The Rise of the Dragon

With the deaths of three daughters in five years, Queen Alysanne was heartbroken and her thoughts turned to Saera, still prostituting herself in Lys. But when she begged Jaehaerys to bring their daughter home, the king refused, saying that King’s Landing had no need for more whores. Moreover, he pointed out that should Alysanne think to fly Silverwing to Lys on her own, the Lyseni would demand a ransom for Saera and might even seize Alysanne herself and demand an even greater ransom for her return. He considered Saera dead, and suggested Alysanne do the same. Defeated, the queen retired to Dragonstone, ending any thought of joining her husband on his planned progress to the westerlands in 88 AC.

Jaehaerys not only went on that progress alone but also extended it, taking far longer than originally planned. He refused to return to the Red Keep even when his sons implored him, continuing the progress through the entirety of 89 AC, during which he visited Highgarden, the Shield Islands, and Oldtown, with his granddaughter Princess Rhaenys joining him on Meleys, the dragon who had once carried Princess Alyssa. While visiting the seat of Lord Chester on Greenshield, Rhaenys informed her grandfather that she wished to marry Lord Corlys Velaryon, the famed Sea Snake, who had been serving as master of ships since the passing of Lord Manfryd Redwyne that same year, and he gave the match his blessing despite their considerable difference in age.

Viserra’s last ride.

Over time, Jaehaerys’s very public break from Queen Alysanne became known as the Great Rift, and would later be remembered as the First Quarrel. It ended only when Septa Maegelle scolded her father, reminding him that he was also called the Conciliator, and that it was time for him to conciliate with his wife. Her words bore fruit. Jaehaerys flew back to King’s Landing and the queen returned from Dragonstone; they were reconciled. In 90 AC, Jaehaerys and Alysanne together celebrated the marriage of the sixteen-year-old Rhaenys to the thirty-seven-year-old Lord Corlys, who was regarded as the greatest mariner the Seven Kingdoms had ever seen.

House Velaryon has a storied and noble history extending back to Valyria, and denizens of that house had come to Dragonstone even before the Targaryens, with whom they became closely allied. They were not dragonriders, but their ships controlled the waters about Driftmark and Dragonstone. Because of this, they would serve as the Iron Throne’s lord admirals and masters of ships so often that the offices came to be considered practically hereditary.

Corlys Velaryon was born in 53 AC, the grandson of Lord Daemon Velaryon by his eldest son Corwyn. He took a ship for the first time at the age of six, and thereafter made a voyage every year. By sixteen he was a captain, and soon came to be considered the most brilliant and extraordinary member of his famous family. His expeditions were famed in song and story, from the journey of the Ice Wolf in search for a northern passage to the nine extraordinary voyages on the ship he called the Sea Snake that would make him the first man of the Seven Kingdoms to set foot in Asshai. On his ninth and final voyage, he traveled to Qarth with enough gold to purchase twenty ships, hire crews, and fill their holds with spices, silk, and elephants. Though several ships foundered, the profits were so enormous that House Velaryon became the richest house in the realm for a time, even surpassing House Lannister and House Hightower. After this last great expedition, Corlys married Princess Rhaenys Targaryen in 90 AC.

When he inherited Castle Driftmark following Lord Daemon’s passing, he raised a new castle—less damp and cramped—on the opposite side of the island, which he named High Tide. Its pale stones and beaten silver roof made it one of the most beautiful castles in all of Westeros. The ancient Driftwood Throne, which legend said was a gift of the Merlin King, was moved into the new castle. Corlys used the wealth that remained to build more ships, and as master of ships he tripled the size of the royal fleet in less than two years. He would later build a fleet of merchantmen and trading galleys, and under his influence, the thriving town of Hull grew beneath the walls of Castle Driftmark, while a second called Spicetown arose near High Tide and soon received much of the shipping that had once gone to Duskendale and King’s Landing.

The wedding of Rhaenys Targaryen and Corlys Velaryon.

92 AC saw the aftermath of the Myrish Bloodbath infect the realm. The conflict had begun in 91 AC, when two factions fought for supremacy in Myr. When the losing faction was driven out, they attempted to establish themselves on the Stepstones instead, but the Archon of Tyrosh allied with a league of pirate kings and ejected them from that place as well. Desperate, the Myrmen invaded the isle of Tarth, taking control of the eastern side of the island. By this time, the exiled Myrmen were little better than pirates themselves, and neither Jaehaerys nor his council felt it would take much to drive them back to sea. Prince Aemon led the counterattack, supported by Lord Corlys Velaryon’s fleet and Lord Boremund Baratheon’s men, who would cross over to Tarth to join the levies of Lord Cameron, the Evenstar of Tarth.

On the ninth day of the third moon of 92 AC, Lord Corlys’s fleet set sail. Prince Aemon took his leave of Lady Jocelyn and his daughter Rhaenys, who had revealed she was with child by Corlys—though she had still offered to fly Meleys into battle. The journey to Tarth went smoothly, and Aemon landed in the Evenstar’s hidden encampment in the mountains of central Tarth. Yet later that evening, as Aemon was walking the camp with Lord Cameron, disaster struck. A pair of Myrish scouts had found the camp thanks to Caraxes’s flame, and one of them—seeing two lords walking unguarded—took aim at Lord Cameron of Tarth. But dusk and the distance took their toll, and the bolt instead pierced Prince Aemon’s throat. The prince drowned in his blood, dead at the age of thirty-seven.

Word of the prince’s death swept the Seven Kingdoms. Prince Baelon and Vhagar rained fire upon the Myrish ships in vengeance, while Lord Boremund and the Evenstar descended from the mountains. The ships burned and the Myrmen were cut down in the thousands during the rout.

The death of Prince Aemon.

In the aftermath of Aemon’s death, much began to change at court. Though Rhaenys was Prince Aemon’s only child and heir and had once been hailed as a queen-to-be, Jaehaerys determined that the realm would be better served by naming Baelon as Prince of Dragonstone and his heir instead, passing over both Rhaenys and the possible son she carried. (In fact, she bore a daughter later that year, whom she named Laena.) This angered Rhaenys and Corlys; the Sea Snake gave up his office as lord admiral and master of ships, and the pair returned to Driftmark. Queen Alysanne was displeased as well, which led to what became known as the Second Quarrel; she and the king spent the following year apart.

In 93 AC, the last year in which Queen Alysanne ever flew on Silverwing, the sixteen-year-old Prince Viserys became a dragonrider, claiming Balerion for himself. The huge dragon was no longer growing, was often sleepy, and seemed to no longer have the strength for long flights. No one knew that less than a year later Balerion would be dead, dying of the rarest of all causes for a dragon: old age.

But there would be other deaths at court in the years that followed. Septon Elysar died three and a half years later, and six moons after that, in 98 AC, Septon Barth—the long-time Hand of the King—also died. The court was filling with new men to replace the old, and by this time Jaehaerys—at almost sixty-four—was known as the Old King, and often remarked that he did not know the men who now filled his court. Ser Ryam Redwyne was made Hand of the King for a time, but proved ill-suited to the job, and the following year was replaced by Prince Baelon.

The last years of Queen Alysanne’s life were sad ones. She grew frailer after Prince Aemon’s death and her second estrangement from Jaehaerys. Though she did reconcile with Jaehaerys in 94 AC, again through the efforts of their daughter Maegelle, their relationship thereafter was tinged by sadness. In 95 AC, Alysanne broke her hip in a fall and required a cane to walk thereafter. Worst of all, more deaths came to her children. Septa Maegelle became afflicted with greyscale after a year spent nursing those with the disease. Her arms and legs turned to stone, and she died in 96 AC. Sadder still was the death of the sweet, simpleminded Princess Gael, the Winter Child. She vanished from the court in 99 AC and it was said that she died of a summer fever. Only after the passing of the king and queen was it revealed that she had been seduced by a singer, given birth to a stillborn child, then drowned herself in the Blackwater Rush.

No one knows how old Balerion was when he died. He was already a mature dragon when the Targaryens first came to Dragonstone in 114 BC, twelve years before Valyria’s Doom. His death in 93 AC meant it had been over two hundred years since his name had first entered the chronicles.

The death of Balerion.

Good Queen Alysanne passed away on Dragonstone, in the seventh moon of 100 AC, at sixty-four years old, and the entire realm mourned her passing. Only three of her children had survived her.

But some of her remaining children would not survive her long. The next year, complaining of a stitch in his side while hunting, Prince Baelon swiftly developed a severe pain in his belly, which then swelled and hardened. After five days, Prince Baelon the Brave, the Spring Prince, died in his bed in the Tower of the Hand.

After the funeral, the king had to decide what to do about the succession, which had become muddled since he had passed over Princess Rhaenys in 92 AC in favor of Baelon. Since then, Rhaenys had given birth to a son in 94 AC, whom she named Laenor. Rhaenys and Lord Corlys once again put forward her claim, and that of both of her children as well. Against them were weighed Baelon’s own sons, the Princes Viserys and Daemon, who were both men grown with wives of their own. Then there was Archmaester Vaegon, Jaehaerys’s sole surviving son—not yet forty. Vaegon had no interest in the crown, however, so he advised his father to call a great council of lords to decide the matter. This would avert the possibility of a violent contest, as rumors held that Corlys Velaryon was gathering his strength while Prince Daemon was recruiting men to fight on behalf of his elder brother, Viserys.

Half a year later, more than a thousand lords gathered at Harrenhal—the largest castle in the realm, and the only one capable of holding them all. In total, fourteen claims were put forward at the Great Council of 101 AC, and over thirteen days those claims were considered and debated. Nine lesser claimants were swiftly dismissed, and the claims of Archmaester Vaegon, Princess Rhaenys, and that of her daughter Laena were eventually dismissed as well. That left the contest between Prince Viserys on the one hand, and Princess Rhaenys’s son Laenor on the other.

Most lords seemed taken with the idea that the male line held precedence over the female line, and so favored Prince Viserys. The fact that Viserys had mastered Balerion before the dragon’s death was considered a further mark in his favor—especially as Laenor had not yet claimed a dragon. However, the wealth and power of the Velaryons was such that they could not be so quickly dismissed. In fact, they used their wealth and influence to gather several significant lords to their cause, including the lords of Storm’s End, Winterfell, and White Harbor. However, when the Great Council finally voted, Prince Viserys won handily.

The Great Council of 101 AC.

Jaehaerys himself had not been in attendance at the Great Council, not wanting to influence the proceedings. When word arrived of the selection, he bestowed the title of Prince of Dragonstone on Viserys. Thus, the Great Council of 101 AC was seen by many as having established a clear precedent: that the Iron Throne could never pass to a woman, nor through a woman to her male descendants.

Among the lesser claimants to the throne at the Great Council was a man who falsely claimed to have been King Jaehaerys’s bastard son, and another who claimed he was the bastard son of Maegor the Cruel but lacked sufficient proof. There was also a claimant who presented documents alleging he was in the direct line of descent from Gaemon the Glorious, thanks to a younger daughter and her petty lord husband.

More notable were three bastard sons of Princess Saera, each with a different father, who likewise presented their claims. As for Saera herself, she was happy with her rule over a famous pleasure house in Volantis and did not care to return to Westeros.

The final years of Jaehaerys’s reign were ones of gentle dotage. He selected the younger brother of Lord Hightower, Ser Otto, as Hand of the King. Ser Otto brought his wife and children to court, including his precocious fifteen-year-old daughter Alicent, whom the king took a liking to. Alicent would read to him at his bedside, and helped him to dress and bathe. Toward the end, Jaehaerys sometimes mistook her for one of his daughters.

King Jaehaerys, the First of His Name, passed away quietly in 103 AC, while Lady Alicent read to him. He had worn the crown for fifty-five years. His ashes were burned in the Dragonpit and interred with those of Good Queen Alysanne on Dragonstone.

Over the course of his reign, the realm had prospered greatly. The populace of the Seven Kingdoms (excluding Dorne, which still remained independent) had more than doubled, and the royal city of King’s Landing had quadrupled. Jaehaerys had crafted laws and roads that knit the realm together. He had reconciled the Faith with the Iron Throne, brought peace to the land, and secured the future succession. The Seven Kingdoms wept to see his passing.

What only became clear in hindsight was that Jaehaerys I’s peaceful reign had sown the seeds for the disaster that followed, eventually ripening into a crop of bloodshed and strife that would nearly destroy the Targaryen dynasty.

King Jaehaerys’s pyre.

The Great Tourney of 111 AC.

Rhaenyra and Syrax.

KING VISERYS, THE First of His Name—the choice of the Great Council of 101 AC and thus of the Old King—was crowned in 103 AC. At the time, he had been married to his cousin, Aemma Arryn—his aunt Daella’s only child by Rodrik Arryn—for a decade. (Since Aemma had been only eleven when she was wedded to the sixteen-year-old Viserys, the marriage had not been consummated until the bride had flowered, two years later.) Yet though Aemma had fallen pregnant on a number of occasions, Viserys had but a single heir when he ascended the throne: his daughter, Rhaenyra, born in 97 AC.

The histories often consider Viserys’s reign to be the peak of Targaryen power, thanks to the wide web of connections and marriages to various of the great houses; the numerous dragons and their eggs (several of the Targaryen she-dragons were regularly producing clutches); and the peace and prosperity that King Jaehaerys had left behind and which Viserys maintained with his open-handed generosity. Viserys was a genial king, well-loved by lords and smallfolk alike, and the Red Keep was filled with song and splendor under his and Aemma’s rule. But Viserys’s issue—or rather, the lack of any but Rhaenyra, since the female line had seemingly been declared unviable by the Great Council—would ultimately plant the seeds for the tumultuous Targaryen civil war that followed.

As the only living child of the king, the six-year-old Rhaenyra was treasured and adored. She was a precocious and beautiful child, and swiftly became known as “the Realm’s Delight.” She was bold as well, becoming a dragonrider at the age of seven when she took to the sky on the equally young dragon she had named Syrax, after an old Valyrian goddess. The next year, she became her father’s cupbearer and was constantly at his side at court.

Viserys delighted in hosting feasts and tourneys, and so left the rule largely to his small council, headed by his Hand, the increasingly imperious Ser Otto Hightower, who had served the Old King as well. Ser Otto was an ambitious man, and his ruthlessness—as well as Viserys’s reliance on him—earned him much enmity at court.

The Hand’s biggest detractor was the king’s own brother, Prince Daemon—the man who had been rallying swords to support Viserys’s claim at the Great Council. Prince Daemon was a deadly fighter—a knight since he was sixteen—and his prowess was such that King Jaehaerys had granted him the Valyrian blade Dark Sister. But he was also hot-tempered and mercurial—and ambitious. Many believed that he had supported his brother’s claim in large part to increase his own standing at court…and he greatly coveted the title of Prince of Dragonstone.

By this point in the Targaryen reign, enough dragon eggs were being produced that it became the custom to place an egg in the cradle of each newborn prince and princess. It was a tradition begun by Princess Rhaena many years before, when she placed eggs in the cradles of her younger siblings Jaehaerys and Alysanne, and had proved so successful that it was continued into the next generation. Not all the eggs hatched, but many did—and the children with living dragons inevitably bonded with the creatures, thus ensuring that a new generation of dragonriders was created.

A dragon egg in a cradle

The two Valyrian blades, Dark Sister and Blackfyre, were the pride of the Targaryen dynasty. Blackfyre was the King’s blade, borne by Aegon I and passed down to his heir, Aenys, who in turn gifted it to his more warlike half-brother Maegor instead. Maegor bore the blade throughout his own kingship, but it was stolen from him in the days before his death by his wife and niece Rhaena, when she fled King’s Landing for Dragonstone with her daughter, Aerea. When Jaehaerys returned to King’s Landing to be crowned, it was with Blackfyre at his side.

Dark Sister had initially belonged to Aegon’s sister, Visenya, though she gifted it to her son Maegor in 25 AC, on the occasion of his thirteenth nameday. Yet after Maegor received Blackfyre from the hand of his half-brother, he hung Dark Sister up on the walls of his chamber on Dragonstone and never touched that blade again. In the wake of Visenya’s death on Dragonstone, his half-brother’s widow, Queen Alyssa, fled the island with her children Jaehaerys and Alysanne—and Dark Sister.

Like Maegor before him, Jaehaerys for a time possessed both blades, but eventually granted Dark Sister to his second son, Prince Baelon, and then later to Baelon’s son Daemon.

Dark Sister

But giving his brother Dragonstone seemed a step too far for King Viserys, who did not want to name Daemon his heir, as the title of Prince of Dragonstone had long indicated. Indeed, one of his first acts when he ascended the Iron Throne was to deny Daemon’s request to put aside his marriage to his “bronze bitch”—Rhea of House Royce, the Lady of Runestone. They had wed in 97 AC, but the match was a failure, and the prince complained endlessly about both the Vale of Arryn and his wife. Yet though his petition was denied, Viserys did summon his brother back to court and granted him offices: master of coin for a year and master of laws for half a year. In both cases, Prince Daemon was ill-suited to these duties, and it was Ser Otto Hightower who convinced Viserys to relieve him again of those positions. The king then made his brother Commander of the City Watch—a duty that Daemon greatly preferred.

At the time, the watchmen of the city were something of an afterthought, poorly trained and poorly equipped. But that all changed when Daemon became their leader, extracting funds to train and equip them properly, and giving them the black armor and the eponymous gold cloaks that they would wear forever after. He would prove an exacting and brutal enforcer of the peace, as well as a regular presence in the wine sinks, gambling halls, and brothels of the city. He would become known as the Prince of the City at court, and the Lord Flea Bottom by the smallfolk of King’s Landing. It was in the city’s brothels that Prince Daemon first became acquainted with Mysaria: a beautiful, milk-pale dancing girl from Lys. Rivals and enemies would call her Misery, the White Worm, after she later became his spymaster.

His position as Commander of the City Watch seemed to satisfy Daemon for a time, but it did not satisfy the Hand of the King. Daemon now commanded two thousand men who could be expected to support him should anything befall Viserys and should Daemon attempt to seize the throne. Ser Otto hated Prince Daemon, seeing in him the seeds of a second Maegor the Cruel, so he strongly favored Princess Rhaenyra to inherit, writing: “Better the Realm’s Delight than Lord Flea Bottom.” Though this flew in the face of the Great Council of 101 AC, which decreed that all male claimants to the throne prevail over the female line, Ser Otto and his supporters held to their preference.

The year 105 AC was a significant one in the history of Viserys’s reign, though it was not immediately evident, as events at court proceeded apace. Queen Aemma was again with child. Ser Criston Cole—the handsome son of a steward in the service of Lord Dondarrion of Blackhaven—had just won renown in a tourney at Maidenpool at the age of three-and-twenty, by defeating Prince Daemon in the melee, knocking Dark Sister from his hand. And, in the jousting, he had unhorsed both the prince and the twin Kingsguard knights Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk Cargyll. Not only did Viserys grant Ser Criston a place in the Kingsguard as a result, but he also made him personal shield and protector of Princess Rhaenyra—who was smitten with the handsome Marcher knight and had personally requested the assignment.

Soon after, the big, balding Lord of Harrenhal, Lyonel Strong, was made master of laws. Though he had a reputation as a warrior, he was also a notably learned man who had forged six links in his maester’s chain before giving up his studies at the Citadel. With him came his sons—Ser Harwin Strong, known as Breakbones, and the clever Larys Strong, known as Larys the Clubfoot. Ser Harwin became an officer in the gold cloaks while Larys served as one of the king’s confessors, tasked with interrogating and torturing prisoners.

But tragedy struck late in 105 AC, when Queen Aemma delivered a child—a son named Baelon—and died in the process. Her infant son followed her a day after. The king and the court mourned—all except for Prince Daemon, who was reported to have made japes about the death of his nephew. When the king learned of it, he grew livid. After the period of mourning for his wife was over, he quickly resolved the issue of succession by formally acknowledging Rhaenyra as Princess of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne, summoning hundreds of lords great and small to do obeisance to her and swear to defend her right to the throne should any challenge it.

Notably, Prince Daemon was not among those who swore the oath, having taken Mysaria back to Dragonstone with him; half a year later, it was reported that she was with child. When word reached the king’s ears that Daemon had given Mysaria a dragon egg to mark the occasion, he commanded that the egg be returned, Mysaria sent back to Lys, and Daemon reunited with his estranged wife in the Vale. Mysaria’s journey across the narrow sea was a difficult one, and a tumultuous storm led her to lose the child she carried. Prince Daemon never forgave his brother for this, and would brood on the succession ever after.

Piracy in the Stepstones.

ONCE VISERYS PUT aside mourning for his wife, many in the realm wished to see him wed and father more heirs, thus driving Daemon further down the line of succession. Some advised that he wed Laena Velaryon, the beautiful maiden daughter of Lord Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake, and Princess Rhaenys, the Queen Who Never Was. At twelve, Laena was already a dragonrider, having claimed the great Vhagar as her own in the wake of Baelon’s death. However, Viserys had set his mind on Alicent Hightower, the daughter of the Hand of the King. Though no one could doubt Alicent’s high birth—and the prestige, power, and wealth of the Hightowers—some thought Ser Otto had gone too far by putting forward his own daughter. And on Driftmark, the news was not met happily either by Lord Corlys or his wife—though it was reported that Lady Laena mostly seemed indifferent.

On the day of King Viserys’s wedding to Lady Alicent in 106 AC, neither Prince Daemon nor Lord Velaryon were present at the festivities. They were on Driftmark instead, holding a war council to discuss the disposition of the Stepstones. This rocky chain of islands that lay between Dorne and the Disputed Lands had long been home to outlaws and corsairs, and merchant ships traversing those waters were often preyed upon by the islands’ inhabitants.

