The Musing of R. L. Frymire

THE DAEMON LUNGED for Vhy’liethe, so fast, her form was a blur.

Reflexes honed from centuries of combat, Vhy’liethe stepped back with a graceful twist, when he felt it. Heard it. Cloth tearing. His crimson sash rent under the swipe of a deadly chelae. No, the pincher clamped down, snagging the rich fabric, and yanked him close. Only instincts saved him.

Spine contorting in a backwards arch, the daemon’s other arm appeared above his face, its deadly chelae snapping closed on nothing but air, but with a sound of bones breaking. Hastily, Vhy’liethe jerked on the opposite end of his sash, unraveling the simple weave, while his other hand continued towards the ground behind him. The moment his palm anchored him, the toe of his boot smashed into the underside of the daemon’s chin. He heard a surprised, feminine grunt as he completed a graceful backflip.

The daemon’s head was flung back, her delicate throat on display, but as he resettled on his feet, he was given no opportunity to take advantage of her vulnerability. Her chin came down, her gaze seeking his. Finding him, her lips curled, a sultry, confident smile, and with a careless wave of her arm, she flung his torn sash aside.

Vhy’liethe quickly shrugged out of his outer robe to give the daemon less of a handhold on him, leaving him in nothing more than his skintight, black-on-black bodysuit. Armourless. Weaponless. He was at a distinct disadvantage.

The daemon came for him.

Lunging to the side, he narrowly missing another slash of her pinchers. When he moved to put distance between them, the daemon did not follow, save for its eyes. Tracking him. The sclera glowed a vibrant magenta hue, with a void of white for her irises. There was no pupil.

She was hideous. Magnificent.

Her long, violet tresses were secured in a high topknot, revealing the sculpted perfection of her features, and sprouting from her skull were elongated horns, which swept around her head in a crown.

A black gorget encircled her throat, extending along the delicate slopes of her shoulders in an upward sweep of armoured guards—and spanned lower, covering her chest, yet accentuated the curvature of her breasts in an obscene replica of nudity. It was no armour that shielded her chest, he realized, but a hardened shell. Rising above her shoulders were a pair of raptorial limbs with scythe-like blades of darkest obsidian.

The only garment she wore was a long, purple skirt that touched the floor. It was cinched low on her hips and secured with a gold chain, leaving her slender midriff on display. The garment covered very little. The fabric parted high on either hip, revealing toned legs. Lavender hued flesh glistened in the torches’ glow, highlighting the definition of her trim physique. She was lithe. Delicate. Yet exuded a deadly strength that defied her willowy stature.

His gaze was drawn to her left hip, to a length of dangling gold chain. Withered skins were hooked along the links. He counted five faces, their eyeholes staring at him, with mouths wide open on silent screams—or pleas for mercy. He knew those faces. Not personally. By the power granted to him by Yvraine, he sensed them, death’s essence. They were aeldari, their souls trapped. Tormented.

The daemon preened under his sickened regard by lifting her arms above her head. The biceps were humanoid, before mutating into curved chelae claws, starting at the bend of the elbow. Even her raptorial limbs extended further as she flaunted herself before him, going so far as to raise a trim thigh and point her clawed foot towards the ground in a twisted alluring pose.

“Behold, mortal. You are in the presence of the exalted Dy’Montesh. Come. Kneel before your new mistress.” She extended her calf, arching her deadly talons towards him. “With an offering of a kiss. A taste for a taste.”

Battle was eminent, and he, without a weapon. If only he possessed his—

As though called forth by his dire need, his witchblade appeared before him. An illusion? No time for hesitation. He grasped the pummel and felt its familiar weight. Tied to the hilt, he noticed a black and white cloth with the rune of the Masque of Frozen Stars depicting divergent chance of three leaves sprouting in opposing directions.

A taunt.

The troupe master’s deception.

Enraged by his own gullibility, Vhy’liethe snarled at the daemon. “A taste, then.”

A taste—of death.

He lunged, sword swinging. Intending to cripple the daemon’s speed, he cut through the delicate bone of the ankle she had raised for the caress of his lips. Instead, he gave her the kiss of his blade. The lavender tinted flesh shimmered, as insubstantial as mist, before reforming. Unblemished skin met his shocked stare. Unfathomably, her limb remained intact.

The herald threw her head back, baring obsidian fangs. Her laughter was grating yet lyrical, bombarding his senses, causing every nerve in his body to shiver. In pain. In delight.

“You’ve had your taste. Now, I shall have mine.”

She came at him in a blur of motion, and Vhy’liethe was hard-pressed to avoid both her slashing claws and the stabbing thrusts of the scythe-blades at her back. She was everywhere at once. Dancing around him. Playing with him.

There was no room for fear, only survival, but without his rune armour, he was defenseless. He grasped for the aether. He needn’t reach far. The rocky chamber was saturated in the psychic energy of the other realm. Channeling it, he manifested a rolling fog meant to obscure his form—and felt the mist burn him wherever his skin was exposed. In this in-between realm, reality was distorted, warping his psychic mist, offering both concealment and harm.

