Dragonstone
Daemon was holding the glass candle as the sound of his snores echoed through the room he had occupied for the last two weeks, and alone for the most part of the last week. The sudden roar of a dragon—loud and powerful—made him wake with a violent jerk. Daemon looked around in a daze until his thoughts caught up with his body, and he immediately cursed Laenor's dragon for disturbing his rest. Suppressing his frustration, he turned back to the candle instead.
He had been sitting here every day for about a week now, since Laenor left, clutching the candle and attempting to connect with Rhaenys Belaerys.
But the woman was too consumed by grief to even approach her candle. And without her actively using it, Daemon could not converse with her. Reaching out to someone and holding a conversation through a glass candle was not difficult—at least, not for those who knew how to wield it. Laenor had compared it to skinchanging when, after he uncovered how to use a candle to converse with others across the world, Skinchanging is one of the abilities of the First Men and the Children of the Forest. Though Daemon did not find any text stating that any skinchanger was able to talk to someone across the world. Where Daemon could connect and speak with any other glass candle user in the world, so long as the other person stood before their own candle and poured magic into it.
Laenor had been both curious and baffled by how Valyrians replicated the skinchanging of the First Men and was able to improve where First Men and Children failed. He liked to explain this ability of the glass candle in simple words: "skinchanging into a single mind that could harbor two minds at once." Laenor often spewed half-amused obscenities about how marvelous the craft was, how mad the Valyrians must have been to create such a thing, and how many sacrifices it must have taken to forge a single candle. Daemon ignored most of it.
Not because he failed to understand—he almost did—but because Daemon could not stomach the thought that Valyrians would ever copy anything from people they considered barbarians, little better than animals. After studying the texts, Daemon believed that both magics—glass candles and skinchanging—likely originated from the same ancient source. And that source had to lie in Essos… or perhaps the far east. For as far as Daemon had learned, the First Men and the Children of the Forest had both come from Essos. It made far more sense to him that both powers shared a single origin than the notion that Valyrians copied such abilities after arriving in Westeros.
In any case, it mattered little how the ancient Valyrians had conceived the idea behind the candles. What mattered was that Rhaenys Belaerys would eventually emerge from her grief and take up her candle, and Daemon awaits that day badly. Yet for two long weeks, both he and Laenor had been disappointed again and again. Still, Viserys's stubbornness and paranoia had forbidden them from contacting anyone else. And once Laenor departed, Daemon alone bore the duty of checking on Rhaenys every few hours.
Truth be told, Daemon did not entirely mind. It allowed him to glimpse Valyria each day—to observe what and how it was their ancestral homeland before the doom consumed it.
Yet he and Laenor soon learned that there were certain places the candles could not—and must not—see into. The Freehold Council, many Old Blood keeps, the great temples, and the learning halls where priests and sorcerers trained—all were shielded and obscured from his vision. Daemon had once paid dearly for his curiosity. When he attempted to peer through the barrier veiling the Council, he nearly lost his life. It was Laenor's magic that saved him. By the following day, he learnt that someone in Valyria had clearly sensed the intrusion at that time. Many more towers and palaces quickly disappeared from the candles' sight. How they accomplished such concealment remained a mystery—though Laenor was already working to unravel it.
Thankfully, Rhaenys Belaerys was not staying within the Belaerys black monstrosity they called Syrax's Tower. That tower screamed danger to Daemon's senses, even when viewed only through the candle. And as for the Drakonar tower—gods forbid those bastards for what they had done to that place. Its very presence bred fear. Even gazing upon it through the candle induced unease and nausea in the Rogue Prince.
Worse still were the dragons that rose from those towers. They were enormous, rivaling even the gargantuan Velaryon beasts—yet far more ferocious, unruly, and savage than even the wildest Cannibal Daemon had ever known. Even Caraxes's ferocity seems paler than what those dragons displayed, though Drakonars and Belaerys seem to have no issues in controlling them.
