Chapter 18

Daenerys

Her mind was reeling.

All Targaryens knew their history and even if the books were lost to her, Essos had once been their home. She remembered as a child hearing Magister Illyrio's servants tell her stories about the once great dragon lords. Viserys would permit no other tales than those of Valyrian greatness and she had been too young to ask for other more interesting tales that were not filled with fire and blood.

So she had been told of all of the great dragon families, the ones who had ruled, the ones who had served and the ones that had made up their ancestors' once mighty armies.

Chief among those warriors had been the Vespasians. Renowned for their prowess in battle, the fierceness of their dragons and their tactical cunning, they were the natural choices to lead those once glorious hosts.

They had led their companies against the Ghiscari, knocking down their temples, laying waste to their cities and desecrating their sacred places. No stone had been unturned and no mercy given. With the Vespasians as generals, Valyria's armies had been unstoppable.

Until the great betrayal that was.

And here was the fruit of that.

Daenerys stared at her ancestor, unwilling, or maybe unable to comprehend his words. Here was a living legend, though perhaps renowned for all the wrong things. She understood his sadness all too well.

Hesitantly, the smaller blonde reached for his hand and threaded her fingers through his. He glanced at her in surprise, but to her relief, he didn't pull away.

"How long?" she asked again, this time her tone desperate, "how long have you sat here watching this?"

He offered her a bitter smile. "I assure you child, there are far bloodier recollections to watch if one wants to in this place. You only have to go over the hill. This is somewhat mild in comparison."

Daenerys felt sick to her stomach and she swallowed back bile at the scene of carnage before her, her ancestors being slaughtered, a once mighty people brought low.

"Cousin," she asked, hoping for a different answer to a different question. "How….How did you die? How did you come to be in this place?"

"I know not," Aurion replied. "My memories cease when the company and I return to Valyria to reclaim it."

There was the grief of uncounted years in his eyes and Daenerys ached for him. "You've been here four hundred years then."

He laughed again and she squeezed his hand as tightly as she could. "Have I? I suppose that sounds about right. Four hundred years to relive my foolishness, and for what? So that all of a once noble people could die out?"

Daenerys shook her head vigorously. "No cousin, no, we are not all dead." She cringed a bit as she realized it was a near thing. "I am the last though."

He still didn't look at her, keeping his eyes fixed on the scene before them, purple orbs flickering dully over a scene he had been forced to live countless times.

"You are so young," he said softly and turned to her then, raising a hand towards her face. "No more than two decades and you are all that is left of our once noble line. No males left to carry on our legacy."

The sadness, coupled with the belief that she couldn't be as important simply because she was female, sparked an uncharacteristic anger in Daenerys. She had heard that sort of talk from Viserys far too many times before his death and she would be damned if she sat here and took it from an ancestor of hers as well, no matter who he was or how powerful.

"It's that sort of attitude that landed you in this situation in the first place is it not?" she demanded. She knew enough of the stories now from her own reading and Loki's recollections to know that what her ancestor had attempted was pure foolishness. "The land itself had turned against you when a blood oath was broken. How could you even think of the notion of victory with that stain on your hands?"

Aurion turned to her, purple eyes blazing. "Watch yourself child. You were not there, you do not know what was lost that had to be regained."

Daenerys wasn't deterred. This man was dead, and she was not. "It was a strip of land, no more and no less. Why was it so important to go to war for?"

"You do not know what was there!"

That gave Daenerys pause. Reclaiming Valyria had always seemed to be a right of pride to her for her ancestors. After the stories Loki had told her, it seemed as if they had all been mad fools who were so desperate to regain their empire that they had doomed all of their people on the promise of more power.

And perhaps it was still that.

But maybe it was also something else.

"If not Valyria," she said slowly. "Then tell me what was so important there that you would risk yourself and thirty thousand Valyrian men in an attempt to reclaim it?"

For a moment she was certain that her distant cousin was not going to answer. But then after a long silence, there was a deep sigh that came from the bottom of his feet and all the way up through his body.