The Stepstones, at the time, were under the control of the Kingdom of the Three Daughters: the “eternal alliance” of the Free Cities of Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh that had defeated the Free City of Volantis ten years earlier. With a fleet under the command of the notorious Myrish admiral Craghas Drahar—known as Crabfeeder after he had staked out hundreds of captives on beaches so that they would drown beneath the rising tide—this new alliance had conquered and annexed the Stepstones, destroying the pirates.

The Kingdom of the Three Daughters was how the alliance between Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh was known in Westeros—though it was also more rudely called the Kingdom of the Three Whores. The alliance, however, called themselves the Triarchy.

The Seven Kingdoms had initially welcomed the end to piracy that the Triarchy provided. With the waters around the Stepstones now safe from predation, merchants happily paid the tolls that the Triarchy required. But before long, Craghas Crabfeeder and his allies became increasingly rapacious, raising the tolls repeatedly—and ruinously. Drahar and his co-admirals seemed to be vying for who could be greediest—and the Lyseni ships demanded not only the toll but also comely maidens, women, and young boys, who were then sent to serve in their pleasure gardens and pillow houses.

Lord Corlys was interested in defeating the Kingdom of the Three Daughters because the tolls weighed especially hard on him and the many merchant vessels he funded. Prince Daemon, however, was eager for wealth and for glory—so he agreed to lead an army that Lord Corlys’s fleet would take to the Stepstones. Though they were outnumbered by the forces of the Triarchy, they had one thing that the Free Cities did not: Caraxes, the Blood Wyrm, Prince Daemon’s lean and terrible dragon. In 106 AC, after recruiting an army of sellswords and younger sons, they launched their war on the Stepstones.

The niece of the Lord of Stonehelm, Johanna Swann, was taken at fifteen and sold into a pillow house, but soon rose to become a famous courtesan known as the Black Swan. In time, she would come to practically rule Lys.

Over the course of two years, they would win a number of victories, including the battle in 108 AC where Prince Daemon single-handedly slew Craghas Crabfeeder. By 109 AC, Lord Corlys and Prince Daemon controlled all but two of the Stepstones both by land and sea, opening the way for the unfettered passage of merchant ships once more. During a brief lull in the fighting, Prince Daemon declared himself King of the Stepstones and the narrow sea, and was so crowned by Lord Corlys.

The fighting resumed the next year in 110 AC, as the Triarchy sent new forces under the command of Racallio Ryndoon—a flamboyant Tyroshi captain—augmented by knights and spears dispatched by the Prince of Dorne, who had decided to join the fight against Daemon and Corlys. During this time, Viserys regularly provided gold for his brother’s war on the Stepstones, and seemed pleased that Daemon had found a diversion that kept him from causing trouble at court. And indeed, the years of the fighting were fruitful for the Targaryen dynasty, as Queen Alicent swiftly gave birth to a living son, named Aegon after the Conqueror, in 107 AC. He was followed by a daughter, Helaena, in 109 AC, and another son, Aemond, the following year. Despite the birth of Alicent’s sons, however, Rhaenyra remained Princess of Dragonstone and began to attend the small council meetings with her father. Though some wondered whether Viserys would now pass over his daughter for his sons, the king considered the matter settled. Rhaenyra was his heir. In 109 AC, when Queen Alicent pressed the point with the support of her father, Ser Otto, the king grew angry and stripped Otto of his office, naming Lyonel Strong in his place.

Though Ser Otto returned to Oldtown following his dismissal, the queen still had supporters who adhered to her view that Aegon, not Rhaenyra, should be Viserys’s heir. But Princess Rhaenyra, now in her teens, had her own supporters. The tensions between Rhaenyra and her stepmother played out at feasts and tourneys…and any other noble gathering. At a great tourney in 111 AC, celebrating the fifth anniversary of the king’s marriage, Queen Alicent appeared dressed all in green while fourteen-year-old Rhaenyra was clad in the red and black of House Targaryen. Ser Criston Cole, wearing the princess’s favor, defeated all the knights of the queen’s faction that he faced. After this, their factions received formal names: the greens and the blacks.

The other notable event to come out of the tourney was the return of Prince Daemon, swooping in on Caraxes and then kneeling to his brother while offering him the crown of the Kingdom of the Stepstones and the narrow sea. The king returned the crown to his brother and embraced him, and thus they were reconciled.

The following half-year saw Daemon back on the small council and returning to his old ways, haunting the stews and brothels of the city. Yet he also spent a deal of time with Princess Rhaenyra—dining with her, giving her gifts, recounting his adventures, and racing on his dragon Caraxes against her and Syrax. But then, as suddenly as he had appeared, Daemon left King’s Landing and returned to the Stepstones, to resume defending his erstwhile kingdom.

The accounts differ as to the reason for his abrupt departure. Grand Maester Runciter, whose chronicles of the time were often dry and circumspect, merely wrote that there was a quarrel between Viserys and his brother. Septon Eustace, who served in the royal sept and as a confidant to the king and his queens—and whose piety is evident his writings—suggested that the prince had seduced his own niece and was ordered to leave the Seven Kingdoms when he was discovered. Mushroom, the three-foot tall dwarf court jester—who many believed to be feeble-minded but in fact observed (and embellished) every scandal with glee—reported in the Testimony of Mushroom that Rhaenyra’s heart was set on seducing Ser Criston Cole of the Kingsguard, and that Prince Daemon had offered to school her in the ways of love so that she could succeed. Mushroom went on to claim that he was personally involved in some of the lessons, and described their activities in preposterous detail. According to the jester, matters came to a head when the princess finally attempted to seduce Ser Criston, who was horrified and spurned her, which is how word got back to the king.

Regardless of the truth of these varied accounts, Daemon’s return to the Stepstones led to quiet at court…for a time. 112 AC saw the deaths of Grand Maester Runciter and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Harrold Westerling. Maester Mellos was dispatched from the Citadel to become the new Grand Maester, and Ser Criston was named the new Lord Commander.

Rhaenyra and Alicent.

In 113 AC, matters changed again when Rhaenyra reached her sixteenth nameday, formally taking charge of Dragonstone as her seat. Up to this point, she had been the most desirable maiden in the Seven Kingdoms, and lords and the sons of lords had all vied for her attention. Queen Alicent had proposed betrothing her son Aegon to the princess, despite the ten-year difference between them, but King Viserys opposed the match. The two did not care for one another, and he could see his queen’s ambition to put her own blood on the Iron Throne. Instead, a different scion of Valyria became Rhaenyra’s husband: Laenor Velaryon, the son of Lord Corlys and Princess Rhaenys, who had been passed over by the Council of 101 AC. Laenor was handsome lad of nineteen years now, and the only concern with the match was that he had shown no interest in women to date, surrounding himself solely with handsome young squires. But this concern was dismissed after Grand Maester Mellos weighed in, noting that he himself did not like fish but would still eat fish if it was served to him.

Among the suitors for Rhaenyra’s hand were the sons of Lords Bracken and Blackwood, who fought a duel over her; a younger son of House Frey called Fool Frey for having openly asked for her hand; the twins Ser Jason and Ser Tyland Lannister; the sons of Lords Tully, Tyrell, Oakheart, and Tarly; and Ser Harwin Strong, Lord Lyonel’s son and heir, who was regarded as the strongest man in the Seven Kingdoms.

Daemon and Rhaenyra aloft.

The accounts again differ on what happened once the decision was made. Rhaenyra had not been consulted, and at first protested the match. When King Viserys threatened to name Prince Aegon his heir, however, Rhaenyra submitted to her father’s choice. Septon Eustace later claimed that Ser Criston Cole—at last moved by the thought of his princess becoming another man’s wife—offered to steal her away to the Free Cities and marry her, but that Rhaenyra rejected him. Mushroom, on the other hand, claimed that Rhaenyra instead slipped into the White Sword Tower, took off her cloak to reveal her nakedness, and attempted to give her maidenhead to Ser Criston, only for him to reject her. Mushroom would claim that, in her fury, she donned her cloak and left, only to come across a drunken Ser Harwin who was all too happy to deflower the willing princess. In his Testimony, Mushroom claimed that he personally found them in bed the next morning. Regardless of which account is true, the result was that Ser Criston Cole came to loathe and detest the princess, becoming her bitterest enemy at court.

Princess Rhaenyra wed Ser Laenor—knighted only a fortnight prior to the marriage—in King’s Landing early in 114 AC. Seven days of feasting and tourneys followed, with many great champions taking part. Among them was Ser Joffrey Lonmouth, called the Knight of Kisses, who was Laenor’s favorite. When Princess Rhaenyra gave a garter to her new champion, Ser Harwin Strong, Laenor laughed gave his own garter to Ser Joffrey. Yet Ser Criston Cole—now carrying Queen Alicent’s token—fought with a black fury and defeated all who stood before him. Breakbones was swiftly dubbed “Brokenbones” by Mushroom after Ser Criston broke his collarbone and shattered his elbow, while the Knight of Kisses died six days after having his helmet—and the skull beneath—crushed. Ser Laenor spent every hour by Joffrey’s bedside and was said to have wept when he expired.

Ser Laenor’s departure for Driftmark immediately following Joffrey’s death led to questions as to whether or not the marriage had been consummated. Rhaenyra remained at King’s Landing with Ser Harwin constantly at her side, while Laenor, at High Tide, eventually found a new favorite in a knight named Ser Qarl Correy. Ser Laenor would appear at court for important events, but it was widely reported that he shared Rhaenyra’s bed on only a few occasions. Despite this, the princess was soon announced to be with child, and a son named Jacaerys (rather than Joffrey, as Laenor had requested), was born late in 114 AC; he would be known to friends and family as Jace. All who saw Jace noticed that he was brown of hair and eye, with a pug nose—unlike Laenor, who had the look of a dragonlord of Old Valyria, with silver-white hair, an aquiline nose, and purple eyes.

The court was still rejoicing over the birth of the princess’s child when her stepmother, Queen Alicent, also went into labor, delivering Viserys his third son, Daeron…whose coloring, unlike that of Jace, testified to his dragon blood. By royal command, the infants Jacaerys Velaryon and Daeron Targaryen shared a wet nurse until weaned. It was said that the king hoped to prevent any enmity between the two boys by raising them as milk brothers. If so, his hopes proved to be sadly forlorn.

Late in 115 AC, Lady Rhea Royce, of Runestone, fell from her horse while hawking and cracked her skull. She died nine days later. Word eventually reached the isle of Bloodstone, where Daemon still struggled to hold on to his kingdom against renewed assaults by the Triarchy and their Dornish allies. Daemon immediately departed for the Vale, claiming it was to see Lady Rhea buried properly, but in truth he was more concerned with attempting to lay claim to her lands and income. But Lady Rhea’s nephew inherited instead, and Lady Jeyne Arryn denied Daemon’s appeal, saying he was no longer welcome in the Vale.

Defeated, Daemon flew to Driftmark to visit Lord Corlys and his family, and there he set eyes on Laena Velaryon—then only twenty-two years of age, slim, tall, and exquisitely beautiful, with the silver-gold hair and purple eyes of the Valyrians. She had inherited her mother’s beauty along with her father’s adventurous spirit, and since the age of twelve had been the mistress of Vhagar—the largest and oldest of the Targaryen dragons, since the passing of Balerion in 94 AC.

After Daemon effectively abandoned the Kingdom of the Stepstones and the narrow sea, five other men succeeded him. Their reigns were brief and bloody, and in the end the sellsword “kingdom” was consigned to history.

The singers would claim that Daemon fell instantly in love, but at court it was speculated that his interest in Laena was more one of ambition, given how far he had fallen down the line of succession. By marrying Laena, he would bind himself to the wealthy and influential House Velaryon. The only difficulty was that Laena had been betrothed for the past decade to a son of the Sealord of Braavos—though that young man had turned out to be a spendthrift, drunken fool, and Lord Corlys had repeatedly delayed the marriage. Daemon solved the problem by provoking his rival into a duel. Wielding Dark Sister, Daemon killed his rival with ease and two weeks later was married to Laena. After this, he would never return to his kingdom on the Stepstones again.

Daemon at Driftmark.

Following the wedding—and expecting King Viserys’s disapproval of the marriage—Daemon took his bride to Essos to tour most of the Free Cities, flying on Caraxes and Vhagar to Pentos, and then from there to Volantis, Qohor, and Norvos. When they returned to Pentos, Laena discovered that she was pregnant. She gave birth in 116 AC to twin daughters who were named Baela and Rhaena, after Prince Baelon and Princess Rhaenys. Though small and sickly to begin with, they survived, and in time the family traveled back to Driftmark—Laena and the infants by ship, while Daemon flew on Caraxes with Vhagar following. Daemon asked to present his children and bride to the king, and Viserys consented despite the protests of his small council, believing that fatherhood would change his brother. And so they were reconciled yet again.

Daemon duels the Sealord’s son.

While Daemon and his bride traveled and had their first children, Princess Rhaenyra gave birth to a second son in 115 AC, whom she named Lucerys. Called Luke for short, he was a robust child, with brown hair and eyes like his elder brother. The same applied to Rhaenyra’s third son, Joffrey (named, at last, for Ser Laenor’s beloved Knight of Kisses), born in 117 AC. Rumors among the greens ran rife, that Harwin Strong must be the true father of the three boys with such “common”—and similar—features. However, King Viserys was delighted by his grandsons and did not heed the speculations. He decreed that each boy should have a dragon egg in his cradle. This was done, and each of the boys’ dragons hatched: Jacaerys claimed Vermax, Lucerys claimed Arrax, and Joffrey claimed Tyraxes.

Over time, Princess Rhaenyra became close friends with her good-sister, Lady Laena, and spent more and more time with both Laena and Prince Daemon, flying to and fro between Driftmark and Dragonstone. During this period, Rhaenyra’s dragon Syrax laid several clutches of eggs, doubtless the result of matings with Caraxes. In 118 AC, Rhaenyra’s eldest sons were betrothed to the twin daughters of Prince Daemon and Lady Laena. 119 AC was a year of hope and joy, as Laena was once more with child. The next year, however, would be remembered forever after as the Year of the Red Spring.

Lady Laena gave birth on the third day of 120 AC, with Prince Daemon and Princess Rhaenyra in attendance. The child was a son, as the prince had hoped, but he was malformed and died within the hour. Lady Laena then fell ill to childbed fever, and despite the attendance of skilled midwives and learned maesters—including the renowned Maester Gerardys, summoned from Dragonstone by the princess—passed away three days later. She was only twenty-seven years old. Daemon and Rhaenyra sat vigil together.

And this was not to be the only tragedy of the year. While House Velaryon was still in mourning, Ser Laenor was murdered while visiting a fair at Spicetown by Ser Qarl Correy, who stabbed him to death. (It was said they were quarreling before blades were drawn.) Correy fled and allegedly found a ship to carry him from Westeros; he was never heard from again. The reasons for the quarrel are unknown, but Septon Eustace suggested that Laenor had found a new favorite, while Mushroom believed Daemon had paid Correy to kill Laenor and then had disposed of him by cutting his throat and throwing his body into the sea. It was known that Correy, a household knight of lower birth, had extravagant tastes and a fondness for making large wagers, but that alone is not proof of Mushroom’s claims.

The next tragedy that followed was at High Tide itself, immediately following Ser Laenor’s funeral. There were so many dragons gathered there that Eustace wrote that Driftmark had become a new Valyria. Among those with dragons were Queen Alicent’s children: Prince Aegon had a beautiful golden dragon named Sunfyre, Helaena rode Dreamfyre (once Queen Rhaena’s dragon), and young Daeron had the she-dragon Tessarion. Only Aemond did not have a dragon…a matter he tried to rectify when he snuck away from his bedroom at dawn to approach the great dragon Vhagar in the outer yard of the castle. However, Joffrey Velaryon—always an early riser—had arrived before him, to visit with Tyraxes, and he shouted at Prince Aemond to stay away from his dead aunt’s dragon. Aemond shoved him aside, then ran to Vhagar, climbing onto her back. The dragon lurched up into the sky, snapping her chain, and so Aemond became a dragonrider.

When he landed, Joffrey’s brothers were waiting for him. Though they were six, five, and three to his ten years, there were three of them, all armed with wooden swords from the training yard. They set on him. But what started as a scuffle soon turned darker, as Aemond mocked Rhaenyra’s sons to their faces, calling them “the Strongs.” In a rage, Jace charged at Aemond, while Luke took a dagger from his belt and slashed at Aemond’s face, taking out his right eye. Stableboys broke up the fight and King Viserys was wakened to the news of the brawl between his son and grandsons. Queen Alicent was so angry she demanded that Lucerys be blinded in turn. Rhaenyra wanted Aemond interrogated, to reveal where he had learned to call her sons the “Strongs.” (Prince Aegon was revealed to be the source, but he said that everyone knew it was true just by looking at them.)

The murder of Laenor Velaryon.

Luke removes Aemond’s eye.

King Viserys put an end to debate. He refused to blind anyone, but threatened to tear the tongues out of any man, woman, or child—no matter what their station—if they called his grandsons the “Strongs” again. To make sure peace was maintained, he dispatched Alicent and her children back to King’s Landing, ordered Rhaenyra and her children to remain at Dragonstone, and sent Ser Harwin Strong back to Harrenhal. But that led to the next tragedy of the year: the death of the Hand, Lord Lyonel Strong, and his son Harwin shortly after Harwin’s return to Harrenhal. They both fell victim to a fire that broke out in the tower in which they slept. Again, speculation was rampant about the cause of the fire: a simple mishap; the work of Prince Daemon, wishing to remove a rival for Rhaenyra’s affection; the devious action of the younger son Larys the Clubfoot, to make himself Lord of Harrenhal; or even King Viserys, having decided to remove the man that many claimed was the father of his grandchildren.

With Lord Lyonel dead, Viserys recalled his queen’s father from Oldtown and made Ser Otto Hightower the Hand of the King once more. By this time, Viserys was very stout, gouty, and tired easily, so it was imperative to have an experienced Hand to take up the burden. But almost immediately, a new crisis faced the court as Princess Rhaenyra announced that she had married her uncle, Prince Daemon. There was a great deal of outrage—not least because both Laenor and Laena had been dead for less than half a year. But though the speedy marriage had been conducted in secret, the king was reluctant to undo it. Mushroom suggests the haste was because Rhaenyra was already with child. Whether true or not, late in 120 AC Rhaenyra gave birth to a son of pure and incontrovertible Targaryen lineage, with his pale skin, purple eyes, and silver hair, whom she dared to name Aegon—much to Queen Alicent’s outrage.

In 122 AC, Rhaenyra gave birth to another son, Viserys. He was smaller and less robust than his brother, but he survived and proved precocious. However, he was the first Targaryen child whose dragon egg never quickened when placed in his cradle.

Later that year, Prince Aegon the Elder wed his sister Helaena. The prince was a sulky and lazy youth of fifteen, with appetites for food, gambling, and women, while at thirteen Helaena was soft, plump, and cheerful. A year later, in 123 AC, Helaena gave birth to twins, naming them Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. The greens were pleased that Prince Aegon now had his own heirs, making it even more reasonable for him to be named Prince of Dragonstone, but Viserys ignored the hints. As for the children, they were unusual: Jaehaerys had six fingers on his left hand and six toes on his feet, but was otherwise healthy and strong, while Jaehaera was very small and almost entirely silent in her infancy, neither crying nor smiling nor babbling. A third child, a boy named Maelor, followed in 127 AC.

However, in 126 AC, a new crisis developed when Lord Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake, became dangerously ill with a fever. The laws of succession held that Jacaerys should be his heir, but because of Jace’s status as Rhaenyra’s heir to the Iron Throne, she recommended Lucerys be named heir instead. But Lord Corlys’s kin objected to any of her sons being named heir, because of the still-open question of their paternity.

Lord Corlys had many nephews, and the loudest was Ser Vaemond Velaryon, who loudly claimed that Harwin Strong was the true father of Rhaenyra’s sons. In response, Rhaenyra had Prince Daemon seize and behead the man before feeding his corpse to Syrax. Others of Corlys’s nephews, and the wife and sons of the late Vaemond, ran to King’s Landing—both to hide from Rhaenyra’s wrath and to seek out the king’s aid. Viserys heard out the complaints and accusations, then ordered the men’s tongues to be torn out, calling them liars.

In the wake of this proclamation, Viserys accidentally cut his hand as he descended the Iron Throne. Though tended to by Grand Maester Mellos, the wound became so infected and the king so feverish that some feared he would die. To save his life, Rhaenyra’s celebrated Maester Gerardys intervened, amputating two of the king’s fingers. Though Viserys eventually recovered from the ordeal, he never again sat the Iron Throne, instead holding court in his solar or even his bedroom.

On the first day of 127 AC, Viserys ordered a great feast to try to forge a peace between the warring factions at court. The maesters’ chronicles suggest it was a success, but Mushroom recounts that, after the king departed, Aemond issued a toast to the “three strong boys.” And Jace and the elder Aegon almost came to blows over Jace asking Princess Helaena—Aegon’s sister and wife—for a dance.

Not long after, Grand Maester Mellos died, and a new bone of contention arose as to who his successor should be. Rhaenyra and her blacks preferred that Maester Gerardys be selected, while Queen Alicent and her greens wanted Maester Alfador, who served at the Hightower. Viserys dodged the matter by emphasizing the independence of the archmaesters at Oldtown, stating he had no say in the result. Archmaester Orwyle was chosen by the Conclave and was dispatched to King’s Landing. Viserys’s health seemed to improve under Orwyle’s care…but only for a brief time. As his vitality continued to drain away, the king left more and more of the governance of the realm to Ser Otto Hightower and the small council.

