“Don’t move.” Quentyn shot his friend a look and pressed him gently back onto the bed.
He examined the wound one last time.
The bleeding had stopped, the torn flesh was neatly closed, and the bone had been set.
It’s almost miraculous.
In a world like Westeros, where learning still lingered somewhere between the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, saving a wound like this bordered on the impossible.
Even in his previous life, Daemon would have needed a major operation in a first-rate hospital, followed by months of recovery.
“Seven hells…” Daemon shifted uneasily.
Quentyn’s treatment had worked almost too well.
The pain had faded, replaced by something far worse.
“Why does it itch so much?” He instinctively reached for the wound.
Quentyn slapped his hand away.
“Go on then, my dear prince of King’s Landing.” He struggled to keep a straight face.
Every time he remembered Daemon’s notorious reputation around the city, amusement crept into his voice.
“Would you rather be known as Daemon the Lame or Daemon the Cripple?
Best decide on your new title before you start wandering about.” “Bloody hell, Quentyn.” Daemon muttered another curse and withdrew his hand.
“Could you at least lend me your mouth for swearing?” “No.” Quentyn inspected the bandages once more.
“And your father is standing right outside.
Unless you want Prince Baelon hearing every filthy word that comes out of your mouth.” “Tch…” Daemon curled his lip in disdain, but Quentyn still caught the flicker of respect in the boy’s eyes whenever Baelon was mentioned.
Without warning, Quentyn switched to High Valyrian.
“Nyke ider ē ban skori yn qrin ī lūs, qopsa dokimia Caraksesi.
Skorkydoso ader ī jē dū se ō drio ē mū?” “The last time we met, you were already close to claiming Caraxes.
How did you end up falling and hurting yourself?” Watching Daemon’s pale face, Quentyn found himself recalling a question that had lingered in the back of his mind ever since he’d first read Fire & Blood.
During Jaehaerys’s reign, House Targaryen had stood at the height of its strength.
The Old King and Queen Alysanne had thirteen children, yet almost every branch of the family withered away through untimely deaths or childless marriages until, in the end, only Baelon’s descendants remained.
His own existence had already altered history.
In the original course of events, Princess Vaella had never lived long enough to marry outside the royal family, much less establish a cadet branch through House Qoherys.
Yet despite that change, the fates of Jaehaerys’s children still seemed to be following the same path.
That troubled him.
If history insisted upon correcting itself…
Then he needed to tread carefully.
Daemon blinked in surprise at the sudden change of language before replying in fluent High Valyrian.
“I don’t know.
You know Viserys claimed Balerion, and I thought sliding down from Caraxes’s wing after landing would make for quite the display.
I never expected the fool beast to come down on a patch of loose stones.” He grimaced.
“There was a damned great rock hidden among them.” Loose stones.
A large rock.
Quentyn frowned.
That explanation made sense.
King Maegor had deliberately left stretches of gravel around the Dragonpit to imitate a dragon’s natural habitat, and Jaehaerys had never seen fit to change it.
Still…
Something about it felt wrong.
He turned the whole incident over in his mind once more.
Across from him, Daemon looked thoroughly bewildered, though there was excitement beneath the confusion.
When he’d fallen, the pain had been so intense he’d thought himself a dead man.
Fortunately, Viserys had been in King’s Landing.
And fortunately…
Quentyn had been here as well.
Daemon silently resolved that one day, somehow, he would repay the debt.
Outside the room, Baelon frowned faintly as the High Valyrian conversation reached his ears.
He glanced around the tavern.
Robb was doing his utmost to appear solemn, but the bewilderment written across his face made it obvious he hadn’t understood a word.
The innkeeper, the servants, and the other patrons were all too far away to overhear the conversation.
Grand Maester Elysar, on the other hand, could both read and speak High Valyrian with ease.
Fortunately, he remained outside the room.
Quentyn opened the door.
Daemon lay quietly upon the bed for all to see.
The operation had been a success.
For a brief moment, Quentyn hesitated.
He had never believed in the Seven Gods, neither in his previous life nor this one.
Yet this was Westeros.
Whether the Seven truly existed, he could not say, but the great gate within his mind certainly did.
And if whatever lay beyond that gate had some connection to the powers of this world…
Better not to tempt fate.
So he simply said, “May the Seven watch over you.” Daemon immediately put on an exaggerated expression of suffering and began groaning pitifully.
Unfortunately for his performance, the neatly dressed wound and the returning color in his face gave the game away.
“A miracle…” Grand Maester Elysar was the first through the door.
The old man shoved one of his assistants aside without a second thought and hurried to Daemon’s bedside.
The instant he saw the wound, every emotion imaginable passed across his face in rapid succession.
Shock.
Disbelief.
Confusion.
Then something perilously close to reverence.
“This…” he murmured.
“This is the work of miracles.” He scarcely spared Daemon another glance before wheeling around to stare at Quentyn as though the boy himself were some priceless treasure brought from the ruins of Old Valyria.
“My boy…
how did you accomplish this?
Even Runeter could never have managed such a thing.” His excitement grew with every word.
Turning toward Prince Baelon, he declared, “You needn’t fear any longer.
Prince Daemon’s wound has been treated perfectly.
Perfectly!
Even if the Crone herself had guided a healer’s hands, I cannot imagine a finer operation.” He shook his head in utter disbelief.
