In the context of the later glories of King Trystane "The Truefyre" Targaryen's reign, one would be forgiven for forgetting just how unlikely the ascension of King Viserys's favorite son to the Iron Throne was. Indeed, at the time of Viserys's death, few even knew of Trystane's existence. Viserys had recognized Trystane's innate greatness from a young age, but was forced to keep the boy away save for brief visits to avoid facing the wrath of his lady wife, Queen Alicent Hightower. Fortunately, the King had seen to the boy's protection, placing him in the care of a trusted knight in his retinue, Ser Perkin Fleaborne.
Ser Perkin would raise the boy admirably, seeing his charge quickly grow into a prodigious warrior the likes of which the realm had rarely seen. Trystane's skill at arms was so remarkable that the Truefyre would come to be knighted himself at the young age of twelve, making him the youngest knight in history. Upon witnessing the ceremony, King Viserys is said to have wept, remarking, "If only he were my firstborn, the realm would never want for anything again."
Despite Trystane's prodigious skill at arms, much of the future king's youth remains shrouded in mystery, with much of what we know coming only from Lord Fleaborne's latter memoirs. Perkin states that Trystane despised tourneys, believing them an impious mockery of the sacrifice that takes place in real battles. Lord Larys Strong, meanwhile, contends that Viserys forbid the boy from participating, not wanting to thrust his young son into the spotlight and fearing the attention that would come with it. Whatever the true reason may have been, Trystane is never recorded as making the lists of any tournament of the time.
Nor did Trystane distinguish himself in the early days of the war that would latter come to be known as the Dance. Here Perkin and Larys's accounts are in agreement. Both state that the boy did not wish to take up arms in the service of either Queen Rhaenyra or King Aegon II, believing them both to be unworthy to ever sit the Iron Throne. Hearing of the outbreak of war, Trystane is said to have famously remarked, "Woe be it to the realm that we must choose!"
So it was that the realm would war for years while Trystane and Perkin adamantly refused to take part in the fighting, choosing to live in squalor on the streets of Flea Bottom rather than dishonor their knightly oaths by serving either would be monarch. However, the Truefyre would not still his sword forever, and when he moved it would be to carve his name into the history books forever.
During her brief reign in King's Landing, Rhaenyra had proven herself to be all that Trystane feared. She was both incompetent and destructive, forcing intolerable laws upon her people all while alienating her sworn supporters, costing her the power to enforce them. As her reign deteriorated, the queen grew ever more paranoid, eventually murdering her half-sister, Queen Haelena, allegedly out of fear that Aegon's wife was planning an escape on her dragon, Dreamfyre.
This murder proved to be the breaking point. The people of King's Landing could not stand for Rhaenyra's abuses any longer. People in every corner of the city rose against her, standing tall even in the face of her dragons. Even still, had the queen taken any action, most agree that she would have been able to salvage the situation and maintain her crown. Instead, she did nothing but hide in the Red Keep as the city burned around her.
As the queen cowered, elsewhere in the city a man known to the histories only as the Shepherd rallied his followers against the abominations he called the Targaryen dragons. Thousands listened to his preachings and hundreds more would join him with every Goldcloak his men slew in defiance of the queen's orders to seize him. Soon half the city was in his thrall, and tens of thousands would storm the Dragonpit at his back.
Seeing the threat the Shepherd posed, the young Prince Joffrey would beg his mother to mount her dragon, Syrax, and fly to the Dragonpit to dispel the mob. The queen was not moved, believing the dragons would do the work of killing the Shepherd for her, without further sullying her image. This would prove to be a fatal mistake. Joffrey would steal the queen's dragon and attempt to fly to the pit himself, but not having bonded to the dragon, would fall tragically to his death and cost the queen her last remaining son.
The Shepherd, meanwhile, would prove Joffrey's grim forecast correct. Despite taking thousands of casualties, his men would emerge triumphant, slaughtering all four dragons in the Pit. Their victory would prove brief, however, as the riderless dragon Syrax would descend upon them tooth and claw in the midst of the celebrations that had followed Dreamfyre's death when she brought down half the Pit upon herself in a desperate attempt to escape.
