Angela ───── D. Targaryen

XXI

"My ancestor then!" Coren corrected. "You are a Thorne too, are you not?"

"I am."

"If not my father, who are you? I knew no other, I do not know the house history." The man shook his head, tutting as Coren's temper flared. "I do not understand then. Are you a ghost? A vision? Something conjured up by the warlock?"

"Something like that."

"That answers nothing!"

"Patience."

"No!" Coren spat back, stepping ahead of the man. "I will not be patient. I do not understand! Is this the gods playing me? If they were sending someone to torment me, why not my mother? Or my sister? I do not know who you are!"

"You do not know our history."

"Our house is dead! We have no history!"

"Our house is not dead. You are still here, are you not?" The man replied. "You are a Thorne. Our house is not dead so you should know our history."

"Enlighten me then." Coren hissed. "What should I know of our history? That we were the Targaryens loyal dogs, that being that ended up with our death, our ruin! My father died fighting in Robert's Rebellion. My mother and sister died on foreign soil because of choices made centuries before us. That is our history."

"Our history repeats itself." The man replied, calmly, which only served to infuriate Coren more. "Just as it does now."

"What does that mean?" Coren questioned, eyebrows furrowing as the man brushed past him, walking into the cavern. "What do you mean?"

The man continued, as Coren hurried to catch up with him. This ancestor of his was not listening and all he was doing was making Coren more confused. Why was everything so cryptic? What was going on?

"You are destined to repeat what has come before." The man called, as Coren struggled to catch up, the dark blinding him to all else that went on. "That is known."

"How can I repeat what has come before if I do not know what has come before?" Coren asked, as a door opened ahead of them and Coren hurried towards it, after the man. "I do not understand!"

The hall they were in was in ruins, the roof broken and braziers cold. Yet still, the man kept walking ahead of him. He hurried on, faintly hearing his name being called but Coren feared that if he looked away from the apparition of his ancestor, then the man would disappear and Coren would never get his answers. 

"Why will you not tell me what has happened?" Coren needed to know, he had to see what was to come, to know that he could change it. "What are you keeping from me?"

He hurried up the stairs and through a pair of doors.

"Be patient, nephew."

"Nephew?" Coren hurried forward as they appeared in another courtyard, this one intact but desolate. Coren stopped beside him, looking around the place and wondering if he was supposed to know where he was. "If you are sent to help, then you are failing miserably. I grew up in Essos, not Westeros. How am I supposed to know the history of our house? My mother was dead by the time I was nine, my sister when I was ten."

"You ride with another, someone older. Has he not told you of the history of House Thorne?"

"Jorah is from House Mormont. He would not know."

"I beg to differ. Our history is a long and proud one. It is well known." The man tilted his head. "Has he kept it from you? He is worried about what you will become when you know it. He is worried that you will become everything his wife's house feared us to be."