House Velaryon

Laena Velaryon

Life: late 92 AC
House: Velaryon, by marriage Targaryen

A dragonrider of Vhagar whose own story predates the war by nearly a decade — the chronicle keeps the particulars of her ending veiled for readers not yet there.

Laena Velaryon was the elder child and only daughter of Corlys Velaryon and Princess Rhaenys, and claimed the dragon Vhagar — the largest living dragon of her age, and once Queen Visenya's own mount — before she was twelve years old, a feat that marked her as a rider to be reckoned with long before she married into the family that already sat the throne. Wed to Prince Daemon Targaryen in Pentos during his years of self-imposed exile, she gave him twin daughters, Baela and Rhaena, and by every surviving account bore the marriage's stranger arrangements — Daemon's earlier, unhappier first wife, his roving attentions, exile itself — with more equanimity than the match probably deserved.

The arc of Laena Velaryon

This carries the character’s road through the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.

Laena's death at Driftmark leaves Vhagar riderless for the first time in decades, and it is at her own funeral that her young cousin Aemond Targaryen claims the great dragon for himself — an act that hands the war's ugliest partisan its single most dangerous asset and sets in motion the quarrel over Vhagar that costs Aemond an eye and, in time, costs the Seven Kingdoms a great deal more than that. Laena herself did not live to see any of it; her death predates the Dance of the Dragons by nearly a decade, though the war's opening moves trace straight back to the dragon she left behind.

Where the books leave Laena Velaryon: died in 120 AC at Driftmark, days after a third child was stillborn and malformed; by the account the Citadel most often repeats, she rose from her sickbed meaning to reach her dragon for one last flight and collapsed on the tower steps before she got there

These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.

Sourcesfire-and-bloodthe-princess-and-the-queen

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Who is Laena Velaryon?

The daughter of Corlys Velaryon and Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, a dragonrider of Vhagar and the second wife of Prince Daemon Targaryen, mother of the twins Baela and Rhaena.

Is Laena Velaryon alive?

No — the chronicle need only say that a difficult third childbirth at Driftmark in 120 AC was her last; the particulars are treated in her veiled record.