Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It started with an auspex ping. A flat tone that indicated something closeby in the endless dark. A dull green light flicked on, the cogitator whirred into life. 

An asteroid, high in adamantine content. Completely stationary- the sensors returned some initial responses in regards to void anchors. A ring of static pylons, stout and streaked with the grime of the void, but each as tall as a man. 

From the far side of its face, the asteroid was featureless, pockmarked by debris but otherwise nothing special. Wear had given way to a shine at certain angles- the adamantine, the only true export Nostramo had been valued for. 

Drawing closer, choosing another face, a dark chasm cut into it. An overhang creating a cave-like mouth, the floor worn purposefully flat and smooth for craft to land upon it. Atmosphere generators flanked the entrance like gargoyles. Beyond them, further into the dark, a set of heavy doors with a dark symbol plastered upon them. A bat-winged skull was engraved upon the metal, proving to the ones who had sought this place that it was what they were looking for. 

The landing pad was large enough for a single Stormraven, though many other craft hung in the void around it, waiting. Twelve Astartes left the vessel, moving in tight formation to the doors, blue armour throwing up strange reflections on the worn cave walls. 

The machine spirit of the door reacted quickly to the commands given to it, showing that maintenance had been performed recently. Indeed, the air that rushed forward was not stale- it was recently refreshed, the lack of security measures speaking to its remote location. The architects did not intend for it to be found. This made the squad act with further caution, especially as there seemed to be no light inside the reliquary. 

The noise of armoured boots on metal stairs seemed oddly muffled as they proceeded forward, pauldron to pauldron in a space clearly designed for them. The reliquary was not large, having only a few rooms, which they checked methodically. It was a short corridor consisting of five doors, four set into the walls, facing each other and a fifth at the very end. Bones and skulls were moulded into the walls, a deathly peace to those whose ends were assuredly not gentle.

The first door to the right was an armoury, neatly stored weapons and ammunition. Its twin to the left led to a control centre, where cogitators eagerly returned to function. They displayed power outputs, logs of those who had come before and the maintenance done, systems support and various data controls relating to temperature. The most recent activity was a scant two solar days before they had arrived.

The next two doors lead to the true reliquary. Symbols of ages long since passed, to a former Legion’s glory, one they were unlikely to ever recover. These were catalogued, removed from their cabinets and placed into cargo storage crates hauled from the armoury. 

This left the final door. Here too was the Eighth Legion heraldry, the bat-winged skull. It shone brightly under the lumens, refined silver metal against the dull grey of the rest of the door. 

AVE DOMINUS NOX 

The letters were carved there by a master's hand, repeated again beneath in what could only have been Nostraman runes. This door opened willingly too, as if eager for the astartes to continue, to find what lay inside. 

Cold vapour rolled across the floor, dim blue light pouring forth, drowning all need for lumens. It did not come from lumens, but from a coffin. Or at least what appeared to be a coffin, upon closer inspection it was a cryogenic sleeper pod, held inside of a stasis field. The walls hummed with power, and a few screens displayed vital readouts. At the base of the coffin melted candles pooled, scraps of parchment folded and tucked away, a few clean skulls placed like offerings to a heretic’s god, flowers only just beginning to wilt. 

In the casket was a bulky outline, recognisable to anyone familiar with the Adeptus Astartes. Hands laid crossed over their chest, almost covering the bat-winged skull there. The figure was unhelmeted, though the death-faced thing had been placed above their head like a guardian. The face of the space marine was clear, even with the frost encrusted glass. 

A face changed by augment and scar, with three prominently stretching across. A hooked nose and a thin face, brown skin of an unnatural pallor- as if unused to the sun. The head was slightly tilted to the left, the mouth just barely open, dark eyes barely open- the black eyes beneath making them appear closed. As if there had been someone standing there that the marine had turned to look at before being sealed away. 

A cogitator on the wall beeped quietly, as if apologetic for disturbing them. At a nod, an Astartes stepped forward. A new pilgrimage log had been created, and access provided to a single file, named Kulikov.

It contained only a few things of note. A readout of the current vitals of the casket’s occupant, which seemed to be in order. A list of Night Lords who had attended the reliquary and the prizes they had brought. A single vox recording. 

At another nod, the Astartes commanded the machine spirit to play it. 

The voice echoed around the chamber. Dark, cracked and hoarse. The voice of a monster in the night, yet still somewhat regal. Heavily accented with sibilance, captivating in its ghoulishness. 

“If you are standing here, you stand before the last true child of Nostramo. The last loyal Night Lord, the best of us all. Cary Kulikov. If you are a member of my Legion, one of my poisonous sons, know that this is what you were intended to be, know that you never will be. If you are not, and you have somehow stumbled upon this place: I command you to leave. This is the will of the Night Haunter.”

The recorded voice few had heard in a myriad seemed to hang in the air, sticking to the skin. Curze had always had a flair for the dramatic, like many of his brothers. 

The intruders took no heed of this warning, instead moving in synchronicity to the sides of the casket, to the machinery keeping the stasis field in place. There was a crackle in the air as with a few taps against the cogitator, the stasis field fell. The vapour moved a little faster, but the figure within the cryogenic casket remained unchanged. 

A few more commands and the casket was removed from its moorings, those pipes which fed into the chamber that had frozen in place wrenched away by gauntleted hands. Handles were mag-locked to the side of the casket, as the claw hidden behind it lowered from a vertical position to a horizontal one. Four Astartes took up places at the handles, lifted the casket from the fittings it had sat in for nearly ten thousand years. They marched from the chamber, almost a mockery of a funeral procession. The figure was after all, not dead. Great pains had been taken to keep them alive, more care than any thought still could be had in these times. 

They filed out from the chamber and the reliquaries, heretic artefacts in crates carried between the rest. The casket was loaded onto the Stormraven, awkwardly laid down between the seats, only just enough room for it. Closer now, they could see the shadows haunting the cheeks and eyes, a triangle-shaped split in the shell of the left ear. The face was tired, the crease between the eyebrows betraying some great grief. It was not the face of one who would now call themselves Night Lord. 

The Stormraven flew to the waiting battle barge, those who had waited around the asteroid following closely, like a protective flock. Then the ships departed, leaving the asteroid unmarked, once again floating- now completely empty, in the soundless void.

Chapter Text

They opened their eyes, only partially. Frost and light made it difficult- that was their first real clue that they were no longer on the Nightfall. No one would have had the lumens this bright. They squeezed their eyes shut against it, a child refusing to wake. Their breath came in ragged, quick gasps. The ache of surgery was still fresh, soft twinges of pain that they recognised but never felt before to this degree. 

“K- Khh-,” their mouth did not want to move, their teeth chattered against the cold. “Ko- Konnacht.” 

There was no response to their plea. Shadows moved across their face, and they forced their eyes open, ready to receive whatever horror awaited. It was a face, that much they had expected. A face of a space marine, broad and noble, fair skinned but crossed with battle scars, a pair of metal studs embedded above the eyebrow. 

The eyes were, of course, the final nail in the proverbial coffin. They were green, with an inner ring of grey. Of course it didn’t matter what colour the eyes were- they weren’t black. The man above them studied them as if they were little more than bacteria on a plex dish.

Noble blue armour, a bright gold trim, a blazing white Ultima. His narthecium was clicking over them, tapping at armoured plates, testing their pulse. He was also waving a diagnostor over them. 

“Ultramarine,” they managed. “You- you must tell… the Lords. Curze- Curze has… gone mad.” 

The Ultramarine looked at them dispassionately.

“You have been heavily injured, Captain, please do not move or attempt to speak.” 

Captain. Had that been their rank? They’d never truly been sure if they’d had an official rank. 

“Nostramo,” they tried again. “Nostramo is gone.” 

The Ultramarine nodded. 

“We are aware. Rest.” 

But their body would not rest. There were tremors, half from the cold and half from their body reacting to the damage taken. 

“Where is he?” They asked. 

The Ultramarine did not answer. 

“What of Sevatar? Shang?”

He still did not answer. Further noise came, the whining of servos inside power armour. More marines.

“We are going to lift you from the casket, Captain Kulikov,” another voice said. “Please do not move.” 

Handles were maglocked to their armour, they stayed as still as they could, but a soft groan of pain still escaped their mouth as they were moved. The ache became a tear, a body still happily reminding them of the damage inflicted. 

They were manoeuvred to a cot, where chapter serfs came forward. The serfs knew the layout of the armour, knew where the catches lay and where to find the bolts that held it together. They lay limply, only moving to ease the job of the serfs. The weight of the armour was practically unmovable for them in their current state- the power pack didn’t help. 

“What is this?” A marine intoned.

They were just about able to tilt their head, to look back at the casket and what the Ultramarine held. Deep blue fabric, it looked small in his hand.

“My jacket,” said Cary. “Could I have it?” 

Some wordless exchange happened between the Astartes in the room. But the jacket was brought to them.

“It was folded behind your head,” said the marine who had found it. 

“It’s my QPC jacket,” they mumbled, half to themselves, smoothing a thumb over the silver-threaded patch at the shoulder. “Half a relic now.” 

More of the plates were removed, from the inside the damage was more obvious. The repairs had been done well, but still visible. Nacht had caved in most of their diaphragm after all. 

“I need to inspect your injuries,” the apothecary said. 

Cary leaned forward, grinding their teeth against the pain. Gauntleted hands held their shoulders, supported them as the apothecary released the catch at the back of the neck. The glove only needed to be taken down to their waist, and they were laid back down again. 

It was the first time Cary had seen the wound. Medical skin had been pulled across the gap, the hole had been too large to simply suture closed. The scarring was still red, still raw, slightly pink at the edges. There were still flakes of dried blood, smeared across their skin. It was the newest scar, but far from the first. 

“What weapon caused this?” Another Ultramarine asked, his helmet angled downward. 

“Mercy,” Cary answered. 

The helmet looked at them, and though his face was hidden Cary could feel his confusion, muted though it may have been. 

“One of Nacht’s lightning claws. Mercy and Forgiveness,” they nearly laughed. 

The spasm of near laughter made their body seize and jolt, they lay still. The Ultramarines lacked a sense of humour, instead one steadied their shoulder while the apothecary placed a needle to their arm. 

“A painkiller. Your carapace has been repaired but not healed fully,” he said. 

Cary nodded, not really taking in the information.

“How long have I been asleep?” They asked.

There was no response from those in the room. With their eyes adjusted to the light they could make out a handful of armoured Astartes, four including the apothecary, and a small team of serfs. 

The painkillers crept across their body, elevating much of the pain but rendering them even more sluggish in their thoughts and movements. 

“How long?” They asked again. 

“A long time,” the apothecary said. 

Cary looked at him, blinking slowly against the numbing effects of the drug. 

“Tell me,” they pleaded.

“Nearly ten thousand years,” the Ultramarine who had given them their jacket said. 

The apothecary glared at his fellow, then checked what Cary could only assume was a readout of their vitals. 

“Ten thousand years?” Cary repeated, slowly.

They looked straight up at the ceiling, not truly seeing it, digesting this information. 

“Where is Curze?” They asked. 

“Dead,” said the Ultramarine. 

“Elaius,” cautioned the apothecary. 

Cary nodded, slowly. It was an odd feeling, circling its way across their chest. Grief had always been their constant companion, more constant than even the Night Haunter had been. Now the grief was compounded further- when they closed their eyes they still saw Nostramo burn. 

“Why did he let you live?” The Ultramarine- Elaius asked. 

“I don’t know,” Cary admitted. “He always said he’d kill me. That he’d seen it. Always followed the damn visions. Followed them right to the end.” 

Their breathing was becoming more laboured, their chest tight with exhaustion and mourning. Cary closed their eyes, only praying that the action would stop them from weeping openly. 

“You need rest,” rumbled the voice of the apothecary.

Another needle pierced their skin, and again they fell into a drugged sleep. 

-

The dream was formless, not a true thing. An unconscious space that had broken down. Someone was calling their name. They turned. Darkness seeped across the not-floor, it was below them, a roiling ocean, a black sea. There, down below them, a speck of white. They already knew who it was, they reached out their hands, but never seemed to be able to get any closer. They felt hands on their shoulders, strong, large hands. 

They tried to shrug them off, gritting their teeth and reaching again, gauntleted arm outstretched. Cary looked at their arms. Looked at their gauntlet. The chain.

Cary Kulikov, as they had done many times before, took aim upon their primarch and fired. The silver chain sprung forward, the four-pronged hook expanding out. It caught. The chain grew taunt. The servos on their arm whined as the motors pulled the chain back. 

He came up from the dark sea like a bat, reaching for them as they reached for him. There was a second where they saw his face, pale and gaunt, then the Primarch crashed into them like a solid wall. 

All again was dark. 

-

When they opened their eyes again, they had to take a second to think. It was not the same ceiling Cary had been helped to slumber under, where bright lumens had danced painfully before their eyes. In fact, the room was rather dim. There was a blanket laid over them, and what seemed to be a bed beneath them. 

Sleeping quarters, they thought, idly. Indeed, tilting their head they could see that their armour had been mounted magnetically to a storage rack. The rest of the room was small, spartan in its furnishings, though shelving space clearly existed for the occupant to make it their own. An Astartes-sized desk and chair, an ablutions chamber and of course a lone figure sitting politely on a stool. A young girl, probably belonging to the servant caste of the ship- probably about thirteen or fourteen years old. She had short blonde-white hair cut roughly above the shoulders, sky-blue eyes and a pale, voidborn complexion.

She peered at Cary, the hands on her knees just about peaking out from her sleeves. 

“You don’t look very frightening,” the girl said, sliding off of the stool. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about.” 

“I try my best,” Cary replied.

The girl looked at the door, suddenly still. Like an animal in a trap. Cary could hear the sound of plated boots coming down the corridor. 

“You’re not meant to be in here, are you?” They observed. 

The girl scowled at them, worrying her lip with her teeth. Cary nodded towards the ablution chamber. 

“Go hide in there. Sit down and don’t move. I won’t breathe a word,” they mimed drawing a cross over both sides of their chest with a finger. Cross their hearts and hope to die.

The girl scrambled into the chamber, clicking the door shut. Cary looked to the door. When it opened, only two people entered. One Ultramarine, and a young man- human. He was dressed in Imperial black, with an impressive amount of golden trim and fine decorations. His skin was dark, and his hair close-cropped to his head. Cary looked to his breast pocket, where an inquisitorial rosette sat plainly. 

“Good morning, Captain Kulikov,” said the young inquisitor. “I am Inquisitor Gael Casteter, I would like to ask you some things.”

Cary had never had a particular love for the inquisition. Torture a man enough he’d admit to anything, it was no way to reveal any kind of truth. 

“Can I ask some questions first?” Cary sat up, slowly. 

The Ultramarine watched them carefully, but did not reach for his weapons. He seemed taller than most other marines. Gael took the stool, recently abandoned by the girl. 

“You may.” 

“What has… happened?” They asked. “It’s been ten thousand years. Who still lives? Does anyone? The Primarchs, the Emperor?”

Gael looked at them with something approaching sympathy. 

“The God-Emperor lives, resting upon the Golden Throne of Terra. Lord Guilliman, returned to us from his stasis, serves as his Lord Regent. The Warmaster lies dead.”

It took them longer than was comfortable to process this. 

“The Warmaster?” They asked.

“The Arch-Traitor Horus,” Gael corrected them, gently. “He fell to the ruinous powers, and with the traitor legions brought upon the Imperium a bloody war. Many were lost to us.” 

A thousand names came to their lips. Cary dared not speak them, as if silence would keep them alive. 

“Traitor legions?” They settled on.

“The Sons of Horus, the Emperor’s Children, the Iron Warriors, the Night Lords,” he paused to incline his head in the direction of their armour. “The World Eaters, The Death Guard, The Thousand Sons, the Word Bearers and the Alpha Legion. They joined Horus on his crusade, and paid the ultimate price.” 

Cary’s head span, blinking rapidly against the information. They didn’t want to believe it- they didn’t want it to be true, no matter how much it had to have been true. They had seen parts of it in visions, with their own eyes.

“The Sons of Horus,” they echoed. 

“You would have known them as the Luna Wolves,” the Ultramarine said.

Cary recognised the voice through the vox speaker. It was Elaius, the one whom the apothecary had chided. They rested their head against the metal wall behind them, closed their eyes. 

“I am sorry,” said the Inquisitor. “I understand this must be a shock.” 

“I have lost everyone I have ever known in the span of what feels like a day. Perhaps two at a stretch,” they said, without thinking. “I am a little more than shocked.”

Cary opened their eyes again, looking at Gael. 

“What did you want to ask me?”

He withdrew a device from his pocket, balancing it on his knee. They recognised it as a vox recorder, the green light meaning it had been listening to their conversation, likely from the moment Gael and Elaius stepped through the door. 

“I would like to hear your account, from the very beginning,” said Gael. “I am aware you knew Konrad Curze from a young age, I want to hear about your life.” 

Cary tilted their head.

“Why?”

“I am nothing if not a scholar, Captain Kulikov. It will also help me to keep you alive longer, many here already think you a heretic if only for the armour you wear and the geneseed you bare.” He smiled, kindly. 

“Everything then? From the very beginning?” They clarified.

“If you would be so kind.”

“Very well.”

Chapter Text

When Cary was four, a meteor struck the city. It carved a great scar into the lower sections of the hive, bringing boiling adamantine to the surface. It destroyed all in its path, tearing up roads and paths and hab blocks- all destroyed in a molten silver sea. 

Their father had taken them to see it, when the land had been cut up between the mining bosses and the gang leaders, when the area was safe to visit. They remembered peering from his shoulders, looking down over the huge crater. Small processing facilities had already been moved onto the edges, sometimes taking up entire buildings that had escaped the fury of the strike- much to the dismay of the occupants. 

Cary looked at the rippling, mirrored surface, still glittering even under the black Nostramo sky. Smoke belched from the new mining equipment brought in from the nearest rim plant, and men crawled over its surface like ants. They’d likely be on double shifts.

When they were older, mulling the memory over in their mind with the sharpness of hindsight, they wondered if they could have seen the gestation pod. More than likely it had been taken for scrap as soon as the metal cooled enough to stand on safely. Or it had laid buried under the molten metal, with its occupant having clawed his way free of molten metal- a birth of pure pain and violence.

By fourteen, Cary Kulikov was a fully fledged member of the Quintus Peace Corps, some remnant of order that still faintly hung on. It was little better than joining a gang, but they were still young enough to childishly cling to the idea of ‘the right thing’. Most of their paycheck went back to their family, when their father’s card house wasn’t doing too well and when Grisha was sick. At least QPC got them a tiny, single room apartment close to the station.

Of course, they were well below the age requirement for QCP duties, but they’d shown up with forged papers and none of the department were paid well enough to give a shit. None of them cared that Cary Kulikov, not even old enough to have left tuition, was now patrolling the streets of Quintus with the limited equipment of an officer. The other four cities of Nostramo had just agreed to close borders to Quintus, no one was allowed out or in so they were in need of manpower. The city was being bled dry by a monster in the dark that the others were so afraid of that they’d let all of Quintus die before they thought about sending aid. 

They had a motorcyc, a pistol, a shutter and a stun baton. Instead of handcuffs they carried a roll of electrical tape- it was easier and cheaper rather than paying the commissary for real ones. They knew the gangs that inhabited their patrol routes, could identify their tattoos and signs at a glance, and in their own opinion kept quite a good eye on them. 

The QPC wasn’t really about keeping the peace. Officers generally dealt more with complaints from gang members than they did members of the public. Keeping gangs to their own territories was an officer’s main duty, making sure if they were on another gang’s turf that they weren’t cutting any profits that should have gone to the right men. It was a fractured, easily bendable kind of order that changed with an alarming degree of frequency. 

There was a board in the station- the only hololith they could afford to display in the main offices, that had a real-time projection of Quintus. Shifting blobs of colour represented gangs and their territories, and they were always moving in the lower hive. The lower hive was practically a constant whirlpool of gang warfare- aside from the mining facilities, which were controlled by a higher class of criminal. 

Cary usually tried to spend as much time as they could afford memorising that hololith, and its formation for the day. Even if it was a day where they were sent to the relatively unchanging upper hives (never too far up though), they still checked it. 

Today, when the sky was leaden grey, they noted that their designated patrol would be taking them through some of the lower hives. A mid-tier gang had reached down to take a large chunk of the chaotic base, connecting themselves fully to the mining plant they owned- the Sons of Toil. Cary recognised the name, it was one of the gangs their father had suggested they join. They’d known how that road would’ve ended. 

A few red dots were present there, in that territory. Unnervingly close to their mandated patrol. Cary grimaced. Night Haunter crime scenes, they’d seen the picts before, but they still reached out to expand the dots. Images of the dead didn’t frighten them. If Cary had been scared of the dead then they would have never left their father’s hab. 

Men, women, old, young- it didn’t matter to the Night Haunter. The only thing that mattered to him seemed to be their sins. This made people nervous, no such thing as an innocent party in Quintus, but it couldn’t be helped. They’d once estimated that if they went about a week without breaking a single law, they’d be out of a job, hab and options. Survival was really the only law Quintus reliably had, the Night Haunter had yet to get the message it seemed. 

After memorising the route, they went to the vehicle bay and collected their motorcyc, kicked the powercell into gear and set off. It was raining- it always seemed to be raining when they were on patrol. In truth they liked the rain, even if it was warm for having dripped and drabbed its way through the spires. Eventually it would cool on their skin, and if their clothes got soaked they could use their shirt on the back of their neck- which meant they could turn off their extraction fan and save a little bit on the electricity bill. 

They hunched behind the small glass screen at the front of the motorcyc, it kept their vision clear- and the readouts still kind of worked. The projected letters and map jumped around with every rumble of the bike, but it would hang still for a few seconds to let Cary get brief glimpses. 

Roads were far less dangerous than paths and walkways. Yes, people on occasion drove stupidly and of course there were accidents. But at least on the road you weren’t at risk of getting stabbed in an alleyway for the small amount of money in your wallet. Or other, less savoury things that happened to those pulled off the streets. 

Soon enough their patrol pulled them off the main roads, to the smaller roads with shopfronts, hab blocks and workmen’s bars. The area was familiar to them, their father’s card den wasn’t too far away. They wondered about their family. Cary wondered about their mother, about their siblings- Jeanmary and Grisha. They were probably on their way back from tuition about now. Cary regularly took the night shift, if it could really even be called that. Days blended together on Nostramo, but Cary refused to let it phase them. They were used to the pale patch of sky that slowly meandered its way across the sea of charcoal clouds, and like many had become adept at telling the time by other contexts. 

They slowed the speed of the bike now that they were off the main road, still nimbly moving around groundcars and avoiding going too close to the walkway. Cary eyed one of the red dots as it came up on their left, data transmitted directly from the station. They glanced down the alley as they passed, but in the darkness it was difficult to see anything- the lumens in the side street were all out. Probably for the best. The clean-up crew weren’t exactly known for being prompt. 

The motorcyc’s vox caster blipped once. Cary flipped the switch cover with their thumb and pushed the button. The vox crackled.

“Disturbance between seven-four and six-eight,” the operator said. 

“Toil?” Cary asked. 

“Nah, Overseers.”

Cary frowned. It was the territory of the Sons of Toil, the gang’s side of the Scar. The Iron Overseers held much of the other side of the Scar- crossing over was a dangerous move. The Sons could take it that the Overseers meant to take the Scar for themselves, completely. Then there’d be fighting, maybe even a gang war. Cary grimaced. The last one had only just died down- because the Night Haunter had gutted both of the leaders. 

He’d canvased the streets since Cary had been about six or seven. They’d been eight when people realised the killings were done by the same man. Everyone had at least one Night Haunter story, how they’d seen him on a rooftop, or boasting about how they’d escaped him. You heard less of the latter nowadays, no one believed the lie. 

Cary glanced at the map. The avenue of seven-four and six-eight was coming up on their right. There was a prickling feeling at the back of their neck, which they ignored. They were used to ignoring the signals their body sent them- hunger, exhaustion, fear. 

They pulled off the road to the right, slowing the bike right down to a stop behind a few large skips full of trash. Cary locked the wheels and set the alarm. They’d seen enough colleagues get their bikes dragged off for scrap to not be cautious. 

They turned their collar up against the rain and moved quietly down the street. The lumens here were even dimmer than usual, but Cary would have been able to find who they were looking for by sound alone. The dull sound of fist hitting flesh, mumbled pleas and cruel, barking laughter. 

Cary drew their pistol as they came close to the final corner, stepping around quietly. Two men, barely into their twenties by the look of them, had cornered a grey-jacketed admin looking type. Probably worked for one of the Scar processors, a favoured target of low grade thugs, thinking they had money or could give them access to the facilities. Sometimes though admins got grabbed just for not being criminals, there was some attitude that admins thought they were better than the common man. Which was mostly true.

Still, it wasn’t pleasant or satisfying to see a small man get thrown around by two heavily muscled meatheads. They checked their shutter was running- the department couldn’t afford pict recorders, just cameras that took picts every six seconds when they detected movement. 

Cary stepped forward, pistol hanging at their side, and whistled. It was a short, sharp, loud sound they’d learned from their father. When they were a kid they used to use it to let him know a raid was coming. 

It made the Overseers jump slightly, heads whipped around like they were snapped on invisible strings. The pair of them squinted into the dark, while the admin lay in the foetal position on the floor.

“You know this is Toil territory, get back over your side of the Scar,” Cary said, without a hint of emotion or tremor. 

One of them spat on the floor, while the other swaggered a little way forward.

“Well, maybe it won’t be for long,” he drawled.

“It is today. Get back on your side.” 

The sound of a door slamming open nearby, a loud, harsh drunken voice carrying on the air. Cary glanced over, of course this push by the Overseers would have to be taking place behind a Toil bar. They swore beneath their breath, but took the opportunity granted by the Overseers being distracted to edge around the side. The two Overseers had now seemingly forgotten their presence entirely- focused entirely on some useless posing with the drunken Toil. It wouldn’t be long before the Toil called for backup from inside the bar. 

Cary dodged across to where the admin was still curled up in a mumbling ball. Roughly shoved him in the back with the palm of their hand. 

“Get up,” they hissed. “Go, go!” 

The admin uncurled, looking up at Cary through broken spectacles. He seemed bewildered to see them, then his head angled over their shoulder and he screamed. 

“Night Haunter!”

Cary did not look behind them, instead they dove forward, trying to cover the admin with their wiry frame. They heard something pass them, the whisper of fabric, the silvery sound of a knife maybe. The drunken shouts and loutish catcalls turned to screams- to sudden and terrible silence. They didn’t dare move, fear having turned the fibres of their muscles to stone. However the admin made that choice for them, his panicked breathing led to him struggling, pushing them away. 

Cary rolled back, staring at the rockcrete of the alleyway, as if looking at the puddles would help them avoid fate. Their pistol shook in their grip, and they forced themselves to put it back in their holster. Guns had never seemed to touch the Night Haunter, bullets never even phased him. Out of the corner of their eye, they could see blood leaching into the rainwater pooled at their feet, mixing with the chemical rainbow sheen. The admin was hyperventilating at this point.

Cary forced themselves to look up, down the section of the alley where the men had been. The relief that washed over them was almost shameful, the dim lumens had died. They couldn’t see much of anything down the alley. 

Then something moved, a shape. Cary felt their heart jolt in their chest- a survivor. Someone who could identify the killer. They stepped forward.

“Hey,” they called. “You alright? Do you need me to call a trauma team?”

They kept moving forward, the shape grew. Cary stopped dead at the edge of the light left by the final lumen as the shape became taller, and taller. It towered over them- not a hard feat given their height, but this thing was taller than a man. They could make out maybe the shape of long, stringy black hair, a loose cloak of many stitched together layers. 

The figure turned, and for the first time Cary Kulikov saw the face of the Night Haunter. Alabaster white, long aquiline features, hollow cheekbones. It was beautiful. It was terrible. Gore dripped from his chin. His eyes were as black as any Nostraman, though they noticed small points of white at the corners- for some reason this scared them the most. 

From his hand dangled a crude blade, already black with blood. Cary could smell death from where they stood, and not just the deaths of the gang members- death reeked from the dark figure, speaking of a thousand bloody fates. 

Cary found that they could not move. They were a prey animal standing before a predator- they had offered to call the predator a trauma team in fact. The Night Haunter was still looking at them, and he opened his mouth. For a terrible second Cary knew he was about to speak, then suddenly- the admin . 

The admin barrelled into their shoulder with a yell, with a string of Nostraman curses that Cary wasn’t sure they deserved. They felt him wrench the pistol from the holster as he shoved them away, to the ground. They heard the shot before they hit the ground, heard the shout, the clatter of the pistol hitting the floor and the gurgle. 

Cary landed so their shoulder took most of the impact- in a puddle of course but they were just glad the puddle consisted of water rather than viscera. There was a wet, tearing noise. Once again all Cary wanted to do was squeeze their eyes closed, maybe curl into a ball, pretend it wasn’t happening. 

Instead they took a breath, waited three seconds, and got to their feet again. The Night Haunter was gone. So was the admin. Their pistol sat under the light of the lumens, and blood seeped in from the dark. 

Cary went to their pistol, and picked it up. They slotted it back into their holster, and then unclipped the smaller vox from their waist. The little black box shook in their hand

“This is Kulikov, I’m on seven-four and six-eight. I have a Night Haunter crime scene and a witness.” 

The response was immediate.

“Sending a squad out there now- what do you mean a witness?” The operator sounded excited. 

Cary felt less so. They felt as if they were standing at one of the great edges of the Scar, peering down a long way that they would not return from. 

“Me,” they said. “I’ve seen the Night Haunter.” 

-

Despite Cary confirming that the Night Haunter was indeed gone, it still took forensics and the rest of the squad a suspicious amount of time to show up. When they did arrive, Cary realised it was because they’d stopped along the way to inform the Sons of Toil and the Iron Overseers of what had happened. Cary caught a glimpse of what they assumed had to be high ranking members of the gangs, in uneasy truce while identifying their dead from what little remained of them. 

Cary was brought back in one of the transport vans, along with their bike. When they got to the station, there were hands clapped on their shoulders, the shutter was taken off of its harness. Someone pushed them into a chair and a shallow glass of golden alcohol shoved into their hand. 

They recounted the event with little emotion, as many times as they were asked. In truth, Cary felt as if they were about a foot to the left of where their body was, peering over their own shoulder and listening to their mouth tell the story. 

It didn’t take long for the picts to get circulated, thrown up on various screens around the station offices, even hanging above the hololithic city map. The first time the face had flashed up, Cary had turned away, squeezing their eyes shut. People gathered around the hololith’s table, a slide show of horror playing out there. The figure in the dark. The figure standing, turning. That face- that awful face, like a beautiful corpse. They didn’t realise their shoulders were shaking until someone else put a hand on them. 

Cary looked up. It was Grike. He held the dubious title of lead detective, and had the hardest to navigate job of all- solving actual crimes. Crimes that weren’t committed by gang members or part of the everyday violence of Quintus. The Night Haunter was his current case- and had been for the better part of a decade now. He had a squat, squashed sort of face that spoke to a life hard-lived. Short grey hair and deep lines around his eyes and mouth, he reminded Cary of a mastiff. 

“Good job, kid,” he said. “Take tomorrow off. Go home.” 

“Can’t afford it,” Cary said. 

Grike shook his head slightly. 

“Don’t worry about it. Toil lad outside waiting to pay you. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Overseers sent a runner too.” 

The thought made their insides twist, but Cary knew better than to not accept money from the gangs. Refusing a gift might as well have been the same as implying their mothers were their sisters and that they had seventeen toes. 

Cary got to their feet, ignoring the shuddering in their legs. 

“My shutter,” they said. 

“I’ll keep it in my office. Collect it when you get back,” he replied, patted their shoulder once more and then turned away. 

Cary couldn’t leave the station fast enough, and yet forced themselves to slow as they reached the doors. Sure enough there was a Toil and an Overseer, hanging about the station’s portico. Two men, probably of a similar age to the ones who’d died- laughing and smoking together as if they were old friends. The station was a neutral ground after all, they could pretend to get along here. 

One of them spotted Cary and nudged his fellow. The pair of them ruffled Cary’s hair, swung arms around their shoulders, called them “brother” and “little hero”. The Overseer’s teeth were sharpened to points, when he smiled it was like looking at the jaws of a shark. The men shoved identical envelopes- heavy envelopes into their jacket pockets. 

“We’ve got his face!” One of them said, gleefully. 

As if that would help the gangs track him down. As if he had a name, an address- an identity. Cary wasn’t sure what they’d seen had even been human. The men let them go after Cary once again relayed what had happened, and they seemed to take note of the flatness of their voice, the tremor in their hands. 

Cary got their motorcyc out of the lockup, and went home. It wasn’t far to their hab, but they forced themselves to drive a little slower. No sense dying in an accident when they’d just seen death itself. No sense trying to hurry what would be inevitable. 

When they had locked up their bike in the underground vehicle depot, they went to the inner stairs of the building and listened carefully. Distantly, there came the sound of shouting- harsh voices that echoed down the corridors and stairwell. 

They sighed, and left the building again, this time rounding to the right and down a short alley where the fire escape sat. More days than not Cary used the fire escape to enter and leave their apartment. They’d always been a decent climber, and the ladder to the bottom platform wasn’t too unsteady- they’d paid the caretaker to repair it about three months ago. 

Cary lived on the eighth floor, and they tried not to disturb anyone on the way up, treading carefully past windows where dim lumens glowed and shadows moved within. Once they reached their own apartment, they retrieved a short metal bar from under the windowsill and leveraged the flat end under the gap. The window raised up about a centimetre, allowing Cary to use a pen to knock the catch loose. They climbed inside their apartment, and locked the window behind them- with an actual padlock this time. 

They went to the door, where the muffled shouting became louder, and more clear. Cary’s neighbours in number 88 and 90 did not like each other, and despite there being an apartment between them, they always had something to complain about. Cary knew 90 was a Toil, and steered clear of her religiously. 88 was a habshare, containing a few people slightly older than Cary who had aged out of tuition and were now attempting to find solid work. From what Cary had seen of them however, their solid work appeared to be the manufacturing of black market pharmaceuticals in their bathroom, playing horrendously loud music and having even horrendously louder sex. 

Today Cary’s neighbours were arguing about the music. It seemed the Toil bondswoman had experienced a rather rough night, and was attempting to sleep off a hangover. Meanwhile the habshare was hosting a chem party, and refusing to turn their music down. It wouldn’t be long before the Toil complained up the chain, and the occupants of 88 would be encouraged to find places elsewhere. Or they would all be shot in their beds, and their bathroom lab would be set on fire. Cary once again checked the fire extinguisher they kept by the window. They didn’t care for the Toil or for the habsharers, but they cared about not getting the hab block burned down. 

They checked the locks and chains on their door. All seemed to be in order, which was good, because they’d just paid their dues to the Sons of Toil to not get their door kicked in. 

Their hab consisted of a single room. Immediately from the entrance there was a folding door to the left, which contained the ablutions chamber. A little beyond that was the main room, that contained Cary’s cot, a worn out sofa sitting under the windows, and along the right hand wall were the amenities. An oven with a gas stovetop, a combination washer and dryer, a sink, a stocky fridge that hummed constantly and a few cupboards. All in all, Cary knew they lived quite well. Better than most. They even had a working extraction fan.

Once they had taken their boots off at the front door, they returned to the windows to close the curtains. Keeping them open meant burglars could see the large QPC stamp above the door, and if they had any sense they’d leave. It also meant that they could see a lack of valuables. Petty thieves rarely tried to carry fridges down fire escapes, but Cary had seen stranger things. 

They hung their jacket over one of the hot pipes that threaded their way down the walls, painted in landlord white. Hopefully the heat would dry it out, it hadn’t been as hot as usual today. 

They changed out of their work clothes, and finally mustered the courage to check the envelopes. The wads of cash within were generous, with a note from the Toil saying not to worry about this month’s rent. 

In some ways, their life could have been very easy if they’d joined up with a gang. But they knew the marks that would have covered their skin, the marks Cary had seen on so many people. Men, women, kids- those who were owned by the gangs, black marks on their skin, bolder than any shackles could have been. 

They folded the notes in half, dragged out the tiny safe from beneath their bed. Punching in the code and checking the contents, Cary made a mental tally of what the money meant for them. Getting to keep a month’s rent was good- real good. It hadn’t been great at the card den recently, but they’d have to manoeuvre around their father to prevent him from knowing just how much they’d managed to keep this month. Half the share that went to their family seemed to go to him. The rest was split between their siblings and mother- their food, their medicines. Sometimes they could get extra through, slipping it into their mother’s pockets when their father wasn’t looking, into Grisha or Jeanie’s school bags. 

They hung their damp clothes to dry, changed into sleepwear and crawled back into their cot. Cary had only just closed their eyes, when they heard the loud pop of a suppressed weapon go off. They grimaced, the shouting in the corridor had turned to yells and screeching. Cary got off of the cot, and instead rolled themselves onto the thinner, second mattress they kept beneath it, dragging their pillow down with them. It was a poor safety measure, but if a carbon bullet flew astray- through one of the walls then at least they would have a modicum of protection. 

Cary closed their eyes, and tried not to think. 

-

“And that was the first time you saw him?” The Inquisitor asked.

Cary nodded.

“You raised no weapon against him, do you think that’s why he spared you?” 

They shrugged. 

“Possibly.”

“You offered him aid, too. Whatever this ‘trauma team’ was,” Gael pointed out. 

“Mobile medical units- QPC officers had a vox line for them.”

“Still, have you considered this was the first display of kindness, of care, that Curze had ever received?” Gael’s head tilted to one side.

“I often wondered,” Cary replied. 

“Though I admit, I had thought your first meeting would be more.”

“He found me again, later,” Cary explained. 

“I see, what do you think he was going to say to you?” Gael’s eyes were interested, bright with curiosity. 

It was a question Cary had asked themselves a fair few times, not one they’d ever put to him of course. They weren’t too proud to admit that it was because they were afraid of the answer, even though they knew it. In a way, they had always known it, a whisper that had come to them in the sharp and terrible dreams that Cary knew couldn’t mean any good. 

I know you, the voice, whisper-soft and paper-dry. I know you.

“I have no idea,” Cary lied. 

Gael’s mouth twisted to the side, he didn’t believe them. But he did not press the matter. 

“Please continue,” said the Inquisitor.

Chapter Text

They woke up painfully, having forgotten that they had taken refuge under their bed. Cary tried to sit up, and their head bounced off of the metal underside. There was a pain in their neck and their shoulders from sleeping awkwardly. 

Cary crawled out from under their bed, and observed their apartment. It was the same, there weren’t even any new holes in the wall. They kept a pot of filler under the sink in case a bullet did come through the wall, but it seemed fortune had wearily smiled upon them. They checked the time on the small public vox that had been tossed onto the sofa. Mid evening of the next day. They had slept for a long time, and their stomach growled. 

They considered going down to the little general store at the end of the street, then curled a finger around the edge of the curtain. They peered out into thick downpour, rivulets of water falling and picking up all manner of hive crud on the way. 

Cary decided they would go later. After all, there was still food left in the fridge. They filled a big pot with water and put it to boil. They liked cooking, it let them think with their hands and forced them not to concentrate on much else. Meat and vegetables and a few mixed noodle shapes cooked together in a stock with spices. Spices were of course, exorbitantly expensive, but since the stew was meant to last them a few days (a week if they were lucky) then they supposed they could indulge themselves a little. Cary turned the public vox on, so quietly they could barely hear it, and set it up on top of the fridge. They liked hearing music while they cooked, and for a time they did. Cary had just set the lid on top of the stew when the music stopped, a four note chime indicating a news broadcast. 

They grimaced, thought about turning it off, and instead brought it again to the sofa. Cary balanced it on the windowsill behind the sofa, and listened. 

There were the usual reports, the changing of territories were discussed as easily as the weather- Cary had been right. The Sons of Toil and the Iron Overseers were clashing over the Scar. Uneasily, they drew the curtain back on the window slightly, just enough to see a sliver of the street below. Not many were out that evening, driven in by the rain. They listened intently, but couldn’t hear the distinctive pop of pistols. 

Cary went back to the vox. 

“Then of course,” the soft lilt of the upper hiver’s voice turned a little sour. “There has been another Night Haunter killing, two men from the Iron Overseers, one Son of Toil and an administrative assistant from the nearby processing facility.”

The dead were not named. There wasn’t much point, the only thing that mattered was who they’d belonged to. 

“It is however due to this tragic event, that we were able to gain identifying images of the Night Haunter,” the vox caster said, almost gloating. 

Cary’s skin prickled. 

“The picts are being displayed publicly on display boards, pict screens and of course images are already being printed in the Quintus Ministry, available at your local store.”

Cary reached out, and switched off the public vox. It felt as if they’d been read about three death sentences in one, that they were waiting for the judge’s gavel to swing down. 

They lay back on the sofa, fingers laced across their stomach, and stared at the ceiling, not truly seeing. It was so oddly quiet. Only the sound of the rain, the stew cooking on the stove. No noise from 88. No noise from 90 either. Maybe the Sons of Toil had finally moved them on after Cary had gone to sleep. Maybe they were both dead. They wondered who had fired the shot outside their door, if 88 had gotten too cocky or 90 had finally had enough. 

Cary reached under the sofa, groping for one of the battered paperbacks lying underneath. They liked pulp novels, the terrible kind of science fiction and fantasy with oil pastel covers of swooning, heavily bosomed women and often highly oiled men. Recently it had become a little harder to find ones they enjoyed- everyone seemed to be writing horror nowadays, a reflection of the times. They’d once spotted a Taken by the Night Hunter in a bargain bin. They had not picked it up. In later years they regretted it. 

Cary opened the random novel they had selected- Darkness of the Heart, which had a cover of a woman with a very large sword, an improbable gun and an even more improbable bust glaring at the reader. They’d read it before, but not for a long time. After a few chapters they were beginning to see why. 

They slogged through a few more chapters, until the pot started to rumble ominously. Then they put the book down and went to check on the stew. The smell made their stomach growl, and Cary hummed to themselves as they stirred the pot. 

Then there came a solid noise from outside. Something landed heavily on the fire escape. Cary did not react to it at first. Instead, they took the stew off of the heat and turned the gas off. 

They stood there, waiting. Cary thought about turning the already very dim yellow lumens off, not much light would be going through the curtains but it would have been enough to signal life. They couldn’t wait forever though.

Cary moved towards the window, the one they regularly entered through, the one closest to the kitchenette. They slowly pulled the curtain back. There was nothing there except the darkness and the rain- dancing lights from distant adverts. Up on this floor, one could quite easily climb over from the fire escape to the lower hangings of advertising struts. 

Against all better judgements, against all instincts, Cary unlocked the window. They dragged it open even though every animal fibre of their body screamed at them not to. It was like they were watching themselves again, unable to stop. 

Cary craned their head and shoulders out of the window, warm rain trailing over their scalp and down the back of their shirt. There was no one on the fire escape, but an odd shadow blocked the light of the advertisements above. 

Cary looked up, blinking against filthy rain. The Night Haunter looked back down at them, hunched over, cradled in the shoddy metal supports that littered Quintus’ skyline. They knew they should slam the window shut, bolt out the front door. Or go for their gun. Both were the instinctual, stupid things to do. The animal of their brain reacting to seeing a higher class of predator. 

He was haloed by the bluish-white light of the advertisements, water dripping from his scrap-clothes and lank hair. His face was a pale oval in the darkness, a beautiful nightmare- like a sculptor had carved him from marble during a fit of madness. 

It was probably only seconds, that quiet equilibrium. That tiny shard of peace before fate tightened the noose. It felt like it lasted hours. 

Cary took a breath. They smelled the stew inside the hab. 

“Are you hungry?” Cary asked the Night Haunter. 

His head tilted, oddly birdlike in his movements. 

“You don’t look like you’ve eaten well,” Cary said. 

Which was true, the strange face was made of angles and hollows. 

“Come down, out of the rain,” Cary said. 

He unfolded like a spider, pale limbs reaching out to grasp at the metal poles that had held him up. The Night Haunter climbed with grace Cary hadn’t thought possible for someone of his size. He reached the fire escape platform, and Cary withdrew inside, backing away from the window to let him enter. He moved with barely a whisper, somehow getting the bulk of his body through the gap. He had to incline his head to stand up straight in the apartment. 

For a second, Cary was fully prepared to admit they had gone insane. That this wasn’t in fact real, and was some horrible, horrible hallucination. Then they noticed the Night Haunter was dripping all over the carpet. 

“Okay, that needs to come off, do you have other clothes?” They gestured at the stitched together mosaic of fabric. 

The Night Haunter shrugged it off, it seemed to be more of a thickly layered cowl over a tunic- which mercifully seemed to be dry. Cary reached for it without thinking, looked down at the garment, realising it reeked of old blood. 

Instead of commenting on it, they opened the washing machine and placed it inside, hoping the scoop of detergent would at least get rid of some of the smell. They looked again to the Night Haunter. He was gangly for a horror, there didn’t seem to be an ounce of fat on him. 

Cary ushered him over to the sofa, which he took up all of. Which was fine, Cary hadn’t exactly planned on sitting right next to him. They retrieved two bowls from the cupboard, then looked again at the Night Haunter. He looked back, and blinked. 

They turned back to the cupboard and replaced one of the bowls with a mixing bowl, ladling stew into it until it was full, and in the height of absurdity brought it to the monster. Their plans of making the stew last all week were firmly scuppered. They gave him one of the wooden spoons to eat with, guessing that normal cutlery would look ridiculous in his hands. He took them both, then looked at Cary as they said cross legged on their cot, facing him.

“You can eat,” they prompted. “It’s fine.” 

Still, the Night Haunter waited until Cary had eaten from their own bowl before raising the spoon to his mouth. They tried not to stare, but it was difficult. He had large, elegant hands with thin fingers- but his nails were completely black. Long and sharp like a predator’s claws. His arms seemed littered with fading pink scars, but none older than a few weeks at most. 

They wondered where they could find clothes big enough to fit him. At a conservative estimate Cary would have guessed his current height as a little over seven feet- it was possible they could find something , maybe. The largest sizes of the spare kit shirts at the station might fit him- perhaps even some of the riot gear. They had seen his crime scenes, they had witnessed one of his crimes. Yet here they were, feeding the poor bastard and working out how to clothe him. 

There was something, in the shadows beneath the eyes. It elicited the strangest emotion of all from Cary: pity. He moved like an animal, like no one had taught him how to walk properly. He ate like an animal too, they suspected had they not given him the spoon that he might have just raised the bowl to his mouth and eaten like a dog. 

“You were there,” said the Night Haunter. 

Cary jolted, nearly spilling the contents of their bowl down themselves. His voice was whisper-soft, a gentleness that seemed perverse. 

“Sorry?” Cary said.

“You were there,” the Night Haunter repeated. “In the alley.” 

“Oh, yes. I was.” They eyed him, unsure of where this conversation could go. 

“Why?” He asked.

“I got called out there, someone called the QPC to report a crime,” Cary explained.

“QPC?” It was more of a command than a question. 

“Quintus Peace Corps, some remnant of old world justice.” They couldn’t quite help the bitterness that escaped their mouth. “Not much worth a damn now. Just making sure the gangs stay inside their own territories for the day, or however long they hold their turf for.” Cary clamped their jaw shut again. 

Saying things like that could get you killed, even if your current company wasn’t the local serial killer. He tilted his head again. 

“You don’t agree with it,” he stated. 

“No,” Cary admitted. “I don’t. What use are laws if the ones with enough money can escape them? What use are the laws, and pretending we uphold them if all we are is little more than another gang?”

They closed their mouth sharply, again. What was wrong with them? How was he dragging these truths out of them? 

“What about you?” Cary asked, before the Night Haunter could pull more thoughts from them. “Do you have people?”

“No,” he said.

“Do you have a hab?”

“No.” 

They glanced again at his evidently self-tailored clothes. It wasn’t hard to believe he was alone now, but it wasn’t as if he could have raised himself. This was another assumption that became amusing to them in later years. 

“How old are you?” Cary asked. 

The Night Haunter blinked, resting the mixing bowl on his lap. His eyebrows creased together. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “I have been here… Long enough.”

“Did you come from somewhere else?” 

“Yes, there was a pod- a gestation capsule. It came here, you still mine the crater.” 

Cary stared at him, a thousand questions roiling in their head. 

“That would make you nearly eleven years old,” they said, flatly. “Which can’t be right.”

The Night Haunter shrugged. 

“If that is when the crater was formed, then it is the measure of my life.” 

He definitely spoke like a Nostraman, that was for sure. Cary rubbed the bridge of their nose. 

“Alright, we’ll get back to that one. Why- why are you murdering people?” 

It seemed oddly humorous to speak the question aloud. But neither of them laughed. 

“Because they deserved it,” the Night Haunter said. 

Cary couldn’t exactly disagree- many of them had been gangers and scum from all levels of the hive. They thought of the woman in her hab, the one who had laid out her husband’s clothes. It had been the first Night Haunter crime scene Grike had taken them to. 

“What is the measure of a crime?” Cary asked him, slowly. 

He blinked, tilted his head again. 

“That which disrupts order,” he said. “That which goes against law. That which makes people believe they can add to the misery of others, the self-justifications.”

They were starting to understand. 

“Alright, so, say there is a man whose family is starving. He steals bread for them, harms no one, the baker does not even notice the theft.”

“He must be punished,” said the Night Haunter. “A crime is a crime.” 

Cary stared at him. He had a child’s ideal of justice, and the strength of a demigod. It was no wonder Nostramo had twisted him so. No wonder he reacted so violently. 

“Okay,” Cary said. “You’re right, a crime is a crime. But some are committed for good reasons. Is it right to let a child die because their medicine cannot be afforded?” 

There was a crease between the eyebrows of the monster. 

“Order must prevail,” he said, though his tone was uncertain. 

“Yes, order and peace are the preferred states of society, I agree with you. But the spirit of justice is not always carried out by word of law,” they spoke to him gently, like they might speak to Grisha or Jeanmary. 

He ground his teeth slightly, and blinked slowly. The Night Haunter’s bowl was empty, and Cary could recognise his exhaustion plainly. 

“You’re tired,” they said, standing and taking the mixing bowl from his hands. “Let me put these away, and I’ll try and get you comfortable.” 

When they came back, they dragged the cushions off of the sofa and laid them end to end. The two seat cushions and one of the back rests were long enough for him to lie on, and he used the other as a pillow. Cary covered him with one of the spare bed sheets, which was supremely lacking- it didn’t cover him at all. 

Cary moved around him quietly, putting the rest of the stew in the fridge and making sure the washing machine was on its drying cycle. 

“Why are you kind?” Asked the Night Haunter.

They found the answer oddly simple.

“What use would cruelty be? To strike at the world because it has struck at me, what would that change?” 

“Where are you going?”

“To the store, I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’ll try to be quiet when I come back,” Cary replied, shrugging on their jacket. 

“You’re not going to get others, are you?” 

Cary looked at him. They couldn’t lie and say they hadn’t thought about it. But seeing him there, half curled like a child, peering through the darkness- they could only again feel that pity. Here was an unloved monster, here was one who had known no comfort and had become something terrible. 

“No,” they promised. “I’m not going to get the others.”

The Night Haunter looked at them, then nodded and closed his eyes. The rain had let up a little, and they only got mildly damp on their way down the street. At the store Cary noticed the prices were up, again. A pict screen hanging behind the clerk’s counter displayed the face, the picture their shutter had taken when blood was pouring from his mouth. 

No one had fed him , they realised, and he wouldn’t have stolen food . Eating his kills must have been his only option. Horror and revulsion swirled in equal measure, horror that he was so iron-clad in his beliefs that he would not even feed himself properly, revolted that he had justified eating human flesh. 

It was then that Cary decided not to regret the decision to offer him food. That they would keep offering, and that hopefully things in Quintus would change. Cruelty begets cruelty.

When they came back, they heard the gentle rumbling of his breathing, which grew quieter as they entered. Cary wasn’t surprised to have woken him, they were beginning to believe he was a little more than just human. They put away the groceries and got the Night Haunter a glass of water. 

Cary retrieved their book, and again lay on their bed to read. The Night Haunter’s quiet breathing once again turned to the rumbling noise- not quite snores but something close to it.  The noise was strangely comforting, like the hum of the fridge or the buzz from the dryer. 

Soon, they felt their eyelids growing heavy, so Cary set the alarm on the radio, folded the corner of their page and went to sleep. 

-

“You let him into your home ?” The Inquisitor was incredulous. 

Cary nodded. 

“You fed him ?” 

“Should I repeat myself or…?” They raised an eyebrow. 

“It didn’t occur to you to be frightened? That he had found your hab?” 

“Of course I was frightened, but what would have been the use of acting on it? I had seen what he was capable of.”

“So you chose to feed, clothe and house him?” Elaius questioned. 

Gael frowned at him slightly, as if trying to remind the Ultramarine who was actually doing the questioning. 

“I did, and I don’t regret it,” Cary replied. 

“Even now?” Gael pressed.

“Even now. He had experienced a decade of cruelty at Nostramo’s hands. The least I could offer him was a mote of kindness in the hope he might change.”

“Did he?” The Inquisitor was frowning at them now. 

“Not really,” Cary admitted. “I got to him too late to change anything. Sometimes I regret that I did not find him sooner. That if we’d somehow crossed paths as children- as much of a child a Primarch can be at any rate, that his path could have been changed. That we might live in a very different world.”

Silence hung in the air. 

“But what use is regret now,” Cary shrugged. “Let me tell you about my stay of execution.”

Chapter Text

The next month of their life was odd. Sometimes Cary would come back to their apartment to find the Night Haunter sat on the floor, or the sofa. Sometimes they would wake up to find him using the washer-dryer, Cary didn’t know he knew how to do that. They cooked him food, left him a plate when he wasn’t there. Once or twice Cary had found him looking through one of the paperbacks from under the sofa, his long fingers tracing the Nostraman script carefully. 

They had learned a few things about him. That he had learned Nostraman, but other languages he’d seemed to have known instinctually- foreign, strange words Cary had never heard before. That he gained memories from the flesh of those he killed, and that he had some uncanny ability to tell what time it was. 

Once they had come home to find something boiling on the stove top, in the large pot they used to make stews and soups. Upon opening the lid, a meaty smell had filled the apartment, and in a thin red broth a man’s head bobbed. 

It rolled over in the water, one night-black eye remaining in its socket, wrinkled and slimy like bad fruit. Cary had dropped the lid and ran to the ablution chamber to promptly vomit. When their guts hat finished roiling, and they were able to drag themselves to the sink to wash out their mouth and clean their teeth, they saw the reflection of the Night Haunter peering around the doorway. 

“Why?” Cary managed, voice strangled in the effort of not urging. “Why did you do that?”

“Fear,” replied the Night Haunter. “One man’s head, boiled down to a skull. A trophy. That those who see me will think: that could be me. Many will not bloody their hands if they fear the consequence of doing so. And all it took was the death of a single man.”

Cary took a deep breath.

“Did you have to use my soup pot to do it?” They asked. 

The Night Haunter blinked. 

“I thought it would be better to sterilise it. You objected to my other trophies.” 

When they left the bathroom, the pot was empty. He was sat on the floor, scoring a hole in the side of a now white skull with his fingernail. 

Cary threw the pot away, off the fire escape. 

There were also, of course, the seizures. They had been woken up in the middle of the day to find him moaning and spasming on the floor- it had lasted less than half a minute but he’d managed to bite his tongue and blood tinged drool poured from his mouth. 

“I see things,” he admitted, while they wiped at his face. “Futures.” 

Cary had glanced at his half-closed eyes. 

“What did you see this time?” They asked. 

The Night Haunter didn’t reply. He went to sleep soon after, and they stayed up a little longer to watch him. Sleep must have taken them at some point, because when they woke he was gone. It was late evening, almost time to start getting ready for their shift. 

They had finished dressing when the prelector made a quiet noise. Cary looked, then went over immediately. The number was their family’s hab. Cary hit the answer button immediately. Their apartment filled with the muffled sound of fighting, of a man screaming and a woman sobbing. 

“Cary,” a quiet voice said.

“Jeanie, what’s going on?”

“He’s mad again. Grisha can’t open his eye, and I can’t stand up.”

“I’ll be there. Where are you? Is Grisha with you?”

“Under my bed, he’s here.”

“I’m coming,” they promised their sister. 

They pushed their motorcyc to the limit, not caring about the traffic they cut off or the shouts or the horns or the rain. Cary was fairly certain they had broken several laws on the way to City’s Edge, but they didn’t care. 

Their family lived in what amounted to a single storey hab, in a mildly nicer part of City’s Edge. The lumens were on, and even before they cut the engine they could hear their father shouting, their mother begging, pleading with him. 

There was something behind them, some prickled instinct that told them there was something at their back. Cary ignored it and went to the door, shouldering it open. 

Bang!

It was like everything happened in slow motion. There in the front room of the hab, their father was facing the door, staring at them. The pistol was falling from his hand, still clutching the bottle in the other. Their mother was falling backwards, dark hair covering her face. When she crashed to the floor, they saw the dark stain spreading out from her chest. Her eyes were open, but lifeless. There were new bruises on her face, a split lip that had only just healed. 

From the doorway to the kid’s room, Cary heard Jeanie scream. Their father wasn’t looking at Cary anymore. He was looking at something behind them, his unshaven face a mask of terror. 

“Run,” Cary told him. 

The worst fates always came to the ones who ran. Their father bolted for the back door, Cary moved inside, past their mother. A shadow moved with them, moved past them. They wanted to stop, to kneel at her side and weep. But Jeanie was crying, Grisha was crying. They were clinging to each other. 

Grisha had one of his eyes squeezed tight shut, the skin around it swollen and bruised- blood came from under the eyelid. There were red marks on Jeanie’s legs. She couldn’t stand, Cary had to carry her out to the bike. Grisha had curled his hands into their jacket so tightly that it was difficult to get them onto the motorcyc. 

Cary took their siblings to their aunt’s house. Olenka opened the door and accepted the kids in immediately, tried to usher Cary inside too. But they refused, and went back to the bike. 

It was easy, following their father’s trail. Back at the house, there was a bloody handprint on the back door. Cary called in their mother’s death, and stated that they were going after their father. Grike didn’t try to dissuade them, later they wondered why. 

They followed the long marks left in blood, through the streets and into the industrial zones. Eventually, the trail stopped at a warehouse. Cary felt oddly calm as they killed the bike’s engine, locked it up. 

The rusted door was half open, they could hear what sounded like low moans of pain from inside. Cary pushed open the door. 

In the dark, their father lay. He was attempting to crawl across the concrete floor- they noticed the back of his ankles were bloody. The tendons had been cut. 

He wept in relief when he looked up, when he saw their outline in the doorway. 

“Cary,” he said. “Cary, help me.” 

By the door, leaning on an old cargo crate, was a crowbar. Cary stepped inside, and closed the warehouse door behind them. They picked up the crowbar. 

They had been an angry kid growing up, a thrashing, biting, kicking, punching kind of kid. Now their anger burned with a cold efficiency that scared them. Cary held the crowbar in both hands, and raised it above their head. 

They drove it down with as much force as they could muster. His pleas turned to screams. Cary aimed for his eye- the eye Grisha would never see out of again. For his legs- the legs Jeanie would walk with a limp on for the rest of her life. They beat their father until he was spitting teeth and his fingers splayed at odd angles. Until his face was swollen and his clothes were stained more with blood than alcohol. 

Then they took out their pistol, took aim at his chest and shot him. Their father looked surprised. As if he hadn’t expected them to go through with it. Like he thought the beating would be the end of it, that Cary would do unto him as he had done unto his family and then leave him alive. 

He couldn’t have been left alive. The Night Haunter wouldn’t have let him live either and the Night Haunter would have made his death far bloodier than they had. 

Cary dropped the crowbar with a clatter. Their hands were sticky with blood, some of it had even spattered onto their face. 

The warehouse was silent, but not for lack of occupants. The prickling feeling came over their back again. 

“Do it,” they said, looking at their mangled father. “Kill me.”

Nothing. The anger poured into their heart, hot and explosive. Cary turned to where they knew he was.

“This is what you do!” They shouted. “You’ve killed for less than this, come on! I’m right here! Kill me! ” There were hot tears pouring down their cheeks.

“No,” said the pale face in the darkness. 

Their breath came harshly, in the choked manner of a crying child, hitching and wheezing.

“Why?” They asked him. 

“I have seen the point at which I kill you,” the Night Haunter declared. “Your death is not here. Not now.” 

The pale shape of his face vanished back into the dark. They were alone with the cooling body of their father.

When they managed to stumble out to their bike, the vox crackled. 

“Kulikov- Kulikov where are you?” It was Grike’s voice, he sounded worried. “Cary!”

“I’m here,” they said, raising the vox to their mouth. “He’s dead.”

“Location, now,” Grike said. 

Cary relayed the street name, and their coordinates. 

“Are you hurt? Who’s dead?” Grike asked, Cary could hear the sound of an engine starting in the background.

“I’m fine. My father’s dead.” Saying the words felt unreal. 

They might have been standing there for hours. Cary only really noticed something had changed when Grike was in front of them, shaking their shoulders. 

“Cary!” 

They blinked. 

“What happened?” He looked worried, brows knitted together. 

“Jeanie called. Said Dad was angry. Went down to the hab. He shot Ma.” Their voice seemed very far away. “He brought me here.”

“Your dad?”

Cary shook their head.

“The Night Haunter.”

Grike dragged them to the van, made them sit on the lip of the open back. 

“I killed him,” Cary said. 

“No you didn’t,” Grike said. 

He unclipped their shutter. Thumbed over the tiny viewport, clicked the buttons. Cary watched him delete the last hour of picts, then watched him throw it to the ground. When he picked it back up the lens was broken. 

“You tracked him here,” Grike said, grabbing their shoulders. “You tracked him here, and found him dead. The Night Haunter killed him. Cary, look at me. You did not kill him.” 

He clipped the shutter back onto their jacket. Such was the way of the QPC. Their crimes could be swept under the rug easily, no better than the gangs. Maybe worse. At least the gangs didn’t pretend to be upholding the law. 

“I need to go to the kids,” Cary managed. 

Grike nodded. They weren’t sure if they drove themselves there, or if Grike had ordered someone to take them down. Soon enough Cary was back at their aunt’s house. They remembered someone washing their hands, taking off the bloodied jacket, wiping at their face. 

Cary lay down on the spare mattress. There were bandages around half of Grisha’s face, and splints on Jeanie’s legs. Grisha curled into their side, while Jeanie rested her head in the crook of their neck. 

“Did you get him?” Grisha asked. 

Cary nodded. The kids eventually went to sleep, but all Cary could do was stare into the dark. They could tell themselves about justice all they wanted. That another man wouldn’t have hesitated in killing their father over money or any perceived slight. Would another man have drawn it out like they had? Taken his eye and broken his legs, just because he’d done so to Grisha and Jeanmary? 

It had come naturally to them. To reflect onto him that pain. That suffering. But the Night Haunter had already stopped him from getting away, made a mess of his tendons. They should have just killed him cleanly. Immediately. 

They felt like a fire that had burned out, ashes with no more life. That was when they made the decision that they would keep to, throughout all the years they lived. If they couldn’t kill a man in one blow, then they wouldn’t raise their hand at all. None of the drawn out violence. No torture. If death must be given, then it would be given as quickly as possible. 

Cary closed their eyes, and slept fitfully. 

-

“And did you?” Asked Elaius.

“Hm?” Cary looked at him.

“Keep your word.”

Cary gestured to their armour. 

“As you can see, I am bereft of the trophies Konnacht’s sons took to festooning themselves with. I never drew out another death in the manner they prided themselves on. They questioned my methods, but he didn’t.”

“They said you were merciful,” Elaius intoned. “They were obviously wrong.”

Cary shrugged.

“Compared to the rest of them, I was merciful. I refused to cause unnecessary anguish. I ended the lives of those the Legion kept alive only to keep them in pain. Have you ever administered the Emperor’s Mercy, Lieutenant?” 

Elaius bristled. 

“No,” he admitted. 

Cary’s face dropped. 

“You’re very young,” they commented. “I’m sorry.” 

“Heartwarming displays of Astartes compassion aside,” Gael interrupted before Elaius could say anything else. “I think this is something to be discussed. You said he’d killed for less, and earlier you mentioned your stay of execution. I assume this is what you are referring to? The Primarch had a vision of your death- at his hand, that prevented him from killing you then?”

Cary nodded. 

“That’s about the long and short of it. He explained once that he saw many futures, good, bad, middling. That he acted in the present to make sure the right future became. He marked my death for a future date, but kept me around while I was useful. It happened more frequently than you might think.”

“But he did not kill you,” Gael pointed out. 

“He made a damn good go of it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d only had half the picture, the strike, the coffin. Didn’t realise I would live until we were nose to nose and I was refusing to die,” Cary shrugged. 

“You admitted rather easily to the killing of your own father,” Gael stated. 

Cary looked at him. 

“Are you planning to prosecute me for a crime committed a myriad ago?” They asked, amused. 

“Well, as your Primarch said, a crime is a crime.”

“And an execution by the member of the Adeptus Arbites for the crime of murder is legal. All members of the QPC were retroactively made Arbites when the Imperium came to Nostramo, it wouldn’t surprise me if I’m still on their lists,” Cary replied. 

“That is a flimsy justification,” Elaius said. 

“I killed a man who murdered his wife and beat his children,” Cary snapped. “My sister never danced again. My brother didn’t speak for months. You torment me with deaths that happened so long ago that none aside from me recall them, boy. I imagine you grew up on Macragge, in bright sunshine and maintained fields. I grew up in squalor and darkness and blood-”

They hadn’t realised they were trying to get up until a sharp pain shot through their body. Cary grunted in pain, their voice strangled by Mercy’s final gift. They sat back, breathing heavily. 

“I want to rest,” they said. 

“I will come back tomorrow,” Gael said, rising from his stool. “Elaius, would you come with me for debriefing?” 

Cary did not watch them leave. But heard when Elaius’ boots stopped at the doorway. 

“I apologise, Captain Kulikov,” he said. 

“Accepted,” Cary replied, their voice sounding strained even to their own ears. 

The door slid shut. Then the door to the ablutions chamber opened. The girl peered out. 

“Oh, hello,” Cary said, turning their head to look at her. “I quite forgot you were there.” 

She crept out, still chewing her lip. 

“I want to hear the rest of the story,” she said. 

“Come back before they do, we’ll do the same again,” Cary told her. 

“You’re nice,” she mumbled. 

“What’s your name?” Cary asked. 

“Yarah.”

They closed their eyes. 

“I will see you tomorrow, Yarah.” 

The door opened once again, and closed on quiet hinges. 

Chapter Text

They dreamed again. Fractured little dreams that made no sense. They stood beside him, watching him grow more, and more and more unstable. Sometimes he spoke to them. Sometimes they spoke back. Cary thought the others might have seen them at some point. Sevatar’s eyes caught theirs as they stood close to Konnacht, the top of their head not even coming up to his elbow. Standing in a dungeon, Konnacht without his armour, the Great Angel standing before him. His red eyes alighted on their face. They think they might have heard him say their name, questioningly. 

This too slips from them. Cary stands on a horrible ship, and watches Konnacht hunt the crew down to a man. A sad, frightened young man who is more fear than person. Sometimes this man can see them too. They keep trying to talk to him. They try to tell him to get back on the shuttle, to get away. 

He doesn’t. He dies screaming.

They are standing in a throne room. It is so cold- they didn’t know they could feel cold in their dreams. He sits upon his throne. This is the Night Haunter. This is the Dark King. 

“You’re going to die,” they manage. 

“Yes,” says the Night Haunter. “Yet you live. I decree it.”

“I’m sorry,” Cary says. “I’m so sorry. I should have found you sooner.”

“No apologies should come from your mouth,” he says. “It is the gravity of my life that has changed the threads of yours.”

“I’m so cold,” they whisper. 

He stands, he is so much older than when they left him. The Night Haunter reaches for them with bloodied hands. 

-

Cary awoke. They reached up and touched their cheek, expecting the wet warmness there to be blood. Yet, it seemed only tears marked their face. The dream slipped away from them in pieces, as dreams are wont to do. They wiped at their face until no trace of tears remained. 

The room had not changed, but they felt a little better. Cary swung their legs out of the cot and stood. Their body glove had been replaced with a sort of casual Ultramarine’s off-duty robes. It hung off of them loosely. Cary had always been small, narrower than the Night Lord average and an inch under seven feet. A variety of factors had led to this, not least of which were their poor eating habits as a teenager. There was only so much the augments could do against genetics. They noticed that behind their head, their jacket had been folded up once more. They pulled it on over the robe, out of the strange craving to have something familiar. 

It sort of still fit on them. The hem hung far above their waist, and the sleeves only went down to just below their elbows. Cary remembered a time when the jacket had swallowed them, a time when they'd had to keep aggressively shoving the sleeves up to where they comfortably rested now. 

They stretched and grimaced at the sound of their joints popping. A few tentative steps around the small room at least confirmed that they were still able to walk. Cary went to the armour rack, and lifted their helmet from its mount. 

It had, like many Night Lord helmets, the face of a skull. Cary’s had always been silver in colour, as opposed to the real bone or white-painted helmets used by others. The bat wings which stretched out from the top were adamantine too. They’d often wondered if it was to help him find them, so that they’d be easier to kill when the time came. The ruby-red lenses stared back at them, dull without power. 

The door opened, and the girl- Yarah, darted inside. She seemed breathless, and her eyes widened when she saw Cary standing. 

“Good morning,” Cary said. 

“Are you going to put it on?” Yarah asked between gasps of air. 

“No, no point. There wouldn’t be any power to it,” they said, placing the helmet back on the armour rack. “You seem to be in a rush.”

“I just finished all my chores,” Yarah again sat on the stool. “I think the Inquisitor is bringing you breakfast.” 

“How nice of him. I imagine that amounts to the usual Astartes rations.”

“I think he’s bringing eggs,” Yarah said. 

Cary smiled, and took a seat on the edge of their cot. 

“Eggs! I haven’t had eggs in years,” they paused. “Even before the stasis chamber.”

“Are you really as old as they say you are?” Yarah asked.

“I was there when the Emperor came to Nostramo,” Cary said. 

She made a strange gesture then, crossing her hands over her chest so that her thumbs intertwined. When she looked at the obvious confusion on Cary’s face, she explained:

“It’s the salute of the aquila. You’re supposed to do it when the God-Emperor is mentioned.” 

“Yes, that was another thing I was meaning to ask about,” Cary said, slowly. “The God-Emperor, you… worship him?” 

Yarah looked at them as if they’d grown another head. 

“Yes?”

“Right,” Cary said, absorbing that information. “Well, I bet wherever Lorgar is right now he’s very pleased with himself.”

Yarah flinched at the name. 

“Sorry,” Cary apologised. “I knew him.” 

“How many of the Primarchs did you know?” 

“Well, I knew Lord Guilliman. I knew most of them decently well. Nacht wasn’t exactly a social creature, and neither was Sevatar. I knew how to talk to people, and they were more than happy to let me do it.” 

“Did you know the Great Angel?” Yarah leaned forward, eyes wide and excited. 

“I did,” they smiled. “He was as kind as they say he was.”

“Was he pretty?” 

Cary laughed. Yarah scowled at them. 

“Sorry, sorry. He was beautiful- they were all beautiful in a strange way.” 

