Chapter Text
Severine von Valancius was gone.
Abelard cursed under his breath as he slowed, looking wildly around the room. The rich carpet beneath his bare feet squelched, soaked with blood. Shards of glass glittered in the glare of a dozen stablights. The wind gave off a mournful howl as it whipped past the shattered stained-glass window.
Gone.
He knelt beside the still, bloodied form of the Master of Whispers. The young man’s chest stirred as he fought to breathe, and before Abelard’s eyes, he watched as grievous wounds began to knit closed, a sheen of frost coating the biomancer’s skin as his cursed powers worked unchecked. “van Calox,” he snapped, shaking him by a shoulder. Frozen blood cracked under his hand. When there was no response, he turned to two of the Winterscale guards behind him. “You, fetch a medic. You, rouse your master,” he snapped, his voice falling habitually into the cadence of a senior officer, leaving no room for argument. The two guards he had singled out saluted and ran from the room, as the others moved to secure the broken window, the suite’s door, and various other points around the room. For all the good it will do…
He seized one of the bedsheets and tore it into strips, folding the cloth over into a pad and pressing it into the deepest wound on Heinrix’s body, a jagged thing that seemed to have entered from the back and slid out through his lower abdomen. He had seen the biomancer recover from some truly gruesome injuries in their time fighting at Severine’s side, but never from so many at once. His brow furrowed with worry. He may not had liked the former Interrogator, but the Lord-Captain loved him, and that was all that mattered. So the elderly, retired Seneschal knelt, in his nightclothes, on the blood-soaked carpet, and he pressed that torn strip of bedsheet into the Master of Whispers’ guts and prayed.
So help me, van Calox, if you die here…
He wasn’t sure how much time passed – minutes, years, entire epochs – before he heard hurried footsteps on the polished marble flooring outside. The first guard ran in, leading a team of medics, and an icy fist that he hadn’t realised was clenching around his heart, slowly began to release. One of the medics knelt beside him. “Very good, sir, keep that pressure there,” she instructed, as she began ordering her team around.
In the corridor, more hurried footsteps. The second guard, and on his heels, the newly minted head of the Winterscale dynasty. Lord Evayne had clearly wasted no time in getting here – like Abelard, he was barefoot and in his nightclothes, his hair mussed and his one biological eye slightly bloodshot. His voice was tight as he asked, “What happened?”
***
The distant bark of a firearm discharging roused Abelard. He sat up in bed, his brow furrowed as he tried to work out which direction the sound had come from. He heard the clashing of swords as well, and several more blasts, of a horrible familiarity that caused icy fear to ooze down his spine. Surely they can't be here...
Then, a shocked shriek rent the air; a shriek he knew only too well. Abelard was out of bed and racing along the corridor towards the Lord-Captain’s suite before he had time to think. Damn these old bones. Move, Werserian! he chastised himself. No weapon, no armour, not even his boots. He would be content to fight whoever had intruded upon the Lord-Captain’s chambers bare-handed.
He slid around the corner, through the open doors, paying little mind to the pair of guards who had been mercilessly gunned down as they had rushed in to try and protect the Rogue Trader. Stepped forward into the bedchamber, aghast at what he saw.
A shattered window.
Heinrix, unmoving, bleeding from a dozen places and surrounded by a ring of slain Drukhari.
And no sign of Severine von Valancius.