This week, the Dawnbringer Chronicles chart a familiar tale – a sister’s desperate search for her lost brother – but not all is as it seems in the Mortal Realms. An aelf of the Lumineth delves deep into the Temple of the Ur-Phoenix, and she may not like what she finds at the end of her quest.
Tareitha checked the sunmetal dagger at her hip, pulled her cloak tighter, and stepped from the alleyway. Between elegant manors and fluted pillars, the night’s darkness huddled in close. Carved phoenixes watched from perches of stone, offering neither condemnation nor licence.Good. Tareitha was Lumineth, and needed no approval. The Phoenicium wore the trappings of old aelven culture, but this was not Hysh. Besides, this city had taken something from her – something she intended to find.
Though born Syarian, Tareitha’s soul favoured the Tyrionic virtues over the Teclian. That predetermination towards action made it inevitable she would slip from the warhost’s camp in the Phoenicium’s middle districts and towards the innermost quarters.
It was a poor self-justification, Tareitha knew. This was a mission of emotion, the sort her people had sworn against. Yet here she was.
The night glowed amber. Mist drifted past silent porticos and silk weavers. The Phoenicium had never reached the teeming extremes of population found in Sigmar Storm-god’s other metropolises. Now its denizens had been relocated towards the walls by the aelven warhost and the castellans of the Phoenix Temple. For that, she was grateful; it made this mission of stealth easier.
A rustle from within a nearby manor spiked Tareitha’s attentions. The aelf slipped to crouch beneath an arched window, hand slipping to her dagger. A figure loomed from the opening, squinting.
‘Swore I heard something.’
‘Nah. Them aelves have better things to do than roam the streets looking for us after dark,’ came a gruff voice. ‘And even if not, all the more reason for swiftness. Now help me with this lock.’
The figure in the window hesitated, before pulling back. Tareitha released a breath. Only looters. A third voice, feminine and thin, spoke from within the building.
‘They might. You trust those Hyshians overmuch. They’re up to something.’
‘Perhaps,’ the apparent locksmith murmured. ‘Then, knowing more than us is their knack.’
‘I bet that’s what the folk of Anvilgard said,’ the woman hissed. ‘I bet they said it even while being herded to the Hags’ altars.’
‘A realm away. Years ago. And a different breed of aelf,’ the second voice sighed. ‘Phoenicium isn’t Anvilgard. Jessor, half the artisans in your shop are aelven, aye? They’ve never given you grief. And every aelf who got displaced seems as confused as we are. This isn’t a takeover. It’s… something else. Something coming for the city.’
Tareitha waited seconds more before slipping away. Though she knew little more than the humans of the strategy that had brought the warhost here, a new sense of urgency had stolen over her. The aelf murmured cantrips she had teased from Hurakan wind-chasers. Beneath her cloak pulsed a flash of rose light; her soul warmed at the touch of aetherquartz, her steps growing swifter and quiet.
As she ascended the floating stones of Gilnaean’s Stair, Tareitha glanced over the city’s sprawl. In the distance stood the narrow silhouette of the Academia Veterum, with the baroque heft of the Golden Castrum just behind it. The Stormkeep of the Lions of Sigmar bore a blunt nobility, like a scholarly pugilist.
At last she reached the arch of white stone that led into the Courtyard of the Phoenix. Upon its capstone glowed an archaic form of the rune Asur – the Eternal Flame. Shimmering energy filled the archway. Tareitha swallowed, suddenly supposing whether trying to pass the gate unbidden would see her immolated or turned to a frozen corpse. Then she set her face, and entered the mist. A sense of age-old scrutiny burned through her, before she staggered out of the haze.
The grounds of the Ur-Phoenix’s temple were an image of elder glory. High walls were dotted by more mist-shrouded arches. Pillars rose with a stately, if solemn dignity, wrapped with coils of arcane fire and ice. High above, those same aetheric traces glimmered in the wakes left by the phoenixes gliding from the high eyries of the temple rotunda. The courtyard was awash with mist, within which shimmered a complex lattice of magic that even her aelven senses could only faintly discern.
Tareitha had expected to encounter sentinels. But, save for a brazier flickering at its heart, the courtyard was empty. Its protectors were likely within the temple, knelt in contemplation before the holy white blaze at its heart. Face lined with focus, Tareitha moved towards the rounded and pinion-like stairs that rose towards the temple’s colonnade. Where possible, she kept to the shadows cast by the archaic pillars, but soon enough she had to brave stepping into the moonlight.
Then light and heat washed over her, and wings brought a downblast of air.
On instinct, Tareitha spun, drawing her dagger. Her fluidity would not have shamed a river-sentinel of the Ydrilan. Yet the phoenix that had landed behind her seemed unperturbed. The runes carved on the courtyard’s flagstones beneath its clacking talons glowed nova-bright. It spread its wings, incarnadine feathers flickered like an open hearth. Eyes as blue as shimmering limnarii gems regarded the intruder.