“ All of them?” Yarah looked doubtful 

“Beauty is not the measure of morality, else this would be a very different Imperium.” 

Cary looked towards the door. The heavy sound of boots echoed down the corridor. They turned back to find Yarah already shutting herself inside the ablution chamber. 

Soon enough the door opened, and once again Inquisitor Gael stepped through. Cary had no way of knowing if the Ultramarine accompanying him was once again Elaius, but they were sure they would know in time.

“Good morning, Captain Kulikov,” the Inquisitor said brightly. 

In his hands he held a tray, which he set down on the desk. Cary could see that they had in fact been brought eggs, sausage, and toast. There even appeared to be a pot of recaf. 

“We thought you might be hungry, having not had a meal for the past ten thousand years,” he joked. 

They were hungry, it was true. They weren’t exactly sure when their last meal had been. 

“Thank you, Inquisitor,” Cary replied, accepting the cup that he had poured for them.

In his hands, the cup had been more the size of a bowl. Gael let them drink and eat before once again asking them to continue their story. He was oddly relaxed for an Inquisitor, which was off-putting in itself. 

“We had just gone over the death of my father, yes?” Cary took another sip of recaf.

“I believe so.”

“Then we should start at the beginning of the Long Year.” 

-

The seasons of Nostramo were never pleasant. The rain was always warm no matter the month of the year, it never even seemed to matter where you were in the hive. You were always either too hot or too cold. 

However, Nostramans often marked the start of the year with colourful ribbons, streaming from their windows, tied to the criss-cross of metal struts between hab blocks. The upper hivers would set off sparkrockets, showering the hive below with brightly coloured sparkles. It hurt the eyes to look at them, just another way the upper hives kept the lower hives in check really. 

Still, if you had smoked glasses, then the displays were quite pretty. Cary had found a pair of these silver rimmed glasses shoved in the gap between the bed and the wall when they moved into the hab. They’d climbed up to the roof to watch, assuming they’d be completely alone. It was one of the years when it hadn't rained for year’s beginning, but still, not everyone had smoked glasses. 

They were lying on the roof, staring up at the swirls of colour and explosion of sparks, when the sky was eclipsed by darkness. 

“What is this?” Asked the Night Haunter. 

He was squinting painfully, hunched like an animal. Dark trails of his hair threatened to brush Cary’s face, so they sat up, shielding their eyes as they handed him the glasses. 

“Year’s beginning, we’re celebrating the start of a new year,” Cary explained, helping him slide the glasses over his ears. 

He craned his neck backward to look up as they had. The Night Haunter had only gotten larger in the past few months, he took up all four of the sofa cushions now. The only lucky thing was that he only seemed to need to eat every few days or so, like a lion. Cary squinted at him, lit up brightly in the painful beauty of the sparkrockets. 

The Night Haunter watched carefully, Cary could see those points of white at the side of his eyes moving- it was strange to see where someone was looking. Normally Nostramans indicated where they were looking by inclining their heads or gesturing. 

“It is too bright,” he said.

“Yeah, they’re really making a show of it this year.” Cary squinted at the upper hive. “Not exactly surprising.” 

“I have a plan,” the Night Haunter said. 

“Oh?” Cary looked at him.

“I am going to take over Quintus,” he said, solemnly. 

“Right,” Cary replied. 

“I am serious.” 

“I’m sure you are- Nacht, you’re one man, and not a very well liked one at that.”

They had started shortening the name, using an old Nostraman word for Night. He didn’t seem to mind it. 

“I have a plan,” the Night Haunter repeated. 

“Tell me.”

After he had finished explaining, Cary could only stare at him. 

“Once I have subjugated Quintus, the other cities of Nostramo will follow. They already fear me, fear what I can do. I will root out corruption and I will root out disorder.” 

It was a little hard to take him seriously while he was still wearing the smoked glasses. 

“I want to make the Corps a force for true justice,” he said, a little quieter. “I want to give people hope, give them peace. That they are no longer subject to the whims of the gangs.”

“You probably won’t have to kill many of them,” Cary replied. “Upper hivers will do anything to save their own skin. Not of course that us lower hive scum wouldn’t but y’know how rich people are.”

Cary doubted he knew how rich people were. There were still so many gaps in his knowledge, the kind of social knowledge that would have come with a normal upbringing. 

“When are you going to start?” Cary asked. 

He took off the smoked glasses and dropped them into Cary’s hand. The Night Haunter stood and craned his head to look up towards the tallest spire of the hive. 

“Tonight.” 

In a single night, seven of Quintus’ Justicars went missing. Their remains were later found scattered across the city. Cary had often seen their names at the top of documents, seen them shaking hands with the gang leaders, seen them smiling for picts. They were the most rotten of the Justicars, the ones known for taking bribes, for having the most connections, for having their hands in the dirtier businesses of Quintus. 

Cary couldn’t say the officials would be missed. But it put everyone on edge. They were taking on more shifts as the Night Haunter took precedence over almost anything else. The rich were getting scared, the gangs were too. Any disruption of peace and law was tracked down and methodically eliminated. Not even the highest level of hiver was safe, they’d heard over the vox that the Mirthless, the Blade Carrion- even the Chatterers had been slaughtered to a man. Those of them that had survived scattered to the winds, like cockroaches scrambling away from a lifted rock. 

It surprised Cary when he went after the counter-culturalists, the young ones who printed their own newspapers and demanded change. After all, it only usually took a few years for their spirits to be broken, for them to become just another cog in the churning machine of Nostramo. Their Dad had caught them with one of the pamphlets once. Made them sleep outside in the winter rain- caught blacklung and they’d been coughing up grey miner’s mucus for weeks afterwards. 

It made Cary uneasy to see the idealists cut down like the others. Like the gangers and the squandering nobles. They worked up the nerve to ask him about it when he had appeared in their hab, early in the morning. They usually saw each other in the ash-grey hours of morning, Cary supposed it was when his “shift” ended too. 

“Why the Ribboners?” Cary asked him.

He looked up at them.

“Who?”

“The kids on Third Ring, the ones printing their own papers- Advocates for Change, I think that’s what they called themselves.”

Everyone called them the Ribboners, for the brightly coloured year’s beginning ribbons they tied in their hair and clothing. Symbols of change, of making things anew

“They interrupted order,” the Night Haunter said. 

There had been riots recently. The Ribboners had taken advantage of the general chaos he’d been sowing to canvas the city openly. Cary hadn’t been there- been called by Grike to a different Night Haunter crime scene, but they’d heard it hadn’t ended well for anyone in the Ribboners’ way. 

“They had some good ideas,” Cary pointed out. 

The Night Haunter arched an eyebrow. 

“Such as?”

“Improving things somewhat. Y’know, so that there aren’t kids in gangs, or trafficking, or privatised health services, or that people should actually be getting punished for crimes,” Cary listed. 

“Order can stop these things,” he said. “They didn’t seem particularly interested in the improvement of the city when they were throwing bricks through windows.”

Cary wondered how long it would take to break down political activism to the Night Haunter. To explain that while yes those actions were bad, had a negative impact on the world, it was only a brick through a window. That what they were fighting for was to be heard, that they were raging against a system that had tried to crush all human life again and again and again. That they had little else to live for but the hope that something, anything would change. 

“I’ll remind you that they were only able to rally because you’ve just murdered about half the leadership of Quintus,” Cary said, pointing their fork at him. “It’s chaos out there right now.”

“And from the ashes, order will be born,” he promised. 

Cary hadn’t been there, the day he went before the remaining nobles and Justicars and other officiants. Cary hadn’t heard what he had said to them, what words he had cunningly worked (he’d become increasingly verbose over the year), or what he had offered them. The only thing they knew was that when they awoke in the evening, they had several missed calls on their prelector- which was also flashing with an emergency news alert. 

Quintus had just installed the Night Haunter as their king. 

Unas, Dyas, Tridentarius and Tettares had already pledged their allegiances, after refusing Quintus aid for years. Cary had to just sit and stare at the prelector for a few minutes, before checking the messages. Most of them were from Grike and Olenka, their aunt wanting to know if they’d seen the news and Grike asking them to call as soon as they woke up. 

Then of course, there was one message from a contact Cary had never seen before. It was marked Official Invitation , with the small icon at the corner bearing Nostramo Quintus’ coat of arms. Cary pressed it, and let the message play. 

“Officer Kulikov,” a steady, administrative voice said. “The… The king of Nostramo Quintus, the Night Haunter, requests your presence at the Justicial Tower at your earliest convenience, as a witness. At the acceptance of this message, the Quintus Peace Corps will be informed of your absence for the day.” 

Cary swore. Stared at the prelector. Swore again.

“Thank you for your response, we will be sure to pass it on.”

“What? No, nonono-,” they leapt towards the screen, but the message had vanished. 

They went back to their bed, and fell face down onto it. It seemed to be the only reasonable action at this point, the only sane thing left to do. 

Still clipped onto their belt from the shift last night, their vox crackled.

“ Kulikov answer your damn vox now! ”

Grike. 

Cary got up, went to the pipes where their work trousers hung and took their vox.

“Here, Grike, though I’d like to point out these are unpaid hours-,” they attempted to sound at least a little jovial. 

Grike swore, loudly, and continued swearing for some time.

“You realise we have a damned Justicial Excusal here for you? To go to the Tower? Can you explain any of this?” He demanded.

“I got a summons on the prelector. I’ve been asked to attend the Tower as a witness.” 

“A witness?” Grike repeated. 

“Yes, sir.”

“What the hell is that meant to mean?”

“Well, it was my shutter that got a picture of his face. When I called the crime into the station I said I had a witness: me. Maybe he thinks he’s being funny,” Cary grimaced. 

They knew for a fact the Night Haunter would think it funny. 

“Cary if you go there, there’s every chance you’re gonna end up disembowelled and hung off the parapets. Your father- does he know about your father? We can get you out of the city, off-world if we need to,” he was rambling now. 

Off-world was a pipe dream even for the hivers in the Spire, let alone someone who’d been born Scar-side.

“It’ll be fine,” Cary said. “I’m going.”

“Kulikov-,”

Cary turned the vox off, and started to get dressed. 

The Justicial Tower wasn’t the highest point of Nostramo Quintus, but it was the largest. A tall dark spike that challenged the heavens like an interlocutory finger, gothic in its architecture and dramatic in its silhouette. Cary had never been. Supposedly the courts were supposed to be held there, in the rare occasion someone had committed a crime worthy of going before a judge and hadn’t been killed before they got there. Sometimes the accused hadn’t even committed the crime, sometimes people who should have been taking a long walk off a short pier got off scott free. 

It was no wonder that in the back of their mind, they felt as if they were attending the gallows. They squinted through the rain at the jumping map on the screen of the motorcyc. Having never been there before, Cary had been forced to key in the address to the bike’s compass. 

People looked at them, a class of people Cary had never seen before. The well-dressed and the well fed. The noble sons and daughters of Nostramo, so much better than lower hivers for some inscrutable quality of their blood. 

Cary didn’t think they looked much different from those on City’s Edge. 

When they reached the gates of the Justicial Tower, there was an uncomfortable edge to the air. Fear. Uncertainty. Cary wondered if anyone in this part of Quintus had ever felt this kind of fear before. The fear the lower hives had been struggling with for centuries, that the upper hive had only now come to appreciate. 

The guards stood aside, told them where to park their bike. The helmeted figures didn’t even ask for any identification, though likely Cary’s personal files had already been pulled up by anyone who had the means to. They were in a half delirious mood as they hopped up black granite steps and through an ornately carved doorway. 

The inside of the Tower was lavish- like a palace from a novel. It seemed unreal in its vaulted ceilings, the smooth black marble shot through with silver streaks of adamantine. It reminded Cary of lightning in a midnight sky, and the image stuck with them for a long time. 

The floors were smooth stone, slate-grey but flecked with a gunmetal sheen. The lumens here cast a dim blue glow over all, giving it an ethereal, unreal feeling. 

“Officer Kulikov?” A soft voice said.

Cary turned, a pale haired administrator was looking at them. Her grey jacket was more finely tailored than the admin from the alleyway had been, with a statelier collar and fine silver trim. She was probably in her twenties, if they’d had to guess, and had a smooth oval shaped face. Cary nodded, their mouth suddenly dry. 

“If you would follow me,” she said. 

Cary wanted to make some kind of conversation as they walked down the halls, past carved ebony doors and carved silver statues. But the quiet seemed to press in from all sides. If they heard other people it was in frantic whispers behind closed doors. Cary heard snatches of “Can’t possibly…” and “The damned Night Haunter! ”. 

They reached a pair of tall, ash-grey doors. Five great lions from Nostramo’s past chased each other in a circle across their surface. 

The administrator placed her hand on the doorknob, before turning to Cary.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. 

Cary’s eyebrows furrowed, then they realised.

“Oh, no, it’s fine. He’s not gonna kill me.” 

The administrator looked at them.

“Your response called him a-”

“I’m aware- how many people heard that? At a conservative estimate?” They asked.

The administrator’s mouth twisted.

“His majesty played it before the court,” she said. 

Cary had never had any idea how many people were even in the court, let alone after the Night Haunter’s purge. They assumed it was a decent number. 

“I didn’t know it was recording me,” they admitted. 

“Very clearly,” the administrator drawled, then opened the door. 

It revealed a long room, where a grand oval shaped table stretched almost the entire length of it, carved of a single chunk of adamantine. Black robed officials hung in clumps around the room, like crows waiting to pick over carrion. 

At the end of the table was a tall black throne. Cary wondered if they’d already had it on hand or if they’d made it for the Night Haunter. He sat there as if it was truly where he was meant to be, like he had always been there. 

The administrator bowed as she entered, and Cary didn’t even notice she was waiting for them to do the same. Feeling semi ridiculed in bowing to a man who had boiled a human head in their only soup pot, they copied the gesture. 

“My Lord Night Haunter,” the administrator said, her voice now cut of steel and echoing around the hall. “I present Officer Kulikov.” 

The Night Haunter rose. The soft chattering of the crows went quiet. 

“You may leave me,” he said. 

The crows seemed unused to being dismissed in this manner, but they left quickly. Even the administrator left without a second look. Cary was already moving past them all anyway, looking the Night Haunter up and down. 

Firstly, they’d made clothes that fit him. It was strange to actually see where his shoulders lay, to see him in the tailored clothes of the nobility. They had also apparently washed him, as his hair lacked the shine of grease it usually bore. Cary had once or twice managed to coax him into the tiny ablution chamber in their hab, managed to spray him down with the showerhead and get some conditioner in his hair. Though usually he stated that he didn’t see the point. 

He was smiling. Cary smacked his forearm. 

“What the hell are you?” They asked, incredulously. “You were a serial killer who sometimes crashed on my floor and now you’re king? ” 

He laughed. The Night Haunter had a distinct laugh, somewhere between a bark and the croak of a carrion bird. Cary noticed a dark crown sitting on his brow, a shape of black iron, all angles and spikes. 

“I am the Night Haunter,” he said. “I have done what I was created to do, unite this planet under my banner. All that is left is to create a model of conformity, of compliance.” 

“Best of luck to you,” Cary replied. “Nacht, why am I here?”

I am no one and nothing, the statement hung in the air, the truth Cary had more or less come to terms with over the past year. Now that he was king, what use did he have of them? They doubted that he would continue to sleep on the floor of their hab, on a cobbled bed of worn sofa cushions. 

“As my witness,” he said, simply.

“Yes, very funny of you.”

“Cary- I want you to watch me,” he said, reaching out and placing a large hand on their shoulder. 

Even through the jacket they could feel the heat of his skin- he had always been feverishly hot, like he was constantly ill. They looked at him, still not understanding. 

“ Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ?” He said, as if that was meant to clear anything up. 

The Night Haunter had attempted to teach them some of the strange, archaic sounding language he claimed to have known since his birth. Cary furrowed their brow in translation.

“Who watches… the watcher?” They guessed.

“Close. Who will watch the watchman? Who among these cowards would tell me that I am going too far? That my hand could extend in mercy, rather than death?”

“You want me to choose who lives and dies,” Cary said, their voice flat. 

“Not quite. I want you to give counsel to me. You know the people, you have always known people- known their hearts. I do not trust these vultures and scavengers, looking to pick apart the remains of the tumours I have excised from Quintus. I trust you when you tell me I am wrong.” 

Cary struggled to recall a time they had ever called him wrong. There had been times where they strongly suggested a different course of action, Cary had assumed that most of them had been resolutely ignored. After all, they’d kept finding corpses. Enough to block storm drains. 

“Can you do that?” He asked.

“I’ll do it.”

Chapter Text

“You were friends,” the Inquisitor commented, as they took a sip from their cup. 

“I’d like to think so,” Cary replied. 

“You’re not sure?”

“I’d make a pithy comment about the amount of questions you ask, but you are an Inquisitor,” Cary said with some amusement. “He was sentimental, often not in ways people understood.” 

“Do you believe then that he wanted your counsel? Or was it simply out of some affection that he kept you close?” 

Cary closed their eyes. They tapped their cup to show they were thinking and not simply being petulant. 

“I think he wanted me there to keep him on a short leash,” Cary said, eventually. “He was right that I wasn’t scared of him in the way others were. I was more often than not scared for him. What would happen if they caught him, what would happen if Quintus had managed an uprising. But he was too clever to be captured and knew they were too cowardly to rise against him.”

“You speak of him tenderly,” Gael said, softly. 

Cary opened their eyes, looking at him for a long moment. 

“You can’t have someone in your life for that long without gaining a very intense understanding of them,” they said. “I knew him as well as I knew myself. As well as I knew Nostraman, as well as I knew the streets I grew up on. I pitied him, I sympathised with him, I tried to correct his course. But he saw a silver thread that tied him to his fate and he followed it like a soldier marching to war.” 

“You should have killed him,” said Elaius. 

Cary tilted their head towards him.

“Good morning, Elaius. I’m flattered you have such faith in my five-foot-three, eighty pound mortal self. Consider how well you would have fared against your own Primarch before your augments.”

“Lets not start this again,” Gael said quickly. “Please continue.”

“Very well, as an old friend would have said: I was there the day the Emperor came to Nostramo…”

-

He would not arrive for just about a year after, though. The Long Year, as it had come to be known, had ended. Quintus had its dark king, and the rest of the planet had more than willingly followed their example in order to keep the Night Haunter from their habs. 

Cary’s new life was not something they really expected. For one, they had been asked to move out of their hab and into a room in the Justicial Tower. They had managed to leverage moving their family out of the slums in exchange for this. For another, they were still technically part of the QPC, though their title had been somewhat fanangled through seven different kinds of bureaucracy. Officially, they were the Quintus Peace Corps Justicial Tower representative. The former had been thrown out of the window and impaled on the parapets during the purge. 

They didn’t sit at the long table, preferring instead to hover in the shadows and listen. Cary took notes, kept track of what cases were brought before the Night Haunter, and tried their best to give appropriate counsel. Dvalica, the administrator who had shown Cary in on their first visit to the Justicial Tower, often stood with them and put together the paperwork for the day's meetings. 

Sometimes, during a decision, the Night Haunter’s eyes would flick to theirs. At a distance it was imperceptible, yet somehow Cary knew when he was looking at them. They would shake or nod their head, indicating however they thought the sentencing should go. When to give mercy, and when to deliver justice. Often he listened. Though just as often he did as he thought was right, claiming to have seen something in one of his visions. 

He also learned quickly- very quickly. Cary had on more than one occasion entered his chambers and tripped over a new stack of recently read books. It made them wonder what sort of a man he would have been, had Nostramo been a kinder world, had someone taken him in sooner. 

The Night Haunter still handled fear like a weapon, like a scalpel. He cut at the poisons of Quintus like a surgeon, but he had the bedside manner of a scientist. Quintus was a constant vivisection and often Cary felt like the only student of the Night Haunter’s anatomy class.  

It was justice kept by the tension of a thread, the threat of the Night Haunter- for he still walked the streets. If a crime was committed and the perpetrator was not caught within a window of time he considered acceptable, he would go and find them himself. The QPC hadn’t been happy about this, Grike even less so. 

There was peace, certainly. Though mostly it felt like the peace of the grave. 

The beginning of the end started when the reports of ships- ships not from the local system reached the desk of the Night Haunter. Missives from the Imperium of Man , reclaiming Nostramans as their own, reaching out to the few surrounding planets that also supported life. 

Many of them addressed the Night Haunter directly, from what Cary could tell. Their grasp of the language- high gothic, was still not fluent and they struggled with the papers he put to them.

“Who are they?” Cary asked him, finally giving up on deciphering the mass of text.

“My father and brothers,” the Night Haunter replied.

“You have a father?” They were incredulous, shocked- frankly they did not believe him. 

He looked at them, one eyebrow arched. They were sitting in his office, while the crows outside were going into a frenzy. Nostramo’s population seemed convinced that this was the Coming of the Light, that prophesied parting of the clouds to allow their dying sun to shine upon the world truly. 

“Did you think I was formed from shadow and blood alone?” He asked.

“No, I always assumed you were a cruel joke whatever Gods are out there were playing,” they replied. “Or a mutant.” 

“It is not untrue,” he mused. 

Cary wondered which part he was talking about, and decided they didn’t want to know. Their brain had leapt to more worrying prospects, like the fact the Night Haunter had brothers. What if they were exactly like him? What if they were worse? At least they knew the Night Haunter. He could be persuaded away from most violence but even then, if he was a dog on a leash then they were often being dragged behind him. Unknown elements worried Cary. 

The messages from the Imperium became more frequent, as signs of atmospheric disturbance lanced across the sky. A repeated warning, that Cary assumed was meant to be comforting. But it was like a refrain beating against the inside of their skull: we are coming, we are coming, we are coming. The words filled them with pain, and they had no idea why, like a pressure headache. 

They found it difficult to sleep during those last few days on Nostramo. The Night Haunter kept odd hours, went for days without sleep at a time, and often Cary found themselves in his office watching out the windows. As if at any second the sky would break open and harsh light would pour through, a spear to pierce the planet. 

His presence offered some comfort, but it was in these moments of close proximity that Cary began to see the cracks. He wrote for hours, his spider-like handwriting covering pages and pages and pages. The seizures were also becoming more frequent, and often more violent. Spasms of pain had led to at least one of the crows receiving a rather nasty cut across the arm. 

Still, he’d known exactly when the ships would break the clouds, and he’d bade them to come with him. Cary had followed, mildly thankful that they were at least wearing a clean shirt. He went down and through the Tower, along the way collecting a near silent procession of crows and other advisors. 

The doors to the Tower were opened wide, and they stood there, milling about the Night Haunter like children. The rain had stopped. All chatter faded as the charcoal sky parted, and the prow of a great, golden ship pierced through. 

It was too big to comprehend, and took up most of the sky over Quintus. The roar it made drowned out all noise, and the shafts of light from Nostramo’s dying sun bounced painfully from the gold. 

Even when they closed their eyes, they could still see the light. The dancing impression of the great ship still plastered there. 

Cary did not see when the smaller ship brought the Imperial Father to Quintus, did not hear how people called him and his sons the Delegation of Light . The Night Haunter made a small off-handed gesture, and the crows pulled back from him. Cary stepped back too, with some small amount of hesitation. They didn’t want to leave him to face the light alone, but he looked down at them.

“Leave me,” he commanded. 

Cary went to stand among the crows. Down the broadway that led to the Tower, a glow was approaching them. The sound of heavy, metallic boots on the rockcrete of the road. An organised march led by a fragment of the sun, that blinded those who looked upon it. 

Whispers had already spread through the crowd, that there was a man- a giant in golden armour, flanked by giant sons. That those who had looked directly upon him had gone blind. Cary found that if they looked a little to the side of the burning light, that they could make out a little detail.

The armour was golden, certainly, a white-fur trimmed red cloak hanging from his shoulders. He was like a grand statue bidden to life, olive-skinned and crowned in laurel. The features were difficult to gauge, due to that seemingly divine light that poured from him, that haloed him. 

At his sides were his sons, the brothers of the Night Haunter. They were easier to look upon, but no less grandiose. Demigods who wore the same armour as their father, yet carried themselves far differently. Two stoic, one who laughed at something his brother had said, and one whose face betrayed such serenity Cary wondered if he quite understood where he was. 

Of the serious two, one wore golden armour- though it seemed brassy and not quite as splendorous as his fathers. A shock of white hair sat close cropped to his head, tanned skin and he had the expression and features of a brick. The other was similar in his countenance, though his armour was the colour of gunmetal, and his black hair was buzz cut. He had bright silver eyes that cut right through them- Cary wanted to hide like a child. All of them had those strange eyes- eyes with rings of colour and white edges. It made Cary shudder with its uncanniness. 

The third had white hair too, he wore it long and it almost seemed to have a pearlescent sheen. He smiled more readily, his armour a rich purple and a white fur around his shoulders. His eyes were a bright violet in hue, and the light danced in them greedily. The fourth brother was completely shaven, golden tattoos marking his open face. Great waves of peace seemed to roll forth from him, and his armour was the colour of stone- trimmed with polished gold that caught his father’s fallen brilliance. 

None of them looked a thing like the Night Haunter, whose hair had fallen in lank strands before his face as he cringed at the radiance of them all. 

The man Cary knew had to be the Emperor opened his arms as if to embrace his son as he approached the Night Haunter. They wanted to tell him no, that physical contact was an incredibly poor idea. However, Nostramo’s dark king shook violently, a low moan escaping from his mouth.

His hands flew to his face, the nails digging into his cheeks. The Night Haunter screamed. It was an animal’s cry, nothing human should have been able to make that kind of noise. 

Cary broke the crowd, ignoring the hisses of the crows and escaping their grasping hands- he was having a seizure and he was trying to take out his own eyes. They didn’t care for this man of blazing gold, who had blinded Quintus without a second thought. It was some immediate instinct to try and get to the Night Haunter.

All the wind went out of them and they bent double over what felt like a wall. Wheezing and looking upwards, framed against the broken sky was the other one in gold. He said something to them that they didn’t understand. 

Cary pushed his outstretched forearm away, to get around him. The giant simply picked them up, holding them with one arm as a parent might do for a toddler throwing a tantrum. They were pretty sure they swore at him, uselessly beat their fists against his arm and chestplate. The giant only held them tighter and looked onwards. It was hard to breathe, let alone yell- they swear they heard their ribcage creak under the pressure yet somehow they knew he was holding them with barely any effort at all.

Cary looked back at the Night Haunter, whose scream had been cut short. The Emperor was holding his head in two golden gauntleted hands, gently, kindly. Like a father might do for an upset son. He said something, in that language. The one all the messages had come through in, the one the Night Haunter had been attempting to teach them. 

Had they been a bit of a quicker study, they would have known the exchange went as thus:

“Konrad Curze, be at peace, for I have arrived and intend to take you home.”

“That is not my name, Father. I am Night Haunter, and I know full well what you intend for me.”

After that, he regained that stately composure he had learned during his time in the Tower. He noticed Cary, who could do little more than make a palms up “What can you do?” gesture at him. The Night Haunter said something to his brother, who put Cary down. There was little grace in the motion, a step above dropping them as if they were a cat. 

They sprang to their feet and once again slipped in among the crows as they began to file inside the Tower. 

“You are a disgrace,” Dvalica commented, catching up to them. 

Cary told her, in the traditional Nostraman response, where she could find her mother and how much trouble Dvalica would have finding her own father. Their words came in short gasps of breath however, and later when all the panic had died away they found a rather interesting pattern of bruising across their torso and back. The same patterns that had adorned the giant’s armour now adorned their own skin. 

They kept it to themselves. They’d always been good at hiding bruises. 

Cary wasn’t sure how to feel over the next few days. They were often quietly relieved, looking to a future that could only get brighter from the smog-plagued, bloodied past Nostramo had. That the Imperium would help, that things would get better. At other points their mood dipped. The Emperor was taking the Night Haunter home, the crows said. Their only friend was going away, to a place so far Cary couldn’t even conceptualise it. 

Then of course there was the question of what happened to them. With no Night Haunter, there was no one in the Tower who especially needed their counsel. With no Night Haunter, they worried things would go back to the way they were before. Would their aunt and the kids lose the place they had been given at his grace? Would those ganger-nobles come back in force, desperate to assume power? 

They wanted to ask him these questions. But truthfully Cary feared the answer. They wanted, absurdly, to remain close to him- as if worried he would forget about them. These were childish, emotional thoughts that they buried deep within their chest. Yet they couldn’t help feeling abandoned. 

Their fate came in the form of Dvalica, with apology drinks. It was whiskey, good stuff she’d said, that she’d taken from the reserves. Cary hadn’t even been aware the Tower had reserves, but they took the drink anyway.

They should have recognised a trap when they saw one, but sadness had eroded that away and replaced it with a keenness for company. Still, it only took Cary one sip to realise what had happened. 

“Poison?” They questioned, rolling the ice around the tumbler. 

“I thought it was for the best,” Dvalica said, her voice a mockery of gentleness. 

“Why? I would have gone away. There’s no use for me here.”

She tossed her pale hair and snorted.

“Why are you so blind, Kulikov? Did you stare at the Emperor so long that it burned out your brain as well? You’re practically his heir. ”

Cary glanced up, their limbs felt heavy and their vision swam- she must have used something pretty goddamn strong. There was an outline of a figure in the doorway, too large to be a man. They wondered if he’d seen this happen. 

“I’m so sorry,” they said to her. 

She frowned, relaxing in the chair like it was her chambers already.

“He has come for you,” they managed.

Cary closed their eyes, hearing the edges of a scream before the blackness fully took them. The next few hours were a little fraught, a little blurred in their memory. Of course, the next thing they really remembered was that they had woken up to the blue-lensed eye of a machine. 

Just next to that blue lens was a man’s nose, pale and hooked, and then an eye of flesh and blood, the whites of it all grey. They screamed. The face drew back with a whirr of machinery and metallic taps. Cary tried to sit up, to get away from whatever nightmare creature this was, but found that they were strapped down. 

Thin metal tendrils with clawed ends grabbed their limbs, pushing them down against the cot. The face, framed by a red hood with white trim, looked upon them again. There was a burble of noise, like those strange points just between vox stations- somewhere between static and voice. 

“Subject: Kulikov. Please refrain from moving while I am working,” it spoke Nostraman in some stilted fashion, like how the prelector would auto-read messages if you asked it to.

“What manner of devil are you? Am I in hell?” Cary hissed through gritted teeth. 

“You are aboard the Bucephelus, the flagship of the Emperor of Mankind. I am sure you are greatly honoured by this.” It might have been Cary’s imagination, but they thought the machine-thing sounded amused. 

Their body ached, and they tried to look down at themselves. Another one of the tendrils forced their head back. 

“What are you doing to me?” They grunted. 

“I have been asked to administer the augments of the Adeptus Astartes- a challenge to be sure, though your body shows signs of having extra testosterone supplements speculation: Three years? It will certainly help matters, certainly, I have some theories I quite wanted to test.” 

With what seemed to be his only flesh and blood arm, he flicked the glass casing of a syringe filled with clear liquid. 

“Now,” said the monster, putting the syringe to their arm. “Rest.” 

Chapter Text

“You may be interested to learn that Archmagos Belisarius Cawl is still with us,” Gael said. 

“No, really? I assumed he would have gotten himself executed for tech-heresy by now. Especially now,” Cary replied. “The fact that he hasn’t is oddly relieving.” 

Gael raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question further. 

“The Primarchs who arrived on Nostramo are of course recorded by Imperial history, but I would appreciate it if you could confirm them by name,” he said. 

“Rogal Dorn, Ferrus Manus, Fulgrim and Lorgar,” they paused. “What happened to them?”

“Likely dead, confirmed dead, traitorous slave to the ruinous powers, and same again.” Gael lowered his cup to the desk. 

“Manus is dead? Truly?” Their voice had become soft, quiet. “Fulgrim… I don’t know if I can believe you. I knew Fulgrim.”

“Ferrus Manus died at his hand,” Elaius said, his voice cold. “You obviously did not know him well.” 

“Does he have to be in here?” Cary asked Gael. “My dearest friends are dead or traitors or dead traitors- you may have had ten thousand years to process this information but these deaths are fresh to me.” 

There was a slight incline of the helmet. 

“Elaius, please do not speak unless I address you directly,” the Inquisitor said. “Captain Kulikov, if you would please resume your story.”

Cary nodded. 

“Ah, this is the preamble to the end. Terra.”

-

The surgery had taken weeks, Cary learned that it was supposed to take years. That the augments were supposed to be carefully introduced to their body, that there were long stretches of training and testing that should have been done before any blade had parted their skin. 

They were a rush job. An experiment. Cawl had explained that the procedure had been given the go ahead in an attempt to save their life. 

“It was after all,” he commented. “A very nasty poison.” 

The Night Haunter had come to them soon after they had been allowed to stay awake for any length of time. They could have cried with relief upon seeing him, without thinking they went to him, wrapping their arms as far as they would go around his chest. 

To their surprise, he half curled around them, doing the same. Their body felt strange- too long. Too new. Yet still they weren’t even on eye level with his chest. 

Cary let go of him, cradled his face in their hands- some barrier broken down with the alien situation the two of them faced. 

“Are you alright?” They asked him. 

There were deep scars now, around his eyes. Deep lines where shadows filled and hid where his eyes ended and began. If he angled his face, it masked them completely. 

“I don’t like it here,” he admitted. “It’s too bright.” 

Which was very true. No one had thought to adjust the lights for Nostraman eyes so they were both squinting painfully at each other. 

“Have you spoken to your brothers?” Cary asked, mind racing. 

“No,” he said, once again like a reluctant child. 

“Okay, alright,” Cary said, pushing him to a large chair that seemed to have been made for one his size. 

They went to the door, where the lumen controls were, and dimmed them. 

“Let’s make a plan,” they said, returning to the edge of their bed. 

So they did. In such a strange, aberrant situation, it was easier to treat everything with a degree of premeditation, like it was tantamount to their survival. 

“Do you want me to call you Konrad?” Cary asked. 

His face twisted, Cary had an idea.

“What about Konnacht? Sounds closer, could just tell people it’s the Nostraman version of the name.”

“Konnacht,” he repeated, then nodded. 

The first stage of the plan was Fulgrim. He had been assigned to Curze as a tutor by their father, and Cary had spent much of the rest of their time when conscious working him out. He preferred love to fear, talked with airs but refused to let others be insulted in his presence. They supposed that they should have hated him for that, for being almost too similar to the simpering nobles. But Cary couldn’t bring themselves to hate him, because he treated Konrad kindly. 

They met him for the first time after weeks of being on the ship, when Cawl pronounced his work on them “done”. In truth, Cary ached and found that they kept knocking into things. Unused to both the light, unused to the new length of their limbs and body- unused to whatever the hell was still happening inside their own body. Cawl had stated that Cary would continue to grow, likely for the next few months. He also predicted correctly that their height would never quite reach seven feet- they did in fact stop growing at just an inch under. 

Konrad had been given his own chambers on the Bucephelus, grand sprawling apartments that made Cary uneasy to their core. Still, they had been assigned a much smaller space closeby, yet still somehow larger than their hab had been. A few of their personal effects had been brought with them. Among which was their QPC jacket, their lighter, the smoked glasses, a few old picts and Darkness of the Heart . More often than not Cary was present in Konrad’s chambers, persuading him to go and be with his brothers so that Fulgrim would not have to fetch him like a child running truant from tuition. 

It was one of the many occasions that they had failed, and had not escaped the princely chambers in time for the Primarch of the Emperor’s Children to arrive. In fact, they opened the door on him.

Cary still hadn’t gotten used to the demigod lords. They avoided them whenever possible, not that it was hard on a ship as large as the Bucephelus. Yet the beautiful face looked down upon them now, surprised but not unpleasantly so, a picture of benevolence. 

“Lord Fulgrim,” Cary bowed hesitantly. 

They still hadn’t learned if Astartes were supposed to bow or salute to Primarchs. Cary hadn’t exactly interacted much with the super soldiers of the Imperium- they hadn’t had the time. They had also discovered that they could be shy , which was infuriating. The only thing they really had gotten the grip of recently was Imperial Gothic, low and high. 

“Cary,” Fulgrim said, smiling. 

They weren’t exactly sure when the Primarch had learned their name, but it felt uncomfortable to hear it from his mouth. 

“Is Konrad here?” 

Cary stepped aside, wishing they had thought to at least put away the piles of books that now tottered around the place. Konrad was sitting in a chair by the grand fireplace, his silhouette almost making him look like a great bird of prey. They’d never thought it was a good idea to have a fireplace on a void-faring vessel, but they presumed the architect had known better. 

Fulgrim entered, but then looked to Cary again, and the space marine he had arrived with. 

“Captain Tarvitz,” he said. “Would you mind taking our young friend here to the training hall and walking them through a few drills? They are after all bereft of their own legion and brothers to teach them.” 

Something that was still a frightened child inside their chest desperately wanted to go anywhere that wasn’t here, and wasn’t with these terrible giants. But the man whom Fulgrim had addressed as Captain Tarvitz removed his helmet, and looked at Cary with a patient smile. He had pale hair like Fulgrim, but his features were rougher, he looked like a real person.

It comforted them somewhat, so they followed the space marine out of Konrad’s chambers. Cary felt like an exposed nerve, dressed in clothes they hadn’t quite grown into yet. They didn’t understand the hierarchies- and they’d never had any contact with the Nostraman military. Everywhere they looked, the astartes were in their power armour. It also seemed that everywhere they looked, Astartes were looking back. Curious. Amused. Indifferent. 

“Kulikov?” 

They flinched and looked to the Captain. He had asked them a question. 

“I apologise, Captain. Can you repeat that?”

“I asked how old you are,” he prompted. 

“Sixteen,” they answered. 

They noticed he glanced at them, brows slightly drawn together. 

“What has been the extent of your training?” 

Saying ‘none’ didn’t seem like an option. 

“Minimal,” Cary settled on. 

“What is the structure of a battle company?”

They could only look at him in the mute horror of a student who had been asked a question they had no possible way of knowing the answer to. Under his breath Cary heard the Captain swear. 

“Then let us start at the beginning,” he said. 

By the time they returned to their chambers, they were in a considerably better mood and considerably better educated. Their body also ached- Cary was not unfit so to speak, but the muscle gained on their body had been mostly through Cawl’s gene-weaving, and the average QPC officer didn’t exactly have a rigorous physical requirement. Still, they felt better for it. 

That feeling continued right up until the door closed behind them, and the darkened lumens turned on. Cary had almost expected to see their hab. They swayed on the spot slightly, then went and sat on the edge of their bed. 

They massaged their aching hands, taking off the wraps that Saul had helped them tie. 

Jeanmary and Grisha. They felt like their chest was caving in, like once more the Primarch of the Imperial Fists had them in his grip. The door opened again. Cary looked up, surprised. 

It was Night Haunter, who must have heard them come through. He looked tired and he was chewing on the inside of his lip. He stepped inside and let the door shut behind him, then sat against the wall to face Cary, knees drawn up to his chin. 

“The kids,” they said. “Olenka.”

“I had arrangements made,” Night Haunter said, softly. “Before Dvalica had even thought to poison you. I only foresaw it a few minutes before. Your siblings and aunt are safe, you have my word.” 

There was something in the way he said it that ticked over in Cary’s mind.

“This was always the plan? To bring me?” 

He nodded. 

“Dvalica forced my hand on the matter, but yes.” 

They felt again as if the events had happened to someone else. As if they were standing back, merely looking at the choices, the plots, the plans. Cary knew they would never have really had a choice, if he had chosen to leave them behind- it would have been as simple and final as leaving them there. What Night Haunter saw dictated his entire life. They had been a simple fragment floating in the void, and he was a newborn star they had been drawn into the orbit of.

“How was Fulgrim?” They probed carefully. 

“Pleasant. Wanted me to take a walk around the ship and then gave me a lecture on Imperial history. He thinks I’m cooped up too much. It’s easy for him, people want to talk to him,” Night Haunter grumbled. “What about you?”

“I got thrown onto a crash mat a bunch of times and got told I shoot like an Arbites. I don’t even know what that is.”

“They’re the Imperium’s QPC. Officers of Imperial law and order.”

He spoke at length about what Fulgrim had taught him. In that way, they fell again into a sort of routine. Cary would go and train with Saul, who occasionally brought other members of the Emperor’s Children with him. They had lost a sliver of their left ear to Lucius, though. A sword-strike he claimed he thought they were going to block. Tarvitz had not been happy.

They liked the Emperor’s Children, who were always striving to be better, to improve themselves. Cary also interacted with the other Astartes chapters on the Bucephalus, mainly the Iron Hands who had on one or two occasions observed them lifting weights and told them that their form was wrong. Occasionally a small group of three or four would gather around, and reservedly celebrate when Cary gained a new personal best. The Imperial Fists always seemed as unapproachable as their Primarch, but the Word Bearers were kind enough. They kept giving Cary things to read that other space marines promptly took off of them. 

Night Haunter learned with Fulgrim, and they formed an interesting bond. Cary observed it on a few occasions, where Fulgrim’s pleasant, aristocratic explanations of tactics and doctrines of the Adeptus Astartes soothed Night Haunter like one might a scared cat. He would then in turn teach these lessons to Cary. They often kept close quarters, on one occasion Cary had even set up a sort of makeshift bed at the foot of Night Haunter's, and he moved his pillows so that his head was facing them. It had felt strange enough sleeping in separate rooms in the Tower, let alone here in this unfamiliar ship, careening through the void. 

Well, the warp. Cary had been unconscious for the translation, and though they had seen great planes of glass, there was no way of seeing outside. Saul had explained the warp briefly to them, and Cary wasn’t sure they believed him. If that his explanation was some trick older Astartes played on the younger. However, when asked, Night Haunter had confirmed the existence of the psychic landscape. It bore the Bucephelus on great torrents of energy, like a ship on a turbulent sea. 

The journey to Terra took five months, which the crew treated as a great success. It didn’t give Cary great faith in warp travel. Translating to real space was worse, even with the klaxon warnings and the calm voice over the vox speakers alerting everybody aboard to prepare. 

It felt as if the world around them was filled with the haze of heat, the shimmer that came from overworked machines. Halos of colour surrounded all, and their teeth chattered uncontrollably. 

Then with a great shudder, it was over. Cary felt as if they could breathe normally again, without that ever crawling paranoia, the thorned grasp of anxiety and terror no longer wrapped around their spine. The crushing pressure around their skull had all but vanished. 

The shutters were raised, and finally Cary was able to see the void. A great black expanse, dotted with the lights of distant stars, distant planets. A canvas of the galaxy that they frequently found themselves unable to move from. 

Before the Bucephelus hung Terra, a blistered golden orb that hung in the void like a bauble. People came and left, boarding smaller craft in order to leave for other ships or to go down to Terra itself. When the order came for Cary to pack their minimal belongings (which also amounted to packing Night Haunter's frugal items), they were quite positive about the whole thing. 

They were shuttled with the Emperor’s Children and the Emperor’s child, Lord Fulgrim. He spoke again in that soothing low voice which settled Night Haunter, but Cary was the first to see the biggest problem.

The light. Luckily, they were prepared, having found a long strip of dark fabric that they handed to Night Haunter to tie around his eyes. Cary wore the smoked glasses, which now seemed to sit more comfortably on their face. It gave the two of them an odd appearance, but Cary supposed better than having them both squinting or being in pain for the grand arrival. 

When the shuttle landed and the doors opened, they found that their intuition had been correct. The light of Terra, reflected by its burning sun off of tall spires of gold and polished marble made their eyes water, even behind the smoked glasses. 

Under their breath, they swore. Night Haunter at least was managing better, keeping a pace with Fulgrim as the brothers departed the shuttle. Cary kept to his shadow, using their Primarch to block out the worst of the light. It rather marred their first impression of the cradle of mankind, the origin point of humanity. But later they supposed that it was likely meant to be grandiose, to be blinding, to be a shining beacon to the Imperium. It was the heart of the Imperium, the crux, the focal point. It was only right that looking upon it was looking into the heart of a star. 

They hadn’t long left the shuttle before they heard the laughter, a girl’s laughter. It was such a strange thing to hear, happy, joyful laughter. 

“You’re home!” 

Cary peered around Night Haunter's side. Approaching them was indeed a woman, as tall as the golden Custodes who walked beside her, a white cloak giving her an almost ghostly appearance, olive-skinned with short black hair. She ran to Fulgrim and Night Haunter like a child, throwing her arms around Fulgrim’s shoulders. She laughed when the Lord of the Emperor’s Children picked her up, and turned to Night Haunter upon being put down. 

To Cary’s mute horror, she reached out and touched his face, smoothing his hair away from his face and tucking it behind his ears. Night Haunter, at the very least, seemed to tolerate this. 

“Night Haunter,” she said, in perfect Nostraman. 

The woman said it fondly, with pale violet eyes that crinkled at the edges. 

“Sister,” replied Night Haunter in the same.

Then once again to Cary’s horror, the woman looked around him to smile at them. 

“And Cary! Hello! I know you! I am Prosperine, the Eldest Sister,” she said, stepping around Night Haunter and wrapping Cary in her long arms. 

Cary noticed that the pupils of her eyes were reflective, little circles of gold. The same kind of gold that marked her skin in ancient technological sigils. It was comforting, the hug. Cary thought of their own mother, wondering when the last time they had hugged her. 

When Prosperine drew back, there was a sad edge to her smile, and she smoothed Cary’s cheek with a thumb. 

“Come on then,” she said brightly, taking Night Haunter's arm. “Let's get you settled.” 

Their living arrangements seemed to be rather the same that they had been on the Bucephelus, where Cary’s room was adjoining Night Haunter's. 

Fulgrim had arched an eyebrow, but Lady Prosperine rather delightedly said:

“Do not separate them!”

It was one of the many times Cary had looked to the Eldest Sister and seen some hint of age in the pale eyes. Sometimes her glances betrayed the emotions of a child, of one who didn’t really understand. Then in other fractured moments it felt as if they were staring into the eyes of one who had seen far too much, and understood rather too well. 

Cary was fond of Prosperine, and felt much the same way they had when they’d seen Night Haunter for the first time: that this was someone who should be treated with care. She spoke many languages- “Any language a human has spoken,” she claimed. She was older than the Primarchs, far older. As far as Cary could tell, her body had been the foundations, the rough draft of their creation. She slept more often than the Primarchs, tired more easily. Though from what Cary learned, her abilities and control as a psyker were on par with her father. 

Night Haunter continued his education with Fulgrim, and much of the time Cary continued learning under the Emperor’s Children. Though they had some education under Night Haunter's legion, the Eighth to serve the Emperor of Mankind. They were pale and black-eyed, like Nostramans and had the hardness in the shoulders of any ganger- though the geneseed augmentation had left the coloured irises. There had been snide remarks when Cary joined them, that they had returned by implying their mothers had been intimate with pigs. 

That got a laugh out of the midnight-clad Astartes, who reached out and scrubbed at their head with brutish affection. None of their actions truly scared Cary. None of their bravado and none of their threats. Cary had seen fear, and none of them had his face. 

Cary taught the Night’s Children Nostraman, told them about the Night Haunter- brought the legend of their Lord Father to life in their black eyes. It had been part of the plan of course, that Cary would sow these seeds to bring his sons into compliance. He had known the Night’s Children were pulled from the ancient prisons of Terra, children of criminals. 

“But not criminals themselves,” Cary had noted. “Survivors.”

Survivors like him. Those who had been born to a dark and cruel and unfeeling world, and had fought tooth and nail for their own survival in the dark. 

It was on Terra that Cary received the black carapace. They felt mildly relieved that it wasn’t under Cawl’s knife that the plate was installed, still it felt strange to pass their fingers over where they knew their ribs had been. They had always been able to feel their ribs, now it was smooth. Occasionally marked by scar or armour socket, but mainly smooth with the bands of nascent muscle building up over it. 

Under their pectorals, a twin pair of scars lay, pale and healed against their skin. Marked in the shape of bat-like wings- heraldry of the Eighth. They hadn’t asked for those characteristics to be removed, yet it had always been a part of their plan. Nostramo’s back alley surgeons would have done it for the right price, but Cary doubted they would have done it with similar artistry. 

They received their armour not long afterwards, and the chain. The armour was midnight blue, crossed with filaments that lit with excess power- like bolts of lightning in a dark sky. It made their head oddly light to see it, like a sense of deja vu. The helmet bore a skull, the face of death in silver adamantine, the winged crests also gilded in the same. 

This was different. The armour of their brothers was trimmed in dull gold, dull brass. The skull-faces of their helmets (if they had them) were painted white, or the yellowed colour of bone, their crests were blood red. Cary was painfully aware how this made them stand out, how this made them ostracised from their brothers. 

They wondered if it was so Night Haunter could spot them more easily when it was time to kill them. The chain was another difference, links of the same adamantine that ended in a spike of the silver metal. At a flick, four dagger-like points would spring out on short arms- a hook with which to grapple, a weapon with which to claw. A gift from beloved Fulgrim.

Most of their brothers at least, were content to let this go for now. They were not the preening Emperor’s Children, vying for the title of best or perfect . They were the Night’s Children. All that mattered was that the job was done efficiently, and that others saw their hands stained with blood- a warning. 

A few others wondered aloud why Cary had been marked out as different. What made them worthy to receive these things other than being from Nostramo? The planet their Primarch had made his hunting ground, the people he forced into compliance with terror and blood. 

Cary ignored them, and instead focused on what really mattered: trying not to die.

Chapter Text

The Inquisitor sat back on his stool, evaluating something about them. Cary sipped at their recaf, waiting for his questions. 

“Did you know,” he began. “That when we looked through the cogitator files in order to gain proper understanding of you before we went to look for that asteroid, that it pinged at least a hundred or so alerts, over several chapters and legions? We are still receiving requests for updates- at an increasing rate.”

“I didn’t think anyone would remember me, after ten thousand years,” they replied, idly. “At least, no one who also wasn’t recently brought around.” 

“There are few,” Gael admitted. “Though most of the requests we received are from chapters with second, third or fourth hand accounts of you. Many recall you, in story or otherwise. Most assumed you were dead.” 

Cary watched the recaf roll around in their cup. 

“Your absence from the heresy was noticed, Kulikov. He would not tell them where you were, or if you were alive,” Gael leaned forward. “Not even Jago Sevatarion would give your location.”

“Sevatar was captured?” Cary looked up.

Gael nodded.

“Both he and Curze were held aboard the Invincible Reason for a time, in the presence of Lord Guilliman, Lord El’Jonson and Lord Sanguinius. Records fail to tell me of what became of Sevatarion.”

They could not allow themselves to hope, though it clawed painfully at their insides. 

“It was assumed you had died in the purging of the loyalists.”

“Half true. But most of our loyalists died with Nostramo,” Cary said. “Why am I here, Inquisitor? Why wake me? Why find me? How did you find me?” 

The Inquisitor refilled his recaf, and did the same for Cary. 

“A Night Lords warband was recently eliminated by the Ultramarines after they attempted to raid an Imperial world. There were only three-hundred strong of them, yet they had taken the planet’s capital hive city to its knees. Recovered from their ship were a number of artefacts that they did not get the chance to destroy, including this.” 

He drew something small from his pocket, a datachip. Gael handled it carefully, and tipped it into their open palm. It was embossed in the legion’s colours, the bat-winged skull stamped onto the metal, inlaid with silver.

“On that datachip resides a series of coordinates and a log of pilgrimages taken by the warband to your resting place.” 

Cary slumped against the wall, looking at the datachip. 

“It still doesn’t tell me why you woke me,” Cary said. “Other than to take something else from them.” 

“The orders actually came from Lord Guilliman, he had some faith in you.” 

Cary nodded. Once again they had been pulled into another man’s war. 

“You are an experienced warrior with a high skill for stealth and infiltration. You do not kill in the manner your brothers kill, and you command the respect of those who have only heard stories of you: the last loyal Night Lord,” his words were gentle, pleading. 

“How badly are things going that you need me?” Cary asked. 

Gael did not reply. Cary rubbed their eyes, handed him back the datachip. They drank their recaf and looked at him with tired eyes. 

“Let me tell you of Terra, and of the Primarchs,” they said.

-

Learning the chain had been the hard thing. Everything else could be dealt with- skills could be adapted to fit other situations, adjusting themselves to the new social hierarchy came as easy as breathing. Cary knew people, and Astartes were at their core, simply people. Boys turned to men turned to the sons of demigods. But still men, who laughed and shouted and formed the bonds of brotherhood with each other. 

The chain was a completely new skill, and had several components. First of course was the aiming- the weight of the dart had to be compensated for over long distances. Judging the anchor point was another, if it was strong enough to take their weight, which was considerable inside their armour. 

Then of course came the most embarrassing part: keeping their balance. The servo motors inside the chain’s firing mechanism were strong, built into their gauntlet sleekly. It was little more than a protuberance on the outside of their forearm, a casing where the tip of the dart poked out. 

But of course, when they fired the dart and flexed their thumb against the inbuilt pads on their palm, it immediately started to pull the chain in. The first time they had tried it, Cary had ended up being dragged along the length of the training hall, much to the amusement of their brothers. 

Cary practised in private after that. Not that their ego was so easily bruised, but they found it quicker to improve when there wasn’t a crowd yelling suggestions at them loutishly. It also meant they could dim the lights of the training hall to a preferable level- near complete darkness. 

They had set up a series of hooks and bars, as well as a few tall rockcrete structures usually only used for urban warfare training. They were pitted with craters from bolter rounds, and in the dark gave the strange impression of a miniature city. It was almost like Quintus, almost in that it lacked the heat, the noise and the smell. 

It was almost fun, jumping off the edge of one of the blocks, firing the chain and bracing for the catch. On the upswing they could dislodge the dart and recall it before firing again. They had almost gotten the hang ( ha! ) of remaining in the air. 

They swung through the air, grinning to themselves, pleased with all their improvements. Cary brought the chain in, and had just hit the release catch when the entire hall flooded with light. Their vision was lost in a sea of white. 

A cry escaped their mouth as they flailed, panicking. They could feel themselves about to fall, raised their arm up blind and fired at what they hoped was the ceiling. 

It was then to their complete and utter surprise that they found themselves caught, borne by armoured arms and the lights shadowed by feathered outlines. When they were brought to the ground, Cary found themselves blinking blindly upwards into the face of the Great Angel. The chain clattered to the ground, Fulgrim’s best work bouncing off of the floor. 

His face was almost similar to Konrad’s, if Cary really looked. The aquiline features were certainly there, but there was something more noble as opposed to haunting. His skin was a shade lighter than olive, and his eyes were bright red. 

He was also smiling. 

“Please put me down,” was the first thing out of Cary’s mouth, followed quickly by a hasty: “My lord.” 

Sanguinus put them down. He had entered the training hall with a small company of his own sons, who were looking perplexed at the manner in which Cary had arranged it. They snapped the chain back into its housing.

“My apologies, Kulikov, when we entered I assumed there was no one here,” he said, and the worst part was that he did genuinely sound quite sorry. 

Cary saluted stiffly.

“No apologies are needed. I have taken enough time here, so I will leave you all to train in peace. Thank you, Lord Sanguinius.”

They then turned, and grabbed their helmet from the low block they had left it, and focused on not running out of the hall in complete and utter shame. There was something about some of the other Primarchs that scared them. At first they had assumed it was simply the effect of the warp that had caused it- they had avoided the Emperor’s other sons like they were the opposite pole of a magnet. 

But there was something else, something that made them feel like a fraud. A liar. An imposter. That Lord Sanguinius had looked upon them and saw a quality that wasn’t there. Nacht had always known what they were, and what needed to be done. Nacht knew them from their core, and had made his judgement on their sins, but had not executed them yet. 

Sanguinius, Vulkan, Manus, Russ, Guilliman, Corax. They did not know Cary’s sins. In some perverse misunderstanding, they thought Cary good . Cary knew they weren’t. They could be kind, they could be merciful. They were not a good person, just very good at pretending. 

Nacht’s brothers had seen how they interacted with him, how they always knew when a seizure was about to strike, how they could persuade him away from bloodier courses of action (sometimes). Perhaps they thought Cary had some level of control over him. Cary would have been the first to tell them that no one had ever had any control over Nacht in his damned life, least of all them. 

Still, when Konnacht took charge of the Night’s Children, he did so as a Primarch in high regard. He named them all Night Lords and spoke of how their quiet tactics, the deaths of a few to bring the compliance of many, were the strongest of all. 

It was on a nearby world, that had been given a few stray ideas of rebellion, that Cary first saw open combat. They had been assigned to First Claw, if only in name. There was still some awkwardness concerning their rank and position- not quite equerry and not quite anything else. 

Still, they followed the commands that came through their helmet’s vox. They followed them right into the trap the others had set- Zvekan and the others who had taken some gripe with them. A bombed out shell of a building, still with warrens of rebels. Cary had gone in first, as commanded, and only just caught the movement of the doors over their shoulder. 

The heavy steel doors had slammed closed, with the clanking of chains and snickers over the vox. 

“All yours, Kulikov,” Zvekan sneered. “Don’t bother coming out until you find their leader and bring out a score of dead.”

Then their vox went dead, and they were left in the dark with the rebels, who had not failed to notice the sound of the doors shutting. 

Truthfully, Cary couldn’t exactly recall what happened next. Only that there had been blood. The rebels were poorly armed and had even worse armour, Cary caught glimpses of their faces in the flash of lasguns. 

Eventually, they found the leader, curled up in a ball under his table. At one point he had clearly been a very rich man, his stately clothes now ruined and tattered. Cary wondered if the Imperium had taken that from him, if this was to spite that force which had turned his pleasant life upside down. 

Cary had reached out, and crushed his neck in one gauntleted hand. They then began the slow process of retracing their steps. The chain’s motors had jammed with meat, but they had spare lengths of iron chain. 

They dragged the dead behind them like a battlefield spectre. The doors opened with a single round from the bolter they hadn’t even had time to reach before the rebels attacked. 

Cary spotted First Claw, all standing around in the morning’s golden sun. They were laughing with each other, not noticing them as they drew closer. And closer. And closer.

“Ah, Kulikov,” Zvekan said, his voice betraying his grin. “Why, we thought you were a Blood Angel at-,”

Cary whipped the length of the chain at his neck, where it wrapped around that small gap between neck and helmet and snapped it taunt. Zvekan was cut off with a choke, and Cary brought him down to his knees. They leaned in close to him, pressing the brow of their helmet to his. 

“If you ever do that again,” they said, in a low, dry voice. “I’ll tear out your guts and eat your eyes. And you know what? No one will care. Not even Night Haunter. He’d watch me do it and laugh. ”

“What the hell is going on here?” Another voice had crackled through the vox, another set of power armoured boots racing through the debris and mud. 

Cary let the chain go slack, dropping Zvekan, who wheezed with all three of his lungs. Raven Guard, with coal-black armour and grey metal trim. Suddenly a shadow stood by them, a shadow that blotted out the sun. 

Cary did not even look at him, merely dropped the ends of the chains in his gauntleted hand. 

“Your rebels, my Lord Corax,” Cary said. 

Then turned and walked away, closing all vox channels. Cary walked past the burnt out shells of habs, to where they had seen the edge of a body of water. They waded in, the water turning crimson around them. They walked until the point where they could fall to their knees and be completely submerged. 

Cary attended to the motors of the chain, removing flesh and fabric that had become stuck there. It was nearly impossible to see in the sediment-clouded water, but Cary knew the motor as well as they knew anything. When they were done, they glanced at the several strobing icons indicating at least two people were trying to get in contact with them. 

They stood and turned towards the shore. There was Nacht, face shadowed. They opened the vox channel as they approached the shore. 

“Cary,” he said. “I have been told you attacked a superior officer and threatened his life. I trust you had a good reason.”

“The best,” Cary told him. “He made me do the dirty work for him.”

“Ah,” said Nacht. “Well, what use do I have of a First Captain who can’t even make his own kills?” 

It wasn’t long after that the Night Lords gained a new First Captain, Jago Sevatarion. A Nostraman-born Night Lord- from City’s Edge. Often Cary had thought to ask him about the specifics, if perhaps they had known his family, known him. They never did. 

Cary liked Sevatar, respected him. He had seen Nacht and seemed to understand him in an instant, Cary had perplexed him more.

In the early days of his career as First Captain, he had found them on their way to the neophyte admittance halls. They were not wearing their armour, instead wearing merely their body glove, workman’s trousers and their QPC jacket. He looked at them without expression, black eyes betraying nothing. 

“Captain Sevatarion,” Cary acknowledged him, stepping around his armoured form. 

He reached out an arm to block them. 

“Where are you going?” He asked. 

“To the neophytes.”

“Why?” 

“Were you ever a child, Sevatar?” They asked, using the nickname others had given him. “Were you ever scared?”

“They are not children now, and they will know no fear ,” he replied, unable to keep the mocking edge out of his voice. 

Cary shrugged. 

“Walk with me then,” they said. “But you’ll have to stay in the doorway, you’ll wake them all up trudging around in that.” 

Cary again stepped around him, and continued to the neophyte halls. He followed, chainglaive in hand. Thankfully, he did wait at the doorway. The neophyte admittance halls were long and incredibly dark. Young men lay in rows and rows of cots, some slept soundly, others wept silently. 

Cary walked down the rows, reaching out, whispering softly to them. Placing gentle hands on their shaven skulls, urging them to sleep. They had done this for a long time now. Truthfully it made them guilty. As if they were the one who had stolen the boys away from their families, so that their insides could be twisted and their bodies mutilated. 

Cary walked among the rows until they could no longer hear weeping, then returned to the door. Sevatar had at least let them shut the door before asking again:

“Why?”

“Because I wish someone had done the same for me,” Cary said. “Because they will know only death and blood. A moment’s reprieve, to gather their strength.” 

“You are soft, and stupid,” Sevatar said. 

“Oh, probably,” Cary sighed. “I am a thousand times over a fool.”

“You don’t even realise what you do,” he said, unexpectedly. 

Cary looked at him as they walked together, not quite understanding. 

“You go to them and extend your hand in kindness, without even realising the loyalty it brings you,” he looked down at them, almost amused. “Curze has ruled by fear, yet you have entrenched yourself in their hearts.” 

“Oh come off it, Captain,” Cary said, waving a hand. “I doubt most of them even remember.” 

“I remember,” he said. 

“I never went to you, you never cried,” Cary pointed out. 

“No, I was too old. But I remember you there. I thought you were stretching out your time, gathering our brothers into your fold. Now I know you had no damn idea what you were doing, now I know why Curze keeps you alive.”

“You know as well as anyone he’s keeping me alive until the right moment,” Cary said, their voice strangely bitter. 

“Hm. Yet he allows you to strike him, to shout at him like a dog, you make demands against fate and sometimes he grants them,” Sevatar doggedly followed them, even though Cary had slightly increased their pace. “Other legions think you are the best of us.” 

“I’m not.”

“I know.” 

“What is your point, First Captain?” They asked, sharply. 

“Oh, we’re First Captain now? I would offer to call you by your title but truly, we don’t even know what it is. You are a Captain in name alone and only occasionally attached to First Claw, you say he has seen your death and intends to make it so- but Kulikov, have you considered that he cares for you?” 

They turned away from him. Cary did not want to see his smile. They told him the story of their father, their mother and the crowbar. They told him of the Long Year, as he had likely been too young to remember it. 

“When he kills me, Sevatar,” Cary said, quietly. “It will be your task to keep him in order. He trusts you as well as he trusts anyone.”

“I don’t think he will,” Sevatar said. “I’d put money on it.”

“Don’t challenge him on his visions,” Cary warned. 

Sevatar merely smiled. 

Between the two of them- and on occasion Shang, they could manage Nacht. It also meant that Cary was able to interact with the other legions, to be what he had no understanding of. 

Nacht preferred it when the people speaking to him meant what they said. Of course, this didn’t stop him making perfectly cryptic remarks that he expected everyone around him to understand. Cary had always been better with people and, while not avoidant of combat, found themselves being more frequently utilised when communication with other Legions was required. 

More and more, they started to notice his decline. Shadows growing deeper under his eyes, his face more gaunt. His seizures became worse, more violent, and his persecutions extended not only to the worlds they brought into compliance, but to the legion itself. 

Cary had on more than one occasion been called to stop Nacht. Been forced to use the chain upon him, to attack him in order to get him to see reason. His hands had become claws, and he struck them often- once leaving three long scars across their face. It wasn’t long until their sessions inside the training hall included simulations of him, to work out the points of his armour they could hit.

The best trick they had worked out was to flick the chain so that it arched around, digging into the power pack and either damaging it so that the Primarch was forced to carry the weight of his own armour or at the very least allowing them to fling themselves onto his back. Then they could usually get the chain around his neck, and yell at him. 

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes they ended up in the care of the apothecary. 

The thing was, Nacht was tricky. He knew them as well as Cary knew him, and was well aware of the best ways to get around him. 

Once more led into a trap. Once more tricked. Once more taken away. 

Chapter Text

“It’s nearly finished,” they said. “What happens when I have told you all I can?”

“I will check your record against the facts we have, and you will be given a pardon. Sadly you are currently considered guilty by association with your legion, though I believe Lord Guilliman is working on that,” the Inquisitor said. 

“I see, then back into active service?” 

The Inquisitor shrugged.

“Of a kind.”

Cary wasn’t sure what that was meant to mean. 

“There are many parties who wish to speak to you, most of them currently on their way to our current position,” the Inquisitor continued. 

“Oh good, does that mean I’ll get to leave this lovely little monk’s cell at some point?” 

“I should think so, considering you’re able to sit up and walk,” Gael replied, cheerfully. “Though you’ll forgive me if I don’t let you walk unbidden about the ship just yet.”

“What’s its name?” They asked, suddenly curious

“Hm?”

“The ship.”

“ The Spear of Demeter ,” Elaius said, clearly having forgotten his inquisitorial orders. 

“What a lovely name, ours were always variations of some theme of Darkness or Night or Shadow . I swear most of our problems with the Raven Guard were that we kept naming our ships too similarly,” Cary laughed. 

Neither Gael or Elaius laughed with them. 

“Alright,” they said, raising their hands palm up. “Sorry. Let me tell you when he killed me.” 

-

The problem was that Nacht had sent them away. Cary had known there was some reason for it, all masked in false reasons and lies they had never had the chance to challenge privately. They had been named as part of the Kyroptera, that council of captains responsible for investigating the legion’s bloody trespasses. Cary had tried to have faith in it, but they were well aware of the ways the QPC had failed to investigate themselves of wrongdoing. It should have come from outside the legion. There were so many should haves that it was painful. 

Still, he had looked at them with his shadowed eyes, and said plainly before all his sons that he trusted no other than them to return to Nostramo. To find the root cause of the legion’s sickness. To excise it as he had once done to the planet. 

It was like being back in the warehouse again. Another test, another question. Night Haunter wished to see if they would stay their hand this time. Cary had long since promised themselves that they would. 

Returning to Nostramo was like opening an old wound. Somehow they had already known that Jeanmary was long dead, that her grandchildren now had children of their own. Grisha had slipped away into the dark, leaving Cary to assume that one of his illnesses had taken him. Olenka had passed of old age. Kind deaths had come to their family. Gentle deaths. 

It didn’t take them long to source the root of the problem- Skraivok. Or to be more specific, Skraivok and the other ancient ganger houses of Nostramo. Those who had called themselves Lord and Count and Lady. Noble in name alone. 

Nostramo was emptying its prisons directly into the heart of the legion. Poisoning it from the inside, letting their killers, their unrepentant criminals become Astartes. Cary had scowled at the report- this was the problem with using fear as a weapon. Fear could be forgotten. Fear could be overcome. People could not fear forever. Monsters could be banished by those who were brave enough to face them. The Imperium had taken away Nostramo’s greatest monster of all, was it any wonder the planet had returned to this state? 

Cary rubbed at their face. They couldn’t present Nostramo in this state to Nacht. He’d go on a thousand bloody purges, the Night Lords would be unleashed in their fullness upon the hive cities. With the current state of the legion, it wouldn’t be as simple as the guilty being executed. Examples would be made. The sons of Night Haunter would go too far, as they already had been while Nostramo’s criminal element fed their ranks. The Night Lords would gorge themselves on the terror of Nostramo, and they would be lost. 

They would have no choice but to ask outside the legion. It was not a decision that came lightly, but it had to be done. Cary narrowed down their choices to only a few. Fulgrim and the Emperor’s Children. The graceful Primarch was the closest of his brothers to Nacht; he might allow Fulgrim to help them. The third legion was focused, a constantly improving machine who would not stop until their work was completed. However, they had not seen the dark heart of Nostramo. They did not know the casual cruelty inflicted here, they would not be prepared. Their impression of the Night Lords could be marred beyond repair, and that fragile bond Nacht kept with Fulgrim damaged. 

Then of course, were the Blood Angels and Sanguinius. Cary was aware the Blood Angels Primarch saw the same dark futures Nacht was tormented by, that he worked to stop them from ever coming true. He was likely the most sympathetic, and his legion ordered well. But Cary doubted Konnacht would accept his help. It was clear that while Nacht had great affection for many of his brothers (not that he ever displayed it in ways they understood), Sanguinius was not one of them. Cary wondered privately if he saw in Sanguinius what he should have been. A shining beacon to guide the lost through the dark. 

Finally, and most unlikely, there was the Raven Guard. Their legion was so similar to the Night Lords, they could work together easily. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Cary knew Nacht hated Corax. They knew why of course, Nacht had often muttered during his less lucid moments that it should really have been the Night Lords with that peculiar talent- the complete invisibility. Cary was of the opinion that while he was a flawed man, at least the Emperor had the foresight to not grant the Eighth that ability. They could only shudder at how much worse things could have been. 

Foresight. Cary grimaced, but understood what had to be done. 

It was no great secret that many of Night Haunter's sons were psykers. Plagued by the same horrible visions. They came to Cary in their dreaming hours, and it was difficult for them to really tell if they had been a psyker even before the augments granted by Night Lord geneseed. After all, dreaming of a terrible future wasn’t uncommon for Nostramans. They hadn’t trusted anyone with the knowledge. Not even Nacht. The legion had enough things to consider, without also revealing that one of the Primarch’s closest advisors was also prone to fits of prophecy. Cary’s ability was raw, untempered- frankly dangerous. Thus far though the only danger had been to themselves, and they’d already given up so much- what were a few more pieces in the grand scheme of things?

They sat back in their chair, closed their eyes and appeared to go to sleep. Cary did not sleep, their body shook and jolted, their teeth ground together, their gauntleted hands clutched at the chair’s arms. As their body spasmed painfully, they saw a hundred horrid futures, a thousandfold death that swept the galaxy. They died. They died again. They killed his sons. They killed Konnacht. 

Cary watched Nostramo burn. They saw themselves standing beside him, accepting the judgement he made. They saw themselves explaining their plan, bringing forth the evidence they had gathered- the root of the legion’s poison. They saw the bloodbath that came after. They saw the forgiveness that came after. They saw the fractured path that could lead them all to salvation. 

Night Haunter was the key. He had to decide- his decision had already been made. Whatever had happened on the other side of the galaxy, whatever path he chose- it would define Nostramo’s fate. 

Cary’s eyes flicked open. They were still sitting at their desk. Their eyes were stinging, and their face was wet. When they touched their cheek they saw blood on the fingertips of their gauntlets. Rising and making their way to the glass screen that looked out over the void, they could see two dark tracks flowing down from their eyes. 

Crying blood , ha! Lorgar would have loved that. Below them hung the black-and-silver marble of Nostramo, a planet whose fate they could not change. 

