Chapter Text
The peregrine weighed three and a half pounds, but Rhaenyra felt every ounce through the reinforced leather glove. Syrax mantled slightly—wings spreading in territorial display—before settling again, talons gripping hard enough that Rhaenyra felt the pressure through the thick hide of her glove.
"She's testing you," Marcus called from where he stood by the equipment shed, arms crossed. "Wants to see if you'll flinch."
Rhaenyra didn't flinch. She'd learned that two years ago, the first time Syrax had drawn blood through the glove. The bird respected stillness. Confidence. Any hesitation and you'd already lost her.
"She knows I won't," Rhaenyra said.
The facility stretched out around them—twenty acres of protected land an hour and change north of the city, depending on traffic. Fields giving way to woods, the Hudson somewhere beyond the tree line. On a clear day you could see the river from the training grounds. Today, the November sky was grey and low, threatening snow that wouldn't come.
Marcus approached, slow and measured the way you had to move around the birds. He was maybe forty, weathered from years working outdoors, and he'd been training her since she was fourteen. Since right after…
He didn't ask about school or her father or anything that mattered. That's why she liked him.
"Weight's good," he said, examining Syrax with a critical eye. "She's flying strong. You seeing improvement in the recall?"
"She's coming back faster," Rhaenyra affirmed. "Less circling."
"That's trust." Marcus stepped back, nodded toward the field. "Show me."
Rhaenyra raised her arm slowly, feeling the familiar coil of anticipation in her chest. This was the only thing she was good at that actually mattered. The only place where success or failure was immediate, clear, uncomplicated by anything except skill and patience and the unknowable mind of a predator.
She gave the command—a soft whistle, barely audible. Felt Syrax’s weight shift forward. Then the falcon launched, powerful wings beating once, twice, before catching air and rising.
The bird climbed fast, spiralling upward until she was just a dark shape against the grey. Then she levelled off and hung there, waiting.
Rhaenyra pulled the lure from her belt—leather and feathers, weighted to simulate prey. She swung it twice, building momentum, then released it in a controlled arc.
Syrax folded her wings and dropped.
The stoop was breathtaking every time—a controlled fall that looked like violence but was precision. Two hundred miles an hour, they could hit. Fastest animal on earth in a dive. Right now, Syrax was holding back, calculating, adjusting her trajectory mid-fall to track the lure's movement.
She struck it twenty feet from the ground. Grabbed it with both feet and flared her wings at the last second, killing her momentum. Then landed heavy in the grass, mantling over her prize like she'd just killed something real.
"Good," Marcus said quietly. "That's the best approach I've seen from her."
Rhaenyra walked forward, slowly. Held out her glove and the piece of quail she'd kept ready. "Syrax. Come."
The bird considered. Stayed mantled over the lure for a long moment, testing whether Rhaenyra was worth abandoning the prey for.
Then she hopped up. Landed on the glove with familiar weight and tore into the quail with focused efficiency.
"You've got her," Marcus said. "Took Sarah six months longer to get her bird to that point. You've got the instinct for it."
Rhaenyra felt something warm in her chest at the praise. Marcus didn't give compliments often. Didn't need to. But when he did, it meant something.
"Same time next week?" she asked.
"Unless the weather turns. Check your phone Friday, I'll confirm."
Her phone. Right. She'd been ignoring the buzzing in her pocket for the past hour. Four missed calls from her father's assistant. Three texts from Alicent.
The real world, creeping back in.
⋆˙⟡♡
Criston was leaning against the Mercedes when she walked back from the mews, Syrax’s equipment bag over her shoulder. He straightened when he saw her, opened the back door without a word.
"Traffic's going to be bad," he said as she climbed in. "Saturday evening, plus there's some event at the Natural History Museum. We'll hit it around Fifth."
Rhaenyra buckled in, checking her phone properly now. Seven missed calls. "Great."
"Your father's assistant wants you home by seven. Something about dinner."