Viciously, he tightened his control, not only heightening the density of the shifting fog, but lessening its burning effect. Ignoring the mild sting against his face and across the backs of his hands, Vhy’liethe moved on the offensive.

Unbelievably, the daemon’s unnatural gaze remained unwavering on Vhy’liethe’s indistinct form as she met him strike for strike. When he saw an opening, he took it, thrusting his blade into the obscene breastplate, piercing clear through to the creature’s heart. Only to feel the scythes of her raptorial limbs pressing into his back. Gently. Without breaking skin. She pulled him in close, as though embracing him as a lover.

His heart stalled on its next beat when he saw his blade surrounded by a violet hued mist. No blood. No wound. The daemon was incorporeal, yet not. He felt her lean into the length of his body and undulate her hips against him. They were of similar height, and he found himself staring into the depths of her glowing eyes. The whites of her pupilless irises contracted to mere slivers, causing the intense magenta of her sclera to nearly consume her eyes.

“Do not be shy. Just a taste, lover.” She licked him, the barbed tip cutting his lips.

Blood welled, spurting down both their chins. Pain lanced him as toxins seeped into the wound, stunning him with sensual heat. Vhy’liethe drew back with a vicious shout of denial, uncaring that he cut himself on her blades at his back. He didn’t free himself. Rather, she allowed his escape by lifting her scythed limbs. Saving him from cutting himself too deep.

A purr rumbled from her, the sound a delight to his senses as the long sweep of her tongue licked his blood left on her face.

“So that is your desire. An obsession—for life. Curious. You reek of the dead.” She opened her arms to him. “Allow me to show you what it means to truly feel alive.”

Then she came for him, a slow advance with a sensual roll of her hips.

With her pheromones flooding his bloodstream, Vhy’liethe lifted his witchblade and tried to ignore the pleasurable sting as the movement pulled against the bleeding wounds along his back. He knew he could not hope to touch her, but surely there was a way to defeat her! He reached for the power passed onto him from Yvraine, a gift from the Whispering God—and found only emptiness.

The souls of the dead he carried, including the soul stone of the formidable Farseer Zhyrael Sae’lan’s, were gone! The awful realization distracted him for the merest second. Dy’Montesh appeared under his guard, slamming her forehead against his own. Without the protective shell of his helm, he saw an array of stars as agony—and bliss—ricocheted through his skull, and blackness. For precious seconds, he was blinded, and only his keen hearing warned him of his enemy’s position, of arms and limbs moving to strike him down while he was vulnerable.

He dodged, movements desperate. His sight returned just as a raptorial limb jabbed towards his face. Almost too late, he lifted his witchblade. Sparks flew as their blades connected. Once. Twice. Then locked. Muscles straining, he bared his teeth at the daemon, who leaned forward as if for a kiss. Instead, she breathed on his face.

Pheromones!

Too late to hold his breath, her noxious smog curled deep into his lungs, and with their blades locked, it was impossible to withdraw to a safe distance.

“What were you thinking of?” she questioned, voice silken smooth. Dangerous. “For an instant, I lost you. What could possibly draw your attention away from me?”

Dizzy, his blood singing with carnal heat, fury blazed inside him. Towards the creature who spewed her disgusting musk in his face, towards his own helpless response, but mostly, towards the thieving Harlequin. The spirit stones of the dead he’d carried for years had been stolen!

When had they—?!

Realization struck like a thunderclap. The spire. The library with the hundreds of Nameless. When he’d jumped over the railing, he’d been falling for what seemed like days. Was it then the stones had been taken?

Or, during his descent into the bowels of the monolith?

Vhy’liethe roared so forcefully, his throat felt as though it would tear under the pressure. He poured all his volatile emotions into a surge of psychic energy. His witchblade amplified his power when he released the potent force at the daemon herald. She shrieked. In shock. Perhaps pain. Even joy, as she was flung backwards, but if he thought she was injured, he was wrong. He watched grimly as her physical form shimmered, going incorporeal, before solidifying. She remained unharmed.

She giggled, the sound high-pitched, girlish yet chirping. Unnatural. “Lover, have a care. I’m ticklish!” Her sultry grin widened. “Do it again.”

Vhy’liethe grit his teeth, preparing for another attack, when he felt the death god’s energy surge around him. He sensed them. The souls of the damned. His spirit stones were gone, but there were others. Souls that called to him with pleas for salvation, with demands for vengeance. There, at Dy’Montesh’s hip, attached to a gold chain, were faces that had been torn from bodies, now worn as ornaments. The remnants of the aeldari who’d come before him—and died.

One in particular caught his attention.

Immediately, Vhy’liethe reached for the cold essence that was fueled by desperation and hatred, of pain and sorrow, and siphoned the power of the fallen farseer. Once again, Vhy’liethe could see the skeins of fate. With a war cry, he charged, blade swinging, and grasped for the tumultuous energy of the aether.