Chapter Text
Chapter 6
Planet: Khymaos VIII.
System: Khymaos.
Segmentum: Ultima.
The first drops of rain were ones that I mistakenly took as a reprieve - the reality of where I was being lost on me for but a moment -, but it was one that the gnawing of my flesh soon corrected.
The rain here was incessant and ubiquitous… but it was seldom soothing.
Each downpour varied in acidity, and one never knew if they would be gifted stinging pain, or itching irritation - and today it was the worse of the two… the latter.
Pain I could deal with.
Pain was something I had experienced my entire life, either through It, or through the necessary ministrations of the Schola.
But irritation?
Having each drop make your skin itch?
Having every inch of your exposed flesh red and pleading for a moment's relief?
Well, it was fortunate indeed that I was here solely to kill.
With rain drumming off of her armour, Sister Superior Eadlyn barked a vox-amplified command and my fellow Repentia and I moved with haste toward the nearest building.
“We are to advance, Repentia. We go via the downed Thunderhawk. The enemy will not be permitted to deny its salvation. Our armourers will see it rain down the God-Emperor's vengeance again.” Her words rang in the hearts of all present - the thought of such a craft, such a relic, being left to the whims of traitors and heretics being beyond tolerance.
Vaulting over fallen masonry and collapsed steelwork, we Repentia moved as a wave toward the site of the crash. The crew were beyond saving - foul powers of the warp seeing to that. But the craft itself could be salvaged, reconsecrated, and repaired.
Traitors, those too lost to madness to flee in the face of us, snapped desperate shots from behind cover.
Some Repentia fell - their duty done, and their penance paid; their souls redeemed in the eyes of the Master of Mankind -, but most surged on, heedless of the losses… knowing that those felled were the fortunate.
Chainblades - eviscerators comparable in size to those that wielded them - came down in hammer blows or swept aside in savage arcs to reduce heretic filth to pulped flesh and shattered bone.
Others - those traitors too distant to be met with our justice - were soon crumpled against walls or blown clean from their feet by servitor-bullets; Skitarii galvanic rifles voicing their snapping report with each precise discharge.
The fire of the Mechanicus forces was mercilessly efficient - even more so, it pained me to admit, than that of my Sisters.
Each and every supersonic round would vanish in a puff of crimson as it drove through armour and flesh before reappearing and continuing along its murderous path - either finding another target, or finally having its inertia halted by something that even it could not penetrate.
Between the precision of the Skitarii, and the vengeful wrath of my fellow Repentia, dozens were slain as we made our way into the smeltery complex - the shattered and gutted compound providing little proof against the irritating downpour.
Keeping myself moving, and willfully ignoring the cracking gunfire that stung the air close to my head, I screamed out an admonition of the traitor and vaulted over the coupling of two abandoned ore hoppers - my feet making firm contact with the scarred chest of an enemy.
His mass did nothing to stop my inertia and he immediately crumpled, my palm striking his face to then crack his head down onto the permacrete below us; his body now serving as nothing more than a stepping stone.
Pulling my hand free, his face was then revealed to me - eyeless… a mess of punctured flesh, as if a dozen carrion birds had feasted upon him. The damage was extensive. Minutes of work performed upon his flesh in but the second of our contact.
Meat. Peeled and torn.
The sight did nothing to phase me.
I knew the work well.
Knew It well.
Instead I snatched up his crude autogun and allowed the magazine to thump empty - cycling shot after shot toward his doomed kin before discarding it and returning once more to the exultant charge of we, the damned.
The smeltery complex here was modest, a far cry from the district sized facilities found elsewhere, but it was still comparatively huge. Rails played host to processions of quiet, now abandoned ore hoppers - their valuable contents sitting forgotten in the tumult of the war.
What would have once been an insufferably hot space was now cold and dismissal, the permacrete flooring that once would have been caressed by the burning light of industrial productivity, now strew with twisted debris and pools of acrid, accumulated rain water - the roof of the complex now blown through and collapsed in more sections than I cared to note.
