Like a lighthouse amidst a raging ocean, the Lantern called forth spirits that had lingered in torment within the Dark Prince for countless centuries. They surged to freedom in their multitudes. Most were dull, ragged things, flickering with the merest traces of potential. These Morathi brushed aside dismissively. She sought those souls which blazed like stars, undiminished by the aeons they had spent in torturous bondage: the souls of ancient kings of the aelven race, who had, in another world, ruled over an empire unrivalled in its beauty and grace.
Even now they bore a flicker of divinity. Within each burned the ember of a sacred flame, undimmed by the weight of ages. As these radiant souls reached out to her, Morathi felt a flood of stirring emotion. Some of these beings she had known, in a life long lost to her. Some she had hated. Some she had feared. One amongst them, she had even loved.
Memories both bitter and sweet swirled in her mind. The pang of her lonely existence briefly ached at her, but only for an instant; Morathi smothered that weakness, turned her heart to iron. She had come here for a single purpose, and no mortal emotion would intervene. Her body became that of a writhing serpent, formed from the deepest shadows. She seized the nearest of the king-souls in her coils and latched onto it with night-black fangs. Morathi drank deep, draining every drop of its potent power, leaving nothing but a husk of ash behind. Then, she snatched another and another, and each met the same doom as the first. Morathi screamed in triumph as she felt herself swelling with divine might.
Horrified, the king-souls tried to escape the Shadow Queen's grasp, but her grasping coils would not relent. Still, they possessed formidable power, and took mystical forms of their own to deny their betrayer. Some transformed into flame-winged eagles, swooping down to rake Morathi's eyes. Others summoned spears and blades of sunlight, or became waves of azure magic that struck at the Shadow Queen's serpentine form.
Yet with every one of their number consumed, Morathi grew mightier. One by one the king-souls were devoured, until only a single radiant spirit remained – perhaps the most powerful of all. On the threshold of her ascension, Morathi hesitated. This being she had once shared a closeness with that her cruel heart had never experienced before or since.
It was a moment of weakness that would cost her dearly. The kingsoul – filled with rage at the slaughter of its kin – became a sword of fire and blood, a blazing brand that hewed straight through Morathi's soul, sundering the very core of her being. The Shadow Queen reeled and screeched in agony, black ichor pouring from the terrible wound. As Morathi fell into darkness, cleaved in twain, the bloated body of Slaanesh began to convulse. A chorus of demented groans issued from the captive god's thousand mouths, followed by a flood of glittering drool. This viscous torrent coalesced into a shimmering, protean shape that raced after the retreating Shadow Queen…
