twin flames | daemon targaryen

forty-four

Their footsteps echoed in the secret tunnel they had escaped through, bones crunching underneath their feet as they journeyed deeper and deeper into the heart of the Red Keep. Their hearts pounded painfully in their chests as they ran, their path lit only by the small candle Rhaella held tightly in her grasp, the flames casting strange shadows upon the narrowing walls surrounding them.

"Muña?" Aemma asked, her voice sounding like a shout in the abandoned tunnels, her words mixing with the sounds of rats shrieking and scurrying away from the Targaryen invaders of their homes within the darkness. "What is this place?"

"You remember your histories, don't you, Aemma?" Rhaella asked her daughter, her breath coming out in short bursts as she strained her legs to move faster, candle held in one hand and the hem of her dress held in the other. Her children trailed behind her, sticking close to their mother in fear of losing her and the small light within the maze of dark and twisting tunnels. "The construction of the Red Keep was finished during the rule of Maegor the Cruel."

Rhaella paused, taking a moment to listen to the sounds of her children panting as they struggled to keep up with her, their shoes scraping against the stone floor as they blindly followed Rhaella. She needed to get them out of the tunnels, out of the castle she once considered home that was now filled with vipers and traitors threatening her and the lives of her children. How could it all have gone so wrong? How could so much have changed in just one day?

Until one day before, Rhaella had been just the second daughter of King Viserys Targaryen. She was the Peaceful Princess, the wife of Prince Daemon Targaryen, the mother of seven Targaryen princes and princesses, and the rider of the famed she-dragon Gaelith. She remained in the Red Keep even after the rest of her children had gone so that she may repair her relationship with Alicent and Rhaenyra and put an end to the war that was to bring the end of the dragons.

Yet, with the prophecies of her ancestors echoing in her mind and one murmured breath from her father on his deathbed, Rhaella had been catapulted from her seat as the second child to that of the second most important person in the whole realm. She had become heir, the future Queen, and the next in line to the Iron Throne.

And as quickly as the titles had been given to her, Rhaella had been imprisoned by the woman she had befriended and defended for nearly 25 years, the woman whose children she had raised, the woman who Rhaella had never thought would be capable of such an act. Rhaella and her children had been forced to flee into the hidden tunnels of the Red Keep, running from those the princess had once considered her family.

"Muña?" Rhaegar called softly, the sound of his confused voice bringing Rhaella back from her thoughts.

"Maegor was cruel, and he was paranoid," Rhaella finally said, her grip on the candle tightening until her knuckles turned white. "He believed that enemies surrounded him at every turn, and he commissioned these tunnels as a means to escape should his enemies come for him. When the construction finished, Maegor took the heads of every stonemason and woodworker who had labored on the tunnels so that the secret of their existence remained only with Maegor. When he died, all knowledge of the tunnels was lost."

"Convenient," Rhaegar hummed. "Who would have ever thought that I would be grateful for Maegor the Cruel?" Rhaella made a noise of agreement. She, too, was grateful for her cruel and blood-thirsty ancestor, even with all his evil and terrifying acts. It was him and his paranoia and battle-hardened brain that would save her and her children.

"How did you find them if the secret died with Maegor?" Aemma asked curiously, reaching forward to grasp the back of Rhaella's dress with her good hand as Rhaella led them down a narrow wooden staircase. Rhaella could feel her daughter's breath on the back of her neck and the shakiness with which Aemma held onto Rhaella. Rhaegar lumbered behind Aemma, his shoes slapping loudly against the floor as he grasped the hilt of his sword hanging at his side tightly.