By the second moon of 129 AC, Viserys had lost his appetite and was confined to his bed. On the third day of the third moon of 129 AC, after telling his young grandchildren fanciful stories of Jaehaerys the Old King waging war against giants and wargs beyond the Wall, the king sent his family away so he could rest. He never woke again. He was fifty-two years old at his death, and had reigned for twenty-six years.

The coronation of Aegon II.

The conspiracy begins.

THE SAME EVENING that King Viserys died, his body was discovered by a servant who ran to inform Queen Alicent—and Queen Alicent alone. Whether it was because the queen had ordered Viserys’s guards and servants to report solely to her, or because she had hastened his death, Alicent now had the upper hand over her rival. Princess Rhaenyra—Viserys’s chosen heir—was away on her seat of Dragonstone, on the verge of giving birth to her sixth child. In the middle of the night, the queen and Ser Criston Cole took charge of the king’s chambers, then sent the other Kingsguard knights to summon the small council.

The knights of the Kingsguard were not all in King’s Landing at the time of Viserys’s death. Two—Ser Erryk Cargyll and Ser Lorent Marbrand—were on Dragonstone with Rhaenyra. The five remaining at King’s Landing were Ser Criston Cole, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard; Ser Arryk Cargyll (Ser Erryk’s twin); Ser Rickard Thorne; Ser Steffon Darklyn; and Ser Willis Fell.

The council gathered in Queen Alicent’s chambers. According to Munkun’s The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling, this “green council” was informed of the king’s passing. Ser Otto Hightower, the Hand, immediately turned the topic to the succession and proposed crowning Aegon the Elder. Of the small council, only aged Lord Beesbury objected to Aegon ascending the Iron Throne. He argued for Rhaenyra’s Valyrian lineage—superior to that of her brother’s. He cited her age, the fact that she was Princess of Dragonstone, that Viserys had repeatedly refused to alter the succession to favor Aegon, and the oaths that many knights and hundreds of lords, both great and small, had sworn to support her.

The most detailed of the accounts of what transpired on the night of Viserys’s passing comes from Grand Maester Munkun, who drew on the account of his predecessor, Grand Maester Orwyle, as well as on an exhaustive catalog of documents, interviews with witnesses, and more.

The small council at the time consisted of the following:

Queen Alicent

Ser Otto Hightower, Hand of the King and Alicent’s father

Ser Criston Cole, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard

Grand Maester Orwyle

Lord Lyman Beesbury, Lord of Honeyholt, master of coin since Jaehaerys’s day except for Prince Daemon’s brief tenure

Ser Tyland Lannister, lord admiral and master of ships, brother to the Lord of Casterly Rock

Larys Strong, called Larys Clubfoot, Lord of Harrenhal, master of whisperers and lord confessor

Lord Jasper Wylde, called Ironrod, Lord of the Rain House, master of laws

Refuting Lord Beesbury’s objections, Ser Tyland argued that many of the oath-takers were dead, as those vows had been sworn twenty-four years earlier. Lord Jasper Wylde, the master of laws, cited the Great Council of 101 AC and the hallowed Andal traditions that gave precedence to the male line. Ser Otto warned of Prince Daemon becoming the true ruler as Rhaenyra’s consort, and Alicent expressed her fear that her children would never be safe again. Ser Criston Cole then noted his belief that Rhaenyra’s eldest children were bastards and should never be allowed to sit the Iron Throne.

The Dance’s first victim.

Lord Beesbury saw all these arguments as treason and tried to leave the chamber. What happened next is uncertain, though it is clear that Lord Beesbury met with an unpleasant end. Grand Maester Orwyle claimed that Beesbury was seized at the door by Ser Otto and confined to a black cell in the dungeons, where he died awaiting trial. Septon Eustace said that Ser Criston Cole forced Beesbury back into his seat and slashed his throat right there at the table. The redoubtable Mushroom laid the blame with Ser Criston as well—only in his version, Criston flung Beesbury bodily out a window, where he died impaled on the iron spikes in the dry moat below.

Regardless of how Lord Beesbury perished, all agree he was the first man to die in the war that would come to be called the Dance of the Dragons.

With Beesbury gone, Larys Strong, the master of whisperers and Lord of Harrenhal, called on the conspirators to swear a blood oath. As dawn broke, Ser Criston Cole left the council chamber to begin the process of arresting any lords and knights at court who were sympathetic to Rhaenyra. Other Kingsguard knights were dispatched to find Queen Alicent’s children and bring them to her, so she could inform them of what had transpired. Prince Aegon himself was not in the Red Keep, but instead was found carousing in the city, in company with a woman not his wife. Septon Eustace claimed that Aegon at first refused to participate in the plot to crown him, but that Ser Criston convinced him, saying that Rhaenyra would not otherwise allow him and his siblings to live.

Efforts were then made to secure the city for the greens. The Commander of the City Watch and the officers commanding the city’s seven gates were all summoned to the Red Keep. Two of the officers and the Commander himself were felt to be loyal to Rhaenyra and so were thrown in the dungeon. The massive Ser Luthor Largent was raised from the ranks of the remaining officers to become the new Commander, and Ser Gwayne Hightower, the queen’s brother, was made Ser Luthor’s second. After Ser Tyland Lannister was named as master of coin and lord treasurer in Beesbury’s place, it was decided to divide the royal treasury into four parts. Three of them were moved to the Iron Bank of Braavos, Casterly Rock, and Oldtown, respectively, for safekeeping, while the last was used to hire sellswords and to finance bribes and gifts as necessary. With Ser Tyland now the master of coin, a new master of ships was needed, so Ser Otto sent a raven to the Iron Islands to invite the young Lord Dalton Greyjoy to take up that office—though no response was forthcoming.

For several days ravens flew, carrying messages across the Seven Kingdoms, marshaling the known supporters of the greens and seeking new allies. And all while Viserys rotted quietly in his chamber, with no septons or silent sisters sent to tend to his mortal remains.

The annals of the Great Council of 101 AC were retrieved and examined, to determine which lords had backed Viserys’s claim, and which had supported Rhaenys or her children and thus were more likely to back Rhaenyra. The lord that had the council most troubled was Borros Baratheon, son of the late Boremund Baratheon. The Baratheons had supported Rhaenys and her children, but perhaps simply because Boremund was the son of the Dowager Queen Alyssa of House Velaryon and thus Rhaenys’s uncle. Could he be swayed to Aegon’s cause?

Aemond Targaryen—who at nineteen was now a skilled knight and who wore a sapphire in the empty eye socket that his cousin Lucerys had left him with—was dispatched to Storm’s End on Vhagar. His goal was to get Lord Borros’s support by proposing a marriage between himself and one of Borros’s daughters.

By the time Aemond departed, the stench from Viserys’s chambers was unmistakable, and Alicent knew they could delay no longer. So, the king’s death and Aegon’s ascension were officially announced a week after Viserys’s passing on the tenth day of the third moon of 129 AC. Aegon’s coronation took place at the Dragonpit, with his namesake’s crown of Valyrian steel and rubies placed on his brow by Ser Criston Cole. The old High Septon was too frail to attend, so Septon Eustace himself anointed the king. There was one notable absence among those who could reasonably have attended: Ser Steffon Darklyn of the Kingsguard had defected in the middle of the night with a handful of men and taken a ship to Dragonstone. With him went the crown of King Viserys, which Jaehaerys the Old King had first worn.

Ser Steffon Darklyn slips away.

On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra’s apartments were filled with her screams for three days of labor—which had begun a full moon early, when the news of Aegon’s usurpation had reached her and sent her into a rage. As she labored, she cursed her half-siblings and their mother…and she cursed the child straining in her womb as well. Rhaenyra’s infant girl was stillborn—and, Mushroom alleged, possessed of a stubby, scaled tail. Rhaenyra blamed the usurpers for the death of her only daughter, whom she named Visenya.

Visenya’s birth.

After this, Rhaenyra’s “black council”—as Munkun named them in his True Telling—convened. Rhaenyra presided, with Prince Daemon at one side and her advisor Maester Gerardys on the other. Also present were her three eldest sons, Jace, Luke, and Joffrey, though none of them had yet reached manhood, and the Kingsguard knights Ser Erryk Cargyll and Ser Lorent Marbrand. Several other lesser lords, bannermen, and vassals of Dragonstone were also seated at the council table. Among these were Lords Celtigar, Staunton, Massey, Bar Emmon, and Darklyn, but the most preeminent was Lord Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake, who was joined by the fierce Princess Rhaenys.

The greens had a number of advantages over the blacks. They had secured the Iron Throne and the support of the realm’s most important officials in their opening moves. They also had more forces available at their disposal—even if one considered only the hosts that Lord Ormund, Ser Otto’s nephew, could command as Lord of Oldtown. They also had great wealth from their supporters; the three largest cities in the Seven Kingdoms—King’s Landing, Oldtown, and Lannisport—were all held by greens.

Against that, the blacks had House Velaryon’s wealth and vast fleet, Prince Daemon’s experience thanks to his long campaign in the Stepstones…and their dragons. Aegon and his siblings only commanded four full-grown dragons: Aegon’s Sunfyre, Aemond’s Vhagar (the largest living dragon at this point), Helaena’s Dreamfyre, and Daeron’s Tessarion. Rhaenyra’s side had twice that number: Rhaenyra’s Syrax, Daemon’s Caraxes, Jacaerys’s Vermax, Lucerys’s Arrax, Joffrey’s Tyraxes, Aegon the Younger’s Stormcloud (as yet unridden by the youth), Rhaenys’s Meleys, and Baela’s Moondancer (still too small to carry a rider).

Moondancer.

The three wild dragons.

Besides that, there were six other dragons on Dragonstone yet unclaimed. Of those who had once possessed a master were Silverwing, Good Queen Alysanne’s old mount; Seasmoke, once Laenor’s pride and joy; and Vermithor, unridden since the death of King Jaehaerys. Additionally, there were three wild dragons known as Sheepstealer, Grey Ghost, and the Cannibal. If riders could be found for each of them, the blacks would have twelve dragons—three times as many as the greens.

Lord Celtigar advised taking what dragons they had and striking at King’s Landing immediately, but the Sea Snake and Prince Daemon counseled against it. Instead, Daemon insisted that Rhaenyra be formally crowned and declared the rightful ruler, calling on the lords of the Seven Kingdoms to remember their former oaths and duties. While the Lannisters and perhaps the Tyrells would side with Aegon, the rest of the great houses could be courted. Rhaenys was certain that Storm’s End would support her grandchildren, as they had before in Boremund’s day. Daemon believed that they would have support of Lady Jeyne Arryn, who ruled the Vale, and thought they might win over Lord Greyjoy as well, as he had yet to commit to Aegon’s cause. The North might also come to their side, though securing their support was less urgent, because of how long it would take for Lord Stark to collect a host and march south.

To rally support in the riverlands, Prince Daemon resolved to lead forces against Harrenhal, seizing it and making it his base of operations. The Gullet—the body of water lying between King’s Landing and the narrow sea—would be closed off by Lord Corlys’s fleet, while Princess Rhaenys flew above on Meleys to burn any ships that attempted to fight on Aegon’s behalf. And instead of ravens being sent to the seats of the great lords, Jacaerys insisted that he and his brothers should carry word instead, so that their dragons could impress the lords with their power. The princess agreed to this plan, although she made her two eldest sons swear on The Seven-Pointed Star to not take part in any fighting. Fourteen-year-old Jace would take the longer journey to the Vale and then on to White Harbor and Winterfell, while thirteen-year-old Luke would fly to Storm’s End, to treat with Lord Borros.

With their plans crafted, the only thing remaining was the coronation. It was conducted hastily the next day, with only a few hundred in attendance. Ser Steffon Darklyn had arrived in time to present Rhaenyra with her father Viserys’s crown, and this Prince Daemon placed on her head. Daemon took the office of Protector of the Realm, while Jacaerys was named Prince of Dragonstone and Rhaenyra’s heir. The newly crowned queen’s first act was to declare Ser Otto Hightower and Queen Alicent traitors, but said she would spare their lives if they bent the knee.

When Aegon II learned of his half-sister’s crowning, he initially demanded her head, but was convinced instead to offer terms for peace if she bent the knee. These terms were carried to Dragonstone by Grand Maester Orwyle, but Rhaenyra rejected them roundly and then forced Orwyle to admit that she had been named heir by King Viserys. Rhaenyra had Orwyle’s chain of office stripped from him and named her trusted advisor, Maester Gerardys, as the new Grand Maester before sending Orwyle back to King’s Landing.

With neither monarch willing to concede, the war began in earnest. Prince Daemon flew on Caraxes to Harrenhal, alighting upon the Kingspyre Tower. The elderly castellan, Ser Simon Strong, struck his banners and surrendered immediately, meaning that the great castle, its treasury, and a dozen hostages fell into the hands of the blacks. The bloodless victory made Harrenhal a rallying point, as thousands of smallfolk and lesser knights marched to join Prince Daemon’s banner.

The lords of the Trident had a different strategy. The aged and ill Grover Tully—Lord Paramount of the Trident and Lord of Riverrun—insisted that Aegon was king, and that House Tully would fight to defend his rights. However, bedridden as he was, he depended on others to carry out his commands…and his grandson and heir, Ser Elmo Tully, quietly made sure that Riverrun simply barred its gates and kept silent.

The houses of the riverlands that declared for Rhaenyra were legion. Ser Forrest Frey, the “Fool Frey” who had once asked Rhaenyra for her hand, led a contingent from the Twins. So, too, did Lord Samwell Blackwood, who had once dueled Ser Amos Bracken for her hand. Other supporters of Rhaenyra included the following:

House Mooton of Maidenpool

House Piper of Pinkmaiden Castle

House Roote of Harroway

House Darry of Darry

House Mallister of Seagard

House Vance of Wayfarer’s Rest

Not all riverlords made the same choice, however. The Brackens and House Vance of Atranta declared for King Aegon.

Caraxes at Harrenhal.

While Daemon rallied support in the riverlands, Prince Jacaerys and Vermax reached the Vale of Arryn. In the High Hall of the Eyrie, Lady Jeyne noted that her rule as a woman had three times been challenged by male kinsman and because of this, she would call the Vale’s banners in support of Queen Rhaenyra. Besides, Rhaenyra’s mother, Queen Aemma, had been an Arryn. However, fearing the dragons of King Aegon, Lady Jeyne asked the prince to commit to sending dragonriders to defend the Vale and the Eyrie. The prince agreed and continued north.

The lords of the Three Sisters—isles sworn to the Eyrie—likewise swore their fealty. Lord Desmond Manderly of White Harbor met with the prince in the Merman’s Court and negotiated, arranging a contract promising the hand of his youngest daughter to Prince Joffrey at the conclusion of the fighting. From there, Jacaerys flew to Winterfell.

Munkun’s True Telling says that Cregan and Jacaerys formed a close bond during their time together, perhaps even swearing an oath of blood brotherhood. Septon Eustace’s more preposterous version holds that Jace spent most of his visit trying to get Cregan to turn from his old gods to the Seven.

Yet it is Mushroom’s account that is the most curious, since he claims that Jacaerys fell in love with Sara Snow, a bastard daughter of the late Lord Rickon Stark, and married her by exchanging vows before Winterfell’s heart tree. He also says that Vermax left a clutch of dragon’s eggs deep beneath Winterfell.

Vermax’s eggs

The Merman’s court.

Cregan Stark was but one-and-twenty in 129 AC yet had been Lord of Winterfell since the age of thirteen. When his uncle refused to give up the regency once Cregan reached his majority at sixteen, he rose up and overthrew him, and had ruled the North with a stern but just hand ever since. When Jacaerys arrived, autumn had brought deep snows to Winterfell and Lord Stark was preparing for the winter to come. The accounts regarding what transpired during the prince’s stay vary, but all agree that Prince Jacaerys and Lord Cregan made a “Pact of Ice and Fire” in which Lord Cregan’s only son and heir, Rickon, would be wed to Jacaerys’s first daughter when she came of age.

Though both Daemon and Jacaerys had success in their endeavors, Prince Lucerys was to meet with a quite different fate. For when he arrived at Storm’s End on Arrax, he found Prince Aemond already in residence—the very prince whose eye he had removed six years earlier. Aemond had been well-treated by Lord Borros, who had arranged feasts and jousts in his honor and accepted the proposal that Aemond wed one of his daughters. Lucerys found a much colder welcome. Aemond openly mocked him, and Lord Borros asked which daughter of his he would marry; but alas for Luke, he had to confess that he was already promised to Rhaena, one of Daemon and Laena’s twin daughters.

The three chroniclers of the Dance.

Borros dismissed Lucerys—though he intervened when Aemond attempted to take Luke’s eye in revenge, saying he would have no bloodshed beneath his roof. It was a stricture that Aemond took perhaps too literally. When Lucerys flew away on Arrax into a growing storm, Aemond followed on Vhagar—goaded, it was said, by Borros’s second-born daughter Maris. Vhagar caught Arrax above Shipbreaker’s Bay and killed the younger dragon, sending Lucerys tumbling to his death in the tumultuous sea below. The death of the thirteen-year-old prince began a new, much more violent phase of the Dance.

When Aemond returned to King’s Landing, he did not receive the praise he expected from his mother and grandfather. Both knew that his killing of Prince Lucerys would lead to reprisals. However, King Aegon hailed his brother as a hero and threw a great feast in his honor.

On Dragonstone, Queen Rhaenyra collapsed when a raven brought her word of her son’s death. Later, a raven from Harrenhal carried Prince Daemon’s curt response to the news of his stepson’s death: “An eye for an eye, a son for a son. Lucerys shall be avenged.”

Aemond and Lucerys at Storm’s End.

Prince Daemon, once called the “Prince of the City,” still had friends and secret allies both at court and within King’s Landing. One he trusted completely was his former lover Mysaria, the White Worm, who knew every wicked place in the city to which she had returned. He sent word to her and she arranged his revenge, finding two agents: a serjeant and former gold cloak known as Blood, and a ratcatcher known as Cheese. The ratcatcher knew the secret doorways and tunnels of the Red Keep so intimately, he could lead his companion into the Tower of the Hand without raising any alarm. They made their way to Queen Alicent’s room, bound and gagged her, and strangled her bedmaid. Then…they waited.

When Queen Helaena arrived with her three children—Aegon’s heir Jaehaerys, his sister Jaehaera, and the two-year-old Maelor—to visit their grandmother as they did most days, Blood and Cheese seized them. They told Helaena they were there to collect a debt and asked her which of her two sons should die. Though the queen begged that they kill her instead, Blood and Cheese replied that they were specifically tasked with killing a son. Helaena, in tears, chose Maelor…so Blood turned and killed Prince Jaehaerys before his mother’s eyes, striking his head off. Helaena screamed, and the men fled—carrying the prince’s head.

Blood was captured two days later, still with Jaehaerys’s head hidden in a sack. He was put to the question and tortured, eventually admitting that he had been promised a reward from Prince Daemon by the woman who hired him—a pale foreigner that the harlots in the city called Misery. Thirteen days of torment passed before Blood was at last allowed to die. Neither Cheese nor Mysaria were ever found, and in a fit of pique, King Aegon II had all the ratcatchers in the city hanged. Poor Queen Helaena never recovered from the horror of what she had been forced to do—and what she had witnessed.

The war in the riverlands only grew more violent in the aftermath of Daemon’s revenge. A force under the command of Lord Samwell Blackwood, flying Rhaenyra’s banners, crossed into Bracken lands, pillaging and despoiling. When the Brackens, who supported Aegon, had mustered enough of a force, they struck back. Ser Amos Bracken killed Lord Samwell in single combat—then was himself slain when a weirwood arrow pierced the slit of his helmet, allegedly loosed by Lord Samwell’s sixteen-year-old sister, Alysanne Blackwood. Still, at what came to be called the Battle of the Burning Mill, the Brackens were defeated by Rhaenyra’s loyalists, and retreated under the command of Ser Raylon Rivers to their seat of Stone Hedge—only to find that Prince Daemon had already taken the castle, seizing Lord Humfrey Bracken and much of his family. The Brackens surrendered—and the remaining supporters of King Aegon in the riverlands turned their cloaks.

Haelaena’s choice.

By this point, the two sides flew different banners to distinguish themselves in the heat of battle. King Aegon II changed the traditional red dragon on the Targaryen banners to golden, for his dragon Sunfyre, while Rhaenyra chose to quarter the Targaryen arms with the arms of House Arryn and House Velaryon, to honor the houses of her mother and her first husband.

Ser Otto Hightower made ceaseless efforts to win further allies and support, even making overtures to Qoren Martell, the Prince of Dorne, who had fought Daemon over control of the Stepstones, but the Dornish prince rejected him. In the Reach, Oldtown and the Arbor were firmly on Aegon’s side, but many notable houses still raised their banners for Rhaenyra—among them the Hightower vassals Costayne of Three Towers and Mullendore of Uplands, and the Marcher Lords Tarly of Horn Hill, Rowan of Goldengrove, and Grimm of Greyshield. The agitation from House Beesbury for the release of Lord Lyman (whose death was still unknown to them) and the Red Keep’s failure to respond led little Lord Tyrell’s mother to withdraw her support from King Aegon and instead declare that Highgarden would take no part in the struggle.

