Character Profile: Daciana

Ah, one of our favorite bad girls, who’s been with us almost from the beginning! Teodora’s best girl friend and an even worse terror, Daciana Tomescu has caused trouble for just about all the main characters in the series.

She’s a complete sociopath, but to be fair, she did have a difficult childhood. I always thought of her as a grown-up Arya Stark, without the few good years Arya had as a child.

Kidnapped by raiders who killed her family, Daciana was sold into slavery around age six. After a few years of that, she ran into someone who helped her become “different.” That difference helped give her the resources to kill her owner and escape, washing up in the camp of Brynhild Mattila’s army. A teenage Teodora happened to be serving as an officer there, and when she ran into trouble, Daciana was there to help, in a somewhat unusual fashion. You’ll have to read Hammer of the Gods to get the nostalgic details!

After that incident, the two of them became inseparable, and when Teodora gained greater political and military power, she expressed her appreciation by putting Daciana in charge of her very own band of marauders. Most often used as a means for Teodora to intimidate her opponents, in her time off, Daciana liked to cause mayhem just for fun. With some nasty-looking fangs and weird-colored eyes, most people ascribe supernatural powers to her, and it’s truly difficult to kill her and keep her dead. We never really find out if Daciana is anything other than human, but the fact that people aren’t sure always works to her benefit, so she shows her fangs whenever possible.

Since the beginning of the series, she’s run afoul of Braeden, Janna, Anton, Trystan, Arian, Gwynneth and her children, and Elektra isn’t overly fond of her either. She also causes trouble for the main character in the prequel I’m currently writing. Surely someone will be able to get rid of her, eventually!

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