Sunspear

While Aegon the Conqueror was bringing the rest of Westeros to heel, he sent his sister Rhaenys to bring Dorne into the fold. She flew across the region on Meraxes and found every castle abandoned — the Dornishmen had pulled back rather than fight.

She reached Sunspear meaning to speak with Princess Meria Martell, who ruled the city at the time. The talk broke down, and Rhaenys left without a single bent knee: Dorne stayed outside the realm her brother was building.

Generations later, the young king Daeron I achieved what Rhaenys had not: Sunspear surrendered, and Dorne passed, at least on paper, into Targaryen hands.

The rule did not last. The city's submission proved as short-lived as it was fragile, and the crown soon lost the grip it had won through that surrender.

Under Aerys II's reign, the ruling princess of Dorne left the city to arrange her other children's marriages, leaving her heir, Prince Doran Martell, in charge of Sunspear as castellan.

Years later, once the war that put Robert Baratheon on the throne was over, the Hand of the King Jon Arryn traveled to the city. He carried the bones of Prince Lewyn Martell, killed in the fighting, and met with Doran to discuss how the war had ended.

Weakened by gout, Doran Martell left Sunspear to settle at the Water Gardens, away from eyes that might read his illness as weakness. His brother, Prince Oberyn Martell, was left in command of the city, visiting him once a week. As he explained afterward, Sunspear wore him down with its noise, its filth, its smells.

The rest of the governing was split among several trusted hands: a castellan, a seneschal, a treasurer overseeing the constables, and a maester who answered the letters. Arianne, the heir, was given charge of the feasts, the celebrations, and the welcome of the most distinguished guests.

Once her betrothal to Prince Trystane Martell was sealed, Princess Myrcella Baratheon was sent to Sunspear as a ward of House Martell. The arranged marriage tied the court of King's Landing's fortunes to Dorne's own.

Myrcella grew up in the city Oberyn administered on his brother's behalf, far from the mother who had sent her and the brother who sat the Iron Throne of Westeros.

When Doran Martell returned to Sunspear after his time at the Water Gardens, he locked away Oberyn's three eldest daughters in the Spear Tower. He feared their grief over their father's death would push them into a rebellion the city could not contain.

Later, after the attempt to crown Myrcella, he locked his own daughter Arianne in that same tower. The stronghold meant to protect the women of House Martell became, for them, a prison.

With the war for the throne well underway, Ser Balon Swann took the road to Sunspear carrying the skull of Ser Gregor Clegane, the man who had killed Oberyn Martell in single combat years before.

When he arrived, he found the city crowded: nearly all the nobility of Dorne had gathered at Sunspear, drawn there by matters as heavy as the skull the knight carried with him.