Rhaenyra and Aegon’s banners.

The Battle of the Burning Mill.

When King Aegon sullenly demanded that his grandfather do something about all these traitorous houses, Ser Otto took aim at the Velaryon blockade by appealing to the Kingdom of the Three Daughters, who had no cause to love Lord Corlys or Prince Daemon. The council of magisters from the Free Cities of Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh agreed to consider the matter, but their decision-making was slow and laborious. In a rage, Aegon stripped Ser Otto of the office of Hand and named Ser Criston Cole in his stead. Their first act together was to go to the dungeons and appeal to the imprisoned lords that had refused to bend the knee, giving them a final chance. Lords Butterwell, Stokeworth, and Rosby were the only captive lords who chose to forswear their oaths to Rhaenyra and bend the knee to Aegon. Lords Hayford, Merryweather, Harte, Buckler, and Caswell—as well as Lady Fell, eight landed knights, and twoscore retainers and servants—preferred death before the dishonor of breaking their word. They were swiftly dispatched by the King’s Justice.

Seeking revenge for the murder of his son Jaehaerys, Aegon dispatched Ser Arryk Cargyll of the Kingsguard to infiltrate the citadel of Dragonstone at Ser Criston’s suggestion. He and his twin Ser Erryk were so similar in appearance that not even their Sworn Brothers could tell them apart, and this would allow Ser Arryk to carry out his bloody deed under his brother’s guise—though whether he was ordered to find and kill Rhaenyra’s sons or the upstart queen herself is lost to history. A fishing boat carried him to a village on Dragonstone, and from there he made his way into the castle with ease. However, as he approached the royal apartments, fate took a turn and he came face to face with the only man who might know him for who he was: his brother. What followed would become a subject worthy of song, with two loving brothers forced to fight to the death out of duty and honor—though Mushroom claimed the Cargylls mortally wounded one another within seconds, each cursing and denouncing the other as a traitor.

With his efforts at revenge a failure, King Aegon instead had Ser Criston target those lords who had attended the black council. Leading a company two thousand strong, Ser Criston marched to Rosby and Stokeworth, where those newly loyal lords were forced to add their strength to his. At Duskendale, his forces stormed the town, sacking it and setting the ships in its harbor aflame; Lord Darklyn was beheaded. Rook’s Rest, the seat of House Staunton, was next. Forewarned, Lord Staunton closed his gates and was able to dispatch a raven to Dragonstone before the siege began. Nine days after Lord Staunton sent his raven, Meleys the Red Queen appeared in the sky, with Princess Rhaenys on her back.

Ser Criston Cole had prepared for this and had archers and crossbowmen at the ready, as well as scorpions to throw heavy iron bolts. Meleys was struck several times, but still she swept down low over the host, her flames setting both men and horses alight. As Meleys snatched up a stallion in her jaws, roaring, an answering roar greeted her: King Aegon himself had come to battle, on the back of the golden Sunfyre, and with him was Aemond on Vhagar. Despite the odds, Rhaenys did not flee, instead turning Meleys to meet them. Witnesses saw the dragons dance a thousand feet above the battlefield, flames streaking across the sky. Meleys’s jaws closed around Sunfyre’s neck—at which point, Vhagar dove down and sent all three dragons plummeting to the ground.

Meleys, Vhagar, and Sunfyre dance.

Aemond and Vhagar were the only ones to emerge from that final battle of blood and fire unscathed. Meleys was broken by the fall and torn to pieces, with what was likely Rhaenys’s body, burned beyond recognition, beside her corpse. As for Aegon and Sunfyre, the king had broken several ribs and a hip, and suffered burns on over half his body—the worst being his left arm, where the dragonfire had melted his armor into his flesh—and Sunfyre had a wing half-torn from his body.

In the aftermath, hundreds of knights, men-at-arms, and squires lost their lives, and a hundred more died when Ser Criston seized Rook’s Rest and put the garrison to the sword. Lord Staunton’s head was carried to King’s Landing, as was Meleys’s. Sunfyre survived, but remained at Rook’s Rest, unable to fly or hunt, and so was fed and protected by the men Ser Criston left behind to hold the castle. King Aegon II survived as well, though was in tremendous pain that left him exhausted and unable to rule. In his stead, Prince Aemond put on his brother’s crown, naming himself Protector of the Realm and Prince Regent.

Across the realm, however, the tides were beginning to turn against the greens. Thanks to Prince Jacaerys’s journey, thousands of men from the North and the Vale were joining Rhaenyra’s forces in the riverlands. In the Reach, Lord Ormund Hightower had marched with a force of five thousand knights, archers, and men-at-arms, as well as thousands of camp followers, sellswords, and rabble, yet almost immediately, Ser Alan Beesbury and Lord Alan Tarly began to harass his lines, raiding camps and murdering scouts, while Lord Costayne attacked the Hightower baggage train. And all while Lord Thaddeus Rowan approached with a host of equal size to confront him; Lord Ormund was left begging for aid from King’s Landing.

Yet all was still not well in the black camp, either. Lord Corlys blamed Queen Rhaenyra for the death of his wife, Princess Rhaenys. So it fell on Jacaerys, not quite fifteen years old late in 129 AC, to break the impasse. He sent his brother Prince Joffrey to Gulltown with Tyraxes, to fulfill his promise to Lady Jeyne Arryn and to provide a dragon for the Vale’s defense. With him went Rhaena, Prince Daemon’s daughter by Laena Velaryon, whose hatchling had died young but who carried three dragon eggs to the Vale with her in hopes they would hatch. Prince Jacaerys also arranged for the protection of his half-brothers, Aegon the Younger and Viserys, by dispatching them to Pentos, where they could live under the protection of the prince of the city. Finally, Jacaerys named Lord Corlys as Hand of the Queen, and together they planned their attack on King’s Landing.

The plan depended primarily on their dragons. While the greens had four dragons, Sunfyre was too injured to fight, Queen Helaena was mired too deep in grief to ride Dreamfyre, and Prince Daeron was in Oldtown with Tessarion. This left on Aemond and Vhagar…but Vhagar was the largest and most powerful dragon then living. The blacks might have more dragons, but Aegon the Younger had not yet ridden Stormcloud and was soon going to Pentos, Moondancer was a mere hatchling, and Tyraxes was now in the Vale. And so the issue of the six unclaimed dragons arose again. According to Mushroom, it was he who suggested that more dragonriders could be found among those “born of dragonseed”—the illegitimate offspring of the Targaryen lords who had ruled Dragonstone for over two hundred years.

Though the Targaryen custom was to wed brother to sister—or at least to marry within the family—Targaryen men were known to enjoy the company of the daughters and sometimes wives of their subjects—up to and including the right of the first night. Among the smallfolk of Dragonstone, the Targaryens were seen as nearer to gods than men, and the natural children that they bore—known commonly as “seeds”—were regarded as blessings, thanks to the lavish gifts the Targaryens showered upon their mothers.

To find riders for the six unclaimed dragons, Prince Jacaerys offered any man who could master and ride one lands, riches, and knighthood, as well as ennoblement for his sons and fine marriages for his daughters. Many answered the call—including some who had no reason to think they were seeds or the descendants of seeds. Of those who tried, sixteen were killed by flame or fangs—including Ser Steffon Darklyn, the Lord Commander of the Queensguard, and Lord Gormon Massey.

Yet the effort did bear fruit. Vermithor, Jaehaerys’s old dragon, accepted a towering, powerful blacksmith’s bastard known as Hugh the Hammer, or Hard Hugh, as his master. A man-at-arms called Ulf the White (for his hair)—or Ulf the Sot (for his drinking)—succeeded in mounting Silverwing, Good Queen Alysanne’s dragon. Seasmoke, Laenor’s dragon, was claimed by a fifteen-year-old bastard called Addam of Hull, who with his brother Alyn would be significant in the later history of the Dance.

The three wild dragons proved a greater challenge. The old, large, and ravenous Cannibal was discounted as too dangerous, and the pale dragon called the Grey Ghost was too wary and elusive to be approached. But the mud-brown dragon, known as Sheepstealer for his taste for mutton, proved a far more tempting prospect. Among those who tried to tame him was Alyn Velaryon—who, along with his elder brother Addam, had been legitimized by the queen at the request of Lord Corlys and Prince Jacaerys. But Alyn was burned for his troubles and would carry the scars for the rest of his days. It was ultimately a small, brown girl of sixteen named Nettles—the bastard daughter of a dockside whore—who would tame Sheepstealer by offering up a freshly slaughtered sheep each morning until he became comfortable enough to accept her on his back.

Addam and Alyn of Hull were the sons of Marilda, a shipwright’s daughter who was such a canny captain and trader that, at the time of the Dance, she controlled a fleet of seven ships. The boys were silver-haired and purple-eyed, indicating their clear Valyrian descent, but Marilda refused to name their father. That is, until Prince Jacaerys put out the call for dragonseeds. Then she revealed to her sons that they were in fact the natural children of the late Laenor Velaryon, who had been known to visit the shipyard at Hull on occasion.

However, Laenor’s noted lack of interest in women made some wonder if the boys were not, in fact, the sons of Lord Corlys Velaryon, who personally brought the boys to Prince Jacaerys.

With four more dragonriders on their side as 129 AC drew to a close, Prince Jacaerys set a date for the attack on King’s Landing: the first full moon of the new year. But another threat was already in the wind. Ninety warships from the Triarchy had left the Stepstones and were approaching the Gullet—the fruit of Ser Otto’s efforts to win the Kingdom of the Three Daughters to his grandson’s side. And, as luck would have it, the very ship carrying Princes Aegon and Viserys to safety in Pentos ran straight into the Triarchy’s fleet.

The death of Ser Steffon Darklyn.

The escorts sent to protect the ship were sunk or taken, and the ship bearing the princes captured. News of this new development was brought by the terrified Aegon the Younger himself, who arrived at Dragonstone on a mortally wounded Stormcloud. The young dragon that had carried prince on his first and only flight had suffered countless wounds in the escape and died within the hour. As for the young Prince Viserys, he hid his dragon’s egg and attempted to pretend he was a ship’s boy, but he was betrayed by a real ship’s boy and taken hostage instead.

Nor was this the end of the problem. Despite Aegon the Younger’s warning, the Triarchy’s fleet had already fallen on the Velaryon ships blockading the Gullet. The southern half of the fleet swept past Dragonstone to fall on Driftmark, burning Spicetown and the ships in its harbor as well as laying siege to High Tide. Yet the blacks had one weapon the Triarchy did not: dragons. Prince Jacaerys and Vermax—along with Silverwing, Sheepstealer, Seasmoke, and Vermithor—appeared in the sky to rain fire down upon the fleet. Of the ninety ships that sailed against Dragonstone, only twenty-eight returned…and all but three belonged to the Free City of Lys, the city from which the fleet’s admiral hailed. This fact would begin the eventual collapse of the Triarchy, as infighting took hold.

Yet the victory against the Triarchy came at the highest possible cost: the loss of a third of the Velaryon fleet, the ruin of Spicetown and High Tide, which wiped away much of the wealth the Sea Snake had gathered…and worst of all, the lives of Prince Jacaerys and Vermax. Though accounts differ, Vermax was wounded in the battle and crashed into the sea. The Prince of Dragonstone had been flung into the water and managed to find a piece of a shattered ship to cling to, only for crossbowmen to see him and loose quarrels at him until he was struck several times. His body fell limp and he slipped away into the sea. In addition, the fate of young Prince Viserys was unknown, and many assumed he had died when his captor’s ship was taken.

Two weeks later, in the Reach, Lord Ormund Hightower was caught between the armies of Lord Rowan to the northeast and Ser Alan Beesbury, Lord Alan Tarly, and Lord Costayne to the south, blocking his retreat to Oldtown. On the banks of the Honeywine, the Hightower host began to crumble under the onslaught—until they were saved by the timely and unexpected arrival of the Blue Queen, Tessarion, carrying Prince Daeron on her back. The youngest of Alicent’s sons had been Lord Ormund’s ward and squire, but had been kept in Oldtown for his safety. Now, however—and of his own volition—he brought his dragon to save his guardian. His arrival with Tessarion turned the tide, putting the Hightower enemies to route and leading to the capture of both Beesbury and Tarly and the death of Lord Costayne. During the victory feast that followed, Lord Ormund knighted the fifteen-year-old prince and named him Ser Daeron the Daring.

Word of the defeat at the Honeywine heaped more dour news on Dragonstone, leading some to counsel that it was time for Rhaenyra to consider bending the knee, but the queen was adamant. The war would continue. She still had more dragons than her half-brother, and she was resolved to tear him from the Iron Throne—or die trying.

The Battle of the Gullet.

Meanwhile, in King’s Landing, Prince Aemond One-Eye had reached a similar resolution. Determining that the greatest threat lay with Prince Daemon and the host he was gathering at Harrenhal, he proposed a two-pronged attack: Lord Jason Lannister would lead the westermen across the Red Fork while Ser Criston Cole marched from King’s Landing with both an army and Prince Aemond on Vhagar. At Harrenhal, the two forces would meet to destroy Daemon once and for all. Despite arguments against this endeavor, Prince Aemond’s plan carried the day.

Ser Criston marched two weeks later, and Lord Jason and his host swarmed out of the western hills. The Lannisters and their bannermen succeeded in crossing the Red Fork, but at the cost of Lord Jason’s life during the third attempt, when he was mortally wounded by a grizzled squire named Pate of Longleaf. (Pate would later be knighted by Lord Piper, who called him Longleaf the Lionslayer.) Following Lord Jason’s death, Ser Adrian Tarbeck took command of the host and succeeded in making the fourth and final push to secure the crossing.

The war had spread across much of the realm by this time. Even as Lord Jason lay dying, Lord Dalton Greyjoy—a reaver at heart, known and feared as the Red Kraken—sensed an opportunity to seize more territory and wealth for the Iron Islands, and sent a fleet of longships to fall upon the Lannister holdings. Casterly Rock, held by Lord Jason’s consort Lady Johanna, closed its gates, but Lannisport was sacked and hundreds of women and girls taken as salt wives.

In the east, Lord Walys Mooton gathered a force to retake Rook’s Rest and attempt to kill the injured Sunfyre. Over sixty men—including Lord Walys—were killed in the attempt, as the enraged dragon—still grounded from his wounds—fought off his attackers. Lord Manfryd—the younger brother and heir to Lord Walys—found his brother’s body a fortnight later, but by that point Sunfyre was gone, vanished without a trace.

The death of Jacaerys and Vermax.

It was at this time that Rhaenyra’s long-planned attack on King’s Landing occurred. Prince Daemon flew southeast from Harrenhal, avoiding Ser Criston’s marching host, while Rhaenyra herself donned her armor of black scales and flew on Syrax to the city. They met above Aegon’s High Hill. Panic ensued when the populace saw the dragons, for the city had been nearly emptied of protectors. Queen Alicent attempted to command what remained of the city’s defenses, closing the gates and sending gold cloaks to the walls. She ordered Grand Maester Orwyle to dispatch ravens to her loyal lords, calling for help, but on his way to the rookery Orwyle was set upon by four gold cloaks who beat, bound, and imprisoned him in the black cells. As it transpired, all the captains of the gates of the city had been imprisoned or murdered by the rank-and-file guardsmen, who still loved Prince Daemon. Ser Gwayne Hightower, second only to Ser Luthor Largent, attempted to sound the alarm about the mutiny only to be seized, taken before Ser Luthor, and summarily executed. Ser Luthor, who had risen in the ranks under Prince Daemon, commanded the city’s gates to be opened to allow in the men-at-arms and knights that were being disgorged along the riverbank by Lord Corlys’s fleet.

The dragons arrived one by one, circling the city or perching on its walls and towers. The Dowager Queen Alicent surrendered with her father Ser Otto Hightower, as well as Ser Tyland Lannister and Lord Jasper Wylde. (Lord Larys Strong, the master of whisperers, had vanished.) Alicent suggested the gathering of a great council to decide the succession, but Rhaenyra rejected the offer. So Queen Alicent at last bent the knee to Rhaenyra. Queen Helaena, broken and pitiful, was found locked in her bedchamber, but King Aegon II could not be found at all; he had fled the city. His surviving children, Jaehaera and Maelor, were gone as well, as were the Kingsguard knights Ser Willis Fell and Ser Rickard Thorne.

Terror over King’s Landing.

Despite this setback, Rhaenyra mounted the Iron Throne, stern and uncompromising in her armor as every person the castle was brought before her and made to kneel, pleading for her mercy and swearing their fealty. Septon Eustace would later claim that Rhaenyra left the hall with bleeding cuts on her legs and palms, evidence of the Iron Throne’s rejection.

Rhaenyra on the Iron Throne.

Yet though King’s Landing was now Rhaenyra’s, the war continued unabated. The westermen continued to move east to join the attack on Harrenhal, though opposition from the riverlords took its toll. Ser Adrian Tarbeck was killed, and the elderly Lord Humfrey Lefford took over the command, despite several wounds that left him confined to a litter. Ser Criston and Prince Aemond continued to march on Harrenhal as well, but bad roads and rainstorms slowed their advance. On the shore of the Gods Eye, Ser Criston won a brief battle, but this was the only opposition he faced. Yet when he finally arrived at Harrenhal, he found the gates open and the castle largely empty, as Prince Daemon and his men had abandoned it for their attack on King’s Landing.

Prince Aemond arrived the following day and proclaimed it a great victory, though he was furious when he learned that Daemon had lured him away from King’s Landing deliberately, so that Rhaenyra could seize it.

More reprisals followed. Convinced that Larys the Clubfoot was a traitor who had informed Prince Daemon when the city would be empty, an enraged Aemond ordered every man and boy with Strong blood in his vein to be executed.

Prince Aemond’s fury led to the death of nearly everyone at Harrenhal with Strong blood. The only exception was a wet nurse called Alys Rivers, who was two or even three times older than the prince, though she looked younger than her years. It was said that she was a bastard half-sister to Lord Larys, and some claimed that she was an enchantress or a witch. Prince Daemon had shown no interest in her, but Prince Aemond willingly took her to his bed.

Prince Aemond at Harrenhal.

By the time the Lannister forces reached the western shore of the Gods Eye, they faced a new army—one that was much greater in size. It was led by Forrest Frey, the Lord of the Crossing, as well as a Blackwood bastard named Red Robb Rivers, and was swiftly augmented by two thousand men under the command of Roderick Dustin, Lord of Barrowton—an aged and hoary warrior known as Roddy the Ruin. He led a company of grey-bearded, seasoned warriors who had marched south to die on Rhaenyra’s behalf. They called themselves the Winter Wolves—an echo of the ancient practice of old men and younger sons of the North sacrificing their lives when the winter was harsh so as to give their kin a better chance of survival.

A second army, led by Pate of Longleaf, soon converged. Trapped between these two forces supporting Rhaenyra, Lord Lefford dug in with his back to the lake, sending ravens in hopes of succor, but Red Robb Rivers was the finest archer in Westeros and took them all down with his bow. The next day, more of Rhaenyra’s forces arrived, including Ser Garibald Grey, Lord Jon Charlton, and Raventree’s new lord: an eleven-year-old boy named Benjicot Blackwood.

The bloodiest battle of the war began at sunrise the next day. The historians called it the Battle of the Lakeshore, but those who survived it named it the Fishfeed. Hundreds of westermen were driven into the water and killed or drowned. Thousands of men lay dead by nightfall, including Lords Frey, Lefford, and Charlton. Two-thirds of the Winter Wolves were also dead, as they had asked for the honor of leading the attack and threw themselves recklessly into the Lannister Spears. It was a victory for Rhaenyra’s forces—but one that came at a stiff price.

Elsewhere in the realm, Lord Ormund and Prince Daeron won lesser victories for Aegon, forcing Lords Rowan and Oakheart—as well as the Lords of the Shield Islands—to surrender. From Storm’s End, Lord Borros Baratheon raised nearly six thousand men, yet instead of marching on King’s Landing to liberate it from Rhaenyra as the greens had expected, he pressed into the Red Mountains of Dorne under the pretext of dealing with Dornish raiders crossing into the Marches—though many whispered that it was more a case of him fleeing from the approaching dragons.

The Fishfeed.

Meanwhile, Lord Dalton Greyjoy and his reavers—once again acting for personal gain—seized control of much of Fair Isle while Lord Farman was trapped at Faircastle, his pleas for help fruitless. When Faircastle eventually fell, the Red Kraken took four of Lord Farman’s daughters as salt wives, giving the fifth and homeliest to his brother Veron.

At Harrenhal, the king’s men were running short of food and fodder, and people and horses alike were dying. The fields surrounding the castle were burnt and barren, and foraging parties that ventured too far from Harrenhal’s walls did not return. Ser Criston urged a withdrawal to the south, where Aegon’s forces were stronger, but Prince Aemond thought this a coward’s path. Unable to resolve their differences, the two parted ways. Ser Criston led his army south, in hopes of joining Lord Ormund and Prince Daeron, while Prince Aemond planned to use Vhagar to burn the castles and lands of the blacks—and to kill whatever individual dragons and dragonriders that Rhaenyra sent against him. He was gambling that she would surely not send all her dragons at once, and Vhagar had killed two of the blacks’ dragons already, so he was confident in his chances.

