129 AC

129 AC is the year in which the long-simmering succession conflict after Viserys I’s reign became open civil war. The king died in the Red Keep without waking; within days, competing coronations made the rival claims of Aegon II and Rhaenyra public, and the Dance of the Dragons began in earnest.

The King’s Decline and Death

As the year began, Viserys I was growing too weak to manage the demands of kingship consistently. His chest pains had become so severe that he could no longer climb stairs and had to be carried around the Red Keep in a chair. By the second moon, he had lost his appetite and ruled from bed when he felt able, leaving many matters of state to his Hand, Otto Hightower. On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra was again pregnant and had also taken to her bed.

On the third day of the third moon, Helaena brought her children to visit their great-grandfather. Viserys gave the two-year-old Maelor a pearl ring to play with and told the six-year-old twins, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera, a familiar story about their namesake flying north to defeat wildlings, giants, and wargs. He sent the children away when weariness and tightness in his chest overcame him, then closed his eyes to sleep. He never woke. He was fifty-two, and had ruled most of Westeros for twenty-six years.

The death was discovered later, at the hour when Viserys customarily drank hippocras. The servant who found him went directly to Alicent rather than raising a general alarm. Septon Eustace later questioned whether that had been accidental, arguing that the king’s death had long been anticipated and that his servants and guards had been instructed how to respond. Mushroom suggested that Alicent had hastened Viserys’s death with poison in his drink, but he had been on Dragonstone, not in King’s Landing, that night. The accounts thus distinguish an undisputed death from contested explanations of what followed and how it had been prepared.

Rival Crowns in King’s Landing and Dragonstone

The king’s death did not immediately become public. The bells began to ring on the tenth day of the third moon, and ravens carried word of Aegon’s accession throughout the realm. Riders announced Viserys’s death and the new king’s accession in King’s Landing. Some listeners wept, others cheered, but most smallfolk remained silent and wary; occasional voices called instead for their queen.

Aegon’s coronation took place in the Dragonpit, whose immense dome, defensible walls, and bronze doors offered both a vast ceremonial setting and protection against disruption. Criston Cole placed the iron-and-ruby crown of Aegon the Conqueror on the elder son of Viserys and Alicent and proclaimed him Aegon II. With the High Septon too old and frail to travel from Oldtown, Septon Eustace anointed him. Alicent then placed her own crown on her daughter Helaena, Aegon’s wife and sister, and knelt before her. Accounts disagree sharply about the size of the crowd: Munkun, drawing on Orwyle, reports more than a hundred thousand people, while Mushroom says the benches were only half full.

The coronation also exposed defections from the new king’s Kingsguard. Only four white cloaks attended, because Steffon Darklyn had left King’s Landing the previous night with several companions. They carried away the crown worn by Viserys and Jaehaerys before him, which Alicent had ordered locked away after Aegon chose the Conqueror’s crown. On Dragonstone, the arrival of Darklyn and the crown gave Rhaenyra’s supporters the means to stage their own ceremony. Before three hundred witnesses, Daemon placed the old king’s crown on his wife’s head. Rhaenyra was proclaimed queen, Daemon claimed the title Protector of the Realm, and she named her eldest son, Jacaerys, heir to the Iron Throne and Prince of Dragonstone.

Claims, Allegiance, and the Failure of Reconciliation

The rival ceremonies made competing authority visible through different crowns, places, and acts of recognition. Aegon was crowned in the capital with the Conqueror’s iron-and-ruby crown; Rhaenyra was crowned on Dragonstone with the crown associated with Viserys and Jaehaerys. Each side proclaimed a monarch, while public reaction in King’s Landing showed that Aegon’s accession did not secure unanimous recognition even within the city.

Rhaenyra’s first act as queen was to declare Otto Hightower and Alicent traitors and rebels. She nevertheless distinguished them from her half-brothers and Helaena, saying they had been misled and offering to spare them if they came to Dragonstone, bent the knee, and asked forgiveness. Her appeal invoked their shared blood and the curse of kinslaying. Aegon, in turn, called Rhaenyra and Daemon guilty of high treason and demanded their arrest and deaths. The two declarations left little room for a settlement that could satisfy both claims.

The dispute had already been framed at the Green Council as a choice with grave consequences. Orwyle warned that setting aside Rhaenyra would lead to war because she would not meekly yield and possessed dragons. Lyman Beesbury likewise argued that men who had sworn vows to Rhaenyra and her father would not forget them. These warnings, followed by the opposing coronations and their reciprocal accusations, make clear that the struggle was not merely a private quarrel over inheritance: it involved vows, allies, armed strength, and the question of which claimant could command recognition.

The Dance Begins

With Aegon proclaimed king in the Dragonpit and Rhaenyra queen on Dragonstone, efforts at reconciliation failed, and the Dance of the Dragons began in earnest. The divide reached beyond the royal family: lords, knights, and smallfolk took opposing sides, while the Targaryens themselves were split among rival claimants and their households.

The first moves showed how quickly the contest spread across the realm. From Driftmark, Corlys Velaryon’s ships set out to close the Gullet and cut trade to and from King’s Landing. Jacaerys flew north on Vermax, Lucerys went south on Arrax, and Daemon flew Caraxes toward the Trident. The year therefore marks both the formal rupture of royal authority and the transition from rival proclamations to military action. The ensuing war would last two years, diminish Targaryen power, and leave the world’s remaining dragons greatly reduced in number.