Born at Sunspear to the ruling Princess Loreza Martell, sister to the cautious Doran and the wild Oberyn, frail of body from the cradle and forever pale beneath the Dornish sun. Her mother carried her north on the long search for a worthy match, weighing Baratheons and Lannisters and Hightowers in turn, before the Princess of Dorne struck the bargain that wed her in 280 AC to Crown Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and seated her at the right hand of the Iron Throne. Within the year she bore him a black-haired daughter, Rhaenys, whom the Dornish whispered favored her mother's blood; two years later she gave him a silver son, Aegon, but the birthing nearly killed her, and the maesters of King's Landing warned the prince that another child would surely do so.
At the great Tourney at Harrenhal in 281 AC she sat the queen's box crowned with flowers while her husband unhorsed every knight before him, then rode past his own wife to lay the crown of winter roses, blue as frost, in the lap of Lyanna Stark of Winterfell. The hall fell silent for the length of a heartbeat, and the realm did not forget it. When Rhaegar carried the Stark girl away and the rebellion broke, Elia was kept in the Red Keep with her babes as a hostage against Dorne's loyalty, mad King Aerys holding her life as surety that Prince Doran would muster his spears for the throne.
She was still in the Red Keep when Lord Tywin's host came through the gates in the guise of friends and put the city to the sack. Ser Gregor Clegane found her in the royal apartments with the children: he dashed the infant Aegon's head against the wall, ran the little Rhaenys through beneath her father's bed, and then raped and murdered the princess upon her son's blood and brains. Her body, swaddled in crimson cloaks beside her children, was laid before the Iron Throne as Lord Tywin's gift of fealty to the new King Robert, who named the killings the work of dragonspawn and let the Mountain go unpunished. The grievance has festered in Dorne ever since, an unhealed wound carried in silence by Prince Doran and in open fury by Prince Oberyn, who swore he would have justice for his sister or take it with his own spear.