To this day, maesters are divided as to why Syrax chose to descend upon the mob, rather attacking with fire from above or returning to her master Rhaenyra in the Red Keep. Nonetheless, the dragon chose to do so, and we can only report on the events that followed.
The battle that followed saw more carnage than the deaths of the other four dragons combined. On the ground, Syrax was grievously wounded, but was able to claw and bit her way through the mob, whereupon she consumed the man called the Shepherd. Upon the man's death, it was as if a spell had been broken. The thousands that had followed the Shepherd to the Pit now turned and ran for the gates and the sanctuary of the city. Syrax shot flame at them as they fled, before attempting to take to the air once more in pursuit. Three times Syrax lifted off the ground and three times Syrax fell.
Her support evaporated and her dragon lost to her reach, Rhaenyra had no choice but to flee the city with what few supporters remained to her. She fled to Rosby, Stokeworth, and Duskendale in turn, but was turned away from each castle. Only Duskendale gave her a brief respite, but they too made it clear that they did not intend to shelter her for long. Despairing, the queen sold her father's crown and bought passage on a merchant ship for her ancestral home of Dragonstone. There, she would be greeted with a most terrible shock.
Aegon II, long believed dead, had been smuggled to Dragonstone by the spymaster Larys Strong upon the fall of the city. There, he would hide for many moons before his wounded dragon, Sunfyre, eventually made its way back to him. Sensing opportunity in the queen's absence, Aegon turned the garrison of the castle and flew Sunfyre to his prize. The coup had gone array in one aspect, however, with Lady Baela Targaryen, Prince Daemon's daughter by his first wife, Lady Laena Velaryon, escaping upon her dragon Moondancer. Baela met Aegon in the sky, and in the dance that followed she would mortally wound Aegon and his dragon while perishing alongside hers.
At first it seemed that the pair would recover from their wounds. Aegon was burned a second time, and Sunfyre's bad wing had been rebroken, but both maintained mobility and seemed to be on the mend when Rhaenyra arrived. It is said that Aegon tore himself from his sickbed upon hearing of his half-sister's arrival and went to personally oversee her execution. Aegon's leal men had captured Rhaenyra at the docks and escorted her to the courtyard of the castle. There, Aegon smiled and would order her fed to his dragon.
Aegon's zeal in seeing his sister dead would cost him dearly. His wounds would grow infected shortly thereafter, and he would perish a mere two weeks after his sister. Sunfyre was said to have lost any spark of life upon the death of his rider. His injuries took a turn for the worst and Sunfyre would refuse food from all who would dare approach him. He would die only three months after Aegon, never having flown again.
In King's Landing, anarchy reigned in the wake of the queen's departure. The city watch had collapsed, leaving total lawlessness to rule the streets. Thousands died in the ensuing chaos. It was at this moment that Trystane felt compelled to act. Bastard or not, he could not leave his people to suffer. With the aid of Ser Perkin, Trystane gathered any men who would follow him and marched into the Red Keep. There he freed all of Rhaenyra's innocent prisoners on the condition that they swear loyalty to his reign. Notable among them were Rhaenyra's Master of Ships, Corlys Velaryon, Aegon's Master of Coin, Tyland Lannister, Grand Maester Orwyle, and Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower. Larys Strong would soon emerge from hiding to join the Truefyre's fledgling court, testifying for all that Trystane was indeed the natural born son of Viserys Targaryen.
Trystane's first imperative was restoring order to the city. He ordered Perkin to rebuild the Goldcloaks, while he rescinded all of Rhaenyra's unpopular laws. Trystane would handsomely reward his followers with knighthoods and coin from the royal treasury, while courting the support of the poor by canceling all outstanding debts and granting free hunting rights in the Kingswood. Most crucially, he set about answering the question of Syrax.
The queen's dragon had made her lair in the ruins of the Dragonpit. She could not yet fly, but was rapidly regaining her strength and would kill all who approached her. The whole city lived in terror of the moment it would emerge to rain judgement upon them. Trystane viewed Syrax as an opportunity to win further goodwill with the people and to definitively settle all questions over his legitimacy.
