Prince Daemon knew that his brother would not be pleased when he heard of his new marriage. Prudently, the prince and his new bride took themselves far from Westeros soon after the wedding, crossing the narrow sea on their dragons. Some said they flew to Valyria, in defiance of the curse that hung over that smoking wasteland, to search out the secrets of the dragonlords of the old Freehold. The truth was less romantic. Prince Daemon and Lady Laena flew first to Pentos, where they were feted by the city’s prince. The Pentoshi feared the growing power of the Triarchy to the south and saw Daemon as a valuable ally against the Three Daughters. From there, the prince and his bride crossed to Old Volantis, where they enjoyed a similar warm welcome. Then they flew up the Rhoyne, to Qohor and Norvos. In those cities, far removed from the woes of Westeros and the power of the Triarchy, their welcome was less rapturous. Everywhere they went, however, huge crowds turned out for a glimpse of Vhagar and Caraxes.
The dragonriders were once again in Pentos when Lady Laena learned she was with child. Eschewing further flight, Prince Daemon and his wife settled in a manse outside the city walls as guests of a Pentoshi magister, until such time as the babe was born.
Meanwhile, back in Westeros, Princess Rhaenyra had given birth to a second son late in the year 115 AC. The child was named Lucerys (Luke for short). Septon Eustace tells us that both Ser Laenor and Ser Harwin were at Rhaenyra’s bedside for his birth. Like his brother Jace, Luke had brown eyes and a healthy head of brown hair, rather than the silver-gilt hair of Targaryen princelings, but he was a large and lusty lad, and King Viserys was delighted with him when the child was presented at court. These feelings were not shared by his queen. “Do keep trying,” Queen Alicent told Ser Laenor. “Soon or late, you may get one who looks like you.” And the rivalry between the greens and blacks grew deeper, finally reaching the point where the queen and the princess could scarce suffer each other’s presence. Thereafter Queen Alicent kept to the Red Keep of King’s Landing, whilst the princess spent her days on Dragonstone with her champion, Ser Harwin Strong. Her husband, Ser Laenor, was said to visit “frequently.”
In 116 AC, in the Free City of Pentos, Lady Laena gave birth to twin daughters, Daemon Targaryen’s first trueborn children. The prince named the girls Baela (after his father) and Rhaena (after her mother). When they were half a year old, the girls and their mother sailed to Driftmark, whilst Daemon flew ahead with both dragons. From High Tide, he sent a raven to King’s Landing, informing the king of the birth of his nieces and begging leave to present the girls at court to receive a royal blessing. Though his Hand and small council argued heatedly against it, Viserys consented, for the king still loved the brother who had been the companion of his youth. “Daemon is a father now,” he told Grand Maester Mellos. “He will have changed.” Thus were the sons of Baelon Targaryen reconciled for the second time.
In 117 AC, on Dragonstone, Princess Rhaenyra bore yet another son. Ser Laenor was at last permitted to name a child after his fallen friend, Ser Joffrey Lonmouth. Joffrey Velaryon was as big and red-faced and healthy as his brothers, but like them he had brown hair, brown eyes, and features that some at court called common. The whispering began again. Amongst the greens, it was an article of faith that the father of Rhaenyra’s sons was not her husband, Laenor, but her champion, Harwin Strong.
Whatever the truth of these allegations, there was never any doubt that King Viserys still meant for his daughter to follow him upon the Iron Throne, and her sons to follow her in turn. By royal decree, each of the Velaryon boys was presented with a dragon’s egg whilst in the cradle. Those who doubted the paternity of Rhaenyra’s sons whispered that the eggs would never hatch, but the birth in turn of three young dragons gave the lie to their words. The hatchlings were named Vermax, Arrax, and Tyraxes. And Septon Eustace tells us that His Grace sat Jace upon his knee atop the Iron Throne as he was holding court, and was heard to say, “One day this will be your seat, lad.”
Childbirth exacted a toll on the princess; the weight that Rhaenyra gained during her pregnancies never entirely left her, and by the time the youngest boy was born, she had grown stout and thick of waist, the beauty of her girlhood a fading memory, though she was but twenty years of age. According to Mushroom, this only served to deepen her resentment of her stepmother, Queen Alicent, who remained slender and graceful at almost twice her age.
The sins of the fathers are oft visited on the sons, wise men have said; and so it is for the sins of mothers as well. The enmity between Queen Alicent and Princess Rhaenyra was passed on to their sons, and the queen’s three boys, the Princes Aegon, Aemond, and Daeron, grew to be bitter rivals of their Velaryon nephews, resentful of them for having stolen what they regarded as their birthright: the Iron Throne itself. Though all six boys attended the same feasts, balls, and revels, and sometimes trained together in the yard under the same master-at-arms and studied under the same maesters, this enforced closeness only served to feed their mutual mislike rather than binding them together as brothers.
