Chapter Text
“Well do tell, I’m not sure I have many of those left that I haven’t already seen,” they replied.
The teenager didn’t reply, she was sat cross legged in the side-vent, laspistol rather lazily pointed at Cary. She jerked the barrel, motioning Cary to continue crawling their way down the vent. They sighed, but acquiesced and moved forward.
“Do I get any details?” Cary asked.
“He said you were chatty,” the teenager replied. “And soft.”
“That could come from anyone.”
They continued to crawl.
“ Sweet Mother , it’s not Skraivok is it?” Cary grimaced.
“Who’s Skraivok?”
“A deeply unpleasant man,” they told the teenager.
“All Night Lords are deeply unpleasant,” the teenager replied.
“You’ve got me there, any hints on how far we’re going exactly?”
“The next two lefts and then immediately right.”
Cary followed these directions to the letter, which wasn’t hard considering a vent generally had limited directions. Still, the teenager directed them straight into another metal grille. They once again tore aside the metal, and made to shimmy themselves through.
Large, gauntleted hands reached in and took hold of their shoulders, dragging them out of the vent. Cary hissed as once again the pain of their dislocated shoulder made itself known. They looked up at the Astartes who had dragged them free.
His armour was black, and bore many silver scratches like they were battle scars instead of easily fixable damage. There were chips of white paint still faintly visible on the trim, the heraldry on his chest and pauldron had both been removed- violently, it seemed.
The face of the Astartes answered a few questions but raised others. His face was pale, alabaster white framed by hair the colour of coal, which matched the colour of his eyes. The whiteness of him did nothing to hide the scarring across his skin, these were not scars born from battle. Cary recognised the pattern far too readily, it was deliberate. Torture. The scarring was heaviest around his mouth, which they knew for certain would lack a tongue.
The unknown brother reached out and grabbed hold of their upper arm and shoulder.
“I can-” Cary began
Crunch.
“Thank you,” Cary said through gritted teeth.
The ebon-armoured marine gave them a smile. His own teeth had been filed into points. The teenager slipped out of the vent behind them.
“Where’s the old crow?” she asked.
He pointed down across the room- Cary could see now it was a storeroom, lined with metal shelves and stacked with crates. Figures moved in the darkness, some armoured, some not. Some were clearly neophytes. It was such an odd collection that for a few seconds Cary didn’t even notice the man the marine was gesturing to.
The one the teenager had referred to as “the old crow” was coming toward them. He was unarmoured, wearing a red greatcoat and black gloves. He also bore a smile that did not reach his black eyes, a smile Cary knew had been practised for years.
He had the classical Nostraman face, gaunt, pale, yet oddly aristocratic in its bearing. It was a face Cary knew, it was a face Cary loved. His hair had gone silver and white at the temples, and he bore a few new scars they didn’t recognise.
They were moving towards him, they realised- the distance between them was too short to sprint but Cary crashed into him at force. They wrapped themselves around him, expecting him to likely freeze or just stand there. He had never been one for physical closeness.
Cary choked when he held them, tightly holding onto his shoulders, hand holding the back of his head.
“Jago,” they managed, eventually.
“Told you you weren’t dying,” he said.
Their laughter cracked in their throat. Cary made to let go of him, expecting him to drop his arms and step away. Instead he reached up for their face- up . They were taller than him. Sweet Mother, they were taller than Jago Sevatarion.
“What have they been feeding you?” He asked, tilting their head back and forth, pulling down their lower eyelid with his thumb to check the colour, wiping away their tears as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
“It’s- fuck , it’s a long story. Everyone told me you were dead.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“That’s strange, I’ve been feeling very well recently.”
“ Jago I swear on my Grandmother’s grave- where have you been? And who is that man? Why are there neophytes everywhere?” The questions spilled out of them as they pulled his hands away from their face.
“How long have you been out of the stasis coffin?” He asked.
“A little under two solar years, I think. Give or take a couple of months. Why?”
“How many questions are you going to ask before you let me answer one?”
Cary shut their mouth.