Tareitha tried to think as an aelementiri might when communing with the spirits of Hysh. But words failed her, and something in her wary hesitation saw the phoenix hiss. It beat its wings, tongues of fire leaping to graze her face. The aelf gasped, staggering back a step. Her back struck something hard. Despite the threat before her, she turned.
The Phoenix Guard’s robes shone a guileless white. His armour, covered with gemstones and embossed flames, would have impressed at one of Ar-Ennascath’s vaunted festivals of smithing. For one clearly anointed amongst his order, he was remarkably young, save for the sparks of aeons-old flame in his gaze. This time, speech did not fail Tareitha, even if it did come out as a wondrous whisper.
‘Torelith.’
To another, the Phoenix Guard might have seemed unmoved. Tareitha, though, noted a slight creasing at the edge of his gaze. That he betrayed no more did not surprise her. Her younger brother had always been introspective and guarded – even before he had been gutted by a Myrmidesh scimitar at the Heights of Maila and taken the Phoenix Temple’s vow of silence.
Their supposed allies amongst the Phoenix Temple had carried him away before Tareitha could reach him. For decades, duty had kept her from following the trail. Now, restraint be damned, she stepped forwards and enveloped her sibling tight.
Her brother did not return the embrace, though neither did he push her away. Moments passed, punctuated by the crackle of the brazier. Even when she did step back, Tareitha kept a thin hand on his arm.
‘Did you ask them to take you from the battlefield? From your kin?’ she said at last. Treacherous emotion leaked out in a humourless chuckle. ‘Eclipse’s gleaming, I have waited years to ask you that. Did you beg the phoenix cult to carry you to this rebirth? Yet they came when you were wounded and delirious. How could you have meant it?’
Torelith was unmoved. The silence yawned. Tareitha felt a scowl take her.
‘Tales of the Ur-Phoenix’s laconic faithful are true, it seems. You ever did like to cloak yourself in mystery. Tell me, at least, do you truly glimpse all dooms? It seems an unjust burden to level upon a heart.’ Now exposed, the wounds of their separation were weeping. She sighed, squeezing her sibling’s arm.
‘Come with me. I do not implore you to break any vow, brother, nor sever any beholden oath. But come with me, and know what it is to be amongst kin again, even if just for one night.’
Still Torelith was unmoved. Anguish suddenly animated Tareitha, seeing her seize her brother’s cloak in a fist.
‘There was another phoenix you once served, Torelith. The Lord Tyrion would have you spend your fire for g—’
Her brother’s gauntlet settled on her shoulder, centimetres from her neck. Behind her, the phoenix ruffled its blazing plumage and squawked. Tareitha tried to meet Torelith’s gaze. His eyes were like alabaster pyres, consuming every shadow and foible. Her lips went dune dry.
But Torelith’s grip softened, as he led her towards the brazier. Wearing her suspicion openly, Tareitha nevertheless halted before the burnished bowl. Its conflagrant corona – half orange, half white – stretched her shadow across silent stones. For a moment she saw only fire. Then the heat of the visions sunk in.
A nest sits in the branches of a petrified tree. Its branches drip sap. Within the nest, phoenix chicks strain up towards the sun.
The winds rise. The tree shakes. Black cyclones whip around it. Clouds form overhead, drinking the sunlight. They pulse onyx and scarlet.
There is movement in the branches. A lizard skitters above the nest. Scars line its flanks, but it ignores them. It eyes the phoenix chicks ravenously. They screech as it coils. The lizard opens its mouth. Teeth of black steel are enshrouded by flame.
It lunges, and its teeth flash.
Tareitha’s cry was full-throated and raw. It rang in her ears as the images receded, choking off as she sought to clamp down on her horror. In its absence lay the crackle of the flames and her own thudding heart. The phoenix had shuffled closer, and now its heat was a comfort. It was several moments before she could look at her brother.
‘This… is the end you glimpse? And you face it still, unbowed?’
Torelith said nothing. White-flame illumination made him seem gaunt. But his back was straight, his shoulders set, eyes hard. His posture mirrored that of the avians carved in stone across the Phoenicium. The Phoenix Temple had chosen well in Torelith, Tareitha mused. For all her grief, perhaps to stand here in this hour was a nobler thing than even her Tyrionic soul might have yearned for. Gradually her breathing slowed.
‘So be it,’ she said. ‘Let it come, whatever form it takes. We shall deny it with flame, frost, and brilliant light.’
Torelith’s gaze softened. His lips quirked faintly upwards. This time, as his hand grasped her shoulder, Tareitha felt no unease. Both aelves turned their gaze upwards, into the far-glinting heavens, and the distant phoenixes that circled the mountain.
The story of the Twin-Tailed Crusade comes to a thunderous conclusion in Dawnbringers: Book VI – The Hounds of Chaos – which was revealed yesterday at AdeptiCon – as Embergard and Verdigris face their greatest trials yet amidst the founding of two new Cities of Sigmar. Stay tuned to Warhammer Community for more from the Dawnbringer Chronicles.