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The mirror was a cruel confidant.
Alicent searched her reflection still for some trace of the dragon blood. Some glimmer of it. Something.
Yet her eyes remained a soft brown, unremarkable beside the violet and lilac eyes so prized amongst her mother's kin, and her hair was dark as her father's. Almost a Hightower through and through, save that most of her father’s house stood tall and regal, whilst she seemed destined toward neither distinction.
It was a particular sort of penance to be the daughter of Princess Viserra. Her mother was the most beautiful woman Alicent had ever seen—ethereal and shimmering, a beauty that no lady at court could hope to rival.
She at least consoled herself with the thought that she was not horrid, and her hair was her best feature. It was a low comfort, though one she clung to stubbornly.
Yet sometimes, Alicent wondered whether her mother felt disappointed, having brought forth a daughter who looked so little like her.
Once, when she had been younger and foolish enough to speak such thoughts aloud, she had confessed as much.
Her mother had gathered her into her arms at once.
"Never. You are my darling girl," Viserra had murmured, smoothing Alicent's hair from her face. “Your sire and I cherish you. One day, a dashing lord shall beg for your favor, and I shall make certain you are taken care of properly. I will never give you to some fat old man to rot in his hall, Alicent. I swear it.”
It had been a complicated thing to say to a girl of seven. Alicent had not understood it then. She had only wanted her mother to tell her she was lovely, or perhaps suggest some remedy for becoming so.
Marriage had meant little to her beyond songs and feasts and pretty cloaks draped over ladies’ shoulders. She hadn't been thinking about old men at all.
She understood rather more now. The importance of marriage, certainly. And perhaps—it occurred to her, not for the first time—that it worked both ways. Mayhaps there was wisdom in such tales after all. Cherished ladies in songs seldom wed old lords with gout-swollen fingers.
Her mother had kept droning on after her promises, though Alicent scarcely remembered the words themselves. Only the curious trembling beneath them. The disdain. The way her mother’s voice seemed to fray at its edges. Then the tears came, quiet ones at first. And somehow, Alicent had found herself murmuring comforting words, stroking soothingly through silver-gold hair while her mother held her too tightly. They had remained like that for some time.
She had spent the remainder of the day alone in her chamber, staring at the wall until the world went quiet.
Alicent studied herself once more.
She had at least learned not to voice such fears and insecurities aloud.
Yet they lingered, especially when she looked at Gwayne.
Though he bore their father’s dark hair, his eyes were a vivid, startling amethyst. The unmistakable hue of Old Valyria, the kind the court ladies cooed over and her grandmother had once praised aloud, comparing him to her beloved, lost son Aemon.
“And as dashing as Daemon,” someone had added to eager agreement.
In Alicent's decidedly unbiased opinion, Gwayne was the better. Even slightly taller. And already cupbearer upon the small council.
She had once wept to him over her appearance too, making the mistake of speaking such thoughts aloud again. After some nobleman’s daughter refused to believe she possessed any Targaryen blood at all—much less Princess Viserra’s child.
“You do not look the sort,” the girl had said bluntly, before hastily correcting herself. “I only mean—Don't all the Targaryens look striking? Almost unlike ordinary folk? And you are just…" She had trailed off, her face red. Alicent remembered very little after that.
Gwayne’s attempt at comfort had been a secondary blow. Well-intentioned and devastating in equal measure.
"There are beautiful women in the realm with no Valyrian blood at all," he had insisted, staring at her as though she were witless. "I don’t understand."
Which had only made her cry harder.
Because she was not counted amongst those beauties either.
Afterward, wracked with guilt, Gwayne had surrendered every sweetcake upon his plate to her for nearly a month to appease her. He'd taken her on more horseback rides than she could count. He even promised he would train hard enough to win tourneys one day, so he might crown her queen of love and beauty. It had helped, in the way only a brother's fumbling kindness could. Alicent loved him fiercely for it.
A faint smile touched her mouth at the memory before she reached upward to undo the intricate Valyrian braids her maids had spent an hour weaving.
For a moment, she had thought they suited her.
Now they only felt foolish.
And almost at once, guilt and shame followed.
For what sort of daughter sounded so dissatisfied with the blood that made her? Her complaints, spoken aloud, would make it seem as though she scorned her father’s heritage, as though only Valyria held beauty worth admiring. Never that. The Hightowers were an ancient and glorious house, no lesser than her mother’s in pride or splendor. Alicent had been raised upon its histories and triumphs alike.
