Boran

Daughter of Khosrow II and a Byzantine princess, Boran survived a bloodbath in 628 when her brother-husband Kavad II murdered their father and all her other brothers, then died months later himself. After Kavad's seven-year-old son ruled briefly and was killed by the general Shahrbaraz, Boran took the throne in 630 with military backing, the only legitimate heir left standing. She inherited civil war - Parsig against Pahlav, Persian nobility against Parthian - and spent her first short reign trying to restore her father's memory and lower taxes. Deposed by a nephew, then by her sister Azarmidokht, she returned to power when the Pahlav commander Rostam Farrokhzad killed Azarmidokht and reinstalled her. Real authority belonged to Rostam; the Parsig revolted and strangled Boran in 632. Her nephew Yazdegerd III, the last Sasanian ruler, inherited the wreckage.