Chapter Text
There is no art more beautiful and diverse as the art of death.
PALMS BRUSHED FLAT against the subtly warm, humming panels of the grand doors to her family’s hall. Birthed of wraithbone, entwined with green wood, steeped in vines and creepers: she could feel the hum and beat of life, so vibrant, so vital. She winced at the touch. A push – that’s all it ever took, even as the smallest child barely able to walk. Living they were and they knew all members of Tathuah. Iselyth – whispered the wind, gusting around her, sucked into the widening opening, like the hall took a great inhale. Iselyth, whispered the hall in her mind and in its eaves. Iselyth, whispered the memories, as vivid and sticky as blood in the eyes. Iselyth, whispered her mother. Like a pat on the head, like a smile from an old friend: and she was only a handful of passings old, all eyes and legs and arms and ears and looking up at the bright, wide world.
The bright, wide world.
It was perverse, this dome. Her dome. Her family’s dome. So bright and lively, always on the cusp, the very edge of bloom. Pollen hummed in the air, sticky, catching like motes of light, settling to garnish tresses and eyelashes. Suffused with eternal potential, humming and hard, ready to explode into vernal vibrance. Always held back. Always but the edge. The moment. Never to be let free, to be unleashed to be as life could be.
The metaphor disgusted her. She bulled through the still-opening doors, shoulders set, face hard, like diamond, like flint, fit to cut and cut maybe instead the memories that surrounded her, crowded her, danced and cavorted and lingered. Like obsidian maybe, sharp as a whisper but as enduring. The hall was spring – she was winter. Her father sat his throne and she needed no introductions, of course. The hall already announced her and besides: how many visitors did Tathuah entertain?
But her father was here, presiding still, and he watched her approach sternly but not unkindly. His daughter finally returned home. For good? Perhaps. Perhaps. Some days it felt like the fire that drove her into the Aspect shrines had burned out so thoroughly and completely as to leave not even ashes behind. Other mornings she paced, snarling in her sunny chambers, nails digging into her palms as she seethed. Directionless anger, swamped by memories of Ataenith and Nualn and Cathchach and – and – she clamped down on the rising tide, swallowed hard and compressed and packed it away, looking up at her father, sitting proud on his throne.
‘Father,’ she whispered, dropping to her knees, pressing her forehead to the living carpet. She could feel the living weave creak and flex against her skin, always in motion, always growing, always spreading. ‘Father,’ she said again and rocked back on her haunches, kneeling and looking up at the Solstice Throne. A thin smear of sap clung to her forehead, tickling. He peered down at her as calm as ever, silent yet free of any judgement. Stern but not unkindly. The sun to mother’s moon.
‘I’m back,’ she said and the hall ate her words, oddly muffled and without an echo despite the vaulted reaches of the ceiling, climbing up into emerald gloom. ‘I hope you did not worry when I did not return. I hope…I hope I did not cause you pain.’ Two words hung on her tongue, nearly spoken, bitten back in time: more pain. That she did not cause more pain. More pain than tumbling down’ Khaine’s Path. More pain than drawing more and more distant with each year. More pain than was already felt by the aching hole that was mother, the empty lower throne beside the Solstice where she once would sit. Mother, beautiful Mother, beautiful and silver, shining: wearing the tiny, half-hidden smile she always nurtured, eyes deep and infinite and full of love. Never one for many words or great displays, mother – but even the slightest smile, the smallest laugh: that was enough. Enough to light the stars, for Iselyth to soar with the birds.
Funny, with mother’s death, how much Father resembled her now. The moon had set and the sun hung low on the horizon and Tathuah lingered in eternal twilight on the cusp of bloom.
‘It was the Devourer, father. Mindless beasts. Monsters. We expected trouble but not – not like that. They had no masters or minds but they were so many. Too many. They didn’t warn us, father. The farseers. Surely they had seen that possibility. But they didn’t warn us.’
That’s why you use your eyes, Isse. She felt the impact of a body against her back, jolting her, sending her staggering, trying to keep her feet, felt the warmth of breath against her cheek, the chiding tones of her brother. Rangy arms wrapped around her shoulders, as heavy as iron and ephemeral as a wince. She raised a hand and brushed back hair and memory. His voice faded as fast as it came.
‘But I did everything, Father, everything they asked. I brought back their souls. My friends. All of them. Because they died, Father. All of them.’ She laughed, hard and sharp, a crack of glass.
‘Because they always die, don’t they, Father?’
He did not answer, knowing his daughter so well, knowing she needed to expel the venom. To wash out the bitterness.
‘I should have died there. Finally, right? That’s what you’re thinking? I should have died on that worthless ball of mud.’ Lying in the moss and leaf litter, gasping, coughing out her last, feeling hot blood burble in her mouth, choking that would be terrifying but for the numbness that spread wings and filled her chest. Falling, falling, falling forever into twilit silence and darkness. Trapped for eternity in crystal, lost in the moment. A ghost of a ghost, withering away buried in loam.
‘Would they have come for us? Would you, Father? I don’t think they would have even told you. I would have just been gone and that would be that.’ She knuckled away wetness from her eyes, sighing hard, hard enough to crunch through the knot in her throat, eying the maze of tendrils that wove among the wraithbone webbing of the floor. Tiny ferns sprouted here and there, softer than a thought, unrolling fragile curls to the sun that leaked in from above. Iselyth grounded herself there, she anchored in the green, she felt the hum of quiet life. Life. Life.
‘Those are the risks. I wanted war. I wanted death. Oh, I got it Father, I got it in such droves I could be sick. Sick! And here I am and I want to go back. I don’t want to. I do. I don’t. I – I’m pulled in half.’
If she could love Father for one thing alone: it was for how he listened. Silently, without judgement, without reproach, simply accepting everything she could give. And oh she had given much, through the years, much, and more that she knew he must have wept over. When she strode down the length of the hall in her full armor, pennant flying over one shoulder, helmet tucked under her arm, back erect, each pace devouring meters to stand right before him. A Dire Avenger. A child of Khaine. What he’d never wanted.
Oh such a challenge, then, to come armed and arrogant like that, right to the Solstice Throne. He could have censured her; he could have disowned her just then. In an instant. No one would have blamed him. No arms ever passed the threshold of Greenhold. Not since the fall. Yet she gripped tight the hilt of long, silvered blade and stroked the warm holster wherein slumbered shuriken death.
But Father listened.
So she bulled onward.