Overhead cranes, each rated to haul hundreds - if not thousands - of tonnes of smeltery ladles were buckled, sagging low in sad twisted heaps; the enormous ladles they once held having crashed down to now dominate the halls as silent monuments.
Those few of the vast containers that remained aloft sat still, suspended high above in their engine cars as motionless as the others… as cold and inert as the forge fires that once brought this facility life and purpose.
It was a mess. And it was a paradise for the traitors - an industrial wreck with hundreds of nooks and crannies in which to hide and ambush; the incalculable weight of ore and broken machinery even able, I had little doubt, of fooling the supposed all-seeing-eyes of the Mechanicus’ omnispex units.
Moving forward with my kind, I turned and thumped my back to one of the many fallen ladles - the huge vessel made of dense metal, and treated to resist the molten materials it once held, providing excellent protection against the pattering scattershot that cracked forth to greet us.
Without even thinking, my fingernails found my upper arm, dragging down to send relief through my incessantly gnawing skin… skin aggravated by the acidic downpour and rapidly growing raw.
I wince and try to ignore the itching, instead shoving my hand up over my forehead to brush my hair back out of my field of view.
I - as all others - had had my head shaven during my oaths of repentance. But, as always in my life, my hair had grown back swiftly and was now a matted black mop of unkempt wire - my own lack of care for it, not to mention the acid soaking of Khymaos’ weather, having done a number on it since the last time I wore the sabbat-pattern helm of a true Sister.
Still, at this precise moment my hair was anything but wiry, instead slick with gore and host to the loose torn flesh and snagged teeth of those I had slain; the debris of the dead - of my victims - clinging to their executioner.
On the other side of my head - my right - my hair was adhered and locked within the bright red wax of a seal, lengths of parchment vellum affixed there like some noble lady’s fascinator, but one emblazoned with the now partially obscured texts of the Lectitio Divinitatus.
It was not only there, rooted to my hair by melted wax, that holy scripture clung to me.
Down my front, covering the impact-rated bodice afforded the Repentia as our all-but sole form of mundane protection, hung a long tabard of parchment coloured vellum rich with blessed passages of divine dogma. Similarly, trailing behind me and woven firmly into the structure of my belt, was another length of inscribed vellum… of course, and as expected of a Repentia in the throes of combat, the scripture was almost entirely obscured now beneath the forcefully taken vitae of the God-Emperor's enemies.
Leaning out, several muzzles all flare at once in the industrial morass of the distance and, with solid and lasfire cracking off the protection afforded the ladle, another of my fellow Repentia found her redemption - her throat tearing free in a welter of blood.
Moving behind this had been a necessity at the time, but now it was proving a liability - a trap.
I could not leave. Could not move.
There was insufficient cover in any potential direction but back the way I came - and I refused to step back in the face of weak-willed traitors.
Instead - and swallowing down the tactical lessons drilled into me within the Schola, and my early years with the Order - I embraced my indignation, shaped armour of my contempt, and hefted my weapon up beside me.
“I shall know victory only ever as defeat until the blessed Throne restores my name. Be it upon my living flesh or be it upon my ashes.” I spoke, the two Repentia sheltering beside me joining the verse only for their words to trail off as I felt the wounds on my wrists - both clad in leather bracers - open to bleed a light of golden hue.
I noticed.
Of course I did.
But I noticed it the same way I noticed a cherub in the Cathedrum. Or how I noticed the servo-skull that now - as in the hospital - followed me from a distance… The eyes and ears of the Inquisitor, no doubt.
I noticed it as I did something distant - something removed from the immediate.
Something trivial.
“From hopelessness shall the miracle of faith deliver me.” I breathed, the words - and the sincerity of the belief I had in them - filling me with a confidence as I stepped out from behind the ladle; liquid golden light dripping from beneath leather to pool as but crimson blood where it fell.