"He's actually going to be there?" She couldn't keep the scepticism out of her voice.
Criston's eyes met hers briefly in the rearview mirror. "That's what she said."
Which meant probably not. Her father's dinners had a fifty-fifty chance of actually happening. Well, more like eighty-twenty these days. Work always came first. Some crisis or board meeting or appearance that couldn't wait.
The facility disappeared behind them as they pulled onto the state route heading south. Bare trees, grey sky, the landscape getting gradually more suburban as they approached the city. Rhaenyra watched it blur past, still half in the peaceful focus of the training session.
Her phone buzzed.
alicent: where ARE you? i've been texting for an hour
rhaenyra: training. heading back now
alicent: god i'm so bored. can i come over?
rhaenyra: dad wants me home for dinner allegedly. after?
alicent: YES. i'll bring food. your place never has anything good
That was true. The penthouse kitchen was professionally stocked but felt like a hotel. Staff kept it immaculate and empty of anything personal. Her father ate out or had things catered. Rhaenyra usually just ordered delivery to her room.
The traffic thickened as they hit the city proper. Stop and go, the Mercedes trapped between a taxi and a bus, bulletproof glass and tinted windows making it feel like an aquarium. Outside, the city moved—people on sidewalks, bikes weaving through traffic, life happening everywhere she wasn't part of it. They approached Fifth.
The traffic ground to a complete stop. Rhaenyra could see the museum steps now, maybe a hundred yards ahead. Intermittent camera flashes. Crowd control barriers. Women in evening gowns navigating the cold, men in tuxedos. The awful spectacle of it.
She'd been to a thousand of these things. Her father dragged her to some, featured her in photos for the company image. The perfect daughter, the heir, the next generation. She'd perfected the ability to smile on command by the time she was ten.
"Your father might be there," Criston observed. "I saw his name on the host committee."
Of course he was. Which meant dinner definitely wasn't happening.
Rhaenyra leaned her head against the window, watching the gala attendees through tinted glass they couldn't see through. All that performance. All that money and effort to be photographed pretending to care about museum funding or whatever the cause was tonight.
The Mercedes inched forward. Past the red carpet, past the cameras, past all of it.
She didn't look bother to look closely. Didn't register faces or try to see who was there. Eyes unfocused – everything was a blur.
⋆˙⟡♡
The penthouse was empty.
Rhaenyra knew it would be before Criston even pulled into the building's underground garage, before the elevator opened directly into the foyer with its marble floors and sixteen-foot ceilings. Her father's car wasn't in his spot. His assistant had stopped answering texts an hour ago.
Dinner wasn't happening.
"I'll be downstairs if you need anything," Criston said as she stepped out of the elevator into the apartment. "Call if plans change."
"They won't," Rhaenyra said. "But thanks."
The doors closed, leaving her alone with seventy-three hundred square feet of professionally decorated silence.
She dropped her bag by the door—someone would move it later, put everything away, erase evidence she'd been anywhere. The staff were invisible that way. Present enough to keep everything immaculate, absent enough that you could pretend you lived alone.
The falconry clothes had to go. She could smell the mews on them—leather and bird and cold air, the only real thing she'd touched all day. She walked through the living room without turning on lights, past the dining table set for two (the staff had prepared, hopeful or mocking, she couldn't tell), down the hall to her room.
Her bathroom was all glass and white marble, designed by someone who'd never actually lived in it. She stripped down, caught her reflection in the mirror that covered one wall, and paused.
Targaryen features. That's what people called them, like it was mythology not genetics. The pale blonde hair—almost silver in certain light—that she'd inherited from her father's side. The sharp bone structure that photographs well, that made strangers look twice. She had her mother's mouth, supposedly. Her mother's serious eyes – grey in a way that reminded her of a pool of mercury. People used to tell her that, before they learned it made her father go quiet.
She looked like a Targaryen. Like money and legacy and a family that had its own Wikipedia page.
