She did not get the chance to get more tea, as they were summoned to the inner courtyard to hear the special announcement that had been promised. Then again, she wasn’t actually all that tired, and to the extent she was she could compensate with a bit of eldritch energy. 

The announcement had a grim tone. A mass murder had occurred last night, it was confirmed; fifteen bodies had been found so far (the two she killed in that walled garden were probably the missing ones). The Aedile in charge of the night watch had investigated, and was only able to find a handful of witnesses (which was a handful more than Sionann had thought there were). Each of those witnesses had seen the same thing- nothing. Just a mass of darkness sprinting past, the only visible detail a knife held before it. 

There were too many similar accounts for this to be dismissed as a fantasy. Hence, the Aedile had come to the Vestals for help. Four experienced Vestals had already departed to start their investigations, but if this truly was dark magic, performed in the very heart of Reme, the entire Vestal order had to be on alert. 

The announcement was greeted by gasps, nervous murmuring, and some confusion. The initiates were subsequently told to come to one of the sanctuaries for further explanation. 

The doors were closed, torches and incense were lit, and a heavy atmosphere was palpable. 

“We would normally explain this in the spring, when the powers of darkness are in retreat, but circumstances demand an accelerated schedule”, the elder began. 

“As you know, the Vestal order maintains the four elemental shrines in Reme. We serve a number of ceremonial functions as well. But the true purpose of our order, the reason for its founding, has always been to fight the darkness that would see the world destroyed.”

“You have heard of dark spirits, those that are confined to the Fell Wood. They are troublesome, especially in the wrong hands, and most likely are what we are facing right now. But that is not the worst case.”

The elder gave them a stern look.

“You must be prepared for the possibility, but know that this is a secret that can never be shared outside of this order or the College of Pontiffs. There are enemies of Reme who would do drastic things if they even heard a rumour of what follows.”

“There are beings worse than dark spirits. They were once known as the Dark Gods, but we now call them Demons, for unlike the gods they can be destroyed.”

Sionann clenched her teeth. She had a sneaking suspicion she knew a little something about a Demon. 

“When Reme was founded, the world was different. Demons fought with the gods frequently, causing untold destruction. The ancestors of the founding twins fled the destruction of Ilium at the hands of one such Demon. Yet they did not truly escape, for it followed them, and made war on the young city. Romulus died in battle with its twisted servants, and Remus was barely able to hold them off.”

At this point, the elder pointed to the frescoes on the walls of the sanctuary. The first showed the founding of Reme by the twins, with the she-wolf watching over them. A familiar scene. But the second showed a hooded Vestal approaching Remus, with armies fighting in the background. The armies looked mundane, but presumably the black-clad figures were demonic servants. 

“The founder of the Vestal order then appeared before Remus, and offered her assistance. She was a stranger from across the seas, who sought the destruction of the Demon. Her name is not recorded, but she used the title of Angel to describe herself.”

The next fresco showed the Vestal (or Angel) firing beams of light from her hand, causing the demonic armies to be driven back. 

“The Angel led Remus’s army to victory over the Demon, driving its servants all the way back to its twisted temple, which she razed to the ground with the holy power of all the gods.”

Mm-hmm. She didn’t finish the job quite so thoroughly, Sionann suspected. 

The next four frescoes showed the Angel lighting the Vestal Fire, planting the Vestal Garden, calling forth the Vestal Spring, and… presumably creating the Vestal Windcatcher, although the illustration didn’t resemble the modern shrine at all. 

“She dedicated the four shrines to Vesta, who agreed to empower them for eternity. These shrines would serve as a shield against Demonic influences. Unfortunately, the Angel passed away soon after, but the Vestal order carried on in her footsteps, doing what we could to maintain the shrines.”

“In the centuries since, we have not only maintained the shrines, we have gone to war against other Demons who threatened Reme, and indeed the world. The growth of the republic has corresponded with the defeat of many Demons, proving to those who served them that they were never gods, merely monsters.”

“Now, even the word Demon has been lost to the common people, so thoroughly have we driven them from the world. Yet we remain vigilant, for the world is vast, and there are unconquered lands where Demons could yet be lurking, ready to strike when our backs are turned.”

The elder then explained that there was a simple chant, passed down through the ages, that any Vestal could perform to detect the presence of Demonic forces. Fortunately, Sionann and Fírinne were standing in the back, and the elder wasn’t looking in their direction, so nobody saw the panicked look they gave each other.

Before they could do anything, the elder had already performed the chant, and a glittering circle of light radiated outwards, passing harmlessly through all of the initiates in front of Sionann… and passing harmlessly through her and Fírinne as well. 