The muzzle flares of the distant and lost enemies flashed brightly before turning to frozen cinders and scattering back like razor-tipped hail to blind those that triggered them.
Sprinting across the permacrete ground toward my nearest victim, I saw the phenomena, but I knew it to be the work of It - my Shade.
As for the others in my immediate vicinity? Those too distant or too elevated for me to reach I found with my eyes, setting three of them ablaze with but a glance.
The fourth - the unfortunate nearest - met his end upon the roaring teeth of my eviscerator; his blood fountaining out of his rent chest to form familiarly amorphous claws that peeled him open from within like some abhorrent birthing.
It - my Daemon - barely wasted a second, forming a tendril of frost-wreathed smoke between his parent and the fifth; proceeding then to grotesquely mirror and inverse its latest display.
It's claws found the hapless traitor's lips and pried them apart before the torrent of smoke vanished entirely down his throat.
Watching on in macabre fascination, soothing heat burning up from my forearms, I watched on as It - my constant companion - bled out from the lifeless traitor's every pour, like incense from a censer; diffusing into the smeltery space to hunt beside me once more.
The snap of a cable, and a vice like strength that I could not hope to contest, pulled at my eviscerator as Sister Eadyln struck her whip around the blade; rooting it and me in place.
“I have seen the records, Repentia. I have been briefed by the Inquisitor.” She began, the featureless visor of her helm hard and accusing as she stared at me. “But know this. If at any point you threaten the redemption of those in my charge, I will save the Emperor the trouble and strike you down myself.”
“My Mistress, I-” I began, lowering myself to my knees and dropping my gaze - the warmth in my arms gutting out even as fire and death continued to be exchanged around us.
“Do not speak, Repentia!” She snapped, cutting me off and silencing me in an instant. “Your betters evaluate your every action - your every deed -,” she continued, gesturing with her other coiled whip at the very same skull that I had noted previously, “and I await the moment they find you wanting.”
I lowered my gaze further, not daring to look upon the bastion of faith towering over me.
So do I.
Location: Sororitas Invasion Cathedrum “Nihlynn's Verdict.”
Planet: Khymaos VIII.
System: Khymaos.
Segmentum: Ultima.
Fier sat, one leg resting on the knee of her other, and leaned back into the ancient cracked leather upholstery of the expansive couch.
The door had chimed just a moment before and, with it sliding open, an Inquisitorial armsman had leaned inside.
“Sister Hospitaller Heleia, Inquisitor. She claims she was summoned.” The guard spoke, the heavy hellgun ever ready in his grasp.
“Send her in… Sister Hospitaller,” Eadaz smiled, looking warmly over as the black clad Sister stepped inside. Her demeanour was disarming, as usually was, but if Heleia had any sense Fier knew that she would not be sold by it - such a demeanour being carefully sculpted with the sole intention of entirely concealing whatever Eadaz chose to sequester beneath it. “Please, take a seat. No need to stand on ceremony.
I'll save you the discomfort of doubt, you are here for one reason, Sister. Emmeline.” Eadaz continued, Heleia moving in to take the indicated chair - her jet black habit and white apron marking her as exactly what she was.
“Now that we're free from the unpleasantness of your interrogation, we can speak as friends.” She smiled, not waiting at all for Heleia to respond - and more than indicating that this was just as much of an interrogation as the last, wherein Heleia was creatively encouraged to divulge any information that it was felt she was hiding… encouragement that, to her credit, provided no further information than she had already offered. “So. To begin and confirm for the record... you have known Emmeline for years, yes?”
“As I explained in my interrogation, Inquisitor, I knew Emmeline at the Schola Progenium on Tsadel Delta. But it was not until recently we reconnected.” Heleia replied, the marks left by her interrogation all-but gone now, unless one knew where to look.
“Yes. But you know her well. Well enough to have a longstanding romantic involvement with one another - one that, it seems, you both picked up again with ease?” Eadaz asked, sitting down again and smoothing her attire relaxedly.
