The Memory of Fire

Cassian stared at his hands.

They didn't feel like hands anymore. More like gloves. No sheaths. Temporary. Ill fitting. The veins beneath the skin felt overgrown, too deep, too loud. He flexed his fingers. Light followed. Echo. Echo of himself, peeling seconds behind.

Faevelith didn't move. She was kneeling beside him, draped now in some translucent clothing. Observing him.

He whispered, "Why do I still see it?"

His voice cracked.

Not from strain. From something else.

It reverberated not just in the room, but through it. As if the syllables dragged threads of the immaterium behind them.

She inclined her head slightly, as she carefully thought over his words.

"Because part of you is still there," she said. "You walked into the storm and left your shape behind. Your soul has outgrown your body."

Cassian didn't answer. He looked down again. The afterimage lingered. A spectral hand inside the hand. It pulsed once and for a flicker of a second, it didn't look human.

"It feels wrong and weird," he muttered.

"No," she agreed. "Just misaligned."

He breathed out.

It sounded like wind on cold stone.

"You've returned changed," she said softly. "You carry the taste of true sight. And something else."

A pause.

Cassian's gaze drifted to her. "What?"

She met his eyes. Beautiful violet. Unblinking. "The ability to speak True Names."

Silence fell, as cassian started gathering any information he has on this subject from previous life. No matter how sparse.

Cassian frowned. "Is that even possible?"

"It wasn't. Before."

He didn't blink. "Explain."

Faevelith rose to her feet and paced slowly, barefoot, the ritual chalk cracking faintly under her heel. Her words came slow.

"Names are lies. Labels. Things we give to make the universe small enough to fit in our mouths."

She stopped. Looked down at him.

"But True Names are not lies. They are what a being is. Its essence. Its birth and becoming. Its scars, its triumphs, its hungers. A daemon's True Name is its past, present, and infinite potential, stacked into a single unbearable sound."

She crouched, slowly, beside him again.

"The longer a thing exists, the more complex it becomes. A daemon lives for millennia. It lies, kills, feeds. That life accrues. It layers into meaning. And that meaning becomes its True Name."

He swallowed.

"What about the gods?"

Her eyes darkened. She spoke with no emotions.

"The True Name of a Chaos God would fill the libraries the size of a galaxy. Not pages vaults. Knowledge without end. A syllable of it would drive a mortal mad. An entire verse would melt their mind to ash."

She reached forward. Touched his sternum with a single finger.

"But you saw the Warp as it is. Not through the filters of madness or fear. You saw it as a soul, unshielded. And the Warp saw you back."

Cassian said nothing. Just listened. The world around him still felt loose, like it hadn't remembered how to wrap itself around his frame.

Faevelith's voice softened, but it didn't grow kind.

"The ability to say a True Name is power. Absolute power. Because to name a thing truly is to own it. To bind it. To annihilate it."

"And to speak such a name?"

"It costs."

He looked up.

"It hurts your vocal chords," she said. "The chords were not made for such things. You're shaping vibrations not just in air, but in reality. Each word bends causality. Each syllable warps the world. A man speaking a daemon's True Name might win but he may never speak again. And his sanity will bleed with every consonant."

Cassian's fingers twitched. The echoes of his soul followed, fluttering like ghost fire.

"What about the Emperor?"

Faevelith's lips tightened.

"You would die. You would die before the third word. You would not be able to comprehend the rest."

"Because he's a god?"

"No," she said. "Because he is old. Because he is vast. Because his name, like the gods of the Warp, cannot be held in a mortal tongue. The reason we don't know the Emperor's name is because it is no longer a name."

She leaned closer. Her breath stirred the air above his collarbone.

"It is a force. A chronicle of every step he has taken, every star he's scorched, every lie he's told, every child he's let die for his dream. His True Name is written in the pain of humanity."

Cassian blinked.

The afterimage of his soul blinked a second later.

"Do you have the ability to speak true name?" he asked, voice almost curious. "How would I even use it without hurting myself in process?"

Faevelith gave no answer for a long time.

Then, she spoke: "Yes, I can speak true names. And to use it one must know true name of an entity, Do not run before you can walk Cassian."

Her hand hovered over his shoulder. Not touching. Just hovering. Unsure.

"Rest well, Because your psychic training is going to become more hard from now on."

The silence after that felt full.

He looked at her. The shadows from his hands danced across the floor, painting runes that hadn't been drawn.

Cassian said nothing.

Just lost in his thoughts.

—

Cassian sat on the floor, barefoot, the soles of his feet cold against the smooth wraithbone. He didn't know how long he'd been staring at his hands.

They moved when he told them to. Responded, flexed. But they weren't his. Not fully.

Fleshy, pale and scarred ordinary to the eye. But behind the shapes, a second outline shimmered faintly. A transparent double. A soul afterimage. His soul. He could still see it, even now, hours after the ritual. Not with his eyes exactly more like the eyes beneath thought.

It blurred at the edges. Trails of light, curls of flame, a whisper of something greater trying to shrink itself down to fit back into a body too small.

He closed his fists.

The ghost didn't follow right away.

Cassian blinked. Breathed.

The dissonance was easing, slowly. The sensation of being misaligned with himself. His heartbeat was syncing with his breath again. His thoughts no longer floated.

He was returning.

But not the same.

He could feel it. Something had stayed. Or maybe something had followed.

