Deria Martell

The conflict between Dorne and the Iron Throne had dragged on for years when Prince Nymor Martell took power on the death of his mother, Princess Meria. Nymor chose to end the war through diplomacy and put his own daughter at the head of the embassy: Deria traveled to King's Landing with a retinue of Dornish nobles and an unusual gift for Aegon I, the skull of the dragon Meraxes.

The welcome was not friendly: Lord Oakheart suggested seizing the princess and sending her to a brothel, but the king refused and chose to hear her out. Deria was clear — Dorne wanted peace, not surrender. Aegon was about to reject the offer when she handed him a letter written by her father — "Only you may read it, Your Grace," she told him —. The king read it, burned it without revealing its contents, and flew to Dragonstone. He returned the next day and signed the peace with Dorne.

Deria inherited the title of Princess of Dorne a few years later, upon Nymor's death. When the treaty's tenth anniversary came, Aegon I flew with his son Aenys to Sunspear to celebrate their friendship with her.

In the first year of Aenys I's reign, a warlord known as the Vulture King gathered thousands of followers in rebellion against the Targaryens. The Martells stayed largely out of it: the rebel forces never set foot on Dornish soil, and Princess Deria kept assuring Aenys that her house wanted only peace and was doing everything it could to put down the uprising.

Not everyone believed her. Suspicion spread that Deria was playing both sides: condemning the rebels in public while sending them men, money, and supplies in private.