“Yes, Inquisitor.”
“And, in those many many years together, you never once witnessed any unusual happenings about her? Phenomena… or other inexplicable occurrences?”
“Not until her execution, no, Inquisitor.”
“Not until her execution. I see.” Eadaz echoed, readjusting her position for comfort. “I have, as you undoubtedly expect, done some digging into your partner. It seems you had a rather lively time of it at the Schola. Planetary rebellion?”
“Yes, Inquisitor. Food riots that turned ugly. Firebrands stoking public discontent.
It was quelled in the end.”
“Yes, yes. Tale as old as time. But it seems that untoward happenings were no stranger to Emmeline… there's mention in her Schola records of an attempted suicide?”
“Yes, Inquisitor.”
Yes, Inquisitor .
Fier had heard that line, said that line, so many times that she could all-but feel it coming in the air around a person.
She understood, of course.
What else could one say to an Inquisitor?
The answer was usually either Yes, Inquisitor , or a hasty understanding that Yes, Inquisitor is what one should have said.
“Tell me about that.”
“Have you not spoken to Emmeline about this herself?” Heleia asked, shifting her position in the chair - she was uncomfortable, of course she was.
“Yes, of course. But her recollection is… limited. I want to hear what you saw.
Well, Sister?”
“Blood. A lot of it. All of it - or so I thought at the time.” She began, her eyes carving back through memory and flicking things into order. “I woke up to an energy in the air - shock, I suppose - and she was just… pale. There was blood everywhere. Soaking her bedding, and pooling around her.
I was a medicae - or, I was in training at the time - and… and I honestly thought her dead.
There was so much blood. Too much. Too much for her to ever survive, or so I thought.” She took a breath and returned to the present, the glassy mask of recollection that had covered her eyes fading away. “But I was wrong. She was rushed to the infirmarium and Sister Sabriro was able to resuscitate her. She remained in the ward, on blood transfusion, but was soon enough back to her duties… with regular discussion with both the Sister Hospitaller, and our Mother Superior of course.”
“I see. So she has denied death on multiple occasions?”
“What? I did not say that, Inquisitor. Her survival at the Schola could be down to any number of things. The skills of the resident Hospitallers… or perhaps her blood loss was not as severe as I previously thought. I was a child, Inquisitor… and rather not thinking straight.”
“Of course - I let my imagination run away with me. So, aside from this, no other unnatural manifestations?”
“Not that I experienced. No, Inquisitor.”
“Tactful, Sister.” Fier interrupted, speaking finally as Eadaz flashed a brief glance at her. “Speak fully. What manifestations did you not experience?”
Heleia shifted and cleared her throat. “Only those that she spoke of - those that you already know. Apparitions. Figures. Waking nightmares. They haunted her. More than that, she said they hurt her.”
“And did she ever describe this apparition?” Eadaz asked, Heleia nodding in response. “Yes. And does this match the description?”
With a gesture a full colour hololithic display filled the center of the room - projected from the repurposed eye-socket of a servo-skull.
The projection showed a looping vid-recording, barely a second or so in duration. One of a traitor combatant being ripped apart from within by a torrent of thick smoke - one that briefly formed an almost raptoral figure before cutting out; the record looping again.
Heleia recoiled in her chair, seeing Emmeline standing before both the traitor and the manifestation - her weapon prepared for a killing strike, but never actually making contact.
There was genuine fear etched upon the Sister Hospitaller's features - fear and revulsion.
Revulsion of the manifestation, and fear for Emmeline.
This was cruel, what Eadaz was doing. Manipulating the affections they held for each other.
But it was necessary, even if few would ever truly understand why.
“Is that a yes?” Eadaz asked, her expression already set.
“Yes. Inquisitor.”