Back in King’s Landing, Queen Rhaenyra was focused on ruling from the Iron Throne, rewarding her supporters and punishing traitors. Notably, Lord Larys the Clubfoot was still missing and Rhaenyra placed a reward on his capture. Rewards were also offered for Aegon the Usurper, his children Jaehaera and Maelor, and the “false knights” of the Kingsguard: Willis Fell and Rickard Thorne. While Queen Alicent was spared the executioner’s axe, Ser Otto Hightower, Lord Jasper Wylde, and Lords Rosby and Stokeworth were not.

Rhaenyra and her heirs.

Ser Tyland Lannister was given over to the torturers, in the hopes of revealing where the royal treasury had been hidden. To take his place as lord treasurer, the queen chose Bartimos Celtigar, the Lord of Claw Isle. A wealthy, unrelenting, and ingenious man, as well as a staunch supporter of the queen, Lord Bartimos nonetheless made himself highly unpopular with his measures to restore the treasury, imposing many new levies and increasing both taxes and fees. The demands fell heaviest on the merchants and traders of King’s Landing, who had already suffered substantially thanks to the Velaryon blockade. Those who could not pay—or refused to—had their ships and cargos seized. Lord Celtigar went so far as to decree that all executions would take place in the Dragonpit so that the corpses could be used to feed the dragons, and that spectators were required to pay three pennies for admission. The treasury was refilled—but at the price of making the Kingslanders hate the rapacious queen, whom they swiftly came to call “King Maegor with teats.”

The queen summoned her surviving sons—Aegon the Younger and Prince Joffrey—so that Joffrey could be installed as Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne. Even Daemon’s former consort Mysaria came to court at this time. Though not a formal part of the small council, Lady Misery soon took on the duties of the crown’s mistress of whisperers, and many said that Prince Daemon spent every evening with her, allegedly with Rhaenyra’s blessing. Septon Eustace reported that the queen grew stouter, over-indulging at meals, and that she would regularly be sliced by the Iron Throne whenever she deigned to sit on it.

In the Reach, Ormund Hightower laid siege to Longtable, the seat of House Merryweather. Thirty leagues to the northeast, Bitterbridge—seat of Lady Caswell, the widow of the man King Aegon had beheaded—was crowded with refugees. The castle had barred its gates at the lady’s command, and the townsmen were ordered to turn away any nobles who sought refuge. Yet Ser Rickard Thorne of the Kingsguard and the two-year-old Prince Maelor, disguised as a traveler and his young son, found entry. At an inn called the Hogs Head, the greedy innkeeper had a stableboy rifle through their belongings—only to discover the white cloak wrapped around a green dragon’s egg swirled with silver. Rhaenyra’s promised reward for their capture was too great to resist, and a mob quickly formed; both Ser Rickard and Maelor were killed in the chaos. Lady Caswell was said to have blanched when she arrived with her men-at-arms to survey the scene. Ser Rickard’s corpse and the head of Prince Maelor were sent to King’s Landing at the lady’s command, while she had the dragon egg sent to Lord Hightower in hopes that it would spare Bitterbridge his wrath.

It did not. When Longtable fell, Lord Ormund stripped it of its wealth and supplies before marching grimly on to Bitterbridge with Prince Daeron. Lady Caswell stood on the ramparts and asked for the same terms Lady Merryweather had received at Longtable, but Prince Daeron swore that she and hers would receive the same terms that they had given his dead nephew Maelor. Bitterbridge was sacked, many of its buildings burned by dragonflame, and the people were put to the sword if they fought or fled. Lady Caswell, sick at heart, had the castle gates thrown open. Standing atop the gatehouse with a noose around her neck, she begged mercy for her children before leaping to her death. Lord Ormund left her sons and daughter unharmed, sending them to Oldtown as prisoners, but the castle’s garrison did not get the same mercy.

Lady Caswell’s death.

In the riverlands, Prince Aemond carried out his plans, flying on Vhagar to set half the riverlands ablaze, burning every town and village he came across. Less successful was Ser Criston Cole’s plan. Not three days after Criston abandoned Harrenhal to march south, Sabitha Frey, Lady of the Twins, arrived with her forces to seize the castle. Only Alys Rivers remained, who claimed that Prince Aemond had left her with a “dragon’s bastard” in her belly.

And things only went worse for Ser Criston after that. As his army traveled, scouts came across horrifying scenes in which armored corpses—victims of the Fishfeed—were propped up and arrayed as if at a feast. The creators of these gory tableaux stayed hidden for four days, then began to attack the column. At the village of Crossed Elms, one of the corpse-feasts turned out to be a trap, and the alleged corpses sprang up and killed a dozen outriders. It later transpired that a Myrish sellsword in the service of Lord Vance of Wayfarer’s Rest, known as Black Trombo, had been the mastermind behind these acts.

Before long, Ser Criston found an army twice the size of his own awaiting him on a high, stony ridge. Realizing that the enemy was fresh and held the high ground, Ser Criston sent out a peace banner to treat with them. Leading this host were Ser Garibald Grey, Longleaf the Lionslayer, and Roddy the Ruin. Ser Criston offered to surrender but his foes rejected the offer. And when Criston pointed out that many of their men would die in the fighting, they dismissed that as well. The Winter Wolves were there, and felt it was best to die with sword in hand. Ser Criston Cole then challenged all three to a duel, but this challenge was met with three arrows that came winging down from the ridge, striking Ser Criston dead. And so ended the Kingmaker, remembered as one of the best and the worst to ever don the white cloak.

In the one-sided battle that followed, the greens’ host were cut down by the hundreds. Ser Garibald Grey called it butchery rather than battle, and Mushroom later dubbed it the Butcher’s Ball.

On Maiden’s Day in the year 130 AC, the Citadel of Oldtown sent forth three hundred white ravens to announce that winter had arrived, but for Queen Rhaenyra it seemed a joyous time, with the Kingmaker dead and the throne under her control. House Velaryon controlled the narrow sea as the Triarchy tore itself apart, and the Maiden of the Vale had begun to send men to join Rhaenyra’s forces, as did Lord Manderly and White Harbor. Her power was rising as Aegon’s fell.

The death of Ser Criston Cole.

However, the war was far from won. Aegon was still at large, as was his daughter and remaining heir, Jaehaera. So, too, was Larys Strong the Clubfoot. The greater part of the chivalry of the west was dead or scattered, and the Red Kraken and his reavers still harried the western shore. More significantly, Prince Aemond’s campaign of terror continued in the riverlands. Towns, villages, and castles all fell to Vhagar’s flames. He even returned to Harrenhal to set alight its wooden structures, killing a number of knights and men-at-arms—though Lady Sabitha saved herself by taking refuge in a privy. When she eventually emerged, she discovered that Alys Rivers had escaped, carried away by Prince Aemond. Loyalists in the riverlands began to petition the queen to send dragons to protect them.

But the largest threat remained in the south, as Lord Ormund and Prince Daeron moved inexorably toward King’s Landing, defeating all who opposed them, then forcing them to join their army, so that it swelled in size. In response, debate raged at the queen’s small council. Lord Corlys advised beginning negotiations—offering pardons for the great lords who followed Aegon, letting the Faith take charge of both Aegon’s wife and mother, and sending Aegon and Aemond to the Wall. Daemon argued against it, urging the destruction of their enemies. Rhaenyra split the difference, offering terms and pardons to the Baratheons and Lannisters…but only after Aegon and Aemond were dead.

There was a curious footnote in the history of the Dance that took place around this time. All the chroniclers agree that Ser Byron Swann, second son to Lord Swann of Stonehelm, set out to kill a dragon using a polished shield that would mesmerize the beast; this had been the strategy that Ser Serwyn of the Mirror Shield—a figure of the Age of Heroes—had used to kill the dragon Urrax, according to the singers.

Ser Byron died for his folly, but the curiosity lies in the fact that no chroniclers agree as to which dragon was his target. Munkun believed it was Vhagar, based on Orwyle’s account. Mushroom argued for Syrax. Eustace, long after the events, suggested that in fact he tried to kill Sunfyre even though the dragon’s whereabouts were unknown.

While Rhaenyra remained with Addam Velaryon and Prince Joffrey to defend the city with their three dragons, Prince Daemon took Caraxes—as well as Nettles and Sheepstealer—to hunt down Aemond One-Eye and Vhagar. This left the recently ennobled Hard Hugh Hammer and Ulf White—as they were now known—to take their dragons to Tumbleton, the last loyal stronghold between Lord Ormund and King’s Landing. Rhaenyra commanded them to kill Prince Daeron and Tessarion, rejecting Lord Corlys’s suggestion that he be taken prisoner and made into a valuable hostage.

Ser Byron Swann and his Mirror Shield.

But the tide began to turn against Rhaenyra at Tumbleton—a thriving market town at the headwaters of the Mander under the control of House Footly. Thousands of troops had gathered there from the riverlands and the lands watered by the Blackwater, including the remaining Winter Wolves. Some sources claim that as many as twelve thousand gathered under Rhaenyra’s banners, though the commanders did not realize that spies and infiltrators lurked among their number. Yet no matter how many there were, they were still greatly outnumbered by the approaching Hightower army. They had Vermithor and Silverwing on their side, however, thanks to Ulf White and Hard Hugh Hammer, and that should have given them the advantage over Prince Daeron and Tessarion.

One of the more pitiful events to take place at court during the war was when Queen Alicent approached Queen Rhaenyra on her knees, begging that Rhaenyra forswear her vengeance against Alicent’s sons. When Rhaenyra responded that the blood of her dead sons was on the hands of Aegon the Elder and Aemond, Alicent retorted that it was bastard blood that was shed in war, of less import than the trueborn blood of her sons. Rhaenyra then threatened to have Alicent’s tongue torn out if she dared call her sons bastards again.

When the Battle of Tumbleton was joined, the army under Ser Garibald Grey was forced to fall back to the walls of the town under Lord Ormund’s assault. Roddy the Ruin and the remaining Winter Wolves sallied out to make a ferocious charge around the flank of the Hightower host, and in the chaos were able to cut their way through many times their number, seeking Lord Ormund himself, who commanded his host from beneath King Aegon’s golden dragon banner. Drunk with battle fury, Lord Roderick was said to be covered in blood from head to toe as he cut his way to Lord Ormund. Though his shield arm was struck off at the shoulder by the longaxe of Ser Bryndon Hightower, Ormund’s cousin, Roddy revenged himself by killing Ser Bryndon and then cutting down Lord Ormund before he finally died himself.

Alicent beseeches Rhaenyra.

The death of Aegon’s fiercest commander should have turned the tide of battle—and indeed, seemed to be doing so as Daeron and Tessarion appeared on the horizon…but then Vermithor and Silverwing took wing. And rather than turn to face Tessarion, they began to rain fire down on Tumbleton. Ulf White and Hard Hugh Hammer would be remembered ever after as the Two Betrayers as they—along with Tessarion—turned Tumbleton into a pyre, killing thousands. Ser Garibald Grey died engulfed in dragonflame, while Pate of Longleaf was trampled in the fighting. The infiltrators within the town’s walls chose this moment to act, killing the soldiers manning the gates and throwing them open; the same happened at the castle. The remaining defenders were slaughtered, and the smallfolk brutalized and killed. As for Tumbleton itself, the town never recovered from what happened that day. In later years it would be rebuilt, but the “new town” would be only a tenth of the size of its predecessor.

Dragons flew in the riverlands as well, as Aemond One-Eye continued his campaign of terror on Vhagar. Prince Daemon and Nettles, based at Maidenpool, repeatedly hunted for him on Caraxes and Sheepstealer, but failed to engage him. When Lord Mooton suggested they search separately to cover twice as much ground, the prince refused, certain that Vhagar could defeat either of their dragons separately. However, Mushroom suggested another cause for Daemon’s unwillingness: that he and Nettles had become lovers. This theory is supported by the Chronicles of Maidenpool, maintained by Lord Mooton’s maester, who remarked that the prince and Nettles were inseparable, their bedrooms were adjoining, and that Daemon often gave her gifts and even shared a bath with her.

Meanwhile, at Dragonstone, word spread that a foreign ship had witnessed two dragons fighting, and the local fisherfolk later found the remains of the Grey Ghost at the base of the Dragonmont. Ser Robert Quince, Rhaenyra’s castellan, named the Cannibal the culprit, because of that dragon’s long history of attacking smaller dragons. But Baela Targaryen—Prince Daemon’s daughter by his first wife, Laena, a wild and willful maid of fourteen—doubted Quince’s conclusion and offered to fly on Moondancer to discover the truth. Ser Robert forbade this—though that night his guards caught her attempting to defy his command.

Baela was not the only one curious about Grey Ghost’s fate. That very same night, under cover of darkness, a fishing boat—captained by Tom Tanglebeard and his son Tom Tangletongue—landed unnoticed on the eastern shore, near to Grey Ghost’s remains. The men aboard had heard the story of the dragons fighting—including the claim from sailors that one was grey, and one was golden. Besides the father-and-son pair, they carried two men they simply called “cousins” to the islands—but more on this later.

When news reached King’s Landing of the betrayal at Tumbleton and the destruction of the riverlands, the black council discussed the defense of the city ahead of the green army’s imminent arrival. Against Daeron and the Two Betrayers, King’s Landing had six dragons within its walls. However, the betrayal of Hard Hugh Hammer and Ulf White had cast doubts on the loyalty of the other dragonseeds…particularly Ser Addam Velaryon (formerly Addam of Hull), who was stationed at the Dragonpit so that he could deploy Seasmoke at a moment’s notice. Among those urging the queen to have him and Nettles seized were Lord Bartimos Celtigar, Ser Luthor Largent, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Lorent Marbrand. The Manderlys, Ser Torrhen and Ser Medrick—who had been welcomed onto the council when they brought ships and men from White Harbor—concurred. Lord Velaryon and Grand Maester Gerardys were the only members of the black council to object.

Daemon and Nettles.

Mysaria, the White Worm, was called to the council to advise the queen. She informed Rhaenyra that Nettles had already betrayed her, as she was now sharing Prince Daemon’s bed. In her anger, Rhaenyra ordered Addam to be seized and questioned harshly, and had a message sent to Lord Mooton commanding him to kill Nettles. However, Ser Addam was alerted to his imminent arrest and escaped on Seasmoke. Lord Corlys was arrested instead and accused of having helped Addam escape; the Sea Snake did not deny it. Grand Maester Gerardys was also suspected, having spoken on behalf of the dragonseeds earlier, but was spared imprisonment and sent away to Dragonstone instead.

Anxiously, the city waited for the enemy to appear, gripped with terror for what was to come. This left the Kingslanders ripe for a leader and into that void stepped a barefoot beggar with a missing hand, that had likely been removed as a punishment for thievery. He would be remembered as the Shepherd, and he prophesized the downfall of both Rhaenyra and Aegon II, saying that King’s Landing would soon be cleansed of dragons and dragonriders alike. Eager crowds grew and grew, until thousands gathered to hear him every time he spoke.

But the attack against King’s Landing was not as imminent as feared. In the south, the forces loyal to King Aegon II were in disarray. With Lord Ormund dead, a cousin of no particular account named Ser Hobert laid claim to the command of the Hightower host. Lord Unwin Peake, Ser Jon Roxton the Bold, and Lord Owain Bourney—one of the men who had infiltrated Tumbleton and thrown open its gates—all suggested they could lead the gathered forces as well. The rudderless army soon fell into an orgy of looting, rape, and slaughter—all directed against the helpless survivors of Tumbleton—that lasted for days. Not even holy septas were safe, nor the silent sisters sworn to the service of the Stranger. Prince Daeron demanded that Ser Hobert put a stop to the depravity, but Hobert could not. The other contenders for command were hardly better. Ser Jon Roxton seized Lord Footly’s wife, Sharis, as a war prize, killing Lord Footly when he objected, while Lord Peake drew his dagger and stabbed Lord Bourney through the eye after a bitter argument during one of their war councils.

The Two Betrayers, however, quickly proved the worst offenders, showing the very avarice that likely led them to turn their cloaks in the first place. Ulf White, the drunkard who was said to have fed maidens who did not please him to his dragon, decided he wished to rule Highgarden. Hugh Hammer, now calling himself a lord, thought even more grandly that he should be a king. Though the son of a common blacksmith, Hammer was a huge man, with hands so strong that he was said to be able to twist steel bars into torcs. His weapon of choice was the warhammer, with which he delivered crushing blows. In battle he rode Vermithor, once the mount of the Old King himself; of all the dragons in Westeros, only Vhagar was older or larger. Why shouldn’t he, likewise, rule?

Neither man seemed inclined to help lead an attack on King’s Landing. And as the days wore on, Ormund’s former army remained paralyzed, stuck at Tumbleton without direction, and began to dwindle day by day as men deserted.

Meanwhile, at Maidenpool, Lord Mooton had received Rhaenyra’s order to kill Nettles, but he and his maester had decided that the better part of valor was to inform Prince Daemon of the orders first. The next day, a weeping Nettles was parted from the prince, flying away on Sheepstealer to parts unknown. Daemon Targaryen took his leave of Lord Mooton, but rather than taking himself back to court as Rhaenyra had intended, he flew to Harrenhal in hopes that Aemond would finally face him. In the wake of his departure, Maidenpool struck Rhaenyra’s banners and replaced them with the golden dragon of King Aegon II.

The Hightower host at Tumbletown.

Daemon and Caraxes passed thirteen nights at Harrenhal, waiting for Aemond, and the prince numbered each night by slashing a mark in the castle’s weirwood heart tree—deep gouges that can still be seen to this day, and which are said to bleed anew each spring. On the fourteenth day, a huge shadow passed overheard and Vhagar landed, bearing Prince Aemond and his pregnant lover Alys Rivers. Aemond claimed that Alys had led him to his uncle, having seen visions of this meeting in storm clouds and flames. Daemon mounted Caraxes and Aemond mounted Vhagar, and there above the Gods Eye, as the sun was setting, they battled one another.

The sky seemed to burn with flame before the dragons locked together, slashing and biting. As they tumbled from the sky, the tales claim that Prince Daemon leapt from one dragon to the other, ripping off his nephew’s helm and driving Dark Sister so deeply into Aemond’s blind eye that the point came out the young prince’s throat. It was a Pyrrhic victory, as a moment later both dragons struck the lake with tremendous force. Caraxes, one wing torn off and belly slashed open, crawled to shore before expiring, but Vhagar sank beneath the waves. Years later, when her remains were found, Prince Aemond’s armored bones were discovered still chained to the saddle, with Dark Sister thrust hilt-deep through his eye socket. Prince Daemon’s remains were never found. It was the twenty-second day of the fifth moon of 130 AC.

Vhagar’s death at the age of 181 marked the passing of the last dragon to have lived since the time of Aegon the Conqueror. By the time of her death, she had grown nearly as large as Balerion the Black Dread.

Aemond and Daemon at Harrenhal.

Ser Luthor Largent pulled from his horse during the Shepherd’s riot.

AFTER DAEMON’S DEATH, King’s Landing slowly fell deeper into crisis with each passing day. Every new betrayal left Queen Rhaenyra more isolated, and every new rumor of disaster drove still more followers to the Shepherd, who preached in Cobbler’s Square. Thanks to Rhaenyra’s treatment of Ser Addam and her arrest of Lord Corlys, even those sworn to House Velaryon began to abandon the queen. Two knights attempted to free the Sea Snake, though they were caught and hanged from the walls for their troubles. That same night, Queen Helaena threw herself from a window in Maegor’s Holdfast, dying on the iron spikes in the dry moat below. Rumors ran through the city that she had been murdered by Ser Luthor Largent at Rhaenyra’s command, to make sure Prince Daeron would have no joyous reunion with his sister when he took the city.

Though the rumor was almost certainly baseless, it was enough to set off a riot that began in Flea Bottom and spread throughout the city. No shop or home was safe, and no one was spared regardless of their sex or station. Lord Bartimos Celtigar, the hated master of coin, was set upon in his manse. After his defenders were dispatched, he was tied to a post, tortured, gelded, and finally beheaded.

As the riot spread, the Shepherd fueled the anger against the queen and her dragons from his place in Cobbler’s Square. Ten thousand and more had gathered, hanging on his every word. Ser Luthor Largent led the gold cloaks against his flock, commanding them to disperse and attempting to arrest the Shepherd. Many fled from the City Watch, but still more remained to defend their prophet. The gold cloaks were slaughtered, and Luthor Largent was dragged from his saddle and killed.

Half the city fell under the Shepherd’s sway that night, and by dawn, many hundreds were dead, fires burned throughout the city, and lawless men ran amok as the surviving gold cloaks retreated to their barracks. Some in the city proclaimed themselves lords—or even kings—in the absence of any authority to gainsay them. Ser Perkin the Flea, a hedge knight, had raised up a youth called Trystane as a king, claiming that he was a bastard son of King Viserys, and proceeded to raise a small army by knighting every thug and cutthroat he could find. Ser Torrhen Manderly battled with them over control of Fishmonger’s Square and River Row, but was thrown back. The Lord Commander of the Queensguard, Ser Lorent Marbrand, led a hundred knights and men-at-arms into Flea Bottom, only to be killed with all but sixteen of his men.

Rhaenyra was desperate to retain control of the throne and the city. She named Ser Balon Byrch, the captain of the Iron Gate, as the new Commander of the City Watch, and the young Ser Glendon Goode as Lord Commander of the Queensguard, for he had amply proved his valor despite having worn the white cloak for less than a moon’s turn. She had maesters dispatch ravens to Winterfell and the Eyrie to beg for aid. She even had a bill of attainder prepared for Lord Mooton, blaming him for Daemon’s death and Nettles’s escape. But even this could not stem the rising chaos.

