Neylan watched from the Sacred Temple as Arslan's army of Pars nationals marched towards the capital city, Ecbatana. She watched through the eyes of the Goddess as the high priest of Yaldabaoth disappeared after the battle that removed the Knight's Templar from their Pars stronghold, then resurfaced again in the capital city of Lusitania.
Sadly, she watched as he stirred up the city against the absent king and his brother, shouting that the king was a heretic for falling for another nation's heretical queen, the king's brother was a heretic for sending Pars soldiers to kill all the "honorable" knights that had served directly under the high priest and not coming to his aide to protect them.
She sighed sadly to see that the next hot-bed of chaos would be in Lusitania, but she couldn't be surprised. The priests of chaos still desired more chaos to be wrought in the world in order to increase their power and strength. The one concern she did have, was that Arslan might be dragged into that conflict in the middle of trying to settle the chaos in his own country.
It wasn't hers to direct the flow of anything, only to watch and be obedient to the will of the Goddess, so she could only worry. That was tiring in her pregnant state, so instead she prayed to the Goddess and left it in Her hands.
When she wasn't watching those things, Neylan was studying further. She found it very frustrating to be so weak as to only be able to offer prayers and minimal healing at only emergency moments. She wanted to be able to help even a little more, to do what she could to tip the balance a little more to right and peace during this critical time.
She could use a skill similar to the Goddess' and speak to people at a far distance, but only with a lot of energy and focus. She worked hard to strengthen that skill. She could step from the mountain to any place within Pars. She worked hard to see if that boundary could be pushed, just in case Arslan was called to go into Lusitania like he'd gone into Sindhura. The other thing she could do was work with and create light. It was by changing the light to show people what she wanted them to see or not see that allowed her to hide from their sight, or to hide her appearance.
Neylan knew that Hilmes was instinctively afraid of fire, from his time as a child in the burning room he'd been saved from. She knew that it was the priests of chaos that had magically created the fog that had made it possible for the Lusitanian army to win in the last war against Pars. Those priests worked with darkness, and would use it again in future battles, she was sure of it.
She spent a lot of time experimenting with the creation of light and with using it to form illusions. She would never be able to use her skills at the war level, but if she could affect the most important individual battles, perhaps she could prevent a death that would critically weaken Pars into the future.
When the priests of chaos and darkness led Hilmes to battle against Daryun again, in their final attempt to kill Arslan, Neylan was ready. She whispered to the priestess Farangis to stand guard over Arslan in their hidden location and they would remain hidden to the eyes of the priests and their champion. Farangis promised.
Neylan placed a dancing flame illusion before Narsus to protect him as long as possible in his place should Hilmes win against Daryun, also whispering to him to hold his position. She was a little surprised when he actually both heard her and indicated he would.
Daryun and Jaswant stood together as the front line defense of the Prince. Neylan pushed Jaswant to hide from Hilmes, at least at the beginning. He faded into the background, keeping his eyes open for the priests to appear from the walls and floor as they had habit to do.
When the priests sent out the mists of darkness to prevent Daryun and Jaswant from seeing Hilmes or the priests, Neylan fiercely would show where they were by making them glow with her light when and wherever they appeared.
When Hilmes pressed Daryun so hard he lost his sword, Neylan pushed Jaswant forward. He was slightly behind Hilmes, but Hilmes was immediately distracted from Daryun for Neylan had wrapped Jaswant in the brilliant illusion of being engulfed in flame, as if a fiery, angry djinn bearing down on Hilmes.
Hilmes screamed and backpedaled. Two priests leaped out to block Jaswant and his sword cut them both down, for Neylan had wreathed it in light to harm their dark souls. Then she pulled Jaswant back, cloaking him in invisibility, so that Hilmes' wild panicked swing missed him.
Daryun had his sword in hand again by then, so pressed the advantage of having been ignored. Neylan went back to never allowing the priests of darkness get away with not being seen by either Jaswant or Daryun. Between the two warriors, they whittled down the priests to the last one. When he was struck down and Hilmes hard pressed to save his own flesh, the final hidden high priest arrived.
Neylan had been waiting for that. With one whisper to Farangis, she appeared between Daryun, Jaswant, and the others defending Arslan and the high priest of darkness. Being white already, it wasn't hard to make her own visage one of brilliant light, a light that sharply harmed the high priest.
From the side, arrow after arrow of the same light sped from Farangis' bow to slam into the high priest. Neylan refused to let the high priest escape, and the power of the Goddess flowed from her, penning him in.
It was the high priest that killed Hilmes at the end, drawing from Hilmes the last of his life to save his own. The shock and pain on Hilmes' face from the betrayal was sadly noted, but barely paid attention to in the end. Three blades, also wreathed in light, plunged into the high priest. Daryun, Jaswant, and an untired Narsus had moved against him now that Hilmes was gone.
With the final blows that rained down on him, the high priest of darkness cursed, but Neylan and the Goddess' wrath prevented both the curse from being cast and ended for good the life of the high priest. Neylan could feel the power of the Goddess flow through her, into the high priest, and through him into the depths of the Mountain of Darkness. The cleansing light completely cleared that place of evil and brought the caverns down so that their wicked craft couldn't be found and brought to rebirth again.
But to carry that much power, Neylan was near to nothing herself. She became the light, then slowly passed out, only able to make one final confirming check that her oldest son and his loyal retainers would live now.
She came to in the Sacred Mountain temple, in her own rooms. She was glad she'd already given birth to her third son by then, and recovered from that, or she'd never have been able to be alive at all after that battle. She rested then and didn't leave the mountain.
She watched over Arslan lightly as he took his place as king. They shared the sorrow that they'd been too late to save Tahameny. (Neylan couldn't bring herself to care as much as Arslan about Andragoras' beheading.) Both had died before he'd been able to reach Hilmes at Ecbatana, their public deaths being Hilmes' punishment to Arslan for even attempting to come against him with military might.
Mostly, Neylan spent her time from then quietly raising her two young sons, pleased to be able to rest and enjoy having them with her for this time.