Yet it was difficult, sometimes, to sit amongst her mother’s kin, surrounded by shades of silver-gold and pale white hair, by eyes violet and lilac and deep indigo, whilst she alone looked different. Even those who mocked the Targaryens still watched them with a kind of fearful reverence.
She wanted, rather shamefully, the sort of praise Gwayne received so effortlessly. Wanted, perhaps most of all, to belong easily to both halves of herself, as Princess Rhaenys seemed to do with her effortless mingling of Baratheon black and Targaryen purple.
With a tired sigh, Alicent unwove the last braid and bound her hair back simply instead.
Now, though, with her four-and-ten nameday approaching, marriage loomed. A nameless, faceless lord awaited her.
Another anxiety. Alicent hoped her lady mother would choose a good prospect. Kind and dashing. Not an old man like her cousin Rhaenys's husband.
And certainly not someone insufferable like her cousin Daemon.
✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧
The Dragonpit smelled awful.
Alicent pulled her handkerchief to her nose, though it did little to mask the stench. The sounds were worse; low growls echoed through the cavernous chamber, accompanied by the scraping of chains and sudden shrieks that made her feel uneasy.
Alicent did not wish to be there.
Unlike many of their kin, neither she nor Gwayne cared greatly for dragons. Admiring them from afar was one thing; standing near enough to feel the heat rolling from their scales was another entirely. And even had she possessed the chance, she doubted she would ever attempt such madness willingly. She preferred the continued possession of all her limbs.
And yet here she was.
Somehow, cousin Rhaenys had persuaded her and her brother to accompany her to the Dragonpit.
All because Daemon would attempt to claim Caraxes today.
“It shall be good for the family to spend time together,” Rhaenys had said with far too much amusement. “We have to support our cousin, don’t you think?”
Alicent had very nearly snorted aloud. Alicent suspected those reasons had rather more to do with Daemon’s irritation than familial affection. Especially now.
The look he gave Rhaenys upon their arrival certainly supported the theory.
Her cousin had no desire whatsoever to bond with her and her brother.
He barely acknowledged Gwayne’s existence. As for Alicent, she largely ceased to exist when he looked in her direction. Just like now.
It hadn't always been so. She had known Daemon all her life, which was long enough to have accumulated a complicated listt of grievances and—once, long ago—something warmer than grievances.
She remembered a Daemon who had been almost sweet, though the memory felt faint now, like a half-forgotten dream. In those days, he had grinned at her and willingly indulged her and Aemma in their childhood games without complaint. They had often played at being the Conquerors, with him as Aegon, and Aemma and herself as his sister-wives. Charging down the corridors of the Red Keep, claiming every empty hall as a new conquest.
Aemma he allowed to be Visenya.
Alicent was forever made Rhaenys. Even when she protested.
"You have to be Rhaenys," he had said, rolling his eyes, every time.
She had thought it deeply unfair at the time.
Perhaps this unwavering dismissal of her desires marked the subtle beginning of his indifference towards her, she mused. Still, they remained fond memories all the same.
Alicent allowed herself a glance toward him now. He stood a few steps away,talking with Rhaenys.
He appeared stiff and attentive , waiting. But she noticed, absently, one of his hands flexed repeatedly at his side, long fingers curling and uncurling against his palm in quick restless movements, over and over. He did it when impatient. Or anxious. A habit he had never quite shed, it seemed.
The sight triggered something. Unbidden, the ghost of a sensation brushed her skin. Her treacherous heart remembered a feast years ago, the heavy oak table shielding them from their family's sight.
The way he had once taken her hand beneath the table.
His thumb had moved once across her knuckles, slow and featherlight, and she had gone completely still. She had scarcely heard another word spoken at the table. Only the dreadful pounding of her own heart, her face feeling hot, and the certainty that if she moved even slightly, the moment would shatter entirely. He had been her first, foolish love.
Then, out of nowhere, he changed. The warmth vanished first. Then the patience. Then whatever fondness he might once have possessed for her.
She had spent years trying to understand it and had eventually decided that understanding Daemon was not worth the effort he would never extend to her.
Alicent sighed, finally returning to the present, those memories now buried once again.
