Rhaella Targaryen

She was born around 245 AC, daughter of the then-prince Jaehaerys and his sister-wife, Princess Shaera. She had only one sibling, Prince Aerys.

As a girl, her ladies-in-waiting included Joanna Lannister, who came to the capital in 259 AC for the coronation of Jaehaerys II, and the mother of Prince Doran Martell. Before her wedding, Rhaella fell for Ser Bonifer Hasty, who won a tourney wearing her favor and crowned her Queen of Love and Beauty; the romance ended once he was judged too lowborn for a Targaryen princess.

On the advice of a woods witch close to Jenny of Oldstones, Prince Jaehaerys decided to marry off his children while they were still teenagers, against the wishes of King Aegon V, who washed his hands of the matter. By Ser Barristan Selmy's account, there was no affection between Aerys and Rhaella on their wedding day.

The Tragedy at Summerhall, which in 259 AC claimed the lives of Aegon V and his eldest son, Duncan the Small, made Aerys heir and Rhaella his future queen. That same day the couple's first child, Rhaegar, was born; many more heirs were expected of them, at a time when the Targaryen line had shrunk alarmingly.

The marriage was unhappy almost from the start. Rhaella overlooked most of Aerys's infidelities, but not his habit of taking her own maids as lovers, and the strain only grew as she failed to give him more children.

Between 263 and 273 AC she lost pregnancy after pregnancy: two miscarriages, a daughter stillborn in 267, a prince who lived barely half a year after his 269 birth, another stillborn boy in 270, a further miscarriage in 271, and a premature son who died within the year of his birth. Aerys grew convinced that none of the children had been his and accused the queen of infidelity, swearing before his Small Council that the gods would never let a bastard sit the Iron Throne.

From then on the king forbade her to leave Maegor's Holdfast and decreed that two septas share her bed each night to guard her fidelity.

In 274 AC Rhaella bore a son, and the joy seemed to restore something of Aerys's old self. The calm did not last: Prince Jaehaerys died months later, and the king, beside himself, had the boy's wet nurse beheaded before accusing his young mistress of poisoning him; she and her family were tortured into confessing, though their accounts never matched.

The following year Aerys fasted for two weeks and walked the length of the city to the Great Sept of Baelor to pray beside the High Septon. On his return he announced he would sleep only with his lawful wife, and from that reconciliation came, in 276 AC, Prince Viserys, small but sturdy.

The birth did not change the king's temper; he grew more suspicious still, setting Kingsguard knights to watch that no one, not even Rhaella, touched the baby without his leave.

In 280 AC Prince Rhaegar returned to the Red Keep to present his parents with his first child, Princess Rhaenys. Rhaella welcomed her warmly; Aerys refused to hold her, complaining that she smelled Dornish.

In the years that followed the distance between husband and wife only widened. They shared a bed only on nights Aerys had someone burned; Jaime Lannister recalled that such executions always excited him. The last time was after the burning of Lord Qarlton Chelsted: Ser Jaime, having heard the queen weeping that night, told Jonothor Darry, "We swore to protect her too."

The next day Rhaella was sent to Dragonstone to escape the siege closing in on King's Landing during the War of the Usurper. Her maids later said her body was covered in bruises, bite marks, and scratches.

Already at Dragonstone, Rhaella found she was pregnant again. Two weeks later the capital fell in the Sack of King's Landing, leaving her, her unborn child, and young Viserys as the only known living Targaryens.

When word of the sack reached her, Rhaella proclaimed Viserys king. She spent the rest of her pregnancy in the castle, where she gave birth to a daughter, Daenerys, and died shortly after from the birth.