Rhaenyra Targaryen

Rhaenyra was born in 97 AC, the only daughter of Viserys Targaryen and his wife Aemma Arryn to survive childhood; an older brother had died as an infant. She bonded with the dragon Syrax and became a rider at seven, and a year later began serving as her father's cupbearer at table, at tourneys, and at court. From then on the king was rarely seen without her.

As a girl she grew fond of her uncle Daemon, who came back from his travels across the narrow sea with unusual gifts. At the tournament held at Maiden's Pool for Viserys I's coronation, Ser Criston Cole unhorsed Daemon in the melee and crowned Rhaenyra queen of love and beauty. Cole soon joined the Kingsguard, and Rhaenyra herself asked her father to name him her personal shield; the king agreed.

Late in 105 AC her mother died giving birth to a brother, Prince Baelon, who did not live past the next day. With the succession open again, and setting aside both King Jaehaerys I's earlier ruling and the Great Council of 101, Viserys named Rhaenyra Princess of Dragonstone and his heir. Hundreds of lords swore her their loyalty at King's Landing.

A year later the king married Alicent Hightower, daughter of his Hand, Otto Hightower. Rhaenyra got along with her stepmother at first, but the bond cooled once Alicent bore sons of her own, Aegon in 107 and Aemond in 110; Otto Hightower was eventually pushed out of court for pressing the succession question too hard, though the factions were already forming. At a tournament in 111, held for the couple's fifth anniversary, Rhaenyra wore Targaryen red and black against the queen's green, and from then on people spoke of Greens and Blacks; that day Criston Cole, wearing Rhaenyra's favor, unhorsed the queen's champions one after another.

In 113 AC, at sixteen, Rhaenyra took possession of Dragonstone as princess. Suitors came from across the realm: the sons of Lord Bracken and Lord Blackwood dueled over her by the Trident, a younger son of Lord Frey was bold enough to ask for her hand outright and was mocked for it ever after, and the twins Jason and Tyland Lannister competed for her at Casterly Rock. Even Harrenhal's heir, Ser Harwin Strong, swore himself to her; her father even considered marrying her to the Prince of Dorne.

The next year she married Ser Laenor Velaryon, though the king had to remind her what a threat Laenor posed to her claim before she agreed. Laenor preferred High Tide; Rhaenyra preferred the court. The marriage produced three sons, Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey, though the whole realm whispered their true father was Harwin Strong — all three were dark-haired, not silver like their parents of record. Anyone who said so openly risked Viserys's anger.

In 120 AC, Laenor, his sister Laena, and Harwin Strong all died. That same year Rhaenyra secretly married her uncle Daemon; some say to get ahead of a refusal from Viserys, others that Daemon had already gotten her with child. The news enraged the king, and it took time before he forgave them. The marriage gave her two more sons, Aegon and Viserys.

On the first day of 127 AC, Viserys gathered Rhaenyra and Alicent at a feast with their children and made each wear the other's colors. The princes shared bread, Daemon praised the Hand's work, and Otto returned the compliment; pleased, the king declared the old rivalry between the two factions settled.

Viserys I died in 129 AC. Though he had put his wish that Rhaenyra succeed him in writing, his Hand Otto Hightower and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Criston Cole, set that aside and crowned her half-brother Aegon instead. The Greens kept the news from spreading until Rhaenyra's supporters inside the Red Keep were dead or imprisoned.

Rhaenyra was at Dragonstone, awaiting her sixth child, when word finally reached her. She went into labor early and delivered a stillborn daughter, blaming the loss on those who had stolen her crown. Soon after, she too was crowned, wearing the same crown that Jaehaerys I and Viserys had worn, placed on her head by her husband Daemon.

King's Landing offered her terms: she and her heirs could keep Dragonstone if she gave up her claim. Rhaenyra refused. She knew there was no turning back from war now.

To win allies, Rhaenyra sent her son Jacaerys to treat with the Arryns, the Manderlys, and the Starks, and Lucerys to Lord Borros Baratheon at Storm's End. Luke's journey was thought the safer of the two, but he found one of Queen Alicent's sons had gotten there first. Unable to secure Lord Borros's support, he mounted his dragon Arrax for the flight home and was caught over Shipbreaker Bay; he did not survive. The news broke his mother.

Rhaenyra soon took King's Landing and ruled there for about half a year. She sat the Iron Throne to receive the oaths of those who had served the Greens, and the throne itself cut her legs and left hand; many took it as a sign the throne meant to refuse her.

She sent knights to hunt down those who had helped Aegon escape, and heads piled up along the city walls. The treasury Viserys had left full was empty — the Greens had carried off most of the gold and spent the rest. Her new master of coin, Lord Bartimos Celtigar, raised taxes again and again, and the people who had first welcomed her back turned against her, calling her, behind her back, 'King Maegor with teats'.

The queen grew increasingly suspicious and ended up declaring the two dragonseeds still loyal to her, Ser Addam Velaryon and a girl called Nettles, to be traitors. Her Hand, Lord Corlys Velaryon, who had made Addam his heir, warned him in time to flee on the dragon Seasmoke; Corlys was arrested for it, and the Velaryon fleet abandoned her cause.

Rhaenyra also asked Lord Manfryd Mooton to kill Nettles, who was under his roof and protected by guest right. Mooton refused, and once Daemon and Nettles had left his lands, he switched his loyalty to Aegon II — he would not do something neither Viserys I nor Jaehaerys I would ever have ordered.

A riot broke out in King's Landing after Helaena, Aegon II's sister and wife, took her own life; the smallfolk, who loved her, blamed Rhaenyra without proof, and how easily people believed it showed how far the city had turned against her. The unrest spread to the Dragonpit, and her son Joffrey died in the assault.

Rhaenyra fled the capital, refusing to let her one surviving son, young Aegon, out of her sight. She grew gray and gaunt crossing Rosby, Stokeworth, and Duskendale, and had to sell her crown to buy passage on a Braavosi trading ship.

At Dragonstone, one of her own knights, Ser Alfred Broome, betrayed her — his men killed the rest of her queensguard and handed her over as a prisoner. Aegon II ordered his dragon Sunfyre to devour her; badly wounded from the war, the dragon only reacted after catching the scent of blood from a stab wound Broome had given her in the chest. Sunfyre bathed her in flame and ate her in several bites, leaving only part of one leg. Her son Aegon the Younger was forced to watch, on the same day of the year she had been born, in 130 AC. Aegon II later decreed she had never been queen, and the court records name her only as princess.

Of her five sons, the three eldest died in the war; only the two she had with Daemon survived it. The Dance of the Dragons ended in 131 AC, when Aegon II died without a living son and the throne passed to the elder of those two boys, the child Aegon III. Years later, after both of Aegon III's sons died childless in turn, Rhaenyra's second son by Daemon would also reign, as Viserys II.