The grief of King Aegon and Queen Visenya at the death of Rhaenys was a terrible thing to behold.The Red Keep stood cloaked in mourning, the banners drawn low, and no songs nor laughter were heard in King's Landing for a moon's turn.
But grief soon turned to fury.And fury, in the hands of dragonlords, meant death beyond reckoning.
The years that followed — 10 AC and 11 AC — would pass into legend as the Years of the Dragon's Wroth.
Aegon took to the skies atop Balerion, the Black Dread, whose shadow seemed to swallow the sun itself.Visenya rode Vhagar, her fury no less terrible.
Together, they unleashed a storm of fire upon Dorne.
No stronghold was spared.Every castle, every keep, every tower that bore a Dornish banner was set aflame — save for Sunspear and the shadow city, which remained untouched, a lone defiant beacon in the desert.
Ghost Hill burned.Skyreach was razed anew.Yronwood's towers blackened and crumbled.The stony fastness of the Wyls was turned to ash, though the Wyl himself had long since fled.
The mountains glowed red by night, and the sands smoked by day.The rivers ran dry, and the fields turned to dust.
Yet for all the dragons' wrath, the Dornish would not break.
Rumors took flight like crows.It was whispered that Princess Meria Martell, the Yellow Toad of Dorne, had purchased a secret weapon from the magisters of Lys —a weapon that could bring death even to dragons.
Others claimed Sunspear was protected by ancient spells, or that dark arts from the Shadow Lands cloaked the city from dragonfire.
Letters were later found, written by Marcher Lords desperate for an end to the bloodshed, urging Dornish lords to forsake House Martell.In those desperate missives, they claimed that the Martells had bought their safety with Lysan gold, securing Sunspear from destruction while the rest of Dorne burned.
But the truth mattered little.
The Dornishmen, high and low, great lord and smallfolk alike, remained loyal.Not a single castle yielded to the Iron Throne.Not a single lord bent the knee.Not a single town opened its gates.
Thus the dragons raged across a land of smoke and sand, striking down shadows, punishing empty castles and ruined fields,while Sunspear stood silent and unbroken, a city daring the Conqueror to come.
And every day, Aegon's grief burned hotter.Every night, Visenya's wrath grew darker.
Yet no victory came.
Dorne remained, like its words,Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.