Rhaenys Targaryen

Rhaenys Targaryen was the daughter of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and his Dornish wife, Princess Elia Martell. She had a younger brother, Prince Aegon, who was still a babe in arms when the war came to an end. She was said to have owned a small black kitten she called Balerion, after the great dragon of Aegon the Conqueror, and liked to pretend it was the true Black Dread of old.

Death During the Sack of King's Landing

When Tywin Lannister's army took King's Landing by treachery near the close of Robert's Rebellion, Rhaenys and her brother were murdered on Lord Tywin's orders. The girl was dragged from beneath her bed to face the swords. The boy was torn from his mother's breast and dashed against a wall. Their bodies were laid beneath the Iron Throne, wrapped in the crimson cloaks of Lannister house guards so the blood would not show against the red cloth. Eddard Stark, arriving after the deed was done, named the killings murder; Robert Baratheon called it war. When Stark protested that the children were no more than babes, the new-made king replied, "I see no babes. Only dragonspawn."

Aftermath and Legacy

The murder of Rhaenys and Aegon became a lasting wound in the realm. The Dornish, Princess Elia's people, burned to avenge her and her children. Years later, when Robert's council debated the assassination of Daenerys Targaryen, Eddard Stark invoked the memory of Rhaenys to argue against killing a child. Varys, recalling the event, noted that the Lannisters had taught Rhaenys "the difference between a kitten and a dragon quick enough, the day they broke down her door." The atrocity remained a symbol of Lannister ruthlessness and a source of enduring grievance that outlasted the war itself.