‘There was another there. A human. A…one of their Space Marines. You know the type, Father. Too well, I think. He was – he was difficult. Arrogant and stupid and – and willful and obtuse and impossible and – and – and – and!’ She growled, because Qin was there, with his back to her, his broad back like a wall as he swung his crude chainsword in looping spins, engine silent and she couldn’t look away because it was like the chamber tilted, like he stood at the bottom of a well and all flowed toward him which was ridiculous and intolerable so she forced herself to look away, to look up at Father, to stare him down as he gazed down at his daughter and she put Qin aside even as she spoke of him, she blocked him behind walls of Space Marine and Human and not Qin, never Qin. Never Qin. She saw him slay a ripper, she did not see him above her. She felt his hard gauntlets as he threw her behind a tree – she did not feel the roughness of his calluses, the gentle wonder of skin on skin. She saw snarling crimson helm, not pools of umber, crinkled at the corners.
‘Laichrain told me what humans of the Imperium were like, but never in a thousand lifetimes did I expect that – every word he spoke was a contradiction and you could tell him that ice was cold and fire hot and he would argue!’ She dug fingernails into the rich carpet about her, feeling the sudden snaps and trembles of roots splitting and slick sap stained her fingertips. Qin cocked his head at her and she snarled. ‘I had to work with him, Father. I had to work with him to survive and we did. Both of us and we left together and he – well, he saved me Father, he saved me and I don’t know what to do with that.’
There. She said it. Father heard it.
Qin, Qin the Space Marine, Qin the Human, Qin the Mon’keigh who sometimes was as thoughtful as wraithbone and sometimes shocked her with his complexity. Iselyth spat and her spittle hung like dew on the little ferns and buds of the living floor. Even that act of contempt is tempered here – the essence of Greenhold oppressive and suffocating. Be not forlorn, it whispered. You are home.
Home.
Home.
Qin saved her because she was losing control. Every rattle of the waystones at her hip drove her to new heights of fury, pushed her deeper into her Mask, buried her under cresting waves of blood and acid hate. The universe narrowed to two points: her and the Devourer. Iselyth and the beasts. Eroding one until it they would all be monsters, driven to slaughter. Her throat ached, iron filling her mouth as she panted, gasped, knocked out of her Mask by the shock of the Space Marine. How it collapsed around her, the tide of crimson receding and leaving her high and dry, naked and raw on the shore of her own sanity, pulling herself back together, surrounded by an abattoir of corpses and smeared in gore.
And she was back in Greenhold, staring at the spatter of her venom across the tile. Her shoulders ached. Her eyes burned and she would not weep. She would not. She met her father’s gaze, kneeling child to seated patriatch.
‘I don’t know if I would have left that world as myself. Not without him. Master Ataenith would have been disappointed.’ She mused for a moment, then laughed, manic. ‘But not surprised, I think.’ On her right palm, no larger than her thumbnail, the shiny patch of skin in the shape of a two headed bird itched. It never hurt, not once, but sometimes it tingled beneath the skin. ‘I brought him back, you know. Master Ataenith. Autarch Maech Nohrn said they returned his waystone, set into new armor. They said the spirits are diminished but still strong. Ataenith will walk again. It won’t be my Ataenith.’ She could feel her father’s frown.
A Dire Avenger peers down at her. He is Asurmen cast in living wraithbone. He is draped in chains of hammered bronze, he drips totems and woven icons. The Knot repeats and repeats itself, wrapping and binding his limbs, long and lithe and limber. His face is etched of marble, his eyes so clear, so blue – it is as if the achingly perfect sky of the Shrine shines through his face. She sees the set of his jaw, the tiniest wrinkle pulling one corner of his mouth in consideration. A frown creases his flawless forehead. The touch of his hand to her back, gently, directing, is electric.
‘Yes, yes, yes. I know. He was never ‘my’ Ataenith. He was an exarch. I know.’ But she felt his hands on hers, his chest pressed to her back as he guided her through a particularly complex form, guiding her hands on her blade. ‘I don’t know what I want. If that Space Marine hadn’t been there – I wonder if it might have been better. What do I have? What do we have?’ Iselyth cast around the hall, empty save her and her father. Empty when it should never have been. Empty and full of life. Irony personified. Merciless in potential. Brutal in bloom. ‘Maybe that’s how it should be. Should’ve been. Could be. He calls to me, Father. I hear him at night. When I dream. ‘Be one with me,’ he says, in the way he never would in life. ‘Be one with me’, and all I see is blood.’ She looked away, unable to hold her father’s gaze.
‘Exarch. I swore I never would. I’d never fall that far. I have daemons. We all do. I would burn them out and move on. Now my shrine is gone, Father, now my mentor is dead and I am all that’s left.’
Iselyth was torn between tears and laughter, both bubbling beneath the surface, each a doorway to inconsolable hysteria. She teetered on the edge, riding the cusp of madness like a Warp Spider rides the webway. Iselyth hiccupped, shivering in the springtime warmth.
‘And what do you say, Father? What advice do you offer your daughter? Your son is gone, raiding his way across the stars in refusal of his responsibilities. I came back. I always come back. And what do you have for me?’ She spat, unseemly, impolite but she was past caring, past propriety. ‘Here I am: the prodigal daughter. No warnings? No assurance?’ She was on her feet in a flash, pacing, pacing before the throne, glaring daggers at her father.
The wraith construct was silent, still, entwined with vines and creepers, half-buried by the verdant greenery that infested the living throne. No light or warmth glowed from the domed head, as hollow and empty as the hall. Anchor points for pennants were bare and empty, green stains of chlorophyll and dark streaks of sap marring the deep crimson limbs and white-gold armor plates. Both hands clasped the quillons of Cor Chaladhol, the tip of the enormous ghostblade planted deep in the dais between its feet.
The sword drew her focus, glowing with an icy inner light, untouched by all the blooms and fronds of the flora about it. It stood aloof and separate, the aura of frigidity maintaining a circle of bare wraithbone around its embedded tip. At the wrists of the wraithlord the vines ceased, unwilling to edge too closely to such a hole in the world.
Here was her father’s body but his mind was long gone. She could not even feel him, not here, not now. Far, far deep into sleep he still remained in the gloaming caverns beneath Greenhold where the living dare not tread.
‘I know what you would say. Though you aren’t here to speak it.’ She stepped up, reaching out to brush fingertips across Cor Chaladhol, wincing and gasping as, like always, the bitter cold of it snapped at her digits. Iselyth looked down at the rime that coated her fingertips, even as it melted away in the springtime warmth of Greenhold. Melted away, and was gone.