"How much do you truly know of Valyria's rise to power child?" he asked and Daenerys blinked. It wasn't the sort of response she had been expecting.

"Enough," she said slowly. "We were once shepherds in the hills who discovered dragons and their deep connections to magic. We formed alliances with them through that magic and then used them to conquer Valyria and create an empire."

"That is a more poetic than precise answer," was the response. "How do you think we tamed dragons in the first place? Despite their majesty and power, the dragons were still beasts, still driven by their carnal instincts and still volatile to be around. One could not tame these creatures without a great source of power in order to prevent themselves from being consumed."

Daenerys wasn't sure what conclusion Aurion was leading her to but she sensed it was an important one, so she kept her mouth shut and listened.

"And it was this source of power that you sought to reclaim," she said slowly. "But the land itself had rebelled against you had it not?"

"Aye," her ancestor replied. "The reason for Valyria's rise to power was not simply the dragons. We had discovered a….communication device that was able to appeal to the mind of the creatures that we were not a threat."

"A…A communication device?" Daenerys asked feeling some gob smacked. Loki hadn't mentioned this.

"Aye," Aurion continued. "A magical stone of great power. "It could sense the intentions of any living being and bring those intentions to light. It could sense desires and dreams, motivations and actions, though it could not tell specific thoughts. It seemed…it almost seemed alive."

The smaller blonde blinked, confused. When the realization struck her a moment later though, it did so with all the force of a dragon's claw to the face.

The Soul Stone.

How is that possible?

"Was it orange?" she asked faintly, wondering if Aurion knew it was the stone's thrall he was held in. His memory seemed exceptional for some things and spotty when it came to others. His silence on this matter was what further convinced her.

"Though I doubt the color has much to do with this resolution," he said slowly. "But yes, I believe it was."

With her mind reeling, Daenerys looked away from him. This new revelation unearthed a host of other questions that suddenly poured into her mind. Was Aurion aware that himself and perhaps his entire company had been sucked into the stone's depth?

"Are all the rest here?" she asked frantically. "The rest of the Dragon Host?"

Aurion shrugged, his look of despondency never ceasing. "Perhaps, I have seen some of my comrades hither and yon throughout my existence in this place. But none of them are fit for conversation."

Daenerys grimaced, wondering how long it took a human to go mad in this place. She certainly would have if she had been trapped in the Soul Stone's amber depths for centuries.

She shuddered wondering whether any of the others were drooling messes or whether they had lost themselves to grief like Aurion had.

"Well there is no point in sitting here," she said getting to her feet and brushing the sand from her dress. "Come on."

Her distant cousin looked at the hand she was holding out and raised an eyebrow at her. "Come where child? There is nowhere to go in this place but more memories and more heartache."

The smaller blonde thought for a moment, wondering about the truth of that. If Aurion had been here for four hundred years than it was possible that he had seen the complete breadth and width of this place.

But for some reason, she didn't think that that was true. Loki had said that an Infinity Stone was an anomaly, utterly unique. There were only six of them in the universe and each one adhered to a different plane of the mortal and immortal existence.

"Perhaps," she agreed slowly, an idea beginning to percolate in her mind. She tamped down on it immediately, not wanting to give herself and him hope. "But I don't think you've seen all of it. I think we have more to look at. We need to find them all."

"All?"

"The rest of the Dragon Host," the blonde said, peering out into the orange horizon. "I think I might have an idea."

W

They walked for hours, both in complete silence. Every so often Daenerys would glance at her cousin, taking in the sight of another Valyrian, a sight that she thought she would never see again.

Viserys and her had been the last ones for so long that to see the fair hair and purple eyes of another of her heritage was near mind melting.

And the further they walked, the more Daenerys began to hope that a way out of this would be found.

And not just for herself.

Aurion was quiet and she wondered if he had become used to the oppressive heat. His black armor certainly seemed to attract the sun and she all but winced in sympathy that he must have been feeling it.

But then….he was dead, and the dead didn't feel heat or cold, pain or ecstasy.

Though he could still feel sadness, so perhaps he wasn't dead after all, merely living a half-life, until he found a way to return to the land of the living.