Whilst Princess Rhaenyra misliked her stepmother, Queen Alicent, she became fond and more than fond of her good-sister Lady Laena. With Driftmark and Dragonstone so close, Daemon and Laena oft visited with the princess, and her with them. Many a time they flew together on their dragons, and the princess’s she-dragon Syrax produced several clutches of eggs. In 118 AC, with the blessing of King Viserys, Rhaenyra announced the betrothal of her two eldest sons to the daughters of Prince Daemon and Lady Laena. Jacaerys was four and Lucerys three, the girls two. And in 119 AC, when Laena found she was with child again, Rhaenyra flew to Driftmark to attend her during the birth.
And so it was that the princess was at her good-sister’s side on the third day of that accursed year 120 AC, the Year of the Red Spring. A day and a night of labor left Laena Velaryon pale and weak, but finally she gave birth to the son Prince Daemon had so long desired—but the babe was twisted and malformed, and died within the hour. Nor did his mother long survive him. Her grueling labor had drained all of Lady Laena’s strength, and grief weakened her still further, making her helpless before the onset of childbed fever.
As her condition steadily worsened, despite the best efforts of Driftmark’s young maester, Prince Daemon flew to Dragonstone and brought back Princess Rhaenyra’s own maester, an older and more experienced man renowned for his skills as a healer. Sadly, Maester Gerardys came too late. After three days of delirium, Lady Laena passed from this mortal coil. She was but twenty-seven. During her final hour, it is said, Lady Laena rose from her bed and made her way from her room, intent on reaching Vhagar that she might fly one last time before she died. Her strength failed her on the tower steps, however, and it was there she collapsed and died. Her husband, Prince Daemon, carried her back to her bed. Afterward, Princess Rhaenyra sat vigil with him over Lady Laena’s corpse and comforted him in his grief.
Lady Laena’s death was the first tragedy of 120 AC, but it would not be the last. For this was to be the year when many of the long-simmering tensions and jealousies that had plagued the Seven Kingdoms finally came to a boil, a year when many and more would have reason to wail and grieve and rend their garments … though none more than the Sea Snake, Lord Corlys Velaryon, and his noble wife, Princess Rhaenys, she who might have been a queen.
The Lord of the Tides and his lady were still in mourning for their beloved daughter when the Stranger came again, to carry off their son. Ser Laenor Velaryon, husband to the Princess Rhaenyra and the putative father of her children, was slain whilst attending a fair in Spice-town, stabbed to death by his friend and companion Ser Qarl Correy. The two men had been quarreling loudly before blades were drawn, merchants at the fair told Lord Velaryon when he came to collect his son’s body. Correy had fled by then, wounding several men who tried to hinder him. Some claimed a ship had been waiting for him offshore. He was never seen again.
The circumstances of the murder remain a mystery to this day. Grand Maester Mellos writes only that Ser Laenor was killed by one of his own household knights after a quarrel. Septon Eustace provides us with the killer’s name, and declares jealousy the motive for the slaying; Laenor Velaryon had grown weary of Ser Qarl’s companionship and grown enamored of a new favorite, a handsome young squire of six-and-ten. Mushroom, as always, favors the most sinister theory, suggesting that Prince Daemon paid Qarl Correy to dispose of Princess Rhaenyra’s husband, arranged for a ship to carry him away, then cut his throat and fed him to the sea. A household knight of relatively low birth, Correy was known to have a lord’s tastes and a peasant’s purse, and was given to extravagant wagering besides, which lends a certain credence to the fool’s version of events. Yet there was no shred of proof, then or now, though the Sea Snake offered a reward of ten thousand golden dragons for any man who could lead him to Ser Qarl Correy or deliver the killer to a father’s vengeance.
Even this was not the end of the tragedies that would mark that dreadful year. The next occurred at High Tide after Ser Laenor’s funeral, when king and court made the journey to Driftmark for the funeral pyre, many on the back of their dragons. (So many dragons were present that Septon Eustace wrote that Driftmark had become the new Valyria.)
The cruelty of children is known to all. Prince Aegon Targaryen was thirteen, Princess Helaena twelve, Prince Aemond ten, and Prince Daeron six. Both Aegon and Helaena were dragonriders. Helaena now flew Dreamfyre, the she-dragon who had once carried Rhaena, Maegor the Cruel’s “black bride,” whilst her brother Aegon’s young Sunfyre was said to be the most beautiful dragon ever seen upon the earth. Even Prince Daeron had a dragon, a beautiful blue she-dragon named Tessarion, though he had yet to ride. Only the middle son, Prince Aemond, remained dragonless, but His Grace had hopes of rectifying that, and had put forward the notion that perhaps the court might sojourn at Dragonstone after the funerals. A wealth of dragon’s eggs could be found beneath the Dragonmont, and several young hatchlings as well. Prince Aemond could have his choice “if the lad is bold enough.”