“I see. This is not the first time, Sister, that Emmeline's hallucination has been made very real. I myself witnessed another display of her potency, one that she repeated - after a fashion - just yesterday.” Eadaz continued, gesturing again.
The hololith changed, showing a happening that occurred - Fier knew - just seconds before the previous.
Still, even though the projection showed something indeed most interesting to the psyker, Fier kept her attention on Heleia as the Sister observed her friend… her lover… ignite a number of traitors with but a glance - liquid light running from aged wounds the entire time; wounds that Heleia was more than familiar with.
Heleia's response was as Fier expected.
She truly did know little - if nothing - of what Emmeline was capable of. An ignorance, it seemed, that extended also to Emmeline herself.
The Hospitaller focused intently on the record, silently mouthing brief prayers and benedictions. Fier recognised the motions - Fier recognised the words mouthed… and so did Eadaz.
“You pray for her safety, Sister? And what is more… you thank the Emperor for her?”
“Yes, Inquisitor. I do.”
“So, even after seeing what could be described - without too much trouble - as the manifestations of a psyker, you still believe that she is something else? Something not tainted by the horrors of the Warp?”
“I do. I do not claim to understand what is happening - just as I do not understand how He forged the Custodians that now guard Him - but you have yourself proven that Emmeline is no psyker.
You witnessed her resurrection, Inquisitor… felt the grace and peace of the Master of Mankind in that moment. You have seen all that I have… more, even. How can you still doubt His hand in all this?”
“Because doubt is my business, Sister. Suspicion is my business.
Do you not feel as though your faith in her may be blinded by the affection you hold?”
Heleia paused, her eyes shifting as she formed thought after thought - trawling through memory and experience before finally speaking again.
“My affection, Inquisitor, is rooted within the faith I have in her… not the other way around.
She has never faltered in her service of the Throne. Even as a child.
She erred, yes. Emperor's Mercy, erred. But she never lost sight of her duty.
The God-Emperor is my life, Inquisitor, as it is hers. I have commended my every moment - both in life and death - to the Master of Mankind… and I see His will in the shape of this.
How do you not?”
“Experience, Sister.” Eadaz smiled. “Where you see a beacon of faith, I see a potential vector for corruption.”
Heleia shook her head and leaned back. “Emmeline would make a poor heretic.” She announced, the statement as obvious to her as if she was commenting on the weather - rain, again.
“And what informs that opinion?”
“Experience, Inquisitor.” Heleia replied, echoing the Inquisitor's words before breathing out slowly - compiling thoughts as Eadaz stared at her, her expression betraying nothing as she awaited the Hospitaller's continuation. “I have far less experience with the enemies of Mankind than you do, Inquisitor, but Emmeline would - to my eye - make a poor traitor.
She is too full of self-doubt, and self-loathing. She is too ready to accept punishment from the clergy, or from her superiors. She sees a failing most profound in any error she makes - regardless of how slight.
She lacks… ambition, Inquisitor. She has no wants to prey upon. No avarice to feed.
She wants only to not fail the Golden Throne of Terra. She seeks only a martyr's death.
Traitors, and especially those aligned to the Ruinous Powers, are selfish creatures by my understanding - consumed with either their own survival, or their own aggrandisement.
Emmeline seeks martyrdom. I mean she walked willingly to her own execution-”
“An execution she survived - lest you forget - and, if your tale from the Schola Progenium is as I suspect, not for the first time.
Death, it seems, tends to have little permanence with Emmeline.” Eadaz interrupted, unconvinced by the Sister's protestations.
“Even if her survival at the Schola is as you suspect, Inquisitor, - and I doubt it is - she could not possibly have known that she would survive her own execution.
An execution performed under your own auspices, and at the hands of the Adepta - those trained and tasked with the obliteration of traitors and witches.”
“Could she not?” Eadaz smirked. “And what if she did? What if she knew, all along, that death would be but a mild, temporary inconvenience… one that, it seems, has convinced so many of her divine association?”