That night, on Visenya’s Hill, a whore’s son name Gaemon Palehair—allegedly a bastard of the missing King Aegon II—had been raised up as king by his mother and her Dornish lover, and the prostitutes of the Street of Silk had convinced men to promise their swords to his cause. Ser Perkin the Flea led the gutter knights he had raised to loot whatever they could around the riverfront. Wat the Tanner, who had gelded Lord Celtigar, commanded a mob around the Gate of the Gods that overwhelmed the remaining gold cloaks garrisoned in the gatehouse. The King’s Gate and the Lion Gate were forced open, to welcome in Rhaenyra’s foes.

Worse still, the Shepherd convinced his massive flock of the necessity of killing every Targaryen dragon. By the time the mob reached the Dragonpit, their number had doubled to over twenty thousand—and all of them imagining themselves as dragonslayers. The chaos in the streets slowed Rhaenyra’s commands to the City Watch, ordering them to defend the dragons. In his fear for Tyraxes, Prince Joffrey made the fateful choice of slipping into the yard of the Red Keep and unchaining Rhaenyra’s Syrax before climbing on her back and urging her to fly. Rhaenyra commanded every available man to mount their horses and chase after Joffrey, bringing him back to safety when he landed.

Chaos in King’s Landing.

Seven men did ride that night. Munkun tells us they were men of honor, duty-bound to obey their queen’s commands. Septon Eustace would have us believe that their hearts had been touched by a mother’s love for her son. Mushroom names them dolts and dastards, eager for some rich reward, and “too dull to believe that they might die.” For once it may be that all three of our chroniclers have the truth, at least in part. Regardless, the Ride of the Seven became the subject of many songs, as an act of utmost courage and duty.

Yet Joffrey—Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne—never came close to Rhaenys’s Hill and the Dragonpit. Once in the air, Syrax twisted beneath him, fighting to be free of this unfamiliar rider. Two hundred feet above Flea Bottom, Prince Joffrey slid from the dragon’s back and plunged to the earth. His broken body was found in an alley, and the mob that discovered him stripped him of his finery. Others mutilated his corpse in their savagery, removing his hands so that they could take the rings on the fingers at their leisure. The Seven Who Rode fought their way through to recover the body, though Ser Gyles Yronwood, Ser Willam Royce, and Lord Commander Ser Glendon Goode were all killed in the process. Goode had been Lord Commander for less than a day, and the ancestral sword of House Royce was never found.

Though some gold cloaks tried to reach the Dragonpit to join the order of the Dragonkeepers in defending the huge domed structure, they were forced back by the rampaging mobs that roamed the street. The Dragonkeepers were left to defend the dragons alone—and all seventy-seven of their order were killed by the Shepherd’s rabble. Then the mob entered the Dragonpit itself, intent on killing the four dragons who were chained there: Shrykos and Morghul (the dragons of Helaena’s twins Jaehaerys and Jaehaera—one dead and one fled), dead Joffrey’s Tyraxes, and dead Helaena’s Dreamfyre. The dragons fought for their lives with flames, claws, horns, and teeth. Hundreds—perhaps thousands—died in the battle. And yet, one by one, the dragons succumbed.

Shrykos died first, killed by a woodsman named Hobb the Hewer. Morghul was said to have been slain by the Burning Knight: a huge brute of a man in heavy armor who rushed headlong into the dragon’s flame with spear in hand, thrusting its point into the beast’s eye repeatedly—even as the dragonflame melted the steel plate that encased him and devoured the flesh within. Tyraxes, older than the others, was more cunning, retreating to his lair and forcing his would-be killers to approach through the corpse-filled entrance. But the Shepherd led his mob through a back entrance and, beneath the thrust and cut of a hundred spears and axes, Tyraxes died.

Storming the Dragonpit.

Dreamfyre, the oldest and the last of the dragons, had broken free of two of her chains when Queen Helaena died, and now she snapped the other two, sending gouts of flame at her attackers before taking wing. She flew around the great dome, raining down more fire, but that same dome prevented her escape. In the end, she attempted to fly straight through the stonework to escape, only half the dome came down on top of her, crushing dragon and dragonslayers alike.

It was then that Syrax arrived, drawn by the smell of blood and violence—or the cries of the dragons. She swooped through the remains of the dome, landed, and began to slaughter the mob, devouring a dozen men as she raged. Yet even Syrax died in the end. Her death was shrouded in mystery, with many contradictory accounts, but among them was the tale that the Shepherd himself was the dragonslayer.

King’s Landing had fallen. Shattered by the death of both her dragon and her second-to-last son—only Aegon the Younger remained of the five she had birthed—the queen was persuaded to escape the city at dawn with her sole surviving heir. Her followers slipped out the Dragon Gate and made their way to Duskendale. Others chose to stay behind, including Mushroom, Lady Misery, and Septon Eustace. When the castle was surrendered to Ser Perkin the Flea and his gutter knights, the knights who remained loyal to Rhaenyra were all executed. Mysaria was stripped naked and whipped to death as she tried to reach the Gate of the Gods and her promised freedom. Septon Eustace, however, was spared by Ser Perkin, who then went on to free Grand Maester Orwyle and Lord Corlys Velaryon from the dungeons.

The next day, the pretender Trystane mounted the Iron Throne as the threadbare court watched, including the Dowager Queen Alicent and the former master of coin, Ser Tyland Lannister, who was found still alive but blinded, mutilated, and gelded by Rhaenyra’s torturers. Larys the Clubfoot reappeared as if he had not been missing for the better part of half a year. Curiously, Ser Perkin the Flea greeted Larys warmly and Larys was given a place of honor beside the new “king.”

Trystane was but one of three “kings,” each holding court on one of the three hills that dominated King’s Landing. The others were Gaemon Palehair and the Shepherd—though the latter never laid claim to any crown. This time would come to be known as the Moon of the Three Kings, or the Moon of Madness. The Shepherd preached to tens of thousands on the Hill of Rhaenys, with the severed heads of the dragons his followers had killed mounted on posts. As time passed, however, his followers began to slowly dwindle in number, no longer so taken with his preaching of doom and penitence now that Rhaenyra had left the city.

The destruction of the Dragonpit.

On Visenya’s Hill, the four-year-old Gaemon Palehair issued decrees to his followers—wantons and thieves, sellswords and drunkards. He commanded that women should hold equal status in inheritance to men, that the poor should be given bread and beer in times of famine, and more; it was believed that his mother Essie’s lover, a Dornish prostitute named Sylvenna Sand, was the secret architect of these edicts. Trystane also sent out edicts, such as repealing taxes, rewarding followers with shares of the treasury, granting smallfolk the right to hunt game in the kingswood, and more.

The Moon of the Three Kings.

The Hightower host at Tumbleton soon learned of the troubles in King’s Landing, and suddenly lords and captains alike were arguing for an attack on the city. Ser Hobert Hightower was more cautious, and the Two Betrayers outright refused to risk themselves unless a list of demands they had prepared was satisfied. Also, word at Harrenhal of Prince Aemond’s death made many nervous. Lord Unwin Peake counseled that Prince Daeron should be declared the Prince of Dragonstone, while others felt he may as well be crowned king, given Aegon’s continued absence. Hard Hugh Hammer put forward that he himself should be king, because his dragon was now the largest and most dangerous in the land. Worse, he had begun to attract to him supporters from among the sellswords and rabble of the host, and Ulf White—who had his own dragon—backed his claim as well.

This naked ambition would be Hammer’s downfall. In the wake of his claim, Ser Hobert and eleven knights and lords—as well as Prince Daeron—met in secret at an inn called the Bloody Caltrops. There, these self-designated Caltrops discussed how to rid themselves of the rebellious seeds. Prince Daeron fixed his seal to warrants of execution that Lord Unwin had prepared. But other events intervened, and two nights later—on the eve before the Caltrops intended to strike at the Betrayers—the armed camp at Tumbleton was attacked. Ser Addam Velaryon had come on Seasmoke, eager to prove he was no traitor.

When Addam had escaped King’s Landing, he had flown first to the riverlands to rally the loyal lords, urging them to join his battle against the Hightower army. The riverlords sent near four thousand men to his call—including Ser Elmo Tully, who had, until then, strenuously avoided taking part in the fighting. These men were now on the attack, having caught the laxly disciplined, divided, and rudderless enemy abed in their camps.

Other riverlords who commanded Rhaenyra’s forces at the Second Battle of Tumbleton included the following:

Sabitha Frey, Lady of the Twins

Benjicot Blackwood, Lord of Raventree

Stanton Piper, Lord of Pinkmaiden

Joseth Smallwood, Lord of Acorn Hall

Derrick Darry, Lord of Darry

Lord Lyonel Deddings

Seasmoke proved even more devastating than the riverlanders, setting alight tents and pavilions—including those belonging to Ser Hobert, Lord Unwin, and even Prince Daeron. To fight the dragon would require more dragons, but the dragonriders were asleep: Daeron in his tent, Ulf White in a drunken stupor at an inn, and Hard Hugh Hammer abed with the widow of a knight killed at the First Battle of Tumbleton. Hard Hugh was the first to wake, and he prepared to mount Vermithor when Bold Jon Roxton seized his chance, opening him from groin to throat with the Valyrian steel sword Orphan-Maker. (Roxton managed to kill three more of the Hammer’s followers before he was himself killed—some said by slipping on Hard Hugh’s remains.) Prince Daeron’s fate was the matter of some debate, for accounts would vary. Some claimed the Myrish sellsword Black Trombo cut him down as he stumbled from his pavilion, others that a nameless man-at-arms killed him without realizing who he was, and others still that he died in his burning pavilion.

The death of Bold Jon Roxton.

The Caltrops.

As the battle and fires raged below, Ser Addam and Seasmoke had been prepared to meet the enemy dragonriders, not knowing that two of the three were already dead. But their dragons were another matter. Tessarion, Silverwing, and Vermithor had been kept unchained beyond the walls of the town, and the scent of fire and blood roused them from their torpor. Tessarion leapt into the sky, shrieking and spitting flame. Both Tessarion and Seasmoke were young dragons, and nimble. As they soared and swooped, circled and rolled, it seemed that dragons, indeed, danced in the sky. But this dance was interrupted when Vermithor—older and larger than both combined—roared aloft. Scored by a dozen wounds from soldiers, and maddened, the huge dragon killed friend and foe alike. Lords Piper and Deddings were among those burned by the dragon’s blasts.

Bound by duty to protect the riverlords he had brought to battle, Ser Addam sent Seasmoke diving after Vermithor. The clash of the two dragons drove them hard to the earth below, and there they struggled, entangled and writhing, snapping at one another. Vermithor’s greater size and weight would have carried the day—until Tessarion joined the fight, attacking both Seasmoke and Vermithor. Seasmoke was the first to die, his head ripped off by Vermithor. Afterward the great bronze dragon tried to take flight with his prize still in his jaws, but his tattered wings could not lift his weight. After a moment, he collapsed and died. Tessarion was too broken to move, and when sunset came young Lord Blackwood had a longbowman dispatch her from a distance, sending three arrows into her eye.

In later years, a different tale still would develop: that Daeron had survived the Second Battle of Tumbleton and had instead gone into hiding. And indeed, in later years, several men would falsely claim to be Prince Daeron returned, making their play for the Iron Throne.

The battle over Tumbleton.

The battle was done by then, the riverlords triumphant on the field with fewer than a hundred dead against more than a thousand of the enemy. However, Tumbleton remained in the hands of the greens, for they had shut the gates against the enemy. Without siege equipment, the riverlords chose to decamp at moonrise, leaving the enemy to enjoy the shattered husk of Tumbleton that they still controlled. Lord Blackwood located Addam Velaryon’s body, lying next to his dead dragon, and carried it from the field.

In the aftermath, Silverwing landed, having circled the battle high above but not joining it. The dragon flapped listlessly across the field, feeding on the burned corpses and horses. Eight of the thirteen Caltrops who had plotted on removing the Two Betrayers had been killed, including Lord Owen Fossoway, Marq Ambrose, and Bold Jon Roxton. Four of the plotters remained, amongst them Ser Hobert Hightower and Lord Unwin Peake. Ulf White was alive as well, awaking out of his drunken stupor when the battle was done, and so discovered himself the last dragonrider commanding the last dragon. He declared to Lord Peake that they should march on King’s Landing, with the intention of placing him on the Iron Throne. Ser Hobert Hightower met him the next morning to plan the march, bringing casks of wine to drink.

History has little good to say about Ser Hobert Hightower, but no man can question the manner of his death. Rather than betray his fellow conspirators, Ser Hobert let the squire fill his cup, drank deep, and asked for more. Once he saw Hightower drink, Ulf the Sot lived up to his name, putting down three cups before he began to yawn. The poison in the wine was a gentle one. When Lord Ulf went to sleep, never to awaken, Ser Hobert lurched to his feet and tried to make himself retch, but too late. His heart stopped within the hour.

Ser Addam’s bones would remain interred at Raventree Hall until 138 AC, when his brother Alyn had them taken to Driftmark and placed in a tomb in Hull, the town where they had both been born. The tomb bore a single word, ornately engraved and supported by a seahorse and a mouse: LOYAL.

Addam Velaryon’s tomb

Afterward Lord Unwin Peake offered a thousand golden dragons to any knight of noble birth who could claim Silverwing. Three men came forth. When the first had his arm torn off and the second burned to death, the third man reconsidered. By that time Peake’s army—the remnants of the great host that Prince Daeron and Lord Ormund Hightower had led all the way from Oldtown—was falling to pieces, as deserters fled Tumbleton by the score with all the plunder they could carry. Bowing to defeat, Lord Unwin summoned his lords and serjeants and ordered a retreat.

The death of Ulf White.

That Addam had remained loyal was of little account to Rhaenyra, who did not hear the news as she fled the city. Her journey was a hard one. Rosby barred its gates to her and Stokeworth’s castellan only allowed her to remain for a day. On the way to Duskendale, half the gold cloaks in the company deserted, and then their camp was attacked, leading to the deaths of Ser Balon Byrch and the young Queensguard knight Ser Lyonel Bentley. At Duskendale, the widowed Lady Meredyth Darklyn needed to be convinced to give refuge to the queen whose cause had led to the deaths of her husband, Lord Gunthor, and his uncle Ser Steffon. When Rhaenyra attempted to gather other allies, Lord Stark wrote from Winterfell that his large realm would be slow to gather men, especially with winter upon them, but that ten thousand would march south. The Maiden of the Vale also promised to help, though her knights would come by sea if the Velaryon fleet could ferry them or if the queen had gold enough to pay for the hire of sellsails. But the queen could do neither, as the Velaryon ships would not obey her and she had abandoned what remained of her treasury in King’s Landing.

After the death of Ulf White, none ever rode Silverwing again. In the years to come, Silverwing grew wild and would make her lair on a small island in Red Lake in the Reach.

And despite several missives to Grand Maester Gerardys, who had been banished to Dragonstone, begging for a ship to carry her home, the queen found no answer forthcoming. So when Rhaenyra at last departed the Dun Fort and Duskendale, she did so by selling her crown to buy passage on a Braavosi merchant ship. For despite the advice of her remaining followers, Rhaenyra insisted on returning to Dragonstone where there were dragon eggs and the hope of new dragons.

The queen arrived on Dragonstone on a rainy day, finding the port almost lifeless. An escort forty strong, led by Ser Alfred Broome, met her at the docks. Alas for Rhaenyra, Broome was not a friend to the queen. Though he was the most senior knight on the isle, he had been passed over as castellan by Rhaenyra, who had preferred the younger and more charming Ser Robert Quince.

As Rhaenyra approached the castle, the first thing she saw was the burned corpse of Ser Robert hanging from the battlements, alongside other members of her former household. Even Grand Maester Gerardys was dead—though all that was displayed was his head and upper torso. Everything below his ribs was gone, and the Grand Maester’s entrails dangled down from his torn belly like so many burned black snakes. Before Rhaenyra and her son could run, Broome and his men cut down Rhaenyra’s protectors—including the last three of her Queensguard. And when Rhaenyra and Aegon were marched through the gates of the castle, they found themselves facing the long-vanished King Aegon II and his dragon Sunfyre.

Rhaenyra returns to Dragonstone.

What Rhaenyra had not known was that Lord Larys Strong, the Clubfoot, had personally led Aegon the Elder and his children out of the Red Keep, using the secret passages created by Maegor the Cruel. He then separated them for their safety. The Clubfoot reasoned that Rhaenyra would never think to send men to search for her brother on Dragonstone, as it was her own seat. He thus sent the king on a fishing skiff, escorted by Ser Marston Waters, a bastard knight with kin on Dragonstone. They were in fact the alleged “cousins” brought to shore by Tom Tanglebeard and his son Tom Tangletongue, in search of the dragons that sailors had seen fighting.

Sunfyre’s journey had been even less straightforward. The wounded dragon was slow to recover after the battle with Meleys at Rook’s Rest, unable to fly due to his broken wing. Yet the dragon somehow managed to crawl away from Rook’s Rest and make short flights from hillside to hillside at Crackclaw Point. How Sunfyre came to reach Dragonstone is unknown, though some speculate that the dragon might well have swum. Once in residence, Sunfyre made a lair, and then took to the sky to battle and kill the Grey Ghost. Ser Marston helped King Aegon locate his dragon, then with the Two Toms ventured to find supporters while the king remained in hiding. Once they had won Ser Alfred Broome’s aid with promises of lordship, lands, and wealth, they took the castle within the span of an hour.

The attack was almost perfect—save for Baela Targaryen. The young lady slipped out of her window as Tom Tangletongue tried to smash down her door, and she ran to where Moondancer was stabled. The young green dragon leapt into the sky, but King Aegon was already mounted on Sunfyre. In the darkness the dragons fought, with Moondancer using her nimbleness and speed to dodge flames and jaws and claws, raking the still-wounded Sunfyre repeatedly. It took only one blast of Sunfyre’s golden flames to find its mark, however, and so Moondancer was blinded. The two dragons slammed into one another and fell, with Moondancer’s teeth locked around Sunfyre’s neck. When they crashed to the earth, they fought on. Moondancer was killed, and Sunfyre was severely wounded, never to fly again.

Matters were little better for their riders. King Aegon II managed to leap from the saddle before the dragons fell, but both of his legs were shattered. Lady Baela remained on Moondancer’s back and was burned and battered. Ser Alfred Broome drew his sword to kill her as she lay defenseless, but Ser Marston Waters stopped him and had Tom Tangletongue carry her to a maester.

Moondancer attacks Sunfyre.

When the captured Grand Maester Gerardys offered milk of the poppy to ease the king’s pain, Aegon lashed out against his sister’s “creature.” At the king’s command, the chain that Princess Rhaenyra had torn from Grand Maester Orwyle’s neck and given to Gerardys was now used to hang him. Once he was dead, his corpse was dangled before Sunfyre, who ate the lower half of his body. The other bodies were likewise hung from the walls, to give his sister an appropriate greeting.

And so matters stood, until Rhaenyra arrived.

The accounts of the words that passed between brother and sister are not in agreement, so no one will ever know how these two warring monarchs greeted each other at the end of their Dance. But what is certain is that Aegon II had Rhaenyra fed alive to Sunfyre while her son, Aegon the Younger, was forced to watch.

So ended Rhaenyra Targaryen, once the Realm’s Delight and now the Half-Year Queen. It was the twenty-second day of the tenth moon of the 130th year after Aegon’s Conquest, and she was thirty-three years old.

But though his greatest rival was dead, Aegon II’s reign was far from secure. Between him and the Iron Throne lay the Velaryon fleet, still opposed to his rule even if they had abandoned Rhaenyra. The king had ravens dispatched to Driftmark, offering pardons if Alyn of Hull presented himself and swore allegiance. However, the king delayed any plans to make the journey himself, in the hope that Sunfyre could somehow recover from his latest wounds.

It was a vain hope; Sunfyre the Golden, one of the most magnificent dragons to have ever soared over the Seven Kingdoms, expired on the ninth day of the twelfth moon of 130 AC. King Aegon wept, and in his wroth ordered Lady Baela brought up from the dungeons to be executed. Only when her head was on the block did he repent, for his maester reminded him that the girl’s mother had been a Velaryon, the Sea Snake’s own daughter. Another raven took wing for Driftmark, this time with a threat: unless Alyn of Hull presented himself within a fortnight to do homage to his rightful liege, his cousin the Lady Baela would lose her head.

While the king waited, the Moon of the Three Kings came to its end when Lord Borros Baratheon—who had long absented himself from the fighting under the pretext of chasing after Dornish raiders and a new Vulture King—appeared with a host of stormlanders. Once he heard of Rhaenyra’s death, he rode north with six hundred knights and four thousand foot. The Shepherd tried to order his flock to take a stand against the Baratheon army, but by this time only a few hundred followers still adhered to him. King Trystane Truefyre, as he was now called, knew he stood no chance against Borros’s forces, so allowed Larys Strong—along with Grand Maester Orwyle and the Dowager Queen Alicent—to parlay with Lord Borros on his behalf. Alicent wept tears of joy when she learned that her granddaughter Jaehaera, the only surviving child of her son Aegon and daughter Helaena, had been delivered safely to Storm’s End by Ser Willis Fell of the Kingsguard.

The death of Rhaenyra.

The Clubfoot promised that Ser Perkin and his gutter knights would join the stormlanders in restoring King Aegon II to the Iron Throne, on the condition that all of them—save the pretender Trystane—would be pardoned for all offenses, including high treason, rebellion, robbery, murder, and rape. (The erstwhile king was already in chains, waiting in a dungeon for his fate to be decided.) Queen Alicent agreed that her son King Aegon would make Lady Cassandra, Lord Borros’s eldest daughter, his new queen. Lady Floris, another of his lordship’s daughters, was to be betrothed to Larys Strong.