“Of course, there is no reaction now, as there couldn’t possibly be anything Demonic anywhere near the temple. In fact, no Vestal has detected a Demonic presence in over a century. We still practise this chant, however, so that we are always prepared.”

Somehow, the rest of the week passed without incident. They received no updates on the investigation into the murders, but no news was good news, right? 

Once they returned to the Fey Wood, they made their way to Kin-Galud’s temple as quickly as possible. As soon as Sionann withdrew the knife from within her robes, it broke free from her grasp, floating in the air. Kin-Galud conveyed satisfaction as a ghostly image of the first man she killed emerged from the knife, only to be dragged screaming into the depths of the temple. 

It did not convey surprise when more apparitions emerged, one by one sucked into the darkness, cries of pain and panic echoing off the crumbled walls. 

[I might have caused a problem], Sionann confessed. 

Kin-Galud riffled through her memories, then conveyed a lack of concern. The Vestal order is weak, as evidenced by their failure to preserve the proper ritual to detect eldritch presences. The chant alone was enough to send out a pulse of ‘holy’ energy, but without a sacrifice of blood, there would never be any feedback.

[Blood?]

Blood. Did you think demons were the only things that could draw energy from blood? Gods and angels are just as eager for the stuff.

But evidently the Vestal order decided that blood sacrifices weren’t acceptable anymore. Just one of many weaknesses they had accumulated over the years. Even the elemental shrines are mere shadows of their original glory, or Sionann would’ve dropped dead the first time she entered the Vestal Temple after being infused with eldritch energy. 

[Wait. Did you know the shrines were weakened when we made our bargain?]

Kin-Galud radiated amusement and denial. It had suspected they might be, but it was 50/50. There had been a failsafe that would’ve made her death appear natural, had it happened. 

[I suppose I can’t complain], she thought-grumbled. 

All’s well that ends well, right?

[So, what about the rest of the story? Did you really kill Romulus?], Fírinne asked.

It did. But the story was precisely backwards. It hadn’t destroyed Troy, it had ruled it. It hadn’t followed anyone, it had been followed. The angel built the shrines first, then the twins built their city between them. It didn’t attack the twins, they attacked it. Look at this temple- does it strike you as something that could be built by an invading power over the course of a short war? 

[Maybe. You haven’t explained how it was built]

Fair. It would share a bit of history with them. 

Kin-Galud conveyed a series of images- a timelapse of a wooden shrine being built over the course of a month. Later, it was replaced by a brick chapel, which over the course of many years became surrounded by an increasing number of ancillary structures. Eventually, the chapel was torn down, and the modern temple was built. Just excavating the foundations took an entire year, and it took over two decades before the final capstone was placed. 

They got a birds-eye view of the temple in its intact form, and were able to see that it was laid out in the shape of an octopus. The altar room was the ‘body’, with eight twisting galleries radiating outwards from the ‘bottom’, the structures between them lower and roofed in a different shade of stone. The timelapse sped up, and they witnessed two centuries pass in the blink of an eye- a large, thriving city sprung up around the temple.

Then the images took on a bitter feeling, as they watched a timelapse of a siege. Over the course of a month, the city was ground to dust, the defenders were whittled down, and the temple took more and more damage- although they didn’t see what caused the damage, as the timelapse showed a single image per day. One day, intact roof, next day, rubble. 

Eventually, only the ‘head’ remained intact, and the image began to move in real time. An impossibly bright thing entered the main chamber, flanked by eleven powerful spirits, backed up by hundreds of warriors clad in wolf-head cloaks. They didn’t get to see through the roof, but within a minute, the entire structure was shaking like it was hit by an earthquake. Flashes of light could be seen coming from within. Occasionally, someone would be sent flying out of the entrance- sometimes a wolf-head, but more often one of the black-clad defenders. 

Within ten minutes, the shaking had stopped. The surviving wolf-heads poured out of the temple, followed by the eleven spirits. They waited outside for a minute, then- the vision ended abruptly.

Sionann and Fírinne were both somewhat stunned- by the content of the vision, but also by the length, complexity, and strong emotion it conveyed. Kin-Galud was not normally so… expressive. 

[So, wait, are you actually the good one?], Fírinne eventually asked.

Oh, no. It was a malevolent tyrant, who had dedicated considerable effort to unwinding the fabric of reality for its own amusement. It’s just that the angel and its followers weren’t much better.   

Krlnkir

The Romans did actually believe that their ancestors fled the destruction of Troy, led by a man named Aeneas. They even had an unofficial sequel to the Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid, that described how it all went down. It's a respectable thing that is studied as a classic.

But let's be real- it was effectively a fanfic. A self-insert fanfic.