Later Iselyth sits with her thighs astraddle her lover’s shoulders. He is an artist, and he imbues that passion into every aspect of life. He teases her and works her, his nose tickling as his lips play, as his tongue tastes and wanders, as his dexterous fingers ply and hint and chase ghosts of fullness and satisfaction as she drifts. He keeps her on the cusp and she can feel his smile against her inner thigh as he plants soft kisses along the tender skin, distracting her away from her hollow, hungry sex before he slides a slender finger inside, smooth as can be, so sudden and soft for a moment she can’t help but clench and bear down to feel him better, anything to take the edge off before he presses down and the delicious stretch throws her head back. Long and languid he works at her as she arches into the bed, biting down on the corner of sheets that run like water to muffle pleading demands.
The bastard acts like he’s sculpting the concept of an orgasm from psychoplastic, like he’s tricking into life all the nerves that are required for it, chiding and mocking her lust as foolish because, silly thing, dear thing, beautiful thing, you can’t come yet, you just simply cannot, see – she wants to howl when his mouth seals over her and his tongue pulls head-spinning suction but dammit, he can sense her, he was always sharper in the mind than she, he rides her every gasp and shudder so he knows just when to – to stop! A keen strangles in her throat because she is moments away when he stops to press wet lips to her pubis and tilt her hips to a new angle, one hand kneading the firm muscle of her rear, a deep massage that only highlights with blaring, offensive intensity just how empty she still is, how much he disappoints her –
And of course he knows that too because there’s a finger inside her and his tongue curls about her bud and laps between her lips and she shrieks and is undone, mashing his face to her with force as her thighs squeeze hard about his head, heels digging into his back because she’s greedy, she’s greedy and he’s been stingy and she will fuck his face with her hips until he cannot breathe for that, until he parts from her gasping for breath and she sucks in air, sweating, boneless, nude and radiant as he looks down at her.
She’s never had much of an affinity but she can sense the smoldering sense of pride emanating off of him in waves.
‘Pride,’ she pants, ‘isn’t attractive.’
He slides onto the sheets beside her, forming his body against her, pulling her against him. He is hard and slick against her side, but he makes no demands of her, content to walk fingers along her ribs and brush elegant digits down her thigh.
‘I’d make a piece off of this, you know.’ He mutters, drawing a fingertip through a streak of sweat. ‘Of you, just now, like this. No better image of Isha would grace any craftworld when I was through.’
She giggles and pushes at him.
‘Flattery is attractive, though.’
‘Is it?’ He leaned over her, waggling his eyebrows. ‘Then I shall endeavor to continue.’ Moments pass until she grows thirsty and rises, pulling up a long-discarded robe to array about her shoulders. He watches with a pout pulling at his sculptural features.
‘I need to study my subjects, you know.’ Over her shoulder she favors him with a flick of her eyelashes and a hint of a smile as she searches for the half-filled carafe. The wine is sweet and light, sharp when cold and rounded when warm and she plashes a measure into a thin-stemmed glass. A breeze from the thrown-open balcony doors tousles her robe and she wanders out, hearing rustling and movement behind.
Arms slide about her waist, crossing at her navel to slip under the robe and splay warm fingers across her belly, the other to cup her still tingling sex. Iselyth leans back, resting against him.
‘Thank you,’ she mutters.
‘Why, of course. I’d be a poor friend if I could not offer some distraction.’ Toirdel’s fingertips stroke across her sleek stomach and he kisses up the column of her neck. ‘You came back from Greenhold yesterday.’
Still deliciously warm and boneless from her orgasmic high, Iselyth can keep the memory at arm’s length.
‘I did.’ Wisely, he doesn’t press the subject.
‘I’m glad. I missed you. I’d hoped to see you, when…well.’ When you came back, she fills in silently, a pang of regret pulling at her. He’d thought her dead, and she – she’d not thought of him at all. That’s unfair, whispered a voice, you were up to your neck in tyranids. Did you think often of Father either? Or Laichrain? Your own brother? Your attention was elsewhere, as it needed be. As it had to be, to live.
‘I missed you as well,’ she lied, because she should have. His hand slides up her stomach, cupping under her breast then up to her chin to turn and capture her lips with his own and she sighs into him, opening her mouth and accepting, tasting the wine on his tongue, the sweetness and warmth of him.
She opens to him later too, as they move together, rocking and riding.
She looks down at Toirdel, at his trim body beneath hers, down to where their bodies meet and she engulfs him, past her breasts and then back up to his face. There is wonder there, an awe that makes him tender and soft, makes him stroke along her breast and hip.
And she is hating herself.
He is beautiful. He is kind, so kind. He leans over her, supporting his weight and she watches the tiniest shifts of muscle along his jaw and temple as he strokes within her, matching to her deepest sighs and hunting for what he knows she liked best. His eyebrows grow taut, his every motion sinuous, a nonstop assault on her senses, a barrage of crackled nerves as he pushes deep into her and takes the tender point of her breast into the heat of his mouth and slides fingers up her spine and rubs circles just above her tailbone – because he knows her, and she knows him, and he devotes his attention to reading her, examining her like one of his projects, for each stroke of the chisel in impeccable marble to be exact, for each arc of the brush to be precise, for each press of the wraithbone to be some part of a greater whole.
But even when she grinds against him (which he matches perfectly) and nips teeth along his jaw and digs fingers into his trim back, even as Iselyth curls her toes as another orgasm pinches her eyes shut and shatters electricity down her limbs in little shivers, she is hating herself.
When he sleeps, arrayed half-beneath coverlets like a pose in a portraiture study, she regards him with critical eye from a low chair. Her robe dangles from her shoulders, left to fall open as she sips only clear water.
Muscles clench and unclench in her jaw, lips drawn tight. Toirdel is her friend – her good friend, her lover and confidante. He knew her secrets and she his. He knew of Ataenith.
She’d never felt so quietly unfilled after a night of passion with Toirdel before.
She couldn’t put aside the feeling as he moved in her, under her, above her, like it was a part. A play. He knew everything about her like it was rehearsed. His remarks earlier sunk into her belly like an undigested meal and stayed there, unwelcome. It wasn’t the first time he’d joked about his craft after sex. It used to be a thing. A clever little byplay, simple pillow talk. But it lodged in her focus and she couldn’t put it aside. He studied her like a painting, like a sculpture. They made love like each was expecting the next act and preparing for it. And for all the lighthearted humor, she had seen glimpses of an woman she knew in some of his works.
The cant of the head in an abstract tangle of eldar forms – a curve of hip in a suggestive and bawdy lithopane of Lileath.
