"A falling star brings luck to those who see it." "The luck is all mine already, Elaena" To be the first princess born to House Targaryen in a generation is to have your fate sealed with your first cry. To have someone watching over you from the stars is to have your luck foretold, your path guided by their light. Or so Elaena Targaryen tells herself. Prince Maekar had long defied brothers and Kings alike to keep his little stargirl beside him. But the tourney at Ashford is a summons, and the King's word is law. Marriage is duty. But a falling star can change its course.

Aemma Blackfyre was born in a golden cradle. She was no princess, not in name, but she was the daughter of Daena the Defiant and Aegon IV Targaryen, granddaughter to kings on both sides, and marked from birth by silver-gold hair and deep purple eyes that left no doubt as to her blood. A bastard she might have been - a Waters of the Crownlands - but she was every inch a dragon. And yet she was nothing like the dragons who sired her. She was delightful. Gentle. Kind in a way that seemed almost out of place in the court that shaped her. Many whispered of it. Neither her father nor her fierce, defiant mother had ever been called gentle. Aegon had been grand and gluttonous, charming and cruel in equal measure. Daena had been proud, willful, and unbowed. In temperament Aemma resembled not her parents, but the late Queen Naerys Targaryen - beautiful, tender-hearted, and possessed of a fragile strength that did not need to shout. That resemblance had once made Daena sad. Aemma never understood why. Then came rebellion. Her full-blooded brother Daemon Blackfyre rose against the Iron Throne, urged on by pride and by Aegor's whispering counsel. The realm divided. Blood called to blood. Aemma was forced to choose. Daemon - her full blooded brother and Aegor her brother-husband. Or Daeron - the man who had read to her at night, who had loved her not as a sister, but as daughter. For Aemma, the choice was never truly difficult. What is a sibling's pride beside a father's kindness? What is ambition beside love? She stood with the Red Dragon. She chose Daeron II Targaryen and the realm. If there was defiance in her - true defiance - it was there. In standing against her full-blooded brother. In turning from her husband's cause. In placing loyalty and gratitude above blood and expectation. The histories may call her bastard, sister, wife. But those who knew her best would have called her something else. Daughter of the Red Dragon.