dragonrider of Meraxes during the Conquest; her death at Hellholt in the First Dornish War
She helped conquer a continent and was never crowned to rule an inch of it
Rhaenys Targaryen was Aegon I's younger sister-wife, third of the Conquest's dragonriders astride Meraxes, and by most surviving accounts the most sociable of the three — fond of singers, fond of travel between the new kingdom's courts, and reportedly the family member the lords of the Reach and the Vale found easiest to actually enjoy hosting. The epithet later chroniclers gave her, "the Queen Who Never Was," marks a real gap in the record: for all she did to win the Seven Kingdoms, only Aegon sat the Iron Throne, and only his son by Rhaenys — not Rhaenys herself — inherited it.
She died attempting to finish what her husband's Conquest had left undone. In 10 AC she flew Meraxes to Hellholt during the fighting the Citadel groups under the First Dornish War, and a scorpion bolt loosed from the castle's walls caught the dragon through the eye. Dragon and rider fell together, and the war that killed her taught the Targaryens a lesson about Dorne that took them the better part of two centuries to fully absorb: dragons make conquest look easy right up until they don't.
Key events
unrecordedBorn Aegon I's younger sister-wife, third dragonrider of the Conquest.
2 BC–1 ACFlew Meraxes through the Conquest, the most sociable of the three siblings by most accounts.
unrecordedTraveled widely between the new kingdom's courts, favored for company by lords elsewhere wary of her family.
unrecordedHer son by Aegon I inherited the Iron Throne rather than Rhaenys herself.
10 ACFlew Meraxes to Hellholt during the First Dornish War.
10 ACDied when a scorpion bolt struck Meraxes through the eye, both falling together.
Reading the character
The epithet the Citadel's later chroniclers settled on her — the Queen Who Never Was — names the exact gap in the record that defines Rhaenys Targaryen: a full dragonrider partner in winning six of the Seven Kingdoms, and never once a ruler of any part of what she'd helped conquer. Only Aegon sat the Iron Throne, and only his son by her, not Rhaenys, inherited it.
Her death is where the Conquest's easy successes finally met their limit. Dorne alone had refused to bend, and it was Rhaenys who paid the Targaryens' first blood price for underestimating it, Meraxes falling to a single well-aimed scorpion bolt at Hellholt. The lesson — that dragons make conquest look easy right up until they don't — took the dynasty the better part of two centuries to fully absorb, and it was Rhaenys who taught it to them first, at the cost of her own life.
Legacy
Later Dornish telling holds up the marksman who felled Meraxes as a folk hero of the resistance; the Citadel's own sources give him no name it can vouch for, and treat the story as more legend than record beyond the bare fact of the kill.
Sourcesfire-and-bloodtwoiaf
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Who is Rhaenys Targaryen?
She helped conquer a continent and was never crowned to rule an inch of it
Is Rhaenys Targaryen from the books or the show?
Book canon. This profile follows George R. R. Martin’s novels and histories, and notes where the television series diverges rather than following it.