Resonant memory lines the material of this armor. Imprinted within the folds of forged protection lies the flayed origin of the Dread.

Deep horn calls ring through a Pyramid chamber, as thick drapes close around a decorated palanquin.

Anxious motion fills the stale vanillin air.

A ceremonial mask hums against Aemn's face as she adjusts her kneeling posture, waiting. The Psion closes her eye to the vibration and attempts to parse what was happening among the shifting figures beyond the drapery of her palanquin. Aemn can hear the low rumble cascading off Shadow Legion armor before being swept into rhythmic chants projected from the minds of her sisters, but that is all. Her foresight is obscured by the mask as much as her vision. She buries her curiosity and gives in to the ceremony's demand for the unknown.

A collection of Voices silences the chamber. "Aemn, First Sister of the Eclipse, Entrusted of Otzot. Uplifted to ascend."

Aemn swallows the tinge of unsettled doubt the words leave in her throat. Chosen. She would be adorned. She would one day find herself among the Disciples, as she had risen to Calus's court, and to Otzot's. Chosen. Not like the dogged wretches of House Salvation that skulk in the Witness's shadow: Dregs of bidding, who hollowed their hearts for power. The Shadow Legion was not House Salvation. They were victorious. This was her reward.

The chants resume. She feels the palanquin lift as a procession of gilded Legionaries, bearing ornamental blades, ferries her forward in a crashing march.

When she feels the palanquin meet ground again, Aemn steps forward. She hears the grind of stone, as a Voice draws her forward, deep into a cold stone passage…

Enveloped…

There is nothing surrounding, coaxing what is within to effuse…

"Master." Aemn's words carry no sound in the Deep.

A Voice pierces the Darkness, her mask, and her mind…

Aemn grasps at the mask—it shatters into motionless shards.

"You, most deserving and keen of mind, first of your people to ascend. Let our will reflect in you."

Aemn feels roots creep through the gaps of the fragmented mask, through her iris and into her 'self'. A surge of sensation ripples across her synapses, arresting her awareness at each individual moment, before plunging to the next.

"You, recognized. Most deserving and keen of mind, first of your people to ascend."

It offers to peel the mask from Aemn's eye…

She questions.

"Receive truth. By our hand. Receive sight."

Optic layers sheer away at each potential shape… The Voice offers the knife to their hand…

She refuses.

"A convergence of your potential, to serve a greater will."

The first guided incision toward deification…

Aemn begs.

"All act as one."

It carves a new shape from the one who is Aemn with the hand of Aemn…

"A conduit through which the final shape may be rendered."

An eye watches the blade reinterpret corporeal form. Flayed from what was with efficient brutality. Discarded cuts slump at her feet.

Aemn escapes into a mindscape. Her flesh remains.

"Your deeds will echo ours. In totality. In finality. You are reborn."

The process was swift, delicate, practiced. And then it was over.

***

"I am Aemn." Who came into being, narrowly escaping the cost of a sinister promise.

A blank mindscape expands before her. But it is limited by an encroaching presence. A doppelganger, a shadow prowling the halls of her mind. She may be unable to safely leave this place, but so long as she remains it will be a sanctuary. Here she still holds sway. Her body is her own, as it was before the ceremony. No mask obscures her face.

Out of reach, there is a darkened door. The shadow crashes against the door. Aemn blinks in shock, and the mindscape shifts form to a barracks, returning to a place of safety. The door: a reinforced hatch with a viewing port.

She presses her hands against the dark door and peers through the hatch porthole. A mimicry, carved from her likeness, stares back.

"You will not enter this place."

It snarls and presses the borders of the mindscape, clawing at the porthole. It shifts form and washes over the barracks. The shadow bores into the walls like roots upending foundations. It quakes the ground and howls madness, sends shivers and cracks through this safe place. But the walls hold firm.

"I am Aemn. You are not."

She would stay, until only she remained.