So it came to pass that when King Aegon II flew Sunfyre over Dragonmont’s smoking peak and made his descent, expecting to make a triumphant entrance into a castle safely in the hands of his own men, with the queen’s loyalists slain or captured, up to meet him rose Baela Targaryen, Prince Daemon’s daughter by the Lady Laena, as fearless as her father.

Moondancer was a young dragon, pale green, with horns and crest and wingbones of pearl. Aside from her great wings, she was no larger than a warhorse, and weighed less. She was very quick, however, and Sunfyre, though much larger, still struggled with a malformed wing and had taken fresh wounds from Grey Ghost.

They met amidst the darkness that comes before the dawn, shadows in the sky lighting the night with their fires. Moondancer eluded Sunfyre’s flames, eluded his jaws, darted beneath his grasping claws, then came around and raked the larger dragon from above, opening a long smoking wound down his back and tearing at his injured wing. Watchers below said that Sunfyre lurched drunkenly in the air, fighting to stay aloft, whilst Moondancer turned and came back at him, spitting fire. Sunfyre answered with a furnace blast of golden flame so bright it lit the yard below like a second sun, a blast that took Moondancer full in the eyes. Like as not, the young dragon was blinded in that instant, yet still she flew on, slamming into Sunfyre in a tangle of wings and claws. As they fell, Moondancer struck at Sunfyre’s neck repeatedly, tearing out mouthfuls of flesh, whilst the elder dragon sank his claws into her underbelly. Robed in fire and smoke, blind and bleeding, Moondancer beat her wings desperately as she tried to break away, but all her efforts did was slow their fall.

The watchers in the yard scrambled for safety as the dragons slammed into the hard stone, still fighting. On the ground, Moondancer’s quickness proved of little use against Sunfyre’s size and weight. The green dragon soon lay still. The golden dragon screamed his victory and tried to rise again, only to collapse back to the ground with hot blood pouring from his wounds.

King Aegon had leapt from the saddle when the dragons were still twenty feet from the ground, shattering both legs. Lady Baela stayed with Moondancer all the way down. Burned and battered, the girl still found the strength to undo her saddle chains and crawl away as her dragon coiled in her final death throes. When Alfred Broome drew his sword to slay her, Marston Waters wrenched the blade from his hand. Tom Tangletongue carried her to the maester.

Thus did King Aegon II win the ancestral seat of House Targaryen, but the price he paid for it was dire. Sunfyre would never fly again. He remained in the yard where he had fallen, feeding on the carcass of Moondancer, and later on sheep slaughtered for him by the garrison. And Aegon II lived the rest of his life in great pain…though to his honor, when Grand Maester Gerardys offered him milk of the poppy, he refused. “I shall not walk that road again,” he said. “Nor am I such a fool as to drink any potion you might prepare for me. You are my 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. He was not given the quick end of a hard fall and a broken neck, but rather a slow strangulation, kicking as he gasped for air. Thrice, when he was almost dead, Gerardys was let down and allowed to catch a breath, only to be hauled up again. After the third time, he was disemboweled and dangled before Sunfyre so the dragon might feast upon his legs and innards, but the king commanded that enough of the Grand Maester be saved so “he might greet my sweet sister on her return.”

Not long after, as the king lay in the Stone Drum’s great hall, his broken legs bound and splinted, the first of Queen Rhaenyra’s ravens arrived from Duskendale. When Aegon learned that his half-sister would be returning on the Violande, he commanded Ser Alfred Broome to prepare a “suitable welcome” for her homecoming.

All of this is known to us now. None of this was known to the queen when she stepped ashore into her brother’s trap.

Septon Eustace (who had no love for the queen) tells us Rhaenyra laughed when she beheld the ruin of Sunfyre the Golden. “Whose work is this?” he has her saying. “We must thank him.” Mushroom (who had much love for the queen) tells a different tale. In his account, Rhaenyra says, “How has it come to this?” Both accounts agree that the next words were spoken by the king. “Sister,” he called down from a balcony. Unable to walk, or even stand, he had been carried there in a chair. The hip shattered at Rook’s Rest had left Aegon bent and twisted, his once-handsome features had grown puffy from milk of the poppy, and burn scars covered half his body. Yet Rhaenyra knew him at once, and said, “Dear brother. I had hoped that you were dead.”