Daemon still remained near Rhaenys speaking slowly whilst Gwayne chatted amiably with one of the dragonkeepers.
She considered for a fleeting moment going to stand with her cousins, but she checked the impulse. What would she even say? Daemon would likely answer curtly if he answered at all, and Alicent had no particular desire to humiliate herself by being ignored. The thought made her scoff.
Looking upward toward the vast dark ceiling overhead, she wished herself anywhere else.
The dragonkeepers finally brought forth Caraxes.
The beast was monstrous up close. The neck was too long, the body too lean, all the proportions wrong.
Gods, what a hideous creature.
Alicent sucked a breath, making a strangled sound, and recoiled slightly before she could stop herself.
She almost prayed for his failure, then reminded herself she was a better person than that. So she refrained.
Besides, her cousin never failed at anything. She doubted he would fail at this. The gods were not that kind.
"What," Daemon's voice cut through her thoughts.
Mortified, Alicent realized the sound had been loud enough to carry.
His purple gaze swept over her slowly, lingering just long enough upon her face to make heat crawl unpleasantly beneath her skin.
“Did you think to try your luck as well?” A faint curve touched his mouth. “I do not believe this would be possible for you, cousin.”
She prayed for his failure.
"You need not speak to her so, cousin," Gwayne interjected, frowning.
Daemon turned away without bothering to reply.
The dragon didn't choose him.
It did not burn him, which would have at least been memorable, albeit tragic. It did not attack him either
In truth, what occurred was far worse.
Caraxes simply... turned away. As if Daemon were not there at all.
The Blood Wyrm's long neck swung slowly, dismissively, and then kept moving.
Toward her.
The Dragonkeepers hissed warnings, their spears ready, but the Blood Wyrm would not be deterred. His serpentine neck dipped lower and lower until hot sulfurous breath stirred the fabric of Alicent’s skirts.
Someone shouted her name.
Another dragonkeeper tried pulling the creature back.
Caraxes did not so much as twitch.
Those terrible slit-pupiled eyes remained fixed upon Alicent alone.
Was this how she would die?
Strangely, the thought nearly made her laugh.
Yet, at the very least, she had to try something.
“Humm... dohaeras?”
Wait, no. That wasn't the word.
And then, suddenly, impossibly—
Oh gods, I am better than my cousin.
Later, Alicent would remember very little of the claiming itself. Only fragments scattered together by terror and exhilaration alike: blistering heat against her skin, the scrape of rough scales beneath her fingers, and afterward the violent rush of wind high above King's Landing.
That night, she lay awake in bed smiling helplessly into the darkness, still too happy for sleep.
Many would say it was because she had claimed a dragon despite lacking the silver hair and purple eyes of Old Valyria.
And perhaps there was some truth in that.
Yet what lingered most vividly in her memory was Daemon's face.
She replayed the moment over and over
The way he had stood there in the dust of the pit, the disbelief cracking his arrogant mask, followed by something raw, nameless, and utterly ugly.
It had been exquisite.
For the first time in years, Alicent felt that she belonged. That she was better.
Alicent sighed contentedly, finally closing her eyes.
In the morning, she intended to fly above King’s Landing simply because she could. And loudly.
Yes. She would absolutely do that.
✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧
Something within Alicent had shifted after Caraxes.
Not all at once, nor in any grand dramatic fashion. Rather, it felt as though some tightly knotted thing inside her had quietly loosened at last.
She still rode beside Gwayne through the hills beyond the city walls, but now she embraced the boundless freedom of the skies as well.
And astride Caraxes, high above the earth upon the back of that great Blood Wyrm, Alicent discovered a version of herself she had not known existed.
The wind tore breathless laughter from her throat.
"Drakaris!" she cried out with pure bliss.
Caraxes answered gladly, and she watched, breathless, the sky being painted with hues of red and gold. Terrible enough to turn armies to ash, yet beautiful enough that she wanted more.
In the flights that followed, she was not alone.
Her mother joined her often, clinging to her waist as they soared. They screamed in a shared, frantic delight whenever Caraxes banked into a steep dive or spiraled. Alicent had never known her mother to be so loud, nor herself to be so unafraid.
✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧
A fortnight later, the gods saw fit to twist the knife a second time.
Gwayne accompanied their cousin Viserys to the Dragonpit in search of Daemon, who intended to make another attempt, this time with Dreamfyre.
