In Hidden Chamber, Daemon room
The air in the hidden chamber was stale, a vacuum of sensory input that tasted of cold iron and dormant power. At its center stood the glass candle, a three-foot pillar of obsidian that seemed to drink the very shadows around it.
As Daemon looked into its depthless surface, the memory of his audience with the Old King return.
Jaehaerys had been a silhouette against the high windows of the Small Council chamber, his silver-gold hair transformed into a halo by the dying sun. He hadn't turned when Daemon entered. He rarely did anymore. He simply watched the city he had spent a lifetime building, his hands clasped tightly behind his back.
"You spoke before of lighting it," the King said, his voice a low resonance that seemed to vibrate the floorboards. "Do you still believe you can?"
Daemon stood small and still in the center of the rug. "Yes."
A pause. Measured. Heavy with the history of men who had gone mad staring into the black glass.
"And if you fail?" Jaehaerys asked, finally turning. His violet eyes weren't those of a grandfather; they were the eyes of a judge.
"Then I will learn why," Daemon replied.
The King's gaze narrowed. "Glass candles are not toys, Daemon. They are anchors to a world we were meant to leave behind. Men greater than you archmaesters, maester, have tried to coax a spark from the obsidian and found nothing but a silence that eventually swallowed them whole."
"I am not asking to succeed," Daemon said, his voice steady, devoid of a child's desperation.
That made the King's posture shift. The judge was replaced by a scholar, intrigued despite himself. "Explain."
"I am asking to practice," Daemon said. "I am asking to observe the resistance of the stone.
A longer silence followed, one that felt like a physical weight in the room. Jaehaerys studied him not as a grandson, but as a structural problem. He saw the stillness in the boy's hands, the lack of fidgeting, the terrifyingly adult focus in his eyes.
"What you ask is not harmless," the King said quietly. "There are things in old Valyria that were buried for a reason. Secrets that act like a poison once they are tasted."
"Then I will not dig blindly," Daemon answered.
It was a lie. They both felt the shape of it. But it was a Controlled Lie, a social contract that allowed the King to grant permission without admitting he was curious to see if the boy could actually do it.
Jaehaerys exhaled slowly, the tension leaving his shoulders. "You will inform me of any change. Any flicker, any heat, any shadow that moves within the glass."
"I will."
"And you will not attempt to light it through force," the King added, his voice hardening into a command. "You will not spill blood on the stone, nor will you call upon the fire of your dragon. If it does not wake for your mind, it does not wake at all."
Daemon inclined his head slightly, a gesture of respect for the law of the structure. "I will not force it."
That, at least, was the absolute truth. To force a glass candle was to invite a backlash that could shatter the mind.
"It will be placed in your chambers," Jaehaerys said, turning back to the window.
Having learned from the sorcerer's mistake, he began.A ripple moved across the surface of the candle, turning the solid glass into something that resembled dark, disturbed water. Then, with a sound like a distant bell struck underwater, the wickless tip ignited.
A needle of white flame, pale as a ghost's shroud and cold as a winter star, pierced the darkness. It did not flicker. It did not cast a shadow. It revealed.
As the flame steadied, Daemon's mind was jerked violently from his tether. He felt his three-year-old body slump against the floor, but his spirit was already a league away, then ten, then a hundred. He was no longer a child in a cellar; he was a pulse of intent riding the unseen veins of the world.
He tore through the clouds, over the jagged, snow-clutching teeth of the Moon Mountains, driven by a singular, burning thought: The Vale.
The transition ended not with a landing, but with a Synchronization.
One moment, he was in the suffocating silence of the Keep; the next, he was standing ,a shadow of thought in a solar draped in sky-blue silks. The air tasted of frost and high-altitude lavender. Before him sat Daella Targaryen, her silver hair a waterfall of moonlight as she cradled the infant Aemma. She was singing a lullaby, her voice a fragile defense against the howling winds of the Eyrie.
Daemon watched her, a cold, ancient grief stirring in his chest. In the histories he carried like a burden, this woman was a bird broken by a golden cage. He did not mean to interfere. He meant only to observe.
But the Tower behind his eyes pulsed. The white flame back in the Red Keep flared into a jagged, angry violet. The bridge between them became a two-way door.
"Aunt."
The word did not travel through the air. It vibrated in the very marrow of her bones.
Daella stilled. The lullaby died in her throat. She did not scream; she turned with the slow, agonizing grace of the terrified. Her violet eyes, wet and wide, searched the empty air where Daemon's ghost hung like a shimmering heat haze.
"Daemon?" she whispered, her voice a thread about to snap. "Is that... you?"
The candle was cold again. The room was silent. But the silence had been changed forever.
The connection did not break with a roar, but with a hollow, silver fading.
As the distance to the Vale stretched and the bridge to Daella's solar solidified, the cost of the alignment began to outpace the shallow reserves of Daemon's three-year-old body.
The white needle of flame didn't shriek or explode. Instead, it shivered once, the violet hue deepening until the light simply collapsed inward, as if the obsidian had finished its meal.
Daemon felt his consciousness slide back into his physical form not with the violence of a fall, but with the heavy, leaden weight of sudden exhaustion. His eyes opened in the dark of the hidden chamber. There was no blood, no ringing in his ears, only the profound, bone-deep tiredness of a traveler who had walked a thousand miles in a single heartbeat.
He remained still for a moment, his small hand resting on the cold stone floor. The candle was once again a silent pillar of shadow, indifferent and dark. He had reached the limit of his current vessel, but the objective had been achieved.
