‘You!’
I hurl the word at the sorcerer like a thrown dagger. My muscles strain against nothing, and my skin beads with sweat as I fight to reach for my twin swords.
‘Heretic filth,’ I manage to say, through my teeth. ‘You did this. You led me here.’
The sorcerer tilts his head, regarding me with patient crystal lenses.
‘My name is Amenthas,’ he says, as though offended. His true voice is cultured and softly accented. ‘And I did not lead you anywhere, inquisitor. You came to this ending of your own free will. Just as the priests did.’
He looks down at them, frozen in their weeping. Now that he is kneeling, I see that Castanne wears the penitent’s bonds around his ankles, just as Silvera does.
‘They wanted to protect their world,’ Amenthas says. ‘After the Rift was born they sent plea after plea into the darkness, but received no answer. No aid, from your liar god or His awoken son. But I knew that the Resonance lay here. That given time you would bring the Conduit and the martyr to find it. So I granted the priests protection, for a time.’
‘They trusted you,’ I say, disgusted. ‘Though they knew what you were.’
He shakes his head. ‘They were desperate,’ he says. ‘And in their desperation they saw only what they wanted to see. They chose to ignore the cost. Just as you did, for Sofika and for yourself.’
‘Don’t you say her name,’ I snarl. ‘You did this to her. To me.’
Amenthas nods. ‘I did,’ he says. ‘Because it had to be done.’
He glances at Sofika.
‘She is so much stronger now that her mind is all that is left to her,’ he says. ‘Now that there is no other purpose for her to serve.’
‘You cut her apart just to make her stronger,’ I say. ‘To use her.’
Amenthas nods, and I scream through my teeth, straining against his hold on me. I feel the muscles in my forearms pull and tear with the need to draw my swords. With the need to destroy him, body and mind and soul.
‘You do love her so,’ he says absently. ‘There is no wonder you came apart so readily when she did.’
‘You speak as though you know what it is to feel,’ I snarl. ‘You don’t.’
‘I don’t?’ Amenthas says, fixing me with his crimson eye-lenses. He rings his staff against the stone and my vision is overtaken by his past. By everything he has done. By worlds burning, and gateways that open in the sky. By the nightmares that spill out of them. I see heresy and wickedness. Witchcraft and slaughter. But I see something else, too. Something from a time long past. From a time before our myths were made.
I see Amenthas clad not in archaic armour, but in cloth. Not cobalt, but crimson. He wears no serpent’s mask. Instead, the same design is painted artfully onto his skin with gold pigment. The face beneath it is unscarred, and unassuming. Not human, but not so different, either. He steps into a circle of sand where another of his kin awaits. This one’s face is painted too, with the bright eyes and feathers of a hunting bird. Amenthas and his brother are both wielding short, curved swords not so different from mine. I see them fight. Fast, and graceful. Deadly, even when they are sparring. I see Amenthas win without shedding a single drop of blood, then I see him offer his hand to the warrior he defeated. As he pulls his brother to his feet, both of them are laughing.
‘I know precisely how it is to feel,’ Amenthas says, as the memory disappears like dust on the wind. ‘To be alone, when you are surrounded by others. To be driven by regret and by guilt.’
I shake my head, disgusted. ‘I am nothing like you.’
Amenthas rings his staff against the stone again and this time it is my past that overtakes me. I see Dagra Thul, choking on his own blood. Lady Oraylis and her blinded eyes. Efrayl, his limbs locked in seizure. Shipmaster Vallien, shot dead by his own crew. The thousands we lost to the abyss, and to the void afterwards. I see Sofika in pieces, speaking my name through the blood in her mouth. I see worlds burning, and people pleading. Executions and interrogations. I see Sharvak, dying with a smile on his face. Then, last of all, I see my father, lying still in the spire tower while his birds sit around him, turning their wings.
‘You are exactly like me,’ Amenthas says. ‘You are driven by the past. Focused on the future. You search the stars for a way to undo your own mistakes. The only difference between the two of us is time.’
He shakes his head.
‘Long ago, I watched my brothers turned to dust,’ he says. ‘I saw their souls shattered and scattered across the ether-tides. Since that day, they have spoken not a word to me save for assent. No laughter. No companionship. For ten thousand years I have walked the stars in the company of empty shells. I have been alone.’
Amenthas turns his staff once, and another portal opens on the dais beside him. An armoured warrior strides out. Another Thousand Sons legionary, just like him, though this one doesn’t wear a serpent’s mask. This warrior’s armour is much more plain than the sorcerer’s, save for his mask, which is shaped to resemble the face of a hunting bird. Amenthas looks at him a moment.
‘Ishilan,’ he says.
