As the Axion fleet adjusted course for its return to Segmentum Solar, Roboute Guilliman found himself once again facing an uninvited guest aboard the Dawn of Fire: Yvraine.
Since the recent Iron Men assault on the Imperial Palace, Captain-General Trajann Valoris had withdrawn the Custodian Wardens who had been shadow-monitoring the Primarch. For the Emperor's personal guard, the strategic situation had deteriorated to the point where they could no longer spare elite resources to keep Guilliman on a leash.
Guided by a Master Mime and a troupe of Harlequins, Yvraine, accompanied by the long-absent Asurmen, had slipped past the flagship's security cordons.
The relentless pace of recent conflicts had etched weariness into Yvraine's features. Even with the enigmatic assistance of the followers of the Laughing God, the peril of traversing such vast distances to seek an audience with the Avenging Son had taken its toll.
Under the counsel of the First Phoenix Lord and news brought by the devotees of Cegorach, Yvraine had finally learned the staggering scale of what those ancient machine-husks, once mere battlefield curiosities, had achieved.
What had begun as a handful of mechanical anomalies had metastasized into a terrifying power. They had decimated the combined fleet of Craftworld Alaitoc and the Necrons, capturing hundreds of thousands of Aeldari survivors and a mountain of Spirit Stones. This represented nearly one percent of Alaitoc's total population, a catastrophic loss, given that these were not mere civilians, but trained warriors.
Furthermore, the Spirit Stones harvested from the fleet's wraithbone constructs contained the souls of elite ancestors, a priceless asset for the dying race.
The Ynnari required more support.
Beyond the radical path of sacrificing the entire Aeldari race to fully awaken Ynnead, the Reborn followed a secondary mandate: recovering the five Croneswords. Legend says these blades were forged from the finger bones of Morai-Heg, the Crone Goddess of souls and fate. Seeking the wisdom hidden within her own veins, she had tricked Khaine into severing her hand; she drank her own divine blood to gain its secrets, while Vaul, the Smith God, took the severed fingers and forged them into five artifacts of peerless power.
Yvraine had already secured four: Kha-vir, the Sword of Sorrows; Asu-var, the Sword of Silent Screams; Vilith-zhar, the Sword of Souls; and the Spear of Twilight.
Perhaps finding amusement in the Iron Men's upheaval, the Laughing God had, through his Harlequins, finally provided a clear revelation: the final Cronesword was held by the hand of Slaanesh, specifically by the Keeper of Secrets, Shalaxi Helbane, within the depths of the Palace of Slaanesh itself.
For the Ynnari to breach the heart of the Palace of Pleasure was a fool's errand. Cegorach lacked the raw power to pin down She Who Thirsts. To reclaim the artifact, Yvraine needed an external force capable of distracting the Dark Prince.
The only entities capable of such a feat were the rival Ruinous Powers, or perhaps the cold, golden sun burning upon the Golden Throne of the Throneworld.
As for Isha, the Goddess of Life, rumors persisted of her imprisonment within Nurgle's Garden. However, Asurmen revealed a more nuanced truth: she was not "imprisoned" in the traditional sense. Nurgle had never forbidden her departure, even claiming she was a guest invited to study the concepts of life. Yet, Isha could never leave. Slaanesh's talons hovered just beyond the borders of Nurgle's realm, waiting for her to step into neutral territory so they might seize her and devour her essence.
If possible, Asurmen intended to invoke the name of Asuryan to request Isha's aid in communicating with the "Cold Sun" known as the Emperor. He hoped to coordinate a distraction that would allow the Ynnari to strike the Palace of Pleasure. After all, the Father of the Gods, Asuryan, was Isha's consort. Furthermore, ancient records hinted that the Emperor had once tapped into Isha's resonance to bolster his Thunder Warriors and purge the plagues and famine that ravaged pre-Unification Terra.
Then there was Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God. His was a truly wretched tale. Captured by Slaanesh when the Dark Prince was still nascent and unable to fully consume him, Khaine had been shattered into fragments that scattered across the galaxy's Craftworlds.
In times of dire need, an Aeldari Exarch could be sacrificed to manifest an Avatar of Khaine. If six or more Phoenix Lords gathered and placed their weapons at the feet of a Khaine statue, they could awaken a vastly empowered Avatar without a sacrifice, though such a gathering was a near-impossibility.
In the chronicles of both the Imperium and the Aeldari, the Avatars of Khaine had suffered an ignominious history of defeats. One had been beaten into scrap by Marneus Calgar; another was possessed by a Keeper of Secrets during the daemonic invasion of Kael-Isha; a third was trampled to death by twelve Carnifexes during the Battle of Iyanden against Hive Fleet Kraken.
Avatars had been strangled by the Primarch Fulgrim, slain by the Sanguinor, drowned by "water-men" on Astrominus IV, and cut down by Lorgar Aurelian. Even the Phoenix Lord Maugan Ra had once summoned an Avatar merely to test the lethality of his legendary shuriken cannon, punching a hole straight through the war-god's manifestation.
As a god of war, his Avatars possessed less martial weight than a single Primarch.
A half-dead god, a goddess with no combat prowess, and a laughing harlequin. Whenever Yvraine contemplated this pantheon, she felt a wave of helplessness. Had any of the truly martial Aeldari gods survived intact, her race would never have fallen to such depths.
Yvraine's objective for this meeting was simple: she wanted the Aeldari prisoners held by the Iron Men.
With those captives, their Spirit Stones, and the backing of Asurmen and the Masques, Yvraine believed she could sway the survivors of Alaitoc to her cause. The full might of a Craftworld would be an unprecedented boon for the Ynnari, who had long operated as a motley collection of stragglers.
Moreover, if Cegorach's grand design held true, they might gain the support of these relics from the ancient human Federation. The Iron Men had already dealt a shocking blow to Slaanesh's interests. If fate allowed, these soulless machines might be the ones to help them finally topple She Who Thirsts.
It was a dangerous gamble, but perhaps the best chance the Aeldari had to break their shackles. If the plan succeeded and Ynnead fully stirred, the Aeldari would finally have a true sanctuary within the Warp, the Sea of Souls would embrace them once more, and the dead would have a path to rebirth rather than a soul-shattering eternity of torment at the hands of Slaanesh.
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