Daemon Targaryen and Laena Velaryon

Daemon Targaryen and Laena Velaryon’s marriage reshaped the prince’s position after his departure from the Stepstones, binding him to the powerful House Velaryon and giving him a family beyond his brother’s court. Their life together moved between political calculation and apparent affection: they married after Daemon killed Laena’s former betrothed, crossed the narrow sea together, and raised twin daughters before Laena died in 120 AC. The account preserves competing explanations for their union, but gives particular weight to the shared family and political ties that followed it.

Meeting and Marriage

Daemon encountered Laena at High Tide after returning from the Vale, where his attempt to claim his dead wife Rhea Royce’s lands had failed. Driftmark offered him a welcome when other parts of the Seven Kingdoms might not. Laena, Lord Corlys Velaryon’s daughter, was twenty-two, and her earlier betrothal to the son of the Sealord of Braavos had become an unwelcome obstacle: the father had died, while the son squandered his family’s wealth and power. Corlys had repeatedly delayed the wedding rather than proceed with a match he no longer wanted.

The histories disagree about what drew Daemon to Laena. Singers present his feelings as love; more cynical accounts suggest that he saw marriage to her as a way to arrest his political decline. Once regarded as his brother’s heir, Daemon had fallen far down the succession, and neither the Greens nor the Blacks offered him a place. House Velaryon, by contrast, was powerful enough to stand apart from both. The marriage therefore joined a possible personal attachment to an unmistakable political advantage, without resolving which was paramount.

The former betrothed remained an impediment until Daemon provoked him into demanding satisfaction with steel. Daemon fought with Dark Sister and quickly defeated him. He married Laena a fortnight later, then abandoned the difficult kingdom he had tried to defend in the Stepstones. That departure ended his own brief rule there, although five other men would follow him as Kings of the Narrow Sea before that sellsword kingdom disappeared altogether.

Exile and Life Across the Narrow Sea

Daemon knew that his brother, King Viserys, would disapprove of the marriage. Soon after the wedding, he and Laena left Westeros on their dragons. A romantic account claimed they flew to Valyria to seek the lost knowledge of its dragonlords, but the narrative rejects that version as less credible than the evidence of their actual route. They first went to Pentos, where the city’s prince welcomed them. The Pentoshi regarded Daemon as a useful ally against the growing power of the Triarchy.

From Pentos, the couple crossed the Disputed Lands to Old Volantis, where they received another warm welcome, then travelled up the Rhoyne to Qohor and Norvos. Their reception in those cities was less enthusiastic. Wherever they went, however, crowds gathered to see their dragons, Vhagar and Caraxes. Their travels thus combined political hospitality with the public spectacle of two dragonriders abroad, keeping them at a distance from the conflicts of Westeros and the Triarchy’s immediate power.

When Laena became pregnant, the couple stopped travelling. They settled in a manse outside Pentos as guests of a Pentoshi magister, remaining there until the birth. In 116 AC, Laena gave birth to twin daughters, Baela Targaryen and Rhaena Targaryen. They were Daemon’s first trueborn children. The infants were small and sickly at first, but had silver-white hair and purple eyes; after six months, when they were stronger, Laena and the girls sailed to Driftmark, while Daemon flew ahead with both dragons.

Family and Political Reconciliation

From High Tide, Daemon informed Viserys of the twins’ birth and asked permission to bring them to court for the king’s blessing. The Hand and small council argued against the request, but Viserys consented, remembering his affection for the brother who had been his companion in youth. The king believed that fatherhood might have changed Daemon. The presentation of the nieces therefore became more than a family visit: it marked a second reconciliation between the sons of Baelon Targaryen.

Laena’s family also connected Daemon more closely to Princess Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra grew fond of her good-sister, and the proximity of Driftmark and Dragonstone made visits frequent. Daemon and Laena often visited the princess, and she visited them; they sometimes flew together on their dragons. In 118 AC, with Viserys’s blessing, Rhaenyra betrothed her sons Jacaerys Velaryon and Lucerys Velaryon to Daemon and Laena’s daughters. The arrangement joined the two branches of the family through the next generation, giving the relationship a dynastic consequence beyond the reconciliation at court.

Laena’s Final Pregnancy and Death

In 119 AC, Laena became pregnant again, and Rhaenyra travelled to Driftmark to be with her during the birth. Laena endured a long labour and gave birth to a son, the child Daemon had hoped for, but the baby was malformed and died within an hour. Laena’s strength was exhausted, and she developed childbed fever. As her condition worsened despite the efforts of Driftmark’s young maester, Daemon flew to Dragonstone to fetch Maester Gerardys, an older and more experienced healer. Gerardys arrived too late. After three days of delirium, Laena died at twenty-seven.

The account’s final image of Laena is of a woman trying to reach Vhagar for one last flight. She rose from her bed and set out toward the dragon, but her strength failed on the tower stairs, where she collapsed and died. Daemon carried her back to her bed. Mushroom’s account places Rhaenyra beside him afterward, keeping vigil over Laena’s body and comforting him in his grief. Laena’s death thus closes not only the marriage but a close alliance among Daemon, Rhaenyra, and the Velaryon household, formed through shared travel, family visits, and the betrothal of their children.