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Eldrad steeled his mind, drawing on as much of the Empyrean’s tainted power as he dared to reinforce his mind. Not just merely for protection, but also to enhance it. He had already been able to digest information at a prodigious rate for an Eldar of his age, but the reinforcement pushed it to the level it had been in his prime and a bit beyond. It was a web, reinforcing the structure of his mind just in case. 

The human-looking woman opened her eyes, and Eldrad met her gaze without fear, but with all due seriousness. The gem-like emerald eyes were gone, replaced by a pair of silver suns that pulled him in. At first, all he could see was the radiant light that scalded parts of him just by mere proximity. Then he saw it. The world hidden behind those eyes, a Realm unto itself. He saw oceans of pure, silvery energy free of the taint of Chaos, or Revelation’s golden Order. It was even mostly free of Worship, Faith and Fate. It was … Neutral. As close to truly neutral and balanced as energy born of mortal souls and emotions could be. It was wild and dangerous, but also calm and peaceful. It was what the Warp should have been, what it once might have been before the long-forgotten Wars in Heaven gave birth to the Primordial Annihilator. 

But within that ocean were islands, tiny worlds unto themselves. Isolated, safe and … artificial. They were shelters, made by a thinking mind for a purpose, though he did see a few that seemed to have formed naturally.

He saw it all, the knowledge, the sight, the feel of it. He felt every sliver of energy. Every last leaf rustling in the wind inside that forest realm. He heard every sound. Saw every Warp-creature that dwelled within. He saw … he saw the souls. All of them, less than a score, but they were there. Safe, protected. 

Then his sight reached the centre of the Realm, and he realised the truth within the human saying of ‘not seeing the forest for the trees’. It was a star of silvery fire so bright and brilliant that it blinded him the moment he saw it in full. He’d seen its light all this while, the Realm wasn’t silver, not by itself, it merely reflected the silver light of the one being that had made its existence possible. 

As a Galaxy orbited around its Supermassive Black Hole, the Realm wound around the Silver Star. 

Eldrad looked for a moment, then another, willing his mind to comprehend what he was seeing. 

He snapped his eyes shut only a second later with a pained hiss, feeling the beginnings of a pounding headache form behind his eyes. 

It was worth it, though. He had glimpsed aspects of the Truth behind the Silver Star. It was more than everything around it; it was indomitable and incorruptible. 

The ancient Farseer breathed a weary sigh. It was easy to grow used to a stench that had followed you around for centuries. In the same way, he had grown used to taint, to Chaos, to corruption. The Warp was all he knew.

All he had known. Not anymore. He had learned what fresh air tasted like, and finally knew the stench around him for what it was. It was impossible to grow used to it again. Not after what he had experienced. 

The Warp wasn’t everything; it wasn’t all-pervasive. It was possible to remain untouched by it. Balance could persist. Pure souls could exist. The Empyrean's energy wasn’t tainted by default. 

Mere mortals would never be able to withstand the fundamentally tainted nature of the Warp … but this creature before him was no mere mortal. How could she be, when her very nature made her fundamentally incorruptible? 

Some of the old songs claimed the ancient, wretched Star Gods of the Necrons were themselves Laws of the Universe. They were living, breathing laws of the material world. 

Could she be the same? Eldrad couldn’t help but ask himself. He spent a moment thinking on it as he gathered his thoughts and suppressed his swiftly blooming headache. The conclusion he reached almost surprised even himself. Perhaps. Not a Star God, but something similar. A fundamental part of the universe. If so, then she won’t break before reality as a whole does.

Common sense insisted it was impossible, that he was wrong in his conclusion. Eldrad’s experience stretching across thousands of years said there was no such thing as ‘impossible’. 

When he felt safe enough to open his eyes again, the transcendent being he’d just glimpsed was gone. In its place was a slightly sheepish-looking young woman. There were hints, but her true nature was beyond imagination. Hints would never be enough for anyone to figure out the Truth. 

Hints like her unblemished skin, Aeldari-like eyes, hair that didn’t actually seem to be hair, and that face. It escaped triggering the Uncanny Valley effect at a glance, and even at a prolonged observation … but it was designed like that. It had just barely enough imperfections to seem natural, but not a whiff more. 

All that might have escaped Eldrad’s immediate notice before, but now that he knew how much more she was than this dirty, tainted world around her? Now it all seemed oh so obvious, but that was the benefit of hindsight. 

And I thought her an anomalous psyker with some tricks. 

Never in his life had High Farseer Eldrad Ulthran felt lesser than anyone he had met. He knew diplomacy, knew how to treat others as equals; hell, he’d even mastered it. That was why he had perhaps the most numerous and long-standing alliances with non-Eldar. Still, that didn’t change how his instincts felt. Revelation had been the only human he had truly embraced as an equal, but even he, in all his might and skill, never became someone to make Eldrad feel like this. 

Eldrad found he didn’t like the feeling, but suppressed the instinctive reactions with practised ease. His instincts might rebel at the idea, but he would beg if he had to. However, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

The silence stretched into awkwardness, but Eldrad felt no need to break it just yet. He was still reeling from what he’d witnessed, but his mind had already leapt into furious work. 

His gaze shifted from the impossible being onto Revelation, who gazed back at him with an impassive expression on his faux-childish visage. The two of them had never been friends. Allies? Yes. Associates? Certainly. Eldrad had even respected the seemingly immortal psyker who wished to save his species. But friends? No. Perhaps if they had another few centuries. Perhaps if Revelation’s nascent Empire didn’t treat his people as vermin in need of extermination when they were at their very lowest. Perhaps. 

