Silver Princess || House of the Dragon

Chapter VII ''Wed her to me''

Several months had passed since Rhaenyra and Laenor's wedding. During this time, little has changed at court, except for the relationship between Valaerya and Daemon. They seemed to be getting closer to each other. Sometimes in the evenings the girl would think about the kiss in the gardens and blush at the thought.

She was just returning to her room late in the evening. The corridors were already empty, the servants had long slept, gathering strength for another day of work. Valaerya had just returned from the Dragonpit, which was obvious from the way her hair was falling out of her braids.
The dull sound of heels hitting the floor suddenly stopped as Val stopped in front of her chamber door, seeing someone she never expected to be there.

"Ser Criston?" she said. She frowned and opened her mouth slightly, as if she wanted to say something, but forgot what at the last moment. She continued only after a moment. "What are you doing here?"

Ser Lorent was always on guard at her door, sometimes it was Ser Steffon, what was Criston Cole doing here?

"The Queen's command." he replied, lowering his eyes a little so as not to look into her eyes. "Princess." he opened her door to the chamber, which she entered, of course, but she still looked suspiciously at the knight.

She refrained from making a sarcastic comment about this sudden change. Her guards usually couldn't keep up with her anyway, so she's not at all affected by Cole's presence. But why did Alicent suddenly make such a decision?

She went out onto the balcony and sat on the railing and began to untangle her hair, thinking about this suspicious decision. Has her stepmother decided that she needs to keep an eye on her...?

At the same time, when Valaerya was preparing to sleep in her chamber, Daemon entered the chambers occupied by the king. There he found not only him, but also Alicent, sitting in armchairs in front of the fireplace.
He stepped closer and cleared his throat, making his presence clear.

"Brother... Can we talk?" before turning his gaze to Viserys, he first cast a disdainful glance at Alicent.

"By permission." the girl quickly realized that she was not wanted here. She rose from her seat and left the chamber, leaving brothers alone.

"What do you want to talk about?" Viserys asked when they were alone in the room.

Daemon looked at the chair Alicent was sitting in, but he absolutely didn't want to sit in it. Instead, he walked around him and stopped in front of his brother, taking a breather before speaking.

"I have something to ask you." he felt strange when such words fell from his mouth. He wasn't used to asking, but in this situation he had no choice. Viserys just gestured for him to continue and then Daemon got down on one knee. "I have come to ask for the hand of your daughter, Princess Valaerya Targaryen."

"What? You..." Viserys laughed at first, seeing his brother kneeling in front of him on one knee and looking at him with complete seriousness. "You can't be serious." he looked away for a moment and then continued. "I don't think you know what you're talking about, it was only a year ago that I refused Rhaenyra's hand in marriage to you, and now you dare to ask me to give you my younger daughter?"

"Valaerya is already a grown woman, you can't change that. And you know well that no Lord will take care of her as well as I will." Viserys shook his head, realizing more and more that this wasn't some stupid joke. He's going to need something strong to drink soon. "I will fight for her if necessary. Organize a tournament and invite anyone you want. Leave the choice to fate and your daughter. She will be able to accept or reject whoever wins, as was once done in Westeros. If she accepts me as her husband, I swear I will do everything to prevent even a hair from falling from her head."

Viserys took a few minutes to answer to that.

***

The next day was quite pleasant for Valaerya. She spent a lot of time with her sister, did some dragon riding together, and then she escaped from Ser Criston on horseback halfway through King's Landing before deciding to return to the Red Keep.

And she regretted coming back.

She regretted it from the moment she heard the rumors that her father was going to marry her off. She didn't hear who he was the chosen one, but she guessed that he had probably found her a rather young Lord whom she didn't even know and would give him her hand in marriage. As her heart healed after her mother's death, it began to open to others, perhaps even beat for someone he intended to break, trample, and completely destroy it. What if she can't put it back together again?

When she returned to her room, in anger she began to throw things off the chests of drawers and shelves. She shooed the maids out, slamming the door behind them, and threw the sheets off the bed.

"Why me?!" she acted like a child when she let her emotions get the best of her. Eventually, she even grabbed the side of the mirror with both hands and knocked it to the ground.

With a loud noise, the mirror hit the ground, shattering into hundreds of pieces, larger and smaller. This noise, combined with loud crying and further overturning of furniture, alerted Criston standing in front of the closed door.

"Princess?" he asked gently. "Is everything alright?" he opened the door and looked inside. Suddenly, a pillow from the couch flew towards him.

"Get out! I want to be alone!" she shouted at him, grabbing another pillow, ready to throw it at him. Fortunately, he was wise enough to back off and respect her request.

The last things to hit the floor were the jewelry boxes lying on the dressing table. The last ones only because while falling, necklaces fell out of one of the boxes, one of which flew into the burning fireplace.

"Fuck...!" without much thought, Valaerya ran to the fireplace, knelt by it and reached into the flames to pull out the necklace. Instinctively, as soon as her hand came into contact with the fire, she withdrew it, expecting an unpleasant burning sensation and reddened skin.

But she hadn't experienced anything like that.

She looked closely at her hand, which she had accidentally stuck into the burning fireplace, but she didn't see any burn marks on it.

Have I gone mad? she thought before carefully reaching her hand out to the fire, slowly placing it between the flames. She grabbed the gold necklace tightly and pulled it out of the fireplace, feeling no repercussions from the flames that licked her skin.

She heard someone taking a deep, quick breath behind her. Val quickly turned around and got up from the ground, realizing that it was her father who had come to her. He probably wanted to talk to her about his plans to marry her off, and he found her kneeling by the fireplace and putting her hand into the fire.

And besides, her room was almost in ruins, almost everything that could be knocked over was lying on the ground and it would take the servants a lot of time to clean it up...

"Father...?" she began carefully. Her father looked at her in shock. His eyes went to her hand with no signs of burn for a moment, and then back to her face. They stared at each other for a moment until Viserys's knees suddenly buckled. "Father!" she screamed, rushing to him and trying to hold him before he fell to the ground. "Guards! Call the Maester!"