The weeks passed slowly, though Liriel filled them up with work.

Tellyth's bargain had been a blessing. With a firm goal in mind, she roved among the record stacks in the royal library, hunting for the evidence he needed. In her own suite, she spent hours amid the Empyrean waves, flicking through potential futures.

Still, the going was slow. Mere incomplete records was not enough to prove the kind of corruption that Tellyth was after. And dry statistics on the rising mortality and falling birth rate, while alarming, did not by themselves prove her point. Liriel was after something more damning, something that could prove that the bedrock of their society was crumbling.

Liriel just did not know what.

There were anomalies she found; gaps in what should be rather than positive evidence of wrongdoing. Villages that would disappear, commonly attributed to slow die-off or wild animal attacks. Or, more darkly, raiding by rival tribes. The marginal villages at the borders of each major tribe's territory were rarely defended, their people left to the mercy of the planet and only visited by their nominal leaders come harvest time, when a tithe would be collected from them at the point of a sword.

The habits of the King had grown venal and obscene. The rulers of antiquity had led with a light touch, understanding that they were first among equals, rather than divinely appointed regents. Where was the aid sent to regions struck by famine, drought, and disease? What purpose other than to sate his ever-expanding appetite did the tribes' tithes serve?

The most alarming was that Mathara, their planet, was isolated for some reason. There was no record of a visit from other aeldari for centuries. No delegations from the Craftworlds or the mad remnants of their shattered civilization. Not since the day of the opening of the Great Rift above them, nearly four centuries prior. The Day of Sorrow. The day the last Council of Seers died.

Liriel hunted through the musty stacks of the library and tumultuous currents of the Warp, intent on a prey unlike any she had tracked before. Somewhere in this data was the link between the sickness gripping the heart of the planet and the slow decline of their people. She had to find it.


The noise startled her awake, heart hammering in her chest. Old instincts leapt her to her feet, ready to defend herself, before she realized where she was. The library; she had fallen asleep at a desk, an ache in her cheek indicative of the creased scrolls that had served as her pillow.

"Pleasant dreams, Seer?" The librarian's soft slippered footsteps had woken Liriel, and now she looked with some annoyance at the damage the Seer's careless handling had done to her charges, but she was polite enough not to be more overt.

"My dreams were as they always are," Liriel responded. Filled with the iron taste of blood, the rush of combat, the sweet thrill of victory or bitter ash of defeat. They had always been thus, for as long as Liriel could remember. "Are those the records I asked for?"

The librarian - Galóem? - was carrying a sheaf of parchments, census records for the northern lands. "As far back as we have." She lay them with some care on the little empty space that still existed on the table, waving a hand across the other documents Liriel had gathered. "Do you wish me to return any of the others?"

Liriel rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with the heels of her palms. "No, I may still need to cross-reference them. Did you have the same trouble with these?"

Galóem had come to work in the library only some weeks ago, assisting the other librarian after Liriel had annoyed the man one too many times with requests for old and half-forgotten documents. She seemed to resent the work and worked much more slowly than seemed reasonable, but Liriel did not have another option, given the size and labyrinthine complexity of the library. To do the work of finding these records, often mislabeled or buried behind layers of obfuscation in the indexes, would take more time than she had to afford.

"No," Galóem replied, "the Mayanar and Sillinstreed records were exactly where they should be. Almost…" She trailed off, sounding unsure. "No, it's probably nothing."

Liriel's first instinct was to snap at the woman to speak her mind, but she restrained herself. Diplomacy and tact. How they grated at her. But a kind word opened far more doors than a brusque demeanour, even if the librarian had been an exemplar of injured petulance thus far. "Any assistance you can give me would be appreciated. I'm not as familiar with these kinds of documents as I'm sure you are; the merest suspicion would be helpful at this point."

Galóem wavered for a moment more, before jabbing her finger towards the new pile of documents. "They're too clean. All the other records so far have been half-illegible, filled with mistakes and incongruities. Which makes sense; the tribes don't care about these records."