Instead, Dreamfyre chose Gwayne.
Alicent’s smile only deepened.
That evening, their mother ordered Gwayne’s favorite dishes brought to their quarters—honeyed duck, buttered turnips, sweetcakes dusted with cinnamon—just as she had done after Caraxes chose Alicent.
“To my boy,” Viserra toasted smugly, raising her cup. “Blood of my blood. All my children are now dragonriders.”
✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧
Caraxes—her beloved, malformed, magnificently ugly dragon—laid an egg.
And upon the morning of Daemon’s six-and-ten nameday, the egg hatched. Tiny, dark red-scaled, and snappy.
No one had expected it. Most had assumed Caraxes male, which seemed reasonable enough considering the beast’s savage disposition and thoroughly disagreeable appearance.
The hatchling refused to leave her side, a small shadow that Gwayne joked was a "second claiming" Alicent had achieved by sheer accident.
At the feast held for Daemon, Alicent sat draped in Hightower soft grey and Targaryen black.
"I have prayed to the Mother for these miracles," Alicent said, her voice sweet as honey. She knew perfectly well how little patience Daemon possessed for gods of any sort, including those belonging to his own forebears. "It seems she hears those who are deserving."
Daemon looked as though he wished to strike her. Alicent only smiled serenely and took a sip of her wine.
She was enjoying his expression tremendously.
Her cousin was such a cunt. She wanted to punch him in his beautiful the face.
“Have you named the hatchling, my dear?” the king asked pleasantly from farther down the table.
“I have,” Alicent replied.
Then she announced the creature’s name.
Silence followed.
No one was amused.
Although Alicent swears she heard her mother cover the snort with a cough.
Her brother leaned in afterward.
"You have a long road ahead before you can call yourself a funny, Ali," Gwayne murmured, though he was grinning.
Alicent disagreed entirely.
✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧
Driftmark was quite lovely.
It was over the breaking of their fast that Alicent overheard her mother expressing a sudden, tender eagerness to visit her niece, Rhaenys. Perhaps her mother was tired of the stench of this place. Any excuse to leave the stifling hum of the Red Keep was a mercy.
Her father’s face lit up with approval at the idea. Alicent and Gwayne only nodded.
Alicent had long since learned not to question her mother's erratic impulses or moods, only to follow where they led.
And so they took to the sky just after their midday meal. Viserra rode behind Gwayne upon Dreamfyre. Alicent followed in their wake, the massive, red bulk of Caraxes cutting through the sea winds, while the little hatchling trailed close to his mother's flank
That afternoon found them taking tea with Rhaenys and Lord Corlys in his solar. The room was warm and inviting, filled with the rich aromas of freshly brewed tea.
"Wouldn't it be splendid if you showed my children your dragons, cousins?" Rhaenys suggested with a smile as she glanced at Alicent and Gwayne.
"Of course," Alicent had said at last. She followed Gwayne out into the brisk sea wind, relieved to leave the adults to their idle gossip.
Laena was delighted with Dreamfyre. She begged Gwayne for a ride, her small hands clasped in desperate appeal, and Gwayne ever softhearted had relented at once.
Alicent offered to take Laena upon Caraxes instead. The Blood Wyrm was larger, swifter, more magnificent in her opinion. But Laena only shook her head, her eyes fixed upon Dreamfyre's pale blue scales.
No one ever seemed to appreciate the beauty of her dragon.
Little Laenor was far too small to ride, and Alicent had no desire for accidents. While Gwayne took Laena into the sky, filling the air with the girl's high, ringing laughter, Alicent remained on the beach with the boy and his nursemaid.
Searching for a way to entertain the young boy, she instead guided him to the hatchling. The little creature crept close to Seasmoke, who had been brought down from his lair at Laenor's whim. The two small dragons sniffed at one another, hissed once, and then launched into the air together, weaving tight circles around each other like old friends.
Sitting in the cold sea spray, watching the hatchlings chase the gulls, Alicent looked out toward the horizon. She wondered, idly, how far Caraxes could carry her if she simply refused to turn back.
✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧
Gwayne mentioned that some fools at court—brave in their folly or foolish in their bravery—had taken to calling his cousin the Dragonless. That perhaps he ought to follow the first bearer of that moniker and take the path of their Uncle Vaegon to the Citadel.
"It did not end well for the poor bastard who said it loud enough for Daemon to hear," Gwayne said.