It never bothered her before. Flattery, it was, even, if she considered it.
Toirdel never failed to satisfy her, and his words had always been fair.
But she remembers another time. She remembers a dank cellar, half-lit. She remembers riding the heady edge of exhaustion and hunger, struck across the face by unexpected arousal and frustration, she remembers the way her heart hurt it had hammered so hard as she bared herself there. She remembers a vast weight and power underneath her, the way she felt, radiant and glorious, never as wanton or as beautiful as she had before, as powerful as she did that night.
The way the moment froze, the future dropped away, the present growing and growing until all she could conceive of was the infinite now, the feeling when he spun her around and pinned her to the floor, the intensity, the ferocity, the focus. How his eyes never left hers. Every drip of sweat that dropped, sharp and sour to stain her body.
She uncrosses and recrosses her legs, running lost in memory.
The way everything blurred, the way he surrounded her in all ways, filling her up and trapping her beneath him, so vulnerable, so fragile. How his cock and his hands and his mouth and his eyes had pinned her through, nailed her clean to the floor and the now, the moment, every second, gasping for breath to survive just one more thrust, just one more thrust. How her body burned, every inch, strung out and humming, drawn taut around a feeling she couldn’t contain.
Never as vulnerable, as trapped, as naked as she was in that moment.
Never as alive.
Never as alive.
Never as unafraid.
She doesn’t remember any fear. Pain – yes, a bit of it. He was large and forceful and clumsy and that night there had been a greater mixture of pain to the pleasure than she had ever been used to before, but even that – even that! It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t exact, it was – it was more than she bargained for, more than she expected; it was nothing like she asked but everything she wanted.
Every time he plunged within her she felt his strength, the potential, how lost he was, how swept up in the moment. Strength enough to tear her in two. Strength that was made to do such things.
Never feared it. Not even for a second.
And then after. When she asked, and he held her.
Iselyth surges to her feet, downing the rest of the chalice in a single, messy gulp. Chill water spills past her chin, spattering down her chest and she pulls her robe tight, spinning away and throwing open the doors to the balcony, leaving her lover lost in his slumber.
The dome falls out and away, far livelier, far more cosmopolitan than Greenhold. Just as verdant, just as full of life, of trees that scraped at the lost ceiling far above, interwoven with spires and grand malls. She clenches the railing, worked to resemble garlands of thin leaves until her fingers ache. The night cycle is deep, though the warm lamps along boulevards and promenades and from spires banish true dark.
Khaine’s teeth. The ghost of hands run down her arms, and they are not an eldar’s.
Khaine’s teeth.
Still wearing only a robe, she scales the railing and slips over the side.
He settles onto the curved wraithbone chaise next to her, close enough she can feel the warmth beating off his skin. Wordless, Toirdel offers her a wrapped bundle and she takes it, smelling the herb and spice, the rounded nose of sainn-honey. The bread is unleavened, sprinkled with astringent herbs atop it, still warm from the ovens and sweetly sour. She hadn’t realized her hunger until her stomach snarls with ferocity somewhere through the third bite. Steam warms her face as she breaks off chunks with careful fingers.
Toirdel grins.
She dips a shoulder, a wave of her fingers – abashed gratitude. He flicks it away.
‘You’d do the same for me,’ he says, and in so proving he thinks far higher of her than she. Iselyth munches in silence, the soft mouthfuls threatening to stir memories back to the fore but she focuses instead of everything else – the chill and nip of the air, numbing her nose, the tips of her ears, chilling her cheeks to rose-kissed warmth. The pliant smoothness of the wraithbone beneath her, only a thin silken robe in between. All around the plants are curled like newborn ferns, tucked up and away from the morning snap of frost, each biding their time for the coming bloom of sun and warmth of midday.
Where Greenhold was a snapshot of time, poised at the edge of raucous bloom, Dome Siod-Thhe was a celebration of the full rainbow of life. Summers crashed into winters and rolled into the briefest of springs before leaves trembled red and yellow and a thousand shades in between before renewing to the crispest of greens. A week in Siod-Thhe might be balmy and humid, the air as still as a mirror and drenched – then be followed by snowfall and ponds rimed over.
Frost dusts everything – she’d watched it spread as the hours ticked over. Somewhere along the way she regretted her choice of attire, but the idea of retracing her steps was as admitting defeat. Even as the temperature dipped below freezing and her breath hung as gauze in the air, Iselyth shrugged. Ataenith had taught them so much. How with simple focus and mnemonics she could alter her breathing, draw the faintest of power from the infinity circuit, raise her core temperature by several degrees. Slower, longer breaths to minimize the loss of heat through temperature gradients in her lungs, legs and arms crossed to hug heat closer.
She rode out the frosty morning in a stupor, draped in thoughts and a mantle of dewy flakes.
‘You weren’t there when I woke up.’
Iselyth rolls her shoulders. Toirdel brings up a leg, shifting to face her from the foot of the chaise. The clearing, set a few paces from a meandering path, is private. Hedges and thornbushes rise taller than Wraithlords all around them and only a peek of the main path is revealed. And at this time of day, few eldar would be out in the green. Concern is writ across his beautiful face, feathered brows creased and tugged close.
‘Isse, talk to me.’
Isse.
Twice in two days.
She grinds her teeth, swallowing the last of the bread and twists the paper wrapping between her hands. The diminutive isn’t unwelcome, but unlooked for. Her brother started calling her that, back when she still had scraped knees and stood no higher than her mother’s waist. It had stuck amongst close family and the few close friends that kept by. Toirdel was one. Lachrainn another.
‘What’s there to say?’
‘Why did you leave? It’s cold out. A quick winter started tonight. Unless you make a habit of freezing.’ She held up both hands, leaving the crumpled wrapping in her lap. Wiggled her fingers.
‘Look. Plenty warm.’
‘Isse.’
She glances away, studies the drip of tiny icicles from thorns as long as her first finger-joint. Shrugs.
‘I was restless.’ Toirdel’s face falls, and he casts his eyes down. He’ll take it personally. He wanted to help. Iselyth, here, not warm and comfortable in bed – that was a failure. That wasn’t help.
