon they call the Cannibal, if it earned me your favor and that of your family,” he said as he wrapped one arm around the princess’s waist, slowly caressing her flushed cheek. “And that is a promise, my princess.”
“During my stay here, my lord, you have made me many promises. How do you intend to fulfill them all?” the princess asked as she stepped closer, closing the distance between them.
“The North remembers,” he murmured as he dared to bring his face closer to the woman who had conquered his heart. “And now I am going to fulfill one of those promises.”
“And which one will you fulfill, my lord?” She already knew perfectly well which one he was going to keep, but she still wanted to ask, bringing her own face closer to her lover’s.
Cregan did not answer. He simply kissed her.
Daenyra did not know it at the time, but Cregan opened his eyes and saw Vermax staring at him threateningly, growling and opening his jaws. Cregan understood then that he would have to earn not only the favor of Daenyra’s family, but also that of her dragons.
“I’m sorry, little one, my Vermax,” she apologized to her dragon, whom she believed was resting at the bottom of the sea.
With the little strength she had left, she prayed to the Valyrian gods and to the Old and New Gods, asking that her family would emerge victorious and suffer no more pain. Already asleep and unconscious, she allowed herself to be carried away by the water, dying as a Velaryon. In the sea.
As she sank, she thought she saw three people, her grandparents, Viserys I Targaryen and Aemma Arryn, and the man who, according to rumors, was her true father, Ser Harwin Strong. She did not understand what they were trying to tell her, but they took her hands and seemed to want to pull her out of the sea.
While Daenyra hallucinated, her body slowly sank deeper into the ocean. The waves and currents became more violent, just like the weather, and a great storm began. The princess’s body was dragged through the water, crashing against rocks on the seabed, striking her torso, back, and head.
Although the princess’s heart should have stopped long ago, the strength of a dragon still ran through her veins. She was still alive, only unconscious. The sleeping princess saw her life in reverse, from the most recent memories to the earliest ones. Slowly, her memories became darker and blurrier, as if they were leaving her mind or as if she were reading the story of her own life. Until eventually, she could no longer recognize the faces or remember whose voices she heard.
No one knew how long the princess remained in the water, or how she survived the tides, the wounds, or the sea monsters. But she managed to reach the sand of a beach, where her injured body rested until someone found her.
The woman had gone fishing to gather food for the day. When she saw Daenyra’s body, she dropped everything and screamed at the top of her lungs before running back toward the village.
“There is a woman on the beach! I think she isn’t breathing! Help me!”
She continued shouting as she raced through the village like an arrow.
The people nearby, those tending to livestock, cutting wood, or simply going about their daily lives, stopped what they were doing and approached to ask what had happened. Doors opened one after another. Men and women abandoned their tasks and followed the woman toward the shore. The wind roared between the houses, and the rain struck heavily.
And there they found her.
The girl, a stranger to them, lay on the sand, motionless, not reacting to the touch of the freezing water against her skin, nor to the sand or saltwater entering her wounds.
One of the men knelt beside her.
“By Odin,” he whispered when he saw the girl’s injuries.
There were remains of arrows near her neck, shoulder, and torso. The wood had acted as a plug, preventing her from bleeding out, but the wounds were infected, and no one knew how long she had been drifting through the sea or how much blood she had lost along the way. Her skin was covered in cuts and bruises. Blood had mixed with the wet sand, creating small dark stains around her.
The stranger wore fine clothing, although it was torn and blackened by salt. Despite her condition, it was obvious that those garments did not belong to a peasant or a merchant. They were battle clothes, made from high-quality materials and decorated with embroidery that the sea had not yet completely torn away.
“Is she breathing?” a woman asked, approaching.
The man who had reached her first placed his fingers against the young woman’s neck, searching for a pulse.
“Her pulse is weak, but she is alive.”
A blonde woman with a scar crossing her eye, drawn by the commotion, pushed her way through the crowd.
“What is happening?”
No one answered immediately. Everyone’s eyes remained fixed on the stranger lying on the sand.
“What the hell?” Her exclamation made several people flinch.
She knelt beside the young woman and quickly examined the wounds. She had seen many injuries, both her own and those of other warriors, and she knew how to recognize someone standing at the edge of death.
“ARE YOU ALL BLIND?” she snapped as she looked up at the others. “The girl is still alive!”
A murmur spread through the group.