It was true. The other records were spotty at best; as much as the tribe of Ulluthan claimed dominion over the planet, it was the tribal leaders, self-styled nobles that they were, who ultimately carried out any edicts decreed. When such edicts were troublesome to fulfill, such as assembling census data for accurate taxation, they simply found another way.

"But the Mayanar and Sillinstreed records are all accurate and up-to-date. Everything is in its right place. I just thought - well, maybe…" She trailed off again, and Liriel took a closer look at the documents. The ones that Galóem had gathered were filled out much more completely than the others.

Could this be a thread she could pull? If these tribes were forging their records, that could indicate something more sinister going on. Liriel knew little of the Mayanar and Sillinstreed. Northern tribes, nomads on the plains north of the Polassi tribe. Poor, as most of the outlying tribes were; hunting was difficult on the plains, and there were few other natural resources they could take advantage of.

"Galóem, do we have any more information about these tribes? Maps, migration routes, lineage; anything about what their numbers may be in actuality." Liriel dove into the pile of records again, barely listening as the librarian acceded to her request.

She did not hear the acidic remark, softly spoken by the retreating aeldar, "And my name is Bileme."


Liriel's cup hit her saucer loudly, but she hardly noticed. "You want to help me?"

The short aeldar bowed her head deeply. "Yes, honoured Seer. I have been awaiting the return of Seer Anathan for years. As you are his successor, it is only natural that I apprentice under you and assist you with your work here."

Suspicion guarded her against hope, insisting that this was some trick, that somehow even this sacred duty would be corrupted by the forces around her. She did not want to succumb to that suspicion, but asked anyway, keeping her tone neutral, "How did you learn of my coming? Were you not at the palace?"

"No, honoured Seer," Jheriss replied. "It has been years, and I was not able to live in the palace as you do. I had traveled here on my majority to learn under Anathan, only to learn that he was not taking any apprentices. I fear that at the time he was…"

"Unwell," Liriel finished charitably. The paranoias of the old Seer had been severe, though not unusual in the elderly here; another symptom, and another that the people had simply assumed universal to the species.

"Indeed. I waited in Ynriad for a time with family, petitioning the Seer to reconsider, but had to leave to support myself with my own tribe. A friend of mine in the palace informed me that Anathan had taken another to learn, and I thought that my opportunity lost for a decade."

It was unusual for a Seer to mentor more than one pupil at a time, the arts of Warpcraft being among the most difficult to learn. Liriel had had some experience in their use before her time under the Seer, but Anathan had been shocked that she had survived her own amateur handling of her abilities. It was far more likely for an aeldar in her position, a mere child harnessing wild forces beyond anyone's control, to end up dead or worse. That resilience, she liked to believe, is what had drawn the old man to teach her.

The other, far more plausible, explanation was that she was simply an unlikely pawn in another's game that he could mold for his own purposes. It would be pleasant to believe that his intentions were entirely benevolent, but she knew the spiteful Seer well enough to know that in the depths of his madness he had desired to use her for revenge rather than guidance.

"And this friend also wrote to you to inform you that I had returned without Anathan?" Liriel asked.

Jheriss nodded. "I received a missive roughly a week ago, and came as swiftly as I could, abandoning my duties to do so." Her eyes turned suddenly wide, as if the thought had just come to her. "You are accepting apprentices, are you not? If I were to go back empty-handed now…" She lowered her gaze, fear creeping into her tone. "I parted on poor terms. I would have nowhere to go back to."

Nowhere to go back to. How Liriel could sympathize with that sentiment. Her heart bent to the aspiring pupil, even as objections filled her mind. In truth, she wasn't ready for the commitment, could not possibly train the next generation as well as they deserved, and yet…

Elation. She tried to check her blossoming feeling before it could express itself, schooling her face into stillness as she sipped the arweh. The the aeldar across the table mirrored her action, watching hopefully. Young; but not younger than her. To be responsible for the instruction of another Seer when she was barely more knowledgeable than they was an intimidating task, and she had to cling to the idea of that challenge to moderate the bubbling force of the joy Jheriss had gifted her.

