99 AC / 54 HA
Daemon Targaryen
We remained sheltered within the vestry of the temple. Ana seemed exhausted, though not as deathly pale as she had been moments ago. I had questions—far too many to count—but circumstances demanded I withhold them until she was ready to speak.
So we sat in the gloom of the temple, quiet and alone. Ana rested upon a broken stone pillar in a meditative state, practising what appeared to be slow, deliberate breathing exercises.
With little else to do, I sat a few paces away, keeping a vigilant watch on the reinforced doors for any possessed that might attempt to breach them. Thus far, the dead had remained at bay.
"I can feel the sharp sting of your curiosity, Daemon. You might as well ask before your mind darkens your thoughts," came Ana's dry voice.
I was pulled from my reverie, gazing into her eyes as the residual, electric magical glow slowly dimmed back to their natural, vibrant green.
"Who are you, truly?" I asked, voicing the most potent question burning in my mind. A part of me was hard at work trying to restrain the darker, more paranoid conclusions.
She let out a slow sigh. "I did not lie to you about my past, Daemon. I simply embellished certain facets."
"And what facets would they be?" I pressed.
"My name. My true name is Liliana," she said, her voice heavy with a sudden emotion. "It is not the name my mother gave me, but it is the one bestowed upon me by my father." She paused, letting the heavy silence stretch between us. "His name you may be familiar with. Imperator Aeternus Figulus Hadrianus. Or, as the world calls him... Emperor Hadrian of Rome."
"That is certainly not what I was thinking," I breathed, genuinely shocked.
"What were you thinking?" she asked, a faint, tired smirk touching her lips.
"That you were a witch, or some hidden Valyrian mage," I answered, exasperated. "You being a Princess of the Imperium was not on my list of speculations. But... yes, it does make a terrifying amount of sense now. But who was the man that rescued us in the altar chamber?"
"My father," she answered straightforwardly.
That single statement brought me up short. The being that had stepped through that golden portal was no mere man; he was something entirely removed from mortality. His strength, his finesse, and the sheer devastation of his magic were powers I had only ever imagined the Gods to be capable of wielding.
"So, you are a witch. You can wield powers like his?" I asked, looking at her in a new, cautious light.
"In a manner of speaking. I can wield magics like my father, just... not to the extent that he can," she replied, a faint hint of pride colouring her exhaustion.
"Then what were you planning? Running around the mud as a sellsword, bleeding to defend Qohor against your own legions?" I asked, the glaring contradiction demanding an answer.
"It was my father's directive. I was to infiltrate Qohor and ensure the city was ripe for conquest. How I went about achieving that sabotage was left entirely to my discretion. I chose the path of the sellswords," she explained calmly. "By now, the vanguard should have breached the outer walls. Roman legions will be fighting the same shadow-possessed husks we encountered at the doors."
"And what exactly is the thing your father is currently fighting in the dark?"
"That would be the physical manifestation of the Black Goat, using Trahar's flesh as its conduit. Father suspected the demon might attempt to cross over if Qohor were pushed to the absolute brink of destruction. He was proven correct." Her emerald eyes gleamed with a cold cruelty at the mention of the dark god. "That vile monstrosity will meet its end today."
I was inclined to agree with her. The casual, terrifying ease with which her father had engaged a god, while simultaneously carving an escape path for us through flames from the seven hells, had been entirely eye-opening. Ever since I began this excursion across the Narrow Sea, I had been humbled in more ways than one. My arrogant understanding of the world and its power structures had been violently shattered.
"What shall we do now?" I asked, deferring to the Ana. That needed its own correction.
"We need weapons if we are to survive the streets outside. Valyrian steel is the only metal lethal to their kind," she explained.
"Yet the tragedy of our circumstance is that we have absolutely no idea where in this sprawling temple the priests hid our swords," I pointed out, a bitter taste of defeat in my mouth.
"That can be easily remedied," she smiled faintly, drawing that polished redwood stick from her ruined ringmail.
"Accio Dark Sister."
The tip of her wand flared with a brief, white light. From the far end of the temple, a heavy, metallic clanking echoed through the gloom. A pile of shattered debris covering one of the sacrificial circles violently exploded outward. Through the settling dust, the dark, rippled steel of my sword flew directly across the expanse of the hall, clattering to a halt precisely at her boots.
I couldn't help but smirk at the casual display of power. "That is quite a nifty trick," I praised.
She smiled wryly, nudging the hilt toward me. "Not entirely. The magic has strict limitations. I can only summon objects I understand innately, things I can craft a perfect, detailed image of in my mind. If we had not sparred so relentlessly during our journey, I would not have understood the weight and balance of Dark Sister well enough to pull her to me."
"Still, a rather helpful tool to have in your arsenal," I commented, picking up my ancestral blade. The familiar, comforting weight of the steel in my grip settled my frayed nerves.
With another flick of her wand, she summoned her own massive Valyrian claymore, ripping it free from a different ruined circle across the room.