She looked sixteen.
The shower was hot enough to hurt. She stood under it longer than necessary, washing off the day, the drive, the smell of the birds. When she got out, her phone showed two new texts.
dad assistant: Mr. Targaryen sends his apologies. Board meeting ran late. He'll see you tomorrow.
Tomorrow. Right.
alicent: omw. i'm bringing thai food and wine i stole from my dad's collection
Rhaenyra almost smiled. At least someone was coming.
She pulled on soft clothes—leggings, an oversized t-shirt, the kind of thing she could actually be comfortable in. Braided her wet hair back. The dining table was still set, pointless now. She texted the building manager to have the staff stand down for the night, then curled up on the couch to wait.
The windows showed Manhattan at dusk—lights coming on across the skyline, traffic moving far below, the city alive in ways this apartment never would be. She could see other buildings, other windows, other people living their lives. From up here, everything looked small. Manageable. Like you could control it if you just grasped hard enough.
The elevator chimed.
"Thank GOD," Alicent burst in with bags of takeout and a bottle of wine, her Chanel overcoat still on, cheeks flushed from cold. "I was dying of boredom. My dad had people over—some investors—and I had to sit through two hours of them talking about market projections. Save me, Rhae."
She dumped everything on the kitchen island, pulled out containers, already talking. This was what the apartment needed. What Rhaenyra needed. Someone who moved through the space like it was actually alive.
"Your dad stood you up again?" Alicent asked, reading the abandoned table setting.
"Board meeting."
"Of course." Alicent poured wine into two glasses without asking, handed one to Rhaenyra. "Well, his loss. We're having a better night anyway."
They settled on the couch with food between them, and Alicent launched into commentary about her afternoon—something about her stepmother being insufferable, her little brother being annoying. Normal complaints.
Normal life, or as normal as their world got.
"Oh, speaking of," Alicent said, pulling out her phone. "Did you see the photos from tonight? The museum thing?"
"What museum thing?"
"The gala. Big fundraiser. Daemon was there. It's all over Page Six already."
Rhaenyra felt something twist in her stomach, though she couldn't have said why. "I don't follow tabloids like you do"
"Well, you should. He looked completely wrecked. Like, hot but also kind of a disaster?" Alicent scrolled, turned her phone around. "See?"
The photo showed Daemon in a tuxedo, Tom Ford by the looks of it, that looked both taut and rumpled, a blonde woman tucked under his arm. He wasn't looking at the camera. His face was turned away, caught mid-motion, attention on something else entirely.
"Your dad's going to be pissed," Alicent said. "Daemon was supposed to give a speech or something and apparently he just... didn't. Left early with her."
"Sounds like him." Rhaenyra handed the phone back, reaching for her wine. "Dad stopped expecting anything from him years ago."
"Still. Can you imagine being that messy? Just doing whatever you want?"
Rhaenyra could imagine it. That was the problem. A light frown overtook her features.
They ate and talked and drank wine that was probably much too expensive for a casual dinner and for a few hours the apartment felt less empty. Less like a museum, or a mausoleum depending on whatever scandal her family was battling. Alicent fell asleep around eleven, curled into the corner of the couch, and Rhaenyra covered her with a blanket before heading to her own room.
Tomorrow was Sunday. No school. She'd sleep late, do homework, maybe Alicent would stay for breakfast if her father didn't summon her home. A part of her hoped she would stay even though she knew she wouldn’t.
Normal. As normal as her life got these days. She supposed she should be grateful.
⋆˙⟡♡
Rhaenyra woke to sunlight cutting through her blinds and the vague awareness that Alicent was gone.
She checked her phone—10:47 AM, late for her—and found a text from an hour ago: dad wants me home, sorry. put the leftovers in the fridge x
The apartment was silent again. Uncomfortably silent. Sterile, empty.
She pulled on an oversized Kenzo hoodie and wandered toward the kitchen, still half-asleep. Coffee first. Then she'd deal with the day.