"You understand the difficulties of the road ahead? To be a Seer, one must be gifted twice over; in strength of mind and in virtue. A warrior with evil in his heart may doom a battle, and a king through indifference likewise a nation, but the damage that a Seer can wreak merely through error is incalculable. You will be tested greatly," she warned, silently omitting as I was not.

Jheriss nodded sharply, hope infusing her with animated energy. "I understand the difficulties of becoming a Seer. Learning to wield the Warp." She suppressed a shudder as she said it, and Liriel could have cursed in that moment. Their greatest gift, treated with fear and superstition. It was truly heartbreaking.

"And being so well informed, are you aware of the challenge before us all?" Liriel knew that rumours had spread before her. She had not held the revelation a secret, too desperate for fellow-minded people to care about the effect that the news would have. She regretted doing so, now; while the other nobility were not so crass - or suicidal - as to challenge her directly, a few discrete journeys into the marketplaces surrounding the palace revealed the gossip of the wild apprentice to the mad Seer, prophesying doom with spittle-flecked lips and raving at shadows and daemons. But if she was to work hand-in-hand with another, they could not afford the hesitancy of doubt. "Doom is coming to the planet. I work to alter the course of fate, to save us all."

"I believe you," Jheriss stated simply, honest awe shining in her eyes. "I've seen it. The sickness. People starving in the villages, turning on one another in madness, all of it. I want to help."

"Excellent," Liriel said, elation finally winning out over the wavering cynicism in her heart. To have another stand by her side, finally - an ally she could rely on and a pupil she could mold. She drained the last of her arweh, trying to keep an expression of jubilation from her face. "We have little time to waste. I will ascertain your level of skill in the manipulation of the Warp later -" she said the words lightly, and noted with some dismay Jheriss's blanching at the prospect, "- but first I will need your help with another project. How much do you know of the Webway? There has been no movement through it to Mathara in centuries, and I need to find out why."

Jheriss appeared confused by the question. "The Webway? Isn't it a children's story?"


"The gate has been destroyed?" Liriel said in a hushed whisper.

"Both of them some time ago, honoured Seer. I've never heard of anyone who was able to enter the Webway safely." The bonesinger, Seqieth sounded embarrassed by the admission, as if explaining the obvious to someone who should know better. "Before I rose to my position and read the archives, I'd considered the Webway something of a fable. I mean, it hardly seems likely, does it?"

Liriel could barely hear the harried-looking aeldar in the richly-ornamented robes. The shock of the admission consumed her. The planet was cut off from the Webway, had been for so long that it wasn't even alarming to anyone. "Why? Who destroyed them?"

"During the opening of the Great Rift, there was a breach in the Webway. Daemons had made it into the paths. A warp storm formed over the western half of the continent, centered on the gate there. During the retreat from the Wild Lands, the king ordered the gates to be closed off in the hope of starving the storm of fuel," Seqieth replied swiftly. She continued in a more thoughtful tone. "We did the same to the eastern gate once we reestablished the capital here. Probably a good idea. We haven't been attacked by anyone since. Not our own cousins, or any of the the aliens that the elders used to scare us with. What need do we have of the thing any more?"

"False safety," Liriel said, her voice hollow with disbelief. "We wouldn't know if we were being preyed upon by our damned kin anyway, and the slightest attention from the galaxy's wider threats would wipe us out without warning. Daemons or no, we must reopen that portal."

"That would be… difficult, Seer," Seqieth replied. She clenched her hands around bunches of the thick cloth of her robes, then smoothed them over. "The gates had been unused for a great while, and they represented a great deal of wealth. Wraithbone is always in short supply."

"No," Liriel said, the thought almost too insulting to countenance.

"There was need to expand the palace. Every noble line wants representatives here with the King, and the garrison expands every time they send a tribute of warriors. And the King, of course, has the right to reallocate such resources as he sees fit." Seqieth refused to meet her eyes.

The arenas, the banquet halls, the towers and spires and impossible architectural flairs that would be impossible to construct with terrestrial materials. The people's legacy and safety sacrificed for a sybarite's vanity.