“Thank you. I have been all over the damned place that’s where I’ve been. That man is Rushal. He’s a friend of mine from the bad old days. There are neophytes everywhere because I am an excellent multitasker, and this is both a training session and,” he paused and gestured at them. “Obviously I came because I heard you were up and walking. Lost my chip when I got captured, still got drone servitors combing what’s left of home for the thrice-damned asteroid.”
Once again, they were left with more questions than answers.
“The neophytes are also here because I knew you’d listen to a kid,” he added.
Cary inhaled, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Curze is haunting my brain, literally,” they said.
Jago tilted his head to the side. Then craned upwards as the cold seeped into their back.
“Sevatar,” the shadows passed around them, the shade’s pale hands half reaching for him.
Cary watched them react to each other with mild amounts of apprehension. There had been twenty one years between the destruction of Nostramo and the start of the Heresy. Seven years of that struggle, though both men before them had been absent from the final parts.
There were things they simply didn’t know.
Jago reached for the shade, where forearms should have been. The shade curled around him, wreathing the man in shadow.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Jago told him. “And a bastard. You mutant sack of shit.”
“We’re all bastards.”
“My parents were married,” Cary said.
“I always said you were practically an upperhiver.”
Cary punched him, lightly on the shoulder. He barely moved from the shade’s grasp.
“It’s good to see you,” they said.
“I know,” he replied, grinning. “And of my living brothers I suppose there are worse ones than you to see.”
“Oh speaking of, Sahaal’s here,” Cary said, frowning slightly. “I’m assuming it's completely unrelated to why you’re here?”
“Who?”
“Sahaal, the Terran. Zso Sahaal, he did the Raptors.”
“Right, yes. Self-important little man,” he said, and nodded sagely.
“You can’t say that like it doesn’t describe most of the Adeptus Astartes. He also has the crown, if that information is of any importance to you.”
“It’s not.”
“Fantastic, Sev, why are you here? How are you here? I’m delighted you’re here, genuinely delighted- but how the fuck are you here?”
Jago Sevatarion shrugged.
“As I said, training exercise for the young ones. Ever heard of a Carcharodon?” He asked.
“No?”
He gestured to the neophytes and power armoured marines lurking behind him.
“Turns out if you spend long enough weaving around the eye of terror, you live a lot longer. I found most of these,” he nodded to the marines. “Stranded on a backwater planet. Stealthy little shits, you wouldn’t think it to look at them, but they could almost be ours.”
Cary could see what he meant, they were black eyed and pale skinned, but there was an uneasy stillness to them. The teen appeared again, and now Cary looked properly, they could see darkness creeping in at the whites of her eyes.
“She’s a neophyte?”
Jago patted the top of the teen’s head, who jerked away from him, and punched him hard in the arm.
“This is Lurk, you’re on what, your first year of augments?”
“Second,” said Lurk.
Cary looked at Jago, who raised an eyebrow back at them.
“You look confused,” he said. “Same principle as your own self.”
“Yes, but that was done by Cawl . Mad Servant of the Omnissiah and likely Heretek Belisarius Cawl. And it wasn’t even done that well!”
“So was this,” said Jago, putting a hand on Lurk’s shoulder. “Had a job on one of his forge worlds, found one of his genevaults. Found your old blueprints, he’d refined the process since then but I figured I could probably put it to better use.”
“When you say ‘had a job’...”
“Assassination. I still get my hands dirty from time to time,” he said, grinning.
“ Right .”
“And you’re working for Guilliman now?” Jago eyed the double crest stitched onto the bloodspattered overcoat.
“Corax too. He’s honestly worse than Nacht was about getting it done and signed off. Do not tell him I said that,” the last part was directed towards the shade, who simply smiled.
“He’s got you doing desk work?”
“I’m banned from active duty, for ghost of the dead Primarch in my brain reasons,” they explained.
“And paternity leave.”
“And paternity leave,” Cary repeated.
“What?”
Now it was Jago’s turn to be confused.
“I have six children- Cawl stole one of my ovaries and did various unethical scientific things with geneseed. Chimaeras. All girls. Kaz, Kasovah, she’s ours,” they stumbled over the explanation, it was so much to get across in so little time.
Jago’s eyebrows crept further up his forehead.
