Dragonstone's castle hall is shrouded in a gloomy mixture of volcanic smoke and sea salt.
In the hall, the relief on the stone wall depicts Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters.
Rhaenyra·Targaryen stood in front of the fireplace in the hall, the firelight dancing on her long silver-gold hair. "I said, no."
Daemon·Targaryen sat at the end of the long table, playing with an empty wine glass in his hand.
"How long will you continue to be stubborn?"
He slammed his wine glass down on the table.
"Now the king has completely lost patience with you and is preparing to change his reserves."
"If you don't do something, Rhaenyra you will lose your position as Crown Prince forever."
Rhaenyra turned around and said angrily, "So you want to send my son to the Wall?"
"Send Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey to wait for death in the ice and snow?"
"Let them wear Night's Watch and they will never be able to set foot in the South again for the rest of their lives?"
Daemon stood up and walked around the table towards her. "This is the solution to these problems today."
"Rhaenyra, open your eyes and look at reality!
Your father is shaken! Alicent has been blowing wind in his ears day and night, and now Alicent is pregnant with twins."
"Seven, my brother was able to get Queen pregnant at that age. Now all the King's Landing nobles say this is a good omen!"
He grabbed Rhaenyra's shoulders.
"As long as those three children are still with you, as long as you insist that they are your legal heirs, the nobles will not obey you."
"Let me put it bluntly, they are now ridiculing, how can a woman who has soiled her own bloodline rule Seven Kingdoms?!"
Rhaenyra shook off his hand, staggered back, and held on to the mantel before standing still. She looked up at Daemon and said tremblingly.
"From the beginning to the end... you approached me and married me just for this, right?"
"In order to let your blood sit on Iron Throne? So that you and my children, Aegon the Younger, and Viserys can become the legitimate heirs?"
"Are my other three children just an obstacle to you? A stumbling block that needs to be removed?"
Daemon was silent for a long time before speaking.
"Do you think I did all this just for Iron Throne?"
"I admit that I had that thought..."
"But I have no intention of harming Jacaerys and them."
"I am doing all this now for you, Rhaenyra."
He grabbed her shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. "When you were a girl, I decided that you would be my wife."
"It was my brother, your father Viserys, that self-righteous fool who caused all of this."
"If he had promised to let me marry you, there wouldn't be any trouble today."
"But now you want to take away my child's future!" Rhaenyra shouted in a voice.
Daemon snorted, "What do you think will happen after the reserve exchange?"
"You will lose your inheritance, the nobles who support you will turn neutral, and you will be at the mercy of others."
"Those three children, as well as yours and mine, must live carefully under the rule of Greens."
"No," Rhaenyra trembled, "We have more dragons than they do... They don't dare to provoke us."
"Dragon?" Daemon sneered, "The dragon is like a chair, letting us sit and letting those people kneel."
"But if you surrender like this now, it is equivalent to kneeling in front of Greens!"
"And with your surrender, people's hearts will be completely dispersed. Greens will then have legitimate inheritance rights and legal principles."
"And you have nothing, and the nobles of Blacks will no longer support you!"
Rhaenyra said angrily, "As long as I find Alicent, she will remember our old relationship..."
"Alicent will soon be the mother of six children!" Daemon interrupted her, "Do you think the friendship you once had is comparable to her children?"
"Then I will go to war with them!"
"Fool!" Daemon roared, "Simply relying on dragons? How can you rule without winning over the nobles?"
"You have been Crown Prince for so many years, why are you still so naive?"
Rhaenyra looked at Daemon who was yelling at her, and tears welled up in her eyes.
For a long time, Daemon helplessly stretched out his hand to wipe her tears. Maybe Rhaenyra has never really grown up. As Crown Prince, he has always been hiding in Dragonstone, not daring to face King's Landing...
At this moment, the door of the hall was suddenly pushed open.
The sea breeze blew in and blew out the nearest row of candles. A tall figure stood at the door.
Corlys·Velaryon slowly walked into the hall.
The seventy-year-old man was still as tall as a mast after experiencing the blow two years ago. He glanced at the two of them.
"It seems I came at the wrong time."
Daemon quickly calmed down his emotions. "Sir Corlys, what kind of wind brought you here from Tidepool Island?"
Rhaenyra forced himself to calm down. "Sir, please sit down."
Corlys sat down and his eyes fell on the Seven Kingdoms map made of black stone on the table. "I heard that you gave birth to another child not long ago?"
"Named Viserys? Congratulations, House Targaryen needs more blood."
I don't know whether this was a congratulation or a sarcasm, Corlys had a disdainful smile on his face.
He doesn't like Daemon, and now Blacks's predicament is partly to blame on this prince.
He took the initiative to plan his son Laenor's fake death, which caused him to be so sad that he unconsciously fell into a coma in bed. No one in House Velaryon suppressed his stubborn younger brother Vaemond.
Now he has finally managed to clean up the family that was divided due to the illegitimate child scandal, and reunited the clan members under the Haima banner.
Rhaenyra replied, "Thank you for your blessing."
Corlys turned to Daemon, his eyes suddenly sharp. "Two years ago, you arranged for my son Laenor to fake his death."
"It was you who made him abandon his family and responsibilities, and run away to Pentos like a coward to hang out with those lovers."
"And now, Laenor can't come back from the dead."
The more he spoke, the colder his smile became, with suppressed anger on his face.
The hall was dead silent.
Daemon looked at Corlys silently. If the current Blacks loses the support of Velaryon, there will be no basic disk.
Corlys looked at Daemon and continued, "Because of your arrangements, House Velaryon fell into a succession crisis and split into two factions."
"Because of your arrangement, I had to fight gout in my hospital bed while convincing the angry tribesmen to continue supporting Rhaenyra."
He stood up and put his hands on the table. "Now, you want to arrange the fate of my grandson?"
"Want to send them to the Wall so that I can never die?"
After hearing these words, Daemon realized that Corlys had not given up on those three children yet.
Rhaenyra said, "Master Corlys, Daemon he..."
"I was asking him." Corlys didn't look back, "I didn't ask you, Rhaenyra."
Daemon met the old man's gaze. "I'm trying to save Rhaenyra's throne."
"In a stupid way." Corlys said coldly, "Send them to the Wall? Let the whole world know that Rhaenyra indirectly admitted that the child is an illegitimate child?"
"Then it would be better to just ask her to renounce her inheritance rights."
Hope rekindles in Rhaenyra's eyes, it seems that Master Corlys must have a way.
Daemon gritted his teeth. "What do you have in mind?"
Corlys sat down again, took out the silver wine flask from his arms and took a sip before slowly speaking, "Jacaerys, Lucerys, Joffrey, they will truly belong to House Velaryon from now on."
Rhaenyra and Daemon were stunned at the same time.