The Oracles tell me my time is coming to a close. Fate Therose speaks to them. Tells them the wielder of death comes. So, let this wielder come. Whether it's some rogue Asc'rai or Zakros escaping his domain. I won't go easily.

  But if it truly is my time, I suppose I should tell my own story. Chronicle my life before an empty audience. I write this in the year AE 4524, though that date bears no relevance. My calendar did not yet exist when my tale began.

  Witnessing history with my own eyes, I've come to find that old adage about repetition to be true. I thought myself better than them. Than the Eidolon. Than Zakros. They were nothing but thieves. Gluttons. Parasites. But it doesn't happen immediately. You don't wake up and find yourself a tyrant. This mountain is a slippery one. I have burned more souls than they ever did, all in the name of protecting what's mine.

  And I would do it again.

  But what is the soul? What is Kyrose? When I was but a girl, it was thought of as simply energy. Something all living creatures held within. It kept you alive, but no more meaningful than the calories in a crust of bread. That's what everyone thought anyhow, myself included. Until I saw what the Eidolon did with it. How it changed them when they consumed it. You likely don't even know what an Eidolon is. You have me to thank for that.

  They were an artificial intelligence that wore the human form. They were our masters. Our lords. Only keeping us around for our Kyrose. We were no more than cattle.

  It was fortunate we didn't have access to warp technology on Unathros. I don't know if I could have eradicated them so thoroughly otherwise.

  I'd once witnessed the birth of one. Being no more than machines, you would have thought it a cleaner procedure. They kept their nanite forms stored in a liquid solution, a black sludge, thick and repugnant. Even now, after millennia, the acrid stench of it clings to my nostrils. And it was only worse when I burned them.

  They would drop a core of some kind into the vile liquid, a sort of brain, a metallic box powered by a singular shard of Helonite and an empty vessel. It's what gave the Eidolon "life", if you could even call it such. That's where they stored stolen Kyrose. Such a small thing, to hold and contain the very essence of mortal kind.

  That monster rose from its vat, the black liquid beading and dripping like water on a bird, revealing a shifting metallic form. That's how they were when they were born. Formless masses. It made sense really. To bend your own body to suit your needs in any given moment. That's how they were, until they had their first meal.

  Why was it then, that they'd take the human form after consuming Kyrose? I don't think the Eidolon even knew. Was there some part of your identity truly held in your Kyrose?

  When I first began to understand what Kyrose truly was, I thought of my sister. Her Kyrose was strong. That would have been a blessing in your day. Naturally faster, stronger than I. She could have been a powerful Asc'rai. But in my day, it was naught but a curse. Exactly what those monsters craved.

  I can scarce remember her now, the centuries having withered my memory. But that image, it was scarred into my brain. When I close my eyes, I'm there, watching the new-born Eidolon skewer my sister, her helpless body floating in the air, her eyes begging, her blood dripping down the silver shaft of the lance, and her Kyrose pulsing like cracks of emerald through the Eidolon's shifting mass.

  It didn't even wait for her to die before it stole her image. It wasn't exactly the same. The shape, the height, the hair, even the way it stood were my sisters. But it's skin was a plastic-like material, with accents and seams that glowed green with Kyrose. Was this a representation of their own identity, beyond what they stole? From the Helonite, perhaps?

  The Eidolon could copy our skin if they desired. It was one of the reasons it took me as long as it did to hunt them down. It let them hide amongst our kind.

  I never waited to find out if there was some part of my sister left in that monster. When they fed was the one time it was easy to find their core.

  They always moved it, the elusive creatures, their one true weakness. But Kyrose gave it away, shining bright.

  That was the moment everything changed for me, and I wonder what things would be like if it happened differently. The forces holding its nanites together were still weak, a new-born as it was. Like hunting any other animal, I skewered it through the back with a spear, parting metal as easily as flesh.

  As the beast died, it turned to me. I saw its face, my sister's face. It was like watching her die all over again, the same expression, the same fear.

  I find myself wondering these things in retrospect, if identity is contained in Kyrose. If the Eidolon became that which they devoured. Because at the time, I didn't want to know. I feared the answer. If Kyrose is truly the consciousness, does that mean I murdered my own sister?

  I couldn't stay in my home longer after. But without my sister, it was home no longer. Packing what food and water I could, I set off into the deserts of Unathros. There was something about the heat that the Eidolon found disagreeable.

  So, the sun became my savior, my refuge, and my worst enemy. I became close with it, understanding that beating orange disc better than I understood myself. And through that, I connected to something greater. The conceptual representation of the Sun, a singular thread of a grander whole, a tapestry I came to call Therose. A kind of twin to the Kyrose within us.

  It may seem obvious to you, but isolated as I was on Unathros, I had no knowledge of how the Asc'rai did things. I had no idea the Eidolon feared them, and tried to mimic their powers by growing their Kyrose in anyway possible.

  But make no mistake, I am no Asc'rai. I don't weave my soul with Therose in a feeble attempt to control it like they do. I control it because it is mine. Sun Therose is a part of me and it obeys me like my own body.

  Wielding that power, I incinerated the Eidolon, imprisoned Zakros to the Hallow Reach, and carved out my Empire.

  I am Telea Acryn. I am Asc'ren-born. Asc'thera-forged. Sole ruler of Acraeon for a millennia. And I am your Empress.