They had to trust him. 

They had to believe in him. That he would come and he would listen to them. That his mind hadn’t already been made up.

Such is the way of tragedies. 

Cary was standing on the command deck when the reports came in, that their Primarch was returning to Nostramo. They had regarded the report with no small degree of confusion. He wasn’t meant to be there yet, and there had been no chatter on the vox regarding it. There had been nothing in Imperial decree marking Night Lord orders. The fleet had entered realspace as a dark cloud, an oncoming storm in a black sky.

-

“Looking back, I should have realised,” they said. “I was being kept in the dark. I had always been kept in the dark.” 

-

The other Night Lords on the command deck- those who were wearing their helmets, they stilled for just a second, hearing something that Cary could not. It felt like ice was wrapping around their spine, as they turned, seeing unspoken orders being unquestioningly followed. There couldn’t have been complete silence on the deck, there never was. Yet it seemed to Cary like there was a cloud of silence hanging around their head. The other Astartes had given them a wide berth. 

They felt the rumble beneath their boots, the unmistakable sensation of the weapons being armed.

“No,” they said. 

The ice seized their entire body, along with that slick, terrible light. The teleportation only took a second, yet there they were. Standing on the command deck of the Nightfall , watching as a thousand spears of light were sent down and down and down. 

They were aimed at one bright, reflective spot. The Scar, the place he had come to land. The wound reopened, and the lance of pale blue light buried itself into the planet’s heart. 

Nostramo broke like glass, burned in pale fire, shattered in a fragmented halo. Cary watched as their home crumbled, as all traces of what had been, what could have been turned to ash. The roar the planet made as it exploded filled the command deck, even through the void it made its death-throes known. 

Their eyes burned, with the pain of the light, with tears. Knowing it had all been for nothing. They knew where he was, they knew he was watching them. 

“We can’t go back,” they said. “We can never go back.” 

“I have made my judgement,” said Night Haunter. 

Rage. Pure, searing rage blossomed through their chest. They turned, looked at him. 

“Your judgement? That’s a lie and we both know it. You can claim to be justice, you can claim to be acting for the good of humanity but I know you. You kill because you want to kill! You adore fear and you adore blood, you always have!” They were shouting at him, Cary had never shouted at him. “You are a liar, your nobility a false-face, you have always been a killer! Damn your eyes! You have always been a monster, and you’ll die a monster too. You are a murderer , no better than the ones you purge-”

The movement was so swift that Cary wasn’t sure they had even seen it coming. One second they had rounded on him, taken but a few steps towards him. 

Then he was before them, a lightning claw buried in their stomach- Mercy, Cary had noted absently. They had been lifted from the floor of the command deck, then set back on their feet. His face was a few inches from theirs, black eyes wide enough to see those small spots of white again. The pain was distant. Their brain was blocking it out in some attempt to stay alive. 

Cary clasped their hands around the forearm of the gauntlet. Laughed, tasted blood in their mouth. They leaned forward so their forehead rested against the crest on his chest. 

“We always knew,” they said, their voice a wheeze. “We always knew it ended like this, didn’t we, Nacht?” 

He might have been falling, or lowering them to the ground. There was movement happening around them both, but Cary reached up, held that pale face in their bloodied gauntlets. Darkness pulled at the edges of their vision.

“ The land that shall receive thee dying, in the same I shall die: and there I will be buried. The Lord do so and so to me and add more also, if aught but death part me and thee ,” said Cary. 

“Don’t leave me,” said Konnacht. 

It was more of a blur after that. Being moved, the lights of a surgery table. When they were conscious, they called for him. Sometimes they called for Sevatar. Sometimes they called for Jeanmary and Grisha. Both long dead. 

Once, Sevatar’s face had swam into view. 

“Promise me,” they whispered. “Promise me you… you’ll look after him. Promise me, Sev.”

His hand reached out, gripped their own. 

“I am dying,” they said.

“No you’re not,” Sevatar replied, though they heard the trace of uncertainty in his voice. 

The darkness swallowed them again. Then they were cold, so cold. They tried to move, their head flopping over to their right, eyes cracked just enough to see the outline of his armour.

“Konnacht,” they said, voice only slightly louder than a whisper. 

Then the coffin was sealed, and they knew no more.

Except of course for the dreams. In dreams they followed him. Watched him fall. It was more terrible a punishment than anything hell could have created. To watch, and be unable to change anything. They had been there, they had cared. Nothing had changed. 

Cary watched him die, watched him crane back his neck and let the assassin’s blade cut through. They think they might have screamed, but the only person who would have heard it lay dead. 

Yet there was reprieve in the end, from that waking nightmare. With the quality of a half-remembered dream, they found themselves back in their hab. Lying on their cot, book open on their chest. The gentle sound of rumbling coming from the floor next to them. If they reached out (they never looked, terrified it would banish the dream), they could brush his arm, his cheek. Fever-hot, and alive. 

-

Cary blinked. Their mouth felt suddenly dry, their eyes suddenly watering. It felt strange to cry now, after going through the part where he had tried to kill them. They rested against the cool metal of the chamber walls. 

“And then I was woken here,” they said, quietly. “That is all I can tell you.” 

The recorder went click. 

“Thank you for your time, Captain Kulikov,” Gael said, smiling. “I will have your body glove returned to you, along with the other effects recovered from your cryo casket. Can I give you a small piece of my own insight, though?”

Cary looked up, Gael had leaned in.

“I think Lord Sanguinius, Lord Corax- the rest. I think they were right. You were the best of them,” he said, as if it was supposed to comfort them. 

Cary put their cup on the tray. 

“Please leave me,” they said. 

The Inquisitor and the Ultramarine left without protest. The door to the ablution chamber cracked open. 

“Are they gone?” Whispered Yarah. 

“Yes, little one, they are-,” Cary stopped. 

In the shadows, in the crack of the door, far above where the pale sliver of Yarah’s face was, there was a shape. White as paper, an eye as black as night. 

Yarah opened the door fully, and the illusion was gone. Cary still stared at where it should have been.

“Cary?” 

They looked at Yarah, who was looking at them with her brows drawn together. 

“I’m sorry,” they said. “I thought I saw something.”

Chapter Text

The body glove was returned to them, and chapter serfs attended an armament chamber in order to seal them inside the armour once more. Cary couldn’t help but notice the downturned corners of their mouths, the sidelong glances. They couldn’t blame them, poor bastards. 

Cary thanked the serfs anyway, it had always been their habit to do so. The serfs cringed away from them. They did not wear their helm, instead letting it rest on the magnetic clip there. The pauldron of their right shoulder had been altered, they noticed. A decorative ceramite scroll that displayed the word: REPENTANT in calligraphic lettering. Quite what they had to repent was beyond them, though they had not questioned it.

Elaius had been observing them- he had in fact been the one who had escorted them here. He stood at about eight feet, by Cary’s reckoning, and they had to crane their neck to look at him. Indeed, their own height seemed equally surprising to him. 

“Will you elaborate now on this incredibly important person I’m supposed to be meeting?” They asked, trying their very hardest to keep the trace of amusement out of their voice. 

Cary suspected by the way Elaius angled his head down at them that they had not succeeded. 

“You will follow me,” he commanded. 

They bit back the comment that immediately rose on their tongue. Ultramarines lacked the Nostraman sense of humour- and they had never been acquainted with whatever the denizens of Macragge found funny. Probably some intricate philosophy reference. They made a mental note to hunt down whatever the hell the Ultramarines were reading. At the very least, it would make their life easier to understand what the socialisation of these stuffy bastards was. 

The halls of the Spear of Demeter were nothing less than palatial, tall pillars of what Cary suspected was actual marble, deep cerulean walls painted with rolling frescoes- fields of golden wheat, the grand debating halls of Macragge. It was also of course, blindingly bright. Cary squinted most of the way through, but at least tried to find the strength to look upon the art so beautifully worked. 

There were also, of course, so many people- and a lot of noise. Cary supposed they shouldn’t really have been surprised by that. The Nightfall and her sister ships had never exactly been normal examples, eerie in their quiet and often foul in their decor. But at least Cary could see where they were going. Once or twice they lingered rather too close to Elaius’ shoulder for their own liking, and they doubted the squinting gave off the fearsome impression the Night Lords had worked so hard to maintain. 

Such as it was, that Cary barely noticed the corridors becoming more ornate, the guards more plentiful and the stares more overt. That was until Elaius came to a complete stop and Cary walked into his back. 

They stood in front of a part of tall, bronzed gold doors. A hundred masters had likely given their talents to this door, a hundred unnamed artisans who would forever see it at their life’s work. 

Elaius turned.

“You are about to be presented to the Lord Regent of the Imperium, the Lord of Ultramar, the Avenging Son, Lord Roboute Guilliman. Though you are unarmed,” Cary unconsciously pulled the gauntlet that bore the chain behind themselves. “You will be watched. Your every breath will be watched. Your every movement will be calculated. If we even suspect there is a chance you are about to attempt to harm the Lord Commander, we will kill you.” His tone was flat, and they had no trouble believing him.

“And here I thought we’d gained some kind of rapport,” Cary replied, halfheartedly. “Why would I want to harm Lord Guilliman?” 

It was more of a rhetorical question. The lightning flashing across their armour bounced light off of the blue of Elaius’. There was every reason why they could not be trusted, every reason for the hatred that danced in unhelmeted eyes. Cary was used to it, though bearing the strain alone was a new and exhausting experience. 

At a motion from the Ultramarine, the doors were opened. It was again, too fucking bright. Had it not been so bright, they might have been able to appreciate the vaulted ceiling, where banners the colour of the dark ocean hung, where golden fittings adorned nearly every surface, where a red and blue patterned carpet muffled even the sound of ceramite boots. 

However, the arched church-like windows that were to the back of the Lord of Ultramar were open, looking unbidden upon the sun. To Cary, the Lord Regent of the Imperium was little more than a shadowed outline, a regal inverse of that blinding lord they had seen so many centuries ago. 

Elaius saluted, and Cary copied the gesture. They’d never saluted Nacht, he probably would have mocked them if they tried. They had at least made the effort when around his brother Primarchs, but it had been a very long time since Cary had spoken to any of them. 

The shadowed figure straightened up, Cary could still see a rather extravagant white quill held in one hand. As far as they could tell, he was unarmoured, and wore those loose robes favoured by his homeworld. 

There was a single chair before his grand desk, Astartes size and likely made out of some material that could hold the weight of power armour. 

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” said Guilliman. “And good morning, Captain Kulikov. I trust your recovery has been swift.” 

He gestured to the chair, and Cary took the seat. They kicked a leg of the damn thing by accident and grimaced as they sat, now squinting into the sun. The Lord Commander seemed to notice this, and pressed a button on a control panel to his side. 

The glass darkened, so that the light coming through was the level of a few candle flames. Cary blinked. 

“Thank you, my Lord,” they said, and examined his face more clearly. 

Cary couldn’t honestly say when the last time they had seen Roboute Guilliman was. They were sure the Eighth had some contact with the Thirteenth, but the memories refused to be called. His hair was that same pale straw colour, perhaps a little thinner, a little paler around the temples. His face was that of a master’s work, much like the rest of his brothers. Broader though, he had a closer resemblance to the Lion, to Russ and Dorn. It was easier to recognise the Primarchs in batches such as those. 

There was a thinness to his cheeks that hadn’t been there prior, a sliver of shadow under each sky-blue eye. They almost asked on instinct “Have you been getting enough sleep?” . Guilliman was not their charge, not even their Primarch- not even close. 

Cary noted that on his desk lay Gael’s vox recorder. Guilliman had likely already reviewed their account. They tried to think if there had been anything, if they had said anything they would come to regret. 

“I imagine this is still all a shock to you,” the Primarch said. “Should you have any questions, I would be more than willing to answer.” 

Cary glanced at Elaius, who was still watching them.

“And I can speak plainly? Without threat of recourse?”

Guilliman nodded.

“The god thing. Can someone please explain the God-Emperor thing to me.” 

Elaius bristled, as much as power armour could bristle. Guilliman raised a hand to calm him, and then laced his fingers together in front of him, resting his forearms on the desk. 

“The Imperial Cult is the state religion of the Imperium, and its members are devoted to worship of father, the God-Emperor of Mankind.” 

Cary looked him straight in the eyes. They felt as though a lot was said during the prolonged eye contact, though neither of them spoke. Cary nodded slightly, dropping his gaze. 

“It has been a long time, hasn’t it?” They said, almost to themselves, then they looked up. “I am sorry for your losses, Lord Guilliman. I was fond of a great many of your brothers.” 

“I extend my condolences to you as well,” he gestured at the vox recorder. “I had not known the extent of the situation.” 

Cary parsed through the various underlying sentiments there, Guilliman had always been the statesman, the politician. 

“Had I known, I would have liked to think I could have offered some aid to both the legion and my brother.” 

“He wouldn’t have loved you for it,” Cary said. “Though thank you."

They paused. 

“How did he die? Do you know?” 

Did they even want to know? It had certainly haunted them, ever since they’d learned he had died. 

“He was assassinated,” Guilliman said, gently. “On orders from our father. The Callidus temple was assigned the duty. It would have been quick.” 

They wanted to turn away from his terrible pity, to shrink, to hide. Be anywhere else. Cary remained still. 

“And it is confirmed?” Cary asked. 

“We have the vid-log, should you wish to view it.”

Cary shook their head. 

“No. No, I-,” they stopped themselves before saying the words: I can’t. 

They had, after all, seen his death. Never sure if it had been some kind of strange dream inside the casket, but now at least they knew. They rubbed at their face, then pushed the grief aside. 

“How’s the state of things?” Cary asked.

Guilliman’s mouth quirked downward almost imperceptibly. 

“That bad?” 

“Worse,” said the Lord Commander. “We are fighting on a war on all fronts, every day there seem to be new and interesting enemies that want nothing more than to burn us from the galaxy, and the High Council of Terra move at such a glacial pace that one could imagine the paperwork fossilises before it leaves their desks.” His tone loosened as he spoke, like the creaking of a dam about to burst. 

“Well,” Cary replied, “Can’t you tell them to go do one? If you’ll pardon the phrase.”

“It is not as simple as that, I suspect they’d have me investigated for heresy. Or assassinated. Or both.”

Cary shrugged.

“Play their game then. Play up the Avenging Son part, you’re a demigod, Guilliman. Be who they think you should be and get what you want out of them.”

“Is this the kind of advice you gave to Konrad?” Guilliman asked, with an arched eyebrow.

“No, my advice to my Primarch was usually ‘No’, ‘Stop’ and ‘What is that in your mouth? Spit that out right now.’ It was often ignored,” Cary answered. 

“How unwell was he?” Guilliman frowned.

Cary inhaled.

“He should never have been put in charge of the Eighth,” they said, finally. “He was unwell, he was half feral even when I took him in. He needed help- intense help. Not to be sent off to the far corners of the galaxy with a host of loyal murderers and given free reign to do what he thought was best.”

“You believe then, that he was sanctioned to sow terror by the Emperor?” 

“We never received orders to stop,” Cary pointed out. “The only ones who questioned his methods were you, his brothers. No commands from Terra ever came, no golden-writ orders to cease the over abundance of bloodshed. He would have followed them, otherwise. He always thought he was doing exactly as the Emperor had willed him to do.” 

“Do you think so?” Guilliman stood, and for a second Cary wondered if they’d gone too far, perhaps expressed too much sympathy for Nacht. 

But he only turned, to look out of the tinted window. 

“Do you think the Emperor willed him to do this?” 

Cary cast a sidelong glance at Elaius. Making statements about the motivations of divinity could only end poorly for them. 

“I think he fulfilled the purpose the Emperor designed him for. Just as you are his Tactician, the Lion his Knight, Russ his Executioner. Night Haunter was the Emperor’s Monster,” they said. “A threat in the dark, a whispered story to keep worlds compliant. His scapegoat.” 

At this Guilliman turned back. Out of the corner of their eye, they could see Elaius’ hand almost halfway to his bolt pistol. 

“Explain,” Guilliman commanded.

“Make this man swear not to shoot me,” Cary replied, cheerily. 

Guilliman looked to the Ultramarine, who faltered and stepped back. 

“Your father, blessings upon his name, is a very smart man. Very smart god? I’m trying my best here. Anyway, he knew there were going to be parts of his crusade that needed to be cruel, and bloody and foul. He knew that doing it himself would stain his hands through a thousand years of history. That was Night Haunter's purpose, to be his mad dog and commit those atrocities for him. Whether that was his original purpose I dare not comment. But he was your father’s mad monster, who when the time came would have been brought before the light and tried for his crimes. His scapegoat.” 

They had kept their eyes on Guilliman’s face as they spoke. He kept it as stoic and unaffected as any good member of the Macraggian parliament likely would have. There was a flicker though, in his eyes. He believed them. 

“This is blasphemy!” 

The cold steel of a barrel pressed against the back of their skull, pushing their head forward uncomfortably. It wasn’t the first time and they doubted it would be the last. 

“Stand down,” Guilliman commanded. “I will not order you again, Elaius.” 

The barrel shook, and then dropped. 

“I apologise,” Cary said. “I am a man out of time. I shall endeavour to be more respectful in future.” 

They heard the rush of static against the vox speaker, but were unsure if it was a snort of disbelief or a grunt of acknowledgement. 

“Anyway,” Cary said, smiling at Guilliman. “I heard you had some work for me, so tell me Lord Commander, who do you want dead?”

Chapter Text

It turned out the Lord Commander of the Imperium didn’t want anyone dead, yet. Though Cary had offered to remove the most stubborn of the High Lords as efficiently as they could (as a favour). He had laughed, but ultimately refused. 

“You seem rather bright for one given what amounts to a death sentence,” Elaius said, marching beside them. 

To save themselves blundering about the brightened corridors, Cary had slotted their helmet onto their head. The stares were perhaps worth being able to see where they were going. 

“Not my first time,” they replied. “Besides, at least this one has some actual parameters to it.” 

Their mission was apparently very simple. Go somewhere, and remove a problem. It just happened that the ‘somewhere’ was the warp and the problem was… Well, they didn’t know what the problem was exactly. Only that the Imperial psykers had been going mental over a bright cloud where nothing had been before. 

Going into the warp was not their idea of a good or fun time, yet Guilliman’s hands had been tied on the matter. They either went into the warp and solved the problem, or they were executed as a traitor. Cary would have liked to have said they’d faced worse offers, but their mind went blank when searching for them. 

The only promise the Lord of Ultramar had been able to give them was that they wouldn’t immediately dissolve upon translation. The place they were being sent was at the very least stable, not to mention some kind of small, portable gellar field had been embedded inside their armour. They even had a transmitter, to signal when they were ready to return. 

“Of course, if you return and the unknown signal is still there,” Guilliman hadn’t needed to finish his thought. 

The section of the ship Elaius brought them down to was crawling with tech-priests, they were practically hanging out of the walls. Cary was fond of tech-priests, for both the whine and chatter of their speech and the endearing persistence in worshipping the Omnissiah. They supposed the Cult of Mars had really had the last laugh on that one. 

A few of them hovered and chirped around Cary, mechadendrites tapping and attaching things to their holsters and gauntlets. 

“What is this?” Cary raised their arm, examining the new housing that had just been welded there. 

Elaius coughed, uncomfortably. It was a peculiar sound coming through his vox. 

“Lord Guilliman has a final gift for you,” he said. 

Wheeled out on a table were two weapons Cary was intimately familiar with. Four long, silvery blades, scratched with age and battle. Mercy and Forgiveness . There was something odd about them, and it took Cary a little while to realise what. 

The blades were clean. Spotless, even. Nacht had never kept them clean- Cary had often tried their best but decades of compacted, dried blood was a difficult stain to remove. They stepped forward, placed the fingertips of their gauntlets upon Mercy .

“They were recovered from Konrad Curze upon his capture,” Elaius said. “His wargear and arms remain in Imperial custody.” 

“I’m surprised the Dark Angels gave them up,” they replied. 

“The Primarch commanded it.” 

Cary allowed the tech-priests to attach the heavy blades to their forearms. They had never wielded the lightning claws in battle. There of course had been points where Cary had worn their Primarch’s oversized gauntlets, as some amusement for either him or Sevatar. Still, it was another weight. Not only on their arms, but somewhere on their shoulders, around their chest. 

Cary flexed their fingers, watched the blades glow, crackle and snap. Then let them power down. Elaius was looking at them. 

“Well,” they said, forcing some cheer into their voice. “Better on my arms than through my torso I suppose.” 

Then it was time for the last possible checks. Cary was ushered onto some kind of dias, where flickering pylons of nauseating energy pulsed. 

“I’m flattered you’re ripping open a hole in reality for me,” they joked. 

Elaius merely folded his arms. They took the time to check the other equipment the tech-priests had foisted on them. A bolter, hanging at their side on a strap, one magazine already inserted into the thing and three more in a pouch at their waist. Three Krak grenades, a combat knife and a holstered bolt pistol. The weapons were uncannily familiar. Shouldn’t the designs have changed after ten thousand years? They cursed themselves for not asking Guilliman about it when thy had the chance. 

There wasn’t much fanfare as a small horde of tech-priests gathered around various control stations, their binaric voices carrying hymns of the Omnissiah into the air. 

“May the Emperor go with you,” Elaius called, as the air grew hot and thick, little arcs of pink-purple lightning now flickering across their armour. 

Feeling somewhat nostalgic, Cary made the sign of the aquila. 

“For the Emperor!” They lied. 

And then the whole world went white.

-

It was like falling, or rising, or some sickening combination of the two. Their helmet’s readout bugged, jumped around as the sensors tried to take readings. Cary closed their eyes against the lancing white light. It felt like their skin was bubbling inside their armour, like a thousand needles were tracing across their skin, like their blood was trying to escape through their pores. 

Then there was a snap, and gravity took hold once more. They fell only a few feet, rolled as they landed- taking in the textures of rock and dust scraping against their armour. Cary opened their eyes. 

They stood on an overhang of orange-pink rock, beneath a sky that couldn’t decide what colour it wanted to be. It moved in sickly spirals, pulsing like open veins, like a god’s mad flesh. 

Then of course, there was the tower. A tall spike of black iron against the lunacy of the sky, almost like the slitted pupil of a serpent. It twisted and curled on itself, a foreboding helix, ending in an eight-pointed crown. 

The wind blew around them, carrying handfuls of dust that chittered against their armour. Somewhere, not too far away, came strange, shrieking howls. Their education on chaos had been minimal, Guilliman had said it was likely in their best interest to know as little as possible. They should have questioned that. After all, it didn’t seem to have gone well for the rest of them. Cary realised for the first time in a very long time, they were completely alone.

“No, you are not.” Soft, lilting Nostraman, somewhere just over their right shoulder. 

Not real, they told themselves. A trick of the warp.

And then they started forward, descending down from their overhang, and ignoring the shape of the shadow that followed them. 

It was with almost embarrassing ease they settled back into the old habits. Ducking, hiding, remaining in the dark and waiting for the most opportune moments to move. Such had been their way, scouting ahead and reporting positions. The one advantage of being smaller, being narrower than even the Night Lord average was that they were also harder to notice. 

And even if they were spotted- the daemons might just think they were some visitor from the traitor legion. Some rogue element come to observe. Though that was speculation on their part, they had no true way of knowing if any of these… things even knew what a Night Lord was. 

Cary observed a few categories of daemons. The slow, foul beasts that lumbered and frequently left rotting pieces of themselves behind. The chattering, flickering ones that were hard to keep track of and seemed absorbed in their own whims. The languid, almost humanoid forms, with sculpted faces and crab-like claws- that laughed like all the women and men Cary had ever had a crush on. The ill-tempered red creatures that snapped and growled at anything and everything that got too close, that Cary had seen tear each other apart until only one remained to collect their skulls. 

They weren’t exactly sure how any of this had been appealing to anyone. Least of all Lorgar . Or Fulgrim! 

“Ah, but you were not there to see the fall,” the shadow said. “Would you have understood if you had? Would you have joined them, I wonder? Would the temptations of Chaos be too great if they had offered you something you so dearly wanted?”

“Shut up,” Cary said, to no one. 

They had silenced their vox speaker, so the only place their voice went was inside their own helmet. Yet still they felt like they had given themselves away. To whom, Cary wasn’t sure. 

Still, they continued. Cary worked their way through and down tunnels that bore through the rock as if a giant worm had carved them. The shadow dogged their heels at every step, and Cary had the unnerving feeling that once or twice it had been the only thing keeping them concealed. 

“What desire would have led you into their arms, I wonder,” the voice said. 

They felt a coolness at the back of their neck, like cold sweat dripping down inside their armour. The cold probed against their skull. Cary swallowed, harshly. 

“I wanted you to get better,” they said. “To be well.” 

The voice fell silent. 

They found themselves in a foundry of sorts, where great clouds of spark-flecked black smoke rose and crashed against the rocky ceiling. Cary peered into the depths, running through a series of different filters- not bothering with Preysight. The heat from the thermal vents would have rendered it useless anyway. 

They dropped down into the shadows, threading their way once again through darkness and heat. It almost could have been a Quintus processing plant, had it not been for the lack of rain. Cary followed the roots of metal, the thick trunks of the stuff that weaved in and out of the rock, that had the same ridged texture as the tower. 

Cary’s path led them through another small set of tunnels, ones that seemed to be sloping upwards, thank the stars. Though their progress was impeded by the sounds of shouting- and what sounded like the sobbing of a child. 

Half crouched, with their back to the wall, they peered around the corner. Something that resembled a man, bearing a whip that appeared to be studded with human teeth, was shouting something in some horrendous voice at a smaller figure. The whip-bearing man was bearing down on them, and Cary could see large pulsating growths on his back, some open and leaking bright yellow puss. The smaller figure, from what Cary would see, had an outcropping of antler-like horns down the side of their head. They were the one that was crying. 

The shadow tensed as Cary moved. They came out of their hiding spot, and waited not too far behind the man. Closer now they could smell the rot through the helmet’s filters, saw insects crawling on his mort flesh. He raised the whip again. 

Cary caught his arm, and clenched. The man turned his head, one rolling yellow eye turning to focus on them. They saw the recognition, the fear. 

“Oh, so you do know what I am,” they said. “That’s good.”

Then they cut his head from his shoulders. The body of the thing that Cary could only assume had once been a mortal man sort of pooled at their feet. Cary stepped back from the pool, then crouched to be on a height with the little figure. 

Closer now they could see that not only did the child have that half-crown of antlers, but that there was also a tail that they held onto. 

“Hey kiddo,” they said, as gently as possible. “Can you understand me?” 

Cary spoke in low Gothic, hoping that at the very least they wouldn’t have to resort to gesturing and pointing. 

The child nodded. At least they had that small mercy. 

“You okay? You hurt?” 

The child shrugged. 

“Can you tell me what this place is?” 

“Tower,” the child replied, in the quiet voice of the recently chastised. “We’re all meant to be working on it together. But it’s hard to work with the others. They don’t work like us and I don’t like it here.” 

“The others being, the red guys and the purple guys?” Cary asked. 

The child looked at them like they were stupid.

“The followers of the Blood God, She-Who-Thirsts and the Master of Fortune,” they said, slowly. 

“Right,” said Cary. “Thanks.”

“You don’t know them?”

“I’ve been away for a long time,” Cary admitted. 

“I didn’t think you liked us anyways,” the child said, standing up. 

They were probably around eleven or twelve if Cary was any judge. The child reached out and touched one of the crests sprouting from their helmets. 

“The Lords of Night,” they said. 

Cary straightened up. 

“Well, I suggest you get yourself scarce, I’ve got some business to attend to and I’d feel bad if you were caught in the middle,” they said. 

The child looked at them, and then at something over their shoulder. 

“Yeah, your friend wants to leave too,” they said. “If you follow the main tunnel you’ll get to the ‘Neshi section.” Then they scampered away down a side tunnel. 

Cary elected to ignore the child’s first comment, instead following the main tunnel around until they came across stairs of twisted iron. They stretched up through a carved section of the rock, humanoid forms seemed to leer out from the designs, all merged together in what Cary could only assume was meant to be an erotic nature. It was a little grotesque all things considered. 

The light that filtered down was a strange, fleshy pink- and replaced the earthy rot smell with instead a near emetic sweetness. 

“Eugh,” said Cary, for the benefit of no one. 

Still, they mounted the stairs and slowly began the ascent. Once more they pulled themselves into the shadows, observing the hall. Chains and silk hangings seemed festooned around the place in equal measure, humanoid and not-so-humanoid forms hung from them by hook and ring. It seemed to be a perverse dance. Long, fleshy tendrils curled into the walls, occasionally dragging smaller daemons into the mess of pulpy flesh. 

There was also artwork, sculptures of what Cary might have described to be of a sexual nature, if they could understand what sexuality the statues were meant to appeal to. They slunk around the edges, dim lights permeated almost every inch of the place, pale violet lights that came from glass lamps, faintly steaming. Still, those inside the rapturous rooms of Slaanesh seemed more interested in each other, rather than the lone figure awkwardly making their way through. 

They came to a wide balcony, open to the airs of the warp. From there Cary could look down over the complexes, the iron cancer that had spread itself on this one stable place. Against the walls there was glass tubing, with a number of multicoloured substances running through, all dripping their contents into open syringes. 

Cary examined them, trying to work out if they were weapons or simply stimulants. Honestly it was a little difficult to tell, the needles themselves seemed less than medical in nature. 

“Ku-li-kov.”

That made them freeze. This was one of the only places that they had not expected to be recognised- even worse, they knew that tone. But not that voice. It was like the voice they had known had been twisted and well, warped. Yet it still carried that same arrogance. The same way that Cary knew he had grinned when he said it. 

They turned. 

It was not the face they were expecting. The thing that stood across from them was more scar than man, vaguely Astartes-shaped though the armour appeared covered in flesh. This wouldn’t have been an unusual sight for them, had it not been that the flesh was moving, the faces gaping and grimacing and weeping. A great tendril of flesh hung from one arm, and in the other he held a silver sword- one that Cary recognised from faint dreams in their casket. That was Fulgrim’s sword- the Silver Blade of Laer. On his back was some kind of huge pack, not quite a power pack but something that held a number of tall glass vials. When he stepped a little closer, they saw his legs ended in cloven hooves. 

The face- the face. It was tinged a pale pink and crossed with a hundred scars. There was no nose, only two small slits where one had been. A grin split across that horrid face, full of sharp teeth. Two eyes peered from dark holes in the skull, albino-pink and tinged with red. 

“Lucius?” Cary couldn’t help but say the name as a question. 

It seemed absurd that this creature could be him, that this walking nightmare could ever have been the best swordsman of the Third. 

He leveled the silver blade at their chest. 

“Care for a spar?” Lucius asked.

Chapter Text

“Do the kids know you’re up?” He asked, conversationally, examining the edge of his blade. “Seems like the kind of thing they’d be crowing about if they knew.” Lucius laughed at his own joke.

They were circling each other. Cary had unspooled a length of the chain, letting the hook dangle in its palm-blade shaped form. Slowly, they began to flick it in circular motions, gaining momentum. Cary had never once beaten him in a duel, and they suspected that today wasn’t going to be much different- other than that Tarvitz wasn’t here to stop him from taking more than a chunk of their ear. 

“No? Strange. Thought you cared- or did that die with your planet?” From between his teeth, a pointed tongue lanced outwards, waving grotesquely. “The question begs to be asked: Who’s side are you on, Kulikov?”

“Same side I’ve always been on,” they replied. 

“Loyalty to a dead man? How sweet, I doubt he’d appreciate it,” he mused, swinging his sword in wide arcs. “Still, it is nice to see you again, you were the best conversation the Eighth had to offer.” 

“Trust me when I say you were not the Third’s,” Cary said. “First blood?”

Lucius laughed again, a bark that sounded barely like laughter at all, then he swiped forward. Cary jumped back, knocking the blade away with the spinning guard of the chain. They flicked their wrist back to avoid tangling the chain around it just yet, they wouldn’t be strong enough to pull the sword from his grip and had little intention of getting anywhere near him. 

Instead, they focused on wearing him down. They were fast and smaller than the usual opponent Lucius would have faced- plus they hadn’t sparred in a myriad. On the other hand: Lucius had a myriad of practice under his belt, not to mention the favour of whatever foul god he’d clearly pledged himself to. 

They focused on going for the gaps, for the pipes and lines connecting his pack to his armour, occasionally swiping at those fleshy tendrils with Forgiveness when Lucius flicked them out. 

“How’s your father?” They asked, casually sending the hook at his side, aiming for the gap between chest plate and battle plate. 

“He’s doing well, last I heard! Though you probably don’t know- ascended to full Daemon-Princehood, we’re all very pleased for him,” he grinned as he spoke, thrusting the sword at them. 

They dodged out of the way, but the barbed flesh-whip snapped out at their leg. Cary rolled into the fall as he laughed. Lucius’ manner had never really gotten under their skin: he was the better swordsman, always would be. He was toying with them, and as long as he was doing that then they were alive. It was like a cat playing with a mouse, but Cary had been the mouse often enough to know the routine. 

As they stood, they knocked into the rack of syringes again. Without much forethought, they reached behind themselves and took one at random, trying to hold it flush against their gauntlet so that he wouldn’t see. He was preening again, anyway. Quite what there was to preen was beyond Cary, he didn’t have a single hair on his head. 

“I’ll be honest,” Cary said, circling him again. “I thought a better swordsman would be standing in your place by now. Or at least one better liked.”

“Oh, you wound me,” he drawled, though his strikes got harsher. 

“Wait actually, can I bounce a bunch of names off you to see who’s dead?” Cary asked, lunging forward with the claws. 

He knocked them aside easily, but nodded.

“Why not? A trip down memory lane.”

Cary got up again, rolling their shoulders. 

“Abaddon and the Mournival?”

“All dead aside from Abaddon the Despoiler, to give him his full title. Leader of the Black Legion, blah blah blah,” Lucius waved a hand in an imitation of boredom, almost lazily stabbing at them. 

“Typhon?” They crossed the claws to catch the blade, flinging them apart to send the swordsman’s arm backwards. 

“Typhus,” he corrected. “Herald of Nurgle, could do with a wash.” 

It was almost like a dance, Fulgrim had always said duels should have been more artful than merely the crossing of blades. Cary realised with a keenness that they missed him. 

“Shang?”

Lucius shrugged.

“I will be honest, I haven't been keeping track of your little flayers, they really don’t like us all that much! I heard one or two were ours but even then, they hate Chaos as much as Curze did.” 

The blade of Laer lazily glanced off of their pauldron, having connected with the adamantine trim. Cary rolled with the impact and side stepped the larger man. 

“I always thought he’d end up as one of ours,” Lucius continued. “Seemed to take far too much joy in it all for it to be merely for justice or whatever excuse he gave. Fulgrim would’ve liked that, brotherhood and all such sentimental things.”

Cary felt and heard the snap of jaws by their ear, an all-too familiar growl. 

“How many other Primarchs have turned into- what did you call it? A Prince?” They asked, once again knocking away the blade, this time with Mercy . 

“Daemon Princes, Magnus, Mortarion and Angron are devoted to their own beloveds, Perturabo and Lorgar favour more of the balance of Chaos undivided.” He seemed to be becoming bored, stepping closer and closing them in. 

“Perturabo? Really?” The surprise caused them to miss a feint, and had to duck out of the way of the blade. 

“I know right? Never seemed the type, all buried in his armour and his workshop,” he said.

Then Lucius did something unexpected. He left an opening, right at his neck. It was almost masterful, making it look like a mistake. He wanted them to take the easy shot, for what reason Cary had no way of knowing. 

So instead, they flicked the chain forward, wrapping it around his neck and leaping at him, raising Mercy as if they intended to strike at his throat. Cary saw him grin, at the expectation of death. He wanted them to kill him. 

Lucius seemed rather surprised when they buried the stout needle in his neck. The dark purple liquid emptied itself into his flesh. They dropped off of him, letting the chain go slack and watching.

He pulled the syringe out of his neck and sniffed at it. To their surprise, he rolled his eyes.

“Blissgiver essence?” he said, incredulously. 

“Is that bad?” Cary asked, hopefully. 

“Oh don’t look so pleased with yourself, Care,” Lucius snapped, tossing the syringe aside, where it smashed on the tile. 

He was wavering back and forth, eyes half closed, purple veins streaking across his skin. 

“It’s going to send me to sleep, then I’m going to wake up, and I’m going to kill you,” he promised. 

“Damn,” said Cary. “Gotta catch me first though, Luc.” 

He toppled over, with enough force to shake the balcony, the faces and mouths of his armour all desperately pulling themselves upward. Cary went to him, leaning over his ruined face.

“One last question, and I’d like you to think carefully,” they said in a low voice, Forgiveness’ blades hovering over each of his eyes. “Where is Saul Tarvitz?”

Lucius laughed, bitterly. And kept laughing until it turned to wheezing, and he lay still. They nudged him with their boot, but he didn’t move. To be perfectly honest, Cary wasn’t even sure if he was still breathing. They weren’t about to get close enough to check. 

The shadow hovered again.

“At least take his eyes,” said the shadow. “It will be easier, when he wakes up.”

“No,” Cary said firmly, to no one and nothing. 

Then they turned, and went back inside the tower. Further down where Lucius had apparently come from, there were an interesting array of weapons- strange, oddly artful weapons that had horrid edges and were on occasion dripping. 

They didn’t like to think about what that was. Instead, Cary ventured around until they found something that looked like a large glass container. Whatever was inside moved like gas, if gas had malicious intent, leaving luminous trails in its wake. When Cary took the container, the gas compressed against where their hand sat, glowing brightly. 

“Well, I hope this is a bomb,” they said, to no one. 

The shadow didn’t reply. Cary took four of the things, clipping them around near the krak grenades. Heading out into the corridor again, they noticed the floor sloped upward. The helmet’s readout was still happy to tell them that the air was humid, and hot, but as the ground under their boots softened Cary realised it was for an entirely different reason. 

The air was rotten again, like the smell from the tooth-whip man. Growths were  protruding from the walls and floors. Great pungent flowers bloomed from the walls, where insects buzzed and ate and shat. 

Glancing down, they saw that the floor was covered in moss, and occasionally the fleshy body of an earthworm pulsed there. The light here was pale and sickly, pallid. There was a smell like rotting meat, something they were more than used to. 

Cary took a single step forward, and stopped. 

Down the far end of the corridor was a boy. Short for his age, dark curly hair and brown skin that had never once been kissed by the sun. His clothes hung off of him loosely, and blood poured from beneath his eyelid. The other eye stared at them, wide and black. 

“Why did you leave us?” asked Grisha. 

“It’s not real,” the voice cautioned. 

“We needed you,” he said. 

The walls seemed to be closing in, a mounting pressure building inside their head. Cary’s eyes stung. 

“Cary,” said Grisha. “Don’t you love me?” 

He was standing in front of them now, ruined eye open. The broken remains of it dripping down his cheek, followed by great wriggling black maggots. 

“Why did you choose the monster over us?” 

Cary blinked, reached for him. Their vision clouded red, a hundred fractured images flickering in front of their eyes. 

The tower. The tower, burning. The tower burning with the light of the foul gods. Blades that pierced their armour, another scar, another wound. 

A face, half familiar. Standing midnight-clad, the outline of an Atramentar. Cary whispered a name, in hope. The face did not change. 

A half-dozen combined symbols. Children’s laughter. It seemed unnatural to hear it now. 

Something bore down on them, on great, black wings. Terrible, terrible eyes. Judgement that they had known was always coming for them.

Cary blinked. They were sat in a dark room, leaning against a wall of lichen-encrusted concrete. Dark shapes were only visible due to another of those pale lights, ropey wires looped from the ceiling. An armoury, where the weapons of the followers of rot and disgust lay in untidy piles. Their arms lay at their sides, and Cary realised they were tired. Their muscles ached like they’d been sparring, like they’d been fighting. 

They looked down at their hands. The claws were slick with blood and other substances, Cary didn’t like to speculate on what that would be. 

Unavoidable now, crouched like half an animal, hovering just in sight in the dark. There he was. Cary couldn’t quite see his face, it shifted like paint. It was more of an impression of shadow and light, framed by hair like ink in water. 

Distantly, they could hear shouting, or at least something that could have been shouting- it sounded like a dozen hogs having an argument. 

“What did you do?” Cary asked Night Haunter. 

“I brought you here, and removed any filth in our way,” he replied. 

“... How?”

The shadows that made him up shifted, as if shrugging. 

“I occupied the space your mind left, when you were having your vision.”

“You possessed me,” Cary said, flatly. 

There was a sharpness in the smudges of his face, that might have been a grin or a grimace. 

“Briefly. If you are concerned, it is not something I can do on a whim. This place, the warp, is a place of souls. Ours have been bound together for centuries.” 

“You’ve been here the whole time then? Since I woke up?”

“Yes.”

It was almost embarrassing, the comfort the thought gave them. The relief. Cary raised Forgiveness.

“I’m not about to walk out there and see crime scene number three thousand and whatever am I?” 

“I think my number is more in the ten thousands, by this point.” 

“You’re such a pedant.” 

Cary stood, flexing their hands. Their extremities had the oddest sensation, a little like pins and needles but more like… Well, more like they’d just put their body back on and were adjusting the fit. 

“Right!” They said, “Which of these are bombs?”

Chapter Text

They found a metal orb about the size of their fist, three holes at the top trailed bilious green vapour. Cary left one of the pink containers in its place, nestled in with other things they hoped would explode violently- they even left one of the krak grenades there along with a remote detonator. 

Cary very carefully moved over to the door, trying not to take too much notice of their bloody handprints streaking along the walls. There was still quite a lot of commotion going on in the corridor outside, and even looking through the smallest crack- it looked like a warzone. 

“ Throne , Nacht!” they hissed. 

The shade of Night Haunter gave no reply. The corridor outside was smaller than the main halls Cary had been travelling through thus far. Scampering, rotting things passed by the door, some leaving parts of themselves behind. 

“Here,” said the shade. 

They turned to see the inky shape of him lurking at the back of the room. Approaching him was like walking towards a mirage, they never quite got near him. A white hand pointed towards a particularly lichen covered part of the wall that almost seemed to be sagging under the weight of its own decay. Cary reached out, pushed at the green and yellow mess.

Their hand went through, and kept going. Spores puffed out from the wall, but fell in large clumps, too big to get through their helmet’s filters. Cary snatched their hand back, watching the wall disintegrate into slime and wretched mess. 

Cary used the claws to cut away at the festering wall, into a dark space behind the walls. The degradation only seemed to spread so far, until their boots hit metal once more. Unlit though the space was, it was clearly meant to be used by someone- it was tall and wide enough for Cary to stand unimpeded. They could see that down the twisting corridor, there were small holes where the sickly light of decomposition’s realm shone through in long shafts. 

They went to the nearest, intending to look through. Though as Cary pressed their hand to the wall to lean closer, arcane sigils burned in blue spirals around the hole. Like fire, it spread up the length of the wall, framing it like a painting. The entire section of wall before Cary became transparent, as clear as if nothing was there at all. 

This part of the wall apparently looked upon some horrible greenhouse, where things grew in pots and tubs and up the walls. Occasionally things got out of their pots to go take charge of a different pot. A small green creature, that sort of resembled a potato left in a cupboard so long that it had started growing its own roots, was pottering among the rows. It petted at the plants with foetid little paws, chuntering away to itself as it worked. 

It would have been quite sweet, had the thing not had rows and rows of needle-like teeth. Cary turned away from the arcane window, and continued down the corridor. 

As they followed the hidden corridor, it became clear that it had been built purposefully. The twisted metal that made up the rest of the tower soon gave way to dark crystal, glittering dangerously in the dark. Some surfaces had a mirror-like finish to them, throwing up huge sections of their armour and painting lightning storms across the walls. Sometimes they caught flashes of their helmet, the silver skull with red eyes peering out at them. They looked like a nightmare, which had always been the goal for the Eighth. 

Soon though, Cary found an exit. It was little more than a threshold in the black rock, but as soon as they stepped through, the crystalline corridor vanished. Only a painting stood where they had come through, a rotted forest burning, a swarm of blue birds holding flaming coals in their talons. 

The space they found themselves in now was almost comfortable. There were bookshelves, stretching up to the point where they disappeared into star-flecked mist. Piles of books floated by and sorted themselves in what seemed to be an order of their own making. It was also extremely quiet. 

“Oh, I do not trust this,” Cary said. 

“The Changer of Ways has many a false face,” said Night Haunter. “This is the domain of the witch.” 

“It's a bit hypocritical to say it like that. Half the legion were prone to fits of prophecy, not to mention yourself.” 

They avoided the light cast by the dim blue orbs that floated about the place. The shadow they knew now was his shade flickered at the edges of their vision. 

“Yes,” he said softly. “We are, aren’t we?”

When Cary didn’t reply, he continued. 

“I was able to take charge of your physical body because you were elsewhere. You saw didn’t you? We saw charlatans and parlour tricks from those who thought to curry my favour, but you never said a word of your own abilities.”

“It was only dreams. Even when I was awake it happened so rarely I never thought to mention it,” Cary replied. 

“You should have informed me.” 

“We had enough problems without me adding to them.” 

“Tell me what you saw.” 

Cary sighed, and went over the vague flashes. They’d never been a good oracle. Only faint impressions of various outcomes, laid on top of each other like film. Night Haunter made no comment about what they’d seen, but it relieved Cary that he wasn’t completely inside their head. 

“How are you even here, anyway?” They asked. 

“I do not know. I am a revenant, bound to your bones. Perhaps it is because fate has woven our threads together so closely that it cannot tell whose is whose any more. Perhaps because you haunted me, it is my turn to haunt you.”

“I haunted you?” Cary glanced up at another, identical bookshelf. 

They were sure that they had seen that book before, Ars Goetia. The Night Haunter’s pale-smoke face loomed in the corner of their vision.

“Yes, you were there, remember? I pulled your soul from your body, where you lay with stilled brain and stopped heart, and you followed me. You did not see all, for that I am thankful. You were there often. Sanguinius saw you once.” 

They kept walking, but did not reply for some time. 

“I thought they were dreams. Nonsense,” Cary said, eventually. “A nightmare.” 

“A nightmare?”

“You only got worse. More unstable. The horrible ship- the poor young man, the helmsman,” they forced their jaw closed. 

“I am sorry. Truly. I meant it when I said that the gravity of my life has changed the threads of yours. You are still trapped in the waves I have created, if I could have changed things, I would.”

“Stay close, please,” they whispered.

The shade of Night Haunter melted back into the shadows that cloaked them. Cary looked at the shelves again. Ars Goetia . A book so old it looked like a mild touch could crumble its spine. 

“We’re going in circles.” 

“Something like that. More like fractals.” 

They couldn’t be bothered to ask what he meant. Instead they lingered next to an abandoned desk, papers still strewn across it, thinking. This was a realm of tricks and change, where making sense of things only served to drive you mad. 

Cary turned and walked back the way they had come, until they got bored and began walking down the aisles. Then they changed depending on whether or not they liked the books they saw. Then on every ninth step. 

Eventually, another door appeared. An azure blue vulture sat hunched on a perch, a crooked, decrepit looking thing. It stared at them with one large yellow eye as they approached the door. 

“Very good,” it said. “I didn’t think you mutants had any imagination. The last three that entered are still there.” 

“Oh. Thank you,” they said. 

They weren’t sure what else there was to say to that. 

“You’re welcome. Are you with the Archpriest? I heard his retinue was supposed to be arriving soon.”

The yellow eye blinked.

“No, I’m more of a free agent,” Cary replied. “New to the area.”

Lying to daemons didn’t seem like a good idea. Lying to daemons of fate, change and trickery seemed like an even worse idea.

“Ah, then you simply must find a window when the Urizen arrives,” the vulture preened at it’s wing, but never took its eye off of Cary. 

The name made a slight chill roll through their core. 

“Lorgar’s coming here?” 

“Oh, first name basis are we?” The vulture clucked, craned outwards on its featherless neck. “Night Lord, adamantine trim, delightfully archaic Nostraman accent. How curious!”

“If he asks, I was heading the other way,” Cary said, stepping around the vulture’s outstretched neck to push open the door. 

The vulture laughed, or cawed. Or both. 

Out in the corridor, things were once again strange. The floors and walls were again crystalline, though this time bright. It was blue, ranging from a midnight navy that would have been hard to tell apart from their own armour, to the lightest of sky blues. If they looked at the floor tiles for too long, their head swam as the stones moved and shifted in mesmerising patterns. The walls had their own horrible motifs too, where out of the corner of Cary’s vision they swore there were eyes. Large, staring, cyclopian eyes that followed their every move. But when they looked to the wall, there was nothing, just some vague difference in shade in the crystal’s polished surface. 

It was also uncomfortably bright, with braziers of cobalt flames sending dancing, lurid light everywhere. There were also people. Well, Cary assumed they were probably people. Those who walked in long, flowing robes and held long staves of arcane light, whose faces shifted and changed as soon as you glanced away, who appeared to be giant bird daemons with hunched backs and vestigial wings. 

Nobody paid much attention to Cary, which was fine by them. Once they thought they had passed by another Astartes, though they couldn’t be sure. The figure had definitely been wearing power armour, but Cary hadn’t recognised the regal crest sprouting out from his helmet, or the heraldry emblazoned over his pauldrons and robes. His head had half turned to them, however if he had recognised Cary he didn’t stop to chat. 

Eventually, after a bit of wandering, they found a set of barred metal doors, through which there appeared to be a stockpile of weapons. Cary tried the door, and found that it was locked. 

“What are you doing, Little Bat?” The amused croak came from above them. 

Cary looked up. Once again that yellow eye was upon them. 

“I’ve heard now, that Lucius the Eternal is hunting down a Night Lord bearing Mercy and Forgiveness , with a trim of adamantine,” the vulture said. 

“Just a joke between friends,” Cary said, casually. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the key for this thing is, would you?”

“I might,” said the vulture, its neck extending an absurd amount to be on eye level with them. “Though I do not give my help freely.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, what do you need?” Cary bit back the pithy comments that bubbled in their throat. 

Implying that the bird daemon wanted some seeds would have been an incredibly poor idea. 

“Well, you were around before that whole nonsense weren’t you? Perhaps you can answer me but one question.” The great eye blinked.

“Maybe so,” Cary said, slowly. “I’ll warn you fairly, I was out of action before the beginning.”

“No matter. All I wish to know is what you saw, when you saw the Anathema,” the vulture made a grand pause there. 

“The what?”

“The being you call ‘God-Emperor’,” the vulture clarified, a little miffed. 

“Oh, well. Not a lot really. When the Emperor came to Nostramo he blinded people. To look at him was to look at the sun, I could only really sort of see him if I looked slightly off to the side. He looked like a giant man, radiating light. Very pomp and splendour.”

“Strange for one proclaiming himself undivine,” the vulture clicked its beak. “But he was light, he was radiance?”

“Yes,” Cary said. 

“Very well,” said the vulture. “Thank you for answering an irritating question.”

The bars melted, as if they were nothing more than water. 

“Thank you.” Cary made to step through. 

“Oh, and by the way, Kulikov,” the vulture’s use of their surname made them grimace. “The Sorcerer-King sends his regards.” 

Cary looked at the vulture, but it had already vanished in an implosion of indigo feathers. 

“Am I meant to know who the Sorcerer-King is?” Cary said, to the corridor. 

“Magnus,” said the shade. 

“I liked that guy. Wanted to help you- gave you that orb thing, remember?”

“I barely used it. My visions did not need focusing.” 

“The thought counts,” Cary replied, stepping into the armoury. 

They found a collection of crystalline pyramids, all glowing that same lurid azure as much of the rest of the place. Cary repeated the same actions they had taken in the putrid weapons store of the rotten god, placing one of the black stained orbs with the green vapours in a nest of the pyramids, sticking yet another detonator in the mix. 

“Hide,” hissed the shade. 

Cary dropped on instinct, dodging behind a few racks and swinging the bolter around to their front. A cloak of shadow fell over them, pressure on their shoulders and back. There came the sound of wings- the vulture flapped into the room, taking a perch on a rack of crystalline spears that shifted in migraine-inducing patterns. 

An unnatural creature followed, hunched with a thick jaw and dozens of wiggling tendrils flowing from its head. It was the pink tone of meat, naked aside from a loincloth hung loosely about its waist, and a thick string of keys about its neck. Tiny yellow eyes rolled in its misshapen skull. The vulture seemed ruffled, annoyed. Perhaps it had lead the thing here. 

“I told you, nothing here,” squawked the vulture. 

The thing hissed with a voice like a hundred whispers, words that Cary could not understand.

“I don’t know! Maybe one of your Horrors decided to go on a little jaunt again- the Nurglites have already found one of our tunnels- no doubt because one of your charges thought it would be funny .” 

Oh good, they were already fracturing. Cary marvelled that the ruinous powers had even managed to get this far, if all it took were a few kept secrets. They were fairly certain at least three legions had kept secret eyes on the Eighth. 

The horrible thing made a noise that sounded like “Bah!” and waved a clawed hand in the vulture’s direction. It stomped through the racks, growling and stoutly ignoring the vulture, which was still shrieking insults at it. 

Cary watched as it got closer, bracing the bolter against their shoulder. The bolter had never been their primary weapon. They had always favoured the chain and their knife. Still, they were not completely unused to the weapon, and half curled their finger around the trigger. 

They saw the daemon close in, heard the clinking of its golden bangles and the keys around its neck. Between the slats of the rack, where lightning-streaked energy packs burned and glowed, they saw the legs of the thing pause. 

Cary stopped breathing. It was an old habit. One developed over years of bad nights that stank of whiskey and violence. Father had learned to listen at cupboard doors, and Cary had learned not to breathe. 

The daemon stood there for a few seconds, muscled tail flicking back and forth. It sniffed the air. The darkness around them drew closer. Cary heard the tandem pulse of their twin hearts thud in their ears. It wasn’t the killing that agitated them. It wasn’t even the killing of a daemon that unnerved them, surely it could die like any other living thing. It was the noise, the disruption the killing would cause. 

Cary would have preferred not to leave behind a body. To simply be in and out, as a ghost. To have the task done with no blood spilled, no sighting of a single enemy- that to them was terror. They weren’t above cutting off a man’s head to roll it ominously down a corridor, from the shadows into the light. But if they could get away without doing that, they preferred to. 

They remained completely still. The daemon huffed, then moved on. Cary didn’t move. Waiting until it had continued further into the armoury, until they could barely hear it. That was when they moved, slowly and carefully. 

The cloak of the shade seemed to muffle their footsteps, ceramite boots no longer making the crystalline floor crack in hairsbreadth fractures. Still, every footstep was painfully slow, and they didn’t dare look behind them. Cary relied on their hearing to tell them where the daemon was, which thankfully still seemed to be far down the room. 

It was of course then, that as they reached the doorway, that all hell broke loose. 

The hell came in the form of an uttered yell. The Astartes with the stave, with the large and impressive crest, was pointing at them from down the corridor. More specifically, he was pointing at their bolter. 

Their bolter, which still prominently displayed the Imperial aquila. 

Cary swore. Then took aim upon the sorcerer, and fired.

Chapter Text

Of course, none of the bullets connected. The sorcerer-Astartes waved his hand and the bolter shells stopped in midair in front of him, exploding harmlessly against a shimmering blue forcefield. 

Without waiting to see if the sorcerer would respond, Cary grabbed one of the grenades at random. They watched a trail of purple smoke corkscrew through the air, but took off at a run before they could see what it would do. They felt a wave of energy at their back, and heard what sounded like a cross between an impassioned whimper and a piano wire screech. This only increased their resolve to not turn around. 

Being out in the open was bad for Night Lords- the legion had always worked best in shadows, in urban environments. The glassy, bright corridors of the domain of the witch were hardly the best environment for them. Still- confusion was at least on their side. 

Running up the corridor, they threw another of the brassy, dented orbs into an open doorway. The explosion it caused sent spores chasing after them, covering the floors and ceilings in a thin layer of dusty sage. Squawks and yells of dismay echoed down the corridor. 

“Behold, the terror of the Eighth,” the shade commented. “The silent horror that stalks the shadows and sows fear in the hearts of men.”

“Shut up.” 

Luckily enough, it seemed that the main corridor followed the same structure the previous had: a long curve upwards. Once they sprinted past an inner balcony, looking over the wide hollow of the tower. It seemed infinite, stretching in both directions, coiled, spine-like growths lacing their way upwards in place of support structures. Living faces in the metal with their mouths open in permanent screams. 

“Stop looking,” the shade commanded. “It will get inside your head and use your memories and guilts against you.”

Cary looked away, looked forward. A gangling mass of limbs surrounding a ball of lurid pink flesh that might have constituted a torso lurched from an archway. Its two yellow eyes locked on Cary and a leering grin spread across its face.

They raised the bolter and shot the damn thing, two shells caught it directly in the middle. Cary had aimed to keep running, perhaps over the horrid remains of the thing if they had to. It shrieked as the shells ripped through it, tearing it apart from the inside as they detonated. The thing split in two and then-

And then two smaller, blue coloured horrors crawled out of its body. 

“I hate this place,” Cary said, drawing close enough now to cave in one of the blue daemon’s little face with the butt of the bolter, and dispatching the other with a swipe from Mercy . “I’m having strong words with Roboute when I get back.” 

“Curious how he thought following father’s example would be the best course of action. He told us naught of the taint of Chaos until it was too late,” said the shade of the Night Haunter. 

“What I’ve seen thus far hasn’t exactly been tempting ,” Cary replied, grimacing as yet more of the pink daemons appeared. 

They let the bolter drop slack on its strap, and allowed Forgiveness to unsheathe as well. Cary cut forward at a sprint. 

“I wish he’d given me a chainsword,” Cary lamented, bifurcating one of the smaller blue daemons. “The claws are great but you need to get such a swing behind them.” 

“They’re noisy and attract too much attention.”

“Jago has- had a chainglaive,” they pointed out. 

“The Atramentar also wore Terminator armour, they were not intended to be agents of infiltration.” 

Inside their helmet, they made an exaggerated parody of how they knew their Primarch’s face would have looked upon delivering the words. The lightning claws did however make short work of the daemons, despite Cary’s complaints. 

It seemed like the corridor would go on forever, right up until it didn’t. The end came so suddenly that Cary nearly ran headfirst into it. 

The corridor ended in a pair of large, rusty iron doors, the colour of dried blood. It was studded with hundreds and hundreds of skulls, all hammered into the metal on long nails. 

“This looks inviting,” Cary said. 

“The followers of the blood god will be more straightforward than the followers of the weaver,” the shade said. “They will simply try to kill you.”

“Lots of things have tried to kill me,” they replied. 

Including you. The thought echoed around their head.

“Yes, but they will not attempt to warp your flesh with rot and magic, nor ensnare your senses and make a fool of your mind. They desire to spill your blood and take your skull for his throne.” 

“Oh, is that all?” Cary put a hand on what they had to assume was the skull of some interesting xeno they’d never seen before. 

“Just because they are simple in their motives does not mean they are any less dangerous,” the shade chided them. 

“Oh no, bloodthirsty killers who want to harm me. Whatever will I do? Never faced that before,” Cary replied. 

The shade did not reply, but somewhere above their right shoulder they heard what might have been a sigh. Cary cautiously pushed at the door. It creaked loudly on its hinges, red dust flaking from the metal, grinding in the gaps of the joint. When they pulled their hand away from the metal, they saw that underneath the red dust- what they had assumed to be rust particles, was uncorroded iron. They rubbed the dust between forefinger and thumb, a deep jolt hitting their spine in recognition of the texture. 

Years aboard the Nightfall had well acquainted them with the feeling of dried blood between their fingers. If not their own, from training or chasing or fighting, then the blood of others. The planets who became too lax in their compliance, those who rebelled against Imperial rule. The flakes of dried blood when they had cut down their brothers victims. Granting peace, removing the remains. Disposing of them with as much dignity as they could muster in the cruel void. Jago had called them soft for that too. 

And the door was covered in it. Layers and layers of spilt blood, dried upon the door. The gap beyond was of such a deep darkness that it took the helmet’s auto-senses a second too long to adjust. It was dark, and cold and completely silent. 

Cary stepped through the door and slid out of the light. Vaulted gothic ceilings that seemed eerily familiar, almost Imperial in their fashion. Huge braziers lay cold and dormant, the only light coming from the pale shaft of the door. Under their boots, they knew the floor was covered in that same crust of dried blood. Their auto-senses flicked to accentuate their own scotopic vision, picking out a hall that reminded them faintly of the septs back in Quintus. Those remnants of old, fractured religion that hadn’t made it past the start of Imperial rule, back when the Emperor was man and refused all faiths and creeds. 

They crept along what to them looked like a nave, empty of any seats and set into the floor. The aisles raised to about head height, with wide stone stairs running their length. Occasionally these stairs were broken up by what appeared to be the mouths of gutters, above dry and empty bowls. 

“The Lord of Battle cares not from where the blood flows, only that it does,” the shade murmured. 

“Poetry?” Cary asked.

“Something screamed at me on occasion.” 

Some dawning, terrible realisation crested their mind. 

“Of your brothers, the ones who fell to Chaos,” they said. “Angron was among them, the Inquisitor said the World Eaters had turned traitor.” 

“I did not see him ascend- or descend as the case could stand. But yes, I believe he has become the champion of Khorne.” 

“Poor bastards,” Cary muttered. 

“They would not love you for your pity.” 

“I know. It’s just… Of all the hands your brothers were dealt, I fear he was among the worst. Not to compare tragedies, of course. But the Nails,” Cary trailed off. 

“I agreed with my brothers on little, but here I find a similar sentiment to many of them. Your capacity for compassion is staggering.” 

They couldn’t quite tell if it was meant to be a compliment or an admonishment. Cary made their way up the stairs to their right, moving from cover to cover. The lack of anything living made them uneasy- not just in the manner at which the brain instinctively reacts upon seeing bodies or blood. There was simply no one here. Why? Cary had seen the violent daemons of the Blood-God in the outer complexes. Yet no tainted mortals, no greater daemons. No traitor Astartes.

“It’s not too much to hope that they did their profane rites and left is it?” Cary murmured. 

“It is entirely too much.”

Cary crossed to the next pillar and then stopped. The auto-senses had flagged something- tracks in the blood. Not too old either. Bootprints, hoofprints? It was hard to tell. Still, there was a steady path of them leading further into the dark. 

Interested now, Cary followed the trail. It veered off from the main hall, down one of the silent passageways that lined the hall. The familiarity of the size and shape of the corridors crawled unwelcome under their skin. How many Astartes had lost themselves to blood and violence for the realm of their Lord to look like this? 

The auto-senses picked up the first traces of light, of noise. Harsh voices that only scrambled themselves further when the helmet tried to clear and enhance the audio. Cary moved as close as they dared, behind a collection of awkwardly toppled crates. 

The flickering lights came from a ball of plasma, held in the outstretched hand of a robed figure, it was as much Cary could see of them without leaning dangerously. It sent long tongues of violet up the blackened walls, which made the skulls buried there leer and grin. 

“Are you certain?” A voice asked, soft, quiet. It was more the clipped cadence of a ministorum adept than any kind of cultist. 

“More than certain,” this voice was more excited. “The Khornates are busy keeping the Archpriest’s brother out of the way, they won’t be on their way back for a while. By the time they return, this will all be done with.” 

They wanted to stretch a little further, to see what they were dealing with. However, the crests would have given them away. 

“And the Scorpion will stay slumbering until the ritual is completed?” The voice of the questioner had an edge to it, an edge that would have had Cary watching their back. 

“The Scorpion will stay slumbering as long as I have command of it,” the other voice snapped. 

Deciding the risk of being spotted was worth assessing what was going on, Cary leaned around the edge of the crate. It was another of the vaulted, imperial-style rooms, but in the centre lay the collapsed body of a giant metal creature, six legs and two great claws that lay limply open. A long, thick tail curved overhead, ending in some vicious looking weapon- bladed and barrelled. The thing sprawled like it was dead, though dim red light roiled beneath its carapaces. Two figures were outlined in the glow of the creature and the glow of the plasma ball. With the light it was difficult to guess which banner they were under, but through the use of witchcraft alone, Cary figured they were probably part of that sorcerous ilk. 

One of the ritualists had leveraged one of the carapaces open, and was working on whatever foul machine lay beneath. The ritualist who was crouching before it was waving their arms over the opening, making sigils in the air with their fingers, whispering words that Cary couldn’t understand. 

The quiet peace of the sacrilegious rite was broken with the echoed sounds of shouts and shrieks and boots on metal. Cary withdrew again into the shadows, making themselves as small as they could- which wasn’t particularly small. 

The ritualists with the Scorpion were arguing in low, hissing voices as the noise from the main hall grew louder. To Cary’s dawning horror, they realised they recognised one of the voices coming from up the hall. 

“ Ku-li-kov, ” sang the voice, sweetly familiar. 

Cary swore under their breath. The ritualists were panicking now, they could hear them squabbling over who would be blamed for what- that the Blood God would not accept both the acolytes of the Weaver and the concubines of the Dark Prince in his domain. 

Then there was a noise like a hundred Thunderhawks taking off at once, a thousand knives scraping along a whetstone. It echoed around the chamber and some deep, instinctual terror crawled its way up Cary’s spine. The thing roared.  

“Run,” whispered the shade. 

Cary bolted back down the corridor, towards where faint pinkish-red light was catching on the iron walls. It did not take long for the screaming of the ritualists to stop, and the echoing, clanking sound of the Scorpion to follow. 

They burst out into the main sept of the bloodied corridors, skidding against the flakes and dust as they turned sharply to the right. Cary didn’t take much time to take stock of the party that had entered the red halls, only that there were vague shapes of violet-coloured flesh, interesting arrangements of characteristics and of course- 

Lucius, who stood before them all. Lucius, who had been their friend. Lucius, who had taught them how to duel.

Lucius, who was now bearing down on them with the same bloodied fervour Cary had seen on the worst days of the Nightfall. Fortunately however the grin was swiftly wiped from his face, as a bolt of bright, fiery energy crossed the space between them. It hit the far wall and exploded a few of his cronies in large chunks of charred flesh. 

Cary exchanged a glance with the swordsman of the Third, though now it seemed much too small a title for the man. He seemed utterly perplexed, which they’d only seen on his face once before. 

They went off at a charge, to the right where the sept curled around and upwards, back into that inviting dark. The guttural cries of the daemons mixed with the roar of the engineered monster. Though it was with no little amount of horror that as another one of those streaking bolts of energy clipped the pillar they passed, that the Scorpion was following them . Quite why it had elected to do that was beyond Cary, perhaps one of those terrible gods had decided it would be funny. 

Their arms pumped at their side as they ran. They thought about running into one of the side corridors, to throw their pursuers off. Though there was every chance the Scorpion knew this place better than Cary, even if they were only some mechanical creation. Their only small respite was that they couldn’t hear the whooping, delirious cries of Lucius’ daemons. 

Blood rushed in their ears as they sprinted headlong into darkness, orange light catching at their heels like they were running from a wildfire. Sooner or later they were going to run out of corridor, and they didn’t fancy running head first into a locked door. They looked upwards, trying to make out if there was anywhere in the ribbed vaulting or clerestory that they could catch. 

“The door,” intoned the shade. 

Surely enough, there it was. They noticed the brightness first- the colour. The doors to the next realm in the spiral were stained glass, depicting figures that moved and swayed in perfect, deliberate motions. Cary looked away. That seemed more Fulgrim’s speed. Behind them, the Scorpion's cannon whined and crackled, the sound of its pinchers snapping sounded like iron doors slamming.

They looked up, above the door, to the ornate pediment above it, then raised their gauntlet. 

“Sorry, Fulgrim,” they said, to no one. 

Cary fired the chain and it arced in a silver ribbon, the claw extending and crunching down on the stone like a dog’s jaws. They braced and winced as the motor whined, dragging them off their feet and into the air. 

“Sanguinius pulled your shoulder out like that once,” the ghost commented. “Caught the chain and pulled you along behind him.”

Cary slammed into the marble, taking the head off of an oversized cherub as they went. Below them, its legs striking up huge waves of sparks as it failed to slow, the Scorpion careened forwards, tail thrashing as it went. 

When it went through the door it sounded like lightning, the shattering, oddly beautiful sound of the glass breaking echoing down the sept and beyond. Light poured in unbidden, casting away the dark shadows. It was all red, like Cary had known it would be. The dried, rust-red of blood, with a few clumps of black where the blood was at its thickest. 

A cacophony of noise came through the doorway, the Scorpion had likely been distracted by other targets, who were none too pleased to be interrupted. Cary decided it was likely best to stay where they were at least for the next few seconds. 

This too was ruined, as a barbed tendril caught around their leg guard, and dragged them swiftly down. They brought marble and fragments of statue down with them, swearing as they went. It was a fall they would not have come out unscathed from- had not the arm from which the tendril grew grabbed them out of the air. 

Lucius set them down politely, even brushed some of the marble dust from their helmet and pauldrons. Like he used to, cheerfully admonishing them all the while. 

He held out a blade. A normal blade, nothing seemed chaos-tainted or special about it. To Cary it looked like a very ordinary training blade. 

“Pick it up,” Lucius commanded. “We were not finished, and I’m eager to see if you actually retained any of our lessons.”

Chapter Text

In the hall of the Blood God, standing before the aperture to the Prince-Who-Thirsts’ halls, Cary took the sword. It was the kind they had come to recognise from the Third, beautiful but not to the point of impracticality. A neophyte’s training blade, something they could wield with pride, and then pass on to a younger brother when the time came. 

They had liked that tradition, it filled them with a sort of dull ache. Like the Emperor’s Children were proper brothers. But Cary was Eighth, not Third. All their brothers were either dead or lost. 

Including the one that stood before them now, who had switched Fulgrim’s Laer blade for a similar, plainer sword. Lucius backed up a few paces, Cary did the same, watching his movements carefully. His maimed face seemed concentrated, focused in a way they had often seen before a duel. 

“Do you remember the dance?” He asked, brightly. 

“I have a permanent reminder,” Cary replied. “I still think you only did it because I guessed your age wrong.”

“It was a great blow to my ego for your guess to be out by a decade,” he said, solemnly. “But look at it this way, you had a shiny battlescar to show up to the Night’s Children with.” 

He took up the first step of the dance, heels together, sword held straight out at his side. Cary echoed the movement. They moved together like clockwork automatons, sweeping the blades so that the silvery edge rested at the middle of their faces, then swept out to the side again, pointing at the floor in a diagonal. 

“First blood?” Lucius echoed. “No chain, no tricks.” 

“First blood, blades only,” Cary agreed. 

And they leapt forward. Lucius’ blade flashed up to greet their own, and drove them back with little more than a flick of his wrist. 

“Shoddy,” he commented.

Cary didn’t reply, feinting to the side. Lucius’ eyes followed them, but he made no attempt to move until they came close once more. Again he swiped them away, easy as anything. There was a distinct professionalism to what he was doing now, a restraint Cary hadn’t recognised from him. Lucius’ moves were calculated, once more the moves of the dance. He was testing their memory- or perhaps more just testing them. He advanced with great arcs of his blade, blows that shuddered their painful way up Cary’s arm. 

The worst part was that Cary knew he was going easy on them. That he was holding back, now that they held a less familiar weapon. That though they struggled to hold him off, to parry his sword, to choose the correct movement to counter his- that he could end it as soon as he wished. 

As a neophyte, Cary had often been grateful for this, that he could curtail some of that ego for even a short time to coach them through the drills. Now though it was only a grim reminder of how unevenly matched they were. 