“This overturns everything I thought I knew of surgery.” Before Quentyn could answer, Elysar seized both of his shoulders.
Every trace of suspicion had vanished from the old man’s face.
For one alarming moment, Quentyn found himself close enough to count how many teeth the Grand Maester still possessed.
“No…
this cannot be the Citadel’s doing.
Those old fools couldn’t produce work like this.
Prince Baelon, I don’t mean Grand Maester Vaegon, he never devoted himself to medicine.
No, no, this cannot end here.
Quentyn, I…” The old man trailed off.
Something had occurred to him.
Quentyn knew exactly what it was.
Since Aegon the Conqueror, his mother, Princess Vaella, had become the first Targaryen princess to marry outside the royal family and remain within the line of succession.
There was another descendant through the female line, Princess Daella’s daughter, Aemma Arryn, but Daella had died of childbed fever, and Aemma had been raised by Queen Alysanne on Dragonstone.
After her marriage to Viserys the previous year, court etiquette had settled the matter of how she should be addressed.
Quentyn’s situation was different.
Princess Vaella still lived.
How one addressed the son of a living princess was no small matter at court.
“It’s not nearly as mysterious as you make it sound.” Quentyn eased himself free of the Grand Maester’s grasp with a wry smile.
“Daemon’s injury wasn’t especially complicated.
The important thing was to prevent corruption from setting in, remove the bone fragments and any contamination as quickly as possible, set the fracture, then repair the damaged blood vessel before closing the wound.” Elysar let out a long sigh.
“My boy…” “Even if we could accomplish only a fraction of what you describe, it would already be beyond the reach of most healers in the Seven Kingdoms.” The moment Quentyn outlined his method, Grand Maester Elysar forgot everything else.
His eyes lost focus as his thoughts raced, turning over every step Quentyn had described, testing whether such a treatment could truly be possible.
Quentyn took the opportunity to ease himself free of the old man’s grasp and walked over to Prince Baelon.
“The rest of Prince Daemon’s care can be left to any competent maester,” he said.
Then, after glancing at the still-distracted Grand Maester and his visibly shaken assistants, he lowered his voice.
“I would advise sending Daemon back to Dragonstone to recover as soon as possible.” He spoke in High Valyrian.
Recognition flickered across Baelon’s face.
Over the years, Quentyn had come to think of the Spring Prince as a far more perceptive man than history gave him credit for.
In his previous life, Baelon had always been a hazy figure in the chronicles, a prince whose untimely death set in motion the chain of events that would eventually lead to the Dance of the Dragons.
Yet after coming to know him in person, Quentyn had discovered a man who was far more than the fearless warrior his epithet suggested.
After all, few men would have dared strike Balerion the Black Dread with a clenched fist.
“You believe someone covets the blood of the dragon?” Baelon replied in the same tongue, his voice scarcely louder than a whisper.
“I don’t know,” Quentyn answered with a slight shake of his head.
“Perhaps Daemon’s claiming of a dragon today was chance.
Perhaps he merely chose to show off as he dismounted.
Perhaps Caraxes happened to land on loose gravel.
Perhaps there simply happened to be a large stone hidden there.
Perhaps it was mere chance that Maester Runeter, the finest surgeon in the Citadel, had already returned to Oldtown.” He met Baelon’s eyes.
“But when enough ‘chances’ gather in one place…” He let the thought speak for itself.
Baelon’s gaze sharpened at once.
He said nothing, though Quentyn could see the prince weighing every possibility.
Left to one side, Viserys looked from his father to Quentyn in bewilderment.
Unable to follow their conversation, he gave up trying and walked over to Daemon’s bedside instead.
The moment he saw his brother approaching, Daemon stopped groaning altogether.
Quentyn might have forbidden him from moving, but there was nothing wrong with moving his mouth.
He pulled a face at Viserys.
“Seven hells, it hurts,” he muttered, grinning despite himself.
“But, brother…
I’m a dragonrider now.” “I told you,” Viserys replied, exasperation plain in his voice, “not to attempt tricks before you’d properly bonded with your dragon.” “You never listen.” “That’s why Quentyn’s here, isn’t it?” Daemon answered without a trace of shame.
“Besides, now I can ride whenever I please.
Unlike you…” He smirked.
“Has the old monster still refused to leave the Dragonpit?” The smile vanished from Viserys’s face.
For an instant, disappointment clouded his eyes before irritation took its place.
“And if Quentyn hadn’t been in King’s Landing?” he shot back.
“By the time anyone fetched him from Harrenhal, you’d have lost your leg.” As the brothers bickered, Quentyn folded his arms.
“Oh?
Planning to ride again before that leg has healed?” he said dryly.
“In that case, you’d best choose between the two names I suggested.” “‘Daemon the Lame’ has a certain ring to it.” Daemon fell silent.
After satisfying himself that his son was truly out of danger, Baelon finally gave a slow nod.
“I’ll send Daemon back to Dragonstone to recover.” He paused before looking Quentyn squarely in the eye.
“Thank you…
Cousin.” There was a sincerity in his voice that needed no embellishment.
Yet as soon as the words left his lips, Baelon’s expression changed.
The matter of Daemon’s life had been settled.
Now another matter, no less important, weighed upon his mind.