The warrior doesn’t answer at the sound of his name. He doesn’t look at Amenthas. He merely moves to stand beside him. Then Amenthas turns his staff a second time, and more portals open all around the edges of the chamber. More Thousand Sons stride out and take up position around the commandery. There are dozens of them, but not a single one speaks. They are all completely silent, save for a sound like shifting sand.
‘I thought that I would restore my brothers on Hellebore,’ Amenthas says. ‘But it was merely a means to find you. To have you gather a whole host of martyrs to your cause and bring them here.’
He raises his staff and Sofika jolts in the air, her arms flung out like wings.
‘I did not lie to you, inquisitor,’ Amenthas says. ‘There will be rebirth, and restoration, but it will not be that of your God-Emperor, or of your dying dreamer. This day belongs to me and my brothers. To those who serve the True Gods.’
At his words, lightning arcs upwards from Sofika, tearing a new gateway far above the dais that grows wider by the moment. Dread swells inside me as my nose starts to bleed. I strain against the bonds that the sorcerer has placed on me, my bones creaking and my eyes streaming.
‘First, the Conduit,’ Amenthas says, and then he lowers his gaze to look at me. ‘And now for the blood.’
He lifts his hand, and all of the silent warriors save for Ishilan move as one, as if they are impelled by the sorcerer’s will. They raise their ancient weapons, but before they can fire, a boom splits the air. Blood gouts upwards and Amenthas reels. His silent brothers falter and stall, and the sorcerer’s hold on me fails. I look back to see Sister Evangeline getting to her feet, her bolter in one hand, her sword in the other. She is no longer glowing like coals. Nor is she merely ablaze. The Battle Sister is a conflagration. Brighter than the dawnrise. She spits blood onto the stone floor of the chamber. She speaks, without raising her voice. It carries easily anyway, light and clear.
‘I deny you,’ she says between breaths. ‘Witch.’
On the dais, Amenthas straightens, leaning on his staff to do it. He pulls away his shattered mask, revealing his face. The sorcerer’s skin is crystalline and faintly reflective, like the dais around him.
‘Time to meet your destiny,’ he snarls.
He crashes his staff against the dais, and the stone begins to bubble and shift and change. Amenthas arcs his staff through the air as Sister Evangeline fires on him again. He conjures a stormfront in an instant that catches every bolter round and detonates it. All the while, the dais resculpts itself around the sorcerer to become a jagged ziggurat of marble and mirrors and blinking eyes. Massive shards of glass thrust upwards from it, curving around Sofika and the two Heretic Astartes like claws. The conjured storm grows larger and darker, cutting me off from the steps. From Sofika. Even then, I somehow still catch sight of the sorcerer’s eyes as he looks down from his altar of mirrors. As he speaks with the voice of a storm.
‘Kill them,’ he says.
My threat-sense flares as the Thousand Sons start forward, firing their boltguns. Warpfire bolts cook the air by my head as I throw myself to one side, into the shadow of one of the chamber’s marble pillars. I draw my pistol and fire around the pillar even as several of Canoness Elivia’s Battle Sisters are immolated by enemy bolter fire.
But Amenthas’ hold on the commandery is broken, now, and the Sisters will not die quietly. The Sisters rouse themselves, and the air fills with the deafening roar of guns as they pace backwards, forming ranks as the Canoness bellows orders.
Castanne and Silvera haven’t moved. The two priests remain on their knees, gunfire setting the air alight around them. They are caught between the Battle Sisters and the Thousand Sons. Between condemnation and damnation. Castanne must realise this, because he gets to his feet and tries to run. The cardinal-principal doesn’t get far. He is torn apart and spun by bolter fire from both sides. Castanne crashes to the ground unceremoniously, his rich, heavy robes soaked with blood and his jewellery of office scattering like offering coins. Silvera remains on his knees. The Master of Trails does nothing to prevent the approach of the Thousand Sons. He opens his arms wide as if in acceptance, but the Heretic Astartes pay him no heed. They simply crush the Master of Trails underfoot as they march forward, breaking the old man’s bones and body to pulp.
‘Evangeline,’ I shout. ‘The sorcerer!’
The Battle Sister is pacing backwards, too. Firing her bolter. As I watch, she ducks aside, taking cover behind a shattered statue. A bolt of warpfire clips the edge of it, showering her with marble shards. I catch her eyes through the blizzard of stone fragments.
‘Wait,’ she shouts. ‘We go together!’
I glance around the column’s edge to where Sofika hangs above the dais, her arms spread like wings. Her pleading voice echoes over and over inside my head.
Ahri! Ahri! Ahri!
‘Ravara!’ Sister Evangeline shouts in warning. ‘Wait!’
I ignore her. I ignore everything, save for Sofika.