‘It’s not your fault,’ she tries, but Toirdel has already taken the regretful barb. ‘Really. I’ve been restless. That’s why I went h- why I went to Greenhold. I haven’t stayed in one place for more than a few days since I got back, you know.’ She can see he understands her, really, he gets it, but it doesn’t change that he couldn’t help her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. Iselyth can’t help but reach out, take his hand in hers, surprised at how cold it is in comparison. An artist’s hands. Never to take a life in anger, never to need to know how to survive when worlds themselves wish you dead. She clasps with both hands, willing some of her warmth to him. If she cannot offer it of the soul, at least a bit can be spared of the flesh. ‘Don’t be,’ she murmurs to him, ‘because then I’ll be sorry.’ Toirdel tries to pull her closer, but she is unmoving. ‘It’s-‘
‘Isse, you can’t keep living in the middle like this.’ She doesn’t want to hear this. Really, really doesn’t. ‘It’s tearing you in half. I’m watching it.’
‘I’m fine,’ she mutters, but the words are as thin as the mist of her breath.
‘Fine? Why are you out here? Don’t tell me you wanted a stroll. Isse, look at me. Look at me, please?’
The plea is too much and she forces herself to meet his gaze. She’ll look him in the eyes, but she keeps iron bars around her mind. No doubt he’ll feel that, but her emotions – there’s nothing Iselyth can trust right now.
‘You could step aside. Stop being torn in half. I know your family. It wouldn’t be ruin. It wouldn’t. Your brother-‘
‘Walked away! He quit. Things got a little too hard for him so he ran off to play pirate.’
‘Isse, that’s unfair.’
‘That’s the truth, Toirdel. The truth. He left.’ Toirdel’s look is one of sorrow and she hates it, because it’s about her. For her. She doesn’t need it. What does it help? What’s his sadness going to do?
‘So it’s all on me.’
‘It doesn’t have to be.’
Iselyth laughs, throwing back her head, hair rippling, full-throated and rude.
‘It isn’t? I’m my father’s daughter. Second in line. So big brother leaves and now what, me too? What al legacy for Cucolollein. His line broken because of the gutlessness of his ancestors. And my father. My mother. What children they raised.’
‘Your mother,’ Toirdel says, with tangible reproach, ‘would want you to be happy.’
‘My mother wants nothing.’ She spits, pulling her hands away from his, bundling them into hard fists in her lap. ‘I went to talk to Father. Did you know he didn’t bother to speak back? It was silly. Childish, right? Of course he wouldn’t. I’m not a spiritseer. Silly me. Silly Iselyth. Your dad is dead and his soul sleeps. Silly to think his only daughter would be enough to interest him.’ She bites back tears, as much at her words as the twisting shame of admitting as much out loud.
Toirdel’s next words are worse.
‘Albhain wouldn’t mind-‘
At first she is numb, numb because of the very thought of it. Numb because her breath was stolen and the little girl deep inside her looks up and thinks ‘Father?’ and she hates it, the weakness, the humiliation, she is numb because she actually, actually for a moment considered it.
Iselyth covers this with anger.
‘You’d have me wake him, wake a wraithlord, so that the ghost of my father can pat his daughter on the head?’ She flicks her hand in outright disgust and Toirdel recoils, but she can’t stop. ‘Yes, let us pull his soul from twilight and rest so that he can see firsthand the death of his line. That – yes, that – that is – ‘ She does not realize she is crying until frigid air chills the salt on her cheek.
Toirdel reaches his hands for her but she is up and away, standing on bare feet on rimed wraithbone.
‘I’m sorry. Toirdel. No. That was – you were kind. I’m sorry. I –‘ Iselyth flees, her friend and lover left behind.
It’s with false cheer they sit with Lachrainn. A difference in trio could scarcely be greater imagined. Iselyth sits crosslegged, a simple robe in steel-grey and pale blue about her shoulders, belted at her waist. Her hair is loose, wavy and tumbling over her shoulders, as black as it was at birth. Thin slippers dangle from her feet. It felt strange to wear a loose robe and skirt, drifting around her body with the slightest caress and touch on her skin. No more tight, clinging bodysuit and ruined armor, yet she felt almost vulnerable now without. Fragile.
Curious how much the world can change in but months, yet sometimes linger on for decades.
Toirdel is bare-chested beneath an open tunic cinched with a broad wrap of azure woven with gold, enjoying the balmy air after the short winter. He has painted his chest, delicate and intricate whorls of blue and pale purple across his abdominals and up to his pectorals, a starburst radiating from one nipple. His hair is as dark as wine today, rippling with highlights of purple and blue as the light catches it. The picture of confident artistry.
But Laichrainn.
The corsair captain has drawn more stares than is seemly. Even in her current drifting state, Iselyth couldn’t deny the happy little burst of warmth in her stomach when she saw her old friend again.
The corsair swept out of the flow of foot traffic like a ship of the lesser races breaking the empyrean: a burst of energy and attention that pulled focus from all around.
Now she lounged, long limbs draped and dangling in just the right ways to accentuate her lithe and towering figure. Laichrainn was already tall for an eldar and arranged as she was in her lounge, her legs seemed to flow for miles. She dangled an elaborate flask of crystal and sculpted wraithbone off one finger, occasionally jostling the amber liquid within. Against the more muted and measured denizens of the craftworld, Laichrainn is a tropical bird. Her hair is a shock of bright white, wound into a complex braid that swings as low as her waist, veined with fluorescent red. Half her head is shaved to the scalp, tattooed there with pale blue designs and runes. Her lips are cherry, glistening, as if coated in blood. The symbol of the craftworld encircles both eyes as a tattoo in matching crimson, as if she wept tears of vitae down alabaster cheeks. Piercings in silver and platinum poke through her lip and cheek, both ears sheathed in a rippling framing of liquid metal.
Her dress is what has attracted the most glances, from male and female alike. Her jacket plunges low and unbuttoned, tails sweeping behind her. A hundred buckles dangle loosely along one seam, yet only a handful are clasped low at her navel. Underneath the corsair wears nothing at all. How she has managed to avoid exposing herself is beyond Iselyth – always the coat lies just right, dangling in just the right way and fitted just so to preserve a consideration of modesty, though the vast expanse of the corsair’s stomach and cleavage pays lie to that concept. Her trousers hang low on shapely hips, as tight as skin, a dozen knives strapped up her left thigh. It is not that weapons are disallowed, per se, but more that there is never a need for them. Laichrainn has used one already to spear a morsel, smirking and flicking the finger-length blade between nimble digits.
Iselyth was glad to see her. Though her ensemble was violent and loud, demanding attention, though Laichrainn clearly enjoyed every glance Toirdel sent her way and those of others, there was a comfort in that. In continuity. This was the Laichrainn Iselyth knew best. Always pushing boundaries, always poking just a little too far, always on the careful side of irreverent. She remembers the conspiratorial smiles she and Toirdel had shared when Laichrainn went missing for weeks, only to turn up aboard a corsair ship out of Saim-Hann. Laichrainn alone had hugged Iselyth tight and firm before she left for the Shrine, planting a quick kiss on both cheeks.
