A song of Fire and Blood

Chapter 7: The Fall of House Targaryen

King Robert Baratheon 

Meanwhile, the war was coming to an end in Westeros. Robert Baratheon had finally stormed King's Landing, and the Targaryen dynasty had crumbled. Aerys II, the Mad King, was dead, killed by Jaime Lannister in an act of betrayal. Rhaegar, the crown prince, had fallen at the Battle of the Trident, and with his death, the hope of a Targaryen return seemed all but impossible.

When Robert and his forces finally entered the Red Keep, the once-great seat of House Targaryen, the city was a war-torn ruin, burning from within. The streets were slick with blood, and the palace was in shambles. Robert Baratheon, having fought for years to end the Targaryen reign, surveyed the destruction with a twisted sense of satisfaction.

The last of the Targaryen children—Aegon and Rhaenys, the children of Rhaegar and Elia Martell—lay lifeless at his feet, wrapped in red Lannister cloths to cover their blood. Robert's laughter echoed throughout the destroyed halls of the Red Keep as he gazed upon their bodies.

"Dragonspawn," Robert muttered, his voice thick with bitterness and contempt. "All of them. Aegon, Rhaenys… all of them. The blood of dragons, wiped out like rats."

He kicked the body of Aegon, the young prince who had been so full of life, a cruel smirk twisting his lips. "These Targaryen children thought they could inherit the throne. But it ends with them, just like their father and grandfather. All dead."

He turned toward the body of Rhaenys, the young princess, her lifeless form discarded with the same indifference. "And here's the last of the Targaryens. The storm's blood. Just like their mad king father, dead in the streets."

Robert's soldiers watched silently, a few murmuring in agreement, but most of them merely kept their heads down. Their king had achieved his victory—House Targaryen was no more. The last of the dragons had been slaughtered, and with them, the power that had once ruled Westeros.

But as Robert turned to leave, a darker thought began to creep into his mind, one that gnawed at him, even as he celebrated his victory. Viserys Targaryen and his pregnant Mother, the last known survivors of the family, still lived on Dragonstone, but not far from Robert's reach, because Stannis would soon set sail.

He had won. House Targaryen was finished. The Iron Throne was his. And no one would dare challenge him.

Queen Rhaella Targaryen

The storm that swirled over Dragonstone seemed to echo the chaos that had overtaken the realm. Rhaella Targaryen, the widow of the Mad King Aerys II, had already suffered the loss of her son, Rhaegar, at the hands of Robert Baratheon's rebellion. The death of her husband, the last heir to the throne, and the collapse of the Targaryen dynasty had sent the family fleeing, struggling to survive amidst a world on fire.

But Rhaella still had her children: Viserys, her son who clung to dreams of regaining the throne, and the unborn child in her belly, the last hope for House Targaryen. A daughter, she hoped, who would carry the name and bloodline of the dragons. With the rebel forces bearing down on them, Rhaella made the desperate decision to flee.

Taking only a few loyal servants and guards, they set sail from Dragonstone, knowing that if they stayed, death would surely claim them. Aboard the ship, the queen's labor began as the storm grew worse. Waves battered their vessel as it was tossed like a toy on the sea, and Rhaella cried out in pain, her body wracked with the agony of childbirth.

As the storm raged, Daenerys Targaryen, the Stormborn, was born—a baby girl with silver-gold hair and violet eyes, the hope of the dragon's bloodline. But the birth was brutal. The storm and the labor were too much for Rhaella. She died shortly after giving birth, her final breath taken as the winds howled across the sea. In her last moments, she looked at Viserys, her son who was to inherit what remained of the Targaryen bloodline, and whispered to him to protect his sister, to ensure the dragon's legacy would survive. With that, Rhaella Targaryen passed from this World. 

Ser Willem Darry

With the queen dead and the last of House Targaryen's hope lying in the small Child, Ser Willem Darry, Rhaella's protector, struggled to guide the surviving ships across the perilous sea. The storm continued to lash out, the waters growing colder, fiercer. Viserys, still a child himself, clung to the hope that they would find safety, that somehow his sister and he would survive.

The fleet was shattered. Several of the ships were lost to the storm, sinking into the dark depths of the narrow sea. Only a handful of ships made it to Braavos, with Ser Willem Darry swearing to protect the children. The Targaryen line, broken and battered, had now been hidden from the world, tucked away in a city far from the war-torn lands of Westeros.

The Legacy of the Dragons

Though the Targaryen children lay dead in King's Landing, far across the narrow sea in the city of Braavos, something else was beginning. The Targaryen line had not died with Rhaegar and his children. Daenerys, the child who had been born amidst the storm, would one day rise from the ashes of her family's destruction. The storm may have claimed the Targaryen kings and queens, but their blood still ran through Daenerys Stormborn's veins.

In Braavos, hidden in the shadows, the last Targaryen princess slept. She was the last of the dragons, and her destiny was waiting to be fulfilled.

For Robert Baratheon may have believed he had extinguished the Targaryen flames, but the storm had not yet passed. The Targaryens, though scattered and broken, would rise again.