It was the greatest fear of any sane aeldar - that is, any aeldar not already sunken into orgiastic excess or obsessive asceticism - to fall into the same patterns that had doomed their ancient civilization. That fear kept them safe, kept them bound together despite the privation of the exodite worlds. She had known that that fear had faded here. But she had committed that most grave of sins to a Seer; she had allowed hope to cloud her vision, allowed desire to influence her judgment.

King Miythis feared that she had come as a reaping wind to render justice for his actions. Well that he should. It would be so simple; she held the power in her hand to…

Liriel quashed the thought before it could take root. The King was incompetent, and the nobles corrupt. This was known. Nothing had changed but the degree of work to be done. She restrained the glare that had settled on her face, forcing lightness into her tone despite the acerbic language. "Can this mistake be repaired?"

Seqieth sucked in her breath. "I… do not know, honoured Seer. Generations of bonesingers have harvested the materials for use elsewhere. There is no one left who knows the intricacies of its function. Perhaps there are some documents in the royal archives that would help, but-" she waved a hand vaguely.

Liriel understood more than the bonesinger intended. It was possible, but Seqieth would not help her. She, like the rest of the court, was content to sit in a gilded cage and die slowly.

There was nothing that could be done here. She would have to study the Webway, too, and find a way to purify and repair it. Another sword to meet Khaine's demands.

"If that is all, Seer, I have other duties to attend to. May Isha comfort you."

"May Khaine guide you," Liriel all but snarled, uncaring of the gasp that the barbed farewell drew. She had work to do.


Jheriss was a failure as a psyker.

Anathan had occupied his post alone for centuries, refusing to take any pupils or share his knowledge with contemporaries in the other tribes. Without his guidance, they had suffered the inevitable accidents and disasters of Warp contact, often with dire results.

Many tribes now cast out or killed any of their members who dared explore that most ancient and revered art, further limiting the capabilities of the planet. Of the many arguments Liriel had had with her former mentor, this had been the most bitter; it was for no rational reason she could understand that he had scorned the instruction of others, but spite and fear.

He had been a poor teacher, too focused on his own ambitions to guide her with any skill. Luckily, she had come to him already knowing her own limits, the extent of what she could safely do. They had made a fair pairing, despite their respective faults. Liriel was learning now how beneficial her years of practice, dangerous as they had been at the time, were.

"Release your hold!"

Jheriss screamed in pain, the flow of the Warp too much for her to handle. Liriel saw her pupils dilate, and in them, an eternity reflected, stars within an endless, hungering abyss.

Liriel opened her mind to Jheriss, trying to find her in the flood of power she had unleashed. It was as if she had plunged into an icy river in whitewater rapids; the sensation of utter cold suffused her being, the battering blows of the Warp shaking apart her hold on her own body. She stretched out her will further. It was not a physical distance that separated them, but that strange space of the Warp, where normal constraints like time and space no longer seemed to matter. There was no light here but for the guidemarkers of the runes, blazing symbols warding and marking the area around them. And the endless, violent power.

Power, but nothing more; a small relief, but a blessed one. She had no fear of daemonic incursion, but she realized now how little that mattered when dealing with a direct line of Warpstuff strong enough to kill merely by existing. The survivor's instinct in her called for her to close her mind to the relentless assault, abandon Jheriss to be consumed alone. She fought down that impulse as strongly as she fought against the chaotic current, forcing her will out further. She was attached to her own body by tenterhooks, her mind a vast net stretching across the river of that chaotic deluge.

And then she sensed her pupil, crouched into herself, hurtling to and fro amid the waves of unreality. Barely cognizant, utterly helpless, she was completely unprepared for Liriel to wrap around her, blinding the untrained aspirant's inner eye to the storm around her. Severed from the sensory barrage, she fell immediately unconscious. Without her mind to cut further into the veil, the currents slowed and stabilized.

But stable did not mean safe, and Liriel was now truly alone in the grip of that power, more than she had ever handled. The warding stones held, though strained by the size of the breach that they contained. Between them, lines of ancient runes spun and twisted, hiding the breach from the predators that swam those hellish waters and forming a frame on which she could form her patch.