Daemon shook his head, casting aside thoughts of Valyria. There was too much he had learned over these two weeks, and now was not the time to drown in it. Steadying his breath, he tightened his grip upon the candle. As with weapon drills in the yard, steady repetition bred mastery. Daily practice had taught him to anchor his intent swiftly and precisely. As he poured magic into the candle, his vision flew unerringly toward Valyria alone—ignoring the vast ocean of other possibilities.
Soon, he stood within Blackfyre, the ancient tower once owned by House Targaryen before their departure from the Freehold.
Daemon nearly laughed aloud in triumph and shouted in joy when he saw her. Rhaenys Belaerys sat before her candle, its pale white flame burning steadily. Daemon waited as she spoke to empty air—clearly in communion with another. He waited half an hour. But it was nothing compared to waiting whole days beside the candle in silence.
At last, the flame before her shifted—white turning to violet.
Daemon did not waste a single heartbeat. He thrust his will forward and seized the connection.
This time, he was able to feel the same sensation of stepping into another chamber from the one he had been in before. He and Laenor had already tested the candles in this way, speaking to one another when Laenor was at Driftmark and Daemon at Dragonstone. It was no different from when he used the glass candle to see across half the world; this time, he could only see and focus on the chamber where Rhaenys Belaerys was present. And she, in turn, could hear and speak with him so long as she remained near her candle, which now burned furiously with a pale flame.
"Who are you? And how are you able to reach out to my candle?" the woman asked in fluent High Valyrian as she took a graceful seat before it.
"I am Daemon Targaryen," Daemon replied the very next moment, watching her expression carefully. To her credit, she only reacted with a slow arch of her eyebrow.
"You being a Targaryen by name and by blood would not surprise me, as no other should be able to see this tower with the vision the glass candle grants without the Targaryen blood inside them. Though I never knew my maiden family's dragonless branch still had enough magic left to use a glass candle." Her tone turned colder. "Never mind—what do you want?"
"The dragonless branch of House Targaryen?" Daemon scoffed lightly. "No. I come from the branch that still tames dragons and births seers. I am a descendant of Aenar Targaryen. My name is Daemon of House Targaryen—rider of Caraxes, the Blood Wyrm. Prince of the realm. Brother to King Viserys Targaryen, King of the Seven Kingdoms." Daemon spoke with pride, a smirk on his lips that she could not see.
This time, the woman's expression shattered into open shock. She rose abruptly from her seat, all earlier grace forgotten. Clutching her glass candle tightly, she blurted out, "A descendant of little Aenar? You said you are brother to a king—did Aenar's blood truly conquer the lands of the West? Are there seers born among your house in this last century?..." Her questions tumbled out in a rush. There were too many to answer, and it would take hours if Daemon tried to address them all.
So he interrupted her before she could bury him in even more. "I could explain everything far more easily in person, don't you think?" Daemon said.
She hesitated for a moment before replying, "Of course. Do you wish for me to come to Dragonstone, or will you come here to Valyria?" She paused only for a heartbeat before adding, "Though I would advise that you and the whole of House Targaryen come here. The Council will seek you sooner rather than later."
Daemon stiffened at once. "Why would the Council want the entirety of House Targaryen in Valyria?"
Rhaenys looked genuinely confused by the question. "Why? Because you are dragonlords. And if the Council of Dragonlords seeks aid, it will seek it from its own kind, not from the greedy magisters of the Daughters, whom they consider little better than slaves. And more than that—the dragonlords will wish the Targaryens returned to the Freehold now more than ever. They now know Daenys was right. And that Targaryen blood can breed a true seer. This is the greatest opportunity our family will ever have to rise again—from the lowest of the Forty, where Aenar left it when he fled Valyria with all his children and possessions."
"If what you say is true," Daemon said slowly, "would that not place us beneath the pressure of far more powerful dragonlord families?"
"Not if you already have the backing of one of the Five, Daemon Targaryen," she replied without hesitation. A dangerous and cunning smile on her face. "Trust me. I, Rhaenys Belaerys, swear to you that I will see House Targaryen rise to a height that even your ancestor and my younger brother Aenar only dared to dream of."
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