If such things were even possible.

Loki….Loki wouldn't let her be here for too much longer. He had been extremely reticent to even let her take this risk. He would pull her out though, she knew he would be her failsafe here.

The long silent walk with Aurion allowed her to think a bit more of the dark-haired god than she normally did.

It was impossible not to really.

They hadn't spoken of anything…personal…since her confession to him that night on the sands. In some ways, the blonde was disappointed, but she recognized that he was a very guarded figure and his trust would need to be earned.

She could be patient.

The more time that she spent with him, the more she began to realize that Loki, everything about him, was worth waiting for. There was this façade about him that could be both gentle and cruel, that boasted of extreme intelligence and yet terrible loneliness.

He was intriguing and infuriating and she was drawn to him like a moth to a flame. How could she not be after all? What other man could take her to the stars and awaken dormant magic in her?

She was beginning to question nearly everything she knew about herself and her desires. And if she went back now, she would have to face those questions…and him.

No, she had to keep going.

"For being in the land of the dead," Aurion murmured from beside her. "You're very quiet cousin."

"It would hardly be becoming for me to be shrieking like a terrified child would it?" she drawled back. "I know I will be able to leave this place eventually. There's a…leash on me so to speak. The one who holds it will yank me out soon."

Aurion's gaze was unreadable. "Having a body to return to. What a novel concept."

She heard the dry sarcasm in his rough voice and smirked. "I don't think that having a body on the outside is a necessary thing cousin. From what I have seen of the artifact itself, it is somewhat sentient. In order for it to relinquish its hold on you, we'll need to convince it to let you go."

The other Valyrian was staring at her with wide eyes. After a moment however, something akin to understanding flashed in those purple orbs.

"I have heard stories from the others about a source of great heat far from here," he said finally. "I have never ventured there myself, but perhaps finding such a thing may provide us with some answers."

And so they walked for hours, with little being exchanged between them. Daenerys was bursting with questions to ask her cousin, but the agony in Aurion's eyes was far too painful to look into for long.

She reaffirmed her promise to herself that she would get him out of here…him and the rest of the Valyrians.

But the thought had no sooner crossed her mind when there was a sudden tugging sensation coming from somewhere behind her navel.

And the orange dissolved into white.

W

Daenerys came to with a gasp.

She was lying flat on her back, arms spread out from her, her feet equidistant apart and her eyes fixed on the ceiling of an unfamiliar room.

"Thank you for finally gracing me with your presence," said a drawling voice.

Ah yes, she was still in Loki's chambers.

The familiar green eyes of the god appeared overhead from where he was kneeling above her. "I trust that you found everything that you were looking for?"

Daenerys felt a surge of memory at the mention of her time within the stone, anger quickly followed it. "Not even close," she growled and pushed herself upwards.

Loki's hands were immediately on her shoulders as he helped her sit up and there was a petty part of the blonde that wanted to jerk away because she had been so close, so close to freeing her distant family from the stone, that she could almost taste it.

Never mind she had no idea how to go about it…but the answer was close, she could feel it.

"Well apologies for interrupting your jaunt into the Soul Realm," Loki replied sarcastically. "But I did not think it wise for you to remain in its thrall for longer than an hour. You are human, your mind might have become twisted and strange otherwise."

Daenerys ignored the insult and sipped gratefully from the glass of water that was pressed into her hand. "Of course you would think that."

"Tell me then," the god said once she had drunken her fill. "What did you see?"

Daenerys pursed her lips for a moment, considering. And then she decided that there was little to be gained from concealing the truth.

So she told him, everything from waking up in the strange orange desert that reminded her all too much of the Red Wastes when she had wandered across them, thirsty and starving. How a dull amber sun had beat down on her, its heat oppressive as she had climbed from one dune to the next.

And then she took a deep breath and told him all about meeting a Valyrian that had been long dead, her shock and delight at seeing her cousin Aurion, the last of the dragon kings of the old freehold.

When she explained that the Soul Stone had once been a relic of her people, remaining in the Freehold for hundreds of years before the fall of the old empire, Loki's eyes had narrowed.

