The chamber was vast smooth obsidian, polished to a shine that swallowed light. The lines, edges and surfaces betrayed Eldari craftsmanship
Faevelith stood opposite him. No armor. No helmet. Just her skin tight bodysuit of psychoplast mesh that shimmered faintly her generous curves for cassian to see. Her blade curved, silver, older than some species hung loose in her hand.
Cassian didn't speak either.
He rolled his shoulders. Stretched. The warp curled beneath his skin like a slow storm. He could sense it. Ever present for him.
Faevelith moved first. With Pure Speed.
Cassian ducked under the opening slash and countered with a Laspistol burst. But she was already gone. Blurring in motion, skating the edge of the arena like a wraith, closing the distance again in a breath.
He caught her next blow with the flat of her blade, the one she had gifted him then twisted, dropped low, and slammed his palm into the floor.
Electrcity surged.
Blue-white arcs exploded outward in a radius, cracking the stone with sharp, burning light. Faevelith leapt clear, her silhouette outlined for an instant in the burst. Her smile was thin. She was enjoying this.
Cassian surged forward, augmenting his body with warp propelling him with beyond Astartes-tier strength. His blade met hers again and again sparks, pressure, kinetic violence formed with each of their blows. She was faster. But he could match her now. He could predict her. For the spar.
He reached lightly into her head. Surface thoughts only. His telepathy is the most skilled that even she could not counter in heat of moment.
Left feint. Pivot. Strike low. Test his footwork.
He caught it. Blocked it. Countered.
Her gaze narrowed. Less amusement now.
Cassian responded with Warp Flame, conjured in his off-hand, a spiraling inferno of gold and amethyst licking through the air. He hurled it. Not at her but at the floor behind her. Force her vector. She adjusted, redirected mid-step but it bought him some time. That was all he needed.
He stepped in, inverted his grip, and stabbed up under her guard. She twisted out. His blade carved cloth. Not flesh.
She vanished again. Reappeared behind him.
Her dagger he hadn't seen her draw it kissed the back of his neck.
Dead.
Except
He used Warp shield almost, Instantaneously. A Reflexe of his body. The barrier flared violet, cracked, then shattered. It had held for just long enough.
He spun, bringing the pommel of his blade around. Caught her across the ribs. She exhaled in surprise.
The dance continued.
Warp fire. Las fire. Blade. Lightning.
Faevelith began pushing him harder.
Her blows started becoming faster, her aura flaring brighter. She was testing him now. Her movements blurred past the threshold of human vision.
Cassian focused. Slowed time in his mind not literally, but close. He used telepathy, mind partitioning to make Split-second predictions.
He moved before she did. Cut low. Dodged high. Fired blind once. Twice.
A line of blood arced through the air.
Not his.
Faevelith hissed an Eldar sound, half music, half anger.
Then, she let go. She stopped holding back.
With speed that he could not even perceive even with his augmentations and warp. She tackled him to the ground. And straddled him. Pinning his hands behind his head as she stared at his eyes.
Cassian groaned as his vision clouded, and he found himself in a compromising position with her on top.
Faevelith didn't move.
Her thighs pressed down, pinning his hips, her hair loose now, the strands falling like black silk around her face. Her skin was flushed.
Cassian breathed slow. In through his nose. Out through his teeth.
She hadn't sheathed her blade. It hovered beside his throat. Her other hand still held his wrists, though the pressure had eased.
His own pulse was steady. That, more than anything, betrayed how far he'd come.
"You're enjoying this," he said, his voice low.
Faevelith tilted her head. "And you're not?"
Her voice was quiet, accented in that Eldari way each syllable shaped like it had lived a thousand years before touching air.
Cassian flexed his wrists beneath her grip. She didn't let go. There was a unspoken tension in the room that no one wanted to break soon.
She leaned forward, close enough for her breath to brush his ear.
"I felt you in my mind."
She let go then abruptly. Rose in one motion, fluidly. Her back to him as she walked a few steps, shoulders squared, but breathing slightly heavier than usual.
Cassian sat up. He didn't speak. He watched.
Faevelith turned, her silhouette etched in the faint light that filtered through the dome's lattice. Her bodysuit clung to her skin, torn in places, singed from warp-fire, stained with sweat and the thin trace of blood along her ribs. It made her look more real. More beautiful.
She stared at him for a long moment.
"You're ready for the next step," she said finally.
Cassian wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. "Which is?"
She hesitated.
Then: "Spirit walking."
"What does it involve?" he asked.
Faevelith didn't answer immediately. Instead, she stepped closer again too close. She didn't touch him, but the air between them pulsed. She looked up into his eyes, her voice low.
"You will walk beside me. Beyond the flesh. Beyond thought. Into the Warp. But not like before. Not as an observer. You will ride the waves. Observe the soul for what they truly are and more.
Her fingers brushed his temple just once.
"It will be intimate," she said.
Cassian held her gaze. "More intimate than this?"
Her smile came slow. Almost genuine. Almost.
"Infinitely," she said.
He blinked. "You trust me that much?"
"I don't trust you," she said. "But I've seen what you are pursuing. And there are things you cannot learn with just practice."