“You named your daughter after your witch Grandmother?”
“She was never tried as one,” Cary argued. “Anyway, besides the point. Vulkan’s back, insane and is currently charging his way across the place to get to him,” they pointed at the shade. “Which means as a consequence, he’s trying to get to me.”
“You never make anything easy, do you?”
They were about to reply, when the comm bead chimed.
“Cary,” Guilliman’s voice. “I won’t bother asking how you’ve gone from one side of the fort to the other.”
“A wizard did it. The wizard, in fact.”
Guilliman sighed.
“I see. In any case, you’re the closest one to the generators currently. We’re losing power and no one can tell me why.”
“I’m no techpriest but I’ll go hit it with a wrench if needed,” they said.
“Good luck,” replied the Lord Commander of the Imperium.
Cary looked to Jago.
“Where’s the problem?” He asked.
“You don’t have to help- in fact I’d prefer to keep you out of Imperial sight as much as possible.”
Sevatar was already moving, already pushing them along, Lurk and the one he’d called Rushal following. The black-armoured marine had barely made a sound when he passed them.
“Again, what is the problem?” He asked.
“Something’s going wrong with the generators.”
“Ah, even better, then I can simply claim I’m helping for my own preservation.” He shot them a grin.
As if on cue, the already dimmed lumens in the storeroom flickered, the Fidelity shuddered and creaked. The Carcharodons filtered out into small groups, an armoured brother took charge of a group of around three to four neophytes and split off down the darkened corridors.
“You’ve got them all very organised,” Cary commented.
“Once you’ve organised the Atramentar everything else seems like a piece of piss,” Jago replied.
Their joy died.
“Jago,” Cary said. “Did you know about my brother?”
He glanced at them, then looked at them properly.
“What do you mean?”
“My brother, Jago. Grisha. I’ve seen him. He’s an Atramentar.”
They could see in his face that he had no idea what they were talking about.
“I wasn’t aware your brother had even been recruited,” Jago said. “Where did you see him?”
Cary explained the circumstances, the sequence of events on Hagiogra that had led to them boarding the Echo of Damnation , of seeing Grisha. Sevatar had always been difficult to read, Cary suspected he preferred it that way. Then again, they’d known the man for years, and there were always the tiny movements around his eyes and mouth.
“How?” He asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s still with the Echo , I’m not sure he even knew who I was.”
“Hm. I can always put feelers out,” Jago said.
Cary shook their head. He hadn’t returned to the Eighth or to the Atramentar for his own reasons, reasons they may not ever understand or even agree with.
“I can’t ask that of you.”
“Then don’t. The Avenging Accountant let you have any form of private communication?”
“Everything they do or say is monitored, they have the old codes but Guilliman reads all communications,” the shade leaned in.
Jago glanced at him.
“He’s been much better since he’s been dead,” Cary said.
“No eating dogs?”
“Not unless he’s been running around in my body without me knowing.”
“He can do that?” Jago raised an eyebrow.
“Under specific circumstances.”
“I see,” he said.
The corridors were like any other corridor on a star fort: large, square and Imperial. The walls were still decorated with the aquila, with skulls, with purity seals and a large amount of candles that Cary wasn’t sure should be anywhere near the wires they dripped on. They were also walking openly, encountering little in the way of the Fidelity’s occupants, but certainly seeing their remains.
“Where is everyone?”
“Care, we’re in the middle of a warp storm,” Sevatar pointed out. “They’re either dead, dying or about to do some useless final charge.”
“I’m getting too used to this nonsense,” they said.
“You’ve always been too used to nonsense, you grew up with him.” Jago jerked his head in the shade’s direction.
“Really? You’re going to talk about growing up normally? You?”
Jago smiled.
“You offend me, I had a perfectly average childhood from what I can remember.”
“Not in bloody City’s Edge you didn’t, I did enough patrols there to know that,” Cary replied.
“ Sweet Mother’s tits you’re a snob.”
“I am not ,” Cary said, indignantly. “I just happen to have eyes that can see, and what I saw was a shitshow, even for Quintus.”
“They have a point.”
“That is not the rousing endorsement you think it is, old man.”