With that decided, Lord Borros began to restore order to King’s Landing. The day after his welcoming feast, he led his men to seize Gaemon Palehair, now five years old, and with him his mother Essie, her lover Sylvenna Sand, and most of his “court.” The next night, the Shepherd was arrested in the Dragonpit, abandoned by most of his followers. Peace was largely restored, but the Velaryons of Driftmark remained a concern. The Dowager Queen Alicent and Lord Larys Strong had offered Lord Corlys his freedom, a pardon for his treason, and a place on the small council. Lord Corlys had countered by requesting pardons for all the men who had fought for Rhaenyra, the release of Lady Baela from captivity, the legitimizing of Alyn of Hull as Alyn Velaryon and his heir, and the betrothal of Aegon the Younger to Princess Jaehaera, Aegon II’s only remaining trueborn child.

Though Queen Alicent initially objected, the agreement was struck and Lord Corlys pledged his loyalty and that of House Velaryon. Ravens were sent to spread the word, and toward the end of the year, King Aegon II finally entered King’s Landing.

King Aegon’s arrival was not a triumphant moment as, still unable to walk, he was carried up through silent and deserted streets in a litter. Maneuvering him up the steps of the Iron Throne proved an impossibility, thanks to his twisted and shattered legs, so he held court from a carved seat at its base. His first act was to deal with the Three Kings. Trystane Truefyre was defiant until he saw that Ser Perkin the Flea, the man who had crowned him, had betrayed him. Trystane asked the boon that he die a knight, and King Aegon granted it. Ser Marston Waters dubbed him Ser Trystane Fyre before Ser Alfred Broome beheaded him with Blackfyre. Gaemon Palehair, due to his extreme youth, was spared and became a ward of the crown, but his mother, Sylvenna Sand, and twenty-seven members of their sham court were hanged.

Aegon II at the foot of the Iron Throne.

Finally, the Shepherd was brought before the king. His insolence infuriated Aegon, who had his tongue ripped out; he was then condemned to a death by fire. On the last day of 130 AC, 241 “barefoot lambs,” the Shepherd’s most fervid and devoted followers, were covered with pitch and chained to poles along the broad cobbled thoroughfare that ran eastward from Cobbler’s Square up to the Dragonpit. As the city’s septs rang their bells to signal the end of the old year and the coming of the new, King Aegon II proceeded along the street (thereafter known as Shepherd’s Way, rather than Hill Street as before) in his litter, whilst his knights rode to either side, setting their torches to the captive lambs to light his way. At the very top, the Shepherd himself was bound amongst the heads of the five dragons he had killed. Supported by two of his Kingsguard, King Aegon rose from his cushions and set the prophet aflame with his own hand.

Alyn Velaryon arranged the ship to carry Aegon to King’s Landing, as well as the escort. None could fault the twelve Velaryon war galleys that escorted the king to the royal city. However, some remarked on the fact that the king himself traveled on an old, battered trading cog named Mouse after its owner and captain, Marilda of Hull: Alyn’s mother.

With his half-sister slain and her only surviving son a captive at his own court, King Aegon II might reasonably have expected the remaining opposition to his rule to melt away—and it might have done so if His Grace had heeded Lord Velaryon’s counsel and issued a general pardon for all those lords and knights who had espoused the queen’s cause. But alas, the king was not of a forgiving mind. Urged on by his mother, the Dowager Queen Alicent, Aegon II was determined to exact vengeance upon those who had betrayed and deposed him.

He started with the stormlands. Lord Borros and his stormlanders marched against the seats and villages nearest to King’s Landing, forcing those that had raised Rhaenyra’s banner to surrender. Their lords and castellans were sent to King’s Landing to make obeisance, pay ransoms, and surrender hostages. Unfortunately, this merely hardened the hearts of the lords who had supported Rhaenyra. Lord Stark’s promised host of northmen was gathering its strength unabated. Lord Elmo Tully, having at last succeeded his grandfather Lord Grover, called the banners of the riverlords. Even Lord Bracken of Stone Hedge answered the call, despite having supported Aegon II through the war. Near ten thousand more men were gathering at Lady Jeyne Arryn’s command, for she had hired Braavosi ships to carry them to King’s Landing.

The Shepherd burns.

The green council was deeply divided as to the best way to respond to the gathering strength of Rhaenyra’s followers. Lord Corlys persisted in advising reconciliation and peace, but Borros Baratheon believed he could defeat all the traitors in battle…so long as he had sufficient men. Ser Tyland Lannister, the blind master of coin, suggested finding sellswords in the Free Cities, but the Sea Snake retorted that the best free companies were already under contract by various of the Free Cities, and in any case it would take too long for them to arrive from across the narrow sea. He again urged peace, counseling Aegon to name Aegon the Younger, Rhaenyra’s surviving son, as his heir, betrothing the young prince to his daughter Jaehaera.

Rhaena Targaryen returning to King’s Landing.

No one heeded him, however. Though Queen Alicent had negotiated that very match outside the walls of King’s Landing, Aegon II preferred that his nephew have no sons at all, wanting him either to take the black and live out his days on the Wall or accept gelding and become a eunuch servant. Ser Tyland argued that so long as Prince Aegon lived, the king and his heirs would never be safe, and instead suggested killing Aegon the Younger. Lord Corlys, horrified, stormed out of the council. Only the intervention of Lord Larys Strong changed the course of the debate, for he noted that if the Sea Snake defected, it would lose them Alyn Velaryon and his ships. He suggested announcing Aegon the Younger as heir and betrothing him to Jaehaera as a means of winning over their foes, then biding their time before they could rid themselves of him. The council accepted his advice, and Larys the Clubfoot privately spoke to Lord Corlys and convinced him to go along with the plan.

Still, the enemy armies gathered and marched. In the North, Lord Cregan Stark was leading a host down the Neck. Of greater concern was the army from the riverlands, now led by the young and headstrong Kermit Tully, after his father Lord Elmo drank bad water on the march and expired. Two days out from King’s Landing, the two armies met. Lord Borros commanded the stormlanders, their strength augmented by levies from castles in the crownlands and two thousand men and boys from Flea Bottom who were hastily armed with spears and iron pot helms. It had been raining, and the ground near the kingsroad was soft and muddy. Still, Lord Borros was confident of victory, for his scouts had told him that the rivermen were led by boys and women, so he launched an attack at dusk.

Rhaena Targaryen—Prince Daemon’s daughter and twin to Baela—had spent almost the entirety of the war in the Vale under the protection of Lady Jeyne. She now prepared to return to King’s Landing with the Arryn host, bringing with her a new dragon that had recently hatched from one of her eggs. She named the pale pink hatchling Morning.

His confidence, as it happened, was misplaced. Lord Borros led the charge of his knights himself, but it was into the teeth of a disciplined, battle-tested enemy who set a firm wall of shields and spears across the kingsroad, while archers on a hillside rained down arrows. The Battle of the Kingsroad, the histories would call it—but the men who fought it called it the Muddy Mess.

By any name, the last battle of the Dance of the Dragons would prove to be a one-sided affair. The longbows on the hill shot the horses out from under Lord Borros’s knights as they charged, bringing down so many that less than half his riders ever reached the shield wall. Those that did found their ranks disordered, their wedge broken, their horses slipping and struggling in the soft mud. Though the stormlanders wreaked great havoc with lance and sword and longaxe, the riverlords held firm, as new men stepped up to fill the place of those who fell. When Lord Baratheon’s foot came crashing into the fray, it seemed as if the tide of battle might turn, until the wood to the left of the road erupted with shouts and screams, and hundreds more rivermen burst from the trees, led by thirteen-year-old Benjicot Blackwood, who would be known as Bloody Ben for the rest of his long life.

When Lord Borros saw the battle slipping away, he signaled his reserve to advance. Upon hearing the horn, however, the men of Rosby, Stokeworth, and Hayford remained unmoving, the rabble from King’s Landing scattered like geese, and the knights of Duskendale went over to the foe, attacking the stormlanders in the rear. Battle turned to rout in half a heartbeat, as King Aegon’s last army shattered. Borros Baratheon died fighting—but die he did.

Back in King’s Landing, the defeat left the green council scrambling to find some way to protect the city, but there were no fresh armies coming to defend the king. Casterly Rock, Highgarden, and Oldtown had all offered excuses and prevarications in the place of promises. Ser Tyland Lannister, Ser Marston Waters, and Ser Julian Wormwood had been dispatched to Pentos, Tyrosh, and Myr to raise sellswords, but they had not yet returned. The riverlords were advancing on the city, Lord Stark’s forces were mere days behind, and word arrived that Lady Jeyne’s Valemen had left Gulltown and were sailing to the Gullet. The Sea Snake now urged surrender, but Queen Alicent convinced her son to use threats against Aegon the Younger to stop their enemies. Aegon ordered Ser Alfred Broome to cut off the prince’s ear and have it taken to the riverlords, warning that every mile they marched would lose the boy another body part.

Benjicot Blackwood at the Muddy Mess.

However, Aegon II did not reckon on the turncloaks within the Red Keep. As Ser Alfred Broome attempted to cross the drawbridge to Maegor’s Holdfast to carry out his king’s bidding, he was confronted by Ser Perkin the Flea and his gutter knights, who flung him down onto the iron spikes below, where he twisted for two days until he died. Concurrently, Lord Larys’s agents spirited Lady Baela to safety. The Two Toms—father and son both—were killed. Within mere hours, over twenty men were murdered by Lord Larys and his fellow conspirators, so quietly that the court did not realize what was going on.

In the end, the Dowager Queen herself was arrested by men wearing the badge of House Velaryon. She was clapped in chains and taken to the dungeons. She did not know that the last of her sons, King Aegon II, was already dead. He was unusually fatigued after the council meeting and was helped into his litter by Ser Gyles Belgrave of the Kingsguard. Aegon asked to be taken to the castle’s sept. He drank a cup of wine from a flagon of sweet Arbor red as he was carried there. But when they arrived, the litter’s curtains remained closed and no answer came when Ser Gyles spoke to the king. When Ser Gyles investigated, he found the king dead, with blood on his lips.

And so ended the short, sad reign of King Aegon, the Second of His Name. He had ruled for only two years, and was dead at the age of twenty-four. The war was over at last—though the peace that followed would prove tumultuous.

Mushroom recounts having witnessed the murder of Ummet, the king’s food taster. He claimed that he himself was targeted for death but hid himself in a barrel of flour and stayed there until the next night. When he emerged, he alleged he was so covered in flour that the first person he came across—a serving girl—thought he was Mushroom’s ghost.

Borros Baratheon meets his end.

A princely reunion.

Aegon the Younger returns to King’s Landing.

THOUGH THE DEATH of King Aegon II brought an end to the Dance of the Dragons, it did not immediately lead to the crowning of Aegon III, nephew of the late king and son of Rhaenyra, the Half-Year Queen. This would be emblematic of the broken reign of this broken king—one who had witnessed his mother eaten alive by a dragon, who had lost all his brothers as well as his father, and who had seen his own dragon die after their first flight. In his later years, many considered this third Aegon a joyless monarch. He did not hunt or hawk, rode only for travel, drank no wine, and was so disinterested in food that he often had to be reminded to eat. Though he permitted tourneys, he took no part in them, either as competitor or spectator. The Dance had planted the seeds of his grief, watered them with blood and death, and what grew of it would mark him for the rest of his days.

The circumstances under which the boy king began his reign were far from auspicious. The army of the riverlords, under the banner of young Lord Kermit Tully—newly victorious at the Battle of the Kingsroad—were approaching King’s Landing. When they reached the city walls, they were met by Lord Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake, and the then ten-year-old Prince Aegon. Lord Corlys informed the riverlords that Aegon II was dead, proclaimed Prince Aegon as his successor, then surrendered the city to them. The riverlords bent the knee to the prince and marched into the city as saviors, cheered by the smallfolk of King’s Landing.

The Tully host was notable for many reasons, but the age of its leaders—or the lack thereof—was prominent among them. Kermit Tully, Lord of Riverrun, was only nineteen years old. His right hand was his younger brother, the newly knighted Ser Oscar, who had killed three men at the Muddy Mess. His chief confidant was even younger: Bloody Ben Blackwood, Lord of Raventree, all of thirteen years old, but an experienced commander who played a precocious and prominent role in the Dance. These three youths would be known by their own men—and to history—as “the Lads.”

But Tully’s was not the only army on the march, seeking to root out any last supporters of King Aegon II. Lord Leowyn Corbray landed at Duskendale with half of Lady Arryn’s power and was welcomed with open arms. So, too, was his brother Ser Corwyn, leading the other half of the Vale’s army to Maidenpool. Alyn Velaryon received the surrender of Dragonstone after the defiant garrison was overwhelmed by the castle’s servants, grooms, and cooks.

And then there was the army from the North, under the banner of Lord Cregan Stark. Its march had terrified Septon Eustace and Queen Alicent, and its arrival a fortnight after Aegon II’s death threatened a fresh outbreak of violence. The eight thousand hardened warriors from the North had come to fulfill Lord Cregan’s pact with Prince Jacaerys—and the fact that a kind of peace had settled on the land did not much matter. Cregan—better known as the Wolf of the North—believed the war not done until all of those who had opposed Rhaenyra were destroyed. So he announced that his northmen would raze Storm’s End, then march on Oldtown to bring down the Hightowers, and finally follow the coast to lay siege to Casterly Rock. Lord Cregan did not care if many of his men would die, because the winter that had gripped the North had encouraged men to march south to fight for glory and plunder and deaths far from home so that their kin would have fewer mouths to feed.

Cregan Stark arrives.

In the debate that followed, Lord Corlys attempted to convince Cregan that a peace could be brokered if those who had supported Aegon II would bend the knee accept the rule of Rhaenyra’s son. King Aegon II had refused to heed his counsel in this, Corlys said, and it had led to the king’s death. Lord Cregan’s response was to accuse Lord Corlys of poisoning King Aegon II. Cregan’s men then seized Lord Corlys, Lord Larys Strong, Grand Maester Orwyle, Ser Perkin the Flea, Septon Eustace, and half a hundred others whom Stark believed to be duplicitous. Though Cregan was far from a supporter of the prior Aegon—kinslayer, oathbreaker, and usurper that he was—he would not suffer any men who had betrayed their king to go unpunished.

Browbeating the Lads into joining their strength to his, Lord Cregan’s first task was to cleanse the city of King’s Landing of anyone he felt had betrayed Rhaenyra’s trust. For six days, Lord Cregan ruled King’s Landing in what Munkun would later name “the Hour of the Wolf.” Unrest roiled the city, in fear of what the savage northmen and their cold, uncompromising lord might do. A false Shepherd with two hands appeared and preached doom to hundreds; minor lords came to blows in brothels and filthy alleyways. And tensions swelled when word arrived that the Corbray brothers were on the march, departing Maidenpool and Duskendale with additional allies such as Lord Clement Celtigar, the widowed Lady Staunton, Lord Mooton, Lord Brune, and Ser Rennifer Crabb.

The three widows.

From Dragonstone, Alyn Velaryon demanded the release of Lord Corlys and allegedly threatened to attack King’s Landing if the Sea Snake were harmed. False rumors ran rife that the Lannisters and Hightowers were marching as well, and that Ser Marston Waters had landed with ten thousand sellswords from the east.

Meanwhile, Lord Cregan oversaw inquiries into the murder of King Aegon II, while keeping Prince Aegon confined in Maegor’s Holdfast with Gaemon Palehair, the boy who had for a brief time reigned as a king. Had it been his choice alone, Lord Cregan would have seen brutal justice done, then marched to war. Fortunately for the realm, much bloodshed was avoided thanks to the intervention of a few noteworthy women, both in King’s Landing and beyond. Among them were three widows.

The first of these was Johanna Lannister, the widowed Lady of Casterly Rock, who with her father, Lord Roland Westerling, now ruled the westerlands. Lord Corlys’s ravens, offering pardons and terms, had flown widely before Lord Cregan arrived, and Lady Johanna had responded by accepting all those terms, asking only that the Iron Throne command Lord Greyjoy to abandon his reaving of her lands, returning Fair Isle to its rightful lords and freeing all the noble women that had been taken as salt wives. She also swore to turn over the portion of the royal treasury that had been dispatched to Casterly Rock at the outset of the war, though required that Ser Tyland Lannister be pardoned as well.

The second widow was Lady Elenda, wife of the late Lord Borros Baratheon. She now ruled in the name of her infant son, Royce, who had been born six days after his father’s death at the Battle of the Kingsroad. She was quick to pledge the fealty of Storm’s End, offering up three of her daughters to serve as hostages. Escorted by Ser Willis Fell of the Kingsguard, the girls would be accompanied to King’s Landing by Princess Jaehaera.

The last widow was the beautiful, fiery Lady Samantha Hightower, widow of Lord Ormund Hightower and the daughter of Lord Donald Tarly and Lady Jeyne Rowan, whose own families had risen in support of Rhaenyra. She had been his second wife and was of an age with Lord Ormund’s children. The death of her husband at the second Battle of Tumbleton could have left her in a precarious position, but the new lord—the fifteen-year-old Lyonel—was smitten with his own stepmother, who was only two years his senior. According to Mushroom, Lady Sam, as she would be known, allowed him to seduce her, and promised to marry him if he made peace and swore his fealty to Prince Aegon—including returning Oldtown’s portion of the royal treasury that remained following his cousin Ser Myles Hightower’s theft of part of it. Munkun, on the other hand, alleges that Lyonel’s decision was less the result of Lady Sam’s influence, and more because the Tyrells held his younger brother Garmund hostage and forbade him from raising an army.

As it happened, the High Septon objected to what he considered an incestuous marriage between Lyonel Hightower and his stepmother. For thirteen years, Lord Lyonel and Lady Sam lived openly as paramours, begetting six children out of wedlock. Matters changed only with the passing of the High Septon, and his replacement by someone who finally permitted the two to wed.

As each of the great houses that sided with Aegon II swiftly bent the knee to Aegon III, Lord Cregan’s desire for war was thwarted—and more so when Lady Jeyne Arryn arrived from Gulltown with Lady Rhaena Targaryen, who had a newly hatched dragon riding on her shoulder. When the Corbray brothers arrived with their portion of the Vale’s army, they joined the ruling council and often echoed Lady Jeyne’s desires, leaving Lord Cregan alone in his efforts to push for reprisal against any who still flew the gold dragon. In the end, he insisted only on one significant point: those who had taken part in the conspiracy to poison King Aegon II must be punished. The others grudgingly agreed, and Prince Aegon named Lord Cregan as his Hand so that he could mete out royal justice, as no lord had the right to put another to death.

Lord Cregan sat on a wooden bench beneath the Iron Throne and passed judgment. Over thirty men were found guilty of treason and regicide. These included Grand Maester Orwyle; Ser Gyles Belgrave and three of his sworn brothers of the Kingsguard; Ser Perkin the Flea and a few his adherents; and, most notably of all, Lord Larys Strong and Lord Corlys Velaryon.

Lord Larys, who had changed his allegiances often, did not speak in his own defense and had no friends at court who were willing to speak for him. The Sea Snake did not deny his guilt, repeating he would have conspired to kill Aegon II again, but Prince Aegon was convinced by his half-sisters Baela and Rhaena to intervene—not only pardoning Lord Corlys but naming him to his small council. Prince Aegon was still a child and not officially crowned, so Lord Cregan was not required by law to obey him. However, according to some, he was moved by fear of what Alyn Velaryon would do if he insisted on executing Lord Corlys, while others suggested that Lady Alysanne Blackwood—better known as Black Aly—had won his heart, exchanging her hand in marriage for the boon of letting Lord Corlys live.

The Judgment of the Wolf.

When the next morning came, Lord Cregan Stark wielded the Valyrian steel greatsword named Ice with the intention of acting as executioner, after the custom of the First Men that he who passed the sentence should also swing the sword. The first to be executed was Ser Perkin the Flea, who asked to take the black and join the Night’s Watch. The Lord of Winterfell, a man of the North, could not deny the request. When the others facing death saw this, they too clamored to take the black almost to a man. In the end, only two men were executed: Ser Gyles Belgrave of the Kingsguard, who agreed that he should not have outlived his king, and Lord Larys Strong the Clubfoot. Their heads were mounted outside the Red Keep’s gates, and the next day Lord Cregan Stark’s service as Hand of the King came to an end. The Hour of the Wolf was done.

Lord Cregan now wanted nothing more to do with the south, yet many of the men that had marched with him to find either glory or death had now found neither. Lady Alysanne provided a solution, pointing out that the riverlands were full of widows needing men to help see them and their families through the winter. More than a thousand northmen would travel with Black Aly and Lord Benjicot to the Trident, and hundreds of marriages were made at the so-called Widow Fairs held at Raventree, Riverrun, Stoney Sept, the Twins, and Fairmarket. Those northmen who did not wish to marry instead swore their swords to lords both great and small as guards and men-at-arms. A few did turn to outlawry and met evil ends, but for the most part, Lady Alysanne’s matchmaking was a great success. The resettled northmen not only strengthened the riverlords who welcomed them—particularly House Tully and House Blackwood—but also helped revive and spread the worship of the old gods south of the Neck.

A new dawn at court.

