let’s dive into the latest Warhammer lore – and this time, we’re talking about Astreia Solbright, a Stormcast Eternal hero on a quest against Flesh-eater Ghouls. The Dawnbringer Chronicles continue, and we’re in for some soul-stirring action!
The Pillar Soliris, a place bathed in Hysh’s pure light, where crystal spires called the Pillars of Truth illuminate every nook and cranny. Our protagonist, Astreia, is no ordinary gal; she’s tinkering with magical prisms, trying to trap light magic. And guess what? She’s succeeding, much to her delight.
There are no shadows in Pillar Soliris. Still, the girl finds the most unassuming corner she can to examine her prize. The Pillars of Truth – the transparent and cyclopean crystal spires of which Soliris is but one – open every inch of themselves to Hysh’s scourging light. The esoteric planes of moonglass known as the Great Lenses harness it to peer into creation’s hidden crannies.
Even so, the girl wants privacy.
Knees pulled to her chest, she turns the prism over, skipping it between palms when it grows too hot. Within, illumination flickers. It is the tiniest mote of light magic, skimmed off the beams that race above the Great Vista and trapped in glassified cantrips so improvised they would give her tutors conniptions. Still, she has done it. It prompts a rare smile.
Flaxen hair falls over her face, until she brushes it aside. Her mother dotes upon her hair, but it gets in the way. And she needs to watch this, because at any moment the prism could crack, freeing the light. If she’s distur—
‘What’s that, Astrii?’
Astrii’s stomach drops. Three children have approached. Their mirror-broaches mark them as scions of the great Lens Magi. She, by contrast, is the daughter of a polisher-serf, those who manually maintain the Pillars. That is not supposed to matter, but it does. Astrii is not sure why. A soul is a soul, just as light is light.
Astrii doesn’t speak. The glow dancing behind her caged fingers is obvious. One of the children blinks, before leaning forwards.
‘Are you catching light, Astrii?’
‘Trying to make aetherquartz?’ another laughs. ‘The aelves don’t like that. You’ll be in trouble.’
Astrii swallows. She can intuit spells far beyond her years, but her words never come out right, no matter how clear their intent is in her mind. It frustrates her more than she likes.
‘No. No. But if I can trap light, I can trap other things—’
‘What, like spirits?’ the third child sneers. ‘Know what happens to necromancers, Astrii? Elder Bones gobbles them up.’
‘He can’t walk the Realm of Light, idiot,’ the second child snorts. ‘That’s why he sends servants to tempt us from the ascent of truth. Like the Sombre Paladin—’
‘No,’ says the first. ‘The Sombre Paladin is a hero who commands both death and life. He holds grand feasts in Summercourt… and I’ve heard his library is even greater than that of old Magister Xellin.’
Astrii lets them argue, refocusing on her makeshift prism. She is no necromancer. The notion disgusts her.
But she also remembers watching her father lose his footing while cleansing the Spire’s exterior, and plummeting with a scream. It had been so swift. So pointless.
She only wishes she could have said goodbye.
The years passed. She had risen by dint of brilliance – if not charisma – to number amongst the Lens Magi. Ruinous darkness had struck Hysh, and she had resisted, until the lightning chose her. Astrii became Lord-Arcanum Astreia Solbright, mystical master of the Shimmersouls chamber. Of her former life, only two things – aside from her magical ability – remained.
The first was her fascination with souls, and how they might be saved.
The second was the legend of the Sombre Paladin.
Over years of seeking to cure the Flaw in Reforging, that moniker – and the mastery of death and life it promised – had dogged Astreia. It had seen her hunt vampires by the score, and led her into the underworld once known as Summercourt, now stalked by cannibal noctivagrants. In an abandoned keep she and her chamber had discovered a realmgate, disguised as a timeworn fresco of her quarry. Passing through it had led to…
To a mountainous vale she did not know.
‘Wrongness lingers here, my Lady Arcane,’ said Radhul Thundermane. The two of them led their Stormcasts on a winding cliff-path, one that clung close to a wall of sheer rock and was barely wide enough for three to travel abreast. The title Radhul offered her was some relic of the Knight-Incantor’s ancestral argot, and had caught on amongst the chamber despite her best efforts.