“She has a pulse,” confirmed the man who remained beside Daenyra.
“Then what are we waiting for?” the blonde woman replied. “Take her to the healer!”
The authority in her voice made several men move immediately.
“Revna is right,” the elder said. “We must take her to the healers. If we waste any more time, she will not survive the journey.”
Across the sea, a family mourned the death of one of their own.
Corlys Velaryon had arrived days earlier with what remained of his fleet, carrying terrible news. The ships that had once sailed proudly beneath House Velaryon’s banner now returned wounded, burned, and with fewer men than they had carried away.
When he arrived at Dragonstone and saw his family waiting for him, he felt the knot in his throat tighten. His eyes filled with tears.
Corlys looked at the black fortress rising above the island while the wind stirred his silver hair. His body felt as heavy as if he wore an armor made of stone. It had taken him longer to return home because he had spent days searching for his granddaughter’s body, wanting to give her a burial according to Targaryen traditions.
The wound of nearly losing his wife, Rhaenys, was still fresh. The same was true of Lucerys. When he arrived at Dragonstone, he was told that the heir of Driftmark and future Lord of the Tides was still alive and was returning home.
But the greatest burden was not the loss of his ships.
It was the words he had to speak.
As he stepped down from the ship and saw his family waiting for him on the shore, the Sea Snake felt the knot in his throat tighten. Throughout his life, he had faced storms, wars, and enemies who sought to destroy his house, but no battle had ever been as cruel as this one.
When he arrived, everyone looked at him. Rhaenyra, Daemon, Rhaenys, Baela, Rhaena, Aegon III (who had arrived days before Corlys with his dragon Stormcloud), and Viserys, who had been in Corlys’s arms and was now being held by Rhaenyra.
When Corlys was about to speak, Rhaenyra interrupted him.
“Corlys, where is my daughter? Why has Vermax returned alone? Her dragon was badly injured,” Rhaenyra asked, sitting at the head of the table, worry reflected in her violet eyes. Viserys rested in her arms.
Rhaenyra had hoped that her daughter had been on the ship with Corlys, but seeing him enter alone shattered those hopes. She wished she could have seen her daughter walk through those doors, hugged her, and told her that her brother Lucerys had not died as everyone believed, that he was alive and returning home.
“The princess…”
Corlys’s voice broke, and tears filled his eyes.
“The princess heir Daenyra Targaryen, while trying to save her brothers, was gravely wounded, and her body was lost to the sea.”
He managed to speak through his sobs.
“I tried to find her body in the ocean, but the currents had already dragged her into the depths.”
“No,” the queen whispered.
Corlys lowered his gaze.
And for the first time in many years, the man known as the Sea Snake seemed old.
“I’m sorry.”
Those two words were enough.
Rhaenyra’s legs gave out.
Daemon caught her before she fell, although he himself seemed to be fighting against the pain.
An absolute silence filled the room; it was so complete that one could hear a feather fall.
Rhaenyra screamed.
Far away, the dragons roared, sharing their grief.
That night, when the queen learned of her daughter’s death, all of King’s Landing trembled at the sound of her agony.
That same night, when the raven arrived at Winterfell, Cregan cried uncontrollably, releasing all of his pain into his sister’s lap as she comforted him.
Throughout his life, Cregan had lost many people. Each one had marked him deeply, each one had left a wound in his heart that would never heal. He had lost his younger brother, his mother, his father, and his beloved Arra.
But the pain he felt upon receiving a raven from Dragonstone was unlike any other loss.
He believed what he had denied so many times. He did not want to believe the news. Somehow, he convinced himself that the queen was lying, that the message was false, that the princess was actually imprisoned somewhere but still alive.
Until Sara slapped him.
He returned to reality.
His beloved Daenyra had died honorably, trying to save her two little brothers.
His sister Sara comforted him. He allowed himself to cry, scream, and curse. He prayed that she was alive, that one day she would appear riding Vermax, smiling at him and looking at him with those deer, like eyes, those eyes that had made him fall in love.
It hurt knowing he would never see those eyes again, never see her mischievous smile, never hear her laughter.
He hated knowing he would never taste those sweet lips again, nor be looked upon with such affection and love.
Now her laughter, her voice, and her kisses were a sweet but bitter memory that returned to his mind.
Before, he had sworn to march beside the queen and fight for her right to the throne.
But now, he would march seeking vengeance.
The usurpers would pay for their crime.