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Celamyn still couldn’t quite decide whether she was living a dream or a nightmare even a week after the High Farseer handed her and a few of her colleagues off to the- … to Lady Echidna.

A shiver ran down her spine as she felt Her intense attention focus on her for a split second at the mere thought of Her name. Being free of the oppressive weight of the Mark that’d been strangling her soul all her life was wonderful, and worth every last tradeoff and such for everyone involved — including her — but still, it sometimes felt like she’d traded her soul to a lesser monster to save it from a much greater and more terrible one. The High Farseer had chosen to support the lesser evil. 

At least she’d exchanged the chained collar with long barbs and nails digging into her flesh for a scenic prison cell with luxurious accommodations and access to pure empyrean energy. Even for only that last thing, every single aeldari would commit just about any crime imaginable without hesitation. The only downside was the fact that her warden was … nosy? Paranoid? She wasn’t sure what word to use to describe it, but feeling the immense weight of Her attention every time she tried to do something that used soul energy or even thought about Her was distracting to say the least. 

How could she focus on singing when the Sun was suddenly right behind her, looking over her shoulder and breathing down her neck!? It was all but impossible to slip into that flow-state where she wasn’t singing with only her voice, but with her soul as well, meaning she couldn’t do her work. That was the true secret of Bonesinging. Each bonesinger learned how to sing in a way that resonated with their very souls, thereby allowing them to use an infinitesimal sliver of it to make a piece of the ever-fluid empyrean become solid and real. 

Celamyn had a few songs that tended to work, ones that touched her on a spiritual level and resonated with her so deeply that just the tiniest, infinitely small sliver of her soul became malleable and receptive to her will. Something most monk'eighs never could even comprehend. 

She knew some bonesingers didn’t need to actually sing, they could just summon up that deeply spiritual feeling at will. It took centuries of practice and rare talent, talent which Celamyn unfortunately lacked. Even centuries into her time on the Path of the Artisan, the best she could manage was to hum the song instead of singing it, and she’d also managed to reduce the time it took for her to sink deeply enough into this state to work wraithbone from hours to minutes, then from minutes to mere seconds.

Furthermore, this was only the first threshold. Once she managed to conjure wraithbone- No, excuse her, ‘soulbone’, then she’d have to very likely re-learn how to properly shape it. She wasn’t sure what having this pure empyrean energy as a source would change in the process, but she was sure it was going to take considerable time and effort to regain the same level of control, speed and finesse she had before in working wraithbone. A bonesinger’s work didn’t stop at merely making wraithbone; no, it only began. Wraithbone was the material, and they were the artisans who had to shape, forge and sculpt it with songs and tunes. The same chunk of wraithbone could become a Jetbike, a Ghost Helm, a Singing Spear, a Sun Rifle or anything in between. With the material they now had to learn how to use being fundamentally different from wraithbone, it would likely throw off all her decades of muscle memory and ingrained skill. 

All her knowledge and skill were from the Before. Before her soul had been entrusted into the care of ‘The Silver Star.’ Her soul was now free of its shackles, of the rusted, painful nails that’d been driven into it, of the razor-sharp, barbed wire that’d been wrapped around it. But it wasn’t free; it was locked in a small box, and only given the bare minimum of energy she required to do her work … or rather, keep attempting to do her work. And that was it. She wasn’t truly free.

It was still very much a worthwhile trade; don’t get her wrong, but when she’d been offered salvation, this wasn’t what she’d thought it would be like. Perhaps if there had been more time, the High Farseer would have explained it better. Alas, there wasn’t. The elder aeldari had to go, leaving her and a few colleagues behind.

Celamyn breathed slowly, a soft breath slipping past her lips as she drew in a tiny sliver of that impossible energy. ‘Soul Energy.’ Purified Warp Energy. Whereas the energy of the warp had been abundant yet impossibly dangerous to wield due to its corruptive nature, Soul Energy was a scarce resource, but one that she could wield without fear — it required careful handling, but compared to Warp Energy it was positively benign. As the High Farseer had put it, it was neutral - it just … existed. It didn’t fight her, but it didn’t help her either. Still a far cry from the tainted chaos of normal Warp Energy that fought in every moment against her control. 

Having even just limited access to that energy made every tradeoff and every concession forced on her entirely worth it. It was a wondrous thing, being able to Sing without fear. She could only imagine how much easier it would be to work wraithbone using Soul Energy; she could truly let herself loose. She could sing with her whole being, foregoing having to keep a part of her focused on keeping a vice-like grip on the stream of energy she was working.

She could create wonders and miracles both … if only she could focus. The Silver Star’s attention had shifted to her once more. 

*****

“I need to learn how to be more subtle,” I mused aloud, idly petting the small white kitten that’d claimed my lap as her throne. 

“You think?” Selene asked wryly, glancing at one of the floating screens showing our most diligent new bonesinger attempting to slip into deep meditation … with limited results. She seemed haunted. “I’m starting to feel a bit sorry for them. Can’t you just … not focus on them?”

