After the loss of Queen Rhaenys and Meraxes above the Hellholt in 10 AC, the temper of the war changed utterly. The grief of Aegon the Conqueror hardened into a fury that spared nothing, and the years that followed are remembered as the Dragon's Wroth. Aegon upon Balerion and his sister Visenya upon Vhagar took to the Dornish skies not to conquer but to punish, and for three long years they set the strongholds of the desert lords ablaze.
Every castle that had raised its banners against the Iron Throne felt the fire. Sunspear, the Hellholt, Vaith, Yronwood, the Tor, and Ghost Hill were burned again and again, some so often that little was left to burn. Yet the Dornish had learned the same lesson under fire that they had taught the Targaryens by ambush: stone does not surrender, and a people who scatter into the sands and the mountain passes cannot be slain from the air. The lords of Dorne rebuilt what was thrown down, hid their strength, and endured, while their assassins reached ever closer to the dragons themselves. It is said knives were sent even for Aegon, and that Visenya thereafter would not let her brother go unguarded.
The Dragon's Wroth won the crown no lasting gain, only ash and hatred, and in 13 AC Aegon at last consented to end the war. The precise terms were never widely known, and rumor held that the Dornish had some hold over the Conqueror that pressed him to peace. Whatever the cause, Dorne was left unbroken and unbowed, keeping its princes and its independence, and the memory of the burnings would poison relations between Sunspear and the Iron Throne for generations to come.