King's Landing

King's Landing crowds the hills above the Blackwater Rush — the largest city in Westeros and the seat of the Iron Throne. When King Viserys I died in his bed in 129 AC his passing set the Dance of the Dragons alight: the Green Council debated through the night, Queen Alicent's party put the crown on young Aegon's head before dawn, and every friend of Rhaenyra still inside the capital was seized in the same hours.

Rhaenyra took the city from the air without a sword drawn, but her rule was brief and bitter — hard taxes, a hard winter, and a capital full of starving folk. In 130 AC the smallfolk rose beneath the Shepherd and stormed the Dragonpit, the great dome where the dragons were caged, killing beast after beast while Rhaenyra watched the smoke from the Red Keep.

Rhaenyra fled the mob and lost her life at Dragonstone; Aegon II returned to a ruined throne and was poisoned within the year. The war's reckoning closed in the same halls that had opened it — the boy Aegon III crowned in the Great Hall, and Cregan Stark's brief Hour of the Wolf passing the final judgments.