“They are sensitive,” I hummed. “And I’m not going to let them out of my sight. I’m not going to trust an eldar not to stab me in the back at the first opportunity without much more time to get to know them.”

The two of us were sitting inside my Realm, in my most expansive sub-Realm to date, which was populated by Mara’s fluffy friends and looked like a picturesque fey forest pulled straight out of a fantasy movie, complete with glittering lights through the tree canopy and singing birds. Pulling Selene’s soul inside, then reeling in her mind as well, was how I’d figured we’d keep in touch while I was away adventuring with Alex. I’d have taken her along, but she was still busy digesting and working through her emotions, and the last thing she wanted was being in the same room as Emperor Junior before she could fully decide just how she felt about him. Especially while seeing him fight the Necrons. 

On my part, it was simple enough to project a part of my consciousness here, since my soul was always in my Realm and much of my mind was housed within it as well. 

“So you’d rather they make nothing at all than risk them doing something that might harm you? Could they even do that?” Selene asked, a dainty eyebrow raised inquisitively. “Harm you, that is.”

“You never know with psykers.” I shrugged, huffing in amusement when the small kitten I’d been petting leapt off my lap and strutted away. Sometimes I forgot these animals were just illusions, VR programs running on my bio-computers and given substance by soul energy. With how real they acted and felt to all my mortal senses, it was easy to forget. “Especially eldar psykers.”

I wasn’t being racist- … err, speciesist or anything. It was a known fact that the eldar would burn down a world containing ten billion innocent humans — or any other alien species for that matter — if a Farseer told them it might save a single eldar life in the future. They mastered backstabbing millions of years ago, and favoured the practice quite extensively whenever the opportunity presented itself. There was a reason why almost no rogue trader houses or fleets traded with them long-term. Short-term? Fine. Long-term? Asking for a stab in the back with your entire house slaughtered. 

All it would take for them to betray me is for one of their Farseers to get some prophetic vision or hallucination about me slaughtering eldar or something. Then they would go all out about trying to prevent that vision by stabbing me in the back, which would obviously fail, and then I would go about fulfilling the prophecy by murdering the shit out of them in retaliation. 

They’d done the same thing with the Primarch Angron. Some Farseer saw him laying waste to a Craftworld and sent assassins to kill him the moment he stumbled out of his crash-landed crib-pod. The mini-Primarch killed them all, but was too weakened by the battle to fight off the slavers who found him next. There began Angron’s journey that inevitably led to him getting implanted with the Butcher’s Nails, losing his compassion, becoming a Daemon Prince and … lo and behold, laying waste to a Craftworld -

I think? Or was it just his Legion that did that? I can’t quite remember. 

‘Note: It was-’ My mind-core started, but I punted it from my mind before it could finish the sentence.

I don’t really care; shut up.

The point being. Eldar were stupid sometimes, despite being so intelligent. Maybe they were too smart for their own good, or maybe the Chaos Gods were having a blast sending self-fulfilling prophecies at them to cause, well, chaos. Especially Slaanesh, knowing they would suffer even more by fulfilling their own prophecy through self-torment. 

Dealing with them was a risk, but one I was very much willing to take. I honestly liked the Craftworlder and Exodite Eldar more than the Imperium. They also had much they could give me. Being untrustworthy was pretty much a given in this galaxy anyway. At least they had warp magic I could possibly work with. The Imperium only had faith, which I refused to touch with a fifty-meter blackstone pylon. 

“I think … “ Selene started, staring at one of the other screens depicting my second Avatar and Alex dancing through a small army of Canoptek constructs. She stared for a moment, her voice hesitant and barely a whisper. Taking a short breath, she huffed and continued with a much steadier voice, “I think I want to talk to him. Do you think … do you think you could make that happen?”

I just gave her a reassuring smile at the hesitant glance she sent my way. Despite everything, to her, the Emperor was still some unreachable mythical, divine creature she had no right to even so much as request a meeting with. She was … still working through it. 

“Sure,” I replied casually. I felt like the best way to help her grow used to Alex’s existence was if I treated him as casually and irreverently as possible, though only to an extent. I didn’t want to go too far and make her feel crazy for reacting as she had. Some respect, but mostly casual. 

I walked over to where she was sitting in the grass, playing with a puppy and rubbing its belly, settling down beside her. 

“Thank you,” she said absently, and I just hummed in response. What she needed the most was time to process her feelings. Puppy therapy might also be something I’d have to make a regular thing, considering how much lighter her soul felt while petting that dog. Maybe I could make her an actual dog? I had the genetic template of a hundred different dog breeds from Big E’s gift, or I could probably cook up an almost perfect dog-like template and stuff in an artificial puppy mind there. With some time for its nascent soul to mature, it would be indistinguishable from a real dog. I could make it the perfect canine companion. No shedding, no biting, just the right amount of cuteness and not too much barking.  

In the meantime, I’d have to get started on planning our little adventure into her home. My soul would reach a major threshold in maybe another month, two at most, allowing me to deploy my third Avatar. Once that was done, I could have one remain in the Jericho Reach in my dominion to protect and continue experimenting, one with Trazyn for communication, and one accompanying Selene or wandering around the galaxy to explore or gather things for fun. 