But he did not succumb to the fatigue. In the instant the connection to Daella had severed,in that micro-second between the fading of the white flame and the return to his flesh ,he had felt it.
It was a presence that existed outside the walls of the Red Keep. It felt vast, ancient, and chillingly attentive. It was a gaze that didn't look at him, but through him, as if his very existence were a window into a room.
He forced his trembling limbs to move, pushing himself up until he sat cross-legged before the obsidian pillar.
The experiment had been a success, but the parameters of the tool were far more demanding than he had initially thought. He reached three primary conclusions.
First was distance was not a barrier to sight, only to stability. He had crossed the Moon Mountains in a heartbeat. The glass candle was a functional satellite, provided the user mana held. He could watch the world which is connected to much larger, invisible network.
Second was he was not alone in the dark. That presence the vast, ancient weight that had brushed against his consciousness was proof. Others were using these network of the world. To look out was to leave a door cracked open for others to look in. If he wanted to spy on the Great Houses, he would have to develop Shade-Casting ,a way to mask his mana signature.
Third was only a whisper was all he could manage. To project a voice across the Seven Kingdoms required a surge of mana his two-year-old core simply couldn't sustain yet. If he wanted to influence events directly ,to speak to the King in his sleep or command a Dragonkeeper from afar he needed to accelerate his growth.
He stood up, his legs steadying. The exhaustion was still there, but it had shifted into a dull ache. He needed to return to his chambers before the morning watch changed.
Hours later,The Great Dining Hall of the Red Keep was an oppressive symphony of clashing silver and hushed, high-stakes conversation. Torches flickered in their iron sconces, casting dancing shadows against the tapestries of Aegon's Conquest.
At the long trestle table, the royal family was gathered in full a rare and tense occurrence. King Jaehaerys sat at the head, his expression unreadable as he looked over a tray of opened scrolls, each bearing the wax seal of a Great House. Queen Alysanne sat beside him, her amber aura radiating a soft, anxious hope, while Saera sat across from them, her grey velvet gown a shield of newfound modesty.
In the midst of the talk of alliances and dowries, Daemon was a whirlwind of sensory focus.
The glass candle had taken its toll. Every cell in his three-year-old body was screaming for food to replace the energy he had burned . In his left hand, he gripped a roasted chicken leg, the skin glistening with fat; in his right, a cracked crab leg dripping with butter.
To others, it looked like the messy appetite of a growing boy. To him, it was a necessity to sustain the relentless demands of his body and power.
"Slow down, little gargoyle," Viserra whispered, leaning in beside him. Her perfume, usually cloying, was lost beneath the scent of the roasted meats. She reached out with a silk napkin, dabbing at a stray drop of grease on his chin. "Eat slowly. The food isn't going to sprout wings and fly back to the kitchens."
Daemon didn't stop. He tore a strip of meat from the bone with a focus that was borderline feral.
"Lord Rowan has increased his offer," Jaehaerys said, his voice cutting through the clatter of plates. He tapped a seal of a golden tree. "He offers a significant land grant along the Mander if the match is made. It would solidify the Reach for a generation."
"And the Starks?" Alysanne asked softly, her gaze drifting to Saera. "The raven from Winterfell spoke of a different kind of alliance. Lord Ellard seeks a princess who can endure the coming winter. He offers no gold, but a loyalty that the South has forgotten."
Saera's hand tightened around her silver goblet until her knuckles turned as white as the snowfall she feared.
"The Rowans are wealthy," Baelon added, tearing into a thick hunk of crusty bread. "But the North is... distant. Perhaps distance is what Saera needs to find her goodness.Far from the temptations of the street."
"There is also Oldtown," Jaehaerys continued, sliding a heavy scroll across the wood. The seal was the beacon of the Hightower, pressed in grey-and-gold wax. "Lord Ormund Hightower is persistent. He suggests that a union between the Dragon and the Tower would settle the whispers of the Faith once and for all. He promises a life of unparalleled prestige, provided she remains... devout."
Across the table, Saera's mask of piety flickered. Oldtown meant the Starry Sept. It meant living in the shadow of the High Septon, a gilded cage where every breath would be measured by a priest.
"And the Redwynes," Alysanne noted, pointing to a seal of grapes. "They offer the Arbor. Sun, wine, and the finest fleet in the sunset sea. They are eager, though perhaps too eager for the prestige of a royal match."
Rowan is a cage of silk, Daemon thought, swallowing a mouthful of crab. Hightower is a cage of stone and incense. But Stark...
North was the land of the Old Gods, the weirwoods, and the things that watched from the dark. If Saera went North, she would be his eyes where the roots ran deep.
"What do you think, Saera?" the King asked, his eyes narrowing as he watched his daughter's controlled breathing. "The gold of Goldengrove? The prayers of Oldtown? Or the iron of Winterfell?"
Saera looked up. Her face was a marble mask, but her aura was a seething, pressurized violet. "I only wish to serve the House, Father. Wherever you think my... virtues... are best put to use."
Daemon dropped the bone and reached for a bowl of honeyed plums. He didn't speak. He simply let his gaze linger on the Stark seal, sending a tiny, focused pulse of cold and stillness toward the King's hand.
Jaehaerys frowned, his fingers hesitating over the grey wax of the Wolf.
"The North is a hard land," the King mused. "But perhaps it is the only land hard enough to temper a Targaryen."
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What should be Saera's future?
Canon as a prostitute in Volantis
Becoming a noble lady, or
Taking a unique path?