The newspapers were already there, arranged on the breakfast bar like they were every morning. The Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Post. Her father's media room had subscriptions to everything—dozens of papers and magazines delivered daily, most of them never read. Easier to just get everything than to miss something.
The coffee machine hummed while she flipped through the Times without really looking. International news, politics, business section filled with names she was supposed to recognize. Boring. All of it boring.
She almost missed it.
The photo was small, tucked into the Style section between an ad for jewellery and some article about fashion week. The Natural History Museum gala. She recognized the steps, the red-carpet.
And there—Daemon.
The tuxedo, the blonde model, the cameras. But this photo was different from the one Alicent had shown her. Different angle, different moment. He was turning, face caught in profile, and his attention was fixed on something off-frame. Not the woman. Not the photographers. Something beyond the red-carpet setup, past the barriers and crowd.
The caption read: "Media heir Daemon Targaryen arrives at the Museum of Natural History benefit Saturday evening."
She stared at it longer than made sense. There was something about his expression—not the boredom she'd seen in other photos, not the performative charm he used with cameras. He looked... focused. Like he'd spotted something that mattered.
Her phone buzzed. She knew who it was before she even tapped her screen awake.
alicent: did you see the article?? your dads going to lose it
Right. The scandal. Leaving early, ditching the speech. She wondered why it mattered so much.
Rhaenyra looked at the photo again. Saturday evening… She'd driven past the gala on her way home from training. Had sat in traffic right there, watching the crowd through tinted windows while Criston complained about the street closures.
The Mercedes with her father's plates, distinctive even in Manhattan traffic. The car that had crawled past the red carpet at exactly—what time had it been? Around seven? Right when the event was starting?
She was inventing meaning. Making connections that weren't there. Daemon had probably been looking at another guest, another photographer, literally anything. It was a split-second moment caught by a camera, and she was reading into it—
"Good morning."
Rhaenyra jumped, turning to find her father in the doorway. Viserys looked tired, dressed in weekend casual that still somehow looked formal on him. Crisp shirt, pressed slacks. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him in actual comfortable clothes.
"Morning," she managed. "How were the board meetings?"
"They wrapped late." He moved to the coffee machine, poured his own cup with the precise movements of someone who did the same thing every morning. "I wanted to apologize for missing dinner. It was unavoidable."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine, but I appreciate you understanding." He glanced at the newspaper she'd been holding, and something shifted in his expression. "I see you found the coverage of last night."
Rhaenyra looked down at the newspaper she'd forgotten she was still holding. Daemon's face, turned away from the cameras. "Alicent mentioned it."
"Of course she did." Viserys's voice went flat in that particular way it did when Daemon came up. "Your uncle has a remarkable talent for making himself the story. We commit half a million to a museum benefit, and somehow the headline is about him leaving early with whatever her name is."
Rhaenyra set the paper down carefully. "Did you need him to stay?"
"I needed him to behave like an adult for four fucking hours. Apparently, that was too much to ask." Her father sipped his coffee, already moving on. "How was your training yesterday?"
The subject change was obvious, almost jarring. They didn't talk about Daemon. That was an unspoken rule that had existed for as long as she could remember. Any mention of him made her father cold and distant, and Rhaenyra had learned years ago not push it.
"Good," she said. "Syrax’s recall is getting better."
"That's good. That's... good." But he was already checking his phone, attention fragmenting. "I have a meeting with London this afternoon. Will you be alright on your own?"
"Yeah. I have homework."
"Good girl." He set down his coffee cup, squeezed her shoulder briefly as he passed—the most physical affection she'd gotten from him in weeks—and disappeared to the elevator that would take him to their designated garage.
Alone again.
Rhaenyra looked at the newspaper one more time. Daemon's face, caught mid-turn, looking at something the camera couldn't see.
She told herself it didn't mean anything. She told herself she didn't care.
Then she folded the paper, left it on the counter, and went back to her room.