Rhea Royce
Lady of Runestone in her own right, heir to ancient Royce bronze — wed young to Daemon Targaryen, who calls her his 'bronze bitch' and visits the Vale as rarely as honor allows.
A soul of House Arryn, born at Runestone, sworn to House Royce.
The fuller tale
Season One
Daemon calls on his wife at Runestone. Lady Rhea Royce falls from her horse; the stone that ends her is in her husband's hand.
Where they stand. Runestone.
Their story
Lady of Runestone in her own right and heir to the ancient Royce bronze armor and lands, Rhea is wed young to Daemon Targaryen in a match arranged for its political value and conducted, from the start, with almost none of the affection such matches sometimes eventually develop.
Daemon calls her, with a cruelty he apparently considers affectionate, his 'bronze bitch,' and visits Runestone as rarely as honor technically requires — leaving Rhea to govern her own lands competently and largely alone for years at a stretch, a marriage in name considerably more than in practice.
How it ends for them
On the screen. A fall from her horse — and a stone (S1·E5)
The Lady of Runestone rode out hawking and met her husband on the high road — years after he'd left her, hours before she died. Her horse threw her; the fall broke her; the stone that finished it was in Daemon's hand. The Vale ruled it a riding accident, in the way of rulings no one believes.
On the page. A fall while hawking, nine days after her husband's visit (F&B, ch. 1)
The Lady of Runestone fell from her horse while hawking and cracked her skull upon a stone, lingering nine days. Her husband, the histories note, paid his only visit to Runestone in years just before — and claimed her lands just after. The Vale refused him both.
In the show, Rhea is thrown from her horse while riding in the mountains near Runestone, and the fall is finished, ambiguously but suggestively, by a stone in Daemon's own hand — the Vale's official ruling calls it a riding accident, in the specific tone of a ruling nobody involved actually believes.
Fire & Blood records her death as a fall while hawking, her skull cracked on a stone, lingering nine days before she dies. The histories note, pointedly, that her husband paid his first visit to Runestone in years just before the accident and moved to claim her lands just after — the Vale's lords refused him both the visit's innocence and the inheritance.
Their chapters, book by book
Where the page and the screen part
Both tellings treat Rhea's death as suspicious without quite committing to calling it murder outright, though the show stages Daemon's involvement with somewhat more visual suggestion than the book's careful hedging allows.
Their journey
Where the two tellings send them to the same place the road runs whole; where they part, the screen keeps the left and the books the right.