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Tanau Aleya

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Sister Tanau Aleya and Shield-Captain Valerian[2]

Tanau Aleya was a Witch Seeker within the Sisters of Silence during the Thirteenth Black Crusade[1]. She has since become a Knight-Centura, after Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman restored her Order.[3b]

Overview

13th Black Crusade

By the time of the Thirteenth Black Crusade the Sisters of Silence had long lost their standing among the other militant orders of the Imperium and were largely ignored and forgotten. This had caused the Sisterhood's Order to fragment and led to the formations of many isolated enclaves, who still served the Emperor to the best of their ability. Aleya's home on Arraissa was one such enclave and had been established by the veteran Sister Atarine Hestia and she had been able to keep the enclave supplied with equipment, staff to aid the Sisters in their mission and pay the necessary tithes and bribes to keep the leadership of Arraissa away from them. Still Aleya could not help but rage against the Sisters of Silence current disorganized and isolated fate and often despaired at how more effective they could be against the forces of Chaos, had the Imperium not abandoned them.[1a]

In her service to her enclave on Arraissa, Aleya hunted down and killed many of the worshipers of Chaos and even Daemons, but this all changed during the Thirteenth Black Crusade. It began after Hestia single handedly destroyed the Circlet Cult in the shipyards of Eyrinan V and afterwards discovered information that led to several other Cults and Cultists. It was during the Crusade's fifth year, that Aleya was sent alone to the void station Hellion Quintus to hunt down a Cultist linked to the Circlet, but she was seized by dread after she grabbed a communication device from the Cultist's dead hands. Displayed on the broken device was a member of the Black Legion, who had been communicating with the Cultists and the device kept repeating the last few seconds of their conversation. Though she could not understand most of it, one word stood out - Arraissa. Now fearing that her Sisters were at risk, Aleya quickly grabbed a map of the Warp, which had been in the Cultist's hideout and then returned to the enclave's transport ship Cadamara. Once back on board she gave the order to return to Arraissa[1a]. When she arrived however, she realized she was too late. The Black Legion had already invaded Arraissa and while the world on a whole had been struck, the Sister's enclave had been the main focus of the Black Legion's attack. The Despoiler's ships were no where to be found though and when Aleya entered her home, she found it empty of the Black Legion, but filled with the corpses of her Sisters and the staff that had aided them in their mission. Seeing this filled Aleya with rage and when she came across a member of the Black Legion, that had been left behind as a sentry, she charged the Chaos Marine and killed him. Afterwards Aleya recovered herself and then began a search of her former home for anything that could be salvaged. During her search, she did not see Hestia's body among the carnage, but Aleya did not believe her master died in the attack; though Aleya was unable to determine what Hestia's final fate could be. As she continued her search, Aleya then came across the room of the enclave's Astropath Lokk and discovered a last message he had scrawled on the wall with his own blood. It simply stated, "He calls His daughters Home."[1b]

As she pondered the message, Aleya decided to return to the Cadamara to decide her next move, just as Arraissa's PDF began to enter the wreckage of her former home. Once safely back on the Cadamara, Aleya was suddenly struck with the belief that Lokk's last message was a call for the Sisters of Silence to return to Terra, to stand by the Emperor's side once more. After preparations were made, Aleya gave the order to enter the Warp and the Cadamara began its perilous journey to Terra.[1b]

The journey in the Warp was perilous, with Aleya fighting off multiple Daemonic boarding parties. Eventually they were forced to drop out of the Warp due to damage and the negation of the Astronomican and thus were now facing a slow death from starvation stranded in the depths of space. However by sheer chance they were rescued by a Black Ship controlled by a Custodes on a mission to bring fellow Sisters of Silence to Terra. Aleya thus managed to reach Terra, but by then the world was already under Daemonic Assault.[1]

In the battle for Terra, Aleya encountered a Custodes named Valerian and the two fought side by side against a Bloodthirster. However after the battle she still yearned for vengeance against the Black Legion for the destruction of her world and used her captured Warp map to try and find enemy forces to engage. Valerian, not wanting to see her dead, agreed to help and accompanied her with 40 Sisters and Custodes aboard a Black Ship.[1]

Following Aleya's map they found the world of Vorlese under assault from the Black Legion which planned to drop a shard of a Cadian Pylon onto the planets surface to shut down all Warp Travel in the area and isolate Terra[1]. Valerian and Aleya led a boarding operation of the Chaos Grand Cruiser Heartspite, at the center of the assault and in a desperate last stand, prevented the dropping of the shard. However all of their forces were slaughtered in the process save for Valerian, Aleya, and the Custodes Ujoma. All three were badly wounded, when Roboute Guilliman's fleet arrived and defeated the Black Legion by seizing the Heartspite. Aleya and the other survivors were then rushed to Terra to receive priority medical care and all three survived their wounds[3a].