I break from the cover of the column and run headlong at the storm and the steps. My threat-sense screams as warpfire scorches the air all around me. I duck and twist aside with every blare of my mind, moving as quickly as I can. So quickly the traitors have to turn to track me. It’s still not enough to prevent one of the warpfire rounds from grazing my right shoulder, just barely. Even that is enough to send me blind. To make me lose my grip on my pistol. I hear it hit the ground, but I don’t stop running. I can’t. I hit the bottom step half blind and trailing smoke.
The instant I do, the storm shifts and my threat-sense blares again as lightning arcs from the clouds, hitting me square in the chest. It steals my vision. My hearing. It steals the air from my lungs. I am launched backwards off my feet by the force of it, the chamber blurring around me until I land hard on my back on the stone floor, smoke rising from the flash-burn on my armour. For an instant I can’t see anything. Can’t hear, or speak. When my vision goes from black to blurry, I see the horned silhouette of one of Amenthas’ silent brothers turn its head towards me and approach with its bolter raised. I try to get to my feet, threat-sense ringing in my ears, but I only make it as far as my knees. The silent warrior fixes me with eyes of green fire. Raises its bolter to its shoulder.
And then the point of a blade punches through its eye-lens from the other side.
The warrior stumbles and staggers and puts one gauntleted hand to where the blade is jutting from, only for several high-calibre solid rounds to slam into its chest, punching holes in the armour there. Grey dust spills out in ribbons as I catch sight of robes and braids and bare feet. Of exile brands, as Yumia vaults up onto the Heretic Astartes’ back and cuts the rubberised seal with her second dart. She bares the Heretic Astartes’ throat as if bleeding an animal, encouraging dust to spill out freely. She throws herself clear again even as the traitor collapses backwards. Even as Zoric puts his hands under my arms and drags me into cover behind one of the chamber’s marble statues. He sits me up against the relic, and stares me in the face.
‘Are you mad?’ Zoric asks, as Amenthas’ storm grows larger all around us. ‘What were you trying to do?’
‘I was trying to reach her,’ I say, getting to my feet. ‘To save her.’
‘And you,’ he says to Yumia, as she ducks into the shadow of the statue with us. ‘You’re no better, jumping onto that damned thing like that. I could have hit you.’
‘No you couldn’t,’ she snaps. ‘Not in a month’s worth of moons.’
Then Yumia pushes past him and grabs hold of me by my shoulders, slamming me back against the statue. I feel the cold steel edge of one of her darts against my throat. Pressing against my pulse.
‘We will find the Conduit on Dimmamar,’ she snarls at me. ‘That is what you said.’
‘Because I believed it,’ I shout, my voice faltering because of the shock and the fall and all of the dust in my throat. ‘I let myself believe it.’
‘Then you didn’t know?’ Zoric asks, mortar dust and chips of stone bursting into the air around us from gunfire and the growing storm.
‘No, I didn’t. I just wanted to make it right.’
I take a breath. Force the words up from inside me.
‘But I failed,’ I tell them. ‘Just like on Hellebore. I led myself down the wrong path. Saw what I wanted to see. I let her get hurt, all over again.’
Yumia shakes her head, her dark eyes unchanging. ‘It sounds like truth,’ she says. ‘But it always does. There is no way to be sure.’
‘Yes there is,’ Zoric says, and then he looks at me. ‘Swear it,’ he says. ‘Swear that you didn’t know about the witch.’
I stare into his pale eyes. ‘I swear it.’
Zoric nods slowly. His pale eyes soften with sorrow. ‘Let her go, Mia,’ he says. ‘She’s telling the truth.’
‘How can you be sure?’ she asks.
‘Because she swore her heart to Sofika,’ he says. ‘And she doesn’t break vows.’
Yumia’s eyes soften too, then. She drops her dart from my throat and her hands from my shoulders.
‘I need you both to get me close enough to save her,’ I tell them. ‘To kill that thing that took her.’
Both of them nod and help me heave myself away from the statue at my back. My vision dizzies, and my body floods with heat. I am certain that I have torn my stitches and reopened old wounds, but it hardly seems to matter now. Nothing does, save for Sofika.
‘If we survive this, then I’ll consider your service done,’ I tell them. ‘All debts paid. I’ll give you a clean slate and let you go back to your lives.’
Yumia unslings her darts. ‘But these are our lives,’ she says. ‘There are no clean slates.’
Zoric loads a new magazine into the Valedictor and racks the slide. ‘And there’s no going back, either.’
There’s nothing I can think to say to that. To them. Not after all they’ve done, and all I’ve done to them. So instead I hold up my hand. I take a breath. Count to three, then I turn back out into the fight.
