Battle at Rook's Rest

After becoming Hand of the King, Ser Criston Cole broke with the caution of his predecessor, Ser Otto Hightower, and set a different plan in motion: spring a trap on the Blacks at Rook's Rest while forcing the crownland houses still loyal to Rhaenyra Targaryen into submission. He marched out of King's Landing with a hundred knights, five hundred men-at-arms, and a swarm of sellswords three times that number — close to twenty-four hundred men in all.

Along the way he swept up, almost by force, the troops of Rosby and Stokeworth, whose lords had bent the knee shortly before to save their necks and now had to prove their loyalty with someone else's blood. With nearly three thousand men under his command he reached Duskendale, which fell with barely a fight; Lord Gunthor Darklyn lost his head for treason, and most of his knights chose to swear to Aegon II rather than die.

Rook's Rest held out behind closed gates, but Lord Staunton could not save his fields or his people from Cole's fire and steel. When hunger began to bite, he sent a raven to Dragonstone begging the queen for help.

Jace and Joffrey Velaryon wanted to fly to Staunton's aid, but their mother forbade it. Nine days after the message arrived, it was Rhaenys Targaryen who came alone over Rook's Rest, riding Meleys. Cole was waiting: his archers and scorpions loosed on the Red Queen without doing her much harm, and the dragon answered by burning the soldiers below her.

Then the trap closed: Aegon II and his brother Aemond appeared in the sky on Sunfyre and Vhagar and fell on Rhaenys. Three hundred feet up, the three dragons locked into a close fight, and when Meleys clamped her jaws around Sunfyre's neck, Vhagar dropped from above and dragged all three into the ground.

Vhagar and Aemond came away unscathed. Meleys was torn apart by the fall, Sunfyre lost half a wing, and Aegon II broke bones and suffered severe burns. Rhaenys's charred body was found beside her dragon's. Cole and the surviving Greens took Rook's Rest and put Lord Staunton and his hundred-man garrison to the sword.

A cart carried Lord Staunton's head to King's Landing alongside Meleys's. The sight of the dragon's skull dragged through the streets spread through the smallfolk like wildfire, and thousands fled the city until Alicent Hightower, now the dowager queen, had the gates barred.

Cole had lost eight hundred men to Meleys's fire. Aegon II spent a year laid up by his wounds, and his brother Aemond ruled as regent in the meantime. Sunfyre, with a shattered wing and too heavy to move, was left out in the fields near Rook's Rest, feeding on corpses and cattle.

For the Blacks, losing Rhaenys and Meleys was a blow they hadn't expected. Lord Corlys Velaryon openly blamed Rhaenyra, insisting that had the queen or her children flown out on their own dragons, his wife would still be alive. Later, Lord Walys Mooton tried to retake the stronghold for the Blacks and died attempting to kill Sunfyre.