Cegorach's voice lost all trace of mockery, leaving only cold gravity.
The spirit-bone die spinning at His fingertip slowed, as if burdened by invisible pressure.
"What?!" Isha cried out, her pale green gauze dress stirring without wind.
"Ynnead?! The one from the prophecy... that..." The Goddess of Life's voice carried utter disbelief.
"Yes." Cegorach's voice was low as a sigh. "When the Aeldari's doom arrives, the God of the Dead, forged from pure souls and the embers of the God-King Asuryan, will awaken. He is Slaanesh's nemesis, and the Aeldari's gravedigger."
"Before devouring that sin of pleasure, He will reclaim every bloodline and merge all Aeldari souls into one, completing Himself."
The Laughing God recited the ancient prophecy word by word.
Isha's figure swayed slightly. As the Aeldari god of life, she did not truly fear death itself.
Life, decay, and death formed a cycle, together making up the threefold path of rebirth.
Without death, there could be no new life. The entire universe would be crushed beneath the burden of life reproducing without order until it perished.
If decay were emphasized, everything would become trapped between life and death, stagnating forever.
If only death remained, then everything would end. No trace of intelligent life would remain active in the world, leaving only endless nothingness.
In a sense, every part of this threefold path had an appropriate counterpart.
Life corresponded to Isha, decay to Nurgle, and death to Ynnead.
Yet compared to Isha, Nurgle's power was far greater. The Grandfather seated upon the throne of corruption and decay was closer to the essence of things than Aeldari gods like her.
But the death represented by Ynnead was not the death of the natural cycle. It was the death that would utterly end the Aeldari as a race.
Through the complete