Eldrad Ulthran slumped back in his chair, weariness washing over him like a tide.
His private chamber was located in a corner of the craftworld, sparsely furnished but isolating him from the outside world's disturbances.
He wore only a simple black cloth robe, not armor or ceremonial garb. Even his witchblade lay discarded in a storage chest.
His path had nearly drained him, even beginning to gnaw at the very fragments of his soul.
But he kept repeating to himself: It was worth it.
Had he not foreseen the cataclysm of their Empire's fall and done everything in his power to warn as many of his people as possible, none of them would have survived.
Through his efforts, tens of thousands of craftworlds were hastily constructed, countless decadent kin awakened, attempting to flee the sinking realm.
But it was too late, far too late!
They could not complete the craftworlds before the birth of She Who Thirsts. In the end, only a pitiful few escaped.
Because it was too late, they must now seize the future.
Eldrad slowly closed his eyes, allowing the images of the future to unfold in the darkness.
He silently watched the threads of fate intertwine and unravel before him, a mere insignificant traveler and observer in the river of time, glimpsing fragments but powerless to interfere.
"I have foreseen," Eldrad murmured.
His face was shrouded in shadow, a rare hesitation appearing between his brows.
"Ness, find Lanthrilaq! Convene the Seer Council, immediately!"
The Black Guardian standing outside the door gave a silent nod, then vanished like a ghost down the corridor's end. Eldrad slowly rose, his right hand gripping a staff crafted from blue wraithbone. The staff was translucent, inlaid with spirit stones.
A corner of fate had been revealed to him, exposing a sinister trajectory.
The game board was already laid out. Even if he could not become a player who entered the fray, he must not be reduced to a mere pawn to be moved at will.
Eldrad pushed open the heavy wraithbone door and entered the dim council chamber of the Seer Council.
In the small room, a crystal window embedded with runes let in faint light. Outside was the eternally churning storm of Chaos.
The craftworld of Ulthwé drifted like a lone leaf on the edge of the maelstrom that was the Eye of Terror.
Compared to those kin who perished in the fall before even setting sail, they were fortunate.
Yet this fortune was so cruel.
To save as many as possible, they had set sail too late.
The birth-scream of the youngest god tore the fabric of realspace, ripping open a festering wound among the stars that would never heal. Humanity called it the Eye of Terror.
Now, Ulthwé was held in the Eye's gravitational grip, like a moth caught in a spider's web.
They were forced into a desperate orbital path along the Eye's edge, constantly at risk of being drawn in.
"Should I care that he died?"
"If it was the start of all woes, then it matters greatly."
Lanthrilaq's whisper with his apprentice floated into Eldrad's ears like spider silk. When he returned to the chamber, the apprentice bowed to both seers.
"Eldrad, why have you summoned me?"
Eldrad stood silently for a moment. The spirit stones on his wraithbone staff shimmered with an azure ripple. "Fate has revealed the future to me. But this time, I cannot decide alone."
Lanthrilaq looked surprised. His companion was always decisive, yet now he hesitated because of fate.
"What is it?"
"The Primarchs," Eldrad slowly uttered the word.
Lanthrilaq's pupils contracted slightly. "You would meddle with that which is forbidden?"
"Fate guides me."
"Fate hangs in the balance on a scale. The mists of what you do not know will tip it!"
"Precisely. We must seize every shred of hope, tip the scales in our favor."
"If you are wrong, your choice will plunge Ulthwé into an abyss from which there is no return."
"Lanthrilaq, other kin have already revealed the wrong options to us. I will not repeat their mistakes."
"You insist on this?"
"I must try."
"Then why did you summon me?"
Lanthrilaq laughed in exasperation. "You are the leader of the Seer Council. You could have acted unilaterally. Why this superfluous step of asking me?"
"Because I am the leader, I need to hear differing voices. You are also a seer. You should understand why I make this choice."
Eldrad's expression was calm, his gaze as unfathomable as the depths of a starry abyss.
Among the many paths of the Asuryani, the most dangerous was the Path of the Seer.
Their every step was like treading on thin ice. A single misstep could destroy not only themselves, but drag the entire craftworld into a bottomless abyss.
But when the threads of fate reveal themselves to you like a coquettish tease, who can truly stand idly by?
He would rather make a mistake than do nothing. Moreover, he was not one of those radical kin who sought to oppose fate with a blade.
His kin had already proven to him that would only invite greater calamity.
None knew what consensus the two seers reached, but soon a team of elite Aeldari warriors, led by a Warlock, received an urgent summons from the Seer Council.
"Seer Eldrad." The Warlock bowed.
Roderick stood among the crowd, paying his deepest respects to the seer alongside his kin.
He gazed at Eldrad's form, eyes burning with near-religious reverence.
This seer had, with incredible foresight, saved countless Aeldari lives from the cataclysm. In Roderick's mind, Eldrad was undoubtedly the greatest seer in Aeldari history!