‘Go on then, dear one. Let it out. Let it all out.’ Toirdel had tried to talk her out of it. Laichrainn understood.
So the captainess teasingly describing her coat as a ‘lovely find from Comorragh’ and the resultant suppressed cough from Toirdel merely made Iselyth smile, trying to focus on the moment, to keep the melancholy at bay.
An arrangement of savory tidbits and sweet cakes lay on the low table between the three, sampled and nibbled here and there. Laichrainn leaned forward, snagging a pastry between two nimble fingers.
‘I’ve heard from somewhere, dear Lytha, that you have quite a story.’
Iselyth takes a careful sip of her spiced wine.
‘Mm?’
‘I’ve heard, and I was quite taken by this, mind you, that you, dear one, slew a Deathleaper in single combat. And that you’ve got the beast’s own claw to prove it.’
Ah.
‘I had help,’ she avers, avoiding looking at Toirdel as she says it. Qin, before her, an expression she’d never seen before suddenly spreading across his face. The way his brows draw close, his mouth drops open, the widening of his mouth – if she did not know better, she might term it ‘concern’. The room spinning, the hard crack of stone against her helmet, iron in her mouth.
Iselyth blinks and Laichrainn’s grin widens. Predatory, white teeth shining. And one gold, hooked and long.
‘Oh, you must tell us.’ On the other hand, this is the Laichrainn Iselyth knows best.
Obligingly, Iselyth begins her tale.
…
‘And you still have it?’ Iselyth nods with a small smile. The story unfolded well, and she found herself using a few of Toirdel’s turns of phrase as she described the long hunt in the darkness beneath the chapel. Of Qin she spoke little, cursorily, referring to him as ‘the Space Marine’ or the ‘human’. Laichrainn seemed not to notice the care with which Iselyth trod about her companion, nor did Toirdel. It was not until she was standing, striking a pose as she described trying to strike at the elusive tyranid that she realized she was, well, not unhappy.
Letting the memories come and flow over her, reliving the moment, banished the weight and melancholy that had chased her.
She packaged that thought away to deal with later.
‘You’ll have to show it to me. A fine trophy. A fine trophy! I’ve not seen the like before, you know.’ Iselyth smiles, though it does not reach her eyes.
‘It’s with what remains of my armor. Still in –‘ her voice hitched a moment. ‘Still in the shrine.’
Laichrainn’s mirthful face grows more serious, and she leans over, patting Iselyth’s thigh. Idly, Iselyth wonders how her friend’s breasts do not spill out.
‘I was very sorry to hear about what happened. You spoke only the best of Ataenith.’
‘Thank you,’ Iselyth says, reflexively, dodging that open sore and continuing along as before. ‘I never knew how intelligent one of the devourers could be. To hunt us, all that time! Such a grudge.’
Toirdel takes a sip, and waves his hand.
‘I’d be displeased too if someone stole my arm.’ Laichrainn laughs.
‘We must spar at some point, dear. I met with a captain from Saim-Hann. You wouldn’t believe what they call fencing! It’s like lightning, like their feet never touch the ground. You’d think they wouldn’t know which end of a sword pokes holes, so enthralled they are with their jetbikes, but there it is.’
The conversation wanders on, into Laichrainn’s travels and exploits. The corsair never has a lack of tales to tell and stories to spin, even if surely half must at least be embellished greatly. She lets her friend dominate the conversation, content to sit back and listen. Toirdel seems as into it as she and the awkwardness of the past week or so seems tucked aside for the day.
Neither had broached what happened that other morning. Iselyth’s ears still burned in shame when she thought about what she’d said aloud and Toirdel seemed more than happy to pretend as if it never occurred. They’d not spent the night together again, though, truth be told, Iselyth hadn’t felt the urge. Even Laichrainn and her ridiculous outfit failed to spark more than amusement from her – not that Iselyth had ever been overly attracted to her own sex, but Laichrainn’s classic innuendo and teasing at least used to usually encourage the same playfulness in her.
Laichrainn straightens up, her mien growing serious.
‘Lytha, dear. How are you?’
The suddenness of the question and directness disarms Iselyth for a moment. She massages her thigh a moment, gathering her thoughts and taking a breath.
‘Rather full, I think.’ The table is an array of crumbs and half-empty glasses. The attempt at humor trips over its own feet.
‘I mean it. It has been lovely catching up with both you-‘ Laichrainn winks at Toirdel, but is serious again in a heartbeat ‘but how are you?’
She chews on her lower lip.
‘Fine. Fine enough. How else could I be?’ Iselyth shrugs, turning her head fractionally: dismissal, but grateful. ‘Thank you for asking. Really. But – I’ll be okay.’
The corsair smiles, soft, caring, and Iselyth’s heart jumps. ‘I love you, Lytha. You know that. If you ever need anything – I’m here. Anything at all.’
Toirdel adds his own voice, echoing her sentiment and Iselyth swallows the knot in her throat. The familiar closeness of family. Warmth. The ache is physical as both her closest friends smile at her, and neither are they kin.
‘Thank you. Both of you. I’ll be okay.’
She says the words with much more conviction than she feels. Laichrainn studies her a moment longer and Iselyth feels momentarily like a piece of hung meat. Then the corsair shrugs and her teeth flash again. Gold, catching the light. When she is mischievous, the artificial fang tugs sharp at her lower lip.
‘Speaking of the devourer – did I ever tell you of the trained carnifex I once saw? Yes! A real carnifex!’
...
Later Lachrainn takes Iselyth aside, her long fingers weaving into the shorter eldar's locks as she presses forehead to forehead. Bright eyes inches away search her own. Iselyth wants to look away, fearful of what is within her windows, but Laichrainn will not relent.
'Come along,' the corsair murmurs.
'What?'
'Come along, Lytha. On my ship. Just for a while. Get away from everything. From the craftworld. From memories, from - from it all. You don't have to stay. You don't even have to do anything. Just come along.'
She splays her hands against her friend's chest, feeling the warmth of her skin, the beat of her heart, but Iselyth does not push away.
'I can't-'
'Why not?'
'...' The silence is unfilled, and Laichrainn pulls her closer, tucking the crown of Iselyth’s head beneath her slender jaw. Hugs Iselyth to her chest, stroking her hair. She holds back tears, held by another, by a woman, taller than she, because - mother - and she digs fingers into the back of Laichrainn's coat.
