Lora Gray continues to explore the quiet, melancholic fringes of the Mortal Realms with their Warhammer Horror short story Five Candles, a tale of Aqshian fire and dark, troubling death magic. Having grown old when all her friends died young, Havisa now lives by herself, scorned by the youthful inhabitants of the nearby village. When disaster sees her humiliated even further, she unexpectedly finds the old fire of her Aqshian spirit burning once more, and alongside a kind but mysterious stranger she embarks on a mission to warn the village of dark tidings to come in the wake of Nagash’s necroquake.
Dealing more with sadness and grief than outright fear, it’s a low-key sort of story which quietly examines a single life to explore a recurring Age of Sigmar theme – the impact of Nagash on the realms. Gray’s Warhammer Horror stories tend to draw their inspiration from nature, and this is no different with Havisa’s story set to the backdrop of wildlife killed or twisted by the necroquake, and a black dog hunting travellers in the night. The shape of her journey is somewhat inevitable, but it makes for a satisfying little ghost story nonetheless, and a short but bleakly compelling glimpse of everyday life in the Realm of Fire.
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