Hello my beloved readers!

This is just a quick, short post, to show that I am still alive and have not abandoned the story. Since I was planning a vacation, which I will start tomorrow (2 weeks USA, yeah!) and I am moving in January, I was incredibly busy the last months. On top of it all, christmas time is a special kind of hell in retail, even in the very specialised branch I am working in.

I guess some people out there can relate. ;)

I wish you a happy new year, may it be a productive and successful one for you all!

And, as always: patience. Chapter 18 in coming together, the muses (Oh, which ones? :P ) decided not to grace me with a creative hand as of late. But I am still working on it.

Peace and love to you all.

Interlude

"Lelith Hesperax is the greatest treasure of the Dark City, and one does not display one's finest emerald amid squalor."
— Asdrubael Vect, on why he gave the greatest arena in Commorragh to the Wych Cult of Strife

LELITH HESPERAX STOOD at the windows of her personal sanctum, on the pinnacle of the arena and overlooked her realm of absolute power, the Crucibael. No one but her was allowed in here, not even Asdrubael, which was only possible because she had kept this place hidden from him. Doing that had involved a not inconsiderable amount of her time, but it had been necessary.

There were two sanctums.

What she officially named her sanctum, were her quarters. Everyone knew about them and only Asdrubael had seen the insides of them many times. She had set a lot of false legends about her quarters into the world herself, calling them her sanctum, making people speculate what wonders or horrors they might hold and whether it was the place where she got her unique skills and powers from. And Asdrubael was none the wiser, since he knew the inside of her quarters anyways and so he did not ask any questions about whether this was her true sanctum or not.

So, her true sanctum was a simple room on top of the Crucibael, which she had installed in secret and only a hidden stairway led to it. Hiding things from Asdrubael was dangerous, but there were times when she needed to be away from it all, even from him. What he thought was her sanctum, were her quarters and this, this very, sacred spot she now was in, was actually what she truly called her sanctum. This was her spot of absolute privacy, her chamber of retreat, if she needed time for herself, to think or simply some peace and quiet. She loved looking down on her place of power and reminisce on how she had risen above everyone else that held her profession. It pleased her greatly.

However, as age and experience had told her, pride will have a fall, therefore, she kept herself from falling to utter hubris. She had seen it so often – young, wild talents rising, only to get old and complacent and getting sniped by someone younger and hungrier. It always happened. But not to her.

She smiled.

Having her own advantage and secrets had its merits.

Nevertheless, the smile vanished from her face quite quickly again, for the message she held in her hands gave her reason to think; in fact, so much that she felt the need to retreat up here.

Of course, the message was from Asdrubael, the only one who could send her messages that made her wreck her head over them, though she knew that most of the time it involved schemes she would never get behind. Also, marching to the tyrant and demanding answers would not do at all.

She sighed.

It was not that she had not noticed, but she had tried to ignore it for a very long time, telling herself that she was getting paranoid around him. He did that to people he was around often and who used their brain.

Asdrubael had changed. Greatly so.

At first, she had been unsure whether she imagined it, but the more often she saw him and the longer the intervals grew he visited her, the more she saw it. Something dire and dark was going on with him, far direr and darker than anything before.

This eerie glow in his eyes.

The amount of rejuvenation he needed.

That strength he robbed from her each time he had her.

Now, these were things that could happen with a Dark Eldar of Asdrubael's age – Lelith had seen enough ancient Dark Eldar to be able to tell that – but, still, things were different with him. Felt different. Felt… wrong.

All this could only mean one thing: the Overlord was planning something grand. Exorbitantly grand. Grander than anything he had done before.

And Lelith… feared… what it could mean. For her. For Commorragh. For everyone.

Of course, her own hide was her first and foremost concern. The rest of Commorragh could go to hell, for all she cared. But if he planned on dragging her down with him with whatever he was cooking up now, then she would fight him this time.

As much as he thought that she was his obedient asset, she did not belong to the masses of bootlickers he was used to. She found it hard to believe that he indeed had gotten so arrogant to feel safe and to completely trust her, no, that would not have been Asdrubael at all, but maybe it came from the fact that she had been so much more than his ally for so long that he felt a little more careless with her.

Lelith's eyes flew over the message once again.

Yes, the girl surely had something to do with this grand scheme of his.

It made all so little sense, it hurt her head.

First, he had come to her in person to tell her to treat the girl extra harshly, now this message demanded to give her a longer break before the Carnival, so she was at the peak of her strength, after giving her hell. That seemed terribly inconsequent and the break before the main event was already calculated to be long enough for regeneration. What did he want to achieve with that? And, if the child apparently was part of his plan, why did he risk getting her killed in the Carnival? Why push her extremely hard first, only to pamper her later on?

What also made no sense to her was the remark he demanded her to say to the girl before she left her to her break. That she had not seen him for quite a while and that he was currently busy training his new, disappointing plaything. If the girl was acquainted with Asdrubael's new pet, it would unsettle her and again Lelith asked herself what purpose all this could serve. Because that his choice of slave for this Carnival was random, was highly unlikely. He had shown to care little about the Carnival in the past, but not this time. He certainly wanted that slave back, which made it even more curious why he had sent her here in the first place.

Lelith snarled, angry at him for not including her in his thoughts, like he had used to in the past and angry at herself, for allowing him to play her for so long. She would have loved to march to the top of Corespur and tell him to shove his plans and plots to where the sun never shone, but, of course, she knew how unwise that would have been. It was useless. He would not tell her anything and she would obey this order, as usual.

Maybe it was time for her to get her own investigation going and if what she found did not entice her, there were a lot of options to consider. The Overlord had all the enemies in this city and only very few allies. Sometimes, all it needed was a little push over the edge.

Lelith smiled.

After all, she was the Queen of Commorragh. Maybe it was time to make use of said title.

To what end, time would show.