Quick now; dimly she could feel the frost forming in her lungs, the backwash of the breach overtopping the capacity of the wards to contain it and spilling into the real world. There was no telling what the Warp would do once unbound, even if the wards did their best to direct the overflow. She reformed into herself, throwing up barriers to protect her mind from direct interface with the Warp. It was a necessary sacrifice, to dedicate some amount of one's ability in Warpcraft to shield oneself from the ravening energy. One that her student had evidently not learned.

From behind her mental barrier, she could redirect the flows of power around her, stitching rune-lines of her own through the opened veil. The first nearly slipped from her grasp, a wild thread of half-formed runework threatening to blow out into the Warp proper. An irresistible lure to the denizens there. She was saved only by the luck of the thread catching on a twist of the wards. She tied knots into it, and pulled it taut.

It was slow, grueling, careful work pulling the breach closed without the aid of the one who originally opened it. The wards helped, after a time; once the flow had reduced to merely a torrent, they were able to secure it, if slowly. She remained in contact until the patch was fully in place, melding back into the veil around it. Too many times had she had the lesson of care drilled into her to risk leaving the job half-done, despite the quality of the wards in the meditation nook.

When she emerged from the trance, she found Jheriss still unconscious, horrors playing beneath the student's closed eyes. Her face twitched in fear and agony, her mind still suffering the aftereffects of her descent into the depths. Liriel moved to shake Jheriss awake and found her own body sluggish to respond. It was as if it was a stranger to her. For the moment, she was grateful for the numbness that infused her; the ground around her was rimed with frost, and a faint blue tinge at her fingertips hinted at a painful night to come as it recovered from the cold.

Unfolding herself from the hard ground, she forced stiff muscles into motion, shaking her student roughly. Jheriss's eyes leapt open as soon as the Seer touched her, and she shrieked in fright.

"Calm yourself!" Liriel commanded, to the pupil's whimpering compliance. "Why did you try to pull that much power? What were you thinking?"

Jheriss stumbled over her own words, tears running down her face. "I didn't know! You said it was safe inside the wards, and I didn't know how to stop it once it started, and it was just too much for me! I can't do this!"

Liriel grimaced. Weakness. She had never been this afraid of the power of the Warp, even when she had suffered its dangers. Tools were meant to be used; if they were dangerous, then one simply learned to use them cautiously. "Settle yourself. You'll be useless for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, we will practice this again. You will learn how to cut a controlled breach and draw only the power that you need. Without that most basic ability, you will be useless as a Seer."

Jheriss nodded at her, collecting herself off the floor and staggering out of the room. Liriel watched her go, then turned to the window, staring into the sun sinking slowly past the horizon. It had been just past midday when they had begun their session. The Warp had not only frozen the room, but had twisted the flow of time. Or perhaps her struggle against that surge of power truly had taken hours - it was impossible to know.

This was going poorly. Her fears about taking on a student were becoming reality. She lacked the necessary temperament to guide someone on this path. The suspicion that she was failing her student gnawed at her. She could not allow that; could not allow herself to fall short here.

She could not allow herself to fail again.


A tremulous ringing of the bell woke Liriel from deep slumber. Yawning, she descended the stairs, already irate at the disturbance to the first restful night she'd had for weeks. Jheriss had proven useless again and again at the task of scrying. Liriel had relegated the apprentice to the task of investigating the leads that the librarian had found, while she burned her mind traversing the Warp. Not that there had been much work left on that front either - her investigations regarding the Sillinstreed and Mayanar had stalled. Jheriss had found precious little information that she could use to glean their wider plans, and Liriel had spent too much time trying to tease whispers out of the Warp from the rumours of the archives.

Pausing on the last landing to arrange her clothing and hair to a more presentable form, she tried to soften the glare in her eyes, and settled for a mere impatient glower.

A young man stood in the bottom-most lobby, hands clasped behind him. She searched her memory, but could not recall his face or name. A new arrival to the palace, perhaps? Or, given a better look at his uniform, one of the many warriors that passed through the halls, tithed by the tribes to demonstrate loyalty to the King.

