Elys Arryn

Elys was born in 61 AC, the firstborn child of Lord Rodrik Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, who for years sat on King Jaehaerys I's small council as Chief Justiciar and Master of Laws. She had one sister, Amanda, and two brothers.

Her mother died before Elys turned twenty, leaving Lord Arryn a widower. He remarried within the royal family in 80 AC, taking as his wife Princess Daella Targaryen, the fourth daughter of King Jaehaerys and his sister-queen, Alysanne.

Lord Arryn soon stepped down from his seat on the small council: newly wed, he brought Daella back to the Eyrie, saying his children ought to get to know the woman their father was going to live with. Elys, three years older than her new stepmother, did not get along with her from the start.

A year and a half into the marriage, Daella fell pregnant and, frightened, sent for her mother, Queen Alysanne. As soon as the queen reached the Eyrie, Elys brushed off her stepmother's fears: 'you'd think she was the first woman ever to give birth.'

Daella gave birth to a girl she named Aemma, and did not live long after — childbed fever took her soon after the delivery.