'Come on Lytha. Come on. Get away from this. Your head can't empty here. It’s too loud. I know.'
She tries to speak, mouths around air, swallows, tries again.
'I can't keep leaving.'
'I didn't say leave. I said take a break. The next run is short. A few turnings. If even. You'll be back then. You need space. Both kinds.'
Iselyth shivers, tightening her hug briefly before stepping back quickly, breaking the embrace. Laichrainn smiles gently down at her, cocking her head.
'Think about it, at least. Think about it. I leave in two cycles. You know where to find me.'
When the slender frigate Kestrel Sung arcs wide and sleek from the embrace of the craftworld, sinking into the yawning embrace of the webway, Iselyth is watching from the panes of the broad windows.
She is watching the craftworld, again, recede and vanish.
Elsewhere
Tukayar bowed low, but precisely low enough as was demanded by tradition and respect.
Qin would've done no differently. The past weeks on Choroct had been difficult. Tukayar and Zhigua had obviously become accustomed to each other. Zhigua had been on the world for more than three decades, tending to the small gene-vault kept in the fortress. Tukayar had brought two training squads only days before the 'loss' of the Host over Incandry's Rest. It was to be the beginning of the long ascension process as Tukayar trained them all in the steppes and forests and shaped them into pliable warriors.
But it all had gone awry. The neophytes had been rushed into their final implantations, being given their Black Carapace instead of earning it. Many had died.
Again - Qin would've done no differently.
But at that, the two Marines had sort of...stopped. Tukayar still ran hunts with handfuls of the neophytes. There were still instructions of void-warfare, for service aboard ships that did not exist anymore. Zhigua went through the motions, maintaining the small apothecarion.
And it seemed, had he not arrived when he did, they simply would have continued doing so until the stars ceased their spin. Now that - that Qin would have done differently.
And was attempting to.
'Khan,' Tukayar said, straightening up, gaze fixing itself somewhere past Qin's left shoulder.
'Tukayar. You've submitted a request to use the Thunderhawk.'
'I did, Khan. There is a mediation to be made between two tribes in the Farros Divide. They requested Host advisors. The neophytes -'
'The neophytes need to remain here, arbana.'
'If I might ask why, my Khan?'
Qin rose from the low couch, straightening his robe and putting aside a dataslate. 'Since you asked and since I would have soon enough explained to you all, very well. I will inform Zhigua later. Tukayar, what do we have here, in the fastness?'
'Thirteen Astartes, my Khan.'
'Thirteen. And the gene-seed banks?'
'Zhigua tells me there is a viable dozen, perhaps.'
'Perhaps. The Argent Lance was deemed safer for the precious reserves. How ironic.' Qin tapped the dataslate lying beside him on a low table. 'Perhaps a dozen more neophytes might be elevated. Assuming no complications. Where does that leave the Host?'
Tukayar grimaced, recognizing the well-trod and worn path this conversation was heading. Nothing that hadn’t already been trod a dozen times, always broached by Qin, always pursued by Qin, as if Tukayar and Zhigua had not the stomach or even the mind to consider it. As if reality could be denied by simple habit and routine, as if this cloistered corner of the galaxy could capture in amber what was lost.
'Less than a demicompany, my Khan.'
'Far less.'
'Far less,' Tukayar agreed. 'But Mars-'
'Mars is on the other side of the Great Rift. Mars lays a galactic radius away. Mars...cannot help us.'
'With twenty men we could petition for a reserve. The Host always paid their tithe - with Martian aid our Chapter-'
'Tukayar. We cannot even speak with Terra. We can barely understand the astropathic prayers from just across the Rift.'
'There are rumors the warp calms.' Qin shook his head.
'There have been those rumors since the night the heavens split in two. No. But we have a choice, arbana. We have thirteen Astartes here. Now.' Qin leaned closer. 'Twenty-six geneseed.'
Tukayar visibly recoiled. 'My Khan! You cannot suggest that we harvest our own progenoids?' Qin spread his arms, taking in the room, exposing his chest, as if he could feel the lumps of gene-dense flesh within.
The idea had struck him a while ago, even before he arrived here, on Choroct. If the Host was presumed lost, all hands, if he was the last – did he not, in the end, hold the potential for two more to be raised? Perhaps that would be his legacy, he’d mused, thoughts dark and bloody in the days after the eldar left. He would serve until death, and from his death might come the chance for renewal. But who would save his precious progenoids? Would they not rot with his corpse wherever he fell, unremembered, uncared for?
But, and he recoiled from the thought even as it formed, but –
The trace of the blunt back of his combat blade across his bare pectoral was cold and hard. The dense flesh resisted even the fractal-sharpened edge. So much of an Astartes was designed to be lost. Had he not been punctured clean through a lung? Had he not once felt the shudder of a heart grow still, spreading a sucking ache through his body even as he fought on with his brothers? He could live without one of his hearts. Without two of his lungs. Without much of his body, in fact. The venerable dreadnoughts (and for not the first time did he blanch and grow still at the realization that the Host’s cadre of ancients was gone, for the death of his Chapter never seemed to cease in revealing it’s horror), the dreadnoughts proved that the body of an Astartes was, as it should be, a masterpiece of creation.
So, then, could he not obviously live without his progenoids? His very gene-seed? The idea sat ill, wrong-shaped and offensive. It was just…wrong! The more he thought of it the more his stomach turned, the more he clenched tight the hilt of his knife.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG!
Qin came back to the thought a while later. Again he flinched away from the image of digging in his chest, levering out the gene-rich clumps of meat. Reflexive. Instinctive.
Instinctive.
The feeling grit his teeth, drew a grimace across his brow and he pushed back. The loss of his progenoids would not kill him. His gene-seed bore no part in the function of his transhuman body. Their absence would not diminish him nor decrease his efficacy. It was no affront! No insult!
This feeling was not new.
Qin stood before a floor length mirror, in the ablutorium of the Temptor. He is naked, the shining ports of his interface sockets stark against his tanned skin. The fading wound at his breast is still angry yellow and blue beneath the skin, puckered and red. Gently he ran calloused fingers across his neck, his chest. The thought of marring his own body, of clashing with the Emperor’s design – but it wasn’t. It was not. He was preserving the Emperor’s design. He was honoring it. He was perverting it. The geneseed passed on in death. Not in life. Never in life. But why? For what reason? A Chapter could replace a thousand losses without need for Mars. Restore their sacred strength in a trice.