Into the storm. It has grown larger now, as if buoyed by the bloodshed. Impossible rain lashes my face, a gale tearing at my hair and my clothes. The Battle Sisters and the Heretic Astartes are engaged in battle. Bolters howl and flamers roar as the Dominions brace and fire, their special weapons doing little more than slowing the Thousand Sons. The Heretic Astartes keep coming even with their armour punctured and punched through and burning. They crash against the Battle Sisters, armour against armour. I see one of the Heretic Astartes take hold of a Battle Sister by the throat, lifting her clear of the ground. The Battle Sister drives her chainsword up through the heretic’s throat even as the Thousand Son breaks her neck. They crash to the ground together, trailing blood and dust.
All around us, the Seraphim take flight, their jump packs lifting them clear of the melee. The hollow heretics raise their weapons to track them, filling the air with blazing arcs of warpfire. I see one of the Sisters caught by the fire. She catches light and her jump pack detonates. The Battle Sister is completely annihilated in the blast, as are two of the other Seraphim. The remainder cut their engines and fall like stars, pistols and hand-flamers blazing. Where they land, dust sprays into the air in thick arcs. The Heretic Astartes stagger and slow, their ancient, overwrought armour taking killcut after killcut until they fall, only for another Thousand Son to take their place.
Two of the sorcerer’s silent brothers turn their warpfire eyes on me and fire without hesitation, loosing volleys of flaming rounds that scorch the rain from the air as I drop into a roll and spring back to my feet, bringing my swords up with me. I scream as I cut the first one from hip to mid-chest with my main-hand blade. The prayer-etched sword carves a deep furrow in the ancient plating, which I follow with the second sword. This one goes through into the hollowness at the heart of the suit. Dust sprays out, and the silent warrior reels.
‘Now!’ I shout, turning aside from the heretic.
Zoric fires the Valedictor pistol four times, landing all four shots centre-mass. They turn the cut I made into a tear. A mess. Dust gouts from it, and the silent warrior crashes forwards, the warpfire light in its eyes guttering out.
I turn to see Yumia throw her Illithian dart at the second one, propelling herself into a leap that follows the line of the killcord. The dart sticks in the Heretic Astartes’ eye lens, just like before. But this time the silent warrior doesn’t stagger. This time, it grabs Yumia out of the air by her throat. She punches her second dart deeply into the side of its mask and pulls it downwards with a squeal, opening the traitor’s mask from temple to chin, kicking her bare feet bloody against the traitor’s armour. I run towards them as Zoric opens fire. He hits the Heretic Astartes twice in the chest, missing Yumia by less than a hand’s span. The rounds barely make a dent in the traitor’s armour. It doesn’t even flinch. It merely raises its own bolter one-handed, the maw of it lighting blue. A blinding light grows large in my vision, blooming heat across my skin, and for a moment I think that the Heretic Astartes must have fired, and that I’m dead, but then I realise that it doesn’t hurt. That the light is gold, not blue.
I realise that it is coming from Sister Evangeline.
The Battle Sister’s first strike severs the traitor’s arm at the shoulder. This time the Heretic Astartes does stagger, gouting dust. It releases Yumia, who falls to the floor and drags herself clear, struggling to breathe, as Sister Evangeline cuts the monster twice more with heavy, overhand strikes from her sword. Chest. Head.
The silent warrior crashes to the ground, and Sister Evangeline turns to face me, soaked with impossible rain and greyed with dust, save for those blazing scars. Her Sisters are with her. They, too, are anointed with dust. It fills in the scars they bear on their battleplate. It settles in the creases of their skin as they snarl and fire their weapons, forcing back the heretics from around us. I knew that I would feel something at the sight of her. Awe, perhaps. Purpose. But I surprise myself when what rises to the surface first is guilt.
‘I misread the signs,’ I tell her. ‘I only saw what I wanted to see.’
I expect her to be angry. Distrustful. I expect her to challenge me over the promises I made her, but she doesn’t. Her hazel eyes are calm as a cloudless sky.
‘We were both lost,’ she says. ‘But I know my path, now. My purpose.’
She looks to the ziggurat. To the claw of crystal at the top of it.
‘I have to put a stop to it,’ she says. ‘The sorcerer. The rite. All of it. I have to protect this place. This world.’
I look too. To where Sofika hangs suspended at the heart of the storm.
‘I won’t let you kill her,’ I say. ‘You know that.’
‘I do,’ Sister Evangeline replies.
‘I can save her,’ I say. ‘I can still make this right. Just help get me close enough.’
She looks at me. ‘Make it right for who?’ she asks. ‘For you, or for her?’
I know the answer she wants. The answer I should give. Even so, it’s an effort just to say it.
‘For her,’ I say.
Sister Evangeline nods.
‘With me, then, inquisitor,’ she says. ‘To the end.’