Malerion, the aelven god of shadow and dominion, does not keep his treasures where they may be seen. Chief among his hidden hoard is the Ebon Mirror, a sheet of glass so dark it seems a doorway cut into nothing, framed by no gilt or wood but by the absence of light itself. Into its depths the Shadow King draws the reflections of those who cross him, and a shadow bound in the Ebon Mirror is a soul half-owned.
Malerion rules by such quiet holdings. He needs no throne of skulls nor army at his back to command a rival, only their reflection captive in his glass, for through it he may whisper into their dreams, twist their fortunes, and know their every secret as though it were his own. The Daughters of Khaine, his uneasy kin, guard their reflections jealously in his presence, for they know how their god collects.
What stares back from the deepest reaches of the mirror, none can say, for Malerion permits no other to gaze long into it. Some among the shadow-aelves murmur that the god himself is wary of the glass, that in binding so many shadows he has made a thing that watches him in turn — and that even the Shadow King cannot be certain whose reflection truly rules the other.
The reliquary continues