It wasn’t long until the dance ended. He had never been able to keep a leash on his pride for any great length of time. Lucius’ strikes got faster, the blows landed harder, they struggled to keep him from disarming them.

Then-

He thrust forwards, they didn’t have time to even see the blade before they felt steel in their side, an explosion of pain ripping through them. Lucius’ fist clutched the hilt of the sword, resting above their hip guard. He had gone where the gap in the plate was, just to the side of the adamantine ribs that decorated their stomach. 

For a second they were locked together like that, Cary with one bracing hand on his horrible pauldron, letting the sword slip from their grip. Blood poured freely from the wound, and when they looked at his face- his sad, unfamiliar echo of a face, they saw for the briefest of seconds a little bit of fear. He looked away from them, over his shoulder, his mouth was open to say something, he got through the first syllable: “Sa-”. 

He’d thought they were back in training. He was going to call for Saul, panicking because he’d done it again- nearly killed another new recruit. 

“This is hardly first blood, Luc,” Cary wheezed. 

The blade slid out from the gap between flesh, carapace and bone. The pain made them spasm and collapse forward, helmet bouncing off of his chestplate. Lucius cradled them, almost crushed them. Cary couldn’t see his face, could only speculate on what the swordsman was thinking. They heard his ragged breathing, another telltale little sign of stimulant abuse. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice a rasping whisper. 

“It’s your nature,” Cary reassured him. 

They glanced upward, watching the shadows condense. There was that strange, numb feeling in their hands again. 

“Don’t kill him,” Cary said to the shade. 

“What?” Lucius just about managed, before his body was ripped away from them. 

Cary fell forward unbidden now, the chill creeping up their arms and inside their bones. They rolled to their side and with shaking fingers, they managed to peel at one of the pouches on their belt. Cary fumbled with the medi-kit, fully ignoring the all too familiar sounds of… Well it seemed too nice to call it “battle”. They glanced up once to see something that might have been the ink-in-water shape of Night Haunter bearing down on Lucius, who looked like he’d just seen a ghost. Cary supposed that he had.

Though what they also noticed was the cord. It was difficult to make out really, a twisted silvery line that dragged along the floor, running up into their own chest. At the other end lay Night Haunter, who had just bodily picked up the Eternal and thrown him down the length of the hall. 

Cary looked back at their wound. It was at least a clean cut, though the internal damage wasn’t something they wanted to think about at that second. They’d just have to trust the various wonderful organs Cawl had installed to do their jobs. 

They sealed the wound with synth-skin, gritting their teeth, hands shaking (how much longer until there was nothing of them but synth-skin?). The chill had only gotten worse, the numbness spreading up their legs and across their chest. All they could do was lie there, shaking, until Night Haunter returned to them. There wasn’t blood on him, Cary wasn’t sure if anything could stick to him. 

They looked up and saw his face. No abstract shadow and light that might have been his face, or made sense if you half closed your eyes. His terrifying, madly-beautiful face loomed over them. The cord faded, and his features did too, his form sliding back into that under-the-water appearance. 

Cary flexed their fingers, wincing as feeling started to come back into their body. 

“What the hell,” they managed. 

The shadow shrugged. The oil-pastel smudges of his large pale hand rested on top of their own, where they were holding the synth-skin to their side until it took. Even through the gauntlet Cary could feel the chill.

“I do not know. Only that it was different from when I took charge of your body. I was consuming you.” 

Cary knew the twist of his voice well enough to hear the underlying loathing. 

“You didn’t know,” they said. 

He said nothing in reply. Cary pulled themselves upright, then to their feet. 

“Where’s Lucius?” They asked, peering back into the darkness of the Khornate halls. 

“Somewhere. I did not kill him. I barely injured him, in fact,” the shade said. 

Before them lay the two plain swords, one bloodied and one clean. They had fallen crossed, almost like a noble crest of some kind. 

“Not a great omen,” they commented.

“Not an omen at all. It is simply two swords.” 

He’d never had much stock in omens, only visions. The septs, before the Emperor had ordered them dissolved, they had been crazy for omens. Without thinking Cary pressed their fingers to the forehead of their helmet, an old sign to ward off bad spirits. The motion made them laugh, a little wearily. The pain was still clawing up their inside, and was worsened by their humour. 

“Keep going forward,” the shade urged. 

Their helmet adjusted to the bright light of the next hall. It was again what the antlered child had referred to as ‘Neshi’, whatever that meant. Lurid magenta walls, bodies, flesh- though not in that parody of eroticism Cary had seen before. It looked more like a warzone, a slaughter. Those here hadn’t expected the daemon engine, and had likely little time to react against it. 

This section seemed far more elegant than the one further below had been. It looked like a garden world, all artful forms and tranquillity. They passed a destroyed fountain, where pale blue water now swept out freely over the floor, washing away some of the blood and viscera the Scorpion had left behind. At its centre was a grand statue, now broken. 

A man, with arms spread wide, his intact two arms indicating that once the statue would have had four. The stumps of broken wings sprouting from his shoulders, his lower body entirely serpentine, curled in a lascivious manner around the fountain. The face was undeniably beautiful, with hair curling in a captured breeze, eyes languid and mouth slightly open. There were horns sprouting from his forehead.

Cary lingered for a second, hand still tucked against the wound. Their disbelief turned to something of an ache in their chest. 

“Agony upon agony,” they said. “Loss upon loss.” 

The chill pressed against their shoulders, against the back and top of their head. 

“How many more friends will I have to grieve?” 

Cary did not expect an answer and did not receive them. He had never been one to offer words of comfort. There was only the cold pressure. When they moved again it was accompanied by the stiffness of pain. Cary moved near silently through the destroyed palace of She-Who-Thirsts, listening intently. 

Distantly, somewhere in the labyrinthine depths of the palace there came still the echoed screams and the grinding of the engine. At least the Scorpion seemed to have forgotten about them for now, and was causing problems for other people. 

“What will you do when you reach the top?” the shade asked.

“Climb down,” they replied. 

Though he was dead, though his features swam in the corner of their vision like a mirage, somehow they could still feel his absolute disapproval. 

“I’ll work it out. Always do,” they said. “Not the first time I’ve completed a mission with a stab wound.”

“It is hardly a stab wound. It is in fact, a major injury.” 

Cary huffed, and kept moving. 

“Hey!” A quiet voice carried over the silence. 

The shade bristled, but Cary’s memory was sharper. Leaning around a hanging, awkwardly shuffling behind a hanging- the antlered child. Leaf-green eyes wide at the destruction around them both. 

“Did you do this?” The kid asked. 

“Not directly,” Cary admitted. “Turns out giant, angry scorpions aren’t decently house trained.” 

The child laughed, kneading the fabric of the curtain between their hands. 

“Do you need help?” They asked. 

“A little, I don’t mind telling you now in the interest of honesty: I plan on destroying this thing.” 

The child chewed the inside of their cheek. 

“I mean, I never liked it,” they said, eventually. “And I don’t like the Archpriest. He talks too long.” 

It seemed some things never changed. 

“You’re planting bombs,” the child said. 

“Grenades and detonators, but yes.”

“I can help, I know lots of little ways around,” the child said, stepping aside and pulling the curtain away, to reveal a tunnel of thick roots burrowed there. “Roots get everywhere.” 

“I won’t put you in danger,” Cary said, automatically. 

“I know the forges. I can mess them up and get clear really quickly- I only need one of your ‘nades and a detonator,” the child looked up at them, pleadingly. “I-I can send up a sign when I’m clear! You can look for green smoke from our quarter of the base!” 

Cary knelt again to be on eye-level with the child, grunting with the pain. 

“Are you sure? You won’t get into trouble with your people?” 

The child shrugged. 

“We don’t like it here. We only sent nurglings and lesser daemons to tend the gardens, we were supposed to be leaving anyway.” 

“The more I hear the more it seems no one wants to be here,” Cary commented, dryly. 

“You can use the root path, to get up higher. We keep the beasts in the next hall, so you might want to just go straight through until you find the Weaver’s halls.” 

“Beasts?” 

The child smiled, a wicked little smile that reminded them so keenly of times long past that it ached in their hearts. It was the smile of a little kid, that tight, wide smile that kids have just before things like self-consciousness kick in. 

“I have opened their cages, the beasts are out,” the child explained. “We were all sick of them treating us like dirt anyway.” 

“You are one of the bravest people I’ve ever met,” Cary said. “Here’s a grenade.” 

They handed over one of the krak grenades, along with a detonator. The child ferreted both items away in their ragged clothing, still grinning impishly. 

“Green smoke you said?”

“Yep, look for the big chimneys, I’ll set it off there,” the child was practically vibrating with excitement. “I’m Eki, by the way.” 

“Cary,” said Cary.

The shade of Night Haunter sighed. The Eighth had never had much contact with children, they weren’t exactly the kind of legion you paraded around a world as heroes. Cary had always dissuaded diplomats from attempting to introduce their children to the Primarch for picts and social climbing. He simply did not know what to do with children, and just sort of stared at them. Children tended to react badly to that. 

“Cary. Bye Cary! Bye Cary’s friend! I hope your bones rot with us,” the child smiled and waved as they scampered away into the root tunnel, taking a fresh path that opened for them and closed behind them. 

“I’m not sure if that was a threat or a genuine sentiment,” Cary said, standing. “Still though, onwards we go.” 

They stepped into the tunnel, which was dark and inviting. The roots creaked and slid over each other to give them a stable surface to walk on, dim, bioluminescent lichens casting a gentle glow that would have been kind to their eyes- had not the auto-senses already adjusted themselves. 

“Better than last time.”

“This is how the Plaguefather draws in victims. With the adoration of family and ensnarement of community.” 

Cary’s mouth twisted slightly. They didn’t need to be reminded of family while in a place such as this again. 

“Apologies.” 

“Do you know which of your brothers belongs to this?” They asked.

“Mortarion,” said the shade, with an echo of fondness. 

“Never could get a read on that one. Typhon- Typhus was alright though. Tough as nails and hardy as old leather. Reminded me of Grike in some ways. Though that was probably just because they looked alike.” 

Soon enough, the roots spread outwards, now blooming with glowing pale blue flowers as they leeched their way into the next hall. Cary found themselves in a dusty, forgotten room, only lit by the lichen and flowers. Stacks of paper filled the place, they were afforded only narrow passages to get through without knocking over the whole damn room. 

Their eyes grazed over some of the paper, where they saw calculations, esoteric writings- once even a recipe for goulash- which they pocketed despite the shade’s complaints. It didn’t take them long to cross the sea of papers, though for the last few metres they became frustrated and simply thrust their way through, sending cascades of parchment across the floor. 

The door was ornate, all arcs of gold and polished lapis, the image of a scarab with an open carapace and wings extended gracing the stone. Absently, they reached out and traced the groove of the carving. 

“Magnus had one of these on his armour,” they recalled. “I think at least. We never did see much action with the Thousand Sons.” 

“We can but hope my brother hasn’t chosen to make an appearance,” the shade said. 

Cary laid a hand upon the door, and stepped through.

Chapter Text

It seemed to Cary that the higher they climbed in the tower, the gaudier things got. Great pillars depicting the trials and tribulations of the Thousand Sons lined the hallway, carved with a skill they knew could not have been natural. Between the pillars, instead of a wall there was simply an open void, the midnight-black blanket of space, dotted with the tiny lights of stars. 

“This looks nice,” Cary said.

The shade did not reply, but he seemed to prefer the darkness. Lingering snatches of pale hands, pale limbs impressed themselves in the corners of Cary’s vision. What had happened to them? Why were they chained together like this? 

A particularly keen painful throb from their side banished all ponderous thoughts. It didn’t matter right now: What mattered was that they kept going. 

They checked their belt. They didn’t have any of the brassy orbs left, but they still had a few of the strange pink-red glass vials- the Neshi grenades. They had at least two krak grenades left, and of course the bolter was still slung around their shoulders. Cary mulled over these factors. 

Then there came a sound like someone striking a great metal gong. The clear sound reverberated outwards, caught them in the back in a wave of force that sent them stumbling. As it passed up the hall, braziers of flame leapt into life. The smell of dust and scented oil swept along with it. 

Cary, by this point, was too tired to be scared. Normal Astartes would have shrugged off these injuries, shrugged off the pain. But they’d never been a normal Astartes. Cawl hadn’t been lying when he’d said their augments were a rush job. 

Cary turned, watching as the walls and floors shifted themselves, made themselves wider, taller until it was a grand hypostyle hall. The flames of the lamps cast everything in a warm orange light, which the auto-senses adjusted for. 

At the end of the hall stood the sorcerer Astartes, the one with the large and impressive crest. They assumed it had to be the same one, because his robes were now clawed and singed in some places. Cary hadn’t seen what the grenade had done, but they assumed it likely hadn’t been a pleasant experience for him. 

He was floating on a cloud of stars, staff held out grandly in one hand. The tatters of his robes fluttered and billowed like great delicate wings as he stepped onto the stone slabs. 

“Kulikov,” he said.

They had often heard their name uttered like that, but Cary was impressed by how much he made it sound like an insult. 

“Do I get the same honour of knowing your name?” They asked. 

The sorcerer slammed the butt of his staff on the stone, throwing up sparks. From within the helmet, two points of light glowed like blue dwarf stars. 

“I am Khepri Apophis, Wytchlord, Master of the Seven Sigils of Ahriman, son of Magnus the Red,” his voice grew louder as he spoke, echoing off the walls.

Their auto-senses adjusted the volume, but did pop up with a slight warning about damage to their hearing. 

“You have entered the halls of Lord Tzeentch twice now, without invitation or permission or want for you to be here, Night Lord. I do not care for your pedigree nor the claims of brotherhood others have put to me. You have gravely insulted me, caused me humiliation and wound- and I demand satisfaction.”

Cary was suddenly very glad they were wearing their helmet. And that Jago wasn’t here, otherwise they would have switched to a private vox to make a crude joke. Instead they pressed their lips together firmly, suppressing the smile. 

“I’m guessing that means a heartfelt apology won’t do,” they said, unable to bite it back. 

He lowered the staff, blue flames licked the length of it, condensing at the end to form the curved blade of a khopesh. 

“The only apology I need from you is your head,” the sorcerer snarled. 

“Don’t say it.” 

Cary inhaled. 

“I’ve heard that one before,” they said. 

The sorcerer charged, which Cary hadn’t been expecting. Thousand Sons had never held love for close quarters combat, preferring to engage from afar. They let the claws drop from the casings, and waited until the sorcerer was bearing down on them to act. 

The long-handled khopesh came down, and Cary dodged to the side, threading themselves under the arm and behind him. They swiped at the gap between the gauntlet and elbow guard, but he moved and caught it on his forearm. 

Khepri snarled- actually snarled at them and pushed back. Cary danced away a few steps. 

“How is Ahriman, by the way?” They asked. 

The sorcerer didn’t reply. Instead he swept the khopesh in a wide arc, a move that would have cut them in half had they not trapped the weapon in the claws. The impact forced their arms close to their torso, the crackling arcs that leapt from the claws close to their face. The sorcerer loomed over them, shadowing all. 

“Not much of a talker?” 

“I do not converse with street filth ,” Khepri hissed through his helmet. 

“Damn, be prepared to never talk to another Night Lord again then,” Cary replied. 

“A prospect I savour.” 

He twisted the khopesh, pulling it free from the locked blades. Cary launched themselves forward, getting into Khepri’s space. It was a tactic they’d used when sparring with Sev, closing the gap so that wielding the chainglaive became difficult. 

They struck with Mercy , and hit. Sparks scattered across their visor as the claws raked and shredded against ceramite. Khepri hissed something in a language Cary didn’t understand, probably swearing in Tizcan or something. 

The sorcerer stumbled backwards, and Cary followed. Unrelenting in their strikes- hoping to end it before he could use any warp-sorcery. They struck out at an unguarded gap, and connected. Blood once again graced the lightning claws of Konrad Curze, a sight so familiar it made them shudder. 

He was still backing away, trying to raise up his arms to block their blows. They could tell by the sluggish way he held up his khopesh that they were wearing him down. Why wasn’t he using any magic? Was he waiting for something? 

Khepri attempted to hold up his hand, Cary braced, expecting some kind of fireball or other dangerous magic to leap forth. Sparks and arcs crackled around his fingers. Then sputtered out. Then a croak, a bird-like cackle. 

Cary glanced upwards. The vulture daemon looked down upon them both with its large yellow eye, perched on an iron hanging. Khepri shouted something at the bird, who simply laughed again. 

“Seems an unfair advantage, Master Apophis, after all you were so certain you could take a Night Lord in close quarters. Perhaps we’re feeling a little… prideful ?” 

Khepri made a disgruntled noise, raising his khopesh again. The duel continued, Cary forced him back and back and back until he had dropped the khopesh, his back to a pillar. 

The sorcerer slid down, leaving smears and traces of blood on the stone. Cary looked down at him, wondering if he was already dead. The thought left them… cold, disgusted. Their hands shook. Pain radiated up their side again. The duel had torn the synth-skin open, their blood oozing from the hole in their armour. 

“Finish it,” Khepri commanded. “End my indignity.” 

“Kill him,” the shade urged. 

“I can’t,” Cary said, surprising themselves. “I… won’t.”

“Do you think this makes you redeemed?” Khepri sneered, his laugh turning to a wheeze. “Do you think this gives you any honour, Night Lord? Do you think this endears you to me? If you let me live, I will find you, wherever you are. I will never stop until you are but dust beneath my heel, do you understand? I will haunt you.”

Cary laughed. Genuinely, without a trace of mockery. It was, after all, an amusing statement. 

“You wouldn’t be the first,” they told him.

The darkness clung to them once again. Cary took a few tentative steps backwards and into the further shadows of the confusing hall, where the stones shifted and the blue feathers floated down from the starry ceiling. The twin blue lights from Khepri’s helmet seemed to become unfocused, as if he couldn’t see them anymore. 

“I have changed my mind on your compassion and mercy,” the shade said. “It will one day get you killed, and we will go together into the dark and I will be laughing at you.”

“Thanks.” 

Cary once again opened the medi-kit, finding it easier now than it had been before. Of course, Night Haunter wasn’t eating their soul this time. 

“Fascinating stuff,” the vulture flapped its wings, landing awkwardly on top of the armour’s powerpack. “Truly- why didn’t I see him before? You’re dragging around a Primarch’s soul and I had no idea!”

The daemon seemed positively gleeful at the concept. 

“He doesn’t like talking to people,” Cary said. 

“I think that’s to be expected. You’re welcome by the way, for my help with the young Master Apophis.”

The daemon’s claws shifted and scraped as it sidled around on the powerpack. Its head came into view over the top of Cary’s helmet. 

“I won’t even ask for a favour in return, I haven’t had that much fun in years,” it said. “But you need some help, don’t you?”

Cary glanced at the bird.

“Depends, how fond are you of this place?”

“Incredibly, but lucky for you, this place isn’t really part of the tower. Think of it more as a picture pasted in from another book.”

“I’m afraid that doesn’t make much sense to me,” Cary admitted. 

“I was never meant to be a teacher,” the vulture said, wistfully. “Still, the fact remains. We can destroy the tower without destroying these halls.”

“No one seems to like the idea of this tower,” Cary said. 

“The Urizen is a very persuasive man, I believe he called on some old boons, old agreements between brothers.” 

“I heard him speak a few times, during the Great Crusade. He was always very charismatic.”

The darkness had given way into a path of the sandstone slabs, a walkway that continually built itself under their feet. Cary walked among the stars, reaching out idly to draw their hand through the bright clouds of nebulas.

“So, what are you offering?” Cary asked the daemon.

“Simply really, I will take this place home, cut it out from the tower leaving it unstable for whatever you and the Nurglite child have planned.” 

“And what do you want in return? I’m afraid my soul is- well, you’ll have difficulties with my friend here,” Cary said, waving generally in the direction of the darkness hanging around their shoulders. 

“Oh nothing so gauche,” the daemon clucked, tapping the tip of its beak against the top of their helmet. “It’s another question, and it’s not even for you.”

The darkness shifted uneasily.

“All I want to know is the location of the Dark,” said the daemon. “It’s probably beyond my reach, but such things interest me. A tome of oracular knowledge from the hands of a Primarch? I’ve never heard of anything more tantalising in my life.” 

They tried to recall those fractured dreams, those slices of memory from when they had lain insensate with stilled hearts. They had spoken to him then, just before the end. Had they seen what had happened to it? Cary was familiar with the Dark even before Curze shut them away. At first they thought it was probably a good idea, him writing down what he saw. It was the writing in blood in a book bound in human skin that they felt drew it out a bit far. 

Cary prepared to start convincing him. It was a battle they had fought many times before.

“Konnacht,” they began.

“Hidden in an alcove behind a statue, in the inner chambers of my castle upon Tsagualsa,” he said. 

Caught off guard, they snapped their head to look at the chalk-white smudge of his face. The daemon squawked at the motion, flapping its wings to stay on its perch. 

“What use is it now?” He said, in answer to their unspoken question. 

There was something under the way he said it, some distant tone that caught on Cary’s ears. They couldn’t even find an answer in his face, abstract and unclear. 

“Is there a problem?” The yellow eye of the daemon appeared once again as it craned its neck to look at them.

“No. The Dark is hidden in an alcove, behind a statue in the personal chambers of his castle. The one on Tsagualsa, Carrion World.” 

“How delightful!”

The pathway came to an end, leading to an iron door. Cary expected to see skulls and blood, after all if the pattern was repeating itself it should be the Lord of Blood next. Instead cresting the door was a circle, with eight jagged arrows stabbing outwards from it. 

“I thought there were only four of them. Are there more?” Cary reached out, lightly grazing the shape. 

“There are only four ruinous powers thus far. There used to only be three, perhaps one day there will be more,” the daemon mused. “This is the sigil of Chaos Undivided.”

“Seems pretty divided to me.”

“We have worked together in the past to great success, your meddling however has merely played its part in an already fragile situation. I have brought you here as it will be the most stable part of the tower when I take our part home.” 

The daemon took off from their shoulders, instead taking a perch on the doorframe.

“And what joys await me through here? Khârn in one of his less reasonable moments? Perturabo in a particularly foul mood?” Cary asked the bird. 

“ Pah, you young things. Always so dour. No, you’re most likely to come across the more priestly caste here. Perhaps a stray Word Bearer or two at most. They likely won’t even notice you anyway, they’re all up in arms over the Urizen’s arrival. It turns out he went to retrieve his Brother Primarch, the Red Angel, and has brought… Another unwanted guest back with him,” the vulture chuckled to itself. “In any case, though our time together has been short, I find myself having grown fond of you.”

Cary wasn’t sure that was a good thing, but kept it to themselves.

“I hope our paths cross in better circumstances,” said the vulture, sincerely. 

“Thank you, for your help,” Cary said. 

They stepped forward and opened the door. Noise, light and commotion washed over them in a wave, Cary hadn’t even realised they had made it all the way through the door until they tried to back up and hit the wall behind them. 

They stood in the pinnacle of the tower, a huge, round hall of blackened, warped iron. A huge aperture opened the ceiling to face that hellish sky. The floors were mosaics of shattered bone, arranged by shape and colour to form epic scenes, battles, victories. At the centre of the floor lay another aperture, this time filled with darkness and leading down into the tower. All around the hall there was movement, daemons, priests, things Cary could never have hoped to recognise. The hall was full of their voices, it almost reminded them of the command decks of better run legions before action. 

Then there came a groan. It echoed upwards from inside the tower, reverberating around Cary’s augmented chest cavity and drumming at the inside of their skull. It was the wrenching of metal, the breaking of stone, the rending of flesh- all at once. The movement inside the hall never stopped, though voices were raised and those present began looking around as if there was some explanation for what had happened. 

Cary took this opportunity to slip through an open doorway, finding themselves on a balcony, overlooking that grotesque compound of black iron dug into the rock, like some cancerous growth. The wind blew fiercely here, though they weren’t sure how it was possible. Just as many things, Cary suspected it was easier to accept it rather than question it. It had been a strategy that had worked well for them thus far. 

They looked out over the compound, searching for telltale signs of green and rot. Their eyes alighted instead on a gate, two huge pillars of stone, where a veil of red light stretched between them. Through this gate, there marched thousands upon thousands- pouring like a bloody tide into the compound, all working their way towards the tower. 

“Well, that’s not good.”

“Perhaps you will get to see Khârn after all,” the shade said. 

Cary sucked in a breath between their teeth. 

“Probably wouldn’t go well, don’t fancy my chances between the nails and the Blood God yelling at him to kill me.” 

“Most likely.”

The tower shuddered beneath them again with another groan. 

“What is that?” 

The shadowed arm of the Night Haunter extended over their head, pointing to something over the horizon. Past the edges of the compound, beyond the rock upon which the tower sat, striking repeatedly at whatever force forbade it from entering was a cloud of shadow. It moved fast, scoring great arcs of white light across the barrier, it scattered into a swarm of something Cary couldn’t make out, before reforming. 

“I have no idea,” they said. “Let’s not wait to find out.”

Chapter Text

The balcony led around the circular edge of the pinnacle, huge reliefs of nightmarish figures leered from the metal. Cary wondered if the faces there were those they had yet to mourn, how much grief did they have left to give? 

Soon enough the walls opened into a doorway, another warren of confusingly layered hallways and corridors and rooms. They waited there at the doorway, listening. 

The low, soft static of vox speakers carried. Voices that came from helmets, speaking in stilted command jargon. Cary ordered the auto-senses to increase and clear the audio.

“... breach is imminent, the tower is crippled, brother. We cannot stay here much longer.”

“I am aware, Illux,” the voice that replied was of such haughty annoyance, that Cary knew their lineage immediately. 

Iron Warriors. The wave of exhaustion that rolled over them was almost nostalgic. Solid enough warriors, there was no one else Cary would have rather had at their side for a siegebreak. However, too much of their time had been spent soothing ego for Cary to be overjoyed at the prospect of seeing them. 

“There are too many,” said the shade.

The curve of his shadow had leaned around them, peering through the doorway. 

“You cannot spare them. You can only give them Silence.” 

Cary looked out again, over that expanse of rock and into that maddening sky. 

“Is it the only way?” They asked. 

“For now, yes. I am sorry.” 

They knew he was. Cary shifted into a half crouch and dodged inside the doorway, into the shadow and the dark. They let the claw- the adamantine claw, drop from the gauntlet though did not extend more than a few inches of chain. They held the claw and flicked their wrist, extending one of the blades. 

Silence was a kind of mercy. An unspoken protocol between themselves and Nacht. If it could be done, they would go in first and kill as many as they could, as quickly as they could, as silently as they could. The Silence of death, the mercy killings before their brothers arrived and the true fear began. Dying quickly was the mercy. Escaping the Night Haunter’s judgement was the absolution. 

The hall had high, dark ceilings where cables and wires hung like vines. Large pipes cut vertically through the room, almost like pillars. The rumble of machines and the hum of cogitators thrummed across the space. 

Shadowed silhouettes, bulky outlines of Astartes armour. The Iron Warriors seemed surprisingly normal, Cary couldn’t see any spare limbs or quivering tentacles. Their armour patterns were the same, the heraldry the same. In the room there were three of them, one sat at the cogitator banks lining the far wall, another stood at his shoulder. A third hovered in the shadows by the next doorway. 

“Prepare the daemon engine for our departure,” said the one at the cogitator. “I have no desire to be present when this useless thing collapses.” 

The one at his shoulder saluted, and then stalked out the door followed by his fellow. Cary moved quickly, near silently. They shuddered at how easy it was. How naturally it came to them. 

When they reached the back of the Iron Warrior’s chair, they straightened, angling the claw. Then they drove the adamantine blade clean through the side of his helmet. The warrior didn’t even make a noise, his hands went slack at the controls, his body drooping like a puppet with its strings cut. 

Cary wrenched the claw free with a slick, scraping noise. They left the body where it was, and examined the cogitator. The script rolling across the screen was alien to them, but the various auspex readings from sensors both inside the tower and at the edges of the compound. The visual display showed an image of the tower, with several sections highlighted in red. A large dome covered the tower and the complex beneath, and quite frequently the dome flashed, and the cogitator pinged. 

“Whatever’s out there, they don’t want getting in,” Cary mused, pushing the dead Iron Warrior’s hands away from the controls. 

The shade peered over their shoulder, pointing at various icons and indicating which buttons to press. 

“You have ten minutes before the shield comes down,” said the shade. 

“You’ve given me less time before,” Cary replied. 

Silence had always had a limit. They turned away from the cogitator, looked down the dark corridor and moved in shadow. 

Cary had always favoured the terror in being unseen. The terror of knowing there was something in the dark, but never laying eyes upon it. To move through as a ghost, complete the mission and leave again- surely that was a more frightening prospect? To know your guards and walls meant nothing if your leaders still ended up dead and your halls silent? 

The rest of the legion could have their terror in being known, in being a monster in the night. Their brothers could desecrate corpses and bear the emblems of the rotted dead all they wanted. But Cary did not want that. Cary did not want streets drowned in blood, drains choked by limbs. They had seen that road, walked that path. 

Their touch was that of death, but it was gentle. The claw with its single extended blade almost looked like a scythe, as if they were some tender reaper. Following in the shadows of Iron Warriors, picking them off one by one, dragging the bodies away to be hidden in forgotten corners. 

The blade went through skull and vertebrae too easily. Settling back into old habits was too easy, it was like they were only watching their hands follow through with the motions. Muscle memory from decades of training, decades of active combat. 

Cary traced their way through the corridors, keeping to the shadows and the steam that occasionally vented from the pipes. A cold chill on the side of their face made them turn their head, brought them out of their reverie. 

The shade’s other pale hand was pointing down a corridor, towards light and noise. They entered, keeping their back to the wall as they paced in the shadows, the shade cloaking them in night. 

There were cages, huge cages of grey iron. Great machines paced or thrashed or otherwise howled their displeasure at being contained so, their forms only a warped mirror of animal phylogeny. Only a few Iron Warriors patrolled the room, oblivious to the deaths of their brothers. Cary followed the edge of the room, slipping behind cover as often as they could. 

They scanned the room for any kind of control panel- if they could open the cages and get clear, that’d cause some damage. Or at the very least, problems. 

A thick trunk of cables snaked across the floor, which seemed as good a place to start as any. Cary followed the cables to the back of the room, behind the cages. The lumens didn’t reach there, and for good reason. The tangled mess of cabling and server banks was easier to climb over than it was to step around. 

“The Mechanicum would be having words about this,” they said.

“Mechanicus,” the shade corrected. “Another change from the heresy.” 

“Ugh.” 

They followed the thick cable through the tangle, until they found where it terminated. Which was another of the powerbanks, all painted up with hazard stripes. It looked important, and there was some burning feeling in the back of their mind that this was what they were looking for. 

They wedged the blade of the claw in the tiny gap between the powerbank and the cable’s end, wiggling it back and forth to create a large enough gap to hook the claw in. Cary let a length of the chain drop, enough that they could brace their boot against the metal and pull. The cable creaked, tiny arcs of electricity leaping out. They tried to remember if adamantine was conductive or not, but gripped the chain with both hands anyway, and yanked it free.

The cable sparked, and other banks thrummed with the feedback. Fuses popped and shattered, the lumens flickered. Cary waited, heard raised voices, the shrieking of the daemon engines only raising in volume. 

Then it sounded like hell breaking loose. The scream of metal, the burst of bolter fire, the crunch and rip of bone and flesh. Cary pulled the chain back, quickly made their way back to the edge of the wires and cables-

And ducked as the helmet of an Iron Warrior sailed through the air, hitting the wall and bouncing across the floor. Cary glimpsed the bloodied stump of a neck inside. The cramped room had turned into a warzone, with most of the daemon engines having burst their ways through the larger corridors, spreading into the tower’s complexes.

Only one daemon engine remained in the hall, hunched like a rabid hound. Black and red plates covered its body, a long sloping neck. On its sides were empty fixings, likely for autocannons or similar weapon class. From its jaws hung the rest of the Iron Warrior, and its eyes fixed upon Cary. 

Cary swore. The daemon engine opened its jaws, dropping the dead Astartes to the floor and screamed. It charged, Cary fired the chain, activating the motor to pull them upwards, on top of the cages as the jaws of the thing snapped on the air they’d stood in. 

They pulled themselves over the metal bars, rolling to stand as the claws of the thing swiped and grabbed at the edge. Cary pulled the bolter around, managing to get a few shots in before the engine was bearing down on them. 

It swiped again with one of its hunched limbs, making a noise somewhere between a snarl and a shriek. Cary moved to avoid it, but the claws caught them on the pauldron, sending them over the front of the cages. They hit the metal floor hard, pain radiating from their side, but had no choice but to raise the bolter over their head as the engine’s jaws snapped around it. 

Its claws made the floor shudder as it landed, jagged iron spikes that served as teeth digging and crunching into the metal of the weapon. It shook its head like a dog, wrenching the bolter from their grasp. They watched as it tossed its head back, and ate the bolter in two snaps of its jaw.

Usefully though, this gave them enough time to free the bolt pistol from its holster and press it against a gap between the plates. Cary fired as many times as they could, into some soft wiring between the neck and chest. 

The engine howled, rearing backwards and twisting away from them. Cary dragged themselves upright, and started off at a sprint. The engine was between them and the smaller corridor they would have liked to use to get away, so instead they were forced down the larger cargo hallway. Cary presumed by the damage along the way that it was the same way the other daemon engines had come, the noises of rending metal, bolter fire and crackled vox still somewhere on the edge of hearing. 

A roar from behind them only spurred them onwards. They charged through the corridor, encountering a few pockets of Iron Warriors that they danced around or pushed through- the Astartes' attention were rather rapidly absorbed by the daemon engine following behind them. 

“Silent, like a ghost,” the shade murmured. 

“Shut up.”

Soon enough, they found themselves back in the circular room, the pinnacle of the tower. The warped geometry of the place threw them a little, but that was gotten over rather quickly as rapid bursts of autocannon fire began ripping into the wall next to them. They shot off again, jumping into a mess of battle, where no one really knew who was fighting who. Daemons clawed at daemon engines that shot at Astartes who cleaved at anything close. 

“Go up,” the shade urged. 

Cary grunted, glancing upwards at the open aperture. Then made a run for the centre, where the most unfortunate were currently being thrown. There was a noise like thunder, and the light pouring down from the ceiling changed, became wilder. That must have been the forcefield going out. 

They sprinted for the opening, and jumped. Cary aimed and fired. 

There was always that one second that seemed to last forever when they jumped. Just that split second where the chain was still extending and they were unsupported by anything. 

As soon as the adamantine claw bit into the stone, the motor engaged, dragging them upwards. The light got brighter, and the auto-senses rushed to adjust against it. Their body carried out the practised motions as their momentum carried them up and through the aperture. The flick of their wrist to dislodge the claw, preparing to fire again if needed.

But again the world had become slowed, because there was already a figure on the tower’s rooftop. The armour figure stood far taller than an Astartes, with armour a brass-red in colour. Bronze coloured skin with exaggerated, warped features. A crown of horns sprung from his head, in his hands a vicious looking maul of jagged spikes. 

Cary looked into the face of Lorgar Aurelian and saw only malevolence in his cold, red eyes. 

That and a fair amount of surprise. A sentiment Cary could only echo. It was like someone had taken Lorgar’s face and merged it with some terrible demon. 

The pin-prick lights in those red eyes slid past them, to something over their shoulder. They half turned their head in what could only have been fractions of a second, to see a chalk-pale face. Darkness and shadow hit Cary like a truck. Not as an intangible cold, but as a physical body. 

The wind was knocked out of them as the shadow continued on its path, Cary watched the tower get smaller over its shoulder.

They then stared at the shoulder, from which a large, black wing extended, feathers giving off a metallic sheen in the warped light. Cary struggled one arm free from where it had been pinned, pushed themselves up to try and look at the face- the damned face. 

The shadows pulled around the rest of the figure, a confusing blend of man and raven. Was there an eye there? Were there several? It was hard to pin down. 

Soon enough though, the creature tilted downwards, great wings beating against the air as it rather inelegantly landed upon the rocks. The force caused it to drop Cary, who rolled with the momentum and came up on one knee, bolt pistol raised and braced it on their other arm. 

The black shape rested for a second, wings spread out over the ground as if exhausted, the shape of a man somewhere between them.

Very distantly, they thought they might have heard the ghost of Night Haunter scoff. 

The pale face that looked up was an echo of one Cary remembered. Night-black hair fell unkempt in front of completely black eyes, a face made hollow by tragedy upon tragedy. A beard. This was the most surprising part. Cary lowered the bolt pistol.

“Corax?” 

“Captain,” a voice replied, almost relieved.

But it also echoed and whispered. The figure stood, the shadows melting away. Black ceramite plate, whorled with oil-slick colour, trimmed in gunmetal grey. They could see the trace remains of decoration, of birds and towers. Most of it was gone, worn away by time and battle. From his hands hung lightning claws of glowing white, like metal at its hottest point. 

Cary stood up. They’d never even kneeled to their own Primarch and they weren’t about to start doing it now. Their shock was only tempered by disbelief and an affectionate derision against the Raven Guard that they had attempted to instil in themselves and their brothers, rather than falling to Nacht's hate. There was also, at the very edges of their hearts, a little bit of disappointment. 

They had seen the pale face, seen the darkness. They had thought- Cary banished it. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” They blurted. 

“I could ask the same question of you,” the Raven Lord replied. 

“Your brother sent me- oh, hold that thought.” They ran to the edge of the rock.

The auto-senses raked over what they could see of the compound. The tower itself looked in bad shape, having lost a quarter of itself in a helix shape- like removing a strand from twisted yarn. Cary scanned over the horizon, looked for the green and the chimneys and-

There!

Curling upwards, sickly but there. Green smoke. Cary reached into one of their pockets, and retrieved the detonator. They looked to Corax.

“Your brother sent me to do this,” they said, and pressed the button. 

The air shattered, a rippling wave of energy and force that cracked the stone and rent the tower asunder. The metal of it groaned and cried out, snapping like cut cord, unravelling like wool. A thousand colours bloomed from inside the thing, ripping it from the inside out. 

Cary took the time to dispose of the rest of their stolen explosives, dropping them off the edge of the rock and watching them bounce away. They looked back to find Corax staring at them, in an echo of their own initial confusion, tinged with something that they couldn’t place beneath the hair and the beard. 

“Which brother?” He asked, slowly. 

“Guilliman, who the hell else would it have been?” They looked at him. 

At first Cary assumed that the thunderous expression that crossed his face was due to their brusqueness, their easy manner of speaking. But the Primarch only shook his head.

“I have to go,” he said, those great, heavy wings rising again. 

“And do what?” Cary asked, holding up a hand as if to stop him. 

Corax looked down at them. 

“To seek vengeance upon Lorgar, for a thousand crimes you are ignorant of,” he said, coolly. 

Behind him, Nacht made a parodied glum expression, muted by the general murkiness of his face. 

“How long have you been doing that?”

The Raven Lord blinked. 

“I departed some time after Guilliman reorganised the Legions into Chapters,” he began. 

“Oh, absolutely not ,” Cary said. 

They let the chain drop, snapped it in an arc while moving into a crouch. The adamantine claw hooked itself on the back of Corax’s gourget- they activated the motor and jumped, swinging themselves upwards. Cary had long since perfected this manoeuvre. It had been the best way of bringing Nacht down when he was in one of his moods, swing up, get on his shoulders, punch him in the face. 

They neglected this last step. Instead looping their free arm around Corax’s neck. The Primarch undoubtedly could have stopped them- but he seemed more perplexed by it than anything. 

“You’re going home, bossman,” Cary told him. 

And they reached into the gourget of their own armour, and pressed the beacon. 

The translation was fractured this time. Cary once again shut their eyes against the light, the noise, the lancing light of the auto-senses trying to adjust to things that simply weren’t there. This time they heard voices, and of course they were still holding onto Corax.

He was having an equally bad time if the thrashing was anything to go by. It wasn’t that he was attempting to remove them, to cast himself adrift in that point between hell and home. The few times they cracked open their eyes in the seconds it took to translate, he appeared to be trying to right himself. 

Then suddenly- 

The noise stopped. Corax plummeted, and Cary went with him. He twisted on instinct, to take the blow on his shoulder, and Cary pushed off him before they gained new and interesting injuries from being crushed by the Nineteenth Primarch. 

They still hit the metal dias hard, crying out in pain. When Cary rolled onto their front to push themselves upright, they saw that once again, the synth-skin had split, and their blood trickled down their armour. 

Cary stood, fingers scrabbling at the catch of their helmet before finding and pressing it. They ripped the thing off, let it fall from their hand and gulped lungfuls of normal, material air. 

The room, of course, was full of tech-priests, who were still running from control station to control station. At the main cogitator, surrounded by a small honour guard of well-decorated Ultramarines (all with weapons raised and pointed at the dias), was Guilliman. 

Cary pointed at him, accusingly. 

“If you’re going to send me into hell- next time don’t send me with weapons that have the fucking aquila stamped on them so that I don’t get attacked by wizards! ” They shouted. “In fact, next time, don’t send me into hell at all . I hope the High Lords are thrilled by my actions, especially the fact I have delivered you your thrice damned brother, ” here they gestured at Corax, who was halfway through rising to his feet. “To be honest, at this point I think I deserve an apology, let alone a pardon-”

“Cary,” said the Primarch of the Ultramarines. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m aware ,” they snapped, clamping a hand over their side.

“No, Cary, your face,” he said, louder, striding forward. 

They touched their face, the fingertips of the gauntlet came away red. Their eyes stung, blood poured into their throat from their nose- the warm drip of it even came from their ears. 

“Ah,” Cary said, suddenly calm. “That’s bad.” 

Then they sank to their knees, and keeled over. 

-

The rooftop. The black skies of Nostramo locked in a frozen display- the light from the rockets of Year’s Beginning hanging in the air like strands of fairy-lumens. They were sitting there, together. 

“I can’t do the same as I did in the warp,” Nacht said. “Appear to you, I mean. Not as strongly. You may not even hear me.”

They nudged his forearm with their shoulder.

“You’re here though,” they said, not taking their eyes off of the sky. “That’s enough.” 

Silence.

“Oh sweet mother, you’re not running around in my body right now are you?” They asked, suddenly struck by the thought. 

Explaining that to either of the Primarchs when they woke up would hardly be pleasant. 

“No, no. I believe they have you sedated as of right now, checking you for warp corruption.”

Cary looked at the city, the blurred, vague city of their memory. 

“Do you think Corax will be alright?” They asked. “I’d hate to have dragged him back just for him to get shot for… Well, whatever he is now.”

“They will find some way to justify it,” he said, without a flicker of self-awareness. “The return of a loyalist Primarch is too large of a boon to simply throw away because he’s grown wings and a horrible beard.” 

“It didn’t look great, did it?”

“Tell him to shave when you wake up. He looks like a vagrant.” 

Cary laughed. 

-

The dream faded away softly. It was replaced with the recognisable sluggishness of coming out of sedation. Once more, a large, blue circular light hovered above them. Cary squeezed their eyes shut. 

“Belisarius,” they said. “We must stop meeting like this.” 

The Archmagos chuckled, a crackling, static-addled laugh. 

All things considered, they felt rather well. Well enough in fact that even when they opened their eyes and a mechadendrite holding a jar containing a dark pink glob of flesh floating around in it was being held in front of their face, they did little more than sigh.

“ Do you have any objections to me taking this ?” Cawl asked. 

“What is it?”

“ Your right ovary. ”

They could only laugh at that point, a pain-medication addled laugh that went far too high for their liking. 

“Sure, whatever, what was I going to do with it anyway?” They said, breezily. 

“ I took the liberty of checking my work while you were here, ” the Archmagos continued. “ If you were so inclined, I believe the Rubicon Primaris could be successfully performed on you, which would counter many of my more rushed errors. ”

Cary understood half of those words, their head lolling to the side to look at the room. It wasn’t their quarters, the little room they had been assigned. They lay on a bed in a dim ward, the walls and ceiling medical white. Belisarius took up much of their vision, but still, to the side with his hands held behind his back was Guilliman. He wore dress uniform this time. Cary waved at him. 

“Rushed?” The Primarch echoed. 

“ Captain Kulikov’s Adeptus Astartes augments were completed under… Considerable duress, ” Cawl said. “ They were dying at the time, of course. You were poisoned, weren’t you? Then of course there were only the basic psycho-conditioning procedures under your Primarch’s command. I believe he said something very amusing at the time about not wanting a leashed hound. ”

“Yes, thank you, Archmagos,” said Cary, staring at the ceiling and wishing a freak accident would open the floor, killing them instantly. 

They looked to Guilliman again.

“How’s Corax?” 

The Lord Commander of the Imperium’s face was stern, a rough-hewn statue of a man. But he couldn’t keep the smile from his eyes or the corners of his mouth. 

“He is well,” said Guilliman. “I owe you my thanks.”

They managed to echo the expression, but waved away his gratitude. 

“We ran into each other, it wasn’t too hard,” they said. “Don’t expect me to drag one of them back every time you send me out though.”

Guilliman laughed. Some of those hard lines had disappeared from around his eyes. The tired circles beneath his eyes seemed less severe. 

“Rest,” he said, placing a large hand on their shoulder. 

“ And consider my offer, ” said Cawl. 

With that, they were left alone. Cary tried to think when the last time they had really been alone was. They supposed the coffin, but they had never been conscious of their state inside it. Even on the Nightfall and her sister ships they had never really been alone. They hardly slept in their quarters, catching a few hours of sleep at a time when they knew someone else was watching Nacht. 

Cary supposed the last time they had been truly alone was when they had scried on the future, when he had sent them away. It filled their chest with some hollow emotion, and they found themselves scanning the corners and shadows of the room, looking for his shade. 

The door opened and shut quickly. They turned their head to once again see the small, robe-enveloped Yarah. The girl scampered over to the side of the bed, sitting on one of the over-large chairs.

“You were gone for a week,” she whispered, conspiratorially. 

“It felt like a few hours at most,” Cary said. 

“What was it… like?” She asked.

“I don’t see what appealed to the now-enemies of the Imperium, it wasn’t a pleasant experience,” they answered, with a half smile. 

Yarah hugged her knees, Cary was reminded painfully of Jeanmary. 

“I wasn’t sure you were going to come back,” she said. 

“There were points I didn’t think I was going to.”

“I’m glad you made it,” Yarah said, earnestly. “Everyone’s really happy Lord Corax is back.”

“I’m not,” said the shade.

Cary laughed.

Chapter Text

It was raining on the streets of Quintus. The atmospheric pressures and various other factors meant that it was unusual for it not to be. Heavy, warm rain that trickled over their face and down their spine. They traced their steps along familiar streets, until they reached the hab block with the repaired fire escape.

Cary climbed up to the eighth floor, easier now to climb the outside of the metal rather than using the ladders and stairs. They retrieved the bar from under the sill and leveraged the window open, knocking out the latch with a finger. They struggled then, to get through the window. Cary had gotten taller, again. Technically they weren’t even supposed to be up and moving about yet, arms and legs still bound up with bandages. Still, they were a Night Lord, and they had always been a sneak.

Cary clambered into their apartment and looked around. 

It was even tinier than they remembered it. The kitchen cupboards and appliances to their left, the bed and the sofa to the right. The closed doors to the hallway and ablution chamber in front of them. The sofa cushions laid out end to end on the floor, an indent of a body too large to be a natural human’s. Cary had almost expected him to be there, sleeping. 

They sat on the edge of their cot, the metal of the frame groaned as Cary shifted backwards to sit against the wall, staring at the windows. 

They felt raw. That discomforting post-pain sensation that radiated all through their body, like someone had taken steel wool to their insides. Cary had been aware of every step of the Rubicon Primaris, Cawl had insisted on going through it with great detail. He also included all the bits he was planning on “fixing” that had been rushed the first time. That had been an entertaining conversation with Guilliman. Explaining that four years worth of augments had been done in less than five months, that their height, weight and strength had all been affected by it. He had given them a look Cary had not enjoyed- pitious. 

Still. The Rubicon had been crossed, and they had lived. Taller again, but still somehow below that eight foot standard. Two hundred and thirty four centimetres they stood now. If they peeled back the bandages that seemed to coat every inch of them, they could see the pink scars. If they watched long enough Cary could see them get paler, their body knitting itself back together at a rate of knots. 

Thunder rumbled outside. They’d always liked storms, the rumbling noise was comforting. Usually it drowned out the noise of the fans that echoed through every street and all of their bones. They sat forward, holding their head in their hands. Eyes closed. Their skin crawled and ached. They felt like they were going to fall apart, that the seams of their skin were going to split open. Cary shuddered, curling their fingers into their hair, gritting their teeth against the waves of nausea. Their bones felt wrong, felt itchy. 

Cary steadied their breathing, counted the seconds, then rubbed their face and looked out towards the windows again. An apologetic, pale, black-eyed face stared back at them from the open window. Corvus Corax hung loosely off of the fire escape, they were struck by how young he looked without the beard. They weren’t exactly sure when he had shaved it off, but they were glad he had

Cary had very rarely mistaken one brother for the other. They’d known Night Haunter too well, known the shape of his shoulders and the way he stood. Once or twice they’d had to stare across a hall to try and work out which of them was on the other side, but never for long. Early after Corax’s discovery they had nearly mistaken him for one of the new Night Lord neophytes, though even that had only been a few times and from a distance. 

Their faces were only a faint echo of the other, only close enough to see that they were brothers. Cary couldn’t help but see Corax’s face as younger, even now still after however many years he’d spent hunting through the warp. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought you were running the sim for training.”

Cary shrugged.

“Don’t worry about it.”

He peered into the hab, he was unarmoured but wore some kind of cuirass made of black leather. Around his shoulders there was a layered collar of feathers. He couldn’t fit through the window, the Primarch was too broad in the shoulder. He had more of a weight to him than Nacht did- Nacht had always looked half a day from starving. 

Corax’s form dissolved into smoke and ravens, pouring in as a cloud before reforming to crouch inside the hab. He couldn’t stand, the ceiling was too low. 

“You lived here,” he said. 

It wasn’t a question. Cary nodded anyway. 

“For a while. The QPC leased habs for officers.”

He looked down at the sofa cushions, at the long indent of the body. 

“He slept here when he was tired,” Cary said. “Only for a few hours at a time. I used to worry about that, that he wasn’t getting enough rest. I didn’t understand he didn’t need that much.” 

“Why include this as part of the sim?” It wasn’t a cruel question, not accusing them of frivolity. 

“I liked pretending I was back home,” Cary answered, honestly. “Quintus was terrible, yes. A horrible, soul-sucking, violent, fucked up mess of a city. But it was my home. My fucked up hell-city.” 

A pause. The simulated rain beat down on simulated windows. 

“I’m sorry about Nostramo,” he said. 

Cary nodded. 

“I hope Deliverance was better.” 

Corax made a non-committal hand gesture. 

“It got better, eventually.” 

“Nostramo did too, for a while. It’s just… He didn’t understand that you can’t fear forever. That monsters are made to be defeated.” They rubbed at their face again, and sighed.

Cary stood. 

“Right, enough of that. Enough of all this,” they gestured around themselves. “I need to do something - do you know where I can find a kitchen?” 

 The fortress of Hera contained many, many, many facilities, meant to be used by many different kinds of Astartes, statesmen, diplomats, ambassadors. Still, it was a slight struggle to find somewhere with a working kitchen that Cary could use. Mostly because everyone seemed to be of the opinion that they shouldn’t be doing their own cooking, or that no one should let a Night Lord anywhere near a kitchen. 

However, they had found an empty ambassador’s suite, one perhaps for an ambassador that had brought their own staff. Corax had retrieved Guilliman from his current meeting, under some pretence. Cary had never imagined they would be handing the Lord Commander of the Imperium a vegetable peeler. It was probably good for them, both of them. 

Corax at least seemed to have some experience with food prep, but still. Eventually everything was in pots or pans, and there was little for the two Primarchs to do other than sit at the kitchen table behind them. Cary preferred to stand, their back still didn’t feel right. 

They looked at the pair of them, papers spread over the table, sending files back and forth over a pair of dataslates. Cary wondered how often they had taken meals together- not just Guilliman and Corax, but all of them. They had cooked sometimes for Nacht, when he’d asked them to or when they’d felt like it. Once or twice they’d cooked for the others- Fulgrim mostly, and Ferrus if he’d accompanied the Emperor’s Children Primarch. 

How many times had the Primarchs sat as brothers and taken a meal together? How many times had they acted as brothers at all? The thought made them sad. Created as brothers, expected to treat each other as such, yet given almost no time to form those bonds. The Emperor could call them his sons all he wanted, but when had he allowed himself to act as father? 

Guilliman and Corax were discussing the latter’s return to Deliverance, to gather the Raven Guard and then see where they stood. 

“There are several disturbances in the sectors between,” Guilliman said. “Ideally if they could be handled on your way there, I’d be grateful.”

It was, of course, not a request. Guilliman was still a politician, still the Lord Commander. But he was also Corax’s brother. Framing it as a request softened it, and respected Corax’s position. They were only half paying attention, keeping an eye on the food. It wasn’t exactly anything special, rice, vegetables and protein in a sauce. Something simple, but something that let them think with their hands. 

“And Cawl has the geneseed?” They zoned back in as Corax asked the question. 

“I believe so. The question stands if you wish to take it with you to Deliverance, and obtain more neophytes there, or if you bring neophytes back here.”

There was an unspoken conversation that Cary wasn’t privy to. It happened in the eye contact between the Primarchs. They had been aware that the Raven Guard had suffered heavy losses- their brief glance over the Imperial histories had left a pit in their stomach. There had been twenty-one years between Nostramo’s destruction and Isstvan V, they’d worked out. They wondered when their absence had been noticed- if it had been noticed. Cary admonished themselves silently. They were hardly important enough, not compared against everything that had happened during the heresy. Who would’ve noticed they were gone amongst all that death? All that chaos? A stupid, self-pitying thought.

“I will take the geneseed with me,” said Corax, with a hint of finality to his voice. 

Guilliman nodded. 

“Then of course we come to the issue of an escort. Dark Sister has already made the trip here and I am sending the Spear of Demeter alongside you as well,” Guilliman continued. “We have had several volunteers for an honour guard, however.” 

The Primarchs fell silent. Cary turned. The Primarchs were looking at them. 

“Am I being volunteered?” Cary asked. 

“Yes,” said Guilliman.

“No,” said Corax. 

Cary uttered a foul oath under their breath in Nostraman, pinching the bridge of their nose. 

“I’ll go,” they said, before either of them could start talking again. “Since you are being so fucking complicated.” 

Cary continued to listen as they ate, Guilliman going through possible routes, going through issues that could be righted on the way there. He scrolled through the dataslate with one hand, holding his fork with the other. Cary hadn’t allowed dataslates at the dinner table on the Nightfall .

Then again, there had been plenty of things not allowed at the dinner table on the Nightfall , like flaying knives, bones, and human leather. 

“It shouldn’t be too dangerous. Uneventful, even,” Guilliman said.

“Who else is on this honour guard, then?” Cary asked. 

“Well, select members of the Raven Guard. I’m also electing to send certain members of my Victrix guard, as well as some of our Primaris squads. The Dark Angels escort that brought Curze’s arms have also requested a place. On route, the Sanguinary Guard will also be accompanying Dark Sister ,” Guilliman listed. 

“Blood Angels?” Cary frowned. “That’s a bit out of their way, isn’t it?”

“Gael I believe mentioned to you that upon your rediscovery, a great number of Chapters inquired regarding yourself. The Sanguinary Guard was among them. They mentioned something along the lines of Sanguinius’ Promise.”

The Primarchs looked at them. Cary looked back. In the corner of the room, the shade of Night Haunter rolled his eyes. Cary glanced at him, the motion going unnoticed by the living. Still, they were buoyed by his presence. 

“I have no idea what that means,” Cary said, truthfully. 

“I do,” said the shade. 

He did not elaborate. 

“We can only hope it’s not Sanguinius’ Promise to kill every Night Lord he saw,'' Cary joked. “He offered Nacht mercy once, and never made that mistake again.” 

Guilliman looked at them evenly. 

“How do you know that?” He asked. 

The chill that ran down their spine reminded them that it didn’t matter how friendly he was, that Roboute Guilliman was still a Primarch. 

“That is not a matter of public record, or even private record that you’ve had access to, Cary,” he said. 

They did not glance at the door. They made no indication they were even thinking about the door. Corax had managed to block the door anyway, somehow shifting while their attention wasn’t on him to be more in between themselves and the door. 

“He dragged my soul out of my body, to put it in simple terms,” Cary started, pausing, struggling to find the right words. “I was… Sometimes there. It was like dreaming.”

The Primarchs exchanged looks. 

“Nacht was a psyker. I’m not sure he really understood the extent of what he was capable of,” they said, focusing on keeping their body language relaxed.

The pair of them could probably hear their hearts, sense those tiny changes that triggered their fight-or-flight. Still, they had never run before. And they weren’t running now. 

“What have you seen, then?” Corax asked. 

They glanced again at the shade. Who shrugged unhelpfully. 

“I’m dead, what does it matter to me? Spill all my secrets, if it’ll spare your life.” He didn’t say it unkindly.

Corax followed their eyes- they had gotten too used to Nacht. Nacht, who while still a Primarch, had been steadily getting worse. Nacht, who had never looked at them with this level of scrutiny- he’d never needed to. Other Primarchs were still demi-gods with supernatural perception, Corax was the only other Primarch with a legion with night-black eyes. Of course he’d know to look for the tiny muscle twitches around their eyes, the movement of their eyelids. He knew where they were looking. He looked back at them, brows knitted together, confused. 

Corax opened his mouth to ask what they could not answer, so Cary spoke first. 

“I saw enough,” they said. “I watched him get worse. I didn’t see Isstvan, I think at least. I remember being on the bridge a few times. Saw him in his cell on the Invincible Reason. Sanguinius saw me, I think. I saw him arrive at Carrion World, Tsagualsa. I saw him die. Death is nothing compared to vindication .” 

The words echoed hollow. 

“I didn’t see anything you don’t already know about,” they said. “I’m not holding out on any secrets that would turn any tides.”

The second part was only technically a lie. Hopefully the stress they felt covered whatever invisible tells the two Primarchs could sense from them. Night Haunter's shade slipped into the dark, but Cary felt cool pressure on the back of their neck, two smudges of pale hands at their shoulders. The two brothers exchanged looks again. 

“Why didn’t you tell the Inquisitor?” Guilliman asked.

“I wasn’t sure it was real,” they admitted. “I thought they might be nightmares- I hoped they were nightmares. I didn't want to believe he was capable of doing those things, even though I knew he was.” 

Cary looked at their hands. Only their fingertips were visible, the rest covered in bandages that snaked up their arms. Their head felt light, that same kind of held-breath feeling. Like the split second of free-fall before they fired the chain. The second before they knew something was going to hit them. Their death warrant was signed. 

“I am sorry,” Guilliman said. 

His voice was low, genuine. 

They’re going to kill me, Cary thought. A strange peace washed over them. 

“Stop being so calm when you think you’re dying.” Nacht's shade nudged them. “Pass out and I will get you out. I’ve fought Guilliman before. Corax might run away again, who knows?” 

“Having Curze as a charge must have been difficult,” he said. “I can only apologise that we cannot give you time to grieve. Dark Sister will arrive in around three solar hours, and is only stopping for refuelling and to collect Corvus.” 

“I never get a damn break,” they laughed, wearily. 

Cary did not relax, it felt more like they deflated. The fear had run their already shot nerves ragged. They stood, gathered empty plates- Guilliman had only eaten about half, because he was on that damn dataslate. Cary put the plates on the side, and when they turned back Roboute was guiltily shovelling forkfuls into his mouth. 

“What’s between here and Deliverance then?” They asked Corax. 

He leaned over the table, jabbing at the dataslate. The time for asking questions about whatever the hell they were looking at had passed. Likely not forgotten, but at least passed. 

“Some kind of problem Inquisitor Casteter has asked us to look into on the way, a hivecity on a shrine world, T’au and Orks in the general range of where we’ll need to refuel.”

Cary grimaced. 

“Nothing’s ever easy, is it?” 

“No,” agreed Guilliman. “And mind yourselves on the shrine world. I do not want to hear that you’ve been lynched by fanatics.”

“I’m deeply wounded you would think we’d say anything of the sort,” Cary replied, deadpan. 

“Aggrieved even,” Corax added. 

“I’m a perfectly pious warrior of the God-Emperor of Mankind and this is literally his son. Surely it’s heresy to even suspect either of you,” Cary continued.

“You’d be surprised,” Guilliman said.

“I had to sit through seven hours of blessings,” Corax complained. “As if that would somehow help any of it.” 

“They did the same thing for my brother at the sept when he had silver fever,” Cary mused, filling the sink with hot water and soap. “Of course what really helped was that someone had the decency to slip my mother the money for the medicine.”

Cool white hands pushed past them, and they flinched. These hands were solid- Corax ran cold. He took the cloth from them and pulled the plates toward him. Cary played their flinch off as surprise.

“Don’t do that, I’m going to end up punching you in the face and breaking my hand,” they said. “And then I’ll get properly inquisitioned and that’ll ruin my day.” 

That got a laugh out of him.

Chapter Text

They had been given a cloak. They weren’t sure what the use of it was- they had never understood Astartes being draped in cloaks really. Curze and their brothers- they draped themselves in human leather, for fear. For trophies. For whatever reason they could justify it to themselves. 

Now Cary stood, a mantle of white draped around their shoulders and neck. These were not the Eighth Legion’s colours, truly the cloak should have been a sort of dark magenta, a saturated liver sort of colour. But they had not questioned the white. Cary was, after all, not meant to be representing the true Eighth. 

They stood helmeted, in Macragge’s noonday sun, on one of the wide expanses of landing pads that dotted the fortress of Hera. The auto-senses had already adjusted for the light and noise as craft landed and took off with equal frequency. At their side stood Elaius, and on the other side a Dark Angel- introduced to them as Brother Theodanius. Being flanked like this amused Cary, as if they were in Imperial custody. They were unarmed other than the chain, and Curze’s lightning claws. But the Ultramarine and the Dark Angel both held bolters. 

A short distance away, the two Primarchs were bidding their goodbyes. They could have ordered the auto-senses to zero in on their conversation, but they did not. It wasn’t for Cary to know. 

The mish-mash group of Astartes that had elected to come with Corvus Corax on his return to Deliverance stood in file, in well-organised groups in front of one of the Shadowhawks that waited to carry the Primarch to Dark Sister . Ultramarines and Dark Angels stood side by side, while the small squad of Raven Guard who had come down with the Shadowhawks stood as close to Corax as they dared. Cary couldn’t blame them. Among the Ultramarines were members of Guilliman’s Victrix guard, at the front of them stood an Astartes with a distinct red and white helmet plume, a red cape  around his shoulders, the pauldron of his left shoulder a polished gold. There was also a rather impressive power sword at his side, decorated in a manner that made Cary suspect it had a name. Perhaps several. 

The brothers exchanged some final words, then clasped their hands, pulling the other into an embrace. They pressed their foreheads together, that was a pict that would have made a Rememberancer’s career. Not that there seemed to be any of those anymore. 

Cary dragged their eyes away from the Primarchs to look at the figure approaching them- Gael, Inquisitor Casteter. He smiled broadly, but his attention was not on Cary, it was on Elaius. Out of the corner of their eye, they saw Elaius remove his helmet, and understood. 

Elaius’ face was an echo of his brother’s own. The features were larger, changed by geneseed and augment- but the two of them were clearly true brothers. He stooped to embrace his brother, and made a similar gesture of pressing his forehead to Gael’s as the Primarchs had done. 

“Do look after my brother, Captain,” Gael said to them, releasing Elaius from his grasp. 

“On my honour,” Cary replied.

“I’ll keep you to that,” the Inquisitor smiled, and held out his hand. 

His hand disappeared in their gauntlet, though he shook firmly. Then he departed with little further aplomb. Elaius replaced his helmet, his body language stiff and awkward. Cary elected to say nothing. 

There wasn’t time to anyway, Corax had turned towards them all, approaching the Shadowhawk with his small unkindness of Raven Guard. Cary got the distinct impression that none of the black-armoured marines were happy to see them. This couldn’t be helped of course. Nacht had heaped a myriad of sins at their feet. 

Corax smiled lopsidedly, which made him look absurdly young. Cary inclined their helmet in acknowledgement, waited for him to enter the Shadowhawk, and then followed at Elaius’ indication that they should move. Cary got the impression that the moment they moved unexpectedly, they would find several bolter rounds in their back. A bit of a shame considering all that effort they went to in that damn tower, and dragging an entire Primarch back with them. But the old wounds ran deep, likely too deep for them to heal. 

They strapped themselves in, tipped their head forward slightly to brace the skull face-plate of the helmet against their gourget. 

“Does void travel not agree with you?” Elaius had opened a vox channel. 

He sounded almost amused. 

“Easier during takeoff,” they replied.

The Shadowhawk roared into life, the metal around them shaking and trembling like it might rip itself apart. 

“I miss Stormbirds,” they complained.

“What is a Stormbird?” Elaius asked.

“A better version of this.” 

“There aren’t many Stormbirds left,” Corax’s voice echoed over their vox speakers. “The Mechanicus cannot produce them anymore.”

“Damn shame- did you ever travel in the Firebird ?” Cary asked him.

“No, let me guess, it was decorated to within an inch of its life.”

“Purple, white and gold as far as the eye could see. Never took my helmet off when I was in any ship run by the Third. It was like walking around half blind while being choked by seventeen different kinds of perfume.” 

The Primarch laughed. The rest of the journey to Dark Sister passed without trial or tribulation. Cary could only hope that small mercy was an omen of things to come. Upon exiting the Shadowhawk, they were delighted to find the light level was dimmed. They removed their helmet, attaching it to the magnetic clip at their waist. Their brain went into overdrive, filtering the contents of the air, noting the makeup of trace elements. Raven Guard ships had always been a fraction cooler than Night Lord vessels, they almost preferred it. 

They found themselves being sort of herded along behind Corax, Elaius and Theodanius still lurking behind them. It wasn’t that they minded, but it did sort of give the impression they were some kind of prisoner. Which especially didn’t help when they were trying to look convincingly non-threatening to a legion who had no love for their own. 

Especially when most of the Astartes on board had gathered to welcome their returned Primarch. Corax stopped a little way into the landing bay, and Cary wished that any of the Astartes they were with would step closer to him. Just so that they weren’t currently the closest one. Or so that they at least had someone to hide behind. Instead Cary stood somewhat to Corax’s right, flanked by Astartes. They looked towards the back of the landing bay, and pretended they were literally anywhere else. 

Night-black eyes were upon them, ruby-red lenses of countless helmets. Watching their every movement, every breath. Wondering why the hell a Night Lord was standing next to Corvus Corax. Cary wouldn’t have been lying to say that they thought the same thing. He should’ve had his sons up here, the ones who had brought him aboard. 

“My sons,” Corax said. 

Absolute silence fell, like a gavel, like a smothering blanket. Cary barely wanted to breathe in that silence, lest their lungs break it somehow. 

“It has been far, far too long since I have seen your faces. It has been far too long that you have laboured alone. I am proud of you, all of you, for your strength and resilience in the face of that which threatens the galaxy. On silent wing, we go now to our home, to Deliverance- in triumph! Once again our claws will be stained with traitor blood-” Cary gave him a sidelong glance at that one. “Once more the enemy will find themselves outmatched, outclassed. While they have rotted and grown content in their taint, we have hardened ourselves to it. We are that silent death that comes to their door - Never more! ”

His words carried, without him having to raise his voice. Such was the silence that when the Astartes broke into thunderous cries, yells, cheers- Never more! Never more! They nearly jumped. Cary had forgotten that the Raven Guard could actually be loud, though that was to be expected. Many Legions would have reacted the same upon being reunited with their Primarch, like a second Great Crusade. They wondered if it had been like this, when Corax first returned to his Legion. It certainly hadn’t been like it for Curze.

Cary accompanied the Primarch to the command deck. They had to stop themselves from standing next to the command throne, where a Raven Guard legionnaire already stood. All these old habits, all these old practices, still haunting their bones even now. 

“ Are you repentant?” A curt voice asked. 

Cary glanced to their side. The question had come from a Raven Guard, one who wore a Corvus-pattern helmet. The beak of it was angled at their pauldron, where the scroll of gothic script sat. 

“As repentant as one can be, learning all that happened after the explosion of their home planet,” Cary replied, coolly. “Unless the assurances of two Primarchs- including your own, and the Inquisition isn’t enough for you, legionnaire. ”

The Nostraman accent had always naturally leant itself to animosity, there had been many times in fact Jago had managed to make a title sound like an insult. Usually just to Curze, but even Cary themselves had not been exempt from Sevatar’s disparagement. 

The Raven Guard looked away, withdrawing back among his fellows. Cary would have preferred that their first interaction with any member of the Legion hadn’t been to trade barbs, but it was their own pride. They resented the idea of being repentant, of having something to repent. They’d spent decades with Curze, holding him back, resorting to physical violence when necessary. Countless wounds, broken bones, hours and hours and hours in the sims, practising taking him down. Yet now they were told they had sinned, that there was some mark upon their soul that they needed to atone for. 

Cary grimaced, trying to banish the thoughts. Then looked towards the command throne, where Corax was already giving orders, where the cogitator banks were already gearing up, where crew were already running and making sure the barge was moving. The battle barge couldn’t translate to the warp this close to Macragge, they had to leave the system first and reach the nearest jump point. A journey that should hopefully only take a few days, then they would be free to translate into the warp. 

The idea of translation concerned Cary the most. The warp had allowed Curze’s shade to move more freely, be more visible. He seemed to be able to hide from the eye at will, but Cary had no way of making him stay hidden. Hopefully he could be convinced to remain out of sight. The stars outside the huge glass panes began to move, slowly. They had always liked the stars, liked watching them when they could.

Soon enough, Cary was being escorted off again. This time to the war room of the bridge, where a hololith table stretched for at least ten metres in the middle of the room. Cary was waved into a chair, one of the large, sturdy things clearly made for Astartes. They sat and examined the hololith. 

Cary wasn’t alone for long- not that they had been alone in the first place. As well as Elaius and Theodanius, a fair few tech-priests had been scuttling about the room, waving small thuribles embossed with that holy cog sigil. The next time the doors opened, Corax entered, along with the decorated Ultramarine and a fair few of the Raven Guard Captains. Two of the latter slotted themselves in either side of Elaius and Theodanius- they couldn’t help but notice the fact that both of them were armed. 

At this point, they could only be amused. Mercy and Forgiveness both lay on their arms, and no one had even tried to take the lightning claws off of them. No one had even asked Cary to remove them- and they were already fenced in by two Astartes. 

Much of the meeting was old news to them. When they were all seated, Corax explained their path, and that which they were expected to attend to on the way there. No mention was made of the precious cargo Dark Sister carried, no mention of the geneseed cache. Cary knew why of course, the last time Corax had attempted to revitalise his Legion things had gone south to a dramatic degree. Still, it saddened them to see him distrusting his sons, worried that any among them may have simply been wearing the face of a brother. Alpharius had been on the list of those they had struggled to get a read on, likely by design in the Twentieth’s case.  