‘The cycles are strange,’ Astreia said, fighting a sigh as a strand of blonde buffeted her face. Some quirk of Reforging saw her hair perpetually charged with errant static. Astreia normally contained it behind her helm, yet the sweltering summer heat had thwarted that. As if sensing her discomfort, Kazra – Astreia’s Dracoline – gave a sympathetic growl. She smiled as she scratched the beast’s ear, whispering an old Xintilian song.
‘Life and death are confused. Blending into one, even while fighting for dominance,’ Astreia said, casting a glance back to her warriors. Most were Sacrosanct warrior-mages, but a few were thunderstrike-armoured outsiders to the chamber that had offered their aid. She frowned. Radhul was a fine scholar, but a war-mage first, and preferred metaphysics to be rendered simply. ‘There is a false harmony, however uncomfortable. It is not entirely unlike our own curse.’
‘These abominations are nothing like us, my lady,’ Radhul muttered. Astreia suppressed a wince at the shade of offence in his voice, but her lieutenant was dutiful. ‘That said. If we seek answers, we have one clear heading.’
No matter where they travelled in the mountains, one peak loomed high, the needle at the heart of a granite compass. Upon that peak stood the castle. They had passed many smaller keeps, all abandoned or infested, but only this was the castle. It was tall and proud, gold-braided pennants streaming from its soaring towers and marble flanks. It was a thing of myth unspoiled, one that had stolen even her breath. Yet it was also a locus of quiet dread that she did not wish to look upon too closely, at least not until she had to. A spider lurking beneath the pristine white sands, waiting for prey to skitter across a trapdoor before pouncing.
‘I would search thoroughly first,’ Astreia said. ‘Much still evades us. Forewarned is forearmed.’ It sounded about right. It seemed to satisfy Radhul. She was glad, for it negated discussion as to her real reticence.
How did one meet their ghosts?
Scree dislodged from the overhang above as claws scrabbled faintly. Astreia and Radhul traded glances, before the Knight-Incantor dropped back through the column, dispensing orders through brief pulses of electrotelepathy. Astreia exhaled, sliding her helm into place, letting lightning play around her fingers. She misliked combat, but to begrudge its existence served no one.
The ghouls that leapt upon them offered no choice.
They were clad in armour scraps, and rode screaming bat-winged hyenids. Wails of outrage met the Stormcasts’ trespass. Astreia drew her stave, disgorging a spear of azure lightning. Two monstrous bodies were blasted away, smoking and blackened. Another was repulsed by the dome of fulminating force the mage conjured with quick cant-gestures.
Two bat-beasts crouched low, their cackling hisses scraping like broken ribs. As they pounced, Astreia traced a luminous arc with her stave. She bound the wind into a wall of pressure that hurled one of the ghouls and its steed into the unforgiving mountainside. The other smashed into her, tackling her from her saddle.
Astreia grunted, rolling. The world lurched as the cliffside path dropped out beneath her. Spitting incantations, the Lord-Arcanum refocused the storm and used it to propel herself away from the ledge. She was unable to rise before the monstrous bat crawled near. Thick ropes of gore-flecked saliva dribbled from between its fangs.
With a howl, Kazra slammed into the beast from the side. The Dracoline’s claws sparked as she carved apart her prey, long after the scorched corpse of the bat-fiend and its rider had ceased moving.
Astreia’s lips parted to murmur gratitude to Kazra. A gurgle forestalled her. The first ghoul she had crushed had crawled free of its steed’s corpse, dragging broken legs behind it in a red smear. There was no anger in it now. No mad jubilation. It looked afraid, squinting and cowed, its impending demise a shaft of unwelcome light through its delirium. Astreia might have taunted the wretched creature. Instead, she channelled a tong of lightning into its skull.
Its existence was abominable, but there was a glimmer of humanity still. That was enough.
‘My Lady Arcane!’ Glimmering blood seeped from a gash on Radhul’s brow as the Knight-Incantor returned. ‘No casualties, praise be the Heldenhammer. But the mad things grow more insistent.’
‘We are in their land,’ Astreia said, as she turned to gaze across the crooked vales beyond. ‘Trapped in a liminal domain. But things become trapped for a reason. If we discover why, a way to reverse it may arise. And if so—’
She paused, as Kazra lifted her head with a growl. In the middle distance, what looked like a swarm of insects struggled through the lower valleys. Their progress was halting, as if they themselves staggered in a fugue.
‘More ghouls?’ Radhul asked. Astreia remained silent. Hair the hue of summer’s gleam fell across her eyes.
‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Dawnbringers.’
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