"Go to this place. Bring him back safely." Eldrad implanted a stellar coordinate into the Warlock's psychic awareness. The soul staff shimmered with azure ripples as he spoke with grave solemnity. "Remember, do not harm him in the slightest! If necessary, you may use the hands of the humans. Bring the humans back as well. And do not harm them either!"
The Warlock nodded solemnly. However, he didn't take it to heart.
Behind his ghosthelm, Roderick's expression was one of undisguised disdain.
They were the noble children of Asuryan. Why would they need to use the hands of those ignorant mon-keigh?
...
Roderick lay in a pool of his own blood, life seeping away into a river beneath him.
His fading consciousness struggled in the gore like a candle flame flickering in the wind.
His glazed eyes reflected the shattered bodies of his kin. Yet those who slaughtered them were also Aeldari.
They were not Dark Kin, nor did they wear spirit stones. Perhaps they were exodites.
But why would exodites slaughter them so mercilessly?
To be on this barren world, they must have come for the same mission.
If so, weren't they on the same side?
They were elite warriors of Ulthwé, yet now they were being cut down by their own kind's blades. It was nearly a one-sided harvest; only the Warlock could hold on briefly with his psychic powers.
"You? It's you? Impossible! How could you have escaped? You should have died long ago!"
With the Warlock's unfinished words, Roderick's last consciousness sank into eternal darkness.
If Ulthwé could recover their spirit stones, perhaps they might still have a chance to avoid She Who Thirsts.
"Leave, mortal."
The woman's icy warning sent shivers through Colin. He wasted no time, dragging his wife's trembling wrist as they hurriedly fled.
The female Aeldari silently bent down, retrieving spirit stones from their kin's corpses. But their purpose was not to return them to Ulthwé.
Deep in the crater, the shimmering light, nebulous with starlight, watched this farcical spectacle of kin-slaying-kin with a godlike indifference.
From start to finish, these female Aeldari did not touch the light.
They placed the bloodied spirit stones one by one on the scorched earth of the crater. Each stone's placement was incredibly precise, as if performing a sacred ritual.
With each stone placed, a ripple of azure psychic energy stirred in the void.
No one led the ritual; no one uttered prayers.
But when all thirty-six spirit stones were in place, six psychic trajectories suddenly intersected on the scorched ground, forming a glowing hexagram.
The souls within the stones were like the purest offerings, emitting a piercing wail within the pattern.
The female Aeldari prostrated themselves devoutly before the pattern. A divine pressure that made souls tremble caused their bodies to shake, as if the gaze of some great being was piercing the veil of realspace, resting upon them briefly.
That suffocating majesty vanished as quickly as it came. The gaze soon softened, seeming to commend their devotion, or perhaps observing the pulsating light, like a loving mother watching her child.
With a blinding flash of psychic energy, all the spirit stones shattered simultaneously in the sacrificial ritual. Crystalline fragments hovered in the void like stardust.
Amidst the sharp whine of torn space, the shimmering light vanished abruptly, leaving only the pale, seared trace of the hexagram.
.....
The light wandered.
Through the endless void, across the turbulent Sea of Souls.
But it was not drifting aimlessly. Some supreme power guided it in the depths of the unknown.
Countless malicious gazes stabbed toward it like blades. They were eager, yet vanished in an instant, for they had already departed.
It did not know where it was going. That was not for it to decide.
Until it encountered the silver-white gestation pod.
Inside slept an infant. On his tender back, a pair of pristine white wings slowly unfurled.
The light gazed upon him. A twisted emotion churned in the void.
The infant's perfection made it jealous. Those wings made it yearn with maddening desire.
At that moment, the great being whispered with gentle authority into its mind, "Do you want it? If you want it, just say the word, and Mommy will give it to you."
The great being playfully flicked the light with a fingertip. The light violently tremored, but it did not speak.
Everything has a price.
Though newly born, it understood this principle.
Instinct also told it: It had no mother, nor needed one.
That supremely authoritative whisper suddenly took on a sly tone. Deep in the Sea of Souls, a soft laugh seemed to echo. "Just kidding~ Even if you don't want it, Mommy will stuff it into you anyway."
An foreign power was forcibly poured into its being. It was by no means an innate essence, but two gifts bestowed by that supreme being.
It sensed them rooting themselves in its blood, yet they granted no power, only staining its essence with their color.
One force fell silent the moment it took root. The other tore savagely at the two bloodlines already within it.
One lineage collapsed under the assault and was driven out completely.
The other stood firm, like an ancient tree rooted for millennia, unmoved by the storm.
Finally, the being's will receded like a tide, seemingly allowing it to exist.
The three of them getting along was more important than anything.
Thus, it began to reshape itself.
The light twisted, collapsed, reformed, until it became an infant.
Almost identical, except for one thing: its eyes were an eerie violet.
