‘Still your questions, Chosen, for questions are the words of the Dark Gods forced through your minds and spat from unwilling lips. Know that I will tell you when the hour to depart is upon us, for am I not Sigmar’s Lantern Bearer in this place? Go, prepare yourselves for a long journey through the gathering dark. Surely, we shall be tested one last time before our return, and those without sufficient faith will not endure the road. Gather food and water, for though all in this realm is tainted it is our duty to sustain this mortal flesh until we may shed it for the starlight of the God-King’s realm. For is it not said that our mortal frailties are but another test that we cannot ignore? But leave all other possessions – they are but flotsam adrift upon a sea of poison, to which drowning fools cling and so are swept to their doom upon the currents of complacency.’

By the time she stopped speaking, Krysthenna was breathing hard, sweat trickling down her back, nostrils flaring and eyes wide. Her Chosen stared at her with fervid adoration and then, having made the sign of the Opening Gates again, they turned and began to file from the warehouse. They went in small groups, quick and quiet, furtive so as not to draw the notice of the watch.

And then Krysthenna was alone in her empty shrine. She moved slowly from one collection of candles to the next, extinguishing their light with sharp pinches of her fingers, unmindful of the building pain from one small scorch after another. Her thoughts were full of the warning, so close now, the last day approaching. She felt tears of gratitude threaten, forced them down along with the trepidation at what challenges Sigmar might set his faithful before the return. Would she be equal to them, she wondered?

‘I must,’ she whispered to herself as she slipped out of the warehouse’s door and into the hammering downpour of the storm. Overhead, lightning crackled through the black clouds, illuminating the stark tangle of rooftops that reared above her.

‘Thank you, Sigmar,’ she said. ‘I will stay strong.’

With that, Krysthenna set off down the street with a sense of purpose burning in her heart.