Aegon the Uncrowned and Rhaena Targaryen

Aegon the Uncrowned and Rhaena Targaryen were brother and sister as well as husband and wife, a marriage that joined an established Targaryen custom to an increasingly dangerous struggle over royal succession. Their attachment was presented as longstanding and mutual, but it unfolded under the pressure of religious opposition, contested inheritance, and the collapse of Aegon’s bid for the Iron Throne. His death ended their partnership; Rhaena’s flight with their daughters carried its consequences beyond the battlefield.

Kinship, Courtship, and Marriage

Rhaena was three years older than Aegon. The two had been close since childhood, playmates in the nurseries of Dragonstone and the Aegonfort, and the account suggests that they had anticipated marriage as they grew older. Their father, King Aenys, announced the match in 41 AC, when Rhaena was eighteen and Aegon fifteen. Neither objected. Their willingness to marry distinguished the arrangement from a purely imposed alliance, even as its dynastic purpose was plain: as the king’s eldest children, they could unite two branches of the royal family through a familiar Targaryen practice.

Their shared history also included the dragons that marked their very different public positions. Rhaena had ridden Dreamfyre from the age of twelve and sometimes took Aegon flying with her, although he had not claimed a dragon of his own. After her sixteenth nameday, she asserted her freedom to fly where she wished, and Dreamfyre was seen at places as distant as Harrenhal, Tarth, Runestone, and Gulltown. Stories that she had a lowborn lover during one of these journeys were never proved; they belong to the uncertainty surrounding her reputation, not to established fact about the marriage. The firm account is that Rhaena and Aegon were close, that they accepted their father’s proposed match, and that their kinship and shared life preceded their public political troubles.

A Marriage Turned into a Public Dispute

The announcement drew an unusually forceful response from the Faith. Although the Faith had tolerated, or at least not publicly challenged, the Conqueror’s marriage to his sisters, it condemned the union of Aegon and Rhaena. The dispute made their marriage more than a private or familial matter: it became a test of whether the dynasty could expect its own customs to be accepted by the realm. King Aenys persisted with the match rather than cancel it, and the wedding went ahead amid visible hostility. Warrior’s Sons watched guests entering the Sept of Remembrance, while many cautious lords stayed away.

At the wedding feast, Aenys named Aegon Prince of Dragonstone, a title that had belonged to Maegor. That decision connected the marriage directly to the succession dispute and further alienated the powerful Dowager Queen Visenya, who left the hall. The king then sent the newly married couple on a royal progress, hoping to recover public favor. Instead, crowds of the Faithful jeered at them. At Maidenpool, no septon would bless a feast held in their honor. At Harrenhal, Lord Lucas Harroway refused them entry unless they recognized his daughter Alys as Maegor’s lawful wife; Aegon and Rhaena refused, and spent a cold night in tents outside the castle. In a riverlands village, Poor Fellows pelted them with dirt. Aegon drew his sword but had to be restrained by his knights, while Rhaena answered the crowd herself and warned that she would return on Dreamfyre. The progress revealed how little royal ceremony could do to quiet opposition to their marriage.

Exile, Alliance, and Aegon’s Claim

When Maegor took the throne, Aegon and Rhaena remained at Casterly Rock, where Rhaena was pregnant. Their circle narrowed as knights, young lords, and most of Rhaena’s attendants left to submit to the new king. Alayne Royce remained with her, as did Melony Piper, Rhaena’s former favorite, who came to Lannisport with her brothers to pledge their house’s loyalty. Their presence offered personal companionship and political support at a moment when many former adherents had deserted the couple. Lyman Lannister also stood firm when Maegor demanded that Aegon and Rhaena be returned, though he did not commit his sword to Aegon’s cause.

In 43 AC, Aegon and Rhaena slipped into King’s Landing with a small party, concealed beneath sacks of corn in a mule-drawn wagon. They did not try to seize the Iron Throne. Their aim was to obtain dragons: Rhaena’s Dreamfyre and the opportunity for Aegon to claim Quicksilver. They escaped on dragonback, flying side by side, and returned west to raise an army. At Pinkmaiden Castle, Aegon mounted Quicksilver and called supporters to his banners. Many gathered, including riverlords and westermen, and Melony led the Piper levies in mail with a spear. Yet no great lord had openly joined Aegon, and reports that powerful houses were still waiting to see whether he could win made a victory especially important. Their marriage thus stood at the center of both a family alliance and a dangerous, uncertain claim to the throne.

Separation and Aftermath

Rhaena did not accompany Aegon’s army when it marched to meet the loyalist forces. She remained at Pinkmaiden Castle with their daughters, Aerea and Rhaella, and Dreamfyre. The record does not settle whether Aegon asked her to stay or whether she chose to do so. Nor does it establish that her presence with Dreamfyre would have changed the outcome: the dragon was younger and smaller than Quicksilver, while the king rode Balerion. The uncertainty leaves the couple’s final separation as a consequential absence rather than a resolved military decision.

Aegon and Quicksilver were killed in the battle, and the rebellion collapsed. When news reached Rhaena that her husband and Melony had died, she reportedly received it in silence and said she had no time for tears. She gathered her daughters, fled first to Lannisport, and then crossed the sea to Fair Isle. Marq Farman, whose father and elder brother had died fighting for Aegon, gave her sanctuary and promised that no harm would come to her under his roof. The people of Fair Isle feared that Maegor might follow, but he did not come. Aegon’s death therefore ended the marriage abruptly, while Rhaena’s survival depended on a chain of refuge and loyalty that outlasted his failed claim.