Part of Alicent rejoiced at that.
Another part felt something uncomfortably close to pity.
Daemon cured her of such softness several days later by being particularly vile to her.
Alicent again retracted her words of sympathy towards him.
He deserved to be dragonless.
That afternoon she flew Caraxes low over the Red Keep out of sheer spite.
That same day, after flying Caraxes over the city, Alicent was summoned to her grandfather’s solar.
A commotion greeted her arrival. Her mother was furious. He was calm, speaking in a hushed tone with grandsire.
Gwayne already stood by the window, looking faintly ill. He would not meet her gaze.
That was the first warning.
Her grandfather began speaking almost immediately.
Alicent gathered only fragments
Her grandfather ought to get her married.
Fine.
She could endure marriage. No husband would treat her poorly with dear Caraxes by her side.
Then the king spoke again.
"Since no suitable betrothal presents itself," her grandfather said, "You and Gwayne shall follow the customs of our blood. The dragon's blood runs true in you both. You've always been in your brother's shadow since you were little; there should be no difficulty in this union."
Alicent stared at him.
For one bewildered instant she did not understand.
And then she did.
I beg your pardon.
The words died in her throat. She looked at the back of her brother’s head, then at the King's impassive face, and for the first time, the dragon blood in her felt like a curse—ancient and monstrous.
Alicent turned and ran before anyone could stop her.
✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧
Her cousin's wedding was the first.
The groom and bride looked miserable.
Watching them, Alicent wondered if she would look like that with Gwayne.
When the hour of the bedding arrived, the hall erupted into chaos. Men shouted and clapped as they swept the bride away toward the bedchamber. The women, giggling and bright-eyed, gathered around the groom.
Alicent found herself among them; her, Rhaenys, Aemma, and a flock of other ladies she hardly knew.
"Don't look so miserable, cousin," Rhaenys said drily, yet amused. "Lord Fleabottom shouldn't be bitter about bedding another woman."
“Shut up.” Daemon rolled his eyes. "Well… what are you waiting for, ladies?" he drawled, his voice dripping with an arrogant boredom. "The night grows old."
Alicent's hands moved mechanically, unlacing his doublet. When she reached the final knot, their eyes met for a fleeting instant and then they both looked away.
✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧ ₊ ✧
She was the one to kiss him first.
It happened seven days after her five-and-ten nameday. In the blue hour between dusk and true dark, when the corridors of the Red Keep grew heavy with shadow and the torches had not yet been lit.
He had been standing too close. Closer than cousins ought. Closer than married men ought. Closer than any man had the right to stand beside a maiden promised to another. She felt the warmth of him before the instinct to step away could even form; and when the thought finally arrived, she simply let it pass.
Her hands found his sleeves in the dark.
Her mouth found his.
For one terrible heartbeat he stilled completely, and she thought she had ruined everything.
And somehow—impossibly, wonderfully—he kissed her back.
His hands found hers, just as they had done before. His thumb brushed slowly across her knuckles in that same absent, devastating way. It had haunted her, that gesture. More than she had ever admitted. More than she had ever intended to let it.
This time, she was not afraid to break the spell. The spell, she understood now, had never truly broken; it had only waited for them in the shadows, patient and ruinous and entirely theirs. Everything inside her that had long been restrained, every starving, hidden, unspeakable thing, seemed suddenly to unfurl all at once beneath the shelter of darkness.
Her hands rose tenderly to his jaw, her fingers tangling in the silver of his hair as if to anchor him to her forever.
His breath caught against her mouth.
The kiss deepened.
There was nothing uncertain in the way his lips moved against hers now, nothing cautious left between them. Deep and slow, and utterly without apology, his lips parted hers, consuming more of her while demanding she give just as much in return. It was as though he had decided in those quiet, suspended moments that if this was all they were ever permitted, he intended to be thorough. His hands roamed around her waist, tightening their grip as he pulled her closer, until the stone wall at her back and the warmth of his body became the only things she could feel.
Nobody could see them here. Nobody had ever truly seen them.
The corridor beyond remained silent and empty. The castle was vast enough to swallow sins whole, its ancient walls having witnessed years of secrets and forgotten them all. For what was one more transgression, when the castle had already held a thousand?
She had always known that.