She crossed the room and retrieved her blade. Sheathing it slowly, almost ceremonially.
Cassian stood now, tension still coiled in his frame. Beneath his skin, the warp still surged but not chaotically. It listened.
Then she turned, her presence already fading as she walked toward the chamber exit.
"Rest," she called over her shoulder. "We will meet Tommorow." And just like that, she was gone.
Cassian exhaled. He looked down at his hands burned at the edges with warp-fire, trembling slightly from exertion.
He smiled Crookedly for once. He never told or complained to anyone before but self-pleasure could only relieve him so much. With twenty years without sex in this body he was pent up. He urgently needed a cold shower.
---
Cassian stepped into the hydrochamber. Glacial water crashing over his shoulders.
The arena residue still clung to him sweat, blood, the raw static taste of warp-fire at the back of his throat. And her. The scent of her skin. Her breath against his ear. The way her weight had felt, hips pressing him down, eyes too close. He closed his eyes, let the chill bite through the memory.
He stayed there a while. Let the cold burn the heat out.
When he emerged, he dressed in silence his robe clean, simple, functional. His hair slicked back, damp.
The walk to Magos sanctum was long and empty. The Craftworld corridors whispered with psychoplastic serenity soft lighting, flowing lines, everything elegant and unnatural. He didn't mind it. Not anymore.
The chamber was spartan. Machine-shrines hummed in the walls, alien runes interfaced with Imperial-grade cogitators. He had made it work. He always did.
The Magos turned as he entered. Clad in red and brass, servo-skull orbiting above his shoulder, data-mechadendrites twitching like restless limbs. His face, mostly synthetic now, flickered with soft internal light.
"I trust," Faran said without preamble, "that your… exercise concluded to your satisfaction."
Cassian said nothing. He walked to the edge of the sanctum, retrieved a flask of synth-tea, and poured a measure. No ceremony. Just silence. He drank. Then looked at him.
Faran's optic narrowed.
"So," he said, voice low and tight, "have you had your fill of Xenos scum for the evening?"
Cassian exhaled once through his nose. "We're not doing this."
"Oh, I believe we are," Faran said. "You might be content to let her crawl across your thoughts like a parasite, but I refuse to pretend this integration is normal."
"She's not crawling anywhere," Cassian said. "And it's not integration. It's adaptation."
Faran's mechadendrites twitched. "You sound like a damned Gue'la. A Tau puppet."
Cassian turned fully to face him now, jaw tight. "And you sound like a man afraid of becoming obsolete."
That hit.
The silence after was thick, humming with barely restrained static.
Faran's vox emitted a sharp click. "I have served the Machine God for two centuries. I have bled for Mars, bled for the Imperium. You…you, were nothing. A scrap of flesh. And now you dance with witches."
Cassian set the flask down.
"You're not wrong," he said quietly. "I am flesh. I was nothing. And I rebuilt myself, not for Mars, not for the Imperium but because I didn't want to die on someone else's terms."
Faran's gaze narrowed. "You've always been like this."
"Yes," Cassian said. "I have. And I never hid it from you because you are my friend. And here's the truth: I don't care about holy dogma. I care about results. If that means learning from Eldar, so be it. If it means walking the Warp with a Xenos, so be it. I do what gives us an edge. That's what survival requires."
Faran didn't move. But something behind his eyes what was left of them shifted.
"You think survival is the goal," he said. "It isn't. Sanity is. Purity is. We hold to order because the alternative is madness. Chaos. Heresy."
"And where has that order gotten us?" Cassian snapped. "A dying Imperium rotting under its own weight. A Mechanicus too blinded by ritual to innovate. A priesthood terrified of its own machines. We're losing, Faran. And you know it."
Faran turned away then, cloak trailing, cables hissing behind him. "We were winning until you started changing."
Cassian stepped closer. "I'm not the only one changing. You've interfaced with Eldari logic-constructs. You've used their materials. You adapted too. You just don't want to admit that the line's been crossed."
"No," Faran whispered. "You didn't cross the line, Cassian. You erased it."
Cassian's voice dropped to a near growl. "You want to know why I walk with her? Why I train with her? Why I fight with her?"
Faran didn't answer.
"Because she gets it," Cassian said. "She knows what the Warp really is. She's not afraid to touch it. Not afraid to feel it. And every time I spar with her, every time I burn, I get better. Stronger. Wiser. I become what I have to become to survive this nightmare."
Faran was still.
Then he spoke, voice colder than augmetic steel. "And when you break? When the Warp finally takes you? Will she be there to catch you?"
Cassian looked at him for a long time.
"No," he said. "But you will end it."
Faran looked up sharply.
"You think I don't know the risk?" Cassian continued. "I'm not blind. I'm not naïve. I know what the Warp is. What it does. But I'd rather break trying than rot standing still."
Another silence. This one slower, longer.
Finally, Faran spoke again quieter now.
"She will destroy you," he said.
Cassian's smile was faint. "Maybe. But until then she'll make me strong enough to face what's coming."
Faran's voice dropped to a whisper. "And if what's coming is her?"
Cassian didn't answer.
Because that was the one thing he hadn't figured out yet.
---
Word Count: 1954
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