Syrax

Rhaenyra chose Syrax's name herself, after an old deity worshipped in the Valyrian Freehold. The princess first flew her in 104 AC, at seven years old, and from that flight the two were bound together.

In 111 AC, during a stretch that prince Daemon spent in King's Landing, uncle and niece flew together almost daily on Caraxes and Syrax, racing each other to Dragonstone and back. Once Daemon later married Laena Velaryon, the three of them would often fly out together.

Syrax laid several clutches of eggs during those years. One egg from her last clutch went to Lady Rhaena Targaryen, and from it hatched the dragon Morning.

In 126 AC, ser Vaemond Velaryon told the court that Rhaenyra's children by ser Laenor Velaryon were in truth bastards fathered by ser Harwin Strong, hoping to claim the succession of Driftmark for himself. Rhaenyra answered by sending her husband, prince Daemon, to seize Vaemond and take his head.

The queen then had the body given to Syrax, who devoured it.

Giving birth to her daughter Visenya at the start of the civil war left queen Rhaenyra weakened and unable to fly. She did not mount Syrax again until 130 AC, when the war brought the black faction to attempt the taking of King's Landing.

Syrax flew over the capital alongside the other Black dragons, until prince Daemon signaled to Rhaenyra that it was safe to come down to the Red Keep.

Once in King's Landing, Syrax was kept within the walls of the Red Keep, in an outer-yard stable emptied of horses just for her. The chains holding her were long enough to let her move between the stable and the yard, but not enough to let her fly without a rider.

According to the fool Mushroom, a ser Byron Swann tried to kill the dragon while hiding behind a shield, so that she would see only her own reflection; Syrax burned him alive. Grand Maester Munkun claimed instead that Byron's target had been Vhagar, while septon Eustace pointed to Sunfyre.

During the storming of the Dragonpit, prince Joffrey Velaryon freed Syrax from her chains and climbed onto her without a saddle, hoping to rescue his own dragon Tyraxes, trapped inside. Syrax would not accept a rider who wasn't hers: she rolled in the air and threw him off.

Drawn perhaps by the smell of fire and blood, or by the screams of men and dragons, she came down at Rhaenys's Hill. There, without using her flames, she devoured half a dozen of the Shepherd's followers before she died.

The sources on the Dance disagree about how she died. Munkun blames Hobb the Hewer and his axe; other accounts speak of a giant spearman who leapt onto her back from a collapsed dome, or of ser Warrick Wheaton shearing off a wing with a blade of Valyrian steel. A crossbowman called Bean claimed credit for her death in taverns until a queen's man had his tongue cut out. The version most sung by singers has the Shepherd himself standing before her, praying to the Seven until the Warrior answered, descending as a twenty-foot figure who beheaded the dragon with a sword of black smoke.