Perhaps that was why moments with Daemon had always felt strangely unreal, as though they belonged to some life neither of them was ever meant to live openly. Only borrowed. Only held for a heartbeat before the world demanded it back. For that had always been the shape of them, the only shape they were ever allowed—hidden, half-formed, never quite given a name, never truly spoken.
She would not allow herself to grieve that. Not even now. Not whilst his mouth still lingered upon hers.
It didn’t matter.
Excerpts from Fire & Blood
Selections pertaining to Lady Alicent Hightower, Prince Daemon Targaryen, and the matter of their vanishing
[…]
The annals of the later reign of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen are dense with the triumphs and tragedies of his prolific dynasty. Yet among the many disputes, betrothals, births, and tragedies that marked the twilight of the Conciliator’s rule, few incidents inspired more quiet speculation amongst the learned men of the Citadel than the sudden rise of the Hightower-Targaryen siblings.
In the ninety-sixth year after Aegon’s Conquest, another momentous event shook the royal household. Lady Alicent Hightower, daughter of Princess Viserra Targaryen and Ser Otto Hightower, astonished the court by succeeding where Prince Daemon Targaryen had not, claiming the fearsome Blood Wyrm, Caraxes, as her mount after the prince’s own attempts had ended unsuccessfully. Some fortnight later, her older brother, Ser Gwayne Hightower, likewise proved successful in bonding with the she-dragon Dreamfyre.
Though these events were widely celebrated, harmony did not follow.
Certain accounts insist that Lady Alicent’s claiming of Caraxes marked the true beginning of her bitter estrangement from Prince Daemon, whose own failure upon the Blood Wyrm had already become the subject of quiet mockery throughout court. That the notoriously proud prince had failed where his younger cousin triumphed delighted many at court, for there exists no amusement so irresistible to courtiers as the humiliation of those thought too arrogant to fail gracefully.
It was during this period that Prince Daemon acquired an epithet he never succeeded in shedding. The Dragonless, as Prince Daemon came to be mockingly called in certain corners of court, never succeeded in claiming a dragon. Those bold enough to utter the name within his hearing seldom repeated the mistake twice.
Curiously, the bitterness said to exist between prince Daemon and his cousin did not prevent later scandal, though that matter shall be addressed in later pages. […]
Not long after these triumphs, by command of King Jaehaerys I, Lady Alicent was wed to her brother Ser Gwayne Hightower according to the ancient customs of Old Valyria. As both siblings had proven dragonriders, many at court praised the king’s wisdom in preserving the strength of their bloodline.
It is said that the union was agreeable to both parties, harmonious in nature, and claim the young couple had long possessed what one maester termed "natural affection" for one another, owing to their shared upbringing and close companionship in youth.
The wedding itself took place in the third moon of 98 AC and was remembered as an unusually lively affair. Though Lady Alicent did not inherit her mother’s famed beauty, many observed that she shared Princess Viserra’s taste for revelry and strongwine alike. By the hour of the bedding, she had to be practically half dragged to the bedchamber. Smiling, it was said, and smiling still, much as her now lord husband was. […]
That same year, King Jaehaerys convened the Great Council at Harrenhal to settle the matter of succession. By an overwhelming margin—said by some to exceed twenty votes to one—the lords of the realm chose Prince Viserys Targaryen as heir over Princess Rhaenys. Though the royal brothers publicly celebrated Viserys’s victory together, several accounts record a fierce quarrel between Prince Viserys and Prince Daemon afterward, though the words spoken, and the cause of their discord, are lost to us. […]
No official account explains how the estranged cousins became the most scandalous of lovers of their generation.
The records simply state that Lady Alicent and Prince Daemon vanished abruptly from court within the same moon, shortly before the coronation of Viserys I. They took with them not only the formidable Caraxes but also the dragon's first and only hatchling—a creature Lady Alicent had, with characteristic audacity, named Daemon.
The pair were glimpsed sporadically across the Free Cities in the years that followed, and some tales place them even farther east, amidst the smoking ruins of Old Valyria itself. Whether such reports are truth or sailors’ invention remains uncertain.
Mushroom, naturally, claimed extensive firsthand knowledge of the affair, providing numerous salacious details in his Testimony. However, it was not the only source, or so it is believed. Among the documents seized from Lady Alicent's former chambers were discovered several letters of ambiguous authorship and a journal, the contents of which were reviewed years later.
All of it was redacted.
[…]
