The master of arms bowed his head and withdrew, his movements somehow silent despite the bulk of his gilded pressure armour. Cleander watched him leave. Ever steady, ever loyal Kynortas knew better than to wait for Cleander to confirm the order. Cleander von Castellan was the head of the dynasty, the master of this ship and paymaster of every one of the souls that served on her. He was the absolute lord of this domain, but Viola was the power around which that domain turned. Every line of credit, store-master, informer network and trade contact was hers.
‘So your thought was less of a thought, and more you telling me about something you had already ordered,’ he said.
Her left eye cleared, and she glanced at him. The emotion in her eyes was somewhere between contempt and frustration.
‘You should prepare,’ she said, and began to pivot on her heels.
‘The gunships need to keep above the atmosphere,’ he said. ‘Wind speed and particle density will strip them down to their engine blocks if they hold station in the storm.’ Viola paused and looked at him, eyebrow arched. ‘And of course you have already issued that order,’ he said.
He looked back at the projection and porthole, and rubbed his eyes. ‘This is getting more complicated by the day, and it’s not yet even begun. There is enough materiel here to kill a civilisation, and enough power and influence to order it done. And here we are… Any one of those ships could hammer us to gas and slag if it chose. I am reading one hundred and four near-atmosphere patrols. Our credentials have been demanded and checked fifteen times since I started talking, and you know that if any one of them failed we would find out what it’s like to be a lone ship facing a battlefleet. We are insects playing with the anger of giants.’
He took another swallow of wine, and smacked his lips. Viola frowned, eyes flicking to the goblet and then away.
‘Haven’t you had enough?’
Cleander snorted. She was right of course. What they were about to do needed a clear head. Not for the first time, he was glad that Viola was there to be what he could not be. He wondered what the fate of his family would have been if the two decades that separated them had been reversed, and she had been the elder. Would he have made the same mistakes without the weight and privilege of being the head of the family? He doubted it. The fortune of their forebears would have remained tied to the solidity of earth and stone. The Dionysia would have wandered the void at the command of another master. He would not have seen the light of weeping stars, or held the wealth of dead empires in his hands. And he would not now be preparing to do something very ill-advised.
He swallowed the last of the wine and stood, shrugging into his dress coat as he turned from the view.
‘All right,’ he breathed out, and reached down to pick up his own sword from where it leant against the side of the chair. He unwound the sword belt from the scabbard and fastened it around his waist. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the familiar weight of both weapon and coat settle. Reflexively he shifted the eyepatch over his left eye socket, and began to walk towards the door. ‘All right, let’s start this dance.’
Viola raised an eyebrow and then fell in at his side.
The sin-marked warrior looked up at the stone face of the saint, and felt tears she could not shed come to her eyes. Saint Aspira, Saviour of a Hundred Stars, towered above, arms spread as though in peace and victory, the folds of her cloak falling away from sculpted armour plates in translucent folds of marble. Golden rays haloed above the saint’s head. Each blade of metal hung on hair-thin wires, so that they seemed to float like spears of frozen sunlight. The tip of the statue’s raised sword almost touched the apex of the great dome above. Gilded eagles spiralled through painted storm clouds on that curved ceiling, lightning clasped in their claws. The saint’s eyes looked down from beneath the raised blade, unblinking in a stone face of perfect, holy serenity. Beneath that gaze the penitent warrior knelt, and bowed her head.
I am broken, Severita thought. I am a stain on existence. I should not exist. I should not be here.
Around her the space extended away to meet the columns which encircled the statue-capped tomb. Bronze candelabras rose from the tiled floor like trees, their branches blazing with flame. Black prayer pennants hung from the edge of the walkway which ran around the dome’s base. Slender figures stood on that walkway, as unmoving as statues, their crimson armour catching the stray threads of candlelight. Severita had seen those red sentinels as soon as she had entered, and had felt their eyes touch her as she had crossed to offer prayer to the Saint. She could feel the judgement of their eyes as though their gaze burned the hessian of her robe from the sleeveless bodyglove beneath, and sliced through her brand-scarred skin to open her soul to bleed onto the black mirror of the floor.
