The Eyrie's western gallery swallowed me, as cold and unforgiving as the black of space. In this cavernous maw of stone, I was no lord's son - only a weapon shorn of its purpose, still yearning for the weight of a lasgun in my hands. Ritual replaced duty, echoes replaced the satisfying crack of a hellgun's report. In the shadows, I built my shrine to a dead dream.
Spine straight, shoulders back, I knelt before my meager altar. The objects laid out on the flagstones were a pitiful offering: a piece of scrap metal in place of an aquila, pebbles to represent the fallen, a page torn from one of Maester Colemon's books as a stand-in for sacred scripture. A boy's fancies, scrounged from a world that had no understanding of true faith.
But the words... the words were what mattered. Low and fervent, they spilled from my lips in a whispered torrent. Litanies of hate and remembrance, vows of duty and vengeance. The same words I had uttered a thousand times on a thousand battlefields, now spoken in a child's reedy treble. I didn't care. In this moment, I was Korporal Macht once more, a servant of the Emperor and Imperium.
"What is my life in comparison to my duty?" I murmured, head bowed. "What is my flesh to be torn? What is my blood to be spilled? In life I serve, in death I shall not falter. My eyes are unclouded and my mind is steel."
The response came, instinctual, rising in my throat like gorge. "The Emperor protects, and I shall be His shield."
Silence fell, as heavy as a death-shroud. I breathed it in, held it in my lungs like the recycled air of a chimera's crew compartment. For a moment, I was home.
A scuff of boot leather shattered the illusion. I spun, rising into a defensive crouch, hands scrabbling for a weapon that wasn't there. My hearts hammered a battle-rhythm in my ears, adrenaline flooding my veins with the familiar rush of impending violence.
But it wasn't a horde of blood-mad cultists that confronted me, or the twisted form of a chaos-spawned abomination. Only a boy, slight and wide-eyed, clutching a leather-bound tome to his chest like a talisman. Adrian Redfort, my mind supplied, dredging up a name to match the face from the murky depths of unwanted memory. Second son of Lord Horton Redfort, a year my junior in this strange half-life. Quiet, studious, always on the edges of the other children's boisterous games.
We stared at each other, a frozen tableau of mutual incomprehension. I could only imagine what he saw - a feral thing, crouched amidst a meaningless scatter of detritus, eyes wild and lips still shaping the echoes of forbidden words. He saw a madman, or worse, a heretic in the making. Suspicion and fear waged a silent war across his face.
I saw only weakness, a potential threat to be assessed and neutralized. My gaze flicked from his wide eyes to his soft, uncallused hands, the pale column of his exposed throat. A dozen ways to end him flickered through my mind, ingrained reflexes from a lifetime of unforgiving necessity.
But no. This wasn't a battlefield, and Adrian wasn't an enemy to be cut down and forgotten. He was a complication, a variable in the ever-shifting calculus of survival that was my existence. I needed to salvage this, to spin a tale that would deflect his suspicions and buy me time.
Slowly, deliberately, I reached out and began to dismantle my crude shrine. The metal shard went into a pocket, the pebbles scattered with a casual swipe of my hand. The page I folded, creasing it sharp and small, until it too disappeared into the folds of my tunic.
"A game," I said, my voice as steady as I could make it. "A game of strategy, of war. I was...pretending."
The lie tasted sour on my tongue, an admission of weakness that went against every fiber of my being. But it was necessary. In this world, in this body, I couldn't afford the luxury of bald truth.
Adrian watched me, brow furrowed, tome still clutched tight to his chest. But there was something else in his eyes now, behind the fear and confusion. A glimmer of...curiosity? Understanding?
"I don't...the Seven teach us that war is a sin," he said slowly, the words heavy with rote learning. "That the Warrior's strength is meant only to defend, never to attack."
My lips twisted, a bitter mockery of a smile. The Seven, the Faith, the whole rotting edifice of this world's belief...what did they know of true war, of the sacrifices and necessities that held the darkness at bay? But that was an argument for another time, or never.
"Maybe," I allowed. "But there are older truths than the Seven. Older...necessities."
His eyes met mine, a searching gaze that seemed to pierce through the mask of the child I wore to the battered soul beneath. I tensed, waiting for the condemnation, the pious outrage.
But it never came. Instead, hesitantly, Adrian lowered the tome from his chest. I caught a glimpse of the cover, the seven-pointed star picked out in faded gilt.
"I don't...sometimes I don't understand them either," he admitted, voice barely above a whisper. "The Seven, I mean. Sometimes it feels like...like their teachings are a chain. Like they want us to be weak."
I stared, momentarily at a loss. Of all the responses I had anticipated, this hesitant confession was not one of them. An ally, here? A kindred spirit, chafing against the constraints of this world's stifling faith? It seemed impossible, a trick, a trap. And yet...
"Their rules are not for us," I said slowly, tasting each word before I spoke it. "Their teachings are for the meek, the complacent. Not for those who would forge their own path."
Adrian shivered, but there was a light in his eyes now, a hungry flame. "I want...I want to be strong," he whispered, the words tumbling out in a rush. "I don't want to just accept, to never question. I want to understand."
I stood tall, shoulders square, meeting his gaze without flinching. In that moment, I saw a glimpse of the man he could become, if properly guided. A weapon to be honed, a tool to be shaped to a higher purpose.
"Then I will teach you," I said, each word a solemn vow. "I will show you the strength that comes from embracing the truth, no matter how harsh. And together, we will forge a path free of the chains that bind the blind and the weak."
He nodded, face pale but determined. I knew in that moment that I had him, that he would follow where I led, learn what I taught. A dangerous path for us both...but also an opportunity, a chance to mold this world to my will.
The clatter of distant footsteps broke the spell, sent us shrinking back into the shadows. I caught Adrian's eye, pressing a finger to my lips in silent warning. He nodded, face solemn, and together we slipped away into the depths of the Eyrie, bound now by shared secrets and the promise of forbidden knowledge.
In the darkness of the western gallery, my abandoned shrine glinted like the bones of forgotten saints. I left it where it lay, an offering and a memorial in one. The Emperor's truths would find fertile soil here, in this strange half-life. By my will and my blade, I would make it so.
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