It rushed toward the silver incubation pod. An unseen hand pushed it forward, intent on sending it inside.
But at the instant it was about to touch the pod, a violent warp storm erupted!
The pod was instantly caught in the storm, vanishing into a churning void rift. It itself was swallowed by another abruptly opening fissure.
Before consciousness faded, it heard a distorted, leering laugh from the depths of the Sea of Souls.
The great being raged, but it was too late.
In haste, it gathered supreme power and struck as the rift closed, scattering the infant's memories like sand through fingers.
.....
The infant opened its eyes. A man's sillouhette filled its vision.
The man carefully lifted him. The broad palm transmitted a reassuring wartmh.
As he was drawn into the man's arms, a blood-deep sense of closeness made the infant instinctively curl inward.
"At your age, how can you sleep so easily?" Caelan pinched the baby's soft cheek. "You're already a baby, that's when you're supposed to grind! You need to hustle!"
The infant let out a vague "hnn", burrowing deeper into his embrace.
His memory was like torn book pages, fragmented and incomplete.
But he vaguely remembered being the child of three... beings. Some might not be human.
But the man holding him now was certainly one of them.
"Where is your gestation pod?" The man murmured.
A silver-white pod surfaced in the infant's memory. He recalled lying in it, yet the feeling was strangely alien, as if that had not truly been him, only someone who looked the same.
The infant disliked that other one.
Why do you look like me?
But…
Sleepiness washed over him. He curled up instinctively. Fine, whatever. Sleep first.
...
He was in the falling wreckage. He felt its pain.
He could not call for help, nor did he want to.
Though surrounded by danger, he was not afraid. He was full of curiosity.
He was curious about his wings. Why did he have them? How should he use them?
Because he could perceive his wings were unnatural.
He would not be curious about his arms or legs, for they were天生 part of his body.
He gazed at the white wings on his back, perfect, yet not innate, but alien organs forcibly implanted by some being.
Since they did not belong to him, they would be taken away one day.
If they were to be taken, better by his own hand.
Tender fingers grasped the wing bones. Pain tore through his back.
Then he gave up, releasing his grip.
He did not fear pain, but he saw a man.
A man standing on a distant mountaintop. The mountain was far, but he saw him.
The man also held a child in his arms. A child who looked exactly like him, also bearing white wings.
The man seemed to be looking at him. Then, driven by instinct, he gently lifted him.
He did not know the man, yet he felt unreserved warmth and care.
He instinctively reached out his arms. But when the hot wind swept through his fingers, there was no one before him.
He withdrew his arms, staring blankly at the horizon.
The mountaintop was empty. The man had jumped off the cliff.
A sudden understanding beyond his years dawned on him.
So that's how it is.
He must wait.
He sat quietly, white wings folding obediently.
Until the man finally came to him, just as he had foreseen, and lifted him into his arms.
Curled against the man's chest, he kicked the other infant's wing.
He had really wanted to kick the other baby's face, that face annoyed him most.
He really disliked this infant. Who gave you the right to look like me?
But his legs were too short. He couldn't reach.
.....
The shimmering light returned to its original form.
The purple-eyed infant and the golden-eyed infants stared quietly at each other, their mirrored faces reflected in each other's pupils.
Then, in perfect unison, they flapped their wings, wriggled free of Caelan's arms, and kicked out with tiny feet.
Caelan's large hands snapped out, gripping their necks and yanking the twins apart midair. Even as they dangled, they glared at each other, stubby legs kicking so fast they left afterimages.
Though they looked small and soft, but they could kick an adult to death as easily as kickingan ant.
"Stop it. You are brothers."
Caelan gathered both infants back into his embrace. The golden-eyed infant pressed his cheek against Caelan's chest. The purple-eyed infant on the right also tightly clutched his clothing.
Their current behavior was in stark contrast to their earlier chaos, like young beasts that only sheathed their claws in their parents' arms.
"So," Caelan said, gazing at the purple-eyed infant with realization, "you're Fulgrim."
The purple-eyed infant blinked, as if confirming the name.
Caelan had always thought shared memory was Angron's unique power. It turned out Fulgrim had it too.
Thinking back, in the official records Fulgrim had used the same ability upon landing on Chemos, reading his foster father's mind before shaping his human form.
It was the same now, only the model had changed to Sanguinius.
Still, Fulgrim's ability differed subtly from Angron's.
Angron shared memories through shared emotions; Fulgrim directly linked minds.
Considering Fulgrim's role, it made perfect sense.
Horus's role was the elder brother. His good relations with other brothers relied on his status as First-Found and his political mastery.
Fulgrim was the confidant, the brother everyone trusted. Ferrus was his closest friend; even the prophecy-maddened Curze trusted Fulgrim alone.
Sanguinius was the perfect brother, so perfect he inspired both admiration and envy.
And now there were two Sanguiniuses.