The shrine world was named Hagiogra, and Cary paused when looking at the information on the dataslate before them. It was dedicated to Soror Maior , eldest sister. Prosperine. They felt another stab of sadness. According to records, Prosperine had vanished from the Vengeful Spirit after the beginning of the heresy- she had been aboard to advise the Warmaster in her function as Eldest Sister. Guilliman and Corax had both heard that their brothers had cast their sister into the warp, neither of them had said it but the look was plain on their faces. They feared their sister was lost. 

They were coming to the aid of an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos, who had already petitioned Macragge for help. Her reports suggested something foul happening in the inner sanctums and underhives, disfigured statues, strange scribblings- a third arm attached to various iconography. 

The sight seemed familiar to many at the table, Cary only recognised it from recent memory. A genestealer cult, localised to one of the seven hive cities on Hagiogra. Normally the proper course of action would have been to destroy the damn thing from orbit- an option that Cary was loath to carry out. They had seen quite enough planetary destruction. There was hesitation from the Inquisitor too- her messages had come jumbled with prayer. 

It was a holy place, an honoured place. A world in memory of a woman who had long since passed into myth. No one suggested exterminatus, at least not in front of Corvus Corax. 

The table had begun to discuss strategy, the best way to flush out the xenos poison that had taken root. Cary turned to the Dark Angel next to them. He had not removed his helmet, crimson-winged crests standing proud, red lenses glowing. 

“Have you ever fought Tyrannids, brother Theodanius?” Cary asked him. 

He nodded, and at first Cary thought that was the only response they were going to get out of him. 

“Tyrannids, yes. Genestealer cults I have encountered few times,” he said. 

He spoke with the dead seriousness that Cary had come to expect from Dark Angels. How much things had changed, yet much they had stayed the same. 

“Hagiogra is a strange choice for them, though I suppose its position as a pilgrimage world allows for greater infection rates,” as he spoke he gestured to the hololith, the planet suspended in flickering light. “It has the biomass the hive fleet the cult will summon want, though only small ranges of the planet are truly viable.” 

Theodanius gestured at the large swathes of desert, broken up by dotted circles of green and grey- where the hive cities and their outer agri-fields lay. 

“I forget you have never seen them before,” he said, tilting his helmet back to Cary. 

“Plenty I haven’t seen,” they replied. “Then again, plenty I have.”

“Did you see Lord El’Jonson?” 

There it was again, that near irreverent tone. 

“I was a… semi permanent fixture when meetings were required to be held between Lord El’Jonson and Curze,” Cary said. “I thought he looked like a king from a tale.”

And personally, Cary would have rather had him as Warmaster. That was a thought they kept to themselves. Theodanius’ helmet angled downwards, then he reached up and pressed at the catch. 

He set his helmet next to his dataslate- his appearance surprised Cary. He had lines of age around his mouth and eyes, a pale quality to his hair. They had not seen many older Astartes. In truth, they could probably count on one hand the amount they had seen with hair white from age. 

“They tell stories of you,” he said, solemnly. “The oldest of us, the Watchers and the Chaplains. Passed down over centuries and millennia.”

“Good ones, I hope.” Cary raised an eyebrow. 

“They said you were kind,” Theodanius replied. 

“I try to be.”

“Why?” 

His eyes were a pale green in colour, in some ways it was like looking into a distant echo of Lion’s face. The sternness masking the fact that he did not understand why Cary chose kindness, they remembered a similar expression on the Lord’s face. Social interactions had never been Lion’s strong suit. 

“Would it offend you terribly to know Curze once asked me the same question, brother?” They asked. 

His gauntleted hands tightened, but his face remained even. 

“I can only give you the same answer,” they continued. “What use is cruelty here? Isn’t there enough? If I can give but one small mercy, one kind word to bolster strength and renew spirit, why shouldn’t I?” 

Theodanius held their gaze for a few seconds longer. 

“You know,” said Cary. “You look so much like your father.” 

“I admit I cannot return the same notion,” he replied. 

“ Throne , never refer to Curze as my father,” they grimaced, the concept crawling over their skin. “I refuse on multiple accounts. Not only that I am older than Curze by at least four years, but that I refuse to have a man who boiled a human head in my kitchen be referred to as such. My father died a drunkard and a gambler in a half abandoned warehouse.”

“Did he really do that?” Asked Elaius. 

“He was honestly quite proud of himself for the thought of sterilising it,” Cary said. “I’d refused to let him have any of his other trophies in the hab.” 

That sparked an idea.

“Speaking of habs, do you fancy accompanying me to the sim hall after this? I’d love to challenge you to a friendly, traditional game.” Cary grinned.  

-

When they arrived at the sim hall and Cary had plugged in the datachip, they were surprised to find that a copy of their sim was already present. Kulikov’s game scrolled along the screen in large letters, the Raven Guard’s copy of the sim adjusting the scores from Cary’s datachip. 

It filled them with a kind of sentimental affection. 

“I didn’t think he was serious,” they said, to themselves. 

Elaius however, was mildly stunned. 

“ You’re Kulikov? You made this?” He said, incredulous.

“How popular is the name Kulikov?” Cary asked him. “How did you not make the connection that the sim that includes the streets of Nostramo Quintus was made by the Night Lord that you picked up , who is named Kulikov ?” 

Elaius made a face. Cary turned back to the controls, comparing their own, original version to the Raven Guards. Several other additions had been made in their absence, other enemies added to the streets. 

Theodanius peered over their shoulder. 

“I believe running the genestealer cult simulation would be best,” he said, but Cary shook their head.

“No, we’re running the old version first.” 

They keyed in the parameters, and the viewing windows grew dark, streaked with rain. The lights of hab blocks and neon advertisements flooding the control room. 

“Rules are simple,” they said, turning to the two Astartes. “I get a minute’s head start, and then you have to come find me. You have ten minutes to do so, and stop me. I’d appreciate not breaking any bones, but I will at least give you the benefit of the doubt that you won’t stab me. The game also ends if I can get a hand on you- speaking of.”

They opened one of the nearby storage cupboards, grinning as they found what they wanted. Hazard paint, meant to mark out damaged areas of the sim hall for repairs. They pulled open the can, dipped their right hand in the luminous blue paint. 

“Is that truly necessary?” Elaius asked.

“No,” Cary said, striding to the door. “But no one complained before- including Corax.” 

The door opened, and Cary stepped onto the streets of Quintus once more. 

Running the sim for others had become sort of second nature to them. Usually it was the first thing they had dragged neophytes to, after all if the boy's hands were going to be drenched in blood, didn’t they deserve a last send-off for childhood? For games? Elaius had never faced Night Lords before (to be fair, Elaius hadn’t faced anything before), and Theodanius had only crossed blades with a warband once. He had not elaborated and Cary hadn’t asked. How far the Eighth had fallen was not something they were ready to face. 

Soon enough, Ultramarine blue and Dark Angels green were both dotted with glowing handprints. Every time they came back to the control room, more had joined. Raven Guard, curious about what was happening, why the sim was being run. The connection between Cary and their beloved sim had spread quickly, and they found the Astartes of the Nineteenth far more at ease with their presence. 

It wasn’t long until once more they had dragged the Raven Guard in, covering black plate with glowing handprints. It wasn’t long until they were learning names, committing faces to memory, amusing the Astartes with their half mangled understanding of Corspake. 

It also wasn’t long until once more Cary heard the soft hiss of metallic wings. They were crouched again in one of the tangles of struts and scaffolding that perpetually covered the city. The helmet’s auto-senses zeroed in on the Primarch, once more that dark and terrible winged creature. 

Cary wondered if they should have added a ‘no warp shit’ policy to the sim, but they didn’t want to upset any Librarians. Still, they couldn’t remain there for long. They kept among the buildings, under the cover of walkways when they could, just trying to keep Corax in line of sight without being woefully obvious. 

It was a drawn out game of cat and mouse that Cary had played before. Of course, when playing against Curze the objective had always been to avoid him for as long as possible. To keep him distracted and occupied until whatever fires raged in his brain burned out. 

Of course, it didn’t take long for Corax to find them, and it was as they were throwing themselves into the air to avoid the cloud of darkness and ravens that Cary took the time to wonder if this was what Lorgar had felt like for the last ten thousand years. The chain couldn’t pull them up fast enough, and they were consumed by the darkness, hands lifting up under their shoulders like they were a child. 

“Very funny,” they said, trying to keep their tone flat, unamused. 

The sim once again fell apart, leaving only the grey squares. 

“To be fair, I prefer it more than being shot out of the sky,” Cary ribbed him.

Corax landed and put them down, a half-apologetic, lopsided smile on his face. The wings on his back dissipated into little more than shadow and smoke. 

“I heard you were running the sim again, I never did quite make up the honour of my Legion.”

“So you thought you’d sneak in,” Cary said, lightly smacking their closed fist off the edge of his pauldron. 

Corax made a mournful expression, of deep hurt. Cary rolled their eyes. 

“Come on, let’s see what that did to the scores. Then I’m going to kick your ass,” they grinned.

Chapter Text

They were unused to taking five hours of uninterrupted sleep. Cary’s resting schedule had been erratic at best, catching only one to two hours at a time depending on the situation. Even then, it had rarely been in their quarters. They usually slept in their armour, on transport ships or other quiet moments. It was a habit that had not yet died, and was so ingrained in them that Cary forgot other people noticed. 

“When did you last sleep?” Corax asked them, at the war room table. 

Cary glanced at him, frowned exaggeratedly. 

“I’ve slept long enough, don’t you think?” They joked. 

Cary assumed that would be the end of it. It always had been before. 

“ When did you last sleep?” Corax repeated the question. 

There was an edge of command to his voice this time. 

“Sixteen solar hours ago,” Cary replied. 

“For how long?” 

They grimaced, avoided looking at him or anyone else currently sat at the table. 

“Two hours,” they said. 

To their complete and utter dismay, he reached out and powered down the dataslate in their hands. 

“Go rest,” he said, gently. 

They refused to look at his face, childishly. 

“Is that an order?” Cary asked.

“Must I make it one?” 

Cary clenched their jaw as they looked at him. 

“Yes.” 

“Then I order you to take your resting hours, now,” he said.

He didn’t even look annoyed or stern- that was the most humiliating part. His face was neutral, open. Not smiling, Throne, Cary would’ve punched him if he’d smiled. 

They stood up from the table and left the war room, furious. Cary didn’t like being noticed at the best of times. Especially not when being noticed for something like this, some weakness, some flaw. 

There was no weakness in the Eighth. There was no weakness on Nostramo. Weakness got you killed. 

When they reached their quarters, they removed their armour, actually to fit in a shower before lying on the cot. To Cary’s surprise, sleep had claimed them quickly- almost too quickly. Their sleep was dreamless, darkness and warmth. 

Translation woke them, the shudder of the ship, the pervasive wave of pressure- the feeling of hair brushing their face. Cary looked blearily into eyes as dark as their own, with two small points of white at the corners. 

“Do you think he’d be pleased to see me?” Asked Curze, the water-colour impression of his face swirling above them, grinning. “That the Raven would be pleased by the Carrion Crow?”

“Ugh,” Cary replied, and rolled over. 

According to the chronometer, they’d had four and a half hours of uninterrupted rest. 

“You can’t be seen,” they said to the shade. 

“I’m aware.” 

“I mean it, Konnacht,” Cary said, sitting up and swinging their legs off the side of the cot. “I don’t know exactly what laws I’m breaking by harbouring the soul of a war criminal in my head, but I doubt either of your currently active brothers would be happy.” 

“I’m no more a war criminal than either of them,” the shade uttered.

“Yes but you lost , Konnacht, that’s the way history works,” they said, not unkindly. “There are no moral victories here.”

Cool pressure weighed on their shoulders, more than before. Floating strands of ink-in-water hair fell in a curtain over them. He’d done this before in his more favourable moods, leant his bodyweight on their shoulders and back in a childish display. Normally he would give up before they were crushed under the weight of him, generally it had been about getting their attention anyway. 

But now he was dead, and the only weight he had was whatever the warp allowed him. He hung off of their shoulders with his head lolling, like a child going boneless in order to be carried. 

“You seem more lucid,” they said. 

The shade shrugged.

“I’m dead. Death clears many things to let the slate lie clean. My melancholies, my pains, the fevers. They can’t touch me now. I am simply here.” 

It was probably the closest he’d been to healthy, to proper function that he’d been in his life. Cary had noticed that, it would have been impossible for them not to notice. There were no shivers or spasms from his shade, no striking out in delusion. Cary rubbed at their face. 

“Alright,” they said. “They’re going to expect me to be out there.”

“You are the only one that will see me,” the shade promised. 

When the Eighth had travelled between targets, when the Eighth still had hope, Cary had usually spent their time in the training halls and sparring cages. Making sure the newest brothers had enough experience, making sure they weren’t tearing each other’s throats out. The bonds of brotherhood had hung on a knife’s edge for the Eighth. 

If they weren’t there, then usually they were wherever Curze was. The command deck, the war room, his personal halls. Cary wondered what had become of those dark spaces- had the Night Lords done as the Ultramarines? Sealed it away? Or had they razed the damn place in both hatred and greed? They could name a fair number of Night Lords who would have jumped at the chance. 

Now however Cary found themselves a little aimless. Corax certainly didn’t need an eye kept on him and they doubted the Raven Guard’s bonds of brotherhood needed soothing. Outside the arming halls, they paused, brain ticking over what to do.

“Night Lord,” barked a voice, harsh and static through a vox speaker. 

Cary turned. The decorated Ultramarines- Guilliman’s Victrix guard were approaching down the hall. There were five of them in total, Cary had not yet learned their names. At the front was the one with the arched plume and the power sword that his hand never seemed to leave. 

“Ultramarine,” Cary echoed, nodding in his direction. 

He came to a stop and regarded them through the red lenses of his helmet. He was Firstborn, high ranking too. They’d learned it was unusual for the higher ranked Astartes to not undergo the Rubicon Primaris. But the Victrix guard seemed perfectly fine with how he was. He had to tilt his head up slightly to look at them- a novelty for Cary, who had spent much of their time among Astartes having to do the same. 

“I was told that you had crossed blades with Lucius the Eternal. That you had trained with him,” the Victrix guard said. 

Cary nodded.

“I did,” they said, trying to measure out his tone- where was this going?

“Then we are going to the sparring cages,” he ordered. 

His hand never left the pommel of his power sword, and he spoke with such an absolute air of authority that Cary found it almost comical. It was like speaking to a veteran of the Unification wars, charmingly nostalgic. They heard Curze make a faint noise of exasperation somewhere over their shoulder.

So they went with the Victrix guard to the sparring cages, sort of flanked by the five of them. 

“I’m terribly sorry,” Cary said, not particularly sorry at all. “But I’m afraid I don’t know your name.” 

The plumed helmet barely turned to look at them. 

“I am Captain Cato Sicarius, Master of the Watch, Knight Champion of Macragge, Grand Duke of Talassar and High Suzerain of Ultramar,” he said, in tones that suggested it was a list he had been through many times before. 

Cary kept their face placid, neutral. Titles were everything to Ultramarines- to the point where they used to compete with Lucius to find the ones with the longest list. Five! Five, by the throne. Not that Cary understood what most of them meant- aside from Captain. 

“Sadly I don’t come nearly as decorated as yourself,” Cary said. 

He made a dismissive noise and turned away. 

The sparring cages were impressive, some even had a kind of decoration- trims of silver. On the Nightfall there’d been nothing so grand. Other than the trophies Cary had vehemently opposed being there, and had servitors hose the place down regularly. A few Raven Guard already present looked up at the intrusion. From the pale blue stains on some of the faces and arms, Cary recognised some of them. They waved cheerily. 

Captain Sicarius beelined for the main cage, where a sparring match was already taking place. The two Raven Guard within looked unfavourably upon his interruption, and looked even less thrilled when the good Captain ordered both of them out. 

Normally, Cary would have intervened. Normally they would have smoothed out the situation. There was however a phrase uttered by many guardsmen that they had heard before. Not my unit, not my problem . It made them cringe a little on the inside to watch it unfold, to see the Raven Guard absolutely ignore the Captain of Guilliman’s honour guard. Out of the corner of their eye they saw the chalk-smudge of Curze’s face. He was grinning like a skull.

Cary was perfectly happy to let whatever played out to happen, until the Captain’s fingers tightened around the hilt of the power sword. There was already some… disparagement floating around the Astartes (who could deny that they gossiped all they wanted, but still). Some tensions arising from following the orders of Guilliman, that Ultramarines currently found themselves at the forefront of the Imperium. They might have been Raven Guard, but they still had pride enough to not be ordered around like they were neophytes.

So they stepped forward, sidestepped the Captain and came around. 

“Kiex, Nael,” they said, calling the Raven Guard by name. 

The two Raven Guard looked up, surprised to see them. 

“Would you mind letting us use the cage for a second? It shouldn’t take too long for the Captain here to thrash me,” they said, smiling. “Sorry for the interruption.” 

Their easy manner caught the two Astartes off-guard, but they looked at each other, made some small sign in Corspake and then slipped around and out of the cage. 

“Have you always simpered your way around like this?” Captain Sicarius asked.

Cary gave him a look. 

“If you’re going to try and hurt me with words, Captain, I beg you to try harder,” they said, dryly. “You’ll have a better chance with that sword. Does it have a name? It looks like it has a name.”

They were teasing him now, trying to draw him out. It was always a gamble with Ultramarines, some lived and died by the Codex, others you could find a sociable human being under all the pomp and splendour. 

The way he drew his sword confirmed to Cary that they were dealing with more of the former. Another member of the Victrix guard presented them with a power sword from the undecorated racks. A plain thing, nicked with the memories of many sparring sessions. Curze had a sword once, barely used the damn thing. 

Still, hours of training with the Third had made the weapon familiar to them. It was by pure muscle memory that they activated the power cell, watched the energy field crackle. Cary turned it off again, silently admonishing themselves. The power field shouldn’t be activated for training, Saul had drilled that into them. 

A slick scraping sound came from the other end of the cage alerted them to the Captain. Cary faced him, taking up that dancer's stance after placing their helmet on their head. 

“To what point?” Cary asked. 

“First blood,” replied Sicarius. 

Cary huffed, a little annoyed. Could they have gone any length of time at all without gaining some kind of interesting injury? 

There was another factor that struck them, as the swordsman advanced. Cary had been fighting things bigger, taller, stronger than themselves their whole life. Now they stood taller than most, and the angles were all wrong. It was a difficult obstacle- Sicarius came at them fast and strong. 

Cary kept their arms loose, trying to remember Saul’s voice. Saul’s words. It was easy enough to picture themselves back on the Bucephalus , with Lucius bearing down on them. The muscle memory jerking their sword up to meet his own, taking graceful steps to avoid the blade, pushing Sicarius away again. 

Once they had duelled Fulgrim. Well, once or twice strictly speaking. When Curze had been in more of Fulgrim’s direct care and tutelage, he had often taken them to the sparring halls of the Imperial Palace. During breaks, or when Curze had enough, became overstimulated or simply refused, he had offered to spar with Cary. They had never touched him, never gotten a mark on him.

But he had always smiled, told them what they had done well and what they could do to improve. Cary missed him sorely. 

Nostalgia made them sloppy, allowing Sicarius to hold their blade in a lock. They were helmet to helmet, faceplates inches from each other. 

“You should have died with your planet,” he grunted. 

“I live to disappoint,” Cary replied. 

Then they stamped on the inside of his boot. He cried out and reared backwards, Cary stepped out of the lock. 

“Underhanded filth!” He snarled. 

“Codex buggerer,” Cary shot back. 

It was a childish insult, one they’d overheard a few times since Cary had come around. The shout of wordless rage that came forth from Sicarius’ vox-speakers told Cary that it was likely not the best choice of barbs. 

However, feeling more confident now, Cary pressed forward. Going on the offensive rather than parrying and turning the blade away. They remembered now more easily the dance, the practised movements Saul had taught them and the Eternal had performed. 

When two swordsmen performed the moves together, they were supposed to be equally matched. The dance of blades was always more of a display than a fight. But against one who had never seen the dance? Who was far, far too young to have even heard of it? 

It almost felt a little unfair. Sicarius was good- great even. Had it been ten thousand years ago, Lucius would have sought him out for the express purpose of duelling him. 

Cary moved forward, swung the blade, feinted back, went to the side. Followed all those steps of the dance until-

Their blade flashed forward, slicing into the palm of Sicarius’ hand. He swore, and dropped his sword. The tip of Cary’s blade came away red. The Raven Guard who’d been watching- the ones Cary knew from their hours in the sim, they cheered. 

They lowered their sword, abandoning it against the side of the cage, approaching him. Cary reached for his hand, to check the injury. Sicarius snatched it away, scooping his sword off of the floor, turning away from them to stomp through the sparring cage’s door. Cary followed, removing their helmet as they did so. 

They went to reach out for his shoulder, to find any soothing words. To begin to build something as they had done again and again and again. 

Then their head snapped back, as Sicarius’ fist connected with their jaw. The other Astartes closed in, shouting, the Victrix guard pulling Sicarius back while the Raven Guard swarmed Cary. They were more surprised than anything, the taste of blood unwelcome in their mouth. 

Astartes were still shouting, the Victrix guard now semi ringed in by coal-black armour. 

“ Enough ,” Cary shouted. 

The noise died. Several pairs of black eyes and red lenses were upon them. Luckily, Raven Guard were not Night Lords, so settling this shouldn’t have been too difficult. 

“Captain Sicarius,” Cary said. “I’d say the other titles but we’d be here all day. Had you been one of my Captains I would have put you on trophy disposal duty for that, in fact had you been one of my Captains I would have beat you bloody with the chain. But you are not one of my Captains, you are an Ultramarine . Such displays of anger are beneath you, and serve no true purpose.” 

Cary stepped forward, the Raven Guard parting to let them through. 

“I am not your enemy, Captain,” they said. “And I apologise for my insult regarding the Codex Astartes. It was immature of me and disrespectful to the Codex.”

Cary held out their hand. Sicarius shrugged off the Victrix guards who had been holding onto his shoulders and arms. He took off his helmet- he had that square-jawed look that Cary had seen on many of Guilliman’s sons. Short brown hair and a well-maintained beard (this they took note of- Ultramarines having beards was never a good sign). He stared at them for a few seconds, jaw clenched in anger. 

Then he spat on the floor at Cary’s feet, turned around and left. The rest of the Victrix guard following closely behind. 

“I think we’re going to be great friends,” Cary said to the room at large. “I’ll have him calling me brother before we reach Deliverance, you’ll see.” 

This raised a few laughs, a few sniggers. 

“Not if I take his head first,” Curze’s low growl came from somewhere over their head, thankfully unheard by the surrounding Raven Guard. 

“What was that?” They looked to find Nael addressing them. “The technique you used.” 

“Well, if you promise not to call me a traitor and a heretic, it’s the dance of the Third,” Cary replied. “A friend who died at Isstvan taught me.” 

They looked to the Raven Guard’s face again, and without much prompting found themselves saying:

“If you find yourself a sword, I’ll show you.” 

“Soft,” said Curze, not unkindly. 

Chapter Text

They spent about a week in the warp. In all fairness, it wasn’t that bad. Cary bounced between the training hall and the sim hall most of the time. Their presence was very rarely required on the command deck, though Corax had asked for their counsel on a few occasions. 

Sparring with Raven Guard was a little like sparring with Night Lords. Only a little though. They taught them the way Night Lords moved, the quick way Cary had learned to fight. Cary found themselves adjusting, copying the movements and forms of the Raven Guard in return. They sort of ended up somewhere in the middle. Not quite either Legion. Still, the only person who noticed and ribbed them for it was dead. Elaius joined them on occasion, Cary suspected out of his own discomfort by not being among his own Legion. It wasn’t exactly as if the Victrix guard were the friendliest of men, even discounting Captain Sicarius. 

He was more vocal when they sparred, and had certainly become more used to their presence. They had inquired once or twice about his family.

“Gael is older than me, and we have two more younger siblings, Lucien and Elenora. Elenora studies to take over father’s business while Lucien…” he trailed off, mouth twisted in an uncomfortable expression. “Lucien follows his own desires.” The Ultramarine said, diplomatically. 

“I’d go mad if my little brother had been taken to become an Astartes,” Cary commented, without thinking. 

Elaius frowned at them, likely opening his mouth to discuss what an honour it was. Then his brain seemed to catch up with him. 

“Not all Legions are pleasant with their neophytes.” Cary gave him a rueful smile. “Still, I promised your brother I’d keep you alive, and I have no intention of breaking that promise.” 

Before translation, Cary had been summoned to the command deck. More messages had come from the Inquisitor Maedra, whom they were supposed to be meeting on Hagiogra. Corax wanted their input on it, and Cary had more than happily told him they thought she was a few bullets short of a full clip. 

Calls had rung out across the deck, warnings to prepare for translation. The ship had shuddered, a great groan echoing along it. Pressure built inside Cary’s skull, before fading. 

They shook their head, like a dog clearing water from their ears, then turned back to Corax. 

“I hate that-,” they stopped.

Corax was standing, whereas before he had been sitting on the command throne. Brows drawn together, he had an expression somewhere between anger and shock. He wasn’t looking at Cary, he was looking behind them. Several Astartes had also looked to Corax, his sudden movement startling them. Their blood ran cold, but they stayed where they were. 

“Corax?” They said, questioningly. 

The Raven Lord looked down at them. 

“Sorry, I thought I saw…” His voice trailed off. 

“The warp does things to your perception,” Cary said. “It gets inside your head and uses your memories against you.”

Which wasn’t a lie. They weren’t lying to him. Not directly. Corax had returned to the command throne, and he hadn’t said any more about what he’d seen. In any case, he had little time to question it. 

From the moment the ships had entered realspace, the comms were being hailed near constantly. Repeated requests for aid, for the Astartes to come to the planet’s surface, for the Primarch himself to make an appearance. 

In the war room, looking at the messages still pouring in, Cary had given Theodanius a look, and he had nodded. It was only the three of them in the room at the moment, waiting for the Primarch and his counsel to come down from the command deck. 

“It’s suspicious,” he agreed. “But genestealer cults aren’t usually this obvious with their ploys. They could merely be desperate.”

“Not all of the messages are coming from Inquisitor Maedra,” Cary pointed out. “A lot of them are coming from the Ecclesiarchy, demanding Corax’s presence for holy rites.” 

“What is your suggestion then?” Elaius asked. 

“Keep him off the planet for as long as we can, send in a smaller squad to dig in and report back. Then we’ll know more of what we’re dealing with.” 

“Excellent of you to volunteer, Repentant,” a sharp voice said.

Captain Sicarius entered grandly. Cary wasn’t sure they had ever seen him enter a room subtly. 

“I’d never miss a chance to go hunting in a hive city,” Cary replied, cheerfully. “That’s practically home turf for me.” 

He opened his mouth to retort- probably something along the lines of referring to them as hive-scum, but was stopped by the fact Corax had entered the room, along with his little unkindness. Cary glanced between them as Corax cast a raised eyebrow in Cato’s direction. There was no way with the Primarch’s hearing that he had not heard their small exchange. 

“Well, it’s not like I’m wrong,” they said. “I still think we should send in a small contingent first, and that the desperation for Lord Corax’s presence is overly suspicious.” 

“I expect they are clinging to the idea that I can banish the xenos with a wave of my hand,” Corax sat at the head of the table, frowning at the communication reports. “Take second squad down to the planet, see if the Inquisitor will give us any more information.” 

He looked to Cary, who realised what they had done. Still, no way of taking it back now. 

“We’ll recon and check in within three hours,” Cary promised.

-

When the Shadowhawk landed on one of Hivecity Nover’s landing pads, there was a small reception waiting for them. Cary could spot the flowing white robes of the Ecclesiarchy immediately, all tall hats and painted faces. Some wore masks. They stood out brightly against the sand-coloured stone of the landing pad and the spires, turned golden in the evening sun. 

In front of them was a rather frantic looking woman, probably in her late forties, with dark brown hair and pale skin. She wore a black coat, adorned with red and gold decorations, the Inquisitorial rosette hanging around her neck. 

“Where is the Primarch?” She demanded of the first Astartes out of the Shadowhawk. “Where is Corvus Corax?”

“Aboard Dark Sister , awaiting our report,” replied Sergeant Cybel, his tones clipped and short. “We have been asked to perform reconnaissance of the situation.”

Inquisitor Maedra was already shaking her head as he spoke. 

“No, no! He needs to be here,” she said. 

She was terrified, exhausted too judging by the dark circles under her eyes. 

“Why?” Asked Cary, stepping out of the Shadowhawk. 

Inquisitor Maedra turned to them, opening her mouth to speak, and then she seemed to realise what she was looking at. Her hand went to her weapon.

“Inquisitor,” Sergeant Cybele stepped in front of her, blocking her from Cary’s view. “The Eighth Legion operative we have with us is inquisitorially sanctioned and Imperially pardoned. There are more pressing matters at hand.” 

A reasonable man, this Sargeant Cybele. Cary had forgotten there were reasonable men left in the galaxy. 

“Very well,” came the Inquisitor’s response, though she sounded unsure. 

“Where are your main areas of concern?” the Sergeant asked. 

“They have taken residence in the underhive and have worked their way up to some of the older basilicas on the lower levels,” she said, turning and beginning to lead them off of the landing pad and down a gothic arcade. “We’ve also had reports of violence, penitents have said they’ve heard fighting and not just between our own forces and the genestealers.” 

The white-robed penitents parted to let them through, and then followed behind them, the soft jingling of the golden chains about their wrists and necks playing on the air. Some of them reached out to brush the tips of their fingers against the ceramite plate. The Raven Guard and Cary followed her into the cooler inner halls and spirals. 

“How have they been allowed to grow so numerous?” Cybele asked. 

The Inquisitor glanced at him, a glint of something approaching anger in her eyes.

“I don’t know,” she said through gritted teeth. 

They marched through the Administorum building until the Inquisitor drew them all into her grand office. 

“I lack other properly secured rooms to discuss such matters,” she said, as they all crammed in. 

It was sparsely decorated, and the floors uncarpeted. A low bookshelf sat under a window, a home-altar set out over the top. Cary eyed the hand painted image of the Emperor, unsure if it truly looked like the man who was now god. 

Inquisitor Maedra sat behind her desk and clasped her hands together. 

“As I stated earlier: I simply do not know where this infestation came from. One day there was nothing unusual about those sectors, then suddenly there are barred doors, choke points, traps and genestealers inside the city. It is simply not possible for an infestation of this size to go unnoticed for so long- there is something else at play here.”

Cary listened to her words, but then looked at her properly. Her clasped hands gave the impression of relaxation, of having a handle on the situation. Sweat beaded at her temples, and her heart beat quick and sharp. Cary pulled the helmet’s auto-senses off of her and opened a private vox with Cybele.

“She’s holding something back, are you pressing?” Cary asked. 

“Negative,” replied the Sergeant. “Let her tie herself in knots.” 

“Acknowledged.” 

The Inquisitor spoke again.

“We have a fairly complete idea of the areas currently held by the cult that I will have transmitted to Dark Sister , but you are of course welcome to make your own investigations. The Cardinal is eager to properly bless Lord Corax, as well as to offer the sorrows of our Lady,” at this she nodded to the only picture in the room.

Cary only vaguely recognised it as a picture of Prosperine. The colour of the skin was far too pale, the features far too angelic. It showed her in flowing white dress- the kind Fulgrim had to bribe her to wear at Imperial functions, a crown of golden laurels about her head. The pattern of the golden techno-sigils on her arms were wrong too, all flowing organic shapes. 

“Did she look like that?” A private vox broke into their helmet, Anastas they thought, recognising the voice. 

“No. She looked like her father,” Cary replied. 

“Our orders are only to scout and report back, the Primarch will decide to attend planetside when he deems it necessary,” Cybele told her. “I would also have you send the information regarding the areas held by the cult to me as well. We will confirm any weak points or unguarded entrances before we begin purging the infestation in earnest.” 

“As you wish,” the Inquisitor replied. 

Not long after that, Cary found themselves falling into formation as the Raven Guard slid through the maintenance corridors and down, down, down into the depths of the hive. The structure of the place was familiar to them, even if the buildings and decor upon it were not. Everywhere there were septs and cathedrals and abbeys- all things Cary had spent a lifetime watching being torn down and burned. Now they clustered every inch of the place, beautiful, haunting, a monument of love for a woman the populace had never known. It was tender, in its own way. 

The squad of Raven Guard dropped into the shadows and vanished. Cary followed, considerably less invisible to the naked eye and hanging back. They activated Preysight, keeping the general shape of the squad in fuzzy outlines in front of them. Occasionally one would hang back, to make sure Cary was still with them. 

Cybele was leading them around the outside of the topmost part of where the infestation lay. The gentle ping of the auspex guiding the squad closer to the sections that were overlaid in orange. When they were about on top of the highlighted area, Cary hung back further. Adjusting Preysight was easy enough, and they ordered it to show their surroundings in greater detail. 

A long, dark rockcrete corridor, prefab Imperial walls- and then a sudden shift. The rockcrete became pitted and strewn with abandoned crates. The prefab walls were now daubed with images of curled, ridged serpents of some kind. Everywhere along that orange zone, there was a divide between what had been there before and the parts corrupted by the cult. Cary traced the fingertips of their gauntlet over the line.

“Something’s not right,” they said, rubbing the trace of grit between their fingers. “It’s the same place, but these walls feel older, more decayed.” 

“Warp corruption,” Anastas agreed. 

The squad pushed forward, down into darkness where the lumens had been broken and the evidence of past violence grew. Piles of crates and pallets had been stacked to create cover, some had been blasted to pieces, strewn fragments of wood and something that cracked and crunched under ceramite boots. There had been a fight here, discarded lasrifles lay where they had been dropped. 

“Bodies,” called Nestal. “Genestealers and cultists.” 

His helmet was angled towards a pile of twisted corpses. They were destroyed beyond recognition but Cary could see some evidence of mutation, extra limbs, raised ridges on skulls. Cary knew the look of damage caused by close range bolter fire, the bodies were ripped apart like ragdolls. But who had destroyed them? A chill hovered at the back of their neck. 

The squad advanced to the end of the corridor, which ended in a small basilica where grey light filtered down from the water-logged lumens that still worked. Cary noticed the two in front- Cybele and Nestal, stopped, blocking Cary’s view. 

Cybele’s helmet turned.

“Kulikov,” he said.

Cary approached, Nestal stepping back to give them his place. They looked at the basilica and realised why he had called them forward. 

Bodies were nailed to the circular walls of the room, arms out like martyrs, skinless faces, opened rib cages so that the organs spilled forth, pooling below them. Cary stepped into the room, examining the floor, the boot marks in the dust, the manner of the cuts put upon the bodies, estimating how long the cultists had been left alive. The bodies weren’t old, the blood was still liquid. 

They turned back to Cybele and nodded.

“Night Lords?” Anastas voxed. 

Cary stood in the middle of the room, extending one arm and making a gun with their hand. They measured the distance between their own hand and the holes that had been left by bolter rounds, turning in a circle, tracing the path. 

“Atramentar,” they said. “Too much damage, they died too quickly. These bodies are five hours old at least.” 

Cary dropped their hand. 

“Alert Lord Corax. We have more problems here than the Inquisitor is letting on.”

Chapter Text

The moment Corax landed planetside it was like the Delegation of Light all over again. The crying, the screaming, the fanatical religious fervour. To Corvus Corax’s great credit, he managed to keep whatever his feelings were off of his face. He brought several more squads, the Victrix guard, Theodanius and Elaius with him, which Cary held their tongue on. Gael would probably kill them if he knew his little brother had been brought down here, but it wasn’t as if he could be kept away from engagement forever.

Once however the crowd had been shooed gently away and Corax had been brought inside the hivecity, there were yet more problems. Cary hadn’t seen a Cardinal before, but they were willing to bet the man who stood in the middle of the corridor was one. His arms were thrown wide, scripture and wire hanging in equal measure from his thin frame. His robes were fine, cream-coloured and embroidered richly in swirling golden techno-sigils, the same from the Inquisitor’s portrait of the Eldest Sister. He wore a mitre, where a real skull sat embedded above his own, two golden thrones clasped in the eye sockets. His pinched, thin face was a mask of ecstasy. 

He was attended by servo skulls and cherubs, which Cary found ghoulish at best and a little too Eighth at worst. The red lumen eyes of the things focused on the group unnervingly. 

“My lord!” He proclaimed, in such a raspy, elated voice that Cary wondered if he was about to pass away on the spot. “A son of the Emperor! His Voice! His fist and gesture! Brother of the Eldest Sister!” 

The titles and names kept coming. Even the Inquisitor seemed impatient- sweat beaded on her forehead again. 

“My lord Deliverer, please accompany me now to the holy cella of our Lady, so you may receive the rites that will cleanse your soul,” he finished.

“How long will the blessing take?” Corax asked. 

“As long as is required in veneration of our Lady,” said the Cardinal.

Upon seeing his face, Cary opened a private vox.

“Tell him that you’re honoured, but that you can only accept their blessing after purging that which infects the city. Play it up, be their demi-god,” they said. 

Corax stepped forward, and took to one knee in front of the priest. 

“Your holiness, I simply cannot accept,” he said. “Not until I had rid Nover of the filth that plagues it so, not until I have completed this task will I allow myself to be venerated by you and the good people of the city. I cannot accept your praise, adoration and pride without first proving myself worthy of it.” 

He relayed their words like an actor on the stage, as grandly as he could. Cary felt a little proud of him. They supposed they shouldn’t still see him as the youngest and newest of the Primarchs still carving out his own path. The man was older than them at this point- hundreds if not thousands of years older, depending on how the warp had meddled with time. 

The Cardinal fell to the floor weeping, proclaiming the humble nature of the God-Emperor’s Nineteenth son. Cary looked at the Inquisitor again, who was hovering somewhat to the side. She seemed no more relaxed for Corax’s presence, despite her repeated requests to have him attend the situation. 

Inquisitor Maedra caught them looking and her face seemed to pale a fraction more. Definitely hiding something. 

From second squad and Cary’s initial scouting a plan had already been formed. Targets had already been identified and assigned, the Raven Guard were already sliding into the shadows to mete out death to the cult. Corax was more interested in how the infestation had gotten so bad, and the evidence of the Eighth’s presence. 

It was no time at all until Cary stood once more in the basilica, with the bodies. 

“And you’re sure?” Corax looked at them. 

Cary nodded. 

“The tearing is more indicative of a chainglaive than a chainsword. The depth and shape of the wounds is all wrong for a chainsword. Blast marks are from a heavy bolter, footprints are terminator patterns. I followed behind Jago long enough to know what they look like,” they replied. “There are Atramentar here.” 

“Why?” The Primarch asked.

“I have no idea,” Cary said. “I don’t know what’s here that they could truly want- they’re all scavengers now, it’s not out of the question they’re looking for slaves or possible neophytes I suppose. But then why come here during the day? To infiltrate and attack a genestealer cult? I doubt they have any love for them, but to go out of their way to cut them down?” Cary kissed their teeth as they sucked in a breath. 

“Doesn’t make any damn sense,” they concluded. “They’re here for something specific, what that is I can’t fathom.” 

At the back of the basilica lay a darkened doorway, where two wooden doors had once stood. Of course the doors were long gone, buried in a barricade that had then been destroyed by heavy fire. But it left the gaping mouth leading deeper into the hive open, like the jaws of some awful beast. If Cary listened, distantly they could hear the sound of echoing gunfire, distant battle. 

“These parts of the hive, the parts where the genestealers are, they’re different. Older, but not…”

Corax nodded as they spoke. 

“I understand,” he said, reaching out and grazing his hand along an unmarked section of the wall. “It feels out of time. There is some element of chaos to it.” 

“From the Night Lords then,” suggested Sicarius. 

Cary shook their head.

“No. Not their style.”

“ Their style, is it now?” The red lenses of Sicarius’ helmet rested on them. 

Cary elected not to rise to the barb. 

“Captain Kulikov is right,” said Theodanius. “Night Lords rarely accept the taint of chaos.”

“We should push forward,” they said. 

“Any advice?” Elaius asked them. “For facing the Atramentar.”

“Don’t get seen,” Cary replied. 

They moved in formation through the darkened hive, Cary lurked with Elaius and Theodanius, the two who were not used to the shadows. An equal spread of the Victrix guard and Raven Guard flanked the Primarch, which made the space around them cramped. The halls were wide, rockcrete chiselled into reliefs and alcoves where offerings to three-armed gods had been left. 

“It’s Tzeentchian, no doubt,” Corax said, opening a vox with them. 

“Seems like it, doesn’t it? You have a better chance of knowing than me.” Cary glanced at Corax’s back. “I had passing impressions of the Changer of Fate and only a brief tête-à-tête with one of Magnus’ sorcerer sons.”

“We know titles, do we?” 

“Picked them up in the tower, your brother sent me in on as little information as possible.” 

“What was it like in there?” He asked. 

“I imagine there are worse places in the warp to be, but perhaps not by much. I saw a statue of Fulgrim, wandered around a big library and talked to a bird- I saw Lucius, that was… Sobering,” Cary settled on. “Do you miss them? Your brothers?”

A second of silence.

“All of them,” he said, quietly. 

“ All of them, Corax?” The shade murmured. 

“Do you miss yours?” The Raven Lord asked.

“Every day. Maybe not Skraivok. But most of them I miss.”

“Even Curze?”

“Especially Curze. I’ve known him for too long not to, Corvus,” they replied. “Konrad Curze was quite literally my entire life from the tender age of fourteen. I’d imagine those who came with you from Deliverance felt the same way about you. Probably with less worry though, I doubt they ever had to pull things out of your mouth that you wouldn’t let go of.” 

“I suspect Ephrenia wouldn’t have been pleased,” he mused. 

The vox cut short as Cybele’s voice overran the channels. 

“Movement up ahead, permission to advance and remove?” 

“Granted,” Corax replied. “We’ll hold this position.”

The Raven Guard separated from the group seamlessly, sliding into the dark with barely a whisper. Cary looked to Elaius and Theodanius.

“How’s this looking for a genestealer cult, Theo?” Cary asked. 

If he took offence at the shortening of his given name, he didn’t give it away. 

“Unusual,” the Dark Angel said. “It’s like they’re all hiding away from something.”

“The Atramentar,” Elaius suggested. 

“Most likely, from the Inquisitor’s story it seemed that the cult appeared here two months ago, and then not a week ago suddenly began shutting itself away. How long do your brothers enjoy drawing things out?” Theodanius’ knightly helm turned to Cary. 

“Too long,” said Cary. 

His helm turned away from them, down the corridor where Corax and the Victrix guard were supposed to be standing.

“Where have they gone?” said Theodanius.

Cary turned, the dark hall of industrial rockcrete was empty, not even Preysight throwing up any fuzzy outlines or shapes that would have indicated their presence. They looked to the vox channels- all were dead.

“I can’t raise them on vox,” they began, turning back to the Dark Angel and the Ultramarine.

But the pair had vanished. With a noise like thunder, cracks ran across the rockcrete floor, bone-deep tremors that seemed to run up the inside of the entire hive like a shivering giant. 

Then the floor simply collapsed from under them, dropping them down and down and down into the dark. They went for the chain, to fire upwards, but a chunk of rockcrete caught their chest and arm, cracking on the ceramite as Cary landed on their back. It drew a short yell of pain from them, but they rolled, pushing the rock fragments off of themselves. They weren’t even standing when the armoured boot connected with their chestplate, sending them flying backwards again to smack against the far wall. Cary caught a glimpse of blue, of gold. 

A giant fucking crest atop two glowing eyes.       

“I am Khepri Apophis, Wytchlord, Master of the Seven Sigils of Ahriman, son of Magnus the Red ,” boomed the sorcerer. 

“ Oh for the love of the Emperor,” Cary wheezed.

“And I have sworn vengeance,” he continued, as if they hadn’t spoken. “I swore I would not stop until you were dust beneath my heel, that I would find you wherever you are. I am here to end you, Cary Kulikov .” 

He said it like he wished they had a better name. Cary dragged themselves up the wall. Looking around to see if anyone had fallen with them. But they saw no one. In fact, all they could see was darkness, as far as the eye could see. 

“How the hell did you even get here?” Cary asked, borderline incredulous 

“I cast you in eternal fear, I expose the heart of darkness, I crack the shadows of your mind open and bare,” Khepri’s voice echoed around them, seeming to come from all directions. 

The reverberation of it made them unsteady, light-headed. Cary blinked, and saw red. An ocean of blood stretching out in the darkness, only lit by the hole from where they had fallen. Their vision smeared, Cary blinked, trying to clear their eyes of whatever it was. 

Somewhere in between those blinks, the bodies began to come to the surface. Limp, dead bodies. Bodies torn open. Bodies that lay whole. Bodies they recognised. Bodies they didn’t. A young, oval shaped face, brown skinned with short black hair, a hooked nose, a single gunshot wound to her chest.

Their hand hurt. They looked down, their ungauntleted fist was closed tightly around the crowbar. Cary looked at their hand- their unscarred hand half buried in the sleeve of their QPC jacket. Their body was small again, half-starved again, aching again. 

“Please,” soft, pleading Nostraman. 

Cary looked down again. They couldn’t remember their father’s face. The figure lying there had no face, only a shadowed impression of one, like a painting where all the detail becomes unclear the closer you get. He was sprawled, looking up at them, bleeding from where they had struck him, bleeding from his ankles. 

“It’s not real.” 

“I know,” they said, absently. 

A cold sensation clamped around their hand, and Cary dropped the crowbar. They felt outside of their own body, watching their own actions with disinterest. It was almost so much to process that they simply couldn’t, like when Mercy had been buried in their torso. 

“You can’t end me by showing me the beginning,” they said, loudly. “You can’t burn me with the fires that forged me, idiot .” 

The word sounded harsher in Nostraman. 

Pain lanced through their chest, once again they were raised off of their feet, looking into those almost completely black eyes. It was Curze, but how he’d been towards the end, the limbs far too elongated, the teeth sharp and black, the ribs jutting out and the vertebrae of the spine pushing against the skin like fingers. They could smell rotted meat on his breath. He stared at them with complete and utter hatred, nothing less than complete malice. 

They were impaled on his claws- not lightning claws but thick, black talons that burst from the end of his fingers. He was half hunched over like an animal, naked as he’d often been aside from a cloak of something that might have been feathers draped around his angular shoulders. Occasionally he twitched and spasmed. 

“You looked bad at the end, bossman,” they said. 

The thing-that-wasn’t-Curze snarled, hurling them across the room. Their back hit solid rockcrete and their helmet exploded with noise. Several vox channels opened at the same time, several voices all at once. Cary blinked, closing the channels on instinct- they were not alone. Someone had opened fire on the Curze-thing, lighting up the chamber with bolterfire, Cary could make out the winged crests of Theodanius’ helmet.

They looked up at who was coming towards them. Elaius, who hauled them to their feet, patted at their chestplate only to find no damage or injury. There was only a trace of phantom pain.

“Where were you?” Cary asked, confused.

“We were always here,” he said. “We’ve been here the whole time.” 

Cary could only stare at him, before dropping a length of the chain and lurching forward. They snapped the chain forward, a motion they’d done a hundred, thousand times before. Cary yelled to get his attention, then watched as the adamantine curled around his neck. 

What they did next was something Cary had only practised in the sim. They pressed their thumb against their palm and pulled. The blades snapped outwards, dragging across his throat, through skin and tendon and bone. 

The head of the thing-that-wasn’t-quite-Curze came clean off, spiralling like a black star before bouncing off of the rockcrete floor. The body collapsed soon afterwards, sprawled like a giant white insect. It bubbled and crumpled and rotted and melted away until all that was left was a husk of saponified pale flesh and blackened bone.

“I’m still here.” 

A chill draped itself over their shoulders, possibly the most comforting thing they had felt in a long, long time. 

They kicked at the blackened remains of the dead thing’s head, which rolled away from them shedding great clumps of brittle black hair. 

“A poor imitation,” they said, to the room at large. “Try harder, Apophis.” 

They looked around the new chamber that the Thousand Sons sorcerer had so kindly dropped them in. Some kind of vaulted sept, long since abandoned but still covered with traces of genestealer taint- paint splattered up the walls, desecrated statues. 

“Where is Corax?” Cary said. 

Their eyes caught on the vox icon, pulsing away in the corner of their helmet. Cary sighed, then allowed the noise to flood their helmet once more.

“- kov! ” The last syllable of their surname came as a shout. 

They swore at him on instinct, but quickly recovered. 

“Corax- where are you? You vanished along with the Victrix.”

“We’re in another section of the complex, further down I think,” he stopped mid-sentence, in the background of the vox Cary heard something inhuman scream, and the crackle of bolterfire. “We’re encountering pockets of genestealers currently, no further signs of Atramentar here.”

“Orders?” 

“I suppose it would be too much to ask you to stay where you are, we’re working our way back up to link up at the foot of the aqueduct.”

“Acknowledged.” 

“Is everything-?” 

Cary killed the vox. Theodanius caught their shoulder, held it firm. 

“He is long dead,” said the Dark Angel. 

They nodded.

“I know.” 

“Your father cannot hurt you any longer.”

Cary flinched out of his grasp. 

“I thought I told you-”

“Not Curze. The man on the floor.”

Cary looked at him. They couldn’t read his face of course, as it was hidden behind his knightly helmet. His tone was a different story- it reminded them of Grike. It reminded them of Saul. Cary turned away.

“We should continue to the aqueduct,” they said.

Chapter Text

They travelled in silence for the most part. Neither Elaius or Theodanius were conversation makers and Cary wasn’t in the mood to talk. They moved in a rough triangle formation, the Dark Angel and the Ultramarine flanking Cary at the point. Occasionally Cary would gestured for them to stop and hang back while they scouted ahead. 

Their skin crawled here, in these uninhabited places where the alien had taken up home. Cary wanted to dive into the shadows, to lurk and be unseen. But with the other two behind them, they were forced to be out in the open. Elaius and Theodanius did not have the kind of training they had, they were not from Legions who prided themselves on stealth. Their Legions were proud, used to being seen by the Imperium as heroes. 

Cary had never once been a hero. 

They grimaced, shaking their head to rid themselves of these thoughts. There had been quite enough melodramatics for their taste. Cary had just been about to open their mouth, make some witty aside or comment to brush away the last cobwebs of their melancholy-

An icon flashed on their visor, so innately familiar to them that at first Cary barely registered it. Then they looked again. 

A single lightning bolt contained within a coffin- not a vox notification but a message on channels so old Cary wasn’t sure if they were even used anymore. They opened it with a flick of their eyes, and Nostraman runes scrolled their way across the screen. 

CAPTAIN KULIKOV. ATTEND UPON ECHO OF DAMNATION. YOUR PATH WILL BE CLEARED. TREAT WITH US. 

The message slid away, but left behind an auspex ping not far off. Cary once again gestured for Elaius and Theodanius to remain behind. They crouched low this time, sinking into darkness, quieting the servos of their armour down to a whisper. 

The hall fed into three corridors, the auspex ping coming from the left hand room. Cary stole into the room wreathed in shadow, the cold sensation covering them like a cloak. Another vaulted chamber, another ruined nave. A grand statue of the Eldest Sister stood against stained glass windows, cracked and broken to reveal the dead lumens that would have illuminated the colour down in this part of the hive. Cary moved around the edge of the room, around broken pews all the way up to the transept before they laid eyes upon anything unusual. 

A vox channel opened. 

“Kulikov.” The voice that spoke was unfamiliar to them, but carried the Nostraman accent and hollow tones the Legion had been known for. 

“Show yourself,” said the vox. 

The cold retreated from their shoulders and neck. From behind the statue, from the chancel, came the quiet noise of silenced servos. The Atramentar that stepped from the dark were as Cary remembered them, imposing figures that moved slowly, carefully. As if every step was calculated. Their armour followed the same heraldry as all Night Lords, midnight blue, crossed with wire filaments that lit up light lightning bolts, the crimson-winged skull, the ghoulish accoutrements of the dead adorning every spare inch. On their right shoulder their pauldrons bore the face of a lion. Nostraman lions had been hunted to extinction even before Cary had been born, but it had remained Nostramo’s heraldry until the end. There were three of them, moving whisper quiet across the floor. 

Cary watched them as they came out of the dark, into the dim pale light cast by gaps in the ceiling. 

“Remove your helmet,” a different voice broke into the vox channel. 

They released the catch, and pulled the helmet off of their head. Cary wasn’t sure what they were expecting, if this was a death sentence for abandoning the Legion or following Imperial commands or if this was merely born out of whatever loyalty they still had within the Legion. 

They weren’t expecting the Atramentar at the centre of the formation to step forward, reach out and touch their face with the fingertips of his gauntlet. He brushed the three scars that crossed their face, the ones Konrad had left what seemed like a lifetime ago. Now that he stood closer, Cary tried to pick out any marks, anything familiar about the man. They weren’t sure if they had ever known the Astartes that stood before them. 

He stepped back and indicated they should replace their helmet. 

“We had to be certain,” he said. 

“Who among you still lives? From before?” Cary asked. “What are your names?” 

“Gahann Rushik,” said the first. “Truicidor.” 

“Ruul,” said the one to his left.

“Kellatesh Laal,” said the one to his right- the one who had ordered them to remove their helmet. 

Cary knew none of them. 

“The number of our surviving veterans is slim,” said Rushik. “We would have you come to the Echo of Damnation so that you might see the book of the dead, and administer forgiveness to the Primarch’s bones.” 

“I can’t come with you,” Cary said. 

“We know. A path will be arranged for you. The Legion wishes to know that you live, that is all,” he said. 

Cary nodded. 

“I won’t have anyone killed over this,” they said, gently. “The Imperial Astartes are to remain unharmed.” They found themselves stressing the words again, in the same patterns they thought they’d left behind. 

He retrieved something from the pouch at his waist, held it out and dropped it into Cary’s open hand. A datachip, marked by a silver skull. 

“Our vox codes,” he explained. “For whatever purpose. There will be no death, and there will be an excuse for your absence.” 

The Atramentar began retreating into the darkness, Cary slipped the datachip into one of their own pouches before going back the way they had come. They investigated the other two avenues briefly, before returning to their companions. The centre pathway smelled of still water and damp- likely the aqueduct was close by. 

“All clear,” they said, waving them forward.

“I should hope so,” said an amused voice, behind and above them. 

Cary turned in an instant, and punched Corvus Corax in what would have been his diaphragm, had there not been several inches of ceramite plating in the way. It didn’t even rock him on his feet, instead the force reverberated back down Cary’s arm. They made a noise of dismay, and stepped back shaking their stinging hand.

“I told you I was going to end up doing that if you snuck up on me,” Cary hissed, pointing an accusing finger towards the Primarch’s face. 

“I was a little worried you were going to get me with the claws, to be perfectly honest,” he joked. 

“I still might.” 

“Is that a threat, Repentant?” The faceplate of Captain Sicarius’ helmet appeared around the side of the Primarch’s arm. 

The Captain’s weapons were streaked with blood and a purple-black substance. 

“It’s called humour, Sicarius, had you any I would find you infinitely more tolerable,” Cary shot back, before they could stop themselves. 

Khepri’s little trick and the appearance of the Atramentar had left them wrung out of patience. Thankfully Corax spoke before any further insults could be traded. 

“I think we have our answer regarding the appearance of the infestation, I happened to glimpse the sorcerer before we were ripped away- friend of yours?”

He looked down at Cary, eyebrow raised. Unhelmeted, they could see something in his expression, something that didn’t quite match his tone. A little bit of the coolness they had seen before, back in the warp. When Cary hesitated in answering, it faded as if it had never been there. 

“His name’s Khepri Apophis, Wytchlord, Master of the something something of Ahriman, I don’t recognise the name from before, which means nothing of course. Plenty of people I don’t know,” Cary replied, evenly. 

“It doesn’t ring a bell for me, I’ll admit,” said Corax. “What did you do to draw his ire?”

“I threw a grenade at him.”

“That’ll do it, yes. They’re all as proud as their father,” the Raven Lord made a face as he spoke. 

The Victrix and Raven Guard fanned out around him, a few slipping into the side rooms. Cary hoped the Atramentar had been able to make their exits before the Raven Guard swept the place. 

“Have you found any further traces of the Night Lords?” Corax asked. 

“Nothing that wouldn’t have been destroyed by the collapse,” Cary lied. 

Lying to Primarchs was generally accepted as a bad idea, if not an impossible task. They could hear your heartbeats, see the micro expressions of your face, smell the stress that came with it. However Cary had been lying since they’d been able to speak, lying to Primarchs wasn’t anything new to them. 

“You come from a Legion of prophets who kept you in a box for ten thousand years, like a relic yet you won’t consider the possibility they came for you? Predicted where you were?” 

They hesitated, wondering if once again they had fallen into that trap of underestimating Corax, that they had gotten too comfortable with his easy manner. But looking up at his face, he seemed sincere instead of accusatory. 

“It’s possible, with a good enough psyker, strong enough to focus in. Maybe if they had Curze’s old orb.” Cary shrugged. 

“In any case, we’ve lost the trail,” said Cybele. “Orders, my lord?” 

“Link up with the rest of the force, see how many pockets of the damn things are left and then I suppose sit in a chapel for Father knows how long,” he grimaced as he mentioned the blessing he had yet to receive. 

Thus they moved, Cary only half listened to the vox calls, to the orders. They let their body take over, performing the movements and following orders. Their mind was elsewhere, gnawing on worry. It was a well-worn feeling that nestled into their bones, down eroded channels like rivers carving through a mountain. Cary worried about their boys- their boys . An open secret in the Legion really, a feeling they knew was true yet would never have been spoken by any Night Lord. 

The Eighth were loyal to Curze through fear and genetic coding- both of which had failed on many accounts. The Eighth had been loyal to Cary for the bonds they had spent time forging. 

They worried about the Atramentar being discovered, they worried that the Night Lords would get bored, start pulling people apart like animals without stimulus. Cary worried that they would have to put down their own. They weren’t sure if they could. Cary could fight them, disarm them, knock them unconscious if truly necessary. But kill them? Kill them, when Cary might have soothed them in the neophyte halls? Kill them, when Cary might have wiped away their tears? Taught them the very weapons the Night Lords cherished? For all the torment the Night Lords caused, for all the pain and bloodshed, could they bring themselves to kill their boys?

It was an agony they could not face. Worse still if it came to those Cary had not met, had not been there for. The young, the stolen children taken to fill the ranks after the end of it all.

Cary’s melancholies came to a sudden and violent end, when as the group had found their way up to a higher section of the hive and were just about to collect another squad- the wall exploded. 

A mass of screaming, shrieking bodies piled forward. Men and women who looked human enough, and then those who bore the heavier mutations of the genestealer. Cary recognised the ridged foreheads and extra limbs- like the flayed open bodies nailed to the walls.

The genestealers came forward in an ununified wave of fear, and the hall erupted into chaos.   

Cary threw themselves backwards as another explosion sounded to their left. A stone pillar crashed between them and the group, throwing up great clouds of dust. Then the vox channels went dead- a hazy filter of static over the icons. Someone had thrown up a signal jammer. It promptly faded from Cary’s visor, replaced instead by more familiar Nostraman codes and runes. 

“Captain Kulikov, attend us for teleportation,” a vox crackled- Rushik again. 

A single red point flashed up on their visor, not far back. Cary turned and ran. 

“What is the plan for extraction?” They barked down the vox.

“We will be teleporting to the Echo of Damnation, shielded in orbit, attend to the dead and then return to a suitable point. We have forced the cult upwards from the underhive as a distraction,” Rushik replied. 

Cary gritted their teeth. They wouldn’t be able to look Corax in the eye if any of the Raven Guard died. They rounded the corner at a sprint, the outline of terminator armour just about visible. The terrible, ice-in-the-spine feeling of being close to teleportation. Rushik’s gauntlet reached for their own, and Cary blinked and gasped inside their helmet. The snap of teleportation was uncomfortable at best and painful at worst, not only for the memories it brought. 

They went from the dusty darkness of a decrepit hive, to the cool dark of a flight deck. 

Even in the dimness they could see hundreds of Night Lords, hundreds of red eyes in the dark. The figures in the darkness shifted among themselves- Cary stood taller than most of them now. They reached up and removed their helmet, watching as through the dark the crowd parted. 

Two Night Lords approached. One Cary recognised for himself- even though he now walked on all fours, and his armour had been warped and changed in that unmistakable way of chaos. The thrusters on his back moved as if they were folded bat wings, sloping with the movement of his shoulders. Blood-red tears fell over the cheeks of his helmet, the face of a beast, his hands and feet twisted into talon and claw. Cary knew him even through all of it. 

“Lucoryphus,” Cary said, smiling despite themselves.  

“Captain,” his body jerked and twisted when he spoke, and his voice was like the rasp of a beast. 

The second Night Lord Cary recognised in parts. The studded helm, the skull, the lightning-bolt tears, the ceremonial crests, the twin-linked boltgun, the cloak of flayed skin. Two runes adorned his helm- Soul Hunter . A sword hung at his waist, not of the Eighth. It was golden, a fat red teardrop marking its crossguard- this Cary did not recognise, other than for its obvious Blood Angel heritage. The aquila on the Night Lord’s chest was broken, purposefully so. 

He reached up, and removed the helmet which bore the marks of so many Cary had loved. His face was like many others Cary had seen before, the pale skin, the eyes turned dark by geneseed rather than Nostraman heritage- obvious for the coloured irises that remained. He had a familiar bearing to him, geneseed could only pass on so much of course, but they’d heard of certain traits passed from dead brother to neophyte before. 

Without much thought, they stepped forward, reached out and cupped his cheek with one hand. He froze completely still at the contact. 

“You look like him,” Cary told the Night Lord. “I’m sorry.”

They dropped their hand. 

“I am Decimus, Prophet of the Eighth,” the Night Lord said. 

In easier times, they might have made some joke about how the whole Legion was practically made of prophets in one way or another. Instead they simply nodded.

“I am here at your request to see the book of the dead, and the bones,” Cary replied. “I cannot come with you further than that.” 

“I know,” said Decimus. “Come.” 

Cary followed the young prophet through the crowd, who parted with barely a whisper of servos. Occasionally, some of them would reach out, if only to graze their hands against Cary’s armour. As if proving to themselves Cary was actually there. Cary reached back, offering the smallest comfort they could as they walked. 

The halls were as bad as they expected. Barely any serfs walked there, bloody trophies leered from the walls, rotting. The place was black with old blood, crunching in large flakes under Cary’s boots. Ruby red lenses glimmered from every shadow, watching their progress through the ship.

Like many Legions, the Eighth maintained halls of relic. Cary supposed for a long time that they had been one of the Legion’s relics. The book of the dead was largely informal, something that had come from Cary’s hands. They had wanted to remember the names, even if they couldn’t remember the faces. 

The room was large, vaulted. Plenty of red eyes lingered here too. The book of the dead lay open on a lectern, the parchment there fresh. When Cary examined the book, they could see that there had been several additions, more paper added to the beleaguered spine. At least they hoped it was paper. The book had been rebound in human leather to their dismay, but they kept it to themselves.

Instead Cary went back through the book, gently turning huge chapters back and back and back until they found their own cramped hand, penned a myriad before. Then they started forward. Thousands of names. Thousands of deaths. They traced their fingers over where ink had become blood, traced names of those they would have called their own and those they did not recognise. Cary wasn’t sure how long they stood there, only that towards the end their fingers hovered over a few names. Uzas. Xarl. Cyrion. Malcharion. Talos Valcoran- the name they knew they would find. Cary could look no more. 

They turned back to where Decimus stood, with Lucoryphus at his side. Red eyes glimmered from the dark once more, from all sides. Silent observers. 

“The broken children of Terra and Nostramo,” Cary said, their voice was quiet but carried as if it was a shout. “Truly, Night’s Children. We were born in the darkness and had no love for the light. We have drowned ourselves in blood, my poor boys. My poor, poor boys. Body upon body- and for what? What does the Legion stand for now? You kill for nothing, you die for nothing. What special quality has terror brought you? We served the dream of a sick man born to a cruel world, and we continue to pay the price. When will it be enough?” 

None in the hall answered. 

“Show me the bones of Konrad Curze,” Cary said. 

The bones were stored off the side of the hall, in a smaller room, behind an unlocked iron door. Cary understood why. In the centre of the room sat a dark plinth, the only thing upon it the oversized skull of the Primarch. No adornments, no veneration. No offerings of slain foes, no skins- nothing. Simply a quiet, dark room behind an unlocked door. It was likely what he would have preferred. 

They knew he was dead. They had seen him die. His soul was wrapped around their own like a shroud. So why did it hurt so much to see that large skull sitting on its plinth? Why did it ache when the light caught the pale bones, rendering them almost silver? Cary stepped forward, lifted the skull. 

It was the first time they had held him in ten thousand years. Cary leaned forward, pressed the frontal bone to their own forehead, collapsing onto their knees. Cold pressed against the back of their neck. 

“I’m so sorry,” they found themselves saying, again. 

Their tears flowed shamelessly, pooling in Konnacht’s empty eye sockets. The bone absorbed it greedily, and their cheek stuck where they had laid it. Cary gathered themselves together, stood, and replaced the skull upon the plinth. 

The tooth they had wiggled free passed seamlessly into one of the pouches at their waist. Cary turned back to Decimus, who was the only one who lingered in the doorway. The rest of the Night Lords waited outside. 

Cary stepped out. 

“Who lives?” They asked again. 

“Me,” chittered Lucoryphus. 

He sat like an animal, like a dog. Cary found themselves smiling despite it all, reached out and laid a hand on the gap between pauldron and gourget. It was more for their own comfort than his

“Yes, you do. Who else?” 

“First Captain Zso Sahaal, Axemaster Krieg Acerbus, Gendor Skraivok,” Lucoryphus counted them off on his talons as he spoke.

Cary’s face twisted. 

“My brothers lie dead yet Skraivok lives. What a cruel fucking joke.”

“He has risen from Count to Prince, in service of the dark powers,” he said, before a shriek-like laugh shuddered and spasmed through him. 

Cary held onto him until he stopped shaking, then patted the cheek of his helmet before dropping their hand. Lucoryphus caught their forearm in his talons, not violently or with any force. His faceplate was angled towards the casing of the lightning claws. Mercy and Forgiveness were sheathed, though the points of the blades still protruded outwards.

“The originals?” He asked, sounding almost lucid. 

“The very same. So Sahaal’s in charge now?” Cary asked. 

A dry, bitter laugh echoed around the hall of relics. 

“I expected as much. No Curze, no Sevatar. Shang wouldn’t, and didn’t, stand a chance- yet another thing I’ll have Skraivok’s head for. We are broken,” Cary said. 

“No you, either,” croaked the Raptor. 

“I wouldn’t have been able to keep you together,” they replied, kindly. 

“You wouldn’t have needed to,” said another voice, from the crowd. 

“We would have followed you,” said another. 

For a long moment they were silenced by this, unable to reply, only to sweep their eyes across the gathered sons, the gathered brothers. 

“Sahaal is currently in possession of the Corona Nox,” Decimus said. 

Cary turned to him, their confusion at the information must have shown plainly on their face, because he continued. 

“Our symbol of office, of leadership.”

“I have no intention of claiming it, or any other of his relics. I didn’t even claim these, they were foisted upon me,” Cary raised the forearm that held Forgiveness. “They can squabble over a chunk of metal and a few stones as much as they like.” 

They looked back across the hall. 

“I need to return to Hagiogra,” they said. 

“I would be a fool if I didn’t ask you to stay,” said Decimus. 

Cary stepped towards him again, held his face in their hands and kissed his forehead. 

“I can’t,” they said, quietly. “I can’t do it again. I’m sorry.” 

He took their hands away from his face, but hesitated before he let them drop. 

“I hope we were able to afford you some closure,” Decimus said. 

The crowd had parted to let the three Atramentar through again. The teleportation homers in their chainglaives would be what returned them to Hagiogra. 

Cary took a breath. 

“I have one final decree,” they said. 

If there had been silence before- it was like being in a vacuum now. No sound at all, not even the whine of servos. 

“As one of the few remaining Captains of the Kyroptera, I declare a blood hunt on the name of Gendor Skraivok. I name him daemon, Legion-poisoner, murderer and traitor to his brothers. As issuer of the sentence I request either that you bring me his head or bring me some way to kill him. Tell the Painted Count that: Only in death will there be forgiveness for you, old friend.” 

Cary replaced their helmet. It was without much more ceremony that the teleportation took place. A single Atramentar remained, there as a beacon to guide Cary back to the planet. 

It was different this time, he did not wear his helmet. Cary looked at his face and stopped dead. His face was broad, with a hooked nose and brown skin. One of his eyes was replaced by an augmetic- his left eye, his black hair was curly. The face was stretched by time and Astartes augment, but Cary would have known him blind. 

“Grisha?” Their voice cracked. 

The Atramentar looked at them as if he was looking through them. Then a flash of pale blue light, the snap of air rushing into the void and he was gone.

Chapter Text

Corax had been right. The blessing did take hours. It took so long in fact that Cary had time to discreetly check on the Raven Guard’s numbers. 

They were suitably impressed to find that there had been no casualties and only a few major injuries, which had promptly been shuttled back to Dark Sister . It had been a relief, a distraction. 

Cary kept seeing the face, kept trying to remember what he had looked like when they left Nostramo. Their shared skin tone- their mother’s skin tone, it had been unusual on Nostramo. Cary shared the same features as the lone Atramentar, he had the missing eye. 

When could it have happened? It had to have been so soon after they left- possibly even with the second or third generation of Nostramans to join the Night Lords. Before they were established enough to look after the neophytes. Had Curze known? Had Sevatar? How long had Grisha been an Atramentar? Had he been there at the siege of Terra? 

Had their brother become a monster? The guilt clawed Cary up on the inside like an animal. They wanted to collapse to their knees again, to scream, to strike out at anyone and anything that came close. Cary remained still, silent. 

Their absence had barely been noticed. Every party seemed to have assumed that Cary had been with someone else, somewhere else. They were not questioned upon their return. Cary stood once more among Elaius and Theodanius, and remained quiet. 

Occasionally Theodanius’ helmet tilted to look at them, likely thinking they were reflecting upon Khepri’s illusions. How to explain that it was another family member entirely that vexed them? 

Their eyes dragged over to where the Inquisitor stood. Maedra seemed a completely different woman now, calm, collected. She watched the blessing with hungry eyes, no doubt thinking about how this would pass into the mouths of the ecclesiarchy and be repeated as nothing less than pure gospel. 

The Cardinal spoke grand words regarding a woman he’d never met. She was openly venerated now, as the soul of Terra given human form. As human as the nine-foot-tall Primarch first-draft could have been. That was uncharitable. In many ways, she had been far more human than anyone. Far too naive, far too knowledgeable. Like Curze in many respects. But his sister had been raised, by many hands- including the Emperor’s, and even then there had always been something a little strange about her. Prosperine had never baulked at violence or blood or bodies. She had once shown Cary how she could name all the exposed bones of an older trophy they had been meaning to get rid of before her arrival. 

“Why would the dead scare me?” She had asked. “I’ve made so many violent things. Meat laid bare is nothing I haven’t seen before.” 

By the time it was all over, by the time the celebrations had been had, by the time they were back in a Shadowhawk and by the time Cary was back on Dark Sister ’s flight deck, they felt half dead. Their body had been designed to take so much pain, so much violence. Yet what of their mind? What of their hearts? They wanted to rest. They wanted to stop being . To float in an endless void of cool darkness. 

Cary shook themselves. Longing didn’t help. They opened a vox with Corax, who had stepped off in front of them.  

