‘I do not know what becomes of the souls of men,’ she said. ‘Does even Nagash? You ask me to lie to them.’
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I wish you to invest in them a love of all that is natural and alive, to appreciate its power and fecundity. If they learn to follow the rhythm of life’s wondrous patterns, fewer of them will be tempted to fear its end. There always will be those who are incapable of fellow feeling, or whose greed outmatches their empathy,’ he said. ‘Many others can be saved by you.’
‘I cannot do this,’ she said. ‘What is the point? Chaos rules already.’
‘Cannot, or will not?’ said Sigmar. ‘You were worshipped all throughout Ghyran and beyond once, my lady. You can be again. You have become warlike to respond to a time of war, but you must reach inside yourself, and find that gentler creature you once were. We need to look beyond the end of this war, and prepare for peace. If we do not, then there will be another golden age, but soon enough Chaos will return and shatter the realms anew.’
‘Victory and defeat has a cycle of its own,’ she said. ‘It is the way of things.’
‘Maybe war and Chaos are the only constants of reality,’ he said. ‘But I do not have to accept it, and I will fight it for all time if I must. I cannot believe this is how the realms were meant to be. Send forth your spirits to speak with the wisest women and canniest men. Chaos has long used such missionaries against us. We shall do the same, and we have the advantage, for Chaos lies.’
Alarielle sighed, and the sound was of the wind in the boughs of a sleeping forest. She stared off across the plains of Azyr, still cloaked in the dark. The sun rose high enough to strike through the columns, casting long shadows across the city of the Highheim. When it struck Alarielle, she closed her eyes and basked in the warmth of it. Her body became translucent, and began to fade.
‘I will do what I can, Sigmar Heldenhammer,’ she said, her form becoming indistinct. ‘But if I have learned one thing in my long existence, it is that humans rarely listen, and their males more rarely still.’
The motes of light diffused. Her outline hung in the air a second. They flared and vanished, leaving a cloud of petals to drift to the floor.
Sigmar watched the day enter the city of the gods. As the golden light of Azyr’s sun flooded the empty streets, he remembered a better time. He did not know if there were higher gods set over him to guide him as he shepherded his mortal kin, but he gave a silent prayer to them that finer times would return.
Then he too vanished, leaving the Highheim to the silence and the light.