‘Sacred Master of Mankind, forgive my presence,’ she whispered, bowing her head. ‘Do not withhold punishment from this, your failed servant. Exalted mistress, who walked the path of swords and ashes, may my deeds wash clean the stain of my existence. Great saints who have shown the way, please–’
‘Severita…’ The voice was soft, but its gentle force was enough to pull her out of her deepening pool of prayer. She held her eyes closed for a second, adding the incomplete litany to the tally of her sins that looped without cease through her thoughts.
She looked up, and the cowl fell back from her head to show the henna-stained ‘X’ that divided her face into quarters. Josef looked down at her. He wore the off-white robes of a preacher, the hood thrown back from his heavy face. Green eyes glittered from beneath bushy eyebrows. Tufts of steel grey hair circled his bare scalp and ran down his cheekbones. Mountain ranges of fat and muscle shifted as he raised a hand as though in casual greeting. He looked more like a labour boss poured into vestments than he did a priest.
‘The last of them is about to arrive. We should be with Covenant,’ he said, his voice a soft rumble. He glanced up at the shrine, then bowed his head. ‘Your forgiveness for interrupting your prayers.’
‘I will add it to my chain of penance,’ she said, and rose, bowing to the statue of the saint for a long moment before she backed away and turned. Josef gave a shorter bow, but she could feel the frown on his face.
‘It is for the Emperor to burden us, not ourselves,’ he said.
‘I bear no burden that I have not earned,’ she said, coldly.
He gave a low snort but did not reply. Severita’s eyes swept the chamber, suddenly aware that the stillness she had felt during her brief devotion was not reality. Hundreds of figures moved around the chamber edge, flowing around the pillars in tight groups.
These were the inquisitors and their entourages. There was a towering man in layers of black velvet, face hidden by a checked executioner’s hood, bending to speak to a pair of twins in form-hugging leather bodygloves. Here was a woman in battered scale armour sweeping along at the head of six cloaked figures who scuttled on chrome pincers. Beside them were others, some surrounded by throngs of retainers like courtiers come to the command of their king. Except that no single power beneath the God-Emperor could command these men and women. Their power was absolute, unchecked by anything except each other, and limited only by their own choices. Covenant had said that forty-one of his peers had answered the call to conclave, and that this would be the greatest gathering of inquisitors in the Segmentum Tempestus for a century. Severita had only seen one inquisitor in her life before this moment, and that was the man who she served in penance. To stand in the presence of so many souls who stood one step below the God-Emperor was almost overwhelming.
She watched the throng for a moment, marking the way they moved, the way they watched each other in turn. Suspicion and tension danced in the spaces between groups, and flickered in their glances. Beyond them, standing in crimson-clad stillness, were the Battle Sisters of the Bloody Rose. Their faces were bare, expressions fixed beneath dark hair. Eagle tattoos and the stylised rose of the order marked their
cheeks. That same rose gleamed in silver and gold on the red lacquer of their armour. Arcs of oiled machinery haloed their heads and clamped close over their ears. Tiny purity seals dotted the blunt metal, showing where each of the skull-locks had been checked and blessed. The Order of the Bloody Rose had agreed to host this conclave of inquisitors, and to guarantee the safety of all those present, but while they watched over the gathering they would not be allowed to hear what was discussed, or know the secrets that would be spoken between the servants of the Holy Ordos. Every one of the Battle Sisters within the Reliquary Tower wore skull clamps that allowed them to hear only the vox security channels. To do otherwise would have meant every Battle Sister present being put to the test, and cleansed by mind-blanking or bolt shell. The Imperium could not afford to waste such warriors. Not now. Not with the light of hell swallowing the stars in the sky above this and hundreds of other worlds.
‘This makes you uncomfortable,’ said Josef.
‘What is there to take comfort from in what we are doing?’ she said, turning to look at his wide face. His eyes were steady.
‘I did not mean what we are here to do.’ He jerked his chin at the crimson-armoured Battle Sisters.
‘Being here, them being here…’
She shook her head.
‘I am not one of them anymore. I have no illusions as to my place and duty.’
‘I never doubted that. I just thought it must hurt, and that you should not take the weight of that pain as well as all the rest.’
‘I am the worst of sinners, Khoriv. There is no limit to my penance.’
Josef raised his eyebrow, folding his hands into the wide sleeves of his robe. After a long moment he turned and began to walk with heavy steps in the direction of the high doors set in the chamber’s far wall.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘It is about to begin.’
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