It was wrong. He felt it in his gut. Deep in his gut, like he knew his name and like he knew that Mankind was righteous. Wrong.
Like how the xeno was to be hated. Mistrusted. Condemned. Killed.
On the other side, he mused, it was easier. Easier to see the mines seeded through his subconscious, the memes engrained decades prior. He’d never questioned them before, never noticed.
Qin looks down at his palms. He’d held an eldar with them. Palmed her breasts, stroked her hip, drawn her to him in carnal communion. He’d used those hands to save her life. Ten times, twenty times, more. In that he knew that he had been wrong once. The xeno were dangerous. Duplicitous, likely, sure. Focused on their own survival, their own goals. But the film had been torn from his eyes. Do not trust the xeno. Do not let down one’s guard. But there are exceptions.
In one swoop, the absolute certainty of his life had been…adjusted. Things that he once believed with utter, absolute certainty, a certainty like that of the knowledge of gravity and light had been torn down.
The inviolability of the Host. The malice of the xeno.
And now. Now his deep-spun indoctrination wanted him to dismiss out of hand what might be the only chance, the only chance, to save his Chapter.
Qin blinked, and fixed Zhigua with his gaze. It took weeks for him to believe himself. To convince others?
‘Should we not? We do not need the geneseed to live. Twenty-six, Tukayar. If Zhigua is able to culture even enough to elevate fifteen Neophytes, we will have doubled our numbers. And from those fifteen - thirty. And from those thirty, sixty - more than a Company's worth, all told.'
'It is proscribed!'
'Many things are. All for good reason. Is the death of our Chapter a good reason?' Tukayar straightened; face tense, struggling to remain calm. Qin felt for his brother – he knew too well the feeling, the churning knowledge that this. Is. Wrong.
'If that is to be our fate, then yes, my Khan, it is honorable for the Host to pass on. To hold true.' Qin sighed, expecting nothing less. Qin of only a year ago would have had no different a reaction.
'And leave our oaths unfulfilled. Our duty undone.'
'Only in death does duty end-'
'And we are not dead! That is a lie, sergeant. The Argent Lance is gone. Lord Atobai sits beside the Emperor. Is the duty of the Host fulfilled? Can we lay down our arms?'
'When our deaths come, yes.'
'When our deaths come. And the sector will cease to be? All the billions of souls we are sworn to guard? They will be eternally safe?'
'No...'
'A lie, Sergeant. Duty does not end in death. Death merely stops us from completing it. That is why we rely on others, on our brothers, to carry on the service beyond each of us.' He remembers his arbana, falling to the tyranid. His squad. Qin alone, bereft, clinging to duty until that duty was done. Why should they do any different, here? Now?
'You speak well, my Khan, and I see why you were seconded.' Qin inwardly winced - still the lie did not sit easily. But like so many matters of late, he thought, bitter, he judged the ends before the means. 'But even if we were to harvest our own gene-seed, Zhigua cannot do what you ask. Even the implantation of the Black Carapaces was nearly beyond him. He is not a Chief Apothecary. He cannot oversee the task that many should do. Without other apothecaries or specialists from Mars - this cannot be done.'
'Mars,' Qin said slowly, 'does not own a monopoly on expertise.' The statement hung in the air, and he waited for Tukayar to understand his meaning. When the other Marine's eyes widened in shock, Qin pressed home. 'Garrocan. Only half a sector away. The Magos Biologis of that forge-world are famed, are they not?' Tukayar was aghast, his olive complexion paling in shock.
'They are not privy to the secrets of the Adeptus Astartes! Such things are conserved for those who must know, my Khan!'
'And in this situation, in this time, they must know.' Qin chopped his hand through the air, a motion of finality. 'No, Tukayar, this is what will be done. We will all surrender our gene-seed. We will speak with Fabricator-General Origanna-Mu. We will rebuild the Host, here and now.' Tukayar fell to his knees, shaking his head.
'My Khan, my greatest apologies and sorrow, but this - this duty I cannot do. I will not do. My life is forfeit but I will not do this...this heresy!'
'Heresy, Sergeant? Heresy to try to save our Chapter?' Qin stepped back, giving the other Marine room to stand, pacing to one of the rounded windows that faced west. 'There are so many things happening, Tukayar. So many rumors. So much unknown. I've heard tell Terra herself is lost.' When Tukayar made to speak, Qin held up a hand. 'Yet the Astronomican, though dim and rare, is still sighted from time to time. Whispers reach us of a Primarch walking again. Lord Roboute Guilliman, brother to our own sire. A Primarch, Tukayar. After ten thousand years. They say a Legion rides the stars with him. Not a Chapter. A Legion. Rumors. They say the Despoiler has laid him low. They say he has ended the Despoiler's long, cursed life. They say Cadia is gone - that Cadia stands still. Rumors, Tukayar. Rumors.
Yet what do we know?’ Qin raised a single finger. ‘We know the Great Rift has torn the galaxy in two.’ Another finger rose. ‘We know that warp travel is almost as dangerous as it was in Old Night.’ Three fingers. ‘We know that other sectors have fallen to madness and murder. We know that ours has not. Ours. Has. Not. The Jade Host has guided it in these troubling years.' He clenched his hand into a fist. ‘We hold on, Tukayar. We hold on. Barely.’
'Then let us guide it still, my Khan. We are not even twenty, but few are greater than none. Let us wait for the storm to break.'
'The storm to break.’ Qin exhaled, shooting a glance toward the window. At night, the eye-watering sear of the Rift ripped overhead. The day was a blessing. ‘Like the Occulum Terribilis has silenced? Or the Maelstrom?' He spoke the words few would, said plain the fear all held.
'This could well be our new reality, Tukayar. The Rift may never seal. We cannot wait for others to save us. We have to save ourselves. We are Space Marines, arbana. Space Marines. The blood of the Great Khan runs in our veins. We know no fear. No loss can humble us. No wound will break us. We have to go on. We must go on. For Lord Atobai. For the Host.'
Tukayar, still kneeling, bowed his head.
'My Khan...my heart rails against this, but - my mind is unsure. Let us speak with Zhigua.'
Qin nodded. 'I could order this, as Khan. But an order is only as good as those that will follow it, yes? Let us speak to our Apothecary. Perhaps this is even all academic.'
It wasn't. He felt it. In his hearts. This was the way forward. No matter what it took.
No matter what it cost.
The Host would ride the stars again.
Qin would see it done. By hand if he had to.
By any means.
Trust no one.