I would also make another backup of Selene’s mind, download it to a bio-computer and hide that inside the deepest reaches of my realm. Just to be sure. Even more protected than my most powerful and dangerous experiments, so deep underground that any normal psyker would think they were just part of the crust. They were practically sitting on top of my soul. Alex could probably slip past my own mental shields if he held back some tricks while tutoring me, so Selene’s mind would also be open to him. I would have to reinforce her mental shields personally, but prepare for if they proved insufficient to stop the worst from happening. 

I’d done the same for myself, hiding copies of my own mind and memories inside my Realm on bio-computers and in other, stranger forms. I was constantly running checks on my own mind, comparing my memories and thought processes to previous backups for any sign of malicious interference. But there were also backups I never touched, just in case Little E, another nickname for Alex, could ride my telepathic connection to those bio-computers to corrupt my backups as well. I had a whole system, developed with utmost paranoia. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best I could do at the moment. Hopefully Eldrad would return and help me make sure Alex wasn’t teaching me faulty techniques, or ones with loopholes left for himself. 

Even if I trusted him wholly — which I very much didn’t, despite his best efforts — I would have done the same. Too many people relied on me for protection for me to think myself invulnerable and undefeatable. Besides, I didn’t want to die, and having my personality warped, my memories played with, was even worse than death. I was doing this for myself. Simple self-preservation. It wasn’t paranoia if they really were out to get you, and in the grim dark future there was only war and constant espionage and counter-espionage.

But back to the present! On one floating screen I saw myself and Trazyn being picked up by a shuttle dispatched from the Archivists’ personal voidship: a beautiful Shroud Class Light Cruiser called the Lord of Antiquity. Honestly, that ship belonged in a museum, not that it wasn’t entirely functional, but it was clearly a showpiece made to look as impressive and gorgeous as possible. Unlike the usual Necron ships, it was adorned with sculptures, arches, and all sorts of things that made it look more like an architectural marvel than an actual spaceship. 

On the other floating screen, Alex finally got pressed into a corner and was forced to show some of his tricks. Unfortunately, the little fucker seemed intent on not counterattacking for as long as possible. I squinted at the screen, frowning as I saw incoming melee attacks and beams of entropic green energy … miss. Where before they’d always been spot on, dozen attacks all working in tandem to box him in and make dodging impossible, now there were gaps. 

I leaned closer to the screen, and at the same time I was the Avatar fighting her own battle only a few scores of metres away from Alex. My senses were primed and ready, and yet I couldn’t quite figure out what he was doing. Illusions maybe? Bending space? Temporal fluctuations? Forcing artefacts into the constructs’ sensor readings? 

Somehow, someway, he was making some of those Canoptek constructs miss. He was throwing off their aim, I was sure of it, but how? 

I felt a sliver of excitement slither into my heart. This was a chance to learn a new trick from a master Psyker. In the entire galaxy, I doubted there was another Psyker with more tricks up his sleeve than the Emperor. Tens of thousands of years of life, all spent trying to figure out how to save mankind and defeat Chaos. It made sense why he’d spend so much of his time gathering tools and developing new tricks. 

After half a minute of devouring every last shred of sensory data possible, I came to the conclusion that he wasn’t using a single trick, but multiple at the same time. Which, of course, made pinning down the individual techniques, what they did, and how I might be able to copy them much more challenging. Fucker. I could swear I saw him smirk when that realisation hit me, despite my appearance remaining the exact same as before. 

With ten more seconds, I was pretty sure he was using some kind of perception filter to throw off sensor readings. That was one trick. But the others? No clue. I only felt tiny Warp fluctuations in the path of attacks, and then beams would curve away just a tiny bit, just barely enough to give him a window of opportunity to slip through the hail of lethal projectiles. Projectiles which were, by the way, wreaking absolute havoc on the hallway and the dormant Necrons stored within.

I was pretty sure the Lord of this Tomb would be absolutely livid when he awoke, and the World Mind was likely in for a dressing down. I wasn’t certain, but I was pretty sure destroying dormant Necrons made it almost impossible to resurrect them, at least without extensive and expensive intervention from a high-ranking Necron. 

What the heck is he doing with their weapons? I wondered, having noticed that every so often some of those Warp fluctuations happened inside or near the weapons systems of the Canoptek constructs. Telekinetic nudges? Technomancy maybe? Some sort of electromagnetic trick?

I caught one of them, and sure enough, that was telekinesis nudging a barrel just a few millimetres to the side. The next one I caught wasn’t, feeling much more vague and esoteric than simple ‘kinetic force goes there.’ Annoying. Exciting. A problem to solve. A mystery to uncover.

This is a good day. I thought happily, leaning against Selene and resting my projection’s head against my lover’s shoulder. I got to show off, meet up with Trazyn, see Alex fight, learn some of his tricks, and I also got a nice little date with Selene, all happening nearly at the same time.

It was good to be me.