“Do you need me for anything or can I go lie face down somewhere?” They asked. 

“I’d like to debrief you on the Echo first,” he said, coolly. “Would you mind disarming yourself and then taking yourself very calmly to my office?” 

Cary didn’t reply- they didn’t think they could. It felt like ice had encased them. Their body moved on whatever muscle memory they had left, once again they fell prey to the disassociation. The feeling that they were watching themselves over their own shoulder. Cary wished Curze would say something. Make his presence known. But the shade appeared to be slumbering, wherever he went when he wasn’t haunting them.

They walked like a servitor to the disarming chambers. Cary didn’t bother to try and retrieve their jacket from their quarters first, only taking a spare robe before going to Corax’s offices. They did however remove the pouch that contained the datachip and the tooth, sliding it into a pocket of the robes- Raven Guard robes were different from the Eighth’s. Raven Guard robes resembled an oversized hooded jacket, with loops and fasteners. Night Lord robes had been little more than a sheet with a hole cut into it for the head, lying draped over the body. They padded their way along the corridor quietly, Night Lords had never had the invisible talent of the Nineteenth, but Cary was more than aware of how to avoid people. 

It was a blissfully cold room, spartan in both furnishing and decoration. A lot of what the Raven Guard had was like that, bare, unpainted metal. They preferred it over what had passed for decor in their home Legion. 

Corax’s desk was oddly clear of papers or anything Cary would have expected to be on there, like a cogitator. Or books. Guilliman’s desk had been piled with the things. Then again, the Raven Lord spent most of his time at the command deck. He probably didn’t visit here often. 

Curze had spent long hours in his offices and chambers. It was the place to reliably find him if he wasn’t on the command deck. He’d usually be hunched over papers, scratching away. Or writing in the Dark. Cary had never read it, never wanted to. 

There were a few chairs in the room, all Astartes-sized. Cary dragged one in front of the desk and collapsed in it. A long window ran the length of the room to their right, separated into sections by arched frames. Hagiogra sat there as a yellow and green and blue marble, flanked by two moons. They watched it hang there in the void, wondering where the Echo of Damnation was hiding itself among the stars. Would Corax let them get away? Were there already orders to take Dark Sister and the Spear of Demeter to kill them?

They blinked, and Corax was pulling back the chair behind the desk. He had also removed his armour, standing now similarly to themselves in a loose robe. He sat, clasped his hands together on the desk, and looked at them. 

“Are you going to kill me?” Cary asked. 

“No.” 

Cary looked to the window again. 

“How did you follow me?” They asked. 

“I intended to make my presence known to you at the chapel by the aqueduct and followed you. As Primarchs, we have certain privileges when it comes to unnoticeable vox channels.”

“You were listening in,” Cary said. 

“Yes,” he said.

They couldn’t look at his face, only the watery reflection in the window. 

“I wanted to see them,” Cary found themselves saying, the words falling out with no real direction. “I wanted to know who was dead, who I had to mourn. Do you wonder? What happened to those you left when you went into the warp? Have you tried to find out yet? Guilliman has, I’ve seen some of his books, some of the records. He has sons he has no idea what happened to, and no way of knowing. Sorry. I don’t mean to be unkind.” 

They paused, swallowed hard.

“You never went to Nostramo. You were too young. You never saw it. Never lived it. Don’t get me wrong, prison moon sounds bad. Sounds like a real shitter of a situation and you have my sympathy. But people loved you, Corax. People fed you. Clothed you. Taught you. Curze ate rats and dogs in the street, ate his kills because he was programmed too strongly to even think of stealing food.”

Cary turned to face him. 

“When we got to Terra I did a lot of research on feral children. Most kids- human kids, baseline kids, that grow up without anyone to care for them, without socialisation- they usually never learn to speak or have any interest in humanity. They have to be taken care of for their whole lives. Primarchs are different, hardier, stronger, apparently . Curze learned the lessons Nostramo taught him armed with what little knowledge your father shoved in his head. He understood justice, he understood the concepts of things that were right and wrong, but he ended up in the wrong place. 

“By the time I got to him the damage was done. Fate’s die was cast. I don’t even think he knew how to use a spoon the first time I fed him. Is it any wonder that he resented the sons foisted upon him? He was barely a man and he needed help. Instead we were sent to do the bloody work no one else could do. The bloody work we were admonished for, but I bet I could say his hands were drenched in less blood than yours.”

There was a flicker around Corax’s eyes. A brief drawing together of the eyebrows. 

“And you don’t even know the worst part,” Cary continued. “No one knows, aside from me- Damn his eyes! You don’t even know that when he left Nostramo, when the greedy, silver-sucking bastards realised they had nothing to fear anymore- they poured their criminals, their murderers, their rapists into our ranks. That was the last thing I did as a Night Lord, true and proper. As a Captain of the Kyroptera I went to Nostramo and I saw what they were doing to us. I knew we needed help. I knew anything done internally would end up as butchery. I was going to ask for help. I was going to ask you for help.” 

He opened his mouth to speak, but Cary cut him off. 

“They fed a sick dog bad meat and were surprised when it turned rabid, when it turned upon their clutching hands. Sin upon sin, body upon body. Skraivok’s personal army inside the Legion- a cancer upon all of us. I know what happened to him, Corax. I know that he turned to Fulgrim in fear, seeking some kind of comfort from that which haunted him, and that compassionate Rogal Dorn confronted him. As if it was his fault, what he saw. As if he had any level of control over his visions. You called him a monster, but you- his brothers, you’re the ones who left him in the dark. Who left us to die.” 

“You think his actions are excusable because he was infirm?” Corax asked, curtly. 

“None of our actions are excusable,” Cary retorted. “The Imperium stands on a trillion graves, and for what? For this? For vile zealotry? For the same prejudices we’ve been carrying for ten thousand years?”

“I am beginning to question your loyalty, Kulikov,” said Corax. 

“I was loyal, truly loyal, in the beginning. Loyal to your father’s dream, which lies decaying all around us. I am loyal to what your brother sees, his vision of what the Imperium could become. I am loyal to those who call on me as a brother. I am not loyal to terror. I am not loyal to bloody violence. I have no loyalty for chaos, which has warped so many of those whom I love and have loved. I have only disgust for those of my Legion who are currently squabbling over the possessions of a man long dead. I want you to tell me something honestly, Corvus.” 

He frowned at the use of his first name, but nodded. 

“If your sons had been declared Excommunicate Traitoris , could you truly turn your back on them? All of them? If they had called for you, like scared children in the dark?”

Silence filled the room like water. The vacuum-quiet of Corax’s aura spilled unbidden, as if he was a gap between stars. They had been born in darkness, in the absence of light. Corax was a pillar of nothing less than pure void, rage and awe. It wasn’t the terror they were used to. Not the terror of blood and pain, the sharp, crimson teeth in the night. The twisted acts of the people Cary loved. No. This was death, plain and simple. The unwavering reaper, the inevitable end of all. What were they in the face of this? A broken body, a half-formed thing. A mutant, a monster, a traitor, a killer. 

They felt their head dipping forward, inclining like a knight to a liege.

“I always knew you’d see through me, eventually,” Cary said. “That you’d see what I really was. I am a Night Lord. I will always be a Night Lord. My sins are indelible. Thank God it’s you, in the end.” 

Cary closed their eyes and waited for death, the unbidden prayers of Nostraman septs rolling half remembered from their tongue. They had waited to die so long that it felt like greeting an old friend. They remembered what Konrad had said: we will go together into the dark. Cary liked that idea, wanted it to be true so badly it felt like hunger. 

Their eyes stung again, could they not have been spared that final indignity of not crying in front of him? Sweet mother , what if he thought it was some kind of ploy to elicit sympathy? The shame crawled up inside their throat like bile. 

Then the room was cool again, humming with the background noise of a battle barge. When they opened their eyes, they found everything was tinted a little red. Cary touched their face, the fingertips of the body glove coming away crimson. 

Their head was tilted back, and they could just about make out Corax’s face through the blood. He poured water into their eyes- some saline solution retrieved from a medi-kit. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to- I didn’t want to,” 

“It’s okay,” Cary said, reaching out and patting his forearm. “You can’t help it, I know.” 

The saline that poured from their face soaked the collar and shoulders of the robes. Cary was only thankful that they seemed to have avoided seizing and prophesying. Or worse, that Curze could have taken charge of their body and revealed yet another lie to Corax. 

“Your robe is- you can have mine,” Corax said, stiltedly. 

Cary was about to refuse, when they drowned in fabric. They dug through their pocket for the pouch before taking off the sodden robe. 

“I’d like to see the datachip,” Corax said, gently. 

They hesitated again, but opened the pouch, tipped its contents into their palm. Cary handed him the datachip, though his face was still angled towards their hand. 

“Is that a tooth?” He asked. 

“Yes.”

“... Who’s tooth is that?” 

Cary looked at him. 

“I think you know.” 

Corax gave them a look. 

“In your father’s name, I can’t believe I’m being judged for this. Konrad walked around with a whole damn mortuary stapled to his armour and I’m getting mean-mugged by Corvus Corax for stealing a tooth ,” Cary lamented. 

They stood, and attempted to drag on the Primarch’s oversized robe. If only for the reason that the chill of Corax’s deathly aura had put that deep-rooted bone cold in their hands and legs again. Like when Konrad had taken on Lucius. The robe hung off of them loosely and fell to the middle of their calves, but still. 

Corax had taken the datachip back to his desk, where from a drawer he produced a dataslate. He slotted the datachip in and stared at the screen. 

“I’ve come across an issue,” he said.

Cary frowned at him. 

“I never learned to read Nostraman,” he admitted. 

“Are you shitting me,” Cary said, flatly. 

“It will take me a few minutes to properly work out and translate,” Primarchs, thought Cary, with a little derision. “However I happen to be sitting in front of a literal Nostraman.”

He turned the dataslate towards them, and Cary scooted the chair forward. 

“And now you ask me to sell out my own?” Cary raised an eyebrow as they scanned the screen, absorbing the codes they hadn’t yet had time to even look upon. 

“I’m asking you to trust me that I won’t,” Corax said. “I’m trusting you to tell me what it says.”

Cary glanced up. They’d be lying if they said they weren’t fond of him. 

“They’re personal vox codes, comms codes for a couple of ships. The Echo ’s are on there, along with a couple others. It’s all communication related, basically. I think that there might be the Atramentar’s teleportation frequency. That’s an emergency beacon signal,” Cary continued, pointing to various strands of codes and symbols. 

“They want you to be in touch with them?” Corax wondered aloud. 

“I don’t think they’re expecting me to spy for them, if that’s what you’re thinking. I think they just… Want me to call them if I need them,” Cary managed. 

“They don’t trust the company you’re in now?” Corax put on a tone of mock offence. 

They allowed themselves to laugh, even if only briefly. 

“I won’t keep you much longer, there’s only one more thing I wanted to ask about,” he continued. 

Cary looked at him. 

“Grisha,” he said. 

They folded like wet paper, leaning on the desk, running a hand through their hair. 

“My brother. My little brother,” they said. “I- I didn’t know he had been taken. I thought he died, he was always so sick. I have to believe they didn’t know- Curze and Sevatar. Didn’t know he was taken.” 

A few seconds of quiet.

“Cary, I am so sorry,” Corax said, eventually. 

“Can I go?” They asked. “Today has been a trial.”

“Yes, Theodanius mentioned something about the sorcerer,” Corax started, but Cary shook their head, already standing. 

“I’m haunted by enough ghosts as it is, and I’d rather not wake them,” Cary replied. 

Corax looked as if he was about to say more, but nodded. 

“Go rest,” he ordered. 

Cary did not complain, and went.

Chapter Text

“The fact my brother can continue to disappoint and enrage me even after my death astounds me,” said the shade. “I would call it masterful, a work of genius. Had he not been such a complete and utter disgrace to both himself and what he was intended for, I would almost have to compliment him for it.”

Cary sighed. Dark Sister had translated to the warp scant minutes ago, and they were lying on their cot with a damp hand towel over their face. The nausea had hit them hard this time, for whatever reason. Old aches and pains worming their way through their joints, not that the pain ever truly left them. Only that on certain days the pain was stronger than other days. Konrad had at least placed one of his ghostly hands over their eyes, the cold sensation helping a little. 

“Did you know?” They asked him. 

“Regarding your brother? No, I swear it. Had I known, I would have had the Administorum adept who approved his recruitment skinned and salted. Your family was on a protected list, I made sure of it.” 

There was a quiet beep. The prelector by the door blinking into life and noise. 

“Captain, your presence is required on the command deck,” Cybele’s voice was a lance of pain. 

“Acknowledged,” Cary replied. 

They sat up, letting the shade’s hand and the damp towel fall. 

“You should not be moving.”

Cary waved him off. 

“I’ll be fine, I’ve done harder things in worse condition.” 

They attended the arming chambers before making their way to the command deck, never having felt comfortable being the only one in robes while others wore armour. The shade had hidden himself, wherever he hid when wishing to remain unseen. Upon entering the command deck, they found a scattered group of the Victrix guard, and varying high ranked Raven Guard, loosely gathered around the command throne.

Corax glanced at them briefly. Cary had not spoken to him much since their departure from Hagiogra, the guilt had kept them away. They felt perhaps not unreasonably, that they had disappointed him. 

“Lord Corax,” they said, evenly. 

“Captain,” he replied. “I have a task for you.” 

“Oh?” 

“You’ve created simulations before, I was wondering if you might create a few more,” he said, looking at the dataslate in his hand, and not at them. 

“I have simulations I haven’t thought to share with the network, they are more Eighth inclined but can be modified.”

He nodded. 

“Then that will be your duty during this stretch of the warp,” said Corax. “Dismissed.” 

Cary tried not to take much offence. They were Astartes, not even of this Legion. It was old shame and hurt that chased around their stomach. They could not be friends with a Primarch, no one could. The shame chastised them for ever thinking anything of the sort, they were not even important enough to be hurt by this. They had done wrong. He had provided them with the mercy of not immediately executing them for desertion and communicating with traitors. All in all: this was the best they could hope for, and they had no right to be hurt by it. 

At the control room of the sim hall, they plugged in their datachip- their personal storage for sim information. At the top was their game, sitting under the designation Quintus. It was, of course, Kulikov’s Game on other systems. But that had never been their name for it. 

A few others came after it. Variations on the Quintus sim (warfare during orbital bombardment, Ork invasion, etc), a few ones that were actually games with little training value, a duelling sim (they realised with a jolt they still owed Lucius for his dataset) and of course Silence. 

Their hands hovered over the controls, before selecting Silence and opening the sim parameters. It had only ever been a training exercise for Cary, for the Silence protocol. The sim contained a shifting maze with many targets. The idea was to eliminate as many targets as they could as quickly possible in the time provided. Shifting corridors were meant to simulate an unknown environment, a test of blind stealth. 

Cary engaged with the settings of the sim, reformatting and rebuilding it before setting it free into the Raven Guard’s sim hall memory. They did the same to a few more, editing, de-Eighthing the sims they’d created for wider Imperial use. 

By the end of the hour, they had produced four simulations, built from their old files. The games they uploaded unedited, if Corax had a problem with it he could sort it out himself. It did not take long for this to be noticed. 

The first Astartes to awkwardly shuffle their way into the control room were Kiex and Nael- the two younger marines from the sparring cages. Cary had learned they were brothers- twin brothers. They both wore their hair shaved at the sides, and had similarly shaped faces, square and open. 

“Are you running a sim?” Kiex asked. 

“Making new ones, Lord Corax asked it of me- would you mind testing it?” Cary looked to them. 

The twins grinned. 

Silence had initially been created to run with one marine at a time (Cary), though with their updates it could now run with several. Cary had explained the premise to the twins, that engaging in combat with each other was not a planned part of the sim (though upon seeing their faces they wondered if they should have added those elements). 

The twins seemed to have fun anyway, Cary watched them both through the viewing window and various internal cameras inside the hall. In some ways, it was easier to edit the thing while running it, changing the parameters live. 

They created upgrades, just fun little things that could be used against others or to help the player themselves. Like stabilising the corridors for a certain period of time, or making the targets visible for a number of seconds. While not exactly combat, the twins seemed delighted that they could throw things at each other to stick the other in place- or blind him for a number of seconds. 

It did not take long for more to join. By that point, Cary was satisfied with the extras and changes they’d added (for now), and was more in charge of overseeing the Raven Guard who entered. 

The presence of Captain Cato Sicarius, Master of the Watch, Knight Champion of Macragge, Grand Duke of Talassar and High Suzerain of Ultramar surprised them. 

“Captain Sicarius,” they greeted him. 

His helmet was tucked under his arm, and he glanced at them once before giving a stiff nod. 

“Captain Kulikov,” he replied. 

Cary kept their amusement to themselves. He must have been in a good mood if he was using their name and rank. They followed the path of his eyes to the list of games. 

“I’ll clear a section for the duelling sim,” Cary said, hands already on the controls. 

It was with little effort that the hall could be persuaded to run two sims at once- as long as they weren’t full scale. They wouldn’t have run Quintus and Silence at the same time. Though that did give them another idea that they tucked away in a corner of their brain. 

They cleared a corner of the hall, towards the other door that led into the sim hall and gestured for the Captain to go through. Cary patched a vox through to his helmet as he placed it on his head. 

“As far as briefing goes, the duellist contains the dataset of several of the greatest swordsmen of my time. Give me a signal when you are ready.” 

The duellist was represented by an Astartes in completely silver armour. No heraldry, no other weapons than a power sword. 

“How many times have you won against it?” Sicarius asked. 

Cary glanced at the data. 

“I had a win rate of twenty-three percent in about four hundred and sixty-seven matches, Lucius had a win rate of seventy-five percent out of,” they paused, briefly chuckling at the number. “Three thousand, eight hundred and thirty seven matches.” 

“You should have practised more,” Sicarius chided them. 

Cary laughed. 

“You should see my success in the Curze sim,” they said. “Ready?”

“Ready.” 

Cary activated the duellist. It was a sight to see- from both of them. They knew the movements of the silver swordsman well enough, they’d overseen enough matches to know when an opponent was out of their depth. 

Cato was not one of these cases. In fact, seeing him now, Cary was rather glad he hadn’t challenged them again. He lost his first match, that was to be expected. The duellist struck forward, pushing the simulated blade through Sicarius’ chest. He grunted in surprise, stepped back and took a few breaths. 

“Again,” he commanded. 

They kept their attention going back and forth between the two sims, switching to automated functions for the duellist but occasionally watching Cato fight. It was a little fascinating to watch his percentage creep upwards, to watch him learn the patterns- he’d probably absorbed most of the dance without even thinking about it. 

By the end, he had won thirty matches out of forty. An impressive number for his first session with the duellist. He exited the sim, removing his helmet as he did, and Cary stepped aside to let him examine his own dataset. 

“With your permission of course, I could absorb your patterns into the duellist. Don’t worry, the idea isn’t to create an unbeatable opponent- it has difficulty settings. I thought you’d appreciate it if I let you go against the higher end of it first rather than asking,” Cary said. 

He turned to them, brows furrowed but not with any annoyance or anger. 

“You are not in good humour,” Sicarius said. 

This surprised Cary, but they did their best to not show it. Instead flashing a quick smile and raising a hand with their palm facing down. Mild tremors shook the gauntlet slightly. 

“I have pains from old wounds, some days they grow stronger than others.” 

They expected a rebuke, some comment regarding weakness. Instead he nodded, stiffly. Sicarius tapped at his ceramite chest plate. 

“I took a Necron Warscythe to the chest,” he said, awkwardly. 

“Ah, Necrons. Another enemy I am unfamiliar with except through sim and Lord Guilliman’s information. Still, I know enough to say that it’s fortunate you are still with us.” They kept their words guarded, careful. 

Sicarius coughed. 

“I believe I owe you an apology,” he said. 

“There’s no need,” Cary began. 

“There is,” he interrupted them. “I struck you in anger and have insulted you for the actions of others, actions you yourself are guiltless of. I offer my apologies, and can only ask you to forgive my loutishness.” 

“Consider yourself forgiven, Captain. I have no use for grudges- well. Except one, but that’s nothing to do with yourself,” they laughed a little at the end, a tired sound even to their ears. 

Cary looked to him again. 

“Captain, what kind of sim appeals best to yourself and your brother Ultramarines? I have been working with my old sims, retooling them for the Raven Guard, but it occurs to me that yourself, the Victrix and the Spear of Demeter might require something different,” they said, gesturing to the controls. 

“Strategic simulation,” Sicarius replied, without hesitation. 

“Oh, control points and the like? I can do something with that, when I have something solid would you mind returning here and running it for me? I’ve found live edits to be the best way to achieve the desired result.” 

The Captain nodded, and held out his hand. Cary shook it without hesitation. 

“Have you thought about running Silence? Or is it not your game?” They asked, reaching over to the controls to once again expand the sim into the gap they had cleared for Sicarius. 

“It is not a simulation I am used to,” he admitted. “I am curious regarding its initial inspiration, however. I was led to believe the Night Lords did not kill quickly.” 

There was no malice or reprimand in his voice, he was simply curious. Cary’s mouth twisted.

“Silence is a personal sim,” they said. “Occasionally, Curze could be persuaded to let me go in first, to take out as many targets as quickly as I could. It was still death, but it was a far quicker one than my brothers would have given. You have to understand Captain, it was half a mercy in itself.” 

Sicarius nodded again, looking at the viewing window and the various screens watching the Raven Guard moving through the shifting maze.

“I find myself beginning to understand why Lord Guilliman trusts you so,” he said. 

“I’m beginning to understand why you have so many titles,” Cary replied, slyly. “The first time I set the duellist against Lucius he lost the first two matches and claimed I was making it deliberately impossible to beat.”

That raised a chuckle from him. 

“No enemy is impossible to beat,” he said. 

“You wouldn’t say that if you ever duelled Fulgrim.”

“Did you?” Sicarius asked, looking at them. 

“A handful of times, on Terra, during Konnac- Curze’s tutoring,” they coughed a little, clearing their throat. “Never once got close, never expected to.” 

“Is his dataset included in the duellist?” 

Cary shook their head. 

“No, none of them are. Not that I imagine they wouldn’t have been willing, certain ones would probably have jumped at the chance. Seemed unfair to put them in- have you ever seen pict-recordings of them fighting?” 

“No,” Sicarius replied. 

“Try and track one down if you can, sobering stuff. It’s almost not real,” they reached out, adjusted the sim. “How does he keep finding exploits? I swear this is the fifth one.” 

“Was that the purpose of the Curze sim you mentioned?” 

Their hands slipped on the controls. Cary swore under their breath, then quickly fixed the error their jolt had made.

Cary rested the heels of their hands against the edge of the control panel.

“I suppose it’s no secret now of his infirmity,” Cary said. “Even before my planet burned, he was often ill-tempered and prone to fits. Sometimes I simply could not reach him, could not get through to him other than beating him senseless. It shames me now that I couldn’t find a better way, a kinder way. But you do not need to hear of my regrets.”

“Do you still have it?” Sicarius asked.

“You want to see how you’d fare?” Cary looked to him, half smiling. 

“I’d like to gain some understanding.”

Cary didn’t bother asking what of, but eyed the walkway to the other sim halls. 

“You’ll need more room than you had with the duellist, take the secondary sim hall, I’ll control it from here.” 

Sicarius departed down the walkway, Cary opened a few pict-screens to the smaller secondary hall, tapping at a few controls to ready the sim. They opened the vox array inside the hall. 

“Curze’s specialty was close quarters combat, the sim is trained on his dataset recovered from my own battle data. This is as close to fighting the real man as you can get. I have also taken the liberty of removing the pain simulators,” they said.

“Pain simulators?” Sicarius echoed.

“I considered it a motivator. Ready?”

“Ready.”

Chapter Text

“Orks,” Theodanius said, fingers threaded together, elbows resting on the table. 

Sicarius nodded. Dark Sister’s translation from realspace had once again led them into the path of another problem- a Waaagh! Corax’s entourage were closing in on the Kiavahr system, but like any long journey they had to stop for refuelling and supplies. It was also the agreed meeting point for the Sanguinary Guard. Cary could only hope that they weren’t currently doing a grand final stand on the planet’s surface. 

It was only a small system of four planets- Remeny was the main world, mining world of grey rock and scrubland. Of course, most of it was currently being torn up by the jagged battlewagons and other hodge-podge war machines of the Greenskins. The other planets of the system had mostly avoided the path of the Waaagh! luckily enough. The Ork fleet numbered only a few crude vessels, easy enough for Dark Sister and the Spear to take care of. But the Orks on the planet’s surface were the true problem. 

They had taken many of the major settlements, and had surrounded the promethium rigs- the promethium rigs the ships were supposed to be refuelling from. 

Cary glanced around the war room table. The Victrix, Sicarius and Elaius were examining the reports on dataslate and hololith, likely already planning and strategizing. They could only imagine similar things were taking place on the Spear, there were several comms channels open between the two ships already. The Raven Guard were coordinating themselves too, to do what they did best, sneak around. 

Theodanius was wedged in next to them, occasionally reaching out to adjust a route or drop point, offering his own advice. Cary was not saying anything. They hadn’t been asked to. Melancholy still sat thickly in their chest, much to Cary’s own annoyance. It had always annoyed them, shouldn’t they be able to shrug it off by now? 

They grimaced to themselves, and continued to examine the planet’s defences. Remeny maintained a planetary defence militia, and had received a little aid from a passing Imperial Army regiment- the Shrine Gunners. Though little seemed to remain of them, the regiment hadn’t exactly been at full strength even before the Orks got to Remeny. 

The pockets of resistance that remained though seemed to be holding their own for now, but they wouldn’t hold forever. The others seemed positively thrilled at getting to take on an enemy such as the Orks, they were of course wired to do so. 

Corax sat at the head of the war table. He watched the hololith with shadowed eyes, occasionally giving a command and communicating with the Spear. He didn’t look as if he’d slept well, that was worrying. But it wasn’t their place to say, especially now. 

A message scrolled across their dataslate. 

Thoughts? - C

Cary glanced at it, then again up the table. Corax held his dataslate loosely in one hand, not facing them, talking to Sicarius at his side. 

You’ve got three companies of Raven Guard, the same of Ultramarines. Should be easy enough to get rid of the Orks. Seems small for a waaagh! though. 

They thought that would be the end of it. 

I thought the same. This is a smaller arm of the larger force. SG have already been in contact with the main fleet.  

Cary grimaced. 

I suppose it’s too much to ask them not to do a last stand, but if we could get them to bait the orks here we might be able to ambush them. 

Out of the corner of their eye, they saw him check his dataslate. His shoulders quirked with what might have been a short laugh. 

I’ll relay at least half of that to them. You’re with 2nd squad, Victrix and me heading planetside.

They wondered uncharitably if it was so that multiple eyes could be kept on them. The datachip containing the communication codes for the Eighth had not been returned to them, which stung a little, even though they knew it shouldn’t. 

You take me to all the best places.

I can only promise that Kiavahr is nicer.

A smile twitched at the corner of their mouth.

You’re not even promising Deliverance is nice. 

I can’t lie to you. 

He’d only meant it as a joke, they told themselves. Lying came too easily to Cary to stop, they were at their core: a lie. They shook their head, flipped over the dataslate. Maybe powering their way through a bunch of Orks would make them feel better. Likely not, but at least it would be something else to focus on. 

-

There were very few landing areas that were safe for them. Coordinating with the Ultramarines from the Spear was also no mean feat, ensuring that everyone got to the correct place even more so. They came to the planet’s rocky surface under a hail of shootah fire- regimes came and went but it seemed Orks remained the same. 

They watched the Ultramarines land in groups, drop pods that flanked the worst of the attacking forces. The Raven Guard came in with flanking manoeuvres, coming over ridges and spreading panic through the ranks.  

Cary was among them, flanked once more by Theodanius and Elaius. The Night Lord and the Dark Angel weren’t exactly babying the Ultramarine, but they were certainly keeping an eye on him. Cary had heard he’d done well back on Hagiogra, but still, he’d never faced Orks before. 

They were following Corax, second squad and the Victrix- with Corax and second squad going first so that the rest of them didn’t ruin the surprise. Still, it wasn’t long until Cary had allowed the claws to drop from their casing, wasn’t long at all until the first Ork lay dead at their feet. 

Mindless slaughter on both sides, that’s all it really was. Only keeping Elaius vaguely in their peripheral vision kept Cary focussed. Night Lords didn’t often battle like this, and when they did Cary’s job had always been keeping track of Konrad. Cary’s job had always been Konrad, full stop. 

During battles though he often lost himself, once they had found him standing completely still in the thick of it all, staring at nothing. Elaius thankfully did not do anything of the sort. He was perfectly competent and followed combat doctrine to the letter, which he also quickly learned couldn’t be applied to every situation. 

This was because an Ork threw a Gretchin at him. It was unarmed, but still locked its little limbs around Elaius’ helmeted head, effectively blinding him- he hadn’t had enough time to lower his bolter and go for his chainsword. Cary heard some distinctly un-aristocratic words over the vox, but elected not to comment. 

Instead they gave the Ork the courtesy of Forgiveness to the back of the neck, the blades poking out through the Greenskin’s mouth. Theodanius had gone to Elaius in the meantime, and had gutted the thing clutching his head with his combat knife. Cary politely pretended nothing had happened, and other than a short word of thanks to Theodanius nothing more was said on the matter. 

They watched him become looser and more reactive- taking the situation as it was rather than stilted following whatever he’d memorised from the Codex. Cary felt a surge of pride and affection for him. Ultramarines had in recent years taken the Codex as nothing less than pure gospel, something Guilliman himself had been trying to combat. 

Speaking of combat, the Ultramarines and Raven Guard were closing in on each other, crushing the Orks into smaller and smaller groups. Divide and conquer, separate and slay. It was probably hours they were at it. Cary didn’t exactly know how long, only that great clouds of dust and smoke had been thrown up around the mining facility and the battleground. 

Once the smoke had cleared, and the Greenskins lay dead, they faced raucous cheers from the barricades. Grime-streaked faces in mismatched, damaged armour. Cary took a second to survey the damage. Many of the buildings were shells of themselves, several parts they had assumed were rocky outcroppings were in fact the last remnants of rockcrete outbuildings. 

Under a sea of lurid green, there was the occasional trace of combat fatigues. They stooped to pick up a shattered piece of flak armour, an icon still painted on it. A winged skull before two crossed lasguns, the Shrine Gunners. Checking the barricade again, Cary noted the absence of any Guardsmen, and the absence of any PDF uniform among the dead.

They relayed this observation to Corax, who was watching the PDF open their makeshift gate. He nodded. Groups of troopers were coming out to greet them all in waves, shielding their eyes against the dust and the light. The troopers were calling them ‘Angels’. Cary could barely process it, their mind still filtering battle information. There was something else at the edge of their perception, something that their brain would not let go of. 

Crying.

They looked in the direction of it and saw an awkward triangle of sheet metal buried under rubble. Cary went over, lifted it and sent chunks of rockcrete tumbling. Underneath was a shivering grey lump. A guardsman- well, a girl. The Imperial Guard seemed to have much the same mind as the QPC when it came to recruiting. She had short peach-coloured hair, now greyed with dust and wore a greatcoat two sizes too big over her flak armour.

Some of the PDF troopers came forward, pulled her out of the rubble. But then they quickly dropped their hands, backing off as if they’d been stung. One spat on the floor in front of the girl as she was struggling to her feet. 

“Witch,” he said.

“Fuck me,” said another. “Coin made it? Out of all of them, fucking Coin made it?” 

She held onto her lasgun like a child clutching a beloved toy, eyes downcast. There were two streaks of pale flesh where her tears had cut through the grime. 

“Nah, fuck this,” the trooper said, and raised his laspistol. 

The girl- Coin, looked upwards and whimpered, brown eyes wide and terrified. It was like they were watching in slow motion, the battle adrenaline still coursing through their veins. 

“Oh shut up Coin, you probably saw this coming,” he joked. “It’s the best for everyone.” 

And so Cary stepped forward. The shot from the laspistol pinged off of their armour as if it were nothing more than a thrown piece of gravel, and buried itself in the ground. The PDF trooper looked up into the eyes of their helmet in fear, absolute complete and utter terror. He hadn’t seen them properly, not through the dust and the smoke. He saw them now, midnight clad. 

“Think about your next words carefully,” Cary said. “Very carefully.” 

The laspistol slipped from his hands, and he fell over in a dead faint. Cary, not being an asshole, did not let him crack his head open on the ground. They caught him with one hand and laid him down on his back, looking to the rest of his unit. None of them seemed as eager as they had been before to execute “the witch” under the eyes of the Night Lord.  

“Dismissed,” commanded Corax, coming through the dust and smoke like death itself. 

At the order of one of the Emperor’s own sons, the troopers blanched. They gingerly dodged forward to take up their slowly recovering fellow and retreated back like hell itself was at their heels, but the girl they’d called Coin remained behind Cary. They supposed she didn’t have anywhere else to go, not with her regiment destroyed to a man. Or girl, as was the case.

Cary took off their helmet, squinting against the light but still trying to look friendly, kneeling to be on a level with her. Her eyes had that hollowed-out look Cary had seen many times before in the eyes of the Imperial Army, usually in the eyes of thirty year veterans. 

“You okay?” They asked. “My name’s Cary, you’re Coin?” 

Coin nodded. 

“I told them,” she said, miserably. “I told them we just needed to wait because you’d be coming. They said I was making it up and now they’re dead.” 

Definitely a psyker then, likely joined up to avoid the black ships, or had only just escaped their notice. In any case, she was unsanctioned and untrained. They looked up as Corax’s shadow passed over them. 

“She’s the last,” Cary said. 

Corax nodded.

“Can you take charge of her?” He asked. 

“Yes,” they replied, without needing to think twice. “Any word from the Sanguinary?” 

“They should break orbit in around three hours, bringing the rest of the Greenskins with them. In the meantime, we’ve got the wonderful job of getting the defence lasers back online,” he said. 

Cary stood.

“What took them offline?” They asked. 

“Orks,” Coin piped up, helpfully. “They sent in the little ones first.”

“I don’t suppose it’s too much to hope someone’s left a tech-priest lying around,” Cary said. 

“No, but I’ve seen them do the rites.” Coin took hold of one of the fingers of Cary’s gauntlet, and started forward. “Come on.”

They cast a look at Corax, who seemed suitably amused by the sight of them being led by the hand. Theodanius and Elaius were already following them, along with a decent chunk of second squad. 

The defence lasers sat on fat, black-iron platforms, the rounded bulk of the observatorium the most distinguishing feature. They sat in a loose ring along the ridge that surrounded the main mining facility. It was even before they started climbing the ridge that Cary simply picked Coin up and carried her in the crook of one arm- she was beginning to flag. The legs of the Astartes were much longer than her own. Coin didn’t seem to mind this, and had in fact been rather happily humming to herself. She still cradled her lasgun in her arms like a doll, which concerned Cary, but at least she had a weapon. 

From the ridge they had a good view of the surrounding area, the scrubland, the rocks, the mining facility and of course, the volcano. It was a good few hundred miles away, but sat fat and squat, smoking like a chimney. Around it, also smoking, were the various small worker habs and mining villages. From the occasional pin prick flash of light, Cary could guess that there were still some small pockets of battle. The pattern of flashing registered as bolter fire somewhere in the mess of their partially conditioned brain. 

“They’ll win, don’t worry,” Coin said. 

“I’m not worried,” Cary smiled down at the girl, intending to be reassuring.

Coin looked up at them, frowning.

“That’s a lie, you’re always worried. You look people in the eyes when you lie,” she replied. 

They didn’t know what to say to that. 

Breaching the defence laser was an easy enough task. Once the Orks had been satisfied the thing was disabled, they had simply left it. Not bothering to even start deconstructing it for their own savage devices. 

Which was strange. Another oddity. Cary found themselves looking to Corax, wondering if he thought the same thing. 

“He does,” Coin whispered. “I think he does? The inside of his brain is weird.” 

Cary had never seen Corax’s head whip round so fast.

“Y’know, Coin, I think we’re going to have to put a ‘stay out of people’s heads’ caveat. If you can control that,” Cary said, gently letting her down to the ground. 

“Okay!” 

The door had been blocked by a hastily erected barricade, the Orks clearly wanting to get onto the good bit of killing and looting rather than these more strategic elements. It was easy enough to pull down and once it had been Corax turned to second squad.

“Cybele, split your men among the remaining lasers and check their damages. We’ll deal with this one and then link up once it’s back online. Sicarius, take the Victrix and do the same.” 

The Sergeant and Captain nodded, turning and separating with their various Astartes. Coin was already making her way inside the defence laser, with Cary close behind. They had barely made it inside before the kid started tunnelling her way into the walls, coming out with huge cables that had obviously been slashed. 

“These need to get reconnected,” she said, pulling the ends of the cables onto her lap. “The generatoris clusters are powered down so I can touch it, see?”

Cary couldn’t smell any ozone, couldn’t see any electrical current or hear the static thrum of power- yet their hearts still skipped a beat to see Coin put her bare hand on the brassy metal of the wiring. The girl started braiding it as if it were hair, singing what almost sounded like a song, a series of high and low notes. 

Elaius opened a private vox. 

“What is she doing?” He asked. 

“I’m praying to the machine spirit,” she said, as if that should have been obvious. “It only works if you sing the song the priests sing. I’ve come up here lots, I remember it really well. They used to let me join in.” 

Then she continued. 

“Elaius, Theodanius, sweep the rest of the laser in case any Orkoids remain,” Corax ordered. “Cary, stay here with Coin.”

Cary opened their mouth to make a joke about how they’d never leave a child behind, then thought better of it. It was likely that being ordered to stay with the kid was because they wouldn’t leave her behind. Instead they nodded. Elaius and Theodanius made for the various crenulated balconies and storage spaces, while Corax himself simply became as nothing.

Coin looked up at them.

“You can help me braid the wires, if you want?” She said. 

Cary sat down, quickly bending and weaving the wires into shape. They knew no Mechanicum prayers for the machine spirits but hoped that the old Nostraman ones, fudged and changed, would do. 

“And so hail to the Machine Spirit, I pray the silver flows as blood. I pray that the mercy of the eternal tomb lies open for me, in all things. That you may grant us that blessing of your fire power, so that I do not die here to awful, awful Orks,” their words got a bit far off the mark towards the end, losing the thread of where the prayer ended. 

“What was that language?” Coin asked. 

“Nostraman, my first language.”

“I thought your accent was funny. I heard it in a dream once, I think,” she said, eyes darting quickly over the wires. “I still remember what it said.” 

“Oh? Maybe I can translate it for you then,” they said. 

“Okay, it’s like Th-The land that shall recei-ve thee dying, in the same I shall die and there I will be bur-ied. The Lord do so and so to me and add more also, if au-ght but death part me and thee.” 

The world simply stopped. The dissociation was as if a bomb had gone off in their face, and they were left blinded and deaf. Cary felt as if they were waking up to themselves. Their hands had stopped, and felt so cold. Something was tilting their head up- their visor was blinking at them, analysing the face in front of them. Large, worried brown eyes. 

“-no no no, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, please don’t be mad,” Coin’s voice, panicked. 

That was a tone they recognised, the voice of the scared child. 

“Jeanie,” they said. 

“What?” 

“Sorry, sorry, no- no I’m not angry, it’s alright,” they said, lightly taking the kid’s hands away from their helmet. “You’re not in trouble, it’s okay.” 

Coin reluctantly let go of their hands, and went back to the wires. 

“You recognised it then,” she said. 

Not a question, a statement.

“Yes. It’s an old prayer from Nostramo, my planet.”

“It makes you sad,” Coin whispered. “I can’t turn that one off, sorry.”

“It’s a prayer for the dead,” Cary replied, flexing their fingers to try and get some feeling back in them. 

“Will you tell me what it is in Gothic?” 

They gave the rough translation. 

“Have you said it before then?” She asked. 

“More than enough times.”

“I don’t like it when I dream about the prayer, the person saying it sounds all… wheezy and wrong.” 

Cary let their hands do the thinking, just trying to curl the last few wires around each other. 

“That makes you sad too, I’m sorry.” 

“No, no, Coin it’s not your fault,” Cary looked up again. “I said those words to… a friend, a long time ago.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry you lost them,” she said. 

Coin got to her feet, brushing her coat off as she went. Cary stood, moving the exposed metal of the wires away, back into the gap in the wall it had come from. Hopefully the rubber of the other wires would insulate it. 

Cary opened a vox channel with Corax.

“We’ve got the wires connected, everything clear up there?” 

“Yes,” came Corax’s reply. “But I’m afraid I’m going to be the bearer of bad news.” 

“Oh?”

“Their ship’s navigator was a few calculations off. The Sanguinary Guard are here, and they’ve brought the bastards with them.” 

Chapter Text

By the time Cary had come out of the defence laser, Coin following close behind, their auto-senses could pick out the trace outline of voidships. The defence laser’s machine spirit had come back online with an eagerness Cary might have been tempted to call hungry. Indeed, the main turret itself was whirring back into life, already craning upwards like a long necked bird, trained on the skies 

Coin clambered onto the nearby rocks, peering at the ring of turrets, shielding her eyes from the sun. 

“They’ve got four more back and running,” she called over her shoulder. 

Cary looked to the skies again, trying to get the auto-senses to pick out the shapes of Dark Sister and the Spear , trying to spot where the Blood Angels were- or where the Orks were. The battle barges should be able to set up a decent enough trap for the Ork fleet, the lasers would hopefully get any that slipped through. Then if anything made it to the planet’s surface, it would be their job to deal with it. 

“What's betting their strike cruiser has the words ‘blood’, ‘sanguine’ or some word meaning red in its name?” They commented to Theodanius, who had just emerged from the laser. 

“Or ‘tear’, ‘angel’ or ‘Baal’,” he added. 

“Are you shoehorning our beloved Ninth?” Corax appeared too, emerging from thin air. “Because you missed ‘wings’, ‘fury’ and ‘vengeance’.” 

Cary just about managed not to startle. They even managed not to swear this time. 

“It’s the Bloody Angel of Baal’s Fury, ” said Elaius, over the vox. 

Cary laughed. 

“Oh like you can talk, half the Night Lords fleet had ‘blood’ or ‘night’ in it,” Corax said. 

“I’ve found if you combine the names of Raven Guard and Blood Angel ships you get something that probably has flayed skin hanging off of it,” Cary replied. 

The group had little time to ponder this amusing fact, as the thunderous sound of ships breaking the atmosphere. Some were coming in of their own accord, most were falling and burning. All bore the slapped together look that anything made by Ork hands had. 

The low drone of the turret’s generators shook the ground as a great burst of red energy shot forth, lancing into the sky to pierce through the largest of the intact ships. Corax was already giving orders, bringing both Legions into position to annihilate anything that made it planetside. 

Cary’s eyes were once again drawn to the skies. The auto-senses had adjusted to show them the vague outlines of the battle barges, already into position against the Ork fleet. A third Imperial vessel now joined them, the smaller strike cruiser. From it came tiny white dots, that trailed down and down through the atmosphere. The auto-senses focussed in, and informed Cary that they were Thunderhawks.

“I think some of them are coming down to greet us,” Cary said. 

-

The Blood Angels landed in the protective bowl that the mining facility sat in, some landing on the platforms of the facility itself. This forced the PDF to once again open their gates and actually form themselves into their units. Cary wasn’t sure what Corax’s eventual judgement of the PDF would be- they knew what Konrad’s would have been. 

The Thunderhawks were crimson, all painted up with heraldry and gothic script. One bore more gold than the others, which Cary assumed was likely the main transport for the Sanguinary Guard. 

Soon red-painted ceramite joined black and blue, Firstborn marines as well as Primaris. The Sanguinary Guard were easy enough to spot, standing tall and golden, with winged jump packs and death masks. The death masks made Cary very glad they were wearing their own helmet, as they probably wouldn’t have been able to control their expressions. 

They linked back with second squad and the Victrix on their way down from the ridge, Coin had climbed Cary herself this time, finding a place to peer from between the gourget and pauldon. Cary lingered back somewhat, letting second squad and Corax approach first. They weren’t exactly sure what to expect from the Blood Angels. Their Legions certainly had no love for each other, even if Sanguinius had pitied Konrad. 

The Sanguinary Guard moved in strict formation, the light from Remeny’s evening sun glinting off of their armour. Cary’s auto-senses adjusted but it still made them wince. The frontmost Astartes Cary assumed to be the leader from his sunburst crest came forward and knelt before Corax. The rest of his group followed suit. 

“My Lord Corax, an honour and a joy to have you returned to the Imperium,” he said. 

His voice sounded older, a veteran who had crossed the Primaris Rubicon. Corax reached out to him, raised him back to his feet and laid a hand on his shoulder. 

“You need not kneel to me, son of Sanguinius. It brings me peace enough to see my brother's children again, especially yourselves.” 

The golden giant thumped a fist to his chest, inclining his head slightly. 

“I am the Brother Seraph Isket, Commander of the Bloody Angel of Baal’s Fury , we are accompanied by a company-strength formation of Blood Angels, all selected from the companies for their skill and excellence.” 

His death mask helmet turned, and locked eyes with Cary. They swore up and down they had no problems with Blood Angels, they were prepared to say so under oath. But still they felt an echo of that chill, the kind when Sanguinius had looked upon them. The death mask didn’t help. 

Against all animal instinct that told them to turn and run, Cary stepped forward. Brother Seraph appeared to also take note of the guardsman on their shoulder. 

“Captain Kulikov,” he said. “I see the things we have heard are correct.” 

“Your father was never one for exaggeration,” Cary replied. “Poetry, yes, but never hyperbole.” 

He gave a short nod, and turned back to Corax. 

“We are ready to follow orders.” 

With the combined forces they had, it did not take long at all for the Greenskin menace to be thoroughly crushed. The remnants of their junk ships either burned up in the atmosphere or were destroyed by the defence lasers. Those that made it planetside were cut down in huge swathes of bolter fire and chainsword strikes. Even Coin had taken a few potshots from Cary’s shoulder, taking out at least one Ork by their count. 

Once the threat was all but gone, it was time to turn their attention to the mining facility, to retrieve the promethium they required for refuelling. Corax had sent Cary in, both for the reasons that the PDF were not going to argue with a Night Lord, and for the fact Cary knew how to talk to them. 

They oversaw the collection and transportation of fuel, having dug out a few of the tech-priests from deeper inside the facility where they’d been sheltering. A few of them seemed rather pleased to see Coin, who happily told them about the rites she’d performed on the defence laser. One of the tech-priests rather hurriedly made for the exit after that. 

The kid knew her way around decently enough, and had hopped down from Cary’s shoulders to take them through the place. A few members of the PDF lingered too- not all of them were terrible but most of them avoided Coin, not just for fear of Cary. Fear made people do selfish things, sometimes the survival instinct was too great to overcome. Cary could see the guilt in their eyes.

“They’re thinking about the screams,” Coin whispered. “And the sound of us banging on the gate.” 

The guilt would haunt them for the rest of their days, was there any more fitting punishment than that? The PDF had allowed the Shrine Gunners- already a depleted force, to be slaughtered by xenos. Cary heard over vox chatter that it hadn’t quite been decided what to do with them yet, but it would likely be execution. They tried not to think about it. 

They had just finished overseeing the last of the fuel tankers, when one of the white-armoured PDF officers stepped forward. 

“You’re taking the witch with you, then?” He asked. 

“Considering my other option is leaving her here, yes,” said Cary, looking down at him.

They had removed their helmet again, to appear more friendly. Cary suspected that it was perhaps not working as intended, after all, none of them were used to Nostraman eyes. 

“What about us?” He asked. 

Cary frowned. 

“What about you? You’re the planetary militia, the ones supposed to be defending the planet.” 

“We want to join the Primarch, for honour and glory,” he said, grandly. 

They examined him. He was a young man, probably in his late twenties or early thirties- his eyes seemed bright. Cary remembered seeing him atop the barricades. 

“Was there honour and glory when you let the Shrine Gunners die?” Cary asked him. 

The young officer deflated. 

“We had orders,” he started. 

Cary turned away from him, Coin was tapping at their arm. Her eyes were wide and she was chewing her lip.

“What’s wrong?” 

The girl only shook her head, tugging at Cary’s gauntlet. They followed her through the facility, coming out towards the back where the giant smokestacks blotted out the sun. Coin pointed through the fumes at a hunched shape. 

Cary was more than capable of recognising the form of crouched power armour, the Legion had spent much of their time like it. A breeze blew the fumes away, and Cary saw the crimson ceramite plate of a Blood Angel. He was unhelmeted, had olive toned skin and yellow hair- the standard for most Blood Angels. 

His mouth dripped with gore. Long ropes of blood and saliva dripped from his chin. In his grip he held the limp body of a PDF trooper, whose throat had been torn open. 

For a long moment, Cary held the Blood Angel’s gaze. They couldn’t quite understand what they were looking at, what he had done. His eyes were grey and his pupils were blown like that of a ravenous animal. A hand fell on Cary’s shoulder. 

The evening light glinted painfully from Seraph’s armour- he had at least taken off his helmet. He had a narrow face, the gentle angelic beauty the Ninth had always been famed for. His hair was long and pale, and his eyes golden. 

“I can explain,” said Seraph. 

“He’s eating him,” whispered Coin. 

Cary ushered her back inside, with Seraph following close behind. 

“We forget you are from a time when the God-Emperor still walked among us,” he said. “You are unaware of our flaws. The Red Thirst causes us to seek human blood.”

“I can see that,” Cary replied. “I can also see that man is dead.” 

Seraph simply nodded. 

“He was one of the many slated for execution, for cowardice. Better that his death at least serve some purpose. If we do not take blood, we age, we grow weaker. We grow more inclined to act in ways that shame our blessed Primarch,” he explained, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “He had complete control and mastery of his thirst, and we seek to echo his example.”

“Sanguinius drank blood?” Cary stopped, stared at the other Astartes. 

They could half picture it. The face of the angel, the monster-that-was-man dripping blood from his jaws. Cary had seen that enough times. They tried not to think about it, the blood staining the olive hands red, turning the ends of the golden hair so dark a crimson it might as well have been black. The thought made them profoundly sorrowful in ways they didn’t quite understand. How similar he and Konrad had been as brothers, in the end. The monster-that-was-man and the man-that-was-monster. 

Seraph examined their face carefully, as if he was searching for something. It was not a look they enjoyed. 

“It makes them sad that he had to do that,” Coin piped up. “It makes them sad that any of you have to do it.” 

Seraph’s eyes fell to the girl.

“You’ve found yourself a psyker,” he said to Cary.

“She’s under my protection,” Cary replied, gently pushing Coin behind them. 

Seraph raised a golden hand. 

“It was simply an observation, Kulikov. She is in no danger.” 

Cary rather pointedly turned their face towards the doorway, where the Blood Angel hovered, his face a mask of shame. They looked back to Seraph. 

“I’m so sorry,” they said. “Really, I am.” 

“Your compassion will not save us,” he replied, not unkindly. 

“Have it anyway, your sorrows may as well be my own.”

They made to leave, but stopped. 

“Will you tell me something?” Cary asked, slowly. 

Seraph raised an eyebrow, but nodded. 

“How did he die?” 

His expression softened. 

“You don’t know?”

“I only know most of them are dead or gone, aside from Guilliman and Corax,” Cary said. 

“He was slain by Horus, during their final battle aboard the Vengeful Spirit ,” Seraph told them, gently. 

Cary looked away from his kind face, nodded once, then left.

Chapter Text

They had made sure Coin wasn’t there to see the firing squads. Most of the PDF commanders had been deemed guilty, having shut the barricades against the Shrine Gunners when they attempted to retreat. Quite a chunk of the remaining force were receiving the same punishment, leaving even less to defend Remeny. Conscription calls were sent out to the surviving settlements, which left a bitter taste in Cary’s mouth. 

Still, they were at least most of the way onto a Shadowhawk when the firing started. Coin was ahead of them, which made it easier to block her view. Her legs dangled off the edge of the seat, and Cary had to find extra straps and clips to keep her safe. Still, Coin seemed relatively happy. If the Raven Guard that travelled with them had anything to say about a baseline human being brought with them they kept it to themselves. 

Elaius at the very least had practical ideas. 

“When we return to Macragge, my brother might have space for her in his Inquisitorial retinue,” he said, as they stepped back onto Dark Sister. 

“I like your brother,” Coin said. “He seems nice.”

Cary gave her a look, and she chewed the inside of her mouth. 

“I can’t help it, sometimes people’s thoughts get loud. It’s easier when I stand next to you.” 

“What gets easier?” They asked.

“Everything. The mind stuff. It’s like you calm it down- you’ve got this whole… thing around you that makes it easier to think,” as she spoke she gestured up and down at Cary. “It doesn’t stop anything. But it makes it easier to process.” 

Cary rested a gauntleted hand on top of her head. 

“Let’s get you something to eat, hey?”  

The kid ate what must have been almost her entire weight before she said she was full. After that, it had been relatively easy to find a place in the chapter serf quarters for her- a tiny room that Cary couldn’t even stand up in. Coin was thrilled with it, she rather excitedly told Cary that she’d never had her own room before. 

They left the kid to sleep before heading back towards the war room, which was becoming more and more crowded. It now contained Corax’s various commanding lads, the Victrix guard and the five members of the Sanguinary Guard. Cary didn’t even try to find a seat, only hung back at the edge of the room, somewhat shadowed. They had always been an observer at heart. Hearts . 

The Ork fleet had been successfully destroyed both in orbit and planetside, with only minor casualties. Cary couldn’t bring themselves to look at the names. They let the information Corax and the other commanders gave wash over them, picked up by that unconscious part of their Astartes brain.

They struggled to recall the last time they had seen Sanguinius. Cary supposed there would have been a last time for all of them, but finding the last time they had seen him seemed suddenly important. As if they could hand it to his still grieving sons. Here, take the last of what I have . 

Cary had seen him from afar, on a star fort. Blinding gold in the lumens. He likely hadn’t known the Eighth were even there, just passing through as quickly as possible to get to their next target. What had he been doing there? Refuelling? Waiting for his next task? They didn’t remember, if they’d ever known. 

“You’re making that face again,” said Elaius. 

Cary looked at him, pretending they’d known he was there the whole time. 

“What face?” 

“The face you make when you’re trying to remember something. We saw it a lot when you woke up on the Spear .” 

“I have a face for that?” They were amused by the concept. 

“Yes,” said Elaius. 

He was waiting for them to tell him what they were remembering. They shrugged. 

“It’s nothing important, not to this matter at least.” 

Elaius looked at them in a way which made it very clear that he did not believe them. But he was content to let the subject go. 

“What do you think of them, then?” He nodded towards the Sanguinary Guard.

“I think they’ve put a lot of weight onto their shoulders,” Cary replied. “Weight I’m not sure he would have wanted them to bear. Exemplars of the Legion, the finest of them all. It’s not a burden I would want to carry.” 

Elaius gave them a sidelong glance. 

“What was he like, truly?”

“Sanguinius? Kind. They all say it, but he was. He also once accidentally dislocated my shoulder.” 

He startled at that, which made them laugh. 

“I jumped out of a building after being told a mortar strike had been fired on it. He grabbed the chain, thinking he was being helpful. Unfortunately he was already going at quite a speed, and the angle was just wrong enough. Jago had to put it back in, and believe me that man had a very loose grasp of battlefield medicine,” Cary chuckled to themselves. “He did apologise though. He’d heard me swearing over the vox and assumed something had probably gone wrong.” 

“How did your Primarch take that?”

“We didn’t tell him. He was about as pleased as you can imagine when he found out, but by that point we were already clear of the Ninth,” Cary said. 

“You lied to Curze?”

“All the time, though that time only by omission.” 

“I’m not sure that’s better,” he said. 

Cary looked to Elaius with great affection. 

“I would never lie to Guilliman,” Cary lied. “Or Corax. They’d know.”

“And that’s the only thing stopping you? That they’d know?” 

“No, Eli, look,” Cary sighed, rubbing the bridge of their nose. “I spent a lot of my time finding ways around my own Primarch, a lot of time minimising cruelty and kerbing the Legion’s bloodlust- all so we wouldn’t end up like the Second and Eleventh.” 

Their voice dropped as they spoke the words. Elaius’ eyes widened. 

“I do not wish to speak of them,” they said. “I gave my word I wouldn’t- I might be a liar, but I’m no oathbreaker. Just… know it was a fate I wouldn’t have befall Konrad or the Legion, just for his sickness. I wanted them to survive.” 

Mentioning the lost and the purged always left an uncomfortable twist in their stomach, a bitter taste in their mouth. As if even mentioning them was enough to rile their ghosts. Elaius only nodded, stiffly. 

“I forget you’re so old,” he said.

“I’m probably the oldest person in the room,” Cary admitted. “You’re lucky I’m not vain. As I’ve said before, I’m four years older than Curze. Not that it means much to Primarchs, who grow like weeds and are a thousand times hardier.” 

“You think you’re older than Corax?”

“Not sure, possibly. He was found after Curze, one of the last to be found in fact. I’m bad with dates, it must be said. I think I’m probably older.” They chewed on their lip in thought. 

“Not all of them, though.”

“No, not all of them. Certainly a few acted like it, Sweet mother to hear some of the arguments they had,” Cary said, shaking their head. “Worse than children.” 

“I’m not sure that comparing the demigod sons of the God-Emperor to children is strictly charitable, Kulikov,” Seraph said, though he had trace amusement in his voice. 

“To be fair,” they said, turning their body to include the Blood Angel. “Sanguinius wasn’t one of the ones I was thinking about. It was Russ and Perturabo among others. Perhaps mostly Perturabo.” 

That raised a laugh from him, a pleasant sound. There were traces of Sanguinius in the face, in the shape of the jaw, Cary decided.

“Brother Seraph, if you’d be so kind and if it’s not a huge, Legion-Only secret, what was Sanguinius’ Promise?” Cary asked. 

Seraph raised his fair eyebrows, but otherwise kept his serene countenance. 

“It’s already been fulfilled, by Lord Guilliman no less, there’s no real secret to be had. Our records have it that he promised he or another would find wherever it was Curze had put you. We believed the ‘another’ referred to us, his sons. Though it makes equal sense for one of his brothers to complete the task.” 

It was difficult to say how his words affected them. It was difficult to say if sadness or affection was the greater emotion. 

“Your father was one of the most human of the Primarchs,” they said, softly. “I say that to honour him.” 

“I am sure he would be glad to see you back among the living,” Seraph replied. 

The few days after that the barge spent leaving the system before translating to the warp were largely uneventful. They finished the strategic sim for the Ultramarines, and broadcasted it to the Spear . 

A squad of Blood Angels had accompanied the Sanguinary Guard onto Dark Sister , and so Cary found themselves often managing training exercises between the three Legions. The presence of a sim hall on both the Spear and Bloody Angel of Baal’s Fury meant that the training sessions could be had across all three ships. 

Cary noted also that the Blood Angels had brought their own serfs, who looked a little too pale to even be voidborn. 

Among the Blood Angels was Brother Caztel. Caztel happened to be the unfortunate brother Cary had seen subduing his thirst. He had sidled up to them in the control room of the sim hall, standing at a respectful parade stand behind them. Coin had taken the over-large chair that was meant for Cary to sit in, which meant they spotted him coming in. 

“Captain,” he said. “I have come to apologise.”

“Blood doesn’t shock me, Brother,” they shot him a quick smile. “Believe that I have seen far much more.” 

“It was dishonourable to the Primarch for you to have to see it,” he continued. 

Cary noted the three service studs embedded above his eyebrow. A veteran at the very least. 

“I forgive you,” they said. “Consider yourself absolved in my eyes.” 

“I forgive you too,” said Coin, peering over the back of the chair. “The man you ate tried to shoot me.” 

Cary hadn’t seen the PDF trooper’s face. They weren’t surprised he’d been among the ones executed, those who were very, very eager to cast aside their fellow man for perceived differences were more often than not ones drawn into fear, hate and selfishness. Brother Caztel left the control room rather quickly after that. 

Coin had been found fresh clothes by some of the chapter serfs, but still spent quite a lot of time at Cary’s side. The girl had at least been persuaded to leave the lasgun in her room. She slept holding the damn thing (power pack removed) which would have been a sweet image had it not been for her white knuckle grip on it. 

The girl had become quite well known among the Astartes, especially as those who had inherited Corax’s wraith walking abilities often found themselves found . That was another thing- sometimes Cary found Coin squinting at them, past them, like there was something she was struggling to focus on. 

As luck would have had it, Coin asked the poignant question while they were alone. Cary had taken their gauntlet to one of the many workshops on middeck in order to make sure the chain and its motor were functioning properly. They likely could have asked one of the armourers to do it, but Cary had always felt they should take care of their own tools. 

Coin watched as they took it apart, the casing, the motor, anointed it with oil and made quick prayers to the chain’s machine spirit. 

“You don’t like praying,” Coin said. 

“We didn’t pray back in my day.”

“You didn’t want to leave him.”

Cary glanced at her, her eyes were half closed, fingers curled around the adamantine links of the chain. 

“He told you to, but you didn’t want to. You didn’t like the Emperor, you were scared of him.”

“Coin.” Cary reached out, gently pushed her hair out of her eyes. 

“Sorry. You think about it a lot.”

“I regret a lot, that doesn’t mean you have to take it on too,” they told the girl. 

“Sometimes when I look at you, there’s someone else standing there,” she said. “You’re layered over each other like film.”

Cary didn’t respond at first, just cleaned the motor, making sure there was no grit that could jam the mechanism. 

“I have a ghost,” Cary said. “A ghost of a friend.” 

“Your Primarch, Night Haunter ,” she said the Nostraman name as if she’d heard it a hundred times before. 

“Yes.”

“You haven’t told anyone about him yet.”

“No.”

“It makes you guilty,” she said, resting her crossed arms on the work table. “Why?” 

“I don’t like keeping secrets from people,” Cary said. 

“But you lie all the time.”

Cary smiled. 

“When can I meet your friend?” Coin asked. 

“He’s not very good with children,” Cary replied, beginning to put the motor back together. 

“I’m not a child, I’m nearly thirteen,” Coin argued. 

By the time Cary had been Coin’s age, they were already working. Their first job had been with the processing facility their father had worked at, to scramble under the machines and collect any adamantium that had fallen through. Plenty of kids lost fingers and hands that way. That had been one of the reasons they went to the QPC instead, as well as when the Overseer’s boys had come to collect their father’s debt. He’d walked with a limp after that, and opened the card house not long after. 

“We’ll see,” they said. 

Coin also got into things, not with malice or any intent of stealing or damaging, but just because she was curious about what was inside. Which was how Cary’s box of personal effects ended up at the dinner table. 

“Tell me about your stuff,” she said, pushing the box in front of Cary. 

They hadn’t really had the time to go through it. It was only a small metal box, eight inches by four inches capable of containing a few items. The Ultramarines had found it in one of the storage chambers of their coffin, a plain metal box stamped with the Eighth’s symbol. 

Cary opened it, having honestly forgotten anything they’d put in. The items that lay at the very top were picts, all frayed and carefully stuck together with tape. Cary picked up the first. 

A group of Nostramans, standing in front of the QPC’s hololith. They were holding glasses raised high, laughing, smiling. 

“That was the day the Emperor came,” they said, showing the pict to Coin. “That’s me in the front.”

“You don’t look happy,” Theodanius leaned over. 

“I’m suspicious of anyone that comes in claiming to be able to solve all of my problems,” Cary countered. 

The pict underneath had one of its corners ripped away, obscuring the face of the man who stood there. The other figures were clear enough, a young woman with short black hair and a hooked nose, an older child, a girl and a boy. The children all echoed her features. 

“That’s my family,” Cary said. “My mother and my siblings.” 

Coin touched the frayed edge of the pict, but didn’t question it. The third pict was a little more difficult to explain. 

It had been taken inside the Judicial tower, likely by one of the court documentarians, Cary didn’t exactly remember. They were looking at the pict-taker, frowning, holding a rolled up document in their hands. They wore an official’s kefta in that midnight blue colour Curze had always leaned towards. Behind them, like the grim spectre of death he had always made himself into, was Curze. He towered over them, looking dead at the pict-taker, his pale face all angles and hollows. 

“He looks nothing like his brother,” Elaius commented, also now leaning in on Cary’s other side. 

“He looked more like Fulgrim and Mortarion than he ever did Corax, they had the same narrow face,” Cary replied. 

“How old were you in that picture?” Theodanius asked. 

“Around sixteen, I think, which made him around twelve.” 

Coin had already lost interest, and had instead picked up something Cary hadn’t thought about in years. In her hands it was large, a vaguely shield-shaped adamantium crest, meant to hold a sash to the front of their kefta . 

On the crest was a bird, twisted in mid-flight to catch an arrow in its beak, bordered by chainlinks. 

“What’s this?” She asked. 

“My family crest, or at least my crest. When Curze took Nostramo they gave him a personal crest, all the noble families of Nostramo had them. So he had one made for me, I can’t remember the gothic for the bird now. It’s the one with the black cap on its face, the back of the head is silver,” they said, frowning. 

“A jackdaw,” Coin said, helpfully. 

“Yes, a jackdaw.” 

“They’re part of the same family as ravens and crows, but they’re the smallest,” Coin continued. 

There were only a few other trinkets in the box, small things that Cary had picked up along the way, things from worlds that likely now lay burned and gone. However, they didn’t recognise the ring. 

Elaius had been the one to point it out, reaching into the box and holding it between index finger and thumb. It was too big for a man, even too big for an Astartes. A silver ring with a flat edge, bearing the heraldry of the Eighth. 

“A signet ring?” Elaius asked. 

“Looks to be, I never had one,” Cary replied as he dropped it into their palm. “His got stolen by the assassin after he died. I don’t know if the kids got it back or not.” 

They rolled the ring between their fingers, thoughtfully. 

“Would’ve been useful to have it about ten thousand years ago. I was already excellent at forging his signature, I could've signed off his commands properly too.” 

“Cary,” Elaius admonished them. 

“What? I only did it when he was off having visions in a corner.” Cary shrugged. “And usually it was only requisitions.”

“Usually,” Theodanius echoed. 

“I never gave any battle orders, cross my hearts.” 

Out of the corner of their eye they saw Elaius turn to Coin. 

“Not a lie,” Coin confirmed. 

“Must everything I say be checked?” Cary lamented. “Have I not earned the trust of my fellows by my actions? When have I ever lied to either of you? Coin don’t answer that.” 

The girl smiled.

Chapter Text

They tried now to sleep whenever Dark Sister translated to the warp. It helped with the nausea and meant Corax was off their back about resting. Cary was prepared when they awoke to very quickly run down the situation concerning Coin with Curze. 

What they were not prepared for was to wake up to was Konrad explaining the various calculations navigators and astropaths had to make when passing through the warp. 

“The warp is a boundless sea of souls and energy, tainted by ruinous powers, yes?” 

“Yes.”

“A navigator uses their third eye in order to see into the warp, and their other psychic abilities to commune with the machine spirit of the ship in order to guide it,” he spoke calmly, gently. 

Cary sat up. Coin was sitting on the crate at the end of their cot, while the shade was sat in the corner of the room facing her. The shade tilted his watercolour-smudged face towards them.

“Do you have anything to add?” He asked, as if they were interrupting him purposefully. 

“No one else has seen him,” Coin said, turning to look at Cary. 

“Thank the Throne for that,” Cary replied. “What are you talking about?”

“I wanted to know why I can’t be a navigator,” Coin explained. “And then I wanted to know how navigators work.” 

“I explained the necessary parts,” said the shade. 

“Fantastic.” 

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” the shade tutted at them. 

“It’s okay! I know I can’t tell anyone about him,” Coin chirped. “I could still be an astropath, anyway.” 

The shade’s face tilted towards Cary, who had also glanced at him. 

“Let’s put a pin in that one,” Cary said. 

They remained in their quarters for a little longer, Coin insisted that Curze finish telling her about how warp navigation worked. It reminded them a little of being back home, back on Quintus, when he used to teach them all the things that had been crammed into his head. High Gothic, the movement of the sun, the pattern of stars and how to use them to calculate your position. 

Cary came to an inevitable conclusion. 

“I’m going to have to tell Corax,” they said. 

The shade grimaced, or at least Cary thought he might have. 

“Are you sure? I am fairly certain we could continue this charade ad infinitum if needed. I certainly would not see you executed for this.” 

“I don’t think we can, what about the next time I get the, y’know,” Cary gestured at their eyes. “And you’re in control. You’re many things but a good actor is not one of them.” 

“I could pretend to be you,” he said, mildly offended. “I’ll make a crude joke every three minutes and look sad.” 

“If I could throw something at you I would.” 

“I don’t think he’d execute you,” Coin chimed in. “I think he’d put you in a cell.” 

“How merciful of the Raven Lord,” the shade drawled. 

“It makes you feel bad to keep lying to him, even though you’re not. I think you should do it,” said Coin. “He’s in a good mood today, and I’m not spying on him. His soul’s too big. Like his.”

She nodded to the shade. 

“You hide him pretty well, but not if someone looks closely.” 

“Good to know,” they replied. 

“If he reacts badly I will in fact hold this over you for the rest of your life and every waking moment, which if he reacts badly might not be long,” the shade said. 

Cary stood, stretched and winced as a number of joints snapped and popped. 

“Konrad Curze? Holding onto something completely irrelevant? I’m shocked.” 

“You never did learn when to hold your tongue.” 

“You never shut me up,” Cary pointed out. 

Coin made a face.

“I’m going to go back to the serf’s halls,” she said, hopping off her crate and making for the door. “I’m sure I’ll find out how it went soon.” 

Finding Corax wasn’t a problem, it was speaking to him alone that was the issue. He was, after all, the goddamn Primarch. 

“You could ask him for anything and he’d roll over,” Curze’s voice came from somewhere over their shoulder. 

Cary doubted it. 

Still, as luck would have it, he was in his office. Cybele seemed surprised to find them in the corridor. 

“He just sent me to find you,” he said, standing to the side to let them through the door. 

Corax once again sat behind his desk, which was now obscured under printed reports. Coordination between the three ships was a delicate balance, any minor shift could send any of them scattered through the warp, through time and space. He wore the cuirass, the one with the feathered collar, a baldrick of knives across his chest.  Corax glanced up, then looked up in surprise. 

“I had something to discuss,” Cary said. 

“Ah, I see. Well, I have something to return to you,” he said, opening one of the drawers of the desk.

Cary approached the desk and Corax dropped the datachip into their hand. The skull-marked datachip that the Atramentar had given them. 

“I’ve examined the codes, I’m willing to say there’s nothing on there that you would use against us,” he said. “Though if you could be open with your communications, at least with me, I would appreciate it.” 

Cary sat heavily, pushing the datachip around their palm with their thumb. 

“Thank you,” they said. “You have no idea how much this means to me.” 

“I think I have some concept, if not a full understanding. What did you have to discuss?”

“I see Curze,” they said, the truth blurting from them like a broken valve. 

Corax looked up from his dataslate, eyebrows slightly drawn together. 

“I see him like a ghost,” they started. 

“When?” He asked. 

“A lot of the time in the warp, when we’re travelling. It started at the tower.”

He put down the dataslate, turning his attention to them fully. 

“Cary, you said it yourself: the warp gets inside your head and uses your memories against you,” he said it so gently, so carefully. 