"I know not how the stone came to be in the House of the Undying," she went on, "but for a time the Valyrians held it and it seemed to play a large part in their dominance in those three hundred years of their reign."

Loki's lip curled in a sneer. "And yet they were human and did not have the wit to hold onto that power with an Infinity Stone in their grasp. But I suppose I should not be surprised."

Dany took a deep breath and chose to ignore his tone. She didn't know why he was getting snippy, but she wasn't in the mood for it.

"Is it possible to get them out?" she asked and the god blinked at her. "I beg your pardon?"

"Is it possible to free my cousin and the rest of the Dragon Host from the Stone's influence?" she asked as patiently as possible.

Loki stared at her for a long second. "You are serious."

"Yes of course," Daenerys snapped. "I would not have asked if their release was not exactly what I was interested in. I am the last living Targaryen and I do not wish to see the rest of my family suffer if there is something that I can do to help them."

"I see," Loki said, his expression blank. "And what will you do should you be able to free them? Will you take them from here and retake Westeros?"

It would certainly solve her need for an army. A host of her own people who would no doubt be loyal to her after her efforts to free them and for whom she would not have to pay a single copper for seemed like an excellent idea.

But the prospect of leaving Loki also rushed upon her and she released a slow breath. The idea of pursuing both options still left her wanting.

And Daenerys was tired of not having it all.

After everything she had gone through, she certainly believed that she deserved all that would make her happy.

"That is certainly an option," she managed. "But on the whole I have not decided."

"Then why attempt such an insane endeavor if not utterly certain of your course?"

"Because not every motive has to be a political one my lord!" the blonde snapped. "I am the last living member of my family, the last Valyrian alive. I have heard that a Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing. I do not wish to be alone any longer. My mother is gone, my father is gone, both of my brothers are gone, my husband is gone, my son is gone, I will never be able to have a family of my own."

She paused here, horrified that she had revealed such a deeply personal sentiment, but then decided to barrel forward, hoping that it was something he wouldn't latch onto.

"I want my family back," she said quietly, lowering her eyes to the floor. "And even if these people are only distantly related to me, we share blood. And that is very important to me, who has no blood left alive."

She raised her eyes to his, somewhat afraid that she would see condemnation in those green eyes and lose her nerve. But they were only blank and emotionless.

"I know that you understand," she said quietly. "You have a son that I know you love very much but other than that you are alone in the world too."

It was a bit of a gamble, but she didn't care.

"You are appealing to my own sentiment?" he asked and she couldn't decide whether he was amused or disgusted.

"I am," she said in soft voice. "You are not human, but you are sentient. I do not think you are immune to the affections of the heart because no one is."

She took a deep breath. "Will you help me find a way to free them?"

The silence that filled the room after was nearly oppressive, but Daenerys did not look away from her host. She had seen enough of him in the last few months to know that he guarded his heart behind steel walls and gates. She had a feeling that if she could just appeal to that part of him, she would have his aid, because Daenerys knew she could not do this by herself.

But before Loki could answer, the hairs on the back of the blonde's neck stood on end, a telltale sign that something was not right.

The words had no sooner jumped to her tongue when all of a sudden, Loki was on his feet, arms wide, green magic spreading out from him like the wings of a bird.

Without thinking, Daenerys ducked, pulling her arms over her head, getting herself as low to the floor as possible.

But other than a small clinking sound of something hitting the floor, there was no other noise in the chamber.

After a second, the blonde cautiously raised her head to find her godly host kneeling in order to pick something up off the floor.

"What is it?" she asked.

"A poison dart," the god replied. "For a human invention, its somewhat clever. Very small, easily undetectable. I can certainly see why this would be useful if a human wishes to kill another human."

"My lord?"

Loki was rolling the small dart back and forth between his hands. It was only the length of his smallest finger and yet the dark colour of it, coupled with its needle like point were enough to send shivers down her spine.

"Remain here my lady," Loki said, his naturally smooth voice taking on a silky quality that she knew promised violence. "I believe I have a Faceless Man to hunt."

W