The Red Spring was the name given to 120 AC, a year when the Targaryen family’s private grief and rivalries became inseparable from the realm’s succession tensions. Deaths struck the Velaryons, a boy’s daring claim to Vhagar escalated a feud between royal branches, and a fire at Harrenhal removed two members of House Strong under circumstances that remained disputed. By year’s end, Rhaenyra Targaryen had borne Daemon Targaryen a living son, while the conflicts surrounding her children had become harder to contain. The chronicler presents 120 AC not as a single calamity, but as a succession of losses and confrontations that helped prepare the ground for the Dance of the Dragons.

Family ties before the year

In the years leading up to the Red Spring, Rhaenyra had grown close to her good-sister Laena Velaryon, even as she disliked her stepmother, Alicent Hightower. With Driftmark and Dragonstone near one another, Rhaenyra, Laena, and Daemon often visited together and flew their dragons. Their closeness also had a dynastic dimension: in 118 AC, with Viserys I Targaryen’s blessing, Rhaenyra betrothed her two eldest sons, Jacaerys Velaryon and Lucerys Velaryon, to Laena and Daemon’s daughters. When Laena became pregnant again the next year, Rhaenyra went to Driftmark to attend her during the birth.

That connection makes Laena’s death the year’s first intimate rupture. On the third day of 120 AC, after a long labor, Laena gave birth to a malformed son who died within the hour. Laena, weakened by labor and grief, then developed childbed fever. Daemon brought Maester Gerardys from Dragonstone, but the healer arrived too late: after three days of delirium, Laena died at twenty-seven. The account says that, in her final hour, she tried to reach Vhagar, hoping to fly once more, but collapsed on the tower steps. Daemon carried her back to bed; afterward, Rhaenyra kept vigil with him over Laena’s body and comforted him.

Deaths and disputed accounts

The next loss came while Corlys Velaryon and Rhaenys Targaryen were still mourning their daughter. Laenor Velaryon, Rhaenyra’s husband and the acknowledged father of her children, was killed at a fair in Spicetown by his companion, Qarl Correy. Merchants told Corlys that the two men had argued before drawing blades. By the time Corlys reached the fair to recover his son’s body, Qarl had fled, after wounding several people who tried to stop him. Some accounts claimed a ship had been waiting offshore; Qarl was never seen again.

The chroniclers do not settle why Laenor was killed. Grand Maester Mellos records the slaying after a quarrel but offers little else. Septon Eustace attributes it to jealousy, saying Laenor had tired of Qarl and become enamored of a young squire. Mushroom advances a darker explanation: that Daemon paid Qarl to remove Rhaenyra’s husband and arranged his escape. The narrative notes circumstances that could make this story seem plausible, including Qarl’s costly tastes and limited means, but stresses that no proof was ever found. Corlys offered ten thousand golden dragons for information that might lead to Qarl or allow a father’s vengeance; the reward did not resolve the mystery.

Vhagar and the boys’ feud

After Laenor’s funeral, the king and court traveled to High Tide, where many arrived on dragonback. The gathering brought together children whose households were already divided by rumor and resentment. Aemond Targaryen, ten years old and the only one among Alicent’s sons without a dragon, took the king’s suggestion that he might choose a hatchling on Dragonstone as a slight. Vhagar, the oldest and largest dragon, was at High Tide after losing her rider. Aemond slipped out at dawn without his parents’ knowledge and approached her while she was being kept in the outer yard.

Joffrey Velaryon, three years old, saw him and tried to stop him. Aemond shoved the child aside, then climbed onto Vhagar. The dragon roared, broke her chains, and flew; Aemond circled the towers of High Tide twice before landing. His successful claim transformed his position within the family: he was no longer the dragonless prince, but the rider of a formidable dragon. The achievement immediately gave way to violence. Joffrey summoned his brothers, and Jacaerys and Lucerys confronted Aemond with wooden swords. Aemond fought back, injuring the younger boys and mocking them by invoking their supposed connection to House Strong. Lucerys then slashed Aemond across the face and took out his right eye. Stableboys finally separated them as Aemond lay in pain and Vhagar roared nearby.

Viserys I tried to restore peace by requiring each boy to apologize, but the gesture failed to satisfy either mother. Alicent demanded that Lucerys lose an eye in return; Rhaenyra rejected that demand and pressed the king to discover who had taught Aemond to call her sons members of House Strong. The accusation mattered beyond childhood insult: to question the boys’ parentage was to challenge their succession rights and imply treason by Rhaenyra. Aemond identified his brother Aegon as the source, and Aegon answered that the boys’ parentage was obvious. Viserys ordered Alicent and her sons back to court and confined Rhaenyra and her sons to Dragonstone. The separation quieted neither the accusations nor the rivalry.

Harrenhal and the year’s close

Later in the year, Lyonel Strong, Lord of Harrenhal and Hand of the King, accompanied his son and heir, Harwin Strong, back to the great, partly ruined castle. Soon after their arrival, a fire broke out in the tower where they slept. Lyonel and Harwin died, along with three of their retainers and twelve servants. The cause was never determined. Some suspected an accident; others blamed the castle’s supposed curse or believed the blaze had been deliberately set. Proposed culprits included Corlys, seeking vengeance for Laenor; Daemon, removing a rival for Rhaenyra’s affections; and Larys Strong, who became Lord of Harrenhal after his father and elder brother died. Grand Maester Mellos even considered whether Viserys might have ordered the fire to suppress a threat to Rhaenyra’s sons. The account emphasizes that Lyonel’s return with Harwin had been unforeseen, leaving open the possibility that Lyonel’s death was accidental even if Harwin was the intended target.

The year ended with childbirth, echoing its opening loss but producing a different outcome. Rhaenyra gave birth to a small but robust son with dark purple eyes and pale silvery hair, naming him Aegon. The child was Daemon’s first living son of his own blood, and, unlike Rhaenyra’s three older sons, his Targaryen appearance was said to be unmistakable. In King’s Landing, Alicent took the choice of name as an insult to her own son, Aegon. The birth therefore brought new life into the family without easing its divisions. In the chronicle’s larger design, the Red Spring marks the point at which simmering jealousies and succession disputes began to take visible form in death, accusation, and open hostility.

Place in the succession crisis

The year’s events connected household relationships to the political future of the dynasty. Rhaenyra’s closeness to Laena, their children’s betrothals, and her presence at Laena’s death established a bond that survived into the aftermath of the tragedy. Laenor’s murder removed Rhaenyra’s husband but left its cause unresolved, allowing suspicion to attach itself to Daemon without establishing his guilt. The fight at High Tide turned questions about the Velaryon boys’ parentage into a direct confrontation between Alicent and Rhaenyra, while Lyonel and Harwin’s deaths further unsettled the people and allegiances surrounding Rhaenyra. Finally, the birth of her son by Daemon added another claimant within an already contested royal family. Taken together, these events explain the chronicle’s description of 120 AC as the year in which the bloody seeds of the Dance of the Dragons began to sprout.