Daeron Targaryen

He was born in King's Landing in 114 AC, the third child of King Viserys I and Queen Alicent Hightower, shortly before Rhaenyra gave birth to her own son, Jacaerys Velaryon. To head off rivalry between the two branches of the family before it took root, the king decreed that the two boys share a wet nurse and grow up as milk-brothers. The measure did little good: though the cousins shared feasts, lessons and arms practice together, the closeness only seemed to deepen the distance between them.

By six Daeron already had a dragon, Tessarion, though he had not yet flown her. At twelve his father sent him to Oldtown, where he entered Lord Hightower's household as cupbearer and squire.

Of the three children Viserys had with Alicent, he was the court's favourite: courteous, clever, and by the account of those who knew him, the gentlest of the brothers. Growing up under the shadow of two elder siblings left him more used to obeying than to commanding.

His father died in 129 AC while he was still a squire in Oldtown, and he is said to have wept at the news. The Dance of the Dragons was already under way, and Daeron won his spurs saving Lord Ormund Hightower at the Battle of the Honeywine. From then on he was called Ser Daeron the Bold.

After the victory, he answered Lord Ormund's praise with a line that stuck to him: "My lord is kind to say so, but the victory belongs to Tessarion."

Once Rhaenyra took King's Landing, Daeron came to be seen as the greatest threat to her rule. He stayed with Lord Ormund's army, flying Tessarion to scout ahead for them. Ormund fell at the Battle of Ladera and command passed to a cousin of his; the victory owed something to the so-called Two Traitors, who from then on refused to march on the capital unless their demands were met.

With Aegon II still missing after the fall of King's Landing, and Aemond dead at the Battle over the Gods Eye, Daeron now stood first in line for the throne. Lord Unwin Peake wanted him proclaimed Prince of Dragonstone at once; others, already counting Aegon II as good as king no longer, wanted him crowned outright. The Two Traitors could not agree on that point, and their arrogance so offended the lords and knights of the Reach — later known as the Thistles — that they began plotting to have the pair executed.

Daeron was asleep in his tent when the second Battle of Ladera began, in 130 AC, and he died in the fighting. Three conflicting accounts survive of how. The most widely told — spread by the man himself — has him running from his tent with his nightclothes on fire, meeting a Myrish sellsword named Black Trombo, who caved in his face with a spiked morningstar. A second version keeps the scene but swaps the weapon for a sword and the killer for an unnamed man-at-arms who never realized whom he had struck. The third leaves out any killer at all: his burning tent simply collapsed on top of him.

His body was never found. When Aegon II briefly retook the throne, he ordered giant statues raised in King's Landing for both Daeron and Aemond, but Ser Tyland Lannister halted the work during Aegon III's regency. With no corpse to settle the matter, several impostors would later come forward claiming to be the surviving prince during Aegon III's reign; Maester Yandel maintains it was conclusively shown that all of them were lying.