House Dayne of Starfall

The story goes that it began with a stone that fell from the sky: it struck where Starfall now stands, and from inside it a Dornish knight drew a white metal unlike anything seen before. He forged it into a greatsword and named it Dawn. From that find came both the castle and the house that bears its name.

Unlike almost all their neighbours, the Daynes do not come from the Rhoynar but from the First Men, settled in the Red Mountains long before Nymeria's ships ever landed. That is why they are called the stony Dornishmen: people of the mountains, not of sand or river.

Before there was a united Dorne, the Daynes wore their own crown: kings of the Torentine, west of the Red Mountains. They fought for generations against the lords of the Reach, and their feud with House Oakheart ran so long it cost lives on both sides for centuries. One of those kings, Samwell Dayne, called Starfire, once set Oldtown itself ablaze.

The throne ended with Vorian Dayne, the Sword of the Evening, defeated when Nymeria brought her people to Dorne; the beaten king was sent to the Wall. Yet the Daynes did not step away from Dornish politics: they backed Nymeria against King Yorick Yronwood, and one of their own, Ser Davos Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, became her third husband. Even so, when Nymeria died, she was succeeded by the eldest daughter of her first marriage, Mors Martell, not by her son with Davos.

When Dorne rose against the Targaryens in the First Dornish War, it was a Dayne, Ser Joffrey, who marched an army to the very walls of Oldtown, burning villages and fields along the way.

During the reign of Maegor I, the name of Lady Clarisse Dayne, then Lady of Starfall, was put forward as a possible bride for the king. It was not only about giving him an heir: by marrying her to the throne in King's Landing, the crown hoped to pull Starfall away from the rest of Dorne and fold it into the Seven Kingdoms.

Another Dayne, Ser Ulrick, wielded Dawn with such skill that those who saw him fight ranked him among the most feared swordsmen of his day. It was Ser Eustace Osgrey who set that talent down for memory.

When the War of the Usurper broke out, the Daynes stood with the Targaryens, a loyalty that came at a heavy price: the house lost several of its own, among them Ser Arthur Dayne, the last known bearer of Dawn. Not long after, his sister Ashara took her own life, throwing herself into the sea from a tower of Starfall.

Today the house is led by Lord Edric Dayne, with his aunt Allyria Dayne as part of his household.

Lord Edric Dayne travels to King's Landing to attend the Tourney of the Hand, one of the rare occasions a Dayne of this generation is seen far from Dorne.

Arya Stark makes her way through the riverlands and comes upon the Brotherhood Without Banners; there she learns that Edric Dayne joined Lord Beric Dondarrion in his hunt for Ser Gregor Clegane. The ambush at the Mummer's Ford cost Beric his life, and it was Edric who guarded his body until Thoros of Myr brought him back.

Edric stays on with the survivors, now one of the Brotherhood, though he later drifts away from it once its leadership changes. Meanwhile, Ser Jaime Lannister, paging through the White Book of the Kingsguard, lingers on Arthur Dayne's name and recalls him with an admiration few others earn from him.

Far from Westeros now, Ser Barristan Selmy keeps returning to his defeat by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen at the Tourney of Harrenhal, and to everything that followed from it. Among his memories sits a gesture he never got to make: had he won the tourney, he had meant to crown Ashara Dayne Queen of Love and Beauty.