“After you,” Aegon answered. “You are the elder.”

“I am pleased to know that you remember that,” Rhaenyra answered. “It would seem we are your prisoners…but do not think that you will hold us long. My leal lords will find me.”

“If they search the seven hells, mayhaps,” the king made answer, as his men tore Rhaenyra from her son’s arms. Some accounts say it was Ser Alfred Broome who had hold of her arm, others name the two Toms, Tanglebeard the father and Tangletongue the son. Ser Marston Waters stood witness as well, clad in a white cloak, for King Aegon had named him to his Kingsguard for his valor.

Yet neither Waters nor any of the other knights and lords present in the yard spoke a word of protest as King Aegon II delivered his half-sister to his dragon. Sunfyre, it is said, did not seem at first to take any interest in the offering, until Broome pricked the queen’s breast with his dagger. The smell of blood roused the dragon, who sniffed at Her Grace, then bathed her in a blast of flame, so suddenly that Ser Alfred’s cloak caught fire as he leapt away. Rhaenyra Targaryen had time to raise her head toward the sky and shriek out one last curse upon her half-brother before Sunfyre’s jaws closed round her, tearing off her arm and shoulder.

Septon Eustace tells us that the golden dragon devoured the queen in six bites, leaving only her left leg below the shin “for the Stranger.” Elinda Massey, youngest and gentlest of Rhaenyra’s ladies-in-waiting, supposedly gouged out her own eyes at the sight, whilst the queen’s son Aegon the Younger watched in horror, unable to move. Rhaenyra Targaryen, the Realm’s Delight and Half-Year Queen, passed from this veil of tears upon the twenty-second day of the tenth moon of the 130th year after Aegon’s Conquest. She was thirty-three years of age.

Ser Alfred Broome argued for killing Prince Aegon as well, but King Aegon forbade it. Only ten, the boy might yet have value as a hostage, he declared. Though his half-sister was dead, she still had supporters in the field who must needs be dealt with before His Grace could hope to sit the Iron Throne again. So Prince Aegon was manacled at neck, wrist, and ankle, and led down to the dungeons under Dragonstone. The late queen’s ladies-in-waiting, being of noble birth, were given cells in Sea Dragon Tower, there to await ransom.

“The time for hiding is done,” King Aegon II declared. “Let the ravens fly that the realm may know the pretender is dead, and their true king is coming home to reclaim his father’s throne.”

* Whatever the manner of his death, it is beyond dispute that Daeron Targaryen, youngest son of King Viserys I by Queen Alicent, died at the Second Battle of Tumbleton. The feigned princes who appeared during the reign of Aegon III, using his name, have been conclusively shown to be imposters.

“The time for hiding is done,” King Aegon II declared on Dragonstone, after Sunfyre had feasted on his sister. “Let the ravens fly that the realm may know the pretender is dead, and their true king is coming home to reclaim his father’s throne.”

Yet even true kings may find some things more easily proclaimed than accomplished. The moon would wax and wane and wax again before Aegon II took his leave of Dragonstone.

Between him and King’s Landing lay the isle of Driftmark, the whole breadth of Blackwater Bay, and scores of prowling Velaryon warships. With the Sea Snake a “guest” of Trystane Truefyre in King’s Landing and Ser Addam dead at Tumbleton, command of the Velaryon fleets now rested with Addam’s brother, Alyn, the younger son of Mouse, the shipwright’s daughter, a boy of fifteen…but would he be friend or foe? His brother had died fighting for the queen, but that same queen had made their lord a captive and was herself dead. Ravens were dispatched to Driftmark offering House Velaryon pardon for all its past offenses if Alyn of Hull would present himself on Dragonstone and swear allegiance…but until and unless an answer was received, it would be folly for Aegon II to try to cross the bay by ship and risk capture.