Others of Lord Cregan’s host turned their eyes across the narrow sea. Ser Marston Waters returned from Lys alone, having been dispatched there by King Aegon II’s advisors to hire sellswords. He reported that the Triarchy had collapsed into infighting, and that war was looming as they hired every free company they could. (Ser Marston was duly pardoned for his past crimes.) But to the men who had marched to war in the Seven Kingdoms and still desired glory and wealth, the news he brought was enticing. Two sellsword companies were born in the aftermath: the Wolf Pack, led by Mad Hal Hornwood and Timotty Snow, the Bastard of Flint’s Finger; and the Stormbreakers, led by Ser Oscar Tully. These two companies prepared to sail east to take up contracts with the Free Cities.

But while some left the city, many others flocked to it ahead of the royal coronation of Aegon and his promised bride, Aegon II’s daughter Princess Jaehaera. Among those to arrive were Lady Johanna Lannister and her father Lord Roland Westerling; Lord Lyonel Hightower and Lady Sam; the High Septon (traveling separately from Lord Hightower, due to Lyonel’s incestuous relationship with his stepmother); the Baratheon sisters Cassandra, Ellyn, and Floris, escorted by Lady Elenda’s father Lord Royce Caron; Ser Alyn Velaryon; Ser Medrick and Ser Torrhen Manderly with a hundred knights from White Harbor; and many from more far-flung places, including emissaries from six of the Nine Free Cities and three splendid, feather-cloaked princes from the Summer Isles.

On the seventh day of the seventh moon of 131 AC—an auspicious and holy day according to the Faith—the High Septon performed the marriage rites atop Visenya’s Hill for all the city to see. Prince Aegon was wed to Princess Jaehaera, which was met with a roar of approval from the tens of thousands who witnessed it. The newlywed Targaryens were then carried to the Red Keep, where Aegon was crowned with a plain golden circlet and declared Aegon the Third of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. It was a lavish occasion—although the dragons that once flew triumphantly on such festive occasions were absent: a loss that House Targaryen would feel in the years and decades to come.

King Aegon III’s first act was to arrange for those who would protect and defend him, as well as help him to rule until he was of age. Ser Willis Fell, who had worn the white cloak since King Viserys’s day, was named as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Ser Marston Waters was inducted into the Kingsguard and became Ser Willis’s right hand. As they had been supporters of the Aegon II during the war, the other remaining places in the Kingsguard were given over to men who had supported Rhaenyra.

Ser Tyland Lannister, who had been dispatched alongside Ser Marston Waters to the Free Cities to hire sellsword companies, was made Hand of the King when he returned. Lord Leowyn Corbray was named Protector of the Realm. Finally, a council of regency was established, consisting of Lady Jeyne Arryn, Lord Corlys Velaryon, Lord Roland Westerling, Lord Royce Caron, Lord Manfryd Mooton, Ser Torrhen Manderly, and Grand Maester Munkun, who had been selected by the Citadel to replace Grand Maester Orwyle. (As Aegon lacked any older relatives to rule in his name until he came of age, a council of seven was deemed the best compromise.)

The rest of 131 AC saw many of those who had come to King’s Landing—either in war or in peace—depart once more…save for one notable exception. When Ser Medrick Manderly’s men made a final count of those who had escaped Lord Cregan’s justice by taking the black, they found Grand Maester Orwyle missing. It seems that Orwyle had contrived to bribe a guard, don a beggar’s rags, and disappear into the city. Ser Medrick and his ship left King’s Landing without him—although with the bribed guardsman in his stead.

As 131 AC ended, calm had been restored to the city under Ser Tyland’s expert care. The Lannister knight had suffered badly at Rhaenyra’s hands. Her torturers had blinded him, pulled out his fingernails and toenails, cut off his ears, and relieved him of his manhood. Once a handsome and dashing figure, he now frightened the ladies at court so greatly that he chose to wear a silken hood on formal occasions—but this only gave him a sinister reputation as a masked sorcerer. Despite this, Ser Tyland proved exceptionally capable as Hand, and his dogged loyalty to King Aegon III plain for all to see. He eventually became the dominant figure at court, and the council of regents soon found their role diminished by the day.

To be sure, the realm needed a man like Ser Tyland, because the Dance had left it shattered. Trade had collapsed, numerous castles and towns and villages had been razed, outlaws and broken men marauded, and a harsh winter had descended upon the realm. The Lannisters were famed for their wealth, and Ser Tyland knew how to use the gold that had been restored to the royal treasury. After abolishing Rhaenyra’s and Lord Celtigar’s unpopular taxes, he used a good portion of the treasury to provide loans which lords and knights could use to rebuild their holdings. He had enormous, fortified granaries built in King’s Landing, Lannisport, and Gulltown, and purchased the grain to fill them. He set men to work restoring the Dragonpit. He had fifty new war galleys constructed to put the shipyards back to work…but also to perhaps reduce the crown’s dependence on House Velaryon, and to deal with the continuing trouble caused by Lord Dalton Greyjoy and his reavers—trouble that would continue for three years as they razed any fleet that Lady Johanna sent against them.

Racallio Ryndoon was a colorful figure who became the subject of both scholarly study and vulgar tales. He was a hulking man, able to wield a sword with either hand, and frequently fought with two blades. In battle, he would often laugh and was sometimes known to break out in bawdy song.

No one can deny that he lived a life of extremes: extreme ambition, extreme gluttony, extreme lusts…and extreme generosity. Though he hailed from Tyrosh—a Free City infamous for its slavers—he hated slavery and freed the enslaved wherever he found them. He had many wives, but was also known to sometimes dress in women’s clothing.

Racallio Ryndoon

Nor was Lord Dalton the only problem on the sea. The dissolution of the Kingdom of the Three Daughters was proceeding apace. When Lys and Myr went to war, Tyrosh seized the opportunity to assert its dominion over the Stepstones. To press that claim, the Archon of Tyrosh called up Racallio Ryndoon, the flamboyant captain-general who had once commanded the Triarchy’s forces against Daemon Targaryen. Racallio overran the islands in a trice and put the reigning King of the Narrow Sea to death…then claimed the crown for himself, betraying the Archon and his native city. The confused four-sided war that followed had the effect of closing the southern end of the narrow sea to trade, cutting off King’s Landing, Duskendale, Maidenpool, and Gulltown from commerce with the east. Pentos, Braavos, and Lorath were similarly affected, and sent envoys to King’s Landing in hopes of bringing the Iron Throne into an alliance against Racallio and the quarrelsome Daughters. But this proposal was rejected by Ser Tyland Lannister.

There were problems within the walls of King’s Landing as well. Of greatest concern were the king himself—and his queen. Both were observed to be strangely joyless children. Jaehaera was oddly immature for a child of eight, and Aegon showed almost no interest in conversation or indeed any interaction with anyone—and he had a powerful aversion to the last living dragons. The king’s only friend at this time was the bastard boy, Gaemon Palehair. Grand Maester Munkun could find nothing that entertained or diverted him, and feared that the king had died on the inside.

A lesser problem was discovered early in 132 AC, when Grand Maester Orwyle was located. He had shaved his head and beard and hidden himself in a brothel, where he earned his bread by sweeping, scrubbing, and inspecting the patrons for pox. His mistake had been to teach some of the prostitutes to read, which drew suspicion and led to his unveiling. Many called for his immediate execution as an oathbreaker. But Ser Tyland—apparently feeling some loyalty to a fellow member of the former green council—noted that there was no King’s Justice yet and that, as a blind man, he was a poor choice to swing the sword himself. Using that for his pretext, the Hand instead confined Orwyle to a tower cell (large, airy, and far too comfortable, some charged) until such time as a suitable headsman could be found. The former Grand Maester was even provided with quill, ink, and parchment, so that he might continue his confessions. And so he did for the best part of two years, setting down the lengthy history of the reigns of Viserys I and Aegon II that would later prove to be such an invaluable source for his successor’s True Telling.

Meanwhile, in the Vale, bands of wildlings from the Mountains of the Moon descended upon the Vale of Arryn in large numbers to raid and plunder, summoning Lady Jeyne back to the Eyrie, while in Dorne, the ascension of a bellicose young princess, Aliandra Martell, drew Lord Royce Caron back to the Dornish Marches to deal with the many raiders hoping to win her hand with their daring. This left only five regents—chief of whom was Lord Corlys Velaryon. He was the only regent that King Aegon seemed to trust, but on the sixth day of the third moon of 132 AC, he collapsed while climbing the Red Keep’s serpentine steps and died before the Grand Maester could aid him.

Lord Corlys’s remains were taken to Driftmark on a ship commanded by Marilda of Hull, with her son Alyn at her side. The Sea Snake was buried at sea aboard the ancient Sea Snake—the famous vessel that had carried him to the ends of the earth and had won him his moniker. But with his passing, the succession to the rule of Driftmark and House Velaryon was suddenly an open question. Though Alyn Velaryon had been Corlys’s own choice as his successor, Alyn was a bastard—so four men came to court to stake their claim. Ser Malentine and Ser Rhogar Velaryon were the sons of one of Corlys’s younger brothers, and Daemion and Daeron Velaryon were the sons of Ser Vaemond Velaryon, who had lost his head years earlier for the temerity of naming Rhaenyra’s son Lucerys a bastard. The former two—tongueless for having repeated in Viserys’s hearing the same claims—took their rejection by the Hand and the council of regents poorly and tried to murder Alyn at Driftmark; they were thwarted only by the loyalty of House Velaryon’s guards. The latter two accepted the decision and reconciled with Alyn, receiving lands on Driftmark.

The Sea Snake’s funeral.

Once Alyn was formally installed as Lord of the Tides and Master of Driftmark, he offered to take the place of his grandsire (or sire, as the case may be) on the regency council. He was all of sixteen, however, so was sent back to Driftmark with Ser Tyland’s thanks. Instead, the regents added Unwin Peake—Lord of Starpike, Dunstonbury, and Whitegrove—to their number.

Lord Corlys’s death also underscored another issue—that all men must die. Should anything befall Aegon III, the succession had to be determined. Queen Jaehaera’s claim was as good as Aegon’s—or perhaps even stronger—but she was a girl, and moreover one with a sweet, simple, and easily frightened demeanor. That left the popular sixteen-year-old daughters of Prince Daemon and Lady Laena Velaryon: Baela and Rhaena.

Their sex prevented them from being Aegon’s heirs, but the thoughts of the council swiftly turned to the disposition of their maidenheads. Baela, who had been first from her mother’s womb, was a spirited young woman who delighted in conduct unbecoming of a highborn maiden, including riding in midnight horse races, drinking with the City Watch in their garrison, and befriending men and women of low station. So the Hand and the council determined to marry her to Thaddeus Rowan, the Lord of Goldengrove, who was in search of a third wife after the death of his second a year earlier. Lord Thaddeus was well-liked and respected, and had fought for Queen Rhaenyra in the Dance. Also, the fact that all Lord Rowan’s offspring were male counted heavily in his favor; if he were to father a son with Lady Baela, Aegon III would have a clear successor. But he was also forty years Baela’s elder, bald and big-bellied.

Baela indignantly refused the match—and when the Hand had her confined to her rooms, she escaped by climbing out a window, swapping clothing with a washerwoman, and making her way to the docks, where a fisherman delivered her to Driftmark. A fortnight later, she and Lord Alyn Velaryon were wed. Some of the regents objected, demanding an annulment, but Ser Tyland chose to accept the marriage—and, in fact, had it put about that the union had been arranged by king and court. Lord Thaddeus’s wounded pride was assuaged by the hand of Floris Baratheon, the prettiest of Lord Borros’s daughters. (Unfortunately for Floris, she would die in childbed two years later.)

Ser Tyland then turned to the disposition of Lady Rhaena’s hand, and this time the council made certain that Rhaena herself was a part of the discussion. Rhaena was more tractable than her sister, and much more agreeable to the idea of an arranged marriage—and when asked if she had any preferences, she named Ser Corwyn Corbray, whom she had grown fond of while she was a ward of Lady Jeyne in the Vale. The younger brother of Lord Leowyn, Corwyn was thirty-two years old, already a widower with two daughters, and a knight of splendid repute whose father had granted him Lady Forlorn, the ancestral Valyrian steel sword of the Corbrays. As the match seemed eminently suitable, the council agreed. The betrothal was announced, and a fortnight later the two were wed. (The regents felt it prudent for Rhaena to wed quickly, in case her sister was already with child.)

But later that year, celebrations of marriage turned to thoughts of death, as the Winter Fever came to the Seven Kingdoms. It first swept the Three Sisters, killing half the population of Sisterton. Whalers from the Port of Ibben were blamed and slaughtered, but to no avail. The disease then crossed the Bite to White Harbor, and thousands died—including Lord Desmond Manderly and his heir Ser Medrick. Ser Torrhen then became Lord of White Harbor and gave up his place on the council of regents, reducing their number to four.

Baela’s escape.

The Winter of Widows was what the Citadel would call that season. So many lords died that more women than ever ruled—either in their own right, or in the name of their dead husbands, brothers, or fathers. In the period from 132 AC to early 133 AC, however, four such women were especially notable. Foremost of these was Lady Johanna, the widow of Casterly Rock, who ruled the domains of House Lannister for her young son, Lord Loreon. She had appealed time and time again to Aegon III’s Hand, her late lord husband’s twin, for aid against the reavers, but none had been forthcoming. Desperate to protect her people, Lady Johanna at last donned a man’s mail to lead the men of Lannisport and Casterly Rock against the foe. The songs tell of how she slew a dozen ironmen beneath the walls of Kayce, but those may be safely put aside as the work of drunken singers; Johanna carried a banner into battle, not a sword. Her courage did help inspire her westermen, however, for the raiders were soon routed and Kayce was saved.

There were two other noteworthy marriages in 132 AC. The first was that of Alysanne Blackwood to Lord Cregan Stark, at Winterfell. The wedding was said to be splendid, and Black Aly and her wolf pledged their troth before the heart tree in Winterfell’s icy godswood.

The second was that of Lady Elenda Baratheon, the widow of Lord Borros. With Princess Aliandra’s Dornishmen making more and more incursions into the stormlands, she decided to wed Ser Steffon Connington, the second son of the Lord of Griffin’s Roost. He was twenty years younger than she, but he was brave and fierce—a proven fighter who could help defend the stormlands against such threats.

Lady Sharis Footly, the widow of Tumbleton, achieved a different sort of fame by her efforts to restore that shattered town. Ruling in the name of her infant son (half a year after the second Battle of Tumbleton, she had given birth to a lusty dark-haired boy whom she proclaimed her late lord husband’s trueborn heir, though it was far more likely that the boy had been sired by Bold Jon Roxton), Lady Sharis pulled down the burned shells of shops and houses, rebuilt the town walls, buried the dead, planted wheat and barley and turnips in the fields where the camps had been, and even had the heads of the dragons Seasmoke and Vermithor cleaned and mounted and displayed in the town square, where travelers paid good coin to view them.

In Oldtown, relations between the High Septon and Lord Ormund’s widow, the Lady Sam, continued to worsen when she ignored His High Holiness’s command to remove herself from her stepson’s bed and take vows as a silent sister as penance for her sins. So the High Septon condemned the Dowager Lady of Oldtown as a shameless fornicator and forbade her to set foot in the Starry Sept until she had repented and sought forgiveness. Instead Lady Sam mounted a warhorse and burst into the sept as His High Holiness was leading a prayer. When he demanded to know her purpose, Lady Sam replied that while he had forbidden her to set foot in the sept, he had said naught about her horse’s hooves. Then she commanded her knights to bar the doors; if the sept was closed to her, it would be closed to all. Though he quaked and thundered, in the end the High Septon had no choice but to relent.

Alys Rivers at Harrenhal.

Finally, there was Alys, the “witch queen” of Harrenhal. When last the histories mentioned Alys, she had been with child by Prince Aemond One-Eye. Now she ruled a Harrenhal filled with broken men, robber knights, outlaws, and their followers, so the Hand dispatched Ser Regis Groves of the Kingsguard to purge the castle of the dregs that filled it and reclaim it for the realm. Regis and his escort were joined by Ser Damon Darry with a small troop of Darry men. At Harrenhal, Alys Rivers presented her son, whom she claimed was Aemond’s trueborn heir and thus the rightful King of Westeros. When Ser Regis refused to bend the knee to this infant king, Alys raised a hand and his head exploded. Some claim that her gesture was magic, and others that she was signaling an archer or slinger. What is known is that, after his death, a company of riders burst out from the castle. Ser Damon and thirty-two of his men were all that survived of the hundred that had set out.

The council disregarded the tales of Alys’s sorcery, and all agreed that a larger force must be sent to retake Harrenhal. But any plans for the assault were delayed when, on the third day of 133 AC, the Winter Fever reached King’s Landing. Victims of this ailment were first recognized by the flush of their skin, and then a slowly rising fever that, by the fourth day, either killed them or broke. The maesters tried all they could to improve the survival of those struck with the Winter Fever, but all they could do was slow its course. Only a quarter of those who contracted it survived, making it the worst pestilence since the Shivers in the reign of Jaehaerys the Conciliator.

All efforts to keep the sickness out of the Red Keep itself failed. Grand Maester Munkun was one of the few to survive the illness, but it took Ser Willis Fell, Lord Protector Leowyn Corbray, the Commander of the City Watch, two of Queen Jaehaera’s maids, and Lord Roland Westerling. Only one death was a mercy: that of the Dowager Queen Alicent, a prisoner ever since the war had ended. She had grown increasingly unhinged in her confinement, so for her death came as a welcome relief.

During this time of terrible suffering, two heroes appeared. The first was Orwyle, who had been freed to practice his arts as a maester because so many of the others had been struck down by the fever. Though he had no more luck than his predecessors in treating the illness, he worked tirelessly to try to ease the suffering of the stricken. The other was King Aegon, who spent his days visiting the sick and often sat with them for hours, sometimes holding their hands in his own, or soothing their brows with cool, damp cloths. Though His Grace seldom spoke, he shared his silences with them, and listened as they told him stories of their lives, begged him for forgiveness, or boasted of conquests, kindnesses, and children. Most of those he visited died, but those who lived would afterward attribute their survival to the touch of the king’s “healing hands.”

The last bedside Aegon visited was that of Ser Tyland Lannister. Through the city’s darkest days, Ser Tyland had remained in the Tower of the Hand, hard at work. But as cruel fate would have it, when the worst was past and new cases of the Winter Fever had dropped away to almost nothing, Ser Tyland succumbed. The fever took his life in two days instead of the usual four. Septon Eustace was with him when he died, as was the boy king that he had served. Aegon took his hand as he breathed his last.

The healing hands of Aegon III.

Ser Tyland Lannister had never been beloved. The veil he wore to conceal his disfigured face gave rise to the tale that the visage underneath was monstrous and evil. By moving three-quarters of the Crown’s gold from King’s Landing while Aegon II’s master of coin, Tyland Lannister had sown the seeds of Queen Rhaenyra’s downfall—a stroke of cunning that would in the end cost him his eyes, ears, and health, and cost the queen her throne and her very life. Yet it must be said that he served Rhaenyra’s son well and faithfully as Hand.

Investiture of the Kingsguard.

IN THE AFTERMATH of the Winter Fever and the death of his Hand, King Aegon—not yet thirteen—finally asserted himself. He passed over Ser Marston Waters as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, instead naming Ser Robin Massey and Ser Robert Darklyn to the order and making Massey Lord Commander. He also named Lord Thaddeus Rowan as Hand of the King and Lord Alyn Velaryon his admiral.

However, the three remaining regents—Lord Unwin Peake, Lord Manfryd Mooton, and Grand Maester Munkun—felt that they should have been consulted. Lord Mooton, still recovering from a brush with the Winter Fever, hoped to wait for the return of Lady Jeyne Arryn and Lord Royce Caron, but Lord Unwin declared that they had given up their places on the council and then proceeded to set aside the appointments the king had made.

The council made quite different choices from their monarch, for the most part. Ser Marston became Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Darklyn and Massey were stripped of their cloaks, and Lord Unwin’s nephew, Ser Amaury Peake of Starpike, and his bastard brother, Ser Mervyn Flowers, were named in their place. Grand Maester Orwyle was returned to his cell, and Alyn Velaryon was stripped of his office. Instead, Lord Thaddeus Rowan accepted a place on the council of regents—as well as the office of justiciar and master of laws. Most importantly, Lord Unwin was made both Protector of the Realm and Hand of the King.

In response to being thus overruled, King Aegon III retreated back into silence and passivity. For much of the rest of his minority, King Aegon III played little part in the rule of the realm, merely fixing his signature and seal to any documents put before him. He remained a distant and remote figure even in his own castle, while the true power of the realm was vested in Lord Unwin, the scion of an ancient and illustrious family that had its origins in the First Men and the Age of Heroes.

House Peake was once one of the foremost houses in the Reach, but since the arrival of Aegon the Conqueror, it had begun a slow decline in prestige and wealth. Lord Unwin meant to change that from his now-lofty position. Besides placing kinsmen in the Kingsguard, he secured more offices for friends, allies, and followers. The City Watch’s ranks were replenished with five hundred of his own men, and its commander was Ser Lucas Leygood, son of one of the Caltrops who had plotted with him at Tumbleton. An aunt was placed in charge of Queen Jaehaera’s household. Starpike’s master-at-arms, Ser Gareth Long, was given that same office at the Red Keep, and Lord Unwin’s fellow Caltrops George Graceford, Lord of Holyhall, and Ser Victor Risley, the Knight of Risley Glade, were appointed as lord confessor and the King’s Justice. Even Septon Eustace was replaced in favor of Septon Bernard, a distant kinsman.