One month after Rhaenyra had fled, Trystane set out to the Pit to confront the dragon. There are no witnesses of what exactly transpired within, but all would testify that Trystane would emerge unburnt. A week later, he would ride Syrax the brief distance to Red Keep to the wild cheers of his people. The High Septon would later claim that it was the grace of the Seven that saw the Truefyre succeed. Trystane had intended to face the dragon a week earlier, but an unusually terrible storm had kept him confined to his rooms. Had he tried, he most certainly would have failed, as Queen Rhaenyra had yet drawn breath at the time.
Trystane set out ravens for all the realm to hear, offering pardons to all former Greens and Blacks who bent the knee before him. Heretofore, Trystane had remained silent beyond overtures to Alyn Velaryon beseeching him for his fleet, choosing instead to first consolidate his own domain. These ravens would largely be ignored, with most dismissing them as naught but the lies of an upstart usurper. As Syrax yet lacked the strength to leave the city, Trystane could not yet force his claim.
In the south, the Second Battle of Tumbleton would take place when Addam Velaryon descended on the great Hightower army upon his dragon Seasmoke. The last male Green claimant, Daeron Targaryen, would die in his tent when Seasmoke burned the camp from above. Unfortunately for the realm, the Two Betrayers, Hugh Hammer and Ulf White, were more fortunate. Ulf would sleep through the carnage entirely, while Hugh would wake in time to race for his dragon, Vermithor. It is said that Lord Jon Roxton nearly killed the man while he was charging out into the yard. Had he succeeded, much of the bloodshed that would follow in the coming years could have been averted. Hugh narrowly dodged Roxton's blade and ordered his men to seize him.
Above, Seasmoke was locked in combat with Daeron's dragon Tessarion. Roused by the bloodshed, the riderless Vermithor had already joined the fray by the time Hugh had readied his armor. Vermithor was twice the size of the two dragons and would have easily overpowered them both were it not for Addam's skill as a rider. As it was, Vermithor killed the two but was grievously wounded in the process and would spend much of the next year recovering on the ground.
The Blacks had won the Second Battle of Tumbleton, but fearing Ulf's dragon, Silverwing, and having lost their own rider, were forced to retreat in good order. In the Green camp, Hugh and Ulf had emerged utterly triumphant. Though Vermithor was badly wounded, they possessed the two largest dragons left to the world. Moreover, with the capture and torture of Jon Roxton, Hugh Hammer was able to uncover a conspiracy of lords known as the Caltrops targeting him and his fellow dragonseed. Unwin Peake, Hoburt Hightower, Victor Risley, Richard Rodden, Tyler Norcross, Leygood, George Graceford, Owen Fossoway, and Marq Ambrose were all subsequently fed to Vermithor, alongside any of their close associates. Beneath the gaze of Silverwing and Vermithor, all other lords were forced to bend the knee to King Hugh I Hammer.
Beyond the rise of King Hammer, still other threats remained to King Trystane's fledgling reign. In the east, the last whole Green army marshaled under Lord Borros Baratheon, who held King Aegon's last surviving child, Princess Jaehaera. In the Vale, Lady Rhaena Targaryen, twin to Baela and the last Black claimant, held a dragon of her own, though it was only a fledgling. The North, the Vale, and the Riverlands all flocked to her command. The dragonseed Nettles had made her home in the Mountains of the Moon and still roamed large with her dragon, Sheepstealer. In Essos, the forces of the Triarchy plotted to seize the Iron Throne for themselves, under the guise of their feigned Princes Aegon and Viserys, the supposedly captured sons of Queen Rhaenyra.
Though the conflict would continue for several more years, with the deaths of the principal claimants at the start of the war and the rise of the Three Bastards, most historians have elected to view the conflict in two distinct phases. The first, dubbed the Dance of the Dragons, ended with Prince Daeron's passing. The second, which would come to be known as the Ballad of the Bastards, had just begun.
- Archmaester Gyldayn's introduction to his compiled history "The Ballad of the Bastards"