The cool morning draft flowing from the high observation arch carried the scent of freshly struck iron, burning pitch, and the unmistakable ozone of waking war-engines.
Aurelia stood before the polished bronze mirror in the royal arming chamber, buckling the reinforced greaves of her new battle-harness. The battered leather she had worn across the Ashen Wastes had been replaced by relics retrieved from the inner vaults of the First Sovereign: segmented plate forged from celestial alloy, chased with intricate platinum filigree that channeled the astral flow of the Six Reunited Shards.
The metal was weightless against her frame, resonating like a second skin with the steady, crystalline pulse in her breast.
Behind her, Malakor’s heavy boots clicked against the flagstones.
The warlord was already fully clad in his blackened-steel plate, his broad shoulders draped in a fresh mantle of dark shadow-wolf fur that swept nearly to the floor. The great scabbard of Void-Reaver was strapped across his back, its black-iron pommel gleaming under the morning light.
He moved behind her, stepping into her reflection. His large, scarred hands took up the heavy pauldrons of celestial silver resting on the arming table.
"Hold still, little star," he murmured, his voice low and raspy in the quiet room.
Aurelia paused, meeting his crimson-ringed gaze in the polished bronze.
Malakor set the first pauldron in place over her left shoulder, his calloused fingers working the thick leather straps with practiced precision. His touch was deliberately slow, lingering over the curve of her neck as he tightened the buckles. As he adjusted the gorget beneath her chin, his knuckles lightly grazed the sensitive hollow of her throat, sending a familiar spark of heat through her veins.
"The alloy suits you," he said softly, his dark eyes tracing the line of her profile. "It looks as though the stars themselves were poured into a forge to clothe an empress."
"It carries the resonance of the First Throne," Aurelia noted, though she leaned her head back slightly against his chest, savoring the solid wall of his strength. "It will act as an anchor when we reach the glacial permafrost of the Dragon's Teeth. The ambient void-rot won't be able to leach through the metal."
Malakor leaned down, pressing his lips to the side of her neck just above the steel collar. The scrape of his dark stubble against her skin was a delicious contrast to the cool metal of her armor.
"Nothing will leach through you while I draw breath," he growled against her skin, his hands coming down to rest heavily on her armored hips, pulling her back against him for one quiet, possessive second. "I have not dragged you back from the brink of the abyss so many times just to let cold rocks swallow you."
Aurelia let out a quiet breath, turning in his hold until she faced him. She reached up, straightening the iron collar of his breastplate, her thumbs sweeping over the jagged heraldic crest of the Nether-Tribes carved into the steel.
"We march into uncharted ice, Malakor," she said, her hazel eyes serious, burning with the quiet fury of a sovereign preparing for total war. "The Gorgorath Hive has had months to burrow beneath the glacier. They will have constructed brood-troughs, spawning spires, and necrotic bastions we have never encountered."
"Then we will give them a lesson in northern siege craft," Malakor replied, a feral grin touching his lips. "Let them dig as deep as they like. A grave is still a grave, even if it is lined with ice."
He stepped back and reached for her sword belt, holding out the silver-etched rapier she had carried through fire and blood. The wire-wrapped hilt gleamed, humming in quiet anticipation of the coming clash.
Aurelia took the weapon, sliding it into the scabbard at her hip with a crisp, metallic snap that signaled the end of respite. The sovereign crown of woven frost and starlight flared to life above her dark hair, casting sharp, brilliant facets across the chamber walls.
"Let us see our army," she said.
Side by side, their cloaks billowing in the mountain draft, they stepped through the arched threshold and out onto the grand balcony overlooking the subterranean caldera.
Below them, the sight was breathtaking.
The thousand Praetorian knights stood in immaculate, iron-clad squares across the central basalt avenue, their silver halberds held high. Flanking them in the outer galleries stood twelve towering bronze colossi, each sixty feet tall, steam hissing from their venting chimneys as their core-furnaces roared with celestial fire.
At the front of the formation, Legate Vael-Thur raised his massive spear into the air.
As the shadow of the Empress and her Dread Lord appeared on the high terrace, a unified roar ripped from the throats of the legion, echoing off the mountain walls like the breaking of the world.