Era Indomitus

Spoiler!
This page contains spoilers for: Watchers of the Throne: The Regent's Shadow (Novel)

After she had recovered, Guilliman asked to meet with Aleya and sadly informed her that many on Terra wanted the Sisters of Silence off the Throne World. These detractors considered the Sisters' existence to be an embarrassment and wanted Aleya and her sisters to be sent off to war, in order to be out of their site. Guilliman refused to do so and stated the Sisters were needed to aid the Imperium. After Aleya stated she wanted to serve, Guilliman agreed and made two requests of her. The first was that she be honored in a massive ceremony for her actions on Terra and Vorlese, alongside other worthy participants. The second, that Aleya travel to Luna's Somnus Citadel, which had once served as the Sisters of Silence base long ago. Guilliman had ordered it returned to them and asked Aleya to assist in aiding the Citadel's new Sister-Commander with rebuilding her Order's forces there. Aleya hesitated at first, as she had grown tired of Terra's treatment of her Sisters and wished to return to her home on Arraissa. Sensing this, Guilliman remarked that he did not know why the Sisters of Silence were allowed to wither away, in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy. He stated, though, that the answers to that question may lie somewhere within the Somnus Citadel. While she knew she was being baited, Aleya had long sought answers to these questions and agreed. She and Valerian then took part in Guilliman's ceremony, though she avoided the Custodes, as she was not used to non-members of her Order treating her with comradery, instead of scorn. When it was her turn to be honored during the ceremony, Guilliman presented her with the Somnus Blade, a weapon as ancient as he was. Guilliman then tried to tell her who had once wielded the weapon, but Aleya asked him not to, as she felt it would be too much to for her to live up to. She then turned and enjoyed the adulation the crowd gave her, though, Aleya knew it was temporary and they would return to treating her with curses and disgust.[3b]

After the ceremony ended, she was given the title Knight-Centura and traveled to the Somnus Citadel, to meet its Commander Asurma. Once there, Asurma told Aleya to ask the Citadel's Fellowship custodians for help in her search for answers about the Order's downfall. If anyone could help it would be them, as they were descended from Sisters who remained in the Citadel, after the Order was disbanded[3c]. This led Aleya to make the acquaintance of the Fellowship member Telam, who helped her look through the archives the Fellowship had maintained. Though the archives were ultimately unhelpful, Telam later led Aleya to a Luna settlement where someone might aid her in deciphering odd symbols she found inscribed into the Citadel. This person proved to be a member of the Soul-night, descendants of the Selenar Cults that once ruled Luna. The Somnus Citadel had been built by them and it was they who had made the symbols, long before the Citadel was ceded to the Silent Sisters. Though the Soul-night no longer had the knowledge to decipher the symbols, she told Aleya of her group's folk-lore and their downfall once they were subjugated by the King. When the King later became blind and silent though, lesser men ruled in his stead and loosed hunters that destroyed the Selanar and Silent Sisters. The Soul-night then told Aleya that the Sisters should not have returned to Luna, as the hunters will attack and destroy them once again. While Aleya was unsure if anything she had just learned truly happened, she thanked the Soul-night and returned to the Citadel with Telam.[3d]

Sometime later, however, Telam contacted Aleya and told her that something was wrong with a lander approaching the Somnus Citadel. Though Aleya did not believe him at first, Telam told her that a comrade aboard the relay station the lander left, warned that it was not filled with recruits for the Order. Telam could no longer contact his friend and believed the incoming lander contained the hunters, that had once destroyed the Sisters on Luna. Upon hearing this, Aleya decided to trust Telam, but they were forced to fight another Sister and Fellowship members to close the doors. By then, however, the lander was near the Citadel's bay doors and exploded with such force, that Aleya knew it had to have been filled with explosives. If the lander had been within the Citadel when it exploded, the entire structure likely would have collapsed. Thanks to Telam's warning, the damage to the Citadel had been greatly minimized, but unfortunately he was among those killed by the explosion. A vengeful Aleya then traveled to the relay station the lander had come from by herself. Aleya was quickly able to find the saboteur, seemingly a member of the Fellowship, but she committed suicide rather than be captured by the Sister[3e]. When the body brought back to the Citadel to be examined, Aleya shared her belief that the saboteur was not really a member of the Fellowship, but had done her best to take upon their appearance. Sister-Commander Asurma did not believe her and said the Fellowship's members would be re-screened to ensure their loyalty.[3f]