That didn’t matter now. Revelation shouldn’t have mattered at all. He should have been a non-factor, a lobotomised husk occasionally pulling off a miracle to thwart the Ruinous Powers. He shouldn’t have been able to incarnate himself, or make an avatar, or possess a host body or … or anything of the sort. 

It’s been centuries since Eldrad had last actually even thought about him. And yet, here he was, staring into his eyes. 

What was his angle? What schemes had Eldrad stumbled into? Was this ‘Echidna’ one of his new projects like those Primarchs? Or did he just get here sooner? If Eldrad noticed the strangeness happening in the Jericho Reach, Revelation surely would have as well, even in whatever horrid state the Golden Throne should have left him.

Again, anyone else in his place would have said Revelation being here, sane, alive and walking, was impossible. Eldrad merely accepted it as a fact the moment he saw the perpetual.

That fact, obviously, came with problems. It wasn’t a question of if Revelation was scheming, but what he was scheming — lying and scheming was as natural to Revelation as breathing; it was his lifeblood — and more importantly, whether it would interfere with Eldrad’s own nascent plans. It wasn’t worth butting heads if their two goals could coexist, after all. Vengeance, broken alliances and bad blood be damned, Eldrad was too old and desperate to hold grudges that served no purpose beyond making his life harder. 

Pride and dignity were worthless to the dead, and he would be of no use to his people dead. 

“I don’t suppose you taking the souls of my people within your realm, even temporarily, is negotiable?” Eldrad said. He needed to know more, to get an idea of where the Silver Star stood, and whether Revelation would be a problem. It would also be good to know just how deeply he had sunk his claws into the Silver Star.  

“Temporarily?” The woman raised an inquisitive eyebrow, then hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe, though in very limited numbers and certainly not for free. Do understand, you are asking me to basically let complete strangers who would happily spit upon my corpse if I died into what’s essentially an extension of my soul. Even if you manage to convince me, I will wall their souls off, isolate them and cut them off from the larger Realm. That is non-negotiable. Shelter is one thing; giving them access to my stores of soul energy is another thing entirely. They would need to be useful to me for that to even be considered.”

“Useful how?” Eldrad asked calmly, inwardly marvelling at how the woman was all but doing his job for him. She was talking herself into a compromise deal.

Eldrad could work with a compromise, it would ‘get his foot through the door’ as the humans said. He could build off of it. Both he and the Silver Star would hopefully be around for centuries. In all honesty, even just parting amicably with nothing substantial gained from the talks would have made the journey and all those political favours he’d expended worth it.

“Bonesingers,” she said idly. “Val has some knowledge he could impart on me, but it was only enough to forge myself a staff, some foci and a Witchblade. If you can find me Bonsingers able and willing to teach me how to work my own version of purified Wraithbone into more complex constructs, I will accept them into my Realm. I won’t trust them as I do Val, but they will have some ability to draw on my soul energy.”

Right. Her own Realm was far from the infinite Warp with its limitless depth containing an unending amount of Warp energy. The energy she had access to was wondrous and pure, but finite. It made sense that she didn't want to allow access to it to just anyone. 

It would be a lie to say Eldrad wasn’t curious. Valenith had never had much skill in the more artistic endeavours. He had been a Bonesinger at one point, but it had been a short and strenuous Path for him. The boy thrived when he could use his talents to wield the energy of the Empyrean in combat. It was no surprise he became a Warlock in the end.

Despite all that, with only his instructions to guide her, this woman had crafted a Witchblade entirely of her own and from an energy that likely forced her to make modifications to the method on the fly? That was talent, inhuman, supernatural talent. Considering Valenith had gone missing little over a year ago, the woman couldn’t have had more than a month or two to experiment and refine her technique. 

He wanted to see the fruits of her labour. Alas, he wouldn’t waste any of his negotiating power on satisfying a personal curiosity.

“I think that can be arranged," Eldrad said. Even more of the political favours he had gathered over the centuries would need to be expended, but he could arrange it, even if most of his kind would be appalled to learn he was going to hand over the secrets of Wraithbone to a Mon’Keigh. 

They would all understand once they saw what the Bonsingers could do without the suffocating grip of She-Who-Thirsts on their souls. 

Besides, any Aeldari souls I can get into her Realm will be eternal. A true afterlife free of the suffering awaiting us in the Warp or the cold misery of an Infinity Circuit. Getting even just a handful of souls to outlive the final death of our dying species will have been worth it. 

It was a pessimistic thought, some would say. Eldrad thought he was merely being realistic. The Aeldari people were a dying species. Their days were numbered if nothing drastic happened in the next few centuries. Knowing at least a handful of his people would live forever as long as the Silver Star burned was a soothing thought. 

“Good,” the woman said with a pleased, if somewhat predatory smile. “Now let’s talk about what you are willing to give me for the service of returning the unfortunate souls stuck in spirit gems into proper bodies. Oh, and while we are on that topic, you are getting on in the years, aren’t you? I could make you a new body, remake the current one … or just rejuvenate it.”

Eldrad stared at her for a long moment. He was unaware any of those things were within the cards. She'd already gotten what she wanted from him; he could see that the knowledge and art of Bonesinging was the only thing he had that truly interested her.  

Or at least she thinks so. I will have to change her mind. Eldrad thought. He was once more on the back foot, having to find something to offer her that might pique her interest. Thankfully, old age had not only made him wise. He had gathered many things, both material and not. His mind held knowledge, much of it lost, in such quantity that even the most colossal human libraries would be insufficient to house it all. 

He was sure he could find something she wanted. Worst-case scenario, he could offer her his services as a Farseer, but that would be a trump card he would only consider playing if all else failed.