Somehow, this was worse. They had been prepared to argue for their life, they had been prepared to apologise for not telling him sooner. Cary had not been prepared to be disbelieved. They wanted to argue, call the shade forth and say “Look! Look at your brother who has somehow soul-bound himself to me!” .

He stood, came round the desk and laid a cool, heavy hand on their shoulder. 

“Have you been getting enough sleep?”  

It was crushing, like drowning- they wanted to claw their way up and out, to argue and convince him. To beg to be believed, like a child. But their throat was suddenly dry, words died on their tongue. He not only didn’t believe them, he thought they were infirm . That the incorrigible madness of the Eighth had finally taken them too. 

“Cary?” 

They stood, abruptly. 

“I’m fine,” Cary lied. “Thank you.” 

Then they turned and left, stalking down the corridors, taking sharp turns and dark passageways. It was meant to throw off anyone who was following them, Throne only knew how often it had worked. 

Still, they found themselves on the gunnery deck, in the cool darkness where only a few serfs and servitors trod. Cary folded themselves into an alcove in the darkness and was silent. They held onto the datachip so tightly it left an indent on the skin of their palm. 

Cold poured over them, the darkness growing thicker, long strands of ink-in-water trailed in front of their face. 

“I thought he of all people would believe it,” they said, eventually. 

“I had… hope,” the shade admitted. “Of my brothers currently living, he has the better temperament for learning this truth.” 

They were both quiet.

“We could go back, and I will show myself,” said Curze. 

Cary shook their head, feeling suddenly angry, suddenly vindictive. 

“No. Damn his eyes, I try to tell the truth once and he looks at me like I’m sick , has the audacity to throw my own words back at me.”

“Cary,” the shade spoke quietly. 

They gritted their teeth. Let their anger simmer and subside, replaced instead by that burnt-out, cold sludge feeling. The guilt that made them feel unworthy of their anger. Cary couldn’t afford to be angry, to act in anger. It reminded them too much of home. 

“I know. We’ll try again another time.” 

“Are you going to talk to the children?” 

“Maybe. Might ping the Echo for an update once we’re translated,” they said, rubbing the pad of their thumb across the bat-winged skull. 

“Not going to try and get hold of Sahaal and Acerbus?” 

“So I can listen to them argue over your silly hat? No thanks.” 

“I thought you would have been trying to corral them.”

Cary rubbed the bridge of their nose. 

“I can’t drag them out of the darkness, make them see the worthlessness of the bloodshed they adore. I have hope for Decimus, for the Atramentar. They reached out to me, tried to find me. I’ll never turn my back on someone who reaches for me.”

“I know you do not believe they will rejoin the Imperium.” 

“I don’t want them to,” Cary whispered. “I don’t think anyone should. Poor Guilliman, he’s trying so hard but… look at this place. Look at what we’ve become. We were always conquerors, colonialists, fascists and worse. Now the Imperium is choking on itself, constantly bleeding resources and people. A fanatical, rotting empire inches away from collapsing in on itself. 

“I read about the fall of empires on Terra, I thought we could be different. I thought your father’s dream was too strong to fail. I thought we were going to make it.” 

The cold pressure increased around their ribs. 

“I thought they were going to help you,” Cary said, miserably. 

“You told Corax you were going to ask him for help.”

It was a distraction, Cary allowed themselves to be distracted. 

“He was one of three, but still. Fulgrim, Sanguinius and him. Fulgrim I knew would agree, and that you wouldn’t take offence at his help. I worried that he… That it would damage your relationship in some way, to see the Legion in that state. That the Third would see Nostramo and come away changed. 

“Sanguinius was kind, he had visions the same as you. But I thought you’d probably object. Corax was almost the same, I knew the Raven Guard were best suited for handling Nostramo. But you hated him, you wouldn’t have accepted his help in a thousand years.” 

“The mortifying ordeal of being known,” said the shade. 

“Anyway. If only our options were not the orphan grinding machine of the Imperium or the soul-warping madness of chaos. I suppose there’s the T’au, but there’s probably something awful there too. There are no good empires,” they said. “There are no good wars.” 

“They would kill you for that.” 

“They’d kill me for a lot of things. Perhaps I should have asked all of them to come at once, that would’ve been chaos.” 

“... I think I would have liked to speak with Sanguinius properly about our precognition,” the shade said. “Had I been of a sounder mind. I suppose that is the sting of hindsight.” 

The shade fell quiet again. 

“You were always terrified of him.” 

The question was unspoken. 

“I always felt like I’d tricked him into believing I was something I wasn’t. That one day everyone will find out the truth and kill me,” Cary said. “I still feel it every time I look at Corax.” 

“Oh, of course,” the shade laughed. “He always looked you in the eyes. ‘Beware that which bores through your eyes, that which takes your soul-and-breath’.”

He uttered the nursery rhyme to vaguely the right tune. 

“I wish I could hit you.”

“Could never quite get the last of the superstition out of you, ‘Sweet mother’ this and ‘damn your eyes’ that. You are three steps away from donning the sacramental paint.” 

“Shut up.”

Chapter Text

Deliverance was a dusty black marble, hanging in the void from an invisible thread. Golden threads reached across it in the shapes of the force domes and minor citadels that had sprung up since it became an Astartes homeworld. 

It was easy to compare it to Nostramo, whose veins had been pale silver. Distant sisters, both valued for the minerals beneath the surface of unforgiving rock. Yet here Deliverance still stood, still orbiting Kiavahr. 

A former prison moon, a mining operation. How funny that the start of the Eighth had been the same as the childhood of the Raven Lord. Night’s Children, born in captivity, raised into the light. The two could argue their differences all they liked, it was the same core. 

Speaking of the same core, it happened to be that core that now lay strapped between the seats lining the Overlord. Several crates as tall as Coin, marked with the Nineteenth’s heraldry as well as other markings Cary did not recognise. It was disguised as ammunition, with none of those who had loaded it and strapped it down knowing what lay within.

Corax had returned to Deliverance (again) with the geneseed his Legion sorely needed (again). The Overlord (one of a few given to Corax by Guilliman) was the safest way to carry it, and only a few knew which of the Overlords contained the cache. Fewer still knew what the cache truly contained. 

If Cary hadn’t known the reasons behind it, they would have said Corax was being overly paranoid. However, one could never be overly paranoid once they’d been burned by the Alpha Legion. 

Coin sat next to them, once again bundled in straps and clips in order to keep her in her seat. Her legs barely hung off the edge. Wedged on her other side was Theodanius, who on every small buck of turbulence looked to the girl as if she was going to get thrown out of her seat. Elaius sat on Cary’s other side, and seemed as curious as the girl was. 

“This is quite an effort to go to for ammunition,” he said, cautiously. 

“Mhm,” said Cary. “My lips are sealed.” 

“Truly? We should have known it would take a Primarch’s order for you to be quiet,” Elaius said. 

“I’m aggrieved,” Cary replied. “Deeply wounded. Insulted, even. I’ve been dishonoured by the son of Macragge, the son of Guilliman.”

Coin laughed. 

“You’ll get your answer soon,” Cary told him. “And when you do, you’ll be honoured you were here.” 

Elaius’ sigh came through as a rush of static, but he ceased trying to wheedle the answer out of them. Still, he would be honoured. Ultramarines always were. As the Overlord passed through dark clouds and rolling storms, they felt a pang of homesickness. An echo of thunder rolled through the Overlord’s storage bay. 

The geneseed was also guarded by about seventy-three Raven Guard, all strapped into their seats and locked into their positions. Cary spotted the markings of second squad, and had come to recognise the badge that denoted which one of them was the Sergeant. None of them knew. Hopefully, at least. 

“Throne, I hope he forewarned them,” Cary said, peering towards the voidshield. “There’s only so many times you can have a bolter pointed at you before you start getting offended.” 

“And who’s fault is that?” Elaius replied.

“Not bloody mine,” Cary pointed out. 

It did not take long to reach the moon’s surface. The Overlord passed through the force dome with its sisters and landed upon a wide plain of rockcrete. As soon as they were given the all clear, the Raven Guard unclipped themselves and began the process of removing the precious cargo. Cary followed, a little slowly as they were trying to keep pace with Coin, but kept the cache in line of sight. 

The place was a sea of coal black and chalk white, painted ceramite plate and the iron colour of their armour trim. It could have been home, if it wasn’t for the fact that it wasn’t raining. 

Corax was once again addressing the masses. Cary had heard the speech before, and had little interest in hearing it again, instead moving with second squad and the two other non-Raven Guard. At this point Coin had to be scooped up- her lasgun made it slightly awkward but she could not be persuaded to leave it behind. They were following the floating cargo lifts in tight formation, with four marines on either side of the damn thing.

Above them all loomed the Ravenspire. A tower of dark rock that thrust into the sky like an interlocutory finger, that caused Cary the strangest sense of deja-vu. It stretched into the sky, disappeared into the clouds as if it was itself a hivecity. They could see ships landing and taking off from it, like roosting birds. 

Soon they were drawn into the darkness, marching forward into carved passageways into the rock, where Apothecaries were waiting to take the caches away. The dim light from the outside went out as the doors sealed behind them, the auto-senses adjusting to the dark. 

Cybele made a small motion with his hand, and Cary saw the ripple of relief stretch through second squad. Cary wasn’t content to relax just yet. 

If the Raven Guard of Deliverance were surprised to see a Night Lord, they were too polite to say anything. They weren’t however too polite to cast rather pointed looks in Cary’s direction, the unhelmeted expressions ranging from confusion to outright anger and disgust. 

This was nothing new. They remained among second squad with Elaius and Theodanius as they all marched their way up inside the spire. Black rock was carved in the Imperial style- gothic, ribbed vaulting, flying buttresses, lancets and tympanum. Cary wondered if it had been so before the Imperium’s arrival. They found themselves picking out the best points to anchor the chain, absently. 

The auto-senses caught on something, only for a fraction of a second. It was moving too fast even for the helmet’s systems to properly identify it. Cary filtered the last few seconds, watching it in a corner of their visor. Frame by frame, a flash of iridescent blue slipped across their vision. It was difficult to say what they were looking at, the mystery object being too far away for the auto-senses to have grabbed any detail. Still, they made a note of where they had seen it. Cary would have to look later, something pricked at the back of their neck. It seemed very familiar, but they couldn’t think how. 

Ravens flew freely, calling to each other as they passed. A few of them settled on the balustrades as the group passed through, examining them all with large black eyes. 

Cary had been told the ravens of Kiavahr (which they had to assume the birds were) were tiny. They had on occasion looked at the bird skulls hanging off of their Raven Guard companions, and decided this was bullshit. It seemed that it was in fact just that: bullshit. 

These birds were probably about the size of a baseline child. Coin marvelled at them, but Cary found themselves tilting the girl away from them. Their beaks looked sharp enough to take a finger or an eye, and the talons looked worse. 

“I see you prefer crows to ravens,” Cybele commented. 

“I don’t have strong preferences when it comes to corvids,” Cary replied. “Besides, Jago was the Prince of Crows. Not me.” 

“There are no epithets for you, strange among your Legion.” 

Cary reached up, removed their helmet with a hiss and let it sit on the magnetic clip of their waist. They scrubbed at their head, trying to get rid of the pricking sensation. 

“I didn’t need one. Everyone knew who I was. Besides, it would start getting confusing. The Dark King, The Prince of Crows, The Raven Lord, we’re running out of other words for shadow and darkness. And poignant birds that are also omens.” 

The cool air on their face helped a little. The spire was almost familiar, it half hovered on the edge of memory, before it came to them. 

“The Judicial tower,” they said. 

Cybele’s beaked helm turned to them. 

“Something from home, a long time ago,” they said. “The Judicial tower was where the Nostraman Justicars held court. Or at least where they said they held court. They were usually sham trials, but not after…”

Cary trailed off. 

“I’m sure you can put together the rest,” they said. 

“You’re saying Curze ran trials that contained any sense of justice?” Cybele asked. 

Cary nodded.

“Because I was there,” they replied. “I made sure of it.” 

The architecture and darkness of the whole place was so similar to Nostramo that it unnerved them. Cary almost felt as if they were walking through parts of old town again, where the septs had been at their thickest in the spiralling mess of the hive, where the streets stank of old incense and chemical fumes. The only thing missing was the rain. 

They were ushered into a grand hall, Cary noted that the carved stone beams that criss-crossed the ceiling were daubed in white and made effort to not stand beneath them. 

The hall was home to the Raven Guard’s meeting table, a large black slab of polished stone, lined with veins of white. Cary let Coin down, the girl was still looking at the ravens. 

There were already several high ranking members of the Chapters present. Cary had to keep reminding themselves that they were Chapters now, not Legions. It was a little difficult to tell who was meant to outrank who, the Raven Guard seemed to avoid any of their brother Legion’s methods of identification. No golden pauldrons or ostentatious decorations. Even the number of raven skulls didn’t help. 

None of them seemed pleased to see Cary. Then again, who had been? They remained in the group with second squad, who were sort of loosely hanging back from the table. Cary leaned to Cybele.

“Which one’s the Chapter Master?” they asked. 

The Sergeant nodded towards a Primaris marine, who wore Phobos pattern armour and a jump pack. Cary didn’t recognise the make of it- it wasn’t all bulky turbines or arched jets. He wore a white Corvus-pattern helmet, and little in the way of trophies. Cary could only see a few long black feathers tied onto his belt. 

“Chapter Master Kayvaan Shrike,” he said. 

“I told you we were running out of birds.” 

He turned his helmet away from them, but his pauldrons were shaking with laughter. 

“You could be a jackdaw,” Theodanius suggested. “Like your family crest.” 

“Hard to work that into a nickname though,” Cary said. “Prince, Lord and King are already taken, Count is tainted beyond belief, what’s left? Earl of jackdaws?”

“Duke of jackdaws,” Elaius suggested. 

“Marquis of jackdaws,” Anastas piped up. 

“Baron of jackdaws. The jackdaw baron,” Cybele said. 

“These are all terrible, thank you,” Cary said, earnestly. 

“What’s Nostraman for jackdaw?” Coin asked. 

“Csóka.”

She repeated the word a few more times, then nodded.

“I like it,” said Coin. “Suits you.” 

“Csóka, Csóka.” Cybele nodded in agreement. 

“You’re not seriously going to,” Cary started. 

The beak of Cybele’s helmet swung round. 

“By Grandmother’s eyes you are. I’m going to-”

They never got to make their threat, as Corax entered the hall. Not to grand announcements or any kind of fanfare. His presence came with a dead silence, that void-like absence of any noise like all the air had vanished from the room. It set their teeth on edge, made their fingers go numb. 

Cary looked down. Coin was holding onto a finger of their gauntlet, tightly. With her other hand, she gave them a thumbs up. 

Corax was flanked by Raven Guard, the Victrix Guard and the Sanguinary Guard. He looked like a king, like a trueborn demi-god son of the Emperor. He was beautiful, it was a strange time to truly realise it, but he was. Alabaster white skin, but not bloodless. The black of his hair seemed to draw in all light, like it was void. They were reminded of Nostramo’s dying sun. The pale white light that had never broken through the clouds until the arrival of the Bucephalus . 

If he didn’t smile, then he could pass for Nostraman. His front teeth were blunt-edged, like most of the Imperium. A forgivable flaw, all other things considered. 

Something flickered at the edges of him, like radiation from a star. White that glimmered with traces of colour, iridescent smears like puddles of engine oil. His great, metallic wings stretched out from his shoulder, trailing along the ground with the only noise that rang out in the hall: soft scraping like a hundred knives were running gently across the stone. 

It wasn’t the way Cary would have advised him to present himself to the majority of his sons. For a split second they were seized by an old dread, the sinking feeling that Konrad had once again decided to follow his own path. But Corvus Corax was not Konrad Curze, they reminded themselves. Corax knew what he was doing. Cary forced themselves to believe it. 

He came to the end of the long stone table. They looked at the gathered Raven Guard. The unhelmeted shared similar expressions, shock, disbelief, even outright anger. Corax had better have a damn good speech. 

“My sons,” Corax began. “I address you now as Deliverer, Raven Lord, Chooser of the Slain, your father. My trials in the warp have left me changed in many ways, but my mind and task remain the same. I have returned at the will of an old friend, not to disrupt you, not to overwrite your achievements with my own. I come to honour you with that which I had promised you ten thousand years ago: the means to create new Astartes, new battle brothers. 

“I return so that I may earn your trust, earn the honour of being your Primarch. I return so that you may show me the way forward, so that I may learn your traditions, your sorrows, your joys. I return to join you.” 

Cary certainly couldn’t have planned it better. Old friend - Corax thought of them as a friend. The notion made them smile, a childish sort of happiness rising in their chest. It was probably for the best that he left out the circumstances under which they had dragged him back to the materium. 

“How can we be sure?” said the Chapter Master, the one Cybele had named Kayvaan Shrike. “How can we know this is not a trick? That you are not a daemon who has taken this form to worm your way past our defences?”

“If you believe that, then you’re a fool to let me get this far,” Corax replied. “If I had fallen to the ruinous powers, why would I concern myself with coming here? Would I not have instead sought out those I exiled for their bloody work? I assure you, Chapter Master, I have several letters of clearance from both the ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition, should you wish to see them.” 

There were trace amounts of humour in his voice, as if revisiting an old joke. The Chapter Master stood, unmoving. Silence.

“Then you will have no issue in completing the Rites of Shadow,” he said. 

Cary slightly turned towards Cybele, eyebrow raised. The Sergeant made a small gesture- the all clear sign he’d made before. 

Corax simply nodded. 

“If it is what is required, then I shall do so.”

It was as if all the sound in the room returned with a rush, the servos of power armour, the sounds of the ravens shuffling in the rafters, the distant sounds of the refineries drifting in through the open archways that looked out over the planet’s surface. Cary shuddered. 

Battle brothers spoke now, openly. A loose ring of those who had come from the Ravenspire were talking with Corax, likely about whatever the hell this Rite of Shadows was. 

“What’s this rite then?” Cary asked Cybele. 

He hesitated. 

“If it’s a secret Legion-only thing I won’t be offended.”

“It’s a secret Legion-only thing,” he admitted. “I can tell you that it is meant to be a test of an Astartes, to see if they can see the truth through the shadow.” 

“Oh, he’ll be fine then.” 

Cybele nodded.

“He’ll be absolutely fine.”

Chapter Text

“I have no idea what this is,” said Cybele. 

“I’ll admit, it’s entirely possible it’s nothing,” Cary replied, examining the pict from their helmet floating on the hololith. “I may be being paranoid, but last I checked none of you went for that colour.”

The group, which consisted of half of second squad (Nestal and Anastas), Cary, Theodanius, Elaius and Coin, had found themselves a sideroom. It contained little in the way of furniture or comforts, but at least had a large hololith table. Cary had taken the opportunity to alert all of them of the random flash of bright blue they had seen. 

“Wrong shade to be Alpha Legion,” Elaius said. “But we can’t rule them out.”

Cary agreed. It was generally best to never rule the Alpha Legion out. You could expect them or you could receive an unwelcome surprise. 

“I marked where it was, would your brothers object to me going and having a look? Assuming you and my colleagues here come with,” they said, gesturing to the Dark Angel and the Ultramarine. 

“I want to come too,” said Coin. 

Cary was about to assure the girl that she would not have been left behind, when she said: 

“This place is full of ghosts. I don’t like it. You know it too.”

They rested a hand on the girl’s head. 

“Let’s see if we can’t put this one to rest then, hm?” 

As the group moved, the psyker once again elected to scramble up Cary’s side, peering over their shoulder as they walked. Only Nestal and Anastas were with them now, the rest of second squad dismissed to rejoin their brothers. It certainly made getting through the corridors easier. 

By Cary’s estimation, the flash of blue had been some hundred feet above them all, which translated to about four floors up. This of course meant taking many of the stairways and elevators upwards, which unnerved them. Hiking their way up an unfamiliar tower to investigate something strange wasn’t something they’d planned to be doing again. 

The floor that Cary had marked out contained the scriptory, which lingered under the librarium, the tap of knowledge giving approved drips of information to the chapter. The doors were unguarded, which Cary was grateful for. There were only so many times they could argue their case. 

Inside the scriptory, everything was quiet. Not the drowning-in-void silence the Corax could spontaneously manifest, but just a peaceful quiet. It was only broken by the scratching of quills and the turning of paper. Almost apologetically, Cary silenced the servos of their power armour, moving as quietly as possible- though the Raven Guard moved silently. Elaius and Theodanius’ armours did not have that particular stealth function, and winced as they moved. 

Cary moved towards the edge of the room, to the inner wall that would have been the inside of the tower. They followed the wall until they came to a section where cogitators hummed, the walls opening to let in a little natural light. Arched, glassless windows that looked out over the grand structure of the inner tower framed the wall.

“Look,” whispered Coin.

Her pale hand pointed down over Cary’s shoulder, at the floor. Just poking out from behind one of the arches was a single, bright blue feather. They stepped forward, crouched and picked it up, turning it over in their fingers. Iridescent. A very familiar colour. 

“The vulture,” Coin whispered. 

“What vulture?” Theodanius asked, in a low voice. 

“Have you read my debriefing from my jaunt in the warp?” Cary asked.

“Yes,” said Elaius. 

“You remember I mentioned a daemon who took the appearance of a large, blue vulture?” 

“Yes, and the sorcerer, who was present on Hagiogra.” He stepped forward, taking the feather from Cary’s hand to examine it closer. 

“I think we’ve got wizards,” Cary said, grimly. 

“The same that separated us in the hive?” Cybele asked, questioningly. 

“Probably. He has some issue with me.” 

“You threw a grenade at him, one which you had looted from another of the ruinous powers,” Elaius said, flatly. 

“I also shot at him, I’ll have you know,” Cary pointed out. “But yes I did throw one of the pink grenades at him. I still don’t know what it did.” 

Elaius and Theodanius shared a glance, as much as one could when wearing helmets at least. 

“In any case, probably something you should alert your Chapter Master of,” Cary said, taking the feather from Elaius’ fingers and passing it to Cybele. “I doubt he’d appreciate the information coming from me.” 

Cybele nodded.

“I’ll inform him myself.” 

Coin leaned forward again, tapping the side of Cary’s helmet to get their attention. 

“The ghosts are hungry,” she whispered. “Listen. Listen.” 

Cary stood still, and listened. They could hear the hum of the cogitators, the whisper of paper from the scriptory, the sound of knives on stone. The grinding and sharpening of metal. The whisper of paper turned to whisper of mouths, of distant, muffled sobs. Cries of pain, screams and screams and screams and blood on the floor, smell of blood inside their nose, inside their lungs. Up and up and up to the dark red floor where no one comes back. 

“Captain?” 

Cary turned, Theodanius’ hand was on their pauldron. 

“He’s doing something to the dead,” Cary said. 

“What?”

“Sergeant, what is the floor three levels above us?” Cary asked. 

He didn’t reply at first, the beak of his helmet pointed towards them. 

“You cannot go there, none of us can,” he said. 

“That’s not what I asked.”

He sighed, a rush of static. 

“It is the Red Level, the cells and… Interrogation rooms from before Deliverance’s liberation.” 

“A torture chamber.” 

He nodded, stiffly. 

“You need to go find Shrike, now,” they said. 

“What do you mean ‘he’s doing something to the dead’?” Theodanius asked, shaking their shoulder slightly. 

“He’s waking them up,” Coin whispered. “All the restless dead, all the people, all the space marines. All the misbegotten, all the malformed. Down below. His guilt. His sin.” 

Cary reached back and picked Coin up by the back of her collar, bringing her over their shoulders so they could cradle her in one arm. 

“Go now,” they ordered Cybele, whose helmet was angled towards Coin. 

His attention snapped back to them, before nodding and striding out of the scriptory with Anastas and Nestal. 

“The librarians can feel it too,” Coin mumbled. “They’re confused. It’s not Farmoon night, the ghosts shouldn’t be this hungry. He’s struggling to stay hidden, Cary.” 

Cary flinched a little at that. 

“What now?” Elaius asked them. 

The Night Lord looked at the Dark Angel and the Ultramarine. Never in their life had they expected members of either Legion to look to them for orders. 

“I can’t imagine these rites are more important than getting overrun by starving ghosts, where’s Corax?” 

-

“The rites cannot be disturbed,” said the Raven Guard at the door. 

“Under any and all circumstances including possible infiltration by the ruinous powers?” Cary asked, eyebrow raised. 

Their helmet was couched under their arm, having removed it to appear more reasonable. Elaius and Theodanius lingered behind them, with Coin peering out from behind Cary’s side. 

The Raven Guard’s helmet looked upon them now, instead of the staunch forward facing he had been doing before. 

“I do not believe you,” he said. 

Cary pinched the bridge of their nose. 

“Yes, you got me, I got myself stuck in a stasis pod, proved my loyalty to the Imperium by going into the warp, dragged your father out of the warp and escorted him all the way here from Macragge so I could lie to you, personally,” they snapped. “You got me. Take me away, boys.” 

The Raven Guard did not reply. 

“Have the rites been completed?” A sharp voice barked across the hall. 

It was with no small amount of relief that Cary saw the white-beaked helmet of the Chapter Master, with Cybele and his brothers accompanying them. 

“Not as yet, Chapter Master. The… Night Lord has made claims-”

“The Night Lord has attempted to warn us of something the Librarians are already becoming concerned over,” Shrike interrupted him. 

“ The Night Lord has a name,” Cary muttered. 

Shrike looked at them. 

“Tell me of the sorcerer,” he commanded. 

Cary explained as much as they could of the sorcerer and the vulture daemon. They left out the parts where they had left the Thousand Son alive and received help from the vulture. 

“The girl said something about the misbegotten and the malformed,” he said, looking down at Coin. “What did you mean by that? What have you seen?” 

Coin shrank behind Cary. 

“You’re scaring her,” Cary admonished him. 

They knelt, Coin wasn’t meeting their eyes, she was looking at the floor, clutching her lasgun. 

“Do you understand what you saw?” Cary asked. 

Coin shrugged.

“Space marines, but they looked sick. They were all wrong and all sad. Their hunger’s different than the ghosts from up in the bad rooms. They’re more stable, they’re closer to the sorcerer, he’s down there,” the girl said.

Cary looked to Shrike. 

“What’s below the tower? Crypts?” They asked. 

Shrike shook his head. 

“No. It is something we do not speak of. It is in that place where our Primarch attempted to rebuild the Legion after the massacre at Istvaan V,” he said. “It was there the Raptors were produced.”

Raptors . They were drawn back to think of Lucoryphus, his clawed hands and animalistic bearing. Cary stood.

“In any case, you’ve got trouble down there. Is it accessible?” 

“On my order alone,” said Shrike. 

Cary looked at him. He coughed.

“I would like to discuss it with the Primarch first.” 

“Wait as long as you like, but get me down there now,” Cary said. “I’ll be damned if I let that bastard disrupt your dead just because he’s determined to kill me. I have brought this problem to your door, Chapter Master, let me go.” 

Silence. Then Shrike nodded. 

“I will make sure you are granted entry to the forbidden Apothecarion. I cannot guarantee your safety, your life or your sanity, Captain.”

“Not much different from what I’m used to then,” they joked. 

“We will inform the Primarch when he has completed the rites. I can only pray the God-Emperor goes with you,” Shrike replied. 

“I’m sure he will,” Cary lied. 

-

The doors of the Apothecarion were black iron, embossed with the raven heraldry of the Legion and the helix markings of the apothecaries. It was deep under the Ravenspire, past where they had entered with the cache of geneseed, deep into the rock of Deliverance. Distant, animalistic howls raged from within.

Another blue feather lay in front of the doors. A taunt. Cary replaced their helmet. 

“Are you sure about this?” Asked Elaius. 

“Of course,” Cary replied. 

The further down they had come, the worse they had felt. The numbing cold, the shadows at the edge of their vision. Whatever Apophis was doing down here, it was having the same effect on the shade as the warp. 

“Get back to Theo and Coin,” they ordered him. “I’ll be fine.” 

Shrike waved Cybele and Nestal forward, then stepped to the door himself. He withdrew a small black key from the skull of one of his corvia. Slotted it into the tiny keyhole, and unlocked the door. 

The clunk of it echoed around the rock-faced corridor. A deep, bone shaking noise that followed with several more thunks and clacks as the bolts and locks rearranged themselves. There came a sigh of air, and the doors opened. 

Shrike stepped backwards, nodded towards Cary. They walked through the door without a second glance back, cold pouring over them like water. Cary hadn’t even made it five steps before the doors closed behind them, the bolts sliding back into place. 

“Suitably dramatic.” 

“Be nice.” 

The shade spilled outwards, a pillar of darkness that paced alongside Cary. It was almost pitch black inside the forbidden Apothecarion, the auto-senses adjusting as needed. Vaulted ceilings carved directly into the rock, all the Imperial trimmings one would have expected to see but with the Raven Guard’s typical lack of adornment or decor. The hall opened up on both sides, leading to wards and stores and operating theatres. 

They looked to the shade and started. His face was as clear as day, as bright as a pale sun. It was as if he was stood there, robed in darkness. That carved-marble face, unmarred by contorted madness or the pains of seizure and vision. It was the calmest and most lucid they had ever seen him, and he was dead. 

“This isn’t good.”

“I’m aware, thank you.” 

“Not- damn your eyes , you look alive, Nacht!” They hissed at him. 

The shade shrugged. 

“You are still the only one who seems to have the honour of looking upon me,” he said. “No one else has seen me yet.” 

The cold gripped them like they had plunged into ice water, the further they moved the worse it became. It didn’t take long for the ghosts to begin appearing. Ghosts had never bothered Cary, as a concept. In reality, at least one ghost had done little more than annoy them. 

These ghosts were strange. Just as Coin said, they were misbegotten and malformed, hunched creatures that prowled in the dark. Pale flesh shone out from under clumps of dark fur and feather, clawed hands, taloned feet, noses that hooked against the mouth to form beaks. None of them approached Cary, the ghosts’ eyes were fixed on Curze, their howls became whimpers, pressing themselves into the shadows to escape him. 

“Poor boys,” Cary said, without thinking. “Poor Corax.” 

They passed cells, empty but traces of those who had been contained within remained. Scratches on the rock walls, pictures, names. The words forgive me father repeated a thousand times until the author’s strength had faded, making the words twisted and unrecognisable. 

The old gene-vault was here too, a circular room that had been blackened by fire and destruction. Little remained inside, broken glass from the containers, deep claw marks in the walls. Too large for lightning claws, too large for a marine to have made. 

“This place is daemon tainted,” said the shade. 

Cary crouched, picked up a fragment of  what might have once been a geneseed capsule. It still had its metal cap, the glass that lingered upon it coated with soot and the very remnants of decay. 

“The Alpha Legion have a lot to answer for.”

“More than us?” 

Cary didn’t reply. They left the gene-vault and continued onwards, the Apothecarion stretched down into the rock even further, the ghosts grew ever numerous. Occasionally Cary found them huddled together in dark corners, covering their brothers with vestigial wings.

They reached a vantage point, overlooking what once must have been the landing bay for bringing in injured and dead marines. The huge hatch that made up the entire ceiling had been welded closed with great blobs of metal. None were meant to come down here. 

As they crouched on the edge, looking for any signs of blue feathers or Apophis himself. Cold nudged at their shoulder, and they turned, expecting to see the shade. 

Instead, they were met with the beaked face of one of the ghosts, the malformed keratin beak tapping at their pauldron. There was little of anything human left in the face, aside from the eyes. 

“Hello, sweet boy,” Cary said. “What’re you looking for, hm?” 

He made a short croaking noise, a low waaark noise. His hands were blackened, ridged like raven’s feet, with curled talons. Cary noted that among his feathers, tucked like a trophy, was a single blue feather. 

“Where did you get that, hm? Can you show me?” 

Cary pointed to the feather, the misbegotten Raptor made a low noise at the back of his throat, and turned. He crawled along the ground, not unlike Lucoryphus had. Cary rose. 

“Not even death will stop you from being a bleeding heart, it seems,” the shade commented. 

Cary rose and followed. The Raptors were becoming braver now, though still none of them would approach Curze. They lingered closely in shadows and doorways, the extra-limbed and horned, the feathered and furred, those with too many eyes, no eyes, warp-changed features. 

The Raptor with the blue feather drew them down further still, scuttling across the open bay of the landing zone and into the storerooms beyond. Down past ancient, empty cargo crates, to the parts that still seemed to have been under construction when the place was sealed. 

Cary heard the calls of other Raptors, heard the shuffling of more ghosts- and someone giving a clear dictation of what sounded like a story. 

“... forth over the hills and down across the streams. Away, away the little birds fled,” 

Cary turned the corner. The vulture perched on the edge of a crate, its great blue wings spread out, casting everything in eerie blue light. A number of the Raptor ghosts crouched around it, listening. It was telling them a story, occasionally it craned downwards and preened the nearest marine, who would then shuffle away to let one of his brothers take his place. 

The Raptor with the blue feather pointed at the vulture and said waaark . The yellow eye of the vulture rested upon them, and though it was difficult to read a bird’s expression, Cary got the feeling they would have to wait until the story was over.

Chapter Text

They took one of the crates to sit on. There wasn’t any more reason to disturb the dead when someone was trying to soothe them. 

It was telling the story of a group of brother-fledglings, searching for their father. Cary was reminded of the stories they’d made up for Grisha and Jeanmary, when they’d still lived at home. The story ended with the brother-fledgelings finding their father, and rescuing him from the trap he’d been drawn into. 

Then the vulture swept its wings, and the Raptors vanished into smoke and darkness. The vulture panted, beak hanging half open. 

“Sorry,” it said. “I couldn’t stop, because of the spell.”

“What did you do?” Cary asked. 

“I moved them on. They shouldn’t be part of this.” 

Cary was inclined to agree. 

“I didn’t think daemons particularly cared for the dead.” 

The vulture huffed, preened itself. 

“I’ve raised many sons of Magnus the Red. Perhaps as many as yourself, Captain,” the vulture said, tossing its head. “Apophis is one of mine, that is the reason I am here.” 

“Speaking of Khepri,” Cary said. 

“Yes, he is here, further down I believe. Around the old generators.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t be inclined to tell me how he’s doing this?” Cary asked. 

“He is using a ritual of his own creation, he’s quite a clever lad really. Far too proud and far too confident, but sharp as a knife. Thank you for sparing him, by the way,” the vulture shifted as it spoke, eyes blinking slow and tired. “He has some artefact of Necrontyr make powering it. I know little more than that, I became… distracted by Corax’s forgotten sons.” 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” 

The vulture shook its head. 

“No, no, you treated them kindly. That’s all you can do for them, I’m afraid. Also greetings to you, Night Haunter, don’t think I don’t see you, lurking in the back.” 

“You speak rather confidently for a daemon,” said the shade. 

“You speak rather a lot for one several millennia dead,” the vulture retorted. “In any case, follow the signs for the generators. You’ll find him. Feel free to smack him around a little as he has been a terrible little turd, but I will beg for his life if necessary.”

“I’m not planning on killing him,” Cary assured the vulture. 

“I am yet to be convinced.” 

“We will not be killing him,” Cary emphasised. 

“Fine.” 

“Thank you,” said the vulture. “I would accompany you, but there are more lost children to bring home.”

Cary nodded. 

“I understand,” they said. “Thank you…?”

“I have many names, very few of which you can pronounce. You may call me Nekhbet.”

“Thank you, Nekhbet.”

They left the vulture in peace, coming back out into the landing bay. More of the Raptors scrambled here now, drawn in by the vulture’s lure. Cary looked for any kind of signs, anything that could point them in the direction of the generators. Everything was corroded by centuries and centuries of guilt and shame. 

Though it wasn’t as if this was their first time in an Imperial structure. Everything the Imperium created seemed to be prefab and easy to connect, easy to slot into pre-existing structures. There were only a few places the damn thing could be. So, they started walking. 

“Did you really hate him?” Cary asked. “If only out of jealousy?”

“I think so. After all, was it not my duty to sow terror? To come back to father red-handed and blades bloody? Why hadn’t he given us that power? We would have been-”

“Monsters,” Cary cut him off. “More than we already were.” 

They found it difficult to look at him now, at his face. He looked well. He looked alive. He was not alive, and would never be again. He was quiet for a few moments before speaking again. 

“Yes, we would have been.”

Cary swallowed hard. 

“Have you thought about moving on? To go wherever is next?” 

“Have you grown tired of my company already?” He sounded amused.

“No,” they said, a little quickly. “No, I just thought… I don’t know.” 

“I haven’t thought about it. I am quite content with where I am.” 

They reached the first place a generator room could possibly be. The door was half wedged open, stuck on its rusted hinge. Cary peered into the darkness, though their vision was then obscured by long, black hair. 

“Konnacht.”

“Sorry.” 

The hair receded. There was little to speak of in the room in any case, another storage room of specimen vials, many too dusty to see what would have lain inside, others smashed and broken, their contents long since rotted away. 

“What was so amusing about geneseed, anyway?” the shade asked as they stepped away from the door. 

“Hm?”

“Yourself and Jago, you were always making little comments about it.”

Cary inhaled. 

“I don’t have the strength for this conversation, Nacht.”

“We will return to it later.” 

They closed their eyes, and cursed the name of Jago Sevatarion no less than seven times. Then they continued onwards, the Raptors had once again gathered around. Now they seemed a little more confident even around the shade, scuttling around him. 

“They’re confused,” said the shade, calmly. “I believe they think I am my brother.” 

“You don’t look alike,” Cary said, automatically. 

“To you, who bothers to properly look. Plenty only see the hair and the skin tone and think they have no need to look further.”

He paused.

“Do you think he would have lived had he been the one to land on Nostramo? Would he have become what I am?”

“I don’t think any of them would’ve made it out unmarked by Nostramo. No one did,” Cary replied. “I think they would have lived. That’s as much as I can say.” 

“He worried he could have become me, I know he did. He worries he could have become any of them. I think… I think he was naive.” 

“You would, wouldn’t you?” They glanced up at him. 

The shade shook his head. 

“No, I think he was genuinely naive. You always thought he was too young, I can see that now. He traded the slave masters of Kiavahr for the yolk of the Imperium. He could not see it as another prison, though I wonder if he thinks of it as so now. He seems more confident in Guilliman. Perhaps Guilliman will be different. Perhaps it will be the same song over and over again until there’s nothing left of us.” 

“I don’t know,” Cary admitted, helplessly. “I want to believe in Guilliman. I really do.” 

“But you don’t.” 

“I want him to succeed, to make this horrid mockery of sense better. He’s only one man. Even with Corax, that’s a tall order.” 

“Horus commanded that the galaxy burn, and the Imperium is built in the ash and ruin of it all,” the shade said. “Rebuilding it is not a duty I envy.” 

“Do you still hate him?” Cary asked. 

“Corax? Hm. Difficult to say. There are lingering wounds that even though I am dead I still feel. The irrationality- it is hard to say if it is a remnant of my infirmity or simply that I am deeply jealous. Certainly were I living I would love to shake him, shout at him. The fires of hatred have died to become simple irritation,” the shade mused, drifting silently alongside them. “I would have… words for him, I think.” 

“You had words for everyone, whether they wanted to hear them or not,” Cary replied. 

“I feel that is a generalisation of my character and I am deeply aggrieved,” the shade said, flatly. 

“You can be aggrieved all you like, you still owe me a soup pot.”

“Again with the soup pot. Will I ever hear the end of this three times benighted soup pot?” he bemoaned. 

“Not until I get another soup pot,” they replied. 

“I am dead and I have no money,” said Konnacht. 

“Tough shit then. That pot was in my family for sixty years.” 

They came to the next door, which lay in large broken pieces. Beyond it lay dead cogitators, tables stacked high with what might have once been paper, filing cabinets, paper and flimsy both scattered across the floor- or at least the ghostly outlines of the fossilised rotted shape of them. 

“Medical records?” Cary guessed, stepping further into the room.

They attempted to push some of the papers around the table, only for it to crumble under their gauntlet. There were small sections of low gothic that were still legible. Cary could make out sample , unprecedented growth and high chance but that was about it. They moved on, wandering a little past the cogitator banks. A slip of bright pink paper caught their eye, a note that was half crumpled. 

This is insane- Primarch DNA and geneseed? Something’s going to go wrong. 

In a different hand, scribbled beneath.

Try telling him that.

Cary paused over the note, not daring to touch it unless it ended up the same way as the paper dust still clinging to their gauntlets. 

“What the hell happened down here?” They muttered to themselves. 

“Science, I imagine,” Konnacht replied. “He always was impulsive, wanted to get things done as quickly as possible.” 

“Primarch DNA and geneseed alone shouldn’t create y’know, that though, should it?” Cary gestured to the ghosts, a few of which had stopped at the doorway to peer at them. 

The shade shrugged.

“This must be the result of the Alpha Legion’s infiltration. It would make sense, no?”

“I skimmed the report, I’ll be honest.”

“I am aware.”

Cary rolled their eyes. They left the records room and continued searching. 

“It’s like the tower all over again.” 

“Hm. We can only hope that Lucius isn’t about to leap from the next doorway.” 

“Or find Lorgar hanging about the place somewhere.” 

“Or a large Mechanicum monstrosity. Any number of things that were in that tower, really.” 

“To be fair, we already know Apophis is here,” Cary pointed out, gently ushering some of the ghosts clear of the next doorway. 

“I find men that have to introduce themselves by their full list of titles and accomplishments terribly boring.” 

Cary looked at him. 

“I never did that,” he protested, indignantly. “Other people gave me names, but I never stood there and listed them all off.” 

“Alright you got me there.”

They examined the room from the doorway, there were several operating tables here, all with many-tooled mechanical arms hanging over them. Several of the tables were occupied by the ancient, twisted bones of the ghosts that called to each other in the Apothecarion’s landing bay. 

“Emergency operating theatre,” they decided. “For the really bad injuries.” 

The shade drifted over to one of the tables, leaning down and examining the bones. 

“His neck has been broken,” he said, extending a long white finger to point to the place where the bone had been destroyed. “The fourth, fifth and sixth vertebrae have been crushed.” 

Cary frowned. Astartes bones were dense, not impossible to break but certainly hard. They stepped forward to look themselves, not as familiar with bones as Konnacht was, but they’d seen enough corpses to have some idea. He had already drifted away, looking at the other remains. 

“All of their necks are broken,” he said. “Then their bodies were placed here, hands folded over their chests.” 

“What’s even strong enough to do that?” Cary asked, looking up at him as the shade returned. 

Konnacht looked down at the skeleton, lifted his own white hand and hovered it above the bones. 

“A Primarch,” he said, simply. 

They both regarded the remains of the mutated Astartes in silence. 

“Poor boys,” Konnacht echoed. “Poor Corax.” 

Cary pulled the door shut when they left the operating theatre. They looked down the landing bay, only one dark doorway remained, of course it would be the last one they thought to check. 

There were stairs leading down into pitch black from the last doorway and a sign on the wall that was covered in thick layers of dust. Konnacht had already descended into the darkness, but Cary paused to wipe at the sign. 

GENERATORIUM

“Is that actually a word in High Gothic or do we just really like putting ‘ium’ on the end of words?” Cary asked. 

“It’s a real word,” said Corvus Corax. 

Cary swore, loudly. Then stared at him, blood suddenly rushing past their ears.

“How long have you been here?” they demanded.

Corax raised his eyebrows.

“Not long, just after you left the last room.” 

“I don’t think he can see me,” Konnacht whispered. “Or at least, I do not wish for him to see me. I believe we’re alright.” 

“Sorry,” Cary apologised, raising their hands. “You spooked me.” 

The ghosts were edging around Corax too, his eyes followed them, but he squinted as if he struggled to see them. It was difficult to read his expression. Cary recognised elements of pain- weren’t they so familiar with pain? But there were other emotions there. Anger? Guilt, maybe? They saw his self-loathing in his eyes- that one they knew instantly. 

“Corax,” they said.

“I would prefer not to discuss this right now,” he said, moving forward. “Come, I believe we have a son of Magnus to destroy.”

Cary made a face that was thankfully hidden by their helmet. Hopefully after getting knocked around a bit the sorcerer still had some kind of out. They moved down the stairs, Konnacht’s shade drifting ahead of them. 

“Nothing lying in wait from what I can see,” he said, standing aside to let Cary pass. 

They gave a small nod, hopefully the gesture didn’t look too odd to Corax. The corridor at the end of the stairs stretched out in both directions, however Corax moved in front of them and began down the left hand side. 

The shade drew close to him while Cary silently shook their head violently back and forth. Konrad Curze peered at his brother- he’d been the taller of the two if only by a trace amount of inches, but with Corax in armour Curze now stood a little shorter than him. 

“Has he always looked so sad or have I just never noticed it?” 

Cary took a brief chance, and quickly silenced their vox speakers.

“Get away,” they hissed. 

They then turned the vox speakers back on, hoping that the currently living Primarch hadn’t noticed. The shade laughed, but otherwise moved away from his brother. He lurked instead in the shadows around them, occasionally uttering a snide remark. 

“I would have rathered you had waited for the rites to be completed,” Corax said, surprising them both. 

“I knew you’d catch up,” Cary replied. 

“This is a place I had not wanted you to see. It is a tomb of my regret, a monument to my transgressions.” 

His tone was low, but not angry. There was nothing dangerous about the way he spoke, instead it filled Cary with guilt. This was the voice of the Primarch who had survived Isstvan.

“If you knew the things I knew, you would not have come here so eagerly. When I created my Raptors, my misbegotten sons, I looked into their eyes and I wondered if this was how our father felt. It is not science alone that created us, all of us. No. Each of us came from the depth of chaos, our bones are wreathed in that poison. We were mistakes, Captain,” he said, never looking back as he did. “It was our DNA that changed my sons, malformed them. My DNA. Primarch DNA. Whatever I am, I was not meant to live to see this. None of us were meant to live to see father’s perfect future for humanity.” 

Cary turned a little to look to the shade, who shook his head.

“No. The warp taint in the gene-vault was different. Had a different smell, I know what my brothers smell like.” 

They made another face. Cary wanted to tell him that the ghosts were being laid to rest. Wanted to say anything that could have eased that guilt. Eased that pain. 

“I never liked your father,” they found themselves saying instead. “I never trusted anyone who came to me saying they could fix all my problems, making promises they had no intention of keeping. He might have served humanity, hell, he still does. But he made a sacrifice of you and your brothers for it.” 

They watched his back and shoulders carefully, but his pace and stance never changed. 

“Perhaps we were born meant for that. Sacrificial lambs. Never meant for anything but slaughter,” he said. “There is still something horrible under that skin of humanity he crafted for us that deserves nothing but death.” 

“Don’t say that,” Cary said. “Don’t you ever say that.” 

“We were made broken.”

“So was I.” 

Silence. 

“I didn’t mean to imply,” he began.

Cary sped up to walk at his side and smacked him on the pauldron with the side of their fist.

“No! Shut up! You can’t right whatever wrongs you think you’ve committed by dragging yourself over broken glass, you can’t fix anything by punishing yourself, idiot ! So what if the Emperor made you with whatever ingredients he found in the warp? What has that changed? You’re still here! You’re still trying! You can’t hate yourself into redemption- if you even fucking need it . There are people here who need you, who will need you for a long time. I need you, your sons need you, Guilliman needs you. I didn’t drag you back here on a whim , Corvus. I brought you back because one: leaving you in space hell would have been cruel, ‘Hey Guilliman! I saw one of your brothers who you haven’t seen in a myriad and just let him fuck off again!’ Two: You’re my friend. And three: That beard fucking sucked , Corax. I’m so glad you shaved it.”

Their rant ran out of steam towards the end, Cary only realised they were rambling when Corax laughed. 

“Am I wrong though? Am I wrong?” They demanded of him. 

“I suppose not.” 

“Correct, because I’m not. I’ve never been wrong my whole life.” 

“Wrong.” 

Corax laughed again. 

Cary stopped dead. The cold draped over them like a funeral shroud. Corax had also stopped, standing a few feet ahead of them both. They felt light headed, like they would in the few seconds after they knew they’d done something incorrectly. Missing a step, making the wrong parry, the chain not finding its mark. 

They saw his hands flex into fists, then relax again. Corvus Corax turned. 

“I am sorry,” he said. “For once, you tried to tell me the truth. And I did not believe you. And I have lied to you in turn.” 

His face tilted upwards, looking at the one who stood behind them. 

“You’re looking rather well for a dead man, brother.”

Chapter Text

For a brief second, Cary considered lying face down on the floor and becoming hysterical. It was another flashbang moment, another long few seconds where they felt they had been ripped from their body, ripped from reality. 

Corax was speaking again, his pale face sharply contrasting with the dark around him. They could not focus on a single thing he was saying. It was strange being able to recognise the kind of dissociative panic state they were in, viewing their feelings from the outside like a scientist observing a petri dish. 

Cary blinked. 

“Shit,” they managed. “Shit!” 

Then they started forward, slipped around Corax and kept walking. 

“We need to keep going,” they found themselves saying. “Or I’m going to have a complete nervous breakdown.” 

“Cary-”

“No, shut up.” They sped up, power walking down the corridor. “We’re going to beat this thrice-damned wizard until Ahriman feels it in his tits.” 

For at least a few seconds, there was only quiet. Cary had silenced the servos of their power armour down to a barely perceptible hum, but it was nothing compared to the complete silence of Corax’s battle plate. The shade of course, was always silent. 

“ I’m impulsive, then?” Corax asked. 

They wondered if they could start shouting for Khepri to just fireball the whole corridor. Or sprint ahead to find him and beg the sorcerer to just do anything so they would not have to be here. 

“Yes? Is that an unfair judgement of the Corax I knew?” Konnacht replied. 

From his silence Cary ascertained that the living Primarch certainly wasn’t used to receiving clear answers from his brother. 

“I would hardly call your actions well thought out,” Corax said, eventually. 

“Oh true enough,” the shade agreed. “Then again, what would you have expected from a madman put in charge of a Legion?” 

They almost wanted to see Corax’s face. Almost. Cary had thought they would have shouted at each other, or that there would have been some kind of ghost violence or anything. Corax seemed as stunned as they were. Cary inhaled.

“To be fair, when you first got grabbed I kept mistaking you for one of our neophytes,” they said. “Had to squint at you from across the room to work out if you were or not.” 

“They were almost going to give your tutelage to me,” the shade added. “It was suggested I refuse.” 

“Me and Jago said he couldn’t. For good reason.” 

“How long has he been- have you been…?” Corax trailed off. 

“Oh, since I died. My revenant soul fled my body and refused to move on, instead attaching itself to the Captain here. I awoke properly when they entered the warp, the place of souls and ruin. I have no idea how any of it works.” 

“Right,” said Corax. “And no one else knows.”

“The child knows, Coin.” 

“You’ve spoken to Coin?” 

“I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter. Cary was asleep and the child was pestering me about voidships.” 

“This is the worst,” they said. “This is the worst. ” 

“Their intricately constructed web of lies is collapsing on itself, they will be overly dramatic about it for the next few minutes.” 

“Shut up,” Cary told the shade. “I’m trying to pretend none of this is actually happening and neither of you are helping.” 

The shade laughed. The corridor had suddenly come to an end, the iron doors loomed out of the darkness. Cary paused, looking down at the floor. Inches away from the toe of their boot was a thin line of electric blue paint. The auto-senses had pinged it like it would an exposed live wire, measuring power and energy coming off of the thing. 

“It’s an alarm,” said the shade. “Apophis is close.” 

“With any luck, he still thinks you’re doing the rites,” Cary said, turning to Corax. “He’s using a Necrontyr device to power a ritual, I’ll trigger the alarm and get the door open- think you can disrupt it?” 

He looked at them, there was still a slight crease between his eyebrows, his face was still slightly angled towards the shade. His few seconds of silence unnerved them more than anything. Then he nodded. 

“I won’t ask how you know, as you’ll likely lie anyway,” he said. 

“A vulture daemon of Tzeentch called Nekhbet told me,” Cary blurted.

Then they stepped over the line and thumped the door release button on the wall. The doors opened and flooded the corridor with dim blue light. Corax became a shadow, simply faded from existence. Cary hoped that it was his wraith walk, and not that the sorcerer had managed to somehow banish him or something. 

The generator room was circular, with a vaulted ceiling and all the Imperial trappings one could imagine. Crenulated walls and flying buttresses that supported a central column- the generator itself, which had long been dead now crackled and rippled with turquoise arcs of energy. Some oddly shaped stone object now sat crammed into one of the battery ports, green arcane-tech sigils pulsing from it gently. A wide ambulatory circled the generator, pillars formed archways between the cogitator banks that lined the walls and the inner chamber itself. 

Luminous blue marks covered almost every surface, streaks of paint made up twisted lines contorting into shapes that looked like numbers or words but scattered when Cary tried to examine them any closer. Interlocking circles ensnared the room fully, traced along the floor of the ambulatory. There was no sign of Apophis. 

Cary stepped inside the room.

“You know it is terribly rude to bring another to a duel. Even if that other is dead,” The voice echoed around the chamber. “But since we have not met, allow me to introduce myself. I am Khepri Apophis-”

“Wytchlord, Master of the seven seals of Ahriman, son of Magnus the Red. Yes, we heard you the first thousand times you said it,” Cary snapped. 

“Marvellous, when I take your skull I may have to enchant it so you can announce me forever,” the voice gloated. “Will you at least introduce your revenant to me?” 

“This is Night Haunter , the Dark King, the Last Judge, Primarch of the Eighth Legion- though Konrad Curze is the name you likely know him by.” 

“And you have sorely tested my patience, son of Magnus,” the shade snarled, a little bit of his old self, the old anger shining through. 

Cary began to pace along the ambulatory, making sure to keep their back to the wall. Konnacht enshrouded them once more, the veil of shadows hopefully masking them from the sorcerer, wherever he was. 

“How quaint, the shadows that he could not have mastery of in life now serve him in death. Father still laments over the library of Zoah, on occasion. Once Kulikov has been otherwise disposed of, perhaps I will trap what remains of you and give it to him.”  

“He did mention he would remember that,” the shade murmured. 

“You weren’t even born when the library of Zoah burned,” Cary said aloud. “ Sweet mother , you’re an infant.” 

“Please, spare me your talk of age and of those times long gone. You are a relic , Kulikov. A has-been, antiquated, passé, obsolete, ” his tone was less antagonising now, real anger slipped through the cracks. 

“Yet here you are, following me around like a dog,” they replied. “Are you truly that desperate?” 

That seemed to be enough. With a great crack of warp lightning he appeared, robed and armoured. The arcane sigils flashed at his presence as great arcs of energy leapt from him. He carried his staff this time, the proper one instead of the long-handled khopesh. It was unfortunate that Khepri seemed to have learned his lesson from before, and extra unfortunate that Nekhbet wouldn’t be there to block off his magic. 

“Show yourself!” He bellowed. 

“Show yourself, he says to the Night Lord,” Cary uttered. 

“I’ll show myself,” the shade said. 

The shadows around them launched forward, a storm of darkness and murder that dived through the archway and descended on the sorcerer. Cary followed, at a sprint, ready for when the darkness dissipated and they could charge through. 

Though Apophis wore his helmet, his shock was clear from his arm half raised, the instinct to guard oneself against a larger threat. However it was Cary punching him in the face plate that actually got him. His head rocked backwards and he stumbled away.

They let the claws drop from their housing, the crackling energy from the generator reaching out to the metal almost longingly. The shade descended upon Cary once more, wreathing them in darkness. Cary glanced around the room, to the generator that was now beside them. Hopefully Corax was doing something about it.

Apophis roared again, swinging his staff in an arc, the casting focus trailing a bout of blue flame. Cary leapt behind the generator tower, the blue flames pouring from either side of it. 

They were amused by the idea of keeping the pillar between themselves and Apophis for as long as possible, like some kind of children’s game. This thought was quickly dashed by Khepri stepping from the aether before them, a tear in reality that made Cary’s stomach flip. 

Cary slipped forward under the swipe of his staff, scoring the lightning claws over his thigh guard as they went. They also took a decent chunk of the robe with them. 

Apophis swore in what they recognised as Tizcan. 

“I think he just called me a son of a whore-mongrel,” Cary said. 

“Wrong on both accounts,” the shade replied. 

The sorcerer swept forward again, forcing Cary back towards the ambulatory. They forced themselves to keep their focus on Khepri, though their eyes itched to wander. Where the hell was Corax? 

Their eyes flicked away from the sorcerer for only a split second- but it was enough for the heavy staff to catch them in the shoulder, sending them across the room with the force of the strike. 

“Y’know,” they said, getting to their feet. “I won’t be mad if you decide to take over at any time. Or start eating my soul again.”

“I am not committing the latter again,” the shade said, firmly. 

“Look who’s the bleeding heart now,” Cary grunted, raising the claws and striking forwards. 

Apophis became mist as they carved through him, a blow that would have struck at that delicate point between pauldron and gourget tore through nothing. Cary stumbled forward, through the incorporeal son of the One-Eyed king and turned in time to catch a fireball to the chest. 

The warp-fire couldn’t have possibly penetrated the armour, yet they felt the pain and the heat all the same, thrown back by the force of it and crunching into the wall. 

“Could this be settled,” they panted, rising to their feet. “Literally any other way? I’ll learn how to play regicide if that’ll do it.” 

“I will not be satisfied until you lie dead and humiliated,” Apophis thundered. 

“Then live in disappointment,” said Corax. 

They recognised the crack of his archaeotech pistol, though the shot was different- a white lance of light that drowned all other colour in the room. It hit the Necrontyr device and exploded. 

For a split second, Cary thought they’d gone blind. That the light from the shot had finally been too much for their darkness-inclined eyes. Then the auto-senses adjusted, the room had only been illuminated by Khepri’s ritual. The paint lay dead and inert, no longer glowing. 

They saw Corax’s outline, looming over the sorcerer. Cary started forward, hand raised. 

“Shit,” said Khepri.

He banged his staff on the floor, and suddenly they were all falling down and down and down.

Chapter Text

And down and down and down. 

In those split seconds of freefall, Cary realised where they were. They were falling through the main centre of the Ravenspire, the pale hexagon of sky above them rather rapidly getting smaller and smaller. 

They twisted themselves, pointed their gauntlet at the wall and fired. The chain shot forward, biting into the dark rock. The motor kicked in and dragged them upward again. Cary grimaced at the pulling, aching pain in their shoulder. Momentum still wanted to carry them downwards, and fighting forces of nature never ended well. 

Still, they crunched against the wall, the adamantium spikes on the front of their boots digging into the rock and holding fast. Cary held onto the wall with one hand, twisted around to look down over the inside of the tower. 

Corax was the most obvious sight, his warp-born black wings spread like an angel of death itself, the light catching on the rainbow-on-oil metallic sheen of them. He hadn’t fallen far either, hovering in the air with great movements of his wings. 

Apophis was a different story, having conjured some kind of brass-coloured disc, which he was now standing upon and yelling at Corax. 

“What is he saying?” Konnacht asked, leaning from the nearby arch. 

His countenance was unclear again, the vague, smudged impression of his face. It had been the ritual making him stronger, after all. 

“I have no idea- it’s all Tizcan I think?” Cary peered down, trying to get the auto-senses to focus on him. 

The words that came through were unfamiliar, though Konnacht tilted his head. 

“He’s just insulting him, something about proper form and- oh he’s saying how much he’s going to kill you again, but for shaming both him and the Night Lords by playing underhandedly.”

“He hasn’t met many Night Lords, has he?” 

“One assumes not.” 

Corax swooped on him, and the sorcerer ducked close to the disc he stood on while it swerved out of the way. Cary almost just wanted to sit there and watch- however, Corax wasn’t under any obligations to not kill Apophis. Meanwhile Cary had no intention of giving Nekhbet any reason to have grievances with them. 

“Cary!” The voice echoed up the inside of the tower.

They looked, Coin was leaning out over one of the balustrades, waving. The sorcerer turned, he’d heard her too. He tilted the disc forward.

Cary leapt without thought or plan. As luck and gravity would have it, they fell directly in his path as the Thousand Son drifted across the air towards the girl. Cary yelled, Khepri looked upwards, and Cary tackled him off of the disc. 

“I made a damn promise to your guardian,” they hissed at him, one hand locked around the horn that sprouted from the side of his helmet, the other at his throat. “But if you ever go near that girl again: I’ll make you wish I’d killed you.” 

His eyes burned from the eye slit of his helmet.

Which was when Corvus Corax crashed into both of them, and all three hit the side of the tower in an eruption of black stone dust as his great wings and force of landing sent them through the wall. The impact reverberated around their body painfully, and bouncing across the floor wasn’t pleasant either. 

Momentum carried them across the floor until they hit the wall, driving the air from all three of their lungs. For at least one second, Cary allowed themselves to lie face down on the floor. They did not become hysterical, but they decided they had earned at least one half of their earlier idea. 

Cary brought themselves up on their hands, having to claw up the wall in order to get to their feet. Corax was still shrugging chunks of his own tower off of his armour and wings, while Khepri was just about standing himself. 

He leaned heavily on his staff and pointed a finger at Cary.

“You insolent, worthless, idiotic barbarian !” he shouted at them. 

Another crack . Shorter this time, less powerful. A shot from a lasgun. It streaked across the room and smacked right into the eye slit of his helmet. Khepri shouted in pain, clutched one hand over his eye. 

Cary turned to see Theodanius already charging across the room, while Elaius desperately tried to usher Coin to greater cover. Coin was holding her lasgun, and grinning. 

They turned again to watch the Dark Angels veteran punch the sorcerer in the head. It happened so quickly Cary wasn’t actually sure they had seen it correctly. Apophis once again toppled backwards, Theodanius grabbed his staff.

The Dark Angel broke the staff over his knee, and tossed the snapped brass halves through the hole in the wall. Corax rose finally, shaking the last of the rubble from his wings. 

Next problem: How to explain to Primarch Corvus Corax, father of the unresting sons in the forbidden Apothecarion that Khepri Apophis (Wytchlord, etc, etc) shouldn’t be killed. 

Their body protested as they started forward, a hundred biting aches all clamouring to be known and acknowledged. The sorcerer was trapped between Theodanius, Corax and the drop, not the best of places to be. 

Another lasgun shot ran out, but this one rebounded off of one of their pauldrons. It still had an impact on their bruised and battered body, as it shunted Cary’s shoulder forward. Cary couldn’t stop the cry of pain from escaping their mouth, vaguely aware that the Primarch and the Dark Angel had turned towards them. 

“Sorry! Sorry,” Coin called. “I thought I had a shot around you.”

Cary heard the scrape of ceramite on stone, and watched Khepri Apophis dive off of the Ravenspire. A burst of blue light, a thousand blue vulture feathers scattered where he had hung in the air for but a split second, then they all fluttered down silently. 

“I hate wizards,” Cary said, to no one in particular. 

-

They sat in the considerably less forbidden apothecarion, helmet removed, parts of their armour removed, and allowed themselves to be checked over. A lot of their damage had turned out to be internal, and their comment about how all their blood was supposed to be inside them anyway had not been met with the good humour it deserved. 

Coin was half curled against them, sheltering under Cary’s unarmoured arm. They thought she might have been asleep until the Apothecary decided they were stable enough to only need to rest and moved away. 

“I did it on purpose,” she said. “Knew it’d make Lord Corax and Theo turn around. The wizard-”

“Isn’t coming back any time soon,” Cary interrupted, but gently squeezed her shoulders. “Thank you, Coin.” 

“You don’t like it when you can’t keep your promises,” she said, her voice low with drowsiness. “And you can’t separate them. You’ll kill them both.”

“Hm?” Cary looked down at the girl, who’s half-open eyes were gazing at an empty corner. “Corax.”

The Primarch appeared, coming out of nothing like he had always been there. He was also bereft of most of his armour, and the wings had once again vanished. They were getting more used to his sudden appearances, at least at a distance. 

“Do not separate them, your sister said that once,” Coin said. “She knew. She knew.” 

Then the girl went limp with sleep. 

“Is he here?” Corax asked, softly. 

“No, not right now. He’s… Wherever he goes when he’s not here. I’ll tell you now, he can watch sometimes, but for him it’s more like dreaming. Can’t react in the moment, can only see what’s happening,” Cary told him. “He doesn’t see everything I do.” 

“Just most of it,” Corax replied. “I- Sorry, that was… Unkind of me. I know how- I’ve listened to your account, the one you gave to the Inquisitor. I cannot be ill tempered with you for simply doing as you have done for so many years: taking care of him.” 

“You’re more than entitled to your anger, Corvus,” Cary said. “He did terrible things. There are probably things he’s done that I would struggle to forgive him for, that I couldn’t forgive him for. But he’s dead. He’s the most lucid I’ve ever seen him, the most rational and he’s dead. I look at him and I think ‘This is the man he could have been’ and I think ‘Could I have done anything more? If I’d pushed harder, been braver, been louder, could he have been this the whole time?’. But I don’t know, and I’ll never know. I don’t know if one day he’ll just pass on, fade away. I don’t know if one day I’ll just wake up and he won’t be there. It terrifies me. 

“I woke up months ago to find everyone dead. Everyone I had loved, every boy I had called my own- all dead or worse. You’ll never know how happy I was to see you alive.” 

They cleared their throat, subtly rubbed their thumb across the bottom of their eyes. 

“I did hate that beard though,” Cary said, half smiling. 

“You called me your friend.”

“You did it first, sap,” Cary pointed out. 

“Then we cannot accept being strangers to each other,” Corax replied, evenly. “What else is there?” 

They stared into the middle distance. What were they even keeping secret at the moment. 

“No one else is here?” 

Corax shook his head. 

“I met the vulture daemon, Nekhbet, before in the tower. It helped me, in exchange for answering two questions- what the Emperor looked like when he came to Nostramo and where Konnacht hid the Dark, the book he wrote down his visions in. Figured those bits of information weren’t really important. The Dark’s probably crumbled to dust by now. Nekhbet also spent much of its time in the Apothecarion moving on the souls of the Raptors, by the way. Turns out it tutored a lot of the Sons, like I did for my boys. It asked me to spare Apophis’ life. What else is there?” 

Cary leaned their head backwards, eyes closed in thought.

“I accepted aid from a Nurglite child while in the tower, if that’s a great sin. I thought of you as naive, young and inexperienced- which has crossed over to now when you are certainly not those things anymore, for which I can only apologise.”

He laughed a little. 

“I have lied about my pains. I am in pain all the time, a result of not being Cawl’s first draft and the implants being given far too fast. Even the Rubicon has not stopped the pains- sometimes they are so bad I cannot move, I can only seize up and grit my teeth until it has ended. My augments were done in five months, did you know that? Dorn, Fulgrim, Manus and Lorgar, they knew. I never wanted anyone else to know, unless they thought me weak. 

“You remember the very first time we spoke? When you found me threatening the First Captain before Jago? They had locked me inside one of the rebel fortifications. Told me not to come out until I had killed a score of them. I killed until the chain wouldn’t work anymore, too thick with flesh and cloth. I killed with my hands, with my knife. Konnacht said to me ‘What use do I have of a First Captain who won’t even make his own kills?’. And I never saw Zvekan again. I wonder sometimes if that was right. If he deserved to die for that. If I should have known better, asked Konnacht to spare his life.” 

“You call him that a lot, Konnacht,” said Corax. 

“It started as ‘Nacht’, old, old Nostraman word for night. He is of course Night Haunter , but calling him by the full thing every time was exhausting. Then your father came, bestowed him with the name he’d intended for his son. Konnacht never liked it. He had a name already. None of the rest of you were renamed by your father. Konrad Curze . Sounds like bad news. So I just, put them together, told him we’d tell people it was the Nostraman version of Konrad. Konnacht.” 

Corax was quiet. 

“I hope he knew how kind you were to him,” he said. “That he had some concept of it.” 

“I think he probably did. I’m sorry again, about Hagiogra.” 

They looked up. He had found a chair, slotted himself into the small section of the apothecarion that had been closed off for them. 

“Cary,” he said. “You thought I was going to kill you.” 

“I had contacted a traitor Legion, abandoning active combat to meet with them. I am a deserter at best and a traitor at worst. You’re a good man, Corax, I couldn’t imagine you would let it go that easily. I was surprised you didn’t order the ships to hunt them down, I was surprised I walked out of that room alive. I’m surprised to still be alive. When I looked at you, all I saw was death. Not pain or violence or anything like that, just the silence of the grave. That inevitable end that I had waited for so long- I have always been waiting to die, Corax. Death came frequently on Nostramo, Konnacht had seen visions of himself killing me and had marked my death long ago. Can you blame me for sitting there, looking at you and thinking that was it?” 

“How long have you wanted to die?” Corax asked. 

Cary kissed their teeth as they sucked in a breath. 

“Going for the hard questions now I see.” 

Corax didn’t reply, instead just sat there, waiting for them to answer. Jago used to do that. 

“A long time. Certainly from when I was much younger than Coin is now. I remember sitting in the septs, hearing all these words about a lovely life, a peaceful life beyond this one, and wondering why we bothered with this one at all. Konnacht said once ‘We will go together into the dark’, I thought that sounded nice. Just a quiet darkness, where I can’t affect anything anymore. Where I can’t lie to or hurt anyone. A soft place I don’t deserve. All I needed was someone to wield the knife,” their voice cracked. “ God, why haven’t you killed me? Why am I the one who receives all these second, third chances? The saints know I deserve to die by your hand alone, Corvus.” 

He stood, came to their chair and they felt relieved. They could almost imagine it, the cool, gentle hand on their throat that would crush their spine, end their life. Cary closed their eyes. 

And to their absolute horror Corvus Corax hugged them. He had knelt before them, passed his cool arms around their shoulders and drawn them forward. Coin had not stirred.

Cary found their body betraying them, their arm wrapped around his neck, holding onto him so tightly it made them shake. They were already shaking, they were crying. Their weak, fool body was displaying their hearts bare and unguarded. 

They couldn’t say how long they cried. They couldn’t even really say how long they had clung to him, like a frightened child. Cary didn’t want to know the answer. 

To add to their dread, when he did let them go, he wiped the tears from their face with his thumbs. 

“Let us help you,” he said. “Please, Cary.” 

Cary let their head drop forward. This was it. The final nail in the coffin. The great masquerade that was their entire life was over. They would not go unseen or unnoticed again. It was only Corax, yet it felt as if they had opened their chest, cracked their ribcage wide open for all to see.

“Alright,” they said. “Alright.”

Chapter Text

The return to Macragge was blessedly uneventful. They already felt it had gone on far too long.

Chapter Master Kayvaan Shrike had seen them off from Deliverance, with Corax entrusting him with once more rebuilding the Legion- Chapter . He seemed a good sort in any case. 

The Sanguinary Guard insisted on at least accompanying Dark Sister and the Spear of Demeter back to Macragge. Sanguinius hadn’t exactly put a hard limit on how long they were supposed to be helping, after all. 

Cary noticed that various bottles of painkillers started appearing in their quarters, and that Elaius or Theodanius would occasionally, casually ask them if they had taken any that day. They forced themselves to bite back the defensive remarks, the instinct beneath their skin to be terrified of anyone showing concern. They did not like being taken care of, but they had made Corax a promise. Cary kept their promises. 

Corax had also been firm with the fact that Guilliman had to be told about the ghost. They couldn’t say he was wrong, but still the fear clawed up their throat like a wounded animal. 

Guilliman had been there to greet him, the carved features of his face breaking into a smile to see Corax again, to see his sons again. An Imperial mission with so few disasters, so few interruptions especially in this day and age was practically unheard of. 

