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As the door closed behind him, the big, pale man looked down at his hands. They were shaking. There was no turning back now. The order was given. Those hands would, from this day forward, forever be stained by the blood of his brothers, his own kin.
It was necessary, he told himself. He kept repeating the sentence in his mind, as if willing it to be true. They would not see. Would not understand. Even if they were his brothers, they had to die. Must die, for the good of mankind. They could not accept the truth. Could not accept what his father, the man they all named emperor and saviour, had become. Yet another power-hungry tyrant, corrupted by the sickening powers of the warp.
Yet in the darkness of his own chamber, as the minutes to the inevitable hour ticked away, doubt nagged at him. As his ship raced ever closer towards the Isstvan system, the anxiety built in his throat like bile.
The man sank down on one of the simple bunks lining the wall. He had always preferred a hard bunk over a soft bed. His chamber reflected his tastes. Clean. Simple. Martial. He had always frowned upon excess. Frowned upon those up high, looking down upon the common man, the common soldier. Those who saw fit to send men to their deaths but didn't see fit to die alongside them in the trenches. Thinking back, it was within such thoughts that his doubt of this father had begun. Of the distant emperor, on his distant throne, with his distant words that meant less and less every passing year. In the man's mind, the laughter of the simple folk was worth ten thousand flowery praises from above.
Yet when Horus had first laid out the truth before him he had doubted. He had gripped his trusted scythe and stared the favoured Warmaster down for a long tense minute. But the more he listened to Horus, the more the Warmaster's words had made sense. What was his father, but yet another man like the cruel warlord that had raised him? Yet another corrupted sorcerer making bargains with the dark in exchange for the power to rule?
No, he had to trust Horus. Horus always knew what to do, always knew the truth from a lie. Horus, who had always accepted him for what he was. His best friend. If he could not trust his best friend, then what was the point of it all? He breathed out and closed his eyes.
Only when he opened his eyes within the dream did he realise he must have fallen asleep. He was standing at the edge of a mountain cliff, beneath a night sky full of stars. In front of him, the entire galaxy unravelled in its full grandeur. All those little twinkling lights seemed too peaceful from here, unaware of the tidal wave of blood that was about the wash over them. The blood he was about to spill.
"Hush," a voice drifted to him in the night. He turned his head. A woman was sitting at the top of the cliff face, legs dangling down over the edge into oblivion. She did not turn around to look at him but gently patted the ground next to her.
The man hesitated, blinking his eyes. Her outline was not diffuse as such, but his eyes still had difficulty assessing her shape. It was as if his mind could not comprehend what it was he was seeing. In one way, she wasn't really there, just a trick of the starlight. But in another, her presence was so overwhelming he caught himself gasping for air.
"I won't tell you I'm not dangerous, because I am," she responded in a sad voice, as if reading his thought. "But I am also broken. Fallen. Like you." She glanced over her shoulder, and an eye of pure starlight pierced the man's soul for a split second. Greater men than him had fallen before those eyes, but true to his creed, he stood firm before her gaze.
"I am not fallen," he stated defiantly.
"It does not matter," she breathed back. "I did not come to change your mind."
He approached her from behind. For all her presence, she also looked so very frail. He could kick her over the edge as easily as he put on his shoes.
"You're a daemon," he stated, his voice full of hatred.
"My children didn't know that word at the time I was born. But yes, in your tongue, I am," she answered. Yet her answer felt wrong to him like she was purposefully misusing the definition.
The man clenched and unclenched his hands, fury rushing through his veins. Unwanted memories of things that had not yet happened flooded his mind. Memories of a massacre that kept creeping ever closer, memories of the mass sacrifice of his kin that was about to happen. He could hear his brothers desperately calling for his name. See in front of his very eyes as they were scythed down in a rain of lead and fire. Smell their burning flesh and taste their pride as they gave their lives in his name. His proud Death Guard, vows unbroken, not knowing who had betrayed them.
It was all because of her and her kin. His brothers had to die because of...things...like her.
Before he knew it, his hands were at her neck. Golden starlit hair, smooth like flowing water, fell over his arms. Her pale skin, as soft as a newborn kitten, pressed against his clammy hands. With all the superhuman strength that his ancestry had granted him, his hand closed around her swanlike neck, squeezing hard. More than her ancestry, her beauty offended him, it taunted him. In a world where brother had to sacrifice brother such beauty could not be allowed, must not be allowed to exist. Everything had to be ugly. An end to all things soft and beautiful was the only way forward.
"It's ok," she whispered, turning her head to place a gentle kiss on the giant hands crushing the life out of her. A tear of silver fell from her eyes and rolled down the man's fingers, finally falling down the cliff into oblivion.
Breathing hard, the man squeezed until his eyes all but popped out of his sockets. She had to die, she could not be allowed to exist. He had to break her, had to destroy her or he couldn't see a way he could continue to exist himself. A world where such perfection could coexist with betrayal and slaughter was not possible.
"It's ok," she whispered again. "For I am broken too. Not perfect. Not graceful. Not beautiful. Just a dried-up old whore, caught in a cage like an animal. All because I was too busy trying to get off to hear the screams of my own children." The bitterness and regret in her voice washed over him like a tidal wave. Slowly, he sank to his knees. The woman raised her slender hands and started to gently caress the hands strangling her.
"I have fallen," the man finally breathed into the night.
"Yes," she breathed back, her cheek cool against his hands. As the man's soul crumbled, and the enormity of the choice he had made fell against him like a hammer the woman expanded in all directions, engulfing him. Like a mother shielding her baby, she cradled him in her arms, his little life like a speck of light against the backdrop of her blazing star.
"Know that if I could, I would change what must come, I would stand between you and all the hurt and pain. But my time has long since passed. Night is falling for your kin, as it already has for mine. All I can offer is one last moment of solace before you go to meet your fate and your new master. Already, I can hear him calling for us both."
As his tears streamed down into her lap, she leaned down and kissed his forehead. Slowly, she started to fade away, up into the night.
"When you wake, you must not remember me." Her smile as she faded from his mind was sad, but there still was a little glimmer in her eyes, like a little light too stubborn to dutifully drown in the darkness.
"But we will meet again. Thousands of years from now, where the darkness is deepest, where the filth is thickest, there you will find me again. This little hope I hide inside you, in the furthest corner of your soul, where even he will not dare to look. For as much as he will twist you, this night will remain free from his sickness until the stars themselves go out. One moment, unbroken, against an eternity of horror."
With a jerk, the man opened his eyes. For a fleeting moment, he stared into the ceiling, a moment of passing grace and a scent of flowers evaporating into the stale air of his room.
With a deep breath, he sat up. It was time to stop procrastinating. The Isstvan system was looming closer on the ship's monitors.
The time had come to stab his brothers in the back.