Aleya then decided to track down the supply-ship that had brought the saboteur to the relay station and discovered it was in Port Luna. When she arrived, however, the ship had been completed destroyed and a crowd had gathered to watch it burn. One of them, however, drew Aleya's attention to him, by the way he was acting, and she decided to follow him as he left the scene. She was then able to track him down to a room where he was meeting with another man. Before she could enter the room and interrogate them, though, the man she had been following was shot by the other man. Aleya stormed in and disarmed him, but the man who had been shot picked up the gun and killed the other man, before he died of his wounds. Greatly frustrated Aleya searched their bodies and found a auto-catechism device filled with Ecclesiarchy verses. The device also contained notes and orders, many referring to someone called Peder. She then contacted Asurma, to send her a group of Sisters to aid her in her hunt and that she had proof the saboteur was not a member of the Fellowship. Aleya was convinced the attack on the Citadel came from the hunters she had been warned of and went to Terra to discover where they could be[3f]. This led her to return to the Imperial Palace, where she contacted her comrade, the Custodes Shield-Captain, Valerian and asked him for his help. She now suspected that the Imperial Church was behind both the current attack on the Sisters, and the one that the Soul-night claimed destroyed their forces on Luna long ago. After searching the auto-catechism, the Shield-Captain was able to determine that the Peder in the notes, likely referred to the deposed Ecclesiarch and High Lord Baldo Slyst, who had been removed from power by Guilliman. Now that she finally had a target to go after, Aleya asked Valerian to join in her hunt, but he refused. He had orders to strike down the leadership of the Splintered Cults, that were ravaging Terra, though Aleya sensed that Valerian wanted to join her. Before she left, however, the Shield-Captain gave Aleya his Misericordia to wield against Slyst.[3g]

Aleya and her cadre of Sisters, called the Revenant Blades, then began to search for Slyst and discovered[3g] he was in the Cathedral of the Emperor Deified. Once they arrived there, though, it was revealed that Slyst was a member of the Hexarchy, who sought to overthrow Guilliman's rule of the Imperium. Using the aid of the Minotaurs Chapter, the Hexarchy succeeded in destroying the Splintered Chaos Cults, which they broadcasted to the population of Terra. The Hexarchy then demanded that the High Lords loyal to Guilliman stand down and cede rule of Terra to them. This changed nothing for Aleya, and she ordered her Sisters to enter the Cathedral and attack Slyst[3h]. The Hexarchy and the Loyalists had entered a stalemate, as they considered the group's terms and Aleya's attack threatened to end that. The Custodes Captain-General Trajann Valoris, ordered Shield-Captain Valerian, who was nearby, to stop her and he led his forces after Aleya. Using the homing beacon on the Misericordia he had given her, Valerian was able to catch up to Aleya's group, just as they began to battle a squadron of Minotaurs that had discovered them. Valerian immediately led his forces to their aid[3i] and both groups succeeded in killing the Minotaurs, though not without suffering losses. The Shield-Captain then attempted to convince Aleya to withdraw, but she refused and instead asked him to join her in attacking Slyst[3j]. Valerian ultimately relented and agreed to aid her and both groups advanced onto Slyst' postion[3k]. It was then, however, that the traitorous High Lord Fadix revealed that his loyalty to the Hexarchy's cause had been a ruse from the start. He was the Grand Master of Assassins and after a signal was given, each of the Hexarchy's members were killed by Fadix's well placed assassins.[3l]

Valerian at once realized, that Captain-General Valoris had used Aleya's attack as an excuse to get him into the Cathedral, so that the Shield-Captain could ensure Fadix's survival. Both the Sisters and Custodes then raced to Fadix's side and defended him from both the Astra Militarum Regiments that had been tricked into aiding the Hexarchy, as well as the Minotaurs Chapter. In the confusion that followed the Hexarchy's deaths, the two groups successfully did so and eventually the Astra Militarum and Minotaurs obeyed orders to stand down from the loyalist High Lords[3l]. While the battle was now over, Aleya was disappointed that Slyst was killed before she could determine if he was responsible for the attack on the Somnus Citadel and enact vengeance upon him. However she was not foolish enough to believe that others like him would not attempt to destroy the Sisters of Silence. Aleya vowed to keep Order safe and determined that would now be her purpose in life. She intended to keep the Revenant Blades intact in order to protect the Order from anyone that threatened it and would also petition Sister-Commander Asurma for similar cadres to be created as well. Before she returned to Luna, however, she visited Valerian and during their meeting Aleya informed him she intended to keep the Shield-Captain's Miscericordia until she had made a worthy kill with it. When Valerian stated that meant their paths would cross again, Aleya told the Shield-Captain he was likely right before she then departed.[3m]

Wargear

Aleya wields the Executioner Greatblade Somnus Blade.[3b]

Images

Aleya miniature[2]

Sources

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