Her fingers trembled as she pressed them against her stomach, the nausea rising again, though this time it had nothing to do with her earlier sickness. The weight of her secret bore down on her. She was with child — Aemond’s child. And for what? To bring life into a world that devoured its young? To carry the blood of dragons through her veins and yet feel so utterly powerless to stop the destruction that surrounded her?
Her mind drifted, unbidden, to the quiet life she had once led. Forgotten in the North, living among snow and stone. She had been no one then — Daena of the Vale, Daena of nothing. She hadn’t mattered, but at least no one had sought her ruin. Obscurity had been her sanctuary.
And now? Now she was a queen. A wife. A mother-to-be.
But she was also a witness to death, a player in a game where every move could mean the end of someone she cared for — or the end of herself.
Her head throbbed, the weight of it all threatening to crush her. She sat there, frozen, unable to move, the face of the weirwood tree staring at her like a silent judge. The gods, if they were watching, offered no solace.
Somewhere in the distance, a raven cawed — a sharp, jarring sound that broke through her spiraling thoughts.
Daena's breath hitched as the realization struck her, sharp and unrelenting, like a blade piercing through her chest. Her body went rigid on the stone bench, her trembling hands flattening against the cold surface for balance. Her heart raced, pounding against her ribcage with such force that she thought it might break free.
Someone had tried to kill Aemond.
And she knew who.
Her hands flew to her mouth, smothering the gasp that threatened to escape. She looked around wildly, her eyes darting to the towering heart tree and the shadows that stretched long and menacing beneath its branches. The world felt suddenly too quiet, as if holding its breath alongside her, waiting for her to act. But Daena couldn’t move. She couldn’t think.
It wasn’t possible.
No, it couldn’t be.
But even as she clung to denial, the pieces began to assemble in her mind, the fragments of the past hours forming an undeniable picture. She replayed the moments with ruthless clarity — the haunted look in her eyes during the small council meeting, the pain in her expression as she asked after Aemond’s whereabouts. The way she had paled at the mention of Daeron.
And the panic. Gods, the panic when she heard they were together.
The guards had raised the alarm, hadn’t they? Wasn’t that why she had run from the room? But no. No, Daena realized with growing horror, she had run first. It was only after that the shouts had started.
She had known.
“Gods,” Daena whispered, her voice trembling against her palm.
Her mind screamed against the truth, but it was unrelenting, searing through her like dragonfire: Alicent Hightower, the dutiful mother, the ever-devoted queen dowager — she had tried to kill her own son. And instead, she had killed the other.
Daeron.
The name echoed in her mind, and her stomach twisted violently again, but this time there was nothing left to expel.
A rush of memories flooded her, suffocating in their clarity. Alicent’s hope when Daena first arrived at King’s Landing, her desperate pleas for Aemond’s redemption, her insistence that the family could still be whole. The quiet strength with which she’d embraced Daena, like a mother welcoming a long-lost daughter. The devotion Alicent showed to her children, to their legacy.
It didn’t make sense. A mother wouldn’t do this. Not to her own child.
Would she?
Daena shook her head, her heart warring with her reason. Alicent loved Aemond. Daena had to believe that. She had seen it in the soft way Alicent’s hand lingered on his shoulder, in the way her voice softened when she spoke to him.