The new High Septon did not demur, nor did the Most Devout.

During his time at Oldtown, the king was also reconciled with his first wife, Queen Ceryse, the sister of his host, Lord Hightower. Her Grace agreed to accept the king’s other wives, to treat them with respect and honor and speak no further ill against them, whilst Maegor swore to restore to Ceryse all the rights, incomes, and privileges due her as his wedded wife and queen. A great feast was held at the Hightower to celebrate their reconciliation; the revels even included a bedding and a “second consummation,” so all men would know this to be a true and loving union.

How long King Maegor might have lingered at Oldtown cannot be known, for in the latter part of 43 AC another challenge to his throne arose. His Grace’s long absence from King’s Landing had not gone unnoticed by his nephew, and Prince Aegon was quick to seize his chance. Emerging at last from Casterly Rock, Aegon the Uncrowned and his wife, Rhaena, raced across the riverlands with a handful of companions and entered the city concealed beneath sacks of corn. With so few followers, Aegon dared not seat himself upon the Iron Throne, for he knew he could not hold it. They were there for Rhaena’s Dreamfyre…and so the prince might claim his father’s dragon, Quicksilver. In this bold endeavor, they were aided by friends in Maegor’s own court who had grown weary of the king’s cruelties. The prince and princess entered King’s Landing in a wagon pulled by mules, but when they made their departure it was on dragonback, flying side by side.

From there, Aegon and Rhaena returned to the westerlands to assemble an army. As the Lannisters of Casterly Rock were still reluctant to openly espouse Prince Aegon’s cause, his adherents gathered at Pinkmaiden Castle, seat of House Piper. Jon Piper, Lord of Pinkmaiden, had pledged his sword to the prince, but it was widely believed that it was his fiery sister Melony, Rhaena’s girlhood friend, who won him to the cause. It was there at Pinkmaiden that Aegon Targaryen, mounted on Quicksilver, descended from the sky to denounce his uncle as a tyrant and usurper, and call upon all honest men to rally to his banners.

The lords and knights who came were largely westermen and riverlords; the Lords Tarbeck, Roote, Vance, Charlton, Frey, Paege, Parren, Farman, and Westerling were amongst them, together with Lord Corbray of the Vale, the Bastard of Barrowton, and the fourth son of the Lord of Griffin’s Roost. From Lannisport came five hundred men under the banner of a bastard son of Lyman Lannister, Ser Tyler Hill, by which ploy the cunning Lord of Casterly Rock lent supporters to the young prince whilst still keeping his own hands clean, should Maegor prevail. The Piper levies were led not by Lord Jon or his brothers, but by their sister Melony, who donned man’s mail and took up a spear. Fifteen thousand men had joined the rebellion as Aegon the Uncrowned began his march across the riverlands to stake his claim to the Iron Throne, led by the prince himself on King Aenys’s beloved dragon, Quicksilver.

Though their ranks included seasoned commanders and puissant knights, no great lords had rallied to Prince Aegon’s cause…but Queen Tyanna, mistress of whisperers, wrote to warn Maegor that Storm’s End, the Eyrie, Winterfell, and Casterly Rock had all been in secret communication with his brother’s widowed queen, Alyssa. Before declaring for the Prince of Dragonstone, they wished to be convinced he might prevail. Prince Aegon required a victory.

Maegor denied him that. From Harrenhal came forth Lord Harroway, from Riverrun Lord Tully. Ser Davos Darklyn of the Kingsguard marshalled five thousand swords in King’s Landing and struck out west to meet the rebels. Up from the Reach came Lord Peake, Lord Merryweather, Lord Caswell, and their levies. Prince Aegon’s slow-moving host found armies closing from all sides; each smaller than their own force, but so many that the young prince (still but seventeen) did not know where to turn. Lord Corbray advised him to engage each foe separately before they could join their powers, but Aegon was loath to divide his strength. Instead he chose to march on toward King’s Landing.

Just south of the Gods Eye, he found Davos Darklyn’s Kingslanders athwart his path, sitting on high ground behind a wall of spears, even as scouts reported Lords Merryweather and Caswell advancing from the south, and Lords Tully and Harroway from the north. Prince Aegon commanded a charge, hoping to break through the Kingslanders before the other loyalists fell upon his flanks, and mounted Quicksilver to lead the attack himself. But scarce had he taken wing when he heard shouts and saw his men below pointing to where Balerion the Black Dread had appeared in the southern sky.

King Maegor had come.

For the first time since the Doom of Valyria, dragon contended with dragon in the sky, even as battle was joined below.

Quicksilver, a quarter the size of Balerion, was no match for the older, fiercer dragon, and her pale white fireballs were engulfed and washed away in great gouts of black flame. Then the Black Dread fell upon her from above, his jaws closing round her neck as he ripped one wing from her body. Screaming and smoking, the young dragon plunged to earth, and Prince Aegon with her.

The battle below was nigh as brief, if bloodier. Once Aegon fell, the rebels saw their cause was doomed and ran, discarding arms and armor as they fled. But the loyalist armies were all around them, and there was no escape. By day’s end, two thousand of Aegon’s men had died, against a hundred of the king’s. Amongst the dead were Lord Alyn Tarbeck, Denys Snow the Bastard of Barrowton, Lord Ronnel Vance, Ser Willam Whistler, Melony Piper and three of her brothers…and the Prince of Dragonstone, Aegon the Uncrowned of House Targaryen. The only notable loss amongst the loyalists was Ser Davos Darklyn of the Kingsguard, slain at the hands of Lord Corbray with Lady Forlorn. Half a year of trials and executions followed. Queen Visenya persuaded her son to spare some of the rebellious lords, but even those who kept their lives lost lands and titles and were forced to give up hostages.

One notable name could be found neither amongst the dead nor the captive: Rhaena Targaryen, sister and wife to Prince Aegon, had not joined the host. Whether that was by his command or her own choice is still debated to this day. All that is known for certain is that Rhaena remained at Pinkmaiden Castle with her daughters when Aegon marched…and with her, Dreamfyre. Would the addition of a second dragon to the prince’s host have made a difference when battle was joined? We shall never know…though it has been pointed out, and rightly, that Princess Rhaena was no warrior, and Dreamfyre was younger and smaller than Quicksilver, and certainly no true threat to Balerion the Black Dread.

When word of the battle reached the west and Princess Rhaena learned that both her husband and her friend Lady Melony had fallen, it is said she heard the news in a stony silence. “Will you not weep?” she was asked, to which she replied, “I do not have the time for tears.” Whereupon, fearing her uncle’s wroth, she gathered up her daughters, Aerea and Rhaella, and fled farther, first to Lannisport and then across the sea to Fair Isle, where the new lord Marq Farman (whose father and elder brother had both perished in the battle, fighting for Prince Aegon) gave her sanctuary and swore no harm would come to her beneath his roof. For the best part of a year, the people of Fair Isle watched the east in dread, fearing the sight of Balerion’s dark wings, but Maegor never came. Instead the victorious king returned to the Red Keep, where he grimly set about getting himself an heir.