Her feet had barely touched the base of the stairs before he bowed deeply to her, speaking all in a rush, "A thousand blessings to you and yours, honoured Seer. May the gifts of Asuryan ever light your way."

Taken aback, Liriel answered automatically, "A thousand blessings to you and yours, but I'm afraid you have the advantage of me."

He straightened, and she got a clear look at his face for the first time. His expression shone with urgency. "My name is Advin var Iliath. A minor clan within the Sillinstreed."

Liriel was unfamiliar with the name, but the brooch at his neck formed the Sillinstreed emblem. She motioned for him to continue, her mind still in a drowsy fog.

"I heard from Bileme that you were looking for information. She and I have a long history, and she told me you could be trusted. My tribe - and another, the Mayanar - are building an army. They are planning on marching on Ynriad to take the head of the King within a season," Advin declared flatly. He stood with hands nearly curled into fists, staring her straight in the eyes.

The drowsiness bled from her. "How? Together, they offer so much in tribute that they should be all but destitute given the desolation of their lands."

Advin swallowed before answering, looking unsure of where to begin. "The raids- you know they've been raiding the other tribes, the Polassi, the Quiyen, the Sii'dhara?"

Liriel nodded. At this point, it was hard to believe otherwise. The records all led to that conclusion, though she still struggled to scry out how it was being done.

"They haven't just been taking food or, or, pottery. They've taken captives. Hundreds of them, over the years."

Wrath reared its head in the depths of Liriel's mind. She allowed it to awaken, but kept her expression neutral as she motioned for the guard to continue.

"It's- they have work camps, mines, whole industries. On the other side of the western mountains, in the wild lands." Land left untamed since the chaos of the Day of Sorrow, where madness and death ruled.

"How has this been kept secret?" she asked.

"Who would believe it?" Advin countered. "They don't even believe that things are getting worse when a Seer tells them so. Even Tellyth would not take me at my word, were I to give it only to him. And… they have a Seer of their own. I've never met him, but he's powerful. He shadows their actions and ensures that no one can trace their actions to the tribes."

"No one even managed to escape these camps?"

"If someone manages to get out of the camp alone, unarmed, they're as good as dead," Advin said grimly. "The wild lands are vicious; there are megadons there beyond any that live alongside us, and things that prey on even them. The tribes lose armed and armored convoys - they have no fear of a slave escaping."

"And no one of Sillinstreed broke the silence on this for a century?"

"They believe it is normal," the words were soft, the same words that had haunted her every endeavour in this damned place. "They think that if they did not enslave others, the other tribes would enslave them. And the Ashawir Coup…" Advin spread his hands in supplication. "I can make no excuses for them. But the war had been devastating to both of them. The Sillinstreed had supplied many of the warriors that were sacrificed to save the Ulluthan. Their lands have always been hard, unforgiving. With that many of their people dead, and the new King's refusal to share the spoils of the war after the Ashani and Wiri'il were disbanded, their options were to wither away or…" The rest he left unsaid.

She wondered at his bravery in revealing this to her, and simultaneously allowed herself to feel wrath that he had taken so long in doing so. People were dying as he wrestled in the grip of that dilemma, for the sake of his loyalty to a traitorous tribe. He might well suffer blowback from reprisals against them. She would have to protect him as best she could, if it came to that.

"Thank you for telling me. Rest assured, justice will be done. This atrocity will not stand for long."

He bowed again, relief evident in his body and voice. "It was my duty, Seer. I can only hope that you do not tarry - they will begin their movements soon. A cousin of mine has written to tell me that he saw the Sillinstreed forces assembling at the Plains of Argoth. From there, they will be able to strike at Polassi lands within the month."

She nodded, dismissing the guard. A miracle, gift-wrapped and delivered by the gods. She curled her lip at the thought, then began to plan, all thoughts of rest fled from her mind. She needed to verify this information before it was too late.

By the next month, she could secure Tellyth's cooperation.