“I-” Heleia began, only for her words to falter and fail as doubt crept into her expression - doubt she then swiftly shook free. “Emmeline is not an agent of Chaos… she is not… and I believe that you agree with me.” She continued, Eadaz cocking an eyebrow in response to the Hospitaller's accusation. “If you didn't, surely she would already be dead… or, at the very least, contained, not running loose in the field, slaying heretics in their droves. Heretics that she would surely band with, were she as you posit.”
“Oh, Sister, do not think to tell me my own thoughts - greater persons than you have tried.” Eadaz smirked. “The truth is that monsters, especially dangerous ones, can be used for the betterment of the Imperium. Used, and then disposed of when their usefulness has run its course.” she continued, her tone and inflection flat - as if simply stating an inescapable truth. “If you care for Emmeline as much as you seem to - if your faith in her is as strong as you protest -, then your coming work should be easy.”
“What- what do you mean?”
Eadaz leaned forward, cruelty glinting in her eye - necessary cruelty. “You are here for one reason, as I said. You are important to Emmeline.
You are the leash I will use to control her, the balm to soothe her, and the lash I will use to punish her… if she so requires it.
You will be all these things, and you will not breathe a word of it to her. Oh, she will suspect I'm sure - she's smart enough to do that… but her suspicions will go unanswered.
You will aid me in my investigations of this phenomenon, and you will do so with eagerness and aplomb.
If you don't, the chances of her being carted off to some Magos Biologis’ table goes up by no small margin.
I could, of course, have kept you ignorant and manipulated you regardless, but I feel our working relationship - and the quality of your labours - would benefit from some honesty, no?” She asked rhetorically, not even pausing long enough to bait the Sister into an unwarranted response.
“You will do with her what I approve.
You will say to her what I approve. You will imply to her what I approve.
You will tell me everything that she says, does, or thinks.
You will tell me, Sister, and I will know if you do not.” Eadaz explained, nodding toward Fier in an open threat - the psyker still sitting relaxedly on the couch, observing with no discernible expression. “If you want Emmeline to live - never-mind yourself - you will do precisely what I tell you.
You may indeed be right, Sister. She may be everything you wish her to be - everything you pray her to be; an instrument of His divine will. But that is not for you to decide.” Eadaz paused, reaching over for a goblet of fresh water - fresh, not the endlessly recycled sort provided to most. “I believe you care for her. I do.
I also believe that you truly do have faith in her. So, this is your chance to see your faith rewarded, yes?”
Fier was not the least surprised when Heleia's response was affirming, if resigned. The Sister Hospitaller knew better than to keep an Inquisitor waiting on a reply, or worse, deny her what she demanded.
Reaching out with her perception, Fier effortlessly pushed aside the miasma of the Immaterium and formed a link between herself and Heleia so that she could all-but feel and hear the thoughts propagating in the Sister's mind.
They were as she expected.
Venomous.
Thoughts that spoke most ill indeed of the Inquisitor, but also thoughts of resignation and acceptance. Thoughts of submission to the will of the Inquisitor.
There was belief there, also. True belief, as Eadaz said, in what Emmeline was - a gift from the Throne.
Fier wondered, as she trawled through the surface of Heleia's mind - seeking any notion of secrecy, betrayal, or hidden motive -, if the Sister's faith in her lover would be so resolute if she knew that Emmeline was, indeed, a psyker.
While confident in her appraisal that the now-Repentia generated manifestations subconsciously… manifestations beyond her grade - especially as she seemed entirely incapable of exercising any form of conscious control -, Emmeline was still undeniably psychically active to a degree greater than the majority of human stock. Not by terribly much, Fier knew, but by enough to mark her as chattel for the Blackships.
Enough to mark her as lambda within the assignment.
Fier wondered, as she withdrew from the mind of the Hospitaller - content that her intentions matched her voiced acceptance - if Heleia would be so committed if she, a member of the famously psyker-averse Sororitas, knew the truth.