Cary had only half been paying attention through the debriefing. They were looking out of the window of the Lord Commander’s office at a dreary grey Macragge, rain softly pattering against the window. There was a roof below the window, beyond it plenty of ways to climb down or up- simply away from where they were. 

“Cary.” Corax repeated himself. 

They turned. Guilliman was sat behind his desk, nursing what Cary guessed was probably his seventh or eighth cup of recaf, looking toward them with a curious expression. Corax was sat on the chair in front of the desk, looking at them expectantly. 

Cary tried to breathe, to ignore the fact that both of their hearts seemed determined to burst open. 

“I am haunted by the revenant of Konrad Curze,” they said. “I can see and hear his ghost, and have been able to do so since I entered the warp.” 

Guilliman held their gaze for an uncomfortable amount of time. They had to trust Corax that his brother wasn’t about to immediately give them over to the Inquisition, or just kill them there. They had to trust that Guilliman, practical, logical Guilliman, could see past his own emotions. 

Guilliman looked to Corax, who nodded.

“I’ve seen him,” Corax confirmed. “Spoken to him.” 

Guilliman rubbed his face with one hand, leant back in his chair. 

“Not exactly the news I was expecting,” he said, measuredly. “What has our brother had to say for himself?” 

Corax looked at Cary. 

“I can’t call him forth like a dog, he just sort of appears to me as he wants,” Cary said, folding their arms. “I’m not even convinced he can manifest here, in realspace. He can do so in the warp, and Apophis’ ritual was meant to strengthen ghosts, I don’t know that he can just appear here.” 

In saying this, their eyes caught on a dark corner of the room. It was the same kind of ink-in-water flowing shadow, though transparent. The smudged impression of a pale face with large black eyes peering forward. 

“Unless you can also see that,” Cary gestured to the corner. 

Guilliman threw his mug at the ghost. He had risen in only a split second, sending his chair crashing backwards. Corax had stood too, hands half reaching for his living brother. 

“Well,” said Konnacht, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “That was a little rude.” 

It was to his great credit that Guilliman did not call the guards. Did not lurch forward and try and physically grapple the ghost. He just stared at the shade. 

“He has been considerably more lucid in death than he was in life,” Corax said, taking hold of Guilliman’s shoulder. 

“How lucid?” Guilliman questioned. 

“Enough to see the blood on my hands, enough to recognise slaughter,” the shade replied. “Enough that I struggle to see where justice truly was in my actions.” 

Guilliman, in what Cary thought was an entirely logical sequence of events, picked up his chair, sat down upon it and buried his face in his hands. It was a posture they had taken many times themselves. Then he threaded his fingers together and rested them across his face, elbows leaning on the desk. 

“Can you still see?” Guilliman asked the shade. 

Cary was about to answer for him, when the shade spoke. 

“Yes,” he said. 

Cary frowned at him as the shade’s smudged face turned towards them. 

“I am afraid I told you a sort of half truth. My visions do not seize me as they once did. It is more that… There is a great window that I can choose to look through, or simply not. For the most part, I have chosen not to look. Though if the Lord Commander wishes to make use of these half-born futures, things that may or may not be, I will oblige him. There are sins here I have yet to account for- even in death I still serve.” 

He laughed as he spoke the last few words. The corners of their mouth twitched upwards, though the living Primarchs obviously found the statement less amusing. Guilliman looked to Cary. 

“You are forbidden from active duty,” he said. 

They made a sort of ‘what did I do?’ gesture with their hands, but nodded. 

“Fair enough. Time limit on that or just, forever?” 

“Five years at least. Or until I’ve decided otherwise. Cawl recommended at least five years for your own health and for the children,” he said. 

“What children?” 

Guilliman rubbed his face again. 

“I gave permission for the Archmagos to experiment with chimeric geneseed,” he said, as if that explained anything. “I was not exactly sure what he planned to do with it beyond creating new Primaris marines, ones that would perhaps require their own Chapters. I do not believe you had any idea what he planned to use your genetic material for, but apparently an ovum that has already been treated with the various gene-modifications of the Astartes augments was too great an opportunity for him to let go of.” 

He looked at them with very tired eyes. 

“Cawl has made six infant girls. Congratulations.”

Chapter Text

It was with an alarming familiarity that Cary took to the administrative duty Guilliman had tasked them with. In a way, it reminded them of back home, back in the Judicial tower. Cary had spent weeks pouring over official documents, learning what they could from Dvalica and any other members of the court that would speak with them. Even Curze had taught them a little, in his strange ways. He dissected the speech of those at the court table openly, peeling back their hidden meanings and exposing their true questions. Cary had watched how people squirmed under the knife of his voice, echoed his words over the years, almost becoming his face. 

That brought an echo of a smile to their face, a memory rising to the surface. It was a ploy they used on feudal worlds, when the populace was better swayed by simpler words. 

First they would send in Cary. 

I am the Face of Death, they would say. Pray you do not meet the Hand. We serve the Master of Mankind, and have come to bring you home. 

If negotiations from there failed, then it would be Jago’s turn. 

I am the Hand of Death, he would say. Pray you do not meet the Voice. 

His negotiations were usually more threats than anything. He’d always been able to lay out a situation for what it was, and make it seem very unpleasant. Usually though if the negotiations had gone poorly enough to require Jago, Curze would often have to make an appearance. 

I am the Voice of Death , he would say. You have turned away the warnings. We have come for you. 

Things always fell apart after that. 

Still, it was rather helpful when dealing with the administratum of Macragge. While Guilliman already had an Equerry- a Primaris named Decimus, funnily enough, there was never a shortage of work that had to be done. Corvus also lacked an Equerry, and quite a lot of his paperwork was filtered through Cary too. 

They had extra duties in the forms of neophyte training, sim creation (including Cato’s long awaited strategy sim) and passing on whatever combat knowledge they had. When Guilliman asked of both of them, they would also give a reading. Cary had been gifted the Emperor’s Tarot, something they were vaguely aware of from the old days but had never looked much into. The cards at least came with solid concepts, rather than the flash of images and noise and sensation that danced behind their eyes. Konnacht had always seen differently from them. It was like he lived those futures in a fraction of a second. Cary remembered how many times they had found him seizing, how many times he had been struck by visions. It was a wonder he’d known what was real in the first place. 

Guilliman, thankfully, didn’t often ask for readings. 

A piece of paper was slid across their desk, over the dataslate they were examining the most recent requisitions on. Upon the paper was a quite technically impressive still life of Cary sitting at their desk in the medium of brightly coloured crayons. A round face peered over the edge of the desk, skin just a few shades paler than olive, eyes a bright berry colour. Long, platinum blonde hair and Iphegenia’s most defining feature: a pair of feathered wings. 

“Thank you, Fig,” they said, reaching out and brushing the child’s hair out of her face. 

Fig, like her sisters, was only just over a year old, though she looked to be a child of five. When she smiled, Cary could see her sharp canines. Cawl was more than happy with the children’s rate of growth, but it was other factors that worried Cary. 

Fig went to sit with her sisters again, on the carpet in front of the desk. The kids liked playing near Cary, or at least to have their guardian in sight. Cawl had referred to it in words like “attachment style” and “imprintation success”. The kids generally came and went as they wanted from Cary’s office and into the rest of the apartments. 

It wasn’t just them taking care of the children. In the Fortress of Hera, the kids were practically communally raised by chapter serfs and neophytes alike. Not even the fully grown Astartes themselves were infallible, often Cary had found full squads herding the kids back to the apartments. 

They looked over the desk. There were six children, all born of chimeric geneseed and Cary’s own DNA. Pyrrha or Sargent, as she often preferred to be called, the “oldest” so to speak. She had tanned skin and curly blonde, steel-grey eyes that focused on her toy with an intensity that bordered on funny. Such a serious expression for a child’s face. Her stock was that of Ultramarine and Iron Warrior, the two most stable samples Cawl had to hand at the time. She was quiet, observant and oddly stern for such a young child- there were certainly elements of Guilliman in that. Though privately Cary wondered if Perturabo’s early years had been the same way. 

The second was Kubo, dark skinned, red-eyed with tight curls that clung to her scalp. She was a bright child, in all meanings of the word. Rarely unhappy, excitable and kind. She was always the first to go to her sisters when they were upset, always the first to reach out. Her chimeric makeup came from the Salamanders and World Eaters. Cary often became thoughtful when looking at her. They tried to remember what the War Hounds had been like before Angron’s discovery. Wondered if there was anything there. If there was, they couldn’t see it. Not with the innocent girl, who would never feel the bite of the Butcher’s Nails. 

The third was Kasovah (Kaz), named for Cary’s Grandmother. Nostraman-black eyes peered out from under a fringe of short black hair, fluffy and feathery in its appearance. Her skin was the same shade as Cary’s, and they shared the same hooked nose. It was probably for her own sake that her appearance had been linked so closely to Cary’s. Even if the girl had looked more like Corvus, there was no telling how many people would see Curze. Raven Guard and Night Lord, a chimaera that few would have the gall to suggest. 

The fourth was Iphegenia (Fig). Hers was perhaps the most obvious of ancestors, at least on one side. Blood Angel and Emperor’s Children. She liked painting and drawing, and besides Kaz was probably the quietest of them all. Fig was shy, didn’t like strangers and didn’t do well in crowded spaces. People looked at her and saw her father, wanted her to be her father. Cary kept her out of the public eye as much as possible. 

The fifth was Lunete, who had skin the colour of golden sand, and sharp green-blue eyes. Her hair was ash blonde, and her expression often sterner than Pyrrha’s. She had a strong sense of right and wrong, and a brusque manner that reminded Cary of the Lion so much it was comical. She was the result of the Dark Angels and Alpha Legion chimaera, quite why Cawl had thought it was a good idea to combine the most secretive of Legions together was beyond Cary. 

The sixth was Dagný, who was currently trying to levitate the book in front of her with her mind. Her skin and hair were both red, though pale streaks of pale blonde shot through it. Her hair was never neat and seemed to resist any attempts to tame it. Her eyes were a very bright wolfish blue, and many of her teeth were pointed- the canine structure of a wolf. Obvious enough to most, her genesires came of the Space Wolves and the Thousand Sons. She certainly had Magnus’ voracious hunger for knowledge- but then also Leman’s energetic spirit. Dagný would read for hours, and then make sure you knew everything she had just learned, grinning the whole time. 

Of all of them, it had been Dagný Cawl had been most worried about. If he could be worried, of course. Cary wasn’t sure if he hadn’t had his emotions replaced with a device that would activate his personal laser array. 

His worry was the instability of both samples. At their cores, both Space Wolf and Thousand Son geneseed was… temperamental, if not an active time bomb. The Wulfen and the Flesh Change were after all common in the ranks. However, Cawl had a theory. Which like any theory he had, he ran past no one but himself before turning it into a practicality. And the annoying thing was that it worked. The halves of her DNA that came from the geneseed stabilised each other, he had explained the chemical processes and helixes and mitochondria at length, but Cary had mostly been focused on not punching out his working eye at the time. There had been words about taking this gamble, from themselves, Guilliman and Corax (who had enough reasons of his own to have an opinion). 

In any case, at the tender age of one year and three months, the girls were doing well. Cary also wasn’t doing too badly themselves. They were taking pain medication on a fairly regular basis, they had not been stabbed or shot at in at least eleven months and they were doing things again. 

They liked being occupied, Cary had never been sure what to do with rest. They’d sometimes joked they’d never had a day’s rest in their life. Guilliman had put Cary on leave for that statement, which had been fine . They had done paperwork anyway. Things Corvus had forgotten to fill in and snuck onto their desk in the hopes they’d do it for him. 

Though it wasn’t like Guilliman could talk. More than once they’d had to argue at him to rest, that the Imperium wouldn’t detonate while he slept. He had confided to them that he struggled to sleep since his awakening from stasis. Cary had offered to knock him out- they’d done it plenty of times to Curze. Guilliman hadn’t been sure they were joking. 

A short buzz indicated there was someone at the door. Cary stood, but Kubo was already scrambling up. 

“I’ll get it!” She called, padding down the corridor. 

Cary went anyway. Kubo and Fig were the only two tall enough to reach the button pad by the door to open it, and generally knew that they shouldn’t run out without telling anyone. Though frequently Cary was informed that their children had escaped, and were roving around the fortress of Hera. 

Kubo opened the door, and laughed in delight. It was Elaius, who in a practised motion reached out and caught her as the kid jumped at him. He brought her inside, and was promptly mobbed by children. The kids wanted to know where he’d been, had he done anything cool today? Had he shot a bolter? Had he seen father/Uncle Roboute? Had he seen his brother? Why was he there? Elaius, bless him, tried to answer as many questions as he could. 

“Kids,” Cary called. “One at a time, he’s only got one mouth.” 

The children continued asking questions at breakneck speed. Once he had put Kubo down Cary made exaggerated shooing gestures. 

“Go on, get,” they said, with great affection. 

The kids giggled, and scattered throughout the apartments. 

“I take it this isn’t a social visit?” Cary turned back to Elaius. 

The Ultramarine shook his head. 

“Lord Guilliman wants to see you, as soon as possible.” 

“I can go now if you stay with this lot,” they jerked their head toward the rest of the apartment. “Is it bad?”

“He didn’t say,” Elaius replied. “Do they still enjoy being read the Codex?” 

“Only so Sarge can add her own corrections,” they told him, taking down their dress coat from the hook by the door. “I probably won’t be long.” 

They walked with purpose to Guilliman’s office. Not out of a sense of urgency to hear whatever it was he had to say, though that was undeniably important. But more so that any of the various administration, ministorum, Mechanicus and other political adepts wouldn’t try and flag them down. Cary was, unfortunately, noticeable. They were a little under eight feet tall, were very rarely approved to wear their armour (not that being midnight clad made them any less suspicious) and were of course often seen with either of the Primarchs and high ranking members of various Chapters. 

So it was with little effort that they scythed their way through crowded corridors and marble staircases. Cary’s coat was a few shades darker than Ultramarine blue, but still marked them clearly as someone of rank. They didn’t especially enjoy being noticed even at the best of times, less so when various aristocrats with powdered wigs that almost matched their own height decided they needed the ear of the Lord Commander. 

Fortunately, moving at a pace and just blanking anyone who tried to speak to them seemed to be working. They reached Guilliman’s office in a little under seven minutes, it probably would have taken a baseline human about twenty. The great brass doors opened as Cary approached, and shut behind them as soon as they were inside. 

Guilliman sat at one end of the long hololith table, examining the pattern of systems that danced before him. Administrative serfs rushed around the room, leaving Cary to struggle towards him. 

When they reached him, he gestured for them to sit in the unoccupied chair next to him. He did not take his eyes off of the hololith. He looked like his daughter at that moment, staring at the maps as if he could force them to rearrange themselves through sheer will. 

“We’ve had good news from Corvus,” he said, handing them an Imperial missive in a silver tube. 

Cary pulled the parchment out, scanning the neat, compact handwriting. 

“What exactly is the Engine of Woes ?” Cary asked. 

“A creation of Vulkan’s, one of his nine artefacts.”

“What does it do?”

“We don’t know,” Guilliman admitted. “The Salamanders believe that when they find all nine, Vulkan will return to lead them once more.” 

Cary frowned, trying to remember what they had been told of Vulkan’s fate. 

“But isn’t he…?”

“We also don’t know, he was a Perpetual. There are only so many things in the universe that can kill him,” he cast a sidelong glance at Cary. “What I am about to tell you cannot leave this room.” 

Cary raised their eyebrows, questioningly. 

He pushed the dataslate in front of him towards them. It displayed a pict of what looked like a large metal cube, made from a kind of greenish-tinged iron. It was highly decorated with twisting salamanders, metal cunningly worked into fire. At the front of the cube was a glass portal, vividly green in colour. 

Guilliman zoomed in on the portal, and Cary stared. There was the faint, shadowed outline of a man. The light was so bright it was consuming him, drowning his features- but his build. His build was familiar. 

“That’s not…?” They looked at Guilliman. 

“Corvus says so, the picts become scrambled with radiation the closer you get to the Engine, but Corvus says it is undeniably him.” 

“How is he in there? Can’t he be taken out?” They asked

“That’s the thing, Corvus says he’s holding it closed. He won’t let himself be rescued.” 

“Why would he do that?” 

Guilliman looked at them properly this time. He looked tired again. 

“The last time I saw my brother, he had been driven insane,” Guilliman said. “The circumstances of that insanity are something you will have to learn from your Primarch.” 

Cary’s hearts dropped, not quite able to mask their dread. 

“He was far gone, by that point,” Guilliman said. “I thought you should be prepared.” 

They shook it off. 

“So, what’s happening with the Engine? I assume the Salamanders probably want it.”

“The high levels of warp radiation make it difficult to transport. It’s currently being held on the Fidelity star fortification, not far from this system. I’m planning to meet Corvus there with Cawl, to see if we can’t work out a way to extract Vulkan from the Engine,” he cleared his throat. “I was also considering bringing yourself and the children.” 

Cary tilted their head. 

“As an educational trip,” Guilliman continued. “Kasovah mentioned that she misses Corvus, and of course Vulkan is Kubo’s father. It should be a perfectly safe environment, and a good way to introduce them to warp travel.” 

It took Cary a second to process that he was tacitly asking for their permission. 

“Why not?” Cary replied. “It’ll be good for them to see a little outside Macragge, if you’re sure it’s safe.” 

“We should only be on the Fidelity for a few hours, maybe a day at most,” Guilliman assured them. “We are bringing the shielding needed to transport the Engine and collecting Corvus, there won’t be time for much else.” 

“Famous last words,” Cary commented.

Chapter Text

“What’s different about a Ramilles class star fort?” Fig asked. 

Cary didn’t answer, they didn’t need to. 

“A rare class of semi-mobile void station capable of warp travel, vital to the Imperial Navy. Many of them have been in use since the Great Crusade,” said Sargent. “Baba was stationed on the Fidelity for a time.” 

It was always strange to hear the girls talking in complete sentences, with the vocabulary of a much older child. 

“What’s it like?” Kubo asked, trying to peer over Cary’s arm to peek at the dataslate. 

“Complicated,” Cary replied. “It’s about the size of a hivecity, so no wandering off. I don’t want to have to hunt you down in the vents, again. ”

Kaz only smiled. The girls had been trusted to pack their own bags, and Cary was now checking that the kids had packed things they actually needed. 

“Dag, you don’t need this many books, baby,” Cary said, lifting the heavy, awkward rucksack. 

Heavy for a child at least. Dagný pouted. 

“I might!” She said. “You don’t know!” 

 “Mm. You can take two books, max.”

Dagný sighed, but acquiesced, and began removing books from her bag. Cary was honestly impressed with how many she’d managed to cram in there. 

Sargent’s bag had been packed with such ruthless efficiency that barely any space remained. At first they couldn’t find Kaz’s bag, only to find it had been stored inside Kubo’s. Fig couldn’t wear a backpack, and instead had a messenger bag with only necessary items inside. 

Lunete attempted to insist on bringing her sword. It was of course not a real sword, that would be insane. It was a practice sword with a solid core, that she had been instructed not to hit her sisters with. Cary had their suspicions that the rule was not followed with the diligence they would have liked. They firmly rejected the idea of bringing the sword. 

Once everyone was packed for the next day, Cary turned their attention to the next task: wearing them out.  Luckily, Cary was prepared. 

“Who wants to go play with the neophytes?” they asked. 

The children responded in a feral chorus of affirmatives. 

While Cary was not technically in charge of how the sims they created were run, they still showed up to manage them on occasion. Often they were also asked to educate certain squads in matters of stealth. The Thirteenth lacked the abilities of the Nineteenth, and thus looked to the Eighth’s methods- at least in regards to remaining unseen. 

Which was how they were able to gather a group of neophytes, shove them into the sim hall, and let the girls loose on the Silence simulation. 

The neophytes were teens, from what Cary could tell, somewhere between thirteen to sixteen at least. The Ultra-Teens were used to the kids by now, plenty of them had done babysitting duty before. Cary still kept an eye on the pict-feeds in the control room. 

They felt his presence before they saw him, as was always the way. 

“What happened to Vulkan?” Cary asked. 

At first the shade didn’t respond, lingered at their side, watching the screens. 

“I happened to him,” he said. “There is no easy way to admit to torturing one’s own brother. There are no gentle words for the manners in which I harmed and killed him. Of all of my brothers, I think he saw what I truly was: broken before I was even born. I can scarcely even recall the reason why I did such things. Did I want him to kill me? Did I want him to join me in my infirmity?”

Cary watched the screens, watched as the children played at war. Cawl estimated they would be fully grown by around fourteen years of age, though whatever his markers of ‘fully grown’ were, Cary had no idea. Then what? Would they be sent out on missions? To take the brunt of battle? It was a cold, angry thought that ran through them. Cary would die before they let anything like that happen to the girls. Their eyes shifted to the neophytes, little more than children themselves. How many of them would die in the next twenty years? The next thirty? How many of them would live to have service studs pressed into their skulls? How could they protect their daughters while leaving other children to the same fate?

“We are terrible creatures,” they said, softly. “Every single one of us.” 

“Not Vulkan.” 

Cary’s mouth twisted. Vulkan had led a Legion just like the rest of them. He had fought and killed and exterminated in the name of the Emperor. None of their hands were clean of blood. 

“It’s the Kyroptera all over again, to try and change something from the inside- But what other options do we have?” 

Cold pressed against the back of their neck. Cary shook themselves of their dark thoughts. Focus on the present. It was the only thing keeping them from going mad with grief. 

“So Vulkan may not be best pleased to see us, I’ll hang back,” they said. 

“It would be for the best. I have a request to make.” 

“Oh?” 

“I would like you to use the Emperor’s Tarot once the children are asleep. There is a feeling I cannot shake- even in this state.” 

Cary looked at him. He stood as a tall, vaguely transparent shadow. If they tried to focus on any features his form scattered and became unclear. 

“It is just a feeling, but it renders me uneasy.” 

They had never been one to dismiss anything Konnacht said, even when he wasn’t in his best mind. Cary was less inclined to doubt things especially now. 

“Guilliman’s approved contact with the Echo , don’t forget,” they reminded him. 

Cary had very limited contact with the Echo . Corvus had also debriefed Guilliman on the circumstances of that, which hadn’t been a pleasant conversation. Still. The only messages that passed between themselves and the Echo were usually along the lines of Still alive? To which Cary often received a single Yes in response. Sometimes the message was longer, if Lucoryphus had been allowed to send it. 

His messages were also often vox recordings, and rambled at length, though he seemed well enough. Guilliman had informed Cary that it was rumoured he had been the first traitor to land on the walls of the Imperial Palace, a fact that filled them with an odd sense of pride. 

Once the kids had been worn out and fed and put to bed with minimal resistance (Sargent liked to insist that bedtime was only a concept, like society), they went to their office. The apartments they had been placed in inside the fortress of Hera were not small. It contained a kitchen, the girls’ dormitory, Cary’s room, a playroom and Cary’s office. 

On their desk there was a cogitator, and a large amount of neatly organised paperwork. People always seemed surprised when they visited this room, as if they had expected Cary to be more blaise with their work. 

Cary was of the opinion that the Imperium ran on paper, and that as long as everything was done correctly, nothing could go wrong. Of course, the bureaucratic system of the Imperium took delight in proving the opposite, but Cary also believed in having a paper trail. 

They also suspected people thought their apartments would be more… Eighth. The only thing Eighth about it was the light level, kept dim but not dark. Other than that the place was identical to any apartments held by the Ultramarines. 

Cary sat in their chair, and pulled out the top drawer. They took out the black box that held the deck, and removed the cards. Cary shuffled the psychoactive liquid-crystal wafers in a practised motion, springing them from one hand to another like they were sitting in one of Quintus’ back alley card dens. 

Their hands felt cold as they laid out the cards, five of them in a cross shape, with the fifth card sat in the middle. If they squinted, they could just about see Konnacht’s large, pale hands over the top of their own. 

Reading the tarot had been interesting to learn, mostly because both of them had devised their own way of doing it. Cary’s hands, Konnacht’s precognition. There were no sticks of incense or prayers to the God-Emperor. There were no candles, no hymns and certainly no music. 

Cary thought of it as predicting the weather. You could track stratospheric phenomena, you could watch the wind and record its direction and speed. Yet it would always find a way to surprise you. 

They started at the first arm of the cross, the northmost card. The Fallen Citadel, upright. Not the best of omens to begin with. It displayed a city aflame, in the middle of destruction. 

“Sudden upheaval would make sense for Vulkan’s return,” Cary said. 

The cold nudged their hand. They picked up the eastmost card. The Knight of Concordia, reversed. An armoured figure astride a bridled beast. 

“Rage, blind anger.” 

Cary paused upon flipping the southmost card. The Warlock, reversed. A hooded figure, hand raised, the bright light of the warp pouring from their hand. 

“Trickery, warp illusions…” 

The name that was often repeated followed by a list of the bearer’s titles lingered on their tongue. 

“We can only hope not. How he would even access the Fidelity is a question in itself.” 

The westmost card bore the image of the Familia Humana, a collection of figures leaning over each other, the last figure at the bottom a sleeping child, protected by those around it. 

“Union, family, community.”

“Legion,” he said, and did not explain. 

This left only the centre card, Cary turned it over and frowned. The Lord of Swords, a paladin holding his sword over his chest, the blade pointed downwards. 

“A breakthrough, a revelation?” 

The ghostly pale hand reached out, pressing against the card. The liquid crystal reacted to him strangely, growing dark as if Cary had pressed too hard on the surface. 

“A return,” he said. 

The centremost card influenced all other cards, Cary swept their eyes over the other four again with this fact in mind. Return would certainly make sense. A return to the Fidelity, a return of the man who’d been taking every opportunity he had to kill them, Vulkan’s return. The Knight of Concordia was the one that stuck out to them. A return of rage? That didn’t bode well, especially not in Cary’s situation. 

They rarely discussed the interpretations together, a habit that had carried over from before. He had always leaned towards the darker interpretation, insisting that the darkest future was the one most likely to become true. There had been arguments. 

Cary took a pict of the layout, and formulated a report for Guilliman with both their own and Konnacht’s interpretations. It was rare that they did readings without his asking, but when they did Cary still kept him in the loop. No more secrets , Corvus had made them promise. 

They put the cards away, neatly stacking them back into their box. Now they unlocked the bottom drawer of their desk, and removed the datachip that bore the bat-winged skull. It slotted into the cogitator, the various machine spirits sought permissions that were granted by higher ranking machine spirits, and a simple text box opened. 

The message likely wouldn’t be received by the Echo of Damnation for several hours, and they wouldn’t get a reply back for hours more. But still, it was enough for now. 

Crew count and status? Cary sent the message. Guilliman could see what they sent and what they received, not that he didn’t trust them, but he didn’t trust them. Cary could see it in the edges of his words, his eyes. 

It wasn’t even really them he distrusted, it was the ghost they had no way or want of separating from that he erred on the loyalty of. And Guilliman had much reason to err. 

“What do you want to do? In regards to Vulkan?” Cary asked him. “I’m sure Guilliman and Corvus would understand not telling him straight away, to give him a little time to recover.” 

“I am not convinced they wouldn’t. Better that he knows I am here, rather than thinking he is speaking freely or privately.” 

“I’ll prepare for the worst then: his disapproving look,” they joked. 

Konnacht did not share their humour, his hand lingered over the Knight of Concordia. 

“I did not leave him in a fit state, though he persisted for some time after the heresy. You should be prepared for violence.” 

“From Vulkan?” Cary frowned. 

It was almost too ridiculous to believe. Like hearing that Perturabo had cracked a joke or that Russ had turned down a drink. 

“He is entitled to his anger against me, his rage. Guilliman has sought to spare you the details for your own sake, I spare the details for shame and lack of exact recollection. He saw the core of me, of my sickness. He spoke the truth of my nature. He knew me as weakling and coward, and I am both of these things.”

Cary’s frown deepened. 

“Do not try to argue with me on these accounts. Look where my bloodied path has brought me. Where it has taken my sons. Where it has dragged you. If any of us were a mistake, then surely it was me.” 

“Konnacht,” they said. 

But the shade had fallen silent, slipped away into the dark.

Chapter Text

The kids had never been in a Thunderhawk before. They scrambled up the ramp, and Cary spent a few minutes chasing them down in order to bring them to the upper hold. Cawl had at the very least thought of how the six of them should be transported safely in Imperial vessels, and had designed smaller seats for them to be strapped into. 

Dagný hated them. But Dagný was also bribable, and agreed to be put into her seat in exchange for a dried fruit snack. The others then also received dried fruit snacks. 

Cary strapped themselves in, and then watched in mild amusement as the Ultramarines boarding outside realised there were several already occupied spaces on the vessel. Those who came to the upper hold spotted Cary and then the children, and took their places. No doubt the vox channels were already spreading the news. The Primarch had already been escorted to Macragge’s Honour via Overlord, with all the pomp and circumstance that had required. 

The children were more of a secret, one that the wider Imperium did not know. There were even Chapters that did not know of their existence, that Guilliman hesitated to inform for fear of their reaction. 

“Is ‘Laius coming?” Sargent asked. 

“Yes, he went up with Guilliman,” Cary told her. 

Sargent nodded.

“He is reasonable,” she said. 

Her little face was such an echo of Guilliman. 

“I love you,” Cary told their daughters. 

This was met by a chorus of the same sentiment, aside from Lunete, who was scowling. 

“You’re so embarrassing,” said Lunete. “I love you too.” 

The ride to Macragge’s Honour was thankfully short. Fig had not enjoyed takeoff nor the general experience of flying in a Thunderhawk and had to be carried off of it, but no one had vomited, which Cary counted as a success. 

As soon as they were aboard the Gloriana-class battleship, they were promptly escorted out of the landing bay and into familiar corridors. All Gloriana-class barges generally followed the same layout, the responsibility of STC design, Cary was half certain they could have found their way without the close ring of Primaris marines, however trying to argue with one of them when they were almost certain on Guilliman’s orders was like arguing with Dorn. 

Cary had been assigned ambassadorial quarters, one of the many such places just outside the Primarch’s own quarters. It also helped that Elaius was there. 

“Oh dear,” he said, watching them approach down the corridor. “Not happy?” 

He was looking at Fig, who was still sniffling against Cary’s collar. 

“A bit shook up, I think. In need of a dark, quiet room.” 

Elaius herded the rest of the children into the ambassador’s quarters, while Cary took Fig to the main bedroom. 

“I had a bad dream about this,” Fig mumbled. “About the box.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Cary asked, putting the child in the large bed. 

It was a bed on a ship primarily used by the Adeptus Astartes, so Fig looked comically small in it. Her face was still a little red and puffy from crying, but she seemed a little calmer now. 

“There was a man wearing your armour, and he was so angry,” she said. “There was something hunting you. The bird was there again.” 

The last part she said in a whisper. 

“The blue bird?”

Fig nodded.

“With the yellow eyes,” she said. 

“It’s going to be alright,” Cary told her. “And if it isn’t, we will make it so.” 

The girl chewed her lip, but nodded again. 

“Do you want me to stay until you fall asleep?” Cary asked. 

“Yeah.” 

When Fig had fallen asleep, Cary left, returning to the main room where the Ultramarine lieutenant was observing the rest of them. As far as children went, they could be trusted with things like amusing themselves or staying in sight. Usually. 

Sargent had found the hololith built into the recaf table, and was playing Stratagem - the simulation game Cary had made for the Ultramarines, with Lunete. The version they played was a little more colourful, a little more child-friendly than the version the Astartes played. Dagný had already started reading one of the books she’d been allowed to bring with her, bright eyes darting quickly across the page. Cary couldn’t see Kaz, but they could see Kubo looking around, under tables and in cupboards. 

“Kaz,” Cary said to the room at large. “Remember wraith-slipping is cheating.” 

A sigh came from behind the gathered curtain. 

“Navigators said anything about the jump?” Cary asked Elaius. 

He hesitated, eyed the room at large and then motioned towards the door back into the corridor. Cary followed him out, raising an eyebrow once the door was closed.

“The currents are unpredictable the closer you get to the Fidelity ,” he said. “It’s well within acceptable parameters, but there’s already been warp phenomena spotted.” 

“I suppose it’s too late to petition Guilliman for my armour,” they replied, dryly. 

“There shouldn’t be any need for it.”

The two space marines exchanged a long look. 

“I should hope so,” Cary said. “Or I’ll never let Guilliman hear the end of it.” 

-

Their duties aboard Macragge’s Honour remained almost the same as if Cary was still planetside. The bureaucratic machine of the Imperium never stopped, it faltered and stumbled but never truly stopped. Cary had also noticed that rather a lot more of Corvus’ paperwork was crossing their desk, reports that should have left the Primarch’s hands a decent number of months ago. He was hurriedly trying to get everything in order before Guilliman arrived, like a neophyte with untidy quarters, struggling to hide the mess before the Chaplain arrived. 

He was lucky they were fond of him. They were lucky that the reports contained small details that had been glossed over in the more official reports. Cary allowed themselves a small bit of judgement and ego over that. Had they been the one making the report, they would have included every damn detail possible, because that was what Roboute Guilliman wanted. Others didn’t want to bore him or waste his time with that level of detail, thinking that a Primarch wouldn’t care about such matters. 

Of course the reports they’d given of the Eighth’s actions hadn’t been innocent of that at times. Sometimes it had just been easier to leave out the part where Curze had seized, fallen over in the mud and the rain, and had to be dragged to the nearest Stormbird. Things like that drew attention: The Primarch was escorted from the battlefield at this point - why? No injuries had been reported, why had Konrad Curze left the battlefield? 

The answer: to see a collection of dark and terrible futures and take hours, days even to recover. There was always this sense of stress whenever Curze was presented to whichever apothecary could be trusted not to blab to the whole Legion of his infirmity. Sev had been good at finding them. 

But the stress of the apothecary usually came from the fact their Narthecium did not know what to do with a Primarch’s body. They hazarded the dosage of muscle relaxants, hazarded painkillers. Cary tried to keep track of the dosages used and their effects, working out by that measure alone whether he required a higher or lower dose. 

That didn’t make it into the reports either. Still, the details on the paper in front of them were nowhere near as crucial as that. It was merely interesting to them. 

The Engine had been found on a backwater deathworld, with no true name or sentient occupant. Eight-Three-Zero-One-Six. It had been discovered in a bowl, suggesting an impact site several millennia old. However, the vegetation that had grown about it had been disturbed, torn off the front where the porthole lay. The destruction wasn’t recent, it was one of the small missing details that interested Cary. Plant growth around the frontmost face of the Engine was notably younger than the plantlife occupying the rest of the crater. 

What was also strange was that animal life completely avoided the crater. Plantlife had grown in without worry, but anything with a brain (or something functioning similarly) didn’t even come close. Herbivores turned away from lush vegetation, and ample hiding spots. Nothing that flew took to nest or roost in the tall, jungle trees. 

They sent their observations to Guilliman, who in turn sent a servo skull. It hovered over the dark wooden desk Cary had loaded with paper and reports, the lumens in its eyes flashing with every word spoken from it. 

“I’d come in person, but I am indisposed. Are you doing Corvus’ paperwork?” Guilliman’s voice echoed forward from the dead bone. 

“You sent a servo skull down here to ask that?” 

“No, but I recognise the tone in your reports. I hadn’t realised you wrote most of the Eighth’s.” 

Cary shrugged.

“Sevatar never had the patience and Shang often included unnecessary prose- or details he thought sounded grand but in reality did not paint the Legion in the best light.” 

“It certainly makes it clear to track when you were put in stasis. The drop in quality is quite something- the notes you sent me, what are your impressions?” He asked.

“That something isn’t right,” Cary replied. “We could assume that the plants were destroyed when Vulkan entered the Engine, but with how much they’ve regrown it suggests he’s been in there for years.”

The skull hummed, the vibration from the speaker where its jaw should have been making the bone shake. 

“I trust you’ve discussed the circumstances of Vulkan’s health?” 

“We have,” Cary replied, eyes drawn back to the paperwork on the desk.

When no response came they looked up again. 

“What are you expecting me to say? I cannot defend his actions, committed in sickness even as they were. Our duty is to the living, to Vulkan.”

The skull dipped in what Cary assumed was a nod. 

“The reading you did before we left the planet,” he began. “I had not asked for one, and you rarely perform them without being asked.”

“Nacht was uneasy, worried. Couldn’t shake the feeling it was all going to go to hell, he asked for the reading. You worried about it?”

“Only that his interpretations are overly dire.”

Cary barked a short laugh.

“You don’t know the half of it.” 

“Did he say what he meant by Legion, for the Familia Humana?”

“If he did, he didn’t say. I’ll try and drag it out of him, but I doubt he’ll tell me,” Cary said, rubbing at the bridge of their nose. 

“I was under the impression he told you everything,” Guilliman replied, amused. 

“If that were the truth, I wouldn’t be here ,” Cary pointed out. “Nostramans are liars to the bone.” 

“I will keep that in mind.” 

He often spoke with that dry tone, where he seemed completely serious. 

“ Pah! ” Cary uttered less polite oaths in Nostraman as well as the exclamation. “You admit to a few completely justifiable lies despite ostensibly getting the job done and suddenly you’re a damn criminal .”

“The ghosts of dead brothers is not exactly a small lie, Captain.”

“It’s not like there’s anyone else in here! I’m not exactly having a grand dead friends party in the mausoleum my mind has become.”

The skull bobbed as a deep chuckle came through the voxspeaker. 

“Translation to warp should occur in two days, goodnight, Cary.” 

“Goodnight, Roboute.” 

The servo skull bobbed away. It felt strange to call him by his first name, but he had done them the courtesy of using their given name, like they were family. Nostramans generally only used the surname of whoever they were speaking to. First names were for your family, your friends, people you kept close. 

“Down to the heart you are a nonsensical ganglander.” 

They laughed at that. 

“I’m going to bed,” Cary told the ghost as they rose from their chair. “Stay up as you please.” 

“And what? Run around the ship as far as my tethers allow me and lurk in corners?” 

“If the mood strikes you.”

“Pah.”

Chapter Text

The Fidelity hung in the void like an intricate, golden ornament. The brassy metal plates catching the light of the nearby star, making it appear as a fantastic citadel. 

Macragge’s Honour circled it like a dragon, a great beast too large to come any closer. Fig was less than thrilled by the idea of once again travelling the open void in a comparatively small vessel, but was eventually coaxed out from under the bed. They rode together in the Overlord this time, coming to land in a hanger bay so large false clouds had formed against the ceiling. Guilliman sat with them too, speaking gently to his daughter and nieces. He was good with the children, even if his duty as Lord Commander didn’t give him the time to be with them often. 

In the pomp and circumstance of a Primarch’s arrival, it was easy enough to usher the kids out of sight, into the care of the blue-robed adepts Belisarius had sent ahead of himself. They would be taken to whatever quarters had been assigned to Cary, even though this was only supposed to be a short trip. 

Cary themselves had to be presented with Guilliman, or at the least had to be among the procession. They weren’t sure what the official party line was regarding themselves, their appearance and name certainly didn’t scream ‘Macragge’s Finest’. They were still Captain Kulikov, though Captain of no company- not that they ever had been. Cary got the feeling Guilliman wanted them to do as many of his sons had done, become a statesman. They weren’t a bad speaker, they knew how to read most people, knew when to code-switch their language. 

However, there was always going to be a roughness to them, a sharp edge neither Cary or Guilliman could blunt. They were a Nostraman to the hearts, to the bone. He had once told them they acted as if the Imperium was just a large-scale gang, to which they had grinned. 

“Is it not the same principle?” They asked him. “Really, when you think about it.” 

The Lord Commander of the Imperium had not agreed, but had been content to let Cary carry on as they were. They were, after all, the one managing the ever overflowing noosphere communications. 

However, now they were standing in dress uniform, unarmed, defanged, in a throng of Victrix guard hovering somewhat behind the right arm of the Armour of Fate. Companies stood in ranked formations, creating a parade ground out of the hangar bay. Not just Ultramarines, the comforting green of the Salamanders was present too. Though Cary wasn’t sure if they could find it comforting anymore. 

They heard Corvus before they saw him, which was usually the way. 

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to move rather quickly out of the way,” he called, from the way the floor shook Cary thought he was probably jogging towards them all. “We’ve just received word that the Soror Lachrymarum needs to dock immediately.” 

Which meant all pomp and circumstance went out the window. They moved in scattered groups, with the Primarchs at the centre. Formations broke apart, equipment and vehicles were shunted and driven out of the way. 

“The Soror ran into a chaos armada a few weeks ago,” Corvus continued. 

Cary reached for the comm bead in their ear, steadily making their way through various vox channels, absorbing the chatter. A random warpstorm had caught the voidship, they’d been boarded and taken heavy casualties, but had ultimately repelled the invaders. It belonged to a Blood Angels successor chapter- the Lamenters. Unlucky, from what Cary gathered. 

As the confusion of a group marched through the corridor, they felt a heavy, gauntleted hand on their shoulder. Cary turned their attention away from the chattering reports of injured and gloats of defeated traitors and looked up at Corvus. He was smiling lopsidedly. 

“Yes, I did your reports,” they said, before he could speak. “And yes, your brother knows. Also hello Corvus.” 

They grinned at his expression, and tried not to laugh as he avoided Guilliman’s gaze. 

“I do so enjoy receiving the reports you personally send me, I mark it on my calendar as a special occasion,” Guilliman said. “I understand that I assigned them as your Equerry, but it wouldn’t hurt if I received some reports from your hand directly. And on time. And formatted correctly.” 

“I have been busy,” he said, churlishly. “If you haven’t noticed, Vulkan is stuck inside a box.” 

“We know, we read the report,” Cary replied. “And then I formatted it. Properly. Still, not the worst report I’ve seen in my life.”

“What was the worst?” Corvus asked, desperate to get away from the topic of his own report. 

“Probably the one I received that was carved into a serf’s back,” they said. “Had to make a new rule after that one.” 

Out of the corner of their eye, they saw Guilliman make a face. 

“Anyway, anything new happening with the Engine?” 

Corvus shook his head. 

“Readings are showing the same amount of warp radiation.”

“The shielding should contain that, has Vulkan communicated anything?” Guilliman asked.

Corvus shook his head. 

“Nothing, he hasn’t reacted when I’ve spoken to him, hasn’t responded to any stimulus. He doesn’t even open his eyes.” 

Ramilies-class star forts were so large, they required their own internal forms of transportation. The main part of this was the rail system, huge iron carriages that could carry marines, vehicles and the vast amount of ammunition the star fort needed to protect itself. It was like stepping inside a moving building, a hab block turned on its side and put on wheels with several other hab blocks behind it, connected like a train.

“Where’s…?” Corvus made a gesture with his palm flat to the ground, indicating a short height. 

“They’re all heading up to Cawl and the accommodation,” Cary replied. “They’ll come down once the shielding is in place.” 

The carriage shuddered as it started moving with a grinding, metallic noise that made Cary grimace as it scraped against their ears. It mixed with the static of the comm bead, where now they were receiving the chatter of the station itself. 

They listened to it absently as the Primarchs spoke. In this quadrant- labelled the West Quadrant, there was still buzz about the Primarch’s arrival, about the Soror Lachrymarum . Cary listened. Frowned. 

“Which quadrant is the Engine being held in?” They asked, suddenly. 

“The North Quadrant, why?” Guilliman turned to them. 

“They’re sending quite a lot of Mechanicus adepts that way, and,” Cary paused, pressing against the comm bead as if it would make it easier to hear, or more believable. “He’s opened his eyes.” 

-

The North Quarter was busy, it was only perhaps the Victrix guard that allowed them to keep moving through the hallways with relative ease. Occasionally, the floor would shudder imperceptibly, which grew stronger the closer they drew to the Mechanicus chamber. Red-robed adepts and tech-priests and engiseers scrambled about the corridors, chatting in Binaric and examining data readouts. 

The black and white skull marked doors opened as they approached. The doorway was three times as tall as a man, and wide enough that six could have lain head to toe across the threshold and still have room. Inside, the lumens flickered, cogitator banks making a loose ring around the Engine.

The Engine itself stood taller than either of the Primarchs, oxidised brass fittings making the wrought salamanders a pale green in colour. Much of the Engine had retained the shine of the brass though, polished flames that caught the light and tricked the eyes. 

Most obvious of all was the aperture at the front of the Engine, two twisted salamanders curled around it in a frame. Lurid green light pulsed from within, so bright that Cary could barely see the silhouette of the man within. Aside from his eyes. Bright red, staring forward. 

Another shudder rocked the room, a wave of that bright green light rolled forth from the vertices of the Engine, the metal creaking as if struggling to contain itself. It did not look stable. 

Cary looked to Corvus, who was already looking to one of the tech-priests. Guilliman didn’t look happy either. 

“Energy pulses began approximately. Sixteen minutes and twenty-four seconds ago,” the priest said, waving a censer over the keyboard of the nearest cogitator. “We remain unsure of the trigger-”

There was a noise, like a rusted door being forced open. Alarms rang out, sirens blaring- the artificial voice of a machine spirit that would have been echoing all throughout the Fidelity warned of an impending warpstorm. 

The Engine was opening, little by little. The twisted salamanders were sliding around as if chasing each other, a thin line of green light splitting the face. The line grew- Cary could see impressions in the metal that looked like handprints, as if hands had squeezed and crushed the metal beneath huge fingers. 

Wider and wider, there was wind now- how could there be wind? The shrieking energy that came from within the Engine poured outwards, malignant and strong. The Engine was open enough now to see Vulkan kneeling, then rising to stand, hands pushing the Engine open from the inside. 

His upper body was unarmoured, black skin whorled with scar and cracks of green lightning- his hands and much of his forearms were glowing that same warp-bright colour. He gasped as he stood, eyes burning, teeth gritted, face contorted in pain and anger. His face, that had always been kind and open. 

He said something, the shape of the word so familiar to Cary. He said it again, the last syllables echoing through the room with their sibilance. 

“ Curze! ” He bellowed, and looked dead at them. 

“Run,” the shade whispered. 

They didn’t need to be told twice, Cary turned and bolted. 

The Fidelity rocked again, more alarms echoed and the deck shuddered beneath their feet. More Astartes charged past them, flooding into the chamber. A raw-throated yell came from behind them, bouncing off the walls and echoing in their skull.

“You know,” they said, sprinting down the corridor, back the way they came. “I don’t think he’s pleased to see us.” 

“Do not stop running,” the shade commanded. “He will know exactly where you are.” 

They didn’t have time to ask what that meant, the comm bead in their ear crackled. 

“Cary!” Guilliman’s voice. “Where are you?”

Cary looked for any kind of signage. 

“Running down a corridor that looks like every other thrice-damned corridor, I’ve been advised not to stop,” they replied. 

“Good. Don’t,” he said. “Corax is chasing him down. The Engine has released some kind of localised warp storm.”

“Got it. I’ll play keepaway then, wouldn’t be the first time.” 

“What?” 

“I’ll explain later,” they said, and cut the vox. 

Running through Imperial structures while a half-deranged Primarch chased after them was practically a passtime at this point. 

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Cary commented. 

“I beg of you to take this seriously.” 

“Then beg.” 

An oddly high pitched laugh escaped their throat. Full squads of Astartes passed them in the corridor, bolters not raised but certainly being clutched. They had all heard stories of benevolent Vulkan, of gentle Vulkan, Cary assumed. Being faced with the reality that he was now a mad, quite possibly warp-tainted, single minded force of nature probably didn’t quite fit in their programming. 

They reached the transport bay as one of the grand transports was preparing to depart. Here was chaos too, the news of the currently rampaging immortal had just about reached them. Cary sprinted, jumped and hauled themselves up onto the lower platform of the carriage. Gauntleted hands grabbed their shoulders, pulled them aboard and upright. All three of their lungs burned, and their hearts throbbed painfully in their chest. 

“Captain Kulikov?” One of them said, questioningly. 

Their armour was a pale yellow, though their heraldry still bore the identifying blood drop on a chequered background. Cary nodded. 

“Lamenters?” They questioned.

The one with the golden left pauldron saluted. 

“Captain Ramiel,” he said. 

The carriage shifted, lurched and finally moved forward. 

“We’ve been tasked with escorting you from the Quadrant,” said the Captain. “My squad have been ordered to assure your safety, as we are currently the only full squad in the Chapter.” 

He removed his helmet, revealing his heavily scarred visage. It looked as if he hadn’t made it through the confrontation with chaos unscathed, despite the pristine shine of his armour. 

“We are more than capable of this task,” he continued. “I myself have slain many traitors and champions of the ruinous powers, in fact our fleet crossed paths with the poisoned Third on our way here.” 

Cary tried not to grimace. They suspected they were about to hear rather a lot about Ramiel’s past glories whether they wanted to or not. 

“I defeated many of their malformed swordsmen in battle, including one they named ‘Scion of Chemos’,” Ramiel boasted. “I have had his blade blessed and soothed its spirit.” 

Cary looked down at the blade being shown to them and swore. 

The blade of Laer glinted under the lumens, like the Dark Prince themselves was winking.

Chapter Text

They found themselves quite unable to react to the blade. The adrenaline of absconding from Vulkan, to the whiplash of thinking they would be trapped listening to one of Sanguinius’ sons boast about his killings, to the man admitting to have ended Lucius’ life was certainly a journey. 

Ramiel lowered the blade.

“Pardon?” He asked. 

“Oh, nothing. Thinking of an old friend.” 

Ramiel puffed up like a bird. 

“It honours me that I remind you of our Primarch,” he said. 

They didn’t know how to tell Ramiel he didn’t remind him of the Great Angel, that they weren’t thinking of him, that they weren’t even thinking of Sanguinius. Instead, Cary patted him on the pauldron and shot him an insincere smile. 

Cary stepped away, pressed the comm bead in their ear. 

“Guilliman? I’m on the transport carriage.” 

There was a rush of static that made them assume the worst, before he spoke. 

“Good. I would suggest you keep moving, Vulkan appears either unable to hear us or simply does not care.”

“He knows where I am,” said the shade. “We have… a link.” 

“He’s following the ghost,” Cary relayed to the living Primarch. “Some psychic thing.”

Guilliman swore- which was novel. They didn’t often hear him swear. 

“Keep moving,” he ordered. 

The vox cut off. Cary rubbed the bridge of their nose. They knew the Fidelity reasonably well, their mind already jumping ahead to thinking of routes and corridors and sealable doors. Cary had done it a thousand times before, usually aboard the Nightfall and usually for a different Primarch. Directing his rage at them had been the hard part, drawing his one track mind away from eviscerating crew and son alike. 

Usually, they shot him. Armoured or unarmoured, it barely made a difference. Then they would start running. Cary had often thought they were going to die during those runs, perhaps that was the real trick of getting him to keep doing it: their fear. Their acceptance. 

They couldn’t lose him in the Nightfall ’s corridors, couldn’t close enough doors between them or ferret their way into the vents without him following. He was stronger and faster and always ran them down. Cary had never escaped. They certainly hadn’t died or ended up a decorative piece on a wall, but they didn’t go unharmed. 

It would end when he caught them, a fist in their ribs sending them crashing into a wall. A hand clutched around their throat. A knife put through their hand, pinning them. 

“Is this it?” They asked him. “Is this how I die?”

His hand would go slack, the knife removed from their body. He let them live. 

“No,” he would say. 

And they would limp off to the nearest apothecary, with his eyes on their back. It worked to bring him out of his fugue, clouded state. He could kill them at any time, but he knew he couldn’t. Not until the right time. If he killed them before that- then everything he knew fell to pieces. 

Everything had fallen to pieces. 

They sat heavily on a crate, glanced at the pale yellow Lamenters still gathered around their Captain. Glanced at the sword. Scion of Chemos . Poor Lucius. Poor, poor Lucius. 

“I would like to take the time to remind you of how many occasions the man injured or otherwise attempted to injure you- often in training duels, over trite comments. Or have you forgotten part of your ear is missing?” 

Darkness hovered at the edge of their vision, the left side of their face chilled. A cold burn at the triangle-shaped chunk long gone from their ear. 

“If it’s a warp storm you should be careful,” they said, quietly. “Not sure Guilliman can smooth that over to the wider Imperium.” 

The dark retreated, but the cold remained. Cary took stock of the situation. 

They were unarmoured and unarmed. Stealth would certainly be easier without a half ton of ceramite to worry about, and surely they could requisition a weapon from someone. 

There was a Primarch hunting them down, who had almost a homing beacon on them, due to the soul of the other Primarch. Vulkan was insane, quite possibly the strongest of his brothers and immortal. 

These were hardly the best set of circumstances they could have asked for. Then again, things could always be worse. 

Ramiel groaned. Cary turned their head, seeing that the group of Lamenters were gathered around their Captain. He had sunk to one knee, eyes rolling in his head. They rose from the crate, went over. 

They had made it only a few steps before he started laughing. Before he started warping. Before flesh bubbled and boiled across the plate of his armour, consuming the Lamenters’ yellow and replacing it with hundreds and hundreds of screaming faces. 

“Get back!” Cary barked at the rest of Ramiel’s squad. “Get away from him!” 

One of them turned towards them, and then Ramiel exploded. Blood and flesh spattered the walls, floors, ceiling- goblets that stuck where they’d landed then dropped and dripped. The Lamenters had been knocked away by the force of it. 

He stood taller than a Primaris, he stood holding the blade of Laer, his face was a pale network of scar tissue, silvery hair hanging in clumps from his scalp, red eyes glared from his skull, he stood and the face of Captain Ramiel screamed from his breastplate. Cary stared. 

“What the fuck,” they said, flatly. 

“Cary!” Lucius said, brightly. “Fancy seeing you here! Where’s your armour?”

“What just happened.” 

Lucius, scion of Chemos, waved one clawed hand dismissively.

“Just a little trick of mine, you get a little proud of yourself after killing me, take a little satisfaction- I come right back,” he said, grinning with all his needle-sharp teeth. 

The Lamenters were rising now, going for their weapons. Cary opened their mouth to speak, to tell them to run, not to fight to just run. Lucius was already moving. Most of them were dead before they even hit the ground. The blade of Laer cut down three of them before they even had a chance to fire their bolters. The fourth got off a few rounds before the fleshy, barbed growth wrapped around his neck and ripped out his throat. The fifth died similarly, but the sixth had been thrown further than the rest, and he was firing, repeatedly. Lucius turned, grinned and strode towards the last Lamenter, each step punctuated with a bark from the bolter. The clip emptied, Lucius raised his arm. 

Cary stepped between them, and Lucius paused. The last Lamenter’s hands shuddered, they could feel it through the barrel of the bolter, which was jutting into their side. 

“I wouldn’t like to kill you unarmed,” Lucius purred. 

“I wouldn’t like to die,” Cary replied. “And I’d like the man behind me to die even less.” 

Lucius groaned, flouncing away like a moody teenager. 

“ Gods above , you can be so boring sometimes.”

“Let him live and I’ll promise I’ll beat you,” Cary said. 

He paused at that, tilted his head and grinned. 

“Promise?”

“Promise,” they said. 

The marine behind them shuddered again. Every single combat instinct was telling him to reload and fire, Cary knew that. They half turned towards him. 

“Leave the carriage, lock this one down. Get word to Guilliman as quickly as possible,” Cary ordered. 

The red lenses focused on them, then hesitantly the Lamenter nodded. He edged around the wall of the carriage, stepping over the severed limbs of his brothers but made it to the connecting umbilical. Cary watched him until the door shut. Lucius watched him too, but when the door shut he swung his focus back to Cary. 

Cary stepped over the remains of the closest Lamenter, and relieved the fallen battle brother of his chainsword. 

“I always wanted one of these,” they said, testing the weight in their hands. 

“I thought Nostramans were all about the chainglaive,” Lucius said, idly swinging the alien blade.

“We are, I just like them.” Cary shrugged, thumbing the activation bead.

The chainsword roared into life, adamantium teeth becoming a silver blur. 

“Now come on, I have a promise to keep.” 

He sprung forward, and Cary’s arm jerked to meet him. The blades clashed with a horrid, scraping, grinding noise- sparks showered them both, and died on the bloody floor. 

“How’d you pull off that trick back at the tower, anyway?” He asked, conversationally. 

“Which one?” They asked, slipping through his guard and under his arm. 

“The one where your- last I checked dead Primarch came out of nothingness and punched me in the face,” he replied, blocking as they swung the chainsword at his back. 

“Oh, that,” Cary grunted, taking a few steps back. “Yeah we’re not sure how it happened either. I get stuck in a stasis coffin and then he dies and his soul gets stuck on mine like a bug on fly paper.” 

“Hardly the most dignified of analogies,” the shade said, lurking in the darkest corner of the carriage. 

“ You of all people don’t get to talk about dignity,” Cary shot at him. “You don’t either.”

“I’m very dignified,” Lucius protested, swiping at their legs in an attempt to break their guard. 

“You just exploded out of a Lamenter.” 

“It was very tasteful.” 

“I thought you died ,” Cary said, lunging forward and striking at his vambrace. 

The chainsword bit into the screaming faces there, screaming as the teeth hit the metal. Blood spurted outwards, spraying them with coppery mist. 

“You were upset?” 

If the remembrance of Lucius’ face could look surprised, it certainly was. Cary swiped again and Lucius staggered back. 

“Yes!” They said, in exasperation. “You were my friend!” 

The barbed tendril swept forward, wrapping around the blade of the chainsword. Instead of pulling backwards, they let themselves be dragged towards him, pushing the motor’s throttle so the blade roared. The teeth of the chainsword cut into the tendril, Lucius snarled in pain and let go. 

He stepped to meet them, turning the chainsword away, locking the hilts together. 

“Were?” He questioned. 

“Luc, of the three times we’ve been face to face, you’ve tried to kill me every single time.” 

He frowned, he had that kind of hurt expression he’d worn when trying to pretend that he wasn’t hurt. 

“I wasn’t trying to kill you the second time,” he said. “I just wanted to train again. I didn’t mean to.” 

His words had become stilted, clouded by nostalgia. Cary’s arms were shaking with the effort of holding the lock, yet still, looking at the face that was his and wasn’t his. They could feel themselves softening, could hear the motor of the chainsword choking.

“I thought he’d killed you and I couldn’t say anything, he was so pleased- I wanted to shake him. You killed my friend. You killed that arrogant shit who taught me how to hold a sword. You killed my brother,” their voice faltered at the end, a privately kept thought slipping through. 

They weren’t linked by DNA, genesire or Legion- anything. There was no reasonable measure for their feelings, just… Well if they’d had an older brother. If they’d had someone older than themselves who they didn’t have to manage, who they would have trusted over and over again. 

It of course would have been Lucius. But Night Lords didn’t function like that, Jago had been the closest thing to it and even then- he’d kept everyone at arm's length. 

Lucius’ hand went slack and Cary pushed forward. They twisted the chainsword- ruining the damn thing as the Laer blade struck the teeth. The Laer blade was thrown from Lucius’ hand, clattering on the carriage floor. The chainsword gave one final chug, and then died. 

“Huh,” they said, more calm than they felt. “I’m not doing best of three.” 

Then suddenly they were crushed. Squashed into the deeply unpleasant sensation of flesh covering ceramite. Cary tried not to make eye contact with the faces there. 

“You did it!” he said, laughing. 

He had picked them up like they were a neophyte, he was smiling- smiling like his old self. 

“That’s the first time you’ve disarmed me!” 

Lucius sounded proud of them, they couldn’t stop themselves from smiling too. 

“Oh this is going to be wonderful ,” he said, not quite letting go of them. “We’re going to be the greatest.” 

Cary’s stomach dropped. There it was, the underlying poison. His mind was never clear for long. 

“Lucius, what do you mean?” They asked. 

“Cary, you disarmed me, you beat me- all we can do is get better, don’t you see? We could do this forever, always improving, we could be the greatest!”

His smile was wide and wild and full of needle-sharp teeth. His eyes were wide and red and with huge, dilated pupils. This wasn’t the Lucius Cary knew, this was Lucius the Eternal. 

Cary shook their head, disentangling themselves from him. 

“Luc,” they said, gently. “Luc I can’t. You’d never settle for sharing that title, anyway.” 

His joy stilled, and his head jerked in a short nod. 

He opened his mouth to say something else, when the carriage door opened again. Cary peered around him as Lucius turned to see, and the shock made them laugh. 

“Who the hell is that?” Lucius asked. 

“Lucius the Eternal, might I have the pleasure of introducing you to Khepri Apophis, Wytchlord, Master of the seven seals of Ahriman, son of Magnus the Red,” Cary replied. “Personally, I’m just surprised you used the door.”

Chapter Text

The sorcerer stood in the doorway- he had to duck in order to get his crest through. Lucius opened his mouth to speak, probably to insult or challenge Apophis to some kind of duel. 

However, the sorcerer simply waved a hand, and all went weird. Cary was still standing, from what they could tell, but all was shifting colour and nauseating movement. When it stopped, they stood in a blue, crystalline hall, mottled in so many shades of indigo and cobalt and azure. The ceiling stretched high above them, terminating in what looked like a night’s sky. 

“This is getting ridiculous,” Cary said to the empty room. 

A portal opened, a deep darkness where cerulean flames licked at the edges. Apophis stepped through. Once again he had replaced his robes, that same rich magenta colour. Of the burning stars that were- Cary assumed- his eyes, one of them was darker now. A deeper blue, ocean blue, rather than the pale star colour of the other. 

He banged his staff on the ground, and the sound echoed through the crystal structure of the not-place. He appeared to take a breath, then his burning eyes actually focussed on them, A second passed. Then another. 

“Night Lord, where are your armour and arms?” He asked. 

Cary shrugged. 

“You’ll be disappointed to hear I’ve been taken off active duty, so if you were hoping for our regular duel I’m afraid I have to decline.” 

The sorcerer stood there. With the helmet on it was difficult to grasp exactly what he thought. 

“Why?” He asked, perplexed. 

“Plenty of reasons, I’m technically in trouble for not telling Guilliman about the ghost, I’m also on paternity leave, I guess.”

“ Paternity leave? ” He repeated the phrase 

“Yeah, they’re being babysat right now. I don’t really have a whole lot of time for this right now, Vulkan’s trying to kill me because of the ghost in my head. Could you… I don’t know, give me a mildly annoying curse and we’ll call it a day?”

“ They? There’s more than one?” He had not moved an inch.

“Oh yeah Cawl made six, they’re amazing,” Cary said, unable to help but smile. 

“ Six?! ” 

They were having entirely too much fun. 

“Yop. Anyway, this is nice but again: insane immortal Primarch hunting me down is a problem I have to deal with currently, would appreciate it if you just dropped me off back where I was. Or not, depending on if Lucius is still there. Love the guy, cannot deal with him right now.”

The Wytchlord just stared at them. 

“You’re not saying a whole lot, Apophis,” they prompted him. “Making me a bit nervous here. You have me at a disadvantage, in that I am unarmed and unarmoured. You could at least lose the helmet, I don’t even know what you look like.” 

He made a stuttered kind of noise. Then reached up and pressed the catch of his helmet, a hiss of blue smoke rolled from his neck as he did. 

Khepri Apophis had a classical Thousand Sons face, brown skin and a beaky nose. Dark brown hair, pin straight that was tied back. His eyes were mismatched, the right an earthy, deep brown, the left completely blue from white to sclera, with a pale blue dot serving as pupil. Cobalt coloured kohl traced around both eyes, while a long tail of it traced down from his right eye. Cary recognised it vaguely from how Ahriman used to present himself. 

“I wasn’t expecting a pretty boy,” Cary said, without thinking. 

“What?” 

“Nothing, anyway, great to see you- we haven’t hurled insults at each other in ages, but I do really have to be going,” they insisted, looking around the hall.

There were no obvious entrances or exits, no doors or windows. 

“What is this anyway?”

“It’s a pocket dimension- sorry, six children? ” He looked more than lost, he looked frankly bewildered. 

“I didn’t choose the number, Cawl thieved one of my internal organs and made six chimaeras- speaking of my six children, I’d really like to leave this pocket dimension and check on them, considering the aforementioned rampaging Vulkan? Khepri? Are you hearing me?” They took a half step forward, not really wanting to get much closer to the sorcerer who’d dedicated a decent chunk of his time to causing them problems. 

Khepri frowned, opened his mouth to say something. Then he stopped. There was a quiet, cracking noise. Cary had never heard the sound of rock being ripped apart, but they imagined it had to sound something like that. 

The nearest wall was cracking, hairline fractures that shook into great ruptures, fissures. The blue stone turned white with the stress, then glowed bright green. It was with a mute, fascinated horror that Cary watched as fingertips, then fingers, then hands pushed through the stone, rending it into a breach, a rift. 

Vulkan was tearing open the pocket dimension with his bare hands. 

“As I mentioned,” Cary said. “I’d like to leave now.” 

“How is he doing that? That shouldn’t be possible,” Khepri said. 

Cary strode to him, slapped a hand on his pauldron. Apophis looked at them. 

“Get me out of here,” they said, pleasantly.

He paused, once more stunned. Then he banged his staff on the ground, and Cary fell through the floor. 

They fell only a short distance, landing on their back on what they were delighted to see was one of the Fidelity ’s corridors. Cary reached for the comm bead, which was now beeping incessantly. 

“Cary?” Wind rushed around his voice, wherever he was he was moving fast. 

“Corvus,” they said. “Had a brief run in with Apophis, etc.”

“Where are you now?” 

Cary sat up. The corridor was empty, the only noise was the distant sounds of the alarms and the klaxons. There was a sign- SQ-N4.

“Southern Quarter, fourth level. Probably somewhere near the hangar bay,” they said. “Where’s Vulkan?” 

“He caught up to the carriage, then just started… ripping the air open,” he said, sounding as stunned as Khepri had been. “He’s just started moving again, towards your location.” 

“Fantastic. I’ll keep moving. Lucius is here, by the way. He exploded out of a Lamenter- don’t kill him if you see him,” they replied, beginning their way down the corridor. 

A rush of static through the comm bead.

“Cary,” he began. 

“No, Corv, I’m not saying that because I knew him I’m saying that because he’ll take over your body and then explode out of it in bloody chunks. Are the kids okay?” 

“I'll keep that in mind. The children are fine, still in the upper level of the basilica with Cawl’s adept. They likely don’t even know anything’s happening.” 

Cary nodded to themselves. 

“I’ll be in touch should anything else go wrong,” they said, and cut the vox. 

Of course, that was the moment the lumens died. Cary blinked, preferring the lack of light immensely more, and continued. Lumens went out all the time, perhaps some damage caused by Vulkan or the warp storm. There was something catching on the edge of their perception, some honed instinct riled by a small detail. They stopped, listened. 

The purr of silenced power servos. Reverberating along the corridor- they knew that sound. They knew the exact make of power armour. Perhaps Cary should have been scared, but the act of knowing whoever it was was trying to scare them instead deeply irritated them. 

“These are cheap tricks played by children,” they said, in Nostraman. “I am unamused.” 

“Forgive me, Captain,” the voice echoed down the corridor in such a way that it could have come from either direction. “I simply had to make sure you were still Nostraman. They have defanged and declawed you, and you wear the symbols of the false Emperor like a collared dog.” 

The voice was affected by the tinny whine of vox speakers and Cary remained where they were, thinking, remembering. 

“Sahaal,” they said. “Why are you here?” 

Laughter, cruel laughter. Sahaal had been the firmest believer in Curze’s rhetoric, his teachings. He believed in the true application of fear, or at least Konrad’s truth. 

“We have come for you,” he said, mockingly. 

Cary rolled their eyes. 

“I’m terrified,” they replied, deadpan. “Hysterical, even.” 

“I was named heir to the Legion, Captain. By the Primarch himself.” 

“Would you like me to congratulate you? On being the inheritor of our fractured, hateful brothers?” 

They stepped forward slowly, making steady progress down the corridor, straining for every last noise. 

“I have spent a myriad trapped in a warp storm. I have possession of the Corona, recovered from his assassin and from Aeldari warlocks.” 

Cary didn’t reply. They had a suspicion they knew where this was going. 

“I have regained footing among the more… cognizant of our brothers, my warband is ever growing. Yet! Yet, when I make my pilgrimage to your resting place, intent on waking you and bringing back what little honour remains- you are gone. The reliquary, plundered. Our lord would have wept to see it.” 

The shade had remained oddly silent, and continued to do so. They couldn’t feel the chill of his presence either. He certainly knew how to pick his timings. 

“Yet then, then I hear from our nascent prophet. A decree, a blood hunt against Skraivok. A truer death was never earned by anyone else I must agree. Body upon body, and for what indeed. You said it yourself, they kill for nothing, they die for nothing. Our brothers drown themselves in blood for no true purpose other than that they like the fear, love the terror. There is no aim to them. We can give them true purpose once more.” 

They found themselves shaking their head before he had even finished. 

“There are few who would follow you simply because I am there, Zso. Is that what you really want? For me to stand at your side and draw forth our blood from the darkness? What would we even accomplish? There will be no Crusade of Night, there will be no ending glory. The Imperium will hunt us down like dogs, I have already lost those who I loved as brother.”

“As son,” Sahaal corrected. “Do not think to lie on matters such as these- I was there. The neophytes you raised and trained, so many of them still live. So many of them tended upon your reliquary. I tended upon your reliquary, in the decades after your fall and before our lord’s death. They wept when you were found gone, Kulikov. Konrad Curze was our lord but you were their father. I know you cannot stand the sound of your sons crying.” 

Cary gritted their teeth. Every word was a new agony, an old wound ripped open at the stitching. 

“I cannot come with you,” they said, voice quiet. “I have promises to keep.”

“You are lucky then that the choice has been made for you.” 

The bulkhead at the end of the corridor opened, and a woman stepped through. Cary barely had time to make out her face- the dark had drawn in close and swallowed them whole. 

-

It’s always raining. Rain that trickles between buildings and processing plants and comes down warm and gritty. Rain that flows over your face like tears, plinks on closed windows, spatters in puddles. 

They knew exactly where they were, though they didn’t understand how or why. They were standing on the street, looking up at the spires of the upper hive. They were standing in Nostramo Quintus. 

The woman was standing next to them, her face spoke of a life hard lived. Her hair was some dirty colour, one of her arms terminated in an augmetic replacement. Yet Cary knew what they were looking at. 

“Why have you brought me here, psyker?” They asked. “Why have you brought me home?”

She glanced at them, irritated. As if she was concentrating on something very difficult. 

“This is your mind,” she said. “Lord Sahaal has ordered me to break you open, to find the core of you.” 

“Greater men have tried and failed,” Cary replied. 

She smiled a bitter little smile. 

“Then perhaps I will succeed.” 

They laughed at that, genuinely. 

“My apologies. I meant no offence.” 

“Always the softest of us,” a voice from their other side. 

“Quite why you then want me in your merry little warband is beyond me. I won’t kill as you kill, I will not sow fear and terror- Konrad is dead,” Cary stopped, a thought stopping them in their tracks. 

Sahaal took it for sudden emotion, his clawed gauntlet appearing on their shoulder. 

“Yet his death need not be in vain,” he said. “We will honour him always, as father and lord. We will bury his remains in a tomb to rival that of the Golden Throne.” 

They looked out at the city that was their soul. 

“Sahaal,” Cary said, calmly. “I am already his mausoleum.” 

Perhaps he would have asked them what they meant, if given the time. Cary looked up, and saw the shape of Nostramo’s death. Shadows flung out like great, ragged wings, a thin pale face, pinched in determination. The soul of the Night Haunter loomed over them, giant, encompassing the sky and blocking out the stars. 

“Leave,” he commanded.

-