He stood, half staggered, caught himself against the wall. Then moved, carefully. Pulled on a shirt. Pants. Boots. Ignored the tremor in his fingers. There was only one person on this Craftworld he can confide with.

He stepped into the corridor, exhaling once before he walked.

—

The Magos' chamber was cold. Unwelcoming by design. Machine incense hung faintly in the air metal, oil, data fluid. Wraithbone walls clashed subtly with Mechanicus geometry: Faron had forcibly inserted logic where organic curves once reigned.

Cassian knocked twice.

No answer.

He stepped in anyway.

"Your presence," he said without turning, "was detected nine seconds ago."

Cassian said nothing. He waited until Faron stopped what he was doing. The Magos turned his robe shifted like a collapsing tent, servolimbs curling back into their folds.

"I needed to talk," Cassian said.

Faron scanned him. "And what do you want to talk about."

"The Aftermaths of a ritual I did with Faevelith."

"You are stable."

"For now."

Cassian stepped forward, slower than usual, hands at his sides. "I'm seeing things, Faron."

Faron tilted his head.

Cassian went on, voice low. "I can see the way people are connected. Soul to body. I can see the thread. The... tether. To the Warp."

Faron didn't interrupt.

"It's like there's a second layer to everything now," Cassian said. "Not just psychic energy. Not emotion. Deeper. Structure. The way souls are built. How they anchor into flesh. Like wires. Or... roots."

He shook his head. "I can turn it off. The vision, I mean. Like flipping a switch in the back of my mind. But when it's on, it's not just passive. I understand it. Intuitively. I don't know how."

Faron stepped closer, silent. Cassian could hear the faint hum of internal logic cycles accelerating.

"You are describing persistent immateric overlay," Faron said. "A psychic residue of the ritual. You are perceiving the binding interface between the physical and the immaterial."

"I didn't ask for a diagnosis."

"You came here for one."

Cassian exhaled. "I came because something's changed. I feel like... I'm not alone in here. Something's inside me, or watching, or echoing me."

Faron's optics focused. "You projected your soul into the Warp and returned with knowledge no human mind was shaped to hold. You are beginning to recall truths the soul knows but the mind cannot contain. Or there is other entity interfering with you"

They stood in silence again. The machine incense burned low.

Finally, Cassian turned to leave.

"You're not going to scan me?" he asked over his shoulder.

"I already am," Faron said.

Cassian smirked. "Should've known."

At the door, he stopped. "Could you record my sleep patterns, look if there is something going on in my body."

Faron's voice lowered. "I will place the necessary equipments in your room."

Cassian didn't reply.

He walked out, slowly, soul burning under his skin.

—-

He didn't sleep.

He tried. Curled into the corner of the chamber, eyes closed, palms pressed to the cool floor like it would ground him, anchor him back into his own bones. But the dreams weren't dreams anymore.

They were views. Impressions. Faint, flickering lenses into places he hadn't meant to look.

When he gave up, the sky was still dim. A dull amber glow beyond the lattice of the walls. The Craftworld never slept either. It just pulsed. Like a vein in some ancient god's throat.

Cassian stood. Got dressed. Tunic, jacket, boots. Masked the shake in his hands by moving faster. He hadn't turned the vision back on since his talk with Faron. He was afraid of what he'd see.

And then screams.

Not distant. But close.

Cut off quick.

Cassian froze.

A commotion stirred somewhere down the corridor shouting in Eldar, frantic.

He moved toward it on instinct.

—

They found the body in one of the internal alcoves prayer chamber, or meditation cell. Now just a crime scene.

The servant was... twisted.

That was the only word that fit. The body hadn't ruptured. It had reorganized. Bones bent inwards like petals, face crumpled into its own chest, hands fused into wrists. There were no wounds. Just distortion.

Cassian stopped at the threshold.

Three Eldar stood inside. Robed, masked, armed. One of them glanced up and froze when they saw him.

The others turned.

A fourth figure knelt beside the body—tall, wrapped in white and copper robes. Faevelith.

She didn't look up.

Cassian took one step forward.

The nearest warrior moved to block him. Lance lowered.

"Don't," Cassian said, quiet.

Another masked figure approached from behind the corpse, holding something out. A crystalline instrument. A soul-reader.

Faevelith stood at last.

"The reading is clear," she said, voice restrained. "The last warp resonance in this chamber was not the victim's."

She turned slowly.

"It was yours."

Cassian didn't move.

He looked at the body again. The way it folded, melted. As if it had been rewritten and then discarded.

"I didn't do this," he said, more to himself than to them.

"I believe you," Faevelith said.

But none of the others moved their weapons.

One of them muttered something sharp in their language.

Cassian didn't understand it.

But he understood the way they looked at him now. Like something had cracked. The silent hospitality they'd extended the brittle truce, the unspoken hope had fractured.

Faevelith stepped between them.

"There will be an inquest," she said.

"To hell with your inquest," one of the warriors growled in their tongue. "You saw the threads. His mark is burned here."

Cassian felt it before he heard it a low, rising vibration in his skull. Like something waking up. Like something inside him responding to the accusation.

He forced it down. Silenced it. Took a slow breath.

"I'm not your enemy," he said.

"Then prove it," the warrior spat.

Faevelith turned sharply. "Enough."

They obeyed. For now.

Cassian looked past them at the body. At what remained. At what the Warp had done, or used, or corrupted.

He felt nothing.

He felt no guilt or fear. He was just calm.

—-

Word Count: 2057

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